Tulpa and I have been trying to get a co-op game going and we keep getting foiled by bugs. First, direct network connections were broken, preventing GOG and Steam copies from cross-play, then Tulpa’s graphics card drivers started strongly disagreeing with the opening boat area and my PC blue-screened. This is the real PC Games Experience.
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can we get some pics of people’s OCs sitting in chairs?
I finally hit a difficulty spike! it was great!
man I am 12 hours into this game and I am only juuuuuust wrapping up act 1
the best
I’m interested in this, having played but not finished OS 1.
Not sure how this one is balanced but I switched my OS1 difficulty to easy because I couldn’t be arsed with the long battles (and the big break of flow you get when failing).
I’m also a less enthusiastinc than Felix about its tone. Far from perfect, I find it pretty irksome actually. It’s one thing to not take yourself too seriously, but the vibe I’m constantly getting is more like we don’t actually give a shit about this. I’m hopeful the inter-relationship stuff in the sequel will be at least engaging enough to distract from this, assuming the writing keeps the same tone.
I’d love to play a full game co-op (as I would the first) If at some point we can get a full party going, I’d totally be willing to commit to a playthrough.
both the tone and the combat are my absolute platonic ideal – I love dumb jokes in the middle of magical epics and huge flexible turn based strategy battles. I can appreciate they aren’t for everyone though, and they’re both rare enough on their own that encountering them together is a delight and really speaks to the devs’ confidence
I wasn’t kidding, a quarter of the way through I think this is plausibly the best “traditional” roleplaying videogame ever made. almost nothing else comes half as close to the flexibility of pen and paper stuff, and absolutely nothing that does is as immediately fun and accessible
(that the reviewer played on “explorer,” i.e. easy mode, is bullshit though)
also I think it’s about time to acknowledge that there are way more European game studios doing great work than American ones these days
It’s not like you have any fewer tactical options playing on easy, though. And considering that it’s no fun at all to die in this game, and the battles go on much quicker on easy, I can’t really condemn the decision.
And while I believe that, yes, reviewers should be good at the games they cover, a turn-based RPG of all things seems like the obvious format to be lenient with the skill curve.
no, but you need them so much less! the absolute best part of this game’s combat is how ridiculously resourceful you can, and need to, be
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OK I just did the battle at the end of the first big act and I no longer have a problem with being on classic as opposed to tactician
it took me like five tries, with respecing in between, and lasted at least 20 minutes when I did win
I am so happy
plus the game forums confirmed that tactician is just sort of pointlessly spongey like in the rerelease of the first game
you can fully respec at your home base anytime you want after the end of act 1
so so so generous
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there’s an elf you meet in prison your supposed to tell her people about back home, but when you get there there’s no option to say anything about it and they act like they want you to go rescue her from some lumber mill nearby. what the hell is the point of anything that even happens in the opening area if they just throw it all out for the next act. weird ass game
I was enjoying it more when I was a gun for hire taking on a contract that had personal meaning and my brother was a ex slave hunting down her former owner, then it kind of just throws that all out and turns into highlander bullshit, which I already did in baldurs gate 2
the highlander bullshit is really silly though which helps
I just hit lv12 and I’ve gotten to the point where my big 2h melee guy starts outdamaging everyone else to a ridiculous degree, but that’s ok, because there are always more buffs for my other party members to stack on him! Plus the revised phys/magic armor system in this game means no matter how hard he hits there are still always some enemies that it’s more efficient for my mage to take down
There don’t seem to be enough reasons to ever use a 2h mage staff given how good shields are and how many of the really powerful spells are so close range that your mages have to tank a little bit
My main just flies and cloaks and warps around being really really hard to hit. I like how most characters have almost no dodging so you rarely get frustrated by misses, unless you build someone specifically to have really high dodging.
The vendor for thief skills in the act 2 town is called “papa thrash”
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I haven’t been able to drink due to medication I’m taking this week so I haven’t made any other plans and apart from work + spending time with my wife + household stuff I’ve pretty much been devouring this game
it’s actually scary to me that other people have already finished it given how much time I’ve already poured into it and I don’t think I can be much more than halfway given a level cap of 20
the “level design,” and how it simultaneously gives you everything to do while expanding gently enough to not be overwhelming, deserves a huge amount of credit
they also kept up the thing from the first game where sometimes you’re meat gated and the solution is doing more quests around town, which is great
there’s a fight on an oil platform about 2/3 of the way through that’s so ridiculous and has so many waves of enemies I thought the quest logic had glitchef
i don’t think anything has sold me on the game as much as this last post
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it’s great because their engine is specifically very good at handling arenas covered in three different kinds of terrain effects from enemies who have literally come and gone from the battle while you’re having it after like 40 minutes of utter chaos during which you can save and come back and even teleport one of your characters away to go do some other quests and then be like “oh right, this battle is still going on”
and this is one of the few times they really show off
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so I read in an interview before release that they basically intended the early access area, the first big act, to be about 25% of the game, the second big act to be 50%, and the last act 25%.
after putting like, 15 hours(?) into the first act, I thought “nuh uh, no way”
second act is definitely about thirty hours long by itself
and larian are so so good at making you feel powerful but cranking up the challenge at the same time (largely because fights depend on area control and debuffs)!! there’s been like four or five times where I’ll get some amazing new armor and then right after that I’ll have a battle where only one of my characters is alive at the end (and usually not the one with the new armor)
and like, that they’ve done this in game with almost no reliance on RNG to balance combat seriously puts stuff like new xcom to shame
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