What are you playing?

[Kugelfisch]

I was planning on re-playing the first game and then playing the second for the first time this weekend. I got it really cheap on sale. If nothing else, the music alone is going to make up for it if it's as bad as people claim.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Man, playing as NIghtlbade in Grim Dawn sure is fun.

*teleports behind enemy*
*unsheathes blades*
*tips helmet*
*alpha strike*
*everything dies*

And what's up with the way the game highlights drops? Not being able to toggle it with a button press like in Titan Quest is weird. Okay, you can do it by holding ALT, but that's not quite as efficient. And keeping it on all the time is annoying cause killing a bunch of mobs can easily make it so that you can't see shit.

[FuckSploony]

So... FF Tactics, im just starting, surprised how much i forgot about the game in all this years without playing it.
Farming to get some early skill was quite annoying until i managed to get Knights since pretty much every squire or chemist die in 2hits... man those Chocobos hit hard when you are just starting and are fucking bitches too running away to heal.

Anyways, any recomendation? I only played the game when it was on PS1 and i have forgotten more than what i still remember (and im playing the PSP version and not the PS1)

- Also playing FF12 Zodiac Age, its great. Going to Golmore after a few hunts. Farming LPs at Ozmone Plains since i got my 2nd jerb and need to get a few skills.

- Also practicing a little GGXrdRev2 since its been a while without playing that.

Also just got a laptop for work, its not very good but it was cheap and needed one. Installed Warcraft 3 TFT, Command and Conquer 3 Kanes Wrath, and C&C Tiberian Sun (this one was a pain to make it run, only game on the entire collection that its unplayable without fanmade patches)... i will also install Starcraft BW soon, completely forgot.

Cant find my Age of Empires 2 disk

Dude, I can tell you so fucking much about this game. I played it for probably 400 hours on PS1 alone, then another solid 100 or 200 on PSP. And that was a version of the game I didn't even like that much (war of the lions with the shitty new translation of ye olden elnglish.)

What do you want to know? How to break the game? The difficulty is up to you. How to farm JP? How to get some basic healing shit up so you don't die super fast? I have to figure out what to even say to you because most of what I would say is like speedrun shit for how fast you can make the game your bitch. A lot of the shit in the game isn't balanced or is only balanced by other shit that's also unfair.

For when you're just starting out, some baby steps to get you thinking would be to start working towards healing on all your characters. Auto-Potion should be on everyone. 30hp normal potions are fine for early game to mitigate damage, and they don't cost much. Magic characters should be taking points in white magic so they can heal. White magic is an ideal subclass to fit into any magical build until you earn Calculators. Physical class characters should spend time as Monks so they can learn Chakra and Revive to cut down on your healing expenses. Chakra is broken OP considering it restores MP as well as HP and costs nothing to spam. It's based on your strength stat, so more damage = more healing it does for you. Chakra is good to have to recharge your magic characters too, so they can cast more spells.

That's all you really need for early game. Remember that stat boosts trump everything. +1 in strength for a Monk is 1000% better than an extra few health points or magic points. Equipment that raises your stats is OP.

Best way to earn JP in classes is to put everyone in the Squire class long enough to learn the skill that boosts your attack when you cast it. It gives you at least 10jp every time you use it and you can sit there and spam it forever. I think it's called Fundaments in the PSP version. But any skill you can spam with 100% success rate that gives you JP will work for farming JP to quickly learn skills for multiclassing. I don't usually farm for JP unless I need one or two specific things from a class that I otherwise don't want that character to be taking, like Chemist skills for a class that's going to be a barehanded Ninja Monk.

Thanks. I will get to it next time i play.

Btw, i recruited a few new characters and ok/cancelled to get all the new characters with at least 68/68 (or more) bravery/faith (max i have seen is 70).
Does this affect enough for me to keep doing it or its a waste of time?
Can i recruit better characters later on?

[rabidtictac]

Yes.

You should always try to recruit with the highest bravery you can. The reason is that when you start minmaxing your bravery, for every 5 points of bravery you raise using a combat skill like Ramza's shouting, you only KEEP 1 permanent point of bravery.

So every time you raise a character's bravery to 100 via shouting with Ramza or that other speech class, you only get 5-10 actual points of bravery that you will keep. When you start farming for max bravery (which also combines with jp farming so it's not wasted time,) you will need several combat sessions to fully max a character.

For this reason, it's best to get the highest bravery you can. 97 is usually the max.

Faith does not need to be maxed. Faith is for magic units and units who heal via magic. Monks do not need any faith, for example, to be totally viable. Faith determines your magic success rate, how much damage you do (IIRC) and also how much damage you TAKE from magic.

So an atheistic character with almost no faith is practically magic immune. This can be useful. Sure, you cannot heal them with white magic, but they also cannot be harmed by magic or hit with status effect spells (good and bad.)

Maxing Faith is not usually worth it. When their faith gets too high, they leave your party for a spirit quest, so don't max it all the way. But even 87ish is a waste imo except for dedicated casters. It's also much slower to raise faith because the faith speechcraft skill has around 60% hit rate.

I don't worry about maxing faith, but I usually max bravery for reasons that have to do with breaking the SHIT out of FFT's difficulty.

[rabidtictac]

Oh hey, is there any other game that captures the brutality of combat? Just curious. Sort of like a more realistic God of War mixed with Battle Royale or Hitman Blood Money? I keep thinking a game like that should exist. Something where you get into a fight with a dude in viking times and snap your knife off in his body, so you have to buy a new one. And your horse gets shot with arrows, so it's just fucking dead and you buy a new one after butchering it so you have meat to eat while camping. The kind of game where you legit have to sit there making arrow shafts out of sticks so you have arrows to hunt with. Or spend time polishing your weapons so they don't get dull.

The sort of game where you spend 90% of your time preparing and doing mundane activities, and the other 10% shitting your pants harder than a knife run in a Resident Evil game.

You see this shit every now and again in really solid dark fantasy novels, but not much in games. I guess The Witcher counts, but I can't think of much else and Geralt is rather removed (intentionally) from everyday living, let alone warfare, camp traveling or other activities of a man at arms or mercenary.

Warband is dope as hell, but the visuals aren't what they could be and it doesn't strike the level of brutality or horror I'd expect from an adult take on violent living.

[Kugelfisch]

Die by the Sword is fairly violent.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

I remember that one. Combat's a tiny bit like those Wii Zelda's where you control Link's sword arm 1:1, except with more limbs flying around. Hard as shit, but lulzy.

[rabidtictac]

I guess I mean something more like Mark of Kri, Rise of the Kasai etc except with a bit more polish. I was always very impressed with those games growing up because of their cohesive visual design, despite how the gameplay was a bit lacking and neither stealth nor action really worked as intended. The combat system in particular was ass and needed work.

But now that I think of it, something like Mark of Kri made for CURRENT YEAR would be pretty nice.

[AdorableOtter]

The sort of game where you spend 90% of your time preparing and doing mundane activities, and the other 10% shitting your pants harder than a knife run in a Resident Evil game.

That's basically Darkwood.

[rabidtictac]

The sort of game where you spend 90% of your time preparing and doing mundane activities, and the other 10% shitting your pants harder than a knife run in a Resident Evil game.

That's basically Darkwood.

That looks cool. Basically I want that shit but without any supernatural elements, in third-person (or first-person) with ok graphics (aka ps3 or better.)

Raiding mudslime caravans in Warband is fun, but it could be so much better if the game didn't look and feel so comically jank at times.