Videogames Killed the TV Star

[Toth]

So I somehow ended up trying out Warhammer 40k Gladius because I'm currently in a bit of a 40k mood and needed something 'relaxing' at the same time. Shortly before I picked it up I read that you shouldn't expect a Civilization game with a Warhammer skin, but rather just a turn based Dawn of War 1 and... honestly, that describes the game pretty well. You do very little with your base, but instead deal a lot with the ever shifting front lines and keep having to switch your troops out to let them recover.

The story is as bare bones as it can possibly can while still pretending to have one. The highly populated planet Gladius that is also home of an unnamed Space Marine chapter (that inexplicably uses Ultramarine artwork) got hit by a Warpstorm/Ork Waaagh/Necron awakening and now everything is a ruined hellscape in which the last survivors fight over scraps with sticks and stones.

Started out with the Space Marines. In between missions are flavour texts depicting the Space Marines randomly butchering surviving Imperial Guard members for fear that they might be tainted. The usual nonsense it seems, even though I put an Imperial Guard as an ally that... now gets horrifically beaten down by a traitorous Imperial Guard enemy and is now down to their last city and one unit as they are under siege by a massive army.

The base building is simple enough (especially since the Space Marines are forced to only have their monastery), though I still got into a bit of trouble for researching barracks too late and then my economy tanking because I wasn't able to house enough population to keep my buildings running. Also the wildlife is fucking insane. While my ally was fighting for their lives with the enemy I kept getting my squads squished by a horde of floating silver balls or three giant war machines that were constantly repaired by a couple of Mechanicus engineseers for no fucking reason and then they ducked into the woods with 0,1 hitpoints when I concentrated fire on them just to return with full strength a couple of turns later... or that nest of giant steel scorpions to my north where I just noped out of it and when I returned because I had the quest to investigate an artifact they sat on top upon, it turned out the nest kept spawning these things and they now covered ALL the tiles and I had to go in with tanks and Devastor Marines to smoke them out and still lost my scout bikes. In the immortal words of Corvus Corax: "WHY DOES ANYBODY LIVE HERE?????"

Now I decided enough is enough and am converging with my troops at the south to flank the traitor Guard and bail my ally out. I am actually surprised how much more effective my troops are against Imperial Guard, what with every one of their units melting away with two hits while my Space Marines got slaughtered so hard by the wildlife. Case in point, while I concentrated my forces there I got suddenly overrun at my eastern outpost by three of those fucking balls again, killing my librarian, my chaplain and one tactical marine squad, leaving me baffled at how quickly they one-shotted each one until I noticed how absurdly high leveled they were.

Edit: Okay, I'm fucked. Officially absolutely fucked. I managed to reach the city of my ally and wedge myself in between it and the onslaught, trying to buy them time to recover, but the Guard kept coming and coming and comming and actually moved behind my forces, never leaving them any respite and apparently that stops their unit production in its tracks. While my units were brought down by attrition and retreats until only my commander was left thanks to his self-heal ability, my allied city fell. And then this horrific army turned properly against me. I quickly rallied all my troops and formed a battle line between them and my monastery, but it was immediately shot to pieces by four basilisks. The Imperial Guard artillery has an absolutely insane range and is good against everything. I tried to attack their cities, but was quickly bludgeoned by them. Crap... so much for my first game...
 

[Fez]

I've finally hit Act V of Pathfinder: WotR, after 160 hours. The story is really popping off, but I'm definitely feeling burned out on the gameplay. I've been playing turn-based rather than real time with pause, and even though the system works fine and I think RTWP actually doesn't feel right at all because of how chaotic the battles are, I can tell that the game pacing was balanced around RTWP. There's just so many trash fights that would go by quickly in real time, which each take several minutes in turn-based. I want to push through to the end, but I suspect it'll take a while for me (plus I've no idea how long Act V is).

Also, I'm level 18, which is by far the highest I've ever gotten in a D&D/-adjacent game as a spellcaster (I'm a Cleric), and it's been an interesting experience. There's actually far less tactical gameplay than I would've expected. By the time you're that strong, and the enemies are a comparable threat, the vast majority of spells are completely useless; at least in the Pathfinder system. I do have a ton of buffing spells (which fortunately I only need to cast once per day thanks to a unique "Greater Enduring Spells" skill I got) and then basically just the same handful of direct damage spells over and over again. 

[horangi]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I've finally hit Act V of Pathfinder: WotR, after 160 hours. The story is really popping off, but I'm definitely feeling burned out on the gameplay. I've been playing turn-based rather than real time with pause, and even though the system works fine and I think RTWP actually doesn't feel right at all because of how chaotic the battles are, I can tell that the game pacing was balanced around RTWP. There's just so many trash fights that would go by quickly in real time, which each take several minutes in turn-based. I want to push through to the end, but I suspect it'll take a while for me (plus I've no idea how long Act V is).

Also, I'm level 18, which is by far the highest I've ever gotten in a D&D/-adjacent game as a spellcaster (I'm a Cleric), and it's been an interesting experience. There's actually far less tactical gameplay than I would've expected. By the time you're that strong, and the enemies are a comparable threat, the vast majority of spells are completely useless; at least in the Pathfinder system. I do have a ton of buffing spells (which fortunately I only need to cast once per day thanks to a unique "Greater Enduring Spells" skill I got) and then basically just the same handful of direct damage spells over and over again. 

Based on your experience, can you avoid save scumming (through better prep etc) or is that largely a 'feature' of the game?  I was excited about the previous Pathfinder, but quickly soured on it when I ran into encounters that were way over the capabilities of the party (which is fine) and inescapable once combat starts (which isnt). 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, horangi said:

Based on your experience, can you avoid save scumming (through better prep etc) or is that largely a 'feature' of the game?  I was excited about the previous Pathfinder, but quickly soured on it when I ran into encounters that were way over the capabilities of the party (which is fine) and inescapable once combat starts (which isnt). 

I suspect it depends on level of difficulty and how well optimized your party is. I'm playing on Daring, which is between Normal and Core. And I'm not following any build guides but I do have a decent understanding of the gameplay mechanics. In my experience, I've done very little save scumming. However, the key to that is keeping your buffs up all the time. If you don't, you can easily get caught in fights where you have no chance and just need to reload. Which is why getting the abilities that let you extend the duration of buffs is such an important quality-of-life move for the game.

However, there are a few things that are very helpful to know going in; the game doesn't spell any of this out. I'll put spoiler tags though in case anyone is thinking of playing and wants to go in blind:

Spoiler

 

Around 90% of the enemies you fight are demons of various sorts. Every demon has a natural immunity to lightning and to poison, so if you pick a class that focuses on either you're pretty screwed. Around 20 hours in you'll unlock a feat that lets a character ignore enemy immunity to one type of elemental damage. So you can eventually get around the lightning thing, but at the cost of not taking a different feat. And those first 20 hours would be rough. The poison issue is never resolved, its useless in the game.

Almost all demons have a natural spell resistance, which gives them the chance to ignore harmful spells even if you roll a hit. So if you want to be a magic damage dealer you need to take feats that increase your spell penetration stat, which overcomes resistance. Otherwise your magic users will only ever be buffers all game.

Crowd control spells are absurdly powerful the first couple acts.

The Mythic Paths are a huge feature of the game, and each one dramatically changes both the story and your main character's abilities. However, each one is primarily beneficial for only a few classes. So whatever class you pick means you're essentially locking in what kind of story you're getting in the game (the main story beats start off the same, but there are big differences between the classes; and my understanding is that in Act V things can go completely off the rails). I'd recommend at least looking at the marketing material the devs put out about the paths, to get a sense of which might interest you; and then pick one of the classes that synergize well with it)

 

Also, there's two exceptions to my experience of not really save-scumming

Act 3 is extremely open-ended, and you can definitely end up going to areas that you aren't a high enough level for. But you'll know immediately that's the case at the first fight and reload and come back later. I don't really consider that save scumming though.

The "puzzle bosses" (they aren't really called that). There's 8 of them, I think, throughout the game. All of them are optional, usually down dead ends in dungeons. They don't give much reward for beating them, other than unlocking a steam achievement, and aren't required for the secret ending or any other story stuff. They are absurdly overturned to impossible degrees. You will have to reload constantly until you can figure out the trick to beating each one and then properly executing it. Which is a neat idea, but not very fun actually. I'd recommend staying away from them.

[horangi]

Thanks for the tips! I may give it a go and avoid the purely steam-award focused areas as you noted. 

[Fez]

11 hours ago, horangi said:

Thanks for the tips! I may give it a go and avoid the purely steam-award focused areas as you noted. 

Yeah, to give an example of one I actually beat (because I didn't realize the rewards were so low):

It was the final dungeon of Act 2; my party was level 9. This boss was level 30 (granted monster levels work different from character levels, but still). It could wipe out all my melee characters in a single turn if they were in range. Its armor class was so high I could only hit on a natural 20 for 5 of my 6 characters; plus it had damage reduction. Its touch defense was so high I could only hit on a 15+ on my 3 characters that could do touch attacks. Its reflex and fortitude saving throws only failed on 1; but it's will saving throw would fail on a 5 or worse. Also, it was immune to most status effects.

After a couple reloads, I realized that it wasn't immune to baleful polymorph, a will status effect that is permanent and prevents an enemy from attacking. However, to cast it, I needed to make sure my wizard had a higher initiative to ensure she went first; and then the boss needed to roll a 5 or worse on its saving throw. I must've reloaded at least 7 or 8 more times until it happened. And then, even though I wasn't in danger anymore, the boss still had all its HP and all its defenses. To speed things up, I switched the game from turn-based to real-time, set everyone to attack auto-attack, and left the game running to go make lunch. When I got back 5 minutes later, the boss was nearly dead; and it was finished shortly after that.

That's not fun game design. That's just boring attrition. I'm sure there's other ways to win than baleful polymorph, but I suspect all of them are just as slow and unreliable.

But as I said, these fights are all optional and don't give anything besides an achievement. The only trick is realizing when you're about to encounter one so you can avoid them. But that's not too hard. I think there's 8, and I'm in Act V and only encountered 3 of them, so I think most are well-hidden. Also, they are all in side areas and all have unique names, but not names that you've encountered in the story at all.

[Werthead]

20 hours ago, Fez said:

I've finally hit Act V of Pathfinder: WotR, after 160 hours. The story is really popping off, but I'm definitely feeling burned out on the gameplay. I've been playing turn-based rather than real time with pause, and even though the system works fine and I think RTWP actually doesn't feel right at all because of how chaotic the battles are, I can tell that the game pacing was balanced around RTWP. There's just so many trash fights that would go by quickly in real time, which each take several minutes in turn-based. I want to push through to the end, but I suspect it'll take a while for me (plus I've no idea how long Act V is).

Can you not switch between RTWP and turn-based at will? You have to choose one at the start of the game and you're then locked in?

That seems a dramatic oversight.

I picked up Kingmaker a while back and will probably get to it sooner rather than later (trying to polish off a few more Age of Empires II campaigns first).

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Can you not switch between RTWP and turn-based at will? You have to choose one at the start of the game and you're then locked in?

That seems a dramatic oversight.

I picked up Kingmaker a while back and will probably get to it sooner rather than later (trying to polish off a few more Age of Empires II campaigns first).

No, you can switch between them freely. I don't however, because I don't like how RTWP feels even in the trash fights. But the price I pay is the game being at least 50% longer.

[Werthead]

Good RTWP is unfortunately rare in games. The Infinity Games mostly nailed it, but then a lot of other games that followed did not. Pillars of Eternity 1's implementation was particularly poor, but they did improve it a lot for Tyranny (haven't played PoE2 yet).

[Fez]

Played a bit of The Riftbreaker on Gamepass. It's kinda neat, seems to basically be Factorio with less focus on logistics and more on base defense. Plus a bit of a story campaign. I was hoping for more of a true tower defense game though.

My larger issue is the controls. There's both gamepad and M+K. The gamepad works great for combat, but is just as clunky as I worried it'd be for building. Meanwhile, M+K works great for building but caused cramps in my left hand pretty quickly during combat. 

[Darryk]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

Good RTWP is unfortunately rare in games. The Infinity Games mostly nailed it, but then a lot of other games that followed did not. Pillars of Eternity 1's implementation was particularly poor, but they did improve it a lot for Tyranny (haven't played PoE2 yet).

I miss those games so much. I'm enjoying Pillars of Eternity but it doesn't really recapture the magic of the Baldur's Gate games for me.

[IlyaP]

On 10/15/2021 at 9:04 AM, Werthead said:

Good RTWP is unfortunately rare in games. The Infinity Games mostly nailed it, but then a lot of other games that followed did not. Pillars of Eternity 1's implementation was particularly poor, but they did improve it a lot for Tyranny (haven't played PoE2 yet).

Deadfire is wonderful. The main story has been rightly criticised for being a bit confounding and conveying a false sense of urgency, but aside from that, the score, the production value, the design, the sound, the world, it's all just so lovely. A lot of love went into this game and it shows.

[mormont]

Anyone playing the Witcher mobile game? I'm experimenting with it just now. Seems basic but it has a couple of features I like.

[Caligula_K3]

I impulse bought Metroid Dread last night. I'm a huge, huge fan of the Metroid Prime games - the first one is probably in my top five video games of all time - but I've never played much of the 2D ones. I did play through Super Metroid this summer. I recognize it's a classic and the world is wonderfully connected, but I found it could be a chore to play - the platforming felt very finicky and the action was not usually enjoyable.

Metroid Dread, though, is a blast. I'm not very far in, but this game controls nearly perfectly. The world so far has had a nice balance of not always being obvious where to go next while not feeling overwhelming. And the action is very fun. I just fought the first major boss and was impressed at how much variety they put into a 2D boss fight, especially since it's the beginning of the game and I don't have many abilities.

 

[Werthead]

Got back into Age of Empires II and just finished my 14th campaign after 110 hours. There's 32 campaigns in total, 6 of which were added in the last year (via the Lords of the West and the Dawn of the Dukes expansions). That's also solely doing the campaigns, I haven't done any multiplayer, co-op or skirmish at all.

Monstrous amount of content here.

[polishgenius]

3 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I did play through Super Metroid this summer. I recognize it's a classic and the world is wonderfully connected, but I found it could be a chore to play - the platforming felt very finicky and the action was not usually enjoyable.

 

Yeah, Super Metroid's controls are ehh, to the point I've not yet ever finished it despite it being the ur-example of my favourite genre. Dread is actually causing a bit of controversy in-fandom coz its focus on tougher bosses is making it harder to get through for fans who got into the series when it was easier on bosses but tougher on exploration. I really like the bosses, but I do get their complaint. 

 

I now wanna crack into another Metroidvania but none of the ones I've tried recently- Dondara, Ender Lilies- really hit the spot, though both have enough that I'm sure I'll complete them at some point or another. Might get Cave Story on Switch, not played that for a while. 

 

In the meantime, got back into Eastward, a sorta-Zelda-ish-but-more-story-driven, no-backtracking top-down action adventure indie, post-civilisation-breakdown thing. It's very engaging and the graphics/art design are stupendous.    
 

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Finished thr A Realm Reborn quests of Final Fantasy XIV; just need to do the interim quests separating it and the Heavensward expansion.

As I restarted on an EU server couple years ago, I bought a level-up tonget my new char made to lvl 60 or 70 ninja, and then immediately took the Gunbreaker job (gunblade wielder liek Squall from FFVIII) to rampage through the main quests.

Dont have much playing time sonits still taken a while.

Also almost finished thr Claire campaign on Resident Evil 2 remake; will then do Leon’s B campaign.

[Fez]

Really strong review for Inscryption, a game I've had my eye on since its storepage showed up on Steam. 

It seems like a good game to break up the Pathfinder: WotR sessions. I love the game, but it seems like it'll never end. Of course, that's not the worst thing when the story has been stuck in high gear for the past 60 hours and the soundtrack keeps dropping bangers like this in key scenes. But the core gameplay is definitely past it's welcome. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I feel like games have hit a wall. Big companies all do the same thing and do nothing to really push gaming into new directions (what about NPC AI for example?), and smaller companies are providing us fun retro experiences, but nothing really new is happening there.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

I feel like games have hit a wall. Big companies all do the same thing and do nothing to really push gaming into new directions (what about NPC AI for example?), and smaller companies are providing us fun retro experiences, but nothing really new is happening there.

Games are fully capable of having better AI (well, action-y games at least; strategy games are maybe a different story) but there's been a ton of audience testing showing that most players don't actually want better AI. They say they do, but if they encounter it they just get frustrated quickly. It's a shame, but there it is. So the big studios don't invest in it. I wish more of them invested more in story and writing, but that's harder to show off in trailers than particle effects and realistic lighting.

As for new experiences, they do exist, but they're buried under the overwhelming quantity of other stuff coming out every single day. Most AAA games have settled into the same handful of templates that they use over and over again, but the indie scene absolutely puts out new experiences. You just have to avoid the mountain of metroidvanias, '90s-style shooters, and crafting games.