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im cute
Sep 21, 2009

Picked up a fan translation of Fire Emblem 12. Anything in particular to know going in to it?

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Cirofren
Jun 13, 2005


Pillbug

Real hurthling! posted:

from playing the game, it seems like its actually just one alcohol for all your potions and bombs to refill at once.

You meditate, one booze disappears, all your stuff is full.

This is the case. Meditation, for as little as an hour, refills all of your potions, bombs, oils, and decoctions. I believe the only exception is precursor items such as White Gull and Rebis, Vitriol, etc.

I've recently finished a Death March playthrough of the Witcher 3. Here's what's on the top of my head:
  • Dodge rolling is not effective for avoiding blows at melee range, the animation has a bit of a windup and you frequently take damage mid roll. The shorter dodge dash/jump/pirouette is better for up close fighting and can be upgraded in the sword tree to negate damage for hits that connect during your dodge. The roll is still great for putting distance between you and enemies but you'll be dashing to their sides and behind them dark souls style more often.
  • Getting surrounded will get you killed. Control fights and stay at the edges of them. Two rolls back is a great distance to throw a bomb from, replenish a sign, reload your crossbow. When rolling around the edges of a fight and whittling away at a pack of stronger enemies keep an eye on the minimap or you might roll into another group or get flanked. Much like the Witcher 2 with humans prioritize archers and leave shield bearers for last.
  • You're a Witcher. Much like the previous two games if you ignore your signs, bombs, and oils you'll have a hard time. While these start out as small buffs the Enhanced (T2) and Superior (T3) versions of some bombs, potions, and oils are extremely powerful. Do you want to spend five minutes dodging and parrying an entire bandit camp or do you want to throw out two grapeshot bombs, stab the leader, and grab the loot? For bombs as well each upgrade lets you carry more of them per meditation, potions last longer. Superior potions tend to have a cool perk such as Superior Tawny Owl never expiring at night and Superior Blizzard making actions that would normally cost stamina be completely free if you have full adrenaline (this includes signs!)
  • Unfortunately it's not obvious where to get all of this stuff. There's more than one way to skin this cat but I suggest finding the herbalist/alchemist to the very close north east of Oxenfurt (the smaller city in the Pontar river) as soon as you have around a k to spend. He has some great recipes and can tell you where to find a master. Between him and the master he recommends you should be all set.
  • The talent that gives you health back each time you swig a potion is probably mandatory for no Quen runs. Quen is amazing though and unlike in TW2 it doesn't block your stamina, the only reason not to use it is for artificial difficulty. Th e alchemy tree also gets stupid good in the late game where every potion is healing you for a quarter health on top of its usual effects, activating other potions for free, and lasting for ages. Plus carrying nine of each bomb type that all deal damage regardless of original effect and splitting into clusters. The first tier talent that makes all oils poisonous on top of their original effect also won some tough fights for me. It's a good tree.

RatHat
Dec 31, 2007

A tiny behatted rat👒🐀!
I don't recommend taking skills that add flat damage, they don't scale at all. Doing an extra 200 damage is not bad at the beginning but it's worthless when you're facing later enemies that have thousands and thousands of health. This is also why Burn, Bleed and Poison are so ridiculous: they scale with enemy health.

Cirofren
Jun 13, 2005


Pillbug

RatHat posted:

I don't recommend taking skills that add flat damage, they don't scale at all. Doing an extra 200 damage is not bad at the beginning but it's worthless when you're facing later enemies that have thousands and thousands of health. This is also why Burn, Bleed and Poison are so ridiculous: they scale with enemy health.

Yeah this is true. The extra kick came in handy but was nothing compared to burn, bleed, and poison which win fights.

Fat Samurai
Feb 16, 2011

To go quickly is foolish. To go slowly is prudent. Not to go; that is wisdom.

Cirofren posted:

Yeah this is true. The extra kick came in handy but was nothing compared to burn, bleed, and poison which win fights.

I've cheesed way to many one on one fights with high skull level monsters with Igni. Get them to burn once and then perma-stun it with the flamethrower, taking 5% of its health each tick.

Scientastic
Mar 1, 2010

TRULY scientastic.
🔬🍒


I just finished X-Com: Enemy Unknown on normal difficulty and, while I enjoyed playing it a lot, I found it both too easy and too short. Should I kick up the difficulty, play marathon mode, iron man mode, or some combination of the three? I want to make it challenging, but not impossible!

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Scientastic posted:

I just finished X-Com: Enemy Unknown on normal difficulty and, while I enjoyed playing it a lot, I found it both too easy and too short. Should I kick up the difficulty, play marathon mode, iron man mode, or some combination of the three? I want to make it challenging, but not impossible!

Get Enemy Within for a start. It adds a lot of content.

al-azad
May 28, 2009



Classic difficulty is definitely a major step up from normal to the point where you can rarely afford to be reckless. Ironman doesn't do anything beyond forcing an autosave so it's a personal challenge not a difficulty enhancing one.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Get Enemy Within for a start. It adds a lot of content.

And then get the Long War mod. Steam sale supposedly on the 11th, it'll be there.

Scientastic
Mar 1, 2010

TRULY scientastic.
🔬🍒


I think I'll try classic difficulty and marathon mode, then. I am too broke to get Enemy Within.

Well, I'm not, but I know I should be spending my money on my pesky children instead if slightly better versions of PS3 games I play in the snatched hour between bedtime and my wife finishing work.

Gerblyn
Apr 4, 2007

"TO BATTLE!"
Fun Shoe

Scientastic posted:

I just finished X-Com: Enemy Unknown on normal difficulty and, while I enjoyed playing it a lot, I found it both too easy and too short. Should I kick up the difficulty, play marathon mode, iron man mode, or some combination of the three? I want to make it challenging, but not impossible!

Pushing the difficulty up to Classic made a big difference for me, so did having a no save scumming rule (I only restart combats if I lose more than 2 soldiers). I tried Iron Man/Classic but didn't get very far because I'm giant baby who gets upset when he loses too many of his spacemen :shobon:

Enemy Within is definitely nice as well, it adds 2 new types of upgrades to the game (genetic enhancements and robot super soldiers), as well as a new type of resource to collect from battles called Meld. Meld vanishes after a random number of turns, so you have motivation to take risks to get it quickly and can't just slowly creep through every battlefield, overwatching on every wall.

The Shame Boy
Jan 27, 2014

Dead weight, just like this post.



Neddy Seagoon posted:

Get Enemy Within for a start. It adds a lot of content.

This, the story doesn't change but you get so many more options and abilities it's crazy.

But answer your question Classic and Impossible are almost an entirely different game from Normal mode. The game actually cheats for you slightly on Normal and Easy in the form of (invisible) bonuses to your aim when you miss a shot and reducing the enemy chances to hit after you've already been hit once before. Not to mention the AI will only control a certain number of enemies per turn with a chance of those enemies just dumbing out and not doing anything.

The gist of it is that you're not gonna be able to sit in low cover and have a shootout with the aliens on Classic or higher at least not away and certainly not in the same way you did on Normal. I don't believe it changes how much damage the enemies do and it's more just their health values and how good a shot they are. For reference on Normal a Thin Man has 65 Aim and 0% base chance to crit. On Classic that jumps up to 75 Aim with 10% Crit chance as well adding another point of health.

The good news is that the beginning is the hardest part and that much hasen't changed, get past that hump and the rest of game will go by much smoother and you can kind of coast along to the ending like i'm sure you did in your first game.

Pyromancer
Apr 29, 2011

This man must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart

Lakbay posted:

I bought Vangers because it got praise on here and the aesthetic looks neat from the screenshots, any beginner tips?

Explore, race, trade, shoot stuff. Try to figure out what is going on, you might even stumble upon the plot.
The seasons cycle is important, clicking on walls in what seems dialog window does stuff, the bugs crawling around on surface are the currency and running them over gives you money(gold ones worth more). The inhabitants of other worlds don't like strangers and don't treat them kindly, but it's possible to avoid taking financial hits if you're sufficiently inquisitive.

Pyromancer fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jun 10, 2015

theshim
May 1, 2012

You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!

paco650 posted:

Picked up a fan translation of Fire Emblem 12. Anything in particular to know going in to it?
- At some point you'll begin finding star shards, items with zodiac names that give a small boost to stats. Make absolutely sure you get all 12 of them. Some are on enemies that will flee the map, some are in chests, I think one or two are held by recruitable enemies, and some are just held by bosses.

- Some maps will have cave entrances on them, which will usually have an item if you go there.

- Marth has to visit villages. Yes, this is a pain in the rear end.

- If you want to hyper optimize, a male My Unit as a fighter has the highest overall growths, but it's not really something you need to worry about.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

HOOLY BOOLY posted:

This, the story doesn't change.

This isn't entirely true. It adds a new faction of alien-supporting humans with their own story arc popping up periodically, culminating in an assault on their base. Not to mention an outright attack on your own base that you have to fend off or get an instant game-over.

Scientastic
Mar 1, 2010

TRULY scientastic.
🔬🍒


Ive just bit the bullet, and bought Enemy Within. Thanks thread!

Fake edit:
^^Might want to spoiler that, chap.

Orange Fluffy Sheep
Jul 26, 2008

Bad EXP received

paco650 posted:

Picked up a fan translation of Fire Emblem 12. Anything in particular to know going in to it?

Sirius, Minerva, Merric, and Julian are required in the final battle to get the good ending. They're all good units in their own rights so it's not too bad, but the game only sort of hints this is the case IIRC and even then if you've forgot to use them then they'll be way behind the curve when they're needed.

Ainsley McTree
Feb 19, 2004


Another Witcher 3 tip:

Crafting can be overwhelming, because there's about a million different recipes and crafting materials in the game, but if you want to take it easy on yourself, just focus on Witcher gear.

There are three varieties (to my knowledge, anyway): Cat, Griffon, and Bear, which roughly correspond with swords, signs, and alchemy, respectively. Each of them has a set of armor and swords that you can craft and then upgrade as you level, and it'll pretty much carry you through the game (at least on lower difficulties, can't speak to the higher ones) as long as you keep it up to date. I believe the mastercrafted editions are meant to be some of the best gear in the game.

You acquire them through treasure maps; every time you visit a new merchant, check their inventory and if they have a "[Name's] [first/second/third/fourth] Map", buy it and read it, and it will put a treasure hunt quest in your log that will lead you to a diagram for either a piece of gear, or an upgrade for the gear. You can also just look up a guide to figure out exactly which merchants you need to visit to find the maps (or just use a guide to find the diagrams and skip the maps, I guess).

Maybe I'm giving bad advice for higher difficulties and please correct me if I am, but it seems like you can focus all your gear-crafting energy on witcher gear and pretty much ignore everything else. This also frees you up to just dismantle the orange swords you usually get from Witcher Contracts, since they tend to break down into useful mats (dark iron, dimiterium, silver) that would otherwise be expensive to buy from merchants.

Kruller
Feb 20, 2004

It's time to restore dignity to the Farnsworth name!

Ainsley McTree posted:

Another Witcher 3 tip:

Crafting can be overwhelming, because there's about a million different recipes and crafting materials in the game, but if you want to take it easy on yourself, just focus on Witcher gear.

There are three varieties (to my knowledge, anyway): Cat, Griffon, and Bear, which roughly correspond with swords, signs, and alchemy, respectively. Each of them has a set of armor and swords that you can craft and then upgrade as you level, and it'll pretty much carry you through the game (at least on lower difficulties, can't speak to the higher ones) as long as you keep it up to date. I believe the mastercrafted editions are meant to be some of the best gear in the game.

You acquire them through treasure maps; every time you visit a new merchant, check their inventory and if they have a "[Name's] [first/second/third/fourth] Map", buy it and read it, and it will put a treasure hunt quest in your log that will lead you to a diagram for either a piece of gear, or an upgrade for the gear. You can also just look up a guide to figure out exactly which merchants you need to visit to find the maps (or just use a guide to find the diagrams and skip the maps, I guess).

Maybe I'm giving bad advice for higher difficulties and please correct me if I am, but it seems like you can focus all your gear-crafting energy on witcher gear and pretty much ignore everything else. This also frees you up to just dismantle the orange swords you usually get from Witcher Contracts, since they tend to break down into useful mats (dark iron, dimiterium, silver) that would otherwise be expensive to buy from merchants.

There's a set of Viper swords you can get pretty early in the game that are quite good for their level. Not sure if there is armor to go with them, though.

Real hurthling!
Sep 11, 2001




Proest witcher tip.

underwater you swim directly away from the camera so get used to steering with the right stick rather than the left when geralt is wet while also pushing the left stick forward to keep him moving. if you can get creative and hold x while doing this you'll go faster.

if you try to do it any other way you will be very frustrated.

GhostBoy
Aug 7, 2010

Kruller posted:

There's a set of Viper swords you can get pretty early in the game that are quite good for their level. Not sure if there is armor to go with them, though.

Kinda. It's not called Viper armor, but there is a low-level chest piece of witcher gear (Warrior somethingsomething), that upgrades your starter armor. Note that the starter armor is not green even though it is included in a witcher gear recipe. That is, to my knowledge, the only exception. All other gear that can be upgraded (and thus where you might want to hang on to the lower level version for later) has a green background.

Kruller
Feb 20, 2004

It's time to restore dignity to the Farnsworth name!

GhostBoy posted:

Kinda. It's not called Viper armor, but there is a low-level chest piece of witcher gear (Warrior somethingsomething), that upgrades your starter armor. Note that the starter armor is not green even though it is included in a witcher gear recipe. That is, to my knowledge, the only exception. All other gear that can be upgraded (and thus where you might want to hang on to the lower level version for later) has a green background.

No, there are actual swords, called Serpentine, from the Viper school, you can get in the first open area. There's a level 7 wight near a place of power that guards it, but otherwise it's pretty easy to get.

blackguy32
Oct 1, 2005

Say, do you know how to do the walk?
Also, with the Witcher 3, there is a quest in Velen relatively early on called a Towerful of Mice. There are multiple endings to this quest. I actually think it is the first one you get that deviates a bit instead of you being able to cut the quest short like most previous quests.

DiseasedTempest
Oct 9, 2007
About to start Fallout Tactics and I'm looking for some character building advice. Is Intelligence still the most important stat by far?

texting my ex
Nov 15, 2008

I am no one
I cannot squat
It's in my blood

DiseasedTempest posted:

About to start Fallout Tactics and I'm looking for some character building advice. Is Intelligence still the most important stat by far?

Yeah, for quick character development. Agility isn't as crucial as previous games, if you are playing on continuous combat.

ArkOfTurus
Apr 23, 2008
With the steam sale, I imagine I won't be the only person starting Ziggurat. Anything I should know?

owl_pellet
Nov 20, 2005

show your enemy
what you look like


What should I know about Conan?

Gaggins
Nov 20, 2007

Anything I should know about Bloodborne? Didn't see anything on the wiki. So far I've found out that there are no backstabs - say it isn't so!

Cake Attack
Mar 26, 2010

Gaggins posted:

Anything I should know about Bloodborne? Didn't see anything on the wiki. So far I've found out that there are no backstabs - say it isn't so!

sorta. backstabs work differently - if you do a charge attack on an enemies back, they enter a vulnerable state where you can visceral attack them for heavy damage. same as if you gun parried them.

Random Hajile
Aug 25, 2003

Gaggins posted:

Anything I should know about Bloodborne? Didn't see anything on the wiki. So far I've found out that there are no backstabs - say it isn't so!
A charged R2 to the rear of most enemies will stun them and let you follow it up with a high-damage special attack (just like if you riposte with a gun). But it's not quite as easy to pull off as a Dark Souls backstab, no.

im cute
Sep 21, 2009

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

Sirius, Minerva, Merric, and Julian are required in the final battle to get the good ending. They're all good units in their own rights so it's not too bad, but the game only sort of hints this is the case IIRC and even then if you've forgot to use them then they'll be way behind the curve when they're needed.

theshim posted:

- At some point you'll begin finding star shards, items with zodiac names that give a small boost to stats. Make absolutely sure you get all 12 of them. Some are on enemies that will flee the map, some are in chests, I think one or two are held by recruitable enemies, and some are just held by bosses.

- Some maps will have cave entrances on them, which will usually have an item if you go there.

- Marth has to visit villages. Yes, this is a pain in the rear end.

- If you want to hyper optimize, a male My Unit as a fighter has the highest overall growths, but it's not really something you need to worry about.

Thanks for the tips!

SiKboy
Oct 28, 2007

Oh no!😱

owl_pellet posted:

What should I know about Conan?

Its been a while, but what springs to mind;

-Dont spread your upgrade points out too much, one playtrhough gives you about enough points to max out one tree and maybe half of another. There is a new game plus where you can continue and get everything maxxed out, but you are better off figuring out which fighting style you prefer and mainly sticking to it.

-Crush your enemies

-See them driven before you

-Hear the lamentations of their women

-Dont get too attached to the grab moves. They are fun, but the last level or two of the game is entirely enemies which are immune to them. These levels are also the least fun in the game (which is generally actually pretty good aside from them). So maybe focus on dual weapon or two handed first, so you still have fun moves to use on the (ghosts? Its been so long I dont remember what the enemies in that section are, just that I got really pissed off that I couldnt use a large amount of my unlocked moves).

Aside from that, its a fairly straightforward and fun brawler.

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!

For Metro 2033 Redux, am I still supposed to play on Hunter difficulty or did the Redux change that?

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Gaggins posted:

Anything I should know about Bloodborne? Didn't see anything on the wiki. So far I've found out that there are no backstabs - say it isn't so!

very slight spoiler to avoid missing out on a thing: Do not kill Isofska in the Clinic unless you REALLY mean it, or make sure you find the whore lady first (Adrianna I think?). If you do you'll be locked out of the last boss and the good ending until you go into NG+ which is kinda lame.

Practice visceral attacks, they're the new backstabs/parries of Bloodborne. Once you get the hang of them they allow you to do massive damage. Extremely important.

Standard Dark Souls advise / mentality applies. Keep a cool head. Explore EVERYWHERE, including back-tracking at times. Don't be afraid to summon help co-op if you get stuck.

GhostBoy
Aug 7, 2010

Kruller posted:

No, there are actual swords, called Serpentine, from the Viper school, you can get in the first open area. There's a level 7 wight near a place of power that guards it, but otherwise it's pretty easy to get.

I know. I was replying to whether there was an armor set to go with the Viper swords. Perhaps the confusion stems from the fact that you use the Serpentine Steel Sword crafting diagram to make a Viper Steel Sword. To my knowledge there are no Viper/Serpentine armors, like there is with the later sets, but there is that generic piece I mentioned.

Sloober
Apr 1, 2011

ArkOfTurus posted:

With the steam sale, I imagine I won't be the only person starting Ziggurat. Anything I should know?

There's always a hidden room on each floor as far as I can tell, and you get a free item or perk out of it, so if you haven't found one on the level inspect the walls for cracks. Make sure to explore every room before going to the boss as well - the exp/perks are worth it. Don't be afraid to use mana on your non-wand weapons - if mana gets dropped and you can't pick it up it is effectively wasted as all minion drops disappear after a short while, that is unless you are going to the boss as it's worth saving mana for those since the fights can get long if you're left with nothing but your peashooter. And on that note, make sure to pick up the experience gems before they disappear - perks/levels are super handy.

If you want to save mana and have some of the wider AOE spells (the skull or the bombs, for example) you can run circles around some things until they cluster up, and lob one AOE at them to take them out.

Slime dodges have cooldowns, and they're pretty fragile early on so you can single shot wand them until they dodge, and then hit them with an alt-fire to take them out in one go.

I also may be alone here on it but i find it worthwhile to take a chance on all the shrines.

Ainsley McTree
Feb 19, 2004


GhostBoy posted:

I know. I was replying to whether there was an armor set to go with the Viper swords. Perhaps the confusion stems from the fact that you use the Serpentine Steel Sword crafting diagram to make a Viper Steel Sword. To my knowledge there are no Viper/Serpentine armors, like there is with the later sets, but there is that generic piece I mentioned.

Yeah the serpentine swords and the warrior armor are kind of anomalies. You get them in the prologue but you can't upgrade them to mastercrafted like you can with the cat/bear/griffon sets.

So don't worry about selling them once you find something better, basically. But definitely do not sell the cat/bear/griffon witcher gear if you plan to upgrade it.

Kennel
May 1, 2008

BAWWW-UNH!
Anything for The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (the first one)?


e. found stuff from the thread.

Sylphosaurus posted:

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

I've just started to play this game but it feels that I missing something regarding how to build your character. I feel way too squishy when I'm in melee but if I focus on guns it seems that I'm simply plinking away on endless hordes of monsters. Am I missing something regarding what skills and/or attributes I should go for? I'm hardly a newcomer to the ARPG genre but it seems that I can't get a grip on the character building for this game.

Mayor McCheese posted:

Your companion Katarina can be used as a primary tank or as an off tank. Also you will spend quite a bit of time kiting to regen health, waiting for her to revive, or for cooldowns; especially in the beginning of the game, and on harder difficulties. If you haven't already, you should also grab the Blue Blood DLC (it's like $2) which will greatly improve Katarina's options for combat -- it makes life easier if you're soloing.

duckfarts posted:

Make sure you learn how the rage system works; those little bubbles next to your skills on the skill tree don't do poo poo unless you press some key to expend rage to power up your skill to level 1/2/3, which goes off the next time you use that skill. I didn't figure that out for a while and was running around squishy, essentially crippling myself until I figured it out, and you become way more survivable after that when your life steal actually works finally.

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

The game is going to drown you in gold, the rare drop rate explodes when you get near the Palace of the Machines, and you can port your character to Van Helsing 2 once it hits level 30.

Kennel fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jun 12, 2015

klaphark
Mar 10, 2013
Anything for Eldritch? I'm not trying to powergame or anything but are there any tips/stuff that is easily overlooked?

al-azad
May 28, 2009



klaphark posted:

Anything for Eldritch? I'm not trying to powergame or anything but are there any tips/stuff that is easily overlooked?

It's primarily a stealth game and every time you kill an enemy a new one spawns elsewhere. The first area is easy as poo poo but the rest have enemies that are either far more powerful than you are or straight up immortal so don't form bad habits in the first area.

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John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.

al-azad posted:

It's primarily a stealth game and every time you kill an enemy a new one spawns elsewhere.

Unless my memory is failing me, new enemies don't spawn in unless you loot the dead ones.

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