Midnight Suns

Got to day 3 I think last night. I spent way too long wandering around the grounds on day 2 before I could even fast travel. But I started the side quest with

Spoiler:

Agatha

and I couldn't help it.

That side mission was also my favorite battle so far. I managed to complete it in one turn! Much more like a puzzle game at times with card plays vs points vs extra actions vs redraws. The quick cards are huge. And your pet inflicts a status that refunds card plays on KO. And has another card that redraws on KO. So doggie can kill tons of the trash mobs with a decent draw.

2 free skins. Redeem codes in the in-game store.

Iron Man: 8M33HE9N5T4E
Spider-Man: 0HFITZMW8I

Didn't get a confirmation or anything but went to the list of items and it showed as "purchased" after entering codes.

IUMogg wrote:

The character moves too fast when walking around in third person in the Abbey. I feel like the character is a little out of control.

Oh yeah, that's another annoyance. I do not like the speed the character moves around at.

I'm also wondering if DLSS or FSR are actually implemented. If I turn Ray tracing on with either of those options fps goes from around 100-120 to 30 or below. Typically, I don't see anything like that unless DLSS is off. Will be interesting to see if Digital Foundry does a performance video and their findings.

Still loving the game otherwise.

I thought hunter moves too slow but I've been out wandering the grounds. Seems like it needs a run/walk toggle.

I'm stuck working, so have no way of checking, but on PC I'm pretty sure there are 3 speeds. A zoomed in walk at a slower speed, the normal speed, and then a faster run speed. And you also eventually get fast travel around the grounds.

Hold Left shift to run i think.

I am enjoying the comments. Glad to see my fears about vapid dialog were overblown. Probably will pick it up after the holidays. Still working through Shadow of Tomb Raider and Guardians of the Galaxy. Eidos of Montreal does damn good stories.

Picked it up.

Enjoying the combat. Will judge the lifestyle stull later but it will be tough as I just finished Persona 5 Royal and Lost Eidelons.

What are those two free skins from, Stele?

Robear wrote:

What are those two free skins from, Stele?

Iron Man was some cross promotional giveaway. Spider-Man was from official game twitter account. But people spread the code so you don't have to like/retweet on twitter if you don't want or have twitter.

I got them both off reddit, of course.

Thanks!

Got to the point where the game suggested I up the difficulty so I did. Boss fight next story mission. Had one teammate KO but was able to revive. Only 1 star at end of mission when I had gotten 2 or 3 every time. But the bonus gloss from higher difficulty was 40 and the loss from KO was only 10. I guess it works out? But but sure how much I want to keep pushing. Guess I'll look around for some math on if it is worth it

I'm honestly a bit surprised by how much I'm enjoying this. It's definitely not XCOM, but I didn't know how much I wanted combat that's pretty much Slay the Spire + Into the Breach. And the writing has been really enjoyable as well -- not at all what I would have expected out of Firaxis.

Stele wrote:

Got to the point where the game suggested I up the difficulty so I did. Boss fight next story mission. Had one teammate KO but was able to revive. Only 1 star at end of mission when I had gotten 2 or 3 every time. But the bonus gloss from higher difficulty was 40 and the loss from KO was only 10. I guess it works out? But but sure how much I want to keep pushing. Guess I'll look around for some math on if it is worth it

You must be much better than I am. I’m playing on normal difficulty and have played a decent amount, I think my heroes are around level 8. I’ve been mostly getting 1 star ratings. I’ve got a few 2’s. I’ve had multiple fights where heroes have been ko’ed. I’ve even had a few I failed. I’ve still been having a lot of fun with the combat.

Do you have tips to getting a little better?

This game reminds me how much I miss Marvel Heroes. Does anyone have an idea whether any company is looking to buy up that property and re-release it? Or develop something like it? Anything in the works?

Asking here because I figure the fan bases are fairly congruent, at least in content.

I think some heroes do best teamed up but my favorites that I am tryin g to build don't compliment each other so a lot of my missions are just me trying to make the best out of my hand.

I think my A team is blade and Nico With B team being Marvel and Magik.

I will continue to give everyone a a chance to go on missions so I get new cards but I think I will eventually fall back on my favorites.

IUMogg wrote:

Do you have tips to getting a little better?

Positioning is key. You can only move 1 hero per turn. But card attacks move them too. Can use this to set up next attack or just to get out of exploding enemy attacks.

Use environment attacks. I might do this too much because sometimes I didn't have points for my best cards heh. But sometimes after I played all my cards I threw a few blocks or blew up barrels to thin out enemies. There's one attack that slides an item across the floor and seems like it can damage 3 or 4 at a time if you line it up right. Sometimes it's good to take out enemies with cards who aren't near environment items so you can clear more with one turn.

Quick cards are your friends. As is marked status. Free card plays are awesome.

Don't forget to use your redraws. If I get a healing card first turn, redraw. If I get that "draw until you have 3 cards" I redraw it because I already have 6 in my hand. Maybe there's a synergy for that one but I haven't figured it out.

Use training for a hero you plan to take on that days mission. I have even went to check mission board first, saw who was required for the mission I wanted, and then went back to yard for training. One day I started a mission with 8 hero points already.

Preventing damage is more effective than healing it. Take out as many enemies, stun the big ones, taunt with a character that has block, etc. Personally Captain Marvel has been my favorite character. She's got knockback, block, taunt and that beam attack all at the start. Plus binary mode gives her more block. I've been able to absorb a lot of damage with her that might have KO other heroes.

Maybe leaning on Carol is why I'm so good hehe. But I did have 1 day she wasn't available for those missions you can send heroes on. And that day Nico was my star.

Also not sure if this is related. But the first research upgrade I did was to give you more for gamma after missions. So instead of 3 cards and choosing 1 you get 4 cards and choose 2. So putting more cards in my hand and upgrading more cards by combining. So in theory I have as many cards as I possibly could on day 6 or whatever I'm on.

But I only have one hero friendship leveled up to 1 (Carol of course). Yard is only leveled up to 1. Arcane skill or whatever from exploring the grounds is 1. I don't think I have overdone anything with those subsystems yet that would boost combat by too much.

All the reviews talk about petting the dog. I pet the cat one and all member of my team gain a level. Forget the dog, pet the cat.

Well they say pet both but I haven't found the damn cat yet.

Got my first injury today and another 1 star mission. Tried Tony for the first time since tutorial and it didn't go well. Maybe back to normal difficulty for me. Or I'll have to stick with my strongest 3 or 4 heroes only.

Also wasn't paying attention to general missions and rewards. I didn't get an artifact to research for a few days and then suddenly I couldn't advance the forge. So I guess you have to balance between artifacts and gamma rewards. Or take a mission with both. And I had forgot that artifacts give you essences. I had a card I couldn't upgrade because I didn't have enough of that type of essence.

Just a lot of complementary systems happening here and I'm not as familiar with them as I was in XCOM. Need to pay closer attention.

I also crafted a few items as part of side quest and didn't know those ingredients would be needed for a club event. So now I'm at the second club trigger but don't have enough. I shouldn't have went crazy crafting I guess. But thought items around the grounds would respawn. So far it doesn't seem like it or they are at a reduced rate.

Played a bit of this over the weekend, and I am enjoying it.

I love the combat! I could do missions all day. Don't have any star heroes, as I've been trying to keep them all levelled equally. Blade can go on absolute tears with his bleed, Capt Marvel is a smashy tanky tank. When I use Ghost Rider and Magik, I enjoy the minigame of trying push as many Hydra goons into pits/portals as I can. Then unleash the Hellride.

Still trying to grok the economy -- resources seem always to be scarce. I've ground out about 20-odd side missions to keep supplies up, and have only done the first story mission outside the tutorial. Those side missions keep coming. There doesn't seem to be a time limit, though. Also, exploring the grounds can get confusing and I haven't been too diligent about going out and farming reagents every day/night, even though they can make some powerful things.

For me, the talking/friendship part takes the most getting used to. Hangouts are mercifully short, and the writing is of a reasonably good standard. Which is good, because there's a lot. It is very comics -- lotsa quips and references. The thing I remember from comics is that it wasn't just, say, Tony Stark or Spider-Man who quipped -- they ALL quipped to some degree, it was just a matter of differing tone and frequency. I guess when you get superpowers, you get chatty.

Overall, I'm having a good time, still getting a feel for how it all hangs together.

I have now had two crashes while saving. Thankfully I usually swap between 2 or 3 saves. If you primarily use one manual save I recommend you bump up to two.

I had one saving crash, when I was making a new save at the start of a day.

Yeah thankfully auto save already had me covered.

I've also had some weirdness where I go to save/load and it shows that 2/3 of my saves are red and incompatible with current version, even though no patch has happened. Luckily restarting the game has fixed that every time. It's a little worrying that save bugs got through QA. That's primary.

I don't blame those of you waiting for a patch or two. Game clearly came in hot. But it's a lot of fun too.

I'm looking forward to digging into Midnight Suns. I played the first half hour, and then committed to finishing up another game so I could focus on this.

It's really the one game where I crank up the volume to get the effects and banter like I'm in a theater. I'm enjoying it.

This is an absolute fantastic gem, and came out of nowhere for me. Really was not tracking it at all.

How long does each mission take on average?

It's pretty variable. I finished something in 1 round earlier and another in 4. Story missions seem to often have 2 phases where you move location between. Or boss missions you have to defeat them twice. Sometimes bosses show up in general non story missions too but at least you can put them down once.

The good thing is it auto saves at the end of your turn and you can save or quick save at any point. So it's easy to jump back in.

I got way lost in side story tonight when I finished the second challenge fight that recommends level 8. I was only 6 heh.

After that I got access to a ton of the grounds. Found new ingredients, new recipes, a ton of chests, some keys, and the part of the side story. Just a ton of things happening at the end of the night when I could have went to bed hah.

Also got my arcane up to level 4 and that had an awesome power.

Spoiler:

Open common chests for free, no keys used.

I had heard that tip so then I had to go use that power everywhere I had been saving it for.

Plus I finally found the darn cat. Pet it 3 times but got no notice of any benefit. Still it's a cute little bugger.

Oh before all that I did a story mission that seemed to reveal the next boss right at the end. So hoping to pick that up tomorrow.

I’m roleplaying as a Dark alliance thingy with my Hunter … boy, those Dark dialogue choices do NOT go down well with

Spoiler:

Captain America

.

I’d noticed that Capt Marvel wasn’t responding well to them either, so in one conversation I tried a light response, and she called bullsh*t on me! Called me out, said it wasn’t what I really thought. That’ll teach me for being a suck-up.