• Tag Archives First Person Perspective
  • Avowed – Midgame

    A storyline sequel to PoE: Deadfire, Avowed goes in a completely different direction. While as that (and its prequel) are third-person party-based tactical RPGs this is closer to Dragon Age Inquisition in gameplay style.

    What it shares with the previous Pillars games are the setting details, plot developments, and emphasis on quest-based progression; you’ll get far more experience from completing quests than killing things. Many quests also have multiple ways to resolve them, offering a decent amount of roleplaying opportunity. You have far less choice where companions are concerned though and are forced to both recruit all of them and take at least two with you at all times (once you’ve progressed far enough in the main quest). Which is annoying.

    Also annoying is the equipment system, which can screw you over if you don’t understand how the unique item scaling works. See, every unique weapon or chestpiece you find will match its quality tier to the highest tiered relevant item you currently have in your inventory (assuming its minimum tier isn’t higher). If you upgrade some leather armor to the Exquisite tier for example, all unique armor you find afterward will also be at least Exquisite tier. So, to get the most out of your materials, you’ll want to only upgrade one weapon and chestpiece at a time and save up enough to go straight from +0 to the next tier level (skipping +1 through +3) in case you find a better unique than the one you’re currently using.

    Switching gears, ranged combat is what you’d expect from an open-world FPS: Basically you want to line-up headshots while dodging away from anything that tries to rush you (there are no cover mechanics). Melee seems a bit more dynamic with its blocking and parrying system, but I’ve been focused on first pistols and now rifles so can’t really comment on it at this time. Enemy behavior is pretty simplistic though and does not appear to change much if at all over the course of the game… which will probably get boring if you don’t switch up your weapon selection.

    Honestly at this point, at level 15 with Superb equipment and having just entered the third area, I feel little incentive to keep playing. There’s the railroading going on in the main storyline regarding the companions, combat as mentioned is pretty same-y, and exploration lacks a certain something where the loot is concerned. Maybe being able to equip your companions would help? As it is it feels like a waste to find nothing but items destined to be vendor trash since they don’t fit my build.

    Long story short, mostly what playing this game has accomplished is make me nostalgic for Greedfall. May just end up re-installing that instead of going further with this.


  • 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.


  • 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.

  • Legend of KEEPERS

    I can’t remember when it is I actually bought this game, but I only just got around to playing it this week.

    Generally speaking it’s similar in structure to Slay the Spire, as you progress down a series of choices before eventually reaching the final challenge of a run. Gameplay is quite different however since it’s not a card game. Instead, it’s more like classic turn-based RPGs with each enemy/ally being able to use one attack per turn.

    The base game comes with three player archetypes (although two of them have to be unlocked) each with their own perk trees and preferred gameplay styles. The default Slavemaster archetype appears to favor direct damage to morale and health while the Enchantress is more focused on debuffs and damage over time. The Engineer meanwhile (which I haven’t unlocked yet) presumably focuses on enhancing the trap mechanic. In addition to those, you can also buy three additional archetypes as DLC. Not sure how they stack up to the starters since none looked particularly interesting to me.

    General advice (when playing on Normal) would be to first focus on rewards that give new monsters until you have ~8-10 so you have a buffer for injury events or morale restoration, then switch to focusing on gold for training them all to higher levels. Manager upgrades are low priority for the most part since enemies should rarely reach the final area of a dungeon with a full lineup. Artifacts can be incredibly good… but they’re a crapshoot since what you get is totally random.

    Overall an okay time waster, but there’s definitely an issue with repetition.


  • Cyberpunk 2077

    Picked this game up about a month ago when it was on sale for $30, since I figured that was an acceptable price for an overly ambitious/flawed large-scale RPG.

    It’s kind of weird. They’ve apparently got most of the bugs and glaring oddities ironed out by this point, yet there are still issues with general balancing, vehicle handling, and really the actual city itself.

    In regard to balancing you’ll very quickly start to overpower all your enemies if you bother with sidequests at all (or focus on quickhacking), but if you try and stick to just the main missions to give yourself a challenge you’ll end up broke.

    As for the city, the issue here is that despite being respectably sprawling and full of NPCs… it feels empty. Just a series of barren corridors lined with flashy wallpaper and inaccessible storefronts. More strange is that there’s a pretty massive amount of sex-related content on display, yet the player can’t interact with any of it beyond a single (yes, just one) prostitute and a ‘sex shop’ which sells unusable junk items with sex toy names. It’s bizarre.

    Despite those issues I managed to make it to the second act and complete all the various fixer side gigs which became available (level 40 aiming for this build), which range from extremely simple to mildly interesting. Although it did take awhile because I kept burning out. Only did two main missions so far in this part of the game (the two Goro ones), so can’t say much about how the plotline plays out just yet. Maybe it will make sticking around worth it.


  • the Outer Worlds: PERIL on GORGON

    The Outer Worlds‘ first major DLC offering, Peril on Gorgon, adds quite a bit of content to the game. Practically equivalent to the amount you find on Monarch.

    There is however a catch: Only the environments and quests/flavor text is new. The weapons and enemies you’ll find over the course of the DLC are (essentially) the same as those in the base game. Meaning it’s more of the same.

    That in and of itself isn’t necessarily a problem if you greatly enjoy the core experience (here shifted a bit more toward Bioshock thanks to the introduction of audiologs), but it ends up dampened by some technical issues. Parts of the DLC feel unfinished… as though a final QC pass or playtesting session was skipped. Relatively minor things like the club added to Terra 2 not having the loot flagged as theft, enemies on Gorgon respawning quite often, and some of the main quest dialog not being responsive to sequence breaks all stand out.

    And while exploring Gorgon itself something just felt missing/off…. As though I were walking through a setpiece, or like the companions were unnaturally silent or something. I can’t quite pinpoint it.

    Anyway, is the DLC worth the money? Absolutely. So long as, again, you don’t mind getting a whole lot more of what the base game already provides.


  • the Outer Worlds

    A combination of New Vegas and Bioshock with a No Man’s Sky aesthetic, this game takes place in a hellish corporation-first reality quite similar to our own.

    While shorter than it looks based on the navigation map (you’ll spend the vast majority of your time on Terra 2 and Monarch), there’s plenty of stuff to do (despite missing the entire Roseway section I still managed to hit max level at the start of the last area) and quests to complete. Quests which are good at giving choices (you can play as a savior, a money-hungry mercenary, a corporate bootlicker, or any combination thereof), with even combat-centric ones often being accomplishable through stealth.

    There’s not much reason to skip the combat though. It’s pretty fluid with a more active iteration of the VATS system, only really stumbling when it comes to dodging… which is not implemented well at all. The companions are also pretty good at killing things while not suiciding themselves.

    The loot situation is a definite low point however, bogged-down as it is with innumerable junk items/consumables and tied to an equipment degradation system. See, you have repair your equipment (fairly often) with parts acquired from breaking down equipment. This leads to finding a massive number of generic guns laying around which clog up your inventory until you take the time to manually break them down; they should’ve just increased the durability rather than flooding areas with dreck. The ‘unique’ items aren’t very exciting either.

    All-in-all a perfectly fine RPG worth checking out if you’re a fan of Bioshock-like messaging or/and happen to see it on sale for $20 or so.


  • Book of DEMONS & Some Other Games

    Book of Demons is a hack & slash game with some minor roguelike elements modeled on the first Diablo. One greatly simplified into a mobile game format where you walk along rails while clicking on anything in your ‘light radius’ to interact with it, and equipment/skills are represented by upgradable cards that you can assign to unlockable action bar slots.

    Despite its simplicity and lack of depth (leveling up gives a choice between +1 Health or +1 Mana), it ends up a pretty fun diversion in the vein of Candy Crush for when you have a few minutes to kill. Not sure what sort of longevity it’ll have though since the levels are so far are all pretty similar (up to the Cook quest boss) with the abilities of various enemies occasionally crossing over into ‘bullshit’ territory.

    As for the titular “other games”:

    • Sword Legacy: omen – I installed this ages ago, played the first battle or two, and then put it aside out of general disinterest. I can safely say now that I have no intention of ever touching it again.
    • MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD – Got through the opening, messed around in the training area for a while… and then promptly uninstalled when I discovered all the hunts have time limits.
    • The: QUEST – A game styled after classic first-person RPGs (think Might & Magic X: Legacy), it felt to me both empty and overpopulated. Leave town and there’s a whole bunch of nothing in every direction, yet there’s also an inexplicably large number of scantily-clad archers waiting to kill you. There’s just a pervading sense of unease about the whole affair.
    • DEEP SKY DERELICTS – After spending a minute or two wandering around the first ship finding a whole lot of nothing, I ran into a battle. There I discovered that every action you take in combat reduces your Energy level (run out of Energy and you die; moving also costs energy). I have no interest whatsoever in dealing with such severe resource management bullshit.
    • Celestian Tales: OLD NORTH – The characterizations are all pretty painful and the visuals are notably lackluster.