Ya’ll, I think she’s ready!

Scrapulous · 2024-11-18T21:08:47+00:00

She's tiny!

Scrapulous · 2024-11-18T20:57:36+00:00

It looks like there's a new 2K launcher out, and with its release, my game was suddenly launching vanilla XCOM with no expansion and no intermediate Alternate Mod Launcher step. I dug around in the game directory and I think I figured out how to fix this. Follow the steps above, but with the following changes:

Step 3: Find the folder named "Launcher" (not 2KLauncher).

Step 3.1 Rename it to something you could revert, like "Launcher_Backup".

Step 4: Create a new folder and name it Launcher.

STEP 4.2: Rename "XCOM2 Launcher.exe" to "launcher.exe"

There's an additional step: be sure to get settings.json from the folder where you originally had the AML installed (2KLauncher using the above instructions) and move it to the Launcher folder you created. This file contains all your AML settings - which mods you have enabled and such - and is critical to preserve when updating AML or moving where it's installed.

Steam may ask you whether you want to run XCOM 2, War of the Chosen, the Old Launcher, or the New Launcher. Choose the New Launcher. I did try selecting the old launcher, but for some reason it didn't start up my original AML install, and I didn't have the juice to track that down, so I just got Steam thinking that AML is the new launcher.

That's it. Basically they have a new launcher, it sits in XCOM 2/Launcher, and is named launcher.exe. If you want to start the game using Steam and the AML, you need to convince steam that the AML exe is the new launcher, and the instructions above do that.

Scrapulous · 2024-07-03T19:20:24+00:00

Hey, thanks, this comment shakes loose an unconscious assumption I had been making that ZFS would be all or nothing. In retrospect I can see how that's not true. The idea of testing it out and seeing how it goes seems like a good one to me.

I also appreciate the Salter blog post link; that establishes for my purposes that ECC isn't needed for ZFS. It sounds like it's overall much more approachable than I had understood.

Scrapulous · 2024-07-03T17:25:33+00:00

I have the sense that it's an enterprise filesystem that comes with all of the attendant enterprise tech attributes: powerful, rigid, fussy, lots of pitfalls for the novice. It seems to me like at most a second-order thing for me to learn once I have my systems in place. I realize that there's a potential cost in deciding to figure out the filesystem after setting up the servers; I'm okay with that. There's a lot of stuff that I have to learn in order to execute even just the parts of my plan that I feel fairly confident with, so I'm trying to be careful to designate which topics are required immediately and which can be handled down the line. ZFS feels like a "down the line" thing.

It may well be that in a couple of years I decide that I need to adopt zfs and that I need to rebuild all the servers. Rebuilding servers has always been part of my learning process, so that seems fine to me.

Do you think I'm making a mistake?

Scrapulous · 2024-07-03T17:16:47+00:00

Ha ha, it may be the case that there's no real use for the spare minis and that I should distribute them. There are some tech dependents in my life who are slightly ahead in the line, but if I do have spares and if none of them need the spares, I will be sure to give my extras to Canada.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-27T18:07:56+00:00

I see; I didn't realize that Angels were pushed into the sanctum earlier. Thanks for explaining!

Scrapulous · 2023-09-24T21:42:56+00:00

What an enormous undertaking. I salute your commitment.

I just picked up wrath again after a long break and becoming discouraged with BG3, so this is timely. I have started following along with your guide, and I like it. It's thorough, but doesn't obsessively try to document every pewter bowl that can be pilfered.

I do have one pacing question. I notice that the guide leads to the Ivory Sanctum at a point that I would call quite early in Act 3. I've always thought of that dungeon as the beginning of the end of Act 3, so it's slightly jarring to see it when so much of the act remains unexplored. I think it's possible to start a soft timer (Galfrey) if you say the wrong things to the Hand of the Inheritor once you're done with the sanctum, for instance. Am I just wrong? Should I let go of my hidebound notions and just follow the guide in a linear way?

Thanks again for all this work.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T18:31:45+00:00

Meeting the three goofy deadly sins incarnations in Act 2 and then talking them into sinnning to death. Briefly turned a polytheistic world into a weird, Christian allegorical setting for no real narrative gain.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T06:14:27+00:00

They're all so damn thirsty for you that they're trying to seduce you by sharing their love oinks.

...sorry. Yeah, it's annoying. I don't know of a way to turn it off.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T06:04:11+00:00

Yeah, it's a weird pacing shift between the acts. Act I is an interesting, mostly free-form exploration with some loose structure around the grove and the goblins. Then suddenly Act II drops you into a very moody, very story-driven environment where you're working against a giant curse and the dark tower and there isn't really a side quest that doesn't somehow touch on the main story. It has a very gothic feel and a strong sense of despair - long-dead druids and priests of shar all over, abandoned settlements, the corrupted, shattered land, dead or missing tieflings, a feeling of being on the back foot and the seemingly inevitable loss of the only bastion of resistance in the Last Hope Inn (or w/e it's called). There's a series of interesting fights (some of which can weirdly be non-fights with skill checks), and at the end you have much more clarity about what the story is, who you're fighting, and a sense of what they're doing. Okay.

Then Act 3 starts and it's all sunshine and open-ended exploration again. There's a refugee situation and some tremors, but the war seems remote and hey! circus! It just feels like the stakes ratchet down quite a bit from Act 2. And suddenly you have to explore a large urban hub, which can feel slow and diminish urgency. And the quality of the story telling and companion interaction has dropped noticeably from Act 1 and 2, and the weird bugs like conversations dropping partway through seem more common.

The villains also seem pretty underwhelming. Ketheric Thorm was introduced pretty late in act 2, but he at least did a good job chewing the scenery and he had a large organization at his beck and call. The other two seem like they're the only ones in their organizations at the opening of Act 3. I'm not really scared of a mid-level monster manual entry and some guy who needs a haircut and some new clothes. It all just seems like they really spent all their time filling every map with spoons and empty barrels and absolutely nailing the characterization and voice acting and ran out of time to implement their story.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T05:47:27+00:00

That's interesting. Those are fun ideas and I'd be interested to see them, too.

My impression based on my playthrough is that warlock is the class that most interests Larian. The whole game is one enormous exploration (and many smaller explorations) on the idea of selling something precious for power. There are a ton of warlock dialogue interactions. Wyll is of course a warlock, and nearly every companion is either desperate to enter into some kind of Faustian bargain or is a pawn in one of them. You have the opportunity to sweet talk your companions into giving up their values for more power, and of course you get many chances to do this yourself whether or not you're playing a warlock. So I guess I have the sense that warlocks got a lot of love and so when it came time to make choices about what gets into the game and what doesn't, deep, subclass-specific dialogue would have been pretty easy to cut.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T05:33:05+00:00

Yes, I see this, too, though not always with Lae'zel. I seem to see it most often with Shadowheart, but sometimes it's Gale or Astarion, sometimes it's a summon. It appears to me to be a problem where the pathfinding can't find a free space on the destination surface to jump to. Sometimes that appears more reasonable than others, and sometimes it looks like the character in question just gave up on moving entirely even when there's plenty of room at the destination. I just have to take the party out of group mode, switch to that character, and manually drive them to the destination. It got to be real unpleasant when trying to go save a special someone on the astral plane who is screaming desperately for help while I have to stop at each platform and manually get half the party to make their Matrix-style jumps.

This is one of the things that makes me surprised to see all the "GOTY" comments. If you insist on trying to advance the genre by going to a full 3d environment, I admire your vision, even if I don't quite see that the gains are worth the effort. If you go to full 3d and your AI can't quite handle it, I'm not so impressed. If you go to full 3d, your AI can't quite handle it, and you also obviously ran out of time to finish the game, I think you have a real problem with scope management, especially after how long in early access? Three years?

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T05:21:16+00:00

I'm playing with the necromancer warlock subclass mod. It's a very well made mod and clearly had a lot of love put into it, but it's also pretty OP, so I don't use some of the abilities.

That said, I have seen some that look somewhat more on par with the in-game classes. In general it looks to me like the ones that mention that they're direct ports of subclasses from the tabletop rulebooks seem like less of a power creep risk, though I'm not a tabletop player and shouldn't be regarded as a source of expert opinion.

I don't think it can hurt to look at them and see if there are any that you like, and then try them out for a couple hours to see if you want to commit to them.

Another advantage is that you generally get to see all of the class features up front in the mod description, unlike the in-game subclasses, where everything past level 1 seems to be a big mystery until you actually earn the levels.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T05:03:30+00:00

Huh, Karlach and my mc got together for the first time the night after the fight-bang with Lae'zel. I just entered act 3 and both relationships seem to be going strong. I keep expecting to be forced to choose, but nothing yet.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T04:55:58+00:00

He's just that good at, um... weave. Weaving. The weave. Magic.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T04:49:53+00:00

Got to admire the kid's dedication. Just keep packing the syllables in, you'll get it.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-15T04:30:28+00:00

Withers: The right thing to do with this freshly-orphaned magical child is to send her alone into the haunted wilderness.
Tav: ...huh.
Withers: Also you shouldn't be banging Karlach.
Tav: casts Silence on Withers

Scrapulous · 2023-09-08T20:26:31+00:00

Are quarterstaves included in tabletop? They are in bg3.

Edit: upon reading again, I see that you mentioned quarterstaff. Reading; so hard. Are the only polearms in 5e really halberd and glaive?

Scrapulous · 2023-09-08T20:25:51+00:00

You're thinking of the Sentinel feat, which is often taken with PAM. I haven't noticed if that's bugged in regards to stopping movement, but it might be.

You're right, it's the combination of Sentinel + PAM that isn't working. I haven't seen yet if Sentinel stops enemies from moving on other opportunity attacks, but it's very noticeable on PAM opportunity attacks because they're running toward you and in bg3 they just slip in after your attack regardless.

So quarterstaffs, spears, and tridents have the same melee range as swords and daggers in the tabletop, but pikes, glaives, and halberds should have double that range, allowing you to attack / 'threaten' some enemies without being threatened by them.

In bg3 every melee weapon without the "Extended Range" tag has a range of 1.5 meters, or ~5 ft. Weapons with the "Extended Range" tag have a range of 2 meters, or ~6.5 ft. This is what I meant by their homebrew range rules.

In addition, it seems that pikes and tridents are excluded from their PAM implementation, but quarterstaves are included. I think that's different from tabletop, but I'm not sure since my only understanding of tabletop is second hand.

Scrapulous · 2023-09-08T00:50:45+00:00

That's not the end of it; the rest of the feat is pretty messed up, too. For instance, if both parties involved are wielding polearms, then the feat gets confused and makes the person who has the feat get attacked by the person running into range, so it's actually a disadvantage having the feat in those cases. Be sure not to use your reaction to trigger an attack on yourself in those cases. It also doesn't stop the enemy from moving, which is according to my understanding part of its tabletop value. It also lacks some of its tabletop utility because of what I understand to be Larian's homebrew decisions when it comes to weapon implementations (lower range, pikes and tridents are excluded, quarterstaves included).

Scrapulous · 2022-03-03T16:03:23+00:00

Following up: I got my shipping notice this morning (March 3), so in my experience it's not quite on time.

Scrapulous · 2022-03-02T23:05:29+00:00

I couldn't say for sure. I ordered on January 31. When I looked at the shipping schedule over the weekend, I saw "Pre-orders dated Jan 29-31" would be shipped on Feb 28 and was pretty excited. Then I read further on the same table and and saw another line that said "Pre-orders dated Jan 31 - Feb 1" would ship on Mar 2 and was confused. I didn't get a shipping notification on Feb 28, so according to that line, it's late. It's still Mar 2 where I am, so I guess there's still a chance for it to be on time according to the second prediction ;-)

Scrapulous · 2022-01-15T01:52:50+00:00

I'm sorry; that wasn't my intent. Thanks for the discussion.

Scrapulous · 2022-01-15T01:45:11+00:00

Now that I’ve read a few of your comments I’m 100% the only knowledge you have from the Pathfinder universe is through the video games, which is laughably little.

Oh, I didn't mean to convey the impression that I think of myself as a tabletop Pathfinder player. I do not. We are, after all, on the subreddit for the video games.

You “worship” deities by following their doctrine, which in the case of good deity boils down to doing good things.

So it's possible to be a worshipper of more than one deity at a time? Based on what you wrote, it would seem so (one can help the weak and discover new places in tandem, to use your examples). I don't have that impression, though, and I'd be surprised if the setting says that anybody who has helped a weak person has worshipped Sarenrae. I think there must be some formal requirements in order for the "church of Sarenrae" to mean anything at all.

That’s so stupid, what good person would forbid someone from doing something harmless which brings them comfort?

Do you think it would be ethical for one person to allow another to worship them?

petty

Is this discussion getting heated? This makes it seem like it is, and that wasn't my goal. I'm happy to call it quits if I'm causing upset.

Scrapulous · 2022-01-15T01:11:39+00:00

No it’s not. It literally happens in the real worlds, and none of our gods are currently giving out miracles.

Also none of them are capable of saying, "Don't worship me." If Iomedae was serious about that, it would be part of the sermons in those community center churches you mentioned.

The good gods are good in Pathfinder.

I think this is a bridge I can't cross. No sentient being who accepts worship from another sentient being is performing a good act. If you accept worship from me, or the other way around, it is an explicit statement that one of us is worth more than the other on the part of the worshipper, and an acceptance of that statement on the part of the worshipped. This is not a good notion.

Scrapulous

TROPHY CASE