What are you playing right now

[Tale]

How long is it? The next JRPG I'm planning to play is Trails in the Sky, but if it's short I'll make time for it.

[Oner]

I finished it almost exactly in 30 hours.

[Gorgon]

 

So I tried 2 more mods - one which should disable timers, other which should set them all to 99 turns. Neither worked. Bye bye XCOM 2, I have games that are actually fun installed.

What disable timer mod did you use? The one I used worked perfectly.

 

I like the timer. Mostly. It ups the stakes. I mean it does kinda suck when you realise 2 or 3 turns before the end of a city mission that you aren't going to make it and that you are going to lose your whole squad. So play bronze man and have the option to restart a mission. Without the element of time you are losing out. It's just less interesting if you can do everything carefully and deliberately and is never forced to make bad decisions.

[Tale]

I don't consider frustration to be interesting. And that's what the timer generated in me. I can see some draw if having your guys get grabbed, their movement debuffed, and the path to the exit burning down was something that just happened in a blue moon (on normal) causing you to lose a bunch. That's exciting. But if it's liable to happen every 2-3 missions, it's just obnoxious.

 

And that was before the boss monsters from the DLC started to appear. They were showing up every other mission or more. If I hadn't already disabled timers by that time, I would have stopped playing the game entirely.

 

Having to always make bad decisions isn't fun.

[Gorgon]

It's not always, convoy missions, enemy stronghold missions, story missions, retaliation missions have no timer (although you usually lose a resistance contact every turn)

 

It's basically just the city missions with an objective. The UFO missions have a timer but it's not critical. 

[Hurlshort]

Yep, I remember timer missions only being about a quarter of the game, and they were usually short snatch and grab ones that made sense to have a timer for. 

 

Of course, I'm also not averse to save scumming if I don't like the way a mission is going. I'll take some casualties to keep things moving, but if a situation just goes sideways I'll replay it differently. That's how I get better.

[SadExchange]

Well, lately I've been going through some remasters.  I went through both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City in preparation to do another run through of Arkham Knight, which I actually really enjoy.  However, I'm taking a break after Arkham City and am running through the Ezio Collection and am currently about 1/3 way through.  It's been pretty good.  The gameplay feels older, obviously, but a lot of it holds up.  I played through AC2 and half of Brotherhood when they released, so interested in playing through the entire trilogy this time through and like the fact that it's all on the PS4 and easy to play. I'm doing a bunch of the side content, but definitely not looking for all those 100 feathers lol  Anyway, someday soon I'll get back to modern games.

[Fenixp]

I like the timer. Mostly. It ups the stakes. I mean it does kinda suck when you realise 2 or 3 turns before the end of a city mission that you aren't going to make it and that you are going to lose your whole squad. So play bronze man and have the option to restart a mission. Without the element of time you are losing out. It's just less interesting if you can do everything carefully and deliberately and is never forced to make bad decisions.

I understand point of the timers - the whole game is about guerilla warfare, and guerilla warfare is entirely based on fast hit and run attacks which are over before superior force manages to react. The thought behind them is sound. The implementation, however, is terrible and the laziest imaginable. There are many other ways to reinforce the feeling of urgency without using timers, like increasing reinforcements over time or threat of enemy just shelling the area if it looks they're going to lose it entirely (i. e. possibility of some description increasing with losing local forces)

 

And if Firaxis really wanted to go with timers, they should have at least put some effort into them. The first and obvious bit to implement is for timers to only start when your squad loses concealment - there's a mod for this and it works, for the most part, so that's all good. Another step is to calculate timers dynamically as opposed to slapping them on the mission based on objective type - it's entirely possible that the game'll generate a mission which is literally unwinnable on time, especially when you get unlucky with VIP rescue missions. Timers should be dynamically adjusted based on distances of objectives or something along those lines.

 

Furthermore, at least give me side-objectives in missions that'll allow me to adjust timers. This'll mitigate RNG and make the missions more interesting - like an ability to scramble enemy communications - funnily enough, Firaxis already got this right in bombing missions in the original, but somehow forgot this lesson when going into the second game.

 

I'm entirely willing to accept timers when they're implemented intelligently and with some forethought. As it stands, Firaxis just went with the lazy and most annoying option - which I refuse to accept.

 

Edit: Wait, I said I'll shut up about timers, didn't I? I'm a dirty, dirty liar.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Fenixp

[Hurlshort]

Except they also do the reinforcement thing in many missions, so maybe they just wanted some variety.

[Tale]

The reinforcement system they have is pretty weak. They announce it the round before they appear and it's just one squad. Unless you're busy fighting someone else you can wipe them out with overwatch.

 

I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I liked it just because it was an opportunity to pull off great ambushes. It just wasn't a threat.

[Hurlshort]

The reinforcement system they have is pretty weak. They announce it the round before they appear and it's just one squad. Unless you're busy fighting someone else you can wipe them out with overwatch.

 

I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I liked it just because it was an opportunity to pull off great ambushes. It just wasn't a threat.

 

I just played through the Shen's Last Gift DLC, and it was a 3 stage mission where you had to get your squad on elevators (one per turn) while robots continually spawned every turn. It was crazy.

[Majek]

I should be playing Doom but insted i'm playing bloodborne again. Full arcane build, having a blast. I have a month to finish everything because Nioh arrives then, and it MUST take over all my playing time. :S

[Keyrock]

 I have a month to finish everything because Nioh arrives then, and it MUST take over all my playing time. :S

That's how I feel about the upcoming Disgaea 2 PC port (comes out in about 3 weeks).  Luckily, the only game I need to finish is Shadow Tactics and I'm confident I'm fairly close to finishing it.

[Vaeliorin]

The reinforcement system they have is pretty weak. They announce it the round before they appear and it's just one squad. Unless you're busy fighting someone else you can wipe them out with overwatch.

 

I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I liked it just because it was an opportunity to pull off great ambushes. It just wasn't a threat.

Admittedly, in the base game, once you know how they work, the reinforcements aren't an issue (though they sometimes drop far enough away that you can't just overwatch them.)  I always play with Additional Mission Types, though, and the reinforcements on Defend the Haven Retaliation missions (you get 2 drops at a time in the later turns) and Rescue VIP From Rioting City mission types (where the reinforcements often spawn far enough away from your main forces that you're likely only going to have the rookie reinforcements you get to try to overwatch them, and they have at best mag weapons, which you have to build in the Proving Ground and are pretty expensive) can get pretty crazy.

 

Basically, while I like the base game, mods make it much better, and solve pretty much every problem I've had with it (there's even a mod that makes it so combat is initiative-based instead of I Go, You Go, though it's a little buggy.)

[Gorgon]

I agree that the reinforcement system is poor, there is a mod that increases reinforcement pods by up to 400 %. I recommend that. The use of the timer is also not as imaginative as it could be.

 

Most annoying are the city missions where you lose your whole squad because the timer ran out. That's editorial interference. If I'm going to lose my whole squad you can't take away my control and just tell me it happened. 

 

But... compared with no timers or timers modded to include too many turns I definitely prefer timers. 

[melkathi]

 

The reinforcement system they have is pretty weak. They announce it the round before they appear and it's just one squad. Unless you're busy fighting someone else you can wipe them out with overwatch.

 

I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I liked it just because it was an opportunity to pull off great ambushes. It just wasn't a threat.

Overwatch? This is how you take out reinforcements with style:

Edited January 12, 2017 by melkathi

[Keyrock]

I tried to play Borderlands 2 again. I tried the game a while back and gave up after 4 or 5 hours. I figured maybe I'd have a different perspective on it now and could grow to like it. Nope. It's a popular series, so there's obviously something there people like, but I sure can't see it. I like the setting and characters, that's the only positive I have to give. Besides that, there are a billion guns, but they all suck. The gunplay is rubbish and the levelling system is bad.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Keyrock

[Oner]

Undertale, it's cute.

[Gorgon]

I tried to play Borderlands 2 again. I tried the game a while back and gave up after 4 or 5 hours. I figured maybe I'd have a different perspective on it now and could grow to like it. Nope. It's a popular series, so there's obviously something there people like, but I sure can't see it. I like the setting and characters, that's the only positive I have to give. Besides that, there are a billion guns, but they all suck. The gunplay is rubbish and the levelling system is bad.

The arena. The arena was fun and when you finally find a gun that shoots well and is also magically close to your level, also if you luck into a coop group that works well together, happened only once for me.

 

But yes, the leveling sucks. Can't be said too many times. 

[Bartimaeus]

I tried to play Borderlands 2 again. I tried the game a while back and gave up after 4 or 5 hours. I figured maybe I'd have a different perspective on it now and could grow to like it. Nope. It's a popular series, so there's obviously something there people like, but I sure can't see it. I like the setting and characters, that's the only positive I have to give. Besides that, there are a billion guns, but they all suck. The gunplay is rubbish and the levelling system is bad.

I remember trying Borderlands 1 way back when, and hating the gunplay so bad. I just can't stand terrible gunplay when it's a central part of the gameplay.

[Raithe]

Finally got around to wrapping up DA:I and the final dlc. Interesting post-game story in its way and nice enough for that "catch up with old friends, and find out what's been going on for a few years after we saved the world" run of things. Plus all the extra game lore and fleshing out of the story.

 

Plus the rather obvious set up for the next DA game moving on to the Tevinter Imperium being a central point.

[Gorth]

Finally got around to wrapping up DA:I and the final dlc.

One of several games on my to-do list. Made 3 half hearted attempts since buying it, but I don't think I made it out of the "tutorial" bit even once

 

Promised myself to not even install Witcher 3 until I've worked my way through Pillars of Eternity (and expansions) as well as Tyranny. At least I've made some headway on Pillars

[Vaeliorin]

 

The reinforcement system they have is pretty weak. They announce it the round before they appear and it's just one squad. Unless you're busy fighting someone else you can wipe them out with overwatch.

 

I liked it, don't get me wrong. But I liked it just because it was an opportunity to pull off great ambushes. It just wasn't a threat.

Overwatch? This is how you take out reinforcements with style:

 

Would be lovely, but they nerfed proximity mines to the point of near uselessness.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Vaeliorin

[melkathi]

Damn, there goes the reason to replay the game

[Keyrock]

I finished mission 11 in Shadow Tactics.  Insanely difficult mission that involved carrying an unconscious body across a heavily guarded map.  My penchant for not killing civilians made this mission extra difficult as they are littered all over the map and will give you away to the guards if they see you.  I am both scared and excited to see how they ramp up the difficulty from here.

 

/rubs hands together