GAMES!

Get on his level man. Geez!

 

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is currently on sale for 4.99USD on Steam if you haven't already got it for some reason. Sale ends 17 hours from the time of this post.

 

Seems like this would lend itself well to an MMO. I'm curious to see if this rumor metastasizes.

 

If they did make it into an MMO, I think metastasizes is the most fitting word.

 

I've really been enjoying Deadfire. I'll echo what all the critics have been saying, it's a substantial improvement over its predecessor. I'm sure I'll have more spoilery opinions on the story once I finish it. I'd have probably completed it already if I hadn't started over after reaching lvl 13.

As usual, I've tried hard to find most overpowered build possible. My findings are below. Don't read if you want to be challenged in combat.

Spoiler

The reason I started over is because at character level 13, I discovered that the monk has a stupid powerful ability, and I wanted to ditch the companions and do a solo run. Once I was well into the solo monk game, I realized that they have still another stupid powerful ability. This is all off the top of my head so forgive me if I get the names of the abilities wrong.

First, a word about the system. Monks now have two ability pools. The Mortification pool increases with character level, and refreshes with each encounter. The Wound pool is filled by taking damage, or through other abilities. Some monk abilities are powered by wounds, others by mortification.

Flagellant's Path: A dash attack that hits the target with a full attack, and applies crush damage to enemies in between. That's how it's described anyway. What it actually does is apply crush damage AND a full attack to everyone, including the target. But wait, there's more! If you happen to have a weapon in both hands (and you should), it applies a full attack with BOTH weapons AND does additional crush damage AND applies any additional damage effects that you have active (shock, fire, etc). Coupled with items that increase stride (movement speed in combat) and abilities/items that increase disengagement defense, you can run around and string your enemies out in a neat line, then strike. It costs 2 Mortification, so it's limited uses per encounter, but anyone that's left standing you can just cut to pieces some other way.

If that's not overpowered enough, or for when you are SEVERELY outnumbered, try this:

Dichotomy something or other. Can't remember the name. Summons two clones of the monk, one fire, one ice. No weapons, no abilities of their own, not great at dealing direct damage, so what's the big deal? Well if you happen to be wearing any items that "grant" an ability, like a necklace of fireballs for instance, the clones are able to use those abilities. There is a cornucopia of items that grant "once per rest" abilities, and some of them are quite powerful. With those items equipped, your clones become spellcasters, and your once per rest abilities become multiple use per encounter abilities. Important to note, this does not apply to abilities granted by weapons, since the clones carry only bare fists.

So let's say you blunder through a door and find yourself facing an overwhelming horde of foes. Uh oh. Well, fortunately you happen to be wearing a helmet that grants a once-per-rest spell that shoots a fan of SEVEN deadly bolts of lightning that bounce off walls. That means your clones can open with a salvo of FOURTEEN lightning bolts. If anything is left standing, your clones can toss a couple fireballs (thanks to your limited-charge necklace of fireballs), then pick off any stragglers with Minoletta's Concussive Missiles (granted by a nifty magic ring). But now your clones have expired, and you're left alone to face a second enormous wave of foes! What to do? Just cast the Dichotomy again (at the cost of 4 wounds) and launch FOURTEEN MORE BOLTS OF LIGHTNING! Once the smoke clears and the charred corpses have been looted, you're ready to do it all over again since none of your item charges have been depleted!

So there you have it. That's how you make combat trivially easy. Enjoy responsibly!

 

I would still maybe be a bit wary while playing Deadfire. As someone who played Pillars 1 ultimately to my detriment (as there was still bugs in "definitive patch" release, yada yada yada) when ever a particular play-style was viewed to be over-powered they immediately nerfed it in the next patch. For me personally as I like a challenge and a really established mechanical framework to build characters around, I really didn't enjoy this, as it makes what I tried to do in the game between the patches feel like a cheap win - the devs realised it was too powerful (literally time and time again with Pillars, every patch would more or less re-invent the classes) and had to retcon it. It also told me that the devs really didn't test their shit thoroughly enough (or lacked a true vision for the game), as they had to retcon core mechanics almost every other patch, and when people asked them to retcon actual broken mechanics towards the end of their patch cycle they required significant pushback from the community in order to decide to again re-balance their game.

I'm sure Deadfire is better, and they did learn from their mistakes, but as someone who really, really tried to get into PoE 1 I think it's one of my most unsatisfactory gaming experiences to date. My faith in Obsidian is certainly shot the hell to shit, and to hear Chris Avellone actively say they could have got the Fallout: New Vegas bonus Bethesda charitably offered them if they'd tried harder (his words, he feels it was within their grasp, and their failure to get it ultimately contributed to their financial meltdown that lead to them rebranding themselves as the scrappy underdogs who need crowdfunding in the first place) really doesn't help my opinion of them.

I promise I'll keep my sour grapes attitude to a minimum now. This was just to say don't necessarily expect fun competitive mechanics in Deadfire to exist between the different patch iterations, as they certainly didn't in PoE 1.

 

Japes's monk tactics remind me of how I played Freedom Force. Roughly half-way through the game, just as you're getting bored with the combat because there's no real way to heal between fights so you have to try whole levels over and over again, you get a character joining your team called Microwave who is a Robot From The Future (tm). He's not that great a fighter, but one of the abilities he can get shortly after that is "Clone Self", with no real limit on the number of uses. So from that point on you can basically spam AI-controlled clones of Microwave at any enemies and the game pretty much plays itself as far as combat is concerned. Ah, good times.

 

I just used all my banked points that I hadn't been spending on the in-game superheroes to make a custom that could kill everyone pretty much in a single punch. I guess the meta-gamer in me was strong even back whenever the hell Freedom Force was released.

 

So, the Elder Scrolls 6, eh?

 

Literally all the information we have to go on.

 

Also looking forward to Skull and Bones to scratch that maritime itch.

 

I don't know if this works differently for those of you across the ponds, but Pillars of Eternity is available for free for another day to Twitch Prime members.
Do you not care because you aren't a member of Twitch Prime? As an individual with an Amazon Prime account, you are entitled to a complimentary Twitch Prime account.
Do you not care because as a member of The House of Lords you already own a copy of PoE out of obligation? Well set up a Twitch Prime account anyway because other vidya and goodies are made available to users every month.

 

Just because I let you molest me in a dream one time doesn't mean you can boss me around in real life.

 

Pendula Swing is a free fantasy game in the 1920s! It could be as close to a spiritual successor to the game we all know and love as we've gotten.

 

Pendula Swing sounds like your mom's porn name.

 

Pendula Swinger Swinger Party would be a mouthful, ah?

 

Looks like Obsidian has a new IP announcement coming in three days. I’m getting a space fallout theme possibly even Arcanum vibes from the countdown on their website.

Care to speculate?

 

The message underneath it says, "Auntie Cleo's is not responsible for any physical or mental risks undertaken by viewing the following advertisement." So presumably something scary/psychological in some way - hopefully the Cain/Boyarsky thing.

 

Turns out it is a Fallout in space with a hint of Borderlands.