• Category Archives Video Game Related
  • ENDERAL: FORGOTTEN STORIES – Conclusion

    I wanted to clear the entire map before giving up, but the events of the Angel main quest just encapsulated everything wrong with the Mod. Specifically: The railroading. For a work that seems to champion freeform exploration, it’s insanely rigid about quest progression to the point that items or enemies tied to quests simply don’t exist until the proper queststate is triggered.

    Still, I did clear ~most~ of the map (everything except Thalgard and the locations in the north-northeast part of Frostcliff Mountains) and got to level 55 so can say a few things for sure.

    • – Marksmanship is basically worthless without Stealth, and even then you’re going to need a backup plan for the fights you can’t sneak in.
    • Phasmalism is a mixed bag. It helped keep enemies off me as an archer, but seems like it would better support a melee character since the souls are pretty fragile.
    • – I suggest not bothering to explore any area quests don’t send you to, unless they contain a specific item you need or you’re a completionist. And if you are one, then you’ll absolutely want to install the Tracking Tool Mod.
    • – If you do want to explore everything the general area order is:
      Suncoast/Heartland/Farmer Coast -> West Cliff -> King’s Pass -> Fogville/Whisperwood ->
      Goldenforst -> Dark Valley/Crystal Forest -> Desert -> Frostcliff -> Thalgard.
    • – Plan to max out 3 Memory trees, 3 Combat Skills, and 2-3 Crafting Skills.
    • – For Combat Skills there’s not much point in raising the Magic ones over 90 (including the Knowledge bonus).
    • – Some Crafting Skills have an optimal point to stop raising them (assuming no racial bonus):
      25 Lockpick, 47-65 Rhetoric & 61-70 Sleight of Hand (depending on if you can craft the Venturer gear or not), and 56-75-100 Handicraft (depending on if you care about enhancement and find the ring)
    • – Talk to every named NPC, as several of them have quests or Knowledge prompts.
    • – Don’t bother looting anything with a Value/Weight Ratio under 20 unless you need it for a crafting recipe.

  • ENDERAL: FORGOTTEN STORIES

    In the mood to play something like Skyrim I was scanning through GOG’s library when I stumbled across the sequel to Nehrim. How did they get a total conversion Mod listed like a stand-alone game? I have no idea, but it certainly makes installation a breeze.

    While I remember Nehrim feeling significantly different gameplay-wise from Oblivion, Enderal is only really different where the leveling system is concerned. Basically it’s ‘just’ Skyrim with the leveling and exploration aspects of the Gothic series. Which is to say you level by killing things (which are not level-scaled) and completing quests while being able to find all sorts of hidden things hand-placed around the world and location maps. None of which so far have felt similar. The magic, perk system, skill usage, and combat are all the same (though there are some new perks).

    So far, with the Sun Coast through King’s Pass areas cleared as a stealth ranged build with the Ghostblade affinity, it’s just what I was looking for… though I strongly suspect I’ll burn out before completing it.


  • CHAINED ECHOES & GLOOMHAVEN

    Chained Echoes is an RPG-Maker styled kind of game with fun gameplay and exploration aspects alongside an absolutely terrible storyline. If I wasn’t so fond of both collecting things (the reward board is a nice touch) and the combat system which restores all resources at the end of each fight (highly encouraging ability usage) I likely never would’ve made it past the point your party members first join up. Just cleared the Flower Fields and Monastery area now and the plot has reached a new low… but collecting treasure chests and enemy drops remains engaging.

    As for Gloomhaven, which is the digital adaptation of a board game, I didn’t get very far at all. It reminded me of Darkest Dungeon, except with questionable balancing and even worse resource management aspects. And I hate resource management.


  • Final Fantasy XIV – DAWNTRAIL

    With all eight of my characters now through the Dawntrail main quest, I guess it’s time to post about it.

    As far as the storyline goes the first half of the game is mostly good. There’s is a bit of a hiccup in the third area when one of the other throne claimants does a complete personality reversal out of nowhere, but otherwise it’s pretty damn solid. Only one quest to say something dumb in chat and only a couple that require forced emote usage. The second half though… the second half is just a near-constant stream of cringe-inducing nonsense. They even add a child as a major secondary character toward the end (replete with a ‘follow the idiot child through a ruined cityscape’ quest).

    Sidequests are on the whole mostly better than Endwalker I think, with not all that many being purposely wasteful with your time. The role quests meanwhile are also pretty solid and even better can be rushed through pretty easily on secondary characters since now only the last quest in a line features a single-player duty.

    As for the new classes, Pictomancer has a pretty unique playstyle and just unloads tons of damage to both single targets and groups. Once you get accustomed to when to re-cast the painting spells it ends up pretty fun. Viper meanwhile is basically just a cross between Reaper and Monk, more the latter than the former after they got rid of its damage debuff. If you want a faster Reaper or a less fiddly Monk, this is your class.

    As for class changes:

    • Warrior and Paladin haven’t notably changed.
    • Dark Knight and Gunbreaker losing their damage dash is annoying, but otherwise they’re basically the same.
    • White Mage, Scholar, and Sage haven’t notably changed.
    • Astrologian is… pretty weird now. I liked the previous Card Draw system better, but this one isn’t terrible.
    • I don’t like what they did to Dragoon. Separating Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust just creates a hassle.
    • The new Monk is a bit of a shock, but I think it’s ultimately a slight improvement since there’s now less to keep track of.
    • Ninja is a bit better I think without having to worry about keeping up the speed buff.
    • Haven’t played much of Samurai, but it didn’t seem to have notably changed.
    • Reaper is unchanged.
    • Bard, Machinist, and Dancer are all essentially unchanged.
    • Black Mage has been simplified a bit, and I love the changes made to Umbral Soul… but it definitely takes some getting used to.
    • Red Mage is a bit more fiddly in the burst phase, which I’m not thrilled about.
    • Summoner is unchanged.

  • Last Epoch Update

    Took a bit, but now I have eleven of Last Epoch‘s fifteen available specializations sitting at the Cultist Camp. Which (while still quite early game) is a good point to get a feel for most of the builds’ playstyles.

    The Chaos Warlock gets real crazy once it unlocks Chaos Bolt. Just a constant stream of devastation. What’s particularly nice about this build is that since you only have 3 active skills, you can put skeletons or a bone golem on the free slots for some extra damage/distractions with zero drawback. Speaking of which, taking Blood Pact so far has worked out well. It has no downside against powerful single targets and against groups the life drain is negligible with all the healing you get.

    Less chaotic but no less insane damage-wise, the Sparking Spellblade starts getting real crazy once all the synergies start firing. Although early on you’ll want to play it a bit safe and use Lightning Blast manually as a starter, by the time you reach the surface of the Ruined Timeline you should be able to just teleport into masses of enemies and destroy them with both Mana Strike and Static discharges. I cannot wait until Surge gets unlocked and the final piece of the puzzle is assembled.

    The Bleed Bomb Falconer starts off quite slow since all the key abilities are unlocked later, yet once you acquire Falconry stuff just gets minced. Even without Net and Dive Bomb the Falcon Strike ability alone just lays down total devastation. Zero complaints.

    Last of the Icy Veins builds, the Cleaving Void Knight just takes off once you get Erasing Strike. The combo of Lunge -> Void Cleave -> Erasing Strike -> Volatile Reversal is just plain unfair. Nothing to complain about with this build either.

    And that’s it for the builds I modified. Now on to the ones I put together from scratch.

    One of the later ones, the Harvest Lich build focuses on the titular Harvest skill supported by Spirit Plague, (unchanneled) Drain Life, and Reaper Form. Spirit Plague melts anything it touches to a shocking degree. At first I was torn on whether to use Transplant or Reap as the mobility skill, but ultimately Transplant’s Bone Armor tipped the scales in that direction. Currently Reaper Form is saved for bosses, but eventually it should have basically full uptime. We’ll see.

    Last of the Acolyte specializations is the Volatile Necromancer. This build had a bit of a journey, as first the idea was to just cast nothing but Volatile Zombies with the Bone Marrow node activated. Then I realized that Summon Wraith could handle spawning the zombies and Cycle of Putrescence would always keep at least one perpetually spawned. And then, finally, I realized I was being silly and dropped Bone Marrow completely in favor of leveling the wraiths. Just beware of Transplanting into a hostile situation and nothing should ever be able to get close to you.

    For Sorcerer I decided to go with a fire-based channeling build. The idea here is to use Disintegrate on general trash mobs and then switch to Elemental Nova for bosses or massive swarms. Flame Ward provides constant protection, Teleport acts as both mobility and extra damage (from the Nova nodes), and Arcane Ascendance is just there to add insult to injury. Main issue here is the perpetual mana shortage and early game the damage is rather lacking. At this point (Cultist Camp) the damage finally seems to be catching up to some of the above builds, so we’ll see how things develop.

    Lots of minor changes have been made to my Stormy Beastmaster build. I kept flip-flopping on how to ultimately level the wolves, finally settling on maxing out Tundra Stalkers, Stormborn, and On the Hunt while ignoring the Howl nodes. Gathering Storm also had some back-and-forth and may yet still depending on how the mana situation is later on. Pretty happy with its damage and crowd-control aspects so far though.

    For the Thorn Druid build I eventually decided on going the 24/7 shifter route. It will be some time until I can see if Swarmblade is worth it, but right now the Totems (and unleveled Wolf) combined with Spriggan Form’s Vines and Spirit Thorns just massacre enemy groups. I’ve been using leveled Gathering Storm with the staff bolt and physical shift nodes as a placeholder so far to decent effect, but plan to replace it with Summon Spriggan once that’s unlocked and start using unleveled Upheaval as the main attack (assuming my shapeshift uptime is still lacking at that point).

    Next up is the Ethereal Marksman, who seems to wield something closer to a machinegun than a bow. Flurry is fast. One of the ‘late bloomer’ builds, you’re going to have some difficulty with swarms early on until Multishot unlocks (I ended up using a combination of Acid Flask and Decoy to acceptable effect). Once it does you never really have to do anything other than Flurry, toss the occasional Decoy, or drop an (unleveled) Smoke Bomb at your feet if something gets close. The endgame strategy here is to Flurry everything, then if something nasty gets hit use (unleveled) Dark Quiver into Decoy and follow that up with a Flow-boosted Hail of Arrows. Time will tell if the gimmick is worth it or not.

    And last up is my Retaliation Sentinel build, which specializes as a Forge Guard. Gods I love retaliation builds. Sure it’s less than thrilling when you’re fighting something slow or physically resistant, but when you can just (unleveled) Shield Charge through multiple groups of enemies then double back to Rebuke them all into paste…. Few things can even dent my health pool through the Vengeance defense buffs, and those that do get instantly nullified by the Healing Hands auto-spam. Just crazy survivability so far.

    As for the four remaining specializations (Runemaster, Bladedancer, Paladin, and Shaman)… I’m going to hold off making any of them for the time being. I want some progress in the main quest to get a better feel for the expected progression level first.


  • Last Epoch

    Occupying a space between Diablo and Grim Dawn, Last Epoch is quite a lot of fun if you’re the type to enjoy theory-crafting character builds and/or collecting randomized loot.

    Class-wise you can choose between five different base characters (like the former game’s), each with three potential specializations (like the latter’s leveling):

      Sentinel is a mix of Soldier, Paladin, and Oathkeeper.
      Rogue takes elements from Assassin/Nightblade and Amazon.
      Mage combines Sorceress and Arcanist.
      Primalist mixes Barbarian and Shaman.
      Acolyte is basically Necromancer with some Cabalist attributes.

    Itemization is where things really stand out though, as not only is there a robust Loot Filter system in place, but there’s also a forging system which lets you directly upgrade or add/remove attributes from items. In a sense an upgraded version of Diablo‘s socket system or GD‘s runes/components. Another change is that legendary items act as personalized uniques instead of being their own drop class, which is an interesting choice to make and was presumably done to further incentivize said forging system.

    When I first started (which was quite recently, but still) I wasn’t really interested in pouring over the ability nodes and so just looked at Icy Veins‘ endgame build list to see if anything stood out. A few did indeed look fun and I promptly ended up doing some minor modifications to the build plans.

    First up was the Chaos Warlock. Only real change here is using Blood Pact (since the minion damage from Blood Aura is kind of wasted without dedicated minions) and taking a Dance of Blood point in Transplant for even more healing. Not sure those will work out…. but I can always revert them if they don’t.

    Next was the Void Knight. Can’t recall if I changed anything significant here, but it’s worth noting that early game you’ll want to focus on void-shifted Warpath and Lunge until you finally unlock your main skills.

    For Rogue, the Bleed Bomb archetype looked fun enough and I ended up waffling around with the build planner for it quite a bit. Don’t think anything too significant changed, but like with the Void Knight above in the early game you’re going to be stranded without your core skills for a while… so don’t sleep on Acid Flask or Decoy.

    The Spark Charge Spellblade was an easy choice for me when deciding which Mage build to go with, and by this point I was really getting into adding/removing points all over the place. The unleveled use of Flame Ward really stands out here as just a ridiculously useful spell for the build and gave me ~ideas~ for later.

    Finally we come to the Primalist and… I didn’t really like any of the builds they had. So this build ended up the first I created from scratch. It is, of course, not without issue. Namely that the base damage of the wolves does not mesh at all with the magic boosting nature of the spriggan. I thought that would be mitigated by the Storm Bolt triggers, but at this point it’s too early to tell. Storm Crows are the obvious solution, and I may end up going that direction (swapping out Shark Aspect for Lynx).

    Strongly gripped by the theory-crafting bug now, I quickly identified that I didn’t have any builds dealing with poison or retaliation damage. Not wanting to double-up on the classes I decided to make the next five builds Hardcore only, with the first being a Retaliation Sentinel (inspired by the Flame Ward usage in that earlier Spellblade build). While my original idea used Ring of Shields, I quickly realized that its presence would only detract from the goal of massive Rebuke and Thornshell damage. Healing Hands looks like it will work far better for automated healing.

    Which just left poison, something a Primalist-Druid seemed best to exploit (that it was my second choice for a retaliation build also played a part). The idea for general play here is to scout with Thorn Totems, then spam Entangling Roots everywhere while using Leap if anything gets too close. When encountering a boss or something else that requires more caution however Spriggan Form comes out to spam vines and Spirit Thorns from a safe distance while doubling up on spriggans for extra healing.

    Rounding out the Hardcore builds will probably be a channeling setup for the Mage, a bow-based Rogue, and some sort of Acolyte yet to be determined. I should be pretty busy leveling and tweaking these seven builds as it is though.


  • Baldur’s Gate III – Endgame

    It ended up not being quite as bad after dismissing my earlier hit percentage concerns. That said… it was still a chore to finish, to the point I skipped most of the Act 3 sidequests in the hopes of finally reaching the end.

    Compared to the first Act, both the second and third are a bit lacking in stability department (which considering the odd development schedule isn’t much of a surprise). The second in particular kind of falls apart if you don’t do things the ‘correct’ way. Fight the harpers instead of showing them the artifact? A whole bunch of broken reactions/quests is your reward. That aside the area itself is kind of dull with nothing much to recommended exploration, pretty empty as well with only a handful of setpiece battles (though it is nice to have conversational methods of defeating enemies).

    The third act also has an issues with sequence breaks. In this case, if you happen to kill Gortash as soon as possible, the Foundry and Iron Throne locations will spontaneously clear themselves. The Umberlee sidequest and Iron Throne also become impossible to clear if you don’t do them before the Foundry. So you’re locked into a very specific sequence of events if you want to avoid having unfinishable quests in your journal. The rest of pre-endgame Act 3 is pretty solid though without anything to complain about. Lots of areas to explore and sidequests to find.

    Which brings us to said endgame sequence: It’s real bad.

    Why oh why do I suddenly have to run through unending waves of trash mobs? And then fight a bunch of supersoldiers accompanied by a random dragon? And then fight the actual brain itself? It’s a massive, massive slog. Thankfully I had a bunch of Misty Step scrolls saved up so it was clearable first try… but seriously, what an incredibly unpleasant finale.


  • Baldur’s Gate III – First Impressions

    A bit infamous for being in development for so long, Baldur’s Gate III finally had its full release earlier this month. And I… I’ve bounced off it rather hard.

    In terms of visuals and gameplay it greatly resembles Divinity: Original Sin II, which is not surprising, while the characters and storytelling more resemble Dragon Age (which was unexpected). Despite liking both of those (Dragon Age II excepted) playing this one ended up subtly unpleasant.

    After thinking about it for some time I believe I’ve narrowed down the causes: Narrative and mechanics system.

    Narratively the issue is that right from the beginning the game acts as though you’re running out of time, when you are not. There is no time limit here. Yet all the early quests from the Mind Flayers, to the Druid Circle, to Gale’s ailment, to Shadowheart’s artifact keep reinforcing the idea that time’s in short supply… and I despise feeling rushed. It also clashes with the fact that many sidequests (particularly ones related to your companions) won’t progress unless you rest a ton.

    Mechanically the issue is one of base percentages. Apparently in this game having a 70% chance to hit is perfectly normal, which is an issue when in most other RPGs anything less than 95% means either you’re doing something wrong or the enemy in question is meant to have abnormally high defenses. So every time I see that relatively low chance to hit when targeting a random trash mob I immediately feel like I’m underpowered, and I do not play RPGs to feel underpowered. Quite the opposite.

    I’ll probably give it another shot later, now that I’m aware of what was throwing me off and can possibly look past it, but for the time being it’s not a game I can recommend.


  • ESO – 2 Month Mark

    With the second month of ESO+ having just expired, it seems like a good as time as any to take a break from the game to focus on some other stuff.

    At this point I’ve cleared all content up through the Summerset chapter (apart from the Trials, which I’ve decided to skip due to lack of automated matchmaking, and Blackrose Prison), maxed out all weapon, armor, crafting, guild, & world skill lines (besides werewolf), acquired all pack/bank slots, and reached Champion Level 659.

    Only thing I regret is not getting into the card game earlier (currently only rank 5). It gives so, so many crafting materials as rewards for playing it’s not even funny; legendary ones can even show up in the consolation prize. Just a massive missed opportunity there.

    I’ll probably go back sometime after FFXIV‘s next major patch to finish up the remaining story chapters, though I don’t think this will be a game I’ll be playing long-term. There’s a certain lack of variety that comes from only being able to slot 5 abilities at a time, the trading system is just flat-out horrific, and it kind of pisses me off how incredibly unbalanced the PvP situation is.


  • The Elder Scrolls -ONLINE-

    Picked this game up on a whim a little over a week ago after seeing it mentioned a new expansion was just released and noticing it had no monthly fees.

    The good news, for fans of the series anyway, is it plays exactly like a single-player Elder Scrolls game. The quests you can pick up are on par with those games as well rather than the expected ‘go here and kill/collect x’, a significant number of them with actual roleplaying choices.

    The bad news is that since it doesn’t have a mandatory monthly fee, it’s completely inundated with microtransactions. You’ll be rather frequently pressured to buy things like lootboxes and quality of life upgrades (like extra build slots, more inventory space, or portable shops) with real money. The small silver lining there is that the game’s optional monthly fee (ESO+) gives you an equivalent amount of premium currency to spend on that stuff in addition to its normal benefits.

    Speaking of, I strongly suggest grabbing at least one month’s worth of ESO+ if you end up enjoying the start of the game. There’s one main reason for this: The Crafting Bag. This provides infinite storage for all crafting materials. It will be absolutely necessary until you’ve gotten enough money to expand your inventory and bank space a decent amount. Access to all optional DLC is certainly nice, but not necessary at the start (once you’ve gotten to max loot drop level it’s a different story however).

    Aside from that, new players should also pick up the two free DLC immediately (Imperial City and Armory) and place the Armory item in your starter apartment. This item, if used correctly, will provide free character resets (which normally cost thousands of gold). While you only get two slots by default (getting more requires paying real money), that’s enough to make the first slot a ‘blank’ one with no skills/attributes learned while the second one can be whatever. I’d personally suggest a dedicated crafting build.

    Assuming you picked up the full game rather than just the ‘basic’ version (and you should’ve, since it costs more to upgrade later) another good thing to immediately do is pick up the Excavation skill and join the Psijic Order. The former because that’s the only way to get Mythic items and you’ll want to start leveling it immediately, and the latter because it will both help with leveling Excavation and grants access to the various Psijic caches scattered about (you should pick up the Thieves’ Guild skill line as well, if you decided to grab ESO+, for a similar reason).

    So. That’s all the fun stuff out of the way. Now the issues, of which for me at least there are mainly two:

    • 1) The player trading system is garbage. You need a third party tool/website to find anything, and you can’t sell anything unless you’re in a player-run guild (with at least 50 people) who’s paid to have a merchant spot somewhere.
    • 2) Researching traits for crafting takes forever. We’re talking days once you get to the fourth trait or so… presumably so they can sell more research boost microtransactions.