What are you playing at the moment? - October 2017

[alms]

I have no idea what this means! The terms are easy enough to find on Blizzard’s own forum, Reddit, the works - but it seems this is one of those things where people would enter a WoW discussion and get all confused about all the talk of “LFG HoR DPS 2k GS”.

I was saying that you appear to be a better player than me, however, I later realized that you may not be EU Tritagonist, as their matches appear to have been uploaded two years ago.

The description of your matches, however, does seem to confirm my impression. While HotsLogs is reputed to be wildly inaccurate for new players, it seems to me like, to get players who have enough of a clue what they’re doing, you should have an MMR high enough that you’re avoiding both new players, whose MMR is overrated, and new players whose MMR isn’t.

QM is Quick Match, or the basic Humans VS Humans game mode, while MMR is a metric that’s supposed to express the player’s level.

Of course, most of this goes out of the window if you’re playing AI modes. I mean, I haven’t played much of it after the last round of AI Improvements, so I’m not sure what the situation is there, but my experience was the Elite level VS AI I would almost invariably get people who have more than a clue.

[Captain_Iglo]

If I recall, the lines are somewhat different, and all the dialogue changes slightly in tone depending on what you mostly pick. Ah, right, here. http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dialogue_wheel_(Dragon_Age_II)

So if you’re mostly sarcastic, even your diplomatic responses will start being a bit sarcastic, even if their statistic effect (of choosing the diplomatic option) remains.

That sounds pretty neat. Why do some people hate this game again? Ah, yes, because of the stupid waves combat and lack of different locations. Well, I’ve found those to be only a little annoying so far and they haven’t managed to ruin my experience yet.

[Tritagonist]

As someone who dabbles in 3D art, the ubiquitous and blatant reusing - or worse, bad tiling - of art assets in Dragon Age II stands out even in the backgrounds of some conversations. It’s really bad, and a shame, too, as this isn’t so much a failure of the art team but the inevitable consequence of either far too little time or a terrible engine, and I don’t think the latter is the case. The story is also a bit wonky, but it’s a decent effort to try something else. Here too the lack of change in the city with the passage of time just screams ‘lack of time’.

I was saying that you appear to be a better player than me, however, I later realized that you may not be EU Tritagonist, as their matches appear to have been uploaded two years ago. The description of your matches, however, does seem to confirm my impression.

Ah, Quick Match Match Making Ranking would be the full words? I doubt I’m a better player than anyone, though! For one, as mentioned I’m only at level 30 or so and definitely not an experienced HotS player. I also use an entirely different name on Blizzard’s services, one tied to my old WoW character!

In any case, I played a bit with Sylvanas today. She feels way too weak in hero vs. hero battles, so that was no fun. On the plus side, it was great to rampage through the map with the pirate ship as Diablo. All that smashing into the environment sure made a mess of things for the other team! Quite amusing.

[alms]

I doubt I’m a better player than anyone, though! For one, as mentioned I’m only at level 30 or so and definitely not an experienced HotS player. I also use an entirely different name on Blizzard’s services, one tied to my old WoW character!

Level doesn’t mean much, really; it’s only a rough proxy of the amount of time spent playing the game, certainly it says nothing about the player’s general gaming skills, MOBA-specific proficiency, or how much they have learned about HotS.

To bring this to an extreme, imagine someone only playing with a Stimpack, which already gives double XPs, in a party (ranges from 25% to 50%), and with a friend, which is worth an extra 50%.

Now make that person a total MOBA noob and have them only play VS AI Beginner. While their level could thrice as high as yours (or even more, if they played more), chances are, they’d still be a complete wreck in an actual match.

In any case, I played a bit with Sylvanas today. She feels way too weak in hero vs. hero battles, so that was no fun.

Sylvanas is a siege specialist: her Black Arrow trait stuns minions and mercs, and shuts down towers. If nobody takes care of her, she can bring down a fort, or keep, much sooner than an ordinary hero, whose range is usually not long enough to hit structures without being hit back (and/or their abilities may not work, or only partly, against Structures), hence would have to wait for ammo to be depleted before taking a shot at structures.

Depending on how you talent her up, she can be kind of hard to nail.

[alms]

[Pink_Gregory]

Due to my irregular access to longer PeeCee sessions, it’s been a little erratic.

Mini Metro might secretly be a game that’s wormed its way into my heart and may never emerge; though major personal improvement is a while off. I think I put a lot of faith in overlapping loops and the handy ability to basically redraw the entire network at a whim. Also the first time I’ve made a sort of commitment to daily challenges.

Played through Dishonored again (+ difficulty mod) so’s I could get to the Daud levels and put off Dishonored 2 until I can…well…justify buying a big game. Tried hard to stick to no reloads (only reload on death) but with the mod it just meant as many reloads anyway.

I appreciate what the increased guard awareness does for amping up the tension, but being mobbed on sight by every guard in the area makes fighting a bit pointless as I was overwhelmed every single time. Still, the increased mana cost for Outsider powers (one possession = one remedy, basically) did a lot for careful decision making.

Also I felt like I killed far more than I actually did, and it was surprisingly easy to stay in low chaos, which robbed the tension a bit; I wonder if the threshold is adjustable…

I think next go will be nonlethal solutions to the main targets, Mostly Flesh and Steel achievement. I’m quite excited about revisiting it even after frankly overexploring the levels.

I have also been finally giving Fire Emblem Awakening a proper go on the 3DS after starting and dropping for a few years. I tried hard mode (I think I may be overestimating my ability with TBS games) but found it too brutal in conjunction with classic (aka ironman) so I’ve dropped it down to normal classic.

Still managed to lose three chaps as a result of mainly poor decisions; the sudden ability to start getting one-hit-kill criticals when a wounded chap has a queue of foes before him who just bundle into the gap in the same turn is proving a bit of a bastard as well.

[Tritagonist]

Right, it was good fun using Sylvanas to wreak havoc on minions and towers!

I had a look at Icy-Veins and it turned out my attempts to play Sylvanas were thwarted by one of her nemesis characters - Nova - while we were playing on the only map that’s put in the ‘weak maps’ category! Quite a stacked deck!

I’ll give her another spin.

[arathain]

One of the most common mistakes newer Sylvanas players make is trying to solo push lanes. When talented for it she wrecks minion waves in seconds, so she pushes crazy hard, but her damage isn’t that high, so buildings go down slowly and she puts herself in danger doing it.

Wherever possible, push with your team, who can knock over forts for you while you keep them safe from turret fire. Even better, when the objective gives you a monster in the lane push with that and it’ll last a lot longer and get more done.

She can put out a decent amount of damage to a hero if given the chance, but she is very fragile. Her heroics are her best contribution in a team fight. Wailing Arrow in particular is great.

[alms]

Nova - while we were playing on the only map that’s put in the ‘weak maps’ category! Quite a stacked deck!

There’s a Sylvanas out there who hates the guts of my Nova. I could tell by the dogged way they were trying to take me down in subsequent matches.

Wherever possible, push with your team, who can knock over forts for you while you keep them safe from turret fire. Even better, when the objective gives you a monster in the lane push with that and it’ll last a lot longer and get more done.

Yup but you need someone willing to do that. Sometimes I need to leave team and go soak myself even though I’m playing heroes that should better pick populated lanes (support, most notably), because otherwise nobody else is going to do it.

Lot of matches are lost early on out of a combination of not soaking and dying like no tomorrow.

On the importance of coordination, I was first blood (victim) in a match against a party of 4. I was center on Battlefield of Eternity, and walked into the bushes, only to find the party hidden, ganked in a matter of seconds.

What’s worse for Sylvanas, is that sometimes you have a chance at ending a losing match by pushing a lane where the core is exposed …and nobody follows up on your pings.

Wailing Arrow in particular is great.

Wailing Arrow is the talent I pick most frequently but obviously I must be doing something wrong because it hardly seems to make a difference.

In fact I was thinking of giving Mind Control a chance more often, as at least it gives you a better chance of escaping if someone’s on your tail, and your team mates do squat to help, i.e. the norm.

[Det.Bullock]

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX on Gameboy Color
I did three dungeons so far though at the moment I’m stuck because of a giant walrus.
The game feels somewhat more surreal than the Oracle games on GBC, the egg on top a mountain is only the tip of the iceberg, the kids that give you tutorial info seem to be aware that what they say doesn’t make sense to them (while I rember vaguely that in the Oracle games they just gave you the info without aknowledging anything), and the contend of the egg is called “wind fish” while a message I found hints it’s not a fish…?
The gameplay is very similar to the Oracle games only a few things are different (you cannot toss bombs, only drop them like in the original Zelda for example) a lot of assets are the same.
A very annoying thing is that for some reason to save you have to either die or press all the four buttons on the handheld which is far more difficult than it seems, I sincerely wonder why they didn’t put an option in the menu especially considering that there are a lot of aggravating moments that really make me want to save as soon as I have done with them.

[Viral_Frog]

Ah gotcha. Yeah if the ui is that much better, you could turn the resolution down to 720p or lower and check it out.

As for learning to play videos, I haven’t watched any, but it really isn’t quite as complex as it looks imo. The basic rules are easy to learn, but some of the strategy I think you just have to play to understand.

It’s also tough to get more than general advice because of how different each team matchup is. Even two teams of the same race can have wildly different skill and roster choices. It’s not video, but this is a good website for some general tips and roster advice.

I tried playing another round. I managed to win, but it took a lot more time and effort and was just not fun overall. I’ll have to wait until my new lenses come in before I can play again.

I decided to just watch some videos from random leagues. I see what you mean about the variety in the teams. No two teams of the same race were exactly alike, as far as I could tell. Various skills and coaching styles.

I did see enough to realize that the Lizardmen are definitely a team I want to check out. I already bought the DLC back when I was gifted the game (Lizardmen are badass, how could I not?). So when I’m able to play again, I’ll try them out. I’m thinking about joining a beginner league from the Blood Bowl 2 subreddit.

Edit: everyone always talks about the risk management aspect, but it’s nice to actually see it in action. Might sound stupid and obvious, but I didn’t get it until I’d watched. A few games!on YouTube.

[matt_uk]

I do what I should think is a common mental defect and buy far more prolifically than I dedicate and complete. I just restarted the new Zelda on Wii U, hopefully to dedicate to. On the boil at the moment though, replaying Skyrim purely for the fact that I now have a 4K tv, tertiary steps into Prey, my PS4 got into the boot loop so had to restart dishonored 2 , dark souls 3 and a couple others. All the while I play titanfall 2 cod 4 remastered and battlefield 1.

Tbh most of my time is spent pissing about with graphics settings on a 1070 in 4K. Surprising how far it will go considering 1080ti people say can just about manage, and if you’re ok with 30fps it’s great tbh.

[ToomuchFluffy]

I just finished Dark Messiah of Might and Magic for the first time. I played it on Normal - which is the easiest difficulty - and it was still quite challenging. Especially the middle part with far too many Zombies and Spiders was a bit of a slog, but once I was out of there it got more enjoyable again. I played a rather straightforward Mage-build which turned out to be somewhat underwhelming. At least in regards to damage. Only Inferno (basically a flamethrower) was properly powerful, at least once I had expanded my mana-pool sufficiently. Running away while gobbling down one or the other mana potion made this a good solution for some of the more difficult situations. I still had to use melee - with only very little investments in the proper skills - much of the time, which was serviceable but not great. In the later stages of the game I was using Charm (Mindcontrol) a lot to thin out bigger groups, while hanging back and mining my surroundings with Fire traps. The other straight damage-spells on the other hand proved to be a bit anemic unfortunately.

All in all an enjoyable experience. It’s a very nice game for combat experimentation. Will definitely replay this with other styles. Especially the Stealth-/Archery-approach could be interesting.

[alms]

I’m beginning to hate Nazeebos, need an infusion of love, real quick.

[theantmeister]

Still making my way (slowly) through Planescape Torment. I’ve not progressed (what I guess is) the main quest at all - just wondering around picking up quests. Cleared out the mausoleum, dealt with a possessed box, that sort of thing.

[matt_uk]

I came late to the party, years late, with the old bioware RPGs and had the dumbest experience with Baldurs Gate 2 imaginable. I didn’t realise the convention was to pause make decisions, pause rinse repeat. So my system was to real time it, die, load, edge forward, die load. Like a Starcraft player basically. I think I got to the prison having placed all my faith in the hispanic guy and traps, only for him to just leave the party for story reasons leaving me shafted.

[L_No]

All in all an enjoyable experience. It’s a very nice game for combat experimentation. Will definitely replay this with other styles. Especially the Stealth-/Archery-approach could be interesting.>

It sure is. I’ve never tried a purely magic-based playthrough myself, I really should though. By coincidence, I found out that the cd key of my old boxed copy could be activated in Steam, so I have it in my Steam library for easy access. Now to find the time…

[Baines]

A very annoying thing is that for some reason to save you have to either die or press all the four buttons on the handheld which is far more difficult than it seems, I sincerely wonder why they didn’t put an option in the menu especially considering that there are a lot of aggravating moments that really make me want to save as soon as I have done with them.

The original NES Legend of Zelda had a much more obscure manual save function, to the point that it felt more like a debug function that was left in the game rather than an intentional feature. (You paused the game, then had to press Up and A on the second controller, to access the save menu.)

Not that Link’s Awakening wasn’t almost as weird, using what was normally considered the “soft reset” input (Start+Select+A+B) to instead call up the manual save menu.

As for the game itself, it was made when Nintendo was still codifying what a Zelda game was, which is probably how it got to be as surreal as it did. At the time, it wasn’t evident that Link to the Past had established “the formula”. One could argue that Link’s Awakening helped set LttP as “Zelda”. The Legend of Zelda, Adventure of Link, and Link to the Past were all wildly different games, to the point that we really didn’t know what we’d see next. But then there was Link’s Awakening, which (while itself just following the standard pattern for Gameboy entries of NES/SNES franchises) followed the look and formula of LttP. (Which would be followed by converting LttP to 3D for Ocarina.)

[Tritagonist]

Did some Ghost Recon: Wildlands. A shooter-esque breath of fresh air after recent FPS disappointments in Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront 2 (which I admit I didn’t give much time). Having AI companions is so much better than people who think Objective means “Stay Away” or that the best way to storm a building is to bring five sniper rifles.

I’m just about done in the southern mountains, not sure yet which region to tackle next. Maybe something jungle-ish for the contrast.

[The_JG_Man]

Good bye, old thread! And your -checks- 40,000 posts. Blimey.

Maybe it’s because I can’t play most of the games in my library and I’m getting bored of playing those that I can and Pokémon and Zelda on my 3DS, maybe it’s because the icon taunts me every time I scroll through, I don’t know, but I clicked on FTL earlier. It is now three hours later.

The game is infectious in its desire to be played. The last time I played it I threw in the towel, reconciling the fact that the skill:luck ratio was not one I particularly enjoy (see also: Binding of Isaac from Afterbirth onwards), yet here I am playing it again…and I remain fundamentally unchanged in that belief.

The first sector I go to on run-through N gives me a free pike beam, a weapon over-powered by way of mouse fidelity. The next sector I get so many misses my ship lurches towards the next system to die to whatever. One hand giveth, another taketh away. For as amusing as those five minutes might’ve seemed, I don’t enjoy that. Luck plays a role in so many games I play, from basic crits and evasion to moments of rewarding fortune, but I don’t enjoy it when it’s the difference between success and failure on a regular basis.

For a comparison, let’s use Phantom Assassin from DOTA 2. Heavily reliant luck, with abilities that grant both the highest amounts of evasion and critical damage in the game. Neat! PA is balanced though by having low health making her weak to magic and needing to dedicate an item slot for magic resistance. Whilst having mobility tools, she’s also only melee and there are numerous ways to remove her innate advantages on a regular basis. It is entirely possible to be OHKO’d by PA, but this doesn’t happen often and it’s not usually game changing. There’s also nine other heroes in the game, so the impact of these abilities is mitigated that way. Anyhow, DOTA 2 is a crap example, but the point is, here is something heavily reliant on fortune, but fits into a context that allows you to mitigate and take advantage of this.

I never really feel like that context exists in FTL. If you want me to lose, I’d rather be told at the title screen. Part of the joy of being weak is over-coming adversity in that state until you no longer are, but when the game doesn’t provide that changing state no matter what you try, that narrative goes out the window and it’s just a case of how long can you be bothered to go once you know things can’t change.

The crazy thing is I’m thinking of playing more. I played this evening on normal, not something I did much of before stopping. Easy feels too easy, I seem to recall somewhat reliably getting to, if not defeating, the flagship, whilst normal seems a bit too much. I want a middle-ground, or perhaps customisation to allow me to control what elements I think should be more dependant on skill and luck. The idea of hard seems barmy to me, but credit to those who wish to stick it out.