Video Games: "Completeness" becomes important somehow

[Proudfeet]

6 hours ago, Lyanna Stark said:

You're playing with better people than I am then, cos even if I persist, they won't swap very often.

Lucio is a bit tricky, and it can be a bit hit and miss, but he's a pretty well rounded character who I find can pillar hump and get out of the way quite nicely due to the speed boost and the knockback.

 

EDIT: I have to say tho, their matchmaking system is bizarre.

That sucks then. I can't imagine why people would be so selfish. I would understand if you were swapping after everyone has picked, but otherwise the last couple of people to ready should fill in the remaining holes or request someone else to.

[Jasta11]

48 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

While I've had some success with the Empire campaign, mainly against Chaos, I don't think I'll be able to truly explode and destroy anyone of significance. My economy is barely functioning, and I can only maintain one full stacked army, with Franz in command. I don't think I can get to the point where I can recruit strong units en masse. 

They made this game with the same demands of having a strong military as the previous games, perhaps more so on account of Chaos; but not with the economy features to be able to back up said demand.

 

Eh? Empire has a crazy strong economy. I controlled only 10 settlements directly before my campaign against VC yet could field 3 stacks and a half, most of which had at least 4 elite units such as arty or Reiksguard, as well as a suite of agents, and still get over 2000 gold per turn. You should build weaving houses everywhere, sign trade agreements with human and dwarfen nations with ease once Chaos shows up and everyone gets relationship bonuses with you, research technologies that grant big boosts to trade income, name a general Treasurer, develop your big cities's main settlement chains for extra gold, and capture Marienburg which nets you 1500 gold per turn by itself.

Vampires by comparison, do have a weak economy. You have a very hard time extorting trade agreements out of anyone, have poorly performing economic buildings, few ways to increase your income unless you dive deep into the Lahmian tech tree, and you can have a hard time breaking out of Sylvania and thus get many settlements.

And let's not get into Chaos where you will have a hard time fielding more than 1 stack since you literally have 0 economic buildings, all you can do is reduce upkeep to lower your money bleed until the next battle and rely on looting and sacking.

[Corvinus85]

33 minutes ago, Jasta11 said:

 

Eh? Empire has a crazy strong economy. I controlled only 10 settlements directly before my campaign against VC yet could field 3 stacks and a half, most of which had at least 4 elite units such as arty or Reiksguard, as well as a suite of agents, and still get over 2000 gold per turn. You should build weaving houses everywhere, sign trade agreements with human and dwarfen nations with ease once Chaos shows up and everyone gets relationship bonuses with you, research technologies that grant big boosts to trade income, name a general Treasurer, develop your big cities's main settlement chains for extra gold, and capture Marienburg which nets you 1500 gold per turn by itself.

Vampires by comparison, do have a weak economy. You have a very hard time extorting trade agreements out of anyone, have poorly performing economic buildings, few ways to increase your income unless you dive deep into the Lahmian tech tree, and you can have a hard time breaking out of Sylvania and thus get many settlements.

And let's not get into Chaos where you will have a hard time fielding more than 1 stack since you literally have 0 economic buildings, all you can do is reduce upkeep to lower your money bleed until the next battle and rely on looting and sacking.

I did most of that, except I wasn't able to capture Marienburg. Bretonnia, my ally, beat me to it. And yes, the economy is weak, when that Clothier building is the only economy building you have, except the occasional one that gives you a resource, too. Trade agreements are fickle. One moment they're there, the next they're gone. 

Anyway, I think I'm done with the game for a time. I tried a Dwarf campaign, and lost a roughly equal strength battle against the Greenskins. I guess I'm just not that good at this game. 

I never liked playing with an undead faction, no matter what game I was playing. Chaos and the Greenskins don't interest me that much either. So until DLCs bring in more factions, I think I'm done. Bretonnia needs to be one. I like their medieval Arthurian look.

[A True Kaniggit]

We pulled out the old N64 tonight for some Smash Bros. 1v1v1v1. I love the mad dash for the hammer whenever it spawns. 

I also put Ocarina of Time in to make sure it still worked. I remember the graphics being a lot better when I was a kid. 

[karaddin]

12 hours ago, Lyanna Stark said:

I like both D.Va and Reinhardt, although I think Mei is my new favourite. Talk about trolling the other team! Had loads of fun playing Mei so far, even if I racked up more time on Lucio, D.Va, Reinhardt and Mercy. Even ran a defence game as Symmetra. Unfortunately it's really difficult to get a slot as a pure offence character, or it has been in the games I've played. So far I haven't got a look in with any of those, which is ok I guess, but it's also a bit naff since if you never practice, you won't get better at them either. 

I *love* a good Mercy game, but when the team doesn't play in a way you can move back and forth between them she's utterly useless.  I've had some great games (including eventual losses) where we've held right near the final loss point for ages on the back of my healing, flying around constantly moving from ally to ally so you can't get sniped, getting off a 4 person rez to keep it going.  Lasted 8 minutes with the payload at 'beeping, 5-10sec away from defeat' on one of the maps like that.  Symmetra I find very hard to play, but also seem to pick her in games I'm just getting repeatedly rolled.  If your team can't hold a line at all, the teleporter is useless as it just gets blown up.

Discovered yesterday that I also really enjoy Zenyatta, for a support/healer with a much different style.  I should probably give Lucio a go as well.  I'm utterly incapable of shooting Lucio as basically any hero, my old and cold hands just don't move fast enough lol.  Zarya can be good, but I have aiming issues with her primary >_> Quite like Pharah as well.  Haven't tried Mei yet, but she has been destroying me on the enemy team...just is also very popular and I'm mostly playing the tank or support.

[Lyanna Stark]

5 hours ago, Proudfeet said:

That sucks then. I can't imagine why people would be so selfish. I would understand if you were swapping after everyone has picked, but otherwise the last couple of people to ready should fill in the remaining holes or request someone else to.

To be fair to the populace, it is still a very new game and people will want to try out their "favourites" for a while I imagine.

Most of the times, the wins come in games when there is a balanced team anyway, which people will also probably figure out.

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I *love* a good Mercy game, but when the team doesn't play in a way you can move back and forth between them she's utterly useless.  I've had some great games (including eventual losses) where we've held right near the final loss point for ages on the back of my healing, flying around constantly moving from ally to ally so you can't get sniped, getting off a 4 person rez to keep it going.  Lasted 8 minutes with the payload at 'beeping, 5-10sec away from defeat' on one of the maps like that.  Symmetra I find very hard to play, but also seem to pick her in games I'm just getting repeatedly rolled.  If your team can't hold a line at all, the teleporter is useless as it just gets blown up.

Discovered yesterday that I also really enjoy Zenyatta, for a support/healer with a much different style.  I should probably give Lucio a go as well.  I'm utterly incapable of shooting Lucio as basically any hero, my old and cold hands just don't move fast enough lol.  Zarya can be good, but I have aiming issues with her primary >_> Quite like Pharah as well.  Haven't tried Mei yet, but she has been destroying me on the enemy team...just is also very popular and I'm mostly playing the tank or support.

Yes, Mercy can be a powerhouse if your team keeps an eye out for where you are and stay mostly in "floating" distance, or at least get some nice damage boosts onto chars like Soldier 76 and McMree. If I can get a game where I can either stick to those guys and a Reinhardt or a good Roadhog it can work really well. But if she is stuck alone she is extremely frustrating, since she has no get away moves.

I can tell you what works really, really well against a Lucio and that is a Mei. The whole speed boost thing is nullified. Got to sit on the other side of a Mei as well and it was ouch. Speaking of other troll characters apart from Mei, omg Junkrat and his stupid lobbing grenades and the tyre.  I got owned so many times by that yesterday.

Symmetra I got steamrolled on yesterday on the only time I picked her. The day before yesterday, I got 17 sentry kills in one game, so with her it seems you need some flow or luck or to be in the right place or maybe it's just a higher skill cap.  I am not a very good player, to say the least. I am of an even more dignified age than you, and have even more dignified and slow fingers.  (Although my proudest moment was 1 vs 1 as D.Va without suit with a Tracer, and I got the blinking little bastard with a freaking melee at the end. After that I went back to being dignified and headshot by Hanzo.) Did you know you can shoot D.Va's suit in the air? I saw it for the first time yesterday and think I have figured out how to do it, although haven't tried it. (More proof of me being not a great player I guess.  )

It's nice that you can have a couple of chars you like, and then discover other ones that are also really fun to play. I am quite keen on learning Hanzo better since I played against a totally amazing one yesterday. Like you though, I trend more towards tank and support, although I snuck in some Mei and Pharah in there too. Pharah feels like an occasional glass cannon, or perhaps that's just what it's like to play offence after you've had a respectable HP pool. 

[karaddin]

I feel like learning to recognise when a particular hero will be useful, and getting accustomed to switching to that hero is going to be a huge part of mastering the game - switching is a big thing that I'm terrible at.  By shooting the D.Va suit in the air, do you just mean flying with the booster? You just look upwards when you hit it and that's the direction you go lol, if you fly up to a Pharah and punch her while she's ulting, she'll kill herself on you and your suit will survive haha.

[Lyanna Stark]

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

I feel like learning to recognise when a particular hero will be useful, and getting accustomed to switching to that hero is going to be a huge part of mastering the game - switching is a big thing that I'm terrible at.  By shooting the D.Va suit in the air, do you just mean flying with the booster? You just look upwards when you hit it and that's the direction you go lol, if you fly up to a Pharah and punch her while she's ulting, she'll kill herself on you and your suit will survive haha.

Oooh lol @ the pharah in the air thing. No, in this case, it was someone using the D.Va ultimate and shooting the suit on forward, and it kept going after the rider evacuated. I imagine it must be if if you activate the ult while speedboosting yourself. Mind you, I've ever only seen that in one game (and only one player ever doing it) so it probably takes some tinkering to get right. 

Flying up is something I'm kinda half bad at still. I've really worked on it to take out Widowmakers and Pharahs better, or to just get away (at the Greek island thing it is a nice way to get over a wall so you can wall hump until you can get to a heal. Or to try and land on their Mercy's head.

SO and I did a few rounds this morning, and I still have issues with Junkrat and McCree. McCree's flashbang has a larger range than Mei's freeze beam, which is really annoying, and especially a McCree good at flanking can be a real PITA, cos suddenly it's High Noon and you don't know how to LOS him.

 

[Fez]

I picked up Overwatch. It really is a lot of fun, exactly what I was hoping for; especially since Blizzard has gotten really good at letting players block out communication for other players. I'm sure if I was trying to play top-level I'd need the coordination that voice chat allows, but I'm not, and I don't need to hear assholes. The chat, and its automated comments, are enough for me. I was also glad to see the option to seriously jack up the controller analog sensitivity, and I generally haven't felt disadvantaged against other players.

Really only in two regular situations actually: When I'm in a shootout against a Widowmaker, its clear their aiming is just better than anything I can do (although I usually fare poorly against snipers in all multiplayer shooters, so that may not entirely be a controller vs. mouse thing); and when I'm playing Winston and go primal rage, I just can't seem to turn fast enough to keep up with the more nimble opponents (although maybe that's just Winston, he is really big).

Other than that though, I haven't really noticed many problems. So far I've been playing a lot of Soldier 76, Junkrat, Winston, and Mercy. I'm amazed that Blizzard managed to make healing fun in a competitive multiplayer shooter. I've played around a bit with Pharrah and Rhinehardt too. I've only played for maybe 3 hours so far though, and I'm looking forward to trying out the rest. I'm a little nervous about some of the support characters though, who seem kinda complicated to figure out. Also some of the more precise shooters, like Widowmaker, would clearly be an issue for me.

So far, my proudest moment was at the end of an escort mission. We had about 30 seconds left to finish the mission and the car was right near the end, there had been a big firefight between everyone that left everyone dead except the opponent's Mercy, myself as Solider 76, and our D.Va. The Mercy rezzed all her teammates. I activated tactical visor and killed all but one while D.Va got the other. And then the car reached the destination maybe 3 seconds later and we won. And it didn't even get 'play of the game' because earlier in the match the other team's Bastion had used its ultimate and killed all 6 of us at once.

Considering how big the roster is, its amazing how balanced everyone is and how all the characters seem to have a useful role. I know I, and a lot of other players it seems, have had problems with Bastion going turret, but that's clearly just us not knowing yet the what the hard counters to that are. Relatedly, its also amazing how distinctive and memorable Blizzard made the characters, not just in abilities, but also look and sound. After only a few hours I already remember most of the names and icons, and when seeing them am aware of most of their abilities. Guess when the combat, matchmaking, level design, and character design are almost literally the only things you're doing you get some amazing results.

Funnily enough though, for a game that has no story, no single player campaign, no cutscenes, and no text descriptions, I'm surprisingly into the little bits of lore that have snuck through; which is mostly just the little snippets of dialog the characters sometimes have and the level design, which I can only notice during the waiting room period at the start of the match. After that everything's too hectic. I have gone and watched the characters shorts online though. Its enough to make me hope Blizzard eventually does something more with it; not necessarily adding a single player campaign, but something. Maybe along the lines that Titanfall had, where you unlocked single player style cutscenes through the multiplayer. The game will eventually need more modes anyway.

I don't know if there's any sort of region-locking in Battlenet, but if anyone on PC wants to play together a bit, my ID is Fezrock.

[Proudfeet]

What are you trying to hit the Widowmaker with? I feel that a lot of the weapons have large spread (with auto lockon for some even) and/or are projectiles, so your odds for winning in a shootout is really low unless you are a Pharah who can time the rocket launcher well. If you do fine with Soldier76, I don't think its a problem with aim although he is more midrange than long range. I think its just Genji, Hanzo, McCree, Widow and that yoga healer I can't remember the name of that has precise small spread attacks.

As far as melee goes, I haven't played much of it in Overwatch, but in other games you have to do some predicting/anticipating. You have to remember that he is dodging you too, so there is no point hitting where he was a second ago.

I haven't heard anyone speak in game yet, but don't all FPS allow you to mute your team? I don't think its particularly unique to Blizzard. I'm also semi hopeful that the paywall will keep most assholes (prepubescent teens) out. 

[Fez]

Usually Soldier76. It may just be a question of range though. I haven't played enough to get a proper sense of a lot of the weapon ranges yet.

Maybe it got patched, but I seem to remember playing Destiny at launch and not being able to turn off voice chat. But that's actually the only multiplayer FPS I've played since the first Black Ops; so I don't know what's standard these days. I have played a decent amount of Hearthstone though, where Blizzard also did a very good job at limiting player interaction to prevent asshole behavior.

[Jabronius Maximus]

21 hours ago, Azzanadra said:

Finished Uncharted 4, have to say overall I am satisfied. I can't decide where I would place the game overall in the series, but it would certainly be around Uncharted 2- either better than Uncharted 2, or slightly worse. Man what a ride, in a world of open world games every other week, its nice to have a linear action-adventure romp. Its a breath of fresh air in today's landscape. 

Now I am just waiting on Blood and Wine, The Witcher 3 expansion. 

 

Agreed man. I haven't gamed in a while, and I decided to pick up UC4. And it was a fantastic experience. It felt kind of like TLOU with its grounded, emotional story, but had the same loveable (if subdued) uncharted elements. 

And I loved the soundtrack and overall feel, especially in the 'For Better or Worse' chapter. Haven't really had a chance to try out MP; I'll try carving out some time for it in the coming days. 

I'd put it slightly above UC2 in the series. While 2 had more of a wow factor, I felt this game's story was better overall. 

[RumHam]

12 hours ago, Fez said:

Usually Soldier76. It may just be a question of range though. I haven't played enough to get a proper sense of a lot of the weapon ranges yet.

Try burst firing if you haven't been. I think it's mentioned in on of the in game tips that this is way more accurate. 

[karaddin]

16 hours ago, Lyanna Stark said:

Oooh lol @ the pharah in the air thing. No, in this case, it was someone using the D.Va ultimate and shooting the suit on forward, and it kept going after the rider evacuated. I imagine it must be if if you activate the ult while speedboosting yourself. Mind you, I've ever only seen that in one game (and only one player ever doing it) so it probably takes some tinkering to get right. 

Flying up is something I'm kinda half bad at still. I've really worked on it to take out Widowmakers and Pharahs better, or to just get away (at the Greek island thing it is a nice way to get over a wall so you can wall hump until you can get to a heal. Or to try and land on their Mercy's head.

SO and I did a few rounds this morning, and I still have issues with Junkrat and McCree. McCree's flashbang has a larger range than Mei's freeze beam, which is really annoying, and especially a McCree good at flanking can be a real PITA, cos suddenly it's High Noon and you don't know how to LOS him.

 

Oh yeah, you just aim towards where you want it to go (and try arrange the distance so that the jet will run out at about the right location), hit the jet then the ult immediately afterwards, you'll bail out and the exploding mech flies off.  It's great, but at least the people I'm getting matched up with are also getting *much* better at playing this game already.  I frequently can't even get kills like that anymore, but it's very useful for pushing people back off a defensive point or off the payload for enough time to disrupt the formation.  I'm starting to get better with it as well though, you can push people into a corner then fire it off and they can't get away in time etc.

I noticed that the quality of teams I was being matched with dropped substantially when I went from Aus prime time to late night Aus/morning US time and suddenly my teams were full of Soldier76/Reaper/Tracer etc.  I got 4 gold medals (which basically means you've completely carried your team) as D.Va on Volskaya (or whatever it's called) and just barely failed to win on Offense when my team had a Widowmaker,  Torbjorn and a Bastion, and the other team had 2x Symettra, 2x Torbjorn and a bastion.  Yeah guys, this hyper defensive team on offense is really going to do a great job cracking the ultra turtle team.  At the same time they also stopped commending supports, through the good period even if you have a bad game as support if you pop up you tend to get some commendations, but later on? 12k healing and all 5 commendations go to the person getting the kills.  Team composition is really way better than I expected during prime time though, almost always 1-2 tanks, 1-2 support and appropriate damage etc.  Just comes down to whether the match up works or you need to swap, and whether you actually work together beyond team selection.

[Lyanna Stark]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

Oh yeah, you just aim towards where you want it to go (and try arrange the distance so that the jet will run out at about the right location), hit the jet then the ult immediately afterwards, you'll bail out and the exploding mech flies off.  It's great, but at least the people I'm getting matched up with are also getting *much* better at playing this game already.  I frequently can't even get kills like that anymore, but it's very useful for pushing people back off a defensive point or off the payload for enough time to disrupt the formation.  I'm starting to get better with it as well though, you can push people into a corner then fire it off and they can't get away in time etc.

 

I managed to get it to work, kinda, one, yesterday, but I didn't play D.Va much on the escort maps, where I think that works the best, sort of like Hanzo's freaking dragon. A long corridor and you're bound to get some poor soul at least. People are def. getting better, and the Bastion/Torbjörn cheese  comps fewer, but they do show up, albeit not as often. Matchmaking was ok yesterday for me, with some slight hijinks. LOL @ calling it ultra turtle, cos it really is, could not get more turtlish if they tried, I think.

Tried to practise on Junkrat, which is a hilarious character. I didn't even know he could rocket jump! OMG I fail. Still had the most awesome time tho and when you get it right he can really hurt, and now when I know...well, he's basically a more versatile Pharah with more tricks up his sleeve. I can't hit for shit as Pharah anyway, so Junkie suits me perfectly. I got a couple of multi kills with the tyre, but as you say, people are smarting up and getting better. They shoot it before it manages to do some damage. however, if I can rocket boost up above and rain it on people's heads.....this gives all sorts of ideas.

Oh, btw, I think we got matched with most OP defence team of all, and far more strategically difficult than that cheese comp with symmetra/torbjörn/bastion and it was 2 x Winston, Lucio, Symmetra and Zenayatta and some random deeps. OMG nothing could kill those guys. And once we managed to harrass them enough (I *might* have sat outside as junkrat lobbing grenades at their heads through a window), they just sent an angry monkey out with some sort of monkey jump to flatten the World basically. I def need to learn to play Winston. Every game we have a Winston on our side who knows how to monkey, we tend to win. People freak out when getting huge monkey in face, and I don't blame them. So do I!

 

[karaddin]

More winston is OK with me, he's the tank that D.Va isn't terrible against, Rein and Roadhog just destroy me on D.Va when I try play tank.  Although I've been switching to using her more as off tank when there is already a Rein for example, she's great for running off to hunt flanking dps etc, or get behind the lines and cause a big distraction that way that pulls them out of position.  I didn't actually have an issue with the ultra turtle composition, just with the clowns on my team thinking we could attack an ultra turtle with a turtle of our own. That's not going to work!

Seriously impressed with how much its managing to capture my attention for a shooter, I realise it's very much in the TF2 vein but the characters and the character of the game itself are just so much more me.

[Lyanna Stark]

Oh, I completely agree. Clowns vs turtle comps are terrible, and somehow you often end up with clowns against them too. Apparently Junkrat is supposedly a good counter to dug in turtle comps, so I need to improve in order to counter them. Which means learning timing rocket jumping so that should take a while for my dignified old fingers.

3 hours ago, karaddin said:

 

Seriously impressed with how much its managing to capture my attention for a shooter, I realise it's very much in the TF2 vein but the characters and the character of the game itself are just so much more me.

Yep, same here. I haven't enjoyed an FPS like this for ages and ages. And then it was almost always singe player, not online PVP!

[Fez]

9 hours ago, RumHam said:

Try burst firing if you haven't been. I think it's mentioned in on of the in game tips that this is way more accurate. 

Yeah, I usually burst fire, even when I maybe should just go full-auto. Its a habit I picked up somewhere, can't remember which game, maybe Mass Effect 3. I think that may have actually been the last multiplayer I played before this; other than Destiny and some MMO stuff. ME3 was definitely the last one I put a lot of hours into though. Which just speaks to how special Overwatch is, that it even managed to hook me.

I got a few more hours in yesterday, due to all the rain outside. Tried some more of the characters. Roadhog is a lot of fun and I had some success in defensive matches as Tjorborn and Bastion after figuring out turret placement a bit better. I was godawful as McCree and Tracer, which is a shame because they seemed really fun when I was practicing with them against AI. I was hilariously bad as Widowmaker against the AI. I knew I would be, which is why I didn't even try a real match with her, I just wanted to see what it was like. And I couldn't figure Mei out, though I'm going to give her another go.

I'm give the rest a shot when I can, although I'm confident I'll be real bad as Hanzo and probably Genji. Reaper may go well, but he's such a lame character I'm not much interested in being. D.Va and Zarya should go well, Winston and Roadhog are probably my 2nd and 3rd best characters, so I seem to have an affinity for tanks (although I still can't quite figure out Reinhardt, I see others being far more effective at him than I can manage). And I'm not sure how Lucio, Symmetra, or Zenyatta will go; I suspect Lucio requires a faster pace of play than I usually have though.

Junkrat is clearly my best character. Any character that requires situational awareness but not much aiming is one for me. I've had so many great synergy moments with teammates where my steel trap set up a kill, and its so satisfying getting Tracer or another fast-paced character with the concussion mine. I've got positive winning percentages with a few characters (though I'm sub-50% overall right now), but Junkrat is the only one where I'm over 66% (minimum 5 games). He's also the one where my K/D ratio is over 2, and he's the only one where I've gotten play of the game more than once; RIP-Tire can be a hell of a thing.

[briantw]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

Seriously impressed with how much its managing to capture my attention for a shooter, I realise it's very much in the TF2 vein but the characters and the character of the game itself are just so much more me.

I personally think TF2 has a lot more character, but that's mostly because I've read all the comics and watched all the videos.  Valve actually fleshed out an otherwise generic multiplayer game hilariously well.  The semi-annual comic releases are one of my favorite things about the game at this point.

[Shryke]

5 hours ago, Lyanna Stark said:

Oh, I completely agree. Clowns vs turtle comps are terrible, and somehow you often end up with clowns against them too. Apparently Junkrat is supposedly a good counter to dug in turtle comps, so I need to improve in order to counter them. Which means learning timing rocket jumping so that should take a while for my dignified old fingers.

 

Genji is also a solid way to take out embedded positions. If you can get deflect down right you will destroy bastions/turrets in seconds.