Games The RPG thread

[SharkBait]

Whenever stroud would talk mine would get stuck

Slayed my second dragon, in crestwood, easiest one. Currently level 16. Ive been doing the non fetch quests personal quests.

I think lelianna is my fav femchar followed by cassandra.

Sera is incredible annoying, laughed hard when I made her angrt.

 

[Doraku]

Whenever stroud would talk mine would get stuck

Slayed my second dragon, in crestwood, easiest one. Currently level 16. Ive been doing the non fetch quests personal quests.

I think lelianna is my fav femchar followed by cassandra.

Sera is incredible annoying, laughed hard when I made her angrt.

Same, I had to press square multiple times to avoid the cutscene.

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By the way there are so many small decisions in the onset of the game that could affect character developments in so many ways. I wish I knew it sooner though, it seems this game really reward your consistency on answering NPC's questions. I am not sure what class for my 2nd playthrough, I really like Rogue but before specialization that class is pretty useless, especially archer. I guess I'll go with Warrior this time hopefully it isn't boring.

 

[Jammin]

Same, I had to press square multiple times to avoid the cutscene.

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By the way there are so many small decisions in the onset of the game that could affect character developments in so many ways. I wish I knew it sooner though, it seems this game really reward your consistency on answering NPC's questions. I am not sure what class for my 2nd playthrough, I really like Rogue but before specialization that class is pretty useless, especially archer. I guess I'll go with Warrior this time hopefully it isn't boring.

---

I hit that Stroud glitch too on my first playthrough. I've seen that with Stroud, Cassandra, and Dorian. One of the many things the first patch will hopefully address.

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I'm going Archer/Assassin on Nightmare and am finding it more fun than Mage believe it or not.

It's satisfying how much damage you can do and how easily you can control situations with stealth. Mage classes suffered a little in my opinion by having only 4 skill tree's to play with. Since they took out Entropy, Primal, and one dedicated to wards you can't quite customize the class as much as in past games. Basically you go until you get a specialization and then everything except the life tree and and your specialization tree becomes nearly obsolete. Most of the coolest spells have been turned into grenades for some reason.

With Archer/Assassin you can use the specialization skill tree to make you archery skills better. Which is the way it should be, IMO. Like for example, Assassin unlocks a passive that makes your first attack out of stealth an automatic critical and another that makes killing something instantly end the stealth cooldown. This makes attacks like full draw or leaping shot completely devastating. Especially in combination with Death mark which doubles the damage or the thief passives that give you stamina for every critical and cause criticals to sunder armor. It puts the damage of the mage class more or less to shame.

 

[Doraku]

I hit that Stroud glitch too on my first playthrough. I've seen that with Stroud, Cassandra, and Dorian. One of the many things the first patch will hopefully address.

-----------------------------------------

I'm going Archer/Assassin on Nightmare and am finding it more fun than Mage believe it or not.

It's satisfying how much damage you can do and how easily you can control situations with stealth. Mage classes suffered a little in my opinion by having only 4 skill tree's to play with. Since they took out Entropy, Primal, and one dedicated to wards you can't quite customize the class as much as in past games. Basically you go until you get a specialization and then everything except the life tree and and your specialization tree becomes nearly obsolete. Most of the coolest spells have been turned into grenades for some reason.

With Archer/Assassin you can use the specialization skill tree to make you archery skills better. Which is the way it should be, IMO. Like for example, Assassin unlocks a passive that makes your first attack out of stealth an automatic critical and another that makes killing something instantly end the stealth cooldown. This makes attacks like full draw or leaping shot completely devastating. Especially in combination with Death mark which doubles the damage or the thief passives that give you stamina for every critical and cause criticals to sunder armor. It puts the damage of the mage class more or less to shame.

Does the Assassin skill tree have synergy with Archer? I thought the specialization is more beneficial for dual-wielder. I've played dual-wielder, and if you really know what you're doing, Assassin would deal tons of damage esp. with Deathblow + Death Mark. My only problem was it seems dual-wielder designed to be played in real-time, rather than using tactical camera which is not ideal sometimes in hard difficulty.

 

[Jammin]

Does the Assassin skill tree have synergy with Archer? I thought the specialization is more beneficial for dual-wielder. I've played dual-wielder, and if you really know what you're doing, Assassin would deal tons of damage esp. with Deathblow + Death Mark. My only problem was it seems dual-wielder designed to be played in real-time, rather than using tactical camera which is not ideal sometimes in hard difficulty.

It's better for Archer actually, IMO.

The activation for all the assassin abilitys is ranged anyway. Like hidden blades starts with hitting the enemy with a throwing knife. Same for Death Mark and Smoke Bomb. The only real difference is that you do slightly less damage than a dagger wielder might. But still more than enough to kill most enemies almost instantly; even on nightmare. With the added survivability that comes of staying well away from the fray.

The best synergy for dagger wielders I've found, oddly enough, isn't Assassin it's Tempest. It has abilities that can actually keep you alive. If you respec Sera as a dual Dagger wielder you'll see what I mean. Not only is the focus ability melee, with fire flask it consumes no focus. Which is so powerful it's probably a bug. Thousand cuts does like 300% X 38 weapon damage on a lone boss. So you can do that. Go stealth. Repeat.

Artificer "should" be the strategic option for rogues but the abilities just don't do enough damage or have enough crowd control. Elemental mines should do like double the damage they current do, at least. And you should be able to throw out spike traps the same way wizards do ice and fire mines; instead of walking over and doing it manually. As it is, it just doesn't work as well the other specializations.

 

[Doraku]

It's better for Archer actually, IMO.

The activation for all the assassin abilitys is ranged anyway. Like hidden blades starts with hitting the enemy with a throwing knife. Same for Death Mark and Smoke Bomb. The only real difference is that you do slightly less damage than a dagger wielder might. But still more than enough to kill most enemies almost instantly; even on nightmare. With the added survivability that comes of staying well away from the fray.

The best synergy for dagger wielders I've found, oddly enough, isn't Assassin it's Tempest. It has abilities that can actually keep you alive. If you respec Sera as a dual Dagger wielder you'll see what I mean. Not only is the focus ability melee, with fire flask it consumes no focus. Which is so powerful it's probably a bug. Thousand cuts does like 300% X 38 weapon damage on a lone boss. So you can do that. Go stealth. Repeat.

Artificer "should" be the strategic option for rogues but the abilities just don't do enough damage or have enough crowd control. Elemental mines should do like double the damage they current do, at least. And you should be able to throw out spike traps the same way wizards do ice and fire mines; instead of walking over and doing it manually. As it is, it just doesn't work as well the other specializations.

Interesting, I might try to respec my dual-wielder if it is as good as you said. What are the important skills that you take from the main tree for archer?

I just realized that Warrior's specializations are kinda bad.... but I might take Templar simply because it's the most balanced one when it comes to defense v. offense.

 

[Jammin]

Interesting, I might try to respec my dual-wielder if it is as good as you said. What are the important skills that you take from the main tree for archer?

I just realized that Warrior's specializations are kinda bad.... but I might take Templar simply because it's the most balanced one when it comes to defense v. offense.

It depends on how you want to play but for me the important skills from the main tree are...

Long Shot (Only 1 point, the upgrade sucks.)
- You want this for a good fall back skill with a quick cooldown
Leaping shot (Also 1 point, this upgrade isn't bad but it should be a fairly low priority)
- This is a good skill to jump back out of trouble and in conjunction with the "Looked Like It Hurt" skill from the Sabotage tree you can use this to restore your stamina.
Full Draw (Two points)
- This allows you to do a massive critical and take that enemy out of the fight for 20 seconds even if it fails to kill them.

Though if your not an Assassin yet I'd recommend trying out the poison build.

With that you go down the other side of the Archery tree and put 1 point in Explosive Shot and then put 2 points in poison from the Sabotage tree. This allows you to turn Explosive Shot into and big cheap poison AOE. Very fun.

 

[zelllogan]

I started a nightmare playthrough as an archer because I wanted to test the storyline if you sided with the templars. IMO, the whole story with Alexius and the mages is better in every way.

So, I'm stopping this experience after 6-7h. Nightmare isn't fun to me. Everything got a ton of HP, I'm running out of potions way too often.

 

[Jammin]

I started a nightmare playthrough as an archer because I wanted to test the storyline if you sided with the templars. IMO, the whole story with Alexius and the mages is better in every way.

So, I'm stopping this experience after 6-7h. Nightmare isn't fun to me. Everything got a ton of HP, I'm running out of potions way too often.

Nightmare has proved just right for me difficulty wise. Though since I'm making this my completionist playthrough I'm a lot more powerful. The only problem I'm having is that it's hard to find a role for Iron Bull. I just can't manage to keep him alive for more than a few seconds on tougher enemies. He just drains all of my potions and then dies.

I've found that the way to go is to have one tank to draw attention, Cassandra or Blackwall, then two casters to keep barriers up on her. While I go into to stealth and deal out damage.

Another tip for Nightmare is to upgrade and use Jar of Bees. It is absolutely devastating and not just in damage but in terms of CC. It has up to 30% chance to cause panic every second for up to 25 seconds. That means you can panic and enemy. Attack them. And then they will automatically panic again a few seconds later. So for 25 seconds a single enemy is rendered irrelevant to the fight. And fully upgraded 2 enemies are taken out of the fray.

 

[zelllogan]

I think the one tank - two mages - one archer is the best party in the game by far. Efficiently, there is no place for a two-handed warrior or a DW thief. One of your two mages will become a KE and will be doing close-combat. If you have that character + the tank, you just can't use a third character at close range, it's just silly.
Of course, in normal mode, you can do whatever you want but the most efficient party is quite obvious.

In nightmare, the problem is that I attempted to take out the "envy demon" at level 5-6. The thing kept putting me in panic mode and was two shooting me with the attack from underground. I had no real problems before. I don't have enough patience to go through tactical mode that much and in nightmare, against bosses, it's required.

Normally I didn't expect to end DAI before end of the year to be honest but I was one week and a half sick with nothing else to do at home. I'm not someone who is playing games over and over again (except when it's called Final Fantasy ... or skyrim). And I really did all I wanted to do with my first playthrough (beating all dragons and mostly cleaning my fav regions, I stopped at level 23 and was overpowered)

Now, first world problem, I don't have any game left for the end of the year .

 

[Jammin]

I think the one tank - two mages - one archer is the best party in the game by far. Efficiently, there is no place for a two-handed warrior or a DW thief. One of your two mages will become a KE and will be doing close-combat. If you have that character + the tank, you just can't use a third character at close range, it's just silly.
Of course, in normal mode, you can do whatever you want but the most efficient party is quite obvious.

In nightmare, the problem is that I attempted to take out the "envy demon" at level 5-6. The thing kept putting me in panic mode and was two shooting me with the attack from underground. I had no real problems before. I don't have enough patience to go through tactical mode that much and in nightmare, against bosses, it's required.

Normally I didn't expect to end DAI before end of the year to be honest but I was one week and a half sick with nothing else to do at home. I'm not someone who is playing games over and over again (except when it's called Final Fantasy ... or skyrim). And I really did all I wanted to do with my first playthrough (beating all dragons and mostly cleaning my fav regions, I stopped at level 23 and was overpowered)

Now, first world problem, I don't have any game left for the end of the year .

Well I have two suggestions.

1) Suikoden I & II come out on PSN today. If you've never played those, they are amazing. Best JRPG's of all time IMO. Suikoden II especially.

2) On PC Mount and Blade Warband: Viking Conquest DLC comes out friday Edit: Thursday actually.

Mount and Blade is a fantastic game that a lot of people somehow haven't played. And Vikings = Win. So that's gonna be good times.

 

[Shinsatsu]

I play warband with samurai armor mods and pretend it's a samurai warband game T_T

 

[Jammin]

I play warband with samurai armor mods and pretend it's a samurai warband game T_T

Haha, there are tons of mods for it. Pretty sure there was even a star wars mod and their all pretty fun.

I'm pretty stoked for this new DLC because it's made in conjunction with a group of modders who made Warband's most popular Mod Bretwalda; and I'm interested in what that experience with official support has achieved. It should be fun.

 

[Doraku]

Well I have two suggestions.

Suikoden I & II come out on PSN today. If you've never played those, they are amazing. Best JRPG's of all time

What about Chrono Trigger and FF6?

---------- Post added at 08:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:22 AM ----------

oh by the way DA : I has a new patch released couple hours ago, it fixes stuttering in cutscenes, but for some reason I think the coloring becomes a little bit weird.

 

[Jammin]

What about Chrono Trigger and FF6?

I personally think the second one is considerably better than both.

Every JRPG fan has different opinions on it, of course. So any head to head comparison between Crono Trigger, Suikoden II, Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy VII (some might throw Breath of Fire III in there too) is going to get a lot of different conclusions but I don't know anyone who has played Suikoden II that wouldn't put it high on that list. The only reason it's not as well known is that it was overshadowed at launch by the more well marketed Final Fantasy VII and then they never got rereleased so getting a used copy could cost you upwards of $100 dollars. And people would pay that much and not regret it one bit because it's THAT good.

Kotaku did a whole article on it today titled "Why You Should Play Suikoden II, One Of The Best RPGs Ever Made"

The big thing to know is that it has a much more mature story, and I would say better, than all the other top JRPG's. In the first two Suikoden games characters can, and will, die at the hands of villains you can understand.

It starts out like a normal JRPG and then just hits you in the gut and builds into something that is so much more than you could ever have expected. It has so much depth, so many characters (totaling 108), such a great story, an incredible soundtrack, and one of the best battle system of all time. So yeah, even comparing it to those I'd call it the best.

 

[zelllogan]

I already think that Suikoden 5 was the best rpg of the PS2 and I never could try the other ones. So, suikoden 2 it is until end of the year.

Edit: Only in january for Europe ... F***

 

[SharkBait]

Hyped for DeSu2 in English, by Hibiki x Daichi action Icant wait.

Main features in Record Breaker include:

Tactical Combat with a Side of Demon Fusion -- The elements that make the Devil Survivor series great are back and better than ever with robust, turn-based strategic combat. Since the game is part of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, fusing demons together to form a stronger army is back as a core mechanic!
Choose Your Own Fate -- The line between life and death is razor-thin in Record Breaker. Actions have their consequences, and in the wake of the apocalypse, a wrong choice can result in the permanent death of a character. Multiple endings present the challenge of making all the right choices at the right time.
Extra Content ATLUS is Known For -- Record Breaker expands on the original Devil Survivor 2 by nearly doubling the amount of storyline for a total of more than 100 hours of strategic game play and consuming plot, with the additional mystery of Miyako Hotsuin to unravel.
New Personalities to Discover -- For the first time, Devil Survivor 2 is getting fully voiced English story dialogue. The voiced dialogue in both the new content and the original story gives added depth in bringing the game's characters to life from ominous beginning to dramatic end.
Enhanced game play -- Record Breaker gives player characters new abilities, and the world is chock full of more demons to fuse.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker will be available in the Americas in early 2015 for $49.99. Details on release date, and pre-order bonuses are still to come. The game received a rating of T for Teen from the ESRB. For more information, visit the official website www.atlus.com/devilsurvivor2rb

 

[Rezard]

Be warned about the psn release of suikoden 2.
No glitch where fixed. And the ntsc/u have a crap load of annoying glitches.
Even the war music is not fixed. Either wait for the european release (but this one is slower..) or just play on pc with the bug fix patch.

 

[SharkBait]

Finished my first playthrough of Dragon Age Inquisition at about 98 hours. I lowered the difficulty to easy after playing through the whole game on normal at the boss fight. The lack of a supply cache before the middle moment made it overly difficult

Loved the game and would be my pick for best Dragon Age. Just the antagonist for the story is kind of forgettable and like ME3, I think the conclusion is awful and weak in presentation and content.

Spoiler

though i loved knowing what happened to the chantry and inquisition and etc. I felt bad for Solas fans at THAT reveal

 

[Jammin]

I feel much the same about it. I've now completed my nightmare playthrough and got the platinum trophy.

To be honest though, I still think Origins was the best Dragon Age but not because of gameplay. My main takeaways about the gameplay were that wizard wasn't quite as fun; but with the tradeoff of rogue and warrior becoming much more fun. That's a pretty fair trade, and with some tweaking to the spell combo system and adding more diverse spells I think this system could be just as good as a wizard.

The story and characters are the main thing that I thought held it back. The 3rd act just wasn't very good IMHO. The characters are extremely diverse but in the end it's just not as strong a group as Morrigan, Lilianna, Alaster, Ogren, Zevran, and Shale. The second and third act actually end up relying completely on characters from previous games. Hawk and Lilianna (and Logain if he lived) for the second act. The third was all Morrigian. In a strange way your companions don't have much of a role.