What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[dude789]

Did a fun little mini challenge on Saga Frontier where I used Asellus and a team of monsters. I hadn't really messed around with monsters so it was kind of fun. Ended up with Kylin in his regular form, Thunder who ended up a Black Dragon, King Sei the Skullasaurus, and Cotton the Dullahan. Asellus herself was a gunner/mage hybrid. It really is a shame that monsters don't have any good ST damage options because aside from that they're kind of neat. Unfortunately, I'm fairly sure I had some of the better ST damage monster skills and even then Asellus could out damage the entire monster team if she got a critical with Two Gun Bound Shot. Although I did make a mistake when I gave Kylin the Griffin's Griffith Scratch absorption. They are really good in random fights thow where stuff like Light Ball/Oscillation/Magnetic Storm/Windblast just destroy random battles. They tend to combo a whole lot which is always satisfying even if the damage isn't the best. Magic Heal is also neat but Thunder was the only one who was able to get it.

Orluge took two tries since my first attempt he petrified Asellus and I could tell I wasn't winning after that. After reseting and giving Asellus a EMT Tag, it went rather smoothly because he made some really bad AI decisions. Orluge himself decided to spam Selection over and over on King Sei's corpse instead of on Thunder or Cotton which could have caused problems. Cotton was also pretty great in that final section of the fight as he blocked a ton of attacks with his shield. It's certainly nice to be on the other side of the Dullahan shield's block rate and Asellus was able to wear Orluge down with a couple of turns of Bound Shot. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

The one thing that can be said about monster ST damage is that GroundHit, which is at or near the top of their damage curve, is at least very easy to get. In that sense monsters are somewhat jeigany, they get their damage a lot more quickly than most other races, and stats too in many cases, although it requires some knowledge of the game.

I feel like four monsters should outdamage one def-pierce BoundShot but the fact that I can see a possible set that doesn't is kinda revealing.

[dude789]

To be fair, this was on Orlouge who I recall had high defenses, but even against normal enemies it would probably be pretty close. Ignoring combos the 4 monsters probably averaged 1200-1400 each and a defense ignoring two gun Boundshot could hit 5500.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Shale, what level are you in BL2? I was looking for a level 50-ish bro to go on an airboat desert pirate adventure with me in TVHM.

[Shale]

I'm still on my first runthrough. So, a bit under 20.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Well then I guess you won't get to live out Sterling Archer's fantasy by commandeer an airboat with me then, will you?

[Grefter]

Penny Arcade 4 - This is good in the same ways PA3 was.  Get it and enjoy.

[AndrewRogue]

Hotline Miami: Beat the main game missions.

Game is fun. The atmosphere works, although I actually feel the game's plot lets it down a bit.

Gameplay is a hoot, although the fast death system can get a bit irritating. Right around the 20th reload because you swung the pipe a little right. FFFFFFFFFF.

Still, enjoyable enough.

[Nitori]

Skyward Sword: Trying to kill one skulltula is harder than anything in Wind Waker

[Fenrir]

Penny Arcade 4 - This is good in the same ways PA3 was.  Get it and enjoy.

Shit. I need to find a PC powerful enough for PA4.

XCOM: Looking back I might have just gotten unbelievably unlucky last time. I got a Very Hard Very Early mission there too, with roughly the same enemies. But the team survived this time because I didn't get assaulted immediately by every enemy on the map.

Anyway the game got easier. I have two snipers.
Not progressing the plot until those satellites are everywhere.
I still can't tell the difference between the two melee classes between "rocket" and "notrocket", until I'm right in front of their ability lists.

These are the official colors of every class (Each soldier in that class wears that color. I couldn't tell them apart otherwise)
Sniper: Green
Support: Purple
Rocket: Yellow
Notrocket: Red

[Captain K.]

Skyward Sword: Trying to kill one skulltula is harder than anything in Wind Waker

This is not exaggeration!

[Grefter]

Difference is that Rocket sucks and can't hit anything where Notrocket is probably the most improving unit in the game.  Just really strong skills.  Sniper is great, but they really get their money skill early (shoot at things others can see) and don't get anything that is much of a game changer from there until they max out.  Assault on the other hand has lots of great skills on the way.  Run and Gun makes them amazingly flexible. 2 of them with shotguns are more than capable of charging into a room and taking out the biggest threat around or cleaning up weakened targets.  One with a rifle is just incredibly effective at getting into position and spotting for your sniper while being effective at mid range.  Normally a role you can fill out with a Support, but if you are running 3 Assaults I would recommend trying it out sometime (like when bunch of dudes are in hospital).

I am somewhat biased though, I ended running 3 Assault, 1 Support 2 Sniper as my main team.  My opinion of Heavy could not be lower.  Others with more breadth of experience with the game might disagree.

[Fenrir]

Yeah I can see the appeal of Notrocket, I started using one with a laser shotgun. Toasted against large groups of enemies though. Unless I throw a flash grenade in the middle oooooooh
Heavies can't hit, but they get to attack twice so this is cool? Rockets are OPB but totally amazing.
Snipers get all the exp so they max level in the second month.

I admit I have read mechanics.
Nice how story missions give -2 Panic. Because right now my fellow african countries are toasted and I should have done the story missions earlier. Hmm.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Assault also deserves hype for that ability that grants a free reaction shot if an enemy moves within 3 range. One-rounding berserkers with that is good times.

[SnowFire]

Also Lightning Reflexes!  Kind of important, that one.  (I was never entirely sure when maneuvering in the back would lead to reaction fire, but letting the assault do some dancing first usually solved that problem.

[AndrewRogue]

Assault is great, but I will say that I've had solid success with Heavies. Rockets are pretty devastating.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Heavy has a neat trick with a stealth suit where you fire, then go stealth and then move as far forward as you can. The enemy won't fire on you but they WILL usually move past you. Then when you get your next turn and stealth drops you unload on them, crossfire style.

[Grefter]

Assault has this cool trick with stealth where you crawl up something's butt with Run and Gun and Double Shot and kill any enemy in the game in one turn with sky high crit rates without them having a chance to fire back*.

*Strategy may not scale with difficulty level.

Lightning Reflexes is another one of those game changers.  You already have a huge bonus to evasion when running, but knowing that the first shot will miss gives you confidence to run them in most places and be able to survive.

[Meeplelard]

Oracle of Seasons: The final boss is Velguarder Sigma.  That is all.

Game is...well, Link's Awakening with a Season gimmick, different dungeons/bosses, and a few unique items.  Fun enough I suppose.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Lightning Reflexes is probably the best talent in the game across all levels of difficulty, yeah.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Penny Arcade 4 - This is good in the same ways PA3 was.  Get it and enjoy.

I find it amusing that Grefter likes PA so much since every time I experience PA comics/games/whatnot, I keep thinking of Tycho as a less-attractive Grefter.

[Grefter]

Tycho is somewhere between Alex and  I on the personality spectrum.  Unlike me he can actually write.  Unlike Alex he loves to express his self loathing quite vocally.

[Otter]

PA4: so I started on Insane and gave up on the fourth fight, switching it back down to Veteran for the rest of the playthrough and finding it basically kinda tame.  Game finished, it's great but a little too easy on Veteran.  Final party: Mr. Beaks, Philosofly, Dust Bunny, Nigiri-Chu.  I missed anything optional that wasn't in the Colosseum.

I restart on Insane and realize you don't have to fight that fourth fight immediately, you can skip it and gain a level on a much easier fight before going back.  Okay!  I clear out part of the Ice Cream Cave without spending any money but I can't quite beat the boss or a few of the other hard encounters (Iceking guy) so I go and spend most of my money on a Mail-Order Axe for Mr. Beaks.  This gives me very respectable bleed damage and the Ice Cream Cave crumbles.

On Veteran it was trivial to spend all my money on duplicator upgrades and ignore the other shops, so this is a wake-up call.  Basically equipment is the efficient short-term investment but it'll eventually be obsoleted by what you find in chests, so you wisely want to invest in duplo upgroids instead because those will last you the rest of the game, except you can't do that exclusively because you need stats now.  I'll be interested to hear if someone better than me manages to handle Insane without Kiko's shop.

[Shale]

I had the same experience as you with Insane early on, but now that I have some gear and levels I will probably switch back. Liking the game in general. I wasn't looking forward to the Pokemon mechanic but it's handled pretty well. Also the whole demon train sequence is great.

[Fenrir]

"Lightning Reflexes is probably the best talent in the game across all levels of difficulty, yeah."
Lightyears behind Squadsight on easy/normal in any case. There just aren't that many enemies with Overwatch, and getting hit by Overwatch is rarely an issue.
I imagine that the best strategy is to be pretty defensive on high level difficulties and can't see it getting that much better.
Definitely convenient though.


Anyway everybody is maxed. The last destroyer skill is impossible to choose.
Everyone has a satellite, except those bastard germans/russians who left despite my sats / two ships over France.

I built a robot. He had half the hit rate of a destroyer in his first round of battle, and he died in his second. I was fighting three mutons, accidentaly triggered a fight against another muton + one super muton, and all my 65-80% hits missed. I gave a robot sacrifice to the RNG gods. (Amazingly, this worked and everybody else survived)

Maybe I built my assault wrong, but he doesn't do -that- much when he goes up against enemies, even after flanking and with plasma weapons.
Heavy has gotten a lot worse though, now that Rockets aren't OHKO machines. My appreciation for Bullet Swarm dropped. Suppression is still something I guess.
Support is kinda stealing the show, for non sniper classes. Flash grenades are great, move is great, healing is great, they get two items. They'd be useful as healbots, but they also get roughly the same damage potential as heavy/assault with the same durability and nifty support skills.
Sniper was already awesome and now he casually doubleacts. Line of sight stuff is still a problem though.

I really don't get why enemies move when not under player sight. It's more realistic but it really brings nothing to the gameplay and is a constant annoyance. I don't want to search the whole map for one last robot disc who's having fun circling around the borders of the map at mad speed.