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the be all end all video game thread

Discussion in 'Pop Culture Board' started by hawt, Oct 19, 2009.

  1. iczorro

    iczorro
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    Why has no one but me talked about Assassin's Creed: Revelations? I thought it was a brilliant foray into even better story telling than the last one, with improved gameplay.
     
  2. PenetrationStation

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    I fooled around with a sith marauder for pvp. I think that most people were not using all of their abilities or didn't understand how to maximize their DPS using a rotation of abilities, because I was absolutely murdering ranged dps. The range on the force jump ability is enormous and it can move you through z coordinates as well so it's a great way to escape being focused down.

    The sorcerer's or whatnot get like 2 CC's and you have a cc immunity ability on like a 2 minute cooldown, so I would just get my dots on, save up a few combo points, eat the first cc then ability out of the second and melt their face. All of the classes at low levels are decently tanky in comparison to something like WAR, where I could 3 shot healers or sorc's with my WH. Overall it was fun and I liked the variety of the pvp aspects, but I won't be getting the game. The much-hyped flashpoints are repetitive and I could not find myself getting into the dialogue. I'm the guy who frantically spacebars through the cutscenes because I want to manipulate a system to reach maximum efficiency rather than watch my story play out. Most people may play differently, however.

    I don't think it will disappoint you, but it was not a big enough improvement on WoW for me to get it. My favorite MMO's have been EQ, DAoC, and pre-NGE SWG, though, so none of the new stuff has appealed to me that much. The graphics are beautiful though, for an MMO, and really push things to a new level from that perspective.
     
  3. StayFrosty

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    I just finished Sequence 9 of AC:2, so I'm way behind you, but my brother just got it and said his mind is blown. I played it a bit at his place the other day, just running around (Not playing memories for him and spoilering myself), and it looks really great. Janissaries are a pain in the ass though.

    For the series overall, I'm loving the story in AC:2; I'm starting to burn myself out on it a bit, but it really is fun, even if the free-running/climbing does fuck up at inopportune moments.
     

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  4. Thorgouge

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    Well, we'll see how long it entertains me, as I'm only getting it because my friends are. In the beta I was spamming space bar to skip the boring dialogue as I couldn't give a shit about it. Leveling is just a time sink until endgame anyway. I'm not really interested in any of the PVE unless it was like WoW's PVE originally (the gear was needed to PVP). I hate how WoW turned out once the first expansion hit and from there it got progressively worse. That said, if Old Republic copies their latest shitty models (I'm sure they are doing that) then I'll quit within 1-2 months like I have with Age of Conan, Warhammer, and every other MMO I've ever tried. Fuck whoever invented Battlegrounds, give me World PVP.
     
  5. Parker

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    I'm going to get AC:B This Thursday and start getting into that. Don't worry Iczorro, we'll get there. I would already be there if I didn't lose my saves twice.
     

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  6. Fernanthonies

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    Here is a writeup on MMO Champion about the end game content in SWTOR. Sounds like it is pretty WoW-ish, however there does seem to be world PvP in addition to battleground type stuff.

    I played the closed beta for a bit a while back, and my impression was that it was mostly WoW mechanics with a Star Wars theme and Bioware story and dialogue. The full voice acted quests and all the player story arc stuff is actually one of the few things that may draw me to this game. First character I played was a Jedi Knight, to about level 10. Went with all the light side options, like a good Jedi Knight, and the character got super boring. Downside with the conversation stuff is what I'm starting to dislike in all Bioware games: Good answer on the top, neutral in the middle, and evil answer on the bottom, every time. From what I've read/seen about the game, some of the better armor later in the game requires certain levels of light side/dark side points that you get from conversation choices, so you could just say "I want X armor, so I'm going to just choose the light/dark side option every time to maximize my points in that direction", which in my opinion ruins the whole system. If they are smart, they will have comparable armor for neutral characters that mix up dark and light side points.

    The one character I played that seemed to be interesting was the smuggler, which would be a perfect character to play towards a more neutral stance. Bounty hunter seemed kind of 'meh', but the Sith Inquisitor seemed pretty cool, didn't play that one much though.

    Right now, I'm not really planning on buying it, I'm pretty burnt out on mmo's because of WoW and I've been really enjoying Skyrim and MW3, and still have games like AC:Revelations to get to. However, every now and then I'll see something about it, like this, and think "you know...it might be fun." We'll see.
     
  7. Thorgouge

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    Looks like this post clears up most of my questions: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1036603-Level-50-Beta-End-Game-Review-Final-Build" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/103 ... inal-Build</a>

    Text from main post:
    Background
    I have been in MMOs for over a decade and have played roughly 75% of released boxed MMOs and beta tested many. Been a WoW guild/raid leader for last ~3 years and completed all normal mode content and ~ 20% heroic mode content while current in all raiding tiers pre 4.2. I am an avid poster on these forums and have been following the game for several years, huge Star Wars fan and love BW games. I have been in the beta for the previous 6 weeks and leveled an Imperial Agent Operative to max level, these are my experiences and opinions at max level in the recent build of beta. This is by no means comprehensive and omits subjects like companion gearing/affection, Space Combat, RP elements, and some other aspects of the game and is just a snapshot of level 50 from my eyes with roughly 30 hours played at 50.

    Things to do at level 50

    Solo Quest Play
    Go back and complete missed quests on previous planets + bonus series quests (credits + codex + legacy xp)
    Go out and search the world for datacrons (codex + stat boosts)
    Go to Ilum and do quests, there are dailies (credits + legacy + commendations for level 50 epic gear)

    Opinion
    Solo quest play will last a while into 50 simply to clear up missed quests and codex entries. However ongoing content seems to be limited to Ilum dailies, and repeatable H2s that can be solod. Nothing special here and not surprising IMO, a daily grind with gear rewards and a long grind seemingly looking at the vendor. This could use some improvements.

    Group (4man) Play
    Go back and complete H4s on the planets that you might have missed and bonus series quests (credits + codex + legacy xp + commendations)
    Run level 50 normal flashpoints (gear drops + credits + codex + legacy xp + correlia commendations)
    Run level 50 hard mode flashpoints ( gear + credits + legacy xp, +tionese crystals,+hard mode commendations, +bop crafting drops)

    Opinion
    H4s - Did not seem like a great deal on Ilum, although I might have missed some of them since I was trying to touch base on all aspects of level 50. Would like to see more H4 quests at end game with some dynamic rewards, H4s are challenging and really fun overall.

    Level 50 flashpoints - really entertaining and fairly well tuned. Trash is almost always faceroll except for a few cases where CC is required. Some bosses are pushovers and some can be really difficult, another tuning overpass would do these some good. Correlia commendations can be saved up to purchase ~ 48 blue gear or you can spend 36 on a level 50 random artifact(epic) box.

    Hard mode FPs - need a tuning overpass also. Most of the bosses have a pretty strict enrage timers that can be difficult to meet with fresh 50s. I ran as healer (there weren’t many at all on Darth Malak apparently) with a group a well geared level 50s in a mix of artifacts and blue level 49-50 gear and we hit the enrage on almost every boss that had one. Without parsing or combat log ability this could be very frustrating to new players. Each boss drops crystals which are a currency for level 50 artifact gear and last boss drops a BoP high end crafting item. Each HM FP awards a commendation that is another currency that can be traded for gear.

    TL;DR- The hard mode FPs and gear currency system reminded me of WoW BC heroics and badge system in a way. I have decided I like this aspect of the game and gearing up will definitely take time. The currency’s and the cost on vendors look to be a 7-10 instance cost per item (roughly).

    Multi Group (8man, 16man and 24man)
    Go out and form raids to take out world bosses (gear + legacy xp + codex + currency?)
    Go out and form raids to complete Operations (gear + legacy xp + codex + cuirrency?)

    Opinion
    World Bosses - I did not have the opportunity to kill a level 50 world boss so I am unsure of the extra rewards for killing one of these, however I did heal in a raid group that killed an upper 30s world boss on one of the planets. The world boss encounters are fun, getting 24 folks together to kill one of these, buffing up and trying to engage in an open world aspect reminded me of my EQ days of no instances. The encounter was pretty fun and hopefully this translates into the level 50 versions. My worry here is that if the rewards are too good then these spawns will be perma camped by raiding guilds and there will be no chance in random folks pulling together to get a kill, we shall see how this goes.

    Operations – I was able to get into a raid group for EV as heals. We went and tried this boss on 16 man normal mode and it was insanely overtuned, damage going out was insane and undoable so we split into two 8 man groups to try to get some attempts in. The people I was running with had done it in the previous build and said it was faceroll easy then, however it was not faceroll when I was in the raid. The pull took some coordination between the 2 tanks to pick up adds and CCs to hit the turrets, the first 10 seconds was pretty crucial and tanks/heals and cc had to be on their toes. The boss itself has straightforward mechanics that were very clear and it was obvious what to do at what moment. We did several attempts and progressed to get him down to ~10% when he started doing an overtuned aoe rocket ability that wiped the raid. Other folks cheesed the mechanic by LOS’ing the entire enrage portion and having a tank with CDs and spam heals burn through the final health.

    TL;DR – The raiding felt comfortable and enjoyable. The challenge level of this encounter was good for a group of 8 folks coordinated in voice chat. My guess was the previous build was testing the bottom tier difficulty (that can be pugged w no gear) and what we were testing was the next tier up that requires more coordination. I have watched videos of the other fights and mechanics look similar to what we have seen elsewhere and their implementation looks good (outside of bugs of course) I think they have some work to do on operations before the first guilds hit 50, hopefully this will happen.

    Crafting
    Go out and farm materials or send companion on mission for crafting (+materials, +credits)
    Run HM FPs to get BoP crafting ingredients (+gear,+currencies, +credits, +legacy xp)

    Opinion
    Each crafting profession has numerous items they can make for end game. Some of these require the BoP drops from HM FPs. As an artifice I was able to craft a level 50 artifact relic after gathering a BoP alloy and some artifact quality gems. It is nice to be able to craft yourself viable gear that will last. Some of the material costs seem ridiculously high though, such as a level 48 LS pattern that took 3 of the BoP alloy, these probably need another overpass also. Reverse engineering the final tier of green patterns seemed to take forever for me to discover the blue versions (~15-20 RE’s each time) and I could not gather enough materials to test RE’ing the blue versions. Other crafters claim that getting a critical success on artifact quality BoP gear yields operation quality gear, I have not confirmed this but it seems like a cool idea.

    TL;DR – Crafting is pretty grindy, however I personally feel it should be that way, although some of the requirements need to be adjusted on particular recipes and possible a way to deal with the RNG of mission based gathering, possibly a vendor where you can trade in a gear currency for materials?

    PvP
    Go out to Outlaws Den on Tat for FFA Group PvP (possible 20 merc chest)
    Go out to Ilum and participate in open world PvP (+merc coms, +credits for dailies, +PvP box for daily,+buff to WZ valor)
    Go into Warzones (+legacy XP, +credits, +valor, +warzone coms,+codex)

    Outlaws Den – Fun little area in Tat, high level gathering nodes and chance at chest with 20 merc comms. You can kill anyone not grouped with you, has buffs similar to warzones and PvP vendors. This has the potential to be pretty cool, the 20 merc chest is not enough to lure people out here though and it is usually pretty barren. It is fun to come here and gather since you can kill anyone who is competition for nodes, on either faction.

    Ilum – The battle of Ilum needs some work, its huge and looks to be designed for massive amounts of folks to partake in (50-100 on each side). There are gathering nodes in here also which can draw some people in, however for the most part it was pretty barren. Scheduled battle of Ilums might go a long way into making this more fun and the only time I saw a good amount of people was during a scheduled event which had maybe 40 on each side. There is a daily that asks you to basically turn 5 objectives from republic to imperial side, and this can be done regardless of who controls ilum if there are people turning objectives back and forth. The area is absolutely huge though and takes a while to move between objectives. There is tons of potential for really fun PvP, if they tweak it and make it rewarding outside of the dailiy which awards an Artifact PvP chest.

    Warzones – Each warzone gives +valor toward your valor rank and wz commendation (50-75). People know about WZs so I won’t talk too much about this, at 50 you pretty much do the same shit you did at lower level except you get Legacy XP instead of normal and I don’t recall if the credit amount scales or not, they might give more credits too.

    Gearing – The PVP gearing system needs some work, badly. Currently the way to achieve end game PvP gear is through Artifact quality chests. Champions chests are a reward from the Ilum daily and purchasable on vendors for 200 WZ coms and 200 Merc Coms per 1 box. The Merc coms come from open world PvP on Ilum and from the chest in O Den. The rariry of Merc Coms means that in order to hit the amount required to purchase a box you have to trade in WZ coms at a rate of 3 to 1 per merc com. This basically raises the price of 1 Champions artifact chest to 800 WZ coms (the cap is 1k btw). On the same vendor there are also Battlemasters chest which contain higher quality PvP gear, these are the same cost as the Champions except they require you have Rank 60 Valor in order to open.

    Upon opening the chest you will get 1-3 Centurion coms (currency for Centurion PvP gear which is another set of higher quality gear on par with Battlemasters) and a chance at a random pvp gear token that can be turned in for a piece of gear (you can choose the stat breakdowns basically). So you can open a chest and get nothing but Cent coms, or you can open a chest and get a piece of gear you already have. This comes down to RNG and can be rough. I only opened a total of 9 of these chests, 4 were just coms, 4 were gear I could use, and 1 was a duplicate piece I already had (yay companions amirite?).

    TL;DR The system needs some work, I don’t mind the grind, the RNG can be infuriating though especially with duplicate pieces. Open world PvP needs some tweaking so Merc coms can be obtained on a more regular basis. At this point you will see PvP people sitting in the same 3 warzones all day to farm this gear, which has a ton of RNG to completing a complete set.

    Final Thoughts
    If you thought that TOR was going to be incredibly new and innovative at max level and reinventing the wheel you will be sadly disappointed. If you are looking for existing end game methods and structures with a new setting, increased difficulty, and in the hands of BW you should give TOR end game a chance.

    Leveling from 1-50 in this game is stellar and hands down the best experience you can have in an MMO.
    They have the framework in place to make playing at level 50 incredibly fun. Major changes to the PvP gear system is needed and a tuning pass of hard mode FPs and crafting schematics is necessary at this point as well as dealing with Operation bugs. Lets hope BW can deliver on their promises post launch and fix some of the apparent issues so TOR can grow into a lasting experience that any Star Wars OR MMO fan could enjoy.
     
  8. Fernanthonies

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    Also, I didn't realize this until just now, but the pre-order early access has been moved all the way up to this Teusday the 13th.

    Man, I'm starting to get pretty tempted to play, even though I know I should wait a few months at least until I've played everything else I've been wanting to play.
     
  9. Thorgouge

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    No, the early access works differently. They give access to those who entered their codes first on the 13th, and are staggering invites accordingly throughout the week leading up to release. So if you preorder now and enter a code, you probably won't get in until the 18th or even just on the 20th. This is bullshit as people with the head start are going to be WAY ahead since they will play 24/7.
     
  10. Fernanthonies

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    No shit? Do you have a source on that? (Not that I don't believe you necessarily, you usually know your shit, but I've never heard of that happening before). I'm still not even sure I'll pick it up, once I finish Skyrim I will still be pretty heavy into MW3 and I want to play Demon's Souls and AC: Revelations as well.

    And there is the D3 Beta too. Just to make you all jealous:

    [​IMG]
     
  11. D26

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    Just finished the story for Revelations. I thought it was an excellent story, and a good way to push things forward. I still have some trophy hunting to do, but otherwise I've mostly been sticking with the Multiplayer for Revelations.

    On that note, I am really digging the new multiplayer. I feel like they fixed some of the glitches and annoyances of the multiplayer with Brotherhood, while keeping a lot of the good stuff. I do think they made it too easy to stun, though. I find myself getting stunned as if someone is just mashing the circle button the second anyone walks near.

    I also hate the assholes who treat the AC multiplayer games like Call of Duty, and just run around on the rooftops as possible, or spend the entire game running like an idiot. Then the game ends, they have 11 kills and something like 2000 points, and are screaming about how they have the most kills and why aren't they in first and blah blah blah. Assholes like this are why I mute everyone. They can't seem to comprehend that quality is much more important for kills than quantity, and getting 100 points per kill because every one is a chase isn't a good thing. Learn the game you're actually playing. I figured those people would be gone by the time Revelations came about, but they're still there.

    But whatever. They'll get 11 kills and 2000 points. I'll get 7 kills and 5000 points, and beat them every time.
     
  12. ODEN

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    I took a break from Battlefield to play this. The AC series has been very entertaining, I really believed Revelations would be the last in the series but apparently not.

    I agree they has a good storyline and tightened the game play further. Have you played the multi-player?
     
  13. Parker

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    I got bored over the weekend, and downloaded DC Universe on PS3. Good thing this shit was free, if I payed for it I'd be furious. No real tutorial on what every little goddamn thing does, can't find an encyclopedia, and no idea how many skill points I'm really going to get for character creation. Oh my.
     
  14. Dmix3

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    I may be about to jizz myself with giddiness.

    Naughty Dog apparently has a second team, and this is the bomb they dropped on the VGA's Saturday night.

    Looks like survival horror is about to be done right.

     
    #3154 Dmix3, Dec 12, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  15. Kubla Kahn

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    Looks alright have to see the in game system to see if there is anything cool or interesting.


    I am about an hour into Batman Arkham Asylum and it is pretty sweet. Does the fighting system get anymore complex? So far it is just button mashing the Square button. I a good combo of God of War and Devil May Cry's fighting systems would be nice.
     
  16. D26

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    The fighting system is deceptively complex. It is rare that you'll flat out lose a fight by just mashing Square. It is more about stringing together long combos using everything at your disposal. As you start having to counter more, get batarangs, and other gadgets, the fighting can get much more in depth.
     
  17. Thorgouge

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    <a class="postlink" href="https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&safe=off&source=hp&q=early+access+old+republic+staggered&pbx=1&oq=early+access+old+republic+staggered&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=285l3499l0l3547l35l21l0l1l1l0l175l2203l9.11l21l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=68c06283a2517fd&biw=1680&bih=946" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">https://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab& ... 80&bih=946</a>

    Also, My offer still stands: two blowjobs if you share your D3 beta.
     
  18. wexton

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    With all this talk about Assassins Creed, i am going to have to go back and give it another chance. I played it when it first came out, and i couldn't get into it. Everyone kept saying how good it was but i just couldn't keep myself interested. From what i could remember, or maybe it was just one quest that was driving me nuts, it was a lot of running from point A->B then back, then from A->C and back, then A->B->C then back to A.

    But it has just been pages of talk about AC, and i am like dam, i really have to give this another try.
     
  19. RCGT

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    The first one was really repetitive. The series only really reached its potential with Assassin's Creed 2. But the later ones aren't set during the Crusades anymore - they're in Renaissance Italy. I say you should try Assassin's Creed 2, then if you liked it play Brotherhood and Revelations.
     
  20. D26

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    Yeah, they heard the complaints about the first one being too repetitive, and they absolutely improved upon that. There are still some repetitive missions, but it usually goes that there is a storyline mission (i.e. a race), and then a bunch of optional races and missions are unlocked that are similar to the storyline mission, so you really only have to do repetitive missions if you like them.

    I highly recommend starting with AC2, and once you get Brotherhood, try out the online aspect.

    I just downloaded DC Universe Online. Aside from the 6 hours it took to download the game and updates, it hasn't been bad so far. I'd probably be annoyed if I'd have paid for it. It definitely seems to be aimed more at PC players. Its a decent time killer, but I'm definitely glad I didn't buy it.