What Games are you playing 2016?

[AndrewRogue]

No other performances were particularly notable, aside from Dirty Zenethor, who spent most of the match facedown in the grass and napping. He will be appropriately flogged during training.

Is that supposed to be a punishment? <3

No, simply a bit of reeducation. The knights must remind you that there are better things to aspire to than being an elf's turf buddy. For example, their absolutely loyal and unquestioning servant.

[Fenrir]

Darkest dungeon is coming on vita and I'm resisting playing it until then.

Nuclear Throne: I got Horror's b skin. Cool. Still no patch. What the hell.
Rogués b skin is the only one left and it's going to be a royal pain.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

XCOM 2:  They figured out how to keep you from turtling.  Time-based objectives, procedurally-generated maps and enemy patrols/reinforcements.  Looks like the key to keeping sniper from being the best class is to make it so you can't just bunker down and watch things die.

[Cotigo]

Heads up for everyone, the ... uh, not first, but first-recent-since-they-started-making-them-again XCOM game is heavily discounted on Steam right now and is less than $10.

Time to get mad at video games.

[Fenrir]

Yeah but the second one is just out and super hot and way better (and I can't play it)

[Dark Holy Elf]

XCOM 2:  They figured out how to keep you from turtling.  Time-based objectives, procedurally-generated maps and enemy patrols/reinforcements.  Looks like the key to keeping sniper from being the best class is to make it so you can't just bunker down and watch things die.

Nice, that definitely fixes what is probably my biggest objection with an otherwise excellent game.

[Reiska]

XCOM 2:  They figured out how to keep you from turtling.  Time-based objectives, procedurally-generated maps and enemy patrols/reinforcements.  Looks like the key to keeping sniper from being the best class is to make it so you can't just bunker down and watch things die.

Nice, that definitely fixes what is probably my biggest objection with an otherwise excellent game.

People on the Steam forums are _amazingly_ salty about the time-based objectives.  Myself, I love it, and with the sequel's lore, it's thematic; in a lot of cases defensive tactics are just not viable and you have to suck it up and eat the risks.

The difficulty in general feels notably higher than EW.  I suspect most of the people whining on the forums about time-based objectives are the portion of the 5% of players who cleared Classic who did so by advancing only at a snail's pace and overwatching constantly, and are simply pissed they can't do that anymore. 

One other thing I like is how the varied mission types explicitly encourage keeping a competent stable of soldiers as opposed to always depending on the exact same 4-6.  Some builds just suck on certain mission types, and that's okay; bring someone else.  People make a fair point that on timed missions, sniping-focused sharpshooters are pretty bad!  But instead of making the correct tactical choice and bringing a man or woman better suited for the job, they whine about the game not letting them turtle.  I kind of hate the public sometimes ;)

If you REALLY want to bring sharpshooters on the more aggressive timed missions, the pistol specialist build for them is actually totally viable now rather than the joke it was in EW.

[Fudozukushi]

The best part is that the classic XCOM Guile hair is in it.

[VySaika]

Been trying to clear out older stuff I never got around to beating.

Devil Survivor Overclocked: Beat Atsuro and Yuzu paths, including the new day 8 for Yuzu. Cool new demons, more gameplay and some clever enemy setups make up for how much I loathe Yuzu's day 7 plot. Getting to cooperate with the 4 Devas instead of fight them was also pretty cool, as was the Shomonkai founder getting some much needed extra characterization. He's...still batshit crazy, but it works out pretty well. Probably going to do the remaining three routes because I'm not sick of the game yet somehow and newgame+ options let you just lollerskates through everything but the bonus bosses until you hit the next endgame path(and honestly even through a chunk of that). Prolly gonna try for the "no free battles" reward this time and do...hmm...either Amane or Gin's path. Most likely Gin's.

Tokiden Kiwami: Hey my vita is working again. Koei monster hunter continues to be fun, if a bit annoyingly repetitive lately. Every mission is just getting to be run around until you find the super thick boss, kill it. Maybe there might be TWO super thick bosses to change things up. Dunno if I'll actually finish this one, depends on just how annoying clearing out the missions gets. Also getting new gear upgrades is starting to rely on super rare drops I don't know how to get. :V
Game is really shaping up to be a perfect 5/10 for me. It's fun, when it's not annoying, and it hasn't reached quite annoying enough for me to just want to put down.

Dynasty Warriors 8 Empire: Okay I need to stop playing this and actually play other things on the PS4. I'm closing in on getting all trophies for it, and find myself trying to figure out how to get one of the hardest titles to get(because you have veeeeeeery little control over it, that's why it's hard).

[Anthony Edward Stark]

XCOM 2:  They figured out how to keep you from turtling.  Time-based objectives, procedurally-generated maps and enemy patrols/reinforcements.  Looks like the key to keeping sniper from being the best class is to make it so you can't just bunker down and watch things die.

Nice, that definitely fixes what is probably my biggest objection with an otherwise excellent game.

People on the Steam forums are _amazingly_ salty about the time-based objectives.  Myself, I love it, and with the sequel's lore, it's thematic; in a lot of cases defensive tactics are just not viable and you have to suck it up and eat the risks.

The difficulty in general feels notably higher than EW.  I suspect most of the people whining on the forums about time-based objectives are the portion of the 5% of players who cleared Classic who did so by advancing only at a snail's pace and overwatching constantly, and are simply pissed they can't do that anymore. 

One other thing I like is how the varied mission types explicitly encourage keeping a competent stable of soldiers as opposed to always depending on the exact same 4-6.  Some builds just suck on certain mission types, and that's okay; bring someone else.  People make a fair point that on timed missions, sniping-focused sharpshooters are pretty bad!  But instead of making the correct tactical choice and bringing a man or woman better suited for the job, they whine about the game not letting them turtle.  I kind of hate the public sometimes ;)

If you REALLY want to bring sharpshooters on the more aggressive timed missions, the pistol specialist build for them is actually totally viable now rather than the joke it was in EW.

Pistol specialist has a lot of fun moves.  I just got one that lets you shoot every enemy you have LoS with in one action.  I've found that a mix of the two works really well. Since the sniper rifle only has a three round magazine, you fall into a pattern of alternating the two while you're repositioning.

Another thing that makes XCOM 2 more difficult is that I've noticed a lower threshhold for people getting injured.  Even one direct hit from a powerful weapon will probably shelve that character for your next mission, so you REALLY need to rotate people.  On the other hand, the changes to equipment help this somewhat, since you no longer need to micromanage suits of basic armor, just the fancy stuff and equipment addons.  So outfitting someone because one character is on the shelf is just a matter of MAYBE swapping out weapons and armor if you want to give them something that has a tightly focused mission.

I kind of fucked myself on construction projects with radio and stuff though so I really need to play catchup before the Avatar project finishes.

[Grefter]

On scrub mode, Sharpshooter is still an amazing class even on timed maps.  Squad sight is the basic skill for the class so the always have the option of getting up high and raining death from the heavens.  I run 2 all the time.  Starting in Concealment pretty much guarantees you will be able to get them in a nice spot for your alpha strike.

Also it isn't like every map is timed, most are, but plenty let you do old strats as well.

Also Elf, you might wanna check out Enemy Within if you got it in bundles or something.  It introduced a reward mechanism for rushing.

Overall so far, I think it is possibly polished more than it needed to be.  It is so well put together that it feels like not much has changed even though a lot has.  It feels really great for someone super invested in the series.

I am reeeeeally hoping we can get posts of Ryan's exploits.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

My surviving veteran from XCOM 1 was, through the luck of the draw, a female Russian sharpshooter.  Of all the Avengers, Natasha Romanova survived, which is not what i would have guessed.

[Laggy]

we cleared A4S in FF14

it took 4 months (39 sessions of roughly 3 hours each, sometimes longer, or around 117 hours) of 8 people showing up to do a 13 minute fight

#raidlife

[Meeplelard]

Might as well post my FF14 progress!

Working on getting the Anima Relic for Paladin.  I have 3.2 million gil to buy stuff, which is probably not quite enough but it is enough to make me believe I won't have to spend forever finding ways to get gil after I get the other items.  Speaking of which, 20 Bones and 10-13 of the other items.  Also got an ALMOST full set of Void Ark gear for Tanks; just need the footgear.

I have the Esoteric Weapon for DRK, WAR is stuck with the iLevel 170 item (debating if I should farm esoterics on the side and get the iLevel 200 weapon for it or not) right now, and PLD...see above.  WHM is at level 60 but undergeared since it reached it during "FARM FOR ANIMA RELIC!!!" section and not spending Law there (I could try Expert and Level 60 Roulette and use items there granted...probably should), everyone else is way worse.  I did start Pugilist recently, then went screw it, BACK TO GLOWY SWORD so it's stuck at level 6, and Archer is "" because it can't go Bard.

[Lord Ephraim]

Xcom 2's timed mission would be better if it just added 1-2 more turns.  I find that it would be just enough to make up for the typical Xcom RNG: miss 4 straight >65% and alien hits that shot from downtown on someone in full cover.

There's also the habit of my soldiers shooting their own cover away.  In some cases they shoot down the very floor they stand on, only to get stuck until I reload my save (and then suffer fall damage!)

[Grefter]

Some of the environment damage and Line of Sight rules are out of control.

(Squad sight, shoot through a cliff and half a building.  Critzzzzz)

Edit - I sort of meant to compile a basic list of what feels different and how it impacts.

The one that stands out the most to me is that for everyone the range of engagement seems much further.  It really stands out in the Ranger (assault) in that giving them a Sword for specific melee let them really open up the range on the Shotguns.  They are pretty devestating at about the range that Rifles used to be?  So that Rifle Assault I used to run now just works as base kit.

Rifles pretty much work within LoS without much drop off.

Grenadier/Heavy is massively improved.  They now more build up to Heavy level explosives through skills, but as a baseline they are able to branch out into a much stronger support role with things like Holotargetting and Suppression expanded out much more broadly.

Which is good because Specialist/Support is definitely the most changed up.  You can build them into Medics just fine, but the other side of their tree gets some really nice cruft.

[Niu]

Prolly gonna try for the "no free battles" reward this time and do...hmm...either Amane or Gin's path. Most likely Gin's.

Just a heads up. Gin doesn't have 8th day.

[Captain K]

Posted this on Reddit but nobody on Reddit has seen Spaceballs so I wasted my time.

[Ranmilia]

Played Neo X-Com 2 for a while with my brother.

Laughed uncontrollably for 20+ minutes when I discovered that somehow, someway, in AD 2016, this game has managed to reproduce the infamous "corners don't actually exist" bug from the original X-Com. 

Seriously, though: the line of sight, pathing, and collision detection are absolutely atrocious.  There's no clear indication of what you are and are not supposed to be able to move and shoot through, but it winds up not mattering, because the answer is always "you can move and shoot through everything if you look at it funny" anyway.  As if to emphasize this, the environments also have a habit of exploding, collapsing, and catching on fire whenever any attack happens in their remote vicinity.  Slash an alien with a sword, watch as this causes the walls on the opposite side of the room to blow up!

Don't ask why you're slashing aliens with swords in this game.  Bungie's lawyers are already salivating at the design of the Covenant Advent troopers and dropships. 

Overall... it's okay?  The completely ridiculous, over the top style and faster paced missions make it a lot more fun to me than the previous game, that's for sure.  Procedural generation and reinforcements sort of take the sting out of enemies still activating in discrete, unaware pockets, and while I was saddened to see maps spamming enemy turrets, the paper-mache environments help make them mostly ignorable.  The soldier building seems a little less one dimensional as well.

Most of the reasons I disliked the old new X-Com still stand though.  Game is wayyyyy too easy and requires no actual tactics beyond "understand your soldiers' helpfully hard-enforced roles and do the obvious best action with each one each turn", enemies are lacking in design and threat, the scale is very small and there's no management side except for some forced binary choices, and the graphics are a generic grungetech mush.  Probably won't play much more of it.  Yes, I understand I'm in a small minority of tastes.

[Dhyerwolf]

Yeah, Viktor typically clones it up because then he can alternate between guaranteeing a hit and popping healing off on people without wasting attack rounds.  I mean, guy has a good attack and is great at punching through high defenses, if he can hit.

For whatever reason, Viktor is also the only person with really high attack power that has a level of MAG where you might actually start giving a damn (not good, but usable). He wishes that he traded Mag and Skl.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Mass Effect 3 – Just finished up Priority: Tuchanka. I decided to end up letting Mordin free his conscience and die in peace rather than being a huge douche. I like the way that it feels with the plot, even if it lowers my military score thingy. Now I’m hacking away at the Omega DLC, where we meet something rarer in Mass Effect than a unicorn – a female turian!   Aria is bitchy as hell and good fun, and I love how she looks so thuggish despite the asari defying that look in their base design.

Wow, they really mailed in the enemy design in this game. It seems like I’ve encountered like maybe a dozen different enemy types in the game and a few of them seem barely different from each other besides shields or something.

Despite the gameplay complaints, the game is still pretty fun. I like how it is more cohesive narratively than the other two games, but that mostly comes from being a bit more linear than the first two games. As much as I enjoy 2’s writing, I couldn’t help but feeling that the game was a set of discrete narratives about all of the different characters with a small dab of main plot.

After I finish the Aria sidequest I’m heading back to the Citadel to deal with the very trustworthy Councillor Udina. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

[AndrewRogue]

Blood Bowl 2

---Roster---

Rerolls: 3

Knight Blitzers: Sopko the Brotherly (Out for a game with a broken arm), Grefter the Fashionable, Alex the Erudite.

Yeoman Guards: Camder King, Miki the Contrary, Acrin the Sage

Filthy Peasants: Unlucky Aiel, Dirty Zenethor, Foolhardy Snow, Magey the Untalented, Yakko the Poor (Smashed Collar Bone -1 Str)

The Honorable Dead: Yeoman Neb the Educated

Game 2: vs The Billy Goatz (Chaos) - Defeat 0-1

A bit better of a game, though it appears the Guards' coach doesn't understand how to move the ball. The first half was a slow grind.

Sopko the Brotherly managed to pick up the kick and immediately hunkered down in a cage of his loyal followers, while the peasants caught the Chaos line off-guard with their aggressiveness. The opposing Minotaur, Bill Clinton, didn't do much, his wild instincts taking over repeatedly throughout the first half.

Unfortunately, Sopko did not take advantage of the chance to go wide right with the opposing Chaos Warriors and Bestigors tied up on the left, and possession of the ball was lost. The opposing Billies were held at bay, though, taking us to the half with a score of 0-0 and not much action.

Despite a heroic effort on the line, the ball was eventually picked up by Beastman Billy Bob Thorton and, despite some truly herculean efforts by Sopko to hold the right of the pitch and Camder King to sack the ball carrier, things were not meant to be. Bill Clinton finally started cooperating and utterly decimated Yakko the Poor, while Sopko just couldn't handle a repeat pounding from Chaos Warriors.

[Ranmilia]

Neo X-Com 2 addendum.

I lied, we just went back and finished it.  The final mission is incredibly good and singlehandedly raised my opinion of the game.  Finally, FINALLY, at the very end, they pulled off a huge final showdown where all our niche skills became relevant, the entire system worked and was important, and everything the game (and its predecessor) built towards and tried to say was real, actually WAS real.  There were tactics to be had and some amount of actual challenge!  It legitimately felt like I was playing a real new X-Com game, better than the old ones, and my soldier building choices throughout the game had actually mattered!

We still roflstomped it with 0 deaths (and 0 deaths/0 resets overall, except for the two guys in the tutorial that I think have to die?) and little real danger, but it COULD have gotten hairy, and the last turn or two were legit scrambles, which is far more than I can say for the rest of the game (and the first entry).  Also add "shorter than I thought" to the possible negatives.

But still - a strong finish and positive final impression does a lot for me, especially from a modern game when so many of its kin are stuck in the mindset of "don't bother, people only play the first 4 hours."  I wish the rest of the game had been that good.  Turns out all you need to make it actually good is to expand the scale a bit, after all!  Taking that final fight as a starting point for design, rather than an ending point, could have built some amazing stuff, and I hope the promised mod support will deliver some goods. 

So, yeah, okay, good game, well played, opinion moved up to positive despite remaining gripes.

I especially loved the completely random human apartment thrown into the middle of the alien base.  That answered a lot of my wondering re: "Is this intentional self-parody, or a bug, or oversight, or what?"  It is totally parody and I feel better about laughing at The Jokes now.

[Grefter]

Alexchan ilu

After I finish the Aria sidequest I’m heading back to the Citadel to deal with the very trustworthy Councillor Udina. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Amy, Amy, Amy if only you knew How fucking terrible it felt to shoot Mordin in the back in the renegade path.  I lied to him.  Told him nothing was wrong.  He worked it out.  I shot him in the back and he still tried to get to the console.  He died.  Then Wrex found out about it and in threw him out an airlock on the Citadel.  This means that not only did I doom the race to a slow extinction I killed the last capable surviving male leader since Wreave dies if Wrex survives.  I killed my favorite Mass Effect character in cold blood and spaces like the third best one.   Renegade in ME3 is fucked.

[Sierra]

Yeah, renegade path on Tuchanka is pretty much the worst thing you can possibly do in those games.

Ciato tell me you're gonna do Citadel DLC.