Videogames

[Ira]

I've only played a couple of MM games, I am still not totally sure if I belong in MM. There are still entire heroes I've never even been in a game with (Dark Lady, Soul Reaper, Armadon, anyone released after Empath) and plenty more I don't really understand properly. My low number of MM games also means that one game can move my MMR significantly.

To tell you the truth, I haven't played regularly since it got out of beta until the last few months. So there's a lot of heroes where I know what they do but can't play them adequately (actually that's true of most of the strength heroes). I'm assuming Nomad/Tremble/Aluna are the ones you haven't really encountered, right? (To be perfectly honest, I haven't touched any of those heroes either. Might have to spend some time during tanking trying them out.)

To summarize the ones you named, though:

Dark Lady: She's a hard carry; you get the typical farm items on her, like Runed Axe (or w/e it's called now) and Shieldbreaker, etc. She has a slow, a teleport, silence, and an ult that makes it impossible to see anything on the map or minimap.

Soul Reaper: SR can be played as a semi carry, and I believe that it is in high-level play, but where we're at, he's primarily played as support. Items depend on how much farm you get, obviously; sac stone, nullstone, etc. are all very good items on him, and some sort of mana regen + survivability is essential so he can spam his spells during the fight. His first skill is a heal, and the other two are passive; one gives him mana every time he last hits a creep (includes denies), and the other is a constant health degeneration for all nearby units. His ult does damage based on how much health the target's missing.

Armadon: Arma's played as a tank-carry. Helm, Nome's, Heart, etc. are all the tank-type items; some people get Shieldbreaker, or other typical hard carry items. (He also has the nastiest skill descriptions in the game. Don't read them.) If you're in a lane against Armadon, get a mana battery ASAP. Arma's all about spamming his first two spells, one of which is a snare and the other's an aoe nuke. The other is passive and reduces damage taken from the side/behind. Ult's a passive that increases damage and movement speed on attack.

[Insert Edit]

I remember upthread a couple of people discussing 'Valkyria Chronicles,' and I've got something that's been bugging me as I play through the last couple of missions.

I've noticed that you can upgrade the machine gun to give you more ammo in a clip. But at some point while I was cruising around doing missions, suddenly I had my SCOUTS having 7 shots. But when I went through the different build options on the rifle, I saw only 5 shot clips.

So what gives? How did I end up with Alicia shooting enemies in the face seven times?

[Inigima]

To tell you the truth, I haven't played regularly since it got out of beta until the last few months. So there's a lot of heroes where I know what they do but can't play them adequately (actually that's true of most of the strength heroes). I'm assuming Nomad/Tremble/Aluna are the ones you haven't really encountered, right? (To be perfectly honest, I haven't touched any of those heroes either. Might have to spend some time during tanking trying them out.)

To summarize the ones you named, though:

Dark Lady: She's a hard carry; you get the typical farm items on her, like Runed Axe (or w/e it's called now) and Shieldbreaker, etc. She has a slow, a teleport, silence, and an ult that makes it impossible to see anything on the map or minimap.

Soul Reaper: SR can be played as a semi carry, and I believe that it is in high-level play, but where we're at, he's primarily played as support. Items depend on how much farm you get, obviously; sac stone, nullstone, etc. are all very good items on him, and some sort of mana regen + survivability is essential so he can spam his spells during the fight. His first skill is a heal, and the other two are passive; one gives him mana every time he last hits a creep (includes denies), and the other is a constant health degeneration for all nearby units. His ult does damage based on how much health the target's missing.

Armadon: Arma's played as a tank-carry. Helm, Nome's, Heart, etc. are all the tank-type items; some people get Shieldbreaker, or other typical hard carry items. (He also has the nastiest skill descriptions in the game. Don't read them.) If you're in a lane against Armadon, get a mana battery ASAP. Arma's all about spamming his first two spells, one of which is a snare and the other's an aoe nuke. The other is passive and reduces damage taken from the side/behind. Ult's a passive that increases damage and movement speed on attack.

Yeah, I am vaguely aware of them, just haven't actually seen them played in person. My understanding is that SR "carries" by buying a shitload of survivability so that he just stands around and his passive health destruction and Q kill everyone with the occasional finisher by ult.

Also: it turns out that if I'm willing to run at shit-poor resolution, HoN runs okay on my onboard video card, so we don't have to wait for the new machine.

Just tried Tremble and Soul Reaper in practice games, they seem pretty neat.

EDIT: I think you overestimate my familiarity with the item shop. I am vaguely aware that items named things like Sacrificial Stone and Helm of the Black Legion exist, but I don't really know what they do or what items you would typically buy on a carry. This is as opposed to LoL, where I've been playing long enough that I know roughly what every item does, even if I don't remember the exact numbers for every one.

[Inigima]

Played a couple HoN matches with Ira. I still suck, but not as badly as I thought and I'm learning, and I am assured that I was far from the worst player in those matches. Maybe now it won't be three months before I play again. :)

[Ira]

Played a couple HoN matches with Ira. I still suck, but not as badly as I thought and I'm learning, and I am assured that I was far from the worst player in those matches. Maybe now it won't be three months before I play again. :)

I hope not, 'cause if I have to play with full pub teams again I'm going to cry and I already told you that's an incredibly ugly sight.

[Kosciuszko]

I remember upthread a couple of people discussing 'Valkyria Chronicles,' and I've got something that's been bugging me as I play through the last couple of missions.

I've noticed that you can upgrade the machine gun to give you more ammo in a clip. But at some point while I was cruising around doing missions, suddenly I had my SCOUTS having 7 shots. But when I went through the different build options on the rifle, I saw only 5 shot clips.

So what gives? How did I end up with Alicia shooting enemies in the face seven times?

Answer 1: Alicia is just that frickin' badass. Able to solo most maps by herself, get damn near killed every turn but go to full health, at half-health turns into even more of a 1 woman army, etc.

Answer 2: Just off the top of my head, at level 15 (?) you become elite. That may expand your ammo clip.

Answer 3: You're using a unique weapon of some sort on Alicia, perhaps the super-rifle Cordelia gives you for being so awesome she can't really give you medals for certain feats anymore. I had every one of my scouts outfitted with this.

Answer 4: You actually upgraded down an expanded magazine path.

If I had to guess its Answer 3. That's what I had going on, IIRC, because the rifles from Cordelia are pretty much the most overpowered thing I ever saw in that game after Alicia or Marina with a sniper rifle. And I gave Alicia the super rifle and Marina a similar type of sniper rifle... ahhhhhh...

But don't underestimate the possibility of Answer 1. It is known that Alicia is the Chuck Norris of Valkyria Chronicles and randomly getting extra ammo wouldn't surprise me that much on her. She does everything else.

[Muttering Bill]

To be honest, it's not -that- different.

In broad terms of the overall story, I suppose that it really wouldn't matter too much. But if I'm going to put another 60 hours into this, then it'll be more interesting if there are some defferences to minor details and dialogue.

So I started my mage character. I thought mages were supposed to be easy? I'm still in the Harrowing, and getting destroyed by the demon there. I'm not really complaining, just a little surprised. Maybe I should start over and pick Heal as one of my first spells?

Also, I started Sacred 2, just to check it out. I didn't do much with it, so I can only make a few comments.

First, there are very limited customization options. You got a few options for character class, can change their hair style and color, give it a name, and choose whether to be good or evil. That's it. The opening cutscene didn't even reflect my hair choice - I gave my character short purple hair, in the scene she had blond pigtails. It changed after the scene was over, and I got control. Seriously, why even bother putting that option in, if you're going to make me put up with it changing back and forth for the next 50 or so hours?

And the other problem is that the camera sucks. Maybe I'm too used to the DA:O camera. But I found it to be too awkward. It annoyed me, and I turned the game off before even getting to a fight. So it looks like this one will be moved to the bottom of my "to be played" pile.

[Myiagros]

I've been getting back into Europa Universalis 3 again with the Divine Wind expansion. Quite a few good improvements to the UI and the game itself with this one. The base game is kinda bad due to some broken features but the latest patch from March 30th is good. I have two games in progress at the moment, one as England and the other as the Byzantines. In my England game I've having a fun time rolling into Europe with my allies Portugal and Castille and my vassal Scotland. Byzantine game is a few years into the game, currently fighting the Ottomans and their allies.

[Tobin]

In broad terms of the overall story, I suppose that it really wouldn't matter too much. But if I'm going to put another 60 hours into this, then it'll be more interesting if there are some defferences to minor details and dialogue.

So I started my mage character. I thought mages were supposed to be easy? I'm still in the Harrowing, and getting destroyed by the demon there. I'm not really complaining, just a little surprised. Maybe I should start over and pick Heal as one of my first spells?

The next playthroughs shouldn't take the full 60hrs - I think I cut my time down to about 40hrs the second time and about 30ish the third.

In the Harrowing there are a few vases that have 'healing essence' you can use like a potion, but don't rely on them.

The first spells I took on all of my mages were: 1) Frost and 2) Heal.

Peg the little lightning sprites with the Frost spell and they're mostly dead in one shot.

You do not have to fight the Spirit of Valor to get him to give you a staff. In fact, I didn't realize you could fight him until I started reading the boards.

Get the Bearskarn/Sloth Demon to teach Mouse bear-form. The riddles are pretty easy.

Kill the spirit wolves (:frown5: ).

The 'final boss' Fire demon at the end will take extra damage from the frost spell, so that will make the fight quicker.

Sit back and let Mouse tank as a bear, heal him as necessary while plinking away with your base staff attack when frost is on cooldown.

When placing your attribute points, focus on Magic with leftover/occassional points in Willpower. I think I had about 35 in Willpower and nearly 100 in Magic at the close of my two mage games.

Magic will boost your damage/healing as well as potion efficiency (I think I used the level 2 potions for the entire game and they would fill me up).

You don't really need Str/Dex/Con since there isn't any 'burdon' rating and you shouldn't be getting hit if your tank is doing their job.

Two mage groups are good - three mage groups are mobile apocolypse machines. You can stack the three Storm spells (Inferno, Tempest, Blizzard) on top of each other for added destruction.

Respec Morrigan if you can - shapeshifting is far outstripped by casting damage at higher levels. I spec'd all my mages Spirit/Blood (not that I used Blood Magic much - more for the stat boost).

Watching my sister play a mage was painful: "Ok, you're surrounded. Use 'mindblast' and get the hell out away from them. You're not a warrior, you're in cloth armor that is only a little better than toilet paper. You're a mage, you have ranged spells - use them at range."

DAO also has 'friendly fire' enabled by default - so be careful when slinging area effect stuff like 'Cone of Cold/Flame' or 'Fireballs'.

DA2 only has 'friendly fire' at higher difficulty settings.

[Arthmail]

Wow, Crysis 2 has some of the best visuals in a game i have ever seen. It's so friggin pretty. And for the first time in...years...i'm going to replay the game right away on a harder difficulty setting just to see how it goes.

I would recommend this game to anyone that enjoys FPS games.

[Relic]

Played a couple HoN matches with Ira. I still suck, but not as badly as I thought and I'm learning, and I am assured that I was far from the worst player in those matches. Maybe now it won't be three months before I play again. :)

So apparently this is a topic that drives fan boys insane, but...which game do you prefer?

[Inigima]

So apparently this is a topic that drives fan boys insane, but...which game do you prefer?

The answer is: I don't. They both have their ups and downs.

Heroes of Newerth has a much faster pace, and a much more active laning phase. A huge reason for this is the deny mechanic. In HoN, when one of your own creeps has less than 50% health, you can choose to attack it yourself. If you land the last hit on your own creep, it is "denied," meaning that the enemy doesn't get the gold or XP. Denying a carry can keep them down, and carries are a bigger deal in HoN. You can also start denying earlier to pull the lane back towards your tower, which you may want to do in HoN for reasons of safer farming. You can also deny towers at 10% health or less, and even deny champions. You can also be burst down faster in HoN by your enemies. The lanes are longer, so if you are pushed up you face a longer retreat to get to safety.

League of Legends has a less frenetic pace to it, especially in laning. You can't deny creeps, so your lane control is all about how good you are at last hitting.

Sometimes I like the faster pace of HoN; other times I just want to play LoL because it's not as frantic.

When a champion dies in LoL, your enemy gets gold, and you're denied time to farm, help in fights, defend, or push. In HoN all that is true too, but you also actually lose money for dying, so it is possible to keep a carry down by killing him repeatedly so he can never afford the items that make him dangerous. This isn't possible in LoL; carries don't carry as hard, though.

LoL has the Summoner spell mechanic, as well as Runes and Masteries; HoN uses none of those things. What you see is what you get.

Unlike HoN, every decent LoL team has a jungler, full stop, for the reasons I mentioned upthread. In HoN, you need to ward and be careful about ganks from the other lanes. This is possible in LoL, but the primary gank threat is from the jungler. LoL also has buff monsters in the jungle, which HoN does not, and HoN has fewer jungle-capable heroes (actually, just about everyone in LoL -can- jungle, but it is slow and pointless on many of them) and it requires some very specific tricks to do properly, like "stacking" creep spawns by gaming the spawn mechanics. Counterjungling exists in both games but one goes about it very differently.

LoL is much skill spammier in the laning phase. In HoN, a few casts and you're out of mana. In LoL, with judicious use, you can cast quite a lot, especially if you run with mp5 runes and/or mana items.

HoN has a flat, one-time fee, and all heroes are unlocked from the start; LoL is free to play, but to unlock anything permanently requires a significant investment of either time or money. This hurts LoL as a competitive game, as does its lack of observer mode and replays, and its poor stat tracking.

LoL is relatively beginner friendly; HoN is less accessible, and the players are bigger jerks.

HoN has occasional issues and bugs, but Riot is just comically bad at running an online service. On the other hand, there are screenshots of a douchebag senior member of HoN staff dropping racial slurs in allchat and threatening to ban people, which is just the classiest.

They're both good games in the same genre but they feel really different.

[Muttering Bill]

In the Harrowing there are a few vases that have 'healing essence' you can use like a potion, but don't rely on them.

The first spells I took on all of my mages were: 1) Frost and 2) Heal.

Peg the little lightning sprites with the Frost spell and they're mostly dead in one shot.

You do not have to fight the Spirit of Valor to get him to give you a staff. In fact, I didn't realize you could fight him until I started reading the boards.

Get the Bearskarn/Sloth Demon to teach Mouse bear-form. The riddles are pretty easy.

Kill the spirit wolves (:frown5: ).

The 'final boss' Fire demon at the end will take extra damage from the frost spell, so that will make the fight quicker.

Sit back and let Mouse tank as a bear, heal him as necessary while plinking away with your base staff attack when frost is on cooldown.

The trouble is that I just don't know how to play as a mage. I generally stick to warriors. I'll take a spell or two for back-up if available, but that's all. I'd likely approach it much like your sister. So stay back and let my tank take all the damage. Got it. Who would you recommend as the best tank?

The first spells I took were Frost and Rock Armor. From how easy the origin chapter was on my first game (human noble/warrior), I figured Heal wouldn't really be necessary until later. Oops. Also, I pumped Cunning to 16 right off, just to get it out of the way for Coercion. I guess I shouldn't have done that either.

I got the staff (without fighting the spirit) and bear form. Killed everything I could find to kill - sprites were taking me two shots if I use Frost and Arcane Bolt, more if it was just normal attack, since I had only put 1 extra point to magic. When I fought the demon, I waas planning to stay back and take shots at it, and let Mouse handle the rest. But then I got surrounded by sprites. I didn't make it. ;)

Oh well. I'll start over and try it your way.

...three mage groups are mobile apocolypse machines. You can stack the three Storm spells (Inferno, Tempest, Blizzard) on top of each other for added destruction.

Respec Morrigan if you can - shapeshifting is far outstripped by casting damage at higher levels. I spec'd all my mages Spirit/Blood (not that I used Blood Magic much - more for the stat boost).

Yeah, that was the plan. Sounds fun. Although maybe a bit too easy. Well, it sounds easy. It isn't proving to be so far.

Can I prevent Morrigan from getting shapeshifter? Though I did find her spider form useful in the Fade (end of Redcliff), I didn't bother developing her shapeshifting any further. And wasn't planning plan to this time either. Besides, she's not going into the Fade this time. ;)

[Inigima]

We need a separate Dragon Age thread so I can stop undergoing the trauma of remembering that that shithouse of a game exists.

EDIT: actually, isn't there one already?

[Tobin]

The trouble is that I just don't know how to play as a mage. I generally stick to warriors. I'll take a spell or two for back-up if available, but that's all. I'd likely approach it much like your sister. So stay back and let my tank take all the damage. Got it. Who would you recommend as the best tank?

The first spells I took were Frost and Rock Armor. From how easy the origin chapter was on my first game (human noble/warrior), I figured Heal wouldn't really be necessary until later. Oops. Also, I pumped Cunning to 16 right off, just to get it out of the way for Coercion. I guess I shouldn't have done that either.

I got the staff (without fighting the spirit) and bear form. Killed everything I could find to kill - sprites were taking me two shots if I use Frost and Arcane Bolt, more if it was just normal attack, since I had only put 1 extra point to magic. When I fought the demon, I waas planning to stay back and take shots at it, and let Mouse handle the rest. But then I got surrounded by sprites. I didn't make it. ;)

Oh well. I'll start over and try it your way.

Yeah, that was the plan. Sounds fun. Although maybe a bit too easy. Well, it sounds easy. It isn't proving to be so far.

Can I prevent Morrigan from getting shapeshifter? Though I did find her spider form useful in the Fade (end of Redcliff), I didn't bother developing her shapeshifting any further. And wasn't planning plan to this time either. Besides, she's not going into the Fade this time. ;)

I boosted my cunning to 16 to max out coersion and combat tactics also, but you can wait a level or two before doing that. My first playthrough I had at least lvl 3 coersion by the time I hit Ostagar so I could get the prisoner's key. Any points over 16 isn't worth it though.

Rock Armor only really helps if you're getting hit - and getting hit is bad for mages. You can't do much about archers, but you can at least make sure you stay out of touching distance. Mindblast should be high up on your priority list, it is a PBAOE stun that will make everything you hit forget they hate you and turn back to the tank. Mindblast -> Get out of the Way, so your chances of reaggroing are much less.

In a mult-mage group, you can stack weapon buffs for added benefit. Undead are immune to cold, Fire demons are immune to fire, etc. - so if you have the different effects and runes stacked, you at least are doing something more than just base damage.

Sadly, Morrigan comes preinstalled with Shapeshifting. The only way to get rid of it is to have a respec mod that will let you reset her points/skills to zero. If you're playing on a console....you're probably stuck.

For tanking - I used Alistair almost the entire time (not just because I wubbed him :love: ). He has templar abilities which can be used to smite enemy mages (try not to use 'Cleanse' or whatever it's called in range of your party - it will wipe all of your good buffs along with the bad).

Shale never got much face time with me except for in the DRoads. It's nothing against her...just I thought Alistair had a wider range of abilities to draw from.

Eventually I got the Ser Gilmore NPC (player built) mod and used him as my tank for a while (i wubbed him too! :love: ).

Stacking Storms is cute, but a bit wasteful unless you're in a big pitched fight with high HP mobs. I think I usually only stacked Inferno and Blizzard or double Infernos in halls with a chokepoint I could cut off with a Repulsion glyph. It's also kinda unfair that you can stand to the side of a doorway, open the door, and cast Inferno through the wall, drop a Repulsion Glyph in the doorway, then shut the door so you don't hear them screaming...but it works like a charm, :devil:

[Tobin]

We need a separate Dragon Age thread so I can stop undergoing the trauma of remembering that that shithouse of a game exists.

EDIT: actually, isn't there one already?

there were several - but the DA2 one has been getting the most traffic lately

[Maia]

I have been wondering about getting myself a DS. Ipod Touch got me into that whole portable gaming thing, but there is so much great stuff on the DS and our library system has a good selection of it.

I also tried Hotel Dusk on PC emulator and the first Phoenix Wright on iOS and fell in love.

The trouble is, DS prices don't seem to be dropping despite the successor being already out and 149 euros seem to me a bit excessive at this point (our brick and mortar shops phased the Lites out right quick and I don't trust buying online for actual electronic devices).

So - how do used DSis hold up?

And does anybody know if German localizations of DS games are decent?

[Muttering Bill]

For tanking - I used Alistair almost the entire time (not just because I wubbed him :love: ). He has templar abilities which can be used to smite enemy mages (try not to use 'Cleanse' or whatever it's called in range of your party - it will wipe all of your good buffs along with the bad).

Shale never got much face time with me except for in the DRoads. It's nothing against her...just I thought Alistair had a wider range of abilities to draw from.

Eventually I got the Ser Gilmore NPC (player built) mod and used him as my tank for a while (i wubbed him too! :love: ).

I couldn't stand Alistair. He was whining all the time. Got pretty annoying, and I left him at camp as soon as I recruited Wynne. But he probably is best suited to the role, so I guess I'll have to put up with him. (On PS3, so I can't take advantage of any mods.) At least it's amusing when Morrigan teases him.

Thanks for the tips. I restarted, and beat the rage demon easily.

Second playthrough is when I start trophy hunting, so I'm going to cheat my way through most of the game. Infinite gold and EXP glitches. Duplicate Tomes. Basically, get my characters maxed out early, and then charge through the game as a walking apocalypse. Be an ass to everybody. Got to romance Morrigan; I hear she likes that. I'll probably skip the sidequests too. This warden is nobody's messenger boy!

[Tobin]

I couldn't stand Alistair. He was whining all the time. Got pretty annoying, and I left him at camp as soon as I recruited Wynne. But he probably is best suited to the role, so I guess I'll have to put up with him. (On PS3, so I can't take advantage of any mods.) At least it's amusing when Morrigan teases him.

Thanks for the tips. I restarted, and beat the rage demon easily.

Second playthrough is when I start trophy hunting, so I'm going to cheat my way through most of the game. Infinite gold and EXP glitches. Duplicate Tomes. Basically, get my characters maxed out early, and then charge through the game as a walking apocalypse. Be an ass to everybody. Got to romance Morrigan; I hear she likes that. I'll probably skip the sidequests too. This warden is nobody's messenger boy!

My sister never had a tank on her games - just full DPS party + healer: sister's rogue/warrior, Sten, Zevran and Wynne. She cut through everything, but she also micromanaged entire combats.... ("Really...you know they have tactic panels that work pretty well, right? You don't have to make this a turn-based game by pausing every combat round to give orders." :shocked: )

I'd almost recommend against using XP hacks unless you have all your companions recruited already.

If you get them later, they'll have auto-leveled and put their points in all the wrong places. Since you can't get the respec mod, you'll be screwed. (I XP/glitched to level 10 before leaving Ostagar - then I spent all of the Redcliff mission on my Daelish elf sucking potions because Morrigan had blown her points on crap instead of something useful like...healing spells...)

[Sheep the Evicted]

So as promised Global Agenda is now Free to Play on steam. Check it out if your looking for something different.