What are you playing now?

[GhostofAnakin]

 

 

 

Ugh.  Amazon screwed me over a bit.  I pre-ordered Metal Gear solid because it said on their site the game would be released September 1st.  I go to check on my order and now the site says that the game will be available on September 10th.  If it had listed the 10th as when Amazon would have it available, I would have just got it somewhere else.

 

The delay itself isn't a big deal (though it's still irksome that they list one date for pre-order, then change it when the game is out), but the fact I also ordered books with it and now my books are on hold until the 10th because I'd indicated for the entire order to be shipped at the same time (since I thought MGS would be available the 1st anyway).

 

At least I have Mad Max to keep me occupied for the next two weeks.  But geez, not happy at all right now.

You can still cancle the order and then buy it again.

 

I needed the two orders combined (game and book) to qualify for free shipping.  If I cancel the order and re-order each separately, the book order won't meet the free shipping requirement.

 

In any case, I e-mailed them to complain and now they're separating my order and shipping when each individual item is available, but not charging me for the extra shipping.  So I guess that works.

Heh, in germany book orders are always free of shipping costs, no matter the price. At least on Amazon... No idea if it's a general thing.. Usually only buy my books on Amazon.

 

 

In Canada, Amazon requires an order to be $25 or more to qualify for free shipping.  That's usually not an issue for me as I tend to order two or three books at once.  It became an issue this time because I only ordered two books plus the MGS game.  The two books only came to around $19 (both paperbacks).

[GhostofAnakin]

Dragon age inquisition is installed on a loaner I got.

 

It's.. pretty unimpressive. I chose bow-thief and combat consists of shooting ghosts at point blank range interspaced with special abilities with cooldowns, like an MMO basically. There is no dodging and rolling around like you would expect from the class description, trying to keep your distance to the target might work if it's a really slow boss but usually it's an exercise in futility. 

 

If you have a big sword you don't get a ranged attack and vice versa, just because. The pause and give order option doesn't seem to offer much advantage over just leaving the AI to do its thing.

 

My conclusion here is that trying to make it both arcady and tactical at the same time doesn't work, pick one or the other.

 

The only person I ever micromanage (other than my own character) in combat is the mage.  I let my melee fighters do their own AI-directed thing, but I like to have control over what spells my mage uses.  I find the AI doesn't pick the right ones at the right time if I let them control the mage.

[Nonek]

Mad Max is rather spiffing, it feels decidly Fallout-ish (or should that be vise versa?) and though I can see some of the mechanics becoming rather old hat eventually, for the moment i'm enjoying fairly much everything. Unfortunately Max himself is a little...dull so far, though pleasingly Australian and violent. 

[Gorgon]

Which is the most interesting class for DAI. Tried a two handed warrior with AOE damage but it got boring after I was barely out of the prolouge. 

 

Mage ?.

[SadExchange]

Which is the most interesting class for DAI. Tried a two handed warrior with AOE damage but it got boring after I was barely out of the prolouge. 

 

Mage ?.

I had a sword and board fighter which was very boring after 12 hours.  Then, on recommendation of this forum, I played a mage which was definitely more interactive.  I got about 24 hours into the game before it became quite boring, but that was more due to quest structure, than actual class gameplay.

[ShadySands]

 

Which is the most interesting class for DAI. Tried a two handed warrior with AOE damage but it got boring after I was barely out of the prolouge. 

 

Mage ?.

I had a sword and board fighter which was very boring after 12 hours.  Then, on recommendation of this forum, I played a mage which was definitely more interactive.  I got about 24 hours into the game before it became quite boring, but that was more due to quest structure, than actual class gameplay.

 

Yep, play a mage and skip as much of the side content as you can

[GhostofAnakin]

Mad Max is rather spiffing, it feels decidly Fallout-ish (or should that be vise versa?) and though I can see some of the mechanics becoming rather old hat eventually, for the moment i'm enjoying fairly much everything. Unfortunately Max himself is a little...dull so far, though pleasingly Australian and violent. 

 

It really is a fun game.  The only drawback I might find is I'm getting distracted doing all the side stuff and driving around the map that I'm barely paying attention to the main quest.

[GhostofAnakin]

Which is the most interesting class for DAI. Tried a two handed warrior with AOE damage but it got boring after I was barely out of the prolouge. 

 

Mage ?.

 

Mage is the best class, IMO.  It also fits the best with the story, again IMO.  A distant second for me is a bow wielding rogue, mainly because some of the abilities are pretty fun to use.  Duel-wielding daggers rogue sucks, IMO.  Sword and shield warriors are great tanks who just use guard and never fall.  One handed warriors are sort of like duel-wielding rogues: they suck.

[Wrath of Dagon]

GoT since WoD and a few others like it so much

 

So far so good

I just saw there's a big sale on Focus Home Interactive games on Steam right now, in case anyone wants to try a Cyanide or Spiders game.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Dragon Age Inquisition. Finally decided to get the Descent and Jaws of Hakkon DLCs

[GhostofAnakin]

Still playing through Mad Max.  I took down my first convoy.  The grappling hook works wonders.  Just aim it at the driver of each vehicle and systematically take them out with it.

 

It's cool that you can steal the cars of the enemies you come across, then when you bring them back to your safehouse they're added to your inventory of cars.  But I've found they're nowhere as useful as the car you drive in the story missions, so I haven't really seen the point in actually using them.

[majestic]

I just finished Satellite Reign. The ending, while not completely terrible, isn't exactly well done. The map is semi-interesting if a bit nonsensical for a skyscraper, but the enemies are all a joke, especially the final boss. I had more trouble with the first few missions in Downtown. And that was without bothering to research the final pieces of augmentations, gear and weaponry. Hrm.

 

Still, recommended for every Syndicate fan.

[Raithe]

Still playing through Mad Max.  I took down my first convoy.  The grappling hook works wonders.  Just aim it at the driver of each vehicle and systematically take them out with it.

 

It's cool that you can steal the cars of the enemies you come across, then when you bring them back to your safehouse they're added to your inventory of cars.  But I've found they're nowhere as useful as the car you drive in the story missions, so I haven't really seen the point in actually using them.

 

Technically, if you're driving the right faction, you're "disguised" from that faction and they won't randomly attack you. But yes, it's still no reason to drive them. Also, it opens up some extra options with the Death Races.

 

On which note, some of the Death Races are quite...irritating to get right. They slap you in a car you aren't used to that always has worst handling characteristics then the Magnum Opus, and it seems all the moves you're used to doing as you drive around.. now send you spinning out, fishtailing, or some such which wastes huge chunks of time on your run.

 

The story side of the game seems to push you on from region to region without really giving you any reason to stay in a reason to clear it up. I think they rely on gamer's OCD to wrap up all the assorted challenges and clear up the territories rather than story. The other thing that I've noticed, is that by (what I'm guessing the half way point), going to the scrap locations seems very...drawn out. You keep stumbling on this places that have 2 pieces of scrap to find, each one containing 2-6 items of scrap metal...  SInce by that point all the upgrades tend to require 300-900 items of scrap metal, and the collection of Ally Camps will be sending you 300-500 items of scrap metal every x amount of game turn, it does seem more of a time waste to find the scrap locations in game.

 

Note - this might sound like a lot of griping, but I'm still having fun driving around getting into bouts of fisticuffs with bizarre bdsm themed post-apocalypse bandits and jumping sand dunes in my custom car.

[Amentep]

 

Which is the most interesting class for DAI. Tried a two handed warrior with AOE damage but it got boring after I was barely out of the prolouge. 

 

Mage ?.

 

Mage is the best class, IMO.  It also fits the best with the story, again IMO.  A distant second for me is a bow wielding rogue, mainly because some of the abilities are pretty fun to use.  Duel-wielding daggers rogue sucks, IMO.  Sword and shield warriors are great tanks who just use guard and never fall.  One handed warriors are sort of like duel-wielding rogues: they suck.

 

I think mage is the best class but also enjoyed the bow and dual wielding rogue both. Dual wielding became more fun when adding the specialization.

 

I think part of the problem (IMO) with the fighter classes is that there is, ultimately, so little utility for them. They have a specific role and they do that role and little else. There's a bit more versatality with the other classes.

This of course makes dwarves a bit duff, IMO, as they can't be mages, so half their classes are kinda dull.

 

I'm nearing, I think, the end of Jaws of Hakkon. I think I liked The Descent better, but I like the Deep Roads stuff a good bit in previous games.

[Tale]

Finally got Quiet, just can't use her as a buddy yet.

[Keyrock]

I finished the headquarters plot in X3: Albion Prelude, though I haven't bought my prize for finishing the missions yet.  Unlike a lot of other plots, you don't get a freebie (we are talking about Teladi here, so it's not a surprise) at the end of this one, they sell you a headquarters.  To make matters worse, it's bundled with a Teladi Albatross large transport, all for the low discount price of almost 50 million.  It wouldn't be a bad deal if the Albatross wasn't complete garbage.  It is arguably the worst ship in its class.  It's slow and sluggish as molasses, which is not unusual for Teladi ships.  However, the trade off with Teladi ships is that they generally have massive amounts of cargo capacity, but not the Albatross.  In very un-Teladi fashion, the ship has pathetic cargo capacity for its class, so it literally has the worst of both worlds.  To top it all off the design of the ship makes it childishly easy to hit.  Granted, large transports are easy targets in general, but the Albatross presents a rather massive hit box from practically every angle, so even the slowest of dumbfire missiles couldn't miss it.  Oh well, it's still worth it to get that headquarters and I can sell that hunk of junk Albatross after it's dropped my HQ off.  

 

While my trading empire has gotten to the point where buying something costing a couple million is something I can do without giving it a second thought, 50 million is still a considerable sum of money and will take me a while to save up for.  In fact, my next steps will likely be to build another solar power plant and convert it to crystal-less, then probably do another one after that.  In the short term it will considerably delay me affording the Albatross/HQ bundle, but in the long run it will be all types of worth it (The first crystal-less power plant I build is easily outpacing every other station I own in terms of the rate at which it brings in money.  It will take a while for it to pay for itself, so it's still a net negative at this point, but eventually the net gains from it will far exceed any other station I currently own).

 

Meanwhile, I've started up the hub plot working for the Boron.  The first part was getting 1000 mosquito missiles for them.  Easy peasy, those are found everywhere.  The next part is getting 100 hornet missiles for them.  That part is considerably more time consuming since so few places in the galaxy manufacture them and they are made in plants that also produce firestorm torpedoes, which take a ton of time to produce (the production alternates between making a batch of hornets and a batch of torpedoes).  I contemplated building my own manufacturing plant to build hornet missiles to make the job go easier, but decided against it.  I wouldn't expect to make much money off hornet missiles, though I could always use them myself.  At one time, in earlier games, they were the premier heavy missile.  These days there are more powerful missiles available.  That's not to say that hornets are completely obsolete, but I personally prefer other types of missiles for every conceivable job:  Wasps or Hurricanes against fighters.  Typhoons against corvettes and frigates.  Dumbfire behemoths like the firestorm torpedo against capital ships...  or just go ham with typhoons.  Really, while typhoon missiles are expensive, if you can afford to launch them in quantity, they're essentially an I Win Button.  Another fun thing to do is to use Tornado missiles (dumbfire swarm missiles) essentially like a shotgun.  You can absolutely shred fighter swarms with them, or corvettes or even frigates for that matter.  Oh, you're launching a couple dozen fighters at me from a hangar bay?  Here, let me fire off 10 Tornado missiles, have fun dodging 80 fast moving warheads.  Good times.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Keyrock

[SadExchange]

I will say I like to hear that Mad Max has been pretty decent.  Is a game I'm quite interested in.  I really believe, of all the devs, both Avalanche and CD Projekt are two devs who can design good engines that tend to run pretty smoothly.  That's why I'm very excited for Just Cause 3.

 

Lately, I've still been playing The Witcher 3 and still enjoying every minute of it.  I believe I finished the main quest line from Skellege and can now go back to the main continent, but the side quests are just so engrossing, I don't want to leave yet, and the witcher contracts as well.  The timer in the character screen says I have almost 3 full days put into it, which seems crazy, but I will say that I haven't even come close to being bored with the game yet.  I know there are minor problems with the game here and there, I'm not saying it's perfect, but damn, they certainly outdid themselves and I'm extremely excited to see what they do for the expansions.

 

On the note of side quests and witcher contracts, I will say that I'm constantly surprised by how much time and resources they spend with those ideas.  I feel like talking to someone when I complete most to let them know how much fun it was lol  Again, I'm not trying to portray the game as if it's the messiah of all games, just a really fun and well made game all around and I believe I have a few more days of hours before I even come close to finishing it, the way I've been playing.  I haven't go well out of my way to visit every question mark, but sometimes heading off the beaten path is nice due to the game looking so great and the environments having good atmosphere.

 

Well, enough of my gushing over this game.  Also have been playing a little bit of Grim Dawn multiplayer with a friend and just really enjoy that game.  Solid around and look forward to the full release by the end of the year.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

 

Which is the most interesting class for DAI. Tried a two handed warrior with AOE damage but it got boring after I was barely out of the prolouge. 

 

Mage ?.

 

Mage is the best class, IMO.  It also fits the best with the story, again IMO.  A distant second for me is a bow wielding rogue, mainly because some of the abilities are pretty fun to use.  Duel-wielding daggers rogue sucks, IMO.  Sword and shield warriors are great tanks who just use guard and never fall.  One handed warriors are sort of like duel-wielding rogues: they suck.

 

I think mage is the best class but also enjoyed the bow and dual wielding rogue both. Dual wielding became more fun when adding the specialization.

 

I think part of the problem (IMO) with the fighter classes is that there is, ultimately, so little utility for them. They have a specific role and they do that role and little else. There's a bit more versatality with the other classes.

This of course makes dwarves a bit duff, IMO, as they can't be mages, so half their classes are kinda dull.

 

I'm nearing, I think, the end of Jaws of Hakkon. I think I liked The Descent better, but I like the Deep Roads stuff a good bit in previous games.

 

 

I just found duel-wielding rogues to be too easily killed, yet not delivering that much extra damage (relatively speaking) to have them along in place of a warrior as a melee option.  I found that having two warriors act as shields and damage sponges up front, with two ranged attackers (usually a mage and an archer rogue) worked best in most combat encounters, and particularly well versus the tougher bosses.  That's why I rarely had Cole in my party.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

Still playing through Mad Max.  I took down my first convoy.  The grappling hook works wonders.  Just aim it at the driver of each vehicle and systematically take them out with it.

 

It's cool that you can steal the cars of the enemies you come across, then when you bring them back to your safehouse they're added to your inventory of cars.  But I've found they're nowhere as useful as the car you drive in the story missions, so I haven't really seen the point in actually using them.

 

Technically, if you're driving the right faction, you're "disguised" from that faction and they won't randomly attack you. But yes, it's still no reason to drive them. Also, it opens up some extra options with the Death Races.

 

On which note, some of the Death Races are quite...irritating to get right. They slap you in a car you aren't used to that always has worst handling characteristics then the Magnum Opus, and it seems all the moves you're used to doing as you drive around.. now send you spinning out, fishtailing, or some such which wastes huge chunks of time on your run.

 

The story side of the game seems to push you on from region to region without really giving you any reason to stay in a reason to clear it up. I think they rely on gamer's OCD to wrap up all the assorted challenges and clear up the territories rather than story. The other thing that I've noticed, is that by (what I'm guessing the half way point), going to the scrap locations seems very...drawn out. You keep stumbling on this places that have 2 pieces of scrap to find, each one containing 2-6 items of scrap metal...  SInce by that point all the upgrades tend to require 300-900 items of scrap metal, and the collection of Ally Camps will be sending you 300-500 items of scrap metal every x amount of game turn, it does seem more of a time waste to find the scrap locations in game.

 

Note - this might sound like a lot of griping, but I'm still having fun driving around getting into bouts of fisticuffs with bizarre bdsm themed post-apocalypse bandits and jumping sand dunes in my custom car.

 

 

Haven't attempted the Death Races yet.  I'm usually not a fan of racing mini-games, so I don't know how I'd do.

[Humanoid]

I couldn't deal with how the daggers when "sheathed" would just float there on your back. Even by 1990s 3D graphics standards that looks awful. The really weird thing is that swords look perfectly acceptable and sheathe at the hip.

[Amentep]

 

 

 

Which is the most interesting class for DAI. Tried a two handed warrior with AOE damage but it got boring after I was barely out of the prolouge. 

 

Mage ?.

 

Mage is the best class, IMO.  It also fits the best with the story, again IMO.  A distant second for me is a bow wielding rogue, mainly because some of the abilities are pretty fun to use.  Duel-wielding daggers rogue sucks, IMO.  Sword and shield warriors are great tanks who just use guard and never fall.  One handed warriors are sort of like duel-wielding rogues: they suck.

 

I think mage is the best class but also enjoyed the bow and dual wielding rogue both. Dual wielding became more fun when adding the specialization.

 

I think part of the problem (IMO) with the fighter classes is that there is, ultimately, so little utility for them. They have a specific role and they do that role and little else. There's a bit more versatality with the other classes.

This of course makes dwarves a bit duff, IMO, as they can't be mages, so half their classes are kinda dull.

 

I'm nearing, I think, the end of Jaws of Hakkon. I think I liked The Descent better, but I like the Deep Roads stuff a good bit in previous games.

 

 

I just found duel-wielding rogues to be too easily killed, yet not delivering that much extra damage (relatively speaking) to have them along in place of a warrior as a melee option.  I found that having two warriors act as shields and damage sponges up front, with two ranged attackers (usually a mage and an archer rogue) worked best in most combat encounters, and particularly well versus the tougher bosses.  That's why I rarely had Cole in my party.

 

 

Very early on they were weak - first time through I stopped playing and went for another character.  I kept getting killed by heat seeking bears.

 

But there's a tipping point where they go from weak to pretty useful, usually with use of stealth and skills and trying to second target whoever the tanks were fighting (and it seems you find a lot of good daggers early on).  Once I got to specialization I took Tempest.  Flask of Ice - any one who hits gets Ice Damage, Flask of Fire - abilities cost no stamina and opponents get knocked away when they try and hit.  Flask of Lightning - only PC moves for a short period of time.  I was pretty much unstoppable at that point, using flasks and stealth to get in and out in the most damaging ways.

[Nonek]

One minor gripe about Mad Max, there's a dissonance in gameplay and narrative, because i've yet to find myself running low on fuel except when forced to at the beginning. Petrol seems bounteous.

[GhostofAnakin]

One minor gripe about Mad Max, there's a dissonance in gameplay and narrative, because i've yet to find myself running low on fuel except when forced to at the beginning. Petrol seems bounteous.

 

I'm early on, but I've found I rarely use up any fuel at all even when I'm traversing huge sections of the map.  I've only had to "top off" my gas tank, and that's only because I happened upon a tank of gas and figured why not.  Not because I actually needed to at the risk of running out.

[Tale]

Is the Mad Max game that good? Because I'm surprised to see so many people talking about a game that was, up til release, only viewed as a movie tie-in shovelware.

[Orogun01]

One minor gripe about Mad Max, there's a dissonance in gameplay and narrative, because i've yet to find myself running low on fuel except when forced to at the beginning. Petrol seems bounteous.

We wouldn't want players to stop playing would we and we certainly can't come up with a good in game way of gathering fuel that would encourage players to play differently. So you come up with a mediocre way of balancing the game.