What are you playing right now

[Nonek]

A little tip when playing the Deus Ex: GMDX mod, Karkians are lethal, alpha strike the things or run/swim for your life.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Nonek

[GhostofAnakin]

 

More Deus Ex.

 

Apparently I really do suck at stealth. I can't seem to knock someone out with a stealth attack without their buddy down the hall hearing me and becoming hostile.

You sure he heard you and didn't see it? I am stealthily the he'll out of everything. Even got around one of them big guys without any combat.

 

 

No, he heard it because I went out of my way to peek around the corner and only strike when he (the one who was far away) was facing the opposite direction before attacking the one closest to me.  I watched his "watch routine" and waited until he got as far away as possible, and was facing the other direction.  Yet he still heard me "silently" taking down his buddy.

[Lexx]

That reminds me of what I've said about DX:HR already years ago... the silent takedown is still so much better than the killing one. It is way more silent, costs the same energy and you don't kill the target (good for my conscience). The killing strike is louder, costs the same energy and kills. Sure, enemies can "revive" the knocked out ones, but honestly, I have yet to see this in my playthrough. There is never a moment where I stop and think "damn, maybe I should actually kill this one now.." It's out of question at any time, as whenever I decide to do a melee takedown, I need it to be silent anyway.

 

If they would have inverted it, making the deadly attack (more) silent, and the non-deadly louder, THAT would have made me think about it every once in a while.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Lexx

[Wrath of Dagon]

They were constantly revived when I started playing HR, to the point that I said the hell with the non-lethal approach.

[Fenixp]

Do you still get more XP for non-lethal takedowns? If I dislike something about Human Revolution and I suppose Mankind Divided it's that non-lethal playthrough is just far too easy to achieve - I'd even argue it's easier than lethal one since, in HR, you get more XP for clean hands, being unnoticed and individual non-lethal takedowns than you do for lethal ones. The game also tends to reward you more when you try to be non-lethal.

 

Thing is, this worked well in the original Deus Ex or, say, Dishonored where non-lethal approach severely limited your options and made the game inherently more difficult - whereas in new Deus Ex games, non-lethal seems to quite simply be the most optimal way of playing them (you even get a non-lethal sniper rifle for crying out loud! If it at least worked like it does in the original where hitting someone with a sleep dart makes them yell and panic for a bit before they get knocked out, but nah. Are there even any real-world anesthetics which put you under in a second?)

 

Edit: Actually, thinking of Dishonored, the expansion had the right idea, altho some of that was in the original game too - with proper upgrades, the best you could get out of non-lethal playthrough was knocking people out over distance using fairly expensive resource (whereas headshot with a regular bolt could do the job otherwise), melee you had to wait for entire choking animation to finish whereas executions were extremely fast and even disintegrated the body when upgraded, there was tear gas grenade to lose pursuers or you could just throw a regular grenade and kill all of them, there were arc mines which killed enemies and also destroyed their bodies whereas their gas counterparts only knocked enemies down and you had to go and recover the body yourself etc. Non-lethal playthrough should be difficult, dammit! ... Then again, lethal was just ridiculously easy as a consequence in that game.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Fenixp

[Lexx]

Ah yeah, in HR they even gave more xp- totally forgot about that one.

 

I've played HR on the highest difficulty settings and *never* had anyone get revived. Maybe I am this good at stealth, but honestly, I'll doubt it.

[GhostofAnakin]

I think they went overboard with throwing you into the deep end. You have barely any context to the mission you've just been thrown into, you have all your augments unlocked with the most threadbare of tutorials covering them, and I really didn't like that final setpiece and its gimmicks, though my experience is probably coloured as someone who prefers to play as a silent ghost. With the takedown system continuing to be awful (seriously, Dishonored came out in the interim, just copy that), it does feel like my preferred style is being somewhat marginalised for the big Hollywood bombast.

 

Compare that to the opening of Human Revolution, where Jensen is a regular dude with a gun. Yes, in terms of narrative it makes sense that in one game you start with nothing, and the other you're fully kitted out with everything, but I don't think it makes for good gameplay when you just throw everything at the player right off the bat and let them sink or swim. It's been five years (I was surprised when I looked that up), I think managing the learning curve a little better would be nice.

 

I'm not giving up on the game by any measure, and I know the part of the game I like best - wandering around the city hubs doing odd jobs - will come up later, but the impression I'm getting at the moment is "more of the same" rather than "new and improved".

 

I liked the tutorial level right up until the sandstorm.  At that point, I just panicked because I didn't have a clue where anyone was or what I was supposed to do.

 

Only way I figured out how to keep Singh alive was by shooting him myself with the non-lethal dart so the enemies would think he's already dead.

 

The sandstorm bugged me because it seemed like I was the only one blinded by it.  I couldn't see jack all, but my enemies saw me (and Singh) like it was a bright and sunny day out.

[Hurlshort]

If it at least worked like it does in the original where hitting someone with a sleep dart makes them yell and panic for a bit before they get knocked out, but nah. Are there even any real-world anesthetics which put you under in a second?)

 

 

Well, I tend to wait until they yawn, then shoot the dart right at their gaping maw.  So I use that to justify how quickly it acts.  

[Raithe]

That and if you don't aim for headshots, the darts are meant to take a few seconds to kick in. So if they are close to other people it gets noticed.  Which just means you're always taking time to headshot people with the darts...

[HoonDing]

"Are there even any real-world anesthetics which put you under in a second?)"

 

prolly the ones safari parks use on giraffes and elephants

[Katphood]

Call of Duty: Black Ops III

 

Sorry guys, but I need my semi on-rail shooter fix. Plays nicely!

 

I am also going to give the multiplayer a shot even though it needs a 14 GB patch to be downloaded. I hate downloading big patches. 

[Majek]

If you play MP, play only Hardcore. I found it much more fun than regular.

 

Also SP story is whack.  Never finished it.

[GhostofAnakin]

Finished Mankind Divided.

 

They just had to throw a boss fight into it, didn't they?  Ah well, it wasn't a tough fight at all.

 

I'm a bit on the fence now that it's over about which I liked better, the story in HR or MD.  HR seemed longer, too.

 

One thing I dislike with a passion -- making you watch the entire credits with no way to skip ahead.

 

I guess now it's on to New Game+ for me.

[Hurlshort]

I think HR took me about 30 hours to finish. I am already at that with MD and do not seem close to the end.

 

Granted my 10 minute train rides inflate the time played a bit.

[GhostofAnakin]

30 hours sounds about right for HR, but I don't think I'm close to that for MD.  I'm probably in the 12 to 15 hour range for MD (I'm on PS4, it doesn't say -- that I can see -- how many hours I have played).

 

I didn't explore much of Prague other than during mission-related ventures across the city, so I might have missed some hours of exploring in there.  But I didn't exactly explore every nook and cranny in HR, either.  Yet it still felt longer.

 

When I was approaching what ended up being the final boss fight, I thought there'd maybe be another "chapter" to go.

[Raithe]

I just wrapped up my MD run through. It was. an underwhelming ending for me. And then the unskippable/fastfowardable 30 minutes of end credits with a "hidden" cutscene of illuminati meeting in the middle.

 

The whole "1 week later" and variant news stories depending on things you'd done was a nice touch, including that sneak about how Silhouette forms in Paris. But on a whole.. it didn't have a real feel of an ending to me. And after all the various ways to get things done, the conversations you could have rather than fights, they stuck you in a big room for a boss fight.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Raithe

[GhostofAnakin]

I just wrapped up my MD run through. It was. an underwhelming ending for me. And then the unskippable/fastfowardable 30 minutes of end credits with a "hidden" cutscene of illuminati meeting in the middle.

 

The whole "1 week later" and variant news stories depending on things you'd done was a nice touch, including that sneak about how Silhouette forms in Paris. But on a whole.. it didn't have a real feel of an ending to me. And after all the various ways to get things done, the conversations you could have rather than fights, they stuck you in a big room for a boss fight.

 

Unskippable end credits are an abomination.

[Bartimaeus]

What about skippable end credits that have a hidden cutscene in the middle/near the end? That would infuriate me even more!

[Agiel]

I'm 50 hours into Mankind Divided and only just now finished the Swiss Alps. However, that may be because I insist on contriving double takedowns for all the guards and hacking _everything_ including all the alarm panels and TVs and radios in areas in which all the guards are now in cuddle piles (or stuffed in air vents) for maximum XP.

[Malcador]

WoW ganking always disappoints me in how tiresome it is, last time I was a ganker in a MMOG it was Jumpgate, so wasn't necessarily so one sided.

[Humanoid]

 

I think they went overboard with throwing you into the deep end. You have barely any context to the mission you've just been thrown into, you have all your augments unlocked with the most threadbare of tutorials covering them, and I really didn't like that final setpiece and its gimmicks, though my experience is probably coloured as someone who prefers to play as a silent ghost. With the takedown system continuing to be awful (seriously, Dishonored came out in the interim, just copy that), it does feel like my preferred style is being somewhat marginalised for the big Hollywood bombast.

 

Compare that to the opening of Human Revolution, where Jensen is a regular dude with a gun. Yes, in terms of narrative it makes sense that in one game you start with nothing, and the other you're fully kitted out with everything, but I don't think it makes for good gameplay when you just throw everything at the player right off the bat and let them sink or swim. It's been five years (I was surprised when I looked that up), I think managing the learning curve a little better would be nice.

 

I'm not giving up on the game by any measure, and I know the part of the game I like best - wandering around the city hubs doing odd jobs - will come up later, but the impression I'm getting at the moment is "more of the same" rather than "new and improved".

 

I liked the tutorial level right up until the sandstorm.  At that point, I just panicked because I didn't have a clue where anyone was or what I was supposed to do.

 

Only way I figured out how to keep Singh alive was by shooting him myself with the non-lethal dart so the enemies would think he's already dead.

 

The sandstorm bugged me because it seemed like I was the only one blinded by it.  I couldn't see jack all, but my enemies saw me (and Singh) like it was a bright and sunny day out.

 

 

I probably reloaded a couple dozen times, and the first third of those it was probably because I had no idea what I was expected to do. I'll admit I didn't even know you were supposed to jump off the cliff to start the engagement, again one weakness of the poorly-explained augment suite you start off with. In the end I just made a few exploratory rushes on the helicopter to figure out where the non-obvious objective point was, then used the invisibility augment to magically walk over to said point and immediately end the mission. Because I guess all the bad guys magically realise their craft is no longer flyable and give up fighting the moment that happens (did Jensen eat the battery or something?).

 

On reflection, the process of just standing around trying to figure out what's happening reveals another dumb thing: the VIP you're meant to rescue spends the whole time standing out in the open exchanging gunfire while being outnumbered a dozen to one, even before the sandstorm starts. If not for the metagamer in me knowing there'll inevitably be a reward for saving him, I'd say he's too dumb to live.

 

 

P.S. To compare the stealth gameplay with Dishonored again, it boggles the mind that there's still no option to carry bodies over your shoulder, and allowing you to chain a silent takedown into it, when it's bloody obvious Jensen should easily be capable of that. This addition alone would be huge improvement on how the stealth gameplay feels.

[quidproquo]

Been years since world of warcrack. Finished the Lich King before they nerfed him.

 

Still playing Mordheim. Don't think I've yelled at the computer screen with so much nerd rage. The RNG is relentless and the game has no save, so if you get ****ed, you just hope for a reach around. I've still only lost one battle, but I've had to fire about ten people for permanent injuries.

[GhostofAnakin]

It makes no sense to go with a non-lethal weapon on the tutorial level when you have no access to the silencer.  I wanted to try a lethal play through, but found there was no point to using the weapon they gave me since I'd just end up bringing the entire complex down on me after one shot.

[ShadySands]

I got to level 8 with both my warlock and my priest and my demon hunter is about 102 I think. Thinking of doing a mage, shaman, and druid too since I'm just trying to get a feel for them to see which caster I like the best. I used my free 100 token on a mage but I didn't want to jump right into high level stuff since the last time I played any serious amount of time was a private server with only like the second xpac.

 

My play style for these kind of games runs pretty completionist so the idea of skipping all the content that I've never seen before did not appeal to me

 

It's a lot different than I remember it but I don't think I'll stick with it past this month I've already paid for

Edited September 2, 2016 by ShadySands

[Katphood]

If you play MP, play only Hardcore. I found it much more fun than regular.

 

Also SP story is whack.  Never finished it.

 

 

That's what I did when I wanted to play Battlefield 4, mostly because of the radar. Hardcore felt much more rewarding since people had to look at the actual screen instead of the radar.

 

Sadly, my Battlefield 4 disc went kaput. That is weird since I am always extra careful with my game discs. I blame it on kitty.

Edited September 2, 2016 by Katphood