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RK47

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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
I re-explored some places and got in trouble when they handed out high level spawns.
 
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Looks like a cross between FF:Tactics type combat mixed with true jrpg story and out of combat gameplay.

jrpgs have out of combat gameplay?

:what:

Never played Persona 3-4 (among others)?

Are you trying to insult me?

... plus Chrono Trigger has a sequence at the beginning where you play festival games.

Right, a bunch of irrelevant minigames in between combat grind and cutscenes. Gameplay galore.

IRRELEVANT? BUT IT AFFECTED YOUR TRIAL OUTCOME!!!!111

Well, I was mostly joking about Chrono Trigger.

Aside from the turn-based combat, Persona 3-4 are simulations of trying to juggle a schedule consisting of an active social life, extracurriculars, part-time work, and academics (not to mention supernatural investigation). Just trying to make all the ends meet in your schedule before the game is over is a challenge mechanic.
 

Grinolf

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Aside from the turn-based combat, Persona 3-4 are simulations of trying to juggle a schedule consisting of an active social life, extracurriculars, part-time work, and academics (not to mention supernatural investigation). Just trying to make all the ends meet in your schedule before the game is over is a challenge mechanic.

In P3 it may be count as challenge, but not so much in P4. You only need to know deadlines for various SL stuff, and then gain 100% without any problem.
 

Raghar

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IRRELEVANT? BUT IT AFFECTED YOUR TRIAL OUTCOME!!!!111

Well, I was mostly joking about Chrono Trigger.

Aside from the turn-based combat, Persona 3-4 are simulations of trying to juggle a schedule consisting of an active social life, extracurriculars, part-time work, and academics (not to mention supernatural investigation). Just trying to make all the ends meet in your schedule before the game is over is a challenge mechanic.

Minor choices have minor consequences, thought if you enjoyed the execution attempt...

Major choices like defeating Lavos on the first chance, have major consequences.
 

RK47

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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin

15 Hours into the game...


Today I just realized you can swap skills between party members.
Agent Orange: hahahaha what
Agent Orange: how does that make any sense



Let's look at the picture below:

01.jpg


Skills are determined by the skills equipped by the particular character. However, not all skills are available to that character - the type of skills available to them are determined by Weapon Slot and Unit Slot. Unit slot is basically default - you cannot change it - every character is trained to use different range of skills. Now let's learn how to equip one.

Notice Ellis' weapon slot has an empty Light slot. We should slot her in with Ascension then, so she can cast something else and maybe combo with Zerva's Black Mist during combat.

02.jpg


You can also remove nearly useless skill like Trick Hit - because the damage is determined by ATK, which she lacks.

03.jpg


If you need a thief to steal things in combat, she can also be slotted in with that skill.

04.jpg


There, now she gains two new offensive spells, Earth Spike and Ascension. And Steal.
Now, I've been stuck with a staff user = healer mentality for 15 hours and never really understood that this game lets me be slightly flexible with character builds. Let's look at Fyuria.

05.jpg


I emptied all her skills. Notice the Light slot at the bottom that used to be occupied by Ascension?

06.jpg


Slot in a Heal. Now she's a healer. She's not as good as healing as the other two casters, but she has higher initiative and can perform more moves with higher AP.

Other characters aren't very flexible, like Whiteknight and Zerva.

07.jpg

08.jpg



We haven't even talked about crafting new skills,

10.jpg


exchanging tech.points for unique weapons/skills/crafting manuals/rare materials

11.jpg


and crafting gears.

13.jpg




:hmmm:
I am overwhelmed here.
 
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Damned Registrations

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I'm not that far yet. I just beat the first boss battle a bit ago, and had the first story decision. I actually reset and did the fight over again because the outcome of the decision made my prospective waifu mad at me... but then on the second attempt the battle itself made her mad at me (I beat the shit out of her brother) so it ended up being a wash. Except the second time I got more loot, and noticed something; apparently the drops from the bosses aren't predetermined. The first time through I got a speed ring off the one guy, the second time I got a shotgun instead (in addition to 2 items from the guy I overkilled.)
 

RK47

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I'm not that far yet. I just beat the first boss battle a bit ago, and had the first story decision. I actually reset and did the fight over again because the outcome of the decision made my prospective waifu mad at me... but then on the second attempt the battle itself made her mad at me (I beat the shit out of her brother) so it ended up being a wash. Except the second time I got more loot, and noticed something; apparently the drops from the bosses aren't predetermined. The first time through I got a speed ring off the one guy, the second time I got a shotgun instead (in addition to 2 items from the guy I overkilled.)

:lol: I got raped hard and she didn't mind.
 
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Saark

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A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Everything mentioned here so far sounds like this game actually is not horrible? Or did you guys (DR and Toothbrush47) just talk about the somewhat fun parts of an otherwise dull game?
 

dehimos

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The game seems curious, you can even capture monsters. Do the members of the party are kept each generation?
 

RK47

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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin

I've been following the LP, though im not a huge fan of Video LPs in general since they spoil most of the fun, so I was hoping for a quick (or even long) answer here by people that have played beyond the first few hours.

OK I'll try to explain why I found the party customization more interesting than most western RPG I've played so far.

Ever since I learned that I can skill swap, fights got a little bit easier, cause I can customize load out and specialize each member for a role they seem to be great for.
Before I start there are a few things that can determine what skill you can use in battle.
1. Weapon: Different weapons have different stats. As well as skill slots. Without any skills slotted in, a character cannot even attack in battle. Assuming a sword has Fire slot, Fire magic can be slotted in, but it would not help a Fighter much because its damage is based on MAG. What you need, would be Fire Edge, a melee attack that derives its damage from ATK (physical attack basically). Or, instead of an active skill, you can also slot in a Fire-based Passive bonus. Like Power UP to increase your ATK further. Others like Lightning passive, would increase your HIT (Accuracy)
2. Character Type: Default skill slots. Some chars are genuinely good at what they do. While some are hybrids. While others kinda...suck.

Here's some of my personal build that I'm trying out.
01.jpg


You ask, why do you have multiple Double Edge? Well, that's because you can only use a skill once per attack chain. So having 3, Leo can actually chain 3 Double Edge in a row if he has 24 AP.

Now for terrible character...

02.jpg


Luana is pretty terrible when she joined the party. She is ... still terrible now. While she has a mix of Earth skill on her weapon, and two Special slots (Steal, Trick Hit), 1x General and Fire.
Let's review her skills:
Earth (MAG-based)
2 Specials (Not really based on anything, it's mostly there for effect, not damage)
1 General (ATK-based)
1 Fire (MAG-based)

She has to be a mage. But the problem is, other mages like Zerva and Vira do better damage and have better slots.

03.jpg


True, Vira might be slower than Luana (MOV 2 vs 4), but it still doesn't make sense for me to rebuild a lvl 6 mage when I have a level 12 by the time she joins. And her General skill is a wasted slot.
Vira can even equip a sword if she wants to. And comes with 2 offensive slots by default. Earth and Extra (in this case, Impulse) I know she's always last to take her turn, but with formation bonus, she never gets to cast anything on her round anyway cause we blew it on the first turn for an alpha strike.

04.jpg


Zerva in comparison, is only slightly slower (MOV 3) yet pack 2 Darkness slots and Fire. While it's true he does have 2 nearly useless Power slots, his higher level makes him a better choice for me in the long run. Luana just can't catch up. She's 6 levels lower than everyone else when she joined FFS. A he's surprisingly quite durable.

And when you wanna compare her with Fyuria, Luana is just gonna fall far, far behind in the flexibility department.

05.jpg


I may have made a mistake in giving Fyuria high AGI but she needs those AVD (Dodge), then you swap her Light slot from Ascension to Heal... and voila: you have a healer that can cast Heal 3x a turn with the right formation bonus. She has the highest SP in the party. Her two Combo slots is shit, but at least her weapons have enough magic slots to compensate. Don't even think of putting a single point on STR (you can, but she'll never survive a beating in melee range) Let her sit back and spam Thunder (chance to paralyze), Wind (chance to make target sleep) twice per turn from the back row.

She can now replace Ellis as primary healer of the party.
 

Saark

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A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Thanks for the elaborate answer RK, looks quite complex and fun to play around with. Hows the difficulty in the game, does it warrant such a complex system, or do you simply steamroll through most fights with a somewhat optimized party?
 

RK47

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Well, getting access to duplicate skill will take some effort. Sometimes it needs a rare component to craft (yes, you need to craft skills)
But once you unlock it, it's available from the store to buy.

Also, when you level up you can pick what stats to choose, so actually - you can make a glass cannon if you wish.
And achievements actually reward you with cash, rare skills, and material components - I found it quite fun just to check back and see what I unlocked and how close I am to unlocking stuff.
 

Damned Registrations

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Some other points you didn't mention: Weapons have attack ranges. Zerva's scythe, for example, hits a row of 3 tiles in front of him. Because of that, he might be useful as a melee fighter despite the lower attack compared to someone with higher strength or a stronger weapon. Though he's a mage in my party as well. And I don't really regret it, since Holy Mist hits an area, making it quite useful. I'm not as far as you yet, but I'm already very impressed with the game.

Take the whole linked attacks system, for example. As I mentioned before, it lets you do an alpha strike on pretty much anyone. And it has some fucked up mechanics. Essentially, whoever's turn it is, the range of their longest range attack is the range for every attack of every character in the linked attack. However, you still can't, for example, pile more than 4 melee characters onto one enemy (unless one of them has a scythe or something so they can hit from a diagonal.) But where it gets really interesting, is that the attacks force the characters to move into position to attack. So generally, after your alpha strike, your formation is shit and you can't muster a good combo with all 6 characters again. However, good planning can allow for this, and it gives added value to ranged attacks, since it's easier to maintain positions with them, even if they aren't strictly needed for the sake of actually reaching enemies. But as a further level of depth, you can do things like heal with a character (when it isn't her turn) then have her knife an enemy on the other side of the battle, and now she's in position to heal a different character, provided that you moved her into another linked tile. Complex interactions like that are going to be pretty much impossible to master. It's probably one of the deepest tactical systems I've ever seen.

And the difficulty continues to impress me. I'm currently having my party beaten down in the wilderness. 2 members incapacitated with no way to revive them, still no access to a town. I've steamrolled through some portions, but the majority of fights required some thought to get through without a death (and rezzing people is expensive, so it's worthwhile to avoid deaths.) Mind you, I'm playing without all the cheater DLC items. I'd imagine they make the difficulty nosedive. Also, I'm playing on hard mode, obviously.

Oh, and btw, I made Fyuria a str user RK47. It's actually rather effective, since she has so much AP. Though it was clunky since she had nobody to combo with until it occured to me to give her Blast from Borgnine. Dazzle Blade is incredibly powerful. I compensate for her squishyness by giving her the choicest armor, same as I do for my mages. Plus the ability to self heal helps. Maybe I'll regret it down the road, but for now I'm quite happy with her. It's nice having someone to do vanish trick with Borgnine that both does damage and actually lands the fucking hits.
 

RK47

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Damned Registrations be sure to edit the ini file and change the forced framerate to 45 or 60.
The fucking sluggishness in combat is gone.
Also to skip dialogue, press E.

Fyuria's high AP let's her spam moves to gain SP. Every attack you do gives you 8 SP. Fallen companions 25 SP I think. So in general putting her as STR primary may work just as well. She'll turn into a crazy DPS machine in melee.

As for solving the 'dead party' member and not going bankrupt, buy Fragments of Life. Stock at least 10 of them before heading out. It costs 500ea and can turn battles.
 

Damned Registrations

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I just turn the animations off if I'm not in the mood for watching sparklies. Battles go by much faster, and it's just a few clicks to toggle it either way.

Just got Elaine on my team. Interesting that she actually outlevels the rest of my team. I guess it's in theme, the weak characters are the ones that aren't actual warriors, at least initially. Luana is going to take some work to power up, but I think another ranged str character is a worthwhile addition. Hopefully she gets a Str based extra skill later on. If characters don't get variety in that regard then for generation 2 I suppose I'll just align them with whatever their extra skill is.

How does the capturing thing work? I just tried to capture a dumb crab but it didn't work even at like 20 hp left. And killing them during the combo with the capture doesn't work either. I'd sit there and spam capture at it but it has this charge skill that hits for fucking 800+, and it killed Zerva after his failed attempt. I think I'm going to have to grind a bit, my last round of ressurections put me 3000 gold in debt, and I don't want to start selling any more rare shit (I already sold some earlier to unlock some achievements, more than paid for itself.)

Upgrading items is getting interesting too. They aren't balanced at all. Fully upgraded intelligence ring is like +7 int. Fully upgraded luck ring is +15 luck, +10 hit and avoid, +5 to the main atk/mag/def stats, and like +3 ap. Fyuria is sitting with one of those equipped, with a +15 luck skill as well (from converting another ring) sitting on nearly 50 avoid now. Actually kinda tanky against certain enemies. I think my next goal is to buy a bunch of hammers, upgrade and recycle them for +100 atk skills, and dump as many as I can fit on all my hard hitters.

Also, I skipped a big row of battles on my way to the last storyline event. No idea if anything worthwhile is in there.
 

treave

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Codex 2012
How does the capturing thing work? I just tried to capture a dumb crab but it didn't work even at like 20 hp left. And killing them during the combo with the capture doesn't work either.

Luck plays a role, and the 'Hunter' Willpower ability boosts your capture rate significantly. Zerva should have it by now, use him as your primary hunter throughout the early game. You will need 100 SP for Hunter to activate though. I wouldn't bother capturing if it's not active. You can kill them during a capture combo but the capture must come before the blow that kills them.

Interestingly, Capture works based off the weapon range, so if you have Zerva or Winfield you can have them capture a few enemies at once if they're in a row.
 

RK47

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Taken from their wiki

Reasons to Capture
Capturing monsters has many benefits:

  1. A captured enemy can be used like any other party member.
  2. A captured monster can be combined with another monster, or traded for an item at the Monster's Guild.
  3. There are Titles available based on the number of times you combine monsters. These titles give you substantial rewards, like most other titles.
  4. Captured monsters stay with you through all generations and New Game+ playthroughs completely intact, without ever getting their levels or other characteristics reset (but only if you choose the same difficulty or lower). This is especially useful if you ever find yourself without certain party members you've been using diligently, avoiding a serious loss in party strength.
  5. Captured monsters usually come with a wider range of skill-equipping possibilities, as well as already having all 3 EX Skills.
  6. Captured monsters can also equip normal weapons, depending on the monster type: werewolf-types can equip knuckles, fairy-types can equip rods, imp-types can equip spears, skeleton soldier-types can equip swords, skeleton mage-types can equip scythes, etc.
  7. If you plan on keeping one monster forever, then you know that they will definitely be a worthwhile investment for your PP. The uses for captured monsters are explained in more detail below.
How to Capture
Capturing a monster requires the Capture skill. Capture is a darkness skill, which means you'll need a character with a darkness skill slot to use it. You may only capture a monster when its HP count is 5% of its maximum or lower. Certain enemies cannot be captured (e.g. bosses and human soldiers). It is impossible to capture a monster if it has already been killed (using Capture at the end of a chain of attacks that killed the enemy will not have any effect), but you can capture a monster and then overkill it.

To clarify, using the Capture skill when an enemy currently has between 1 HP and 5% of its maximum HP is the only way to have any chance of success. Even if this condition is met, Capture can still fail. Its success rate appears to be based on the character's LUK attribute and the presence of the "Hunter" and "Poaching" abilities.

I agree that captured mobs is worth the time, but getting that HP down to low enough to get it done would require some patience.
And as treave said, using Zerva is probably the best option. Use weaker magic to put the target to sleep/paralyzed - that way it won't heal itself or move around.
I did not explore this option earlier, but I look forward to trying it out once G1 MQ is done.
 

Damned Registrations

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It's actually not that hard to get their hp low, since the Merciful Strike skill is available quite early. The only effective person that can use it right now is the main character (Longswords have the right slot available) but that's plenty. My strategy is to kill off anything that's a threat, bring the target to 1 hp, then spam capture at it (I've been using 2 at once. No idea if it's luck based or not, but Zerva definitely isn't required, I was using my wolf and the pink haired girl and they did just fine. Doesn't seem to matter for levels either, since I've captured 2 jumbo cocks and those things are level 20, about 5 above my guys. Having the target be broken might help, I seem to usually succeed on my first attempt if I manage to break the target then get it down to 1 hp and capture in a single combo. Not that hard to do, just use some magic with str chars, it has the full break effect but does single digit damage. Probably done all I want for now, I rather like having a giant monster in the party, and even if I can make insanely high level stuff (I had the option to make a level 25 gremlin) that'd just gimp all my other character's exp. Though it is awesome having a 4k+ hp swordsman in reserve in case I want to win another fight I'm not supposed to.

Oh, large monsters do have one drawback: for ranged abilities, the range starts counting from the centre tile of their body, so they're effectively 1 range shorter than normal characters. Though it's well worth the sacrifice to have 8 more tiles to make extended attack connections.
 

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