Vindictus: Pirates of the Graveyard

[This is part of my Vindictus tutorials.]

Happy New Year all! Decided I'm not making another resolution list this year (because we know how the previous one went), so I'm just going to keep trucking on with my regular posts! :)

More Vindictus tips today but these are more for a Kai/ranged type.

After that somewhat tough jungle, you'll be happy to learn that the Ship Graveyard is a cakewalk for Kais. Half the bosses are sirens and they are all stupid, easily read and shouldn't be a problem for any Kai who knows to keep at range at this point. The giant crab would give you more issues (not a lot), so that leaves the pirates.

Barnacle Bill Simmons likes to spit poison on the ground but otherwise is slow with his cutlass. Just watch your step and you will be fine. Mad Willy Flint seems to be the captain and apart from some slash waves and thrown, slow seeking swords, he too is easily strafed. You just have to be a bit careful avoiding all the stuff he sends your way. Just strafe the slashes. Dodge the flying swords.

I defeated him with holy farts. Lol.

Longboot Matty is the most dangerous for me. He fights in a slightly submerged section of a broken ship and has a regular "shoot gun" combo that is painful, but easily strafed or blocked by the mast in the middle. He does have two troublesome moves though: One being that he vomits into the water making all of it poisoned, forcing people to go up onto one of the small box areas and second, he sends out invulnerable wisps that paralyze anyone they touch - long enough for him to pull a full gun combo on them. That mast becomes a life saver at those times so use it!

MMO Design: Witcher Potion System

[Part of my MMO Design Folder.]

In my previous review of the Witcher 2, I mentioned that I quite like the potion system there and thought I would explore the notion of putting a similar thing in an MMO. Currently the most common types of consumables I've run into in MMOs are the ones that either give you a buff for -x- amount of time or the type that you drink for immediate bonus like restoring HP or Mana. Sometimes you can drink like there is no tomorrow, as fast as you can press a key. Sometimes there's an arbitrary cool down.

Personally, I'm the type that keeps over 100 health potions in my pack because there's simply no penalty in doing so, and no penalty for drinking them in quick succession when I need to in most games. Mabinogi does start giving you stat deductions in that event but it takes a LOT of drinking to get there.

The system in the Witcher is pretty simple. You have a "poison" bar that fills up based on the type of consumable you are taking - often with three being the maximum before suffering an overdose. All of them have an effect duration, even the "health" potion which just temporarily improves your regeneration rate. Most importantly, almost all of them have negative side effects. A potion of fire resistance might make you more susceptible to cold for example.

This would force people to think about what they are doing instead of chugging down every type of bonus they can. It also makes encounters more manageable from a design perspective because people are more limited with what they can field on the table, unlike trying to make a challenging fight for both non-dosed players and those who have access to every consumable in game.

On the down side this might reduce the "gold sink" nature of potions somewhat, if people when faced with uncertainty of what to get simply buy nothing. What do you think?

Quests Failed!

Blergh, I know I'm a few days early but I'm going to call this now. I knew there's a reason I don't like writing up New Year's Resolutions. I'm one of those people that obviously just doesn't get them done! So let's take a quick look at that list from the start of this year...

Lose 12 kgs. That's just 1 kg per month!
Fail! I lost just as much as I gained and am back where I started. >.<

Start writing out the guild history, one chapter per 2 months would be good.
*Watches the tumbleweed*

Complete 10 quests for NWO.
7/10.

Make a silly game of my own.
I actually did this! Twice in boardgame form. They weren't any good though.

Continue the Today I Smiled series with 2 per month.
Definitely didn't do 2 per month, but still posted 24+ during the year so I'll give this one a pass.

Finish composing another song.
Neglected. Which is annoying since I had half a new song already...

Score: 2 out of 6.

Retry next year? In theory it should be easier now that I have more XP right? For the most part yes, but we'll see if I'm in a mood to put up another list later! :P

Lastly I am sad to report that I am down to 50 links to other blogs. That might sound like a big number until I remind you that I was on around 150+ at one stage after the previous Newbie Blogger Initiative. Sticking to my rule of "must have new content within 4 weeks (eg. one post a month)" apparently was too much to ask for around two thirds of the population. Is this a sign that blogs are dying? No, probably not. Just that I'm either too harsh on my criteria or I'm simply linking the wrong people.

Vindictus: Snake Worshippers

[This is part of my Vindictus tutorials.]
 
Welcome to Season 2: the Jungle! Yeah I know there's a ton of content I don't have tips for in Season 1 other than: "Why don't you evade?" and "100 Fine HP potions aren't enough". I'll have to go back and see if I can think up of any more. For now let's talk about Crescent Moon Island and the few bosses there that could prove troublesome. Yeah, the carpenter drone can become hardened against attacks but for serious, go kill a turtle and throw it at him like Mario. Solved.

No I'm talking more about the likes of Legtrap Kaula and her pet giant wasp Blackwing. For a solo Kai I strongly suggest trying to separate the two and taking on Blackwing first. The wasp has a tendency to teleport to you while Kaula has to actually sprint across the map. The wasp is also the easier of the two to read and defeat.

Kaula is the main problem though as she runs very fast, and can jump up and down those embankments faster than you can. She also has a strong and fast melee combo. The only weakness to it is that she keeps moving forward through it. For a Kai I'd recommend placing your dodge grapple midway along the long narrow path and make use of it to dodge through Kaula and shoot her in the back. Rinse and repeat.

Feel free to shoot her in front too.

Meanwhile, Death Chief Kielu has a pretty weak staff melee attack. What she does have is ye old black seeking orb (again - you should know how to evade these by now), and more importantly a scream followed by pounding her staff on the ground rythmically three times. This makes a giant snake tail pop up from right under you which can easily kill you in 2 hits. Running around makes it impossible for the tail to hit you, or you could just time your evades.

This is important to know because when you face the rest of the giant snake (Lakoria), it will do the tail attack up to 10 times on the person furthest away from it. Well, the last one is random target, but you can save your team a lot of hurt if you work out a "runner" ahead of time whose sole purpose is to distract the very painful tail spike away from the actual battle. 

Other than "if the snake swallows you, kill it from within", I can't really give more tips against Lakoria since I've so far only been the runner. :P

Silent Night (Gloria actually)

Well, more like silence for a few nights as this will be my last post for a few days as things get a little hectic around here. So, I wish you all an advanced, very Merry Christmas and will return to posting a few days after. In the meantime, I'll leave you with another Youtube carol, this time by ThePianoGuys. Enjoy! :)

Today I Smiled: A Measure of Character (NWO Foundry)

Just spruiking my latest Neverwinter Online foundry creation which I've entered into a contest over there. Not sure if I'll win anything, but decor wise I think I've improved a lot since my first few attempts!

A Measure of Character
Code: NW-DKJKPQKH8

You have received a letter from Humberto Boffanart, a representative of the Merchant's Guild, regarding a matter involving Neverwinter City's dock districts. He has invited you to come to his office which is located in the Western part of the city.

Warning: There is a LOT of reading in this quest, a fair bit of traveling, and very, very little fighting. You are still recommended to bring potions though... just for safety.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

I only recently finished this game after getting it for free from the GoG site. Initially I was thinking of doing a playthrough for it but since one of this games strongest strengths is it's story (and because Astalnar already did one), I decided against it. Instead I thought I'd do a review! This game follows the adventures of Geralt of Rivia, a "witcher" (monster hunter) of some repute, during a time of crisis for the land of Temeria as someone is going about killing all the kings in the region.

Suffering from magical amnesia might seem a little convoluted but it actually works well here as you slowly uncover more of Geralt's past as you play through the game. As a fan of the TV series (I haven't read the books, nor played the first game) Geralt and everyone in the world around him are portrayed wonderfully. The locations and environments are well detailed and fun and at times scary to explore.

Michal Zebrowski's Geralt is still the best version for me. :P

At the end of chapter 1 you are given a choice between two ways to continue. I've played through both and while you still go through the same maps as the alternate path, the story and plot points are quite different, barely coming together again at the end of the "tree". 

As expected of an RPG, there are many side quests to help gain XP, gold and other resources for crafting and there are three mini-games to break up any tedium from the main plot in the form of QTE brawling, arm wrestling, and my favourite: dice poker. I also quite like the potion system in place, which I'll bring up again in a later MMO Design post.

What I don't like? Well, for starters there is no epic or memorable music. It's just... ok? Even Neverwinter Online, which isn't really known for good music, has my wife humming the main tune every now and then - and she doesn't even play the game! The combat in Witcher 2 can also be quite challenging until you get used to Geralt's hit and run design, and all the abilities he has at his disposal. Perhaps most annoyingly, it suffers from Save Game Glut - where your saves are always put in a new slot. Each game session of mine would therefore begin with a few minutes of clearing some of the old ones out.

It's a pity that those things slightly ruin an otherwise good game. I still recommend it though, and give it four out of five silver swords. If you are only planning on playing one "path" (or are the type to only play through once) then consider it a three and a half silver swords instead.