Bjorn

Neon, that's awesome! I'm glad things have had such a turn around for you.

Bars exist because family and loneliness exists.

I feel like it's got a very steep learning curve, one that has ended up being higher than I care to mess with. I've found a few games I've used it on, but I prefer the DS4 to it.

I think I'll quit SanctuaryRPG Black Edition. It's a cool game, and I'm glad that I've put about 20 hours in it, but playing on permadeath mode to unlock stuff is ultimately a bit too frustrating. I've lost 3 characters, making further progress each time, but there's a fair amount of grinding levels, gold and crafting items with each new character, enough so that it kills my enthusiasm for starting from scratch again.

Now you can start XCOM 2 The supports got a crazy overhaul in 2 that makes them bunches better (they get a drone that can remote hack, heal and/or attack depending on how you spec it). Psyconauts are still OP as fuck though. There's an ability that once per mission you can perma-mind control someone, plus the normal mind control that runs out.

I remember quite liking Pulaski far more than Crusher. I've really warmed on Lwaxana over the years. She's intentionally boisterous to the point of annoying, but she's also arguably one of the characters who is most full of life and love. And, for Star Trek, she's the rare example of an older (Majel would have been around 60 at the time) woman who's not just still sexually active, but vibrantly so (something not nearly as common as a male character being so, but of course this was also concurrent with Golden Girls, so there's that). As much as I love TNG, I tend to agree with some criticisms I've read that the crew as a whole is just kind of too perfect and harmonious at times. Characters like Lwaxana and Pulaski introduced some badly needed discord and conflict. Very few characters actually unsettle Picard, and Lwaxana was the best at that.

I had the most perfect co-op session last night. I loaded up my pyromancer, who I made weeks ago and hadn't really done much with. Wanted to rush the catacombs to get some pyro stuff. Got to the bonfire where you meet Anri for the first time, and as soon as I lit it, got invaded. Didn't feel like dealing with an invader, so I summoned help, some dude named "I help anytime" (the thing the giant archer buddy says). He was one of those coop lords, just helps people though entire areas. We murderized the invader and then he just led me on a pretty efficient path through the area. Killed the Black Knight, got the important stuff around the crab swamp, killed the two npcs guarding the entrance to the poison swamp, went through the poison swamp getting some important things, turned off two of the tower fires. And then we headed up to the Wolf of Farron bonfire. Lit it, and went up the elevator to take on the Stray Demon. This is by far the longest coop session I've done in Ds3 at this point. We get to the Stray Demon, my buddy points, and we both rush forward. Before we can do anything, the Demon picks up my new buddy and tosses him off the bridge. It couldn't have been a better ending to a coop session just because it was so unexpected.

Yah!

I really love the planning and execution that goes into the guys who try and one shot bosses. The Pontiff actually reminded me most of the abyss cavern boss in DS2 (the angel looking thing), which also featured a clone/split late in the fight. I ended up handling the Pontiff in much the same way as that boss, which was just to go hyper aggressive as soon as the clone appeared and finish the fight as quickly as possible, as trying to be all defensive and dodgy would just get me killed with attacks potentially coming from two directions. But I never run a sorcerer, so I'm not sure how feasible that is, or what good intel weapons are available in 3 yet.

Yeah, Start Up has had a pretty disappointing arc overall.

Oooo, that's totally what I'm listening to at work tomorrow.

Pontiff Sulyvahn is such a pushover though, I mean look at this guy just waltz in there and wreck him:

Both, actually, I felt it was pretty easy through the opening third, then I thought a middle third was pretty challenging (Boreal Valley and surrounding areas), and then I've so far found the final third to be fairly easy again barring the Nameless King fight. Not to say I haven't died, I have, but I haven't felt particularly overwhelmed by any area.

Objective Video Game Reviews is still a site (it was down for awhile, but is back), although there's no new content, it's just an archive now.

Do you know about cutting bosses tails off in DS1? Most bosses with a tail can have it cut off, dropping a unique weapon. The Gaping Dragon happens to drop my favorite weapon in all the Souls games (it's a slow, giant axe that takes a metric fuckton of strength to wield, so not to everyone's taste).

Everything about this is wonderful.

Just don't have as high of expectations for part 2 as 1. It's good, but I just didn't think it was as good as 1 was.

I'd also suggest Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale (75 percent off) It's grindy as fuck after awhile, and I never made it to the end game content, but it scratched a very similar itch as something like Stardew Valley did for me when I played it. Well worth it on sale if it seems remotely interesting.

Yeah, I've had it happen to me as a phantom multiple times now, and when it's happened if there was another phantom, it couldn't enter either. We'd just gesture at one another, then black crystal out. The first time it happened though, I ended up hanging out forever waiting to see if I'd be able to enter.

^^^ Everything Jennegatron just said. Fuck that noise and fuck that dude.

Demon's is often delightfully oppressive in a way that exceeds even the other games. The Tower of Latria is still probably my favorite area to hate of any of the games. So fucking spooky.

PS4

I feel the same about it. It's definitely a moment of, "This wasn't made for me, I'm too old for this."

Yeah, I don't care at all how other people play the game, I don't think there's a pure or perfect way to experience these games. After 5 of them though, I'm pretty comfortable knowing what it is I enjoy about them. I played Demon's and Dark 1 a lot different than I've played 2, BB or 3, in a large part because of learning what it is that I want out of these games. My first successful runs in both DeS and DaS1 were with casters, a character type that I barely touch now. I bailed on my original DaS1 great weapon run because I hit a difficulty wall that I couldn't get past. And the big joy I get out of co-oping generally comes from being the helpful phantom. So far in DS3, I think it's lacking some of the best co-op areas of either DS1 or DS2, where you just knew you were helping someone get past a major bottleneck. When 2 was new, I spent several evenings walking people through Earthen Peak, showing them how to burn the windmill, showing them the secrets. Or escorting people through the Undead Crypt later in the game, particularly once it became a hotbed of invasions. Edited to add: I've already complained about this, but I really miss the Small Soapstone. I loved just popping into someone's world for a few minutes to help them out with a difficult spot without needing to commit to going all the way to the boss to get a reward.

TBH, I kind of wish I could turn messages off sometimes without giving up the ability to be summoned or invaded. Just their presence, without even reading them, is often the only hint needed to know that there's an illusory wall or trap coming up (of course sometimes those are red herrings, but still). I do have the sense of humor of a 12 year old though, so the dumb, goofy jokes still get me to laugh, even when I know damn good and well what I'm about to read. My attitude is just that I prefer to go through each area and boss solo on my first playthrough, but after that unless I've picked some particular challenge built around a specific weapon or goal, fuck it, I'm jolly co-operating all day and all night. Dance Solaire, dance boy!