Video Games: Next Stop... Andromeda

[l2 0 5 5]

10 hours ago, Week said:

I have FFXV still unplayed - I want to start it at a time where I can binge a few solid hours for a few days straight though.

My FF15 boat is docked at chapter 11/15 for about the past month. I'm pissed at myself for not powering through it. I'll find my way back on board eventually.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Anyone here played the Warhammer game Mordheim: City of the Damned? Been thinking of grabbing that one on Steam. Looks interesting. 

I played it for around 8 hours. I didn't like it that much. The game is absurdly, unfairly hard; to the point that you cannot beat missions using regular tactics. Doing so will almost always result in at 2 of your squad being injured or killed (that's if your lucky; it'll usually be more than that); and the costs of replacing them will cripple your progression and you'll lose. Instead, and the developers having even said this is playing as intended, you need to beat missions by figuring out exploits in AI behavior.

Alternatively, and this is what I mostly did, you can run every missions with the minimum size squad; this makes the missions a lot easier since enemy squads are always exactly the same size as yours. And when there's less enemies, its easier to surround their commander. This isn't true for story missions though, since there's unlimited enemies in those missions; they are level-locked instead of scaling though, so the way to beat them is excessive grinding in non-story missions (which are the bulk of the game).

The problem is that you are always evenly matched against opponents; which makes it like a chess game. And like in chess, you'll lose pieces on the way to winning. The problem is, the game's meta-economy isn't set up for you to be able to regularly replace pieces. Its set-up to be like X-COM and it expects you to have few casualties and to be regularly leveling up your squad. But that's not possible to do, unless you play the game in ways that aren't particularly fun.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

I played it for around 8 hours. I didn't like it that much. The game is absurdly, unfairly hard; to the point that you cannot beat missions using regular tactics. Doing so will almost always result in at 2 of your squad being injured or killed (that's if your lucky; it'll usually be more than that); and the costs of replacing them will cripple your progression and you'll lose. Instead, and the developers having even said this is playing as intended, you need to beat missions by figuring out exploits in AI behavior.

Alternatively, and this is what I mostly did, you can run every missions with the minimum size squad; this makes the missions a lot easier since enemy squads are always exactly the same size as yours. And when there's less enemies, its easier to surround their commander. This isn't true for story missions though, since there's unlimited enemies in those missions; they are level-locked instead of scaling though, so the way to beat them is excessive grinding in non-story missions (which are the bulk of the game).

The problem is that you are always evenly matched against opponents; which makes it like a chess game. And like in chess, you'll lose pieces on the way to winning. The problem is, the game's meta-economy isn't set up for you to be able to regularly replace pieces. Its set-up to be like X-COM and it expects you to have few casualties and to be regularly leveling up your squad. But that's not possible to do, unless you play the game in ways that aren't particularly fun.

Thanks for the review, Fez. Believe it or not that actually kind of sells it for me. I tend to like grindy games.  

[IamMe90]

32 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Thanks for the review, Fez. Believe it or not that actually kind of sells it for me. I tend to like grindy games.  

You'd like the SMT: Devil Survivor games then, methinks. Although, that may depend on your tolerance for JRPG plot/character tropes. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just now, IamMe90 said:

You'd like the SMT: Devil Survivor games then, methinks. Although, that may depend on your tolerance for JRPG plot/character tropes. 

Thanks for the rec. I'll have to check that out.

[Proudfeet]

14 hours ago, MisterOJ said:

I'm playing the game at a very low level right now. I get that. But still, I think you need some kind of healer. At least at this level of play. There have been so many matches where, if I didn't switch to Mercy, it would have been six straight up offensive and defensive characters and no tanks or support. Or five offensive/defensive characters and no support. I just don't see how something like that could be feasible at any level of play.

So, basically all DPS?

14 hours ago, Jon AS said:

Oh, yeah, usually one healer is pretty damn essential. I was mostly talking about people who want to stick to a strict formula when it comes to team composition. They tend to have a very narrow view on what characters can do (e.g. they tend to think that Mei is a straight up DPS character...).

Mei counts as half tank for me. 

Personally, I find two healers essential unless you have multiple allies who can self heal/regenerate and that healer cannot be Zenyatta. As far as DPS goes, Roadhog/Zarya/Dva often perform better than the actual DPS heroes. The difference is just range/mobility/burst damage.

[Fez]

10 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Thanks for the review, Fez. Believe it or not that actually kind of sells it for me. I tend to like grindy games.  

Fair enough. I like grind too though, the grind isn't the issue. The issue is that the meta-game and combat are so incompatible with each other that the only way to progress is to play incredibly game-y by focusing on breaking the AI instead of beating it; or to stick to a measly 5-character squad (the max is 14 I think) and skip out on an entire upgrade tree.

I believe you literally cannot grind your way through the game playing normally. You might have an extremely good run of luck and manage for a few hours, but that's it. And the game is in permanent ironman mode, so you can't save scum when the luck runs out.

Maybe you'll like that more than me though.

[MerenthaClone]

Tanks do excellent damage in Overwatch, they just tend to do it at really short ranges.  Without aggro mechanics or anything, that's essentially how they become priority targets:  their very presence forces an action, either killing them or withdrawing.  DPS characters are usually characterized by mobility, burst damage, or both, and are much less game-warping in terms of their effect on the playable areas.  The tank characters essentially create "no-go" zones around themselves and attempt to project that zone without getting killed.  Mei could probably could as an off-tank for that reason at lower levels, but at higher skill, people rely on her altfire a lot more.  Which is a problem, when people who look at comp videos of skilled players and insist that people attempt to play characters like the pros do despite a complete lack of the mechanical ability to do so.  See below, where I'm going to talk about a character that I (or most people) have the ability to play anywhere near to her potential.  

Ana is the only character really capable of solo-healing, and having another healer is still very helpful for her (esp. Lucio).  But, as of the last update I played, her grenade was enabled her and Lucio to (iirc) get very, very close to Zen's ult healing rates on demand every 10 seconds in addition to her already first-in-class burst healing throughput.  And it denies that same healing to enemy teams as well.  And for good measure, she's got the longest disable in the game and decent ranged damage. She's single-handedly created the tank-heavy meta.  

[Week]

13 hours ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

My FF15 boat is docked at chapter 11/15 for about the past month. I'm pissed at myself for not powering through it. I'll find my way back on board eventually.

That is exactly what I hope to avoid because it happens to me a decent amount now. Speaking of, I'm probably 70% through 'I Am Setsuna' which I really enjoy - I should probably finish it this week and move on.

[Ded As Ned]

I'm getting better at Brut@l... I can now consistently survive past depth 10... but it's a constant battle of nearly being dead and running for my life most of the time.  Really challenging game, can't promote it enough.  There are 26 levels to finish the game, and I can't see how that is even humanly possible but I'm up to the challenge!  If they ever do a follow up, I really hope they incorporate online co-op, and allow co-op between more than just 2 players.  (Although co-op is even more challenging, as you are splitting resources between 2 players instead of getting them all for just one)

[Rhom]

13 hours ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

My FF15 boat is docked at chapter 11/15 for about the past month. I'm pissed at myself for not powering through it. I'll find my way back on board eventually.

Better than me.  I think I checked out at chapter 5.

Its a beautiful game and the interactions are great.  Combat is pointless and annoying to me.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 hours ago, Fez said:

Fair enough. I like grind too though, the grind isn't the issue. The issue is that the meta-game and combat are so incompatible with each other that the only way to progress is to play incredibly game-y by focusing on breaking the AI instead of beating it; or to stick to a measly 5-character squad (the max is 14 I think) and skip out on an entire upgrade tree.

I believe you literally cannot grind your way through the game playing normally. You might have an extremely good run of luck and manage for a few hours, but that's it. And the game is in permanent ironman mode, so you can't save scum when the luck runs out.

Maybe you'll like that more than me though.

I see what you mean. I won my first mission, but the rewards were really sparse, and I had two characters knocked out of the fight, including my leader. Thankfully, their wounds were not serious. Anyway, the rewards I earned were less than what I had to pay my warband for the mission, so I can see this is going to be a war of attrition. One thing I dislike already is the looting function while still in combat. It doesn't make sense to waste actions during the fight to pick up loot, but it seems pretty apparent that if you don't do that, you don't get the loot, even if you win the mission. 

[Martell Spy]

Not sure where to put this, so I'll stick it here. Very excited about this. Hopefully they go old school and it's Simon Belmont in the series.

 

A Castlevania TV Series Is Coming to Netflix This Year
The mysterious series is set to release in 2017.

http://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/castlevania/262088/a-castlevania-tv-series-is-coming-to-netflix-this-year

[A True Kaniggit]

AHHHH! I've started a new game in Crusader Kings II in which I'm planning on creating Burgundy and having it conquer the Mediterranean . My current ruler, in less than 5 years, has had 3 wives seduced and given the pox by a neighboring count. I think I'm just going to have him stay single for awhile. 

[Fez]

So I have not gotten anywhere close to the endgame, but apparently one of the endings in A House of Many Doors not only deletes all your saves (which is something a few other games have done over the years), it also installs a file in your game directory that blocks the game from ever launching again. The game clearly warns you that this will happen (and I suspect the file isn't that hard to find and delete if you want to play again), but still, talk about having consequences for your actions.

That's way beyond what I'm dealing with right now. I've only started to dream of trees, and am currently trying to find a way to an insane angel to explain it; which requires making an offering to the god of indecipherable geometry (not his real title) to open the way. I'm also teaching a knight how to write poetry, helping a mad scientist build the world's first computer, failing badly at both bounty-hunting and banditry (combat is hard), and building a museum of the occult; among other things. I also recently became a full-time journalist. Its fun.

[Ded As Ned]

8 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Not sure where to put this, so I'll stick it here. Very excited about this. Hopefully they go old school and it's Simon Belmont in the series.

 

A Castlevania TV Series Is Coming to Netflix This Year
The mysterious series is set to release in 2017.

http://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/castlevania/262088/a-castlevania-tv-series-is-coming-to-netflix-this-year

This sounds neat... my first thought was "I hope it's animated" and seems to be the case.  Great setting and story elements already in the game lore, so I'll definitely give it a shot

[Fez]

I just successfully installed a second hard drive on my PC, and I'm embarrassingly proud of that fact. Looking at the number of undownloaded games in Steam library, I'm already wishing I had gone bigger than 1TB (matching my first drive's 1TB). But I didn't want to spend much money until I was sure this was something I could do. To my untrained eye, it looks there's room for three more SATA cables on my motherboard though, so I can do this again in the future. I'll go bigger next time.

Also, now that I've confirmed I can open my PC case and do stuff without automatically breaking everything; its time for me to finally upgrade my graphics card, though I know that'll be a more complex process. I'm just not sure what to get (I have a GTX 750 right now). I really like that price point on the GTX 1060, but I'm wondering whether I should just bite the bullet and get the 1070 or even 1080 (not gonna do the Titan X, that's just too much). Also, is there any chance of prices going down in the next month or so? I don't keep up on this kind of news.

[DunderMifflin]

4 hours ago, Ded As Ned said:

This sounds neat... my first thought was "I hope it's animated" and seems to be the case.  Great setting and story elements already in the game lore, so I'll definitely give it a shot

Where are you reading that it's animated? I read am article earlier where the producer compares it to Game of Thrones.

EDIT: nvmnd, he even says it's animated in the quote I refered to.

"This is very much Castlevania done in the vein of Game of Thrones," Shankar said, adding: "[The series is] going to be R-rated as f***. [It’s going to be] America’s first animated series for adults."

 

not sure how anyone can think there's never been an animated series for adults but I like the rest of the quote.

[KiDisaster]

18 minutes ago, Fez said:

Also, now that I've confirmed I can open my PC case and do stuff without automatically breaking everything; its time for me to finally upgrade my graphics card, though I know that'll be a more complex process. I'm just not sure what to get (I have a GTX 750 right now). I really like that price point on the GTX 1060, but I'm wondering whether I should just bite the bullet and get the 1070 or even 1080 (not gonna do the Titan X, that's just too much). Also, is there any chance of prices going down in the next month or so? I don't keep up on this kind of news.

Are you gaming at 1080p? If so, do you plan on upgrading to 1440p or 4K anytime in the near future? 

If you're staying at 1080p the 1060 is a very solid card. The 1070 is probably ideal if you really care about maxing everything out, and generally more powerful cards will last you longer. The 1080 is likely overkill unless you are planning on upping your resolution. As for price drops, they don't really tend to happen with GPUs outside of sales. If you go look at the price of a new GTX980 for example, they're still selling for the same as they were before the 10XX series came out. I assume they do this to encourage people to just buy the newer ones. 

You can get good deals on older cards if you're willing to buy used though. Also, switching your GPU out is no more complicated than installing a hard drive so nothing to worry about there. 

[Fez]

19 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

Are you gaming at 1080p? If so, do you plan on upgrading to 1440p or 4K anytime in the near future? 

If you're staying at 1080p the 1060 is a very solid card. The 1070 is probably ideal if you really care about maxing everything out, and generally more powerful cards will last you longer. The 1080 is likely overkill unless you are planning on upping your resolution. As for price drops, they don't really tend to happen with GPUs outside of sales. If you go look at the price of a new GTX980 for example, they're still selling for the same as they were before the 10XX series came out. I assume they do this to encourage people to just buy the newer ones. 

You can get good deals on older cards if you're willing to buy used though. Also, switching your GPU out is no more complicated than installing a hard drive. 

Yeah, I play at 1080p, and I'm not planning on going higher than that anytime soon; for one, I'd need to buy a new TV (which is my monitor). I'm also not interested in VR. I would like to play everything at max, or at least high, settings while still getting 60 frames for the next couple years. So maybe I should get the 1070?

Is there anything I need to check about my CPU, power supply, or anything else to make sure my PC can handle a new GPU?