Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 5:48 pm
What you thought of the hook: Having the Marquis turn up was a nice turn of events. The whole "Icon of Ezra" thing went bad and then good (for the moment) much faster than I expected. It was very "get a clue, proceed to X" at certain points, but that's almost unavoidable, so it's not worth worrying over.
...the pace: It was fine.
...the direction: Do we have a direction? Other than "do stuff for the Marquis"? I don't think we know enough yet to strike out on our own...not that we necessarily do much striking out on our own, anyway.
...the cutscenes: The newspaper articles are pretty boss. I like the production values, and it's a nice way of giving clues and communicating flavor.
And, if it is not clear already, I am having waaaaayyyy too much fun with Hazlan, the Isfahanis, etc. etc.
...the surprising and/or shiny spectacles: I like the maps. Cedolin turning up as he did was sad and scary; Poincare turning up as she did was a great "I TOTALLY SAW THIS COMING! kinda" moment. The first appearance of the Marquis was well played.
...the NPCs, their involvement and their characterizations (etc): I like Richard. He's cool.
Bastion Pineau is creepy. Actually, lots of people are creepy. The Marquis, Not-Cedolin, Poincare, all creepy.
Combat - 2 RT
What you thought of the pace of the first combat: Pace was fine; we didn't have any doldrums to speak of.
...of the difficulty: Fine. On the challenging side, but some fights are.
...of the tactics and strategies involved: It was kinda nifty to have us divided at the start, although that might work better in terms of balance in a fight where there's no solo monster involved, since solo monster tends to chew up whoever got isolated with him pretty good. The mirror-zone thing seemed to end up playing less of a part than I thought it would at combat start, not sure why. The "teleport someone into the hall and everybody shoots him" was pretty brutal as a tactic; I wouldn't go so far as to say "unfair", but it certainly was miserable to be the unfortunate guy whose number was called that way.
From a personal point of view it was pretty annoying to discover that my controller-ish abilities were mostly not that useful because...well, the turrets couldn't move anyway, so what did they care? But, again, sometimes fights are under conditions that aren't well adapted to one's abilities, and that's fine.
What you thought of the pace of the second combat: A little slow in the middle, but not too bad.
...of the difficulty: It was a pretty stiff challenge, especially considering that we had used dailies and action points; if the cultists had been willing to stand their ground it could have gotten pretty hairy. (FWIW, I am not fundamentally opposed to fights that are intended to be "too hard to handle" (the Empire attacking the base on Hoth), as long as we know that some fights will be like that and can get enough information to figure out which ones they are before our being ground to hamburger becomes inevitable.)
...of the tactics and strategies involved: Having to attack artillery across difficult terrain is no one's idea of a good time. It might have worked better to try to make them attack us, if they would have actually done that, but since they could just come into long range and then fired on us until we came forward, then retreated as we advanced...it was probably unavoidable. It was almost certainly a tactical mistake on my part to break ranks and zoom to the front, but given that we didn't know they were krazy long-range fighters and Darius' disposition, I guess those are just the breaks. And, again, no matter what we were faced crossing difficult terrain against artillery, so advancing together would have spread the misery out better but not necessarily lessened it overall.
General - 2 RT
What you enjoyed: Fighting. The investigation scene where C&D do their "weird twin communication" thing. The boatman almost scamming us out of 40 gold. Marquis weirdness.
What you want to see improved (and how): No recommendations at this time.
Any other comments: I do not want to rain on anyone's parade, but...I think we have a bit too much "silly fighting" going on. I mean, Celeste is Celeste, bless her oblivious cotton socks, and that's fine, but then we have Agale using the "long psionic arm of the law" and Cerise doing...whatever Cerise does, and it gets to be a bit much, to my mind. YMMV! I dunno! And I don't want to spoil the fun, so if y'all are having a good time with it I will just play along.
...the pace: It was fine.
...the direction: Do we have a direction? Other than "do stuff for the Marquis"? I don't think we know enough yet to strike out on our own...not that we necessarily do much striking out on our own, anyway.
...the cutscenes: The newspaper articles are pretty boss. I like the production values, and it's a nice way of giving clues and communicating flavor.
And, if it is not clear already, I am having waaaaayyyy too much fun with Hazlan, the Isfahanis, etc. etc.
...the surprising and/or shiny spectacles: I like the maps.
Cedolin turning up as he did was sad and scary; Poincare turning up as she did was a great "I TOTALLY SAW THIS COMING! kinda" moment. The first appearance of the Marquis was well played....the NPCs, their involvement and their characterizations (etc): I like Richard. He's cool.
Bastion Pineau is creepy. Actually, lots of people are creepy. The Marquis, Not-Cedolin, Poincare, all creepy.
Combat - 2 RT
What you thought of the pace of the first combat: Pace was fine; we didn't have any doldrums to speak of.
...of the difficulty: Fine. On the challenging side, but some fights are.
...of the tactics and strategies involved: It was kinda nifty to have us divided at the start, although that might work better in terms of balance in a fight where there's no solo monster involved, since solo monster tends to chew up whoever got isolated with him pretty good. The mirror-zone thing seemed to end up playing less of a part than I thought it would at combat start, not sure why. The "teleport someone into the hall and everybody shoots him" was pretty brutal as a tactic; I wouldn't go so far as to say "unfair", but it certainly was miserable to be the unfortunate guy whose number was called that way.
From a personal point of view it was pretty annoying to discover that my controller-ish abilities were mostly not that useful because...well, the turrets couldn't move anyway, so what did they care? But, again, sometimes fights are under conditions that aren't well adapted to one's abilities, and that's fine.
What you thought of the pace of the second combat: A little slow in the middle, but not too bad.
...of the difficulty: It was a pretty stiff challenge, especially considering that we had used dailies and action points; if the cultists had been willing to stand their ground it could have gotten pretty hairy. (FWIW, I am not fundamentally opposed to fights that are intended to be "too hard to handle" (the Empire attacking the base on Hoth), as long as we know that some fights will be like that and can get enough information to figure out which ones they are before our being ground to hamburger becomes inevitable.)
...of the tactics and strategies involved: Having to attack artillery across difficult terrain is no one's idea of a good time. It might have worked better to try to make them attack us, if they would have actually done that, but since they could just come into long range and then fired on us until we came forward, then retreated as we advanced...it was probably unavoidable. It was almost certainly a tactical mistake on my part to break ranks and zoom to the front, but given that we didn't know they were krazy long-range fighters and Darius' disposition, I guess those are just the breaks. And, again, no matter what we were faced crossing difficult terrain against artillery, so advancing together would have spread the misery out better but not necessarily lessened it overall.
General - 2 RT
What you enjoyed: Fighting. The investigation scene where C&D do their "weird twin communication" thing. The boatman almost scamming us out of 40 gold. Marquis weirdness.
What you want to see improved (and how): No recommendations at this time.
Any other comments: I do not want to rain on anyone's parade, but...I think we have a bit too much "silly fighting" going on. I mean, Celeste is Celeste, bless her oblivious cotton socks, and that's fine, but then we have Agale using the "long psionic arm of the law" and Cerise doing...whatever Cerise does, and it gets to be a bit much, to my mind. YMMV! I dunno! And I don't want to spoil the fun, so if y'all are having a good time with it I will just play along.
Some of us have played that game before.
