#also every npc in this dlc is gold

[nimrodinked]

Snakes, Flame, and the Cycles of History

Hello out there, missed me? Well office employment does so drain a person, though not of creativity. And, what with Elden Rings DLC out and me playing it, the time has come for more rambling. This is going to decidedly be more couched in theory and game lore, though Vaati I am not.

It goes to say that this will be a very spoilery talk, be warned.

For one, I am really quite pleased that the story has become clearer in the DLC. What with NPCs and very straight forward storytelling I am able to craft quite a more concrete picture of the goings on in the Lands Between, as well as implications beyond. For one, finding Bonny Village, Gaol, and seeing the jar people was quite horrific and visceral, and that coupled with Marikas own village being an empty place bathed in gold make for a heart tugging emotional moment. That connects nicely to Messmers theme, which also sounds a remix of part of the opening title. Messmer (foe of my beloved people) is quite the interesting character, even putting aside his yaoi MC proportions. Even if I haven't found much in the way of evidence myself, as far as timelines and just vibes go Messmer certain comes across as the oldest of the demigods sired from her. I'm fairly certain all of Rennala's children are older, but for Marika-Spawn he's certainly the oldest. He's also cursed just like his siblings, and here is where I am most interested and focused. Honestly the DLC gives enough that I may make more than one post, though I prefer to write here longform, and I'm not sure how much I could cook up from my brainpans secretions.

In any case, Messmer and his crusade are the first main obstacle most players will run across, seeing as the furnace golem is right smack dab outside. The closer one gets to his keep, the more and more fire-relations one can find. Messmers embers are described as embers of his fire, the fire knight armor and spells describe messmer giving his fire to his troops, the grease describes that everyone, even rank and file in his legions use fire. So, clearly, and obviously he is very connected to fire. But, and what most people will assume more sinister, he is connected to snakes. Snakes are part of him, both the winged ones that appear on his outside, and the "base serpent" that I am assuming resides within him, as he unleashes full snake attacks when he breaks his grace seal, while his first phase largely involves his titular flames. The snake, the 'abyssal serpent' within him was sealed by marika with the same bestowing seal that Radagon (presumably) had received. And that's stated.... Somewhere as the reason that Marika had shunned Messmer and sent him on his crusade. Given snakes and their already close connection to blasphemy, it makes sense. However, contrary to that, I have quite another theory.

Mainly I think that Messmer represented a threat to Marikas "eternal" ruling by way of his flames. Seeing how naturally the flames of the giants are feared and shunned by all who worship the erdtree, Marikas firstborn not only having the fire-red hair of the giants, but also a mastery over fire itself must have been not only humiliating, but a threat to all that Marika ruled over. And Messmer doesn't just have fire, he's got Messmerfire! Which sounds like it's the same but from every description and allusion, it's quite potent, potent enough to lay waste to the land of the hornsent through their largest of soldiers. The Furnace Golems, which may not be directly connected.... But they work in a land of fire, scoop up hornsent and burn them to ash, and you can even bring one to life by throwing a hefty furnace pot into it's head. A hefty furnace pot is crafted using messmers embers among other ingredients, and the description says that the flames burn away both body and soul, cleansing the victims. This would no doubt be a cruel fate for the hornsent that worship and revere souls... But it also puts Messmers flames on the level of extremely dangerous to the erdtree. It's consistent if not immediately apparent that fire is treated very poorly by most everyone within the Lands Between, so much so that the Lord of Blasphemy just so happens to also live in Volcano Manor, the semi active lava zone of this fucked up mario game. Snakes and fire... But while Rykard most certainly leaned to the snake side of things, Messmer is flame all the way, to the point you need his internal fire to break open the sealing tree and access the final area of the DLC.

So, the assumed firstborn of Marika possessed not only a horrid inner curse, but flame powerful enough that it is it's own incantation school. That's another interesting thing littered through the dlc and the game in general. Faith. Faith makes power, more than power draws faith. As shown by the faith talismans describing a mass of believers, faith is the strongest affirmation. Now, let us further this idea. Messmers fire, much like Melinas, was capable of burning a tree, the symbol of power in Marikas order. He was also afflicted with a curse of snakes, which Marika sealed away without helping. The blessing of marika is quite clear on this. "Once she made several of them for Messmers sake, but never again". So.... Why? Why not help her son after pushing on him the onerous task of crusading in her name? Or perhaps it was after the crusade began that Marika got an idea in her head. Messmers gear says that he made himself the symbol of fear and hatred for the hornsent, allowing all the feelings of resentment to flow to him. Not exactly deific.... But just as he was loathed by the hornsent, his knights venerated and even worshipped him. He was a demigod, after all. So this being of fire, gaining new worship and power in the lands between, would almost certainly represent an eventual threat to Marikas rule. As for why she never again made her healing flasks for messmer, I also have an idea. The kindling of messmer describes it as being eaten away at by a snake. the sbake within Messmer no less, his base serpent. Sealed away, it would have no way to sustain itself should it need to, the only things to gnaw on were it's host. So, rather cruelly, Marika may have realized that allowing her son to wither, his powers to wane, would be the smartest course of action, however horrible it may be.

It's a tragedy that, despite flame being his power and gift, Messmer hated it. The orb of messmers describes that he often wished to be rid of it, but ever would it burn. With that chestnut we might think that, rather than gaining worship on purpose, Messmer wished to impart his gifts so they would lessen. A description reads that he tried to implant his flame in others but failed, and the incantations are a way to make up for that. When you fight him he even maintains that he keeps eternal watch, and allows no one without light to pass. He even begs forgiveness from his callous mother as he plucks his own eye out to release the snakes. It's only when he's freed of both life and vigil that he curses Marika, perhaps as a realization of how far he's been betrayed, or perhaps a final damnation of his unrequited feelings of love for his deity parentage.

So! Messmer, poor deluded fool, was betrayed and left out of sight to guard a piece of Marikas mistakes, much like Maliketh. Everywhere you really look into it, the queen eternal seems to get worse and worse. It's interesting to look back on moments like the ashen capital, like gideons speech with new light. Marika, it seems, really is the worst. Tragedy colors her ascension and I really do feel for her, seeing how she didn't want to cause yet more death in her new golden order. But she has done horrid things to keep that order, and while her atrocities have a shinier, cleaner coat of paint, they reek of the same barbarism the hornsent employed to their enemies and underlings. It makes me wonder, really, if there is such a thing as a good ending for Elden Ring. While I haven't roflstomped tender miquella, I've heard his ending is quite seperate from the main game, meaning that we're still stuck with ages of mediocrity at best. And, even with an ascension to "perfect" order, it seems difficult to believe that all will be well, as the rune only claims to quell the hearts of men, and as you can see clearly across the lands between, there is a much deeper rot that spreads...

Anyway! This was fun, this is the first game I've really felt the need to sink my teeth into in regards to fromsoft, though I've enjoyed stories of theirs before. There's plenty more to discuss, so perhaps I'll make another lore/theory post of my thoughts. As for my closing thoughts.... Well-

CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD! CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD!

[miquellaluciscaelum]

Apparently publishing posts is like a form of therapy for me and a way to deal with the emotions from the dlc.

The topic of Miquella in no way leaves me, it literally rents free in my mind 24/7 and I keep going through all the options, trying to find some meanings hidden and not, and come to terms with what we got.

It would certainly be a lot easier if people weren't screaming from every corner about how Miquella is evil, Griffith, "it was clear from the beginning", "justice, apologies for Mogh and Radanh" and all of that.

I think it would make me feel better in a way if I spell out how I feel about Miquella, his plot, and the denouement. The first thought is, of course, disappointment. And it is still significantly present. It is difficult to describe in a short and concise way what exactly I am not satisfied with, so I will write what I missed and what I would have preferred to see instead of what we got.

✨Miquella is essentially a central figure in the story and narrative, but there is very little content directly related to him. In the main game we had that one direct phrase (presumably) from him in the description of the Golden Epitaph, a sword that again (presumably) was created by him and got his Unalloyed gold needle but that was the main game. In the DLC, he's literally the plot, the driver of all events, the main mystery we've come to solve. And he wasn't enough. We have his crosses plastered all over the map that give us phrases about renouncing the flesh, but it's literally the same sentence repeated in different ways. It doesn't give any lore other than that Miquella is renouncing himself for the sake of divinity. There's not much to investigate. It would have been enough to add at least one more sentence each slightly more revealing of Miquella's inner world and his feelings as he cuts off parts of himself somewhere on the edge of the world with an unknown future looming ahead. Something along the lines of "Here I renounce my flesh and blood. My heritage that has always weighed on my shoulders and the sins that have stained my soul." or "Here I renounce my heart. The love for those who have been forgotten and abandoned is still hidden deep within." Or add some dungees, maybe at least one legacy dungeon, like a castle or a fort, centered on Miquella, with a boss at the end that would add lore to it. The only bosses we get lore about him from are Radann and Saint Trina with her boss and I'm not happy with that.

✨I also generally missed the interaction between the Shadow world and Miquella. In terms of the fact, outside of interacting with NPCs, that are related to Miquella, his presence in the world is absolutely not felt. This applies to literally everything. Some of his crosses are located in plot significant locations with other bosses or npcs, that are not related to the main plot, but are related to the Shadow world, and Miquella softly speaking very much affects the Shadow world with his presence, but there is no mention of him. The only one I immediately can remember who mentions him is Count Ymir. This doesn't mean I demand that the whole story and world focus on him, but in terms of depth of immersion and elaboration of the world it breaks the unity of the setting, as if everything that happens is two parallel universes.

✨The denouement itself is not satisfying. The game does not treat Miquella as a full-fledged antagonist (as it is with Radagon, Radanh, Rykard or any other boss in the main game), giving us a bossfight with him, where a unique atmosphere of the character would be created, his lore would be given due credit and most importantly - THERE WOULD BE A CLEAR REASON WHY WE ARE FIGHTING HIM. We literally do not even get rune for Elden ring from Miquella, what is there to talk about.

And game also doesn't make him a "friendly" ally - companion - nps like Melina or Ranni, giving the player no choice or variation at all in the terms of ending. Apparently there was supposed to be another ending along the lines of Ranni's ending, given Miquella's vow in the cut content, but for some reason that was cut. What's the point of it? Miquella's story would have been much better told in quest form, where we could talk to him as a companion, have direct dialog. What we have in the game is not a quest, but an exploration of the world with an extra lore mystery to boot.

✨I don't like the way the game deals with facts. And there are two main reasons for that. First, the game has almost no appeal to facts from the main game. If it was announced that dlc game was about some original characters in the world of elden ring, that's one thing. There would have been new lore introduced about the new characters that would not conflict with the lore of the main game, but complement it. But a character with an already written and fairly elaborate lore from the main game was taken as the basis, whose story is framed within it. And when for the entire game there are no references at all to that lore, fundamental to the character, and the new lore, conflicts with much of what was in the main game, that well, doesn't speak well of the game. It's not even about Malenia or Godwynn. I could also mention the mystery of Miquella's blood, the events of the Shattering, his beef with Outer gods, the connection to Ranni and Melina through the ring and summoning bell.

And second, the game is very noticeably vaguely ambiguous. Especially in key events that define our point of view of the character. I can directly see Miyazaki asking the writers to make all the events so murky and full of white holes that the community just fights each other over lore. Like they say if you want to piss someone off in Souls fandom, tell them they got the plot wrong and you'll never hear the end of it. There's a very simple example with Mogh. We get it, yes, he's the main poor battered boy who no one loved, everyone used him. He just built something of his own, his cute little bloody cult, kidnapping people and glorifying pain, wounds and offering bloody sacrifices to a very peaceful harmless outer god, you get the picture. Miquella came in, bewitched everyone, ruined everything, and seems apparently made Tarnished to kill Mogh too. He took full advantage of the situation. But then what about the kidnapping? Didn't we literally see the place where Miquella's body was ripped from in the Haligtree? Or are you saying that Miquella, who had long planned to merge with the tree, grow it with his blood, did so, spent some time in the tree (his own wooden body literally had time to form there) and suddenly changed his mind. By telepathic communication made Mogh come and steal him? How does that even work? Or the Shapeless Mother? Was she on her lunch break while Miquella was bewitching her darling son and his entire flock? How on earth could Miquella have such a strong influence on someone who was already under the influence of an outer god? What about Radan? Was the oath mutual? Was it an oath at all, rather than a naive child promise that later turned into a commitment? The original Japanese text of Miquella's memory gives a very strange and potentially unhealthy context to this whole pact between them? I'm not asking Miyazaki to write me a hundred-page essay explaining the plot and character motivations, but this ambiguity that generates a huge amount of speculation and debate is not personally appealing to me.

✨Saint Trina is conceptually very controversial to me. I never liked the Marika/Radagon allegory in the context of Miquella, and when it started to be theorized that Trina like Radagon could be a more antagonistic part of Miquella, opposing him in his plans, well.... I've always been more sympathetic to the idea that she was just another guise of Miquella, more of a disguise than a separate entity. In the context of the dlc, I don't see her as anything other than a remnant of kindness, love, and spirit of Miquella gaining a body and asking us to "fix" his mistakes. This for me falls in line with our motivation. We fight Miquella because he himself asked us to kill him because at some point he realized he was on the wrong path but already couldn't stop. Let me believe in something good please(

✨The whole "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" plot. Honestly I expected more. It was the most obvious  way to develop the story far ago, when Miquella was compared to Griffith before the game came out, and now that we have the final product in front of us, it looks even more cheap and second-rate. I realize that Miyazaki is apparently allergic to happiness, hope, and good endings, but he could have come up with something better. What to say, Honkai Star Rail update came out a couple months ago where a neutral-positive character with a desire for a better world at the end turned out to be an antagonist who wanted to plunge everyone into eternal dreams to save them from the pain and hopelessness of the real world🤣 Not a popular plot at all. Endless Tsukiyomi was invented a couple decades ago, it's time to move on.

I won't say it's bad writing, but honestly, I don't compare the end of the dlc and Miquella's plot to anything other than the ending of Attack of Titans and Eren Yeager or S8 Game of Thrones and Daenerys. And such comparisons don't mean anything good.

I agree that the plot adds depth to Miquella's character, through self-denial, through comparisons to Marika, etc. But this should not be done at the expense of alienating its core lore. I can recognize some merit in such a plot, but it's a situation where you as a fan just simply has no choice, where you choose the lesser of two evils between just completely deny the whole plot or adapt it and flip for myself, but actually whatever you choose you still choose evil in the end. Miquella's plot is like making all the wrong choices. And you realize how you got here and accept it, but you can't help but regret the lost potential of other paths.

Please, if you've already played the game and have thoughts different from mine, especially backed up by specific facts from dlc, I'd love to hear them. I haven't gotten through dlc yet, I'm having a very hard time morally overcoming my disappointment in it, and I'm clearly still somewhere in the denial-bargaining stage.

[actualbird]

what is your ranking of all the main event stories we have received so far? (as in sott, enduring light, skadi etc)

OHHHH THIS IS A FUN QUESTION, THANK YOU ANON!!! let me go from my highest to lowest.

for this question, im taking "main event stories" to mean the Big 4 SSR Events where the event story involves the entire team all at once (so no xmas events or sotn, or solo or duo events). and i will be judging these events primarily on their event story (so not as much as the gameplay, though thatll also be a factor. but i wont be judging the cards)

OH DANG WHY DID I EXPLAIN IT, THE TOT WIKI DOES A MUCH BETTER JOB AT DEFINING BIG 4 SSR EVENTS, HERE, THIS IS WHAT IM JUDGING

anyhoo, here is my personal ranking!

FIRST PLACE: Mysteries of the Lost Gold

my beloved, my favorite, my perfect shining star. lost gold was the first big event i played and it has yet to be dethroned as my favorite event story of all of tot. absolute homerun of a rich story with intrigue, high stakes, a good balance of tender moments and lighthearted ones, and just SO gripping in terms of all of the story threads coming together, plus the absolutely A+ nxx team interactions. my advice to every new player who comes into my inbox is "PLAY THE LOST GOLD DLC" because i love it so much. i will never shut up about how i love it so much. it has our very first raven!luke sighting. it has marius nearly getting stabbed. it has artem with gun. it has vyn doing that THING with the bow and arrow. LIKE. THIS EVENT IS PERFECT TO ME. it'll take something really really special to dethrone it.

SECOND PLACE: Enduring Light

this isnt recency bias speaking but my real honest thoughts: this story delighted me to no end. i was kept on the edge my seat for every single phase, and the sheer novelty of the story's setup and the gameplay was such a nice change of pace after the previous event formats started to get repetetive. i especially loved that this time, we had to suspect the nxx boys as well because that really added to my enjoyment of this event. it really felt like a mystery that had to be solved by us, and not just a mystery that will unravel by itself as long as we keep playing, if that makes sense? my point is i was immensely immersed in enduring light and i love it lots lots lots. luke looking stupendously hot in his outfit during the entire event was also a huge plus.

THIRD PLACE: a tie between Blizzardous Threads of Red & Mystery of Bakerlon

i really loved BTR and bakerlon!!! both of their murder cases were adequately thrilling for me, though towards the end i could feel the adrenaline wearing off, if that makes sense? like by the 4th phase, things were slotting together already in a way that like lowered the feeling of intrigue. also i know i said i wouldnt judge much based on gameplay, but these two deserve a shoutout for MINIGAMES I WANT TO KILL W MY BARE HANDS. bakerlon's crystal tasks were so repetetive to me, and BTR's TIMED ESCAPE ROOM THINGIES heightened my blood pressure several times HAHA

FOURTH PLACE: To My Beloved: Moonlit Eve (anniv 2)

this has a soft spot in my heart for including all of the old NPCs from main story, and that was very heartwarming. while theres no mystery that needs solving, just seeing the team hang out together and have fun together was such a treat for my soul

FIFTH PLACE: Secrets of the Tomb

sott is where i'd say the event story quality is inching towards the meh scale. the mystery here was interesting but was not particularly gripping to me. it might just be a me thing, but i enjoyed the side stories (the ones you get with the boys when you investigate the artefacts) more than the actual event story itself.

SIXTH PLACE: A Love Poem to Skadi

ahhhhh skadi. psychological and medical malpractice horrors skadi.....HJSVKHSJDFDSF. i will admit, the mystery in this story is HORRIFIC and it was enjoyable to unravel it, but here is where i break my rule again of not talking about gameplay but mAAAAAAN THE GAMEPLAY HINDERED MY ENJOYMENT OF THE MAIN PLOT LOTS. it was rather difficult for me to do all the exploration in that manor and that stalled my absorption of the story too. plus, i think the fact that the story is Over made the story have a bit of a muted quality to it. not in a bad way (i distinctly remember i wrote a semi-analysis post about how i enjoyed that the story was in the Past) but it definitely affected the mood of the gameplay, if that makes sense?

(that is the third time ive said "if that makes sense" in this response, THREE STRIKES AND YER OOOOOUT)

SEVENTH PLACE: Blissful Fete (anniv 1)

be honest with me.....do YOU remember the event story plot of blissful fete? cuz i sure dont. JVSKDHFSJDHSF. i only remember getting very very mad at luke during that fucking minigame where we guess if the card is higher or lower. that being said, if i cant even remember much of the story, then it didnt make an impact on me and couldve been improved.

so thats my ranking! thank u for the ask :D

[catcake24]

Ughhhhh I came up with this kind of dumb Splatoon AU DLC thing which is basically a rip off of Octo expansion but it refuses to leave my brain so here’s the basics: Salmonlings being scienced into existence and going through levels to try and be able to leave for the city by sinister group.

There’s a fan concept of Salmonlings, which are basically humanoid versions of Salmonids which also have a swim form but tend to be more xeno in design than Inklings or Octolings.

Salmonlings here are a science experiment gone wrong, where some scientists tried experimenting on Salmonid eggs to create extremely tough monsters. However, this ended up creating Salmonlings by combining Inkling CNA with Salmonid.

Salmonlings can swim in water, unlike Inklings, but loose their main Salmonid form in favour of something…. Fresher. Their swim form is more in line with the appearance of inklings and Octolings swim forms, and they’re able to take on ink like them.

They also can be splatted by enemy ink, as their skin may be able to resist water but can’t handle too much enemy ink.

The dlc follows some of these experiments soon after they emerge from their test tube, being tested for mental and physical capabilities. (Somewhat similar to Octo Expansion or Alterna format). The Salmonlings are promised that if they complete all the tests, they’ll be able to leave the facility; and are then dropped into their hub area which is a barracks/common area for the Salmonlings.

Ideas

- The whole vibe of this dlc is kind of grimy and inspired by the sea a lot more directly - with the music themed after rock and roll, and everything being a little dirty. There are fishing nets everywhere, dark spots on the walls and floors, and water is leaking in from the ceiling.

- The vibe is also supposed to invoke how the Grizz Co hub area feels like, with oranges and greens everywhere.

- The person who takes you in your tests is also a pre-recorded and distorted voice coming through a radio, though it isn’t Mr grizz.

- Salmonlings come out in batches, the batch with the protagonist (and most recent batch) is batch 10 also known as Iota (each batch is given a Greek numeral nickname)

- Other batches of Salmonlings are there, as far back as batch 6 (or Digamma) However, if you are unable to pass their tests in an amount of time, or flunk out, you’re assigned to work in the underground facilities of this place.

- Salmonlings are different from salmonids for many reasons, but Salmonids can somehow tell they are somewhat kin so they don’t attack Salmonlings and even help them on occasion if the situation permits it.

- At the end of every level, there is a pin that can be collected and has a description which reveals a small bit of lore or the feelings of the protagonist through the description. Example: This depicts a Salmon, which were the ancestor to Salmonids. Could they still swim across the seas?

- Every boss level, which there are 5 of them, has a gold pin which is added to the protagonist’s backpack.

- Each boss is a powered up Boss Salmonid: one is a Steelhead with multiple exploding sacks instead of just one, another is a rainmaker and fly fish combo, etc.

- Each test happens on the surface on some kind of shoreline, and the enemies being fought are robot duplicates of the octarian enemies we are familiar with (they don’t resemble them in appearance, they just act like the general enemies).

- One of the other Salmonlings is an npc named Kipper. She acts as an upgrade station, she can sneak in additions to your main weapon and extra sub weapons you can equip to your character. To upgrade you need to collect power eggs from the tests themselves

- As you progress, you have conversations with Kipper about how little we actually know about this, and why they were brought into existence at all. Over time, she becomes basically a big sister to the protagonist and is proud of them when they succeed.

——

When the Protagonist completes all the tests, they are led into a chamber and is almost forced into a weird machine before Kipper comes to rescue them. She reveals that she was suspicious of these tests, and came to our aid as soon as she could and that they have mind controlled a ton of other Salmonlings and made the others work on weapons.

To escape the protagonist needs to go through these weapon facilities, showing they are making war machines and the robotic enemies try and stop the protagonist, as Kipper guides them out of this facility with other Salmonlings escaping behind us (not viewable on screen, but shown in cutscenes after finishing a segment).

After they get out, the Salmonlings are attacked by Lil’ Judd in a huge Mech suit.

He reveals that this whole thing was, of course, a front to make Salmonling soldiers for Lil’ Judd. After he took over Grizz Co, he decided he wanted to start selling golden eggs to other groups. One group of amoral scientists wanted to experiment with them, and Lil Judd agreed to it and oversaw the project. Once he realized how tough the Salmonlings were, he concocted a plan to take over Inkadia by force to permanently upstage his brother who won on the inkling’s side of a war.

Now he’s prepared to attack the escaped Salmonlings, and they quickly take cover. Kipper then rallies the escapees for one last charge against Lil’ Judd, and she will sing the song from her dreams as hard as she can to help them despite her own weakness. She sings a melody not familiar to the Salmonlings, but familiar to us players - the Calamari Inkantation Solo Remix.

Lil Judd summons a bunch of Enemy Salmonlings, and the player has to fight them in four total waves with more and more coming each time. (One optional idea I had but I wasn’t sure was even realistic was having three other Salmonling AI fight alongside you. On one hand it would be a cool subversion of fighting the rivals in splatoon, on the other it would be hard to make balanced or fun in an actual game.)

After the waves are defeated, Lil Judd throws the Salmonlings off himself and boasts that even if his army could be defeated, he won’t be going down!

Then a heavy base comes from the distance, and a twinkle in the sky is then revealed to be DJ Octavio crashing in with Neo Agent 3 and Agent 8 riding on his Mech. Octavio reveals they were brought here once they heard the echoes of the heavenly melody. Neo 3 and 8 handle the army now, and Kipper volunteers us to go and help pilot the Mech to fight Lil’ Judd. We do in an epic Mech fight, with DJ Octavio remixing the solo Inkantation as they fight, and end up winning in a fade to white.

In the ending, the rest of the Squidbeak Splatoon catch-up and decide to help settle the wayward Salmonlings in Inkopolis. The credits roll as the protagonist and Kipper look out at the landscape outside as they travel towards Inkopolis in a bus ending with them leaving and the protagonist giving a small wave before leaving the bus.

In my dreams this would also open up a new area to explore, called Inkadia Harbour which is located next to the sea where the Salmonlings decide to settle in due to how close to the water it is. The player would then be rewarded with being able to play a Salmonling in the game.

And there it is. It’s just a bunch of basic ideas for story and themes, but it appeals to me as something I made up in my head. Now you have to struggle with this not being real too.

[mneiai]

Which established characters are you hoping to see in Dreadwolf?

Obviously I think Dorian will be at least appearing and I'm hoping Maeveris ends up in an advisory role or something like that. I'd also really like that for Fenris, where he advises us and we have some sidequests with him, but his own work and ours maybe diverges a bit, to give it the feel of there being just so much going on and so many moving pieces.

I would also really like Feynriel as a companion, I think it would be a great nod to DA2 and be an interesting way to work in some great moral conundrums for us (like having the option to influence someone's mind through their dreams or the like).

From Absolution, I'm hoping either Qwydion or Tassia become companions (though Roland and Lacklon as a pre-built set would be pretty fun). Qwydion would be like a less annoying Sera sort of role, playful and silly, but very good at what she does and with a heart of gold. Tassia would also work I think in an advisory role, but I could see her as a companion (and them both as love interests). She could be a more conservative Tevinter viewpoint, but very anti-blood magic and with a Dorian-esque desire to "save" her country from itself.

Prior to the VA's bullshit, I had actually really hoped Cullen might be a companion, simply because it would get him in basically every role he could have taken in the games and because he's one of the only characters to appear in all three prior games without DLCs, so I want those parallels. Since his epilogues never actually count, he could have been in Tevinter for a year or two before starting the game--he'd fascinate the Tevinters while also having Templar abilities they wouldn't at all be ready for.

Dagna is another "older" character who would be great as a companion and give some interesting insight. I'd love to see them go deeper into lyrium/Titan lore and having someone like Dagna around (as well as Fenris and even to some extent Cullen) could add to that. There are a ton of dwarves in Minrathous, after all, who live under the city so they don't get exiled as "surface dwarves."

Krem could also be a great companion (and finally a love interest??), perhaps under an assumed name or something like that, with a side quest involving searching out his family or having to deal with being recognized, considering he's basically a fugitive.

If they're using Tevinter Nights characters, there's soooo many options. Perhaps Myrion or Strife for their Qunari invasion experiences (and Strife as a contact to the Dalish), Hollix or Mizzy already are connected to Dorian of course, Neve has great contacts in the Templars, Lucanis could give us a connection to the Crows (would absolutely love to see my fav pair from the book, Viago and Teia, appear, and through Viago we could also get a connect to the Antivan king). Philliam, a Bard! could be the comic relief character if we don't already have one, Vadis and Irian are a great all around pair with a ton of connections to different possible plotlines.

As for repeat companions from DAI...I don't know. I've seen people say Varric, but I think they're reallllly close to overdoing Varric, and also his usage in so much other material implies he may have been "released" from tight control they normally like to keep over major NPCs. Dorian would obviously be relevant, but kind of falls into the same category of being used in a decent amount of other media now. I think Cole has some great insight, but apparently he was fairly controversial, and obviously a lot of the others from player choices.

As for DAO...I'd absolutely love to have Shale back, but most of the other characters are either dead or too affected by player choices. Though Zevran could also be interesting, I'd prefer one of the newer Crow characters.

[queerloquial]

finished gold road yesterday. undecided on how i feel about it

positive:

Son Boy Fennorian. good to see him, good to get a little bit of backstory, the vampire vineyard quest was kinda interesting

very glad they waited this long to do the west weald bc the zone is Great. they've really gotten better at environment design over the last decade

hell yeah mizzik thunderboots, and he comes with a fun murder mystery!

the goblin quest! like yes, Please, let's start looking at the 'monster' races as people with their own cultures rather than just as creatures to mow through. would love to see similar things in the future for, say, the minotaurs, fauns, and giants. would *especially* like to see them + the goblins/goblin-kin as npcs able to speak for themselves

negative:

fuck off with beragon. eveli was fine in wrothgar, but every subsequent appearance has grated on me, and i find beragon even worse. he's not very bright during quests, but not even in a fun way, and he talks So Fucking Slow. when i do quests for the first time i Like to let the npcs talk rather than just click through as fast as i can read, but he got on my nerves after two minutes with how stilted and flat he is

would've actually liked to see more of the recollection and the alleged connection to the ayleids. for the most part, the ayleids are generally reduced down to "they enslaved humans, were over-the-top cruel, and worshiped daedra", so i'd have liked to explore what would come of a 'modern' attempt to re-establish ayleid culture. it seems like the whole thing was just 'nantharion was using a supposed genetic connection to strengthen his claim to a throne, but then we killed him and so now nobody gives a shit about the ayleids again'??

really not digging the way this story only makes full sense if you also bought and played necrom. the chapter + dlc model for telling a full story was one thing, that at least Kind Of made sense and made each year feel self-contained, but tying together two chapters is just outrageous

maybe i just haven't played past main quests in a while but ohhhh boy. can we fuck off with the hand-holding. can we stop forcing npc assistants on quests who are going to cast shitty abilities too late and infrequent to be useful (the only time Any npc was helpful was in the last fight vs ithelia, with leramil's circle that restores ultimate). i got So annoyed being told every five seconds to use the lamp/skein/abolisher. like, you have spent the entire chapter showing me how each mechanic works. i do not need to be reminded Use Your Special Portal Sword every time you present me with a very obvious Portal Specifically To Be Used With The Special Portal Sword. i know what the fuck to do. shut up beragon

torvesard taking ithelia's power at the end felt very "ea told bioware that da2 needed another boss battle so orsino suddenly becomes a villain". i did find his death at ithelia's hand to be kind of touching, the idea of devotion being a corrupting force is appealing to me, but eh. not executed all that well, imo

ithelia is defeated by. showing her a magic mirror that makes her feel bad about. being angry she was exiled, imprisoned, and forcibly forgotten for the crime of existing in a way that makes others uncomfortable. and so she feels guilty and suddenly accepts that she Really Is A Monster and Need to be shut away. yeah i'm not vibing with the subtext of this one, guys

y'know what, i think if it were up to me i'd have tied those two together somehow. deepen ithelia and torvesard's relationship, the forgotten deity and the follower so devoted and loyal he will break reality to get her back, make it more About the terrible things that can be done in the name of love and service. have his desperation to stop the protag be the thing that gets through to ithelia? fanaticism as opposed to I Exist Incorrectly And Must Be Punished For It

???:

i am probably not the target audience for scribing. i liked the quest series well enough, the concept of the luminaries and ulfsild's journey with magic were both Interesting, i just. don't give a shit about spellcrafting?? maybe it's just bc my intro to tes was skyrim and so i don't have, like, Fond Childhood Memories TM of creating bullshit custom spells in morrowind/oblivion and therefore no desire to see that variant of customization come to eso. idk. i like the new colors for existing skills, tho wish they could apply to class skills

after playing high rock and necrom, both of which had main and side quests focused on exploring the culture and identity of bretons/dunmer, it was a little... disappointing? to not get much of the same for imperials. i guess there were multiple quests featuring legionaries?? and then the vineyard quest??

i'm not entirely opposed to the introduction of a new daedric prince, or to toying with the concept of a multiverse, but i'm not sure they quite nailed either, especially since at the end you just. negate the entire thing. like now i just want to follow ithelia wherever she went and find out What Is A Prince Without Their Power. how does a being like her- whose entire existence Is magic, is predicated on power and the exertion thereof- fit into a supposed world *that has no magic and where she is devoid of her innate power*??

killing gadayn for five minutes. what was the point. i'd have given him more presence through the story so that his loss (*much* earlier than in canon) is actually noticeable beyond "leramil is sad for a little bit". tease the idea that ithelia could bring him back from another path, maybe, make the player have to ask, even for a moment, "can there be a way to keep her around, do we have to completely destroy/exile her?"

actually i wish they'd explored the Many Paths more just, in general. maybe have the player hop across alternate timelines to accomplish plot shit?

[blarrghe]

Dragon Age 4: Snake Kings vs Moon Men

[emblemxeno]

Not being involved in 3H for a while now has really given me a clear perspective, and I’ve come to realize that I don’t care much for the game anymore. I don’t regret buying it or playing it, but man. I have too many issues with it to really hold it up as a favorite anymore. Obviously because of story issues, but mainly because of the gameplay.

You have the teaching stuff and that’s fun for a bit, but then it becomes monotonous, even more so when you don’t have maxed out statues or the sauna DLC. The monastery is the same deal; fun at first, but then everything is unlocked at like, chapter 6 and it becomes more and more of a chore. Meals and cooking? A more drawn out version of what Fates already did, with the only difference is that it also gives support points. Tea time? Fates did the Private Quarters/Skinship thing first, in a quicker manner and not requiring a collectible. Greenhouse? Convoluted mechanic to use optimally, and ultimately only serves to faciliate getting items to use in meals or give as gifts, something I already think was done better in a previous game. Choir? I honestly don’t think anyone actually uses activity points on this unless they have nothing else to do. Tournaments? A tedious way to get gold, and the non gold prizes are usually things you can buy or make yourself; not to mention that using battle points to get materials from monsters means you’re typically not starving for ore. Blacksmithing? IMO better than Fates, but still worse than every other game that has forging, and isn’t even fun cuz you can’t name the weapons!

The most engaging and fun part of the monastery is talking to characters, cuz (for the most part) the character writing is good. But when that is the most fun I’m having in the hub? Something that was already done in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn without the tedium of running around a, frankly boring, monastery? And when the exploration aspect of talking to characters and NPCs was done better in Echoes as well? Yeah, that’s not a sign of a game I like.

As for the actual battles, it’s not much better. It has the same exact issues that people accuse Awakening and 2/3 of Fates of: poor map design and strategy that only ever relies on being stat balls. Maps are often extremely big or filled with nothing (chapter 5, 7, Gronder Rematch, any battle in enbarr or merceus) saddled with tedious aspects (sudden monsters, objective changes that catch you off guard), and very static map requirements, mostly defeat boss or rout the enemy. Not to mention how many times maps are re-used between routes, chapters, and paralogues. Fates did this too, and like Fates, when a map is reused in an outright different scenario in 3H, the enemy placement and composition are changed to accomodate. However, in Fates’ case, it was few and far between. With 3H it’s every other damn map.

Battalions I feel were IS’s way of incorporating consistent AoE’s for the 3 people who complained about not having them in FE for some reason. But too bad, you’re not actually gonna use gambits for AoE damage cuz the monster enemies exist, and they’re fucking everywhere in most battles; the gambits are the most reliable way to deal with the monster shields so you can do proper damage. That in itself IMO is also just a massive roadblock and major annoyance; powerful non-boss enemies should not ever take a chunk of my entire team to deal with and be fairly plentiful in number. I get that stuff like the Bael in chapter 6 of Sacred Stones or maps like Battle Before Dawn were tough, but I’d rather have difficulty over outright tedium, cuz it’s not like the monsters are actually hard to fight-they just take so damn long to deal with.

After exhausting battalions, you have combat arts, which... are okay. If you can’t double naturally, then they’re a great way to do more damage in a single strike. Problem is that’s all they really amount to, niche utility for the rare chance that you’re not steamrolling the enemy (which mostly only happens on Maddening, because that mode is bullshit). I find it hard to believe anyone actually uses arts like Grounder when you can use a bow instead. Why use Frozen Lance over just regular magic? Helm Splitter over a hammer or armorslayer? Ward Arrow over Silence or just outright killing the enemy? Then there’s stuff like Swift Strikes and Point Blank Volley that completely invalidate other arts, cuz if you use a good enough weapon, you’re 1 rounding the enemy anyway.

Now, granted, I had a similar problem with the combat arts in Echoes sometimes, but the difference is that 1) most of Echoes’ characters don’t really turn into crazy stat balls like 3H’s do, so it’s justified to rely on combat arts more often and 2) even if they aren’t useful, the arts in Echoes had special animations! They had flair and pizzazz! They looked cool! 3H just recycles most of its animations for the arts, and that’s lame.

After that, what does 3H’s gameplay do that other games haven’t done, and better? Nothing that I can think of. At all.

And of course I have problems with the writing, the story, etc cuz I’ve talked about those problems non-stop. As a result of shoving so much lore to appease weirdos who think “Teh Worldbuilding” is the only think required to make an FE story good, we now have a contradictory and logistical mess that the writers themselves have admitted that even they couldn’t keep track of everything. It’s an honest-to-god miracle that a good amount of the cast are written fairly well considering how most other aspects of 3H’s story are paced poorly, explained poorly, justified poorly, etc. But at that point, I must reiterate, when the best part of the game is listening to the characters talk? What’s the incentive to playing the game over watching supports and cutscenes on Youtube? 

That’s why I can’t in good conscience consider 3H that good of a game anymore, it just does too little with the things that it’s overstuffed with. It’s uninspiring to play at best, downright boring, tedious, and frustrating at worst.

[questersrest]

apologies for the just talking about junk lately but my brain’s on infodump o’clock. i really want to talk about dq9 grottoes and alchemiracles. so here’s a wall of text that’s been in the back of my brain for around 9 years.

i always thought this stuff was insane and i’m dying for a remake so i can get into this again.

so.

quest #015 collapsus’ call

at the summit of the heights of loneliness, you will find a man, christopher collapsus, who climbed all the way to the top but collapsed just short of zere rocks. you need to bring him a special medicine. as a reward he will give you your first treasure map: granite tunnel of woe lv. 1.

a treasure map will depict a red X drawn on part of a map, this will be one of several locations on the overworld but it’ll be fairly zoomed in so it might take some thinking to figure out where it is. when you stand in that location, a prompt to press A will appear and when you do, a cave entrance will appear. these caves are called grottoes. inside you’ll find several floors with monsters and chests and then a boss floor.

when you beat the boss they will drop another map. it’ll be random but influenced by 3 factors:

a) the level of the map just beaten.

b) the hero’s max level. the hero’s level is stored separate for each vocation so if you’ve hit level 99 as a minstrel but are currently a level 30 warrior, your max level is 99.

c) the hero’s max revocation. when the hero reaches level 99 as a vocation they can revocate, resetting that level to 1 and gaining a little +1 next to the level. my max revocations was a +3 on gladiator.

there are like over 32,000 maps with over 200 quality variations if i remember right, the exact total is over 8 million possibilities with these varying features:

a) it’s location on the world map.

b) it’s environment theme: ruins 40%, cave 30%, fire 10%, ice 10%, or water 10%

c) the number of floors before the boss floor: 2-16

d) the layout of each floor including the placement of any chests. if you’ve ever played a mystery dungeon game you know what to expect with randomly generated dungeons.

e) the starting monster rank of the grotto. monsters appear from a pool, there are 12 ranks and each environment has its own pool of monsters for each rank. the monster rank can only start at up to rank 9 but it increases every 4 floors so to find rank 12 monsters, you’ll need a grotto that starts on 9 and has at least 13 floors. many monsters in the higher ranks are exclusive to grottoes so if you want to complete your bestiary... well i never in 700+ hours found a water grotto with rank 12 monsters. monster rank on each floor also determines what ranks of chest can appear there. there are 10 ranks of chest. each weapon used for making the 5 star weapons has a 1% chance to be in a rank 10 chest. there’s one for each of the 12 weapon types. but even on a monster rank 12 floor it’s not guaranteed to have rank 10 chests. (chests by the way refresh when grotto is closed and reopened).

f) it’s boss, of which there are 12 possible. each boss is more difficult than the previous and so it is related to the map’s level, so dw, a level 1 map can’t have the final grotto boss, you won’t be ready for that.

there is some lore to the bosses. the goddess celestria, daughter of zenus (who was slain by corvus at the beginning of the story), said her father must still be alive in some capacity or the world would cease to be. every grotto boss has some dialogue before the battle commences. fowleye specifically explains that zenus shattered into 10 pieces which took form as the first 10 grotto bosses. the 11th is the demon that the supreme sage sealed in a book with himself long ago, the supreme sage, still in the book, is a character who gives you the quests related to the sage vocation. the 12th is greygnarl who was slain by barbarus in the story but at the end his shadow was shown hinting at his return. in his dialogue he talks about himself, barbarus, and styrmling who remains somewhat of a mystery. greygnarl actually drops an yggdrasil leaf instead of another map.

each boss has 3 items they can drop. a 100% drop: another treasure map. a (i actually can’t remember, i think it’s 5 or 10)% drop chance: a certain pretty good piece of gear. a 2% drop chance for a piece of armour used for 5 star armour. most armour categories can be split into multiple sub-categories e.g. handwear that focuses on defence or deftness so there’s one for each sub-category: 1 shield, 2 headwear, 2 handwear, 3 bodywear, 1 legwear, 2 footwear. each boss has a specific one e.g. the first grotto boss, equinox, has a 2% chance to drop the vesta gauntlets: defence handwear. greygnarl is an exception to the rules, i don’t remember all the specifics and can’t find details at this time but i do remember is his 100% drop is an yggdrasil leaf and one of his drops is a certain legacy boss map, i’ll get to that in a bit.

treasure map names are clues as to the details of the map before explored but usually don’t guarantee anything (except a few environments, if it says “waterway” it’s definitely water).

there are a few other weird factors for the probability for monsters appearing on floors resulting in the ruby path of doom map that got extremely popular to share in japan and got referenced in dq11s because of the one floor with nothing but metal king slimes. i myself found a grotto which had a floor with absolutely no monsters whatsoever, it did however have 2 chests on that floor, at least one of which was rank 10.

now say you get one of these special pieces of gear, how do you make the 5 star gear?

agates of evolution are items than can only be made through alchemy and are only used for alchemy. the ingredients are 2x ethereal stone, 2x sainted soma, 1x chronocrystal. ethereal stones and sainted somas can be obtained through a few means but the easiest is through further alchemy with the ingedients being available through monster drops and sparkles found in the world. chronocrystals can only be bought, there is an npc in a cave that can only be reached in the postgame the only thing he sells are chronocrystals for 50,000 gold each, the most expensive item in the game.

there are a few special treasure maps, legacy boss maps, that lead to a grotto that is only a boss floor, a boss from a previous game. we have: dragonlord, malroth, baramos, zoma, estark, psaro, nimzo, murdaw, mortamor, nokturnus, orgodemir, dhoulmagus, and rhapthorne. the first you’ll likely come across is baramos’ map lv. 1 as a quest reward. the one greygnarl drops is dragonlord’s. when you defeat a legacy boss, they will return and ask to gain experience too, if you agree the map will level up. as a legacy boss levels up, the drops will increase in chance or change entirely. be careful as some maps you can only get once unless shared from another player, you could lock yourself out from some items. the key things they drop are armour to dress up as heroes from the previous games and maps of other legacy bosses. some legacy bosses are only available from the dlc quests or dropped by other legacy bosses that are only available from the dlc quests and since the online service was discontinued in 2014 they are now almost unavailable (if you’re genuinely interested bc you missed out, shoot me an ask and i can explain that one).

then there’s the orbs. every legacy boss can drop one of six coulored orbs. as their rarest drop, this won’t change, the chance can just be increased with their level, the only exception is nokturnus who changes which orb he drops with his level. it’s the same 6 orbs that appeared as a plot device in dq3, alongside a 7th in dq8, and would go on to appear in dq11. all six orbs are thankfully available among the legacy bosses available without online services.

each of the special items can be alchemised with an agate of evolution and a certain orb to make an improved version that looks identical. e.g. 1x stardust sword + 1x agate of evolution + 1x silver orb makes a nebula sword. getting the ingredients is both expensive and time consuming BUT it goes further. 1x nebula sword + 3x agate of evolution + 3x silver orb will make a further improved and identical but still only 4 star supernova sword. most of the time. see when you try to make this further improved item, krak pot will alert you he feels an alchemiracle coming on. he will state a chance as i think 10%, 20%, or 30% which i think can be influenced but i’m afraid i don’t know the details. you are then forced to save the game with the result determined so you can’t reset and try again. if it should succeed, you will make a 5 star item, the best item of that kind in the game, a stronger palette swap of the other items. e.g. the hypernova sword.

should it fail and you want to try again, you can alchemise the failed alchemiracle item e.g. the supernova sword with a rest stone to return it to the first item e.g. the stardust sword. reset stones can be bought from the mini medal collector of dq9 once you can reached the final reward.

so here’s the procedure.

1. grind grottoes and their bosses for this stupid rare gear. 2% drop rate has nothing on shiny pokemon, sure, except you do have to go through the entire grotto again every time.

2. grind legacy bosses for orbs.

3. grind materials for agates including money for chronocrystals.

4. pray to the rng gods once more for an alchemiracle.

5. cry because you spent 100 hours on this and it didn’t work.

6. give in to cheating via rng abuse, the hoimi table’s out there still.

have fun

[officialotakudome]

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New Post has been published on https://otakudome.com/cyberpunk-2077-patch-1-3-detailed/

Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.3 Detailed

CD Projekt Red has detailed upcoming fixes and content for Cyberpunk 2077:

August 17, 2021 Patch 1.3 is coming to PC, consoles, and Stadia soon! Here is a list of the most notable changes coming in this update.

Please note that the issues listed below did not affect all players.

ADDITIONAL CONTENT

A list of all the free DLCs can be found in the Main Menu under “Additional Content”.

Johnny Silverhand’s Alternative Appearance – can be enabled in Settings in the “Additional Content” tab. Multilayered Syn-Leather Deltajock Jacket, Luminescent Punk Jacket – both available in the stash in V’s apartment after receiving a message from Viktor after completing The Ride. They’re of Rare/Iconic quality by default, Crafting Specs to craft a higher quality will also be unlocked. Archer Quartz “Bandit” – available as a reward or for purchase (depending on choices made by player) after completing Ghost Town and then receiving a message from Dakota or Rogue. If you haven’t received the message, make sure to be in the Badlands area and move further away from Dakota’s workshop. Dakota will also need a couple of days to contact you.

IMPROVEMENTS

Improved the minimap’s zoom level when driving, so that it’s more zoomed out and easier to navigate. Automatic Love – screen with pictures of Skye and Angel will be displayed substantially longer, making it easier to choose between the two. Added a button which allows to reallocate the distribution of Perk points on a character’s skill tree. Increased the number of slots for autosaves from 10 to 20 and for quick saves from 3 to 10 across all platforms. Added Database links to Journal entries. Added an accessibility option for center of screen dot overlay which helps with reducing/avoiding motion sickness. It can be enabled in Settings → Interface → Center of screen dot overlay. Fixers will now message V to offer a car for purchase less often. Improved the Screen Space Reflections effect so that it looks less grainy on consoles and on lower visual settings qualities on the PC . Added a filter for quest items in the Backpack. Quest item tags from miscellaneous Job items will now be removed after finishing associated quests, allowing to sell or drop them. It is now possible to rotate V in the Inventory with a mouse. Players will now properly be able to craft a quickhack even if they once crafted it and then got rid of it. Added a comparison tooltip for cyberware. Improved a notification when buying cyberware and not meeting the level requirements to equip it. It’s now possible to upgrade crafting components in bulk. Added new sleeping spots for Nibbles in V’s apartment. Icon on a disposal crate will now turn red when player picks up a body instead of being grayed out. Landmine icon will now be grayed out after disarming it. It’s now possible to use an elevator while carrying a body. Happy Together – Barry now has an updated, more unique appearance. Base item will now be highlighted green like other components if it’s present in the Inventory when crafting the same item of a better quality.

BALANCE CHANGES

Detection time of enemies now depends on game difficulty. Enemies on Easy and Normal difficulties will now detect the player slower. Enemies on Very Hard difficulty will now detect the player faster. Enemies on Very Hard difficulty (and only that difficulty alone) will now be more aggressive when searching around when they are in the “Alerted” state. NCPD will no longer react and turn hostile because of dead bodies in Open World activities. NCPD will now also react to hitting NPCs with a non-lethal weapon. Adjusted the damaging process when shooting crowd NPCs while in combat depending on distance and the weapon used. (Don’t Fear) The Reaper — improved Adam Smasher’s behaviour during the fight. Play It Safe — improved Oda’s behavior during the fight. Transmission — improved Placide’s behavior during the fight. Transmission — increased Placide’s hacking resistance. Cyberpsycho Sighting: Letter of the Law — improved Cyberpsycho’s behaviour during the fight. Every Breath You Take — improved Red Menace’s positioning and aim. Increased stats of La Chingona Dorada (Jackie’s iconic pistols). The Rescue — increased the number of ammo at the beginning of the quest. Introduced minor tweaks and improved balancing of the Contagion quickhack. Improved the Crafting system, so that items with Random quality scale their quality with player’s Crafting skill — it’s not possible anymore to roll a quality exceeding that of the relevant Crafting skill. The level requirement of items will now increase with each upgrade. Note: the level of upgraded items will be adjusted as a result of this change. The equipped items which exceed the level requirement can keep being used but, if unequipped, will have to wait until the required level is reached. Added more crafting specs for cyberware mods. Added crafting specs for knives (available from the start of the game). Updated the number of components required to craft some items, e.g. Bounce Back, MaxDoc, quickhacks, clothing mods and some weapons. Balancing of crafting specs for clothing mods. Balancing the number of components required to craft clothing. Balancing the number of components required to craft Sandevistan Fragments. Optical Camo cyberware will now be available for purchase from Ripperdocs. Adjusted price of the Sensory Amplifier cyberware mod. Rare Unity crafting spec will now be obtainable only during Suspected Organized Crime Activity: Tygers by the Tail. Changed the price and quality of Kerry’s guitar that can be obtained during Gig: Psychofan.

GAMEPLAY

Fixed an issue where crafting specs from clothing stores were available only during the first visit to a vendor. Fixed an issue which occurred after visiting the Nomad Camp, resulting in being unable to use weapons and quick menu items. Fixed an issue where hacking a neutral target wasn’t counted towards the Christmas Tree Attack achievement. Tutorial windows about skill checks will no longer pop up when the “Unauthorized” prompt is displayed on devices. V will no longer look down after using fast travel.

STABILITY AND PERFORMANCE ACROSS PLATFORMS

This section discusses changes that enter all the platforms but many of them make a bigger difference on last generation consoles and lower performance machines.

Delamain’s image will no longer get stuck on holocalls when V leaves the car too fast after completing Epistrophy: Badlands. Item tooltip will no longer disappear if its content is too long. Fixed various typos in subtitles, shards, quests and weapons’ descriptions. Added a text message received after failing Epistrophy: North Oak by leaving the Delamain cab. Changed back the name of the fast travel point near V’s apartment to “Megabuilding H10”. Removed some items labeled as “None” and without proper icons from the inventory. The on-hover menu with multitude of mods on an item in inventory will now show stats properly. Fixed an issue where male variants of the VR tutorial were in Polish for Brazilian Portuguese language version. Black-Market battery mod description will now display strings with item attributes properly. Fixed an issue where the Contagion quickhack button was missing its icon outside of inventory. Status Effects icon of the “Cold Blood” perk now looks like a snowflake. Punk Duolayer Tank Top will now be visible in the Inventory when equipped. Added a loading screen tooltip informing about Fast Forward settings. Fixed the Galena “Gecko” vehicle’s name next to the “Buy vehicle” prompt. Image in the second message from Nancy Hartley in Holdin’ On/Killing in the Name will now be displayed properly. Adjusted wording of the Crafting skill progression reward related to upgrade cost reduction. The image displaying Mackinaw MTL1 in the “Call vehicle” menu will now match with the car’s model. Removed debug strings from the “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” perk’s tooltip. Icon grouping artifacts will no longer get detached from their respective locations on the map when zooming in/out. When Stamina Meter is depleted, the appropriate icon will now appear next to the health bar instead of the overload icon. Villefort Alvarado V4F 570 Delegate description will now correctly state that the drive is rear wheeled. The period of the possible occurrence in the description of Synaptic Accelerator in the tooltip will now display a proper value when playing in Polish. Fists description in the weapon wheel will now display an appropriate item type. Fixed text in the shard about Chiba-11 district. Opening Photo Mode and a vendor menu in quick succession will no longer result in freezing the game. Gold iconic loot icons will now be displayed on the minimap. Fixed an instance where hit markers and kill confirmation weren’t visible when destroying enemy turrets. Fixed enemy markers using the incorrect color on unaware enemies – they will now be yellow instead of red. Fixed an issue when RAM Recovery Rate below 0.50 was not displayed correctly. Fixed an issue when the disassemble item button was displayed incorrectly. Fixed an issue where the buttons on switching mods warning were not working as intended. Fixed the non-functional hinted keys when Breaching Protocol. Removed redundant input hints in the Cyberdeck panel.

GRAPHICS, AUDIO, ANIMATION

Reinforced Composite-Lined Rocker Foldtop is now properly aligned with V’s legs. Fixed an issue where the Monowire could slightly dislocate male V’s arms and clip through clothes. Fixed an issue in The Heist where Flathead’s case could float outside the hotel room in Konpeki Plaza, blocking the doorway. Fixed an issue where changing music volume in Sound settings affected car radio alongside with the background music. Fixed an issue where Takemura`s voice was doubled while talking to V in the van in Down on the Street. Fixed an issue where some netrunning suits clipped with female V’s legs and male V’s pants. Fixed an issue with the running animation after jumping on downwards or upwards slope. Fixed dust particles, which were sometimes incorrectly displayed. Characters’ skin will no longer become too bright in dark areas. In The Information, Smasher’s shadow will no longer appear on the elevator’s door after rewinding braindance to the beginning. Fixed Arasaka soldiers spawning on player’s sight when going back upstairs to save Takemura in Search and Destroy.

ENVIRONMENT AND LEVELS

Fixed various map holes in Watson, City Center, Westbrook, Heywood and Santo Domingo. Fixed faulty pathing for vehicles on the City Center ring road. Fixed multiple places where the player’s character could get stuck permanently. Fixed multiple issues with disappearing environments. Fixed multiple issues with objects popping in on player’s sight. GPS in Biotechnica Flats will no longer lead players to unreachable areas.

QUESTS

Rearranged shards into correct categories. Fixed an issue where calls to quest NPCs would abruptly end, making the NPC appear in other calls and potentially breaking other holocalls from the NPC. Fixed an issue where interrupted holocall would resume along with another call, which could make the NPC appear in other calls and break the next holocall from that NPC.

OPEN WORLD

Fixed an issue allowing multiple debrief holocalls from fixers to play at once, which could lead to blocked completion of various gigs (like Gig: A Lack of Empathy, Gig: Fixer, Merc, Soldier, Spy and others). We continue working on visual issues related to gigs stuck in the Journal, note that the latter don’t prevent district achievements from unlocking. Removed redundant loot from the body in the ferris wheel. Fixed an issue where Quadra Type-66 could be destroyed before buying it, blocking the progression of its “Buy Vehicle” quest and possibly the completion of the Autojock achievement. Fixed an issue in a shootout in Wellsprings where enemies were immortal because the trigger area was too small.

CINEMATIC DESIGN

Fixed an issue causing NPCs to not look at V during various scenes. Fixed an exploit where player was granted a Unity Pistol after each save/load. V’s facial animations while looking in the mirror will now be played properly. Fixed an issue where Rogue was spawning next to the player after calling her and asking about Adam Smasher. Fixed an issue where some NPCs could stop performing animations after a longer game session. Fixed multiple issues with NPCs mounting vehicles incorrectly. Fixed various issues where NPCs could be placed incorrectly and clip through objects after loading a saved game. Fixed an issue that could cause NPC animations to be played in the wrong spot in various quests. Fixed an issue where Jackie could spawn before the player’s eyes during the half-year montage. Fixed an issue where NPCs’ appearances got randomized when looking away. Fixed an issue where quests and scenes could progress before the loading screen disappeared.

MISCELLANEOUS

A gift from Judy can now be found in V’s apartment after player receives a text about it after completing her romance side quests. Fixed some story inconsistencies in radio broadcasts. Fixed the blackout effect persisting during Love Like Fire when using certain language settings.

PC-SPECIFIC

Fixed the issue where tutorial tooltips weren’t correctly displayed on 8k screens. Fixed an issue that caused the game to crash if a save thumbnail was corrupted. Fixed toggling Windowed and Fullscreen modes with the Alt+Enter shortcut. It’s now possible to exit locked scanning overlay by pressing TAB. Added a more compact PC version of the mouse cursor.

CONSOLE-SPECIFIC

Inner Dead Zone setting will now be applicable also to the game menus. [PlayStation] NPCs will no longer speak after being killed. Improved streaming of city lights. Overwriting a save game when there’s insufficient memory space will no longer corrupt the save. Masks and tubes inside the barn in The Hunt will no longer be invisible. Rogue will no longer clip through Johnny and will hold the glass correctly in Ghost Town. Fixed an issue in The Rescue where loading a save in front of the police blockade resulted in the NCPD officer not starting dialogue, blocking progress. Fixed an issue on PS4 where the meeting scene with Judy and Dolls in Pisces wouldn’t start properly. [Xbox] Fixed an issue in A Cool Metal Fire where a part of the scene in Cassius Ryder’s clinic could be cut off after the fade out. Fixed an issue where weapons were equipped to a wrong slot when assigning them from the Backpack.

[nappe-plays-the-sims]

The Ideal Sims Game

Had some thoughts and have to put them somewhere.

I’ve thought about what I like about different sims games and reached the conclusion that it would be... Mostly a mix between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3.

Hear me out.

“The Sims 6″ or whatever we should call this hypothetical game, would be generally similar to The Sims 2, with some notable differences

CAS

CAS customization options closer to the The Sims 3 level. Color sliders!

Traits, aspirations, lifetime wants, and personality points. Obviously some traits would be removed since personality points cover some of those (mean, outgoing etc), and plenty of traits should be featured later in expansion packs/DLCs so EA can milk their dear cash cow, but as said, DLCs should not be for gameplay essentials, it should be for gameplay enhancement.

Turn ons and turn offs. Should include things such as personality traits, approximate hair color, work type, work level, clothing, glasses, yadda yadda. The hair color would check based on what’s in close proximity by using hexadecimals, that way sims can also be attracted to custom hair colors such as purple hair.

Age options, because sims shouldn’t have to start at the beginning of the adult stage every time.

Height sliders!

Disabilities. Yes, this would include a Simlish sign language. Disabilities should also be able to overlap, and occur because of events and chance cards.

Worldbuilding

The ability to create your own town like in The Sims 2, but the ability to edit the map itself such as adding/removing roads and more.

No townies or NPCs should spawn unless you approve of it. This means you’d be able to create your own NPCs for the town. Your sims shouldn’t be able to go to the hospital if no one is employed in the Medical career, or call a fireman unless no one is in that career, etc. (unless you have chosen yourself in settings that should be created by the game automatically).

Open world and story progression like in The Sims 3 if the player enables it in settings, university shouldn’t be separate. The university system shouldn’t be as complex as in previous The Sims games, just a school essentially but requires more homework and similar. This experience can be elaborated on in expansion packs and DLCs.

More control over economics and politics in the world. Should taxes exist? You decide. Monarchy? Democracy? Dictatorship? All of this should be something the player can fix. Alternatively include this part in a DLC since it’s very specific.

Gameplay

Wants and fears, affected by traits, aspirations, and personality points. A family sim with commitment issues will still fear marriage. A “Gold Digger” lifetime want family sim will want their relatives to marry rich sims.

Aging settings- let players decide for themselves how many days a sim should be a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, adult, and elder. The default days should match number of years IRL, because no one is a teenager until they’re 30.

Jealousy changes. Being in love and being in a relationship needs to be a separate thing, because Don Lothario getting slapped for “cheating” on Nina Caliente with his fiancé makes very little sense. Open relationships should be a possibility, perhaps require certain traits for this to happen?

Sims who hate each other shouldn’t necessarily get into violent fights constantly. Traits and personality points etc. should change how the sims act around the people they dislike.

I love chance cards, keep those in please. If anything, add more of them. Also, if chance card choices go against the sim’s personality, possibly have a small % risk that they will lose that trait or gain/lose certain personality points (with the % increasing per time the sim acts out of character)? And of course, chance cards that give you the ability to gain traits. You could also have extra options arise depending on skills, personality points, traits etc. (For example, a charismatic sim should be able to talk themselves out of a situation, or have a greater % chance of success doing so.)

Pre-made sims

The “alternate universe” idea was cool but poorly executed. Feel free to try again, and do so with the old Sims 2 premades. That way, you can take the storylines everyone thought were so cool and give it a new spin, without ruining current canon.

Stop making their skintones lighter...

By following these we essentially have a mix between The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 base games with a few enhancements.

What can be added in expansion packs and DLCs?

How can you milk the cash cow without taking away essentials from gameplay that make players feel forced to buy everything or they can’t play? Well, ideally everything should just be included in the first game, but we know EA doesn’t operate that way.

The key to “expansion packs” is that functions in it should add more to gameplay but not be a requirement to enjoy the game. To quote someone on the Steam review page who bought African portraits for Crusader Kings II: “I have to pay money to be black.” That’s not how it should work.

Things you can leave out from the OG game and include in Expansion packs or DLCs:

CAS

Various clothes and hairstyles. With the color changing tool there’s a lot of room to change things already. Cut down on the number of hairstyles and outfits so more energy can be focused on improving the gameplay aspects. Cosmetics are always best reserved for DLCs.

Tattoos.

Secondary aspirations. They’re good to have in the game to give your sim more depth, but they are not a neccesity and are thus good to save as optional content.

More aspirations and lifetime wants. Goes together with more careers of course, and pet-related lifetime wants for pets expansion pack etc.

Stuff packs that focus on certain time periods, cultures, and more.

Worldbuilding

Alternate start years. A medieval expansion pack, for example, that allows you to create a medieval world specifically, where technological advances aren’t available etc. You could use “into the future” ideas for this too. You would be able to choose whether technological progression should be flat or improve over time. (Imagine the Legacy Challenge done in this!)

On that note, a “Castaway” type of thing would be cool.

Gameplay

Aspiration rewards. Not essential for a base game.

More careers! Can easily be included in a work expansion pack. With this expansion you could include career rewards, more chance cards for all careers (including chance cards that make you gain/lose traits, personality points). Businesses go here too IMO but knowing greedy EA they’d put it in separate expansion packs.

Expansion packs with chance cards and special events for different life stages. A mid-life crisis? Teenagers going through hormone hell? All that doesn’t need to be in the original game but can be included in expansion packs.

While we’re talking about that, a pregnancy DLC sounds like a mess, but this is an opportunity to add triplets and quadruplets, pregnancy tests (although obviously sim-ified), the ability to lie about the father of the child, paternity tests, and more.

Pets! Not much to add here other than that it’s a perfect opportunity to add a unicorn and, idk, the ability for horses to get jobs if your sim has particular traits that lead to nonsense behavior á la Caligula.

Weather and season holidays.

Vacations, because every sims game needs it.

The Sims 3 Supernatural was incredible with the complexity to each supernatural creature. Something similar again, however, it should also acknowledge hybrids (we know this is possible to some degree, because aliens in The Sims 3 had a hidden “alien DNA percentage” value), and no random assignment of supernaturals. They should be rare unless the player changes it to not be so in settings.

[potatowitch]

Quality of Life Wishlist for DA4

This will be a very long one but I have some Thoughts about little tiny things that I think are missing from Origins, DA2 and Inquisition that I hope Bioware thinks about when making DA4.

Make banter guaranteed to activate every 15 minutes or so, regardless of where you are, unless you are in combat or a conversation with an NPC.

Make armor look different depending on race/origin. My Dalish elf shouldn’t be forced to wear shoes just because the other three races would. Same goes for stronghold/home outfits/pyjamas - why you have to download a mod to let your elf wear the elf NPC clothes in Skyhold I’ll never know. They’re literally already in the game.

Let the MC respond to companion banter more, even if it’s the way Hawke does in DA2 where a dialog wheel doesn’t show, they just make a small comment.

Make it easier to increase inventory size, similar to buying backpacks in the first 2 games. Having to spend Inquisition perks to increase inventory size bugs me.

Better hair options! Even if all the “long” hair options have to be updos to minimize clipping, there is no reason to have fifteen different variations of “bald/shaved” and only one “long hair that’s been put into a braided bun” option. Give me LONG ponytails. Side braids down the front. Pig tails. Elaborate braided buns. Long hair that’s been pulled back from the face. Space buns. Anything.

Tintable weapons. Bothered me to no end when I would make a dragonbone weapon in Inquisition and it had to be that weird orange gold colour.

Let me swim but please do not make me fight anyone underwater. Every single time it happens in a game, any game, I want to vomit.

Make companions actually utilize the jump function. I don’t know how difficult this would be to program but I got real sick of companions getting stuck behind fences because they didn’t realize they could jump.

Let me make my own notes on the map. An example: adding a pin that says “saw a dragon here. come back later when higher level”. The original Neverwinter Nights game did this and I loved it.

Way to do some war table functions without having to return to a stronghold, similar to how the Descent DLC did. For example, I should be able to do every war table mission from Skyhold, but if a war table mission takes place around the Hinterlands I should be able to order it to be done from a table in Redcliffe.

A different quiver. Please. Even if it works the way it does in Skyrim where it matches the bow. I am So Bored of the same quiver that matches none of my armor.

Companions have their own personalised mounts that they summon when you get on yours, so they can ride with you and they can still banter. World of Warcraft does this with companions on the Broken Isles in the Legion expansion and I appreciate it. Imagine Blackwall having a black horse with Grey Warden insignia on the saddle. Vivienne’s horse being a beautiful white stallion with an elaborately braided mane.

Expanded tactics, similar to the first two games. I miss being able to tell Alistair “hey if someone attacks Barkspawn please immediately taunt them”.

Please consult someone who actually wears makeup on what shadow, liner and blush are meant to look like.

Let me save a preset in the character creator so if I want to replay my main I don’t have to take a million screenshots of my sliders then try my best to recreate them from an image. I should not have to install mods to do this.

Don’t make me travel to Kirkwall to change my hair. In both DA2 and Inquisition your character has a bedroom, why can they not just have a little mirror on top of their dresser to change hair and makeup? Fair enough if you want to change facial features, tattoos and scars, but hair and makeup? Come on.

Better eyebrows and lashes.

Please include ALL tattoo options from Origins, DA2 and Inquisition, ESPECIALLY if we’re bringing back the Warden, Hawke or the Inquisitor for any reason.

Let me give my elves cartilage piercings. Let me give everyone facial piercings.

More diverse body types, even if it’s similar to the way Bioware does it in SWTOR (you have petite, “average”, curvy and buff options - it’s not a lot, but it’s better than what we have). I really like the system that Guild Wars 2 has where you can pick a base body type from 10-15 options and also edit your height, but I know that might make things difficult to program for cutscenes.

Can I have some healing spells back? Even if it’s just one or two? Don’t love how if I’m out of potions in Inquisition all Solas can do is be like “here. have a barrier. hope you don’t die because my resurrect is on cooldown lol”

Find a balance between Inquisition’s “you only have 8 spells slots” and Origins and DA2′s “your action bar covers the whole bottom of your screen”. Maybe 12 spell slots?

If we must have a “squad goes to a party” level, please make the outfits pretty and race/origin appropriate and Do Not give everyone the same outfit. Better yet, upon entering the level, bring up a temporary character creator that’s like “here are a couple of outfit options, also do you want to change your hair and makeup for this mission specifically?”

Body scars and body tattoos, especially for Dalish elves. Let my vallaslin go down to my titties.

A more customisable HUD/UI. Let me make my quest tracker smaller! My action bars smaller! My companion portraits SMALLER! They take up so much space!

I really hope they bring back the companion armor system from Inquisition. I love how the basic armors look different depending on which companion you put them on and I hope they keep that in DA4.

Let me choose whether hats are visible for specific companions. I don’t want everyone wearing their helmets but Cole’s hat, Vivienne’s headpiece, the flower crown, the Qunari face paint and the mage hoods are Important and I like them and want to see them.

Capes? Can I have some capes? I’d like a cape.

[aion-rsa]

Why Oblivion is Still the Best Elder Scrolls Game

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With their acquisition of ZeniMax Studios finally complete, Microsoft is poised to challenge Sony’s recent reign of exclusivity dominance by potentially making the next generation of Bethesda releases exclusive to Game Pass platforms. For the moment, though, the biggest benefit of this acquisition is undoubtedly the ability to access a good portion of Bethesda’s library of classic games via Game Pass.

While most of the Bethesda games recently added to Game Pass are worth playing for one reason or another, few are more intriguing than The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Sandwiched between the releases of the revolutionary Morrowind and the eternally re-released Skyrim, Oblivion is sometimes thought of as the middle child in the modern history of one of gaming’s most beloved RPG series. Nearly 15 years after its release, though, it’s remarkably easier than ever to appreciate the many ways that Oblivion represents the very best of the Elder Scrolls franchise.

Don’t believe me? Use its recent addition to the Game Pass library as an excuse to play Oblivion again (or perhaps for the first time), and you’ll find these reasons (and more) why it remains arguably the best Elder Scrolls adventure so far.

Oblivion Has (By Far) the Best Elder Scrolls Quests and Stories

Let’s start with one thing that few Elder Scrolls fans will argue against. When it comes to quests and stories, Oblivion is a far better game than Morrowind or Skyrim.

I’ve talked about this more extensively in my look at the best Elder Scrolls quests ever, but I remain truly amazed at how much thought and creativity went into even the most “average” quest in Oblivion. That baseline level of quality is really the key point here. While many of Oblivion’s biggest quests (such as the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild assignments) are obviously memorable, even the little quests along the way that you may have forgotten about offer something special that helps them stand out.

I don’t know why the Elder Scrolls quest design and writing teams were at the top of their game at this time, but I doubt even The Elder Scrolls 6 can top the work they did here.

Oblivion Found a Nice Middle Ground Between Accessibility and Depth

For quite some time, the line on Oblivion has been that it’s the “middle” game between Morrowind and Skyrim. While that’s obviously true of its release date, that idea speaks more to the suggestion that Oblivion represents Bethesda’s struggles to balance the more hardcore RPG ideas of a game like Morrowind and the accessibility improvements featured in Skyrim.

Some say that means Oblivion doesn’t truly excel at either pursuit, but I don’t see it like that. In Oblivion, you get a taste of Morrowind’s incredible RPG philosophies and mechanics without having to deal with that game’s most annoying aspects. At the same time, Oblivion manages to be much more playable than its predecessor while still feeling deeper overall than its successor from a role-playing perspective. 

Oblivion doesn’t necessarily combine the best of Skyrim and Morrowind, but it finds a nice middle-ground between those styles that’s easy to appreciate to this day. 

Shivering Isles is Still the Best DLC Expansion Bethesda Has Ever Made

Granted, I can’t (and would never try to) defend most of Oblivion’s DLC. There’s a reason that “Horse Armor” is still used as the gold standard for exploitative and uninspired video game microtransactions.

However, it’s easier to forgive Oblivion‘s DLC stumbles when you realize they all eventually led to the Shivering Isles expansion. That was the expansion that finally dared to answer the question “What if The Elder Scrolls just got weird with it?” By transporting players to a land ruled by Sheogorath (the often hilarious Daedric Prince of Madness), Shivering Isles dropped most of the stuffier fantasy elements of the franchise in favor of allowing the talented Oblivion design team and writers to breathe life into their wildest ideas.

The golden age of single-player DLC expansions was highlighted by the idea of letting studios break free and truly experiment with new and strange creations that would otherwise not likely see the light of day. Shivering Isles is perhaps the greatest example of that era.

Oblivion’s Atmosphere is Consistent and Helps Tell a Story

I will freely admit that the province of Cyrodiil isn’t always the most interesting place. There are certainly times when it comes across as “Capital City, Fantasyland.”

Yet, there’s a consistency to Oblivion’s atmosphere that I remain fascinated with years after its release. While Morrowind’s alien-like worlds are hard to beat from a pure design perspective and Skyrim’s tundras offer a welcome deviation from the most common fantasy tropes, there’s something about the way that everything flows in Oblivion that I’d argue Bethesda has never quite replicated.

Individual regions of Oblivion’s map manage to remain distinct while also feeling like the logical progression of the area you just arrived from and the area you’re going to. There’s also something to be said for how Oblivion sells the idea of people battling to protect their land from invasion and corruption by presenting a fantasy world that you might actually want to live in.

Get Past Their Voice Acting, and Oblivion Might Have the Best NPCs in any Elder Scrolls Game

I’d like to argue that Oblivion’s “bad” voice acting and awkward NPC designs actually give the game a personality you don’t find in refined titles, but I understand that some rough edges are hard to ignore.

Instead, let’s focus on the ways that Oblivion’s NPCs are advanced even by modern design standards. Nearly every NPC in Oblivion has a personality of their own, something unique to say to you, and will legitimately go about a daily schedule that even changes from day to day due to their ability to make dynamic decisions rather than simply follow a tightly scripted path.

At a time when developers are sometimes more interested in putting more characters on-screen rather than crafting richer NPCs (looking at you Cyberpunk 2077), there’s something undeniably refreshing about a game that emphasizes offering more unique interactions rather than simply relying on the quantity of NPCs.

Oblivion Let You Build Wild (and Broken) Characters

The “highlight” of Oblivion‘s character-building system in the minds of many fans will undoubtedly be the time they discovered it’s possible to make a truly invisible character who can pretty much do whatever they want. That kind of mechanical exploitation is certainly one of the most noteworthy examples of how Oblivion let you run wild with the characters you created.

Yet, when I think back on my hours with Oblivion, the kinds of broken characters I appreciate most are the ones who didn’t make it far. While Oblivion’s enemy scaling system has been (often rightfully) criticized for its shortcomings, there’s something to be said for how the game’s attempts at offering a consistent challenge level meant that your design decisions were tested more often throughout the game.

It wasn’t a perfect system, but when compared to a game like Skyrim, or even titles like Destiny, where building a viable character is really about reaching higher levels and reaping the rewards, I miss, at the very least, Oblivion’s attempts to challenge me to master the character I built and the times it would actively punish my worst decisions.

Oblivion is Less About Combat and More About Adventure

In terms of pure combat, Skyrim is really in a class of its own when compared to the other Elder Scrolls games. Its improved controls, cinematic qualities, and smoother animations are more than enough to make it the favorite among Elder Scrolls fans looking for the best action.

I certainly recognize that some of Oblivion’s combat system problems are the result of bad decisions and outdated technology, but years later, I really appreciate how the game was never really about the action; it was about the adventure. Much like how Fellowship of the Ring utilized action sequences as the response to danger that our heroes otherwise tried to avoid, combat in Oblivion is just one of those things that you’ll come across as you explore but isn’t necessarily meant to be the grand set piece or the big draw.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

While Oblivion’s main questline betrays this philosophy somewhat during its most action-heavy (and often worst) moments, there’s still a sense that the game is more about exploration, storytelling, and the little discoveries you make along the way rather than a desire to get you to the next big sequence or other chances to simply fuel a power fantasy.

The post Why Oblivion is Still the Best Elder Scrolls Game appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[littlechinesedoll]

Graveyard Keeper Review

Platform: Steam

Playtime: 73 hours

Game Stats: 484 graveyard points, 70 church points, 81 tavern points, 91 Gold, 15 or so zombies, +/- 2k red points, +/- 1500 green points, +/- 500 blue points, did not unlock all the technologies.

Mods used: Faster Craft, Increase Inventory, Infinite Energy, Inflation Mod, No Cooldown Teleport, Sprint

---

Okay, so I finished the Graveyard Keeper (discounted at 4 or 5 bucks), together with its two DLCs, Breaking Bad (free) and Stranger Sins (6 bucks). Overall for that price it’s pretty good.

Spoilers ahead, of course. Oh, and very long rant if you’re up for the read.

So it starts with you going to a store to pick up some groceries, then you look at your phone while crossing he street and it’s you love calling, and because you didn’t look both ways before steeping on the crosswalk, you die. And then you wake up as the next graveyard keeper.

Honestly, whoever the last one was did a poor job of keeping the graveyard, cos what the fuck are all these bad corpses doing buried here? JK. ANYWAYS.

First, we’re gonna talk about mechanics.

I loved the game. It’s much like Stardrew Valley in a sense that you’ve got pretty much the same thing going on, except that it’s much, much, much more stressful. You can’t just go forage things and then sell all of it expecting you’ll get money and then buy the thing that you need to accomplish this task.

Nope. It’s none of that. it’s goes so far as you have to make your own goddamn ink to write something. But then you’d have to go to the poultry to buy feathers to write with?? There’d been too many time’s I’d say ‘what the fuck’ every time I’d have to craft something to do something as mundane as fucking frying onion rings.

There’s a review on steam that perfectly summarizes what I feel about the game as a whole. It’s a review by Isackender they say:

“I love grinding games like Stardew Valley, Don't Starve or Forager. When you play them, you feel good completing a task because what you just achieved will help you to advance slowly towards your goal. And what's most important, these tasks are fair.

Graveyard Keeper fails miserably at doing this.

A lot of the tasks you're required to complete feel meaningless.

…

That feel of ‘I haven't done anything today’ is constant.”

And that’s true! Every time you go to bed or mediated for energy, it feels like, even though you’ve buried a body, planed some crops, chopped down some wood, crafted all these things, mined a crap ton of stone and marble for graveyard decorations, it’s never enough. You literally have no means of earning other than burying shit-rated bodies at the start, so that you can get money to buy crops that you need to sell in order to make more money. What’s more frustrating, is that if you sell too much of one thing to any NPC who’ll buy your shit, you won’t be able to sell that other 400 pieces of carrots you’ve harvested because they’ll have no money to buy more, and your crops will be of no value because there is too much of it. I mean that makes sense IRL, but god. I was stuck at two silver coins FOR WEEKS.

Though I think I might be comparing it too much to Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, where everything you do gives you an idea of what you’re working towards: a great farm, with diverse produce, healthy animals, and a good income.

God you’d be crafting for WEEKS and you’d still not be able to earn anything.

I only finished it out of spite. I mean, I’m already here. I already wasted 40 hours on it why not just fucking go on with it? 40 hours! That’s 10 hours more than I work in a week these days.

You’re also confined to a day in a week to do everything you need to do. Many of the NPCs you need to interact with that has something to do with the main storyline are only available once a week. So if you forget what day it is, you’d have to wait for another week to move along whatever it is you want to move on with. I always forget this with Snake, the Astrologer, the Merchant, and Ms. Charm. It’s frustrating to have to trudge through another week and then maybe forget again that Ms. Charm is singing at The Dead Horse today. It’s mad.

And then there’s The Town. You spend MONTHS on earning enough money to get you a Town Pass, only for you to be struck down by lightning the moment you pass the gates. So what’s the point of building up hype and telling you that you need to get to Town, and gather all of these items for you to be able to craft the thing that will get you home? The Town literally does not exist. Which is also annoying because southwest of the Farmer, THERE’S A COAL VEIN THAT I NEED FOR THE FURNACE.

The literal amount of wood you need to advance in this game is insane. I mean I have zombies chopping wood for me but still.

Teleport stone needs way too much time to cooldown, hence, the mod. I hate walking at a glacial pace, hence, the mod. I was frustrated with the money, hence, the mod. It’s not a mod to make me earn faster, but a mod to let me sell as much as the buyer is selling their products. Shit amount inventory, hence, the mod. And I’m not wasting two days for something to craft in the furnace, hence, the mod.

I also hate that big pieces of wood don’t go in your inventory. It’s frustrating because what if you chopped down something on the other side of the map? You’d have to lug that shit one at a time back to your work yard? And then, when you’ve got too many items on the screen, like for example, just because you want to, you chopped down all the trees in your backyard, leaving behind, say, 50 pieces of log. The FPS will drop like a bitch. Seriously. I was at a constant 60fps at the start then by the end, when I’ve got my yard set up, together with the vineyard and my zombie farm, the game is always at a constant 25fps and it’s hurting my eyes. There was a time I left zombies mining at the quarry; the game dropped to 1fps every ten seconds!  UGH. JLAKSDJAKSD

Okay. So. Mechanics aside, now on to the story. I mean, alright, it’s cute. I decided to finish the tavern first. The Stranger Sins DLC is where the story of the town comes from.

There’d been an old god and a new god.

I have a lot of questions. Keeper was split in two. Why and where did the old god send him? Why did the old god grant people immortality in exchange for destroying their faith in him? WHY DOES THE DONKEY TALK? I farmed hundreds of carrots for this asshole and he doesn’t even get a story?

Also, what the fuck is up with that shitty ending? I mean, that’s it? It just. Ends. Like that. you don’t go home—your Missus is transported to you and it ends. What the fuck? I wasted 73 hours for that shit?

There’s no replayability either. You finish it and that’s it. you go back to your save and you’re send back to the last time you saved it. It doesn’t even save after you open the portal so you could work on improving your graveyard or make more wine for your tavern.

It’s fun for a while. But if you might not finish it.

[princess-stabbity]

@demonwrestler​ well, if you mean, “how do you make mods?” then my help is limited. i’ve futzed around a little with dai mod manager to try to isolate assets for export to dao (i found most of the ones i wanted, i just don’t have the tools to export them lmao). there’s an old forum for this stuff. tho the best tutorials i’ve found are from the lovely sapphim

if you mean “how do you use mods w this game?” THAT i can help with. basically, you’ll want the dai tools suite and the frosty tools suite. for dai, i recommend dedicating a download subfolder to daimods u know you wanna use, and then directing the dai mod manager to that subfolder, so u don’t have to do a lot of work checking and unchecking mods (i used to have separate subfolders by inquisitor, but ive recently reorganized so that i have one subfolder for the stuff that’s a) only in daimod format, and b) smth i want for all inquisitors). 

you run the mod manager, everything hopefully goes smoothly, and then it’s frosty time. to make daimm and frosty work together, you need to find the subfolders in origin games/dai/update named “patch” and another one thats titled smth like patchedblahmergedblahwhatever (i am v helpful). rename “patch” to smth else (i use “patch (official)”) and rename the other to “patch.” you need to do this so frosty will run properly w daimods. 

frosty, itself, is very simple. it’s faster and easier to change mods out, since u don’t need to completely rerun the whole process, and you can even make profiles by inquisitor (eg, i am using a profile titled “amell, with daimm” rn). frosty can run daimods, but it can be iffy, esp w texture mods for some reason. i’m not 100% on this, but i think other daimods are usually fine (eg, you might be able to run stuff that changes store stock or ability trees w/o issue)

the benefits of dai mm are that some mods have simply never been updated to frosty. in some cases, they’re just abandoned, in others, even the modder can’t figure out why they won’t work in the other format (discovered recently i’d been bedeviled for DAYS bc my fav cass outfit refuses to work in frosty, despite the modder’s best efforts and other successfully converted mods. v strange!). it also is still better at handling configurable mods (which are rare, but precious to me. i love you, svarty. thank you for all my pretty and op new knives).

the benefits of frosty are that it’s much quicker and easier to change. if you want to change one measly mod in daimm, you have to completely redo your whole setup (esp tragic if you use a lot of configurable mods, bc u have to reconfigure them EVERY TIME). it also makes troubleshooting much easier, bc u can easily test mods in batches to see which one is fucking you. and if you want a mod to keep working in the dlcs (including trespasser), frosty is your best bet.

frosty is also unique in that, after some recent updates, it can handle certain tasks that are simply impossible in daimm. the biggest example, to me, is bundle editing. it’s still kinda new and tricksy (from what i understand), but bundle editing allows for fun stuff like character swaps (see: my many alistairs) and hair editing for npcs and qunari (now us qunari lovers can have the same wildass sims hair as everyone else, and so can the eggman). it’s a bit touchy (bundles don’t play well together), but very fun!

for general troubleshooting: if the game is forever on a loading screen (like 5+min), then there’s probably a daimod at fault (test any loaded in frosty first, then start futzing with daimm). if everything is completely fucking bonkers, it’s more likely (but not necessarily) a frosty mod at fault. generally. i had three separate vivienne mods, both daimod and frosty, that all fucked my game in different ways yesterday, so you never know. sometimes the entire game world just comes apart at the seams bc you wanted to give your favorite first enchanter a snazzy lil gold accent on her casual outfit :( 

[callmeasafebetimbettingimn-blog1]

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