Diablo 1 is a very Sword & Sorcery game that could very well have been taking place in Conan's Hyboria.. Then Diablo II turns the setting into basically Forgotten Realms and by Diablo III it has evolved into Azeroth. Sad really.

I decided, a long time ago, to stop after Diablo II + LoD. I liked it a lot, but the games which came after never tempted me.

However I wouldn't mind trying the remake one day, just out of curiosity.

I'm trying out The Bard's Tale Trilogy remaster. So far I'm really digging the character creation. I'm kind of excited about this one. I think it might be right up my alley (Wiz6ish?). I love the built-in manual. It's very comprehensive! I have not started playing, but rolling several characters and then going to pick which ones I want to keep.

At long last, after 26 years, I've finally finished the Allied campaign of C&C: Red Alert. What a roller coaster. Sometimes I had fun, sometimes I found it infuriating and often I found it just stressful. I've never found the Allied campaign to be all that fun but I've never really put my finger on why that is in a definitive manner, but now I know:

I'm somewhat of a turtler by nature. I enjoy building nice looking bases with strong static defences and units in clean formations that can take out any enemy with minimal losses and player input. I enjoy taking my time, building up my forces, exploring the map and possibly fortifying choke points. I like to have my existing units fixed instead of just being replaced, if possible. I like to feel like I'm in control and not being rushed by anything. I do like being challenged as long it's fair, I don't want to be treated like I'm an idiot but neither do I want to deal with BS that require trial and error.

Red Alert, and especially the Allied campaign doesn't really go well with those kind of preferences. Static defences, with the exception of AA-Guns, are nearly useless and you are better off pumping out tanks. Those said tanks are fairly weak and thus you need a lot of them, and they have the brains and pathfinding of a headless chicken. There goes turtling and the feeling of being in control. The game also feels faster paced and kinda chaotic, throwing all kinds of crap at you, and this in turn made me feel like I'm being rushed to pump out massive amounts of tanks to deal with the enemy asap. Constant air attacks were annoying because it was hard to tell what they attacked if you didn't see the attack and the target building doesn't look like it has seen better days. Having to check every building to find what needs fixing isn't fun, apparently the new remasters have quality of life improvements in that regard.

And the cherry on top are the two indoor missions, trial and error crap with a time limit, neat! I HATED those missions. The last mission also had a great start; you'll start with Tanya and two thieves with explosive barrels on both side you and enemy soldiers in front of you. Pretty obvious what you need to do, just kill the soldiers before they shoot the barrels and that's what I did. Then a Tesla Coil shot from the unexplored darkness at the barrels and Tanya went boom. Mission failed. The whole thing lasted like 4-5 seconds. Have I mentioned how much I like trial and error?

The farther I got in the campaign the more I noticed myself playing the game like every mission had a time limit, maximizing cash income and tank output as fast as I could, just sending the tanks to areas I needed without giving a damn could I lessen their losses in some way and just pump out more tanks till the numbers were enough to rush the enemy. Blood for the blood god, skulls for the skull throne. Even in missions where there was absolutely no reason to rush, the problem is that I feel like the game had trained me to do so, intentionally or not. As a result I started every mission slightly stressed out, expecting the worst and not being able to just sit back and actually enjoy the game, only to realize at the end of the mission that it was actually a fun mission and I've could have played it without any rush whatsoever.

Now looking back there absolutely are missions in the campaign I could play again just for fun, but I find it very unlikely I'll play the entire campaign ever again. I think I will find a save game that has all the missions available and cherry pick the missions I like going forward. I'm still glad I finally beat the campaign, this has been a thorn in my side for ages.

^^^
That's how I feel about every real-time strategy game I played, which as far as I recall is just Warcraft, Warcraft II + Expansion, StarCraft + Expansion. They just don't cater naturally to my mindset for me to be able to enjoy. I spend lots of time being stressed, saving, reloading, sometimes panicking and restarting the mission altogether.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-11-11, 09:12:

Diablo 1 is a very Sword & Sorcery game that could very well have been taking place in Conan's Hyboria.. Then Diablo II turns the setting into basically Forgotten Realms and by Diablo III it has evolved into Azeroth. Sad really.

There is a small problem though: in Diablo 1 there is an archbishop who kidnapped a child we're supposed to rescue. There was no Catholicism during the Hyborean era, thus, no archbishop.

dr_st wrote on 2022-11-12, 14:56:

I spend lots of time being stressed, saving, reloading, sometimes panicking and restarting the mission altogether.

Stress? Let me tell you about RTS stress. I used to play C&C: Generals with an old friend via a VPN connection and he had this irritating (and effective) strategy of sending a sea of 'Angry Mob' units that had the 'Arm The Mob' upgrade towards my base which would lay waste upon my HQ and units. It always made my hair fall out. I stopped playing online with him. He would laugh with evil glee every time he asked me if I wanted to play another round.

clueless1 wrote on 2022-11-12, 12:42:

I'm trying out The Bard's Tale Trilogy remaster. So far I'm really digging the character creation. I'm kind of excited about this one. I think it might be right up my alley (Wiz6ish?). I love the built-in manual. It's very comprehensive! I have not started playing, but rolling several characters and then going to pick which ones I want to keep.

Bard's Tale is very grindy. It's from a difficultly in game design era. My friend had this game and we use to hire people from the inn take them out and rob them of their stuff then sell it to get ahead. I have good memories for that alone.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2022-11-12, 15:04:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-11-11, 09:12:

Diablo 1 is a very Sword & Sorcery game that could very well have been taking place in Conan's Hyboria.. Then Diablo II turns the setting into basically Forgotten Realms and by Diablo III it has evolved into Azeroth. Sad really.

There is a small problem though: in Diablo 1 there is an archbishop who kidnapped a child we're supposed to rescue. There was no Catholicism during the Hyborean era, thus, no archbishop.

Well there probably weren't as many demons either.

Shagittarius wrote on 2022-11-12, 15:59:

clueless1 wrote on 2022-11-12, 12:42:

I'm trying out The Bard's Tale Trilogy remaster. So far I'm really digging the character creation. I'm kind of excited about this one. I think it might be right up my alley (Wiz6ish?). I love the built-in manual. It's very comprehensive! I have not started playing, but rolling several characters and then going to pick which ones I want to keep.

Bard's Tale is very grindy. It's from a difficultly in game design era. My friend had this game and we use to hire people from the inn take them out and rob them of their stuff then sell it to get ahead. I have good memories for that alone.

I think what I'm going to like about it is the old school grindiness combined with tons of QoL features. The graphics are gorgeous, the stats page is awesome (I love RPGs that give detailed statistical breakdown of playtime, kills, spells cast, etc. Bonus points for having a smart playtime system that does not include times when the game is running but paused or on the main menu). The character creation took me 1.5 hours for 6 party members and very much reminded me of Wizardry 6. I did play a little bit of the original Bard's Tale back in the mid 1980s, but probably not more than 10 hours on the Apple II platform. So this will be mostly a new experience.

liqmat wrote on 2022-11-12, 15:49:

Stress? Let me tell you about RTS stress. I used to play C&C: Generals with an old friend via a VPN connection and he had this irritating (and effective) strategy of sending a sea of 'Angry Mob' units that had the 'Arm The Mob' upgrade towards my base which would lay waste upon my HQ and units. It always made my hair fall out. I stopped playing online with him. He would laugh with evil glee every time he asked me if I wanted to play another round.

That's usually how RTS multiplayer goes. Rush rush rush. Not building large bases and fighting an attrition war. I know I'm not equipped to handle this kind of gameplay, so I don't even try. 😀

Dune 2 scratched my RTS itch. Felt no need to play any further after that. Guess that means it's not my genre either.

But that touches on a bit of a personal bugbear about the gaming scene. The way a successful, relatively original game gets turned into A Genre forevermore, spawning endless iterations of the same premise. RTS, FPS, MMORPG, etc. Seems like some laziness, VS coming up with their own new concept and game style.

However - when it's a genre I like, there are no complaints from me, so I guess I am also a hypocrite. 😁

clueless1 wrote on 2022-11-12, 12:42:

I'm trying out The Bard's Tale Trilogy remaster. So far I'm really digging the character creation. I'm kind of excited about this one. I think it might be right up my alley (Wiz6ish?). I love the built-in manual. It's very comprehensive! I have not started playing, but rolling several characters and then going to pick which ones I want to keep.

I'm glad to see you're giving this one a try! I had a fun time playing through all three games back in 2019/2020. The games aren't very "grindy" in the sense of forcing you to run around leveling just to make progress, but there is a lot of a combat (with a lot of enemies) and not much depth to the battle system.

The second and third game require you to have a certain class in your party to actually make progress in them, and while it's possible to get around that by changing classes or just creating a new character when needed, you may want to look up some information online on how best to plan out your party if you want to use the same party throughout all three games.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-11-12, 21:09:

Dune 2 scratched my RTS itch. Felt no need to play any further after that. Guess that means it's not my genre either.

But that touches on a bit of a personal bugbear about the gaming scene. The way a successful, relatively original game gets turned into A Genre forevermore, spawning endless iterations of the same premise. RTS, FPS, MMORPG, etc. Seems like some laziness, VS coming up with their own new concept and game style.

However - when it's a genre I like, there are no complaints from me, so I guess I am also a hypocrite. 😁

This is a good point, but I think it's pretty hard to come up with new genres. For me, it's more that within genres, they tend to do the same thing. Even if they don't due much different with the gameplay mechanics, the same settings and themes are used over and over. RPGs are a perfect example, as probably over 95% of the traditional RPGs have been set in a medieval europe fantasy setting. I'd love to see some more in science fiction or other settings.

In contrast to what you said, you might get more innovation by going back to more traditional genres and sticking within the boundaries. Many modern games incorporate the same elements of multiple genres. For example, most RPGs that come out today have first or third person realtime combat, and in some ways are closer to FPSes than the classic CRPGs from the 80s and 90s. The main reason they are called RPGs is because they include levelling up.

Out of curiosity, are there any unexplored genres that you can think of that you'd like to see?

After completing the original Halo CE for PC a few times, I bought the Master Chief collection on Steam and I just completed the remastered version. It's interesting how they changed so many minor details - it's both easier and harder than the original, but the new graphics and sound effects are nice. I played both on Normal, but I died more often on the new version because of the differences. The Library was noticeably easier since it's well lit when compared to the original. I need quite a bit more practice before I try moving beyond normal difficulty.

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-11-13, 02:55:

clueless1 wrote on 2022-11-12, 12:42:

I'm trying out The Bard's Tale Trilogy remaster. So far I'm really digging the character creation. I'm kind of excited about this one. I think it might be right up my alley (Wiz6ish?). I love the built-in manual. It's very comprehensive! I have not started playing, but rolling several characters and then going to pick which ones I want to keep.

I'm glad to see you're giving this one a try! I had a fun time playing through all three games back in 2019/2020. The games aren't very "grindy" in the sense of forcing you to run around leveling just to make progress, but there is a lot of a combat (with a lot of enemies) and not much depth to the battle system.

The second and third game require you to have a certain class in your party to actually make progress in them, and while it's possible to get around that by changing classes or just creating a new character when needed, you may want to look up some information online on how best to plan out your party if you want to use the same party throughout all three games.

Do you remember what your party make-up ended up being? Did you pick a rogue from the start, or add one at BT3? I'm thinking of starting with a rogue and keeping them all the way through, even though they are apparently a weak class in this game. It might be fun from a role-playing perspective.

clueless1 wrote on 2022-11-13, 11:34:

Do you remember what your party make-up ended up being? Did you pick a rogue from the start, or add one at BT3? I'm thinking of starting with a rogue and keeping them all the way through, even though they are apparently a weak class in this game. It might be fun from a role-playing perspective.

I do remember my party make-up:

• Paladin
• Hunter -> Geomancer (BT3)
• Bard
• Rogue
• Conjurer -> Archmage (BT2) -> Chronomancer (BT3)
• Magician -> Archmage (BT2)

Rogues are definitely pretty weak, but so are Hunters and Monks, so if you want to go with a Rogue through all three games, there's no reason not to imo. A Paladin is good to have in the first spot because he gives a bonus to saving throws for the whole party.

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-11-13, 11:49:

I do remember my party make-up: […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote on 2022-11-13, 11:34:

Do you remember what your party make-up ended up being? Did you pick a rogue from the start, or add one at BT3? I'm thinking of starting with a rogue and keeping them all the way through, even though they are apparently a weak class in this game. It might be fun from a role-playing perspective.

I do remember my party make-up:

• Paladin
• Hunter -> Geomancer (BT3)
• Bard
• Rogue
• Conjurer -> Archmage (BT2) -> Chronomancer (BT3)
• Magician -> Archmage (BT2)

Rogues are definitely pretty weak, but so are Hunters and Monks, so if you want to go with a Rogue through all three games, there's no reason not to imo. A Paladin is good to have in the first spot because he gives a bonus to saving throws for the whole party.

Thanks. I've got all my characters created, just deciding who to bring along. Either:

Paladin, Warrior, Monk, Bard
Rogue, Conjurer, Magician

or (remove Warrior to leave 7th slot open)

Paladin, Monk, Bard, Rogue
Conjurer, Magician

I like the idea of having the Rogue in the back rank, but know everyone will get slightly less XP per combat with 7 party members. Plus, not sure how important it is to keep the 7th slot open for summons or monsters. Thoughts?

I'm too attached to the Monk character to consider dismissing them over the Warrior.

clueless1 wrote on 2022-11-13, 12:24:

Thanks. I've got all my characters created, just deciding who to bring along. Either: […]
Show full quote

Thanks. I've got all my characters created, just deciding who to bring along. Either:

Paladin, Warrior, Monk, Bard
Rogue, Conjurer, Magician

or (remove Warrior to leave 7th slot open)

Paladin, Monk, Bard, Rogue
Conjurer, Magician

I like the idea of having the Rogue in the back rank, but know everyone will get slightly less XP per combat with 7 party members. Plus, not sure how important it is to keep the 7th slot open for summons or monsters. Thoughts?

I'm too attached to the Monk character to consider dismissing them over the Warrior.

Personally, I would recommend against a seven-character party, because summons/monsters are a huge life-safer.

By the end of BT1 and throughout BT2/3, individual combat encounters are often against several large groups of enemies, many of them spellcasters. The high-level summoned monsters all have breath attacks they'll use if placed in the back row, which hit/kill all enemies in a single group. This frees up the rest of your party to focus on tougher individual monsters.

Having a free slot open also allows you to recruit random monsters, and these can be very helpful against tough bosses (stick the monster up front to soak up hits during the first round while you cast buffing spells, etc.).

As for party composition,
Paladin, Monk, Bard, Rogue
Conjurer, Magician
would work fine I think. Honestly, as long as you have a Paladin (for saving throw bonuses), Bard (songs are VERY useful), Conjurer, and Magician, you can go with anything in the other two slots imo. It's just nice to have a rogue from the beginning, since you need him to beat BT3.

@newtmonkey - I did go with the 6 player party we talked about. So far, so good. I'm really enjoying this one. About 4 hours in and my characters are close to level 4. I realized pretty quick that night battles are much tougher, and learned to stick close to The Adventurer's Guild, just hopping in and out of shops to find easy battles. Combat-wise, it really reminds me of Wizardry 6. The graphics are charming, and all the rest of the QoL features. It's a good thing you accumulate so much gold so quickly, as I've had to spend 450 pcs each time one of my party is afflicted with Wither Strike (OLD status that can only be healed at the Temples for a hefty sum). Still early on, but this is way more my speed than Ultima VI was.