The Gaming Den

RobbyPants wrote:So, from what I understand, you end up with:

Skills that can change mid-game. Is this sort of like a caster preparing spells in D&D? You have a smaller set you can use from a larger set, but you can change it given time?

As you advance you unlock new abilities, instead of selecting your new abilities off a list. This means that whether you intend to use it or not, every character of a given class and level has the same ability set.

The game is easier so long as you pay attention. Nice for new people, I guess, but it could get boring otherwise.

I think that is fair to say, yes. I only died a handful of times, and that was only against the end-boss of the first act. As soon as you get under a certain percentage of your HP left, red fog appears covering all but the center of the screen to loudly declare that you're almost dead and should use a potion.

Potions heal you instantly, but there's a cool-down after use? How long is the cool-down?

I don't know, I never timed it. It was a significant amount of time, like 30 seconds?

Also, scrolls are gone, removing the need to take up inventory slots with them. Town Portal is now a class ability you unlock at fifth level and can do whenever you want. Identify is gone entirely. You don't need to talk to Decard Cain or expend resources to identify items, they are auto-identified.

And your stash(Including all your money on hand) is shared between all your characters.

How much does your gear affect your skill choices? For most of the time time I was playing WoW it was easy to reconfigure your talent points but characters still had specs they favored because of gear. Does Diablo 3 still have like Shrunken Head of +3 to Skeletons and Chainmail Halter of +3 to Frost Nova?

Foxwarrior wrote:I'd sort of disagree about that, Desdan Marvolam. While you actually don't make any decisions whatsoever when you level up, there's still the potential for spending more time deciding which skills to use than in Diablo II, because you can change your mind. Playing a Meteor and Fireball Sorceress in Diablo II gets a little bit repetitive after a while; being able to switch to Lightning Bolts and Frost Novas would have been nice, I think.

Guess that is why they added the ability to reset your ability and skill investment in diablo II

You don't need to talk to Decard Cain or expend resources to identify items,

So the heroes of Sanctuary have finally learned to dress themselves, then.

For the last few weeks i have been playing a little fan project:
wiredreflexes.com
it's a shadowrun browser game that sadly does not have much content yet, but the Dev is a nice guy and does his best.
Not much to do yet, only 2 "runs" (one to clear out a building full of ghouls[beginner mission]) another comes online at 50 reputation and consists of cleaning out another building of gangers to get a keepsake back for a father(mission all in all ain't that hard, but the last NPC can usually oneshot people)
Some Arena fighting against NPC's for Karma, Reputation and MONEY.
PVP is implemented, Mages are not allowed to do it yet.
Adepts ain't implemented yet, neither are deckers and riggers yet i think.
Not many weapons, not much cyberware, no bioware at all, not much gear all in all . .
But damn it, even if SRO or SRR were like this, i would love playing it . .
Because it gets rid of the one thing that's most problematic with playing SR:
The need to match up schedules of players, GM, work, family and loved ones . .

So, there's a Kingdoms Of Amalur LP on the somethingawful forms.

I have little hope for it, because everyone is bitching about the game. Among other complaints: Blacksmithing is wildly overpowered. I fucking bought my endgame armor halfway through the game, and kept checking what new stuff I could forge, before realizing that it was worse than what I already had, and feeling my massive investment in that skill make me die a little inside. I think I eventually fateweavered it, but am not entirely sure

See, Sagecrafting cannot be used effectively with blacksmiting- if you invest heavily into blacksmithing you can include a single gem in an item with base stats somewhat superior to normal items... or you can buy something and stick three gems in it. And two extra gems outweigh the bullshit tiny blacksmithing bonuses relative to the best stuff money can buy if they're good gems.

Perhaps it was just my bad luck, but I never found bought gear with three slots that in any way matched what I made with smithing. Or maybe my good luck in salvaging really good components.

Although I found that uniques typically had bonuses you couldn't replicate with gems or smithing. Most of the time, that is what I used.

Maybe it's just a heavy armor thing; I didn't really look into how lighter armor compared and IIRC my weapons were forged or unique more frequently. But in the first city on the second continent, there were vendors who between them had a full set of Prismere armor. And it was pretty much completely awesome.

Or maybe it's because I built up an outlandish stockpile of Sagecrafting components and could stuff top-quality gems into those slots.

I maxxed both blacksmithing and sagecrafting--but I played a rogue/mage. I did everything I could to max my critical hit chances and threw into some mana and health regen.

And tiny bonuses? Jesus. The right components can give +2 health per second, or +80 mana or +Fuckton extra damage.

Sagecrafting's nice, don't get me wrong, but I got a lot more mileage out of blacksmithing (although I tended to use unique weapons/shields), not least because I could disassemble about anything and sell the spare parts off for cash. What little times I needed cash.

Huh, none of the components I got were anywhere near that awesome, and I depended on gems for that sort of thing. Actually, those exact things. I guess the light armor has higher end components?

Plus, every single piece of Prismere gear had associated bonuses, so the comparison wasn't to getting no extra health but to getting slightly less extra health and a thing I could stick a +80 health gem in.

Weird, I found sagecrafting/smithing pretty disappointing. I suppose I might have been able to make something better than what I could find/buy, but even on hard the game was a walkthrough, and there was never an ability that I thought I really needed but couldn't just buy. I had well over a million gold about halfway through the game--didn't everyone max out the find hidden skill?

The always-on DRM in Diablo 3 is a disappointment to me. I haven't actually played a 3rd Person Clicker for more than 5 hours total since Diablo 2, and I was really looking forward to something new I could pack on a USB drive and play on the train.

Now I've got to find something else. I half-impulsively decided to back Grim Dawn on Kickstarter when I noticed it met several of the bullet point features I had been disappointed D3 lacked.

name_here wrote:Huh, none of the components I got were anywhere near that awesome, and I depended on gems for that sort of thing. Actually, those exact things. I guess the light armor has higher end components?

Plus, every single piece of Prismere gear had associated bonuses, so the comparison wasn't to getting no extra health but to getting slightly less extra health and a thing I could stick a +80 health gem in.

Honestly, it's high-end components, period. High enough blacksmithing lets you harvest better stuff out of your loot. Doesn't matter the source--if that armor can give you +80 mana, you can get a component that gives you +80 mana out of it.

And some components are...well, the only thing that determines armor type is the base material--Prismere chestpiece or whatever. Binding and wrapping and rivets and grips all add in other stuff.

So I just grabbed everything I found thanks to my copious Detect Hidden and my tendency to go through -every- chest. And broke down everything that wasn't unique or interesting for parts.

Of course, what parts you get are semi-random. I just saved the game before breaking down a steel sword just so I could reload a couple of times to get the hilt out of it.

Anyway. Blacksmithing gets you good stuff by itself. Sagecrafting gets you good equipment by itself.

But combining both of them is where you can get REALLY FUCKING AWESOME stuff.

Now, there are unique/item sets of equipment that can be even better--especially the stuff that gives +1 to all Sorcery or Finesse or whatever. If I remember right, I had two pieces of an item set because they gave +1 to Finesse, and I had that Shield of Balance that gave +2 to all.

But apart from that, I had multiple critical-chance increasers on, so if I didn't get get four crits on a six-hit attack sequence, I considered that a run of bad luck--and rounded out with some health/mana regen boosters wherever I had the space.

Damn. I was bitching that Amalur was only giving me uniques for weapons I don't use or armor I can't wear because I'm not a damn rogue.

The game must have heard me, because it gave me a unique greatsword, robe--and a staff and sceptre with some nice passive bonuses. The robe (Compassion) has decent armor for my level, and restores +1 HP a second.

Hell yeah.

Maxus wrote:Damn. I was bitching that Amalur was only giving me uniques for weapons I don't use or armor I can't wear because I'm not a damn rogue.

The game must have heard me, because it gave me a unique greatsword, robe--and a staff and sceptre with some nice passive bonuses. The robe (Compassion) has decent armor for my level, and restores +1 HP a second.

Hell yeah.

???

Yeah, that's way better than Sagecrafting, I was only healing 2hp per second from level 6 on.

Doing a Hard mode playthrough with a Warrior/Mage. Level 12, going to be level 13 soon.

So, yeah. I'm just getting up high enough where I'm getting a wider variety of loot. I got two of those uniques from that quest to kill the five Mountain Trolls.

I also found an armor component that gave, like, +0.5 Health per sec. So I put that into some greaves when I made myself a set of armor. Thank goodness running around wearing a robe with your extremities armored doesn't look -too- ridiculous.

So, I started playing Disgaea 4 again - been a while since I touched the PS3. It's awesome as ever. But Desco is becoming even more broken.

Attack-based character.
Good Attack stat and aptitude*.
Her Cabinet position means any time anyone else in the Cabinet gains a level, she gains a (permanent) boost to Attack.
She's now in the Blight House, meaning she gets a 10% bonus to all stats.
One of her Evilties grants her a +20% bonus to Attack for every adjacent ally on the battlefield.

So yes, currently if I can't be fucked finishing the level the proper way, I just bring her out, put an ally on each side, cast Braveheart on her to boost Attack by 30% or something, for a total of 100+30?+20+20+20+20+10 = ~220% Attack power. And then unleash her finishing move, Yog Sothoth, for ALL THE DAMAGE.

She will totally be my MVP for post-game.

*Your aptitude for each stat is a percentage that item bonuses are multiplied by. So if you have a 120% attack aptitude, then an item that gives you +300 attack actually gives you +360.

I see Minecraft is available on XBLA now, for 20 bucks. Just like on the PC. And the version it's based on is more than a year old, with updates coming. And no Creative mode.

But I also see it has local splitscreen co-op and apparently smoother online multiplayer.

Fuck yes. I can play a decent game in co-op with people who could conceivably walk over to my house.

AWESOME.

I had a quick go with my brother on the Minecraft demo and I have to say that unless you have a really fucking huge high definition television then you can't read the text at all in co-op.

I bought a pre-owned copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance so that the family could have a little fun in co-op mode. I figured this would also be a pretty cool way to introduce the kid to the extended marvel universe. Looking on the web I found out that dlc packs were removed by Activision because they let their licenses lapse.

Aside from paying 80+$ for a copy of the Gold edition, I'll probably have to keep an eye for a pre-owned copy at gamestop or so.

But this got me thinking, are there any games like MUA/MUA2 for the xbox/xbox 360.

I'm aware of the previous x-men legend titles and I have one of the Gauntlet games. Are there any others like these?

Cynic wrote:I bought a pre-owned copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance so that the family could have a little fun in co-op mode. I figured this would also be a pretty cool way to introduce the kid to the extended marvel universe. Looking on the web I found out that dlc packs were removed by Activision because they let their licenses lapse.

Aside from paying 80+$ for a copy of the Gold edition, I'll probably have to keep an eye for a pre-owned copy at gamestop or so.

But this got me thinking, are there any games like MUA/MUA2 for the xbox/xbox 360.

I'm aware of the previous x-men legend titles and I have one of the Gauntlet games. Are there any others like these?

Define "Like these". The co-op? Probably there's some Lord of the Rings game out there.

Tales of Vesperia is an RPG that lets you control different party members in battle. So single-player story, multiplayer real-time fights.

Artemis looks like it could be amazing.

Maxus wrote:

Cynic wrote:I bought a pre-owned copy of Marvel Ultimate Alliance so that the family could have a little fun in co-op mode. I figured this would also be a pretty cool way to introduce the kid to the extended marvel universe. Looking on the web I found out that dlc packs were removed by Activision because they let their licenses lapse.

Aside from paying 80+$ for a copy of the Gold edition, I'll probably have to keep an eye for a pre-owned copy at gamestop or so.

But this got me thinking, are there any games like MUA/MUA2 for the xbox/xbox 360.

I'm aware of the previous x-men legend titles and I have one of the Gauntlet games. Are there any others like these?

Define "Like these". The co-op? Probably there's some Lord of the Rings game out there.

Tales of Vesperia is an RPG that lets you control different party members in battle. So single-player story, multiplayer real-time fights.

As in stories where all the players are on the screen at the same time and it's more like Gauntlet/X-men legends/Marvel ultimate alliance or even like Castle Crashers rather than Tales of SYmphonia or Vesperia. I've played one of the latter style of games and I'm pretty sure that my 5 year old isn't going to be too interested in that sort of play. I've just started her on jrpgs with a game like Blue Dragon but Vesperia is one of those games in which the multiplayer scope is only the hack/slash rather than including story for all the players.

Yeah, that is a problem. I mean, the Two Towers and Return of the Kings games played like that, but they were previous-gen. You -may- be able to find Xbox copies. If your 360 can play them.

Other than that, I'm drawing a blank on Gauntlet-style games.

So, Diablo 3...

I haven't had a chance to play it myself, but there seems to be a lot of flak about the game. I've heard that the always-on DRM is an issue (which I would only care about if it somehow negatively affected my computer in some way), and that the game is buggy and nearly unplayable (which is more of a deal to me).

Thoughts from people who have actually played it?