Lurker > KanzarisKelshen

I'll go into more detail on this when FFD gets there, but you made the right choice KP. I'm of the firm opinion that the Ascent ending (and specifically the full form of the Ascent where you send Songbird to the moon) is like, a fundamental piece fo the '77 puzzle. The game didn't truly feel complete until I did it. I'm gonna quote what the Johnny meter should say now because I think it really sums it up: "No way in hell you could turn her in. You've been saluting the system with your middle finger all your life. If anyone's got a shot of escaping captivity and this neon-soaked hellhole, they deserve your help. Your help and Johnny's. It was a must-do move, personal motivations aside, and Johnny understands that all too well." The full ascent is, by miles the single most actually 'punk thing you do in the entire game, both because of what an absolute rebellion it is, and also because it's a choice to look at a world where people always fuck each other over and things always get worse and say 'no, it stops here. No more eye for an eye.'

And, connected to the above...

I just kind of adore how Ascent specifically shows how V is truly the superior successor to David. David's fundamental flaw was that he was too caught up in toxic bullshit about emulating other people he looked up to so he never learned to make his own choices and do what was right for him and Lucy. Faced with a similar (though not identical) decision, V can choose to stop playing bullshit games and listen to one of the few people in Night City who truly knows what they want and why they want it, and help them get there. You get to save your Lucy...and it pays off.

(still more spoilers for KP's eyes only here...)

You have two things left to do before the ending now. One, go back to the spot where you found So Mi's van. There's a message for you there. Second, kill time until a message reaches you to go back to a certain spot in Dogtown. Finding out what awaits you there marks the true, final, and profoundly satisfactory ending to Phantom Liberty.

And lastly, one FINAL final heads-up, this time for the base game...

When it becomes obvious that you have to make a choice on what to do, make a save and follow your path to the very end. Then, reload the save, reach the point where you have to make a choice again (it'll be a dialog) and do absolutely nothing for a while. You've mentioned Very Hard's been a cinch for a while. What'll happen if you do this is both the absolute hardest thing in the game and, in my opinion, the perfect way to finish V's story. Good luck.

Acheron's dream support. He gains her stax off turn and that's really all that needs to be said about him.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic Adventure 2
Sonic Mania
Sonic Frontiers

The distant past, the near past, and both visions of the future of what Sonic will be going forwards. As a bonus, this only misses Sonic 2 as far as the best Sonic games go, IMO. I feel if I have to make a case for one game though, it really has to be Frontiers, though. It did so much to rehabilitate Sonic's image and make him cool to like for non-fans again, in so many ways. A more serious story so people didn't just roll their eyes at it (saying this as someone who enjoyed the humor of games like Colors, to be clear), properly showcasing Super Sonic in gameplay instead of every single fight being 'hit dude three times to win', and just, actually, really nailing the ability to roll around at the speed of sound in a huge environment like Sonic CD's intro promised literal decades ago.

Oh, and fun combat instead of enemies being total garbage. That too. Not perfect, but it can actually be built upon! Much more important than Colors, I feel. Breaking the Sonic Cycle was important, but escaping the Mega Man rut of 'let's remake the games from our very first generation forever' matters so much more.

Oh, this kinda fuckin blows

Heads up everyone: Pure Fiction's text is mistranslated and is lying to you. You know how it says 'when enemies are hit, action advances them by 35%'?. Yeah, turns out that only happens if they have DoT on them. Otherwise they do NOT speed up. This means that if you do not have DoTters worth a damn, you can and should pick the 3x nihilities buff, ignore that it does nothing, and brute force the fight with enemies that don't zoom around like they're on ferraris.

No, the actual worst enemies are delayers who push back your actions

The drinkbots don't even stop Clara too much, she sweeps anyway. A second dps who can pump should secure 30k fairly easily.

azuarc posted...

I have zero sense of the structure of the game's plot. What are the three branches? Stuff with Goro, stuff with Judy, and stuff with Panam?

Yes. Those are the main three questlines, extending all the way to their respective finales where you talk to Johnny.

Oh man that bit

It's totally random too, AFAIK. You legit do win or lose it all based on your own luck.

FFDragon posted...

oh no

I thought I got Jacob and Taylor the hookup, but Reed just texted me that they've been "taken care of" and I feel like that is a very loaded statement coming from someone like him

IIRC if you go talk to the prez after you might catch her and Reed talking. Unfortunately, it all but confirms what you're thinking about.

Relatedly, heads-up for both KP and FFD: You can get the president's AR from the apartment iirc and it's fucking absurd so I recommend doing so if you use ARs at all. In my AR/SMG run it was the first gun that felt like a genuine upgrade over the Fenrir and Psalm in some ways.

You still want 134 just because Topaz gains an absurd benefit off a baseline amount of speed thanks to the 20% action advance. I think more is totally overkill tho.

That's just Lynx's core issue, yeah. She's kind of actually shit at sustaining you, all she does is extend your doom clock instead of stopping it. Fu Xuan would be an enormous upgrade because while she doesn't stop your clock either, she slows it down so hard you'd have to be playing badly on purpose to lose.

Gotta be XIV or XVI Bahamut for sure. Both bossfights could go into a great game design course and no one would question their inclusion.

Aventurine tends to want Sigonia unless you didn't godroll enough Def% to get him to 4k and Belobog helps you get there, IIRC. Fire TB goes for Belobog to pump up the shields or Keel to pump up Effres and hand out buffs, IIRC.

DIOS MO! *Draw a cross* A LIBERAL!

KH has a ton of games worth playing for gameplay reasons...and a bunch of games you play in spite of the gameplay. KH2, KH3, ReCoded, Chain or ReChain and 0.2 Fragmentary Passage all fall into the former camp. KH1, 358 Days, BBS and DDD all fall into the latter. I think all of them except maybe 358 days are worth playing one way or another, just be aware of the misses in gameplay ahead of time.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Lots of beta changes coming through, but uhhhhhh this change for the new FuA set is actually an enormous fucking problem? The entire reason to farm for it just went up in smoke, nobody wants this. They better change this back.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c4c18601.png

It's likely there for a future char (Feixiao). I doubt they will change it.

Explanation on why 67-70% EHR for anyone who doesn't know btw: The way hitrates for statuses work is you multiply base chance by (1+EHR%), then multiply by (1-EffRes), and enemies have at most 40% EffRes and (if relevant, not important here) 40% CC resistance which is multiplicative with EffRes. So the benchmarking here would be:

0.8 (base chance of basic attack burn infliction) x 1.7 x 0.7 (EffRes after we reduce it by 10%)

1.36 x 0.7 = 0.952, or a 95% chance of infliction on basic off of more or less the automatic infliction value for skill. Good enough that we don't want to go any higher because the cost is steep and the returns low.

swordz9 posted...

Probably still needs some work, but how does my Lil Gui look now? Shes got max Traces, is E6, Eyes of Prey LC and Glamoth planar (Fire DMG sphere and ATK % Rope)

HP 3322
ATK 2538
SPD 131
Crit Rate 27.3%
Crit DMG 110.9%
Break Effect 35.6%
Effect Hit Rate 100.4%
Fire DMG 61.2%

You can afford less EHR overall, particularly if your Guinaifen has her E1 so her skill dishes out Effres Down. For reference, like 70% EHR is enough to hard force the skill against every enemy, and then the basic will have a 95% infliction chance against enemies that have been skilled and have massive EffRes and 100% vs everything else. You want more speed and attack overall, like a lot more. DoTs scale off attack and actions taken so once your EHR is comfy that's where you wanna go. Consider using SPD Hackerspace boots if you can. The dream is something like 143 SPD, 3k ATK, 3k HP and 67% EHR. If you can hit all your benchmarks your Lil Gui is pretty much as good as she needs to be to handle any content.

KH1 has a good back half even now but I do think its episodic chunk (everything before Hollow Bastion really) aged really badly. Maybe it was just me playing it for the first time in the 2020s but I looked at the Alice world for example and instantly went 'dude...this area is a square. Like straight up a square'. And it was REALLY obvious too. It felt like something I wouldn't have cared about if I'd played it at the time it came out but it really stood out how simplistic it was in places. I wouldn't even say the entire game aged awfully, but the Disney worlds absolutely did.

Honorable mentions to GTA 1 and 4 and Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time

Also of all the spicy takes we might get in this topic I think this is the absolute most fiery one. TMNT 4 is one of the three fundamental cornerstones of its genre (alongside final fight 1 and SoR2). It's hard to say that a game that got what is basically a mission pack just a couple years ago that everyone loved (TMNT Shredder's Revenge) hasn't held up. This isn't a callout or shaming post to be clear, I'm just surprised anyone would pick TMNT4 for this because just about every single Beat-Em Up aficionado considers it part of their Top 5 list for the genre.

KamikazePotato posted...

Goldeneye
Fallout 3
Metroid
Metal Gear Solid 4

Seems good. I could be argued to remove Fallout 3 because its still popular among casuals.

Some weird votes so far though. FF9? Really? The game that took a decade to find it's footing among the fanbase?

Everyone has turned on FF9's gameplay systems. That shit was only just tolerated in the PSX era and in this day and age everyone says 'if this game didn't have 4x turbo it would be actually unplayable due to wasting your time so hard'.

FFDragon posted...

Metal Gear Solid 4
Kingdom Hearts
Final Fantasy IX
PUBG

This is a good list except replace PUBG with DK64 like so:

MGS4
KH1
FF9
DK64

I think this is what I go with. All of these games have had a significant reevaluation with time and their gameplay elements considerably bring them all down.

tcaz2 posted...

I have one Robin on my friends list who is an absolute monster that adds like 100k damage to every attack and just melts everything.

I should check what they have her at.

That's e6 100%. Robin does like 20k until e6 and then she goes 'fuck all y'all DPSes, I am the DPS' and becomes a carry.

Got E1 Robin and didn't even have to go to pity (soft OR hard) for it!!! I think I'll try for her light cone now. If I can get it she's gonna pop off so hard it'll be crazy!

swordz9 posted...

At the moment one I havent even leveled up much. That free Silver Wolf one I believe. Ive got 2 Good Night & Sleep Well, 5 Eyes of Prey, 3 Pearls of Swine, 4 Fermata and 1 Boundless Choreo as options

Eyes of Prey is terrific on Guinaifen and would be my pick for her I think. If you had S5 GNSW that'd be the damage-optimal option by a teeny tiny bit, but it'd also require incredibly sweaty relic farming to push Gui to the right EHR thresholds and nahhhhhh. Put that on her, get her 17% EHR from relics (assuming you get all her minor traces here) and she should be good to cook with ATK/SPD/Fire DMG Up stacking everywhere else. This also frees you up to move Tutorial Mission to like, Pela or something so people who really badly want more ERR can benefit from it.

What are you using for her right now? There should be a couple options she can employ

Really? I thought the iconic DS build was giant dad/havel gear with a zweihander. Maybe the DS diehards I hang out with have been feeding me misinformation all this time lmao

I don't think I agree with that Kenri. To use one of the games I mentioned as being inspired by HK, the only thing PoP Lost Crown shares with Dark Souls is you can take a sippy in combat, but HK does that too for example, and PoPLC resembles HK more on this point in that the real way you keep yourself alive in a fight is by applying relentless offensive pressure to fuel a power that gives you a chance to recover from damage or iframe through it (much like HK focus). Moreover, the combat is super kinetic and focused on dodging and using combat abilities to phase through attacks and 'retain your turn', whereas the iconic Dark Souls build either facetanked with Poise or blocked with a shield and then countered. There's influence there, but idk how direct it is.

Wanglicious posted...

Metroid Prime's influence is honestly on games that branched from the genre and became their own, like Souls games. there really isn't much else like it, instead they opt for either more combat, more exploration, or more difficulty (technically this can be either one but becomes its own subgenre at a certain point).

a lot of Souls clones miss the mark because they don't understand what came before it and that i think is where MP shines. it broke down how you can do 3D action adventure exploration in a perfect blend.

so technically its influence on the genre isn't there because it was the launching point for new ones.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Dark Souls 1 certainly has a load of metroid prime DNA. This means MP indirectly inspired one of the most important modern subgenres, which is totally Rushmore worthy!

HaRRicH posted...

This isn't a perfect answer to your larger point about industry influence, but I'll note Metroid Prime did get a well-received trilogy and remaster while hopes are high for a fourth game. Coincidentally, all of my nominations have sequels or other games in their own series to pursue similar gameplay of some sort which helps establish their place in the genre.

(Hollow Knight to its credit will one day too, and I look forward to Silksong despite my issues with the original)

I don't know the 3D-Metroidvania genre well enough to speak to other games similar to MP, but it has firmly landed its own place in gaming in the meanwhile and its appeal is not so different from 2D-Metroidvanias for me to think it should go into a different genre. Maybe FPS? But then that gets into questions like is Portal an FPS and is Braid a platformer. MP uses FPS mechanics to explore gameplay that appeals to Metroidvania fans much like Portal and Braid use FPS/platformer mechanics to explore gameplay that appeals to puzzle fans.

EDIT: shit, just noticed you said not including sequels. My bad on those parts.

I think this hits on a key point of what MP's true influence is actually. 'Using (other genre) mechanics for exploration gameplay'. Dark Souls does this with ARPG gameplay. Arkham Asylum does this with open world gameplay. It kinda makes me realize why I couldn't just name games that were 'Metroid Prime' clones. Its legacy isn't a direct playstyle, it's a design style with multi-genre appeal! Hell, aren't collectable readables/datalogs pretty much an MP invention for example?

Super Metroid
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Hollow Knight
Cave Story

So I want to ask a question and then throw out some thoughts. People who voted Metroid Prime, what games would you say clearly follow in its footsteps, not counting its sequels? I don't doubt its influence, it just struck me that I'm struggling to think of a game that is 3d exploration and doesn't feel more influenced by the collectathon or open world genres aside from the Arkham games.

Additionally, I just wanna throw this out: Hollow Knight feels like an obvious inclusion to me, but not because it was popular or is a contender for best modern metroidvania. I feel like it belongs because it basically codified a new path for the genre. In SM and SotN, enemy encounters are speedbumps. The challenge is navigating the environment. In Hollow Knight, the challenge comes primarily from the opposing force. Rather than bosses being just narrative climactic setpieces, they are also the heights of the game's systems, where its full depth is revealed, and I think it's fascinating that that was enough to diverge so hard from its predecessors. If you had to refer to titles with HK's metroidvania style as a collective (like Prince of Persia Lost Crown or Afterimage), what would you call them? Warrior Metroidvanias? Something else?

He really really is. The best one I've ever seen, too! Atlus wishes they could make a Law rep as interesting and genuine as him lmao.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I've left him alone, but I wonder if a dedicated Break Misha might be the way to go. Don't see much reason to build Crit Misha when I have Jingliu.

Dedicated break is bad because the scaling is too slow. Crit Misha with HMC splashed onto his teams is very legit though because hatblazer can casually add up to 100% BE just by doing their thing (33% from ult, 30% watchmaker set, and 22.5% just off 150% BE which isn't even an onerous ask in the slightest). It also helps that high-Eidolon Misha has incredible Pela synergy and superbreak likes Pela to begin with. It's not hard to get like 70% defense shred between Pela and Misha, and her Ice Resistance Shred on skill gives you another 12% damage boost to his ult break damage.

She takes a lot of actions and has some break effect increases. Otherwise, not really, she's fairly mediocre. The real winner of HMC's existence is Misha, who can dish out 180 raw toughness damage with his ult if you get his E1, meaning he has monumental superbreak damage. It's an easy way to pad his damage which would otherwise take effort to boost.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I think a good way to look at it for Himeko is that Break is way easier to build than Crit, so if you don't have her Crit pieces ready yet then Break is a good placeholder. This is true for just about any old Fire and Physical DPS.

Prior to 2.0 the only character I actively focus Break on above anything else is Guinaifen, since fire break is good and fire DoT sucks (this is not the case for Luka since he has entirely different scaling and still wants mostly attack)

At least that's my understanding lol.

Guinaifen still wants ATK, like every other dot char. I don't think Break Guin is a thing at all but could be wrong. Maybe it is now due to her giving vuln uppers to enemies?

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Fire MC uses it well but also...why use Fire MC? It's really only worth running on Gepard or Aventurine if you are using specifically Kafka, Acheron, or Ratio, if none of that applies then just ignore it

It's extremely strong on fire TB specifically because a hard taunt means you generate Acheron stax equal to the number of enemies acting every round of actions without fail. Much stronger than it is for Gepard, even. Only downside is it consumes a lot of SP but you can't have everything. I actually run Acheron with Fire TB to save real supports for my other side and it works quite well.

Himeko still wants to do crit things and not just shed it wholly, like so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXXwm0IzyFw

But yes Break is a good way to pad damage numbers. Don't treat it as a replacement for your normal actions, treat is a parallel damage boost that you can benefit from partially

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Xueyi is gonna want all new relics in 2.3 so I would go too hard on building her at the moment.

Absolutely not. It's close enough to Quantum to be a push at best, so not worth the effort of refarming. Quantum also doesn't suck ass on everyone else so there is zero reason to farm the new set.

Yeah Xueyi won crazy big off Hatblazer. You can just build her (mostly) ATK/Crit/CritDmg now and she 'makes sense' as a character off it. Still needs a ton of eidolons to really pop off but if she's facing something Quantum weak she's going to absolutely melt fools.

That quest was, I think, the exact moment I reevaluated '77 from just 'a fun videogame' to 'a game that genuinely has things to say', and started putting its pieces together. I can think of a lot of games that would have done that kind of scene and made it godawful, like absolutely game-killingly bad. But this game somehow managed to stick the landing. It's completely harrowing, but not because it's bad -- rather, it's because it's raw. As raw as anything can be. It's notably one of very few instances where Johnny doesn't fuck around and act like a clown even a little. He's not a religious man, but he gets what having principles and living, and DYING by them, is like.

Game good. Truly.

Denji posted...

I don't know if Huohuo's E1 is the most important in the game but it feels like it's up there. I'm basically deciding between pulling for that and Firefly.

Huohuo's E1 is nice but just that -- nice. It only ever matters if you're trying to 0 cycle. Otherwise don't bother, all the other limited sustains and most harmonies have much more pressing E1s.

In a lot of ways, V is the superior successor to David Martinez. Where he couldn't go, you still might. But it takes a lot to become a legend...

Also, fun detail: Johnny Silverhand had to deal with Cyberpsychosis too. Not only is the Relic itself mitigating Cyberpsychosis, but two other things are helping out a lot here. First, Johnny himself knows how to handle the burden more or less decently -- him being so erratic and violent in the flashbacks is partly from the chrome, but he was still functional. Second, and this is maybe even more important...V has a support network who can hold him/her up, which David didn't because he never let Becca in the way he should have, unlike V with Misty, Jackie, Vik, Panam, Judy and others. Cyberpsychosis isn't actually a one-way trip. As per the detailed setting lore, therapy and welcoming empathetic treatment from other people can help. It's not just the guy in your head keeping you sane -- it's every single real one you've met along the way and opened up to.

(Bonus fun detail: you know why the OST for Edgerunners slaps so hard? Akira Yamaoka arranged it. Yes, the Silent Hill one! Dude hasn't missed once in a lifetime.)

You may not even need Jingles for that. If you have a solid duo buffer you can get away with some silly stuff...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNfpJuNJPJM

(should work without RM btw, though of course not on auto. Tingyun to supercharge Himeko maybe?)

Yeah. Robin has an enormous amount of damage pump for a support. Something like 150-200k across an ult at baseline and more in speedy teams and/or teams that do FUAs? It adds up quick, that's for sure.

No, the team they feed you is a pretty strong showcase for her. Would be stronger still with Xueyi as an option but they went with Sushang to make sure the elements were neatly laid out. Break bars with Sushang, which generates Herta spins, which makes it so Robin blows people up with like four procs in a row. Should finish right around Herta's second action or so?

(FFD don't read this pls)

I am SO FUCKING EXCITED for her death at Smasher's hands y'allllllll

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Ratio has grown on me a lot now that I've come to understand his role is to openly be an asshole in a story where a bunch of characters are secretly assholes. He truly is surrounded by some of the worst mfers in the universe (like actual sociopath Ruan Mei)

And unlike them, he actually, genuinely cares about others. He's arrogant, elitist and salty as hell, but the whole reason he got so mad at Aventurine's stunts in 2.1 was not wanting to see a guy with potential self-destruct that way! Hell, the same goes for how he talks to us in his free copy mail. 'I'll answer any of your questions, just try not to waste my time, same way I will try not to waste yours'. He's got more in common with Sparkle than anyone else, tbh.

Ratio is a terrific character. He's an asshole but he's your asshole (phrasing, I know), and remarkably principled if you can handle his salty academia. Ruan Mei is a character who actually sucks ass as a character, in spite of a hot a design, for comparison. Which is funny because they debuted together! Clearly all the fun asshole energy went to him

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

If you're truly committed to your favorite characters you would build their good supports even if you don't like them tbh

This is the way

That team is going to get melted super hard due to not having enough steroids to pump into the DPSes, probably. I can't imagine it doing very well compared to subbing probably Xueyi out for Bronya, Tingyun or another Harmony.

pyresword posted...

I've been thinking about pulling for Topaz just because I have very little else to do with my jades for quite a while I think. She would be good for my account, at least, to enable the strong follow-up teams. Will have to think.

Do you have sources of debuffs (Aventurine E2, Aventurine Sig)? If not, are you ready to go to E1S1 for Topaz at least? If not, don't even bother. She's genuinely not worth it unless your team can rain em down already. Robin is the actual prize for making chaser-based teams work better here, Topaz is the winmore.

Yeah, multiple times this game made me stop and think about what I was seeing. Without any spoilers, They Won't Go When I Go was an absolutely brutal thing to play through, in a way I can't really recall any other game pulling off save maybe Disco Elysium. It commits to the bit really hard, and I appreciate that a lot.

That is the intro to Edgerunners, yup. It's a fun show. Aesthetically an absolute masterpiece.

I love how weird the gigs get to be sometimes. 'Just another day in Night City' where shit is never easy but it sure is strange