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Gaming News & Discussion (Page 124)
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mattyb
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Oct 24, 2016, 12:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
More Forza thoughts - they seem to have a single "collision" sound, so every time your car hits another car is the same breaking glass sound, over and over again.

I'm tired of seeing animations of my car before I get to menus. Before each race, I have to watch it pull into the pits from two different angles before I can set up the race. After each race I have to watch it pit before I get to the results or restart. Also why do I have to pick the car's color before every single race? That's a couple loading screens and a couple clicks standing in the way of racing. Also there should be separate "restart from pit" and "restart race" options so I don't have to go back to the pits (and watch all of the associated animations) just to restart the race.

Also there were a lot of lighting glitches in the night races. It seemed like it had trouble combining the headlights from different cars.

But enough complaining. It feel very polished for the most part. It looks beautiful, driving in the rain is gorgeous. The cars do seem a bit twitchy and more likely to spin out than in real life. Any kind of braking in rough corners is suicide without stability control enabled. But it's a lot of fun.
Big patch recently, the XP boosting stuff (driving along a wall scraping your car - I mean What Da Fook?) is no longer available.

Reddit said to use normal instead of simulation when using a controller, so I've swapped to that. Not as much XP per race but so what.

An incredible number of races and stuff to do. Everytime you finish three or four races, another three or four open up. Not a fan of the drifting stuff though. You spend time trying to learn how to get through corners the fastest way possible and now you're giving me XP to do that the most inefficient way possible? Too many YouTubers focus on drive setups, I just want great handling, great power setups that are at the limit of A or B class.

The greatest driving game at the moment? Gets my vote.

Online is still full of wankers though.
     
sek929
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Oct 27, 2016, 04:58 PM
 
I'm torn, most folks on my friends list are playing BF1, but man do I have the itch to play Skyrim again...
     
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Oct 28, 2016, 12:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by sek929 View Post
I'm torn, most folks on my friends list are playing BF1, but man do I have the itch to play Skyrim again...
I am thinking of getting Skyrim for the xBone. I have it for the 360 but it died. I never finished it and have been itching for a good RPG. I've really been wanting to play Baldur's Gate 2 but my install disc aren't working.
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Oct 28, 2016, 01:35 PM
 
I'd probably wait to play sky rim until I got bored with bf1, considering you played it before but that's just this mans opinion.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Oct 30, 2016, 01:14 AM
 
EA down, seems like a DDOS. People can't log into origin.

Since i was trying to play this weekend, did the desperation move – single player campaign. God, they are just so boring. Opening scene, I don't give a shit. Don't are about the protagonist, whether his squad mates like him, whether he's new or experienced. Unimpressed by unlikely events that cause me to do 'unique missions' i.e., walk in front of a tank because its foggy, collect 4 sparkplugs for a tank, lone wolf it in a wounded tank with a missing crew behind enemy lines.

Yeah, its probably a worse campaign than most, but I just don't care about ANY of it.
     
sek929
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Oct 30, 2016, 12:36 PM
 
Hahah so that's why everyone was on SP last night.

Figure I'll give it another week or two for all this stuff to die down a bit.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Oct 30, 2016, 02:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by sek929 View Post
Hahah so that's why everyone was on SP last night.

Figure I'll give it another week or two for all this stuff to die down a bit.
Wait for DDOSes to die down?
     
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Oct 31, 2016, 11:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Anyway: Civ VI is out. Anyone playing?
Yep...

Originally Posted by P View Post
* The new graphics style is a bit distracting, but I think I will get used to it - and it does mean that you don't need a powerful computer to play it anymore
I don't mind the art style at all. What I do mind is the way fog of war is handled. It's very difficult to distinguish between water and land when everything you can't see is brown.

* This is not a clean slate from Civ V, the way V (mostly) was from IV and IV was from III. This is an update of V with all the expansions, so something like the religion system is quite well developed already, and we have city states and OUPT combat again. They have also brought back the health system from Civ IV, even if it has been renamed into "housing", which is a real improvement. Happiness is back to being local, and if improvements still cost money in maintenance, it is not really a big deal as you have crazy amounts of gold at all times. All in all the cities are closer to IV while the combat is an evolution of V, and that's a good thing.
* The biggest change is that cities are now built as districts. You build a city center with your settler, and then expand from that by building new districts on the map. For production, an industrial zone. For science, a campus - etc. If you want to build say a library, you need to build the campus first. This works well, and makes your cities much more varied.
The districts idea was fantastic, and very well implemented. I do worry that the game is becoming overly complicated, but I'll adapt. My only real problem...

* The AI is a moron, and the leaders used are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. The most interesting opponent is the barbarians, who are a big threat early on and remain an issue for a long time. I suspect that we will get a "classic leaders pack" DLC with Napoleon, Alexander, Isabella, Catherine, Julius Caesar, Lincoln and maybe a few more, paired with an AI upgrade.[/QUOTE]

In my first game, after only about 20 turns, I get attacked by six Roman warriors. At this stage, I had exactly two, and I felt stretched to get the second.

How is a civilization getting six warriors in twenty turns? Something is way, way, way off. The AI is insane, and they all seem to do the, "Hey, we're going to act friendly and send a delegation to your capital right before we attack with everything we have." Every. Freaking. Time.

I've adjusted my play style, and I'm still having a good time with it, but I'm almost to the point where I'm going to wait for...

All in all... I think that there is a balance patch coming, I am sure there are more Civs and leaders waiting in the wings (seriously, Catherine de Medici for France? Gorgo or whatever for Greece?), and the turn time could drop a bit, but it is certainly playable. "Interesting" is probably the word I would use.
This.

Fantastic foundation for a great game, but like the past few Civ games, it's going to take a bit of time.
     
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Oct 31, 2016, 12:41 PM
 
I've thought about it a bit more after playing more, using the only relevant judgement: How long would it be before I uninstall the previous game? Civ II pushed Civ I off as soon as I remembered to do it. Civ III never pushed Civ II off my drive ever - only an incompatible OS did. Civ IV again pushed Civ III out directly - it was better, and more stable from day one.

Today Civ IV remains installed. I don't play it very often but I do dive in to play mods sometimes. I am sure that Civ VI will mean that Civ V gets kicked off quite soon - VI has that "better in every respect" thing that IV had over III - but will it also send Civ IV to that great trashbin in the sky? Not sure, but it might.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
sek929
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Nov 2, 2016, 06:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Wait for DDOSes to die down?
Well, yeah.

If I had bought the game (like I almost did in Target last week) and sat down to play this past weekend only to have the servers belly up I would have been furious.

I'm going to wait until it's no longer the new hotness™ and hopefully stable. I'm holding off on Skyrim too, lots of bugs and the mod list isn't that great yet for either console.

Resident Evil: Remastered was (is still?) free for PS+ so I've been playing that, a real throwback, gameplay-wise.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 2, 2016, 07:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by sek929 View Post
I'm going to wait until it's no longer the new hotness™ and hopefully stable.
DDOSes, sek, not network failures. One is due to game popularity. The other is not.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 2, 2016, 08:17 PM
 
Well, nevermind! Matchmaking is down again AndrEA never claimed the weekend outage was an attack.
     
mattyb
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Nov 3, 2016, 09:56 AM
 
Nobody tempted by Titanfall 2? Getting great reviews and apparently the SP is very well done. I've watched a few vids but it seems VERY complicated to me.

Plus, MW Remastered is making its way to my house.
     
Leonard
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Nov 3, 2016, 01:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
Nobody tempted by Titanfall 2? Getting great reviews and apparently the SP is very well done. I've watched a few vids but it seems VERY complicated to me.

Plus, MW Remastered is making its way to my house.
Actually, I just watched a video on it by one of the guys that does videos on Destiny. It does look interesting. From what I hear, it's made by the same people who made the initial Modern Warfare games. The CAR smg looks familiar to the ACR rifle from MW2.
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Nov 4, 2016, 10:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Rumor View Post
I am thinking of getting Skyrim for the xBone. I have it for the 360 but it died. I never finished it and have been itching for a good RPG. I've really been wanting to play Baldur's Gate 2 but my install disc aren't working.
Scratch that. Final Fantasy is being released soon. I'll be getting that instead.
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 10, 2016, 03:55 PM
 
FYI I'm working on a massive BF1 review, with my usual flavor
     
Jawbone54
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Nov 10, 2016, 04:59 PM
 
PS4 Pro uses a "significantly better graphics card" — https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comment...KZ&sh=8238ce14

For anyone who has a good connection but has always been limited by the PS4, seems like a good upgrade.
     
sek929
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Nov 10, 2016, 06:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
FYI I'm working on a massive BF1 review, with my usual flavor
Perhaps I'll buy it after you wow me, if I can still feel joy anymore.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 10, 2016, 06:39 PM
 
If you don't buy it, you're letting the terrorists win
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 11, 2016, 08:24 PM
 
Where do begin? I start 2016 off the hype train after jonesing the year previous, being neck deep in Overwatch, an ‘arena’ shooter that is freshly unique, as unique as Rainbow 6 Siege was six months previous, though in the opposite direction. This year had really provided contrast to the Battlefield experience and I enjoyed it wholly. The biggest difference was scale and lack of vehicles. Rainbow Six, however, provided some very impressive destructibility, while Overwatch hones the necessity of class diversification.

Aside from a few hours in the beta, I went into BF1 blind. I’m not averse to the WW1 setting, and given a year of unique experiences it had its appeal. So I entered fresh, with a year and half old memories of BF4 and not much else. My first impressions as follows:

Sound
I constantly have trouble knowing when the voice or sound I’m hearing are my own or something behind me. For some reason DICE chose to make your voice come from the back channels, rather than from the center speaker. Or at least, that’s how I’m interpreting it.

Graphics
I remember playing the Battlefront Beta. I was awed by the quality of graphics. It occurred to me just last night, but the reason BF1 is so gorgeous is likely it didn’t have to worry about being on previous gen consoles. Some scenes feel almost lifelike and the atmosphere is incredible. It also feels like DICE used the extra time to create more diverse settings. In BF4 most maps felt like recycled assets reused. Certainly that can be the case with map sets in BF1, but its hard to argue Amiens and FAO Fortress have much in common. (Side note: Sections of Amiens give some Metro/Seine flashbacks. I think some pieces may have been lifted). The weather system is also incredible. The adding of mud to weapons when you prone is a nice detail, but the distribution just looks like it was done by poor RNG. It’s off putting.

Destructibility
Another giant step forward, probably thanks to the new gen. Or possibly the new assets. In any case, at worst the new models are more complex enough that their destructibility combinations are high enough so as not to feel nearly as repetitive. You can also blow floors out from under people, which I believe was never an option before. Tanks, man, too. They just roll through everything. If anyone remembers the before/after with the trees on B cap on Caspian Border, that now occurs with entire houses in sectors of cities.

Maps
Overall the mix is as hit or miss for me as the base BF4 maps. Stand-out right now is Suez, which is complete trash, and the past 4 games I’ve had on it have resulted in one team dominating all three points for stretches. Luckily DICE has acknowledged the problem and will be modifying it heavily.

The beta map, Sinai Desert bores me. It and Empire’s Edge are reminiscent of Golmud Railway, a map that was larger and a pain in the ass for infantry. FAO suffers from each point being almost equidistant from the next (I.e., same travel time from A > B, B > C, C > D or C > E, E > F) while Sinai has three clusters of two separated by long painful distances and one Cap in the middle of ****ing nowhere (Have fun running to that with no cover).

Next up, FAO Fortress is mediocre, with two caps that kind go separate from the rest that turn into a sniper’s nest. The rest suffers from Sinai levels of cover. The only really interesting part is that those two caps are actually an awesome Civ style star fort that is criminally underused because of its awkward location.

St. Quentin Scar is visually perhaps the most impressive. The atmosphere perhaps most accurately captures the feel of war, including a town that transitions from pristine, whole, and green, to demolished, bombarded, and muddy.

Amiens is Seine 1914, but way bigger. Awesome, tho.

Monte Grappe is a mountainous map that feels like it should be more troublesome to traverse than it actually is. I chalk it up to elevation differences making the map feel bigger than it actually is. This is one of the maps that uses DICEs new addition – ****ing DOORS – to great effect. Enemies can lock themselves into bunkers on caps that can only be penetrated by explosives. A nice addition would be if those doors could be repaired or respawned for later use, but this is a minor gripe.

Ball Room Blitz is a fascinating take on a real-life location, but its inside/outside play so differently it can be off putting at times.

Last but not least is Argonne Forest. Welcome to BF1s Metro. Infantry only meat-grinder in a forest. Make no mistakes, though, this isn’t a choke-point fest. There are tons of flanks and death funnel of a bridge but the map is quite serviceable. Cap B has an intense labyrinth of tunnels in a Bunker connected to A that I frustratingly found one night, can be completely locked off. Thanks to gunner slits, the enemy team can fire upon those outside with impunity (and respawn relentlessly) until the doors are breached. It’s intense.

Operations
This is close to what I was asking for in BF4. I wanted a tug of war over several sections of territory. Operations is two sides, one offense, one defense, fighting to take/keep control of caps. Each time offense takes control of all caps in a sector, they advance. If they take all sectors, the campaign continues to another map. Offense get three ‘battalions’ to attack with, something like 150 ticket waves. Each time a wave runs out the game resets and the offense attacks again, aided by one of the death streaks (Usually the Blimp). In that regard defense can be disheartening at times. There’s also no comparison, offense is where it’s at. Given all the aspects involved, it’s best to have some time set aside as these campaigns will easily run an hour+. There are four campaigns.

Connectivity
There’s the usual kinks to work-out but DICE has definitely made some gains in streamlining the process. In-game parties are linked with party chat, meaning joining a party chat automatically groups you with your friends in game, and offers you a chance to join them. I question if this means that groups now have an 8 man limit (making rolling 16 deep a bit of a challenge on those rare nights) but overall it should almost never be an issue. The in-game friends menu suffers from opaque problems (why can I join one friends game but not another? Connecting after suspend can give inaccurate listing of who is doing what) but I hope some of that can be ironed out in the future.

Hit Detection
It’s not a surprise it feels less tight than BF4. EA is cheaping out on launch (I hope) with 30 tick servers so there’s hope they could improve them in the coming year. I won’t hold my breath however. The biggest issue I find is having to lead people way more than I remember. This could be being out of practice, this could be WW1 having slower ballistics, no clue. On the other side, I find I keep having Cavalry kill me about 10 feet before they get to me, which indicates some serious latency. My last two multiplayer titles having been 6v6, so I may have no perspective on this.

Lag
Along with the teleporting cavalry, the second issue I tie to lag is player spawning. Just as in previous versions, you can not spawn on a player engaged in combat. However in BF1 you will frequently kill someone and then someone will pop in. The delay on some of these spawns are so bad that you can sometimes already be on your way and die to someone who spawned behind you. I’ve seen people not see each other because of this. Player spawning needs to be looked at.

Player Collision
I remember a few issues with prone players and lag hell when sprinting out of spawn, but BF1 seems to have made all players permanently solid. It means doorways are permanently blocked, revived or prone players will block your way when you can’t see them, and someone behind you can prevent your retreat. It’s realistic in some ways, but it sucks.

Gadget Collision
I can’t tell if this is a bug or intended but throwing out the big ammo crates and medic boxes has become a real chore. Frequently you will hit the button, see your player do the animation and nothing appears. It will continue to do so until you find a ‘sweet spot.’ This usually is the worst in confined areas or in craters where all the ground around you is at an incline. I’m also pretty sure you can no longer ‘throw’ them while you’re in the air (jumping). This means there will be several times where you’ll be fighting the game trying to get ammo or heals when you should be preparing or fighting the enemy. Terrible.

Hurdling
DICE answered my prayers. While your character could jump waist high barriers in previous iterations, head high platforms and walls were no go. Now you can hurdle these with the fair tradeoff of having to use both hands and losing access to your weapon momentarily. This also helps with flanking.

Knifing
This has taken a step back, I feel. Getting knifed feels more common than ever, for two reasons, one good, one bad. Bayoneting doesn’t bother me too much as it requires the player to sprint and commit to a charge. Front melee, on the other hand, has become far too common as the reversal system from BF4 has been eliminated. This now turns every CQ engagement into a stab fest because there is no penalty for not using your gun. Add in that melee animation hit registration is in a strange place where you’ll be stabbing in the back and face but not get an animation for seemingly no reason and you’ve got a recipe for some shit gameplay.

Grenades
The days of having to look nearly straight-up to try and chuck a nade a reasonable distance are gone. Not only do they go far, they seem to go exactly where you expect them to. Its rather sublime. Out of the entire game, this is the part that feels best.

Weapon Variety and Customization
There isn’t a lot of variety in the game, but I don’t particularly mind it, as I imagine it’s both historically accurate and, to a certain degree pointless (best weapons always get highest usage). What’s disingenuous is they seem to have settled into making hardware differences into new weapons– I.e., there are three versions of most weapons, with differing stats. This would have been better done as attachment adds classified as ‘kits’ but the weapons tab would look even smaller so I suspect that’s why they didn’t do that.

One of my favorite additions is they’ve let you customize the ADS zoom on all weapons. I can even change the ADS zoom of my pistol from 1x to 1.25x, 1.5x or even 2x. Other primaries with optics can go from 2x to 2.5x, 3x and 3.5. It’s good for controlling what zoom you might want depending on how a map plays out.

Medal System
Ribbons have been completely eliminated and Medals have been reworked. Medals can now be compared to those terrible challenges you hhd to do to unlock new weapons in DLC, except now you must specify which challenge you’re working on, and you only have five randomly selected ones to choose from in a given week. The new medal system doesn’t track skill – it tracks management ability. There is nothing gained from switching classes mid-game and having to switch the tracked medal so as not to waste effort. Terrible.

Battlepacks
Earning camos in now RNG/microtransactions (just like Overwatch unlocks). Except in Overwatch you earned them for leveling up, while here they are completely randomly assigned after each match. It’s dumb, the camos I’ve seen mostly suck, but at least they're optional and have no impact on gameplay.

Gagdets
Naturally, this has been reduced heavily in the game. Again, several classes have duplicate versions of gadgets based on variations, but this was true of BF4 with things such as grenade launchers (explosive, smoke, etc.)

Planes
This might be the first Battlefield entry where I appreciate planes. Why? Because planes actually kill people. Yes, there’s still a fair amount of pointless dogfighting, but the bomber is a force that infantry fear – not something that could be said about many jet pilots. Having small weapons fire do small amount of damage is also encouraging, if inefficient. The drawback is AA emplacements are the only reliable way to take planes down, aside from other planes. Considering jets were nearly impossible to take down as infantry in BF4, it’s ok.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 11, 2016, 08:25 PM
 
The Rest
I’m bundling together the rest of the parts of the game I feel interconnected – The weapons, vehicles, UI, and gadgets. This is because my overarching feeling about BF1 is it feels dumb downed (stay with me here, I may contradict myself. Just point them out, I’ll try to smooth out my logic as need be).

When I say dumbed down, I mean that it feels like the skill ceiling in this game – your ability to dominate – has been greatly nerfed (Conversely, I think the skill floor has probably been raised, but I’ll get to that later). It isn’t Battlefront levels of ****ery, but you can definitely see some elements of its influence in the game (Radar, Kits).

Tank Play
Tank gameplay is very different in BF1 owing to their near prototype status during the war. Here DICE made some great changes to make them less of rolling fortresses – by removing auto-regen and making driver repairs cancel if the tank takes damage. Supports can still repair tanks in battle with their tools, but for the time being this is more an exception seen in ultra-organized squads.

The real change is in your view. Every seat has a very limited view of the field and limited turret movement. Instead of a fullscreen view while on the main canon, you now have a cut-out from which to view things from. Gone are days of being able to view all 360º of the field as well, as the turrets are mostly immobile. It doesn’t matter how vigilant you were in BF4 as now you have far more blindspots.

Further, the passenger turret experience is now reminiscent of being a tertiary passenger in the BF4 APV, which was never that enjoyable an experience. Every bump and slight turn completely and utterly screws up your aim. This has given rise to one tank kit that uses flamethrowers as they require neither accuracy nor frugality of fire. Just spray til you get a hit marker.

Mobility, naturally, is also hurt. Most of these machines don’t turn with ease or in place. They also don’t have ‘sprint’ as I’ve seen. This is counterbalanced by the dearth of anti-tank weaponry. Dynamite basically is C4, Anti-tank grenades have a limited range, and the anti-tank rocket requires the player to be either prone or using a ledge, a very vulnerable position.

I will admit, I still see a fair amount of tankers with gross kill/deaths, but it now requires more conservative or coordinated play; No more two man wrecking teams. Many don’t PTFO or support their teams but focus on surviving. Whether this is balanced or not, depends whether you think tanks should be machines of death or not.

The Behemoth, Dreadnaught & Armored Train aka The Deathstreaks
In an effort to make unbalanced games less so, DICE introduced the above vehicles as mechanics to try and make games closer. The result is mixed. While they’re not OP, on the losing side they rarely change the tide enough to matter, while on the winning side it just feels like punishment for doing well. Unless you’re dedicated to destroying it, chances are you’ll just avoid any fights at points where they’re at. My ranks: Behemoth is the most deadly (Death from Above), Armored Train most annoying (Requires self-sacrifice to kill), and the Dreadnaught most useless (I rarely change how I’m playing because of it).

Spotting & the Mini-map
BF4 suffered from spot spam. Basically, you’d go to point out one sniper on a hill and spotting would reveal four. In BF1 they’ve overcorrected in the other direction – Your spots must be very precise to spot just one person. You’ll frequently find yourself at times spamming spot on a figure you see in the distance and nothing happens (If there’s a cool down, it’s no longer audible). Plus, if you remember Gulf of Oman, with weather conditions it feels like spotting gets even harder.

On top of all that (less players spotted) players firing weapons no longer show up on the mini-map. So now you’ll hear someone firing near you and have no clue where he is. Even with surround sound it takes a bit more hunting than you’d think. Plus, the mini-map is much smaller now, limiting how far you’d be able to pin-point people on it (They brought over the outer octagon from Battlefront that indicates general direction, but it only applies to spotted people).

I addition to all that, with the removal of tugs, motion detection is now relegated to flares, which are undetectable to the enemy (unless seen) and have a limited lifespan. Also, since it’s on the scout class, which has no CQC weapons, you’ll be seeing them pretty rarely. On some maps I often sacrifice my killing ability just to help my squad see where enemies are.

Further, ammo and health kits, which used to be visible on the mini-map no longer show up. You now have to spin around and look for the icons to show up in your FOV. It’s unnecessarily laborious.

Given how hard spotting has been made, a nice compromise would be if when players take a certain amount of damage from one source (25%) they are spotted, as per normal rules.

Weather
This makes aiming and spotting that much harder. No objections as I like the addition, but it compounds existing ‘nerfs’.

Weapon Play
I can’t say if recoil overall has been increased, but the weapons feel harder to use. This is based on a few things:

Weapon sights – Unless you’re using a scope, you’re using some sort of iron sights and they suck. Precision aiming is hard to do – does the point of the crosshair go on the persons head or just below it? And it only gets more fun once bullet drop at farther distances get involved. Basically, successful engagement distance has been dropped. Realistic, perhaps, but again, dumbs things down. Precision – nerfed.

Weapon magazines/clips – Old technology means smaller clips. Which means less killing capacity. This means even good players will be vulnerable more often as they reload. That much harder to get good kill streaks. Down time – More frequent

Weapon magazine optics – Have fun with your POV when you have a gravity fed magazine blocking a small portion of your view. Awareness – nerfed.

Weapon reloading – Thanks to the tech at the time, reloading on single action and bolt-action rifles can take an eternity. And they’re not that great to begin with. Time out of battle – increased

Basically, every aspect of gun play has been made weaker, lowering the ceiling on how much one person can dominate. In a shooter, that’s kind of annoying. It’s not catastrophic (I still do well, provided I’m not stuck as a scout), and the game is still fun as hell, but at a certain point the various limitations add up in a frustrating manner. In a sense, I’m probably lucky it’s been over a year since I played BF4.

Gas Grenades and Hipfire
BF1 has added Mustard Gas grenades into the mix. This does damage that can add up quickly, but thankfully there is a solution – put on a gas mask every player has in their inventory. The disadvantage: You can only hip fire while wearing it. In hip fire recoil is greatly increased, so basically you are now fighting not on your ability to aim, but spraying and praying. Again, this takes power out of my hands. This wouldn’t be so bad if they were uncommon, but everyone can equip and use them, you can’t tell friend’s gas from foe’s, and even if you walk through friendly gas your vision is badly affected. We now have reduced entire firefights into hip fire only. How gratifying.

Conclusion
There’s a lot that can be said for these limitations – it squishes the gap between bad and good players, but it also raises the floor for a player to be good, and in a sense that only helps make the average player worse. In fact, I think it’d be kind of interesting to see what would happen if you gave one player a modern weapon, like say my L85 with RDS etc., and see how much they’d dominate the game. A cool what if? if done with imbalanced teams.

In the long-term, it remains to be seen whether they tire me out on the game. Certainly R6 was a game defined by limitations, but it was also a game that had a very low threshold for frustration and stress. Once I settle into comfortable roles with all the classes and weapons, vehicles and kits, and maps perhaps my frustration will subside or at least weaken.
     
sek929
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Nov 12, 2016, 07:08 PM
 
It's currently installing and updating, I'll be on tonight.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 23, 2016, 01:31 PM
 
Additional observations:

Crates have been nerfed to have finite usage.
Suppression now functions as RNG rather than visual obfuscation
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 25, 2016, 09:44 PM
 
NMS devs decided to break their silence on Black Friday. How brave.
     
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Nov 26, 2016, 07:01 AM
 
Steam has some silly awards that you can nominate for. Did you all nominate? I put Civ IV on Test of Time, but I am much less certain on the rest.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Nov 28, 2016, 03:18 PM
 
That NMS update actually looks to be pretty meaty.
     
Brien
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Nov 29, 2016, 03:59 AM
 
Sooo.... FFXV anyone?
     
sek929
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Nov 29, 2016, 01:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
That NMS update actually looks to be pretty meaty.
When it was announced I was decidedly "meh" but the more I read into it the more I figure I'm going to have to check it out.

I'll post my reactions in the NMS thread.
     
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Nov 29, 2016, 08:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by Brien View Post
Sooo.... FFXV anyone?
Reviews seem really positive, but I still despise the modern FF art style.

You buying it?
     
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Dec 12, 2016, 04:17 AM
 
The Last Guardian has been out for a week now. I'm surprised we haven't heard anything from Hawkeye or Jawbone. The current overall score on metacrittic is 83%. The game's performance on the regular PS4 seems to be one of the main gripes.

“The only option available to PlayStation gamers in getting a regularly smooth 30 fps is to use PlayStation 4 Pro, running at 1080p,” according to Digital Foundry. The video shows that the game dips to the mid-20s on a PS4 Pro running in 4K with some regularity. On the original PS4, The Last Guardian’s frame rate often hangs around the low-20s.
The Last Guardian may push you toward buying a PS4 Pro

Slick shoes?! Are you crazy?!
     
Stogieman
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Dec 12, 2016, 04:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by Brien View Post
Sooo.... FFXV anyone?
Oh that reminds me. Anyone here want a free digital copy of FFXV for the PS4? My brother hooked me up with a code last week. I would claim it myself but I've never been a fan of the Final Fantasy games. First person to PM me can have it.

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Dec 13, 2016, 09:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by Stogieman View Post
The Last Guardian has been out for a week now. I'm surprised we haven't heard anything from Hawkeye or Jawbone. The current overall score on metacrittic is 83%. The game's performance on the regular PS4 seems to be one of the main gripes.
I just can't.

Two or three years ago, I'd have been dying to play it. Now I just don't care. My backlog is already ridiculous, so I've got to REALLY want to play something to buy it new. I read one or two reviews on Last Guardian and haven't given it another thought since.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Dec 13, 2016, 11:16 PM
 
Oddly I am not amused by this
     
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Dec 14, 2016, 04:23 PM
 
That's what a game being delayed for two console generations does to people.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Dec 14, 2016, 06:12 PM
 
So we relate. Bizarre
     
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Dec 15, 2016, 12:51 PM
 
So I bought a PS4 Pro, the why and the wherefore, MLB The Show. Now, I realize that buying a system for just one game is selfish, so thinking of my younger brother who comes home on holidays I would like to buy one or two games that might appeal to a Nintendo gamer like him. Any suggestions are welcome.
     
sek929
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Dec 15, 2016, 05:03 PM
 
Upon hearing The Last Guardian had frame-rate issues on the "trash can edition" PS4 I decided to hold off on that.
     
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Dec 23, 2016, 07:55 PM
 
Getting to the flagpole with less than a second to go with all five black coins collected is the most fun I've had gaming on iOS. Nintendo still knows how.

(Super Mario Run, if that wasn't clear).
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Dec 26, 2016, 08:54 PM
 
Anyone have any interest in Torment: Tides of Numenera? It's coming out in February and will be on consoles too. Hopefully it doesn't require individual control of all party members like Pillars of Eternity does.
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Originally Posted by Rumor View Post
Anyone have any interest in Torment: Tides of Numenera? It's coming out in February and will be on consoles too. Hopefully it doesn't require individual control of all party members like Pillars of Eternity does.
Yup, watching closely, even if I still haven't finished Pillars of Eternity.
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Jan 20, 2017, 05:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
Nobody tempted by Titanfall 2? Getting great reviews and apparently the SP is very well done. I've watched a few vids but it seems VERY complicated to me.

Plus, MW Remastered is making its way to my house.
I bought it before Christmas and started playing it 2 weeks ago. Finished the campaign, depending on how fast you go (I was collecting the collectables so I went fairly slow), you could finish the campaign in a day or two. I finished it in a week, due to going through it slow for the collectables and not having much gaming time during the week.

I thought the campaign was well done. Good story to it, and some variety in the campaign missions. The time warping was fun, well, at least until the parts where you had to warp back and forth in a matter of seconds. Ex. the part where you fall down the fan hole and burning debris part. That wasn't my favourite part. But I made it through.

Sorta reminded me of portal (mixed up with a shooter), you got platforming puzzles to get through and this voice (the mercenary) is always talking to you. And then the voice is putting you through fight simulators and what not in this complex.

Then you have your buddy BT helping and guiding you along. You get so accustomed to having him, you miss him when he's gone. But then he's back again, like a cat with 9 lives. He becomes so human, he really becomes a good friend and fun loving guy. He protects you, guides you, throws you a few hundred meters, catches you and saves you from death.

Due to the shortness of the campaign, I would buy it on sale, though, like I did, unless you like the MP side a lot. I'm just starting the MP part.
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mattyb
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Jan 23, 2017, 12:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
Plus, MW Remastered is making its way to my house.
Been a while.

Well MW Remastered was a waste of money (for me). Having played so much Overwatch on PC and then Forza on XBone, I was completely out of my depth when trying to play an FPS on the console. I was just useless. Really really useless. Didn't even install Infinite Warfare.

The XBone rarely gets turned on anymore. Overwatch is getting most attention, there was a bit of Skyrim in there but I've gotten bored of it. My son is now taking over the PC with Astroneer (actually very good, quite fun but pre-alpha so caveat emptor) and Subnautica.

I decided not to get Titanfall 2. Overwatch has it's claws in me.
     
Leonard
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Mar 2, 2017, 12:55 PM
 
Anyone getting Mass Effect: Andromeda?

I'm planning to. I see information is just starting to come out. Hopefully this will be a good new trilogy.

Right now I'm playing Recore to fill in the time. A bit too much of a platformer for me, especially the Eden Tower part and Dungeons. The saving grace is that their platforming is a little forgiving - most of the time you can easily make the jump between platforms and if you are a little off, you can at least "grab" the platform usually. But some of the dungeons and the last part of the story, Eden Tower, are a bit much. But I want to see how the story ends, if I can.
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Mar 2, 2017, 07:23 PM
 
I want ME:A to be good. I just don't think it will be. Bioware has been missing more than they've been hitting lately, and reviews are notoriously unreliable with their games, so I'm going to wait and see.
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Mar 3, 2017, 01:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Yup, watching closely, even if I still haven't finished Pillars of Eternity.
I got it on Tuesday. It really is the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment. The writing is incredible.
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Mar 3, 2017, 01:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by Leonard View Post
Anyone getting Mass Effect: Andromeda?

I'm planning to. I see information is just starting to come out. Hopefully this will be a good new trilogy.

Right now I'm playing Recore to fill in the time. A bit too much of a platformer for me, especially the Eden Tower part and Dungeons. The saving grace is that their platforming is a little forgiving - most of the time you can easily make the jump between platforms and if you are a little off, you can at least "grab" the platform usually. But some of the dungeons and the last part of the story, Eden Tower, are a bit much. But I want to see how the story ends, if I can.
I am going to preorder it in a couple weeks. I think it is going to be awesome. The game play videos make it look really good even though that is the point of them.
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Mar 3, 2017, 06:38 AM
 
My issue with Bioware is that they appear to be on a quest to water down the RPG until people scream, and then they back off half a step. I don't want watered down, at least not more than they already have. I am not one for diving into THAC0 tables and reminiscing about the inventory management system in NWN, but they have gone too far already.

I think that they took Dragon Age: Inquisition as validation of this setup (DA:O - great; DA2 - disaster), and I think that that is a mistake. DA:I sold well, but it did so in a year with mostly unsuccessful releases. The only other big AAA game that came out in the second half of 2014 that wasn't an abject failure was Shadows of Mordor. 2014 was the year of games like Ryse: Son of Rome, AC: Unity, Total War: Rome 2, and CoD: Advanced Warfare. Of course people bought DA:I - there was little else to play on PC! If I'm being a bit more generous, I can include Far Cry 4 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel as big games, but they didn't exactly reinvent the genre, did they?

(Consoles had a little game called GTA V as well as some exclusives, and I think PS4 got the 2013 Tomb Raider in late 2014, but Bioware RPGs have always been best on PC, and most of their sales are there)
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Jawbone54
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Mar 3, 2017, 03:25 PM
 
Still playing almost nothing but Rocket League, XCOM 2, FIFA, and DOTA 2. I do hop on Overwatch from time to time, and I can see it being part of my rotation until it's dead. I find myself having very few Overwatch marathon sessions though; I only play 2-3 matches at a time.

I've heard Horizon: Zero Dawn is amazing.
     
Jawbone54
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Mar 3, 2017, 03:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I think that they took Dragon Age: Inquisition as validation of this setup (DA:O - great; DA2 - disaster), and I think that that is a mistake. DA:I sold well, but it did so in a year with mostly unsuccessful releases.
This is actually an excellent point.

I've played Mass Effect 1 and 2, but never tried out the Dragon Age games. Are any of them work a pick-up in 2017 (I'm sure they're on sale all the time).
     
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Mar 3, 2017, 05:24 PM
 
Who bought a Switch?
     
 
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