What games are you playing 2014?

[Grefter]

A shot with Shape Shifter or are you going to change him to another kit (I would seriously not recommend using base...)? 

Arrow of Detonation is crazy broken yeah.  BG:EE from what I saw reduced them to having like 2 in Sorcerous Sundries and others can only be taken from the last two fights.  So much harder to use them as gameplay skip by using them as an alpha strike.

Ranting on Str was my immediate response to using the book on my Halfling.  So mad.  At least Good/Neutral characters still get to use Draw Upon Holy Might to jump over it.  But for the whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?  It was apparently supposed to be because warrior classes needed some more scaling to keep up with Mages, so better make it only apply on people who can roll an 18.

Only reason I listen to dream sequences is to hear more Kevin M Richardson because your encounters with Sarevok are so sparse.  Hearing him say "You will learn" gets me right in the right places.

[AndrewRogue]

If you're lucky enough to get a Balder Side Sword drop, it is an amazingly good match for weapon enchanter build. Basically any high-DEX light sword with that setup is optimal melee DPS in Dark Souls (well until you hit AotA where everything laughs at multi-element offense).

Not slashing (and staggering/knocking everything over) just feels so... wrong though.

I think I'm gonna have some trouble when I hit AotA, since I've never done it before and this isn't really how I normally play Souls games.

[Sierra]

A shot with Shape Shifter or are you going to change him to another kit (I would seriously not recommend using base...)?

Pretty sure the bundle of mods I ran included werewolf rebalancing. Could confirm details but lazy. I guess we'll see!

Anyway, everything BG1 done outside of endgame plot...well, and bullshit werewolf island. Which I think I am going to actually do this time just because How Bullshit Is It?

Detonating the fuck out of the chessboard fight was immensely satisfying.

[Grefter]

I would still think about making him a different type.  Shapeshifters are boring as fuck even after applying fixes.

Actually holy shit here is how boring druids are.  I was talking about Totemic Druids and the whole time I actually was thinking of Avengers.  Goddamn pureclass druid SO BORING.  Jaheira master race.

Avenger
Avengers are druids who are specialised in fighting those who are willing to defile nature and they have gained more abilities than normal through rituals, which are physical draining

Bonuses
May shapechange in normal forms, as some additional ones, like Sword Spider, baby wyvern and fire salamanders.
They have 6 spells from the Wizard Spellbook (Baldur's Gate II), up to level 6. They spells are: Chromatic Orb, Web, Lightning Bolt, Improved Invisibility, Chaos and Chain Lightning.
Penalties
May only wear leather armor as body armor
When the character is created, it receives a -2 penalty to Strength and Constitution.

I don't know if there is a mod to do it, but Cernd's base stats are shitty enough that I would think of Shadowkeepering him to the class and leaving stats the same.  His shitty stats is just One More Reason to not use him.  Literally and mechanically worst character in the game.  Amazing.

Edit - On Avengers, the spells they get aren't amazing or anything, Lightning Bolt is like third best offensive spell at level 3 Wizard, Web is pretty shitty in practice (Level 2 ... kind of meh long term in both spell books though SLOW POISON might be best in slot), Chain Lightning doesn't see much use in Wizard stuff and I am pretty certain off the top of my head that Druids have a better direct offensive spell in L7 let alone any HLA spells.  There is a lot of really significant stuff in L7 Druid though that is more utility stuff.  Chromatic Orb is always fun though (though its scaling off Druid level lol) and Improved Invisibility is a truly amazing spell for a level 4 slot.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Xenogears: hour 3, Dazil, the desert, and the Aveh transport vessel.

No Elly! Sadness. This hour still had Fei and Citan, though, but it's not Fei's best showing. The lowlight of the hour is probably the sequence where he chases Citan into the desert. Basically, Citan rents a buggy to go exploring in the desert for parts. Then, about three seconds later, Fei is all I GOTTA FOLLOW HIM BECAUSE REASONS and proceeds into the desert on foot. Pretty stupid! It feels like that section of the plot could have been written more naturally. Fei also steals a motorcycle from someone apparently because he's a jerk?

Dazil's a pretty cool town at least. Plenty of the townsfolk are memorable in their goofy way, and the music really sells the location. Citan tries to buy parts and has a nice pleasant exchange with a shopkeeper; this is... actually weirdly unusual in the genre. Too often this type of minor NPC will talk at the party instead of with them.

We meet Grahf. While a bit of a strange scene I am inclined to slap it with the "best of hour 3" label, because Grahf is just such an audacious fucker. Like, seriously, check out the distilled Grahf here. Rides a black mech backlit by a giant blood-red moon, taunts Fei with how he destroyed Fei's village because HAHAHA GRAND PLOTS and then tells him he is going to kill god. Oookay. Plus we get Grahf's lovely puppy-hugging theme playing the whole while. It certainly makes for a memorable setpiece, and this section lacked any truly compelling character work for me to put above it.

We also meet Cain. The scene is weird and does suffer from overuse of quotation marks in that Xenogears way (-Time- of the -Gospel-) but I still like it well enough. In case you weren't yet wondering about Citan's agenda, you definitely are after that scene. One subtle thing I like about Xenogears is that while it has a long, twisty plot, it does not (for the most part) just drop random drama bombs on you. I can imagine many games doing the inevitable CITAN IS A TRAITOR (kinda) scene in Solaris with hardly any foreshadowing; with Xenogears, you certainly know something is up, and just have to puzzle out exactly what.

And finally we meet Bart. Thinking on it, Bart kind of amuses me. He's actually a pretty decent guy all told, and most of his actions actually make at least some sense... but he seems designed to annoy the player as much as possible and I totally get why some people loathe him. He attacks an Aveh craft to try and get his hands on a fancy mech rather than let it fall into the hands of his enemy? Reasonable! YOU STILL ALMOST KILLED ME YOU ASSHOLE. And oh man, it gets worse. But more on that later!

Also random WTF moment: Aveh soldiers attack you as you're trying to escape from the sandcraft as it sinks into the sand. Why not you all just try to get out alive?

[Sierra]

Grefter you talked me out of it talking me into it. Anyway I got impatient about moving on to BG2 and skipped werewolf island bullshit again. It will continue to be a mystery.

Even prepared for it, BG1's final battle makes me want to put my fist through the monitor. I see no way victory could be logistically possible if you ever tried to make this a stand-up fight. Even dropping like a dozen fireballs on the gang didn't kill anyone (and barely even scratched Sarevok). And if they start getting turns, lord help you. They've got their own goon spamming detonation arrows (which kill you much faster than you could them), the party mage init casts full-party ID that basically cannot fail barring immunity (and even then I didn't have enough castings of Death Ward for the full party) and Sarevok himself is basically guaranteed to one- or two-shot anything. And he's got a chibi-Sarevok ogre in tow too!

So I just can't imagine how this is even reasonable as a legit fight. I just wound up doing what I did last time: kite Sarevok away from his friends and tie him down with summons the whole time. Well, Tazok followed him, but that's basically okay, he's the least bullshit of Sarevok's buddies (and it let Kivan get his REVENGE). Sarevok's so lethal that I burned through two whole wands of summoning keeping him busy while the archers plinked him to death--he comes pretty close to murdering an entire summoned group a round, so literally the only thing Khalid had time to do was call more goons. Slower fight than last time because archers instead of mages and archers have to contend with his AC. Tried to have bhaalspawn wade in to speed things up, but Sarevok immediately focuses on you if you're in range (which I guess is a neat AI touch) and constantly threatened to murder me in two hits despite near party best HP. What the hell, Bioware.

Khalid party kill leader this time around. Yeah Super can just shut right up, if you're using Khalid for melee you are doing it wrong.

[Grefter]

Nonononono, Super can shut right up because if you do use Khalid for melee he is your tank and won't get kills as much as some, but is the only Fighter with competitive mix of Constitution and Dex that doesn't sacrifice something for a lot of parties.  The only other pure Fighters in the game are Kagain and Shar Teel who are killing machines, both with great Str, but Kagain's Dex is the pits and Shar Teel can do okay with good Dex but has 9 Con (which isn't that big a deal, but is 3 HP per level gap).   For Good aligned characters there is Ajantis has 16 Con so only has 1 less HP per level but has 13 Dex, so ties up your 18 Dex gauntlets for certain where Khalid can pinch hit with Str gauntlets.  Minsc who gets 2 less HP per Level and worse Dex or Kivan who can get some leverage out of his 18\12 Str if you turn him into a melee guy, but neither has proficiencies to do the work really and that is a terrible waste of your Kivan.

Everyone else is a Multi-class fighter so eats it in level progression and ties up functionality a fair bit (Making your Fighter/Thief a tank is doable but again a bit of a waste of your Coran or you are using Montaron which is actually pretty reasonable, its a shame he has to be a Thief too).  BG1 Jaheira's 14 Dex makes her really struggle in that role and is literally the only Neutral aligned warrior type (Neutral is full of casters and thieves).

Khalid is just a good character and fits most parties either as a ranged character or a melee tank.  Comes with proficiencies for both at level 1 and grows into both without sucking up your magic items.

Also surprised you took so much damage from Sarevok, my Kensai was able to last a couple of rounds toe to toe and was the reason I was able to blitz him down without dealing with his support as much.  Might have been rebalanced for BG:EE though or I took better drugs maybe?  Did you make sure to case Spirit Armor first like I hyped?

You could do Totemic Druid too all things considered, they are just normal druids with summons instead of shapeshifting.  That sounds like a winning trade to me.  My only real issue with Druids is that you either have Jaheira who is really quite good, Cernd who sucks or have have Bhallspawn be a Druid to see them in full swing  and I consider them significantly less interesting than other mixes you can use Bhallspawn as (even the old Cleric/Ranger Multi/Dual class is more interesting to me).  It isn't that druids specifically are bad, it is that they are more boring than every other choice in the game.  Even Wizard Slayer's who are at least interesting in their suckiness.  I have been meaning to give an Avenger a real hands on spin, but the prospect is not that appealing.  Maybe I should make Jaheira one sometime.

[Meeplelard]

Tales of Graces F: Was going to do an abridged series of this but then realized I'd focus too much on what is "good material" and decided to say **** it.  Also means I won't have to worry wehre I end.  SO INSTEAD I WILL DO EVERY UPDATE IN ONE LINE!

Asbel, shut up...oh wait, you just grew up, maybe now he will shut up!

[Fudozukushi]

Asbel, shut up...oh wait, you just grew up, maybe now he will shut up!

Hahahahahahahahaa.

Fallout New Vegas: So apparently leaving Veronica in Hidden Valley when you self-destruct it doesn't kill her.  LAME.

[Fenrir]

FF2 Yattaf solo:

Anyway I got Ultima. First time I see it doing actual real damage.
More people died in FF2 than when the world was destroyed in FF6.
There are all these little cities that get bombed by the uber airship Dreadnaught, with only like two kids left being all "Everybody's dead".
Then a fucking mind-controlled cyclone appears and kills the two kids too!

http://pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF012-Marthas_Orphanage.gif


Anyway Yattaf has perfect evasion and she never gets hit by status. Her magic defense is crazy high.
There is no way to die at all, so offense is the only thing that matters.

Magic damage took a real nosedive a few dungeons ago compared to physical damage, but I've started messing with instant death and DAMN. The multitarget hit rate for instant death spells is roughly 0-10% at level 0-4, then it skyrockets at level 5-7 and is pretty much 100% on everything that isn't immune from level 8 on.

Teleport is really really easy to level too (Enter dungeon, teleport, enter dungeon, teleport, etc)
Toad's way more fun though. I levelled it to 9 already, just because. The last 3 bosses have been killed on the first round by Toad.
So now Yattaf is running around, casting rains of frogs Magnolia-style, that make everything turn into frogs. Ruining ecosystems with frogs.
She has turned the other party members into frogs because carrying their corpses is much more convenient now. Her new favourite pastime is getting to the desert, turning scorpions into frogs and watching them slowly wither and die. She is the Frog Witch, an unstoppable force of nature.

[Captain K.]

Bravely Default:  One of the characters is William Shatner.  This is epic win.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bravely Default is currently sold out in the entire city. Damnit.

Tomb Raider - Giving this a spin. The gameplay is rather plain but it's extremely immersive so has definitely been an enjoyable experience thus far. It reminds me a fair bit of Arkham Asylum, only "survive visceral threats to your life" is apparently something that engages me considerably more than "be Batman".

[Dark Holy Elf]

Xenogears hours 4 & 5: stuff with Bart.

Now I remember another reason I don't like Bart much; there's a lot of plot about him and he's just not very interesting. These first two hours also let us see more of his shining personality of wanting to fight Fei because reasons and Fei having to be all "okay seriously let's just get out of this cave first please?"

We meet Balthazar. He's a weird dude. I don't actually remember his plot or why he's here. He mainly serves here as exposition to let you know humans aren't native to this planet and for the first time you hear some things about "god" (i.e. Deus) which if you're very savvy you might be able to piece together with that creature in the opening, although I certainly didn't. Important setting work for the game but it doesn't really make me care too much about Bal. Then he sees Weltall and flips out (again, I forget his connection to this gear) and tells us to get the fuck out and Calamity will totally kill us (but he'll still sell stuff to us anyway).

After beating up Calamity and escaping, we meet Sigurd and Maison. Sigurd obviously knows Citan although the nature of that part of Citan's backstory isn't elaborated on. He also completely bosses Bart around, literally dragging him off by the ear in one scene. I approve. Maison is amusing, and completely out of place working with a bunch of pirates; he is very obviously the main connection to Bart's Fatima past, as a character. My favourite scene of this section is probably where he and Citan have a chat and explain the Bart backstory and how he turned to piracy. I like that Citan obviously disapproves but still gets that you gotta do what you gotta do. The two also chat about the current Aveh politics and Margie is mentioned, and the PCs' next objective starts to become clear. Still, there's a real lack of standout scenes in this arc of the game. Needs more Elly and/or villains.

Random WTF moment: the entry to the stalactite cave. Falling through quicksand into a huge underground cavern? So uh what keeps the quicksand above us suspended in the air? That's not how quicksand works! Someone who designed this game clearly played too much Super Mario Brothers 3. (okay, video games have a horrible track record with quicksand in general)

[Meeplelard]

Tales of Graces f: "Asbel, now that you're grown up and I haven't seen you for seven years, I am going to be incredibly grumpy and cold to you for a while!  Please ignore how I'm joining you in these caves now..." </Cheria>

[Sierra]

Also surprised you took so much damage from Sarevok, my Kensai was able to last a couple of rounds toe to toe and was the reason I was able to blitz him down without dealing with his support as much.  Might have been rebalanced for BG:EE though or I took better drugs maybe?  Did you make sure to case Spirit Armor first like I hyped?

I totally forgot that spell existed. And it was more like 3HKO unless, you know, he crits or something. It seemed unwise to stick around and risk losing the whole fight due to one bad RNG result when I could more safely just spam summons and shoot him. So bhaalspawn just stood around spectating through intense showdown with broooootheeeeer.

Decent ways into early BG2 quests now and Monkspawn develops into a highly efficient killing machine. I am pleased! Not up to punching dragons to death yet, though, tried fighting Thaxawhatsit at like level 9 and it went poorly. Specifically, half the party died immediately upon breakout of hostilities (does dragon fear effect outright kill low-level goons or something?) Valygar serving as the party's sixth wheel at the moment and probably going to stay there. He is also Mr. Boring, but at least he's not a twit. Never really used him before (or even dual-wielding at all; I had briefly considered recruiting HAER DA'LIS to mess with that but god no I'm not that desperate for something new) and he's working out pretty well. Party's pretty gimpy for healing but whatever, mash Z more.

Jesus I forgot how needy your companions can be early in the game (didn't really come up last time because I ran to Spellhold as quickly as possible). Constantly have to drop everything because "Oh, I have to go to my dad's funeral," "Oh, I got kidnapped," "Oh, my childhood sweetheart's daughter is terminally ill," "Oh crap, my sister's poisoned," "Oh shit, I got cursed by a vengeful slaver and have only days to live." Come on you guys I'm trying to power level here.

Want to join up with vamps for that sweet sweet amulet you get from shadow thief massacre, but memory says Mazzy deserts if you do that. Well, I guess nothing's stopping me from murdering them all independently later (she wouldn't object to that, of course).

[Captain K.]

Bravely Default:  I have gained the power to change into Flavor Flav.

[Meeplelard]

Tales of Graces: No, Pascal, you can't hide it from me; you are a complete Anime Character in every sense of the word.

[Grefter]

You get Amulet of Power sooner for siding with Thieves rather than killing them.  Aran gives it to you before you to clear out the Vampire lair because that thing is custom made for fucking up Vampires.

Companion quests are just them helping you power level.  They are walking quests that come to you instead of having to walk all over the map.

Thaxawhatsit probably just hit you with its dragon breath.  I think that shit autokills anyone lower than level 10 maybe?  Not sure.  I wouldn't bother until you are level 14.  Walk up to it with the Ward Stone and Quivering Palm that shit because it is fucking awesome to do.  Don't care if you have to save scum.  One punch killing a dragon is always worth it.

[AndrewRogue]

Dark Souls

6: Capra Demon
7: Capra Demon
8: Capra Demon
9: Being sloppy against Hollow Thieves. Lol blood loss.
10: I am really bad at Capra Demon
11: Camera (aka Capra Demon)
12: Fooling around with a Butcher

[Fudozukushi]

Capra Demon

Dark Souls!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

We meet Balthazar. He's a weird dude. I don't actually remember his plot or why he's here. He mainly serves here as exposition to let you know humans aren't native to this planet and for the first time you hear some things about "god" (i.e. Deus) which if you're very savvy you might be able to piece together with that creature in the opening, although I certainly didn't. Important setting work for the game but it doesn't really make me care too much about Bal. Then he sees Weltall and flips out (again, I forget his connection to this gear) and tells us to get the fuck out and Calamity will totally kill us (but he'll still sell stuff to us anyway).

Weltall is apparently what Grahf's gear looked like before it was combined with an anima relic, so probably he sees it and he's like "oh shit this motherfucking shit again."  What doesn't make any sense is why he doesn't make the connection before since Fei looks exactly like Lacan. But hey, it's Xenogears, it wouldn't be the same without plot holes.

[Sierra]

6: Capra Demon
7: Capra Demon
8: Capra Demon
9: Being sloppy against Hollow Thieves. Lol blood loss.
10: I am really bad at Capra Demon
11: Camera (aka Capra Demon)
12: Fooling around with a Butcher

Circle around him to the right instead of breaking left straight for the stairs. Counterintuitive, but I basically don't die in that fight after realizing that's what they meant for you to do (too likely dogs will box you in going left).

[Cmdr_King]

Weltall is apparently what Grahf's gear looked like before it was combined with an anima relic, so probably he sees it and he's like "oh shit this motherfucking shit again."  What doesn't make any sense is why he doesn't make the connection before since Fei looks exactly like Lacan. But hey, it's Xenogears, it wouldn't be the same without plot holes.

Well, y'know.  Once is a coincidence, twice is an ancient sky-nazi conspiracy.

[AndrewRogue]

Circle around him to the right instead of breaking left straight for the stairs. Counterintuitive, but I basically don't die in that fight after realizing that's what they meant for you to do (too likely dogs will box you in going left).

Right is definitely the route least likely to cause insta-death. The main problem I end up having with it is, depending on how the dogs follow, the few precious seconds where it is insanely difficult to actually see Capra Demon. That said, my deaths were a bit different at least. 3 of them were the LOL got boxed by dogs, insta-death mid roll. The first one I actually did kill the dogs, but died misjudging his distance vs cast time on a spell. The camera one was me at the top of the stairs failing to notice he had started his jump attack before I attempted to kill the dogs with R2.

[Cmdr_King]

Legaia 2: Fin.  Well that only took ten years.

So... mmm.  I kinda said fuck it and made Tireless Ribbons.  Game not scaled for that so much.  Not really that much to say.  One of those games where the developers clearly were like "holy shit look at all this SPACE and GRAPHICS we can do now!" so the game's inflated a lot by dead time.  Makes it a bit hard to play now, but eh, it's fluffy.  I had it a 6/10 for years, which still sounds right.