Video Games: Grinding To Oblivion

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

Im on my second campaign in shogun 2 as that clan that has bonus daichi samurai. Won't have won half my battles without my ally :) im glad that allies finally support u wars unlike empire and napoleon where they don't do shit!

so I always play TW on hard/hard cause the AI is pitifully retarded. What about you guys? ?

[kungtotte]

It depends on which TW game (and mod) I'm playing.

The way the difficulty settings work in TW is that they put cheats in, either in favour of you or in favour of the AI. Normal/Normal generally has no effects either way, it's the 'pure' game. Easy and Very Easy will give you morale bonuses in battle and the AI morale penalties, and it will remove the economic boosts the AI gets in the campaign. Above N/N it goes the other way, the AI gets morale bonuses in battle and huge chunks of money in the campaign. IIRC the AI gets 10,000 free denarii in Rome: Total War if you're playing on Very Hard in the campaign. That's on top of what it makes from buildings and trade.

I won't play below N/N, and in the games that have separate sliders I generally go higher on the battle difficulty than on the campaign difficulty, because that's where the real challenge lies. It's not fun going up against little piss-pot nations that magically can afford eight full stacks of troops when your burgeoning empire is struggling to support three, it's just tedious. Also some mods are a lot harder than others, so I bump it down a notch just to make it enjoyable. I could win VH/VH campaigns if I wanted to, but it just takes too much time. I'm 60 hours into Rome 2 already and the game has only been out a month, I don't need campaigns to take even longer to play.

On average I tend to play on H/VH, but in Rome 2 that only has one slider I've got it on Hard for now.

[Werthead]

2K and Steam have been quite generous today. They've stripped out the GFWL requirements from BioShock 2 and they've also made Minerva's Den available dirt-cheap. Even better, if you already own BioShock 2 on Steam, they've already given you Minerva's Den (by all reports, an excellent expansion) for free. Sweet :)

Warner Brothers are also following suit: the two Arkham games will have their GFWL sections removed in the next few weeks, and Arkham Origins simply won't have it in the first place.

I was under the impression that the PC version of FFVII ruined the game's soundtrack. Is that true? It would make it not worth trying.

If you played the PS1 version, maybe. I played the PC version on release and had no problem with it at all. Going back and playing it on PS1 a few years later, the music was undeniably better but the 3D graphics were so much worse that it made it unplayable for me.

They actually just fixed that in a patch for the new version.

Having said that, that news makes it more tempting.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

I wish EA would release their games on steam. ..all the major publishers do it, even ubisoft with their Uplay release their games on steam.

Now how am I supposed to buy Mirror's Edge 2 and the new SW games if fucking Origin just won't accept my Debit card. :(

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

And retail stores around here take ages to get new games. For eg I still can't find a retail copy of borderlands 2.

[DaarioKnowsBest]

NBA2k14 stunning as usual.

This go round defense is a little easier and offense is a bit harder.

More moves only on the pro stick, old school button pushers will need a bit of adapting

[Inigima]

Oh fuck, am I going to have use Origin if I want to play Mirror's Edge 2? I loved ME1 but I don't know if I'm willing to use Origin to play the sequel.

[DaarioKnowsBest]

FYI, GameStop gives way more credit for used games if you trade them for a new release.

I got $25 credit on 2k14 for Skyrim, Uncharted 3, and nba2k13

[kungtotte]

EA pulled out of Steam over a contract disagreement with Valve, and it wasn't actually EA who was at fault there (Valve had the strict requirements about patch releases that EA did not agree with).

That's why Origin was pushed out the door so quickly and why things were pulled from Steam.

[Werthead]

Replaying XCOM after I discovered that Enemy Within is going to be overpriced on PC: £20 for an expansion with only a moderate amount of new content (2 new classes, 2 new bad guys and 10 new maps which are viewed from different angles, allowing them to claim 40)? I think not.

This is the first time I've played it with the DLC installed and it was a little underwhelming. Four new missions with a few more cut scenes and things than normal, which were pretty underwhelming. You get given a pretty tough assault lieutenant, which at the start of the game is sort-of game-breaking. It gives you access to things like the 6-man squads almost immediately, which is cool, but it also makes the game generate tougher bad guys much earlier than you'd normally encounter them. Since I combined this with the new 'long game' mode (which makes everything take about 4 times longer than normal to research), the result was a pretty punishingly difficult opening to the game, though I've overcome those issues now. The long game mode is interesting because it makes things like laser weapons more viable (since you're going to take absolute ages to research plasma) and also allows you to nail some of the achievements, like building everything in the foundry, much more easily.

Still a great game.

I wish EA would release their games on steam. ..all the major publishers do it, even ubisoft with their Uplay release their games on steam.

EA used to, but they allegedly had a bust-up with Valve over Steam, though to what degree that was a bust-up or an excuse for EA to launch their own rival service whilst not annoying customers who prefer to use Steam remains in question. The chances of this being resolved in the future seem slim: though Origin is shit, lots of people buy games on it and use it, so there's no reason for EA to join forces with Steam again. This will only likely change if the SteamOS and Steam Machines are a huge success and EA decides it wants a piece of that action.

[Shryke]

Origin is EA's answer to "Why should we give Valve a 15% cut of our sales?".

[JonArryn]

Been playing quiet a bit of Total War: Rome 2 lately and it is okay I guess. One major bug has happened which was annoying, and the enemy ai seem to be absolutely worthless, which makes it a little less fun. It has lagged some during some big battles. I enjoy Shogun 2 much more, the battles in this Rome is a bit one-dimensional.

Some questions: what's the reason behind that you can't move troops without a general? And why can't you mash two generals and their troops together? I liked it better when there was some flexibility in this.

Borderlands 2 is 50% off on steam right now. It's downloading on my computer right now, so I'll dig into that soon...

[Merentha]

Replaying XCOM after I discovered that Enemy Within is going to be overpriced on PC: £20 for an expansion with only a moderate amount of new content (2 new classes, 2 new bad guys and 10 new maps which are viewed from different angles, allowing them to claim 40)? I think not.

Where did you hear that it was 10 from different angles? Also, its one new class and one new mechanic- genemod troops aren't a new class, they're things you do to the existing classes. The MEC is the only new class. (You should check out the Steam achievements. There's clearly more they haven't talked about).

I mean, one of the achievements is to kill an enemy sniper. Another is for your base personnel to get x number of kills. A third is "identify the new threat with a logo that looks a lot like the Cult of Sirius." There is

clearly a Cult of Sirius-esque alien collaborator faction introduced. Two new aliens is not the same as two new enemies if they're adding in human enemies to the mix. That and the Meld resource promises to change the game up quite a bit, I think.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Some questions: what's the reason behind that you can't move troops without a general? And why can't you mash two generals and their troops together? I liked it better when there was some flexibility in this.

It so your armies have more...character? They can have traits and in my eyes it seems more realistic. It's not very flexible, true, but I still quite like it.

[Werthead]

Some questions: what's the reason behind that you can't move troops without a general? And why can't you mash two generals and their troops together? I liked it better when there was some flexibility in this.

Not historically accurate. Roman legions were essentially self-contained armies with their own chains of command and traditions. They were also inordinately expensive to maintain. Certainly multiple legions would join together for large engagements (36 legions fought at the Battle of Philippi, the largest battle of the civil wars), but for the most part it was not necessary. I agree Rome II is way too stingy with the number of field armies and legions it allows you to maintain, but I do applaud the nod, however vague, at historical realism.

Where did you hear that it was 10 from different angles? Also, its one new class and one new mechanic- genemod troops aren't a new class, they're things you do to the existing classes. The MEC is the only new class. (You should check out the Steam achievements. There's clearly more they haven't talked about).

On the basis that they say that the first game had 80 maps, when it appeared to be more like 20, but each mirrored twice (the DLC adds 3, with the same thing happening). If it's actually 40 totally brand-new maps than cool, that makes up a lot for it. But it seems unlikely. What does sound better is that they are apparently changing the algorithims so that you will see each map in the game and it varies how and when they appear. The base game apparently limits the number of maps to 80% of the total number, the idea being that on your second play-through the game will remember this and put the other 20% in to give you variety (for example, I've barely seen the observatory map for some reason). Also, it sounds like the maps may be moddable this time around as well.

If some of the other stuff you are reporting is accurate, it does sound more substantial and game-changing. But they need to really get that across to people, at the moment it's definitely sounding underwhelming.

Also, you can pre-order Enemy Within through Green Man Gaming for £12 today, which is a bit more the price I had in mind.

[kungtotte]

They should let you have understrength stacks commanded by captains though. Limit them to something like 5 units, make them unable to use stances and maybe even unable to initiate combat. That would let you mule replacement troops to the front lines and have a small reinforcement pool for your real stack, without breaking that whole army tradition thing.

[Werthead]

They should let you have understrength stacks commanded by captains though. Limit them to something like 5 units, make them unable to use stances and maybe even unable to initiate combat. That would let you mule replacement troops to the front lines and have a small reinforcement pool for your real stack, without breaking that whole army tradition thing.

Again, historical accuracy. The Romans generally recruited from friendly provinces they were passing through, or sometimes hired mercenaries if they were in foreign lands, which Rome II allows you to do; I suffered significant losses in one battle, hired a bunch of local mercenaries to reinforce and help take the next city, and then dismissed the mercenaries and hired proper new troops as the province was pacified. That's pretty much what the Romans actually did, though Rome II accelerates the process somewhat.

I must admit this newfound interest in historical accuracy after seven previous games of having a mixed score in this area is a bit bizarre, but it does result in interesting gameplay. Whether long-term it's better than other games remains to be seen (certainly from the strategic map POV, I find myself sometimes wishing for Rome I's much greater freedom and simplicity), but for now it's a viable change to the established gameplay that does emphasise tactics and preserving your army. I've been much more cautious and less profligate with my troops than I have in previous games where I sometimes had a constant chain of reinforcing units coming in from the homeland.

[fuseprime]

Has anyone tried out the Battlefield 4 beta yet? If you do, be careful because they changed all the controls. Switch to Veteran in the controls menu if you want to keep the BF3 controls.

[kungtotte]

It's also really, really shit.

I can run BF3 with every setting on high or better and get 90 FPS while recording, but in the BF4 beta I am barely breaking 80 FPS with every setting on medium (and not recording). That's after I installed the new beta drivers from nVidia to fix the worst of the graphical stutters. They're still there, but not quite as bad and not quite as often.

The map is also terrible. Instead of a flowing battle between the control points there are three distinct areas on the map where fighting sort of coalesces and it's slanted heavily towards the C and D/E flags. The A/B flags are almost an afterthought and the only time you'll see heavy fighting around those is when the Chinese team is steamrolling and have the Americans pushed back into their spawn (Americans spawn is nearest the A flag, Chinese is nearest the E flag).

There are tons of high-rises with rooftop access via elevators (or getting dropped by helicopter, obviously), and the C flag is on top of one of those. Due to the bottleneck nature of elevators and the fact that there are audio cues for when the elevators are running means it's next to impossible to dislodge an enemy squad camped on a roof if they're even half way paying attention. Unless they're on the C flag they aren't doing a whole lot of good from those rooftops but they do enough damage to be a nuisance and can't be ignored entirely, especially considering that you gain extreme mobility as an infantryman from those rooftops by parachuting down. If you are on the C building you can reach any of the other four flags in a matter of seconds just by parachuting at the right angle, and from the buildings near each pair of flags gives you similar mobility only limited to the two nearest flags.

This means people get really spread out, and you can spend a long time without even seeing an enemy. I got locked into this Benny Hill-esque flag capturing duel with someone else around the A and B flags where I would capture B while he ran over to A to capture that, then we both ran over to the other flag and managed to miss each other on the way. I think we made it three full rounds of flipping those flags before someone else showed up to help me and we finally got control over both of them.

The amount of vehicles and their short respawn time makes it seem like there's a tank or IFV parked around every corner as well, and while they've toned down the vehicle superiority from BF3 I still don't like the vehicle balance in these modern battlefield games. Back in the 1942 days you had to be on top of your game if you wanted to dominate in a tank, and the lighter vehicles were only for transport really. Planes were really good against vehicles and dangerous against infantry if you were caught in the open but with ammo being limited and them having to return to an airfield to rearm it created a nice balance there too where you couldn't just get up there and then own everything. Ammo in BF4 is "limited" in that the primary gun will run out if you keep spamming the fire button, but it will 'recharge' ammo automatically without having to visit an ammo crate or something like that. In 1942 it actually mattered which flags you held because you couldn't get ammo and health at all of them, in the newer games you just need to hold more flags than the enemy team.

I can't overstate how poorly I think the map is designed. If the rest of the maps in the full game are like this one then I will not play it.

On the plus side however; we now get five-man squads, working VOIP, and commander mode (I do not know if it is active in the demo however).

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

Isn't 30+ FPS enough for games??