The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

«‹›8 »

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Kennel posted:

C:\Users\{username}\Documents\The Witcher\saves

This is also important because The Witcher literally makes every quicksave and autosave a separate file. Occasionally cleaning up the save folder is a very good idea.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2013 16:05

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 4, 2024 16:17

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

fuckpot posted:

Details are a little sparse on the wiki about Civilisation V. I grabbed the vanilla version for $10 bucks and intend to grab G&K as soon as it's on sale.

Any tips on the best early game units, rate I should build cities, policies to adopt, technologies I should go after etc?

My best advice is to get G&K asap because it makes the game a hundred times better, taking the game from "pretty ok" to "pretty great". There's also an active Civilization V thread with an informative OP and where you can ask more specific stuff. Keep in mind however that the expansion changes the policies and techs quite a bit so you'll have a hard time finding people who can give you accurate vanilla advice because nobody plays it anymore, barring ones who are new to the game and waiting for sales like you. Of course since the new expansion Brave New World is coming out in a couple of months, by the time you get G&K people might've moved on to BNW instead. :v:

Overall strategies really depend on the map, game speed and the civ you're playing, but in general you want to get 3-5 cities as soon as your Happiness allows it before the AI grabs all the land. Try to build them so that you get as many resources as possible within their borders, with a balanced combination of hills for production and plains or flood plains for food. Also creating one next to a mountain allows you to eventually make an Observatory which adds a whopping +50% research to the city it's built in, so keep an eye on those as well.

Also try to preserve your jungles, they're pretty worthless at first but Universities, especially combined with the Rationalism policy that gives you extra research for trading posts (which can be built on jungle tiles), turn jungle cities into research powerhouses later on.

Oh, and especially on bigger maps consider building a scout first so that you can collect as many ancient ruins as possible, they can give you a great early advantage.

# ¿ May 6, 2013 11:13

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

The friends who recommended RA3 and C&C4 either have extremely questionable tastes or are trolling the hell out of you, those two are considered the weakest games in the series. RA3 is just meh but C&C4 is absolute trash.

If you like RTSs at all anything from the first game to Red Alert 2 are worth playing. Renegade is a pretty average FPS and Generals, while a good RTS, is C&C only in name. I haven't played C&C3 but I've heard it's decent enough.

If you had to pick only one, Red Alert 2 is generally considered the best game in the series.

E:

Also worth mentioning that the original, Tiberian Sun, Renegade, 3 and 4 take place in the same timeline. The Red Alert games technically do too but they're very loosely connected and after the first game they basically became the light-hearted spin-offs compared to the fairly serious setting of the "base" games.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 23:14 on May 16, 2013

# ¿ May 16, 2013 23:09

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

al-azad posted:

Go into the options and turn off the notifications. This will keep pointless things from distracting you like "X character will remember this!" You can leave the tooltips on so you're not pixel hunting.

I disagree, I never found them distracting at all and in fact the game uses them quite interestingly at certain parts. I recommend leaving them on.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2013 14:46

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

BrightWing posted:

Yes, it can certainly be said that the sequels contain much better gameplay.

And if one wants to check them out without actually playing them, there was a Let's Play of the original game recently (it's pretty bad) and there's an ongoing one of the sequel.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 10:54

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

PokeCrysis posted:

I just bought Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation 1.

Any tips for not raising the alarm/general game help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

It's been a while since I played it but from memory:

Have a lot of patience for listening to codec conversations because there's a lot of them. At the same time calling people can give you a bunch of useful and interesting information.
I'm not entirely sure but I think one of your codec contacts (Natasha) isn't automatically added to your codec list, although her frequency is mentioned. Having looked it up, the frequency's 141.52.
When you encounter doors locked by keycards, try and remember their locations so that you can return and open them later because non-mandatory locked doors often have useful stuff in them. In general explore areas as thoroughly as you can since there's quite a bit of hidden goodies. Even your very first opportunity to get a gun is semi-hidden in the helipad area.
You have an easier time with sneaking if you observe enemy patrol routes beforehand, basic stealth game stuff.
Quickly tapping R1 when you have a weapon equipped instantly reloads the weapon. Very handy at times, although you should avoid firefights when possible.
I think it's mentioned in the game but having a Ration equipped automatically saves you from death. Easier difficulties increase the amount of Rations you can carry.
Standing unarmed next to an enemy and pressing square allows you to drag them and even silently kill them if you press it repeatedly.
Cigarettes slowly reduce your health but they also reveal lasers. They also help when using a sniper rifle.
Watch out for loud surfaces and water, they'll make noise if you run over them.
In snowy areas enemies can detect your footprints. Since they follow them precisely as you left them, running in circles will also make the guard run in circles which is pretty funny to watch.
Thermal Goggles are great for detecting a whole lot of things you can't see with the naked eye, experiment with them if you find them.
Slight spoiler but worth pointing out, the ending (and the "new game+" reward) you get depends entirely on how well you do at a certain point of the game that requires you to rapidly press a button. You should be familiar with it if you've played other MGS games.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2013 18:24

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

The most important thing to know about NWN2 is that the early game is the dullest part and you'll probably be sick of orc caves by the time you're done. But if you otherwise like the game you shouldn't give up since it keeps improving and the Mask of The Betrayer expansion is still widely considered one of the best RPG experiences in video games.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2013 00:52

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

The first two Shadow Hearts games are magnificently messed up at times (especially enemy-design wise) and they're some of my favorite JRPGs.

And they do tie in to Koudelka somewhat. There is a fairly short LP of it in the archives so, while not critical to enjoy the SH games, it might be interesting to check it out beforehand if you have the time. That game's gameplay is flawed but the voice acting and atmosphere are great and worth seeing.

E: The first game also features the greatest music theme names, featuring tracks such as Ghosts Jogging, Coffee With Bullet, God Knows Bad News, Coffin Fetish, But-Dad-Dead-Bed, Callback From Jesus, Bacon's Juice and my favorite, Sicking loving.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Jun 30, 2013

# ¿ Jun 30, 2013 11:30

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Once you learn the game, also consider the fan-made In the Wake of Gods mod. While it does add a shitload of optional tweaks and gameplay changes (many of which are rather unbalanced), you can also just ignore all that and only enable the quality of life additions like rearranging your hero order or a pop-up that allows you to select between a normal battle, quick combat and quick combat without mana usage before each fight. That latter one is a real godsend on its own, and the mod doesn't replace your base game so no need to worry about that.

There's also a high resolution mod available if you want to see a larger part of the screen at once. For comparison:

800x600:

1920x1080:

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 12:28

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Dongattack posted:

So you american infidels have had Brave New World for a while now, any tips? New UI shortcuts, things you wish you knew for your first game and etc?

You should probably just ask in the BNW thread considering how active it is at the moment.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2013 20:14

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

The Orange Mage posted:

Just bought the Deus Ex collection on Steam and I am going to play it through in order. I know nothing about the series other than the first two games being highly regarded. Anything I should know?

The first two games aren't highly regarded, the first and third game are. The second one is garbage in comparison.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 13:54

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

DirtyTalk posted:

Thanks for the awesome tips guys. In response to the expansions I got the gold (?) package during the steam sale which I believe is everything DLC wise which as far as I heard is plenty of content to keep me going for the time being.

I'll see how it goes. In multiplayer though, the online games, how long does one last? Or does your civ carry from game to game?

The gold edition doesn't have the Brave New World expansion which came out recently and is a huge improvement to the game with a whole bunch of features and civilizations.

Unfortunately multiplayer is still somewhat inferior to single player even though it's been improved over time. Most notably the AIs for some strange reason are still completely unable to conduct any kind of diplomacy with humans, which is obviously a pretty big part of the game. Fortunately you can still contact them yourself, but it still means they never send any requests or offers.

It's still fun and worth playing, and how long it lasts depends entirely on your game speed setting. With Quick it'll probably take a few hours, on Marathon it'll take several days at the very least. Normal and Epic are somewhere between. And no, you pick a new civ every game.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 12:04

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Project1 posted:

This is only in multiplayer, right?

Correct, in single player they'll be more than happy to contact you to tell you how puny your empire is. :v:

You also get the fancy leader screens which aren't in multiplayer, unless you have leader scene quality set to the lowest in the settings.

E:

Fittingly, this is the first thing I saw alt-tabbing back to the game. Expect to see a lot of these.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Jul 24, 2013

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 12:10

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

DirtyTalk posted:

Right, I meant the package came with everything besides the expansions (which, do I need to buy both expansions or can I just get brave new world and skip the other? or vice versa?)

I'm very curious to get going on this game. I have some time today so I'm looking forward to it =)

If you got the Gold edition, you already have Gods & Kings and it's just Brave New World you have to buy separately. As I said it's still very much worth getting once you've otherwise learned the game, but the game's still good even with just G&K.

Civ V without any expansions is a pretty average game, but the expansions are what made it worth playing.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 12:48

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Lizard Wizard posted:

Couldn't help but notice a lack of information on XCOM: Enemy Unknown in the wiki, so lay some knowledge on me, please!

The difficulty jump from Normal to Classic is quite noticeable. If you're hardcore, pick Classic, but if you just want to get through the game, pick Normal.

As mentioned, make sure to keep panic under control and get satellites up ASAP, what you want to do is build a 4x4 block of two Satellite Uplinks and two Satellite Nexuses as soon as you can to max your satellite capacity. The latter are expensive and require Alien Nav Computer research to build but they're worth it. Remember that you can build satellites even if you don't have the capacity for them, so you might want to keep a couple ready so that you can launch them at the earliest opportunity.

Don't split up your guys, and always advance with care. If at all possible, use one AP to move behind cover and the other to Overwatch.

When picking rewards, engineers tend to be more useful than scientists. For the same reason workshops tend to be more useful than laboratories.

Avoiding the main story isn't going to stop enemies from getting stronger and you'll most likely end up with too much global panic for you to handle if you're always sidetracked. There's no need to rush massively but just be mindful of it.

On the opposite end, there's a certain building you need to build at one point of the main story (Hyperwave Relay). You shouldn't build it unless you have Firestorm interceptors because you won't be able to advance further without them. Oh, and remember that you need to manually equip weapons and such on your interceptors, just purchasing them isn't enough.

Snipers are really powerful, even in indoor missions. Take good care of your snipers and you'll have a much better time. Try to find high ground with them, and remember that you can't move and Overwatch with a sniper rifle on the same turn.

If you have the Slingshot DLC, do the mission you get from it as soon as you get it. Pretty sure you'll miss it permanently otherwise.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Aug 2, 2013

# ¿ Aug 2, 2013 22:36

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

PokeCrysis posted:

I've just got Kagero: Deception II for the PS1.

Anything I should know before I start playing?

The sequel of a very obscure game that was released 15 years ago?

Might be tricky to find someone for that one :v:

# ¿ Aug 25, 2013 18:36

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

PitFiend posted:

Anyone have any advice for Shin Megami Tensei? As in, the two SNES originals? I tried to play through SMT1 once, but I got stuck in the weird place after Thor's Hammer because the encounters were just too hard. Should I use a guide for certain things (like, say, fusing monsters) or just try stuff out for myself?

Quite the coincidence, been playing them quite recently myself. I've only finished the first one so far so this stuff mostly applies to that game:

Don't worry about Strength on the progatonist too much early on, guns are almost universally better than melee weapons at that point. Stamina is most likely a better investment and make sure to have some Intelligence for monster negotiation as well. Luck is surprisingly handy but you get a ton of free Incenses for it during the game. You don't want to completely neglect it though since the best weapons are, of course, swords.

Using a guide for monster fusion probably isn't necessary except for sword fusions. However it might be a good idea nevertheless, there's often a lot of stuff that isn't really explained well such as what alignment, gems and spells do or where you're supposed to go next alongside a couple of potentially gamebreaking bugs due to the fact that the translation was made on the 1.0 version of the game instead of 1.1 which they discovered too late.

Best advice is to abuse stuff like Charm and Paralyze as much as you can, creatures with one of the two combined with a high Magic Effect stat make life a lot easier (this also makes Magic Shells/Randi Shots the best bullets in the game since they inflict Charm). The Heroine also has the Zio line of spells which stun the enemy for the turn and it works on very nearly everything including bosses, very handy as long as you get your turn before them.

Watch your inventory space, you probably won't need more than one stack of Magic Stones and Orbs. From the top of my head Core Shields (damage floor immunity), Hiranyas (recover some hp/mp, only from stores), Somas (full recovery) and Dis-Paralyzes (cure paralyze) are some of the more valuable consumables. A bug may also add some bogus items into your inventory which is a pain in the rear end but mostly a non-issue as long as you get rid of everything unnecessary.

Have at least one way to cure each status ailment. Relying on one character to cure everyone with Penpatora is great until they get paralyzed and suddenly you can't do anything anymore because you never got any items to remove it with.

Autocombat is great but be careful with it, should you accidentally use it in a fight against enemies that reflect physical attacks it's a guaranteed game over. On the other hand if you can find monsters that can cast physical or magical reflect (Tetrakarn or Makarakarn) and enough speed to act before enemies, they're a very handy way to neutralize many threats.

Purely from a gameplay perspective, Neutral alignment gives you the most boss battles (and thus experience) and allows you to use practically all demons in the game.

Tarukaja (group attack power up) and Rakunda (enemy defense down) are a great way to speed up battles against though enemies, they increase damage quite drastically and they stack as well. They might overflow if you cast them a ton of times in a single fight but enemies rarely survive for that long.

The Mapper spell is really handy but remember that it doesn't work during New Moon. Mahanma is an instant kill on a lot of things but it requires having a decent Magic Effect stat to be at all reliable. Rimudora is cheap and deals very good damage against all enemies, just don't confuse it with Recarmdora which kills the caster to heal others. Toraport teleports you to where you previously saved your game, so do that occasionally even if you use save states.

Oh, and lastly if you get too annoyed at things like the map requiring going through menus and auto-rotating on top of that, SMT 2 fixed and improved on a lot of those issues. In general it's quite similar to SMT1 but more polished. You can always read the LP for the story.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Sep 11, 2013

# ¿ Sep 11, 2013 14:45

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

AASman posted:

What is the best way to replay Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors on Nintendo DS if you get a bad ending? I know you can fastforward through text by pressing right on the d-pad. Are you suppose to start over from the beginning or use the chapter select? Absolutely no spoilers please.

As mentioned, you start from the beginning which is a bit of a pain. I'm with Jolo here, this is why I personally used an aforementioned spoiler-free guide, because you see that first stupid room enough times as it is. Doubly so because a greyed-out choice does not mean it's a wrong choice, merely that it's one you've picked before; this can lead to a lot of running in circles which isn't very fun. Other than that my best advice is to write down the puzzle solutions as you go through the rooms so that you can minimize the amount of time you need to spend in rooms you've already cleared.

And yeah, the sequel fixes this completely and unless I'm horribly mistaken you'll never have to repeat a single ending or puzzle room in it. Which is a godsend considering the crazy amount of content in that game even compared to 999.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2013 16:12

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Brasseye posted:

Yeah I was struggling with the first boss then just went up 1 level, learned his attack patterns a bit better and kicked his rear end. He was shouting the same word with each type of attack then when his health got low just started shouting nonsense and spamming all of his attacks. Cool fight and would probably fit in as a mid game boss in most other games, not the first one.

You're going to love the actual midgame bosses in that game.

I was silly enough to start on Nightmare and I was already stuck on the second boss for ages.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Nov 15, 2013

# ¿ Nov 15, 2013 15:42

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

al-azad posted:

The downside is that you have Haer'Dalis in your party.

I fail to see the downside, Haer'Dalis is pretty great.

Also the romances aren't nearly as bad as in Bioware's later games in my opinion (although I went with Viconia which I hear is the most interesting of the bunch). They're definitely not nearly as forced, and you can just say "nope" at any point and they stop bugging you altogether.

I'm not sure what's on the wiki but I remember that Magic Missile is your best friend throughout the game, it works on a whole lot of things other stuff won't and has a good chance of interrupting spellcasting due to the multiple hits.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Nov 16, 2013

# ¿ Nov 16, 2013 10:11

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

al-azad posted:

I hate bards. They make good pack mules, I guess.

I never use normal bards in BG2 either but Haer'Dalis is a Blade and one of the more powerful PCs in the game when used correctly. His spins are really strong, Offensive gives you an extra attack per round and makes every hit do maximum damage which is a lot of damage due to his dual-wielding and Defensive gives him a ton of armor and allows you to cast spells during it (with a Ring of Free Action it won't even render you immobile unless this was changed at some point).

Also something that isn't immediately obvious is that his spellcasting level is really high, higher than actual single-class mages if I'm not wrong, which makes many of his spells such as Dispel Magic really powerful. His only real downside is that the guy's really fragile but that's nothing his high-level Stoneskins and a Girdle of Fortitude can't fix.

Ultimately though I mostly picked characters based on how entertaining/interesting they were. As long as you have a somewhat balanced party you're probably going to be alright unless you've never played these kind of games before.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2013 11:02

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

To be fair that's more like a really long ending rather than a cutscene.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2013 19:34

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Average Bear posted:

Neverwinter Nights 2? I've heard of it so much, but next to nothing about it.

Don't be discouraged by the slow and rather boring first chapter, the game gets better as it goes on. The ending is bad but who cares since Mask of The Betrayer continues from where it left off and is widely regarded as one of the most interesting RPG experiences in video games. It has one somewhat annoying gimmick but if you really hate it, it can safely and easily be disabled.

Storm of Zehir is completely separate and different and can mostly be ignored unless you really like its style.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2013 15:29

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Mierenneuker posted:

The great thing about the NWM expansions is that you will end SoU with a character that is just the right level for HotU.

Which makes sense considering HotU is a direct continuation from SoU, same protagonist and all. You're supposed to play them one after the other with the same guy.

HotU is great and also features two of my favorite town themes in video games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXpmmvtnYXg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r46yzCB82kA

:allears:

# ¿ Dec 16, 2013 16:38

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Heran Bago posted:

Go easy on the mods or you'll just be Sephiroth selling weed to the Jarls and killing entire villages.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 21:14

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Quarex posted:

While the Al Gore quest fight did seem like possibly the hardest one in the game (definitely second-hardest if not hardest), it is worth noting that the "literal annoyance" you mention, while annoying, does not actually Spam your Facebook feed in quite the way you expect--it only lists each annoying comment once, so it is not like you have to scroll through 500 pages of identical statements to look back at unique comments from other characters. I mean, this is a small thing, and I agree that it is (delightfully) annoying and well-worth stopping, but it could have been worse.

His messages can also be deleted so the message pop-ups are the only real annoyance.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 22:47

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

pentyne posted:

I'd wait till you have 2-3 legenadaries before switching to hard. As a shield crusader before getting a good weapon hard was just tedious as gently caress while I chipped away at mobs who couldn't damage me.

It's a matter of taste and patience but "2-3 legendaries" is an overexaggeration, you can do the whole game on Torment right off the bat without any particular legendaries if you like, although it'll obviously be slow without good weapon drops/crafting and it isn't available to new players.

Either way changing the difficulty is really easy so it's a simple matter of increasing it if it's too easy and vice versa, I think everyone can figure out what works for them personally.

The most important thing about Diablo III is to go through the Options carefully. Particularly Advanced Tooltips and Elective Mode are must-enables. The latter allows you to freely customize your skills, otherwise you're always limited to one skill from each category for no particular reason. To use two skills from the same category, click on the skill you want to replace in the skills menu and then use the arrows to scroll to the category and skill you want to use.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Mar 28, 2014

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 23:23

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

al-azad posted:

Regarding Vagrant Story I'm sure someone will give you a breakdown of weapon building and how to cheese the battle system but

I don't think cheesing systems is very good advice for people new to a game. Anyway, the most important thing is to not try and hammer bosses and enemies with a weapon that doesn't work on them because it'll take a thousand years. Try to hang on to and craft weapons of varying affinities so that you don't face a wall when your Ultimate Slayer of Humans and Beasts hits a dragon for 1 damage. There are spells that temporarily rise a weapon's affinity though, they'll make your life a whole lot easier. Affinities are also affected by the things you face, so if you whack a lot of humans with a weapon it's going to become more effective against humans but also less effective against some other creature type.

Also be careful in the Snowfly Forest, that place is a giant maze and you don't want to get killed by a boss there after you've successfully navigated your way though it.

Kanfy fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Mar 30, 2014

# ¿ Mar 30, 2014 12:59

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Warms my heart to see someone play good ol' Tenchu again, that game was amazing back in the day.

Mark of the Ninja makes for a good modern 2D version of it as well.

# ¿ May 6, 2014 14:12

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Too bad the second disk of Xenogears was so butchered, especially since it was Final Fantasy VIII of all games that stole its budget.

The game has its flaws but I would've loved to see the whole thing as it was meant to be.

# ¿ May 9, 2014 20:24

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

The Xenogears LP is certainly worth reading if you don't have the patience for the game itself (or even if you've played it before), The Dark Id did a great job with it.

If nothing else, it makes you realize that Citan is a total dick. Plot spoilers obviously.

# ¿ May 11, 2014 17:40

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Eggie posted:

Heroes Of Might And Magic III.

I wrote a bunch of stuff in the Gog.com thread and I'm too lazy to do it again so I'm just going to quote myself. Will probably make more sense when you actually play the game a bit though.

Recommended mods:

Kanfy posted:

Grab Horn of the Abyss (well-made community expansion) and the HD patch alongside with the base game.

Note that you can't play the official campaigns with HotA but it doesn't overwrite your normal HoMM III so you can have both.

Campaign order, skills, some early game stuff:

Kanfy posted:

Fake edit: Wait, since you're talking about Centaur Captains I assume you've started with Shadow of Death which is the second of the two expansions. The order is a bit weird in the Campaign menu but the "proper" order is Restoration of Erathia -> Armageddon's Blade -> Shadow of Death). Try the RoE campaigns first, they're pretty much meant for beginners. The expansion campaigns are for more experienced players and noticeably more difficult.

One tip for HoMM III campaigns: Always collect as many permanent bonuses as you can on each map, primarily spells and stat bonuses. Also when leveling up, avoid the following skills on your primary hero because they're crap:

- First Aid, Learning, Eagle Eye, Scholar

First Aid scales really poorly, Learning's +15% exp bonus is pointless since by itself it requires several levels and takes a skill slot, Eagle Eye is far too unreliable (60% chance to learn a spell used by enemy in battle) and Scholar is only remotely useful on the largest of maps and on secondary heroes since you can usually just go and learn the spells yourself.

However always get these skills if possible because they're amazing on practically every hero:

- Air Magic, Earth Magic, Logistics, Offense, Wisdom, Armorer

Air and Earth Magics are insanely powerful and have a ton of useful spells, Logistics improves your hero movement which is always great, Offense is a very big +30% boost to all melee damage, Wisdom gives you access to high-level spells (note though that not all factions can build Mage Guild 4 or 5) and Armorer is a solid -15% to damage taken which is great in a game in which you want as little losses per battle as possible.

As for the other stuff, my personal opinions:

Estates is good on secondary heroes but a waste of a skill slot on the guy that actually does things.

Artillery is only useful early on and only if you have access to a Ballista so its usefulness is limited. Don't use a Ballista without Artillery if you have Blind because the random shots will often hit the blinded stack for non-existent damage and allow them to act again.

Ballistics helps a lot against enemy towns but does nothing otherwise. Not a bad choice since siege battles are often rough but does nothing 90% of the time. Strongly consider it if you're lacking in flying troops because without Ballistics the catapult's aim is hilariously poor.

Same deal with Resistance, except replace "towns" with "heroes". Good to have against 'em, useless against most neutrals unless you're facing Faerie Dragons or something.

Archery ranges from good to must-have depending on how many ranged units your town has. You can rarely go wrong with it and if you happen to get it as Tower it's hilariously powerful.

Leadership is okay but usually only necessary if you're using creatures from many different factions for some reason since you get +1 Morale just from having all creatures from the same faction and Morale and Luck do nothing above +3. Completely useless for Necropolis since undead have no morale.

Luck on the other hand is very useful since you inherently have 0 luck and lucky hits are often devastating since they're guaranteed double damage.

Tactics depends entirely on your army composition, it's not a must-have skill but it can be very useful since you can protect your ranged troops or move your own units closer to or further away from the enemy. Try it out and see how you feel about it.

Necromancy is nerfed to half strength in Horn of the Abyss for a reason, only Necropolis can make good use of it but it's incredibly powerful on them. It becomes utterly broken if by some chance you manage to find all the pieces of the Cloak of the Undead King which on a Necromancer means that instead of Skeletons, you get an equal amount of Liches.

Diplomacy is really interesting. It can either break the game in half or do absolutely nothing. I'd say take it if you can because getting even one decently-sized stack of neutrals to join you can swing the game massively in your favor. It works on anything from Peasants to Black Dragons but the chance of joining is higher if your army is stronger and composed of creatures of the same faction as the neutrals, amongst other things. This can easily snowball as getting one stack of neutrals increases your army strength, thus making the next stack more likely to join you and so forth. Of course, once all neutrals are gone or the map designer has set neutrals to "Never join" (which is rare), it does nothing.

Pathfinding's usefulness depends entirely on the map and your faction. If the entire map is grassland it has no effect whatsoever, but if there's a lot of Snow, Rough, Swamp or Sand terrain it'll make moving on that terrain much faster. One thing to keep in mind is that all creatures have "native" terrain on which they get bonuses and don't suffer from decreased movement. Tower armies won't need Pathfinding to move on snow for example, nor do Fortress armies need it on swamp. However if you have even one non-native unit in your army, the whole army will suffer the full movement penalty so keep that in mind.

Same deal with Navigation. Utterly worthless when you're not sailing but a massive +150% movement bonus while on a boat. Consider the map and choose accordingly.

Intelligence is usually good to have, at Expert it doubles spell points which is never bad. Remember that ending your turn in a town with a Mage Guild will fully replenish your mana, so if you already have high Knowledge and easy access to towns/magic wells it may not be necessary.

Scouting is one of the worse skills in the game but not 100% useless. It's a pretty decent pick for a secondary hero that runs around exploring but it takes a valuable skill slot and does nothing when you already know the terrain around you.

Mysticism is worse than Intelligence since it doesn't scale at all. It's barely above "crap" tier because it can be useful on some maps that don't have a lot of wells or towns, but there are usually better choices because extra 2-4 mana per turn isn't that much.

Sorcery is good in theory but in practice you'll be spending more time casting buffs and debuffs instead of damage spells and it doesn't help with those at all. Useless on most physical heroes, it's not terrible for a spellcaster hero but don't pick it over better skills.

Water Magic isn't as must-have as Air or Earth Magics but it does have a few spells that benefit a ton from Expert level, namely Bless, Prayer and Forgetfulness. If you're fortunate enough to have Prayer in your spellbook, grab it because Mass Prayer is one of the best spells in the game.

Fire Magic is the least useful of the four Magic skills but it's still nice to have if you have the spells for it. Curse and Berserk work really well with Expert Fire Magic but the lack of adventure map spells makes it less desirable than the other three and "good" factions get Bless instead of Curse in their mage guilds. Blind is one of the best spells in the game but it does its job even without Fire Magic, although FM does make it even better.

Think that covers them all. There are a lot of strategies and other small things but experiment with stuff and you'll figure what works and what doesn't. One last thing that comes to mind about town management and early game, when choosing what to build in a town you should usually focus on getting a Capitol up unless playing on a Small map. Once you know what you're doing you can get certain creature dwellings early to clear neutrals faster but most of the time your hero's starting troops + first day troops from your castle + the starting troops of a hero hired from a Tavern all combined into one army on your first turn are enough to take care of the weak enemies near your starting area. One big exception to this rule is Stronghold as you can get their highest tier units as early as the first week which may very well be worth it if you have the resources to pull it off. But even with them a Capitol first is the safer choice.

Also avoid spending resources and turns on upgrading creature dwellings and instead build ones you don't have yet so that you can start gaining more every week. There are only a few creature dwellings I'd recommend upgrading early such as Gremlins to Master Gremlins for Tower, Wood Elves to Grand Elves for Rampart or Archers to Marksmen for Castle.

# ¿ May 14, 2014 15:00

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

HOOLY BOOLY posted:

Crafting things isn't really all that great until you get to Inferno Mode and you start crafting all of the endgame stuff, but take the time to level your blacksmith since you're gonna need him at level 10 by the end anyway.

For the Templar i always focused on giving him straight up Health,Armor and maybe some attack from his weapon since i usually have him set to tank everything.

Crafted items, rares in particular, are actually pretty great now since they have useful stats 90% of the time. Very handy if you're not finding upgrades consistently.

Also "Inferno Mode", when was the last time you played again? :v:

# ¿ May 24, 2014 08:15

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Sleazoid posted:

Anything I should know about Final Fantasy III? the wiki covers it but there's no mention of that being the original version or the remake. I was thinking of getting it now that it's on Steam.

I think the most common advice is not to play Final Fantasy III's remake since it introduces more bad things than good ones.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 16:02

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Ainsley McTree posted:

What should I know for Age of Wonders 3? All the units, the stats, the spells, the races, the buildings, the research...it's a lot to take in!

Been a while since I played but you can probably get more specific advice in the game's thread.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2014 10:18

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

de_dust posted:

Anyone have any tips for someone completely new to Baulders Gate 2? I got that HD edition during the steam sale and have idea what to do...

Are you completely new to BG2 or D&D rules in general? I haven't played the Enhanced Edition but I figure most of the stuff still applies.

Since BG2 uses the silly 2nd edition rules, remember that lower armor class is better. Think of the number as the bonus your opponent gets when it comes to hitting you, so -3 is better than 5 for example.
Try to keep a balanced party, you'll want at least one arcane and one divine caster, for example a wizard and a cleric. In addition you'll probably want one thief and a couple of people who can take a beating.
Spells are supremely powerful in BG2, read through the spell descriptions and try things out. Healing and area damage spells are especially good to have, and there are many powerful buffs/debuffs that can turn the tide of any fight. Don't forget the very basic Magic Missile, you can literally bring down dragons with that spell and it's very good for interrupting enemy spellcasting to boot. Chromatic Orb is another very basic spell that comes to mind which remains powerful throughout the whole game.
In the same vein enemy spellcasters can be brutal, especially as the game progresses. Make killing them your first priority, and you'll probably want to bring some buff removal spells with you like Breach or you'll have a very hard time bringing them down.
Scout ahead with a stealthed thief if you're worried about what's ahead. This can be annoying if your thief has poor Hide in Shadows since it can take a few attempts before they succeed but it's very handy to know what you're up against ahead of time.
Speaking of thieves, you'll most likely want to be using bows with them. All ranged weapons are very powerful in BG2, even your casters should be shooting something whenever they're not casting spells. Keep yourself stocked with ammunition for your ranged weapons.
It doesn't really matter early on but keep an eye on your weapons' damage type. If you go up against a Clay Golem and you don't have a single blunt weapon of +1 or higher, you're probably going to have a bad time because they don't give a drat about slashing or piercing weapons nor most spells. There's no need to hoard weapons since 95% of enemies will go down with anything but have a backup plan.
Remember that you can pause and give orders without having to rush at any time. With 6 people in your party it will get overwhelming if you try to do it all in real time.
Bring acid or fire with you against trolls or you can't finish them off. Any source of those two will do.
Another thing to keep in mind for a bit later, some enemies such as Vampires can drain your stats and levels which is a gigantic pain in the rear end. Restoration spells/scrolls can cure it, fortunately.
Haven't played the Enhanced Edition but at least in the normal version, one of the first quests you can do once you get out of the starting dungeon (the circus tent) nets you a ring that sets your Charisma to 18, so unless your class requires high CHA at all times you can leave it fairly low and swap in the ring whenever you're talking to people.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 09:43

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Lewd Mangabey posted:

My favorite part of the SA forums is watching goons hyper-sperg about relatively straightforward things (like building a party in BG2) and making them sound like loving brain surgery.

There's a reason why I only outlined some basic tips, people talking about full custom parties, optimal class combinations and a character not being able to wear a specific piece of armor in the thread meant for advice before playing a game for the first time is just :sigh:

I'm pretty sure seeing all that would just drain my will to play the game, even though none of it is necessary. There's a thread for that, people!

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 08:15

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

al-azad posted:

On the contrary it's the kind of stuff I'd like to know before hopping into the game. Especially with RPGs that are a 50+ hour time sink I want to know how to get maximum enjoyment out in a single play and that includes knowing what skills are useless, which classes are underrepresented, and what items down the road should I look out for. There are few things more frustrating to me in an RPG than reaching 30 hours in and getting a cool piece of gear that nobody can use because all my points are elsewhere. "You defeated the red dragon and got the legendary weapon holy avenger! Are you a paladin or is the one paladin with lovely dex in your party? No? Congratulations, you've got the legendary paperweight."

Is it necessary in the long run? No. Can I get through the game without ever needing it? Yeah. Is it frustrating as gently caress? You bet it is.

I get that, but you shouldn't assume everyone thinks the same way. Besides, "which classes are underrepresented" is not the same thing as talking about characters that don't even appear until the expansion, specific race/class combinations with specific stat builds, specific items that drop from specific bosses or the specific spells character x gets or doesn't get. All of this is entirely unhelpful and outright intimidating to someone who has not played the game.

You'll get plenty of shiny stuff and you'll get to kill plenty of things no matter what or who you roll with.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 08:59

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

Yeah, Sky UI is almost mandatory in my opinion. I especially like how you can sort your loot and inventory by weight-per-value so it's super easy to figure out what's worth picking up and what isn't.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 21:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 4, 2024 16:17

Kanfy: Jan 9, 2012; Just gotta keep walking down that road.

There's also the Souls games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsps0I58yUM

And Heroes of Might and Magic, I like the music in IV and V especially.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k9fPBM-rPo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d6nglHDOEA

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 08:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

«‹›8 »