[Aptorian]

http://youtu.be/OCsMKypvmB0

[Serenity]

[Mentalist]

I think (hope) I'm about to wrap up the Emo-Prince's journey. About to start the second big fight, and after that, there is only one area on the map that's still undiscovered, so I figure it can't be THAT much longer, right?

The backtracking and the associated acrobatics are getting pretty painful. Not Soul Reaver 2-level painful (yet), but otoh, the story isn't as good either. Also, not a fan of sections involving platforming over crumbling obstacles.

[Serenity]

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D arrived on Saturday so I've started that. I was finding it reasonably enjoyable for the first three or four hours, then the attack on Colony 9 happened. Holy hell, that was AMAZING. It was at that point that the combat and everything finally clicked into place for me.

[Maark Abbott]

More PrisArch fun. New prison now. Have two protected inmates, one is a Snitch, the other has an unknown reputation. Snitch keeps trying to kill the other, who also tries to fight his way out a lot. I'm wondering if the other one is a Former Cop now because whenever they're in the same room it's stabby time.

[Aptorian]

I played about 5 hours of Prison Architect when it was in a humble bundle once. Great fun. It's amazing how entertaining food budgets and concealed weapon razzias can be.

[Maark Abbott]

Alternative Goose, on 08 October 2018 - 08:05 AM, said:

I played about 5 hours of Prison Architect when it was in a humble bundle once. Great fun. It's amazing how entertaining food budgets and concealed weapon razzias can be.

I've sunk literally hours into it. It's a nice change of pace from faster paced stuff. Had my first real escape attempt recently too so I have some sniper towers up.

[Mentalist]

Ran into the second Duel in Warrior within, was too hung over to try to fight it out properly.

So instead I started Shadow of Mordor. It's pretty good. Talion is arguably the blandest protagonist ever, and the story doesn't spend basically any time establishing itself. The timeline makes little sense, but I doubt I'm the only one who's ever said that.

in terms of gameplay, it's mostly fine. It was a bit of a challenge rebinding all the keys well enough, but i'm managing. It took me a better bpart of 5 hours to figure out how to interrogate weaker orcs, but now i'm slowly getting into the swing of things.

Not having any issues with collectibles yet, since they're being nice bits of wordbuilding for the most part.

Not too deep into the Nemesis system yet. So far my Nemesis is a 3rd-ranked Executioner I ran into once and then made sure to run away from. I'm gonna have to start chasing those captains down soon, because I'm gated from any further upgrades by low overall Power.

EDIT: 15 hours in now. Had a real neat rivalry with an Archer captain, Something the Uncatchable. He foiled me murdering him several times, until eventually, I chased him down on a Caragor. and killed him.

My very next life, he comes back, sporting a metal mask on half his face and a poison-tipped crossbow. What followed were several unsuccessful attempts to end him, until he eventually levelled up to 20, and became a bodyguard to one of the Warchiefs. But I finally managed to corner him in an Ambush scenario, and did a full grab, interrogate, brain explode routine on him.

So far I killed one of the mandatory Warchiefs- did a stealthy stronghold assault to draw him out, then busted open a Caragor, tamed it and one-shotted him with a Caragor Maul.

The game appears to adapt to my tactics- most captains that get promoted these days are immune to Ranged attacks (because I leaned heavily into those), and a disproportional number of them are spear-chucking Hunters (which are the type of Uruks I've been dying to, mostly) . I keep failing the Sword challenge where I'm supposed to kill the Ghoul Matron; it's annoying.
I guess I should just focus on picking off the Warchiefs, since it feels like half the game is gated until I do.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 09 October 2018 - 05:09 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Rocket League seems to have an annoying new feature where if you don't get over a certain points threshold you get 0 XP from games.

Now, obviously this cues the 13 year old "git gud low skor" argument, however I would counter this with: individual score shouldn't mean anything I nthe context of a team game beyond bragging rights. I get that it's to stop XP / item farmers, but if you're actively participating and not getting points because either the other team are preventing you from doing so (in which case they're good at defending) or your own defense is pre-emptive and prevents them from centering / getting shots on goal at all, the game shouldn't punish you. Really, I feel like Psyonix should account for total level of contact with the ball x metres driven because that should be proof enough of active participation, given that the game monitors both.

Unfortunately as a goalkeeper / midfield player this hits me. My role in the team is to stay back and capitalise on the opponent team's mistakes (i.e. if they lamp the ball into midfield, I'll counter and smack it back or take a shot) / defend our goal, depending on which team is pressuring. So it's kind of annoying.

Someday I should compile a video of the setups I've done with my main partner in crime. It's a good demonstration of how playing with the team in mind first gives infinitely better results than just being a ball hog barry.

[Serenity]

Briar King, on 09 October 2018 - 06:26 PM, said:

Will definitely be buying a used U for Xenoblade X and a Switch for Xenoblade 2 alone.

That's the boat I'm in at the moment. Xenoblade Chronicles is fecking brilliant. Will definitely be getting a Switch for 2. Not sure about Wii U - there's a possibility of X being ported to the Switch, apparently, so fingers crossed for that.

[Maark Abbott]

Uninstalled Rocket League. Fed up with Psyonix dicking over team play and only rewarding the individual. Why punish team-oriented play in a team game?

[Khellendros]

Maark Abbott, on 10 October 2018 - 07:15 AM, said:

Uninstalled Rocket League. Fed up with Psyonix dicking over team play and only rewarding the individual. Why punish team-oriented play in a team game?

Are you sure? As far as I'm aware, XP is awarded based on how long the match lasted. The longer the match, the more XP gained. Yes you do need, what, 50 points to start earning XP, but you get that with making like one save, no? But I haven't played in a while so maybe there's been a more recent tweak.

[Morgoth]

Khellendros, on 10 October 2018 - 08:44 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 10 October 2018 - 07:15 AM, said:

Uninstalled Rocket League. Fed up with Psyonix dicking over team play and only rewarding the individual. Why punish team-oriented play in a team game?

Are you sure? As far as I'm aware, XP is awarded based on how long the match lasted. The longer the match, the more XP gained. Yes you do need, what, 50 points to start earning XP, but you get that with making like one save, no? But I haven't played in a while so maybe there's been a more recent tweak.

50 points is all you need? It's been a while since I played Rocket League so maybe the point allocations are different now, but when I played I doubt I ever got less than 50 points in a match.

[Cause]

Alternative Goose, on 05 October 2018 - 07:24 PM, said:

Nearly caved and bought AC Odyssey, despite knowing I couldn't finish it before Red Dead comes out. It's so tempting!

To punish myself I finally started up The masta' piece Knack (baby!). Knack sure is punishing for a game stylised like a mascot platformer. Had to go back and restart the game on easy because I just knew I'd have an aneurism later on if the difficulty ramps up.

For a game that was meant to be a graphical showcase at the PS4 launch, Knack hasn't aged well but it is entertaining. The gameplay is very bare bones however the actual fighting feels good. The punching animation and the feeling of the impact is phenomenal.

Is knack actually good? I remember it had atrocious reviews. I have it through PS plus. Should I actually play it?

[Maark Abbott]

Morgoth, on 10 October 2018 - 10:40 AM, said:

Khellendros, on 10 October 2018 - 08:44 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 10 October 2018 - 07:15 AM, said:

Uninstalled Rocket League. Fed up with Psyonix dicking over team play and only rewarding the individual. Why punish team-oriented play in a team game?

Are you sure? As far as I'm aware, XP is awarded based on how long the match lasted. The longer the match, the more XP gained. Yes you do need, what, 50 points to start earning XP, but you get that with making like one save, no? But I haven't played in a while so maybe there's been a more recent tweak.

50 points is all you need? It's been a while since I played Rocket League so maybe the point allocations are different now, but when I played I doubt I ever got less than 50 points in a match.

Unfortunately, if you're a defensive player, you're failing your role in the team if you actually allow them what the game registers as shots on goal. But the game won't give a shot (and thereby a save) unless the ball is very close - by which time the other team has had time to wind up and you're far more at risk of them chipping it over you. They dick all over defensive players which really pisses me off. Not often that I don't get it but if the other team stops centred balls regularly, it becomes a struggle. I'm pretty hacked off at Psyonix and realistically the fact that they punish people who don't just shag the ball has actually killed my love for the game because all it encourages is teams where everyone falls over everyone else, there's no cohesion etc.

Psyonix put in a lot of sneaky shit in the new patch that isn't in the notes. If you don't get the points threshold you get 0xp for a match even if it went to +5:00 overtime.

[Mentalist]

I finally did it! I killed the Ghoul Matron!

Granted, it took 2 tries, and I was only able to dod this, because I almost maxed out the skill tree, so that I was able to do a double-punch of "wraith stun + execution" on a single hit streak charge. It took 5 execution hits to finally put her down.

I also don't think I'm playing the game right. I've been killing a lot of captains, and I maxed out the Power gauge, meaning I unlocked all upgrade tiers. And I'm only like 40% into the game, but with something like 80% of the skill tree unlocked (and a few more skills that can't be unlocked until i progress the story).
I'm running out of things to do though. Meaning that soon I'll have to focus on the Warchiefs (only killed the one so far).

I'm a bit bummed that I don't have a good Nemesis. I keep killing captains before they can get strong enough to be a challenge. The one Defender (spear and shield) Uruk that managed to kill me as I was trying to kill 50 uruks to draw out a Warchief, got himself promoted twice. Then I ran into him while killing a whole mob on a prisoner rescue side-mission, and executed him, as well as another captain (and I made a third one flee. It was a good fight). That "mini-nemesis" at least had the decency to drop an Epic rune when he died, so that was nice of him.

[Tiste Simeon]

Are you on SOW or SOM Ment?

[Mentalist]

Tiste Simeon, on 11 October 2018 - 05:19 AM, said:

Are you on SOW or SOM Ment?

Mordor. I'm considering picking up SOW in a holiday sale now that they patched the lootbox crap out.

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm enjoying War immensely but I think Mordor was better purely from the fact that it was so innovative and fun at the time. War is more of the same greatness and there are a few little bits that make it unique but it's not too different that has given me the same "wow" factor as the first one did.

[Aptorian]

I think you'll burn out if you jump right into War, ment. There's a ton more stuff but it's familiar stuff.