Jagged Alliance Jagged Alliance 2, Temple of Elemental Evil & Silent Storm Retrospectives

[octavius]

Renaissance was the widely used term for the Kickstarter Era RPGs before Lilura confused the discourse by force meme-ing her own terms into existence.

In point of fact, I appropriated "Renaissance" from BioWare marketing's claim of having "sparked a role-playing Renaissance" with Baldur's Gate. It predates the degenerate Kickstarter era.

I did a search, and I first used the expression back in 2013, in reply to @Name, who also used the expression.
Lilura's first use of the expression (in the meaning discussed here) is from 2015, where she mentions "false claim of "role-playing renaissance" by BioWare."
The oldest mention of I can find on the Codex is from a review of the first Witcher game from 2007.

 

[Lilura]

Damn. That wall of text I posted was, well, a shitpost. I've come along way since 2015.

Here it is:

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Seems like the term is indeed older, etymologically speaking. I still maintain that it more recently came to be used to refer to KS Era in recent years, by Codey posters as well as journalists and devolpers.

 

[Efe]

thoughts on silent storm vs JA2 vs JA:BIS?

 

[HiddenX]

Quote myself:

HiddenX: In a quest to free Arulco from the dictator Deidranna Reitmann, you have to build up your character and up to 3 mercenary squads. Most mercenaries cost money (with the exception of freedom fighters), and you have to pay them by selling loot or freeing and holding cities to get an income. All mercenaries have a unique background, some love while some hate each other; others have drug addiction. Each playthrough is different if you go with a different squad mix. You can capture anti-aircraft bases, too. That way you can take advantage of a helicopter when moving your squads around.

All fights are turn-based and offer some of the best tactical combat I've seen in a video game. You can crouch, sneak, cover, snipe, burst, bomb, etc., your way through. You can use stuff ranging from night vision goggles to anti-tank rocket launchers, which you must loot or buy. So we have a strategic aspect - freeing cities and anti-aircraft bases; a tactical aspect - the turn- and squad-based tactical fighting; and a role-playing and questing aspect - there are different quests and find-and-rescue missions hidden all over Arulco. You can find new mercenaries, or get money and extra equipment.

All these aspects plus the great variety of mercs with hilarious personalities to choose from, make this game extremely fun, interesting and challenging. The replay value is ultra-high - I've played this game more than 10 times, not counting the excellent mods you can get for free. Highly recommended!

 

[Roguey]

I didn't know you liked any RPGs, tbh.

My top five is Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Deus Ex, and Mask of the Betrayer. I've played through all of them at least thrice.

 

[Duraframe300]

I didn't know you liked any RPGs, tbh.

My top five is Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Deus Ex, and Mask of the Betrayer. I've played through all of them at least thrice.

Explain that one.

 

[Roguey]

Explain that one.

I really like Fallout-style walk-and-talkers with combat crawls off the critical path (this was Arcanum's great crime). It has a lot of fun content, even if quite a bit of it is dumb or a bit obnoxious.

 

[felipepepe]

Oh, I had this trailer on a demo CD or something like that, watched it countless times back in the day... pure hype, still gives me the chills.

 

[Lilura]

My top five is Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Deus Ex, and Mask of the Betrayer. I've played through all of them at least thrice.

Surprised you rate MotB over PS:T. I do as well.

 

[Roguey]

Surprised you rate MotB over PS:T. I do as well.

I like the plot, characters, and pacing better. None of the combat crawls overstay their welcome except the Skein, and the dialogues don't drag too much.

Tides of Numenera would have made it to the top six if it didn't have a huge problem with dragging dialogue.

 

[Lilura]

The Skein was a cool concept in dungeon-reactivity, but yes, its sheer size and amount of trashmobs took the steam out of the campaign for too long. MotB's ending was also rubbish.

Another good thing about MotB was its optimizations/additions to Electron (v1.10).

 

[Roguey]

The Skein was a cool concept in dungeon-reactivity, but yes, its sheer size and amount of trashmobs took the steam out of the campaign for too long.

Also that repetitive hag wailing.

MotB's ending was also rubbish.

I liked the ending. The Wall battles were quick and fun with a ton of reactivity, and the battles inside your mind to save the fake-NPCs-representing-you were also tense and fun.

 

[Martyr]

while I liked MotB's plot more than PST's (which is a matter of taste), I actually don't think the gameplay is any better.

imo the spirit meter wasn't that good of an idea to begin with, but the execution was even worse. that shit was way too scripted and restrictive. it was advertised that you can pretty much devour anyone's soul, but the reality was far from that; I remember being extremely disappointed at dozens of failed attempts to devour souls, because obviously the game doesn't want you to devour certain NPC's souls.

the dfficulty is very uneven. I'd argue that the beginning is the most difficult part of the game, especially the fight in the theater and the first time you encounter vampires in shadow Mulsantir. those fuckers were just huge HP sponges. when I first met one of them, I blasted all my remaining spells into him and yet he still wasn't dead, so there was nothing left to do but sit and watch the autocombat. I even left the room at one point and read a few pages. when I asked "is the vampire dead yet?" after a whole five minutes, the answer was "no".

also, people like to complain that in Dragon Age 2 enemies spawn from the ceiling. yet somehow no-one ever complains about enemies spawning literally out of thin air right before your eyes in Mask of the Betrayer.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

 

[Citizen]

JA2 version of Lilura doesn't even hire mercs, she just sits in front of in-game laptop 24/7 and destroys deidrana with authoritative King Content blogposts about arulco geopolitics

 

[Roguey]

I remember being extremely disappointed at dozens of failed attempts to devour souls, because obviously the game doesn't want you to devour certain NPC's souls.

Well, yeah, that's standard NWN. None of the official campaigns were designed with the idea that you could go around killing anyone and everyone.

the dfficulty is very uneven. I'd argue that the beginning is the most difficult part of the game, especially the fight in the theater and the first time you encounter vampires in shadow Mulsantir. those fuckers were just huge HP sponges. when I first met one of them, I blasted all my remaining spells into him and yet he still wasn't dead, so there was nothing left to do but sit and watch the autocombat. I even left the room at one point and read a few pages. when I asked "is the vampire dead yet?" after a whole five minutes, the answer was "no".

Get better.

also, people like to complain that in Dragon Age 2 enemies spawn from the ceiling. yet somehow no-one ever complains about enemies spawning literally out of thin air right before your eyes in Mask of the Betrayer.

This was a holdover from NWN-tool incompetence from base NWN2 (for some reason it didn't occur to them that the spawn points should be placed out of sight of their encounter triggers) it's only present in one area (the forest). Just assume they're coming out of the thick fog or whatever.

 

[Martyr]

the dfficulty is very uneven. I'd argue that the beginning is the most difficult part of the game, especially the fight in the theater and the first time you encounter vampires in shadow Mulsantir. those fuckers were just huge HP sponges. when I first met one of them, I blasted all my remaining spells into him and yet he still wasn't dead, so there was nothing left to do but sit and watch the autocombat. I even left the room at one point and read a few pages. when I asked "is the vampire dead yet?" after a whole five minutes, the answer was "no".

Get better.

meh. if my character would've been shit, she would've died. instead the fight dragged on forever and I still won in the end, despite being a mage, who is not meant to do normal fighting. the problem here was a) the encounter rate, that drained my available spells b) the spirit meter, that complicates resting and c) the vampires being HP sponges.

also yes, I thought of the forest when I wrote about enemies spawning out of thin air. that shit looked very amateurish. I'd take Planescape's respawning enemies whenever you exit a building over air-spawn-enemies every day.

 

[Roguey]

meh. if my character would've been shit, she would've died. instead the fight dragged on forever and I still won in the end, despite being a mage, who is not meant to do normal fighting. the problem here was a) the encounter rate, that drained my available spells b) the spirit meter, that complicates resting and c) the vampires being HP sponges.

If you weren't killing the vampires quickly enough, you weren't playing optimally.

Tuning high level-combat so that good players aren't completely bored and bad players aren't completely brickwalled is extraordinarily difficult, as Sawyer discussed many years ago https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...to-the-new-thread.75947/page-786#post-2782893

 

[Efe]

but he wasnt dying either, so he was playing optimally in that regard.

 

[Martyr]

I'd say that as a mage with no spells left, fighting with a staff and still killing one of those HP bloated fuckers wasn't that bad either.
what I'm saying is that they're not really difficult, the difficulty is artificial. giving enemies massive amounts of HP doesn't make them hardcore or anything, just annoying.

 

[Roguey]

but he wasnt dying either, so he was playing optimally in that regard.

Winning through attrition is not playing "in the best or most favorable way."

what I'm saying is that they're not really difficult, the difficulty is artificial. giving enemies massive amounts of HP doesn't make them hardcore or anything, just annoying.

They have as much health as the rules say they should have. It's been a while and I can't be bothered to install and dig up the stats in the toolset, but I doubt they gave them massive constitution scores.

(the vampires also regenerate, as per the rules)

To avoid a citation needed http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm

Hit Dice
Increase all current and future Hit Dice to d12s.

A vampire has damage reduction 10/silver and magic. A vampire’s natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Fast Healing (Ex)
A vampire heals 5 points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, it automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. It must reach its coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (It can travel up to nine miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to a vampire forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in its coffin, a vampire is helpless. It regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round.

Abilities
Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4. As an undead creature, a vampire has no Constitution score.

 

[Lilura]

Why are you talking about one vampire ancient? A sextet spawns:

[Authoritative source]

They are not HP-bloated. They are monks and warlocks with DR and regen; much harder than the lich encountered afterwards. It is unlikely you meleed them with an arcanist after your spells were depleted, unless you play on easy mode or were grotesquely over-levelled.

 

[Efe]

Roguey
you lose when you die. you dont lose when you kill them slow.
so its more favorable to be erring on the side of survivability
your definition of best seems sketchy in that regard

 

[Roguey]

Roguey
you lose when you die. you dont lose when you kill them slow.
so its more favorable to be erring on the side of survivability
your definition of best seems sketchy in that regard

That's playing suboptimally.