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Oh! Hello there. My name is Chokington J. "Chokes" McGillicuty. You may remember me from this thing and that thing over there. When I'm not busy appropriating other people's intellectual property, though, I like to pour myself a snifter of brandy, lounge back in my spanish armchair, and play a little game I like to call...  Wot's all this then, wot wot? Wot.A sometimes-wonky and definitely loving homage to the RPGs of days past, Paper Sorceror is the brainchild of Ultra Runaway Games, a.k.a. Jesse Gallagher in a basement somewhere. Gallagher has put together a hell of an experience for just $5, blending deep party strategy, satisfying treasure hunting, and a light, quirky sense of humor. Beyond that, the stylized graphics are gorgeous, and the story---while paper (  ) thin---nevertheless manages to captivate. Wait a minute. What are you not telling me?Wellllllll. The game is not without its issues—above and beyond the handful of glitches/bugs still lurking in the game. Paper Sorceror claims to emphasize "strategy over grinding." They're kind of right; the party dynamic you choose will definitely color your approach to fights. In addition, your skills use a rechargeable stat called "Energy" instead of standard MP. Wait long enough in a fight, and your energy will fill up again. There's even common skills to speed the process along! Of course, you're getting punched in the face in the process, but such is life. The problem is that, for all its talk about strategy, the game relies almost exclusively on rare treasure finds to keep your guys afloat. The boss fights are brutal. They often have a floor of six times the amount of HP and defense your guys have, and the skills you have (at least early on) are a drop in the bucket. On top of that, they get some disgustingly broken skillsets that can level an unprepared party in two hits. If you get some rare drops early on, you can handle this, and it's actually pretty fun coaching your guys through a knock-down drag-out slugfest. If you get shafted by the RNG on your way there, you are F-U-C-K hosed. It's flat out bad design, and I won't be told otherwise.  If you can get over the hump of the first two bosses, though, it's usually smooth sailing from there on out.Besides that, there actually are places to grind in the game, and you'll probably have to do it to get enough money for some of the high level parts and trainings. So, the game's promotion material is basically a lying liar who tells lies. Lies.  THERE'S A 1980s MODE?! OH MAN CHOKES IS GONNA PLAY 1980s MODE THIS IS GONNA BE GR—gently caress you. I'm not playing 1980s mode. I'm not even playing Hard mode, and here's why. As I mentioned before, the curve is pretty awful over the first two bosses if you don't find good drops. Now take that and multiply it by three, and that's Hard mode. I don't know what 1980s mode is like. I'm terrified of it. You should be too. (Obligatory "Are you kidding I've already beat it four times  " response here. Great, good for you. Now  )Normal mode is fun; everything beyond that is a miserable slog. It's another example of people wanting to be punished for playing video games, and I will never understand the appeal of it. Besides, it's not really 1980s era difficulty. Stuff like Bard's Tale was hard as balls, but it was honest. The devs, bless their hearts, really were trying to make a rich and satisfying experience. They just sucked at game balance and didn't know how bad it was until it was out the door. In contrast, the difficulty settings here are mean. More importantly, they're mean on purpose. Ultra Runaway Games just slapped a multiplier on top of all the enemies and left it to you to figure out. It's not ignorance, it's malice, and I will take no part of it. So no. We're playing Normal. Stop asking.  Are we going to get the build the party this time?Nope! Not initially, anyway. I have a particular core party I like to use and already have the characterization for them ready, so we'll be starting with those. Never fret, though! There will be multiple opportunities to decide guest characters and party development.  This isn't going to be another epic, is it? I'm emotionally drained from the last LP cycle and I don't think I can get over you never doing Final Fantasy Legend 3Nah, don't expect any deep, meaningful philosophy on this one. There's nothing fancy here—just four jerks and a dungeon, the way the gods intended.  Hopefully, I can endear you to our guys! But, I'm mostly here to show off the game. Alright, I'm down! When do we get started?Right now, in fact!
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Feb 9, 2016 07:52
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Fan Art! NullBlack presents the epic crossover you've always demanded.  SystemLogoff is what happens when you eat pizza and ice cream right before bed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Sxb0zP-Gg Obscure bit of trivia: FeyerbrandX is the longest running show in syndication.  JamieTheD brings you secrets from beyond the universe: your parking meter just ran out.  FeyerBrandX is the Ringmaster... of our hearts.  And now, a brief message from RickVoid. quote:Ugh. This. This is how it starts. From SystemLogoff, the mind that brought you Chokes McGee, comes Chokes McGee: The Chokes McGee Story  We're past our deadline! I want FeyerbrandX on my desk and I want it yesterday!!  Chokes McGee does his patriotic duty. (Heh. "Dooty.")  O SystemLogoff (chan)  I get the feeling we're not in SystemLogoff anymore. 
Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 07:52
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Canto I - Stanza 1: Lost in a Good Book Once upon a time... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4QmUatyCto   ARISE THE DEMON ETRIG— ... Ah, poo poo.  ...Banan the Warrior, Ricerche the Ranger, Akimi the Mage, and Yawran the Priest. But you have all your arms, legs, fingers, and senses intact, so things could always be worse. ... GAH wow that's cold. ... Still there, though!  Well, here's our lovely starting point. If things look like a bleak and unrecognizable mess right now, that's a feature, not a bug. It'll pretty up real soon. Paper Sorceror is handled in live 3D. You can bumble around, click on things, and generally steal everything that isn't nailed down. Occasionally, you'll see a little "Search" box appear in the upper right. You can then hit spacebar to get a message of some sort, such as...  You can slowly feel your magic seeping away, along with your will to stand, escape or do anything that doesn't involve laying down. Whatever kind of magic this is it's truly insidious, you feel yourself nodding off already. You should probably lie down before you hurt yourself. *yawn* I should probably lie down before I hurt myself. zzzzzzDouble-clicking objects you come across will use them. Sometimes. Not every item is usable or even notable, but it often helps to click on anything and everything. Yes, even that. Especially that   It doesn't take long before you feel yourself slipping into a deep sleep. Right before you slumber, however, you have the distinct impression you're being watched. When you open the bag in the center a snake jumps out, and slithers out of the room. When you awaken there's a mouse at the end of the bed, staring at you. HOLY poo poo IT'S A TALKING MOUSE  Binding souls and calling them when needed... That can be a dangerous power. Dangerous, but useful. SERIOUSLY A MOUSE IS TALKING TO ME WHAT IN THE EVERLOVING gently caress Just shut it and listen. I would like to escape, and I think you can help me. Right now you have been sealed inside a prison of sorts. Can you have a prison "of sorts"? Isn't that just, like, a prison? Like I said: shut it. Now, where was I... The King has been trapping threats to the kingdom in here for decades. I think I know a way to escape but I can't do it alone and a sorceror like you is just what I need. I don't know how much I trust a talking mouse. And I don't know how much I trust some jackass with ugly horns, but hey... This is your last chance, I won't be back. Will you help me? Alright, fine. Whatever gets me out of this drat cell. The oppressive force that was draining your magic is gone, as is the mouse. You hear a whispery voice in your mind. (I will find you again soon.) Get out of jail free? More like get out of jail... me.   *cracks knuckles* Time for some good old-fashioned monster summoning.In a not-so-subtle nod to Wizardry IV, your party members are actually monsters that you've (presumably) worked with in the past. As our hapless evil-doer gets his mojo back, you'll be able to pick an extra summon from the list. Once you go over three, you'll gain the ability to rotate party members in and out of your active roster. They level up even when they're not in the party, which is incredibly helpful and also takes a lot of the pain out of this whole endeavour. Party dynamics are the most enjoyable thing about this game and one of the reasons it's so drat addicting. Your cast and crew all have their specific specialties, and their skills often have synergy with other characters' that determine your optimal approach to fights. That sounds like a lot of gibberish, but you'll see it in action soon enough. At any rate, here's our list of baddies and the usual RPG classes they line up with: Werewolf - Martial Artist Minotaur - Beserker Skeleton - Knight Vampire - Paladin Ghost - Buff/Debuff Mage Imp - Mage Goblin - Thief Cultist - Cleric Witch - Healer Troll - Assassin Shadow - Gimmick Mage (Random Damage) Abomination - Tank I've already decided on our first three party members, but later on, I'll let you guys decide the guest stars in our little misadventure. I'll even let you pick skills! If you don't ask for something stupid, that is. For now, though, we need...  I call to thee, prince of the night, the all-consuming! COME FORTH, AND SERVE! WHO DARES AVAKEN DE DARK POWER OF— Relax, Vlad. It's just me. Oh. Sup, bro!  The Vampire comes with the ability to drain HP as well as channel his HP into others. Think of it as redistributing blood for the good of the Hold up. You're telling me we're stuck in a book? Like, an actual book. Yeeeeah, long story. Let's just say we're not going anywhere anytime soon. How did you even get me here? Hell if I know. I was always better at summoning than banishing. No kidding. You could at least give us bus fare or something. Do I look like I'm made of money? poo poo, it's the fuzz Hey you! How'd you get out of your cell! Okay. Okay, keep cool, Vlad. Let me handle this. In response the guard brandishes his mace and continues his charge. You can tell by the look on his face he's the kind of man whose got something to prove. You got a way with words, chief. Hey, gently caress you too.Combat in Paper Sorceror can be a slog, but at least it's an interesting slog. You'll note the three meters for our guys:
Alright, let's ice this twerp. Vlad, do your thing. Look into my eyeeeeees... I am in controoooooool... OW WHAT THE gently caress ...  The hell do I even pay you for? You don't pay me. Anything. At all. Well, with an atitude like that, can you blame me?Magic damage is treated differently; it effectively ignores half of your opponent's current defense but does HP damage only. This means that, once an opponent's defense is sufficiently low, you can start torching their HP directly. Also, your spells will get stronger the more you wear them down! It's an interesting dynamic, but the long and the short of it is that we can spam Black Bolt and roast these scrubs nonstop.  Now that we're in the clear, let's start exploring! Might as well take a look at our cellmates first. Maybe one of them can help us?  Maybe not     Unholy gently caress. What does the king have trapped down here? Don't know, don't care. Moving on! Oho! What have we here? Score. Grab a sack and load up. This stuff is junk, chief. Yeah, but it's free junk!  I feel dumb wearing this stuff. Funny, I'd thought you'd be used to it by now. ... Heh.This equipment sucks, of course, but it's better than nothing. We equip Vlad with his usual starting loadout, plus the helmet that first guard dropped. Meanwhile, the Sorceror is unique in that he can equip a variety of weapons rather than one specific kind. You'd think loading him up with +Magic gear is the way to go, but you often find yourself needing an extra fighter to punch through armored targets. The Sorceror's a well-rounded character and will end up with pretty ridiculous magic stats anyway, so you might as well give him a good solid sword to beat on things with. Later on, of course, we can get some staves that are both good weapons and boost magic. One thing at a time, though! Hey, check it out!Enhance! Magnify!  Examine!  Open!  oh rite  Also, that ring in the back can be interacted with.       aaahahahahaha Chief? This bed is so tiny ...okay... Seriously I have to examine this thing Inside is a small wooden idol, carved to resemble a rotund female goblin. Do you take the idol? *yoink* Okay. Are we done here? oh man not even close, I have to see what the sheets are like  oh my god they are equally as tiny and smell great Okay, seriously. Are you done now? Yeah, alright. Let's toss that cabinet before we go. Works for me. Ooh, first edition. Bet this'll go for a pretty good amount.  Hey! The key on the dresser must go to that chest. Great! Now we can see what's inside. Y'know, it's pretty shoddy worksmanship. We could probably just smash it open. Nope. C'mon, I could do it! I'm a vampire! I have the strength of ten men! Ten? ...five. ...five? Okay, two bears and an anemic dwarf. But still! I could get it open, easy! Look. Vlad. We're evil and all, but rules is rules.  Bingo. Restoration crystals!  These things are always welcome. In addition to healing a single character to full HP, it will also resurrect a dead party member (to full HP, I might add). In harder modes, these are the only way to get a dea party member back outside of some stupidly high level skills. They'll see a lot of use in boss fights regardless of what mode you're in. Hoarding these things isn't a bad idea at all, because they are not cheap.The biggest issue is that they don't recover defense, so your guy is left completely unprotected and could conceivably be put right back down next turn. You'll need to provide some protection pronto if the fight's going to drag on, but it still beats having a useless corpse on your squad. A'ight, that should be all the loot on this floor. Let's mosey.  ...horns? That's what I said! Stupidest drat things ever. It's like, what are they even supposed to do? Scare us? Grant him power? Grant him looking dumb, that's what.  ... I mean, they're not wrong. I will kill all of you  Our first multi-enemy fight! Still scrubs, but hey. Blasting them with Black Bolt still works really well, but now that we have multiple targets, let's try some of Vlad's abilities!  HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS  That never gets any less creepy. A man's gotta eat, bro.Drain Life is a magical attack that—well, you can figure out the rest. As it's magical, it bypasses defense entirely. Suffice to say the armor on low level guards is... not so great. Between Black Bolt and Drain Life, we don't floor them in one round, but we mop up with our weapons pretty easily on round two.  Well, this probably isn't the way out of the book, but it's a good start. I don't think we can do this with just the two of us... No sweat, I've already got another ally. We just need to track down that talking mouse. ...track the what? The talking mouse! She did a weird magic thing where she broke me out of prison and gave me some of my juice back. She'd be a great addition to the party. ...is it too late to turn in my resignation? You realize I have a arcane contract with your forbidden true name signed in blood. ...so yes?
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Feb 9, 2016 07:52
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SystemLogoff posted:I am so very happy you're back. In fact, we may actually get updates out the door a lot faster now that the game's divided into little bite-sized chunks and I'm not working on a sprawling epic with hidden plot surprises and tracking things on a crazy pinboard that looks like it's a paranoid schizophrenic's life work and oh god AlphaKretin posted:Action Duck, though. Just came across something in the politics thread that tickled my fancy the right way and thought it was time for a change.  I really loved the custom one you guys bought me for FFL2, and it'll probably be back, but my current one is topical soooo.
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Feb 9, 2016 15:56
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Gabriel Pope posted:He's very clearly a bard, his spells are all named as songs. Whose LP is this anyway >=(
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Feb 9, 2016 16:52
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Oh my god that was the fastest turnaround from start to LP curse that I've ever seen For those of you that weren't here for the Final Fantasy Legend LPs: things go horribly, terribly wrong in my personal life when I do LPs. During FFL1 all the pipes (this is not hyperbole, it was all the pipes) in the house froze and then burst. During FFL2 I had a wasp's nest show up in my chimney (hence the previous avatar) and then my wife was staying on and off in the hospital for pneumonia and a severe asthma attack. About 10 minutes ago I got a text message from my wife asking, and this is a direct quote, "Have you published any of your LP yet?" It turns out the heater is making, quote, "a horrible grinding noise" which is not so good what with it being winter and all. The repairman will be out at 2. I'm looking forward to finding out there's a nest of raccoons in there or something. 
Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Feb 9, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 18:17
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:It's nice that your wife acknowledges the LP curse as a real and true thing. Considering last time it literally almost cost her her life I imagine there's a reason.
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Feb 9, 2016 18:36
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Inducer motor has burned out on the heater it is a $500 repair LP suspended indefinitely to prevent a meteor from coming out of the sky and striking oh shi
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Feb 9, 2016 19:37
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ArchWizard posted:The game looks neat, but the whole "you should click on everything" bit makes the exploration sound tedious. How tedious is it, really? Not at all! The "clicking everything" is mostly for finding flavor text and secrets. Also, it's very obvious what to click on; you spend a lot of time in antechambers and hallways, which don't have things like rings, tables, etc. I mean you'll have to click on loot when you find it, but it's stunningly obvious what you're looking for. Plus, it's loot! Everyone loves loot!
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Feb 10, 2016 00:54
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Canto I - Stanza 2: The Witching Shower Holy poo poo, Vlad! Good news! You found a way out?! No, I've got more of my power back! Oh... Well, that's cool too, I guess...  Look, you're the one that wanted reinforcements. Now quit your bitching and help me etch this circle. I've never actually seen you do one of these before, chief. What kind of incanation do you— Hurr dee durr, blah dee blee, Mistress Witch I summon thee~ Wow. What's next? "Through the teeth, over the tongue?" I only see one necromancer around here, and he sure as poo poo isn't wearing a vinyl cape. It's leather  *drip* *drip* ... I WAS IN THE SHOWER, YOU ASSHOLES! noiceThe next member of the kingdom's least dangerous Most Wanted list is the Witch! She'll be providing most of our healing from here on out. The Witch is a white mage through and through—i.e. if you look at her funny, she will explode into tiny splinters. Nevertheless, she gets DoTs and debuffs along with her terrific healing skills, and that makes her an incredible addition to any party. Fortunately, enemies don't really seem to have any sort of AI in this game. That's good, because otherwise they'd home in on our new friend and make our lives really miserable, really quickly. Still, Vlad doesn't have to worry about being the primary healer anymore, which means he can start swinging that greatsword of his around with impunity. The Vampire can actually do a staggering amount of damage as a fighter—especially with some of his 4 Energy cost attacks. He gets a nice blend of magic and physical damage, too! Toss in some emergency healing to keep the Witch from getting overworked, and you can already see how are guys are starting to complement each other. So what have you idiots gotten me into this time? Long story short: We're trapped in a book. ...a book. Yeah. As in, with pages. And words. Hey, it's not like I saw this coming. The king put four cockstains on my doorstep while my back was turned, and before I even know what's going on, poof. Nothing but sepia tones as far as the eye can see. Adventurers? Ugh. I thought you had minions to keep those people away. No, I don't have "minions." I have you assholes, and if I remember correctly, you said not to summon you for guard duty again. That does sound like something I'd say, yeah. Wait. You don't have to follow his orders? ...no? All we have to do is show up when called. After that, we can do pretty much whatever. Son of a bitch Great. Thanks for that, Willow. That'll be real helpful in the future. Any time. Hey, a goblin! About time we saw a friendly face around here. Now remember, goblins are known for their stupidity. So, make sure you use really small words. ... HI. WE ARE FROM THE JAIL. DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BOOK? You know I speak Common natively, right? IT'S OKAY. TAKE YOUR TIME. WE'LL TALK SLOW. A very strange mouse helped me. Again with the talking mouse! ...the what? *thinks for a moment, then gasps* The who of the what? Right now you are in a magical artifact of great power, the Librum Claustrum. Aw, gently caress. Nothing involving magical artifacts and latin ever ends well for us bad guys. Evil... such as you and I. That's seriously cute you think you're in my league. Keep swinging for the fences, buddy! Dare to dream big! You're the single biggest douchebag I've ever met. Aw, stop it. You're making me blush. Just tell us more about the book.  Dreaming the dreams of madmen. But... as we know that isn't always the case. Sometimes the spells designed to sap our power don't work. Other times the spirit of the book has been known to interfere. We just left a floor full of corpses behind us. I think we're more excitement than they can handle.  You killed everyone on Floor 1?! Yup. Vlad here even drained one of them to a dessicated husk. It's kind of my thing! You guys. You're alright after all.  Great! So, you won't mind answering some questions, then. What exactly is the spirit of the book? I don't really know, no one does. I think she's an inmate who escaped, like you. Sounds like the Big Boss around here. *grumble* Great. Now I have to pay my respects and kiss rear end and yadda yadda. This is why I hate working with others... What are these gems everyone's carrying around? For the people in here if offers a brief but intoxicating bit of escapism. Most people here actually use them for currency. After you've been here for so long being able to see the real world, even briefly, is more valuable than any sword or diamond. Well, we've already looted a bunch of these things. Might as well take a peek at one...    ...wow. Give it a couple hundred years. You'll yearn for it. Right, we're getting right the gently caress out of here right now. Is there anything we can do to avoid the guards? Heh, you're lucky you met me. It so happens I— Hey, that's mine! how'd you get that? Huh? Oh, I found it while I was ransacking someone's room. That was my room! Every chance I get!  You scoundrel! ... you remind me of myself when I was younger.  On the bottom is a hidden latch. Inside is something I was saving, but you could probably use it more than me. The Scroll of the Owl gives you an extra point of magic for free, which is really great. Scrolls in general are really great. Reading them grants someone a permanent stat point, and the game will actually tell you which stat it's for before you apply it. Pretty swanky, all things considered. We'll give this scroll to the Sorceror because duh. Note that you have to toss the goblin's room, steal his idol, show it to him, and then tell him you stole it to get this item. Look, we're evil. We do what we want, when we want, to whoever we want. That's just how we roll.  As I was saying— There isn't much time. He hands you a red feather. There is a safe place where others like you are hiding. If you continue through the cell block you will eventually come across a dark pit. Jump into it, this feather will ensure you wind up at the sanctuary. Good luck. Oh yea, watch out for the knight. He's in charge of this block. Hey, thanks for all your help. No problem. You know, I'm always looking for new talent. Yeah? Would you be interested in contract work? ...   This little black blobby thing is an encounter. Most of them are visible ahead of time; that way, you can plan, heal up, do whatever you need to do. You can also avoid fights that aren't directly in your way. Don't do this, though. You have a fixed number of fights in the game, and you need that XP. Later on, we'll get jumped by enemy encounters that are invisible. For now, however, that particular headache is a long way away.  Still scrub tier enemies here. The guards can be one-shotted by now, but the squire in the middle takes two hits. Now that we have Willow on the team, we can speed things up a bit with one of her starting skills:  Phantom Grasp is a piddly ice attack that really isn't all that useful in most fights. However, it's still direct HP damage—and more importantly, we're not dealing with Lvl. 8 Heroes or anything. Minor frostbite is enough to make most of these guys gib. The rest of the fight goes about how you'd expect. We pick up a few levels and new skills in the process—nothing too fancy, and we'll be showing them off in later updates.  Looks like the storeroom. You guys know what to do. Right.   Not a great haul, but it's a start. Those leather boots are immediately useful, and healing potions of any kind are always nice.   Scouts aren't much more memorable than squires, but they do have a skill called "Trick Attack" that will paralyze one of your guys. Since we're not at full strength yet, this can be problematic.   Fortunately, they aren't known for their armor.   Lesse here... wooden cane... some gems... hey, a note. We're doing him a favor, when you think about it. Actually, I think we just killed the guys who lived here. Even better! Helloooooooooo.Our first rare loot shows up! The hide armor actually isn't that big a deal, but +10 Def at this stage is pretty nice. Vlad's the only one in the party who can wear it, so into his equipment screen it goes.  What do you guys think? Pretty pimp, huh? Yeah. Goes great with the polyeurathane cape. gently caress you guys it's leather  So, do we actually know where we're going, or...? Meh. I'm just kind of playing it by ear. We're doomed.
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Feb 11, 2016 02:54
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Shiva Asori posted:from my experience, Bosses tend to be weak to DoT effects since 1. Dots ignore defense which cuts out several rounds of tedium and 2. DoTs deal non-insignificant Percentage damage based on max health which cuts out even more rounds of tedium and 3. all bosses up to and including cellblock 4 can be inflicted with poison, which deals 10% max health each round. We'll get there in a couple of updates but yeah. There are a lot of skills you'll want to stick first before you get down to work on their Defense rating.
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Feb 11, 2016 03:02
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Shiva Asori posted:Work on their defense? skip it entirely as dots stack (you can both poison and witchfire them in conjunction) and dots tend to last 3 turns, so 2 poisons and a burn take off enough health to kill anything that doesn't heal, (10% * 6) + (15% * 3) = 105%. I'll roll how I roll. If you're looking for minmaxing, you're prrrrrrobably in the wrong thread.Catacombs 1 will be handled in about three updates and will be voted upon. Stay tuned!
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Feb 11, 2016 05:14
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Lizard Wizard posted:Is looking through the gems ever particularly useful? Nah. You can only do it as a dialog option once. I think it's meant to be a one off gag. Speaking of which, want to hear something hilarious? I've never made it past the third (proper) boss before in this game. At a certain point I'm going as blind into it as you are! Isn't that fun! 
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Feb 11, 2016 19:48
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Canto I, Stanza 3: Welcome Back, Frank ! More power? More power. Stand back, you guys. I'm calling in the big guns. Abomination, I call thee! ... Sup, Frank.    Nada. And here's the Abomination! Despite the name, he's basically Frankenstein's Monster. Did you know Frankenstein's Monster referred to himself as Adam in the original book? Not a lot of people know that. Now you're one of them. You're welcome. Anyway, the Abomination is one of two tank/support characters, the other being the skeleton. (Yes. The skeleton.) His skills lean slightly towards magical defense instead of physical, but in all honesty, he takes damage like a champ from just about everyone. He has two basic purposes in life:
We're not going to use his aggro soak skillset quite yet, because at this low of a level, we'll end up with a dead party member real quick. Likewise, his anti-magery won't be helpful until we actually start fighting mages. Later on, Frank's contributions will be invaluable. For now, though, we'll just have to be content with a Frankenstein's Monster that wields a warhammer as his primary weapon. I don't know about you guys, but I can live with that. With our final summon chosen, our initial party is complete! We'll pick up more allies along the way, but this is our main core of jerks. Better get used to 'em, it's gonna be a long ride.    Lame. Any of you guys want this? Not my size. Fit's too baggy. Doesn't have ruffles. ... What? So, Frank! What've you been up to since the last time we saw you? Bit of this, Bit of that. Won a photography contest. Learned to play the violin. Took up surfing. Surfing? Did you gently caress with Da Hui? I bet you hosed with Da Hui. Man, even I don't gently caress with Da Hui. The who-y? Yeah, them. ...what? No, 'hu'. Round the lips. Okay, everyone can shut up now.  First time we've bumped into these guys! Dwarves are a pretty noticeable step up and the first of the serious fighters we'll see. We can't just pop Black Bolt and call it a day anymore; we have to do some planning. I mean, you can just beat on him with weapons until he falls over, but it'll take a while, and it's not gonna cut it later on—especially when there's more than one of them. The game's giving you a chance to ease into some actual combat here, and you should take advantage of it. I have a general approach I use for combat in this game. It's not exactly optimal, but it seems to work well enough. See, in order for your spells to not suck, you have to make sure the enemy's defense is low enough to not soak the damage. Therefore, my first job against randos like this guy is to bonk him on the head until we actually start doing damage to his HP.   Once we've lowered his defense enough to start damaging him physically, that's usually a sign we can apply magic damage at full or near-full effectiveness.   ...and, of course, Vlad and Frank can keep attacking since they don't have anything better to do. Vlad's going to spend most of his time as our stand-up brawler since he has the big damage sword. Frank actually isn't as great a fighter as you'd think, but he'll still get the job done for now. Anyway, we get rid of this guy in two turns using the above method. Things will get exceedingly more complex later on, but for now, let this serve as Babby's First Strategic Combat.   It's barely been used, most of the writing is about the lack of discipline among the guards. ...of course a lot of the lads in here don't know what they're doing. Sons of farmers and gutter rats, promised a life with purpose. They're just too young to understand what being here forever really means. Oh boo hoo hoo. Cry me a loving river. Actually, it looks like somebody did. ...Was the only one who understood me, now he's dead! Kenriek didn't deserve that! I'm sure that stinking goblin knows something, next time the others aren't around I'll make him talk. This your guys' work? Hell if I know. It's not like any of them had nametags. Either way, it's not our problem. Let's help ourselves to his stuff and get back to finding a way out of here. ACHOO Curse you. Thanks!   *retttttttttttttttch* Man that's pungent.    Oooh you're a new one...just what are you up to. I think I'll follow you for a bit and find out hehehe... I'd really rather you didn't. Rather who didn't what? You guys can see this, right? The glowing ball of light that sounds like a twelve year old's text messages? ... What's a text message? You have got to get a better phone plan, Vlad. Something tells me we found Kenriek. R.I.P., rat guy. You were owned by a dwarf with disgusting BO. Should we say a few words or something? "He was a rat. He lived. He died." Poignant words for us all. Hey, what's through here? I wouldn't if I were u hehehe Well, you're not me, or else you'd be way less dead and way more handsome. Seriously, who is he talking to? Ehn. After a while, you just start tuning him out.  The barracks. Of course it's the barracks. told u hehehehe Stuff it, rat. This... this isn't the talking mouse you told us about earlier. Right? I'm not even gonna pretend to know what's goin' on here.Weenie flood! This looks terrifying at first, but at this point, we've got a full party and all of them can drop a guard with one or two attacks. We club and/or zap these assholes to death in two rounds, after which we get a round of level ups and some snazzy new skills:   Frost Fall is the first of our debuffs, a 4 Energy magical attack for the Sorceror that already works well enough as a straight magical attack. Even better, it drops agility, which increases the chance monsters will miss and makes it easier to act before they do. Both are very good things. Restore Defense, on the other hand, speaks for itself. It seems pretty obscene to refill your defense mid-fight—even for 4 energy—but it's still at level 1 and generates about 15-20 points at most. That's not too shabby, though. And, it'll only get better as Willow levels up. This brings me to a tangental point: A lot of the skills you pick up in Paper Sorceror sound awesome right up until you use them in combat, at which point they're completely underwhelming. There's a reason for that. It's still a level 1 skill. Skill usefulness tends to compound exponentially, and they're not always going to be jaw-droppingly impressive the instant you pick one up. I mean, obviously there are exceptions to this—healing spells, debuffs, etc. are pretty drat useful out of the gate—but for the most part, you'll need them to level up once or twice before you really see what they can do. More guards means more loot, at least. Let's get to it!   The hell is with all the snuff? I swear these guys' would've just died from oral cancer if we didn't get to them first. We're doin' them a favor, when you think about it. I know, right?   No wonder these guys die so quick. Their entire armory consists of tongs and snuff boxes. Hey. Hey, guys. Know what else rhymes with tongs? Wrongs? Songs? Gongs? Mongs? Mongs isn't a word. It is now! No, see, the answer was d— Don't care. Dibs on the staff! The iron staff is a first-tier, non-junk weapon we've seen that boosts Magic. We give it to Willow so the Sorceror can keep his crappy long sword, which does 1D8 instead of 1D6 damage. (That's 1-8 instead of 1-6, for those of you who don't speak RPG natively.) Every little bit helps.   ...and that's how we ended up in a book. Sure. You don't really seem fazed by any of this. Man, I've seen some poo poo. This doesn't even rank in the top ten. One step closer to wherever the hell it is we're going. The Knight's probably roaming around upstairs. Look alive, people! ... I mean, relatively speaking.
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Feb 12, 2016 06:02
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Seyser Koze posted:I notice the Witch is an Enchantress now on the status screen. Do your minions have class changes as they level up? Oddly, the classes don't match up to the character names. For example, Vlad is marked as Lord, Frank as Protector, etc. I don't know if it's just a quirk the programmer didn't catch or if there's something plot related going on (AND DON'T YOU DARE SPOIL IT IF THERE IS). We shall see.
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Feb 12, 2016 15:10
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RickVoid posted:Picked this up this morning. Only took an hour to get past where you are. I'm using the LP party, and I can see why you've gone with it. Took out the first boss on my first attempt, so I guess I've got the hang of the combat system. I'm really happy people are buying this game. It deserves all the love it can get. Also just a quick reminder since I didn't put it in the OP: No spoilers please!
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Feb 13, 2016 17:31
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jpublic posted:Chokes, are you going to do a character writeup? I could really use one. It's coming up, we'll have a chance soon enough to start voting on new party members. I'll give a brief summary of each, and then once we're voted upon I'll go more in depth.
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Feb 14, 2016 18:53
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Canto I, Stanza 4: A Bad Day for a Good Knight So where's this Knight everyone was talking about? You kiddin' me? He'll be at the exit, same as every other boss. They're cribbing out of our playbook now? What's next? Twelve on four fights? Multiple forms? Some people don't have an original bone in their entire body. What's the plan? You guys distract him to keep him from punching me in the face. Right. And while we do that, you'll charge up your spells! Wha? Oh, hell no. I'm not getting tangled up in this mess. That's why I summoned you three. I say we leave him down here and go off on our own. You can't get out of here without my magic and you know it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxq-LSLTH0c ...woah.This is the area Paper Sorceror uses in their promo videos to impress people, and it's easy to see why. From out here, you can see all the various cell blocks. You've more or less been in a cube until this point, so the sudden widening of space is even more astonishing. This is where you begin to realize just how alien the Librum Claustrum is. Of course, you'll want to be careful not to fall off a ledge here. Hey, what's down there? Death via bottomless abyss. Sounds great WHEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  (...you goddamn dumbass.) Well, that was fun! What the gently caress! Why would you even do that?! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Actually I'm just kidding. If you're dumb enough to fall off, the Spirit of the Book will just warp you back to the top. I don't know whether or not she gets pissed off and lets you die if you repeatedly toss yourself in. Probably not, but we've got places to be, so I'm not going to find out.   Awfully sportin' of him, standing out in the open like that. You know, if they'd just jump us from behind while we're still getting our poo poo together, they could probably kill all of us in a hurry. Thank gently caress these morons have some self-righteous sense of fair play. The moral high ground is an excellent vantage point from which to have your face slit. Truth.  I know where you're trying to go sorceror, and you'll never make it. The fact you have made it as far as you have speaks to your skill. Kinda speaks more to the guards' skill. Thanks for the vote of confidence, pal. He hefts his sword and enters into an attack stance. Boss time! We're not at 100% capacity yet, so this is going to be more of an introduction than an actual primer in boss fights. It's just as well; the Knight is laughably easy compared to later bosses. Consider this a dry run for exploring how much fun fighting Paper Sorceror's bosses are. not very You'll notice right away that the Sorceror is out of Energy and that Willow is compromised as well. The thing about Energy in Paper Sorceror is that it doesn't regenerate to full after fights. The only way to pump it back up is to start a fresh round of combat (+1 per round) or use the Focus ability, thusly:   Focus gives you +2 Energy immediately, a buff to your Magic for a few turns, and you get a third +1 to Energy when your next turn rolls around. That's great! The bad news is that you waste a turn doing it, which gives your opponent one more round to kick out your teeth. Now, I know what you're thinking: Chokes, how bad could it be? Up until this point, we've been clowning all over the guards. Well... This? This is the tin can everyone was making GBS threads themselves about? Looks like a regular ol' fighter to me. You'd think he'd at least have a magic sword or something. Oh, look! He's using a special attack! How cute. FHGLKEJFLKAFJFALJAF Well, so much for the "not getting punched" plan!The Knight's attack strength isn't loving around to begin with, but Enemy Smite is a near one-shot for us at this point. That's the thing about bosses in Paper Sorceror; their attack power and high defense is bad enough, but where they really gently caress you is their skillset. Boss skillsets are above and beyond challenging—veering into the territory of broken—and it's what makes boss fights such an uphill slog. We have ways of mitigating this later, but by and large we're just going to have to suck it up and keep healing. I'd like to take this moment to remind you we're on Normal difficulty. Yup. As mentioned, we don't get access to our entire range of skills for this fight, so you're not going to get a good feel for our typical battle plan. We can show off the bits and pieces we do have, which include: We need to do something, right now, or we are all going to die! Alright, rear end in a top hat, you wanna dance? Let's dance. We mentioned Frost Fall last update, and here it is in action! 15 HP out of the box is nothing to sneeze at against bosses, but more importantly, it debuffs agility and inflicts Slow status. -1 Agility is not going to be enough to save us from getting hit, but that and Slow will buy Willow enough time to get her heal spells off. Mercifully, the Knight can only attack one target at a time. Obviously, this will not be the case with future bosses.   There's nothing sexy about the rest of our plan. We keep clubbing the stupid jerk with our lovely weapons until his Defense comes down enough, and then Vlad and the Sorceror can take off the gloves and go to work. Vlad, in particular, can unleash Inhuman Strike:  There's nothing fancy to this skill. He just winds up and hits an enemy as hard as he possibly can. We can spend four energy to do 15 HP damage, which isn't too shabby. In response, he can spend four energy to do this:    Shouldn't you be taking hits for us or something?! Ehn, you guys are doin' fine on your own. hrhkkkkkFrank can't use aggro redirect without immediately dying in two turns, Vlad's tied up as our primary fighter, and Willow only has so much Energy and healing power. The knight can crank out a stupid amount of damage, and we'd barely keep up if we devoted all our resources to defending. (Which, by the way, means we wouldn't be doing any damage.) This is pretty much every boss fight in Paper Sorceror. You are hilariously outmatched, and your job is to scrap your way to victory by any means possible.   I break out Restore Defense midway through so you can see it in action. Right now it heals Defense in the single digits, but that's enough to top off our crappy armor. It still prevents damage from the next hit, so it serves as a (very) poor man's mass heal. It's honestly of questionable usefulness; 5-6 defense is enough to barely keep someone from dying from a regular hit, but it's not going to do anything against Enemy Smite, because ow. We have to make some pretty dodgy decisions here and triage our healing based on current HP and value to party. If someone eats two Enemy Smites in a row after our comically low defense has been shredded, we're using a Restoration Crystal. Miraculously, however, I combine keeping a close eye on how low people's HP gets and gambling on who gets hit next, and... Frank! Vlad! One-two punch! ...? Got it! One...  ...two! ...we end up not losing anyone this fight! Woo! People like to get fancy with bosses, but in my opinion, it ultimately boils down to whittling down armor. Magic does direct damage, and it needs to be part of your approach, but knocking their defense down is what opens the floodgates. Again, we'll get into proper strategies in later fights—but for now, let's just enjoy the victory. Off to a great start!  *huff* *puff* gently caress. gently caress! What the gently caress was that?! Sorry, chief. We're not a boss fight anymore. We're barely a random encounter. We are going to get pasted if you guys don't step up your game. I can't do all of this by myself! You don't do any of this by yourself! See? Willow understands what teamwork is! That's not what— Just let it go. It won't help.   loving hells, even the loot sucks. I hate this place. All the more reason to get it out of it as fast as we can. Hey, there's the pit the janitor told us about! ...sooooo. I guess we just jump down into it? Jump into a bottomless pit? Don't be an idiot. ... *shove* Probably should've checked if that was the right pit first. Nah.
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Feb 15, 2016 06:48
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Poil posted:
This is the last time I go to one of your goddamn poetry slams.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:57
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Glazius posted:Do enemies build up energy to use special moves too, or can they just unleash them at random? As far as I can tell, they have Energy meters, too. They're just kept neatly tucked behind the scenes. If you're willing to take a few educated guesses, you can probably predict what they're going to do next and plan accordingly. IDK for sure though.
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Feb 17, 2016 05:44
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Shiva Asori posted:Actually, they just have huge energy meters, like a few dozen energy, so it's more likely they'll die then run out of energy as they still get the +1 en per turn. I'm going to hate late-game, aren't I. I seriously have concerns this is the first LP I'll have to bail out of If the loot situation goes sideways on us. I mean, we'll see in next update that we're good so far (  ), but bosses in this stupid thing are murder and I have no idea how bad they're going to be compared to the first proper boss.
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Feb 18, 2016 06:01
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Intermezzo I: Man About Town  not the horns NOT THE HOR—  Yowza. ...we're met before, haven't we? You're the one that broke me out of my cell. You're a perceptive one. That's going to come in handy.  That is not a mouse, chief. No, no it is not. Well, relatively safe. You don't get sealed in here for being nice. I can handle a few street brawls. We can handle a few street brawls, you mean. Right. Isn't that what I said? You see, even though this book we're in is our prison, it's still a book. Subject to all the frailty and limitation of any book. Books are held together by their bindings, and if the bindings are broken...  ...soooo, what happens?  You will need to ascend through the Librum, breaking the bindings on every block. When the last is broken, we can do as we please. As we please, eh?  Within reason. Aw. You quickly learn the spell, taking only a few hours. Really? No. You're an idiot. Also, here. Take this. She hands you a large plam sized gem, covered in spiraling runes. That will enable you to return here whenever you want. Or right now. Or just in general. Because wow. ... Good luck! I kinda like her! *grumble*Welcome to Sanctuary! This'll serve as our safe space and base of operations from here on out. It provides all the comforts of a normal RPG town—shops, inn, etc.—only without all those pesky adventurers wandering around. We'll get to each place in a bit, but let's check in with the locals first!   ...snake... Eh? Oh, sorry. Forgot you're a goblin. THE SNAKE IS WEIRD. I THINK I KNOW IT. ... You've seen the guy? I mean, not directly. I have my sources. Why do you have sources? I want sources. Get me some sources, you guys, pronto! No. Also, wouldn't a decimator chop you into nine-tenths? A guy with a name like "Gilex the Decimator" probably ain't that good with numbers. What, and you are? Yeah? I'm a CPA. Huh.  Y'know, it's good to see the undead community with a high profile ownership. There's a lot of prejudice out there. It's gettin' better. The NAAUP does a lot of good work. RRG RAR GRR GNNN Anybody here speak zombie? I took a couple of semesters in it. Let me give it a shot. MRR GAAA RRRR GN ...the pot is on the stove? I think? Sometimes I wonder why I bother summoning you guys at all.First thing to do is dump off our loot. Since we've basically stolen everything that wasn't nailed down, you're going to see us pawn off some goofy stuff. Generally the game gives the generic description of "Worth a decent sum to the right buyer," but every now and then it has snarky feedback for our inventory:     Wait wait wait. Back up.  The tongs are the best loot we've found?  Anyway, with all that crap and poo poo gear unloaded, we can afford to deck everyone out in proper equipment! This'll make a big difference, as we now have 25+ defense and can do actual damage with iron weapons. Plus, no one will laugh at our gear anymore.  GRRR HA HA HA When I want your opinion wage-slave I'll ask for itNo more so than usual, anyway. Next up is our room!  Room and board at Chez Sanctuary is apparently free, which is great. Not only that, but... Now this is more like it. This place has all the amenities! Which means it's time to start lootin'. One time, I smuggled a terricloth robe and a matching set of towels out of an inn. They never suspected a thing. I got an entire memory foam mattress once. I'm not going to ask how, and yet at the same time, I'm not surprised.  And to think, some places only give you free shampoo and horn oil. ...horn oil? These things don't stay handsome on their own.   The bed, not surprisingly, will restore our HP. Since we're playing on Normal, it'll also wake up our fallen  I see the Gideons have been through here.    The Tome of Heroes is just a quick shout-out to the people who supported Paper Sorceror's Kickstarter. It doesn't have much use as an item outside of novelty purposes.  Or getting you 200 gems without breaking a sweat.  Also available around here is...  Nice horns. Game recognizes game.The skill trainer lets you customize/boost your guys however you like. It's expensive to start with, and it'll only get more expensive as you train. However, if you've got some gems to spare, it is absolutely worth it. In the future, we'll put our advancements up to a (limited) vote. For now, though...  We're going to see Willow get 2 levels of Energy Control ASAP. We want her spamming Heal and Quick Heal during boss fights without having to hit Focus. It'll make life tolerable, if not nicer. Only one place left to visit!    Ah, you're the one who just escaped, aren't you. Come closer, there's something you can help me with. That sounds like an incredibly poor id— Is this close enough? :iamafag: Maybe not that close. hehe wat u want You are the best person in this entire place and I want your autograph. Sure. What's your name? Just make it out to—oh. Oooooh. You're good. Dang. That close to a new summon. However, there are some mischevious souls who have hidden from me. They scattered themselves across the Librum, one in each block. You feel a weigh in your hand. Looking down you see you are holding a small black stone. Use that stone to trap wayward spirits. Who you gonna call?! Ghostbusters! That's racist. Just beware the restless spirits of those defeated. They will attack you ceaselessly. Now go! Return when you have found another one of my lost souls. Oh man. Guys, do you realize what this means? We're Death's bounty hunters. Now that's a sweet gig. Especially since you and pointy-teeth over there owe me. You had your chance. We don't owe you poo poo. Oh, are you gonna do the shout now, Dr. Claw? "I'll get you next time, Vlad and Frank! NEEEEEEEEEXT TIIIIIIIIIIIME" ... Hey, can we check out the catacombs while we're here? It'd be my sincere pleasure. Here's the catacombs! They must have just put them in since they haven't faded to sepia yet. He's an enterprising one, that Death. The catacombs are where you can pick up some extra loot and do some grinding, if you're so inclined. The game claims you don't need to grind to finish, but the game says a lot of things. If you've hit a brick wall, it's not a bad idea to hang out here for a little while. It doesn't take a lot of effort to catch up, but you'll probably have to keep grinding until someone drops a rare item. Depending on your luck and what your current gear level is, this could take a while.   I'm not going to waste your time describing this fight. At the end, however...  Just a quick introduction to runes here: they're basically just an extra magic item you can slot to boost your guys' stats in some way. Here, we have the iron rune, which pumps up HP and Defense. We put this one on Frank post-haste and  oh my gods who cares about any of that poo poo Vlad has a steel greatsword now  21-40 damage Steel gear is one level above iron and a weapon we shouldn't have at this point. You'll notice. Trust me. Of course, not everyone down here is a chump. Occasionally you'll bump into some mobs that are much higher level than what you've already fought, such as...  ...these guys. The fighter on the left end there is more dangerous than he looks—he's got a high damage rate and a skill called Double Strike that hurts like hell right now. The (Dead) Level 3 Knight can also crank out some pretty impressive damage if your armor dips too low. Same old, same old here---fry the squire in the middle on the first round, beat on the Knight until his armor's broken, magic the hell out of him, then repeat for the fighter.   Even though it doesn't look impressive, 8 defense and some HP damage on the first swing ain't shabby. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean he did 10 damage; defense comes down proportionally to what it absorbs, but not one-to-one. It also means Vlad's initial hit went right over the top of the knight's stupidly high starting defense. Now that his sword doesn't suck, you can see how the Vampire is really underrated as a primary damage dealer. Everybody homes in on his lifedrain/sacrifice abilities, which are more of an emergency gimmick IMO. Treat him as a standard bruiser, and you'll get way more value out of him.  Also, our staple skills are starting to come in! This is Frank's "Defender" ability, which gives your entire party a temporary boost to Defense and Max Defense. There is absolutely zero reason not to take advantage of it, since the temporary defense boost isn't subtracted from your score if you've already lost it. Plus, it's only 2 Energy. Pop this thing at the beginning of every fight and refresh it whenever it cools down and you can spare the Energy. There's no reason not to.  Vlad This is a critical hit, which does happen—they're just not announced in flashy terms like other games. You'll know when one of these goes off. You'll do... a lot more than double damage. Unfortunately, this means enemies can do the same to you sometimes. It sucks, but there's not a whole lot you can do to prevent it (outside of debuff and hope for the best).   Frank is starting to round into shape as a backup fighter, too. Now that his gear doesn't suck, you'll find our loveable polymath meathead does a little bit of everything and does it extremely well. I really like the Abomination; if it weren't for the fact that his taunt skill is of questionable usefulness before you get big ticket armor, I'd say he's bordering on broken. Might as well use that to our advantage!  Vlad  With our new sword levelling the playing field, we actually cruise through this fight pretty quick. That's good, because these are the staple jerks we'll be seeing on the spell block. If we're already threshing our way through them without issue, we should be in the clear. (For now.)   Vlad    Well ain't that conspicuous. In a large and dusty tome you had read about an ancient form of necromancy. It involved taking a person's life energy and infusing it into an inanimate object, such as a doll or puppet. (Hmm. I bet I could stuff an adventurer into a sword if I really tried. I could call it... "Offender.") When activated the puppet would serve the first person it sees. If what you remember is true, by activating these runes you will become the puppets master. From what you have heard the puppet would make a valuable ally. Both versatile and loyal Their abilities vary based on what parts are attached. (On second thought, that's a stupid name and a stupid idea.)  Decision Time  Hey, thread! It's time to vote! At the end of each catacomb section, you'll get some power back and can summon up a new ally. Level 1 is unique, however, in that you find the puppet. You don't have to take him as an ally—personally, I'm not a fan—but that's not for me to decide right now. We're going to vote on the next summon we select. (Keep in mind that it's the only shot we'll get at the puppet!) Here's the list of candidates:
As always, voting closes whenever I feel we have a quorum, i.e. whenever the gently caress I feel like it. I've got our core party, so don't worry too much about screwing things up for this run. However, don't expect them to appear in starring roles, either. Get to it! I'll post the results at the beginning of the next update. Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Feb 18, 2016 |
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Feb 18, 2016 08:58
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I like how you guys are (seemingly) confusing the Sorceror and Vlad. It's incredibly appropriate for the thread in general.
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Feb 18, 2016 17:50
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Hey guys? I don't have the kickstarter version. It'll have to be Imp or nothing.
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Feb 18, 2016 19:16
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The impression I'm getting is that every character is "get it now or it's gone forever" because Chokes isn't going to be rearranging his party ever. Nah, I'll be slotting them in from time to time, it's just we'll always come back to our core party. Plus, we'll get multiple opportunities to vote as we work our way through the catacombs. It's just the Puppet that's "pick it or it's gone."
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Feb 18, 2016 20:15
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Explosions posted:Can I get a clarification from people who've played the game, is the puppet an irascible old codger who doesn't care WHO he offends, or is he just a zany racial caricature? Use spoiler tags if necessary. Mortimer Snerd or gtfo quote:also does the ghost have tits BTW, we originally had the Ghost by a landslide but puppet is coming back strong! I'm gonna hold voting open another day probably to see how things shake out.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:16
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I'm gonna go ahead and call it for the Puppet, guys. The Ghost gave a good run, but we were waiting for the results from Goon County and the turnout was pretty heavy there. Update will be up in a day or two! Maybe possibly.
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Feb 19, 2016 03:08
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Also I'm happy to report quality loot will not be a problem for this run
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Feb 19, 2016 03:31
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The thing is, it's only for LPs when people are watching. When I tried a hard run off screen, I had to end up scuttling it because I did not get one single piece of rare gear. The next boss, accordingly, destroyed us.
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Feb 19, 2016 15:48
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Why do you automatically assume people from other existences spell things the same way we do? Heteronormative jerks  Meh, I'll just do the same thing I do in every story and lampshade to make it a viable spelling somehow. In fact, I already have an idea, but you'll have to put up with it until late game. Deal wiith it
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Feb 20, 2016 17:37
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Canto II, Stanza 1: Door Warehouse Outlets You can't be serious. Vlad, we need all the help we can get right now. Besides, it'll be fun. Think of it like Pinoccio! Except he kills people. Not helping  See? He's just a puppet. He won't do anything unless I tell him to. ...I guess...The votes are in, and you wanted to see the Killer Puppet, so here it is! The problem with the puppet is that you have to find all his various parts before he's useful in combat. That includes a head, body, and at least one arm (though probably two). As far as I know, the only place to find puppet parts as drops are in the catacombs. There's another area where you can buy the most common ones—and we'll see that down the line—but they're not exactly inexpensive. However. If you can get the right parts and a good rune for him, the Puppet can be an absolute nightmare fighter. Pump his stats up, slap a flamethrower arm and a guillotine arm on him, and watch him go to work! Yes, I said both "flamethrower arm" and "guillotine arm." Until we get enough body parts, though, he'll have to stay on the bench. We have a bench now, by the way. When you finally get more than three summons, the rest can be swapped in and out whenever you have access to the main menu, i.e. when you're not in direct combat.  Alright, let's toss this thing into our inn room and get back to work. The Spirit of the Book doesn't like to be kept waiting. She's not going to sleep with you no matter how well you do your job. You don't know that.  ... i'm watching you   Not a lot's changed. Yeah, except our gear. You guys ready to kick some rear end? ... Vlad? Yoo hoo! Party's over here. Wha?! Oh, right. Ready to go, chief. Seriously, why do you keep looking over your shoulder like that? ...no reason...  Lotta doors here. Too many, if you ask me.  Oh. Oh, drat. That is ripe. Seriously, how do you guys live with this stench? You stop smellin' it after a while.With our near-full skillset available and Vlad packing a steel greatsword, this fight goes down real smooth.  Even Willow isn't much fazed by these jerks. Still, just for shits and giggles, we go ahead and load up a taunt ability. Since Frank has a slew of other useful skills, we're going to cheat a bit and use Willow's skillset to lock a taunt onto him. Hey, hit him instead. 'kay! It's a livin'.Bait adds "Challenge" status and temporarily pumps up HP and defense. Frank's "Challenge" ability does more or the less the same thing, so AFAIK they're interchangeable—and also a great example of team synergy. You'd think the overlap would make it redundant, but it actually frees Frank up to drop big abilities like Arcane Backlash or Recharging Strike while still doing what he's meant to do. I love it when a plan comes together.  Anyway, Challenge doesn't immediately cause every single hit to go to its target, but it's still a noticeable boost. I'd estimate it's somewhere between 65 to 75 percent, because I like making up numbers that have no bearing to reality. Still, once Frank's wearing big ticket armor, we'll want to keep him taunted for just about every random encounter. I still think it's a really bad idea for bosses—you don't want one of those broken-rear end meat grinders homing in on a single party member, regardless of how beefy they are—but it can protect some of our squishier party members from keeling over. By the way, it's been brought to my attention that "Sorceror" is not spelled with an "o". In repsonse, I'd like to point out that shut your stupid face I'm spelling it that way until the end of the LP now so there   After clobbering the guards, we pick up some levels and a few new skills. Mage Armor is kinda ehn, but more defense is never a bad thing, and it makes for a pretty good way for the Sorcer    Hot drat! I've needed a new pair of shitkickers for a while.   The defense charm is a great pickup. It uses one of your accessory slots, and its boost is huge compared to the accessories we have available to us. If you guessed we put this on Frank, you guessed correctly.  58 defense. He's not quite where we want him right now, but he's getting there!    Fighters start showing up now, and they're nothing to laugh at. Generally I kill opponents in order from weakest to strongest to reduce the amount of attacks I have to deal with as fast as possible. Thus, the dwarves go down pretty quick to a combo of Vlad's greatsword and the Sorceror's Black Bolt.  No, not that one. Willow even gets in on the act with Phantom Grasp, which is somehow doing the same amount of damage as Black Bolt! Unlike Black Bolt, however, there's a cooldown. Whereas the Sorceror can spam his spell until he runs out of Energy, Willow has to wait a turn or two between hers.  With the dwarves down, we take a sec to top off everyone's defense. One of the things I didn't even realize before this, my thirtieth million playthrough of the game, was how incredibly important Defense is. It's probably even more important than HP, and here's why. Fans of the Palladium RPG system may be familiar with a secondary durability stat called Structural Damage Capacity, or "SDC." When a Player's SDC (which often ranks in the hundreds) breaks down, only then do they start taking HP. Furthermore, their HP is usually a pittiance compared to original SDC. Sound familiar? I think that's what Paper Sorceror is trying to do here with Defense. Even though you get it all back at the end of a fight, probably the most important thing to do is recharge Defense whenever it dips to the halfway point, either with temporary boosts or Restore Defense. Defense itself doesn't run out quickly, but the amount of HP it saves you rapidly degrades. Keeping that stat up goes a long way towards changing fights from rocket tag to strategic combat. Trust me, you do not want to play rocket tag with Paper Sorceror bosses. You'll lose. Anyway, not much else to write home about for this fight, other than the no-necked meatshield up there taking a good 350+ HP of damage before keeling over. That's more than our entire party combined. So much for heroes fighting fair, huh? It's not quite as nice when you're on the other side of the sword.  More steel gear! We give the longsword to the sorceror for now.  ! Boss? Hmm... So? poo poo like this doesn't just happen, Vlad. C'mon, help me find a switch or something.  ... I mean, they gotta put 'em somewhere, I guess. Just takes all the fun out of it when you can see behind the scenes. Yeah.   Are you sure there's a secret passage? We keep pulling on these rings, and nothing's happening. That's because you're doing it wrong! Stop doing it wrong and do it right! Y'mean like this?  Yes! See? Frank gets it! It's true, I do get it. Kiss-rear end.   The Warrior's Chain Armor is not a drop we should have at this point. But who cares! We toss it on Vlad, and he goes from powerful to terrifying. At this point, we can pretty much point him at any single enemy and get out of his way. I'm all for that. The Mage Robes are regular robes that (duh) give a small boost to magic. Nothing super fancy, but we equip it on the Sorceror for that little extra "oompf."    Not pictured: us wrecking the poo poo out of a Dwarf and two Squires guarding this area. We do pick up Blood Sword for Vlad and Bone Breaker for Frank. The former is basically a regular sword strike for two energy that restores HP proportional to your damage. Not bad, but not super fancy. Bone Breaker, however, is huge and another skill that will come into play during boss fights.  Also the puppet levels up. i'm getting stronger One of the nice things about the game's combat system is how the guys on your bench also gain the same amount of EXP when you win fights. You don't have to constantly swap people in and out to keep them all at the same level or keep them from getting ridiculously weak. It's incredibly helpful, and I wish more RPGs would follow its example.    This fight is practically custom made for Bone Breaker, so we go ahead and try it out.   -1 Strength may not seem like much, but A) it still takes the sting out of attacks and B) it's only going to get more powerful from there. It's a four Energy skill, though, and Frank has a lot of other stuff that's useful to the party. Juggling Energy is a real problem for the Abomination. What he really needs is something to recharge while still being useful, like a Focus skill that still allows him to attack. That would be broken as all hell, though, so the game doesn't hahahahahhahaha   This is Charging Strike, which is just mean. Frank does a normal attack and gets +2 Energy for his troubles. Even the three turn cooldown really isn't that bad when you consider what it does. If you make your first three moves of every combat Bone Breaker (or Arcane Backlash), Charging Strike, then Defender, you would be making some fairly wise decisions. I love the Abomination so much. It's like the dev got halfway through the character making process and went, "Wait, Frankenstein's Monster needs to be cooler! No, cooler! All the cool, dammit, turn it up to 11! To hell with the consequences!"  Aaaand we rob a guy's laundry after killing him. You're surprised? Jesus Christ game And we get another rare armor drop! Elven Leather Armor provides a massive amount of defense that is equippable by any character that can wear armor. We give it to the Sorceror and pass his mage robes on to Willow. I can't wait to see the look on that stupid zombie's face now. Just curious: Why am I wearing the thin cloth robes while you're sporting rare enchanted elf leather? Hey, you get a boost to magic in those things! It's like two points on the Ward-Gandolf scale. That's barely enough to make my spells change color! Well, if you're gonna be an ingrate about it, then I want them back.   Finally! Ha! I knew it!    smdh, game. smdh  "As you can see, due to the nature of the rites and rituals requires to make an extra dimensional prison, they are almost exclusively used to contain specific beings of great power." ... *rip* ? Just gonna take this with me. Think it might be useful later on? Probably not. I mean, I'm already in here, so it's just stating the obvious.   Okay, guys, I've got a plan. ? Let's barricade this floor and hole up by the door storage. Then, when they come down here to get more doors... we'll trade them for a way out. That's dumb and you're dumb for coming up with it. Cripes, I feel dumber just thinking about it. gently caress you assholes it's a good plan
Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Feb 22, 2016 |
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Feb 22, 2016 05:52
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The Lone Badger posted:Wait, I thought it was 'elven' as in 'made by elves'. You mean it's actual elf leather? I prefer to never clarify that particular point because it's funnier that way.
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Feb 22, 2016 06:36
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Hi all! Just a quick drive-by to let you know that work sucks and also a new update will be dropping either tomorrow or Friday. Maybe even tonight! But probably not because I got a backlog of iZombie episodes to catch up on. See you then! Or maybe not. One of the two, honestly.
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Feb 25, 2016 03:55
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Canto II, Stanza 2: Plop Plop Fizz Fizz (Disclaimer: There's a broken puzzle on this floor in the Steam version. We'll be doing it the "correct" way, then demonstrating how to get around the breakage afterwards.)   Looks like we've got some alchemists on our hands. Buncha dweebs. Don't you have a PhD in alchemy? Nah, my dissertation got rejected. Really? Why? You know how people try to turn lead into gold? Yeah? Turns out there's not a real big market for the other way around.   Our first mages start showing up on this level. Hedge mages are annoying since they have AoEs, but as long as we keep our defense up, they won't be able to do much damage with it. Just in case, though, we do have countermeasures... Fuckin' mages! Buncha good for nothin' nerds. Hate 'em all. ... Hate them.I'm not sure how its damage is calculated, but I do know Arcane Backlash sucks real bad for magic users. It's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between magic and physical skills, so there's a chance that someone with powerful special attacks will take disappointing amounts of damage. However, here, it's blindingly obvious. If you're a mage, and Frank gets you in his sights, you're not going to like it very much.   You have repressed anger issues or something? Nah, just a thing against mages. Never been sure why. Really? No reason you can think of? I mean, maybe it's something hangin' around in the background, but damned if I know what. ... We also pick up a new level in Black Bolt! This'll come in handy pretty quick, especially with Vlad's ability to shred armor.  Also we get this thing.   *sniff sniff* Wait. You guys smell that? God dammit, Frank Wasn't me. This time, anyway. Hello, most obvious secret passageway in the world!   Hey, I bet this'll come in handy. Yeah, the smell should ward off the guards. And us. And basically everyone. As you can see in the description, Acid Flasks are a tremendous find and a huge help against high HP/Defense targets (hint hint). Tossing one at an enemy reduces their HP and Defense by a fourth. No savings throws, no misses, just BOOM and massive damage. Now, keep in mind this is 25% compounding—i.e. 25% off their full amount, then 25% off what's left over, etc. Eventually you reach a point of diminshing returns. However, that's a big head start on most bosses, and lobbing two in a row the first round will take them down to about 65% before you even get started. Hoard Acid Flasks. The only things in the game more valuable are Restoration Crystals and Water of Life.    Maaaaaaaaaages!    And yet even more mages! We murder them in a hurry, and then:  Jesus Frank  Man, they're not even trying anymore.   More fur armor. This will come in handy after we start getting some extra summons.    I don't remember alchemy using this much vinegar. Isn't aqua vitae supposed to be hydrochloric acid, or— Imma drink it  ... ... I will never understand why he does poo poo like this. And I don't think any of us ever will. Oh gods it keeps coming up, how is there even anything left   Leeeeet's try something a little more constructive.    I'll be damned. Turns out vinegar was the philosopher's stone all along. Doesn't surprise me. That stuff's powerful enough to clean your whole house with! Ugh glrk Oh, hey chief. Feeling better? gently caress no. Maybe don't be an idiot next time? Just a suggestion. Shut it, hippie. Alright, there's one more room on this floor we haven't visited. That's probably where this key goes. I can think of another place for it right about now  So, here's the broken puzzle I mentioned earlier. This door is supposed to be where the Gold Key gets used. However, the door itself isn't actually there according to the game—it's just rendered visually. You can walk right through it and the door afterwards without going through the key subquest. It's not intentional, though. Oh well!   Let's see what we have here... Ba da daaa daaaaaaah~ The Arcanite staff is always in the same place every playthrough, and it always whoops rear end. It does nearly as much damage as a steel longsword, has a stupid boost to magic, and gives you a free Poison skill. This works exactly like Willow's Black Locust ability, except it doesn't cost any energy when cast via staff. I think the cooldown is one turn higher, but idgaf. This thing is seriously awesome. Of course, you know who ends up with it. I am gonna torch so many guards with this thing. You know... Just once, I'd like to get something new instead of a hand-me-down. Hey, we go in order of seniority here. You realize I'm older than you, right? Your secret's safe with me!  (if you can't see them they can't see you) Well, lookie what we have here.  Ghost status: busted. Spirit #2 is now captured! This'll get us access to the second level of the catacombs. We'll visit it soon enough. For now, though, there's nothing left to do on this floor.   Onwards!
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Feb 26, 2016 02:09
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AlphaKretin posted:No you see they actually changed the puzzle from the pre-steam release, all the alchemy stuff was still there as a red herring and the puzzle is to realise you can walk through the door. Game flawless. Checks out.
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Feb 26, 2016 17:52
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Silegna posted:So bought this game today, have a team of Werewolf, Cleric, and Abomination. I also don't think I'll be having any issues with loot...since I got TWO Elven Leather armor from the first layer of the Catacombs.  The RNG tends to clump in the game, I've noticed. It really is feast or famine.
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Feb 27, 2016 17:57
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KataraniSword posted:Sounds like a pretty low-level pRNG then, if it's consistently getting stuck on high/low "streaks" like that. Random(1)*100 + 1 "Uh, shouldn't that use the hardware randomizer for a noise sample or" "I'm sure it'll be fine!"
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Feb 28, 2016 03:54
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Hi, all! New update drops tomorrow, barring Force Majeur. In the meantime, I've started a second LP over yonder: LP Construction Set: Let's "Play" COMPUTE!'s Gazette Basically it's a thread where we all get together and type in weird games from a now-defunct C64 magazine, then write a quick review on them. Swing by, take a look, please contribute! It's experimental and may not work out but meh,  .
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Mar 1, 2016 07:21
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Canto II, Stanza 3: Fangs for the Memories Man. All this stuff is really startin' to run together. No poo poo. No wonder everyone keeps looking into these crystals. Ready to go back to the E/N forums, huh? On second thought I'd rather go mad. It's about the same either way.   Ooh! Someone brought a balanced party to the fight! Too bad the mage was trying to powerlevel his teammates when we caught them Archer, Dwarf, and Man-at-Arms go down in a hurry.  The mage does not last much longer.  And we get some very useful skills for Willow! Phantom Grasp Lvl. 2 can do a fairly decent amount of damage, and it is always good when our heal spells level up.  ... Chief? I just got this weird feeling of déjà vu...  Flipping through the pages, the book opens to a page with a note stuck in it. The note reads, "To change shape is a difficult magic, exponentially more so when the mass of the create you're changing into is different than your own. So the Spirit of the Book is massively powerful? Big surprise. I'm just gonna hang on to this. Something tells me it's a secret she doesn't want to get out. Willow? Why don't you take this one? What, seriously? Hey, you were the one bitching about never getting any loot. Well, it's about time! Let me just reach into the bag here... GAH *snicker* THAT WAS POISONOUS I COULD'VE BEEN KILLED I thought you liked nature! How'd you even know that was in there, Chief? Hell if I know, but it sure was funny! As you walk you suddenly hear a faraway voice cry out. Followed by the faint sounds of a scuffle.   Ssh! Ssh. ? My door sense is tingling. Why do they even bother hiding these things? The rings are friggin' doorknobs at this point.   Here. Don't ever say I didn't give you anything. This staff is made out of mucus. Think of it as salty jello! ...no. No, I don't think I will.The Slimestaff is another one that's always in the same place each playthrough. It is probably the least damaging weapon in the game, but it's not like Willow's going to be delivering the big hits at this point. If she needs to do damage, we can fire off Phantom Grasp a few times.    Gimme gimme gimme What is this bullshit Here, lemme take aother look at it. *click* I knew I hired you for a reason! You didn't hire me. You bought a build-your-own-monster kit off a website and put me together. It's kind of the same thing. Not really! Silence, minion Yes, master. Sorry, master. ...Vlad? Remember when we talked about following his orders?...  Well... I mean, if you want me to break you, game... Both the Sorceror and Willow have Elvish Leather Armor now! We move the Fur Armor to Frank, because it's somehow better than the base plate mail, and also because Frank is big pimpin'.    Fighter, mage, and archer here. We're starting to see more balanced parties as we get further into the book. Nothing of real interest outside of this:  The Hedge Mages are too weak to damage our ridiculous, ridiculous armor, but their Frost spells still inflict Slow. If you remember, the Sorceror has Frost Fall, which does the same thing only with more gusto. Slow basically means your guy won't be in the first few actions every round, plus no one's going to miss them as long as they don't have extra debuffs themselves, i.e. blind.    (Broom Closet) I hope they have this year's model! It's supposed to have wifi. Whole lotta loot up in this piece! We get an extra Restoration Crystal or two, another acid flask, and this:  Ow ow hot hot Here, give me that. How come you can handle that stuff? Don't you worship Satan or something? I'm a wiccan, you idiot! ...so yes?Water of Life refills everyone's HP and is possibly more valuable in boss fights than restoration crystals. If everything is going horribly wrong, one of these and two casts of Restore Defense can basically reset everything on your side. It doesn't bring people back to life, though, so don't wait too long to use it.  Looks like the guy in charge of this block is up next. I'm kind of on board with the Goblin we talked to. "Gilex the Decimator" sounds pretty dumb. Kind of appropos when you think about it. Wha? You're judging a book by its cover. ... No, I'm judging your face by your shutting it
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Mar 3, 2016 23:25
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That reminds me, my priest in the Avernum LP is still wearing the "Slime-Covered Tunic" that the party found in the third town in the game. You'd think I'd've found something better for her by now! Somewhat. The third cell block is pretty drastically different but the second one isn't all that memorable IIRC.
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Mar 4, 2016 00:24
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