u/Suffient_Fun4190

Let's get something straight up front: I have successfully beaten the base game twice. I have played Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts twice. I know how it works. I am not stuck. I simply do not want to do it again.

At this point I'm largely done with Dragon Age. I understand that it and I want different things from each other, and Wicked Eyes was some pretty early evidence of that. The series went from "Which sword should I stab the darkspawn with?" to "Which fork should I stab the lobster with?"

And no, to me it isn't the same as the Landsmeet. The Landsmeet lets you say, essentially, "You're going to play ball because I have things you need." The Winter Palace feels more like, "Sorry, you used the wrong innuendo with this fussy duke. Minus five points."

And if two complete playthroughs sounds like I got my money's worth, fair enough, but for comparison I've probably played Origins all the way through twenty times.

The reason I'm back is that I beat Inquisition around launch, those saves are long gone, and I keep hearing that Trespasser is actually very good. I want to experience it before I finally close the book on Dragon Age.

I see there isn't a "Skip the Palace" mod comparable to Origins' Skip the Fade or Skip the Deep Roads mods. I understand that Wicked Eyes contains major plot decisions, but those Origins mods handled that by asking you the relevant questions and then dropping you on the other side. In principle, the same thing could be done here.

Failing that, is there a cheat, trainer, save editor, or mod that simply keeps Court Approval maxed out?

I don't need the quest removed completely. I just want to barrel through the Winter Palace with the social equivalent of god mode turned on, make the necessary story choices, and get back to stabbing things.

The dance with Celene was cool. I will give it that. It was not cool enough to pay admission a third time.

Please help me despite the fact that I've spent most of this post being catty about a game you may sincerely love. I promise I do not consider enjoying Wicked Eyes a moral failing.

So YouTube somehow steered me to these guys after steering me to Babymetal and I'm not sure how it figured out I'd like either of those bands but I do.

Hurrikan was fun. I like that kind of twist in a work and I'd list examples but that would spoil those other works.

I had to look up Schlager. Once I understood what it was, it was interesting to me the structure of the video because when I was a teen, a mid video shift like this from schlager to death metal (I know this is called "deathcore," it would have been done death metal or some other metal back then). The metal band would have been the zombies attacking a fake schlager band and taking over the video. The metal would have been an expression of the zombie band attacking the schlager band.

But with Callboy, the schlager band is pivoting to metal themselves to express their anguish and horror at being attacked, which is confirmed when the song ends abruptly due to the band being dead. (and, as I would later learn, his continued love/lust for his zombie gf?)

I don't know if this next part is just me reading into it, but I think this kind of highlights a truth about metal. Its your dad's music now. Even death metal fans are in many cases old enough to have grandkids. I am told schlager is thought of as cringey boomer music by younger germans. But in the past, the video would have been "old lame cringe band our parents listen to is attacked by edgy transgressive music I'm into" now, they're just two different brands of your parent's music. Albeit Callboy makes it feel fresh, at least to me. But I'm your embarrassing older uncle so take that with a grain of salt.

EDIT: I also appreciate how they commit to the bit. The other thing that would have been different about a video like this made when I was a teen is the fake schlager band would have sounded tepid and dull but Callboy fully commits their energy to the schlager which helps with the twist.

I hate this. I hate the building in this game. Its fine that it exists for people who actually like designing stuff but can't their also be prebuilds or build sharing? I want a cool ship but that part of my brain is broken and doesn't do a good job designing things. With creative systems I end up making garbage and then come to subs like this one to see people making awesome stuff. I don't mind farming the resources and collecting and making money to afford it. I just would like it if someone else could make my corvette for me.

I have been in and out of Rifftrax since pretty close to when it started. Its been fun watching the evolution. MP3 tracks for big movies as an attention getter. Pivot to VODS because people didn't like the friction of manual sync. Creation of audio syncing app and now 1click.

For all I know it's been around for years but I just discovered it and it's awesome. Binged the whole Twilight series.

I figured there had to be a way to get it on my TV. Screen casting was messy but my TV and phone support Samsung Dex so I launched Dex on the TV and ran it in browser. Dex isn't the only app that lets you run a phone in a desktop mode on a bigger screen so I am sure you can find another way to do it. Miracast didn't seem to work. Maybe Plex has an option

But it's really encouraging that they're continuing to try to innovate in this space. I've been hopeful that someday we'd see a resurgence of Rifftrax tackling big Hollywood movies one the tech reduces the friction enough.

I am in my late 40s and for various reasons, my gaming contacts fell away long ago. Basically they moved and/or dropped out of gaming.

Further, I am unable to sit upright without bad pain for a whole session. Two hours is about my limit and that is if the seating is really comfortable and no, bringing my own ergonomic seat cushion or chair is insufficient in my case. It's led to some embarrassment, I've tried to make it work.

There are other issues that make this difficult even for online play, so I am looking at playing a D&D-type adventure with an AI powered DM. These take some work to make suitable for state management or continuity. I admit they don't serve the function fully out of the box. I honestly find AI state management issues less challenging than finding a group with my limitations.

I agree that tabletop RPGs, physical or virtual, are better with human players and DMs most of the time. But what if it's just not an option? I am not trying to replace humans at real tables. I always thought they had the hard job and we at least paid his share of any snack or food bill.

But for the situation where a human D&D game is just not an option, is an AI DM worse than just not playing?

If so, then what are the actionable steps for a middle aged guy with restrictive physical limitations to find an online virtual table when none of the people in his life currently game or know gamers or have the time to game? Something concrete not just "there are tons of sites for that" I know of some of them.

The times I've tried, the activity level has been inconsistent, people who were playing what I wanted to play had abandoned their postings or their games were full.

Also, don't just say "Discord" that's not helpful. The Discord servers I've been to that were socially oriented around gaming appeared to be using a cipher that involved English words in sentence-like fragments with missing context (translation: I'm a boomer).

I've played games throughout my life but I was never as motivated by challenge as a lot of gamers say they are. In recent years, I've been dragged down enough that I use cheats a lot. I want to explore these rich open worlds but not if it means dying to the same irritating boss 20 times before I get to continue or playing a stealth section that resets you the first time you make a mistake.

But TOTK lets you power through. If you want something bad enough, you can farm loot and grind till you have enough stuff you can spdm to barrel through a challenge. And as Skitty pointed out, you can bomb those targets in the shrines or use recall to bypass.

The point I want to make is that hardcore gamers seem to implicitly operate on the assumption that players will only get as good as the game forces them to get. That does matter for some aspects of game design, like how Mario won't let you play level 1-1 for more than a few seconds if you can't figure out jumping because the whole game is jumping.

But for casuals like me, we often get better at games because they let us keep playing and because they offer soft incentives instead of hard ones.

When you're playing Tears of the Kingdom, even if you can beat the game, there's always a reason to get better at it. Any resources you avoid needing to use can be used elsewhere.

Zonaite, you can burn on auto builds, use to level your energy well or once you have maxed it, you can buy parts directly with refined crystal, buy ancient bows, sell your zonaite for rupees or burn it on more elaborate auto builds if you have no other use. You never run out of use for it.

And most stuff is like that, craft an elixir, attach to an arrow or weapon, upgrade armor, sell if you really can't find another use

And the reason that matters is you're always choosing between multiple things you can use the same materials for so you decide what your priorities are and what you want to get better at. If you find a more efficient way to beat an enemy, you get to keep more of your loot and we established you can use that loot elsewhere.

So I can try fancy tricks but if I fail, it usually just means I have to overcome a fight in a more conventional less efficient way.

The game also has more combat depth than some give it credit for. They don't account for how the environment can swing a fight. In rain, your bomb arrows don't work, a Talus is difficult to climb. And speaking of Taluses, they can make a fight meaningfully different just by where they put it's vulnerable spot. Not too mention in extreme environments, you made need to wear armor you haven't leveled as much as your best set.

Obviously this is far from exhaustive but the game will usually reward you trying things and there's a lot you can try. And because I am not throwing down my controller in frustration I do try. And this game has wired my brain in ways that make me think I might want to try more difficult games, more puzzle oriented games, and games about building.

Just something to keep in mind, you can make a gamer better by letting them play rather than locking down to one spot till they do exactly what you wanted them to do. Chances are, they'll learn later