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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 5, 2021 17:24:48 GMT
Final Fantasy XIII was so good. Until it wasn't. It gets off to an ambitious and intense start, keeps it going, and then fails so spectacularly in the second half of the game that I have to wonder if it wasn't intentionally sabotaged. What utter dreck. Safe and predictable and boring when the game was exciting and risky in the early game. Even the battle system gets dull because you don't learn any new abilities or have to implement new strategies for the whole second half of the game. What the hell were they thinking.
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Post by Joaquim on Oct 10, 2021 8:02:24 GMT
It is 4am and I am marching from casino to casino on the new Vegas strip dressed up like a street hooker (and one of those eyes wide shut masks from one of the casino security) murdering every single person I see. Ave Caesar
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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 21, 2021 16:48:51 GMT
I just started Final Fantasy XIV due to the generous free trial offer. I've never done one of these MMO thingamajigs, and free is free, so may as well. My little toy person is adorable with his ridiculous looking fake mustache, pretending to be a grownup and working as a delivery boy for every damn sailor in the city. It looks like the game is going to do a lot of boring handholding, but the city is pretty and the music is pleasant. I probably need the handholding anyway.
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Post by Joaquim on Oct 28, 2021 6:16:40 GMT
Vault 22
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Post by Joaquim on Nov 9, 2021 3:13:59 GMT
Just started playing it and can already tell Disco Elysium is gonna be something special
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 11, 2021 20:00:55 GMT
Okay, after getting through the base quest of FFXIV, I am bored out of my gourd. I'll start with the positives, as there are some strong elements to this game.
1. The community is mostly very nice and helpful. I haven't gone around asking for help, but several times I've had people see me and check on how I'm doing, asking if I have questions about the game, etc. etc. It's a very welcoming atmosphere (probably helped along by the laidback nature of the game's world) and it is the main reason I've endured this far. The other being that everyone says "this game gets good at Heavensward" so I'm sticking with it until then (the free trial includes the first expansion). 2. The in-game atmosphere is really nice. The cities are fun to walk through, the NPCs are sweet and have cute sidequest stories, you can find bards on every street corner playing The Phantom of the Opera or Requiem for a Dream. 3. The little bit of crafting I've done is way more fun than crafting has ever been before. Crafting has always sucked in everything ever, but FF14 makes the system... almost kinda fun? If you squint. 4. When you have a party on the same wavelength, dungeons can be fun. If you don't, all of the veterans run ahead and you just have to run behind them. I've had two times that my party was willing to take it easy and allow the newbs a chance to ask questions and talk about how to handle the upcoming battles (one of those dungeons was with one of the people mentioned in point 1, who queued with me and helped me along). I could always join a Free Company, but nope they're locked out for free trial players. 5. The music is mostly awesome. Ul'dah's night theme and Limsa's day theme are standouts. 6. I'm sure that the job system is a good idea, but only if the foundation of the game merits unlocking all of the jobs. It doesn't.
In short, this game is fun as a laidback, beer swilling good time. Right? Well, here are the negatives.
1. Most bosses can be killed in under twenty seconds. I just fought Good King Moggle Mog XII and he was crushed so quickly that I didn't even know what happened. The same happened on the last two multiplayer segments. I'm a newbie with no idea what I'm doing, but I assume that everyone here has done this 1000 times before and they don't need me anyway. 2. The fighting system is one of the most boring out there. Is this what all MMOs are like? You mainly sit in one place unless you see something flash on the ground, in which case you get out of there before continuing whatever you were doing? This feels so simplistic, like they're catering to the most casual players possible. I've always considered myself casual (says the guy calling Dark Souls his favorite game) but this is taking it too far. I haven't really tried other classes outside of Scholar/Summoner, but I can't imagine that they can be all that different. I'm reading that there are harder difficulty versions of the boss fights, but that probably means adding more HP and damage dealing potential and calling it a day. In short, artificial inflation of difficulty. There's no critical thinking needed to handle any of the fights, and no reflexes necessary. You need a keen eye for knowing when enemies will do a super attack - and with all of the effects going on from seven other players, I often get killed without knowing what precisely hit me - but that's seemingly the only thing keeping this from being a "stand in one place and spam one button" kind of game. In other words, I wish that this was eight player co-op Dark Souls. Actually, every game could be improved by being Dark Souls, but especially something this simple. 3. Every single quest consists of "go from point A to point B to point A to point C, kill something, go to point A to point B." There's no critical thinking. No puzzles. No moments that make you re-examine your "strategy." Since everything can be done by every class, they need this as simple as possible. 4. The main story is one of the worst I have ever seen in a video game. Some individual tongue-in-cheek moments are sort of fun, but all of that gets buried under mounds of "warrior of light, save us all from the forces of DAAAAHKNESS!" crap. Remember the good old days of FF when your party members were literally terrorists bombing government buildings? Or that game in which one character was a spy for the evil Empire struggling against her conscience? Or literally any given moment from FF Tactics? None of that is to be seen here. 5. Not enough cute little people as cackling villains of DAAAAHKNESS!
The community is the main reason to play, but the random nature of the party system makes even co-op dungeons a gamble. This would no doubt be fixed by being in a Free Company, so that's a minor complaint. Unfortunately, the skeleton of the game is weak. It is the most dumbed down combat system I have seen in ages. I'm very happy for people that do enjoy this, as I have seen some very fun community stuff in my time playing... but they can't fix the core problem that this game is fluff. I'm still gonna try to get through Heavensward and see if my opinion changes, but I think that the root of the problem can't be fixed at this point.
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Post by stephen on Nov 12, 2021 1:03:13 GMT
Heavensward is where the storyline went up a few notches. I had a lot of similar issues as you did with the base game, but Heavensward was so much better and opened up so many different styles of gameplay. I had mained Dragoon/Marauder exclusively for A Realm Reborn, but now that I'm hip-deep in Heavensward, I've got eight classes going in rotation.
With that said, sometimes I find a break to be necessary.
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 12, 2021 1:19:40 GMT
Heavensward is where the storyline went up a few notches. I had a lot of similar issues as you did with the base game, but Heavensward was so much better and opened up so many different styles of gameplay. I had mained Dragoon/Marauder exclusively for A Realm Reborn, but now that I'm hip-deep in Heavensward, I've got eight classes going in rotation. With that said, sometimes I find a break to be necessary. What server on you on, out of curiosity. I'm on Diabolos/Crystal. One of the more exciting things about this game is that it can conceivably stay fresh so long as it keeps injecting new blood. Dark Souls, as much as I love it, gets a little dull after you rage quit to defeat the Four Kings for the twentieth time, and even the "search it out for yourself" story isn't endless - eventually you have looked at everything there is to look at and watched every theory video on Lost Izalith. I can see FF14 staying engaging so long as there are new people to keep the veterans excited. That social aspect is the ace up its sleeve.
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Post by stephen on Nov 12, 2021 1:22:43 GMT
Heavensward is where the storyline went up a few notches. I had a lot of similar issues as you did with the base game, but Heavensward was so much better and opened up so many different styles of gameplay. I had mained Dragoon/Marauder exclusively for A Realm Reborn, but now that I'm hip-deep in Heavensward, I've got eight classes going in rotation. With that said, sometimes I find a break to be necessary. What server on you on, out of curiosity. I'm on Diabolos/Crystal. One of the more exciting things about this game is that it can conceivably stay fresh so long as it keeps injecting new blood. Dark Souls, as much as I love it, gets a little dull after you rage quit to defeat the Four Kings for the twentieth time, and even the "search it out for yourself" story isn't endless - eventually you have looked at everything there is to look at and watched every theory video on Lost Izalith. I can see FF14 staying engaging so long as there are new people to keep the veterans excited. That social aspect is the ace up its sleeve. Jenova. Yeah, from what I hear, Heavensward rectified a lot of people's complaints about the storyline, which mirror the ones you and I have, and the plot goes into some insane and awesome territory. Stormblood on, however, is apparently legendary stuff from what my friends tell me.
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 23, 2021 3:59:13 GMT
Okay, so I have some more FF14 thoughts, and they are all positive.
1. The story gets a lot better in the leadup to Heavensward. It's still building on a pretty crappy foundation, but the saga of the refugees and corruption in the police forces is infinitely more interesting than the generic evil empire stuff. I could see this developing into something pretty cool if it keeps offering up characters like Teledji Adeledji and Lolorito. 2. Bosses and dungeons are no longer "pound him for ten seconds and he's dead." They require some amount of communication and learning from mistakes. 3. Ramuh at Extreme difficulty took over forty minutes of blood, sweat and tears - about three quarters of that post mortem "where did we go wrong" discussions - and I am totally here for that. It was exciting, funny (ah, the joy of getting frozen and seeing my party line up a lethal Venn diagram of thunderbolts with me in the middle) and ridiculously confusing, but once again the veterans were very kind and patient. God knows that I wasn't pulling my weight, but nobody ever offered any criticism that wasn't constructive. 4. My summoner outfit looks like the Mad Hatter.
My opinion has radically altered and I haven't hit Heavensward yet. The only real positives of the game for the first second of eternity were the social aspects. The actual game mechanics didn't impress. I'm now getting a taste of what the game is once it stops coddling the player, and it's a fresh experience. I don't know if this is better than other MMOs, but it is certainly a new kind of game for me - I've certainly never done anything like Extreme Ramuh before this, anyway. That is enough to keep me intrigued, at the bare minimum.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Nov 23, 2021 20:33:04 GMT
“I must be lonely.” And she says “Baby, well, I can’t help.”
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Post by stephen on Nov 28, 2021 23:26:26 GMT
Okay, so I have some more FF14 thoughts, and they are all positive. 1. The story gets a lot better in the leadup to Heavensward. It's still building on a pretty crappy foundation, but the saga of the refugees and corruption in the police forces is infinitely more interesting than the generic evil empire stuff. I could see this developing into something pretty cool if it keeps offering up characters like Teledji Adeledji and Lolorito. 2. Bosses and dungeons are no longer "pound him for ten seconds and he's dead." They require some amount of communication and learning from mistakes. 3. Ramuh at Extreme difficulty took over forty minutes of blood, sweat and tears - about three quarters of that post mortem "where did we go wrong" discussions - and I am totally here for that. It was exciting, funny (ah, the joy of getting frozen and seeing my party line up a lethal Venn diagram of thunderbolts with me in the middle) and ridiculously confusing, but once again the veterans were very kind and patient. God knows that I wasn't pulling my weight, but nobody ever offered any criticism that wasn't constructive. 4. My summoner outfit looks like the Mad Hatter. My opinion has radically altered and I haven't hit Heavensward yet. The only real positives of the game for the first second of eternity were the social aspects. The actual game mechanics didn't impress. I'm now getting a taste of what the game is once it stops coddling the player, and it's a fresh experience. I don't know if this is better than other MMOs, but it is certainly a new kind of game for me - I've certainly never done anything like Extreme Ramuh before this, anyway. That is enough to keep me intrigued, at the bare minimum. I'm really glad to see you're back on board with the game. Heavensward is leaps and bounds better than the base story, and I hear it only gets better and better. Do you stick with summoner, or do you try other classes? Each class has its own narrative and they are each fascinating and diverse.
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 29, 2021 0:05:17 GMT
Okay, so I have some more FF14 thoughts, and they are all positive. 1. The story gets a lot better in the leadup to Heavensward. It's still building on a pretty crappy foundation, but the saga of the refugees and corruption in the police forces is infinitely more interesting than the generic evil empire stuff. I could see this developing into something pretty cool if it keeps offering up characters like Teledji Adeledji and Lolorito. 2. Bosses and dungeons are no longer "pound him for ten seconds and he's dead." They require some amount of communication and learning from mistakes. 3. Ramuh at Extreme difficulty took over forty minutes of blood, sweat and tears - about three quarters of that post mortem "where did we go wrong" discussions - and I am totally here for that. It was exciting, funny (ah, the joy of getting frozen and seeing my party line up a lethal Venn diagram of thunderbolts with me in the middle) and ridiculously confusing, but once again the veterans were very kind and patient. God knows that I wasn't pulling my weight, but nobody ever offered any criticism that wasn't constructive. 4. My summoner outfit looks like the Mad Hatter. My opinion has radically altered and I haven't hit Heavensward yet. The only real positives of the game for the first second of eternity were the social aspects. The actual game mechanics didn't impress. I'm now getting a taste of what the game is once it stops coddling the player, and it's a fresh experience. I don't know if this is better than other MMOs, but it is certainly a new kind of game for me - I've certainly never done anything like Extreme Ramuh before this, anyway. That is enough to keep me intrigued, at the bare minimum. I'm really glad to see you're back on board with the game. Heavensward is leaps and bounds better than the base story, and I hear it only gets better and better. Do you stick with summoner, or do you try other classes? Each class has its own narrative and they are each fascinating and diverse. I'm waffling on that. Since arcanist doubles as both scholar and summoner, I got two stories for the price of one... although neither are very good. Story-wise, anyway - scholar is a blast to play, and summoner is much easier to learn than my attempts at melee DPS. And yeah, I've done the early rogue story, which is very fun. And I've been doing pugilist/monk since I hit level 60 on arcanist by the time I started Heavensward.(60 is max level for free trial.) But I think I'll stop doing those and just progress the MSQ on arcanist, then come back and check out the other classes if I'm still interested. There is SO MUCH to do in this game, and it is both a positive (this is a theme park that you can enjoy without getting on all the rides) and a negative (it is easy to get overwhelmed if you sample too much). I think that once I'm done with Heavensward's MSQ, I'll take a break and then weigh my options of doing more free trial, biting the bullet for a subscription, or just stopping. I'm not 100% on any of these, but what I imagine I'll do is do a month or two on with a month off to do other things, as this game can and will become a massive time sink if I let it. I've never been one for completing everything in a game, but in FF14, the whole point is playing around with all of the classes/minigames/side classes/housing/guilds... That will burn me out if I don't ration my energy.
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Post by stephen on Nov 29, 2021 0:25:12 GMT
I'm waffling on that. Since arcanist doubles as both scholar and summoner, I got two stories for the price of one... although neither are very good. Story-wise, anyway - scholar is a blast to play, and summoner is much easier to learn than my attempts at melee DPS. And yeah, I've done the early rogue story, which is very fun. And I've been doing pugilist/monk since I hit level 60 on arcanist by the time I started Heavensward.(60 is max level for free trial.) But I think I'll stop doing those and just progress the MSQ on arcanist, then come back and check out the other classes if I'm still interested. There is SO MUCH to do in this game, and it is both a positive (this is a theme park that you can enjoy without getting on all the rides) and a negative (it is easy to get overwhelmed if you sample too much). I think that once I'm done with Heavensward's MSQ, I'll take a break and then weigh my options of doing more free trial, biting the bullet for a subscription, or just stopping. I'm not 100% on any of these, but what I imagine I'll do is do a month or two on with a month off to do other things, as this game can and will become a massive time sink if I let it. I've never been one for completing everything in a game, but in FF14, the whole point is playing around with all of the classes/minigames/side classes/housing/guilds... That will burn me out if I don't ration my energy. Ah, see, I'm a melee DPS/tank guy. Dragoon/marauder was my main for ARR, but I've diversified my portfolio. I'd say Dragoon has had my favorite storyline so far, but I'm also digging Machinist and Dark Knight as well.
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 29, 2021 0:55:40 GMT
I'm waffling on that. Since arcanist doubles as both scholar and summoner, I got two stories for the price of one... although neither are very good. Story-wise, anyway - scholar is a blast to play, and summoner is much easier to learn than my attempts at melee DPS. And yeah, I've done the early rogue story, which is very fun. And I've been doing pugilist/monk since I hit level 60 on arcanist by the time I started Heavensward.(60 is max level for free trial.) But I think I'll stop doing those and just progress the MSQ on arcanist, then come back and check out the other classes if I'm still interested. There is SO MUCH to do in this game, and it is both a positive (this is a theme park that you can enjoy without getting on all the rides) and a negative (it is easy to get overwhelmed if you sample too much). I think that once I'm done with Heavensward's MSQ, I'll take a break and then weigh my options of doing more free trial, biting the bullet for a subscription, or just stopping. I'm not 100% on any of these, but what I imagine I'll do is do a month or two on with a month off to do other things, as this game can and will become a massive time sink if I let it. I've never been one for completing everything in a game, but in FF14, the whole point is playing around with all of the classes/minigames/side classes/housing/guilds... That will burn me out if I don't ration my energy. Ah, see, I'm a melee DPS/tank guy. Dragoon/marauder was my main for ARR, but I've diversified my portfolio. I'd say Dragoon has had my favorite storyline so far, but I'm also digging Machinist and Dark Knight as well. Scholar was my first love, and it is BOOOORING in single player, but I kind of like the responsibility of healing. I'm not any good at it, but it's a fun thing to keep track of who needs help the most, or whether I should cast a buff. Although sometimes I lose track of where anyone is too late that they are way out of range of my spell, but I'm trying to read my screen better. On a side note, organizing the HUD is a nightmare. I've asked the Youtube channel Mom's Den about doing a HUD video (she's by far the best teacher I've found on Youtube) and she's open to the idea, so maybe she can give me some tips on that. I've reworked my hotbars and changed my HUD some, but it is still a cluttered disaster.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Dec 5, 2021 20:48:27 GMT
Finally landed a PS5. Picked up the new Spider-Man (Miles Morales) and Ratchet & Clank. Any other game recs?
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Post by Miles Morales on Dec 6, 2021 19:56:18 GMT
Finally landed a PS5. Picked up the new Spider-Man (Miles Morales) and Ratchet & Clank. Any other game recs? Have you played any of the Souls games?
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Dec 6, 2021 19:58:46 GMT
Finally landed a PS5. Picked up the new Spider-Man (Miles Morales) and Ratchet & Clank. Any other game recs? Have you played any of the Souls games? Nope
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Post by Martin Stett on Dec 8, 2021 16:37:35 GMT
Fa-la-la, being scholar in FF14 sure is fun, but I may as well change and do a dungeon as summo-WHAT THE HELL!? I did think that summoner was boring before, so I guess my prayers were answered with A COMPLETE OVERHAUL of the job. I have no idea what this even is anymore. I am sooooo lost. Theoretically, this looks MUCH better than what I learned to play, but on the other hand, I now have no idea how to play it. I haven't even gone out of town yet, I'm just... sitting here, looking at my hotbars that are now 85% destroyed. I reorganized them, but this whole trance thing is brand new to me and ho boy I'm gonna have to rewire my brain to get a grasp on what my new task is.
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Post by Joaquim on Dec 10, 2021 3:41:04 GMT
Anyone else played the age of decadence?
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Post by Martin Stett on Dec 24, 2021 3:10:45 GMT
I remembered Final Fantasy Tactics being super frustrating to the point that I quit the game twice. But I keep hearing how great it is, so I'm trying it again.
I'm ready to throw in the towel already. The grinding, the bullshit of only having five characters (where are the tactics?), the guest fighters sabotaging every fight, the terrible camera controls, the insanity of support spells missing, the terribly unintuitive turn counter, the design of the game that makes you guess at which abilities could possibly be useful in the future while giving you no chance to try out different builds... And this is just after two days. I enjoy strategy board games (video games not so much, as they often - and FFT is guilty as hell here - require that every unit be placed in a pre-ordained position on every turn if you want a chance of winning), but this is just bullshit.
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Post by themoviesinner on Dec 24, 2021 18:46:11 GMT
Anyone else played the age of decadence? Very good game, but also extremely difficult, especially if you want your character to be a douchebag. I liked it a lot, since it's one of the few rpg's I've played where most of your actions and choices do have consequences and you have to be very careful in what you do or say. Also, the difficult battles made fighting your very last option. I died countless times in this, especially early on where I didn't know what I was doing most of the time. But it's a very good and challenging game.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Dec 24, 2021 19:50:47 GMT
On my second playthrough of Stardew Valley trying to get all achievements... this is taking forever.
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Post by Martin Stett on Dec 24, 2021 20:15:53 GMT
On my second playthrough of Stardew Valley trying to get all achievements... this is taking forever. Is one of the achievements "marry everybody in town and have kids with them?" Because I may start the game up if I'm rewarded with a gold star for owning a harem
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Dec 24, 2021 22:21:20 GMT
On my second playthrough of Stardew Valley trying to get all achievements... this is taking forever. Is one of the achievements "marry everybody in town and have kids with them?" Because I may start the game up if I'm rewarded with a gold star for owning a harem Nah, one is siding with the town and the other is with Joja Mart (his name is aptly JojaMan).. but it's beating the arcade games at the bar that's making me curse whoever made these damn achievements!
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