RPG Tourist

 A while back I took myself to task for not engaging enough with Dragon Age Origins' tactical systems. I did a playthrough of Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age followed by a replay of Dragon Age Origins for comparison both on PC and I might have been a little hard on myself. Both games offer roughly similiar systems but Dragon Age introduces presets for roles and behaviours. This allows the player to rely on defaults and merely tweak the templates as needed or wished. Modified presets worked well for me most of the time. Some enemies required a custom setup but the default profiles seem to support players on lower difficulties effectively. I didn't seem to need to pay attention to cooldowns as much as I did with Dragon Age II. FFXII has no difficulty settings on the other hand. The tactics system is fairly bare boned when introduced. The player purchases gambits (conditions and actions) as required. Party roles are developed through the complex licensing system and behaviours ar

Sometime back in 2019 I started a Witcher 3 new game plus and managed to finish it just recently. Witcher 3 is tagged as an RPG and one of the greatest RPGs made at that. Sadly I didn't get it. I viewed it as an excellent action adventure featuring great story telling and immersive quests. Witcher 3 is one of the games that set me on this "what is an RPG anyway?" quest. This new game plus save is an attempt at a role play. I picked a combat style, ability branches and a character type for Geralt and tried to adhere to it. He wound up a hybrid combat/alchemy build of the cat school. This version of Geralt always bargained for cash and never turned down an opportunity for a game of Gwent, a drink or a tryst. He was often rude and impatient. He frequently took the easy way out unless an ally was involved. I read an article recently describing some narrative choices that Geralt just wouldn't make. I struggled myself with some of those choices and came to the same conclusi

 A decade later and I'm still annoyed about the armour cap. Not that it exists but that no where is it mentioned in the official documentation. It's common knowledge now and I suppose I should get over it but it's helpful to know when constructing a character. I just completed a fourth playthrough and the third attempt at a specific roleplay. I have always been intrigued enough with the vanilla versions of the game that I have only installed one mod. I suppose the temptation to create some warrior/blacksmith/enchanter whatever class that is will always be there. Especially since Bethesda eventually removed the level cap and made every perk attainable. Depending on armour choices it's even necessary to put some perks in the smithing tree if you want to improve it. There are some useful perks in the armour tree but boosting the rating beyond the cap is pointless if you are also crafting.  There are some other details that are good to know but that's the big one for me

  Fur   Glass   Stalhrim   Dragonscale   Nightingale   Skaal   Ancient Shrouded Cowl   Orish Scaled   Daedric Mail   Amber   Studded Dragonscale Staying warm in survival mode presents a new challenge for role players especially in the northernmost regions. Heavy armor is the easiest option. Steel armor with high warmth ratings appear as loot early and only requires one smithing skill point to craft. Glass is the earliest craftable light option. It requires 70 points to unlock the perk in the light smithing tree and becomes lootable at around level 36.  Early game light armor builds need to either wear heavy armor or stick around warmer areas of the map until some warm light sets can be acquired. I've included here a list of the warmest light armors that I am aware of with screenshots of the sets that I have acquired. The maximum equipment warmth stats that I have seen are 54 for body armor, 29 for helmets and 24 for boots and gauntlets. There doesn't seem to be a penalty for be

 The anniversary edition adds a number of Creation Club player homes designed to enhance role play. Because survival mode removes most forms of fast travel some of these homes are unfortunately less than convenient. This is a subjective list of homes I found useful. It assumes players have all Creation Club content installed but I include non CC options as well.  Shadowfoot Sanctum This Creation Club home is my personal favourite but my character for this run is a dual dagger wielding thief/assassin. Located in the Ratway in Riften, it offers full amenities including a smelter which the Riften blacksmith lacks and easy access in and out. The hired carriage is close by. Riften is a fishing town which means lots of food and salt pile for the scrounging. It's fully furnished at 7500 gold which makes it cheaper than upgrading Riften city home Honeyside. Players can make use of a free bed and a cooking pot at the boarding house while saving gold for the purchase. On the downside, Riften

 December was a very slow month for me and January is looking even slower. Nine days in to 2022 and I'm just getting around to this. It's a short list because I only played four games actually released last year. First up The Signal State for PC, a modular synthesizer logic puzzle game. I got halfway through and then became stuck on a puzzle so basic that no one had posted a solution to it. I'm hoping to return once I have completely forgotten anything about the game and just magically solve the puzzle. Then it was Lost in Random for PS4, a game I wrote off as being very clever.  Lost in Random (review) I had no intention of getting Far Cry 6 but gave in after seeing so many Twitter folks having fun with it. Of course they all posted their trophies/achievements and moved on while I was still saying "Hey Chorizo. Let's see what's on the top of THIS mountain."  Far Cry 6 - Fun and Terrible All at the Same Time Last but by no means least there is Guardians of