What games are you playing 2014?

[Grefter]

Once he is inside you a piece of him is always there.

[Sierra]

Zenny: Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring is the thing (price tag: 20,000 souls. Ouch. Might want to just dump your next boss payday on it). I understand the effect to be percentage based and it stacks with a couple hats you can find later on.

[Meeplelard]

Lightning Returns: Screw it, I'm doing an abridged version of this game because TORIYAMA!!! plot deserves it!

Mog: Final Fantasy 13-2 Lightning Returns, the story so far, kupo!

Lightning: Snow, I've come to save you!
Snow: I DON'T WANT TO BE SAVED!
Lightning: Is that why we're fighting a giant monster together?
Lumina: Tee hee ^_^
Hope: Lightning be careful! ...wait, when did I get in this scene?  Ah hell, get back to the ark because...uhh...
Lightning: God wills it?
Hope: ...yeah, let's go with that.  Oh yeah, and Humans no longer age; important detail!

Mog: And now back to our story, kupo!

Lightning: Everything has changed.  I have been asleep for 500 years...and the world ends in 13 days...and God sent me to save it.  You know, when I say that outloud, it sounds really freaking stupid.  Couldn't he have at least given me a year?
Hope: God works in mysterious ways...by the way, you really only have 6 days because CHAOS!
Lightning: Then why did he say 13?
Hope: Because that's the maximum amount of days we can delay the attack?
Lightning: ...and why are you only 13 again?
Hope: Because...uhh...God likes shotas?
Lightning: You know, that should piss me off, but for some reason, I am content...
Hope: Don't tell me you're into...
Lightning: ...no, I mean...it's like God took out my emotions because they're a hindrance.
Hope: Oh, that?  Yeah, I kind of have the same problem.  I can remember all the stuff in my life before I went to sleep, but none of it evokes an emotional reaction.  Like remember how pissed I got at Snow for the death my mother?  Well, it's like someone else's memories now, I seem to just not care!
Lightning: So what you're saying is God took away our emotions?
Hope: yeah, and any sort of semblance of character work as a result too.  Nonetheless, we have stuff to do, let's do it!
Lightning: So why am I wasting time in here rather than saving the world?
Hope: Because time stops when we're in here!
Lightning: That makes no sense.  You're always in here, yet can converse with me when I'm down there where time is moving.  There is no logical way that fits in anyway, shape or form.  Don't give me this "Time moves differently" nonsense because that's a hand-waive excuse!
Hope: Look, I don't make the rules, I just read the Manual Of God Savior nonsense!  Anyway, go down there, get Erata and Save souls, bring it up here, and we can help delay the outcome.
Lightning; What the hell is Erata?
Hope: It's what gives you super powers; you can expend it to keep the world going a little longer!  You can get more of it by saving souls, so go do that.
Lightning: *sigh* I should have retired after the first game...

Mog: Down in the Capital City of Holiness, KUPO!  We see stuff happening, and a girl who is TOTALLY NOT VANILLE UNDER A VEIL THAT"S CRAZY KUPO!

Civilian: Oh no! There's another one who died!
Guy Man: It's another girl with Rose Colored Hair! Think they're trying to tell us something?
Man Guy: No way! These heretics don't work on logic or reason, it's all coincidental!
Lightning: What's going on here?
Civilian: Just a murder by heretics.
Lightning: And what's that going up there?
Woman Lady: Just a hanging of a dummy meant to look like a corpse to deliver the message "SEND US THE SAVIOR! SIGNED NOEL KREISS SHADOW HUNTER!"
Lightning: And who did all this?
Woman Lady: IF we knew, we wouldn't be here!
Hope: Hey Lightning, I think we have our first real mission!
Lightning: Investigation of this murder?
Hope: YES! THE HERETICS ARE IMPORTANT BECAUSE...uhh...look, they just are ok?
Lightning: So I need to talk to the Proclaimer and figure this out? Ok, on it.

*Bunch useless investigation stuff later, combined with a random quest involving 2 guys at the train station later*
Lightning: So...the Children of Etro are going to leave through that gate.  I think you should take down the lock down so we can follow them to their location.
Proclaimer: So you're saying let the guys we're trying to catch escape? THAT'S BRILLIANT!  It'll start at 12 AM!
*12 AM*
Child of Etro #1: So...let's go back in a huge large ominous group to our base.
Child of Etro #2: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
Hope: Lightning! FOllow them! but don't get caught!
Lightning: Umm...they're staring right at me...
Hope: HIDE IN THE SHADOWS!
Lightning: But...
Hope: DO IT!
Lightning: Ok *walkes 5 feet to the left behind a wall*
Child of Etro #3: Did you see anything?
Child of Etro #4: Just the Savior, our main target and enemy, but she walked behind that wall, so clearly she's no longer here.
Child of Etro #3: Oh ok.

*one Metal Gear Solid sequence later*
Lightning: I'm spying on them, don't tell me to do that Hope, I'm not stupid.
Hope: ...I was just going to ask you to grab some CDs while you're in town, I get bored up here during downtime when you're just slaughtering monsters using your TIME FREEZING Powers we just shoo-horned out of nowhere, and could really use music.
Lightning: I'll see what I can find.
Child of Etro #1: I AM GOING TO CALL THIS PHONE NOW AND ANNOUNCE OUR ENTRY!
Voice on Phone: Hello, TIMBER FOREST SURE HAS CHANGED!
Child of Etro #1: But the owls are still around!
Voice on Phone: Acknowledged, you all can come through.
Lightning: Looks like I need a passcode to get in, it requires 4 numbers.
Hope: What? Where did he say numbers at all?  You were close enough to hear him outright!
Lightning: Doesn't matter, how do I find these numbers?
Hope: Oh, they appear at 6 AM...you know the same time your curfew is?  Yeah, just go grind on enemies or sidequests during them, not much else you can do.

*pure gameplay segment later*
Hope: So...Lightning...Erata on that tree over there?
*Lightning does so*
Lightning: What is that tree anyway?  And that tree wasn't here when we were here earlier.
Hope: That's Yggdrasil the TREE OF LIFE! It'll stop Chaos!
Lightning: So why does the world need to be destroyed and reborn with souls again?
Hope: Because by stop I mean delay.  Yes, it's a super special tree whose purpose is going to become completely meaningless after 13 days.
Lightning: Sounds like a poor excuse of a WORLD TREE if you ask me.  Again, why couldn't God just re-awaken me with more than 13 days before the end of the world that is actually only 6 days?
Hope: because...uhh...Square oversight?
Lightning: ...fair...

Mog: And so ends the first day of Lightning's adventure, KUPO!  Tune in next time, same Kupo time, same kupo channel!

[Cotigo]

Dark Souls: So I restarted my pyromancer to have the Master Key. Took 3 hours to catch up to my previous save, which was at 10 hours. lol.

Only level 20 or so this time, but my pyromancer fist is +6 and I have the ring Cid recommended. Everything dies to one blast of combustion, which... it was doing before, but I'm not going to argue for decreased longevity of the spell or anything like that.   Really could use more spell charges, though, given how often I think something is close enough to use it but isn't, or how often in a wild panic I use it twice by mistake.

About to take on the boss of the depths, and afterward will try to take down the bell tower gargoyles. Mostly putting that off because I will have to grind for the Halberd drop. I should be able to take care of them now that I have not only the Drake Sword but access to Pyromancy that doesn't suck.

Thinking maybe I should spend my souls on Attunement for a while. It looks like after I get access to Blighttown I should have access to new Pyromancy spells, and a couple of the utility sorceries like Hidden Body and Featherfall (or whatever it was called) sound legit.

One kind of annoying thing is that the game keeps glitching either because my internet sucks or Games For Windows Live sucks or because Dark Souls multiplayer is kinda broken, so it keeps blocking me out of shortcuts and bonfires as if I were being invaded, and though I wait for the invasion to go through nothing fucking happens and I have to restart the game.

One really annoying thing is that the one time I DID successfully have someone invade me they were cheating and I couldn't damage them at all, or the matchmaking system seriously fucked up and I was facing someone a way higher level than me. One of the two.

[NotMiki]

Took 3 hours to catch up to my previous save, which was at 10 hours. lol.

hashtagdarksouls

[Fenrir]

I never do that because I always think "Even if I die I should be able to come back there easily and get all these souls back. Because look I've just gotten up here all on my own this time"
(Obviously the plan backfires like 50% of the time)

Zenny: Dex slightly increases pyromancy cast speed, so uh it might not be a bad idea to raise that (and get some dex weapon like a scythe / katana / rapier)

[Luther Lansfeld]

Super Mario 3D Land - Finished last night. Fun little game, not too deep but World 8 was pretty challenging. Definitely better than the other 3DS Mario I've played (NSMB2), it is more creative and challenging, but probably worse than Galaxy (which is the game it reminds me of most).

LFT - Doing a three person playthrough with Elfboy and Magey. We have just got pwned by Wiegraf 1 because my time mage was instant death'd before she got a turn. We have a TV/computer adapter and now an XBOX 360 wireless controller adapter for the computer. Pretty cool.

MK8 - Still working on opening Mirror Mode. I've gotten gold on 5/8 of the circuits.

Trails in the Sky - About to fight the blue haired sibling boss fight in the infiltrated fortress.

[SnowFire]

Trails in the Sky - About to fight the blue haired sibling boss fight in the infiltrated fortress.

If you're bored, you should totally grab stats for 'em in the stat topic - they're the main human bosses I missed.  (Bosses for a bit are going to be the likes of giant penguins or else unknown humans, alas.  Okay there are some C2 losers with names but they suck and aren't even the main event.)  We can always use more Trails Light bosses!  (Josette has damage & status but literally dies to a sneeze IIRC, Kyle is tankier but has no offense, & no one cares about Don...)

[Sierra]

Probably legit a hacker, Zenny. I can't speak from personal experience, but I'm told they're more common on PC. Your best bet is to kick them off a cliff if it happens again (beyond a certain point, fall damage is straight-up ID and will bypass their functionally infinite HP). If you're planning for PVP, keep in mind that, as good as magic is against AI, most other players will find it extremely easy to dodge (due to range and speed, Combustion/Great Combusion/Black Flame are much easier to hit with then fireballs, from personal experience at least).

[Cotigo]

If you're planning for PVP, keep in mind that, as good as magic is against AI, most other players will find it extremely easy to dodge (due to range and speed, Combustion/Great Combusion/Black Flame are much easier to hit with then fireballs, from personal experience at least).

Mm, that's a good point. And actually, thinking about it as I went to bed last night, I'm likely going to buy Dark Souls 2 after finishing DS1. I imagine more people will be playing that, so perhaps I should save the PvP build for that game and just do whatever for DS1. Eh, we'll see.

[Fenrir]

That's a good idea as Dark Souls 2 PVP is better (Opinion, soul memory is bad but less backstabs, etc etc), and I figure by now that most people doing Dark Souls 1 PVP are pros (and will backstab you again and again)

[DjinnAndTonic]

Re: FF13-3LR
Wow, that is so much more idiotic than expected, even for FF13 PLOT.

Rondo of Swords: following the A Path this time... It is so much less interesting from a writing standpoint, but there's some fun to be had with skill abuse in NG+ 
I am enjoying this enough (playing alongside the LP to avoid all the poor documentation problems) that I may grab some stats for it. Anyone who has played it/read the LP have any suggestions on how to set up the topic? I was thinking of just using all the PCs at level 50 (impossible to get them all there in one run, but your main team of six or seven should hover around that), and give everyone their full promotions (again, doable for about 6 PCs), and let them have full access to their twelve best max level skills(difficult, but for my sanity's sake, it'd make the topic less messy... And realistically in the DL, they are going to swap skills and skill points around to best suit a fight).

More controversially is what to do about Card skills. All the pcs want them, they are 100% unique, and for about half of the PCs you're unlikely to even use them unless you were planning on getting their card skills. By endgame if you're dedicated, you could have about four PCs with their card skills, and excluding the main who must be in the party and doesn't get card skills, you can have five more pcs in the active party. Not sure what to do with this but leaning towards allowing them for everyone for uniqueness sake.

The weird balance of RoS makes for interesting builds in the DL. Some skills that are relatively meaningless are kinda broken. My favorite of these is Mana Break, which the Main gets. It is a passive secondary effect on his physical that flat depletes 50% of a target's mMP in addition to the usual damage. In game it's novel because most things with MP are mages that die to one hit or a stuff breeze anyway. In the DL setting, it obviously has more uses.

Conversely, ZOC is a lot less useful (though still has some uses), due to no one besides RoS characters needing to move THROUGH a unit to attack.

[SnowFire]

Djinn: I dunno, card skills seem kinda shaky.  It takes 6 missions to get a card skill maxed.  There are what, ~30 or so missions in the game?  Except the earliest missions don't let you send people out, the latest missions don't (I believe), and a few random midgame ones don't allow you to send out people on quests (the ones near the pathsplit IIRC - e.g. letting Alberich out of prison).  So it'd barely be 4 characters (4*6 = 24) at absolute best, and even that won't work if too many characters are latejoining ones, and you're running a party of 6-9 people most likely.

Flip side, they are all unique as you noted, and sometimes a large part of a character's worth.  So it could go either way, but I'd personally lean toward not including them.  I will say that if you do include them, if any character has a lame skill or one that doesn't translate to the DL, let them stop at 0 or 3 card quest missions, and instead sharpen their weapon for [3/6] missions instead.  Some characters apparently get decent boosts off that too (e.g. Sasha).

[Grefter]

Not that this matters in the slightest, but here is what I would do. Mostly keeping in mind that RoS is obscure, obtuse, weird as fuck and not worth putting much effort into.

I would go with Level 50 just for convenience sake.  Everyone gets card skills because uniqueness trumps in game representation in the DL to me.  That and while it is unreasonable to get them for many people in game, you also sure as fuck aren't levelling everyone up in the game either and we all assume that happens. 

Everyone is promoted ASAP unless they need to level past class change to get an optimal skill.

I wouldn't sweat optimising too well.

Just get anything that is consistent and post it.  If someone disagrees with your interpretation they can play the game themselves and make their own fucking stat topic of obscure fucking weird clunky as shit game.  You owe no one anything at the best of times but you certainly don't owe them for something this fucking batshit insane.

Snowfire's thing about giving everyone the option of Sharpening (or training?) in place of going on Card Quests is pretty slick actually and I would say do that because it is just a cool idea.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Conveniently, the Sharpening gains are well documented so it is trivial to include those in place of Card Quests. Though note that any Mage with a crap Card Skill is still screwed because their weapons max out at 0 in all stats since they can't attack physically. Which is going to make some hilariously awesome Punies that spoil weird shit. (Just a quick eyeball at the numbers shows Selmer at something ridiculous like 0.1 PCHP for physical durability and average speed at best. Though he gets pretty high 2HKO ice dmg to spoil anyone slow and weak to ice or magic.)

Another amusing one I've seen is that Kay gets a passive secondary on his Physicals that applies a status that stops Counterattacks, spoiling lots of FE (kinda a running theme in RoS is poking fun at FE conventions... Nice to see it reflects in the DL too)

[Fudozukushi]

Cheating is rampant is an understatement.

[Cotigo]

Dark Souls:

Beat the Depths, boss was stupid easy. Got the Gargoyle Halberd and upgraded it to +5, realized that it isn't my style but used it anyway because the Drake Sword started to suck. I did a bit of exploring, found the Great Basin and Drake Valley and died a lot, got to the bottom of Blighttown and found I couldn't continue without probably dying because of the poison swamp. It looks like beating the area turns off the Bonfire at the main hub anyway until I get closer to Endgame so I'll probably hold off and finish up the side areas first.

BTW, Andy, Toxic Blowdart Snipers aren't hard. Use Spider Shield and block, it stops Toxic altogether. Suck harder.

Found the Iaito, looks like it may be neat if I get my DEX up to use it, which I probably will. It's fast, has both area control and straight line damage, and yeah. Actually, being able to use a good weapon is probably more important than spell slots, so I am now focusing on DEX / Endurance for level ups, and will use either that or the Uchigatana.

Most things I read on the internet recommends going an elemental path for the weapon upgrades but I recall Fenrir saying that it's just better to upgrade on the normal path, and looking at the Wiki that seems especially true for Katanas (If I max out Dex I probably want that A rank), so that's probably what I will do especially since I already have fire damage on the side. I may upgrade the Gargoyle Halberd to Chaos for shits and giggles and to have a secondary weapon but likely I will max out DEX and Endurance first and focus on Katana use. I'll probably dump a little bit into Vit and some into Attunement as necessary but yeah.

[jsh357]

Dark Souls:

Beat the Depths, boss was stupid easy. Got the Gargoyle Halberd and upgraded it to +5, realized that it isn't my style but used it anyway because the Drake Sword started to suck. I did a bit of exploring, found the Great Basin and Drake Valley and died a lot, got to the bottom of Blighttown and found I couldn't continue without probably dying because of the poison swamp. It looks like beating the area turns off the Bonfire at the main hub anyway until I get closer to Endgame so I'll probably hold off and finish up the side areas first.

BTW, Andy, Toxic Blowdart Snipers aren't hard. Use Spider Shield and block, it stops Toxic altogether. Suck harder.

Found the Iaito, looks like it may be neat if I get my DEX up to use it, which I probably will. It's fast, has both area control and straight line damage, and yeah. Actually, being able to use a good weapon is probably more important than spell slots, so I am now focusing on DEX / Endurance for level ups, and will use either that or the Uchigatana.

Most things I read on the internet recommends going an elemental path for the weapon upgrades but I recall Fenrir saying that it's just better to upgrade on the normal path, and looking at the Wiki that seems especially true for Katanas (If I max out Dex I probably want that A rank), so that's probably what I will do especially since I already have fire damage on the side. I may upgrade the Gargoyle Halberd to Chaos for shits and giggles and to have a secondary weapon but likely I will max out DEX and Endurance first and focus on Katana use. I'll probably dump a little bit into Vit and some into Attunement as necessary but yeah.

The reason the Lightning Uchi is so popular is because it requires very little stat investment.  You can just get the minimum requirements for the Uchi, go Lightning with it and not worry about stat scaling for your weapon.  You'll get more damage if you go normal + DEX, though.  Can even apply resins or buffing spells to improve damage.

[NotMiki]

At very high levels, DEX slightly increases pyromancy casting animation time.  So you could go that route as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHfPcu_B0nQ

[Fenrir]

Normal path for weapons being better is mostly a Demon's Souls thing, since getting the alternate stones pretty much required a faq + farming.
Waste 5 hours of your life for 5 more damage woo.

In Dark Souls IIRC you can get enough stones of every type easily. Best path is probably lightning as it requires no stat investment, BUT elemental weapons are much worse than the normal path in the (awesome) DLC. You can't really go wrong with the normal path.

In Dark Souls 2 every path requires the same stones and you can revert at any time and it's awesome. You can only smith stuff pretty late in the game though.

[Sierra]

Depths boss I've always found to be the easiest in the game. Watch him run into a wall, stab him in the butt, run away, repeat.

Re: the swamp? If you haven't gone back to the asylum, now's the time. There's a ring there which'll make that much less painful.

Re: the basin? FAQ Dusk of Oolacile. (How anyone found her through exploration alone is beyond me.) Her hat boosts all types of magic offense (if you don't mind having asymmetrical gold wings jutting from your head) and much later she'll be the gateway to the DLC.

I am a partisan of normal weapons. Lightning weapons might be better in a broad array of normal circumstances, but as Fenrir points out they get almost completely walled in the DLC (which includes two of the game's meanest bosses, in my opinion) and by the base game's two hardest fights (again, my opinion, really don't find there to be much competition, though). 40 DEX and +15 something with A or S scaling and weapon enchants (requires some investment in intelligence of faith) is about the most efficient recipe I've found for melee offense in Dark Souls.

[Fenrir]

Pikachu, Snorlax and Vendrick V0.5 resist lightning? I didn't notice having really godawful damage against them.
Do they resist fire too?

I usually prefer a bit less offense with a bit more vitality /endurance, so I always use lightning. but I might have been overestimating endurance all these years. Definitely not vitality though.

Speaking of which, I completely ignored vitality alltogether in my last roguesouls run through the game, and got OHKOed by Moonlight Butterfly. It was still pretty awesome. I only now just realized that the second gargoyle only ever spits fire, and noticing that makes the fight much easier)

[Sierra]

The guy who shoots lightning bolts at you resist lightning? Maybe.

As for final boss, yeah, it's almost worthless against him. (Fire works fine. He uses a fire sword!)

[Grefter]

That would be the game pushing for you to try to have a weapon you swap to wouldn't it?  It always seems to be a design point the games try to push you towards and community actively pushes back against (probably because it is shitty and grindy mechanic).

Sounds like DS2 does it better with more focus on weapon durability (and then fucks it up by putting in dual wielding lol)

[Sierra]

Eh, it's not much trouble at all to get two different weapons maxed out in DS1. Everything but the third tier of ore is storebought. (Now, if you're trying to max out two different weapons on the same track--say chaos and fire--then hahaha no there's barely enough readily available chunks in the entire game to finish one of those). What DS2 does right for encouraging weapon variety is just making upgrading simpler and being more generous with ore (eventually, might struggle for materials early/midgame but I've always got a pile of spare slabs by the end). The weapon durability taking a dive into the toilet thing is just an unnecessary irritant.