Sulmatul's is generally viewed as the best walkthrough, but he does speak quite a bit.
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Pathologic 2 |OT| Taking Drugs From Children Simulator 2019
- Thread starter Jader7777
- Start date
Sulmatul's is generally viewed as the best walkthrough, but he does speak quite a bit.
Just played my first 2 hour session with the game. It's pretty interesting. By the end there I was almost panicking, as I was rushing to find a place to rest and save while people were running after me and grabbing me, ha ha.
I streamed it on Twitch, and I've got to tweak a few settings, but it went okay for my first long stream. I'm going to stream again in about 22 hours or so, if anyone wants to watch a newb/scrub play this game. My Twitch channel.
I streamed it on Twitch, and I've got to tweak a few settings, but it went okay for my first long stream. I'm going to stream again in about 22 hours or so, if anyone wants to watch a newb/scrub play this game. My Twitch channel.
Ah neat, thanks.
I actually did pass out from infection... and then immediately died after talking to the kids. That was what pushed me to reload honestly.
Just got to Day 4... Had to reload a few times and now I'm infected. Really not sure how I could have avoided getting infected since pills are so rare and the penalty for getting sneezed on by a plague cloud is basically instant infection + armor degradation. I ended up selling the revolver since it did dick to keep me from getting 2-shot by a bandit. I have half a mind to restart this early to try to make smarter decisions i.e. use my inheritance to stock up on clothes and medical supplies and start trading for food items earlier but... I guess if I keep pressing onwards I'll just improve my chances of making it next time.
5/10 from gamespot because of the survival elements which he doesn't go into much detail about, but despite saying they played it for 20 hours at the bottom it clearly isn't the case. Like he talks about you having to clear your name which you do on the
or your father's murder being the driving force of the game and it's just not at all and very much takes a backseat.....on the second day.
And he doesn't mention the plague, infection, or diagnosis elements because they happen on the third day and he didn't get there obviously. So bizarre, at least be honest like the rock papershotgun writer.
Each day taking around 2 hours at most
second day
And he doesn't mention the plague, infection, or diagnosis elements because they happen on the third day and he didn't get there obviously. So bizarre, at least be honest like the rock papershotgun writer.
Each day taking around 2 hours at most
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Let us all have a moment of silence for the reviewers this game totally destroyed.
Rest in peace.
Rest in peace.
^ I refuse to read any review that starts with a sentence that has the word "Soulsian" in it. Pathologic's theme of difficulty is quite different from Souls, and the basic failure to realize that means the review itself won't be worth shit beyond "the game's meant to be frustrating but it's still frustrating"
Despite the struggle, this is one of the most fascinating games I've played in years. I hope they'll take another look and actually play the game once the difficulty slider gets implemented... Although it might be too much to hope for anything more than a footnote on the existing review and a .5 bump in score.
By the way, how does The Void compare to this and the original Pathologic in terms of difficulty? I picked it up along with Classic months ago but never got around to it, so I was thinking of jumping into that afterwards.
By the way, how does The Void compare to this and the original Pathologic in terms of difficulty? I picked it up along with Classic months ago but never got around to it, so I was thinking of jumping into that afterwards.
The Void is a very VERY interesting game, some extreme artistic design went into it- absolutely sublime design.
However... it is extremely difficult and often results in the players dying. There is an easy mode patch the developers had to put in after most players couldn't leave the first 2 areas of the game.
I would suggest trying to play with the "medium" difficulty patch before giving up and going to easy.
This is partially second hand recalling rather than fully my own impression, and right when I started writing this post Jader7777 posted the difficulty patches that fans made I was going to mention, but I'll add a caveat to my awareness here.
The game to my understanding is both harder and easier than Pathologic. While a lot of the same elements are present (time management, figuring out a world with truth or lies, choices, resource management, etc.), the actual rules are quite different and how these things are balanced. Time management is a much lower part of the game, and resource management and your decision making take far, far greater importance in the game. The Void moreso than Pathologic you are almost certain to die and have to restart at a much earlier point with knowledge gained from what you've done. There's more examples of the game sending you to waste time and resources from things NPCs were telling you but they're lies or ways to waste your time... Here's an off-hand example, but you know in the Salem Witch Trials where they'd take young women who were suspected to be Witches and tried to drown them, if they drowned they were human and if they didn't they were burned at the stake for witchcraft? There's some situations in the game a lot like that where you're tasked with doing something without being given the method to complete said task, and if you don't do said task the game will get a lot harder for you. I won't go into spoilers, but you need to learn more about the world and pay attention to omissions of truth or details you can miss in order to succeed in The Void, even moreso than Pathologic.
However, I've heard though the beginning of The Void is very challenging, it is a game that gets progressively easier as you figure out more of the world. Once you know what to do and know about the world and it ins and outs and figure out character's angles and how to best use your resources and time, what you actually need to do is often easy. But it can be really hard, especially at first.
So the beginning half of The Void is more challenging than Pathologic definitely, while the second half I hear is easier. I also hear some people say the above "Medium and Easy" patches are crucial, while others have said that though they do balance the first half of the experience well, they make the second half of the game almost too easy.
However, for what it's worth, The Void like Pathologic has an amazing story, maybe even moreso, and though comparisons can be made to Pathologic it's very much it's own beast. I know more people who say The Void is one of their favorite games of all time than people who said Pathologic is one of their favorite games of all time, The Void is very hard but I think in some ways it's world and vision were more completely done and it's themes a bit more unique that it struck with certain people. Definitely worth experiencing.
The Void utter sublimation of the gaming medium. IPL's masterpiece, although if Patho2 maintains the quality through the episodes it just might get surpassed. The Void is insanely difficult though, due to the three pronged system. Essentially, your health and ammo and money are all the same resource, requiring the player to make careful decisions what exactly to proceed with.
THough the story of The Void is absolutely worth talking about. It touches on everything from patriarchal infighting to creative desperation to religious uncertainty. I would also consider it one of the greatest triumphs of feminist theory in gaming.
THough the story of The Void is absolutely worth talking about. It touches on everything from patriarchal infighting to creative desperation to religious uncertainty. I would also consider it one of the greatest triumphs of feminist theory in gaming.
I struggled to finish the Void due to a bug in the save system that means quicksave/quickload don't work for me and I can only save at the start of cycles, which doesn't mix well with my limited free time.
The game actually becomes easier once you start getting paid to do your job (day 3? or 4) and also realize youre free to loot previously infected zones before they go back to normal (and the way to fight everyone is back up and charge attacks). My inventory is so full now I have to keep going back to base to drop stuff off
Also my favorite bug? is coming across regular people and thugs just standing there with their hands up and taking their stuff because the AI fought each other but didnt actually rob them. Once I even saw two characters just facing each other with their hands up, I don't even know how their hands up
Also my favorite bug? is coming across regular people and thugs just standing there with their hands up and taking their stuff because the AI fought each other but didnt actually rob them. Once I even saw two characters just facing each other with their hands up, I don't even know how their hands up
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Had 2 occasions of doors closing during quest situations. One while checking up on Katerina Saburova for her husband (which locked me in and I just had to reload and abandon the idea), and one blocked me from visiting Anna's place to finish her barter quest during the final days.
Glad that seems to be getting fixed.
Glad that seems to be getting fixed.
Oh, lovely. A piece by famous loather Holly Green.
Edit: figured the story event out
Really think the game gets significantly easier after day 4 and once you get a routine down so stick with the game!
Really think the game gets significantly easier after day 4 and once you get a routine down so stick with the game!
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Started second playthrough, at the end of Day 2.
Armed with better survival knowledge, it's easy to do every story event on Day 1 with a lot of time to spare, and still somewhat doable on Day 2. I managed to do every event I could find except for the item stashes.
Speaking of stashes, because of those, I have like 12 fingernails and 2 shmowder boxes. On Day 2. My first playthrough would have gone so much easier if I knew how valuable their contents generally were.
Also, repairing barely broken equipment that has not crossed its first repair threshold, is a lot cheaper than trying to keep utterly broken items functional. I imagine I'll actually get to keep my knife and scalpel available for longer than a couple of days now.
Armed with better survival knowledge, it's easy to do every story event on Day 1 with a lot of time to spare, and still somewhat doable on Day 2. I managed to do every event I could find except for the item stashes.
Speaking of stashes, because of those, I have like 12 fingernails and 2 shmowder boxes. On Day 2. My first playthrough would have gone so much easier if I knew how valuable their contents generally were.
Also, repairing barely broken equipment that has not crossed its first repair threshold, is a lot cheaper than trying to keep utterly broken items functional. I imagine I'll actually get to keep my knife and scalpel available for longer than a couple of days now.
While we are on the topic of IPL, their best game "The Void" is 90% off on steam.
My third restart was due to plague on day 4/5, so I would say yes.
But like my Steam review says, I look at it as rehearsals for the final play. Show doesn't open until you get to the end for the first time. Then you can work on honing it.
Kinda is, I barely survived getting infected on Day 7 and having that cured on Day 9.
One way to hunt down those shmowders is chugging bunch of bottles of Twyrine so that you'll get kids' item stashes revealed on the map, then cross your fingers one of them has some.
That's a good way of looking at it.
I restarted and have worked my way back up to Day 3. So far I'm doing much better, trying to hoard fingernails and the few schmowders I've found along with all drugs. I even managed to get the inventory upgrade this time. It gives me kind of a classic Resident Evil vibe to restart with better knowledge of what's coming ahead and how to best manage my items in preparation.
What's this code I see in the thoughts screen? Under a bull icon, there's a long string of digits.
Nice, I bought the bull, glad to hear it was the right choice.
Only starting Day 3, so can't say if it will eventually get too hard for me, but so far I enjoy the types of gameplay systems in the game as well as the types of micro-managing I've had to do, even when it involves reloading a previous save in order to do a particular section differently/faster. Not reloading after deaths (I think I've had two of those, randomly/carelessly falling from a great height each time), but simply reloading to optimize and give myself more time to hopefully finish as many story events as I can. I've been reloading like this pretty often though, so hopefully that doesn't cause too big of a penalty later on.
Perhaps it's due largely to the fact that I find the world/world-building/story all interesting/engaging/motivating enough, that I may be overlooking what would feel tedious to other folks, but whatever the case may be, so far even in terms of those game systems which some reviewers apparently didn't like: I'm finding them well-done and don't have any big complaints.
I guess I should note that my tastes are a bit unusual: I've started up several 2018/2019 GOTY contenders within the past year, and I ended up putting all of them on a playthrough hiatus (partial playthrough to be resumed at some point in the future). The only games I've been compelled to actually play start to finish in the past year have been Vampyr (incidentally, based on Pathologic 2, seems like Dontnod must have taken some inspiration from the original Pathologic, which I haven't yet played) and GRIS. I'm liking Pathologic 2 a lot so far, so I'll probably end up playing it start to finish as well.
Only starting Day 3, so can't say if it will eventually get too hard for me, but so far I enjoy the types of gameplay systems in the game as well as the types of micro-managing I've had to do, even when it involves reloading a previous save in order to do a particular section differently/faster. Not reloading after deaths (I think I've had two of those, randomly/carelessly falling from a great height each time), but simply reloading to optimize and give myself more time to hopefully finish as many story events as I can. I've been reloading like this pretty often though, so hopefully that doesn't cause too big of a penalty later on.
Perhaps it's due largely to the fact that I find the world/world-building/story all interesting/engaging/motivating enough, that I may be overlooking what would feel tedious to other folks, but whatever the case may be, so far even in terms of those game systems which some reviewers apparently didn't like: I'm finding them well-done and don't have any big complaints.
I guess I should note that my tastes are a bit unusual: I've started up several 2018/2019 GOTY contenders within the past year, and I ended up putting all of them on a playthrough hiatus (partial playthrough to be resumed at some point in the future). The only games I've been compelled to actually play start to finish in the past year have been Vampyr (incidentally, based on Pathologic 2, seems like Dontnod must have taken some inspiration from the original Pathologic, which I haven't yet played) and GRIS. I'm liking Pathologic 2 a lot so far, so I'll probably end up playing it start to finish as well.
Well that's annoying. I managed to figure out the cure on Day 6 evening this time around (instead of previous Day 9 evening through very different events), but the game doesn't acknowledge it on Day 7 discussion about the cure recipe, because I only got the cure finished and experimented on Day 7, when technically the quest for the panacea was "over" as Act 3 changed to 4.
"I don't know where to get more of the panacea main ingredient"
But I do know tho! I know where to possibly get barrelfuls of it!
Will probably load an hour prior save because I was so damn close, and don't want all that effort to be ruined by an arbitrary deadline.
"I don't know where to get more of the panacea main ingredient"
But I do know tho! I know where to possibly get barrelfuls of it!
Will probably load an hour prior save because I was so damn close, and don't want all that effort to be ruined by an arbitrary deadline.
Alright, if the game's going to irrevocably punish me every time I die it may as well give me a functional fucking combat system that doesn't stunlock me from full health to death or give me weapons that don't break after a single use.
Trying to get through the event with Ruben on Day 4/5 but between the overbearing darkness obscuring my attacks and the tissue paper weapon durability I'm stuck in a loop of death. Doesn't seem like I can stealth it either.
Edit: I managed to work through it after hitting a few spots to heal myself and sleep between encounters... But now I'm starving even faster than before so I don't know how much longer I'll be able to make it on this run.
Trying to get through the event with Ruben on Day 4/5 but between the overbearing darkness obscuring my attacks and the tissue paper weapon durability I'm stuck in a loop of death. Doesn't seem like I can stealth it either.
Edit: I managed to work through it after hitting a few spots to heal myself and sleep between encounters... But now I'm starving even faster than before so I don't know how much longer I'll be able to make it on this run.
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My review went up yesterday, fairly late since this game took me A WHILE to get through.
I really like it, though I'm sort of in the middle in regards to the survival elements? I've learned to live with them and manage them and I quite like the extreme desperation, but overall I think you could probably evoke that sense of desperation even by dialing things back a smidge. I thought about restarting after a point just to see how I did when armed with knowledge about the mechanics instead of having to figure out as I went along, but that seemed a bit against the spirit of it?
I really like it, though I'm sort of in the middle in regards to the survival elements? I've learned to live with them and manage them and I quite like the extreme desperation, but overall I think you could probably evoke that sense of desperation even by dialing things back a smidge. I thought about restarting after a point just to see how I did when armed with knowledge about the mechanics instead of having to figure out as I went along, but that seemed a bit against the spirit of it?
Really liked your review. IT seems that most people refused to take the game on its own terms, but just kept comparing it to other works. You took the route of figuring out P2's intent and I like that.
Tried this for the first time over the weekend, got through the first day in good condition though I missed a few events. Seems possible to stay on top of the meters as long as you are aggressively searching and trading in all of your free time, but I'm sure that will change over the next few days. I'm probably going to restart anyway, I made a few choices I didn't really intend that I'd like to redo.
I'm trying to figure out the best balance of carrying empty bottles so I have some on hand when I need them, and carrying enough water to keep my thirst topped up and for trading. I'd like to keep bottles of blood on hand as well, but I don't want to commit 2 more inventory slots for it, so I've been caught empty handed before when I need to water some roots.
I get why reviews have been so negative, but I also found it weirdly engrossing. On the surface it seems really quiet and slow paced, but since your back is always against the wall in terms of time and needing to stay on top of your meters, the scavenging and trading can feel almost frantic. You have this constant churn of trying to trade junk into useful items, while also trying to keep space for picking up essentials. It keeps the slack time between quests interesting with the constant hustling to keep your head above water.
I'm trying to figure out the best balance of carrying empty bottles so I have some on hand when I need them, and carrying enough water to keep my thirst topped up and for trading. I'd like to keep bottles of blood on hand as well, but I don't want to commit 2 more inventory slots for it, so I've been caught empty handed before when I need to water some roots.
I get why reviews have been so negative, but I also found it weirdly engrossing. On the surface it seems really quiet and slow paced, but since your back is always against the wall in terms of time and needing to stay on top of your meters, the scavenging and trading can feel almost frantic. You have this constant churn of trying to trade junk into useful items, while also trying to keep space for picking up essentials. It keeps the slack time between quests interesting with the constant hustling to keep your head above water.
Pathologic 2 is too depressing and addictive. After Day 4 when I was stuck in a loop of 'starvation death' I started it from scratch and actually enjoyed more.
Here's a review by (I guess) a slavic person. It seems that the original writing is really great.
Well, I enjoyed the dialogues and lore in English as well.
Here's a review by (I guess) a slavic person. It seems that the original writing is really great.
Well, I enjoyed the dialogues and lore in English as well.
The one with the difficulty balance? Oh my, that's great news
I didn't see anything about the difficulty balance in the patch notes. That one is probably coming later. This had some tweaks to improve performance, FPS options, and some other tweaks.
I made a terrible mistake in doing what I did in my last post, so I restarted a 2nd time. This go around I'm trying to prioritize repairing the free knife so I actually have a viable combat option, since that's an area I severely overlooked last time and paid dearly for it.
One thing about the difficulty I saw mentioned in a Steam thread was that in general it very much feels like quicksand. The more you die, the more likely you are to die. The more your weapon degrades, the more resources it takes to repair it and the less damage it does... meaning you need to use it more, so it degrades more. Fail to administer antibiotics in an infected district, and it'll remain infected and a portion of the map is now vastly more dangerous to traverse. Failing once in any aspect leads you spiraling down a path of failure. There seems to be an optimal way to handle the game once you understand the mechanics at play - the barter economy, which sidequests are just wastes of time, etc. - so even if a roll of the die fucks you over in one aspect you can mitigate the damage. I don't know whether that's intended... the devs have made it very clear you are supposed to fail and deal with your failure, otherwise deaths wouldn't be persistent throughout saves on a single profile.
I don't know. I guess there's like a weird meta-meta aspect going on here where dying in a playthrough fucks you over irrevocably, but if you're willing to sink more time into retreading old ground you can wipe the slate clean and start anew with the knowledge you've gained. If you foresee yourself dying in combat, you can also just load an earlier save and get around the whole thing entirely. Save scumming in general still feels viable since deaths are the only things that inflict a persistent penalty, so there's no reason not to just reload if you get infected or get yourself stuck in a bad situation. Which feels really gamey. The discussion on difficulty and frustration serving an artistic purpose is incredibly interesting to me, but I can't help but wonder whether the implementation here could use some work. After a certain point the game feels less like accepting failure and more like striving for perfection.
Hopefully something in that rant came across coherently. I've been thinking about this game nonstop for a while.
One thing about the difficulty I saw mentioned in a Steam thread was that in general it very much feels like quicksand. The more you die, the more likely you are to die. The more your weapon degrades, the more resources it takes to repair it and the less damage it does... meaning you need to use it more, so it degrades more. Fail to administer antibiotics in an infected district, and it'll remain infected and a portion of the map is now vastly more dangerous to traverse. Failing once in any aspect leads you spiraling down a path of failure. There seems to be an optimal way to handle the game once you understand the mechanics at play - the barter economy, which sidequests are just wastes of time, etc. - so even if a roll of the die fucks you over in one aspect you can mitigate the damage. I don't know whether that's intended... the devs have made it very clear you are supposed to fail and deal with your failure, otherwise deaths wouldn't be persistent throughout saves on a single profile.
I don't know. I guess there's like a weird meta-meta aspect going on here where dying in a playthrough fucks you over irrevocably, but if you're willing to sink more time into retreading old ground you can wipe the slate clean and start anew with the knowledge you've gained. If you foresee yourself dying in combat, you can also just load an earlier save and get around the whole thing entirely. Save scumming in general still feels viable since deaths are the only things that inflict a persistent penalty, so there's no reason not to just reload if you get infected or get yourself stuck in a bad situation. Which feels really gamey. The discussion on difficulty and frustration serving an artistic purpose is incredibly interesting to me, but I can't help but wonder whether the implementation here could use some work. After a certain point the game feels less like accepting failure and more like striving for perfection.
Hopefully something in that rant came across coherently. I've been thinking about this game nonstop for a while.