Tony_Tarantula on 15/1/2019 at 18:12
Quote Posted by SubJeff
Looks insane.
[video=youtube;4ehpaJJHwVA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ehpaJJHwVA[/video]
That's a goth crew I can get behind.
Look up Nero's battle theme from the new game. That piece hit #1 on the UK Rock charts.
[video=youtube;8k6GC5NtuAg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k6GC5NtuAg[/video]
froghawk on 20/1/2019 at 00:49
Oof, I've put about 100hrs into Hitman in the H2 client. It's addictive as all hell. Classics are all done. If you'd told me beforehand that a game existed that would make me want to put that much time into 8 levels, I'd have told you you're crazy.
Tony_Tarantula on 20/1/2019 at 17:29
I admittedly haven't been gaming much lately (last time I touched a game in two weeks was playing Satellite Reign in CO op last night). I'm still on the season 1 Paris level. I want to give it one more go through where I kill the targets by pushing one onto the other.
Malf on 21/1/2019 at 12:41
I can't answer for Tony, but Thirith, Henke, Jesh and I played through the entirety of Satellite Reign in co-op. I really enjoyed it, more so than solo, as you don't have control over the other characters, so the potential for screw-ups, and having to improvise to get out of said screw-ups is bigger.
Myself, I'm playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker at the moment.
It's an RPG in the style of Baldur's Gate, using the Pathfinder P&P system, which is basically D&D 3.5.
I looks pretty good, and there's a pretty cool story with lots of interesting politicking involved. It also centres around one of my favourite mechanics from other D&D games, that of building and growing a settlement. I enjoyed that in BG2, NWN2 and Storm of Zehir, and here it's massively expanded.
The voice acting is damn good, and the game certainly looks very good.
Of course, it does have the problem of being real-time-with-pause. For the life of me, I'll never understand why so many developers take a perfectly good turn-based system and force it in to a real-time game.
To this day, the best and most accurate reproduction of D&D's combat system in an RPG has been Temple of Elemental Evil, and it boggles my mind that it's the only post-2000 turn-based adaptation.
In adopting RTWP, you lose so many of the P&P game's rules, inevitably resulting in the loss of stuff like the 5-foot-step. It also makes character choices on level-up less meaningful, as the nuance of traits and picking what each character does with their turn gets lost amidst the clusterfuck.
When ToEE came out, I was beginning to tire of D&D, thinking it was an overly-simplistic and flawed RPG system thanks to adaptations such as the Infinity Engine games and NWN. Yet the turn-based combat came alive in ToEE, rekindling my passion for the systems, and helping me understand D&D is fantastically tactical when represented in true turn-based fashion.
Troika's slavish devotion to representing the rules accurately delivered one of my favourite turn-based games to this day, with intricate, complex and engaging rules far and away more interesting than even something like XCOM. Other turn-based games by comparison are very simplistic, often not offering much more than rules for range, cover and height advantages.
Yet ToEE seemed stuffed with possibility in every single round, thanks to a massive amount of situational rules and character abilities. Cleave, the afore-mentioned 5-foot-step, attacks of opportunity, all gain more meaning when presented in a turn-based game.
ANYWAY, that aside, there are other complaints. As is the case with a LOT of videogame representations of D&D, the non-combat feats and abilities may as well not exist. True, there's quite a lot of conversation options influenced by skill checks, but as the vast majority of the game is beating on monsters and the skill checks can be passed without investing in feats to give them a boost, you're much better off focussing your build entirely on combat feats.
It seems a wasted opportunity in a game focussed so heavily on politics.
Another Troika game, Arcanum, had a neat solution to this common problem. It tied the amount of followers you could have in your group directly to Charisma. True, Charisma drives Sorcerors in D&D / Pathfinder, but this implementation has always felt like a "Shit, give the stat some utility!" hack, rather than by design.
It's also brutally hard at times, and thinks nothing of dropping you into situations where you're hopelessly out-levelled. You'll be happily pottering around a map taking out enemies around your level, when BANG, you're face-to-face with something 10 levels higher. I'm not too ashamed to admit that because of this, I have resorted to the use of a character editor to buff my party's stats. But again, I often find this is the case with real-time representations of turn-based systems. At a fundamental level, it breaks the balance.
There's also an awful lot of re-use of maps for smaller encounters, and plenty of areas that look like they should be interesting, but then turn out to consist of just one encounter.
And no pick-pocketing for rogues! BAH!
But if you want something that scratches that Baldur's Gate itch, with interesting companions and a huge map to explore, you're better off with this than you are with Pillars of Eternity, that's for sure.
twisty on 21/1/2019 at 13:48
While the storytelling and side-quests were fairly weak compared to their other games (particularly the fed-ex quests in Homelet), I really couldn't bring myself to play another isometric RPG for a long time after TOEE -- the combat system was so deep and varied that I found myself replaying it over and over again. A large part of this replayability also has to do with the multiple unofficial C8 expansion patches that were released over the years which added a tonne of new content and improvements to some of the less-developed (and buggy) parts of the game. Did you ever try any? The (
http://www.moddb.com/mods/circle-of-eight-modpack/downloads/circle-of-eight-modpack-810-new-content-edition) final version 8.1 was released a couple of years ago.
Quote Posted by froghawk
Oof, I've put about 100hrs into Hitman in the H2 client. It's addictive as all hell. Classics are all done. If you'd told me beforehand that a game existed that would make me want to put that much time into 8 levels, I'd have told you you're crazy.
It's great to see that the passion that they have put into this is proving to be an economic success for them as well:
Malf on 21/1/2019 at 14:05
I did play a lot of the CO8 stuff for the first couple of years after initial release, but haven't been back in a long time.
I think I need to head back for a refresher. Anyone know how ToEE hods up on modern, high-res monitors?
Edit: Hmmm, initial research indicates "not well". Suppose I'll have to give it a shot, see how I fare.
Malf on 21/1/2019 at 14:58
On the upside, whilst looking in to why Pathfinder Kingmaker went with RTWP over TB (nothing much beyond "reasons", although I suspect they've bought in to the industry-wide misconception that TB doesn't sell as well as RTWP and that they would have to provide both options), I did find out about (
https://www.realms-beyond.com/) Realms Beyond, which looks like it's aiming to scratch that turn-based 3.5 itch. A little disappointed they've gone for full-on hex-based instead of ToEE's system, but it definitely looks promising!
Pyrian on 21/1/2019 at 18:28
Quote Posted by Malf
Another Troika game, Arcanum, had a neat solution to this common problem. It tied the amount of followers you could have in your group directly to Charisma.
Heh. First edition AD&D tied the number of henchmen you could recruit directly to Charisma, too. But few people ever used the henchmen rules.
Tony_Tarantula on 22/1/2019 at 02:37
Quote Posted by icemann
How does Satelite Reign do at co-op? Be pretty fun I'd assume. Shame they did an expansion for it, or a sequel. I'd have bought that.
Depends.
As a GAME it's fantastic at co-op. I think it works better that way because controlling all four characters at once is somewhat overwhelming. Note that being anywhere near effective does require good coordination so you need to be playing with someone you can work well with and have voice chat with.
It does have some significant technical issues. The netcode isn't reliable because literally any hiccup kicks you out of the game entirely. What makes this worse is that this also disconnects the server so if you're in the middle of a mission the host is stuck controlling all the characters himself until he can get them out to a safe area, save the game, and re-host the server.
Thirith on 23/1/2019 at 08:43
Hollow Knight has completely taken hold of me; even when I'm not playing it, I'm thinking of where to go next and what to check out.
Other than that, I'm plodding through Doom (2016), but I'm not really feeling it. There's something about ultra-fast games that doesn't particularly appeal to me, but more than that I simply don't find the arena combat all that enjoyable, at least not if the game pretty much consists entirely of arena fight - looking for the next key/door/etc. - arena fight - looking for the next xyz - arena fight. I've given up on the game once, so I now want to finish it at least, but I'm hoping it won't take all that much longer.