Unofficially Official What are you Playing

[Mcardy]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

The monster placement is better in OG2 in my opinion, but only because the SotFS placement and rearranging feels like that "Kaizo" Mario 64 romhack, where the first level has a bunch of Chain Chomps placed in large numbers on the ground. A lot of encounters in SotFS have that same kind of copy-pasted feel. It attempts to sends waves of enemies after you instead of rearranging monster placement to play off of the environment for a challenge.

Really wish From would let me test this b/c I'm not paying $40 for OG Dk2. Sad!

Read the reason for SOFTS placement was people griped OG was too easy.

From Soft seems to not want to (further) divide the multiplayer base and as such will only discount the SOTFS version.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Rocket League continues!

We were getting a little demoralized playing online and just getting crushed every game, so we started pacing out our online stuff by mixing in Rocket Labs and Hoops online matches for random fun. The weird maps give us more of an even playing field with people who don't know the ins and outs of the pitch just like we don't.

It's helped considerably because those maps also give you more incentive to work on your aerial game (especially Hoops).

We have also been peppering in AI seasons and Saturday we finally won the season against the Pro difficulty. We struggled mightily for most of the games and came out with 9-2 for the season. The two losses during the season were our two opponents in the Playoffs. First Playoff game we took to 1-1 with the AI scoring a point in the last 20 seconds of the match to tie it up, then we scored 12 seconds into Overtime for the win.

The Championship game was hilariously one-sided because suddenly I was just a monster at the goal on both ends, blocking a couple shots for Epic Saves and scoring 5 goals to their one. We ended the game 6-1 and never has a victory in a competitive game felt so good.

So now we're considering whether or not to jump into the hardest AI difficulty (All-Star) and begin the grind all over again.

Whether we do that or not, we are now playing a few online matches a day, which is probably more helpful than grinding against an AI that is still ultimately predictable. We can get better at timing, technique, and tactics via AI, but the human element forces us to get better at all of that plus learn strategies and rotating positions. We get to see people doing stuff we didn't even think was possible so that increases our own kit when we start practicing those things.

I still don't know how I got so obsessed with a competitive multiplayer game that's just Soccer with rocket cars. It goes against everything I like in games and yet I still want to keep improving.

[Mcardy]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Is there no ranking / matchmaking system that pairs you up with equal skill players? Seems kind of weird if not.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Is there no ranking / matchmaking system that pairs you up with equal skill players? Seems kind of weird if not.

Well, there is a ranking system, but at the bottom rung it's wildly inconsistent because of experienced players starting brand new profiles to just wreck shop. Then you have trolling people who just want to **** with people and will join a game only to actively work against you if you make a single mistake. People who will just sit idle while you struggle against the opponent. People who will just up and quit and the matchmaking doesn't provide a replacement player fast enough.

And I've been doing some reading about the higher tiers of the ranking system, and it's apparently broken in an entirely different way. There's win streaks that will bump you up the tiers faster, like literally will just shoot you up three tiers in three wins, so suddenly you're in a tier you have no reason to be in because of three lucky wins, and then you're just bringing down the team with your false rank.

And also there's a tendency for wildly inaccurate matchups to be made, so that if you're a low rank and someone else on your team is really high rank, your aggregate rank is somewhere in the middle and you could be unevenly matched, forcing the low rank to suck and the high rank to have to carry the team.

They're working on balancing things out, but nothing's been done in the last few weeks so online is just a chaotic wasteland of unpredictability.

[Mcardy]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

That sounds like a terribly designed system.

[1ce]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

I'm playing Magic Knight Rayearth on the Saturn right now. I lost my save a long time ago and never restarted, but now that I'm planning on going to more college, I plan to sell it. The fact that I never beat it though weighs on me, so I plan to finish it first.

I'm getting close to where I stopped playing last time, Just about ready to tackle the waterfall, I think about halfway into the game. Anyone else play this game?

[John Mora]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

SELL IT TO ME

SELL IT TO ME

[Perversion]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Laugh if you want, but I've been hooked on Neverwinter on PS4. Never realized until I had a child/was without disposable income how much enjoyment could be gleaned from F2P. It helps that I have yet to run out of things to do. Character limit and item storage not withstanding, the F2P model here is pretty inobtrusive. For a free console MMO (hell, for a console MMO period), it is ticking all the right boxes for me.

[Perversion]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Dark Souls II is actually my favorite.

*HIDES IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH*

Maybe it's the whole thing about being the first one, but for me, none have compared to Demon's Souls. I've yet to see anything in any of the other games that comes close to the Tower of Latria in mood and atmosphere. This is probably the best "world" I've ever played in any video game, ever. The Old Monk was so mindblowing the first time you encountered him, assuming you were online and the odds were with you.

Not to say that the other games had a been there, done that feel to them, but when you "get it" for the first time, the feeling is indescribable. I kinda envy Maijo for experiencing it for the first time.

That said, even though everyone claims DS1 as the masterpiece of the series, I too enjoyed 2 more.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post.

[Riotsword]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

I think if you ask a lot of people which Souls game is their favorite, their answer will be whichever one they played first. For me, that was Dark Souls. I'd put my personal ranking as

DkS > DkS2 ≥ DeS > BB

Being a player who likes using shields and magic, Bloodborne didn't give me much to like about it, to be honest. I'm coming off a huge Demon's Souls bender in which I platinum'd the damn thing so I'm burnt out on it. Haven't played DkS3 yet. I've been wanting to get back to DkS1 and finally get to play the DLC that I bought shortly after getting my copy last Christmas, but the Blu-Ray drive crapped out just days after that, so I'm stuck with digital only for now.

[John Mora]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Having played all of them in release order, I'd have to say...

Bloodborne>Dark Souls 3>Dark Souls>Dark Souls 2>Demon's Souls

[Mcardy]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Never played BB or DeS but that's funny it's a complete reversal of my rankings. I'm gonna go chill with Highwind.

Anyway, got a crazy hankerin' for some ARPGs after Grim Dawn and went back and found my old damn Diablo 2 and LOD expansion disc and installed it (mentioned that previously, I think). I beat it but with no QoL and such outdated UI (woo 800x600 resolution) it was more of a chore to play through anything more than Normal mode.

So, I installed Path of Exile b/c I never played it and it's F2P...currently at 82 hours and apparently they're revealing a bunch of new content on Friday. It captures the essence of Diablo 2 (good and bad) very well.

[Riotsword]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

I just finished AM2R, and it's pretty good. I have a few complaints, but as a fan game it did a lot of things right. The weapon-testing robot boss was one of the most entertaining fights I'd experienced in any Metroid game, official or not.

[1ce]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Does anyone here play Ultra Street Fighter 4 on 360 other than me? I'm having a blast with it. GT is Skydriverice

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Unofficially Official What are you Playing

Beat Borderlands 2, moved on to Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. Absolutely loving the moon gravity and thruster control with gameplay built around maintaining your oxygen levels.

Finally gave up on Rocket League. Hit the major diminishing returns phase of the skill level and just don't have the patience to keep at it.

Picked up Inquisition and pushed ahead on the story a bit instead of chasing around a thousand sidequests. My Inquisitor is romancing Josephine but it's kinda boring and I may swap out for someone else.

Sivart talked me back into FFXIV yesterday so I'll likely be playing this weekend. =3