Resonance of Fate - Combat 101

So, Resonance of Fate, and the crazy crazy combat system. In this quick guide, I'm going to talk simply about the very basic attacks - hero attacks and tri attacks. I'm assuming you've done the basic training in the Arena, so you understand the basic concepts. If you haven't done the training (and I only found it after 50 hours of play), go to the Arena, then head to the entrance door, and go left. There's a guy hiding under a girder, who does the basic concept training.

So, first things first. Guns?
Guns and Damage Types
There's really no wrong setup here. You'll start the game with 2 handguns, and 1 machinegun. Later on, you can dual-wield if you like. I've found success with most loadouts, so do what works for you.
I've tried one person with dual machine guns, and 2 handgunners, and also 2 machine gunners going solo, with a dual handgunner.
One thing worth noting - you probably want to keep someone equipped with the first aid kit - just in case -access to escape hexes is never a bad thing.

I'm hoping you understand scratch damage vs direct damage. If not, leave a comment, and I'll do a separate post, but the training should cover it. Which takes us to tactics.

Party order
First, you'll want to go to the character screen and hit (x). This will let you rearrange your party. Put the machine gunner(s) at the top.

For most enemies, you should find you can beat them in under 4 attacks with the following method. Some bosses require a slightly different approach, but this should keep you going. Before each attack, you want to jump, to ensure that damage is spread across the enemy's parts.
Also, note that you can change targets mid-hero attack by using the D-Pad. This is essential.

1. Run player one back left with a hero attack. Depending on your level, you should be able to get at least one complete bar emptied. Once you've done this, you can switch targets using the dpad, and try to run down another.
• Res points: 1
2. Step 2: Run player 2 to the back right. Charge one bar on the fully depleted enemy that your gunner has attacked, and kill it. For the second, pick someone you want to gauge break (stun), and get the biggest charge you can.
• Res points: 2
3. Step 3: Run player 3 straight to the back. Gauge break the toughest foe.
• Res points: 3
4. Step 4: Run player 3 back to the starting position. Gauge break the toughest foe.
• Res points: 4
5. Step 5: Tri-attack. Make sure you've selected the machine gunner as your lead character. Go for maximum charge on each pass. You might need to occasionally change target to make sure you're attack someone you're running towards, and not away from.
6. For most packs of enemies, that's it. You're done.

In fact, for ever weaker/smaller groups, you can run your MGer front and left, and your second guy front right, and then just start a tri-attack.

Extending your run

Normally, you just run to your destination. Or you jump. You can extend the time spent charging by running for the majority of the path, and then jumping right at the last moment.

Changing targets

When attacking, you can change target with the d-pad. This means, if you've got a very strong machine gunner (or gun), you can reduce many targets to zero in a single hero attack. Using the method above, you might run towards two targets. On the 'run' part, you charge that attack, hit 'a', and do your damage. Then, hit 'x' to jump, push left or right on the d-pad to change targets, and get another big charge on a secondary target.

The next gunner to attack can potentially kill 2 people in a single run, and break the gauge of a third.

Gauge Breaking

The exact method of gauge breaking is a little unclear. Your guns have a gauge break value, but I'm not clear what this does. It seems that you multiply the direct damage you do by the gauge break multiplier from your charge, and if this equals 100% of the creature's health, you break the gauge.

Regardless, a full charge with dual handguns will generally break an enemy pretty effectively.

The reason for gauge breaking is two-fold.

1) It stuns them, meaning they're less likely to attack next round.

2) You earn more bezels, which are key. If you've broken the gauge into 3 parts, say, then killing the enemy will earn 3 bezels instead of just one. Most enemies break to 6 individual parts. Some bosses will break less.

Well, that's all there really is. Get creative. Enjoy.

Resonance of Fate - first thoughts

I was in Estonia last week, which is a pretty cool place. Although I was there for a very short time, Tallinn struck me as a cross between Helsinki and Prague. I hope no-one's offended by that. But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

On thursday, I had 2 conferences and a flight, and as I left the house in the morning, I saw that the postman had delivered Resonance of Fate. So, I glared at it, and tried to put it out of my mind, knowing that I wouldn't have a chance to play it until I got back. But get back I did, late friday night, thanks to various planes being broken and rescheduled. And I popped it in. What a game.

There's no gentle introduction to the characters. There's no background story on why these 3 are together. But, as time goes on, their friendship becomes clear, and the cutscenes are both well written and well acted, for the most part. I find myself chortling along with many of them, which is quite refreshing. In the first hour or so, the stereotypes are out. Emo boy. Headstrong young man. Childish girl. I figured they were going to be extremely one-dimensional. But they're remarkably likeable.

The actual maps that you explore outside of combat are probably quite beautiful, but I think they've been designed for a 60 inch TV screen. On my measly 40 inch screen, it's pretty hard to pick out details. Maybe I should just sit closer.

But, exploring is only a very small part of the game. The world map is nicely done - you have various shaped hexes you have to fit into the world to explore - you can either just plot the fastest line to each destination, or (if like me you have a bit of the old OCD), you can completely cover each level - which gives you some treasure and a one-way quick travel system (if you totally cover a level). The advantage of the hex system is that you can plan in detail and use the minimum hexes required, or just grind for extra parts and lay them down any old how. It's pleasing, and a nice distraction.

But, onto the combat. The combat starts without any tutorials (unless I missed something, which is entirely possible). But there's a pretty comprehensive in-game manual. The problem (if it is a problem) is that because it's a way of fighting that I've never seen before, the terms quickly became overwhelming in the abstract. That is, there's talk of hero attacks, bezels, tri-attacks, scratch damage, direct damage, knockdowns and so forth.
So, I started slowly. First, just killed a couple of monsters with the standard attack. Then started to understand scratch damage. Then started using hero attacks. Then realised I could jump. Then realised I could air-juggle. Then realised I could switch targets in a single attack. Then started to understand weapons charging (direct damage doesn't increase with charges, scratch damage does) Then realised how tri-attacks work. Then realised how to make them awesome. Then started upgrading weapons with custom parts. Then I learnt about body parts properly. And gauge breaks (although I still don't totally get them). And I've just started playing with double-wielding.

I'm going to write a more in-depth section on the combat, since I haven't managed to find any great sites online yet (I imagine most people are playing final fantasy, for example). But, I've been playing just over 40 hours now (although at least 10 of those are from leaving it on overnight), and almost every time I fight, I find some new nuance to the combat system.

One quick word about the custom parts - they're awesome. Sweet crafting and upgrade system for your guns (I just fitted my third barrel to a gun....)

So, currently, I'm very much enjoying it. Lightly amusing cut-scenes. Pleasing world. Neat exploration mechanic. Cool combat that not only plays nicely, but looks really cool.
Downsides: the town scenes seem a bit last-gen, and some of the lower-level random encounters can start to seem a little repetitive (but you can buy an accessory to remove the chance of these, or just run).

So, yes, on the whole, a good game. If you like RPGs that focus on numbers, this is for you.



In the video above, standard attacks at the beginning. Hero attacks start at around 1.35 and there's a (pretty poor) tri-attack at around 2.30

Dwight David Honeycutt is ace

A friend just sent me this. I still can't work out if it's real or not.
But it IS awesome.

G-Nigeria.

I'm in Nigeria for the g-nigeria event. People are tweeting right now about it, so get stuck in using the #gnigeria tag if you want to take part.

You can always browse the archives, too.

If you want to download the presentations from the event, please visit the main website. We will link the presentations from the agenda pages.

As always, contact africadeveloper@gmail.com if you have any questions.

The Lion Man

Not sure how many, if any of you, watch the Lion Man on Sky (at least, it's Sky in the UK).
This dude, Craig Busch (tee hee) runs a wildlife sanctuary for big cats. He also seems to keep a bunch of deer, but they're never mentioned, so I can only assume they're only there for catfood.

Anyway, he has bengal tigers, white tigers, white lions, barbary lions, and some other cats too.
You can learn more about them at the Zion Park website.

The baby tigers are ridiculously cute (I just grabbed this pic of the 'nets).

Anyway, at the of an episode, it said 'dedicated to Dalu', so I wondered what happened. turns out, he was mauled by a tiger and killed. But that's not all. Craig's mum was bought in a couple of years back to refinance the park, and soon after, sacked Craig. Weird.

Full story is over at Wikianswers. One of those "too strange to make it up" ones.

Quick side by side DA:O comparison

Gamespot have kindly put together a comparison of the graphics for DA:O across PS3/Xbox/PC.

It's actually a little misleading, because they've restricted the PC to 720p, which seems completely pointless. Why would you set it lower than necessary? I run it at 1920x1200, 8x anti aliasing, with everything else set at max. (I've got a fairly kick-ass graphics card)

I've been a bit naughty, and stolen a couple of images, but it shows the key differences. The PC version adds better textures (note the sacks) and also extra elements (note the chest). But check out the full article over at Gamespot for more info and details.
http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6239466/index.html

Dragon Age: Origins

Man alive. This game makes me shout and yell and want to break things. The AI is incredibly dumb.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

If I can use a simile (or maybe a metaphor, I can never tell) for a moment, If Dragon Age were a trading card game, Origins would be a starter pack. DLC is booster packs, and things like Awakenings are expansion packs. It's pretty clumsy, I know, but there we are.

So, they've essentially built a core world with a pretty decent game engine, pretty graphics and so forth, and they've got grand plans to release DLC for the next 2 years or so, to supplement it. Now, if they get it right, it could be awesome. If they balls it up, well, then so be it. So far, though, it's looking good. Ish.

First things first, what are the bad points? Well, the cut/speaking scenes are pretty bland. People just stand and stare. And the eyes are pretty lifeless. Voice acting is not great. They conjured up a bunch of pretty impressive voice talent, including Commander Janeway from Voyager, Claudia Black (who's turning up everywhere these days), Tim Curry and more. But it's like they've asked them to deliver everything as blandly as possible. Which is weird, because they all do fantastic jobs in other games.
Plus, there's this dude: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004718/
He used to be on Grange Hill. I always liked him. Except that his voice is SO distinctive that it annoys me. I don't know why.

I should point out that I'm playing on PC. And here's why. I hear that combat is pretty rubbish on consoles. Also, the graphics are miserable/washed out/low quality. Plus, no mouse. Having played the PC version quite a bit, I now understand that the console would be terrible. The ability to spin the mousewheel and get a tactical overview of combat is essential. You can't do this in the console. Ergo, the console version is not good.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. It's called 'Origins' for a reason. Depending on your class (rogue, warrior, mage) and race (elf//dwarf/human), you'll get a wildly different starting game. If you're anything like me, and like to poke in every dank corner of every map, then this can give up to 15 hours of gameplay just for your character. If you're prepared to skip through many of the talking bits, you can probably halve that, and if you just want to get to the 'main game', it could probably be done in 4 or so. However, of all the talking bits, the "origin" parts seem to be the most interesting, and therefore worth the time. Later on, when you're talking to generic merchant 15, you'll be pushing that escape key often. Subtitles will help.

Also, amusingly, after combat, you get covered in blood. This can make for some (possibly unintentioanlly) hilarious cutscenes, as you trade pleasantries with a noble and yet you're covered in blood. I can't find a good picture right now, so I'll grab a screenshot later, but here's a quick example of the general effect:


Each class has 4 specialisations (rogue can be bard, assassin, etc), and you'll meet some companions who cover off the main categories (bard, assassin, shapeshifter, warrior, etc) and, of course, a dog.
At any time, you can have 3 other people in your group, and they'll have different reactions to different things. Sten, the big tank, doesn't like it when you're nice. If you waste time being good, he'll get upset.

So, then, what about the combat? Well, it's a bit mixed. I don't want to ruin the story, but it shouldn't come as any great surprise that you're selected for greatness by a group called the Grey Wardens, who operate above the law, giving you the excuse you need to act however you like. However, the first warden you meet, Alistair, is a dick. And also not very good at fighting. So I was left thinking the combat mechanics were rubbish.

Until you leave the first village, Lothering, you're pretty much on rails, and stuck with Alistair for the majority of the time, which is disappointing. The dog makes a better tank, and the dog is crap. Maybe I was misusing him, and he's better for skirmishing the enemy, but given you can only take 4 people out, he seems like a complete waste of space. Anyway, mileage may vary. You might love him (but I bet you don't).

In fact, Alistair actually caused me to give up on this game initially. I was really really bored once I got to Lothering for the first time. I didn't really get where it was going, and it all seemed way too linear. A friend encouraged me to get back into it, and also grab the DLC to which I was entitled, and I'm glad he did. Once you get past Lothering, the game really opens up. More party members, more freedom to explore and so on.

Back to combat, though. It's good. I like a lot of the ideas they have. For example, skills/spells cost stamina/mana. So far, so good. But armour has a fatigue rating expressed as a percentage, which directly affects the cost of the ability. So if you're wearing around that gives you a total of 20% fatigue, and the ability would normally cost 10 points, it costs 12. It means you really do think about what armour to use, instead of just picking the thing with the highest protection.

And there are a bunch of skills which you can toggle on and off like, say, Powerful Swings, which does more damage per blow with two handed weapons, at the cost of accuracy and defence. However, they have a 'maintenance cost', meaning that to keep the mode active, you're always down some stamina points. It's clever, and I like it. It might exist elsewhere, but it's still well implemented. And you can often have multiple skills active (a mage might have shield and spell boost, for example).

Ok, so, seriously, combat. There are 'tactics', which let you set up some really quite complex actions. You have a bunch of objects, conditions and actions. So, you might say "when ally drops below 50% health, cast heal". Or "when in melee combat with more than 1 person, cast knockback". You get the idea. It's extremely comprehensive. Next, you'll be pausing. A lot. Which is no bad thing. But back to my starting point. The AI is bloody annoying. It quite often does what it wants, despite what you've told it. So, you might set up an archer to fire at someone, only to find they've been attacked in melee, switched to their sword, and not bothered to switch back. or you moved them somewhere, and now they're facing away from the battle, not targetting anyone. Or you move a mage out of the main ruck, and they run right back in and die. Of course, you can force them to hold position, but that's a group setting, meaning your melee characters won't advance to attack other targets without explicit instruction. Equally annoying. So, I spent a lot of screaming at the screen, because someone's just spent 30 seconds doing nothing as another party member dies.

In general, though, the combat flows really nicely. I never seem to have enough mana or stamina, but there are potions and mushrooms for that. I just stumbled across spell combinations, too, where you can combine two different spells for a bigger effect. I won't spoil anything for you, but there are some pretty sweet ones. It really encourages experimentation.

I'll be reviewing the DLC, since I can't find any decent reviews of it anywhere (by which I mean, sites other than IGN).

So, yeah, in general, a nice engine, suffering from some blandish character graphics, with a nice combat system, despite some AI weirdness. The story itself is pretty cool. And, if you get it on PC, a good few hours of distraction.

Here's a nice German video that gives a pretty decent overview of the combat, with subtitles.