What Video Games Have You Been Playing #15: Computer not on fire yet? Better add more mods!

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yeah, you aren't missing anything in Fallout 2. And it's even worse playing it on a modern system since you get hit with random encounters out the wazoo due to the devs programming the game to base the percentage chance of random encounters on how much RAM you have available. At least that's what I read when I was trying to figure out why I couldn't travel between two locations without having at least ten to fifteen (not an exaggeration) random encounters.

Was there...a reason for that? I know some older games tied their game speed to CPU clock cycles, which led to them running way too fast (or outright crashing).

 

[Commodore]

Was there...a reason for that? I know some older games tied their game speed to CPU clock cycles, which led to them running way too fast (or outright crashing).

If there was a reason for it, I don't know it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I would expect GoG would have fixed an issue like that before offering it for sale but I wouldn't really know. They didn't do a great job making SimCity 3000 work with various monitor resolutions.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

They sell the inferior DOS version of SimCity 2000, too.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Path of Exile: I decided to play my Raging Spirit Necromancer in The Atlas of Worlds, and wow, is she effective. At level 73 (with 9 Passive Points hanging around unspent) she's way better at clearing maps than my lvl-80 Cyclone Gladiator or my lvl-74 Dominating Blow Guardian. She's terrible in the Mine, and not so good at chasing Abyss cracks. Basically, any time you have to press ahead with some urgency, she's not so great. But otherwise, she's a beast. She's not even that flimsy. You might expect her to be a "glass cannon", and strictly in terms of her own defenses and Life she is, but 23 minions is like having an entire NFL team protecting the QB, the offensive team and the defensive team; when she gets hit, she goes down, but it just doesn't happen that often. Summon Raging Spirit is maybe too effective. Zombies are definitely too effective. And she has no special gear, just run-of-the-mill yellow magic items. It's not outside the realm of possibility that I've simply stumbled upon a perfectly-tuned arrangement of Gems and Passives for her, and all of my other characters are shabbily-assembled.

Sentinels vs. Undead: As minions go, Undead win, hands down. You just summon them. With Dominating Blow and Herald of Purity, your character needs to land effective melee strikes on the enemy to summon the Sentinels, and the Sentinels are on a timer, so you have to start fresh with almost every fight. My Necromancer couldn't fight her own way out of a wet paper bag, but she doesn't have to.

I'm guessing that is in Standard. ??
A few points:

• Herald of Purity is really really good at distracting the bad guys from your character. I use it a lot.
• Since you r guy is only level 73, I bet your gems are not 20/20. When they get there, your guy will be even better. If you are rich enough in Standard, use currency to push the quality to 20 so you don't have to level them twice.
• Is your Pantheon complete? Having all the best choices available can be important in covering holes in your defenses for red maps.
• For fast Delving, you do need a character that can kill on the move; Rage and Phasing can make a huge difference. Phasing keeps you from being blocked by crowds from keeping up with the light. There is death in darkness. When you get into the 150+ levels in the mine, the mobs in the various "cities" can be huge and hard to maneuver through even if you have lots of flares.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I saw a YouTube video about how Bethesda ruined Fallout and honestly it was a willfully blind, cringe worthy and stupid video. I think it's great that he likes FO1 and 2 best of all but he kept trying to turn his subjective tastes into objective statements and really missed the mark. And he brushed aside some serious problems with those games by just ignoring them. At one point he said the controls were natural and mastered in minutes and here I am looking through the 200 page manual after 20 hours in the game trying to figure out basic commands like heal Ian. I wanted to hear him out just to get a different perspective and I wound up completely disrespecting his opinion.

 

[Commodore]

I saw a YouTube video about how Bethesda ruined Fallout and honestly it was a willfully blind, cringe worthy and stupid video. I think it's great that he likes FO1 and 2 best of all but he kept trying to turn his subjective tastes into objective statements and really missed the mark. And he brushed aside some serious problems with those games by just ignoring them. At one point he said the controls were natural and mastered in minutes and here I am looking through the 200 page manual after 20 hours in the game trying to figure out basic commands like heal Ian. I wanted to hear him out just to get a different perspective and I wound up completely disrespecting his opinion.

Yeah I think I saw that video. I came to the same conclusions as you. While Fallout 76 may indeed be an absolute dumpster fire of a game, Fallout 3 and New Vegas were a blast to play. I can't comment on Fallout 4 since I never got around to playing it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah I think I saw that video. I came to the same conclusions as you. While Fallout 76 may indeed be an absolute dumpster fire of a game, Fallout 3 and New Vegas were a blast to play. I can't comment on Fallout 4 since I never got around to playing it.

According to that guy, those games were basically set in another universe thematically. They used retro 50's music instead of cold industrial sounds!1!!

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I have a friend who described the first Fallout as "actually a grim post nuclear world, instead of woahohah bethesda wackyland." He doesn't much like modern Bethesda (though he'll happily spend hours setting up Morrowind).

I would expect GoG would have fixed an issue like that before offering it for sale but I wouldn't really know. They didn't do a great job making SimCity 3000 work with various monitor resolutions.

BTW, you can add -w to the shortcut to get it into windowed mode. If it's the aspect ratio that's the problem you might also be able to fix that with your video card settings (in NVIDIA Control Panel, you can change the scaling mode under 'adjust desktop size and position').

 

[Commodore]

According to that guy, those games were basically set in another universe thematically. They used retro 50's music instead of cold industrial sounds!1!!

Nevermind that the original games had 50s music too. Yeah that guy was a tool who just hates Bethesda Fallout.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@aimeeandbeatles
I did the -w thing and it only helped a little bit. It was better than nothing for sure but it only worked with super low resolution and the window itself is...well it is buggy. It doesn't work like a regular window.

Nevermind that the original games had 50s music too. Yeah that guy was a tool who just hates Bethesda Fallout.

I liked FO1. It wasn't my favorite but I can see how others might prefer it. But to argue the 3D Fallout games are not really Fallout because X petty reason or personal preference is silly.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I was able to get up to 1280x1024, which was big enough for me (the bottom edge actually clipped under the taskbar, which was annoying).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

My resolution maxes out at 600 some odd pixels or some other very strange and oddly specific number. Technically I could boot the game into higher resolution in window mode but then the window I think became postage stamp size and I couldn't resize it. I think it became a big black box with the tiny game screen in the middle. It's been a few months since I played it.

 

[Commodore]

I liked FO1. It wasn't my favorite but I can see how others might prefer it. But to argue the 3D Fallout games are not really Fallout because X petty reason or personal preference is silly

I find it especially funny when people say that about New Vegas. New Vegas was literally made by the same people that made Fallout 1 and 2 and used a lot of the story elements from what was originally supposed to be Fallout 3 before Bethesda acquired the IP.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

That's odd. I have the GOG version now (thanks to a friend buying out half of my wishlist ) and it's working fine.

Did you install it in Program Files? I know that older games + newer Windows + Program Files can lead to lots of weird glitches.

 

[Synobun]

That's odd. I have the GOG version now (thanks to a friend buying out half of my wishlist ) and it's working fine.

wow that friend sounds really cool, i bet he's great

 

[Arakhor]

Well, unless Aimee only had two things on her wishlist, it wasn't me.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I also have 5 hidden games, but three of them aren't even games and the other two are duplicates.

 

[PhroX]

Path of Exile: I decided to play my Raging Spirit Necromancer in The Atlas of Worlds, and wow, is she effective. At level 73 (with 9 Passive Points hanging around unspent) she's way better at clearing maps than my lvl-80 Cyclone Gladiator or my lvl-74 Dominating Blow Guardian. She's terrible in the Mine, and not so good at chasing Abyss cracks. Basically, any time you have to press ahead with some urgency, she's not so great. But otherwise, she's a beast. She's not even that flimsy. You might expect her to be a "glass cannon", and strictly in terms of her own defenses and Life she is, but 23 minions is like having an entire NFL team protecting the QB, the offensive team and the defensive team; when she gets hit, she goes down, but it just doesn't happen that often. Summon Raging Spirit is maybe too effective. Zombies are definitely too effective. And she has no special gear, just run-of-the-mill yellow magic items. It's not outside the realm of possibility that I've simply stumbled upon a perfectly-tuned arrangement of Gems and Passives for her, and all of my other characters are shabbily-assembled.

Sentinels vs. Undead: As minions go, Undead win, hands down. You just summon them. With Dominating Blow and Herald of Purity, your character needs to land effective melee strikes on the enemy to summon the Sentinels, and the Sentinels are on a timer, so you have to start fresh with almost every fight. My Necromancer couldn't fight her own way out of a wet paper bag, but she doesn't have to.

Minions, particularly on a Necromancer, are really strong right now. Definitely the best build on a lower budget, and still holding their own when you can afford to throw loads of currency at them. I've not tried SRS, but I've been running a Skellies/Carrion Golem/Zombies/Spectres setup, and it's utterly ridiculous to the point where I'm bored of it (and it was even better last league...). And I don't even really agree with your two criticisms - feeding frenzy makes minions aggressive, so will chase things like Abyss and Delve stuff just fine (I use it on my skellies and golems, keeping the zombies and spectres on meat shield for defense), plus you've got convocation if they do drop behind, and there's plenty of ways to put some solid defenses up even without a bunch of minions standing between you and the enemy: Bone Barrier in the Ascendancy gives you some solid mitigation and a defensive skill, Mistress of Sacrifice lets your Offerings affect you, so Spirit Offering on CWDT gives you a big chunk of ES whenever you get hurt, for the passive tree, minions are really strong anyway, so you can find plenty of points to put into life, maybe even armour and gear wise, there's not actually that many ways to push minion damage, so you can focus heavily on defenses. I've actually seen some builds use Cyclone on a summoner build - not for damage or Heralds or anything like that, but because it makes you immune to stun, plus you can link Life Gain on Hit and Fortify to make you even more tanky.

I'm in a bit of a rut with PoE right now, I am loving Metamorph and Conquerors, but I can't really seem to get into another character after my ED/Contagion trickster (took it up to lvl90 and low red maps before feeling like doing something else). Tried a bunch of stuff - the aforementioned summoner, Facebreaker Cyclone Glad, Rain of Arrows Champ, Scourge Arrow Pathfinder - but while they perform fine, they're just not really clicking for me in terms of playstyle.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm guessing that is in Standard. ??
A few points:

• Herald of Purity is really really good at distracting the bad guys from your character. I use it a lot.
• Since you r guy is only level 73, I bet your gems are not 20/20. When they get there, your guy will be even better. If you are rich enough in Standard, use currency to push the quality to 20 so you don't have to level them twice.
• Is your Pantheon complete? Having all the best choices available can be important in covering holes in your defenses for red maps.
• For fast Delving, you do need a character that can kill on the move; Rage and Phasing can make a huge difference. Phasing keeps you from being blocked by crowds from keeping up with the light. There is death in darkness. When you get into the 150+ levels in the mine, the mobs in the various "cities" can be huge and hard to maneuver through even if you have lots of flares.

The Necromancer is Standard, the Gladiator is Metamorph. The Necromancer still has her full-respec available, but so far I'm inclined to leave well enough alone. I think the Cyclone Gladiator will be my Delver. As PhroX says, Cyclone makes you immune to Stun, but it seems to also grants you some kind of pseudo-Phasing. He sails right through bad guys while he's doing his dervish thing.

Minions, particularly on a Necromancer, are really strong right now. Definitely the best build on a lower budget, and still holding their own when you can afford to throw loads of currency at them. I've not tried SRS, but I've been running a Skellies/Carrion Golem/Zombies/Spectres setup, and it's utterly ridiculous to the point where I'm bored of it (and it was even better last league...). And I don't even really agree with your two criticisms - feeding frenzy makes minions aggressive, so will chase things like Abyss and Delve stuff just fine (I use it on my skellies and golems, keeping the zombies and spectres on meat shield for defense), plus you've got convocation if they do drop behind, and there's plenty of ways to put some solid defenses up even without a bunch of minions standing between you and the enemy: Bone Barrier in the Ascendancy gives you some solid mitigation and a defensive skill, Mistress of Sacrifice lets your Offerings affect you, so Spirit Offering on CWDT gives you a big chunk of ES whenever you get hurt, for the passive tree, minions are really strong anyway, so you can find plenty of points to put into life, maybe even armour and gear wise, there's not actually that many ways to push minion damage, so you can focus heavily on defenses. I've actually seen some builds use Cyclone on a summoner build - not for damage or Heralds or anything like that, but because it makes you immune to stun, plus you can link Life Gain on Hit and Fortify to make you even more tanky.

I'm in a bit of a rut with PoE right now, I am loving Metamorph and Conquerors, but I can't really seem to get into another character after my ED/Contagion trickster (took it up to lvl90 and low red maps before feeling like doing something else). Tried a bunch of stuff - the aforementioned summoner, Facebreaker Cyclone Glad, Rain of Arrows Champ, Scourge Arrow Pathfinder - but while they perform fine, they're just not really clicking for me in terms of playstyle.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that all Witches or Necromancers are poor at pressing forward, just that mine is. I don't use Meatshield, Feeding Frenzy or Deathmark. Feeding Frenzy just seems like overkill. More damage?? Sure, what the hell... I'm thinking about trying out Deathmark. I assume it was intended for targeting Bosses and other thorns in the side, but you could also use it to reroute the whole rugby team when you don't want them to simply follow you. I was also thinking about "Golem Commander" on the Passives web to get another Golem and make it an even 24 Minions (also - "70% increased effect of buffs granted by your golems" - more damage!).

On Summon Raging Spirit: I think it might be a bit overpowered, although I haven't exactly done a lot of testing.

• They're "fire and forget." The Spirits proceed to whatever point you target and then auto-target and pursue enemies from there, based on their own detection radius (e.g. well off the screen, as far as the player is concerned). It's unclear to me whether mobs attacked by Raging Spirits are pulled by the caster or only by the Raging Spirit.
  
• You can get up to 20 of them at once. I use Spell Echo so I only need to fire it 10 times.
  
• They count as Minions, so I presume they get all of the bonuses from the Passives Web. I use Infernal Legion on them, which reduces their lifespan by only a bit (that is, they're clearly benefiting from the Life Regen and Life Leech that my Minions get, offsetting the damage they receive from being on fire). Anyway, their limited lifespan hardly matters, since you can just keep summoning new ones basically forever.