What are you playing now?

[alanschu]

Stupid amounts of EU4 and Victoria 2, with some Dark Souls tossed in for good measure.

[Rosbjerg]

Saints Row IV.. The story and super powers are pretty cool, but it gets a little too repetitive since you basically played all the same activities to death in SR3. Minor spoiler; They always win me over with the crazy missions though - at one point you fight a super villiain version of yourself and a later an awesome Double Dragon style sidescroll beat-em-up.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I've mostly been paying No More Room in Hell when not trying to get through the mind-numbingly bad By Night Studios Mind's Eye Theater rules (a friend and I, rather stupidly, agreed to write a review).

[GhostofAnakin]

 

Nearing the end of my XCOM Enemy Within play through.  I have quite a few characters I like using, but only six spots in my squad to use them.

 

I've read otherwise online, but for me the heavy soldiers seem to be the best to bring with me, what with their guided rocket launchers (and each can carry 2, plus 1 shredder).  Even the toughest enemies go down in one or two rounds if I have 2 or 3 heavies in my squad.

 

I'm finding my sniper less effective as the enemies get tougher.  She rarely misses her shots, but they're never strong enough to one-shot enemies unless they're already low on health.  Earlier in the game she was a killing machine because she could knock out an enemy's entire health bar in one shot, even if they had full health.

Yeah, one of the chief flaws of the game is that the late game switches tactical focus from mobility and defensive positioning to simple massing of firepower, which is far less interesting. I've stopped playing several playthroughs in which I was well on the way to winning because it just turned into a chore.

 

That said, heavies are a fine choice but I find Assaults to offer greater versatility late-game. Chiefly this is because Heavies are restricted in mobility - you need to not move in order to use any of the class' defining abilities, and that counteracts the desire to get in close to compensate for the poor aim. Assaults retain full firepower after moving - indeed after dashing - and that is invaluable in situations where somethings absolutely needs to die.

 

Snipers continue to be fantastic throughout the game too, to the extent that I restrict myself to one per mission in order to encourage more mobile and more interesting gameplay. Sure the removal of the ability for Squad Sight shots to crit have weakened the all-seeing Archangel Sniper tactic somewhat (it being the god-king strategy of the base game), but Double Tap remains a "this thing dies now" ability, and there are some fun combo strategies to be had with alternative Sniper builds, such as In The Zone synergies.

 

An underappreciated feature of Snipers which is not readily evident when starting out is that it's often the only 'safe' way to kill awkwardly positioned enemies. By that I don't necessarily mean those hiding in hard-to-reach areas, but rather those where taking conventional shots can often mean activating additional alien packs. This is crucial because on Classic and Impossible difficulties, the hard cap of five active alien combatants at any one time is removed: every alien you activate is out for your blood - not to mention that there's more of them on each map, making contact more likely. To clarify, on Normal/Easy, no matter how many aliens you've activated, only up to five will actually engage you, the rest will run away and wait for some of their buddies to die before joining the fight.

 

 

If I was powergaming.... I'd go with a heavy duty squad of something like two or three each of colonel-sniper-turned-mechs and Assaults, and a Sniper or two. But that's boring. Perhaps counterintuitively though, I reckon I'd have a lot of fun with a 6x Assault team. More conventionally though, my typical loadout looked like 2xAssault, Heavy, Sniper, SniperMech, plus one whatever - generally some newbie to level up. Probably another Mech if not training. Dropping supports entirely is somewhat controversial, but hardly unprecedented.

 

 

P.S. That said, I've only ever gotten access to Blaster Launchers once, on my first playthrough at normal/non-ironman difficulty. Never got to assault a Battleship for the requisite fusion core item required to research the launchers in my subsequent games.

 

 

I'm probably far too far into my current game to make any changes, but what does the original base class of a character do for MECs?  For instance, what would a sniper-turned-MEC bring to the table that a heavy-turned-MEC wouldn't?

[Humanoid]

 

 

Nearing the end of my XCOM Enemy Within play through.  I have quite a few characters I like using, but only six spots in my squad to use them.

 

I've read otherwise online, but for me the heavy soldiers seem to be the best to bring with me, what with their guided rocket launchers (and each can carry 2, plus 1 shredder).  Even the toughest enemies go down in one or two rounds if I have 2 or 3 heavies in my squad.

 

I'm finding my sniper less effective as the enemies get tougher.  She rarely misses her shots, but they're never strong enough to one-shot enemies unless they're already low on health.  Earlier in the game she was a killing machine because she could knock out an enemy's entire health bar in one shot, even if they had full health.

Yeah, one of the chief flaws of the game is that the late game switches tactical focus from mobility and defensive positioning to simple massing of firepower, which is far less interesting. I've stopped playing several playthroughs in which I was well on the way to winning because it just turned into a chore.

 

That said, heavies are a fine choice but I find Assaults to offer greater versatility late-game. Chiefly this is because Heavies are restricted in mobility - you need to not move in order to use any of the class' defining abilities, and that counteracts the desire to get in close to compensate for the poor aim. Assaults retain full firepower after moving - indeed after dashing - and that is invaluable in situations where somethings absolutely needs to die.

 

Snipers continue to be fantastic throughout the game too, to the extent that I restrict myself to one per mission in order to encourage more mobile and more interesting gameplay. Sure the removal of the ability for Squad Sight shots to crit have weakened the all-seeing Archangel Sniper tactic somewhat (it being the god-king strategy of the base game), but Double Tap remains a "this thing dies now" ability, and there are some fun combo strategies to be had with alternative Sniper builds, such as In The Zone synergies.

 

An underappreciated feature of Snipers which is not readily evident when starting out is that it's often the only 'safe' way to kill awkwardly positioned enemies. By that I don't necessarily mean those hiding in hard-to-reach areas, but rather those where taking conventional shots can often mean activating additional alien packs. This is crucial because on Classic and Impossible difficulties, the hard cap of five active alien combatants at any one time is removed: every alien you activate is out for your blood - not to mention that there's more of them on each map, making contact more likely. To clarify, on Normal/Easy, no matter how many aliens you've activated, only up to five will actually engage you, the rest will run away and wait for some of their buddies to die before joining the fight.

 

 

If I was powergaming.... I'd go with a heavy duty squad of something like two or three each of colonel-sniper-turned-mechs and Assaults, and a Sniper or two. But that's boring. Perhaps counterintuitively though, I reckon I'd have a lot of fun with a 6x Assault team. More conventionally though, my typical loadout looked like 2xAssault, Heavy, Sniper, SniperMech, plus one whatever - generally some newbie to level up. Probably another Mech if not training. Dropping supports entirely is somewhat controversial, but hardly unprecedented.

 

 

P.S. That said, I've only ever gotten access to Blaster Launchers once, on my first playthrough at normal/non-ironman difficulty. Never got to assault a Battleship for the requisite fusion core item required to research the launchers in my subsequent games.

 

 

I'm probably far too far into my current game to make any changes, but what does the original base class of a character do for MECs?  For instance, what would a sniper-turned-MEC bring to the table that a heavy-turned-MEC wouldn't?

 

Two things - the soldier's aim score and one special ability depending on class alone.

 

Assault - damage from enemies within 4 tiles is reduced by a third

Heavy - 20 aim penalty for the nearest enemy, who also cannot crit

Support - 10 bonus defense for your squad within a moderate radius

Sniper - Shooting before moving gives a +10 aim and +10 crit bonus

 

The Assault's ability doesn't tend to come up very often, as a "tankish" ability, it's far overshadowed by the Heavy. That, and Assaults are too awesome with their regular skillset to give up.

 

The Heavy is unique in that they're the only class with aim progression *worse* than MECs. This means it's the only class where it's advantageous to convert them early - in min-maxing terms, you want to do the conversion at or before Lieutenant rank in order to extract the maximum possible aim (for all other classes, converting at Colonel is optimal).

 

The Support's ability is interesting but somewhat fiddly to use. +10 defense is great, but pointless in situations where your MEC is exposed, because it means the enemies will shoot at the MEC (which is the usual thing, they target the easiest thing to hit). So to take advantage of the bonus, you need to ensure your MEC is out of line-of-sight. Now while that's not a bad idea in general, it tends to limit your options when moving your MEC more than usual.

 

The Sniper's ability tends to be a late-game thing, and even then is fairly unimportant. The real reason to take a sniper is the massive aim advantage colonel snipers have over anyone else. A maxed out Sniper-MEC has 105 aim. Assaults 89, Supports 90, Heavies 78.

 

 

TL;DR - conventional wisdom has it that your first MEC is a Heavy, and that further ones are Snipers. But necessity and random factors can and will override that.

[Katphood]

Played some more Guncraft together with my brother. This game is pretty awesome for many reasons but the grappling hook and the awesome user created content are the first things that come to mind. I just wish more people would play this game.

[BruceVC]

I am going to play either Wizardry 6 or 7. Unfortunately I made the mistake of reading some character creation guides, always a foolish thing to do, which make it sound about as interesting as doing accounting.

 

Otherwise, I'm earning the last few achievements I've missed from Dragon Age Origins. I have not the faintest idea why exactly, I usually just ignore the things and it's not like I need a character to import to DAI, which was the reason for replaying the Mass Effects. It has reminded me that I do rather like Awakenings though.

 

Keep us updated around how you find Wizardry. I am interested to see if you can honestly play this type of game after playing something as modern as DA.

 

For me I just can't get around the dated graphics, but I suppose I need to make a proper attempt

[Keyrock]

I am going to play either Wizardry 6 or 7. Unfortunately I made the mistake of reading some character creation guides, always a foolish thing to do, which make it sound about as interesting as doing accounting.

 

Otherwise, I'm earning the last few achievements I've missed from Dragon Age Origins. I have not the faintest idea why exactly, I usually just ignore the things and it's not like I need a character to import to DAI, which was the reason for replaying the Mass Effects. It has reminded me that I do rather like Awakenings though.

Min-maxing characters in Wizardry can definitely get out of control (it doesn't help that what works in Wiz 6 doesn't necessarily work exactly the same in Wiz 7).  If you're not interested in min-maxing but just want viable characters then you can disregard most of that and just stick with a couple rules of thumb:

 

1) You likely want to switch to a caster class with each character at some point to learn some spells

 

2) For late game hybrid classes rule

 

You're going to die.  A lot.  Especially early on.  It's pretty much unavoidable.  Obviously, save often.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Keyrock

[GhostofAnakin]

The only enemy I truly hate in XCOM is that sectoid or whatever one with the huge amount of health/armor and which shoots a massive cannon that does 9+ damage each shot (and has two shots per round).  It's the only enemy that I can't dispatch within a couple of rounds.

[Gromnir]

The only enemy I truly hate in XCOM is that sectoid or whatever one with the huge amount of health/armor and which shoots a massive cannon that does 9+ damage each shot (and has two shots per round).  It's the only enemy that I can't dispatch within a couple of rounds.

the big bot's damage resistance and cluster bombing is making them annoying opponents. nevertheless, a single alloy cannon wielding assault soldier with both an arc thrower and combat stims can kill those suckers in 2 rounds. arc thrower with drone capture makes easier as the bot will fire on captured drones first. the combat stims halve your received damage and the assault's lightning reflexes negates 1 attack... assuming you have lightning reflexes... and why wouldn't you? if you dont capture a drone, you will still stay alive long enough to kill the big bot thanks to assault class abilities and the stim.

 

alternatively, a tier 3 mec with the electropulse ability makes short work o' any kinda bots.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 7, 2014 by Gromnir

[teknoman2]

just finished Shadow Warrior... funny one liners, endless amount of references to old FPS, fairly good story and the only game with more crazy 360 degree shooting is serious sam. also it lasted a lot more than the average shooter of the last decade

now i think i ll start company of heroes 2 or dawn of war 2

[Raithe]

Saints Row IV.. The story and super powers are pretty cool, but it gets a little too repetitive since you basically played all the same activities to death in SR3. Minor spoiler; They always win me over with the crazy missions though - at one point you fight a super villiain version of yourself and a later an awesome Double Dragon style sidescroll beat-em-up.

 

Wait until you get to Enter the Dominatrix.  While the missions are kind of fun and silly, it's amazing how many chuckles you get out of the "behind the scenes commentary" from the characters before, during and after each mission.

[Rosbjerg]

I look forward to it, but I'll be playing the DLCs later at some point, I'm a little saturated at the moment.

[Labadal]

Playing Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign. I like the game, it's relaxing. The big negative is that they kept the microtransactions from the mobile game. I'd happily buy a version that doesn't have this.

[HoonDing]

Playing SR2 turned me off the whacky **** from SR3 so much that I'm not even considering SR4.

[SadExchange]

Picked up and playing Tales of Maj'Eyal on Steam.  Been really enjoying this older style rogue-like.  A really solid game.  Now, if I can stop from dying:)

[Majek]

NNK. Put 60 hours in it and i'll probably play another 60 before i have enough. Gotta catch them all! ... and then evolve them too. :S

[Labadal]

Took a break from it to play some other games. I'll probably go for a platinum if I don't get bored after beating the final boss.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

The only enemy I truly hate in XCOM is that sectoid or whatever one with the huge amount of health/armor and which shoots a massive cannon that does 9+ damage each shot (and has two shots per round).  It's the only enemy that I can't dispatch within a couple of rounds.

the big bot's damage resistance and cluster bombing is making them annoying opponents. nevertheless, a single alloy cannon wielding assault soldier with both an arc thrower and combat stims can kill those suckers in 2 rounds. arc thrower with drone capture makes easier as the bot will fire on captured drones first. the combat stims halve your received damage and the assault's lightning reflexes negates 1 attack... assuming you have lightning reflexes... and why wouldn't you? if you dont capture a drone, you will still stay alive long enough to kill the big bot thanks to assault class abilities and the stim.

 

alternatively, a tier 3 mec with the electropulse ability makes short work o' any kinda bots.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

I must be setting up my soldiers badly, because I can never utilize the close range abilities of my MECs.  The enemy is usually in overwatch, so if I try to move them during my turn, they get shot to hell.

[Gromnir]

 

 

The only enemy I truly hate in XCOM is that sectoid or whatever one with the huge amount of health/armor and which shoots a massive cannon that does 9+ damage each shot (and has two shots per round).  It's the only enemy that I can't dispatch within a couple of rounds.

the big bot's damage resistance and cluster bombing is making them annoying opponents. nevertheless, a single alloy cannon wielding assault soldier with both an arc thrower and combat stims can kill those suckers in 2 rounds. arc thrower with drone capture makes easier as the bot will fire on captured drones first. the combat stims halve your received damage and the assault's lightning reflexes negates 1 attack... assuming you have lightning reflexes... and why wouldn't you? if you dont capture a drone, you will still stay alive long enough to kill the big bot thanks to assault class abilities and the stim.

 

alternatively, a tier 3 mec with the electropulse ability makes short work o' any kinda bots.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

I must be setting up my soldiers badly, because I can never utilize the close range abilities of my MECs.  The enemy is usually in overwatch, so if I try to move them during my turn, they get shot to hell.

 

don't let 'em get into overwatch, or use assault. there is an understandable urge to move troops forward, but with sectopod we typical goes backwards.  if any party member gots suppression or disabling shot, such abilities is big win v. sectopod, but regardless, get the bot to move to you and prevent overwatch planting. mecs can move further than any unit save for support with skeleton suit, so use your mobility. alternatively, make sure you got 1 assault soldier with the aforementioned combat stim. an assault in titan armour with a combat stim will absorb the overwatch so your mec's can move in and disable. 

 

that being said, trying to capture meld does interfere with good tactics. is ez to overextend or move forward into bad situations. meld has frequent made Gromnir do stoopid. 

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 8, 2014 by Gromnir

[Katphood]

Playing SR2 turned me off the whacky **** from SR3 so much that I'm not even considering SR4.

Are you playing the PC version? If so, how is the performance? Heard the PC version had a lot of bugs.

[melkathi]

Playing Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign. I like the game, it's relaxing. The big negative is that they kept the microtransactions from the mobile game. I'd happily buy a version that doesn't have this.

 

I gave up on that. It's just too F2P... if they had just made a proper game I could buy, I'd do that. But having the AI be excessively lucky - gems cascading to 4 times in a row to 5-in-a-row so I get killed in one turn and have to spend real cash to heal my characters to play again? No thanks. When I get annoyed or frustrated I don't give people more money. My motivation doesn't work that way.

[mkreku]

Read about Spelunky. Saw that it was GOTY in several publications. Tried it. Didn't get it. Just another platformer?

[GhostofAnakin]

The final fight in XCOM was anticlimactic.  After fighting hordes of tough mechanical beasts, the "boss" battle consisted of me using one of my psionic powers, launching a guided missile, then my sniper finishing him off with a critical head shot all in one round.

 

Minor complaint for the achievement collector in me: you don't seem to get an achievement for finishing the game.

[Humanoid]

There are four, as far as I know: for finishing, for finishing classic, for finishing impossible, and for ironman.