Gormongous

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Posts posted by Gormongous

  1. Posted

    I think the goal was to eliminate that decision paralysis that often occurs in Diablo II where you just don't really have a very good sense of what your skill and attribute points will mean long term unless you figure a bunch of stuff out or find a build online, in which case you yourself aren't making many meaningful decisions in the first place. The intended experience of Diablo II is obviously that you just upgrade yourself as you go along and make interesting decisions all along the way, but it becomes pretty obvious as you play the game that doing so has the potential to waste a ton of points due to a lack of information or foresight. This is particularly true with attributes. For any given character build, there is clearly a pretty objectively "perfect" attribute allocation, depending on the needs of the skills and equipment you have, so if you want to actually do the best thing for your character, once again, there aren't a lot of meaningful choices for you to make.

    And the "optimal" stat distributions were really counter-intuitive, too. Every class except the Sorceress had to pour pretty much all its points into Vitality, since every other stat started experiencing vastly diminishing returns past 50 or 60.

    I don't really miss that, I just miss the feeling that having a lot of moving parts exposed and within reach gave me. I should probably just finish my second The Witcher 2 playthrough if that's what I'm craving, though.

  2. Posted

    Just a heads up to people on the fence that there's now a demo available on the game's website here. I haven't played it, so I can't comment on the scenario that's included, but I can comment on how incredibly small the filesize is. At eighty-one megs, I half expect the "demo" to be the main menu and maybe a midi version of the menu music...

  3. Posted

    I'd be surprised if that were actually the case. The number of total possible combinations of skills and runes must be astronomically high.

    If so, that really undermines the main argument I keep hearing about how Blizzard's system of recombinant linear unlocks have made branching skill paths obsolete. If the current system is in place more to facilitate decision-making rather than to balance gameplay, I wonder what inspired Blizzard to leave the honored skill-tree with respec behind. I mean, they don't innovate for the sake of innovating, not anymore, right?

  4. Posted

    The more of Diablo III I play, the more I think the skill system is actually pretty brilliant. The one main thing I miss at this point is the ability to decide "I'm going to be a master of this particular skill" and pump a lot of points into it. There's no real equivalent to that anymore--the rune system only has a bit of that to it--and I wish there were, but I can live with it.

    I can see the design brilliance of it, but it still bothers me. Every single possible skill and kit combination has already been foreseen by Blizzard and tested to death, so there's no real sense of discovering a build and perfecting it, just falling into one of the roles Blizzard has made ready for me at its table. Nothing really wrong with that, but it does kind of kill longevity.

  5. Posted

    Is there anything unique regarding the Berserker's rage, or is it just the basic momentum-equals-more-damage thing? And what about the Outlander, what do they have?

    Looks like you just enter a short period where every hit is a critical, though there are passive skills that add other effects into the mix.

    I have to admit that the Embermage is my favorite playthrough thus far, which is weird because I hate playing ranged DPS.

  6. Posted

    Oh good, they're adding to the complexity beyond simple "use mana" stuff. That alone has my interest enough.

    I was actually just playing through with the Embermage and having too much of a blast to quit until now. With the Engineer, the "charge" mechanic (as it's called in the game) is merely five points you fill in a meter hovering awkwardly above the main UI (this, in addition to the need for a quick-map hotkey and a clear statement of a spell's damage, constitutes my only complaint about the game thus far). These points are spent automatically when you cast certain spells for a supercharged version, e.g. the tongues of fire a hammer-slam sends out are doubled and seek out enemies.

    With the Embermage, it's a bar that fills up, and once it's full you have ten seconds of infinite mana and increased damage. It gives a great rhythm to the play that is really empowering -- kill all the small fry around the boss, then explode in a frenzy of flaming death for ten seconds to take out the big guy himself. This dynamic alone has me considering a preorder for a game that was solidly a wait-and-see before.

  7. Posted

    The first question that pops to my head right here is what separates the engineer's Blitz tree from what the Berserker does?

    The Engineer is oriented more towards two-handed weapons than the Berserker, but more pointedly the Engineer's "Blitz" tree is focused on piling different status effects on the target in addition to damage, while the Berserker's "Hunter" tree is about building and enhancing its "rage" mechanic.

    I mean, all classes have a "rage" or similar momentum-driving mechanic, but most of the Berserker's skills involve tangible benefits to keeping it high, while the Engineer purely uses it as currency to enhance specific attacks.

  8. Posted

    Okay, let's see.

    Engineer: Blitz (mostly two-handed damage skills), Construction (minions and their maintenance), and Aegis (shield and armor enhancement).

    Embermage: Inferno (fire and damage skills), Frost (ice and protection skills), and Storm (electrical and buff skills).

    Berserker: Hunter (melee damage and buff skills), Tundra (crowd control and area-of-effect skills), and Shadow (summoning, shapeshifting, and the kitchen sink).

    Outlander: Warfare (ranged and area-of-effect damage skills), Lore (debuff and crowd control skills, mostly focused on glaives), and Sigil (curses and traps).

    Of course, that's horribly oversimplifying things, since the skill trees are more strongly oriented around a theme than any constellation of synergistic powers. Overall, the Berserker looks the most straightforward (read: boring), but they all have decent overlap for solo play with enough diversity to encourage grouping.

  9. Posted

    I'm trying to squeeze info out of people regarding any class skills that are in, since the main site provides no info to that degree. I think people are too busy having fun. Without me.

    I just beat the first act, so I'm done with the beta for now. I'll hang around while doing laundry today and answer any questions you manage to post before the beta closes tonight.

    Fair warning, a large chunk of high-level skills are hidden for beta testers, with only fifteen to eighteen left visible for each of the four classes.

  10. Posted

    It feels... light? Airy? After Diablo 3 it feels like it lacks punch. Everything feels floaty and dull.

    That's weird, I was just thinking that the amount of leeway it gives you is a breath of fresh air, after the tightly authored experience of Diablo 3. Diff'rent strokes, I guess.

  12. Posted

    I just have to say that this might be one of the best pods I've heard you guys cast. I mean, the Phaedrus Family is great and all, but I always had to cringe if my girlfriend was around while Idle Thumbs was in rape-and-poop mode. I played some snatches of this for her today and she was almost won over just listening to Sean talk about dealing with otherness and privilege as issues that games can and should explore.

    I know you guys are really hesitant to discuss on air the games you make rather than play, whether because of professional concerns or a desire not to appear self-involved, but it was a really great experience for me that I hope happens again.

    I'm also checking out Cloud Atlas from my school's library, which I'll be keeping around for the next year or so until it gets discussed on the book cast, courtesy of my status as venerable grad student.

  14. Posted

    Can't discount the satisfying POP that 40 muskets make when fired in chorus.

    This, pretty much. Crossbows snap and quarrels whistle, but nothing can match the smoke and thunder of a massed gunpowder barrage. It confuses men, terrifies horses, and covers the battlefield in a dense miasma. Sure, that may not seem like much compared to the practical effects of traditional ranged units in equal number, but when you consider that it could all be accomplished by a handful of peasants with a couple weeks of training, it's not hard to see why the changeover took place in the span of barely a generation.

  15. Posted

    My biggest problem with cheating AI in games of system mastery like most strategy titles is that it has the tendency of undermining or totally negating a player's accomplishments, breaking the flow of learning and enjoyment that forms the basis of a gameplay experience.

    If I work hard and gain the skills necessary to annihilate an enemy's entire army in combat, I shouldn't find another one ready-made when I move on to conquer his capital. If I spend time and money building up an infrastructure that can successfully bid for projects in the big leagues, I shouldn't be trumped by money just handed out for free in order to give me a challenge. That's rewarding accomplishment with further punishments, in my opinion. If the player can only be competed with by blatantly breaking the rules for AI opponents, doesn't that suggest that this game hasn't been designed properly with singleplayer dynamics in mind?

  17. Posted

    Thanks. I'll check it out. Though I think my gaming group would only roll their eyes if I brought TI up again.

    That's the problem, isn't it? Once a game has been labeled as a time sink, little can save it in a group's eyes, least of all the promise that it will play quick and smooth the fourth time through. It almost makes you want to hold off introducing your big finds until you're sure you can give the best impression possible.

  19. Posted

    I'm worried about the fact that the single-player was barely playable for me, due to lag. :fart:

    Agreed. I have a monster connection, thanks mostly to an abusive relationship with my ISP, and I was getting serious latency spikes every few minutes. I know it's a stress test and all, but I don't remember it being this bad back when Diablo 2 was being tested.

    Still, it seemed as though the bandwidth it hogged was the only ambitious part about Diablo III. The strict unlock path and anemic gear chase leave it with less player agency than certain entries in the Dungeon Siege franchise, and no amount of production values can make me comfortable with that. Torchlight 2, Path of Exile, and Grim Dawn are all better options, in my mind. If someone buys me a copy, I might play a bit, but otherwise I'm off the Blizzard wagon.

  20. Posted

    Hey everybody, been posting around here for a couple weeks and thought I'd say hello. Longtime fan of the podcast, less a fan of forums, but the Three Moves Ahead thing convinced me to register. I'll try my best not to default into lurking, honest!

  21. Posted

    Not quite done listening to the podcast, but I wanted to duck in while the going's hot and voice my agreement with the simulationist/narrativist tension you guys discerned in recent Total War games. I think Creative Assembly has gradually become aware of the power that atmosphere holds, in addition to the more obvious power of systems, but has not quite learned how to subordinate the latter to the former.

    For instance, one of the developer diaries for Fall of the Samurai trumpeted how much they had to exaggerate the combat prowess of the samurai to make them a credible challenge to modern professional armies. Now, I've learned from practice that the sword still isn't going to triumph over the rifle in this game, save through superior numbers or tactics, but I think that reflects a gameplay philosophy in transition, rather than a failure of vision. If Creative Assembly were devoted to a simulationist sandbox, immediate modernization would be the only option. If they wanted the player to take part in a narrative, both options would be viable if asymmetrical. Instead, we get a mix of both, where samurai are unintuitively effective but ultimately obsolete. It's still an interesting dichotomy, but one reflected elsewhere in the game only inconsistently.

    Myself, I wouldn't mind seeing Creative Assembly move even further towards a more narrativist approach, not least because Rome will probably be their next subject and I want to see it done right, but also because their games have never quite gotten the simulation aspect down pat, even at their nittiest and grittiest. Case in point, the AI still can't play Shogun 2 according to the same ruleset as the player, even with all the compromises in place. Daimyos respawn if killed, units get free experience upgrades, faction income is heavily subsidized, and truces are frequently called to dogpile the player. At its best, you're living the life of a warlord in feudal Japan. At its worst, you're watching the computer put on a puppet show for your benefit. If I have to deal with all that, I'd rather they design the show from the ground up to be worth watching.

  22. Posted

    For a game that consists entirely of combat, the balance and progression isn't particularly great. All the weapons initially feel unexpectedly weak and insubstantial, and it felt like a very long time (10+ hours) before I properly determined what each weapon was best at and what I wanted to spend upgrades on. Once I had settled on a couple of weapons and about 4 offensive plasmids that suited my play style, I was about two-thirds of the way through the game and hadn't really enjoyed it much.

    This resembles my experience from the game when I finally got around to playing it a month or so ago. I spent the first few hours feeling powerless and confused, trying to headshot people with the awful rivet gun, and that persisted until I got my first fully upgraded weapon, which was around the same time I had four or five guns and three or four plasmids. At that point, I totally fell in love with the gameplay, which had been pretty underwhelming thus far. I guess it's a matter of granularity?

    In a way, it feels like the opening of Bioshock 2 is stingy with combat options to maintain some level of atmosphere, a technique that most of us fresh from the first game resent. In fact, they skirt dangerously close to KotOR 2 territory, where you spend the first couple hours running fetch quests naked while people make fun of you for being naked and useless (the main reason I haven't replayed that game with the new content mods).

  23. Posted

    For a game that consists entirely of combat, the balance and progression isn't particularly great. All the weapons initially feel unexpectedly weak and insubstantial, and it felt like a very long time (10+ hours) before I properly determined what each weapon was best at and what I wanted to spend upgrades on. Once I had settled on a couple of weapons and about 4 offensive plasmids that suited my play style, I was about two-thirds of the way through the game and hadn't really enjoyed it much.

    This resembles my experience from the game when I finally got around to playing it a month or so ago. I spent the first few hours feeling powerless and confused, trying to headshot people with the awful rivet gun, and that persisted until I got my first fully upgraded weapon, which was around the same time I had four or five guns and three or four plasmids. At that point, I totally fell in love with the gameplay, which had been pretty underwhelming thus far. I guess it's a matter of granularity?

    In a way, it feels like the opening of Bioshock 2 is stingy with combat options to keep atmosphere in the beginning, which most of us fresh from the first game resent. In fact, they skirt dangerously close to KotOR 2 territory, where you spend the first couple hours running fetch quests naked while people make fun of you for being naked and useless (the main reason I haven't replayed that game with the new content mods).

  24. Posted

    Many of us are passionate enough about strategy games to hold board game nights. We may even own a few games that are lucky enough to be played regularly. This is not the thread for those. Here we talk about the games that we love but will never convince anyone to play. Talk about your failure to convince friends or just spin a fantasy of the play session that will never be, whatever gets the vicarious juices flowing. I have two to start us off:

    1) Britannia - this was the first hobbyist board game I bought, back in my early college years. I was just figuring out that my passion was for history, which the purchase of this helped spur. I had one awesome game that flamed out halfway through, during the Saxon invasion, and it has sat on a shelf ever since. I think the idea of different players controlling multiple factions as they move into and out of the British Isles may be the perfect way to alleviate snowballing and general "dudes on a map" ennui, while special mechanics and objectives for each faction give a great sense of acting out history without being deterministic. Sadly, the initial failure to finish has become notorious and my group is hooked on Dixit now, so unless I tempt three other people from my grad program it'll never happen.

    2) Imperial 2030 - I actually was given this six months ago, so it's not quite a lost cause. Still, people look at it and see "future Risk", which is a definite disadvantage in a group that has already burned out on Risk: Legacy. Much like the advantages with Britannia, I found in a brief demo session with a couple friends that the stockholding mechanic allows for players who dislike confrontation to profit from the conflict of others while disincentivizing attempts to turn the tables or dogpile on the weakest. The little wooden battleships and tanks among the components aren't going to convince anyone of that assessment without a lot of pressure, though. But hey, it'll keep.

  25. Posted · Edited by Gormongous

    It's much more useful in the east and north, where it connects every other province and cuts down on the long marching times/circuitous boat rides. Of course, the less technologically savvy clans start in that area, so the end result is almost the same.

    Edit: I'm honestly trying to keep my glowing first impression of this game in the limelight, rather than the thousand different things that still seem to be wrong with the Total War series, especially ones that I don't really recall in the base campaign. More than anything, the self-destructive tendency of the AI to dogpile the player is back in full force. As the Saga, I've received two boatloads each from the Obama and Odawara on the other side of the map, packed full of green troops. On the one hand, hooray that the AI is attempting amphibious invasions properly now! On the other, both these clans are badly losing wars at home, to the tune of around one province every other turn, and surely those forces would be put to better use defending their home turf. Somehow I doubt they're mistaking the largest faction with the most experienced military for easy pickings.

    I'm complaining here because I get called a baby when I point out the suicidal AI on the CA forums. I'm not a baby! I mean, I don't think I am. I'm winning the campaign full of amphibious landings handily. It's just annoying and immersion-breaking to watch the AI willfully lose the game in order to give me more of a challenge, something I remember cropping up as far back as Rome: Total War. I guess it's something that Creative Assembly fans share with a lot of Paradox fans. Most of them come for the historical verisimilitude, but a vocal minority just wants to have the crap kicked out of them, which definitely doesn't interest me.