What Games are you Playing 2017?

[Grefter]

Bravely Second - I capped out Chompcraft.

Sad that I don't have Patissier yet, but I have more jobs I want higher stuff of than I can get anyway.

[SnowFire]

The High Committee has met again and is ready to award the Best Post of WGAYP 2016.
After Fenrir won for 2015, we have a new champion this year.  Congratulations to AndrewRogue, for a post we'd like to call Creativity:

The magical power is apparently related to one's ability to express their inner creativity (novel enough idea!) which is our excuse for why these popstars are the ones who are saving the world...

I get what you mean, but man. Man.

In just a few brief words, Andrew lays bare his tattered psyche, exposing the crack in his soul from this terrible realization.  Now there is no denying it: people think that singers ad-lib the lyrics from their own heart, that actors improv their lines in movies, that books & video games are documentaries of awesome characters merely transmitted by the so-called 'writer' or 'author'.  What he always knew intellectually he now knows viscerally, deep down, that his vocation will never earn the public acknowledgement that is every man's desire.  And he decided to share that with the DL.  Hauntingly beautiful, 10/10.

[Cotigo]

Reminders.

<3 NotMiki
(And Gref so he's not jealous)


I think I played Baroque more than Dark Souls. The game made me crazy.
I completed the whole baroque database.



Sting games (except Baroque) are funny because they have a ton of insane mechanics interfering with each other all the time and they're all kinda relevant. (except in Riviera because Riviera is piss easy)

FFT is kinda like that, but you soon figure out that you don't really need to give a fuck about stuff like Brave/Faith and zodiac signs, while Sting games throw in your face all the time (because of the ridiculous UI) that everything in this game matters.

I played Rondo of Swords for a short while but I wasn't ready for a Sting game at the time. I know Sting didn't make the game, but, here, let me just try adding a bunch of text with 10 different fonts on a random Rondo of Swords screenshot, and it instantly becomes a Sting game.

and something pointed out in response that tickled me

Fenrir can you make one for SaGa? Make sure to add lots of indecipherable icons that might be giving the player information!

(I unabashedly love these stupidly unintuitive RPGs, it is basically some kind of Stockholm addiction I think)

[Grefter]

Bravely Second - Knight vs Ninja was a way more fun scenario than I expected.  Sides with Heinkel even though I guess I normally would go with Kikyo, but eh wasn't that far off and I wanted to not spend an FF5 clone not leaning on Two Hands for half the game.

[superaielman]

Europa Universalis 4- Playing as Hungary. It's a fun way to kill a long weekend, that's for sure.

[Fenrir]

FFD Black Mage SCC:

Oh man. I am already up to the Matoya chapter. Time flies.

Bio, Drain and Hi Potions + Autobattle MT Fira against randoms carried me through everything so far quite easily. Some really good temps, too. The robot was particularly OP with speed, high damage physicals and the full white mage skillset. (sometimes)

Drain is not as good as it looks at first, but it's just a really fun option to use. It deals about half the damage of Bio, and heals about 400 HP compared to 500 HP healed from hi-potions.
But it has a long ass charge time that you might not notice at first.

The cave of magic-resisting enemies might have looked dificult at first glance, but there's like one pot that fully heals HP / MP in the second room, and one save point right before the boss and end of the cave in the fourth room or so? So there are plenty options to heal up in between battles.
The boss Hecatoncheires was undead (Drain immunity) and resisted elemental magic but, uh, I have Bio and Hi-Potions. Bye lol.


Black mages in a SCC don't quite kill bosses as
easily as in FF5 but they probably have a way easier time against
randoms due to save points everywhere + huge MP pools. I dunno, I'd have to try it in FF5.


The game has its fair share of flaws compared to FF5, though it's certainly pleasant enough to play. At times it feels a little too streamlined and predictable.
Short example: The airship dungeon had a lot of shortcuts, Souls-style, including one obviously final shortcut that links the beginning of the dungeon to the end. I had a choice: either go back to the beginning to save, or just continue on and face the boss. Obviously, the first option was better. But I thought to myself "Fuck it, it's FFD, I'm sure they've put a save point right before the boss, even if it makes the shortcuts gimmick entirely pointless" and indeed there was a savepoint.
When it's not streamlined though, it's awful (See: the sidequests I had to go through to get friendly with the rebels in the casino city)

I like how there are two teams with separate jobs, but the separate jobs are given too slowly. Obviously this doesn't matter in a black mage SCC. It would have been super cool to have two teams with entirely different jobs from the start instead.

Also, what the hell is up with all these plot battles.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Man I remember Hecatoncheir being a monster on a normal file, Bio clearly too strong.

I'm pretty sure Black Mage SCC in FF5 absolutely annihilates randoms; running out of MP is not going to be an issue (I've certainly had Fiesta runs where !Black/!Red was my only real offence, and that was without four elemental rods for +50% damage). I think they have some problems against Archeoaevis and the Seal Guardians (who both have phases/parts with full element blocking) but that's about it? And they can get around that if they grind for Flame Rings in World 1 so they can heal themselves.

[Fenrir]

He almost exclusively used ST physicals and the black mages were in the back row. The new storebought hi potions trivialized him more than Bio, the team wasn't in any danger at any point. Even a thief SCC probably wouldn't have that much problem. The SCC challenge puts restorative items in the spotlight, that's probably why you didn't rely on them and had a difficult time.


New update:

Odin sounds midly threatening, but is not. Zantetsuken reduces everybody to single digit HP + kills a few people. But it has a super long recharge time, so there's enough time to resurect Matoya if needed + use her Cure dance. Odin's other attacks are weak, so by this point nobody is in danger until the next Zantetsuken.

Asmodai 2 was actually pretty difficult, since he steals some of Matoya's valuable time by forcing her to use Third Eye when he's invisible. And you can't have him stay invisible for long, or he spams Darkness (MT dark damage + debuffs?) The fucker got me once after using his cloaking a few turns in a row. When he doesn't though, everything is easy.

I think -ga spells and Magic Font (passive that boosts magic damage by 1.5x awarded for mastering vlack mage) are right around the corner, the game will probably become really really easy again for like 5 hours

[jsh357]

Elf's description is correct re: FF5 Black Mage SCC. You can also just run from any battles that are problems. There are only a couple of problem fights, and they are generally early on. Necrophobia is an annoying fight, but not too bad and certainly skippable.

[hinode]

FF5 Black Mage and Summoner SCCs have less MP issues than a more balanced team, since you have four pools of MP to work with and about 3 more AoE spammers than the game was balanced around.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Fenrir: I used Hi-Potions plenty, I've long since overcome item aversion in RPGs. But yeah I guess row probably does matter a lot because I found his triple physicals added up a lot even so, especially since he'll mix in MT damage+curse (argh) and Quake.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Picked up a game called Hard West for a couple bucks on sale. It's like a Cowboy XCOM so that's both cool AND good.

Mechanically it adds a few interesting wrinkles to the XCOM/Wasteland 2 formula: weapons tend to do damage depending on whether you're in full, partial or no cover, and you get a buffer for when you fuck up (luck) that depletes when you play badly and fills up when you do well (namely, by killing enemies).  Not that far into the story yet but there's a few interesting decisions so far, such as how much risk you want to take when prospecting for gold or whether you want to aid a fugitive.

[Fenrir]

Maybe I should try black mage SCC in FF5, it sounds ridiculous
But the phone port of the game is so ugly

Anyway I spoke too soon, Vata annihilates my team. The spell / potion upgrades still haven't happened yet. His Mt Gulg had been rrally difficult too, bird randoms eating through all my potions. I'll go back to the village to refill potions, this should also be enough to have everybody master BM. If that's not enough I'm in trouble. Might have to use those few x-potions / elixirs.

[SnowFire]

Final Fantasy XV:
Figured I'd give this a try after it was on sale during Christmas.  Just two hours in.  It's...  strange.

* The game is super in-media-res.  We don't really get introduced to Our Heroes much at all, we're just immediately chillin' with 'em.  And promptly doing level 1 D&D adventurer quests as well.  Questionable choice IMO; FF4/FF6/FF12 open with a military raid, FF7 opens with terrorism, FF9 opens with kidnapping a princess, FF10 has a monster attack a sports game.  FF8 opens a bit slow, perhaps, but has one of the best opening videos of all time that sets you up for Squall vs. Seifer.  Instead, it's like FF12 opened with being introduced to hunts & guilds and told to do Rogue Tomato ASAP.  The flash-forward dream sequence didn't do it for me, whatever the hell it was.
* The name of your capital city is Insomnia?  Seriously?  Look I get it, it was probably called that in Japan, but that's where a little localization comes in.  "Insomnio" if you must.  SO3 switched "Aqualand" or whatever into "Aquaria", you can do it too.
* I don't like the seeming setting, at least of the initial areas, with Southern twang, diners, joy rides, & Cindy doing her best Daisy Duke impression.  I dunno, '50s roadster culture ain't my favorite setting, give me high fantasy or dystopian sci-fi.
* This game is so troll...  or else it bugged out, not sure which.  I go explore the Beoulve Mines nearby just for fun, and it's filled with Level 7 Goblins who aren't much of a threat.  However, it doesn't seem possible to save anywhere?  Or else the game got twitchy and wouldn't believe that I wasn't in combat, not sure.  So it's a one-way trip down.  On the way, a super-badass samurai apparation showed up and dealt like 4000 damage to my poor 550 max HP and knocks me into a pit.  Okay, guess that's some sorta Gilgamesh / Siegfried deal they're warning me about for later?  Fine.  I clear out some more goblins, collect some nice treasure, go back to the elevator, and...  a mysterious invisible wall won't let me in.  The hell?  Is this a glitch or what?  Okay fine, only way out is farther in.  I get to the "party talks about the boss" section and there's a popup about resting, but I don't see or can't find the rest/save area and immediately fall into the monsters instead.  Most of htem are L7 GOblins, but hey, it's the samurai apparition again.  This time, when he deals his OMG, OMG super damage to me, it's game over on the spot.  Was there a trick here?!  What is going on?  Meanwhile my whole dungeon progress was lost.

Yeah, after that I turned the game off.

[jsh357]

Final Fantasy XV:
Figured I'd give this a try after it was on sale during Christmas.  Just two hours in.  It's...  strange.

* The game is super in-media-res.  We don't really get introduced to Our Heroes much at all, we're just immediately chillin' with 'em.  And promptly doing level 1 D&D adventurer quests as well.  Questionable choice IMO; FF4/FF6/FF12 open with a military raid, FF7 opens with terrorism, FF9 opens with kidnapping a princess, FF10 has a monster attack a sports game.  FF8 opens a bit slow, perhaps, but has one of the best opening videos of all time that sets you up for Squall vs. Seifer.  Instead, it's like FF12 opened with being introduced to hunts & guilds and told to do Rogue Tomato ASAP.  The flash-forward dream sequence didn't do it for me, whatever the hell it was.
* The name of your capital city is Insomnia?  Seriously?  Look I get it, it was probably called that in Japan, but that's where a little localization comes in.  "Insomnio" if you must.  SO3 switched "Aqualand" or whatever into "Aquaria", you can do it too.
* I don't like the seeming setting, at least of the initial areas, with Southern twang, diners, joy rides, & Cindy doing her best Daisy Duke impression.  I dunno, '50s roadster culture ain't my favorite setting, give me high fantasy or dystopian sci-fi.
* This game is so troll...  or else it bugged out, not sure which.  I go explore the Beoulve Mines nearby just for fun, and it's filled with Level 7 Goblins who aren't much of a threat.  However, it doesn't seem possible to save anywhere?  Or else the game got twitchy and wouldn't believe that I wasn't in combat, not sure.  So it's a one-way trip down.  On the way, a super-badass samurai apparation showed up and dealt like 4000 damage to my poor 550 max HP and knocks me into a pit.  Okay, guess that's some sorta Gilgamesh / Siegfried deal they're warning me about for later?  Fine.  I clear out some more goblins, collect some nice treasure, go back to the elevator, and...  a mysterious invisible wall won't let me in.  The hell?  Is this a glitch or what?  Okay fine, only way out is farther in.  I get to the "party talks about the boss" section and there's a popup about resting, but I don't see or can't find the rest/save area and immediately fall into the monsters instead.  Most of htem are L7 GOblins, but hey, it's the samurai apparition again.  This time, when he deals his OMG, OMG super damage to me, it's game over on the spot.  Was there a trick here?!  What is going on?  Meanwhile my whole dungeon progress was lost.

Yeah, after that I turned the game off.

Somehow I played this game for 64 hours and never discovered that area.

Based on what you are saying, I suggest trading the game in if possible. It's not going to get much better if you aren't liking the setting and vibe early on (the best part of the game by far).

[Grefter]

Is the dungeon names Firelink Shrine, the samurai practically naked and your copy of FFXV actually Dark Souls 3?

Fenrir, I legit like the mobile port of FF5.  The tikinjbg is a bit sloppy, but all the job sprites have more character and the map sprites don't all have Liefeld feet like the originals.  Also 8 way run, sprint toggle and auto save all are much appreciated modern quality of life changes.


Bravely Second - I got Patissier finally.  I don't have room for one.  I am a garbage person.  Maybe I revert to one Mage?  Yea had been rolling deep on Wizard, but Spirit magic really isn't keeping up.

[SnowFire]

I try to purchase all my games digitally, so there isn't any trading of this one happening.

The mines are right nearby the motel that the party goes to in "The Errand Prince" (har har).  There's a hunt to go get goblins there, too.

Checking the Internet, the video I saw for this had Level Awesome characters coming back here then brute-forcing the boss.  That sounds suspicious to me - the fact that all the regular enemies are clearly balanced for a low-level team - but if there's some "trick" I don't know what it is.

Grefter: Nah, this is definitely FF15.  I just skipped the area and got Cornet to the next dungeon + song, but I dunno, the bosses here seem pretty rough too.  Maybe I should ask Tal for advice.

[jsh357]

My main protips (warning: they make the game a joke):
- Use greatswords. For me they outdamaged all other weapons throughout the entire game and made short work of most enemies.
- have Ignis learn ReGroup (in Teamwork I think) ASAP. It heals everyone and you're invincible while special attacks are in use.
- If a battle seems difficult, just hold square until you can Parry and do that while your allies chip away. Noctis is invincible vs. most attacks while phasing.
- As long as you have Potions and Phoenix Downs, you can probably avoid getting any game overs as long as the enemies you fight are at your level or close. You're invincible while using them and have plenty of time to do so before the game over screen arrives.
- Get AP+ abilities for driving and chocobo riding. You'll be doing those a lot and they pay off quickly.

[SnowFire]

The very first treasure drop was a greatsword that had like 200 attack power vs. 70 on anything else and explodes everything immediately, so yeah, I noticed that.  I'm not sure why it didn't let me Phoenix Down - it certainly let me do it when I *first* got owned.  Maybe I was too far away from my party?  I basically warped on in to the fight and would have been a zillion miles away from them.  Just one hit, ded.

[Grefter]

Game too hard.  Ask tallychu for advice.

lol fighting randoms

Unless it is an MMO

you should sell everything on the auction house below karket price oh look someone calmly Literallychu just bought it all and reposted it for profit what a horrible person they must be wink

[SnowFire]

It's cool, I found the relevant FF15 video he uploaded.

[Grefter]

All I see is a promising Laggy Approved TM strat involving some status abuse and cleave damage and then  Tallychu buffing up for a bunch of turns to do the same damage and using items i.e. Literally admitting defeat and that he is a traitor by level grinding and wasting items he might need later.

[LordDirtyBrit]

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: Finished the game. I think I've realised that I actually prefer 2D Zelda over the 3D games. A Link to the Past has much faster pacing than any of the 3D Zelda games, the dungeon treasures are actually useful outside of their one dungeon and the bosses aren't based around waiting. I can't wait till I can access my A Link Between Worlds copy and see how it compares to this game.

[Lord Ephraim]

Final Fantasy XV:
Figured I'd give this a try after it was on sale during Christmas.  Just two hours in.  It's...  strange.

* I don't like the seeming setting, at least of the initial areas, with Southern twang, diners, joy rides, & Cindy doing her best Daisy Duke impression.  I dunno, '50s roadster culture ain't my favorite setting, give me high fantasy or dystopian sci-fi.
* This game is so troll...  or else it bugged out, not sure which.  I go explore the Beoulve Mines nearby just for fun, and it's filled with Level 7 Goblins who aren't much of a threat.  However, it doesn't seem possible to save anywhere?  Or else the game got twitchy and wouldn't believe that I wasn't in combat, not sure.  So it's a one-way trip down.  On the way, a super-badass samurai apparation showed up and dealt like 4000 damage to my poor 550 max HP and knocks me into a pit.  Okay, guess that's some sorta Gilgamesh / Siegfried deal they're warning me about for later?  Fine.  I clear out some more goblins, collect some nice treasure, go back to the elevator, and...  a mysterious invisible wall won't let me in.  The hell?  Is this a glitch or what?  Okay fine, only way out is farther in.  I get to the "party talks about the boss" section and there's a popup about resting, but I don't see or can't find the rest/save area and immediately fall into the monsters instead.  Most of htem are L7 GOblins, but hey, it's the samurai apparition again.  This time, when he deals his OMG, OMG super damage to me, it's game over on the spot.  Was there a trick here?!  What is going on?  Meanwhile my whole dungeon progress was lost.

Yeah, after that I turned the game off.

Entering the mine pops up a quest with a recommended level of 45.  Of course the problem is you won't actually look at it until after you get fucked by super ghost Auron.  A bunch of optional dungeons all have a level req of 40+.

[Scar]

Someone gave me a Google play gift card for Christmas.

I guess I'll buy dimensions with it and waste the rest of it on rk dollar pulls.