Author Topic: What games are you playing 2014?  (Read 183448 times)

DjinnAndTonic

  • Genie and Potion with Alcoholic Undertones
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 6938
  • "When you wish upon a bar~"
    • View Profile
    • RPGDL Wiki
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1100 on: April 24, 2014, 11:33:35 PM »
Y'know, I honestly found Pepperoni funny. If they didn't keep throwing him into scenes with Goto, I think he would have actually worked as comic relief (and hey, he actually got a character development arc, so he's not all bad... unlike Goto who they never actually reveal anything about....)

Twilkitri

  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 1203
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1101 on: April 24, 2014, 11:41:51 PM »
Freelancer in BD does have something to counteract it, it has a skill set baked in to it (that kind of sucks I guess) and Mimic.  It is pretty flexible and if you grind out that Job Mastery you have a super strong carry class (positive %s in all stats is exceptional).

This lets Freelancer fill more design space than somewhere between useless and end game only uberclass.  It isn't successful at everything it could ideally (like hey it WOULD be cool if it was a decent choice the entire game kind of like special character classes in FFT are), but it definitely is hitting a wider space than FF5 and FFD Freelancers did.

Mimic seems kind of useless if you haven't set up your other party members to do things which are worth mimicking or are possible to mimic? During Bartz's time as a mimic in my FFVA playthrough there was certainly no point in mimicking Faris and Lenna (especially during the first half of that time when he still had the Healing Staff equipped), and as far as I could tell there isn't a way to swap to other characters with pending turns so there was no real way to ensure that he went after Krile.

I never used the Mimic command in BD, but it feels like it would require the same conditions? It's hard for me to really think about because lategame BD my party was entirely geared around everyone using shadowflare, so there wasn't anything that one person was doing that any other person wasn't also doing anyway. I don't really remember what other jobs were even capable of. (Reading up on BD Mimic, it claims that mimicking things doesn't consume any items, so it could have been easier on my finances to have people mimicking shadowflares rather than creating them organically... I don't remember what I had set as my other major ability slots, so I don't know whether that would have been viable or not.)

Anyway, as far as I can tell this was specifically in response to:
Also, the concept of the Freelancer getting some of the passive abilities/stat changes from each mastered job for free helps to counteract the limited ability space somewhat, for all that it's probably a little extreme [...]. Feels like BD could have done with something along those lines.
but I guess I wasn't very clear. I was admiring the fact that when you swap back to freelancer in the endgame you get things like Learning without having to devote any ability slots to it. BD's freelancer having its own personal skillset doesn't really answer the same question... especially since I would personally prefer to be able to select a different skillset in the place of Miscellany. I'll agree that them having Miscellany gives you a reason to use them for a time? And I definitely had Divining Rod and Dungeon Master equipped for most of the rest of the game after I got them, so I'm not trying to disparage that concept.

Just... Freelancers having their own skillset when the game doesn't offer much more room for abilities to be equipped than FFV makes the problem in question worse. I don't really have an answer offhand as to what could have been done to make it better.

There's something like 33 passive abilities in FFV (discounting the advance classes), and you get a single slot to equip one in, and they're competing for that slot with something like 40 active abilities. When you go Freelancer, you get up to 13 of those passives by default, and a further 11 of them are redundant compared to the Freelancer's inherent capabilities, so you now essentially have 9 passives to choose from (still competing with ~40 active abilities) with two slots to put them in.

BDWTFF has something like 166 passive abilities and you get five slots, except a lot of them take up more than one slot. Some classes get some support abilities for free, but even with that in place there's a ludicrous difference between what you have access to and what you can actually use. I'm not saying that Freelancer should get a big chunk of them for free, and granted there are a fair amount that are useless unless you have particular active abilities in use... but something should be different. I have no idea what.


(To be fair, those numbers are terribly unrepresentative because they assume that the character has mastered everything. Unfortunately I don't know what a reasonable amount of mastered jobs is for BD...)
« Last Edit: April 25, 2014, 12:16:53 AM by Twilkitri »

Grefter

  • Villain.
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 10386
  • True and Honest. Smarter. More aggressive.
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1102 on: April 25, 2014, 12:26:42 AM »
Numbers may be unrepresentative, but still valid litmus test for the discussion at hand.  Not anything I will take umbrage over certainly!

Not really disagreeing that FF5 Freelancer is probably stronger yeah.  More that they are different and are designed to fill different functions because of it.  Miscellany being locked is definitely a big hit to their use (if all you care about in the Misc is Mimic then they are like a Mime -2 potential skill slots!).  End game FF5 Freelancer is incredibly strong if you have worked on your dudes but is 100% reliant on you seeing classes through to their logical conclusion, it is very specifically a late to end game thing.  BD they are a mix of something you can use during the game and maybe use end game.  It certainly helps decentralize character development away from a specific end game carrier class like FF5 does in normal play.

It hits a happy medium between that and Universalist in Blue Dragon, which is a game where you have "Universalist" which is like your Freelancer.  Universalist sucks forever to be in really, but you want your entire party to spend time in it because that is how you unlock more skill slots and some special accessory slots (that are quite powerful).

It isn't necessarily about stronger/weaker that matters but my personal opinion on the design, I think Bravely Default's method of that character class archetype is significantly more flexible and makes for more interesting scenarios personally, so is "Better" to me.  Mileage may vary of course.
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

hinode

  • Enough expository banter! Now we fight like men!
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 1352
  • And ladies! And ladies who dress like men!
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1103 on: April 25, 2014, 12:30:55 AM »
FFV Mimic certainly has it uses (conserving MP on really expensive doublecast chains, limitng Elixir use on Magic Pots, etc.) but the BD version is really easy to exploit due to the Brave system: just pick a really good move with an expensive MP/BP cost and mimic it thrice. My Hero (+1 BP for entire team, 2BP cost) is the most popular choice and lets you crank out a ton more turns on your other three PCs.

Bravely Default not only has more passive abilities than FF5, it also has much more powerful ones like Holy One, Rise from Dead, Pierce Magic Defense, Obliterate, etc. Being able to stack a larger quantity of them would just make the game even more absurdly breakable than it already is.

Cmdr_King

  • Strong and Full of Love
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5562
  • Is Gay
    • View Profile
    • CK Blog
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1104 on: April 25, 2014, 01:50:03 AM »
Star Ocean: The Last Hope- beat.  So... this game is tri-Ace embracing all their own stereotypes, for good and ill.  The core concepts are fine.  First human space exploration, the events that ultimately lead to the UP3, broadly but not overtly including the basic defining elements of all three previous games.  And then they choose to go about most of them in the wordiest and/or stupidest way possible, so that even perfectly good material seems overdrawn and needlessly melodramatic.  Final boss is a fine example.  Kindness+Despair+UNLIMITED POWER==Kill 'em All.  Great.  Valid.  When you spend five minutes monologueing on the point, you make your audience think they're being treated like an idiot.  Hell, maybe you are.  You took the goodwill you won from your plot and piss bunches of it away.  Silly.

That said, the gameplay flow i find a lot better than SO3's.  It's slimmed down just enough that you have room to play and find what works for you.  The rewards are less stingy and the bonus board much easier to maintain, so being a bit bad at the game doesn't snowball into utter suffering like SO3 often did.  Cutting out usage==move power was a good move. 

On the whole I can say plenty about the game, but in the end it doesn't elicit strong emotion.  Just kinda alright.  6/10.
CK: She is the female you
Snow: Speaking of Sluts!

<NotMiki> I mean, we're talking life vs. liberty, with the pursuit of happiness providing color commentary.

Sierra

  • N I G H T M A R E E Y E S
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5135
  • Go get dead, angel face
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1105 on: April 25, 2014, 01:56:32 AM »
Can you stack Spell Uses+ gear?  The only renewable source of herbs is once the FINAL BOSS goes down.  Ornifex just so that's in the open.

I'm pretty sure this works as long as it's different types of gear. I.E. multiple rings are out but ring + Licia's hood would work. Usual Souls effect stacking, game lets you get away with it as long as it's coming from different sources.

Not!Licia and Sorc run up through NG+. I don't feel like messing with either of them (for the remaining trophies) at the moment so I'm running PUGILISM SOULS through NG+ instead en route to proper machinegunning. I've already punched everything to death naked once, so I'm switching in the Avelyn for occasional ranged support and running around in the Singer's Dress. Because I've never ever seen anyone else use it (and also because boobs).

Smashed up through balrog and then went back for Sentinels/gargoyles. Boxer mode is still great but I really want that Ring of Blades +2 already. There's a lot of things that just barely survive one or two combos. Deaths so far for the hell of it:

-Birds thrown at face for massive damage
-2x smashed into paste by red phantom goon outside chariot fog door. What a bastard.
-(Not a death but) holy crap you can roll under the chariot's wheel spikes. I thought for sure I was toast there.
-Retrieving dull ember so I can buy infinite heavy bolts later, oh shit where'd that red phantom come from. Damn the Iron Keep is rude on NG+.
-Smelty. Smashed into ground by jumping attack 90% into battle -> "Oh god if he explodes right now I won't have a chance to escape" -> he explodes right now and I don't have a chance to escape. Cheap motherfucker.
-Did you know that the gargoyles can make lightning rain from the sky? I did not know this.
-Horrible dogswarm after gargoyles. Avelyn, I choose you!

Unsure how to get optimal damage out of Avelyn(s). I set the one I got from NG to Raw because duh there's no stat-scaling to lose anyway. Unsure if elemental weapon likely to do more damage, figure not because high single element attack rating generally > two mediocre multi-element attack ratings.

Oh and just because I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, just confirming that patch definitely did code in that succeeding on a summon will always turn you human now. Cool, that always should've been a feature instead of a bug!

Fudozukushi

  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 1552
  • Born to hunt Death Knights
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1106 on: April 25, 2014, 02:12:14 AM »
Pffft, who needs to roll under the Chariot spikes when you can just survive the hit instead. 

Iron Keep in NG+: Is there a Red Phantom there in NG?  No.  Put Red Phantom there for NG+.  I honestly think it's easier to go through Smelter than the normal path.

I've seen the Gargs do lightning but it's never hit.

Mundane probably does the most for scaling if you can understand the nonsense of how it works.

Meeplelard

  • Fire Starter
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5356
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1107 on: April 25, 2014, 03:48:33 AM »
Kirby Return to Dreamland: Beaten, gotten all gears, and have a 94% completion.  I'm guessing the other 6% comes from doing challenges and such, maybe I will go and try those.

Dunno if I'll do extra mode.  On one hand, the game is fun; on the otherhand, not sure I want to collect all 120 Gears again because some can be annoying to get as the game has lengthy stages at times.


That said, game is what you expect out of Kirby.  Classic platforming fun with lots of fun powers to mess around with, all while being cute.  See, it's classic Kirby games that make Kirby's Epic Yarn embarrass itself further to me.

Kirby games have that sense of "cuteness" but in a way that compliments gameplay; they clearly made the gameplay first, then went with the cute Kirby style second. 
Kirby's Epic Yarn, they tried to mask the game's lack of substance with adorableness, and went way overboard, to the point of "IT'S SO CUTE YOU CANNOT HATE IT ^_^" but in the end, no matter how stylized or cute a game is, it doesn't offset the fact that KEY is just boring.  Return to Dreamland didn't need that, by contrast, to be fine, it just added a fun little stylistic touch when the basic enemy your slaughtering are Waddle Dees with a 10 foot tall sword.

Basically, anyone who likes Kirby games should play this.  It also has NSMB style Multiplayer, though it doesn't seem to have quite the same "Friendship Murder Ratio" those games have.  You can dick around in subtle ways like running into a door to screw others over from getting power ups, but nothing major, so definitely stronger sense of co-op instead of trolling, for better or worse.  One major advantage this has is that you can play as DeDeDe, which let's face it, is infinitely better than different colored Toads!
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

Fudozukushi

  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 1552
  • Born to hunt Death Knights
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1108 on: April 25, 2014, 06:09:55 AM »
Dark Souls 2: Prettygirl marches on.  Smelter, Old Iron King, DDF, Gargs, Lost Sinner, RRV, The Rotten, DragonriderX2, Looking Glass Knight all down.  Being a nigh-unstoppable death machine helps so much.  Scrounged up enough Twinkling Titanite to get the Staff to +4 through Iron Keep.  +5 came after Looking Glass Knight.  Got the dark chime in the castle and had just enough Chuncks to +10 it off the bat.  Currently do 612 with Dark Orb, 650 with Resonant Soul and 1152 with Great Resonant Soul.  DEATH TO MY ENEMIES!  Death counter's up to five.  Those giant pricks in the water-part of Sinner's Rise got me once because the game suddenly didn't feel like having my attack connect.  Randomly stuck into the wall during a Pit descent.  Kill the first lizard in Brightstone, drop down and roll into the damn sandpit.  BAH! 

Black Gulch Chasm done.  Gonna humiliate Darklurker before crying in the Shrine of Amane.

Cmdr_King

  • Strong and Full of Love
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5562
  • Is Gay
    • View Profile
    • CK Blog
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1109 on: April 25, 2014, 08:32:47 AM »
So last week I meant to comment on XG talk but forgot, then random internet blackout again.  Woot.

Anyway the whole Wave Existence thing is not strictly necessary, no.  It's there because of the whole inverted gnosticism thing XG loves.  There's no particular reason you couldn't achieve a similar end by having the Zohar possess some consciousness or even having the Contact thing be that Fei imparted consciousness to it.  But symbolism.

Within the context of the story it's relatively straightforward for a lategame Xenogears plotpoint, it's just not presented very well.  the Zohar itself 'actualizes potential phenomena', ie selects future events from among all possible things that COULD happen.  When ancient space humans hooked tested out their control unit for the Zohar (I believe this was one of the eleventy billion functions of Kadmony, but I could be wrong), they essentially just told it to generate as much power as it could.  Tapping into upper dimensional space achieved that end, but also managed to trap a being of that space in the material universe, which having no other place to go manifested in the Zohar.  Being trapped in the Zohar, the WE could access its basic functions, but couldn't directly interact with the world, and since the Zohar is 'Perfect', something like "the Zohar was destroyed" is not a potential phenomena that can happen.  So, the Contact.  WE puts part of his being into Abel, and since Abel is a physical being that can actually directly interact with the world, he could actually use the Zohar to break the laws of physics where the Zohar by itself could not.  Being a child he couldn't really comprehend all that, and before anything could be resolved the Eldridge crashed.  All of which is in the game, just it's part of a weird text dump by the Wave Existence that you see all of once and most of the material is barely referenced again.

Since Abel died, WE had to use the Zohar to reincarnate him.  If memory serves Elly's reincarnation is similarly accomplished, but done by Deus since she's essentially a missing piece of Kadmony whereas if the Contact stayed dead the Zohar juice he possesses would just go back to the Zohar.  That's one of those PW things though.
CK: She is the female you
Snow: Speaking of Sluts!

<NotMiki> I mean, we're talking life vs. liberty, with the pursuit of happiness providing color commentary.

Sierra

  • N I G H T M A R E E Y E S
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5135
  • Go get dead, angel face
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1110 on: April 25, 2014, 10:13:47 AM »
Pffft, who needs to roll under the Chariot spikes when you can just survive the hit instead. 

Iron Keep in NG+: Is there a Red Phantom there in NG?  No.  Put Red Phantom there for NG+.  I honestly think it's easier to go through Smelter than the normal path.

I've seen the Gargs do lightning but it's never hit.

Mundane probably does the most for scaling if you can understand the nonsense of how it works.

I'm less scared of Smelty than I am of red Alonne captains.

And Mundane is utterly baffling.

Fenrir

  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 2397
  • Social Justice Archer
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1111 on: April 25, 2014, 11:48:01 AM »
I only have 2 spell slots so I'm not sure Spell Use + gear would help that much. I'll try anyway!
- I can't have the Hex hood because that requires 20 in faith/int (unless you can kill the dude for it? I doubt it IIRC you only get the staff from him).
- Equipping the Northern Ring would mean dying in one hit.
- I guess I could go with Licia's helm (I don't care about not meeting the stat requirement right?)
- Anything else?


Doesn't mundane just scale off your lowest stat? So it's just for jack of all trade characters who want to have 15 in everything.

DjinnAndTonic

  • Genie and Potion with Alcoholic Undertones
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 6938
  • "When you wish upon a bar~"
    • View Profile
    • RPGDL Wiki
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1112 on: April 25, 2014, 11:59:46 AM »
So last week I meant to comment on XG talk but forgot, then random internet blackout again.  Woot.

Anyway the whole Wave Existence thing is not strictly necessary, no.  It's there because of the whole inverted gnosticism thing XG loves.  There's no particular reason you couldn't achieve a similar end by having the Zohar possess some consciousness or even having the Contact thing be that Fei imparted consciousness to it.  But symbolism.

Within the context of the story it's relatively straightforward for a lategame Xenogears plotpoint, it's just not presented very well.  the Zohar itself 'actualizes potential phenomena', ie selects future events from among all possible things that COULD happen.  When ancient space humans hooked tested out their control unit for the Zohar (I believe this was one of the eleventy billion functions of Kadmony, but I could be wrong), they essentially just told it to generate as much power as it could.  Tapping into upper dimensional space achieved that end, but also managed to trap a being of that space in the material universe, which having no other place to go manifested in the Zohar.  Being trapped in the Zohar, the WE could access its basic functions, but couldn't directly interact with the world, and since the Zohar is 'Perfect', something like "the Zohar was destroyed" is not a potential phenomena that can happen.  So, the Contact.  WE puts part of his being into Abel, and since Abel is a physical being that can actually directly interact with the world, he could actually use the Zohar to break the laws of physics where the Zohar by itself could not.  Being a child he couldn't really comprehend all that, and before anything could be resolved the Eldridge crashed.  All of which is in the game, just it's part of a weird text dump by the Wave Existence that you see all of once and most of the material is barely referenced again.

Since Abel died, WE had to use the Zohar to reincarnate him.  If memory serves Elly's reincarnation is similarly accomplished, but done by Deus since she's essentially a missing piece of Kadmony whereas if the Contact stayed dead the Zohar juice he possesses would just go back to the Zohar.  That's one of those PW things though.

I found this whole explanation pretty interesting. It's weird that despite that filling in a lot of holes in the timeline, it doesn't really feel like it explained much of anything...

I guess it helped clarify that the Zohar is essentially more powerful than the Wave Existence? I didn't really know what the Zohar was supposed to be. I still kinda don't, apart from apparently "Perfect" and has technobabble-based wish-granting powers, I guess? I always had kinda assumed that Abel's wishes were just directly granted by "God"/WE, so I wasn't quite sure what the Zohar was for, apart from looking cool in cutscenes?

Cmdr_King

  • Strong and Full of Love
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5562
  • Is Gay
    • View Profile
    • CK Blog
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1113 on: April 25, 2014, 07:35:23 PM »
Well, that's just the most reasonable explanation for what's going on based on the actual dialog presented in the game.  It's just easy to miss it because the phrase 'actualize potential phenomena' will make most people's eyes glaze over.  if you want a simpler comparison, it's the Infinite Improbability Drive.  On its own it doesn't do much.  If you can tell it how unlikely something is, it can make that exceedingly unlikely thing happen.  God is trapped in there, so he can mimic the functions of the computer that's supposed to be hooked up to it, but he can't just tell it to blow up because that's impossible, not just improbable.  The Contact, though, can tell it to to do many improbable things at once that impossible things become possible, because love and human will and shit.

(That's the shortcut to Xenogears of course.  Is something confusing?  Try using 'Love' as an answer and build back until that makes sense.  You have a 99% chance of being completely right.)
CK: She is the female you
Snow: Speaking of Sluts!

<NotMiki> I mean, we're talking life vs. liberty, with the pursuit of happiness providing color commentary.

Fudozukushi

  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 1552
  • Born to hunt Death Knights
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1114 on: April 25, 2014, 08:30:53 PM »
Melentia will sell NPC gear if they die, including Felkin.  I'll scrounge around the wikis to see if there's anything else useful.  The Penal gloves increase Pyro damage I know that.

SnowFire

  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 4935
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1115 on: April 25, 2014, 09:47:35 PM »
CK, re XG: I think that's taking that line a little too much?  Sounds to me like it just means "Zohar is really powerful and makes stuff happen" not "is the Infinite Improbability Drive."  Also...  wait, Abel was the contact before the crash?  I always thought it was *after* the crash and the security protocols were a mess & all that he became the contact.  Certainly IIRC becoming the Contact and the creation of Elly were linked, and there's no need to create Elly until Abel is alone and abandoned on the planet...

Braevly Default: Round 2 of the Templar Asterisk.  My offense gets rolling much more easily this time thanks to setting Hunting on my fighters (which is good since Ringabel's magical offense is laughable - still stuck on L3 Blizzaras, no Blizzagas).  Sadly in the third phase of the fight (!!!  wat), with the boss at less than half health, he manages to KO 2 people going to 0 BP and Shin Smash had worn off again, oh #$%^.  (Shin Smash wearing off unexpectedly: basically the worst thing ever.)  You know what happens next - I think he might actually have good AI and that if he sees only 2 people alive, he just unloads.  He goes to -4 BP and goes first and messily slaughters me in a Default-ignoring rage.  Grah.  (His Default-Piercer basically OHKOs anyone except for Angelic Ward proc'ing Agnes; his other attacks OHKO non-Defaulters usually - except maybe Giant Slayer - and inflict high damage that usually requires you be at full health to survive it even when Defaulting.)  Okay, dangiit, the time has officially come to buy Norende Gear.  Glad I held off, Red Caps are STILL good now and could have been had cheaply in like C1 where they'd be overcentralizing, and sticking some Bloody Shields on my mages.  Grabbed a Heike Gauntlet as well for some more survivability.  Well this boss is certainly being memorable enough!  We'll see how my third attempt goes...

Cmdr_King

  • Strong and Full of Love
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5562
  • Is Gay
    • View Profile
    • CK Blog
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1116 on: April 25, 2014, 10:24:09 PM »
Maybe it was during the crash, but yes.  Remember: kid survived the space ship self destructing, Deus intentionally gunning down escape pods, and the damn thing landing on the planet complete with flaming wreckage and all.
(It's reasonable to assume Abel's mom had died before Deus escaped, hence wandering around the ship alone in the first place.  There's also some suggestion, albeit nothing substantial, that his mom was the daughter of the Eldridge's captain, hence why he'd even be able to find the presumably-high-security power generator for everything ever.)

I'm not entirely sure what your objection is to the comparison.  It's just a more easily understood example of a similar concept.  What the Zohar is explicitly stated to do (cause things to happen) or not be able to do (destroy itself) doesn't suggest much one way or the other in terms of its limits.  The reincarnation thing is PW stuff, nothing in the game really suggests the Zohar is the mechanism by which that happens (though it's a reasonable conclusion, so the PW word of god confirmation is plenty good for me).
CK: She is the female you
Snow: Speaking of Sluts!

<NotMiki> I mean, we're talking life vs. liberty, with the pursuit of happiness providing color commentary.

Captain K.

  • Do you even...
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 2176
  • ...lift books bro?
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1117 on: April 25, 2014, 11:15:45 PM »
Marvel Heroes:  So lots of free stuff given away this week.  My random Hero was Thing and random costume was for Thing so I lucked out since that was the next character I was going to buy anyway.  Now I can save up for Invisible Woman.

Fudozukushi

  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 1552
  • Born to hunt Death Knights
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1118 on: April 26, 2014, 08:26:58 AM »
Your Daily Dark Souls 2 video.

Everything Magic Related I could find after doing a half-assed check.

Head:
Black Hood: +2 INT/FTH, improves casting speed, 16 INT, Trade in Four Souls with Straid.
Black Witch Mask: +Magic damage, -HP.  Rare drop from a oneshot enemy so lol.  20 INT.
Black Witch Hat: +1 Attunement Slot.  20 INT.
Chaos: +3INT, faster cast, 16INT/FTH.
Hexer: +1INT/FTH, +1 Spell use, no requirements to equip.  Requires killing Felkin then buying from the Merchant Hag.
Moon Hat: +2 INT, no requirements.
Saint Hood: +1 FTH, +1 Spell use, CEO

Everything Else:
Lion Mage Set increases Casting Speed.
Penal Gloves: Boost Pyro damage by 7.5% woooooo.

Rings:
Ring of Knowledge and Ring of Prayer will boost Int/FTH +5 if you get really desperate.
Third Dragon+Life Ring2 should equal out the HP loss of the Northern0.

Dark Souls 2: Prettygirl's great swimming adventure.  Demon of Song, Royal Aegis, Authority the Royal Rat, Guardian Dragon, down.  Despite playing a quarter of the day away I feel like I've made no progress.  Damn you Dragon Aerie.  Death Counter's up to 12 now I think.  Fun with Lava in Iron Keep(eventually when I did grab everything I was outright invulnerable to the lava damage), the great Death pit in Undead Crypt got a life as usual, Royal Aegis got a life because of the usual hammer-roll crap, one of the Aerie drakes got another because I'm a twit and healed right next to his foot, and finally the drop to the zipline platform had me drop on the rope bridge's rope-rail.  UGH.  Anyway, found the Black Knight Greatax in Iron Keep.... and the Greatsword there too!  Finished Dark set for how irrelevant that is.  Two giant Memories cleared.  Dark just carves the path of death through them.  On another note, for some utterly absurd reason on my Club-guy, the Royal soldiers stopped attacking him.  Not just the ballista dudes ignoring him, no the archers and infantry didn't care either.  But on Prettygirl they're back to being jerks.  I think maybe killing Giant Lord makes them non-hostile?  Well whatever, should finish up next playthrough.  Probably gonna skip Ancient Dragon since I can't gyrm greatshield it and whoooooooo cares anyway.

Captain K.

  • Do you even...
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 2176
  • ...lift books bro?
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1119 on: April 26, 2014, 09:30:16 AM »
DS2:  Wow Ancient Dragon's AI is horrible.  Ridiculously easy once you know what to look for.  Vendrick on the other hand...

2 hours straight of running through the area (enemies are already dead) and fighting him and I still haven't beaten him.  Combination of him being insanely fast plus rolls going forward instead of to the side due to his crazy pivot-in-place mechanics.  I think he's about to replace the Ruin Sentinels as hardest boss in the run.

And you don't have to kill Felkin, he gives you his full gear if you have 20 int and faith.

Grefter

  • Villain.
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 10386
  • True and Honest. Smarter. More aggressive.
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1120 on: April 26, 2014, 09:38:07 AM »
Fudo miiiiight be talking in context of Fenrir's SL1 run (base 6 in all stats if I have my useless information for game I don't plan to play lined up) where I would expect 20/20 in caster stats might be a bit hard?

Bravely Default - Unlocked Swordmaster.  Intend on trying to use it a bit.  Trying to dodge some of what seem to be the standard end game builds.  Think I am going to fail because seems Salvemaker is more widely used than I expected (Because hoooooolyshit is it strong).
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

Fudozukushi

  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 1552
  • Born to hunt Death Knights
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1121 on: April 26, 2014, 09:46:07 AM »
Vendrick got a buff I guess?

Fudo miiiiight be talking in context of Fenrir's SL1 run (base 6 in all stats if I have my useless information for game I don't plan to play lined up) where I would expect 20/20 in caster stats might be a bit hard?

Yeah, that exactly.

Cmdr_King

  • Strong and Full of Love
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5562
  • Is Gay
    • View Profile
    • CK Blog
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1122 on: April 26, 2014, 10:05:21 AM »
Bravely Default - Unlocked Swordmaster.  Intend on trying to use it a bit.  Trying to dodge some of what seem to be the standard end game builds.  Think I am going to fail because seems Salvemaker is more widely used than I expected (Because hoooooolyshit is it strong).

Even if you don't use a Salvemaker much, your healer absolutely wants to pit stop there for Healing Lore so yeah, pretty much unavoidable.  There's an alternate viable setup, but Spiritmaster is generally agreed as one of the overall best classes so... yeah not much better for "try to avoid stereotypical builds".
CK: She is the female you
Snow: Speaking of Sluts!

<NotMiki> I mean, we're talking life vs. liberty, with the pursuit of happiness providing color commentary.

Sierra

  • N I G H T M A R E E Y E S
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 5135
  • Go get dead, angel face
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1123 on: April 26, 2014, 10:12:47 AM »
New patch? Okay. Change notes say something along the lines of "users can enter the Shrine of Winter." Whuzzuh? We could always do that. I have no idea what this means.

Forgot to mention I was finally lucky enough to get Rowena's awesome skull hat to drop. Yes! But PUGILISM SOULS is too stupid to wear it. :(

Additional deaths: the red phantom outside Drangleic Castle is a colossal douche (who can apparently murder the Herald as collateral damage if you kite him back that far); throne room battle. Yeah I called in sunbros to nuke the latter. No shame!

Grefter

  • Villain.
  • DL
  • Denizen
  • *
  • Posts: 10386
  • True and Honest. Smarter. More aggressive.
    • View Profile
Re: What games are you playing 2014?
« Reply #1124 on: April 26, 2014, 10:22:08 AM »
It isn't "Avoid stereotypes" so much as just wanting to have a different experience.  Spiritmaster was what I saw a lot of people pushing for end game.
NO MORE POKEMON - Meeplelard.
The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.