May 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Colif]

it was just like old times. 2020... entire front page was spam.

I did report some and tried to get a 3rd mod that you have forgotten to look at them, but he too busy I guess. Nothing worse than an Ex complaining about spam

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

How are you upgrading the user stats? I think I've killed most of my chances with a lot of builds by emphasizing raising the attributes that add to more than one thing. Like improving your luck works with critical, defense and speed (I think, just depends on the character). And then Vitality I think on the tanks, helps with health and attack power. You get a well rounded character which is not really what you want for most builds, generally speaking. If anything, I'm a crit build right now.

Again probably not optimally lol. Ive basically been trying to maximise pure weapon damage. Most of the time I've put a point in each of whatever stat the weapon theyre using scales on and the other point to level up whatever of the other stats is lowest. Its nice if they can all tank a few hits, and I rarely use shell or any buffs other than Powerful sometimes in boss fights. Ideally I dont want to get hit at all, though that rarely works out. Where I am now they mostly have 20 odd in the main weapon stats and 12 or 13 in all the other stats.

Maelle has some defensive abilities and I saw one which allows here to take damage in place of the others, but she does 200% damage in Virtuoso stance so Ive mostly prioritized getting things burning so she can switch to it and hit hard.

Ive got 4 or 5 respec thingies now so can always switch up if needs be.

 

[neogunhero]

Been pretty busy these past few days so I haven't posted here since Friday I believe. I've been able squeeze in some gaming in the meantime.

What I got into over the weekend was modding Morrowind with Tamriel Rebuilt. It took about 30 minutes to get everything installed properly, it was a bit confusing but eventually I got it down. I also installed the recommended but optional graphical mod. It doesn't necessarily make the graphics better, but it allows for very far view distances and slightly better lighting and shading, as well as a built in FOV slider among other things. I kept reading about this mod over the years so I decided to finally give it a shot. It's been in development for I believe over 20 years now, so I figured this must be the definitive Morrowind mod. I typically dislike fan-made quests and such, but since Morrowind does not have voice acted dialogue, I figured it will be fine. I've played Morrowind plenty before, but I feel like where I'm at in life now, I can fully understand and appreciate aspects of the game that I couldn't when I was younger. I started off with Oblivion as my first TES game, so at that time going to Morrowind as a dumb teenager didn't allow me to enjoy it properly.

I made a Altmer mage, and it's been tough to say the least. I remember not being fond of the dice-roll combat, and how short swords are actually short and require you to get within 1 inch of your enemy to hit them, so I figured magicka may be on my side to overcome those obstacles. I was only partially right. I put a lot of points into Conjuration because I figured I could just have skeletons and such fight for me. The starting conjuration spell gave me a very weak ghost who was only good for aggro, not damage. It helped out a lot though, since I could have the enemy aggro'd on the ghost while I sat back and shot fireballs. Eventually I upgraded to a bonewalker to fight alongside me.

I also chose Mage so I could exploit the magic and potion systems. I have seen tons of videos of people doing crazy things with them, so I'd like to work my way up to making some insane spells and potions. I have done a lot of alchemy so far just so I can sell the potions and make money, but it’s leveling up my alchemy which is good. One thing I like about Morrowind over other TES games is that it seems to have a much larger variety of flora to pick and use. There’s all sorts of strange plants and ingredients to find that I have never seen in other TES games, which I could understand due to regional differences in Tamriel, but still the amount of flora doesn’t seem to be surpassed after Morrowind.

My main goal so far is just to grind levels and make money. I have barely taken on any actual quests since I’m so weak in health and damage. I need to grind levels and money to buy better spells before actually trying to fight someone. I went to the first cave behind Seyda Neen and couldn’t even complete what is essentially the first optional dungeon you can come across in the game. I died to the second guy in there, reloaded my save and walked right out of there.

The view distance increase is actually quite helpful for gameplay. I can now see where different paths lead to up to a certain distance, rather than fog surrounding everything beyond 50 feet of you.

Excited to keep playing. I like how I’m in charge of my faith and it’s up to me to choose what I want to do. There seems to be way more freedom in this game than Oblivion or Skyrim, and it’s been fun figuring out what I want to be doing in it. I’ll start quests eventually when I can actually hold my own against a mudcrab.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Again probably not optimally lol. Ive basically been trying to maximise pure weapon damage. Most of the time I've put a point in each of whatever stat the weapon theyre using scales on and the other point to level up whatever of the other stats is lowest. Its nice if they can all tank a few hits, and I rarely use shell or any buffs other than Powerful sometimes in boss fights. Ideally I dont want to get hit at all, though that rarely works out. Where I am now they mostly have 20 odd in the main weapon stats and 12 or 13 in all the other stats.

Maelle has some defensive abilities and I saw one which allows here to take damage in place of the others, but she does 200% damage in Virtuoso stance so Ive mostly prioritized getting things burning so she can switch to it and hit hard.

Ive got 4 or 5 respec thingies now so can always switch up if needs be.

I think you're doing it the way the game tells you to do it. It's told me several times to pay attention to what the weapon scales on, but I keep switching weapons anyway. I just abandoned fighting Chromatic Luster because I couldn't dodge successfully enough, and I was always on fire, which he then used to heal himself. So now I'm finally going to go through the skill tree and try to set things up better and maybe respec a bit. Just pick a weapon and go with it. Also, I've got a pictos and some skills somewhere that remove status effects so I can get rid of the fire next time. Haven't needed that the entire game until now.

 

[Pifanjr]

I wouldn't be surprised if developers stopped porting to Xbox. For instance, with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, out of the first 2 million sales:

Steam: 1.2 million
Playstation: 600k
Xbox: 200k

And that's for a successful game. Imagine what an unsuccessful game does on Xbox.

Xbox is now so close to PC and PlayStation that the development costs aren't necessarily an issue. A bigger problem is that most Xbox users have Xbox Game Pass and rarely buy games, so if you don't get an Xbox Game Pass deal there's very little reason to port to Xbox.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I think you're doing it the way the game tells you to do it. It's told me several times to pay attention to what the weapon scales on, but I keep switching weapons anyway. I just abandoned fighting Chromatic Luster because I couldn't dodge successfully enough, and I was always on fire, which he then used to heal himself. So now I'm finally going to go through the skill tree and try to set things up better and maybe respec a bit. Just pick a weapon and go with it. Also, I've got a pictos and some skills somewhere that remove status effects so I can get rid of the fire next time. Haven't needed that the entire game until now.

Weapon scaling is another thing theyve borrowed from the Souls games so it just seemed natural to me.

That ability I mentioned earlier for Lune that takes a couple turns to set up took about 80% of that guys health in one turn. I think I have some Luminas on her that increase damage as well. Still took me a couple of tries, that rush attack it does I can only manage to dodge.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Weapon scaling is another thing theyve borrowed from the Souls games so it just seemed natural to me.

That ability I mentioned earlier for Lune that takes a couple turns to set up took about 80% of that guys health in one turn. I think I have some Luminas on her that increase damage as well. Still took me a couple of tries, that rush attack it does I can only manage to dodge.

I checked and can't do that yet. I have to do a respec. But after my initial stalemate, I changed some things around, and Verso and not-Lune almost killed him in turn 3, but from there it took a minute because I missed dodging and had to spend time getting rid of status effects. But overall it went very well. If I could have done your move with Lune, it would have ended the fight right there (turn 3) because he was almost dead, and then Lune slapped him with a wet noodle for her turn.

Then we went and got the next boss, the Dualist, and that went well after initially taking a crap ton of damage from his wild swinging. But I got that timed out pretty quickly. He put us in inverted status so we couldn't heal, which was fine because then I didn't waste AP on it. He respawned, died again, and then we went to the flag, and I decided I'd log off.

What I really want to do is camp at the world map and do my respecs, so I may try out teleporting tomorrow. I've never tried that before. I'm hoping that I can get directly there and back without a lot of redoing areas. I think I've pretty much picked everything in these areas clean.

 

[Zloth]

I finished off Forgotten City. I had nearly finished the game, shut down for the night, and promptly got too sick to play anything! Arrrg! Once I got back to where I could get by on less than 2 boxes of Kleenex/day, I headed back in again. Sure enough - there was just 5 minutes or so left of the main game. It had a nice little epilog, too.

Now I need to remember where I was in BG3. I stopped playing in early January and I'm playing in Tactical difficulty. This could be rough...

 

[Zed Clampet]

Now I need to remember where I was in BG3.

If I take a bathroom break form Expedition 33, when I get back, my thinking is something like: "Where am I? What direction...wait, where's my freighter? This isn't No Man's Sky? OH, I know this game! Where am I? What direction...wait..."

* Caracter sprints for 45 minutes. *

"Darn, that was the wrong direction"

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I checked and can't do that yet. I have to do a respec. But after my initial stalemate, I changed some things around, and Verso and not-Lune almost killed him in turn 3, but from there it took a minute because I missed dodging and had to spend time getting rid of status effects. But overall it went very well. If I could have done your move with Lune, it would have ended the fight right there (turn 3) because he was almost dead, and then Lune slapped him with a wet noodle for her turn.

Then we went and got the next boss, the Dualist, and that went well after initially taking a crap ton of damage from his wild swinging. But I got that timed out pretty quickly. He put us in inverted status so we couldn't heal, which was fine because then I didn't waste AP on it. He respawned, died again, and then we went to the flag, and I decided I'd log off.

What I really want to do is camp at the world map and do my respecs, so I may try out teleporting tomorrow. I've never tried that before. I'm hoping that I can get directly there and back without a lot of redoing areas. I think I've pretty much picked everything in these areas clean.

I'm not far past you at all, you'll be at camp pretty soon.

I think Ive screwed up Verso, I have no idea how youre getting him to hit so hard without his Perfection being high, hes pretty good but he certainly aint no Gustav for me yet, havent spent any time looking at his skill tree really so probably should.

I finished off Forgotten City. I had nearly finished the game, shut down for the night, and promptly got too sick to play anything! Arrrg! Once I got back to where I could get by on less than 2 boxes of Kleenex/day, I headed back in again. Sure enough - there was just 5 minutes or so left of the main game. It had a nice little epilog, too.

Now I need to remember where I was in BG3. I stopped playing in early January and I'm playing in Tactical difficulty. This could be rough...

You went straight in on Tactician? Damn. After how Divinity Original Sin 2had me struggling on normal at times I was saving that for later!

If I take a bathroom break form Expedition 33, when I get back, my thinking is something like: "Where am I? What direction...wait, where's my freighter? This isn't No Man's Sky? OH, I know this game! Where am I? What direction...wait..."

* Caracter sprints for 45 minutes. *

"Darn, that was the wrong direction"

This kind of level design with shortcuts and loops without a minimap is a bit frustrating in this game. I think its another thing theyve kind of cribbed from Fromsoft. Thing is From doesnt take you out of the world for combat, and you die a lot more in Dark Souls so the repetition helps to learn the levels.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I think Ive screwed up Verso, I have no idea how youre getting him to hit so hard without his Perfection being high,

Well, I wasn't really hitting hard. I thought I was, but it wasn't anywhere near what he's capable of, AND I've figured out how to get him to S in round 2 by focusing on breaking an enemy. Sometimes I get to round three still an S, which is when he does his big attack, and sometimes I'm an A. The lowest he can go is C. Now if I did that poorly, that means I've taken a lot of damage, but I try not to top him off anyway, because there is a skill, ??? (sorry, I think it's Mayhem, but now I can't remember), where it uses how much health he's lost to do much more damage. Also, Mayhem boosts with a C. Since he can't drop below a C we're always good for Mayhem, which is our backup plan.

Also, while I really need to fix Lune, I am now getting to round 2 with 4 stains. I don't have anything to really hit big with, so it isn't helping much, but she at least is up to "generally somewhat disappointing".

 

[Pifanjr]

Now I need to remember where I was in BG3. I stopped playing in early January and I'm playing in Tactical difficulty. This could be rough...

I've had two 3 month breaks in my BG3 campaign on Tactical difficulty and it's honestly not that bad jumping back in.

You went straight in on Tactician? Damn. After how Divinity Original Sin 2had me struggling on normal at times I was saving that for later!

So far I haven't had any problems with Tactical difficulty, though it can be a real bother that enemies focus on my magic casters who are trying to concentrate on a spell. Still, I try to stretch out my rests for as long as possible, frequently going into fights with no spell slots left and I've only had to reload probably a handful of times.

One thing that's really helpful is to ungroup everyone and have them sneak before a fight. If you do it right you can get an attack with advantage for every character on the first round.
Also always keep an eye open for opportunities to throw someone down a cliff. A warlock with Repelling Blast who can shoot two Eldritch Blasts a turn can fairly reliably push anything close to an edge off of it, especially since it works on enemies of any size.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Also always keep an eye open for opportunities to throw someone down a cliff.

I do that all the time anyway. Unfortunately there aren't that many good cliffs in Knoxville.

 

[Zed Clampet]

@Kaamos_Llama Well, I'm disappointed. I went to camp and I was going to respec my characters taking into account weapon scaling. However, I really didn't understand what weapon scaling was, so I looked it up, and it's exactly what I've already been doing the whole time, so there's no reason to respec, but that also means no big damage boost coming...or maybe there is because I'm getting ready to redo the skill trees (if that's possible)-

 

[neogunhero]

More Morrowind, I’ve been learning some things the hard way. First thing, I sold the first quest item you get, Caius Cosade’s package you get from the very start of the game. I stole a ton of random junk ant the start and sold it all off, and I must have accidentally sold it then. I went to the very first trader and Seyda Neen and he gave it back to me free of charge, so I assume I didn’t even make any money from it. I need to pay better attention to my inventory.

Second thing that happened, I joined the Mages Guild in Balmora and was doing quite good. I followed duties from Ajira and did everything she asked. At one point she wanted me to plant a fake soul gem in a rival students desk, well, while I was there I happened to steal a ton of stuff, including a rare soul gem worth 60,000 gold. I completed Ajira’s quest line, she thanked me a lot, and her disposition meter went to 100 so she became my friend.

The game then seamlessly transitioned into the Tamriel Rebuilt mod as she asked if I could deliver a package to a brand new location, Old Ebonheart. This location was a part of the mod, so I had to travel to Vivec and find a boat to sail over there. Vivec was very confusing, I have been there a little but didn’t know where the boats were. After running around for what felt like 20 minutes, I found the boats and sailed to Old Ebonheart.

Old Ebonheart is gorgeous. A very well designed city full of alleyways and tons of people to talk to. I finally found my way to the Mages Guild, spoke to the person I was to deliver the package to, just for her to tell me I’ve been expelled from the Guild. I was told to go make amends with one of the head leaders in Vivec, so I then had to travel all the way back over there. Luckily I had a spell that transported me to Vivec since I couldn’t use the guild guide anymore to travel.

The guy there then told me I had to wait a week or two, but looking it up online it’s actually 30 in game days before I can rejoin. Apparently waiting inside of the guild counts as 3 days so I could just grind it out, but I’ll just wander around a bit before rejoining. I did steal an insane amount of money after all.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Well, I wasn't really hitting hard. I thought I was, but it wasn't anywhere near what he's capable of, AND I've figured out how to get him to S in round 2 by focusing on breaking an enemy. Sometimes I get to round three still an S, which is when he does his big attack, and sometimes I'm an A. The lowest he can go is C. Now if I did that poorly, that means I've taken a lot of damage, but I try not to top him off anyway, because there is a skill, ??? (sorry, I think it's Mayhem, but now I can't remember), where it uses how much health he's lost to do much more damage. Also, Mayhem boosts with a C. Since he can't drop below a C we're always good for Mayhem, which is our backup plan.

Also, while I really need to fix Lune, I am now getting to round 2 with 4 stains. I don't have anything to really hit big with, so it isn't helping much, but she at least is up to "generally somewhat disappointing".

Yea I noticed early on that he has that skill that scales with health lost, and also the one that scales with the amount of shots taken in the same turn. I dont really use the gun as it feels like a waste of AP and I dont want to get hit so I put those to the side. I'm sure theyre more than viable, its just how Im feeling things out.

@Kaamos_Llama Well, I'm disappointed. I went to camp and I was going to respec my characters taking into account weapon scaling. However, I really didn't understand what weapon scaling was, so I looked it up, and it's exactly what I've already been doing the whole time, so there's no reason to respec, but that also means no big damage boost coming...or maybe there is because I'm getting ready to redo the skill trees (if that's possible)-

I think you can do skills at the same time as stats, dont know but I should also go through that at some point. Going to need more respec things first.

So far I haven't had any problems with Tactical difficulty, though it can be a real bother that enemies focus on my magic casters who are trying to concentrate on a spell. Still, I try to stretch out my rests for as long as possible, frequently going into fights with no spell slots left and I've only had to reload probably a handful of times.

One thing that's really helpful is to ungroup everyone and have them sneak before a fight. If you do it right you can get an attack with advantage for every character on the first round.
Also always keep an eye open for opportunities to throw someone down a cliff. A warlock with Repelling Blast who can shoot two Eldritch Blasts a turn can fairly reliably push anything close to an edge off of it, especially since it works on enemies of any size.

Fair enough. Its been too long since I played all the way to remember much other than my player character was Karlach and I mostly used Astarion, Shadowheart, and Gale as basically their generic classes. I didnt find normal difficulty as hard as Divinity to be fair, although there were a few bigger fights I had to reload and think about a bit.

 

[BeardyHat]

I finished off Forgotten City. I had nearly finished the game, shut down for the night, and promptly got too sick to play anything! Arrrg! Once I got back to where I could get by on less than 2 boxes of Kleenex/day, I headed back in again. Sure enough - there was just 5 minutes or so left of the main game. It had a nice little epilog, too.

I need to play this one. I wanted it for ages, finally picked it up a few years ago and still haven't played it. Maybe I should have done that rather than mod and play Oblivion for a little bit.

Still hacking away at Abiotic Factor and I'm pretty much right where I quit last time, but I'm significantly better equipped. Dealing with the obnoxious Teleporting monster now, but it's not been as bad this time, since I understand how it functions a little bit better and am listening for it so I can scare it off as needed. He did get me once, but that was it so far.

Also been playing Dungeons Siege on PSP. Never did play the games on PC, so I'm not sure how close it is to them, but it's a nice break from Abiotic when I'm feeling braindead, which I have been the past several days.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I dont really use the gun as it feels like a waste of AP and I dont want to get hit so I put those to the side. I'm sure theyre more than viable, its just how Im feeling things out.

Actually, as of my latest play, I'm hardly using it for now. I'm just doing what you do. Round 1, put up the two stains; round two, murder. I'm not quite getting as much damage as you. I may not have as many points in Attack.

I've got everyone in good shape now. I have no idea how much damage Verso is doing with his big attack. It always just says 9999.

I'm sure you know this, but if you put on both "Dodge" and Energizing Pain, you can get 1 AP for every swing they take at you. I'm assuming everyone gets "Perfect Dodge" the vast majority of the time.

You may want to make two saves at the flag before logging out. I had a corrupted save file and had to use a backup save.

Did you fight the optional ice boss in the open world right before you go into the snowy area? That guy was absolutely brutal. He goes first and charges at you, and his attacks are like BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM, and each attack nearly kills you. My first fight, I just wasn't ready for it, and I got wiped on turn 1.

Lastly, I didn't know there was romance in the game until I finally talked to someone at camp. I'm not going to do it going forward though. I feel the mission is too critical to indulge in horniness.

 

[Pifanjr]

Lastly, I didn't know there was romance in the game until I finally talked to someone at camp. I'm not going to do it going forward though. I feel the mission is too critical to indulge in horniness.

Imagine how awkward that must be for that character. They showed some interest and you never talked to anyone at camp ever again, but they still have to fight alongside you.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Actually, as of my latest play, I'm hardly using it for now. I'm just doing what you do. Round 1, put up the two stains; round two, murder. I'm not quite getting as much damage as you. I may not have as many points in Attack.

I've got everyone in good shape now. I have no idea how much damage Verso is doing with his big attack. It always just says 9999.

I think max damage in 1 hit is 9999 whatever happens, might be that multi hit abilities will be much better late game if they can scale up with critical and whatever else.

I'm sure you know this, but if you put on both "Dodge" and Energizing Pain, you can get 1 AP for every swing they take at you. I'm assuming everyone gets "Perfect Dodge" the vast majority of the time.w

I dont all that often dodge until I totally fail parrying many times in a fight. That rush multi part attack the blade arm guys do is the only one I cant ever get so far, and I'm and optimist about never being hit

You may want to make two saves at the flag before logging out. I had a corrupted save file and had to use a backup save.

I'll look into it, thanks for the tip.

Did you fight the optional ice boss in the open world right before you go into the snowy area? That guy was absolutely brutal. He goes first and charges at you, and his attacks are like BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM, and each attack nearly kills you. My first fight, I just wasn't ready for it, and I got wiped on turn 1.

I explored the open world a little, went onto the water and found and island with a giant walking head that smashed me and then logged off for the night yesterday so not yet.

Lastly, I didn't know there was romance in the game until I finally talked to someone at camp. I'm not going to do it going forward though. I feel the mission is too critical to indulge in horniness.

Could be wrong but I'm not sure its going towards horny, I think all the characters can improve relations with one another, unless Verso is going to try and bone Esquie, would certainly be a bold move!

 

[DXCHASE]

I heard they nuked Maelle's broken build, did anyone wind up using it at all? I havent played since the new patch.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I heard they nuked Maelle's broken build, did anyone wind up using it at all? I havent played since the new patch.

I didn't use it. I never look up info on builds, so I didn't know it existed until I saw the PCG article yesterday. Maelle is/was supposed to be the strongest, but I stopped using her because I picked a stupid path through her skill tree

 

[Zed Clampet]

Imagine how awkward that must be for that character. They showed some interest and you never talked to anyone at camp ever again, but they still have to fight alongside you.

I'm a killing machine, an instrument of death. Talk and romance are for pansies. It's only natural for her to be bewitched by one such as me, but I never give such things a thought. When I close my eyes to sleep at night, all I see is blood. And if I ever have any regrets for things undone, it will be for not collecting the empty skulls of every soul I sent back to the ether.

 

[Zloth]

You went straight in on Tactician? Damn. After how Divinity Original Sin 2had me struggling on normal at times I was saving that for later!

I went straight to hard in DOS2, too! The secret to my success: re-load. Often. I took far longer than most to finish that game. I'm 118 hours into this one and I haven't seen the city yet!

I've had two 3 month breaks in my BG3 campaign on Tactical difficulty and it's honestly not that bad jumping back in.

Better than 'not bad' - it was great! Got to the end of a dungeon that was very important to Shadowheart. She was about to do something I really didn't want her to do, so I asked her not to. I even said 'please.' That didn't go down well. She left the party, and I ended up knocking her out. OK, not that option.

Reload and try to persuade her. OK, I need to roll a 30. On a single 20-sided die. I can muster up a +2, which becomes a +1 thanks to my sad excuse for a personality, so the only way I get this is to roll a natural 20. Ouch. I roll a 17. Oh, but I've got some inspirations! Try again, and again, and again, and...

There followed some very touching scenes, with Shadowheart wearing that big helmet the whole time.

Also always keep an eye open for opportunities to throw someone down a cliff. A warlock with Repelling Blast who can shoot two Eldritch Blasts a turn can fairly reliably push anything close to an edge off of it, especially since it works on enemies of any size.

Make sure it's a cliff you can GET down if you want whatever treasure they've got on them!

 

[Zed Clampet]

Make sure it's a cliff you can GET down if you want whatever treasure they've got on them!

I don't need any reward other than that I just threw someone off a cliff.