Video Games: "Completeness" becomes important somehow

[MerenthaClone]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Julian Gallop, the original creator of X-COM, has returned with Phoenix Point, a "spiritual successor" which apparently borrows ideas from the original games, the Firaxis reboots and throws some new ideas into the mix. There'll be a lot more factions, with human forces fighting one another as well as the alien invaders, and there'll be a real dynamic campaign going on with stuff happening all the time. It's not just about you (they compare it to the Paradox strategy games in that sense).

The most interesting thing is, as well as procedurally-generated levels, there'll also be procedurally-generated aliens. They have a vast number of types of alien and alien body parts and weapons and armour, and can mix these up into hundreds of different combinations. The aliens will also learn from your own tactics. Favour snipers and the aliens will prioritise ranged attackers or fast-moving creatures who can close before you can reload.

It looks bloody awesome. But we won't see it until late 2018.

Sweet.  Paradox-style games becoming more popular is a good, good thing.  

[Kalbear]

At E3, the makers of the prosthetic inspired and designed in part by Deus Ex have a person wearing the prosthetic and playing Deus Ex with it.

 

 

[KiDisaster]

https://twitter.com/GambleMike/status/742448411111096320

ME: Andromeda's protagonist name will be "_______ Ryder", in honor of Sally Ride.

Pretty cool. 

That being said, the number of Guyder's named "Dick" is going to be astronomical. 

[GallowKnight]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Bethesda just confirmed that ELDER SCROLLS VI is on its way but will be many years off and requires the development of new technologies that they haven't got yet. They are also working on two other large projects, which may be announced before we hear anything more about ES6.

Elder Scrolls Elsweyr hopefully.

[Corvinus85]

20 minutes ago, GallowKnight said:

Elder Scrolls Elsweyr hopefully.

Call it Dominion and have Elsweyr + Valenwood + Summerset Isles

[Werthead]

Julian Gollop talking about the history of XCOM. Excellent stuff.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

The talk of new technology being required makes me hopeful that they'll actually build a new engine for it. I was hoping for a 2019 release for TES6, but I wouldn't mind waiting longer if it meant a new engine.

ETA: I have some (perhaps misplaced) hope that one of those other big projects to come first is a successor to New Vegas. A man can dream.

[Fez]

I thought the trailer for We Happy Few looked great, but finding out its somehow a procedurally generated rogue-like has turned me right off. That premise is meant for a story-driven action game.

Getting another tiny glimpse of Tyranny was great. I don't need anything else, its Obsidian after all, but it is cool seeing a bit about the premise.

I look forward to Mass Effect, but almost no details are out. Ryder's a good name though, I will say that.

Haven't seen too much to get excited about yet. The SuperHot VR game looks insane, but I don't have a VR device. There's hopefully a couple other things, I haven't seen everything's that been released yet.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

20 hours ago, Korvín-Corvinus said:

Destroyed the Chaos faction in TW: W by assassinating Archaeon the Everchosen with a Witch-Hunter. Now I will turn my attention southwards, towards the Greenskins.

My main problem in this game is that it just seems like a constant game of cat and mouse, with my armies constantly chasing after some horde or another who simply refuse to get into combat with me. Its so tedious I almost feel like giving up. 

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

My main problem in this game is that it just seems like a constant game of cat and mouse, with my armies constantly chasing after some horde or another who simply refuse to get into combat with me. Its so tedious I almost feel like giving up. 

I agree, which is why sometimes I bait them with a small army, just so the main army can catch them. Or use agents to slow them if I can.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

2 minutes ago, Korvín-Corvinus said:

I agree, which is why sometimes I bait them with a small army, just so the main army can catch them. Or use agents to slow them if I can.

Most total war games seem to have pretty similar problems like this. Usually they all end up with constant seige battles, at least that is fixed, but here its roaming chaos and undead armies running around my lands and me being powerless to get them. 

I do like the game a great deal, its a lot more fun than say Rome 2, but I almost feel a little lost by it all. As the empire its hard to know where to even aim for.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Most total war games seem to have pretty similar problems like this. Usually they all end up with constant seige battles, at least that is fixed, but here its roaming chaos and undead armies running around my lands and me being powerless to get them. 

I do like the game a great deal, its a lot more fun than say Rome 2, but I almost feel a little lost by it all. As the empire its hard to know where to even aim for.

I don't know about you, but yeah, I can feel lost, too, being unfamiliar with this universe. Having played a fairly extensive campaign with the Empire now, I think that once Chaos starts rearing its ugly head, more factions are prone to be allied with you, which helps, including the chasing of enemy armies. Several times now, either the Bretonnians or the Dwarfs marching through my territory caught up with enemy armies that I couldn't catch.

I'm still not sure what the point of those quest battles is, other than giving you some nice artifacts.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

17 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

https://twitter.com/GambleMike/status/742448411111096320

ME: Andromeda's protagonist name will be "_______ Ryder", in honor of Sally Ride.

Pretty cool. 

That being said, the number of Guyder's named "Dick" is going to be astronomical. 

There's no accounting for the idiocy of the human race.   It's a very cool name and great provenance. I am beyond excited for ME: Andromeda. Call me gullible but I think it's going to be really good.

A few more E3 thoughts:

I like the concept behind Tyranny, and since its Obsidian I'm sure they'll do a great job with it. 

Can't get interested in TES6 yet if it's still years away. Who knows what gaming will even look like in 2020? Maybe we will all be doing VR by then. At least they aren't overpromising on a delivery date (hopefully).

Remastered Skyrim does nothing for me since I can already make my game look reasonably close to that with mods.

[MerenthaClone]

Hordes that are impossible to catch are frustrating, but a few things will help:  

• Walls everywhere.  Province capitals get them automatically, smaller settlements need to tech up to the t3 garrison.  If they have to stop to siege, they can be caught or driven out of your lands. Yes, it means you miss out on money in your provinces.  Such is the price to pay.  Its worth it, and will pay for itself as you can afford to defend your lands with much smaller armies.   
•  Ambush mode:  Your army can simply vanish as far as the AI is concerned.  This can set an army formerly fleeing from your doomstack to do an about-face to try to go besiege the settlement it just tried to the previous turn, right into your hidden doomstack.  To make this easier, you can bring a small army along to act as bait.  Have them move close the enemy, but your ambushing stack between your bait and their army, and wait. (As a bonus, that's a good way to train up a lord a bit before you have the funds to give them a full stack themselves.  I wish I'd done more with other lords and less with Mannfred because now I feel like I'm struggling in every theater he's not in, both because he's Mannfred and because he's got twice as many levels as any other lord.)  
• Agents.  Most if not all (I haven't played everyone) races get a unit that can delay movement by 50%, more if improved by skills.  For Empire and VC they're the Witch Hunter and Banshee, both of which you'll want to get as many as possible of just because they're also your assassins, wallbreakers, and agent debuffers.  Sic them on an enemy army and they'll often stay put.  

Sadly, controlling crossings/bridges/passes seems to be tricky with how they handle movement and the zone of control, so trying to use chokepoints is difficult.  I'm hoping they make it easier in upcoming patches, because the routine of attack -> raze -> forced march away is entirely too frustrating to try to combat without being good at moving your armies in occasionally totally unintuitive ways.  

[Jasta11]

Yeah, you kinda have to abuse Ambush stance to catch enemy armies sometimes, and the whole attack-raze/sack-forced march away is just blatant cheating on the AI's part, given that a player army cannot do this at all. I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be a mod (yet at least) which disables it.

It's a shame, because the AI is competent enough to actually have a chance to win some 20v20 battles, which just wasn't the case in previous Total Wars. It makes for great field battles, but chasing Archaon around like you are on a Scooby-Doo show does dampen the effect somewhat.

[Fez]

Had a fantastic pug match in Overwatch last night, doing attack on Temple of Anubis. Three players picked Pharrah, so we decided to go all the way, six-player Pharrah. One guy got pissed, dropped, ended up getting put back in our game when he looked for a new game, got even more pissed, and dropped again. He shouldn't have, because we dominated the match. Took the first objective in about 90 seconds and the second objective after about 3 minutes. Justice really reigned from above.

Sadly, after the first objective I switched to Lucio because we really did need some heals, so I didn't get my first Pharrah win on my career stats, but the match was a ton of fun.

Whole night went well actually. I started off with a few bad games as Winston (I think I was fine though) but then ended up winning almost every game after that; boosted my career winning percentage from 46% to 48%.

[Corvinus85]

Mount & Blade Bannerlord 2 Siege Gameplay

Really staggering improvements over its predecessor. Can't wait!

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 hour ago, MerenthaClone said:

Hordes that are impossible to catch are frustrating, but a few things will help:  

• Walls everywhere.  Province capitals get them automatically, smaller settlements need to tech up to the t3 garrison.  If they have to stop to siege, they can be caught or driven out of your lands. Yes, it means you miss out on money in your provinces.  Such is the price to pay.  Its worth it, and will pay for itself as you can afford to defend your lands with much smaller armies.   
•  Ambush mode:  Your army can simply vanish as far as the AI is concerned.  This can set an army formerly fleeing from your doomstack to do an about-face to try to go besiege the settlement it just tried to the previous turn, right into your hidden doomstack.  To make this easier, you can bring a small army along to act as bait.  Have them move close the enemy, but your ambushing stack between your bait and their army, and wait. (As a bonus, that's a good way to train up a lord a bit before you have the funds to give them a full stack themselves.  I wish I'd done more with other lords and less with Mannfred because now I feel like I'm struggling in every theater he's not in, both because he's Mannfred and because he's got twice as many levels as any other lord.)  
• Agents.  Most if not all (I haven't played everyone) races get a unit that can delay movement by 50%, more if improved by skills.  For Empire and VC they're the Witch Hunter and Banshee, both of which you'll want to get as many as possible of just because they're also your assassins, wallbreakers, and agent debuffers.  Sic them on an enemy army and they'll often stay put.  

Sadly, controlling crossings/bridges/passes seems to be tricky with how they handle movement and the zone of control, so trying to use chokepoints is difficult.  I'm hoping they make it easier in upcoming patches, because the routine of attack -> raze -> forced march away is entirely too frustrating to try to combat without being good at moving your armies in occasionally totally unintuitive ways.  

Hmm, some great tips! I have never really used the Ambush stance, in any TW game, mainly because the AI very rarely comes close enough for it to be a valid stance. How big is the 'capture' area? 

The other point I guess is that with Empire my lands are pretty big and spread out, especially that swampy bit to the right of my home province, and I don't tend to often have too many armies at one time, so catching enemies in a pincer stance is pretty tricky. 

Witch Hunters aren't something I think I can even recruit yet? How do i get them? TBH I've not done much with heroes, I forget to recruit them. 

Half the problem I think is I'm very used to the old way of playing TW games, and realise how much I fall back on my knowledge of European geography when playing. As I know nothing about the WH world, I find it all a little confusing.

[Corvinus85]

17 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Witch Hunters aren't something I think I can even recruit yet? How do i get them? TBH I've not done much with heroes, I forget to recruit them. 
 

Temple of Sigmar, which is the 2nd level of that building after Shrine of Sigmar that gives you Warrior-Priests. So you need to build it in a capital.

You're missing out on not using heroes, not just because of their campaign abilities, which are just like in other TW games, but because you can use them as units in your armies. The various wizards can definitely help break armies, though learning to use spells appropriately is tricky.

17 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Half the problem I think is I'm very used to the old way of playing TW games, and realise how much I fall back on my knowledge of European geography when playing. As I know nothing about the WH world, I find it all a little confusing.

Aye, this be true. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 minute ago, Korvín-Corvinus said:

Temple of Sigmar, which is the 2nd level of that building after Shrine of Sigmar that gives you Warrior-Priests. So you need to build it in a capital.

You're missing out on not using heroes, not just because of their campaign abilities, which are just like in other TW games, but because you can use them as units in your armies. The various wizards can definitely help break armies, though learning to use spells appropriately is tricky.

Aye, this be true. 

Ah, right, yeah I spent so much trying to just get an armoury that I didn't have room for the temple of Sigmar. 

So whats your usual strategy for Empire? I usually start off consolidating the first province then go and chummy up to some of my neighbours, get a confederation going. But then the Vampires turn up and corrupt everything, and Chaos does the same and by the point it just feels like I've over extended and can't keep up.