What Video Games Have You Been Playing, Part 10: Or; A Shameful Display!

[Velegon]

Watch GoG. I got it for twelve during the Winter Sale. It may be a while, but it will be on sale again.

According to this site https://isthereanydeal.com/game/distantworldsuniverse/info/ it has been as cheap as $9 on GoG (85% off) sometime and it was 75% off on the recent Steam Winter sale https://www.steamprices.com/ca/app/261470/distant-worlds-universe (this one can be changed from CAD to USD).

 

[EgonSpengler]

More Path of Exile navel-gazing and chin-scratching:

Elemental Overload

40% more elemental damage if you've crit in the past 8 seconds.
No critical strike multiplier.
No damage multiplier for ailments from critical strikes.

Shaman's Dominion

100% increased global critical strike chance for if you've summoned a totem recently (4 seconds).
50% increased critical strike chance with brands.

So with both skills, for 4 seconds after summoning a totem, your brands have an almost guaranteed 40% damage boost? Although, it doesn't tell you how long the Elemental Overload boost lasts, and I'm not sure how that +40% compares to the critical strike multiplier you'd be getting if you don't have Elemental Overload.

 

[Synobun]

Is there any way to play Path of Exile as casually as one would play Torchlight? I enjoy wading through hordes of enemies without really worrying about build and whether or not I'll immediately die, but based on all the build talk it sounds like it's more of a rogue-like where if you dare mess up a single component of your spreadsheet you're doomed to perma-failure.

 

[MaryKB]

I'm playing casually right now, and I don't really know what I'm doing picking my talents. But so far I'm having fun and moving through everything effortlessly. I played Torchlight too and I'm not noticing any huge difference so far.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Is there any way to play Path of Exile as casually as one would play Torchlight? I enjoy wading through hordes of enemies without really worrying about build and whether or not I'll immediately die, but based on all the build talk it sounds like it's more of a rogue-like where if you dare mess up a single component of your spreadsheet you're doomed to perma-failure.

Yes, you can definitely just pick up a two-handed axe and go all Bruce Banner/Diana Prince on the mofos. You'll almost certainly discover some things along the way, because it's a big game, and you'll almost certainly want to start over with a new character eventually, if only to try a different archetype or playstyle. In my case, I found that many of the boss fights made me want to bang my head on my desk, but ymmv.

One piece of advice, from a new player to other new players: Don't be in a rush to spend your Passive Skill Points.

There are three ways you build your character: Equipment, skill gems, and passive skill points. It's easy enough to change your equipment and skill gems to experiment with different weapons and spells. But for some [gosh-darned] reason, they decided to be really stingy with "respec" points for the Passive Skill Tree. As I was playing my first character, I spent my passive skill points as fast as I earned them, just kind of tra-la-la'ing along and picking whatever looked shiny at the moment. Once I got to level 50 or so, I wanted to move some things around and discovered I could only change 12 or 14 out of my 50 points. Furthermore, you always have to link points in the skill tree (the big, splashy bonuses usually lie at the end of a chain of the littler, incremental bonuses), so the selections I'd made earliest were "buried" beneath the selections I'd made later. When I start a new character, I'll probably spend my passive skill points in 5-7 point chunks rather than 1 at a time, as I figure out where my character is lacking or decide where I want to go with it.

 

[PhroX]

More Path of Exile navel-gazing and chin-scratching:

Elemental Overload


Shaman's Dominion

So with both skills, for 4 seconds after summoning a totem, your brands have an almost guaranteed 40% damage boost? Although, it doesn't tell you how long the Elemental Overload boost lasts, and I'm not sure how that +40% compares to the critical strike multiplier you'd be getting if you don't have Elemental Overload.

Elemental overload lasts 8 seconds (the Wiki is pretty good on things like that).

Increased crit chance is applied to the base chance, which is dependent on the weapon or spell being used, but is usually around 5-6%. So with 150% increased chance, you're on 15-18% to score a critical. That said, with brands, you probably don't need any other effects to keep Elemental Overload up pretty much all the time - brands hit fast, especially Storm Brand. When you've got 5 brands firing multiple times a second, even a 6% chance to critical is generally enough. As such, I probably wouldn't bother with Shaman's Dominion if you take EO, especially as, as I pointed out in my last post, Brands and Totems aren't that synergistic, as generally you want either Runebinder or Ancestral Bond respectively. You could used a Decoy Totem in your brand build with the multiple totem support if you really want to go for Shaman's Dominion, but that would be more for a full on crit build instead of elemental overload, and even then, you're probably only going to use it on bosses.

The general rule on Ele Overload is that it's a cheap and easy damage boost for casters. Full crit. based builds are better at the very top end, but get much more expensive in terms of both gear and passive points.

This is the skill tree on my Armageddon Brand character. She's an elementalist (witch ascendancy), but it could easily be adapted for a heirophant (just change the half a dozen or so nodes from the start point) and/or storm brand (only the fire and AoE nodes would want to be changed). AB is my main skill for both clearing and bosses, though I have Flammability and Vaal Righteous Fire to help out on tougher foes. Other than that, I have Flame Dash and Brand Recall linked to Arcane Surge and Faster Casting plus a CWDT setup with Immortal Call and a golem. I've been player her Solo Self Found, and am up to yellow maps without any real problems. I spent a bit of time farming a Tabula Rasa in the Blood Aqueduct (Act 9), but other than that, my gear's pretty junk.

Is there any way to play Path of Exile as casually as one would play Torchlight? I enjoy wading through hordes of enemies without really worrying about build and whether or not I'll immediately die, but based on all the build talk it sounds like it's more of a rogue-like where if you dare mess up a single component of your spreadsheet you're doomed to perma-failure.

Fortunately, there's loads of guides for builds. If you want to simply go and kill stuff, follow one of them. It's only when you want to start being creative and do your own thing that you need to delve into the mechanics. The passive tree I linked above shows how complicated it can be, but it's not hard to simply follow what someone else has done.

 

[Synobun]

Following build guides is the exact opposite of casual, IMO.

 

[MaryKB]

If you decide you want to play, you're always welcome to go adventuring with me! I feel your play style sounds like you and I would get along very well.

 

[Synobun]

First time anyone's told me my extreme laziness is a virtue.

 

[PhroX]

Following build guides is the exact opposite of casual, IMO.

Not in PoE

But seriously, the game has a huge amount of complexity, much of which has pretty opaque documentation. Guides are a way for players who don't want to spend time learning about all that to be able to enjoy all the game. Jumping in without a guide is fun at first, but chances are your character will hit a wall (I remember mine first one did) and be unable to progress thanks to, for example, you not knowing what a good passive tree looks like (I was playing an archer. I took all the nodes that referred to projectiles and attacks. I died. Repeatedly.). Spending 5 minutes reading a guide instead of weeks learning mechanics seems pretty casual to me....

 

[777]

Just completed Rise of the Tomb Raider. In overall experience, I liked it. I used about 31 hours and completed 81 %.
TR '13 and Rise of the TR done, next Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I started the project about 6 weeks ago and haven't played much of anything else in the meantime. It's actually really fun to play the trilogy in a row.

 

[Lexicus]

Annoyingly Just Cause 3 is experiencing a bug where the letter keys on my keyboard don't input to the game (the number keys and others such as Esc and Del also work), so it's basically unplayable for me right now. I got 60 hours out of it already so it's not a waste of money or anything but it's pretty damn annoying. Can't find any information about it online either.

 

[Dachs]

aaaaaaaaaaah Ace Combat 7 on PC is so close

so

freaking

close

 

[Lexicus]

I don't quite understand, I used to play ww2 flight simulators back in the day when I was a kid and I have Sturmovik now but I've never played a game where the planes have guided missiles, @Dachs can you explain how this is fun? Is there, like, actual dogfighting or is it just "computer locked these targets, now shooting down planes that you can't even see"?

 

[Phrossack]

I only ever played AC4, but it wasn't a simulator by any stretch. It was an arcade game, and there was mostly dogfighting rather than long-range combat since the missiles have such short range (under two km or so). And you could carry dozens and dozens of them.

But it's probably changed in the past fifteen years.

 

[Synobun]

My experience with combat sims was Ace Combat: Shattered Skies on the PS2 and Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3. I played Sturmovik a little but I found it more fun to pretend the flying rocket was a good plane instead of playing it as intended.

Ace Combat does have dogfighting. The experience was much like WW2 fighting, at least for me, except faster paced. You have to see the target, and you have to be close enough to hit. You also have to not get hit yourself. It's not a game you can play while staring at the blue sky and eating Cheetos.

 

[Dachs]

I don't quite understand, I used to play ww2 flight simulators back in the day when I was a kid and I have Sturmovik now but I've never played a game where the planes have guided missiles, @Dachs can you explain how this is fun? Is there, like, actual dogfighting or is it just "computer locked these targets, now shooting down planes that you can't even see"?

There aren't really any engagements beyond visual range. You fire guided missiles at enemies that you can see. These missiles have a limited tracking ability but in general are less maneuverable and slower than real-world missiles, so air combat maneuvering still matters: you can dodge missiles and they can dodge yours. The most recent games have incorporated post-stall maneuvers, although they're a bit easier and less-probable than real physics would seem to imply.

You don't have to keep track of fuel and your loadout is considerably larger than it is in real life. Like @Phrossack says, it's very arcadey, because that's more fun.

I only ever played AC4, but it wasn't a simulator by any stretch. It was an arcade game, and there was mostly dogfighting rather than long-range combat since the missiles have such short range (under two km or so). And you could carry dozens and dozens of them.

But it's probably changed in the past fifteen years.

They've tweaked the edges a lot but the basic concept of the game is pretty similar to AC4.

 

[Lexicus]

AH okay that makes some sense. I still don't think using missiles would be as fun as guiding machine gun tracers into your target which you have to do in ww2-era sims. Incidentally, the two games I used to play in that genre were Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (the one focusing on WW2 in the Pacific, don't remember the specific version though I have tried to find it a few times) and Out of the Sun, which was an absolutely delightful flight sim for Mac that had missions in the Pacific and European theaters and even a sandbox mode where you could fly around the whole world and shoot up landmarks like the Pyramids and Eiffel Tower if you wanted.

I have IL-2 Sturmovik in the Steam Library, it remains unplayed as I'd like to get a joystick and I haven't been willing to invest the time to familiarize myself with the keyboard controls yet.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Keyboards sound awful for flight controls

 

[Synobun]

I have IL-2 Sturmovik in the Steam Library, it remains unplayed as I'd like to get a joystick and I haven't been willing to invest the time to familiarize myself with the keyboard controls yet.

The keyboard controls are utter trash so that's a good call.