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

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Barudak: May 7, 2007

Mr E posted:

Anything for Final Fantasy XII: International?

International Zodiac Job System is basically just "Is better than FFXII." Key changes are as follows:

You must assign a job to each party member before they can begin spending job points. This job can not be changed. This might sound terrifying but even if you try to select the least optimal grouping of classes on purpose (i.e., pick six of the same class) each Job Board the characters have is finely tuned to their class and allows you to be vastly more powerful in their role than vanilla FFXII.
In addition to the above, enemies have not been altered to reflect your new found improved murder skills
You can buy all gambits at the start of the game without needing to progress. Buy some of the critical ones early on so you can heal yourself easily.
You can now fully control/tweak the gambits of guest party members.
Treasure chests now contain static drops some of which are very good instead of an endless see of randomized trash
In the only really negative change is that some spells can be found in these chests. No chest, however, is permanently missable.
Nihapaloa is now much, much harder to get an involves a looong questline. By the time you can do this questline you can probably kill almost every single thing you'd use the Nihapaloa trick on with ease.
FAST FORWARD. You can push a button at any time to go 3x speed. This is amazing and a complete and utter game changer in how much you'll enjoy FF12. Use it liberally.

# ? Mar 4, 2014 20:53

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 04:44

theshim: May 1, 2012; You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!

Mr E posted:

Anything for Final Fantasy XII: International?

- At certain points you'll get guest party members that can allow you to run a train over enemies pretty easily. It's probably not worth grinding up too much as you'll be able to get more and better rewards later, but the option is there.
- Basch lives :byodood:

# ? Mar 4, 2014 22:00

Gynovore: Jun 17, 2009; Forget your RoboCoX or your StickyCoX or your EvilCoX, MY CoX has Blinking Bewbs!

WHY IS THIS GAME DEAD?!

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

Go to Halted Stream Camp and clear it out. The mine there has like fifteen iron ore veins and the Transmute Ore spell tome on a table. Load up, spam the spell on your walk home, and when you get back, throw all your gold ingots on your bed and swim in them like Scrooge McDuck

It's worth mentioning, at low levels, asking for work at the Bannered Mare will get you four bounties on bandit chiefs. Three are easy, but Halted Stream Camp is hard. It has several nasty boobytraps, plus the boss is an Orc with a warhammer who can one-shot you at higher difficulty levels.

# ? Mar 4, 2014 22:22

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

Any tips for The Guild 2 Renaissance?

# ? Mar 4, 2014 22:55

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

skooma512 posted:

Any tips for The Guild 2 Renaissance?

If you find the business aspect of the game to be a pain in the dick in terms of micromanagement, and want to focus on just the political game, the easiest way to make money is from Farming.

With farming, your entire business model is "Workers produce materials from scratch, you sell them on the market", so you can automate your farm so that it makes money without requiring any actual input from you.

With other businesses, the AI will, pretty much without exception, run your business into the ground, it's awful. But with farming, you don't have to worry about purchasing raw materials or chains of production or anything like that, you just make stuff and sell stuff, which the AI is just smart enough to handle without going out of its way to bankrupt you.

I'm sure that other businesses are way more profitable or something, but once you get the farm up and running, it's just a passive, constant stream of money that you never have to interact with, allowing you to focus on other stuff in the game. All the other businesses require lots of micromanaging, which honestly just starts to feel like literal work after a while.

# ? Mar 4, 2014 23:10

MussoliniB: Aug 22, 2009

Does anyone have anything for One Way Heroics. Reading the forums, it seems as if they're secret endings, and holy weapons. I've beaten the game twice (on easy) and am working on standard difficulty, but I need an adult to explain all of the subtleties of this game to me.

# ? Mar 4, 2014 23:24

Mayor McCheese: Sep 20, 2004; Everyone is a mayor... Someday..; Lipstick Apathy

Mr E posted:

Anything for Final Fantasy XII: International?

Everything Barudak said.

Don't pick Machinist as a job for anyone unless you want a harder endgame. Guns do flat damage and they hit a ceiling faster than any other job.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 00:43

RagnarokAngel: Oct 5, 2006; Black Magic Extraordinaire

Barudak posted:

International Zodiac Job System is basically just "Is better than FFXII." Key changes are as follows:

Treasure chests now contain static drops some of which are very good instead of an endless see of randomized trash

Nihapaloa is now much, much harder to get an involves a looong questline. By the time you can do this questline you can probably kill almost every single thing you'd use the Nihapaloa trick on with ease.

Combining these two as a note, if you've played FFXII vanilla, Zodiac Spear has been changed also. You can no longer earn it by avoiding the arbitrary treasure chests, so loot away.

Mayor McCheese posted:

Everything Barudak said.

Don't pick Machinist as a job for anyone unless you want a harder endgame. Guns do flat damage and they hit a ceiling faster than any other job.

I'm sorry but Balthier not using a gun is just wrong and probably should delete your save out of principle.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 00:54

Mayor McCheese: Sep 20, 2004; Everyone is a mayor... Someday..; Lipstick Apathy

I gave him axes in my playthrough, but you're right. It's not the same.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 01:01

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Ironically Balthier is like 5% less effective with guns than any other character because he has a more complex firing animation. No one should give a gently caress though because Balthier exists to shoot poo poo and look cool.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 01:04

MMF Freeway: Sep 15, 2010; Later!

He has a really cool attack animation/stance with spears if you want to make him an uhlan.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 01:05

ninjahedgehog: Feb 17, 2011; It's time to kick the tires and light the fires, Big Bird.

Ainsley McTree posted:

I feel like this has been asked a thousand times in this thread, but I don't remember the answers and it isn't in the wiki so I'm sorry to ask again, but:

What should I know for Knights of the Old Republic 2? I bought it on steam the other day.

I remember a hullabaloo when it came out about it being "incomplete" or some other major thing being wrong with it; has that been addressed in the steam release, or is there an unofficial patch of some sort that I'll want to download to get the most out of the game?

That's the main thing I'm wondering, but any other tips are good too, of course. I played the first game, so I probably get the gist of it.

The X button flourishes your lightsaber and makes a WOM WOM WOM sound. Do this whenever you get the chance.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 01:39

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

ninjahedgehog posted:

The X button flourishes your lightsaber and makes a WOM WOM WOM sound. Do this whenever you get the chance.

This is the most important tip about KOTOR. Please put it at the top of the wiki. Maybe on the main page.

As a corollary to this, if you choose to dual wield light sabers, then pushing the button will makes two WOM WOM WOM sounds. You should do this.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 01:42

CATTASTIC: Mar 31, 2010; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

KOTOR2

# ? Mar 5, 2014 01:45

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

MussoliniB posted:

Does anyone have anything for One Way Heroics. Reading the forums, it seems as if they're secret endings, and holy weapons. I've beaten the game twice (on easy) and am working on standard difficulty, but I need an adult to explain all of the subtleties of this game to me.

I just checked this out, since I'd never heard of it before, and am intrigued. Echoing this request.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 03:09

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

Ainsley McTree posted:

If you find the business aspect of the game to be a pain in the dick in terms of micromanagement, and want to focus on just the political game, the easiest way to make money is from Farming.

With farming, your entire business model is "Workers produce materials from scratch, you sell them on the market", so you can automate your farm so that it makes money without requiring any actual input from you.

With other businesses, the AI will, pretty much without exception, run your business into the ground, it's awful. But with farming, you don't have to worry about purchasing raw materials or chains of production or anything like that, you just make stuff and sell stuff, which the AI is just smart enough to handle without going out of its way to bankrupt you.

I'm sure that other businesses are way more profitable or something, but once you get the farm up and running, it's just a passive, constant stream of money that you never have to interact with, allowing you to focus on other stuff in the game. All the other businesses require lots of micromanaging, which honestly just starts to feel like literal work after a while.

Thank you goonsir.

Good thing work is my passion :v:

# ? Mar 5, 2014 04:13

Internet Friend: Jan 1, 2001

MussoliniB posted:

Does anyone have anything for One Way Heroics. Reading the forums, it seems as if they're secret endings, and holy weapons. I've beaten the game twice (on easy) and am working on standard difficulty, but I need an adult to explain all of the subtleties of this game to me.

You'll sometimes get a popup saying there's a holy item ahead, which means there's a small building coming up that you need a Key of Seals to enter. The items are really good, and it's well worth using a vault slot on any Keys you find.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 04:51

Kruller: Feb 20, 2004; It's time to restore dignity to the Farnsworth name!

Here's a tip for The Stick of Truth.

When you go to bed the first night, your gear is unequipped at the start of the next section. Put your armor back on or you're gonna get your rear end kicked.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 06:39

PJOmega: May 5, 2009

Anything for Sequence? It seems really grindy and I don't want to desynch anything if it'll bite me in the rear end on later floors.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 07:27

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

PJOmega posted:

Anything for Sequence? It seems really grindy and I don't want to desynch anything if it'll bite me in the rear end on later floors.

I played this game basically forever ago so I don't recall specifics, but I played on hard and draining spells were my bread and butter. Always Be Draining. Direct attacks are all well and good but unless you're playing on a really easy difficulty or are some kind of freaky rhythm game god you're going to take damage, and wasting time on direct healing is dumb.

Also I didn't grind a ton, though I did spend some time trying to get the low-frequency drops.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 11:57

A Bystander: Oct 10, 2012

PJOmega posted:

Anything for Sequence? It seems really grindy and I don't want to desynch anything if it'll bite me in the rear end on later floors.

Get used to failure with the more difficult to create items that take a shitton of EXP on the list and try to minimize your losses. The RNG has the capacity to be a huge bastard and watching your 95% chance attempt fail is something to behold.

If a regular foe is forcing you to time over, back off and work on your levels and gear because there's a few enemies in the game where if you can't do damage fast enough, you'll never win even with perfect play.

In the main menu, there's an option to practice songs you've played before, so you can use that to recognize the more crazy parts that come up. These notes follow the mana panel, so find the sections that can give you a lot of mana very quickly with little effort.

Panic is right in that draining fools is very effective at getting the job done no matter what but on higher difficulties, placing out a Barrier then a Direct Healing to buy yourself some time can be necessary because there are some bosses and even regular foes that don't mess around.

Also, if you're going for the low-chance drops for any reason, I'm so sorry for you.

# ? Mar 5, 2014 12:08

TehGherkin: May 24, 2008

This is a bit of a weird one, I'm playing, or trying to play, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. Problem is, I'm getting horrible jarring red squares all over the map instead of actual blood, I've tried googling the problem and most of the results lead to fixya.com where an illiterate man says it "might be ur cpu, u play other games?" and leaves his e-mail. So, not very helpful.

Anyone have any ideas? Drivers are updated, game's fully patched. Didn't know where else to post this; maybe we should have a "Gaming Tech Support Q/A" Thread? :v:

TehGherkin fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Mar 7, 2014

# ? Mar 7, 2014 07:01

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Anything for Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves?

Esp. for earlier part of the game, what am I supposed to do with these Maiken? Just try to use a bunch of wolf trap on them to get them to stop under the rock falls?

# ? Mar 7, 2014 09:58

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

Kruller posted:

Here's a tip for The Stick of Truth.

When you go to bed the first night, your gear is unequipped at the start of the next section. Put your armor back on or you're gonna get your rear end kicked.

I was thinking about how overall I feel like you should do everything in this game without knowing what is coming next, but I suppose "try to notice when the story unequips your stuff" is a fair warning.

Also important: Any mini-game that involves hitting directional keys will seem like it is accepting WASD input, and (to avoid spoilers I will speak generally) depending on what the mini-game is you may not even realize the game is not accepting the input, but it is not. You have to use the arrow keys to get it to register. Maybe this will be patched or maybe it is intentional; hard to say. Very relevant when you get to a part of the game where you cannot progress unless you do the directional minigame correctly.

# ? Mar 7, 2014 21:50

TehGherkin: May 24, 2008

Just to expand on my Mark of Chaos problem a little bit; this is what it looks like, just in case any of you have seen a similar problem in any other game. Very frustrating, I haven't the faintest idea what to do about it. As you can see it's pretty jarring, not easy on the eyes.

EDIT: Also, upon deciding to just live with it since I'm not going to find a solution anytime soon, I notice some interesting world map issues. I tried googling about this, too, but have found nothing. Apologies if this isn't in quite the right thread; If we have a more relevant one around just point me to it.

Double EDIT: Finally fixed it, in the weirdest way.

I tried reinstalling it and then running it without patching it and that made the problem go away, for some reason.

Yeah, I dunno.

TehGherkin fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Mar 9, 2014

# ? Mar 8, 2014 04:16

texting my ex: Nov 15, 2008; I am no one
I cannot squat
It's in my blood

anything for Tokyo Jungle? I got the basic gameplay down but it seems it will take forever to unlock anything

I wanna play elephant :v:

# ? Mar 10, 2014 11:55

PRL412: Sep 11, 2007; ... ... MINE

Skilleddk posted:

anything for Tokyo Jungle? I got the basic gameplay down but it seems it will take forever to unlock anything

I wanna play elephant

I'm a little rusty but here goes:

-To continue in Story mode, you will need to collect certain items in Survival mode.

-Once you play an act of the Story mode, more story collectibles will appear in Survival. Rinse and repeat.

-Most animals have a lifespan of 7-15 years. Over the course of that time, you should capture an area so that you can find a mate and breed before you die of natural causes. Natural causes can be recognized by the sharp whittling of your stats at the end of your life cycle (Loss of total health and total stamina regardless of hunger).

-Breeding will also pass on stats to the next generation, the better the mate then the more stat bonuses are transferred. Even if your lineage dies out, that animal will start the next game with the stats passed down through breeding.

-The sewer can be used to shortcut between a number of areas, and to avoid some of the larger animals. While it connects to the starting area, you will have to open it up from underground so look for other access points.

-By default, you can only choose from the Pomeranian and Sika Deer. Any DLC characters purchased can be used immediately (they are kinda spoilery and broken though).

-Each animal has specific challenges. They are randomly generated from a couple types, but there's always one that unlocks another animal type. (eg. From Sika Deer to Elephant there are 15 animal unlocks.)

-The chick can be unlocked early but is one the hardest animals to use. Make sure to capture the first area ASAP so you can sleep in the nest. You don't have a lot of time to begin with and you will most likely die if you don't use the dodge command for increased mobility.

-Speaking of the dodge command, it's possible to use it in quick succession to help counter small packs of enemies or to escape from larger packs.

# ? Mar 10, 2014 21:17

owl_pellet: Nov 20, 2005; show your enemy
what you look like

Anything for the console version of Diablo 3? I'm familiar with the Diablo series, so I'm particularly interested in knowing about items/abilities that are broken or are otherwise lovely in some way.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 04:30

Foolie: Dec 28, 2013

TehGherkin posted:

I tried reinstalling it and then running it without patching it and that made the problem go away, for some reason.

Yeah, I dunno.

Mark of Chaos with no patch? Be careful, or at least safety-save frequently. I think there are a number of game-ending states you can get into that are unrecoverable by loading the autosaves.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 04:59

The Shame Boy: Jan 27, 2014; Dead weight, just like this post.

owl_pellet posted:

Anything for the console version of Diablo 3? I'm familiar with the Diablo series, so I'm particularly interested in knowing about items/abilities that are broken or are otherwise lovely in some way.

I can't really speak much for the other classes but as a Demon Hunter, Rapid Fire is probably going to be the majority of your DPS. I have this as a set up and it works really well Solo, in a group you can almost just do what you want since things will die pretty quickly to 4 dudes firing off spells. Keep in mind this is later when you'll have more of your abilites on hand, starting out is a bit boring but gets way more fun as you get more skill unlocks.

Right Trigger: Rapid Fire
Y: Tumble i think it's called? It's pretty much your dodge move so you'll know it when you get it.
X: Caltrops, to slow things down that want to beat your face in
B: Sentry for an extra distraction and more DPS
RB:Arrow Rain, any variation of it that you'll get is pretty decent.
A: I forget what it's called but it's the one that slows enemies on hit and chains to another, which you can modify to chain to 2 extra guys.

Stats on gear drops are going to be semi-random, just try to stack as much Agility as possible, as for weapon type i've had the most success with a 2 handed crossbow although there's nothing wrong with a regular bow or duel wielding hand crossbows.

# ? Mar 11, 2014 05:28

Seedge: Jun 15, 2009; Hey, buddy.

Any tips for SMT Devil Summoner Soul Hackers on 3ds?

# ? Mar 15, 2014 12:46

al-azad: May 28, 2009

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Play the game on hardcore unless you've never played an RPG before. Even then it's super easy.

If you care about collecting everything you'll want a guide. About a 1/4 of the collectibles have a limited window. One achievement can be lost simply by talking to a character who appears once.

On that note, anything you acquire is counted as collected even if you sell it. If you sell equipment you can buy it back at the sale price at any time from any shop so there's literally no point keeping old equipment unless you're going for the "don't sell anything" achievement.

The level cap is 15. You get one ability point per level so plan your abilities.

The classes are more or less the same, their major difference is what debuffs they specialize in. Each class gets a few sets of unique equipment (doesn't count towards collectibles) but every item in the game can be equipped regardless of class.

Bleed can stack 5 times and is really good but late game enemies are immune. On the other hand, few enemies are immune to burn.

When doing the farting tutorials, follow the onscreen prompt explicitly. This is especially important with the Sneaky Squeaker. I recommend playing with a controller on PC but when the game uses arrow prompts it means the actual arrow keys on your keyboard.

Even if you save your game it doesn't count until you hit a "checkpoint" which is any time the little bear-recorder appears in the bottom right corner. In other words, after saving your game don't turn off the game until you leave the screen or see the icon.

The final Timmy flag appears later in the game. Keep playing.

Never, ever fart on a man's balls.

al-azad fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Mar 17, 2014

# ? Mar 17, 2014 03:39

al-azad: May 28, 2009

e: quote is not edit!

al-azad fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Mar 17, 2014

# ? Mar 17, 2014 11:38

Incessant Excess: Aug 15, 2005; Cause of glitch:
Pretentiousness

I'm skipping Bioshock 2 and going straight to Minerva's Den, anything I should know?

# ? Mar 17, 2014 12:33

pigdog: Apr 23, 2004; by Smythe

al-azad posted:

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Don't do the Al Gore questline until Day 3. It will turn into a literal annoyance that will only cease to be annoying if you win a very difficult fight, possibly the most difficult in the game. A good way to win said fight is with a lot of power potions and spamming Jimmy's lullaby every turn to keep the Secret Service agents down.

# ? Mar 17, 2014 12:52

Mister Facetious: Apr 21, 2007; I think I died and woke up in L.A.,
I don't know how I wound up in this place...

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes is a buck on Android, and I'd heard it was good when it first came out for the DS/XBLA.

Anything I should know beyond the tutorial?

# ? Mar 18, 2014 08:30

Tirranek: Feb 13, 2014

I'm about to try Dark Souls on the PC, anything I should be aware / wary of from a technical standpoint?

# ? Mar 18, 2014 11:24

RagnarokAngel: Oct 5, 2006; Black Magic Extraordinaire

Tirranek posted:

I'm about to try Dark Souls on the PC, anything I should be aware / wary of from a technical standpoint?

Grab the dsfix mod: http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=dsfix

It allows you to make a few tweaks to the graphical settings that aren't otherwise possible like what resolution it renders at. It does a good job explaining everything so it shouldn't be too intimidating. Just make sure to disable AA in the game's option's menu. DSFix includes its own, better AA and stacking them makes the game freak out.

# ? Mar 18, 2014 11:30

Pneub: Mar 12, 2007; I'M THE DEVIL, AND I WILL WASH OVER THE EARTH AND THE SEAS WILL RUN RED WITH THE BLOOD OF ALL THE SINNERS

I AM REBORN

Biggest human being Ever posted:

I'm skipping Bioshock 2 and going straight to Minerva's Den, anything I should know?

Aside from not doing that? No.

# ? Mar 18, 2014 11:48

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 04:44

opaopa13: Jul 25, 2007; EB: i'm in a rocket pack and i am about to blast off into space. it should be sweet.

Mister Macys posted:

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes is a buck on Android, and I'd heard it was good when it first came out for the DS/XBLA.

Anything I should know beyond the tutorial?

It is a drat good game. It was worth full price when it came out on DS, so it's be insane not to get it for a dollar now. There's nothing you really need to know, but from what I remember...

You have to buy your supply of of Elite/Champion units, but I never remember running low on resources.

Each chapter has a secret, hidden unit, but if I remember correctly you just have to talk to everyone to find it. When you find a guy that challenges you to an optional fight, you've found the secret unit. The secret unit battle tends to be one of the toughest in the chapter, so don't be afraid to come back later if necessary.

The 2nd Chapter is the worst. It's mostly Haven vs. Haven fights, which means lots of long, grindy battles. Plus, there's a stealth section. I'm not loving joking.

If you hit a roadblock during the 3rd Chapter, use the Spider Cloak. Starting at 10% of your max HP for double unit strength is an insanely good deal: unless your opponent can attack twice as efficiently as you, he'll never break through your lines.

Sometimes, you might want to use only one kind of Elite/Champion unit, for more consistent results.

# ? Mar 18, 2014 13:47

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

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