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Video Games: No Man's Pie


Werthead

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Also, CK2 seems to be more of a "choose your own adventure" type game rather than a "win everything" game.  Set your own goals, accomplish them, play around in a giant sandbox.

Unrelatedly, I am very, very late to the Mark of the Ninja party.  Been having a blast running around with the Nightmare Mark and just terrifying guards everywhere.  

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On 9/16/2016 at 7:27 AM, Rhom said:

Much sadness playing WoW last night... I've said before that I used to be very active with the game.  My ex-wife and I were in a very active guild that was among the top 5 on our server.  When I ran instances, I usually had a guild group; but when I didn't it was usually my tank and her priest and we'd PUG some DPS to run with us.  When it comes to online groups, I hate to feel like I'm the guy holding back the group.  Its why I never did much group PvP in Destiny and part of why I haven't made time for random instances in WoW with my sporadic playing.

My family had gone to bed last night and I had some free time, so I thought I'd use the dungeon group finder tool to complete a questline that I have.  So I get on the Adventure Guide that Blizz provides in game and read up on the boss encounters. 

The instance was just a normal difficulty, but I go ahead and give a courtesy "This is my first time running this.  Have read up on bosses, if there's anything else I need to know; just let me know."  One guy responds "Dude its just a norm"

We head off and I'm pulling quickly and group tanking.  Never really felt at risk.  Get to the first boss and goes smoothly.  I move on to pull the next trash mob and start wondering why my health is dropping... then I notice that its just me and the guy who had responded to me.  The other three had dropped without saying a word.

My self-consciousness really flared up then and I felt like I had done something wrong...  :crying: 

I went back and did a longish solo quest chain after and didn't try to do the instance again.

I feel for you brave souls who tank with pugs.  I'm far too much a coward to take on that spotlight.  That said I have had pretty decent dungeon groups so far.  I'm just DPS but I'm leveling a hunter and that can attract some scorn.  I switch out my "pull everything in the area" talents before going in if I can so that helps.  I did a dungeon a few days ago where I was the only one who hadn't been there and the others were guildmates.  The tank asked at the start if anyone(me) was new to the dungeon and I said I was and so they explained each boss before pull and we did fine.  Good group.  I'm interested to try some groups on a warlock as I have heard locks are getting kicked a bit these days.  That probably won't affect regular dungeons, though.  We'll see.

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54 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

I feel for you brave souls who tank with pugs.  I'm far too much a coward to take on that spotlight.  That said I have had pretty decent dungeon groups so far.  I'm just DPS but I'm leveling a hunter and that can attract some scorn.  I switch out my "pull everything in the area" talents before going in if I can so that helps.  I did a dungeon a few days ago where I was the only one who hadn't been there and the others were guildmates.  The tank asked at the start if anyone(me) was new to the dungeon and I said I was and so they explained each boss before pull and we did fine.  Good group.  I'm interested to try some groups on a warlock as I have heard locks are getting kicked a bit these days.  That probably won't affect regular dungeons, though.  We'll see.

Wound up running it night before last.  Went much better.  Normal difficulty still is jarring to me since there was no need for marking or CC on any of the pulls.  The only death in the entire instance was when a guy fell off a bridge.  :lol: 

It was Halls of Valor, and I felt a bit foolish though when I followed the map to Fenryr and he wasn't there... someone pointed out that he starts elsewhere in the field and then moves to the spot marked on the map.  :blush: 

Since I legitimately don't have time for any dedicated instance or raids, I won't have the burning desire for constant gear upgrades.  I might be perfectly fine with just running the occasional normal.

Tanking for a PUG is daunting for me, definitely.  As a tank, I feel like I'm supposed to know the instance and the fights before I go in.  This time I watched a quick summary video just before I ran, but I felt foolish doing it.  Definitely helped though.

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12 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Tanking for a PUG is daunting for me, definitely.  As a tank, I feel like I'm supposed to know the instance and the fights before I go in.  This time I watched a quick summary video just before I ran, but I felt foolish doing it.  Definitely helped though.

This reminds me of something I saw in Trade Chat last night. Some dude was advertising for the brand new raid and added "must know all fights." This for content that had only been released yesterday. Another person countered that learning the fights by trial-and-error (as opposed to YouTube) was half the fun and most everyone agreed. 

My response - "bro, do you even know fights?" :P 

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1 minute ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

This reminds me of something I saw in Trade Chat last night. Some dude was advertising for the brand new raid and added "must know all fights." This for content that had only been released yesterday. Another person countered that learning the fights by trial-and-error (as opposed to YouTube) was half the fun and most everyone agreed. 

My response - "bro, do you even know fights?" :P 

:lol: 

This is why I feel like the death of the true guild system has been one of the worst things to happen to the game.  The fact that even raids can be PUG'd is great for allowing the casual player entry into endgame content, but it truly does take away a great social aspect to the game.

Yes, it was frustrating as hell that my guild bashed our heads against the wall on Vaelestrasz for a month... but the elation of seeing him go down after working so hard at it was supremely gratifying.

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I've PUG tanked all the normal dungeons and it honestly wasn't that bad. There was one hiccup my first time in Halls of Valor where someone was trying to get us to do something with a mug to skip a bunch of trash that I couldn't follow and we wiped and the healer quit. But we got a new one and did it the normal way. I just read the in-game adventure guide and used the Deadly Boss Mods addon to know when cooldowns were happening and it went fine. There were a couple times some people died due to not avoiding mechanics, but I never did outside the mug incident.

I've started tanking heroics now, but I'm staying in-guild for those. I'm lucky enough to be in a very active, very large guild and its usually pretty easy to get a group together for just about anything. My ilvl is 839 (thanks world quests!) so I could be doing the mythics, but I'm still new enough and nervous enough about tanking that I want to clear all the heroics before stepping up to mythic.

Meanwhile, the progression end of the guild has already cleared mythic+4.

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21 minutes ago, Rhom said:

This is why I feel like the death of the true guild system has been one of the worst things to happen to the game.  The fact that even raids can be PUG'd is great for allowing the casual player entry into endgame content, but it truly does take away a great social aspect to the game.

Yes, it was frustrating as hell that my guild bashed our heads against the wall on Vaelestrasz for a month... but the elation of seeing him go down after working so hard at it was supremely gratifying.

It has definitely made the game less fun. I've had a lot of trouble the last few times I've gotten back into WoW finding a guild that strikes the balance between completely casual (i.e., little interaction, everyone's just there for the perks) and overtly hardcore (teenagers yelling at you because your gear isn't perfect or demanding set schedules for everything, etc.). My main guild in SWTOR seems to strike a perfect balance between fun and meaningful gameplay for all, but it's also built on a shared culture of respect that you don't frequently see in WoW.

8 minutes ago, Fez said:

I've started tanking heroics now, but I'm staying in-guild for those. I'm lucky enough to be in a very active, very large guild and its usually pretty easy to get a group together for just about anything. My ilvl is 839 (thanks world quests!) so I could be doing the mythics, but I'm still new enough and nervous enough about tanking that I want to clear all the heroics before stepping up to mythic.

Meanwhile, the progression end of the guild has already cleared mythic+4.

I have PUG-tanked normals before (prior content, none in Legion yet) and haven't had too much difficulty apart from whining healers admonishing me to "go faster/pull more" despite the fact that I'm already pulling half the room. Pace of play is a big deal for me - I do not go slow by any means as a tank but I like to establish a comfortable rhythm. 

Heroics and higher content on the other hand - much better to go in with a group you know. Patience is essential.

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I'm really enjoying DARK SOULS 3, I think it's a lot better than DS1 and DS2, which may be good games for storylines and graphics, but in the end they're a great PITA... don't get me wrong, I actually do love a good challenge, but sometimes I felt like those games were simply frustrating, just difficult for the sake of being difficult (but I'm a stubborn dude, and I finished them both more than one time).

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2 hours ago, Rhom said:

:lol: 

This is why I feel like the death of the true guild system has been one of the worst things to happen to the game.  The fact that even raids can be PUG'd is great for allowing the casual player entry into endgame content, but it truly does take away a great social aspect to the game.

Yes, it was frustrating as hell that my guild bashed our heads against the wall on Vaelestrasz for a month... but the elation of seeing him go down after working so hard at it was supremely gratifying.

Believe me, that still happens. Knowing what to do doesn't mean you can do it, epecially now that fights are much, much more mechanically complex than in vanilla. My guild was very elated when we finally, finally downed Mythic Gorefiend in Hellfire Citadel. He was very much known as a guild breaker, everyone had to be at the very top of their game. Vanilla raids, you could have 5 people afk and 10 others being mediocre and still have everyone else carry them.

I mean, yeah, with datamining and Fatboss videos and such, you know the boss's abilities, but there are often so many of them, and they are so lethal, that trying to copy-paste strategies online really doesn't always work. Sometimes you have to adjust in accordance to your group.

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28 minutes ago, Aerys Blackfyre said:

I'm really enjoying DARK SOULS 3, I think it's a lot better than DS1 and DS2, which may be good games for storylines and graphics, but in the end they're a great PITA... don't get me wrong, I actually do love a good challenge, but sometimes I felt like those games were simply frustrating, just difficult for the sake of being difficult (but I'm a stubborn dude, and I finished them both more than one time).

Awesome.  I love Dark Souls 3.  I think I have over 300 hours in that damn game, but I enjoyed it very much.

Haven't played many video games lately, been working on my Dungeons and Dragons world, but when I do play I have been playing Enter the Gungeon and Neverwinter a bit.  Enjoying both quite a bit. 

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I'm just about done with my Dwarf campaign in Warhammer. After finishing the orcs and taking the entire eastern portion of the map I was able to quickly mop up the few vampire settlements remaining, just in time for the End Times. I then allied with every human faction remaining and just set war targets on the chaos armies. I did nothing but watch while chaos razed the entire middle/northern portion of the map while my allies sent their armies at them. Eventually the humans won, though, and I mopped up the survivors + the warherds with my forces.

Then all my allies turned on each other (and me) and 30ish turns later only the Empire and the Border Princes remain, and they're at war now. Meanwhile I've confederated with the western dwarfs and taken those northern settlements. The evil Scandinavians keep throwing armies at me but they're useless at taking out dwarfs (seriously, an equal force of cannons, thunderers and longbeards can mop up any of their forces with barely any losses).

Started a Greenskin campaign. Dwarf armies are giving me trouble so I've been avoiding fights in which I don't have a large numerical advantage. Grimgor is pretty great, though. 

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1 hour ago, The Drunkard said:

 

Started a Greenskin campaign. Dwarf armies are giving me trouble so I've been avoiding fights in which I don't have a large numerical advantage. Grimgor is pretty great, though. 

I found Orcs far too easy to play as. Once you're able to manage your WAAAGH! armies its easy to totally overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, especially if you auto calc the battles. They are a really fun faction though, with a great variety of units. 


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Been playing Europa Universalis 4 finally, after buying a while ago. Its such an intimidating game and really hard to know how to approach it. I love all the ideas contained within it,  but no matter how many tutorials or guides I read I still feel mostly lost as to what is going on. I get very uncomfortable letting the timer go ahead without really having a plan for what I'm supposed to be doing. 

After failing in my England save, I went for the simpler Portugal faction. Unfortunately my years playing Total War meant I wasn't happy to just sit there on my ass, so I tried to invade north africa and Morocco. I got utterly butchered and basically game over within a couple of years. Its going to take a long time to figure this out.

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Absolutely superb article from Kotaku UK on the development of Star Citizen, the most successful crowdfunding project in history (its crowdfunding budget just hit $127 million).

This is well worth a look for its incredibly in-depth look at game development, the scale and scope of what SC is trying to achieve and how video gaming development works in general. It's also surprisingly heartening: basically, the game's development was out of control through the end of 2014 and into 2015 when Chris Roberts undertook a major reorganisation, reassigned key staff and took a step back from trying to micromanage the project. Since then there has been considerably more progress, culminating in last month's full slice of the game, incorporating space travel, zero-gee movement, landing on the surface of planets, co-op and vehicular combat, all within the scope of a single mission. This video restored a lot of faith for the game and gave them their biggest funding month in a long time (they raised $4 million alone in the two weeks after this video aired, which is completely barking mental).

A key improvement is that Chris has put his brother Erin in charge of a lot of production duties. Back in the day, it was well-understood that Chris was the dreamer and Erin the nuts-and-bolts guy who actually got shit done. Whilst Chris went off to Hollywood to make bad films, Erin stayed in gaming and ended up being studio director for the various Lego games, whose rapid release schedules required efficient production pipelines and tight focus. It looks like that's paid off.

Of course, I doubt we'll see Star Citizen itself before the end of 2018, but Squadron 42 looks doable next year.

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Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who really likes the new Battlefront. I don't understand the hate. It's a great, fun shooting game. Maybe because it isn't competitive in nature, that's where some of the criticism comes from? I don't know, I just have a lot of fun playing it.

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On 9/23/2016 at 4:57 PM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I found Orcs far too easy to play as. Once you're able to manage your WAAAGH! armies its easy to totally overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, especially if you auto calc the battles. They are a really fun faction though, with a great variety of units. 

Yeah, once you build up enough momentum it's hard to stop. The Top Knots were one strength rank above me, but I got three WAAAGH's off in quick succession and just rolled over everything they had at that point. 

The variety is definitely a plus. The dwarf roster is pretty basic and I played essentially the same way in every battle for the entire campaign, whereas so far I've made some distinct greenskin armies that play differently, and I've only just unlocked giants and arachnaroks so I'm eager to try them out.

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On 9/21/2016 at 8:35 AM, Ferrum Aeternum said:

I have PUG-tanked normals before (prior content, none in Legion yet) and haven't had too much difficulty apart from whining healers admonishing me to "go faster/pull more" despite the fact that I'm already pulling half the room. Pace of play is a big deal for me - I do not go slow by any means as a tank but I like to establish a comfortable rhythm. 

Man, those healers would've haaaaaaated PUGing some of those classic WoW dungeons. Patience was an essential part of your rotation during a BRD, LBRS, UBRS, or even Scholomance run. I remember doing runs with PUGs back in the day that took hours, much longer than they needed to, because people weren't paying attention or doing dumb shit or just didn't know where to go.

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15 hours ago, Maelys I Blackfyre said:

Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who really likes the new Battlefront. I don't understand the hate. It's a great, fun shooting game. Maybe because it isn't competitive in nature, that's where some of the criticism comes from? I don't know, I just have a lot of fun playing it.

Having not played any of them, my understanding is that the new Battlefront is insultingly short and light on content compared to the original Battlefront 1 and 2 from a decade ago (and the cancelled-at-the-last-minute Battlefront 3). It's already been confirmed that there was a comprehensive single-player campaign that was cut to rush the game out for Christmas, and for a game that costs quite a lot of money there isn't a huge amount to do.

Or so the general opinion seems to go.

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15 hours ago, Maelys I Blackfyre said:

Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who really likes the new Battlefront. I don't understand the hate. It's a great, fun shooting game. Maybe because it isn't competitive in nature, that's where some of the criticism comes from? I don't know, I just have a lot of fun playing it.

I personally boycott any game with insulting DLC packages like Battlefront and all of EA's other multiplayer games.  The game itself might be fine but I refuse to support companies who hold back content to sell it later as DLC.

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So for a still Total Noob at both games, which DLC's are essential for Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV? I haven't even played the latter, but I'm almost certainly gonna get the conversion DLC for CKII to EUIV, but what else is essential? $300 bucks for all the DLC might be more than I can explain to the BF.

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1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

So for a still Total Noob at both games, which DLC's are essential for Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV? I haven't even played the latter, but I'm almost certainly gonna get the conversion DLC for CKII to EUIV, but what else is essential? $300 bucks for all the DLC might be more than I can explain to the BF.

Most DLC's are extra songs and "skins" they sell as tips for their artists. The skins mostly make your regional/ethnical people look a lot more distinct.

The main DLC's are: 

Sword of Islam - makes Muslim faction and mechanics available. Worth it if you see yourself wanting to try them out.

Legacy of Rome - a must buy if only so you can have retinues, aka CK2 version of standing army precursors. IIRC you love Byzantium so you'll love to hear Byzantium gets a lot of flavour events, as well as the possibility to Mend the Schism(basically conquer and convert key provinces/holy sites to Orthodoxy(dunno if they added other religions as available too, so long as you're Byz) AND to Restore the Roman Empire(you have to conquer a lot more stuff for this one though).

Sunset Invasion - so, around 1230-1270 in standard game you get the Mongol Invasion. This is a DLC that adds a fantasy invasion in a "what if Vikings did establish permanent colonies and assimilated into Native Americans/Mesoamericans" then proceeded to try and conquer "the Old World". It's also an extra end-game challenge so it's up to you if you want it.

The Old Gods - moves the start date back to 867, unlocks options to play as Pagan of various kinds(to which they added later, either as patch or inserted as part of other DLC's, a lot more features, with Norse being the best one to play still) and Zoroastrian, the adventurer mechanic(basically a random person gets an army and tries to conquer a region), and improved rebellions and rebellion factions. This is also a must one DLC to get.

Sons of Abraham - allows you to play as a Jew and improves upon all three main Abrahamic religion mechanics, like adding Muslim factions schools and a College of Cardinals and interactions for Catholicism. Up to you to get it if you want to.

Rajas of India - adds India to map, 3 more religions(Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism which are fairly unique). It also makes the game run slower cause it adds a lot of provinces and tags etc. so again up to you to get them.

Charlemagne - adds 769 start date, the option to play as Zunists, and is a must buy if you want to create custom empires/kingdoms/duchies/counties(and appoint Viceroys)

The Way of Life - I think it's a must buy because it adds a ton of events, diplomatic interactions, flavour stuff and general depth to the game.

The Horse Lords - adds Nomadic factions as playable, nomadic mechanics, forts and Silk Road events/mechanics. Up to you if you want it.

Conclave - an expansion similar to The Way of Life, adding a lot of depth/mechanics to the game, like conclaves, the Favour system(if you help out people they help out you), revised education etc. I think it's def a good expansion to get, also the next one too.

The Reapers Due - the last main DLC, another focused on adding more depth to the game, with a lot of narrative events, reworked illness system(adding hospitals/doctors etc.), new prisoner interactions, etc.

I mean if I were you I'd get all the main DLC's on sale and only on super sale the extra artist DLC's.

Main exp for EU4:

Conquest of Paradise - There are 3 main features - playing as Native Americans in a much better way than before(not Mesoamericans, yet), a Random New World Generator(not worth it unless you get expansions which made it better) and possibility to play as Colonial Nations. Get if you want to play as Native Americans and better colonisation stuff.(and Random New World too if you really want to get all main expansions cause I don't remember which ones really improved it, sorry)

Wealth of Nations - adds a decent amount of diplomatic options, Trade Capital designation, Trade Companies and extra Hindu stuff. Good DLC to get.

Res Publica - smaller DLC focused mostly on Merchant Republics, adding a lot of stuff for them(and Dutch Republic), and gives new idea groups. You should get it just for the functionality and idea groups alone, and it's less expensive than the rest of them.

Art of War - this is THE DLC to get. It adds a fuckton of provinces and nations across the globe, 30 Years War mechanics and events(so the religious Wars can start across Europe), a lot of QoL mechanics like army/navy templates(basically if you want to make a 50k men army, you can just make a template of 30k infrantry, 8k cavalry and 12k artillery and the game will build each regiment in the 50 nearest provinces and rally them to the one you started it in), extra diplomacy options, more vassal interaction and options to create client states(like Napoleon did).

El Dorado - almost a must have DLC - you get Mesoamerican religions, events and mechanics, exploration mechanics to explore the World, Circumnavigate it, The Tready of Tordesillas event so you protect your colonial rights, the narrative event "The Seven Cities of Gold" where you can get a lot of cool bonuses if you take it as a colonizer nation, and a custom nation creator

Common Sense - must have DLC(as the name implies) - adds Parliaments, province development, new mechanics for Buddhism and Protestant religions, extra subject interactions, government ranks(this is seriously good though) and mechanics for Theocracies and Free Cities(like Hanza cities).

The Cossacks - also must have - adds Estates which are basically factions but with extra province interactions, the ability to set your own atitude towards AI nations, mechanics for Horde/Nomad nations and their religion, and some other cool stuff.

Mare Nostrum - a decent although not essential focused on extra depth for the game, like adding some espionage actions/stuff, the ability to hire out your army as condottieri so you can help nations in their wars vs people you hate more than them, etc.

(I don't remember but either The Cossacks or Mare Nostrum added a lot more Central-South African provinces and nations so you also have them to play as, as well as their Fetishist Religion(not like sexual fetishists but sth like totemist but different), AND the option for at least Catholics and Orthodox if not others to restore the Roman Empire)

Rights of Man - it'll be a new DLC and from everything I read about it, it sounds as must have, with a lot more QoL mechanics, personality traits for Monarchs, new interactions between nations etc.

Also, Purple Phoenix and Star and Crescent are two small DLC's focused on Byzantium and Ottomans that are good to get for extra flavour and events for those two nations. American Dream is the same for the US although a lot more buggy, and there's a free DLC Women in History which is pretty cool and is free so...

I hope this helps!

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