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Vinlaen posted:What should I know before playing Torchlight? This game is a million times better with at least the respec mod. It takes out all the frustration of feeling you've gimped your character with an inferior build and actually lets you take the "fun" talents if you need a change of pace from min-maxing or whatever. Downloading/installing mods is incredibly easy and is heavily encouraged by the developers, just check out the game thread for instructions and recommendations. Personally I'd recommend respecs/no ID scrolls/fish-as-item-drops since they're all just quality of life adjustments but you should at the very least check out the mod list in that OP once you've sunk a few hours into the game. frogg fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Aug 30, 2010 |
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Aug 30, 2010 05:42
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Biggest Torchlight recommendation: Play on hard even on your first time through. It's an incredibly easy game on Normal and below.
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Aug 30, 2010 05:51
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I don't know if anyone has posted Final Fantasy VIII, but: Make sure at least two characters other than Rinoa are leveled with the rest of your "main" party; otherwise, at a certain boss fight in Disc 3, you're going to basically be screwed and have no way to continue the game (unless you're willing to grind for hours upon hours to bring another character up to speed)
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Aug 30, 2010 05:51
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Thinkin bout pickin up Armored Core 3 portable for the psp. I can't imagine there's anything too tricky hidden but you never know so here I am
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Aug 30, 2010 06:17
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tamriilin posted:I don't know if anyone has posted Final Fantasy VIII, but: Or break the game by not leveling anyone and using card function to get awesome items.
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Aug 30, 2010 06:20
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tamriilin posted:I don't know if anyone has posted Final Fantasy VIII, but: Squall alone should be able to kill anything or you're doing it wrong. 
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Aug 30, 2010 06:38
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frogg posted:This game is a million times better with at least the respec mod. It takes out all the frustration of feeling you've gimped your character with an inferior build and actually lets you take the "fun" talents if you need a change of pace from min-maxing or whatever. Downloading/installing mods is incredibly easy and is heavily encouraged by the developers, just check out the game thread for instructions and recommendations. As far as choosing talents, read through the trees and try to pick out a few primary abilities to focus on that sound interesting/useful. When I played through as Vanquisher I picked one skill for single targets/bosses, one for crowds, and a defensive skill or two, then poured all/most of my points into those. The rest went into passive stuff. If you have a rough plan in mind you should usually have enough points to go around since it only lets you add another point to a certain skill every few levels, and you get points from level and fame (I think). Don't worry about it too much starting out since you can always respec with that mod, but you'll really benefit from specialization rather than spreading yourself too thin.
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Aug 30, 2010 10:52
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I don't know the exact terminology behind it but Torchlight's skills suffer from not improving fast enough as your weapons and attributes become better. As a Vanquisher, I ignored every skill that had a raw damage increase (it will say something like 50% weapon dps + 100 damage or something like that) and instead took everything that increase via percentages. The first skill I got is the one where you swing your weapon in a wide arc and at level 5 I was doing 1,200+ damage before reaching the first boss. I agree on playing Torchlight on hard but be prepared to tear your hair out during the last 7 dungeon levels when you start fighting these annoying creatures called Dark Zealots. They can hit you with a loving ray before you even see them and it deals like 1,500 points of damage. They also shoot homing poison bolts and even though my poison resistance was 200+ those things still did like 750 points of damage a pop. The town portal spell became my best friend.
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Aug 30, 2010 12:28
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Sylphosaurus posted:So I finally recieved my copy of Divinity 2, 3 months after I ordered it from my usual webstore. What should skills and weapon styles should I focus on in the beginning? It's a good game - congratulations for buying it. First of all - get the patch. It will remove the graphics stuttering that made the game look like rear end (at first glance) and among other things also makes bow targeting nicer. Without doubt, you need to use bows as your main weapon for killing unchallenging stuff. Engaging in melee is pretty dumb, you'll just get your rear end beat all the time. Frankly, the options are whether you'd like to go full archery going with DEX, or archery with magic by investing in INT. If you go full archery, then max exploding arrows. If magic, then magic missile, fireball and magic blast(?) that you get at later levels. Items that increase an ability score are very powerful the way magic and abilities scale, as they can boost the spell's damage from what is maxed and balanced for your level to far beyond that. A +1 Fireball amulet can for example turn a 70 damage fireball to 200 damage fireball, making it an instant death bazooka.  Always mindread. Mindreading half the people won't give you anything, but you can uncover hidden treasures and substantial experience, even skillpoints from those that do. The most valuable, or indeed the only valuable components in the game are malachite gems. Those are needed for the highest level item enchantments. In case you're an obsessive min-maxer if you come across a malachite vein and it doesn't yield any gems, then you can reload an earlier save and try it again if you please. If the last save is made close to the vein (or a chest etc) then the contents won't change, but if you've never been close to it then it's fine.
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Aug 30, 2010 15:34
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Orgophlax posted:Any hints for Puzzle Quest, DS version? I'm assuming it boils down to getting lucky that it decides to not gently caress you, but are there any class/skill/item combos that work well and might make things a tad easier? Honestly, there are about a million broken combos in that game. As a knight, stun can be a seriously overpowered ability. I think by the end of the game I was stunning to make them miss a turn, turning all green gems into red, using headbutt to consume all the red mana on the board (and in the process making them miss a turn for each 3 red mana consumed in this way) then using Web (for my money spiders are the best mounts in the game for this reason) so my opponent missed an assload of turns. Heres a DS specific hint, and by hint I mean glitch exploit. I'll spoiler it in case you dont want to use it but dont have the self control to avoid it once you know. Every time you turn on your DS to play puzzle quest, the layout of the first board is identical. Always. The optimum opening move I believe is to move the red in the third row, 5th column, down to make a horizontal 3 in a row. After that you are on your own, but that is the best opening move. At times the game WILL gently caress you, but the computer will also make retarded moves at times. The items you can buy are pretty much poo poo compared to the items you get as rewards or make from runes. I would invest in your city as a priority, you want the upgrades that let you capture prisoners and learn their spells and forge items in particular.
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Aug 30, 2010 18:01
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Anything for The Witcher?
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Aug 31, 2010 00:20
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SpazmasterX posted:Squall alone should be able to kill anything or you're doing it wrong. Yeah, wasn't that the one where the enemies scaled in difficulty according to your level. So you could go through the whole game at level 1 if you really wanted to.
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Aug 31, 2010 00:37
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Kin posted:Yeah, wasn't that the one where the enemies scaled in difficulty according to your level. So you could go through the whole game at level 1 if you really wanted to. Yes, FF8 is the only FF game to my memory where all the monsters and bosses scale with you so grinding is really pointless. Or at least should take a good backseat to a proper strategy. Edit: To be honest, it's a good idea to level-up 2-3 other characters in addition to your main party in any FF game. I swear, in every FF title I've played the game WILL break your cast up and have them fight big bosses or monsters, in two parties, at some point in the plot. Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Aug 31, 2010 |
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Aug 31, 2010 00:44
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Kin posted:Yeah, wasn't that the one where the enemies scaled in difficulty according to your level. So you could go through the whole game at level 1 if you really wanted to. Well, as far as i can remember, the enemies buff up for every 20 levels you gain, so its not like a 1-1 scaling, so it's worth levelling to, say, 17 or 18 and they should stay the same strength
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Aug 31, 2010 10:20
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Here's some more Puzzle Quest: DS crap since I just beat it a few days ago. The computer cheats, first and foremost. It's a known fact, people bitched about it back in the day. It can see above the top line. If you're not gaming the poo poo out of the game like the guy with the spider mount, you'll probably hit the same hump my ex hit when she was playing, after the high 30s or so, poo poo will start to even out with you in HP, and you can't really rely on luck anymore. So, besides the obvious poo poo (get all the runes you can, constantly check any new area you go to, after you do whatever mission on it for runes, etc), is how to game the gameplay itself, and protect yourself as best you can from the computer's bullshit. The computer next move hint that shows if you idle on your turn for more than 5 seconds has 2 main priorities to show you. First is 4 of a kinds, which you should hit, then skulls which, unless at a cursory glance you won't be giving the computer a next turn to hit you with, you should also hit. EVERYTHING ELSE it suggests is bad for you and is to set the computer up with a better move. Unless it's 4/5s or skulls, never do the suggested move. Lose a life or 5 or whatever making an illegal move, then wait for the computer. Chances are it'll either mana drop, no moves possible, or set you up for something better (that you can't see yet) next turn. Cheating computer and next turn bullshit is apparently a feature exclusive to the DS version, AFAIK. If you have multiple choices in a move to make, even if you need mana for a particular spell, you don't really need mana for any spell. Your priority is always not giving the computer a good next move, you'll get the mana by playing normally eventually. With that being said, always try popping gems as close to the top as possible. That way, less falls all the way down, giving the computer less new gems to play with. You'll notice the computer will also do this to you, unless it wants mana for a spell, or wants something to fall in the visible spectrum so it can have it.
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Aug 31, 2010 11:59
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CaptainPsyko posted:Anything for The Witcher? Use potions and use them to full effect, including the additional substances Use group sword-style to run a bit faster, or actually mod the game to make Geralt run faster in general - it will make running through the swamp for the Nth time much more bearable. There's a number of fights where slugging it out is a horrible idea that allow you to run away (regenerating with Swallow) and take your enemies out one at a time. As far as talents are concerned, generally speaking stuff that's constantly in effect effect trumps situational perks, and steel sword talents (effective against humans) will be used far more often than silver sword talents (monsters only), though you need both. Edit - Once you get to the Swamp, search the Wyvern Island (the northmost island in the swamp) for an excellent sword. Kite the wyverns in one at a time. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2010 12:03
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Polite Tim posted:Well, as far as i can remember, the enemies buff up for every 20 levels you gain, so its not like a 1-1 scaling, so it's worth levelling to, say, 17 or 18 and they should stay the same strength That's it exactly. They reach a new tier with every 20~ levels, at which point they gain new spells, attacks, item drops, etc. That's why getting Lionheart in disc 1 hinges on reaching a certain type of enemy before you get high enough to reach a new tier, they stop dropping Dragon Fangs.
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Aug 31, 2010 12:26
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Any tips for Riven? I played through RealMyst but I've heard that Riven's a lot tougher.
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Aug 31, 2010 17:11
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Ellen Page Reactor posted:Any tips for Riven? I played through RealMyst but I've heard that Riven's a lot tougher. enjoy painfully hard endgame puzzles; I enjoyed Riven, though. I found Myst III to be slightly easier and myst IV to be slightly harder than Riven.
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Aug 31, 2010 17:17
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OxMan posted:The computer cheats, first and foremost. It's a known fact, people bitched about it back in the day. It can see above the top line. If you're not gaming the poo poo out of the game like the guy with the spider mount, you'll probably hit the same hump my ex hit when she was playing, after the high 30s or so, poo poo will start to even out with you in HP, and you can't really rely on luck anymore. So, besides the obvious poo poo (get all the runes you can, constantly check any new area you go to, after you do whatever mission on it for runes, etc), is how to game the gameplay itself, and protect yourself as best you can from the computer's bullshit. Yeah, this is good advice, except for all the parts about the computer which are as wrong as possible. The computer does not cheat. At all. It cannot see about the line, it does not try to taunt you into setting it up - nothing. It does the exact same thing as any other opponent AI - calculate what the best moves are based on how likely they are to go well (generate damage/four in a rows, mainly), and then decide which of those to take based on the difficulty you're playing (easy is somewhat random, hard will just always take the best move available). Seriously, the programmers have repeatedly pointed out it would take more effort to make the AI cheat, and why would they put that much effort into something that just pisses people off?
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Aug 31, 2010 17:59
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Pacra posted:enjoy painfully hard endgame puzzles; I enjoyed Riven, though. I found Myst III to be slightly easier and myst IV to be slightly harder than Riven. Yeah, I'm not sure it's possible to finish Riven without a walkthrough. Once I hit the part where you have to plot the location of each gold dome on each island on a massive grid and the game only tells you that you've made an error (not where the error is) was pretty much when I said gently caress it and got a guide.
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Aug 31, 2010 18:32
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OxMan posted:If you have multiple choices in a move to make, even if you need mana for a particular spell, you don't really need mana for any spell. Your priority is always not giving the computer a good next move, you'll get the mana by playing normally eventually. With that being said, always try popping gems as close to the top as possible. That way, less falls all the way down, giving the computer less new gems to play with. You'll notice the computer will also do this to you, unless it wants mana for a spell, or wants something to fall in the visible spectrum so it can have it. All my experience is with Puzzle Quest 2 on X360, and I was using a character that needed piles of mana, so maybe my priorities were different, but I found the opposite to be true. By always clearing lower on the board you increase the chance of making chains and keep bringing more new gems into play, which in turn minimizes the chances of having no moves left on the board, so you don't lose all your mana. I remember also thinking sometimes the computer was cheating, but eventually I just came to the conclusion that it was just better at the game than me.
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Aug 31, 2010 19:08
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Nick Buntline posted:Yeah, this is good advice, except for all the parts about the computer which are as wrong as possible. The computer does not cheat. At all. It cannot see about the line, it does not try to taunt you into setting it up - nothing. It does the exact same thing as any other opponent AI - calculate what the best moves are based on how likely they are to go well (generate damage/four in a rows, mainly), and then decide which of those to take based on the difficulty you're playing (easy is somewhat random, hard will just always take the best move available). Seriously, the programmers have repeatedly pointed out it would take more effort to make the AI cheat, and why would they put that much effort into something that just pisses people off? In addition, when calculating the 'score' of any move available it does award more points to moves that are nearer to the bottom of the board since they have more chance of creating a chain. It can't see even a single move ahead so it doesn't know if it will actually chain, but it tries. 
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Aug 31, 2010 19:31
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Astfgl posted:Yeah, I'm not sure it's possible to finish Riven without a walkthrough. Once I hit the part where you have to plot the location of each gold dome on each island on a massive grid and the game only tells you that you've made an error (not where the error is) was pretty much when I said gently caress it and got a guide. I didn't find that one too hard, but gently caress the animal noises puzzle. Basically what we're saying here is that there is no shame in pulling out a walkthrough to deal with the Big Puzzles in Riven, because they are total assholes.
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Aug 31, 2010 21:55
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Ellen Page Reactor posted:Any tips for Riven? I played through RealMyst but I've heard that Riven's a lot tougher. I sort of want to say avoid a walkthrough for a while. A lot of the fun in Riven is actually figuring out what the hell you're supposed to be doing. The moment when the main puzzle is finally laid out before you, and everything previously you've done suddenly makes sense is the best part of the game. That said, if something looks important, and makes a noise, shows you a symbol, or a color or something WRITE THAT poo poo DOWN. Oh, and while they don't expect you to brute force solve a puzzle with a trillion possibilities, they WILL make you brute force the same puzzle if you narrow it down by a vast amount...
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Sep 1, 2010 00:55
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Ellen Page Reactor posted:Any tips for Riven? I played through RealMyst but I've heard that Riven's a lot tougher. You don't need a walkthrough. In fact, some walkthroughs will serve to ruin your enjoyment of the game by giving you a "speedrun" route: "Now do [mysterious thing X which you shouldn't have known about until way later] to gain access to the [area you shouldn't be able to visit until the significance of it has been properly established]!" Okay, there is one puzzle where it's possible to know _how_ to solve it and yet be just ever so slightly off. If you're really convinced you understand it, but must be off by just one little thing, go ahead and look at the answer. Draw a map. It doesn't have to be super detailed, just hubs and how they're connected. If an area is blocked off, or if there's a unpowered device, or if there's a weird thing you can't do anything with yet, make a little note to remind you. Riven is a lot more about, "Oh, from here I can extend that bridge, I'll have to remember to go back there" with almost no "Great, a 10-digit sequence, this will clearly have to be punched into a door on the other side of the world". Little local maps can be helpful too. Most of the puzzles in the game revolve around either opening a new path or learning something about the culture of Riven. If you find yourself at a dead end, take a second and third look around to see if there isn't a path onward or something to learn from the area. For a lot of the major puzzles, there's more than one way to approach them. In fact, you almost always have to approach them from more than one way. If you get stuck -- if it seems like you're missing something -- look at the information you've already "deciphered" and see if there isn't another way to understand it. Take your time. Look around. It's an incredibly pretty game. Enjoy the sights and the sounds of everything. Riven is my favorite game of all time -- it's utterly brilliant in a lot of ways. I promise you that it's always worth it to walk away and come back later instead of resorting to an FAQ.
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Sep 1, 2010 05:17
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Man I just finished Riven a couple of months ago and loved it. Everything people have said about a certain animal puzzle is true. I wound up using a walkthrough for that part but regret it. Also, make sure you read all the writings and don't trap yourself with mistaken assumptions about how the game world functions. You will need a journal as mentioned. If you don't know, you can use space to skip cutscenes, which will save you a lot of time on repeats. Some of the "bad" endings are pretty funny, so save around the time you've solved the two major puzzles (you'll know) so you can see them all. Actually come to think of it, 2 or 3 are downright hilarious, so definitely do that.
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Sep 1, 2010 05:45
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Ellen Page Reactor posted:Any tips for Riven? I played through RealMyst but I've heard that Riven's a lot tougher. Another name for Riven is "The Fifth Age". The journal Atrus gives you says this and it's useful to remember when encountering puzzles and other new info. I'll let you figure out why.
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Sep 1, 2010 05:57
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Speaking of Riven, any tips for the original Myst? I've only played it once, years ago. I remember I was only able to find a Dentist's Chair looking thing, and in the beginning screen, I found a hatch that opened up to go into a cave or something. Anything I should know about the game before starting it back up again?
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Sep 1, 2010 09:43
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Nick Buntline posted:The computer does not cheat. At all. In the PC and 360 versions, maybe not. The DS version was made by a different DS shovelware developer that made Imagine:Gymnastics! and crap like that. It can see 4 rows (IIRC) above what you can, and does cheat by doing so. The original DS thread in archives should have the details, I even remember one of the big gaming blogs doing a write-up on the issue, and the original DS thread (I don't have archives) had all the details.
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Sep 1, 2010 11:01
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Capsaicin posted:Speaking of Riven, any tips for the original Myst? -The unburned books are there to give you clues and backstory to the worlds. It would behoove you to read them. -People will get mad at me for this, but there's a piece of information in the "gear" world that comes back into play in the "rocket" world. People say you don't need it but they also admit to spending several hours drawing out the solution to that puzzle through brute force, so if that doesn't sound like something you want to do then do the former before the latter. -Other than that, this game is meant to be immersive and you should play it as if you're actually there. It also owns, so enjoy it.
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Sep 1, 2010 13:52
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Thanks for the Riven tips, guys!Capsaicin posted:Speaking of Riven, any tips for the original Myst? Don't use a walkthrough! Most of the puzzles are pretty intuitive and if you get impatient and cheat you'll be kicking yourself when you see how simple the solution was. (I learned this the hard way.) Also don't be afraid to take notes.
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Sep 1, 2010 13:58
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I can't stress the importance of notes in Myst. It's not a terribly difficult game and most of the people I know who had trouble with it have an extreme aversion to reading and didn't take any notes. I used print screen to capture the information from the books because they pretty much tell you everything you need for 90% of the puzzles. The other 10% are visual based poo poo like noticing when colors change or what have you.
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Sep 1, 2010 14:31
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What should I know about Dragon Age: Origins (PC)? Just bought it.
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Sep 1, 2010 16:21
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Mean Bean Machine posted:What should I know about Dragon Age: Origins (PC)? Just bought it. I answered this a week or so ago: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2969807&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=145#post381311532 Another thing that occurred to me is that you shouldn't sell any Garnets you come across in your travels You need a bunch of them for a side quest from the inn keeper in Denerim
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Sep 1, 2010 16:43
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Don't use a walkthrough for Myst. Like Riven, the walkthrough will tell you do things you shouldn't know about yet, which will make it seem like you needed the walkthrough. ...however, I have to admit to always needing a map for the treehouses. That level really, really benefits from RealMyst. How are you supposed to tell how far you've rotated?? In a few places, you can interact with things by holding the mouse button down instead of just clicking. C-Euro posted:-People will get mad at me for this, but there's a piece of information in the "gear" world that comes back into play in the "rocket" world. People say you don't need it but they also admit to spending several hours drawing out the solution to that puzzle through brute force, so if that doesn't sound like something you want to do then do the former before the latter. No one should get mad at you for saying that. That should be printed on the front of the box. Absolutely do the "gear" world first. It would be one thing if it were like Myst 3, where you can freely leave a world you've jumped to, but being trapped and having to brute force your way out of the "rocket" world is horrible.
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Sep 1, 2010 16:48
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opaopa13 posted:No one should get mad at you for saying that. That should be printed on the front of the box. Absolutely do the "gear" world first. It would be one thing if it were like Myst 3, where you can freely leave a world you've jumped to, but being trapped and having to brute force your way out of the "rocket" world is horrible. Okay I have no idea what you guys are talking about here despite having finished the game like a week ago. Could you remind me in spoilers, of course?
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Sep 1, 2010 18:02
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C-Euro posted:-People will get mad at me for this, but there's a piece of information in the "gear" world that comes back into play in the "rocket" world. People say you don't need it but they also admit to spending several hours drawing out the solution to that puzzle through brute force, so if that doesn't sound like something you want to do then do the former before the latter. If you're referring to what I think you are, I'm one of the people that brute forced it, and I'm floored that there was a solution that was telling me how to do it without an hour of trial and error, and meticulous note taking (although I was pretty proud when I finished). ^^^ I'm guessing he means the car thing in that sort of underground rollercoaster.
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Sep 1, 2010 18:22
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Ellen Page Reactor posted:Okay I have no idea what you guys are talking about here despite having finished the game like a week ago. Could you remind me in spoilers, of course? In the rocket world (I know they have official names but to a new player it's meaningless) the puzzle is the underground maze. The info from the gear world you need is that the fortress rotator makes the same "directional noises" as the craft in the maze, ex. a cowbell noise means South in both cases. A few people in the realMyst LP got mad when I said you needed that info, and claimed they did it without that knowledge but also that it took a few hours to do so.
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Sep 1, 2010 22:54
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Any good advice about Chrono Cross? (yes, I know that it apparently shits on the plot of Chrono Trigger or something like that, but I'm not super attached to that game's story, so it probably won't bother me)
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Sep 2, 2010 12:51
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