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Post by mln59 on Jun 20, 2021 17:46:01 GMT -5
dark souls remastered
beat 3 bosses this weekend: ceaseless discharge, firesage demon, and the centipede demon. making progress
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Post by mln59 on Jun 20, 2021 21:09:40 GMT -5
beat the bed of chaos
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 20, 2021 23:17:07 GMT -5
I decided to try playing Baldur's Gate again. I had it almost played through the first time, but I kind of rage quit over an inability to fight the final bosses.
It can be brutal fighting certain magic-users, because they can sometimes, in one spell, turn most of your party against you. There are a lot of one-shot kills in this game, and it's all RNG based (it's a Dungeons & Dragons game).
I just finally beat one fight that I had tried and tried and tried before. The key is that several of the enemies were all focused only on one of my party members. I rushed the other five adventurers to attack one of the two wizards, and just had the targeted character try to run around and kite the opposing swordsmen. After killing the first wizard, I had my party all gang up on the second wizard. Then they took down some kind of ogre. The whole time, these other two guys just kept chasing my little wild-mage. Finally when all other enemies were dead, I ran my wild-mage in circles around the rest of my party members and they eventually hacked up the two swordsmen who never fought back because they were 100% focused on chasing my mage. (There was a plot reason for this -- this was a special mission for having this mage in my party.)
Sometimes when a battle features too many dangerous enemies, you can (if lucky) kite a few of them away one at a time and try to take them down sequentially.
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Post by ndcollins on Jun 21, 2021 11:40:12 GMT -5
I decided to try playing Baldur's Gate again. I had it almost played through the first time, but I kind of rage quit over an inability to fight the final bosses. It can be brutal fighting certain magic-users, because they can sometimes, in one spell, turn most of your party against you. There are a lot of one-shot kills in this game, and it's all RNG based (it's a Dungeons & Dragons game). I just finally beat one fight that I had tried and tried and tried before. The key is that several of the enemies were all focused only on one of my party members. I rushed the other five adventurers to attack one of the two wizards, and just had the targeted character try to run around and kite the opposing swordsmen. After killing the first wizard, I had my party all gang up on the second wizard. Then they took down some kind of ogre. The whole time, these other two guys just kept chasing my little wild-mage. Finally when all other enemies were dead, I ran my wild-mage in circles around the rest of my party members and they eventually hacked up the two swordsmen who never fought back because they were 100% focused on chasing my mage. (There was a plot reason for this -- this was a special mission for having this mage in my party.) Sometimes when a battle features too many dangerous enemies, you can (if lucky) kite a few of them away one at a time and try to take them down sequentially. I haven’t played BG before. Would you suggest it to someone to play? Also, anyone here play hearthstone? And having a real hard time between deciding on a 3060 mobile platform vs a 2070 desktop. I’d like to game on the go 🙃
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 21, 2021 12:04:39 GMT -5
I decided to try playing Baldur's Gate again. I had it almost played through the first time, but I kind of rage quit over an inability to fight the final bosses. It can be brutal fighting certain magic-users, because they can sometimes, in one spell, turn most of your party against you. There are a lot of one-shot kills in this game, and it's all RNG based (it's a Dungeons & Dragons game). I just finally beat one fight that I had tried and tried and tried before. The key is that several of the enemies were all focused only on one of my party members. I rushed the other five adventurers to attack one of the two wizards, and just had the targeted character try to run around and kite the opposing swordsmen. After killing the first wizard, I had my party all gang up on the second wizard. Then they took down some kind of ogre. The whole time, these other two guys just kept chasing my little wild-mage. Finally when all other enemies were dead, I ran my wild-mage in circles around the rest of my party members and they eventually hacked up the two swordsmen who never fought back because they were 100% focused on chasing my mage. (There was a plot reason for this -- this was a special mission for having this mage in my party.) Sometimes when a battle features too many dangerous enemies, you can (if lucky) kite a few of them away one at a time and try to take them down sequentially. I haven’t played BG before. Would you suggest it to someone to play? Also, anyone here play hearthstone? And having a real hard time between deciding on a 3060 mobile platform vs a 2070 desktop. I’d like to game on the go 🙃 I've been playing Hearthstone for a long time, but it's usually on my phone when I'm doing cardio at the gym. I play Wild almost exclusively, as I haven't played a game of Standard in at least a few years. I generally like to play aggro decks or possibly midrange. I don't care for control decks.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 21, 2021 12:10:50 GMT -5
I decided to try playing Baldur's Gate again. I had it almost played through the first time, but I kind of rage quit over an inability to fight the final bosses. It can be brutal fighting certain magic-users, because they can sometimes, in one spell, turn most of your party against you. There are a lot of one-shot kills in this game, and it's all RNG based (it's a Dungeons & Dragons game). I just finally beat one fight that I had tried and tried and tried before. The key is that several of the enemies were all focused only on one of my party members. I rushed the other five adventurers to attack one of the two wizards, and just had the targeted character try to run around and kite the opposing swordsmen. After killing the first wizard, I had my party all gang up on the second wizard. Then they took down some kind of ogre. The whole time, these other two guys just kept chasing my little wild-mage. Finally when all other enemies were dead, I ran my wild-mage in circles around the rest of my party members and they eventually hacked up the two swordsmen who never fought back because they were 100% focused on chasing my mage. (There was a plot reason for this -- this was a special mission for having this mage in my party.) Sometimes when a battle features too many dangerous enemies, you can (if lucky) kite a few of them away one at a time and try to take them down sequentially. I haven’t played BG before. Would you suggest it to someone to play? Also, anyone here play hearthstone? And having a real hard time between deciding on a 3060 mobile platform vs a 2070 desktop. I’d like to game on the go 🙃 Baldur's Gate is a real classic game. That being said, it's clunky to play by modern standards. Even the new remastered Enhanced Edition, which is what I'm playing. You spend a lot of time marching around the map and getting jumped by random monsters, which you then kill and loot for cash. If that sounds kind of familiar, it's because modern 3D RPGs still mainly follow this trope. Baldur's Gate is 2D, sprite-based, real-time (the game internally uses "turns", but you don't), and based on 2e AD&D rules. But it's recognizable as the ancestor of something like Skyrim.
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Post by XAsstCoach on Jun 22, 2021 21:18:48 GMT -5
Hooked on Age of Z Origin, playing on my cellphone. Guess there is a PC version as well. I broke down and bought some "packages", 2 $1.99 package and 1 $4.99 package because I thought they were well worth it.
For the most part, people have been leaving me alone because I've built up quite an army. But I got spooked after seeing a neighbor of the same city size (16) and its ally slightly smaller (14) getting ravaged by a size 19 city. This guy also ravaged another size 16 city before transporting to another location...a hit and run.
Now upgrading to a size 17 city, and using this time to replenish my food, oil and steel stock after using it all up to upgrade my city.
But the one thing I love about this game is the Tower Defense challenge, where waves of zombies tries to reach the exit and we have to stop them with any combination of the 4 turrets (machine gun, missile, EMP and laser). Reached the level 20 Tower Defense and it kept kicking my ass when they overloaded my turrets. At best for the longest time I could finish the challenge with 3 points or more. Just this past weekend I finished with 12 points or more. Then last night I found the right combination and finished with all 22 points.Its a pain in the ass, but fun nonetheless.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 23, 2021 3:41:42 GMT -5
One other thing about Baldur's Gate -- it's old school (or maybe "middle school") about difficulty. New school is that you always "win" videogames -- and if you are really good you play them "ironman". Old school was you play until you lose, and then you start over. Baldur's Gate does let you save game and keep trying until you make it through all the challenges, but it definitely requires you to "get good, noob". And even then, a few bad dice rolls and characters start dying. (There is, however, a "story mode" that makes things a lot easier.)
Most D&D players get somewhat invested in their characters, but the Total Party Kill was always part of D&D. It typically happens when you first lose one character, which lowers your DPS and concentrates the enemy attack so you lose anther character, and that snowballs until everyone is dead. This *will* happen to you if you play Baldur's Gate, so save often. (For plot reasons, you have a main protagonist character called "Gorian's Ward", and if that character dies, it's automatic game over. You have to revert to a previous save or start over.)
At the easier levels you can pay gold to resurrect killed party members, but in this playthrough I treated all deaths as permanent -- aside from reverting to last save. I have one party member I kind of wouldn't mind if he gets killed off, but for now I'm keeping him alive. (I can't dismiss him from the party because I want to keep his wife in the group as my main healer, and if you dismiss him she'll leave. But if he dies, she will probably stay in the group.)
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 24, 2021 22:39:35 GMT -5
By the way, it took me a while to realize that the same studio, Bioware, made both Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 24, 2021 22:53:59 GMT -5
I have one party member I kind of wouldn't mind if he gets killed off, but for now I'm keeping him alive. (I can't dismiss him from the party because I want to keep his wife in the group as my main healer, and if you dismiss him she'll leave. But if he dies, she will probably stay in the group.) I had a major boss battle and this guy died just before I killed the boss. But ... while I was originally going to just leave him dead, I was in a location that there was no returning to. And I simply couldn't haul all my valuable loot out without him as a mule. So I reloaded from save and played the boss battle again, this time managing to keep everyone alive. He's basically a generic fighter, except he's not as good at it as my main character. His wife is a fighter/druid who is an OK damage dealer but really my main healer. I also have a thief who is my archery support and locks/traps expert. My other two characters are kind of iffy. One is a monk who is, honestly, not of great value. He does some OK damage, but he's not able to wear armor and therefore is kind of fragile in the front lines. He has very little ranged potential and his only heal ability is to heal himself, so he's not a great support character either. But I keep him around. The last character is a "wild mage" whose spells sometimes have extra power but sometimes backfire. She's totally "squishy", and must be kept away from melee fighting at all costs. Mostly she just uses her sling, because I don't trust her magic. But she's essential because she can identify magic items for me. (Also, she's one of the potential romance interests for my main character, although in the first game she's only flirty.) I mainly like her because she has some amusing scripted voice acting lines.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 24, 2021 23:13:39 GMT -5
By the way, it took me a while to realize that the same studio, Bioware, made both Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect. I forget that they made Baldur's Gate, which I haven't played. The other BioWare game that I've played is Knights of the Old Republic. I thought they made Alpha Protocol (an underrated RPG in which you play as a James Bond type) too, but that was Obsidian, the makers of Knights of the Old Republic 2.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 25, 2021 6:07:52 GMT -5
I was seriously LOLing at some of the dialog choices being offered in this latest mission. We were out to revenge ourselves on the killers of my monk's brother. We had to fight some "Dark Moon" monks. (He's a monk of the sun.)
They tried to get him to switch allegiances. I had various choices where I could have encouraged that if I had wanted to. But the best one was this really intense discussion of whether the dark or the light had more power, and I was offered up choices that included "I thought we had agreed not to talk about politics or religion."
Shortly after, in the final battle on the top of a mountain, the monk has a very somber moment, and one of my response choices was "Wow, look at the view. Do you think we can see the ocean from here?"
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 26, 2021 14:24:26 GMT -5
The Final Boss Battle was really tough, and after trying it several times I was really ready to move on to the next game. So I switched it to "story mode" and it became incredibly easy. All my heroes suddenly had the strength of a god (literally in AD&D, 25 in any attribute is considered to be godlike -- normal humans are 3d6, so anywhere from 3 to 18). Battle was over very quickly. I did learn one thing, though -- despite having multiple enemies, I should have been focusing entirely on the main antagonist, because when he died to game was over despite my other enemies still trying to fight me.
Like Mass Effect, in Baldur's gate you import your characters from one game to the next. However, for plot reasons one of them left me, and she took a bunch of good gear with her.
The game auto-started "Siege Of Dragonspear" which is some sort of DLC that acts as a prequel to Baldur's Gate II.
Not wanting to totally cheese it all, I switched story mode back off.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 26, 2021 14:59:58 GMT -5
Like Mass Effect, in Baldur's gate you import your characters from one game to the next. However, for plot reasons one of them left me, and she took a bunch of good gear with her. At one point in Mass Effect 1, you have to make a decision that renders one of two characters unavailable for the rest of the series. You also lose whatever gear was on the character that is no longer available. Anyway, the decision between these two characters was very easy. One of them is a character that has pretty mediocre abilities, while the other is arguably the best character to take along on missions in both Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 (regardless of your choice, the character only makes a brief appearance in Mass Effect 2 and is not available as a squad mate). The only thing is that even just regular conversations with this guy will prompt him to develop a crush on my female Shepard, and I had to awkwardly friend-zone him. At least he took it pretty well, though if I remember correctly, he tries again in Mass Effect 3, which will require an additional friend-zoning. Pretty realistic, actually.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jun 26, 2021 16:29:37 GMT -5
Pretty realistic, actually. LOL.
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