Video Games: In the Grim Darkness of licensed Games.

[A True Kaniggit]

Wow. Was playing Madden NFL 19 and ran into one of the strangest referee rulings I've ever seen.

I threw an interception, and then forced a fumble. The opposing team recovered the fumble. But somewhere during the play was a holding penalty.

I guess everything going on overloaded the referees AI because their decision was: give the opposing team the ball...... starting on 3rd and inches?

[Pliskin]

On 1/5/2019 at 4:27 AM, Iskaral Pust said:

I downloaded Fortnite for him too.  Noobies get killed quickly, and the PS4 doesn’t seem conducive for aiming with precision and speed.  Less fun there.  Too many expert opponents.

I feel bad for anyone starting the game now. The average level is so off the chart, it's just absurd.

Which brings so many annoying changes from Epic to try to reduce the skill gap, but that's another topic.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

I feel bad for anyone starting the game now. The average level is so off the chart, it's just absurd.

Which brings so many annoying changes from Epic to try to reduce the skill gap, but that's another topic.

That's going to be the case for pretty much any multiplayer shooter. It's just that Fortnite is so massive, and still pulling in so many new players, that many more people get to experience the joy of being absolutely destroyed by players who really know what they're doing.

[Toth]

19 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

The game puts you into fights based on the highest battle ranking vehicle in your lineup, with a ± 1 swing in either direction from that.

So if your highest equipped vehicle has a BR of 3.3, there is a chance you will get placed in a match facing 4.3s, 2.3s, or anything in between.

Thanks... that... actually explains a lot of what I'm witnessing. Though I must admit, while the low tier battles are fun, it gets frustrating really quick.

Admittedly, I know it's pretty strange to complain about the game when you start loosing, but today I played a bit more (stupid me, I know), and... I don't know, maybe playing on a weekend isn't good for your mental health. At first I played around in the ground battles a bit in order to unlock the Panzer IV which I have heard is pretty good. Interestingly, things went way better than before. Sure, my crew still gets knocked out whenever I hit a pebble on the road, but I did manage to drive more tactical and score some hits. Quite some hits, actually. In my last battle I singlehandedly took the only victory point on a hill with two bridges being the only entryways and held it for the rest of the game, avoiding an enemy attempt to outflank me as well as two artillery strikes. I ended up with 17 kills and no death with just my trusty Pz.Kpfw.35(t). Bloody hells, my previous record was 12 in the air battles...

Then I tried some flying, again with the Japanese because I really want to unlock the Zero. Unfortunately... things went more than a bit downhill. Despite 1,3 still being my highest battleranking, the matchmaking truly hated every team I was part of. 5 times in a row I faced teams where half the players were lvl. 100 and utterly hammered my side in an absolutely ridiculous bloodbath. With no one on my side scoring any kills, and my puny one or two kills were Kamikaze attacks. I have seen my side defeated plenty of times before, but at least those times I still felt like I am actually good at the game (which I'm decidedly not, of course). Because I still somehow managed to rack up 11 or 12 kills against overwhelming odds, often being the only one fighting back. But this time. It's more than a little bit frustrating when 5 games in a row always end with you spawning alone, the entire air around you is red and you immediately get mobbed up by six enemy planes. I guess I was too long on the winning sides before...

I then carefully went into an air battle with my Messerschmitts... and basically the same thing happened there as well. Had to compete against BR 3.7 planes that just utterly thrashed me and made me ragequit because all I had left was my He51... I guess it makes sense not to use your best fighters as soon as you unlock them, but instead wait until you unlocked a wider array on the same BR.

Edit: Just looked it up, the guy who sniped my E-3 right after the spawn was in a Thunderbolt. The wiki says it is the worst possible opponent I could face. -.- Interestingly there was another guy in a F-1 Messerschmitt in ludicrous height above my teams spawn point who destroyed my other two Messerschmitts whenever I even attempted to climb a bit.

[Proudfeet]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

That's going to be the case for pretty much any multiplayer shooter. It's just that Fortnite is so massive, and still pulling in so many new players, that many more people get to experience the joy of being absolutely destroyed by players who really know what they're doing.

Surely if you are pulling in many new players, you should be able to group new players together. Its when you have no new players that you despair.

[Fez]

44 minutes ago, Proudfeet said:

Surely if you are pulling in many new players, you should be able to group new players together. Its when you have no new players that you despair.

That's certainly the idea with things like MMR systems, but they are not perfect, especially with the desire to get matches started as quickly as possible. And I imagine having a game where each match gets 100 people it's even harder, if Fortnite even has anything like that at all.

[Iskaral Pust]

I’ve never played any multiplayer shooters, nor even much time on first-person shooter RPGs.  So there’s just no way for me to ever enter into that world now.  As cool as those games look, my skills are stupidly underdeveloped compared to almost anyone else who might play.  I’d have a more realistic chance in a RL elite sports competition than any computer game against human competitors.  And I’ll never give it enough time to get much better either. 

[Kalbear]

Fortnite has a lot of n00b friendly games - teams, coop stuff, playground - that makes it more friendly than you think. Plus you earn stuff in game even when you lose. 

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I’ve never played any multiplayer shooters, nor even much time on first-person shooter RPGs.  So there’s just no way for me to ever enter into that world now.  As cool as those games look, my skills are stupidly underdeveloped compared to almost anyone else who might play.  I’d have a more realistic chance in a RL elite sports competition than any computer game against human competitors.  And I’ll never give it enough time to get much better either. 

It's really not so bad.The two keys to any of the shooters are situational awareness and aiming; the former can be learned relatively quickly if you pay attention; though the later takes mechanical skill that some people just won't have. However, I play PC multiplayer shooters with a controller, which puts me at a crazy aiming disadvantage compared to everyone else (I have to do it; M+KB always feels too awkward to me and I'm even worse at it). But the thing is, most of these games now recognize that there will be some players that are terrible at aiming and have at least a few characters that are balanced around bad/slow aiming; either being healers, melee-focused, or AoE-attackers.

Battle Royale games like Fortnite don't have that, because every character is equal, but games like Overwatch, Rainbow Six Siege, Battlefield, Call of Duty, etc. all do.

[Pliskin]

6 hours ago, Fez said:

That's going to be the case for pretty much any multiplayer shooter. It's just that Fortnite is so massive, and still pulling in so many new players, that many more people get to experience the joy of being absolutely destroyed by players who really know what they're doing.

Fortnite is special, and not just due to its success, but because it has a unique building gameplay. You can be a shooter god, and still get utterly destroyed by a guy who has potato aim but is a build fight god.

And yes, we really need a separate ranked mode. It would help both new players and pros who get bored in pubs.

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

Fortnite is special, and not just due to its success, but because it has a unique building gameplay. You can be a shooter god, and still get utterly destroyed by a guy who has potato aim but is a build fight god.

I think I've never met a potato-aim/build-god type, but in theory I suppose they can exist. What you definitely do get are amazing builders who don't know when to stop building up. 

Quote

And yes, we really need a separate ranked mode. It would help both new players and pros who get bored in pubs.

Agreed, ranked mode would be a good idea. There's a lot of agitation in the competitive subreddit for the pop up cup shield/health boost on kills to go into pub, but that will just make the skill gap insurmountable for new players.

I think Epic should approach tourneys by not throwing big changes into them the day of the event (as they did at the Winter Royale) but instead have some additional "exhibition" match introducing the new things, either as a prelude to the final game of a tournament or perhaps after it. IIRC, that's how Valve does things at TI.

(For what it's worth, I am a terrible Fortnite player, and mostly stick to special team modes except when I do duos with my niece, who's in love with the game. Don't have the time or twitchy reflexes, but there's something about it I find enjoyable. I find that multi-player games offer excitement that single-player games don't. Before Fortnite, I was playing TF2 irregularly to get my fix.)

 

@Iskaral Pust

What Kal says about modes that are relatively friendly for new people. There's some really insanely skilled players on consoles (though many of the best have moved to using controllers on PCs for the higher frame rates and graphics options), and console players do get a pretty effective aim-assist for close-to-medium range combat, to the point where occasionally there are PC players who complain that it's OP (it's not, really, especially when M/KB players have it a lot easier on the building side of things).

[Pliskin]

16 minutes ago, Ran said:

I think I've never met a potato-aim/build-god type, but in theory I suppose they can exist. What you definitely do get are amazing builders who don't know when to stop building up. 

Yes, I meant theoretically. Of course, someone who mastered building has probably already an above average aim.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 1/1/2019 at 9:15 AM, Mexal said:

How is Horizon?

Have you played any of the Far Cry games (or Assassin's Creed)? It reminds me a ton of those games but with a more complicated combat system. I like Horizon a lot--it's an open world game full of icons and that kind of gameplay is super addictive for me. Everyone says it is a beautiful game, but I thought it felt...I don't know, everything kind of blended together. I spent almost thirty minutes on a tutorial mission because I couldn't find the guy I was following (or his marker). Everything was so blended together, I couldn't make out the details. But it's a fun game.

[Gorn]

I recently started playing Assassin's Creed: Rogue (the one where you play as a Templar) as part of my slow-but-ongoing playthrough of the AC series. So far, it has been a disappointment - all the areas are copy-pasted from the previous two games, either entirely (NYC) or with minor variations (wilderness and sailing sections). The open-world icon-hoovering, which is usually mindless relaxation for me, just feels tiring here.

The story is also underwhelming, since Ubisoft didn't have courage to make the protagonist an actual bad guy (unless something major changes later on) - it is simply the Assassins who are the mustache-twirling villains this time, and Templars who are the lighter shade of gray. It also seems fairly short - I've only played the main story for several hours, and I'm already 60% finished with it.

I'm tempted to skip Unity and Syndicate and start playing Origins or Odyssey instead, but the French Revolution-era Paris and 19th century London are simply too attractive settings for me to pass.

[KiDisaster]

I finally got around to playing Return of the Obra Dinn over the past few days and it has snatched my GOTY 2018 pick. What a brilliant game.

Top 5 now looks like this:

Obra Dinn

Dead Cells

God of War

Celeste

Into The Breach

With extremely honorable mentions to Donut County, Battletech & Banner Saga 3

2018 was another amazing year for games. 

[Ferrum Aeternum]

10 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

Have you played any of the Far Cry games (or Assassin's Creed)? It reminds me a ton of those games but with a more complicated combat system. I like Horizon a lot--it's an open world game full of icons and that kind of gameplay is super addictive for me. Everyone says it is a beautiful game, but I thought it felt...I don't know, everything kind of blended together. I spent almost thirty minutes on a tutorial mission because I couldn't find the guy I was following (or his marker). Everything was so blended together, I couldn't make out the details. But it's a fun game.

HZD is an amazing game, probably my favorite single player game of the last 10 years. Besides what you said above, the setting and backstory are incredibly creative. The lore is a deepening mystery that you slowly unravel over time. Extremely satisfying. 

[PyroclasticFlow]

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I just picked up Witcher3 Wild Hunt yesterday and would like some input on what to expect. Most recent RPG played was Skyrim when it came out 3 or 4 yrs ago.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Skyrim’s actually over 7 years old now, which is a bit scary.

I’ve barely played any of the Witcher 3. I just don’t have enough time.

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

Skyrim’s actually over 7 years old now, which is a bit scary.

I’ve barely played any of the Witcher 3. I just don’t have enough time.

And yet I still go back and play it every couple of months. It feels kind of limited now but it has such a magical place in my memories.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

So I just finished chapter 6. Ace, don't open this:

Spoiler

Swear words. ALL THE SWEAR WORDS. I hated that guy the entire time, and he's the one to literally put the knife in me? I knew Arthur was doomed from a combination of his failing health and that the game had an epilogue, but damn that sucked. Hopefully my new character will claim revenge.