Kal-El814

RIP, hopefully he's got a stew going in the sky.

All finished up! What a satisfying game. I dunno what the OG ending was before patches, but I think the ending I got was reasonably well fleshed out as well as a pretty true to the character relationships I built up throughout the game. There are a couple of pretty funny choices, like being able to end your romance at literally the last second for... god only knows what fucking reason... but I guess you could role play that away or just lean into psychosis or something.  

Spoiler free thoughts...

Some of the "big" fights are really a testament to how well you know and can work the game mechanics. For the last bit of combat I was pretty well stocked up on certain scrolls and items and at first glance it seemed really daunting... but it ended up being fairly trivial. Normally that kind of thing would be disappointing, but here I think it works. In something like a BGS game you can end up "abusing" mechanics by taking advantage of the fact that everyone has the short term memory of someone who just got hit in the head with a frying pan or other behavioral oddities. Here's it's not abuse but being able to use the game mechanics to your advantage. It makes you feel like you solved a puzzle as opposed to taking advantage of exploits. There are a couple battles where I think the terrain itself could be better considered; a couple encounters specifically come to mind where if you position yourself in a certain way or stumble into a fight from a specific angle, the AI just isn't in a position to recover and the enemies act super dumb. But this happened maybe 3 times in 90 hours, so whatever. It's notable when something hyped up ends up kinda petering out.

The characters really shine. All of the people who can join your party are pretty well fleshed out and interesting, and most of their quests have interesting resolutions or solutions. Again i think there's a pretty good balance between letting you earn things and then giving the NPCs themselves a chance to make their own choices, while also giving you the chance to tip the scales if things seem like they're not going the way you'd like. It's really well done. I'd say the only very tiny downside is that there's so much content in this game that if you decide to do most of it in one run (like I did by the end) you'll probably run out of juice for your favorite characters long before the plot ends... but this is a real high class issue. And again, for me it ended on a really high note. Lots of closure, lots of resolutions, all in all... pretty great.

Some spoilery thoughts from someone who played and liked BG1 and 2.

Spoilery thoughts about how I approached the endgame.

Anyway, what a ride. Here's hoping there's DLC or a full sequel sometime.

59 minutes ago, best3444 said:

They definitely made her more manly looking in Forbidden West. I thought she was pretty is Zero Dawn. Not so much in West. 

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6 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

It's an inside joke between me and @Biggie.

 

He always says Aloy looks like Blake Griffin. I think she looks "ok"...

Oh right, I forgot about that.

@Biggie have you ever gotten a CT scan or eye exam?

On 1/25/2024 at 12:18 PM, best3444 said:

The first one is great. Forbidden West was ok but they made Aloy aka Blake Griffin extremely annoying which bogged down the experience. You couldn't even figure out a "puzzle" without her talking her ass off ruining any cool element you'd could have figured out on your own. 

lolwut

Just now, finaljedi said:

 

I'm kinda down for it honestly.  Not dumbass trying to make twitter a video platform, Levine making Bioshock over and over.

One idea is more than I’ve ever had, and I like his stuff! The point stands

What happens when a man who has only ever had one good idea posts a video on a platform not owned by a man who has never had a good idea:

After MGS2, the only thing people should be hounding Kojima for is lottery numbers.

I want to get all the money and pay none of the taxes WAH

Musk stans on the Covid vaccine: Bill Gates and globalists are putting 5G microchips inside us, this aggression won’t stand!

Musk stans on actual chips being put into live, human brains: masterful gambit sir 

There’s a tall, white queen who’s more popular than Jesus, she happens to be banging a white, American football player that’s build like a brick shithouse. Their spawn would be an Aryan dream… and conservatives are angry about this somehow.

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

Wyll would have made for a GREAT friend but the game allows for no friendship paths, and just failed romance paths.

I feel like Karlach is a pretty good buddy, actually!

11 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Yeah, I am not a Wyll fan. I only brought him along for his story bits but since he wasn't the MC his parts felt weak when compared to my Dark Urge stuff. Also, I think Warlock sucks balls, even when doing that 5/5 pallock was lame. I'm not a Wyll hater, but I don't care about him. At least if I hated him I could get some joy out of finding a way to kill him.

Wyll's "issue" is that he's surrounded by much more interesting characters. He for sure doesn't suck, he's reasonably well written, well acted, he has an arc, etc. It's just... he's a borderline straight man compared to most of the rest of the cast. Even Karlach...

I feel like in most other games Wyll would likely stand out, here he just doesn't really stand out even when the spotlight is on him. I suspect that's why some of the stuff in my previous post is part of his quest even though it doesn't really feel like it has much to do with him personally other than really obliquely. Most other companions have quests that feel a lot more personal around their conclusions.

On 1/24/2024 at 7:59 PM, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Good God.

 

The Last Of Us Part II Almost Had A Lot More Senseless Death

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Developer commentary on the PS5 remaster reveals some crucial characters almost didn’t make it to the end

 

 

It's almost like Druckmann is a fucking goober and needs to be reined in constantly.

I will say that I think Wyll's storyline in general is one of the stranger ones. @legend @Bacon

4 minutes ago, legend said:

 

Did 

  Hide contents

Mizora try to stop you from rescuing him?

 

If not, that does seem like a bug. I more or less did what you did, but in addition to the thing above

 

  Reveal hidden contents

There is a conversation with Mizora and gloating in her face about saving him anyway. She responds by saying that she will still get him in the future and it's just a matter of time. 

 

See this video of the conversation here

 

 

On 1/28/2024 at 2:00 AM, Xbob42 said:

If you're in bed with SpaceX on just about any issue, you know you've got nothing but labor violations to offer the nation.

That’s uncharitable; there’s also a real chance you’re punish fucking the environment as well. 

8 hours ago, TUFKAK said:

I personally will never understand why the side opposed to my views are so concerned with the suffering of monsters. I’m not saying be needlessly cruel, but I’m not gonna lose any sleep over some monster suffering for a few moments. Don’t wanna be put to death, dont do horrible things seems a pretty easy bar to clear for me.

 

Philosophically, the state has the moral authority to take life violently, there’s no question on that. I just am willing to extend it out after the fact, especially in cases where the guilt of the monster isn’t in question like this case. I’m also willing to extend capital punishment to other crimes too and I make no apology for that either.
 

Im way more concerned with criminal Justice reform and rehabilitation of our incarcerated population than the tiny fraction of capital punishment cases annually, but since it’s an industrial complex now that’ll never happen as millions are getting made on recidivism over rehabilitation, but let’s keep focusing on monsters getting what they deserve I guess.

It costs me nothing and prevents the suffering of people who are potentially innocent? The notion that it’s fine when people who “we’re sure” are guilty end up suffering is lousy because even in those cases there is no pragmatic upside. 
 

Am I losing sleep over it? No, but it’s fucked to dork up executions because some people are “monsters,” whatever that is supposed to mean. 

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

 

It might be a bug? I did what you did, but there was no real interaction between the 3 characters all at once.

  Reveal hidden contents

Mizora should try to kill Duke during the rescue mission. There are these exploding spiders that she summons when you bust him from the cell. I believe there is a bug if you use the squid dude to teleport Duke to the sub. If you did that instead of waking him out normally that might have caused an issue.

 

What should happen is that Wyll and Pa reconcile, and when get back to camp and when you talk to Mizora you are all like, "lol we owned you dumb ass". But there is like no actual interaction between Duke and Mizora.

 

Maybe you have this bug? Not sure if it was ever fixed.

  Hide contents

 

If it's a bug, it's not the one you listed here. Seems like weird quest interactions. The quest to rescue that person is completed and written in the journal like the choice I made was final, but then that person was found later and the quest never updated. 

Question for anyone who's finished Wyll's quest. I just did and it feels kind of sloppy, which I haven't really seen in the other origin quests. Spoilers through act 3 for Wyll.

Did I run into a bug? This seems kinds weird.

8 hours ago, stepee said:

lol the old man who talks in rhyme but only some times, like commit to the bit or don’t dude 

I'm just here to appreciate the craftsmanship of this comment.

Ravens $30000

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Lions

Based on the personal quests I've done, I'd wager I'm maybe 33 - 40% through Act 3. I'm doing what I can to finish most quests I encounter and I think I've done almost all of them with the exception of one from the first Act that didn't close when it should've and then flunked at the end of Act 2. Pretty sure this is a bug and it should have closed or there was another trigger that the journal didn't let me know about and I actually missed it.

It's really great. I think my only laments are that now that I'm at level 11 or so... almost nobody can fuck with my party. It feels good to stomp some people and there's still an occasionally engaging fight, but most of the "challenge" at this point has come from mid fight triggers that I couldn't have predicted, or a bunch of mooks showing up out of nowhere immediately after a fight starts which will have Gale or someone caught with his pants down. I appreciate that I'm the architect of this issue; if I hadn't done almost every quest I could, I wouldn't be at close to max level. Maybe a Tactician run is in my future. 

Also the inventory management is lousy. We're not talking Starfield levels of derp, but... if I have a bottomless chest and through 95% of the game I can warp to it... just let me carry whatever I want. This isn't a survival horror game, holding infinite shit wouldn't change much other than preventing true stupidity like carrying every chest in the game at one time or something... I dunno. It just feels like added steps to warp shit I wanna sell to camp, then walk to a vendor, then warp to camp, pick up all my shit, then leave camp, then sell it. Maybe I should just munchkin less, whatever.

Anyway so far all the Origin characters have been really interesting, their quests and development have been really fun to play through. Larian does good work but if you'd told me that we'd get a sequel to BGII / Throne of Bhaal 20 years later and it'd be this awesome, I dunno if I'd have believed, but here we are. The biggest crime they committed is to the stat line of a returning character... but I get why they did that. I guess.  

Even god cannot funge a token 

8 hours ago, CayceG said:

This should be the final nail in the coffin for "we talked to prospective Trump voters" reporting. This guy is motivated by irrational anger and responds to those stimuli, as are all Trump voters. 

 

It is fascinating to me that someone has the political journey of supporting Obama, Trump, Burgum (!), Hayley, and then Trump. 

 

 

‘Our System Needs to Be Broken, and He Is the Man to Do It’ - POLITICO

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Ted Johnson sincerely thought he wanted a uniter not a divider. It didn’t last long.

 

These are the same chucklekfucks who insisted that a "beer test" was relevant for George W. Bush, who is sober. It's just astrology and virtue signaling from people who claim to hate both.