Another tip, learned the hard way (no plot or character spoilers):
Spoiler:
When you select a different character within your group to control directly, it automatically re-arranges the positions of the other characters to fall in behind the one you've selected. I had just finished a fight and returned to normal time, but I had a Cloud of Daggers spell that hadn't expired yet. When I selected one of my Companions, the party moved into place behind her and my Wizard walked into his own Cloud of Daggers and took 8 points of damage. Nice job, genius.
My thoughts on Diablo 4 with a +80lvl character and +40lvl seasonal character:
+ tried 5-6 different paragon boards builds by now (Sorceress) and the system is still brilliant. Why you can't reset the boards with a single button is still a minor minus, which I have no idea why the devs can't implement. I've worked as a programmer and this is ridiculous; there's no excuse for this.
+ crafting and customizing your own legendary items is also still a great idea. But the mechanic and your stash desperately needs a better sort and search functionality, to which I refer to my previous opinion above.
- season 1 is just very disappointing; way too slow to accumulate experience and you are doing 95% of the same crap that you already did with your non-seasonal character. There's a new kind of gem and some new aspects added in this season; that's it. No new mechanics and a lot of nerfs and confusing statements made from the devs - strongly suggesting that this season is simply a testbed for them to iron out more bugs are 'test' things.
- there's still no meaningful endgame in D4. I hear the same sentiment from practically everyone invested in the game; when you reach lvl 65-70ish, the game just slows way down and you run out of new paths and new things to do. It all becomes about repeating the same things (select Nightmare Dungeons and Hellfire Tides) over and over and over, to get the last paragon points.
So, for new players I maintain my 7/10, but for experienced players with +100 hours into the endgame and spread over several classes, I can't give D4 more than 5/10.
You have reiterated the most common complaints from Path of Exile players who also play D4. Endgame action is pretty critical to keeping players active over time. POE 3.22 launches next week. It has a fun and viable endgame.
You have reiterated the most common complaints from Path of Exile players who also play D4. Endgame action is pretty critical to keeping players active over time. POE 3.22 launches next week. It has a fun and viable endgame.
Anyone here manage to get a beta key for Palia? Any initial thoughts? All the testimonies I've heard have been raves, and a streamer friend played it a bit and it looked quite cute.
There seems to be a lot of interest in all my disparate friend groups too. It really looks like it could be a cool thing.
POE2 does look interesting, but the beta is scheduled for June 2024. If you take the bait for 3.22; I'll teach you how to play to bypass the new player frustration stages.
Haven't played too many more years in CKII, but the reign of the 1-year-old Caliph has proven to be surprisingly peaceful. His regency council gave a bunch of land to the powerful nobles who might be tempted to rise up, and then enforced realm peace, which is about to expire, but has had the effect of giving the young leader time to grow up a little bit. He's 8 now, and I'm married to his aunt. Which you'd think would be great for internal stability, but she committed treason about a year and a half ago, so that might not be as great for the realm as it would be otherwise.
Edit: Oh, that's right, she slept with the uncle who's been trying to off me for the past 10-15 years, who had yet another one of his harebrained plots, and tried to join him in it. That uncle's always been trouble. I'll probably move her to house arrest as it's still useful to have that connection to the crown, but it might be the oubliette for him.
SpoilerPolitical Map :
West Francia and East Francia have been splitting into pieces for a decade or two, for a while East Francia had provinces west of West Francia, which was funny. I have no idea why Saxony has gone so far north into Scandinavia. Although apparently Charlemagne's youngest son and successor, Thibault, conquered Saxony as a three-year-old, before it went to his sister when he died at 7. So Charlemagne's historical campaigns against Saxony came through in-game. But Saxony regained local control in the 790s, and now are ruled by Gandalf the Elusive Shadow, sadly not Gandolf the Grey Eminence.
Otherwise, mostly your usual bordergore, although I had noticed Baskiria a few years ago. Georgia is the large Byzantine tributary that is our new neighbor, we get along okay but would rather have conquered those lands ourselves.
SpoilerReligious Map :
Nothing too surprising here, Iconoclast seems to overtake Orthodox about half the time regardless. Though Iconoclast Bohemia is a little bit of a surprise. Got some Lollards in Scotland. Probably looks a bit different than you're used to if you usually play 1066.
Otherwise... I finished my game of Egypt: Old Kingdom. I'd rate it a 3.5/5. It does spur some interest in ancient Egyptian history. Could do a better job of providing feedback on the victory conditions for its trials (major events you are scored on). I didn't have the best start but once I figured out the economy started to do well, and eventually had either conquered, assimilated, or was on trading partner terms with everyone, mostly trading partners. But we added Libya and the Sinai Peninsula to the Kingdom of Egypt by force of arms, and peacefully assimilated part of Lower Nubia. The game ends with the First Intermediate Period, when Egypt largely collapsed after the Old Kingdom, during the 7th and 8th Dynasties. Certainly a challenging end to a strategy game, all your non-core provinces break away and there's poor harvest and your economy is collapsing, and don't forget that Qakare Ibi wants a pyramid built too. I managed to pull out a win in that trial but largely due to luck with having the right resources when it started. Not sure if I'll play again, the save system is a bit wonky.
Still playing some Renowned Explorers too. Definitely recommended. The missions are fun, the characters are fun, the combat is multi-faceted, there's never enough resources to buy everything you want, or recruit or research everything you want, so you're always having to make strategic tradeoffs, which don't necessarily work out, especially if you're new-ish to the mission you plan to go on and don't know the details of the enemies you'll face. And each crew members has an area of expertise - diplomacy, athleticism, archaeology - that has sub-areas of expertise, and affects your ability to succeed in various events. Going to Egypt without an archaeologist? Probably not going to have the most impressive mission! But it's hard to be prepared for every eventuality.
POE2 does look interesting, but the beta is scheduled for June 2024. If you take the bait for 3.22; I'll teach you how to play to bypass the new player frustration stages.
Thanx, but I'm honestly exhausted by the genre atm. I actually don't know if I'll find the joy again playing a rpg; I don't have the time to invest into them; Civ6 is so much easier, or a good old replay of a Tomb Raider game lol!
Played a few more years, decided to see what else was going on in the world, and found Super Bavaria:
Spoiler:
But there's more!
No, I do not know how Bavaria came to possess so much disparate land. Probably a well-played marriage game. Unfortunately for them, this isn't giving them a lot of actual power, and they're currently losing a war to try to gain control of more of actual Bavaria.
I think that's the weirdest thing going on currently. Still have Saxony-Scandinavia.
At home, though, things have been interesting. The 1-Year-Old Caliph has ruled well, and is now 21. He managed to imprison the Sultan of Egypt, and thus has no real rival to his power from within, combined with my marriage to his aunt. There was a fair amount of land redistribution, and he even gave an emirate to a Christian heathen. Why? They were best friends growing up. Just because you're leading a major world religion doesn't mean your friends don't come first.
I conquered Armenia from Georgia while they were imploding, one province flipped back as its ruler inherited Georgia when his brother was deposed, but overall it was a nice chunk of land, and now Georgia is part of Khazaria rather than a tributary of Byzantium. I was fortunate to be able to snag them while the Byzzies were too busy with a civil war to care about defending Georgia - the same way Khazaria subjugated them - but Khazaria is a much less scary overlord overall.
Domestically, I just fought 5 of my 9 vassals, who wanted the council to be empowered to vote on things. A non-absolute monarchy? Why would I want that? To not fight them? I guess the faction leader thought he had caught enough apostates as Court Inquisitor that I'd want him to stick around, but he wasn't considering that he has the biggest thorn-in-my-side vassal on his side, and it was an excuse to finally clean house.
So now it's working out what to do with them. I'm thinking:
- Faction leader - probably gonna lose his province. We found a new inquisitor who's almost as good
- Thorn in the Side guy died under suspicious circumstances during the war that were totally not related to anything I did (no, really! my spymaster even was aware of a plot to do him in, which we did nothing to stop but didn't contribute to, either). Now Thorn in the Side's brother is in charge, and he's much less ambitious. He's probably gonna be let off the hook since it wasn't really his fault.
- Assyrian Christian Emira who was finally starting to come over to my side before the war. I'd been using the "sway" action to try to improve relations with her prior to the war and had just given her a new county, as part one of plan "two-province vassals". Got some interesting events trying to sway someone I was at war with, and if you take out the "In Prison" and "Desmesne Limit" penalties, relations would be at +73. So we'll probably let her walk.
- Wali Vali of Maragha. Despite having the cool factor of his name and title rhyming, he hates my guts and the "Wrong Government Type" penalty is hard to overcome. Probably going to make the castle or mosque the main province building instead.
- Impaler Adventurer Dude up in Armenia. He never did send his adventurer troops against me, and he has a pet cat, so he's not all bad. Also is married to a frail yet gluttonous giant, and is my only Tengri vassal. All else equal it would be a good opportunity to put someone else in there, but I kind of want to see how this guy's story plays out so he'll probably get a pass.
I had a whole list of cool stuff that has happened in Baldur’s Gate 3 but that’s too long to type. All I will say is that it’s like 50 times as freeform in combat and roleplay as Divinity Original Sin 2 was (which was already kind of bonkers in that regard), and the sheer amount of well done elements; voice acting, writing, combat depth, itemization, character creation, options and decisions and branching pathways, and attention to detail is really something special. Easily the best game of 2023 so far and I don’t think anything is particularly close, which is telling because this year had a Zelda game.
For one small example, I pushed a boss character to her death into a chasm at one point in the game, and many hours later I found her corpse in the underdark. If she had had feather fall cast on her she would have survived!
The combat is the one thing that's put me off trying Baldur's Gate 3. I didn't enjoy D:OS much, it felt, well, kinda clunky and slow. Took far to long to get through even relatively simple fights - they weren't hard, just time consuming. To be fair, I'm not generally that keen on turn based tactical combat - there are some exceptions, such as the new X-COM games, but in them I find actually taking my turn to be pretty quick and streamlined (the complexity is in the decision making not actually playing it out) - and tend to much prefer pauseable real time, such as Pillars of Eternity, (older) Dragon Age, or, appropriately enough, the first two Baldur's Gate games.
So for those who have played BG3, how "Divinity-esque" is the combat? Would you expect someone with the aforementioned tastes to like it? Also, how frequent are the battles? If I don't enjoy combat that much, can I mostly avoid it and primarily experience the "RP" elements of the game, with just the odd fight here and there, or it it a typical CRPG where you spend the majority of the game in combat?
Traditional caster playthrough of Elden Ring starts nearing the end. Decided to give up entirely on trying to live through large attacks, whent straight offense and it's an interesting difference. Bosses are sort of easier, some of them much easier, but being vulnerable to prompt deletion by every trap and fast enemy sure is good at keeping you humble. Also kind fun, and sort of depressing, how much stuff I missed the first time around. And how many things I just straight up forgot. One of those, the introduction cinematic is better the 2nd time, much later, sorts of things.
Fashion souls, per progression:
Spoilerrollypolly :
Sagan in his fancypants.
He even light rolls! Which sort of throws me off as much as anything. But it's fun!
The combat is the one thing that's put me off trying Baldur's Gate 3. I didn't enjoy D:OS much, it felt, well, kinda clunky and slow. Took far to long to get through even relatively simple fights - they weren't hard, just time consuming. To be fair, I'm not generally that keen on turn based tactical combat - there are some exceptions, such as the new X-COM games, but in them I find actually taking my turn to be pretty quick and streamlined (the complexity is in the decision making not actually playing it out) - and tend to much prefer pauseable real time, such as Pillars of Eternity, (older) Dragon Age, or, appropriately enough, the first two Baldur's Gate games.
So for those who have played BG3, how "Divinity-esque" is the combat? Would you expect someone with the aforementioned tastes to like it? Also, how frequent are the battles? If I don't enjoy combat that much, can I mostly avoid it and primarily experience the "RP" elements of the game, with just the odd fight here and there, or it it a typical CRPG where you spend the majority of the game in combat?
This is a tough question to answer. It is definitely D:OS2 at its roots more than anything, although the small details are even more present. I won’t spoil some of the seemingly endless array of things you can do in combat unless requested, but it is definitely a little more balanced in terms of how things play out (imo explosive barrels and the like were both a little too common and powerful in the D:OS series).
It is DnD though, so depending on your class, early levels can be a bit simplistic in your combat options. A fighter will give you a lot to do by even level 3, while a wizard takes until level 5 to really start to open up more. Obviously you have a party of many classes but still.
There is a lot of avoiding combat options in this game, but they’re not always evident. Many times it’s as easy as passing an intimidation or persuasion check, but other times it’s finding and knowing you need to use a specific item or potion. I usually try to do a pacifist bard run in DnD games but obviously haven’t tried yet, so I can’t speak on it too much. I have definitely chased combat options though on my first playthrough where I probably could have avoided them. That said the tutorial and the psuedo-tutorial-kind-of 2nd dungeon are mostly all combat, so it takes 3ish hours before you can start dialogue-ing your way out of things. You could skip the 2nd dungeon if you want but eh.
I personally like the enemy density; there is very little “in the wild” and basically everything you run into is actually linked to a full story beat/quest line, although this does mean if you’re speeding through content you can end up underleveled without a great way to catch up.
I’d recommend playing it on easy if the combat isn’t super interesting to you, I’ve tried all of the difficulty levels to mess around and on easy you can definitely probably get through Act 1 without a single fight lasting more than 5-7 minutes, it does pretty heavily tilt things in your favor and removes a lot of the positioning and pre combat buff requirements and makes even bosses far from tanky.
Decided to pick up another Project Highrise expansion, London Life, as they're only $2 even when not on sale. Project Highrise is a skyscraper management simulation game, but it's not really the same as Sim Tower, because the latter is really an elevator management simulation game, and Highrise glosses over elevators and assumes whoever you hired to run them can set them appropriately. It took me a while to get into Highrise as a result, as I thought I was looking for an elevator management game, especially when I was working at a building with a rather unique elevator system and thinking about elevators whenever I was in line for a lift.
Instead, Highrise is about utilities and services and neighboring buildings. In Sim Tower you just added offices and movie theaters and apartments and hotels and restaurants, and things pretty much worked. In Highrise, there are all sorts of office types and apartment types, and they each have their own preferences. Some officers want courier services, some want copy services. It doesn't really make financial sense to set up a copy shop for a single office, so you have to think about what type of tenants you want.
Utilities can also break. Both of my water pumps broke within minutes (in-game) of each other in one tower, and all of my tenants moved out as I didn't have the money to fix them immediately, and that tower became financially insolvent. It's a risk when they're running above 90% of capacity, but it was unlucky for both to fail at the same time, and while I'd just spent the last available funds. In the next tower, I diversified too early with my office types, and along with a slumping economy (and lower rents), the tower was again not viable, though less dramatically. Hard mode can in fact be hard.
Now I'm finally running a financially viable tower, focused on apartments, with water to spare and an available credit line just in case something fails at the wrong time. Fifty people live there, mostly in basic studio apartments, but we're trying to diversify into fancier studios and some one-bedrooms. The economy matters though, if it's in the cellar, it's hard to rent out deluxe units and the premium you can charge for them doesn't cover the cost of their higher upfront cost and amenities over basic utilitarian units. But in good times, the deluxe units have a higher profit margin. I had a bit more fortune with the early-game economy than in the water crisis tower, which helped significantly in terms of having positive cashflow, and am now aiming for a mix of basic and fancier dwellings. Though I haven't figured out why, in the current economy, a basic one-bedroom rents for less than a basic studio despite requiring more space and asking for more services. The economy's still a bit slow, and I suspect in a better economy the one bedroom pays more, but it's a bit puzzling.
I could probably diversify into offices now, and not overextend myself, but I have a mission to build 16 one-bedroom units from the city housing authority, so that's the first priority.
I had a whole list of cool stuff that has happened in Baldur’s Gate 3 but that’s too long to type. All I will say is that it’s like 50 times as freeform in combat and roleplay as Divinity Original Sin 2 was (which was already kind of bonkers in that regard), and the sheer amount of well done elements; voice acting, writing, combat depth, itemization, character creation, options and decisions and branching pathways, and attention to detail is really something special. Easily the best game of 2023 so far and I don’t think anything is particularly close, which is telling because this year had a Zelda game.
For one small example, I pushed a boss character to her death into a chasm at one point in the game, and many hours later I found her corpse in the underdark. If she had had feather fall cast on her she would have survived!
Just found out i can instant travel to any waypoint in the world using the list at the right border in the map after 40 hours playing. Simply my peripheral vision didnt see it. Quirks of using an ultrawide monitor.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.