Briste's Diary of a Madman

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 18.10.2019 at 10:56 PM, Briste said:

I'm genuinely impressed though by people that can stay completely spoiler free these days considering how much access there is to everything and how easy it is to accidentally spoil things.

 

Backtracking to this thought: Sometimes staying spoiler-free means you don't find out about a game with glitched trophies. ?

[Briste]

On 1/2/2020 at 6:36 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Backtracking to this thought: Sometimes staying spoiler-free means you don't find out about a game with glitched trophies. ?

lol this right here is the only reason I check a trophy list out first. It could be the greatest game in the world and if there were glitched trophies it would piss me off and sour my attitude towards the game. i don't need that kind of disappointment so a quick trophy scrub to make sure they are all obtainable and away we go  

 

Quote

Don't forget the soundtrack. I usually don't remember much of a game soundtrack, but this one is so good and memorable. The scene where the SEEDs are landing in Dollet with their landing crafts - so good.

I take for granted how good the Final Fantasy soundtracks are. My favorite part of FFXV was actually driving in the car and listening to the soundtracks of the previous games. My cell phone ring is the Turks theme song and my alarm clock in the morning is Celes' theme song...my text alert is from Zelda though  FFVIII's soundtrack is another good one for sure. 

 

Platinum #103

The Order: 1886

 

Just to illustrate my point about how looking at trophies doesn't necessarily mean spoilers if you don't look too deep...I looked at the trophy list to make sure it was still obtainable and then started playing. Based on the grainy, faded picture and mustaches on the game page...I had always thought that this game was based on the US Old West and thought it had to do with gold mining or something. I'm sure if I looked at the picture more closely and saw London in the background, I would have realized how wrong I was. I was very pleasantly surprised by the story in this game. I've heard a lot of mixed things about The Order: 1886...mostly things like 'it was an amazing story but too short' or 'it was highway robbery how much they charged for a 10 hour game'. I kind of agree with both of those statements. If you paid $30 or $40 bucks, I would have been pissed about how quick the game went...as it stands, I paid $2.99 for the game so don't really have any buyers remorse....having said that though, the game was too short lol

 

I was fully invested in this story. I thought the graphics were great, the voice acting was very good, the weapon variety was decent and the time period/content is some of my favorite. King Arthur, Knights, Vampires, Lycans, old fashioned setting...sold! What little content there is was done very, very well. My best way to explain this game would be comparing a movie to a thirty minute TV show...you can't tell the same kind of story in a TV show that you can in a movie and the developers of this game made a TV show. I feel like they left A LOT of potential on the board with this game. There were several unresolved plot points that felt like they took a lot of time to develop but never bore any fruit (I'm looking at you Isi!) The game gave me enough of a taste where I want more...and they sure as shit left enough room for a sequel. It's a compelling story and I'd like to see what happens next.

 

As far the gameplay...it was a blend of FPS and third person shooter. Most of the time is spent in third person, but when you aim it goes over to FPS and I spent a lot of time aiming. The blacksight ability was ok, but took me a while to get used to using the R3 button to change targets. I really liked that when you killed an enemy, a little red X showed up in the sight so you could stop wasting ammo and move onto the next target. Everything was smooth and I had no drops in frame rate and I'm still on my original PS4. I thought it was a little weird that there was a sway when aiming the sniper rifle but no sway when aiming the crossbow, but that was minor. The game is exceptionally easy considering how many checkpoints there are throughout a chapter but there were a few spots that took a few tries. Most of those areas involved the stealth kills. That was my least favorite aspect of the game. I didn't like that there was a mini QTE when doing a stealth kill. I mean it's stealth, you should have all the time you need provided they don't turn around. Batman definitely did the Stealth Takedown better.

 

Overall, if you spent $3 like me, you should be pretty happy with the result...if you paid full price, I'm very sorry. Looking at it objectively, I'd say the game is a disappointment considering how much missed potential there is....looking at it from a value perspective...I can't really complain. If you can get it for a few bucks...I'd recommend it.

 

 

 

[Rally-Vincent---]

3 hours ago, Briste said:

I take for granted how good the Final Fantasy soundtracks are. My favorite part of FFXV was actually driving in the car and listening to the soundtracks of the previous games. My cell phone ring is the Turks theme song and my alarm clock in the morning is Celes' theme song...my text alert is from Zelda though  FFVIII's soundtrack is another good one for sure. 

 

 

Well, my message notification on my mobile is the victory fanfare from FF VIII (just da-da-dat da dat dat dat dada part). My ring tone, though, is from Aliens - it's where the motion tracker gives signal when they infiltrate the reactor and Hudson goes: "MOVEMENT".

 

 

[Briste]

It's been almost a solid month since I've been able to make an update. I have been balls to the wall busy at work and I just can't bring myself to spend time typing on the forum when I'm at home instead of playing my games. This happened over a week ago but:

 

Platinum #104

Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken (vita)

I know I had said I was going to jump right into SMB and not play another Vita game until I got that platinum, however I'm playing a ton of marathon games on the PS4 console right now and I wanted to feel like I was accomplishing something. I also wanted to play something a little more silly than what I've been playing and chose Rocketbirds from my backlog. This game is a pretty basic platforming-shooter type game that has a tiny bit of metroidvania to it with the maps. It is pretty funny and wasn't terribly difficult. The only thing you'd need a guide for is collecting all the signs because I give you about a 3% chance to find them all without a guide. The game was fun with quite a bit of comedy and has a chapter select option to go after any trophies you may have missed during your playthrough. The controls are pretty decent on the vita and the graphics were fine. The music steals the show. I especially liked the theme song from the main menu.

 

The negatives for the game mostly have to do with the platforming. The platforming...is not good. It's kind of realistic in that if you are rolling, it won't let you jump until your feet are down, however it's not easy to tell when that is and the jumping tends to be delayed. The easy answer is to say, then don't roll if you need to jump, however the platforming isn't much better when you are running and you move much faster rolling. I could see some people saying that you can't aim the gun as a draw back, however I didn't mind it and having played Rocketbirds 2 a bit where you can...I kind of prefer not being able to aim. The multiplayer trophy kind of sucks also since both players can't get it at the same time...only the person hosting the game. The good news is it only took me and my partner @thezooniverse a little over an hour and five minutes to finish one playthrough. I was lucky that he has already finished 5 acts so we only had to do one and a half playthroughs. It's the first time I've used the Gaming Sessions on PSNP and I had a really good experience. I feel like I like the Gaming Sessions for co-op play more than I would for just regular boosting.

 

Anyway, overall it was a quick, fun game that was just what the doctor ordered. I liked it enough that I bought Rocketbirds 2 and will finish that as well. Also, Hardboiled Chicken is a cool enough character that it inspired me to change my avatar. He's Rambo mixed with a little bit of the Rocketeer and he's a pretty fun character to play. I would recommend this game.

 

 

In other news, I've been elbows deep in Path of Exile most nights. I really like the game, but it is really frustrating at times. The trading board kind of sucks as people set the price for their item, you put up the asking price and you have to wait for them to approve it before the trade is complete. It can take a while to get items and sell items because of this. You have to search inventories of people who are online if you want any chance for a response. The lag has improved quite a bit, however the difficulty spike is insane. The other night I blew through a Tier 11 map with no issue at all only to be curb stomped by the boss when I got there. I was not prepared for that spike. I got one shotted each time I entered the room. Normally I wouldn't care, except you lose 10% of your xp to the next level each time you die. I went from 40% to level 87 down to 0% in about three minutes. It took me almost two hours to get to 40% experience too. I lost that progress and didn't complete the map...so that was pretty frustrating. The fact the platinum became unobtainable while I was playing it is a bit annoying too. They'll probably fix the broken trophy...but there's no guarantee. Having said all that, I do really like this game.

 

Indigo Prophecy on the other hand is the most rage inducing game I've played in a long time. I decided to play through on hard since I read it can glitch and figured if I only play on hard difficulty, it can't glitch with easy. I'll do my clean up on easy...but god damn the QTE's in this game are ridiculous. I'll get more into it when I do my game write up...but I'll just say that it is far and away the worst QTE style game I've ever played...which is too bad because the story is pretty interesting.

 

I haven't touched MLB 19 in a few weeks and I'll probably dip back into that once the new season starts around February 20th. I haven't given up on this yet.

 

My final update is I started Driveclub VR last night. I got the game as a gift on my birthday last year from my kids and I do want to play it. I'm starting now only because the servers close next month and I want to be able to get the MP trophies done. They don't seem bad, but I don't want this 100% to be locked out to me. I played for about 45 minutes last night and it was pretty cool in VR. I'm not a huge racing game fan...but I'll take this one nice and slow.

 

Hope everyone had a more productive January than me! The good news is I think work will start to settle down a bit by March and I should be better about updating.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Briste

[AJ_Radio]

I wish you the best of luck on Super Meat Boy and MLB 19: The Show.

 

I can give you a couple tips for Girl Boy and Impossible Boy which ended up helping me a lot.

 

There is absolutely no way I'm getting MLB 19. Putting that one trophy in there was just stupid, quite the contrast to MLB 18's list which I hear is the easiest in the entire franchise. Definitely looking forward to playing that and seeing all the current and old MLB players.

[Arcesius]

8 hours ago, Briste said:

It's been almost a solid month since I've been able to make an update. I have been balls to the wall busy at work and I just can't bring myself to spend time typing on the forum when I'm at home instead of playing my games. 

 

? I need to remember that saying. Welcome back by the way ?

 

 

8 hours ago, Briste said:

The fact the platinum became unobtainable while I was playing it is a bit annoying too. They'll probably fix the broken trophy...but there's no guarantee. Having said all that, I do really like this game.

 

I followed the discussion about Locomancer or whatever that trophy is. Complete bullshit if you ask me... It's one thing to go into a game you know is unobtainable, but it is just a punch to the balls to start a game and have it become unobtainable out of the blue while playing it. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Briste said:

My final update is I started Driveclub VR last night. I got the game as a gift on my birthday last year from my kids and I do want to play it. I'm starting now only because the servers close next month and I want to be able to get the MP trophies done. They don't seem bad, but I don't want this 100% to be locked out to me. I played for about 45 minutes last night and it was pretty cool in VR. I'm not a huge racing game fan...but I'll take this one nice and slow.

 

No motion sickness or anything? I haven't experienced any issues with Beat Saber, Astro Bot, Thumper, Superhot VR, etc.... But I played WipEout: Omega Collection the other day in VR and I literally lasted 2 minutes before I needed to stop playing. Being inside the "cockpit" and virtually driving at superspeed while physically staying on the couch kinda didn't work for me ? It's a shame, too, since the game looks fantastic in VR.  

 

[Briste]

On 2/6/2020 at 2:28 AM, Spaz said:

I wish you the best of luck on Super Meat Boy and MLB 19: The Show.

 

Thanks. I'm not feeling too stressed about either. I know I will get them eventually. MLB 19 sooner than SMB most likely, but I have enough games where I'm banging my head against a wall that I need a few lower stress ones. 

 

On 2/6/2020 at 2:39 AM, Arcesius said:

 I need to remember that saying. Welcome back by the way 

 

lol I'm not sure where I heard that phrase first, but it stands out in my mind from the movie Down Periscope with Kelsey Grammer. It is a 90's comedy and is actually pretty funny. Lauren Holly is in it and she shouts that phrase at one point in the movie. I'm sure I've heard it elsewhere as well

 

On 2/6/2020 at 2:39 AM, Arcesius said:

I followed the discussion about Locomancer or whatever that trophy is. Complete bullshit if you ask me... It's one thing to go into a game you know is unobtainable, but it is just a punch to the balls to start a game and have it become unobtainable out of the blue while playing it. 

 

Yeah it is pretty frustrating that an 'update' would break an existing trophy. From what I've read, it was broken once before and they fixed it so I'm hoping they get around to it again soon. I'm still a long way off from the Platinum so I'm not stressing yet. The good news is that if they do fix it...it should just pop for me when I log in one day and/or I have access to all of the areas, so should be able to get the new one pretty easily enough. If they never fix it, I'll be really disappointed.

 

On 2/6/2020 at 2:39 AM, Arcesius said:

No motion sickness or anything? I haven't experienced any issues with Beat Saber, Astro Bot, Thumper, Superhot VR, etc.... But I played WipEout: Omega Collection the other day in VR and I literally lasted 2 minutes before I needed to stop playing. Being inside the "cockpit" and virtually driving at superspeed while physically staying on the couch kinda didn't work for me  It's a shame, too, since the game looks fantastic in VR.  

 

Nothing yet. It really feels like driving a car. I'm driving from in the cockpit and I check my mirrors and everything. I'm really glad I started this game now instead of waiting until March because the online trophies are being a real bitch. Half the time you login, the server is unavailable or doesn't recognize your time. I ended up making a profile for my son to see if I could send myself a challenge and it's weird. When I login from my account, I can create and send a challenge. When I login from my sons account, that option is greyed out and says it cannot connect to the server. I'm logging in from the same PS4 and same IP so I have no idea why it is doing that. I've tried friending several people that are on the active list for the game to see if I can send any of them a challenge....but it's proving to be pretty glitchy. Hopefully I can get those out of the way this weekend so I don't have to worry about that going forward.

 

I finished up Indigo Prophecy on hard, which was a relief, however it appears I missed a Tarot Card since that trophy did not pop. I'm pretty sure I got them all, but it's possible I died once and didn't re-get the Tarot Card. I'm playing through again on Easy now to clean up so I'll just get them all again on this playthrough. We'll see if I enjoy it more on Easy.

[Briste]

I had an unexpectedly productive Sunday where I platinumed two games that I wasn't expecting to get done  

 

 

Platinum #105

Rocketbirds 2: Evolution (vita)

 

After having fun with the first Rocketbirds, I decided to jump right into Rocketbirds 2: Evolution. RB2 did some things better than RB1 and did some things not as good. I appreciate that they tried to give you the opportunity to aim your gun instead of it only shooting straight, however it was such a pain in the ass to target and run and shoot. It wouldn't have been so bad since there is an aiming assist option, however there are trophies that require headshots and the target assist mostly just hits the body so you are required to get pretty good with the targeting. Thankfully, Hardboiled Chicken is such a beef cake that he can take some hits while you get your aim correctly lined up for a head shot. The music wasn't quite as good even though it was the same band however they vastly improved the platforming and the levels had a little more to them. It was still relatively easy and there wasn't any kind of 'super boss' like in the first one. 

 

The game is set up in two parts. The first part is the main story where you continue on as Hardboiled Chicken and his quest to take down the evil penguins led by Putzky. Part 2 can be done solo or MP/Co-op. This is a rescue mission to save different birds that have been abducted by the Penguins. Part two gets a little repetitive and has the bigger challenge because you need to 3 star an attempt at least once in each of the four zones. I had a little trouble trying to play the levels normal, but easily got three stars when I decided to leave my Duck companion at the hub and solo the missions using a melee weapon. It seems like you need a lot of headshot kills or melee kills as well as finding all of the rooms to get a three star score. I was able to get a three star score even with dying in one of them. It's much harder to do the melee kill method in the fourth zone, however once you rescue Hardboiled Chicken, it was much easier to line up headshots...just make sure you bring enough ammo!

 

Nothing was extremely challenging and didn't take more than a couple of tries to do. I have a feeling the game is as rare as it is more due to the challenge of aiming than anything else. It was a fun vita game and again, if you find it on a decent sale it is worth picking up. Not something you need to go out of your way for. 

 

Speaking of clunky controls....

 

Platinum #106

Indigo Prophecy

 

I decided to play this series because three of the four games were free and I've enjoyed the Telltale/Until Dawn style games and wanted to play something retro. I'm sure the game was pretty revolutionary for the time...but my god was this one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had in gaming. I took a few week break in the middle because I was so annoyed with a QTE sequence. I decided to start on Hard mode because I had read that this trophy could glitch and I figured if Hard mode was the only save file in the game, it shouldn't glitch. Thankfully it didn't...but this game was borderline ridiculous in Hard mode.

 

First, the QTE's aren't your usual , , ,  and utilize  and  with a 'Simon Says' kind of twist. Each direction is a color. Up is red, down is green, left is blue and right is yellow. Sometimes you need to use  and  at the same time, but most of the time it is one or the other and they alternate (thank god). Generally if it is a double, they go the same direction but there are a few times that they go opposite directions. Thankfully it's never left and down at the same time but up up or left right or something along those lines. That's not to say that every once in a while the game isn't  a dick and throws back to back 's at you when you have a rhythm going alternating and eff you up. In hard mode, generally one missed QTE is a lost 'life' and they pile up quick. It is super easy to get a game over. It wouldn't be as bad if you didn't have to be quick and exact with the direction. I can't tell you how many times I pressed down and heard the annoying 'missed' sound when I know I didn't...probably because it was slightly diagonal since you have to move them pretty quickly.

 

My biggest gripe with the QTE's is how flipping long the sequences are. There are about four or five sequences in the game that have you doing crazy QTE's for like three or four straight minutes. The first one of these instances caused me to take a week or two break from playing because of how frustrated I was getting. I ended up resorting to opening up Notepad and writing down the order in groups of four. Thankfully most of the sequences are scripted and you can pause during QTE's. Pausing helps quite a bit. I would do the sequence in game as best I could and pause after four QTE's and type it into note pad. Then I would continue and do the same. It took me a couple of hours to get all the way through and even with me having written down the sequence...it was still really easy to fuck up and have to start over. 

 

Unfortunately, the QTE's are a major part of the game and overshadow what was actually a pretty interesting story. The camera also sucked quite a bit. It was tank controls with shitty camera angles. I died more than once because the camera angle would change an so would the direction my character was running...As bad as Hard Mode was...it was much more fun on Easy and waaaaaaaaay more forgiving. I didn't need to pause at all and only failed like two sequences the whole replay through. You definitely do not want to target any real specific trophies during hard mode that require anything QTE related....it's just too frustrating. I blew threw the game on Easy in only a few hours. If you aren't a completionist...it's worth a playthrough on easy since the story is good enough (even with the awkward animation sex scenes...) but if you are a completionist...I can't say the juice is worth the squeeze on this one. I'll finish up the series now that I've started, but I've heard this is the worst of the bunch as far as QTE's go.

 

In the other games I have going...I was able to get the two online trophies in Driveclub VR thanks to the boosting thread there. The servers were completely busted for the challenge trophy and someone tweeted at Sony and it seems they actually did something because the servers started to recognize the races. Now I can finish the rest at my leisure.

 

Path of Exile continues to frustrate, but I enjoy it enough that I can't stop playing it. At some point I'll need to find a playing partner because I don't know how I'll be able to solo some of the bosses. I'm having trouble already and I'm geared pretty decently. Unfortunately it is expensive as hell to upgrade. The good gear requires Exalt Orbs to get and I've only found two in all of the hours I've played so far. You can buy them with some lesser currency...but the mark up is insane. I will 100% this game though...provided they fix Locomancer....

 

I have a long weekend coming up and hope to be productive...anyone doing anything fun?

Edited February 17, 2020 by Briste

[Rally-Vincent---]

14 minutes ago, Briste said:

I have a long weekend coming up and hope to be productive...anyone doing anything fun?

 

Cassy asked something similar after finishing KCD, and I looked at what I play - Nuclear Throne - and said to myself: My answer is "no/nothing".

 

I played Indigo Prophecy back on PS2 - it is called Fahrenheit over here -, so I knew what I had to deal with when I got it for the PS4. Still like it.

[Briste]

Nothing really new to report...just updating my 'journal' since it's been a few weeks and I'm hoping that writing this down will help me enact some changes in my recent gaming behavior... 

 

Path of Exile is starting to consume my life and starting to give me Final Fantasy XI flashbacks...I'm feeling like I'll need to take a break or slow down a bit. It's a brilliant end game design to get you to play longer than you want...I've been up until almost 12:30am every night for two weeks and I wake up at 6:00am for work and I'm really starting to feel it. I'm a little over a year away from turning 40 and I just can't keep up anymore with this type of game lol. I'm starting to feel irritable since I'm constantly tired and I need to stop...but it takes about 10-15 minutes to run a map in the end game and it's really, really easy to get caught up in the 'just one more' attitude and before you know it it's way past bedtime. I really like the game, but it is also truly infuriating.

 

My character build seems like it is really good to run maps, but not so good for fighting end game bosses. I can clear most of the Tier 16 maps (highest tier) including those bosses without dying, but when I get to an endgame boss I get spanked...hard. I got lulled into a false sense of strength over my character last night with how easily I was doing the highest level maps. I decided to tackle an endgame trophy last night called Sacrifice of the Vaal which involves fighting an Uber boss. I can run the regular boss map version and defeat Atziri without dying pretty easily so I figured I'd give the Uber level a try...I got fucking smoked. I didn't even make it to the final boss.

 

You get six portals into a map and every time you die, you get booted out of the map and a portal disappears...so you effectively have 6 chances to clear a map before it is a wasted run....well I died 3 times on the first set of bosses in the zone (which I kill in literally 15 seconds in the regular version map) and then got smoked 3 more times by the second set (which also only takes about 15 seconds in the regular map). What is frustrating is that I roll through the regular enemies in the level like a hot knife through butter...but when I reach the bosses, I pretty much get one shotted any time I take damage and there is little to no time to react. I have capped resistances and my life pool is about 4800 with a shield of 2200...that means I should be able to absorb 7000 damage before I die and most of these bosses take me out in less than a second. What makes it even more frustrating is there is no obvious way for me to improve without completely changing my build. I don't think there are enough players on the PS4 where there is enough of really good gear for my build to trade/buy. Every night I scan through the trading board, looking for a way to improve and there just isn't much there...and not a big enough improvement that is worth the price. If I want to finish this game anytime soon, I'll probably need to find a playing partner...but we'll see.

 

I have been ignoring these boards and events for the most part and been very focused on my TV since it is so freaking easy to die...and the penalty for dying is often extremely harsh. I need to get back into doing what I've been doing the past few years and taking a more casual approach to my trophy hunting...my 100% nature won't let me give up on this game quite yet...but I won't be rushing into another MMORPG type any time soon...I just don't have enough self-control to walk away.

 

So take this as a fair warning any of you that were thinking of starting this game...it can suck you in because there is always something to do and none of the individual tasks take a long time...but my god does this game take a very loooooong time to do on your own. We'll see if I have enough will power to go back to Heavy Rain for a bit...I'm trying to line up my 5000th trophy....I have one in mind, but I kind of want to see what the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trophies look like before I make a decision. Anyway...I hope everyone else is having more success than I am  

[Arcesius]

Man, sounds like a great game ? I have to say, it looks fantastic.. and I briefly considered asking Mori if he's interested in this one... But the way you describe it, it doesn't really fit with my current situation at home... Hell, I'm actually in a pretty similar situation right now, playing Darkest Dungeon... Only one more run! Only one more Shambler! Hell, I can still squeeze one more Expedition in! Freaking addictive. 

 

In any case.. from a gameplay perspective it seems like Path of Exile is your standard Diablo-clone.. but the way you describe it, it seems like it is more varied than Diablo III, at least.. I'm even more intrigued now that you talk about builds. How much freedom do you have there? The lack of build optimization is what I "dislike" most about Diablo III... especially because that wasn't lacking in Diablo II. 

 

Oh, and how long does it take more or less? ?

Edited March 4, 2020 by Arcesius

[AJ_Radio]

8 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

In any case.. from a gameplay perspective it seems like Path of Exile is your standard Diablo-clone.. but the way you describe it, it seems like it is more varied than Diablo III, at least.. I'm even more intrigued now that you talk about builds. How much freedom do you have there? The lack of build optimization is what I "dislike" most about Diablo III... especially because that wasn't lacking in Diablo II. 

 

Diablo II is hands down one of the best and most memorable action RPGs of all time. It did in my opinion what DOOM did to first person shooters.

 

What I've noticed though is Blizzard started fucking up the build optimization in World of Warcraft around Cataclysm and later. Both WoW and Diablo II were made by the same company... I found some similarities with the build system. I wouldn't be surprised if WoW took direct inspiration from Diablo II in the build optimization.

[Briste]

4 hours ago, Arcesius said:

Man, sounds like a great game  I have to say, it looks fantastic.. and I briefly considered asking Mori if he's interested in this one... But the way you describe it, it doesn't really fit with my current situation at home... Hell, I'm actually in a pretty similar situation right now, playing Darkest Dungeon... Only one more run! Only one more Shambler! Hell, I can still squeeze one more Expedition in! Freaking addictive. 

 

In any case.. from a gameplay perspective it seems like Path of Exile is your standard Diablo-clone.. but the way you describe it, it seems like it is more varied than Diablo III, at least.. I'm even more intrigued now that you talk about builds. How much freedom do you have there? The lack of build optimization is what I "dislike" most about Diablo III... especially because that wasn't lacking in Diablo II. 

 

Oh, and how long does it take more or less? 

This is going to be a bit of a wall of text, and most of it won't make a lot of sense unless you start playing...but I'll put it out there anyways

 

It really is a great game...with a handful of warts. The first and biggest wart is the somewhat instability of the server. I haven't had as many issues recently....but it's not uncommon to get rubber banding and huge lag spikes. My current problem however, is every few hours, the game shuts down and kicks me to the dashboard for an error. So far it hasn't been a big deal when it's happened...but if that happens during a boss fight or a map where I'll need every portal...it would be enraging. I had attempted to play with @Jens in the beginning and I had major lag issues so we stopped trying for quite while. We tried again a few weeks ago and it wasn't as bad, but you and Mori may have an easier go of things since you would be closer to your server. 

 

The next biggest wart is the trading/communication. As far as I can tell, you can't communicate in game with people. There is no chat box and you need an outside source to communicate like discord...which kind of sucks. There is no auction house or anything and you can't sell items unless you buy a stash tab. You get about seven stash tabs for free for storage, but you can't sell any items from the free ones...you have to pay for one...and honestly you really need to be able to sell items in order to make enough currency. It's not that big a deal since the game is free and $5 for a stash tab isn't killer...I bought a few and the best one I got was the currency tab.

 

The other annoying thing about trading, is someone can put an item up on the trading board and set a price...but they still have to approve the transaction...even if you give them exactly what they are asking for. It can take a day or two to get an item sometimes. Meanwhile your currency is tied up while you wait. You definitely need to only search the people online because there are a lot of dead accounts with gear on the trading board. If you bid on one of those, you'll never hear back and your currency could be tied up for days until you cancel the bid or the system expires your bid.

 

The items are also very expensive to get and the currency is a little weird. The currency in the game is not gold like Diablo, but is different crafting materials with the main trading currency being Chaos Orbs and Exalt Orbs. One Exalt Orb generally goes for 75-80 Chaos Orbs...and one Chaos Orb goes for 80 or so Orbs of Alteration and so on and so forth. You basically need to grind the lower forms of currency to trade up to the bigger forms of currency to finally get Exalt Orbs to purchase any decent gear. Crafting is really random and expensive and is generally not worth it as far as I can tell. You're better off saving your currency and buying someone else's lucky drop or craft. Unfortunately, the drop rates aren't great on most of the currency items. In all the hours I've played, I've only seen two Exalt Orbs drop...any I have gotten have come from grinding out lower currency and trading up. There are vendor recipes where you can trade in gear/loot that is dropped for decent currency and is very useful for grinding out some funds. It's not terribly hard to get decently geared to do most of the stuff in the game...but my other complaint is that it doesn't seem like the endgame is very viable unless you play certain builds.

 

Which brings me to one of the coolest features....how utterly expansive and customizable the passive skill tree is. It kind of resembles Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid and the nodes you can reach depend on the starting class you choose. I wanna say there are probably 1500 nodes and you can only pick about 120 of them...so the things you can reach with any one character are someone limited, but your options of what to build are quite expansive. When you couple that with the different skill gems you can socket to your gear....you're looking at extreme customization ability. But as I said...some things work much better than others and it's probably a good idea to use a build that someone else has tested that works on your first play through while you learn the game.

 

Overall, it is exactly a Diablo clone with waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more nuance. It is incredibly overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang of it is pretty impressive. I'm still learning stuff and I've easily put 150+ hours into this game since October. The cool thing is that the game keeps growing and growing as far as things to do. Every new league creates new features and once that league is over, the standard league absorbs a lot of the features and a lot of the endgame content gives you the choice to pursue some of those quest lines. The final downside is that the trophy list descriptions are currently inaccurate and misleading...and one trophy appears to be unobtainable at the moment....but I've heard may be trapped behind the current endgame atlas boss.

 

If you do decide to try this game, I would be more than happy to answer any questions I can and help out if possible. A new league starts in about 10 days or so and the endgame Atlas is undergoing an overhaul. I'm trying to hoard some maps at the moment so I am prepared. Some of the maps are quite rare/expensive so it's not worth running if you know you can't win.

 

I've put 150-200 hours into this game and I'd say I could be done in anywhere between 20 hours and 200 more hours depending on whether or not I can clear some of these maps and/or get the drops. I've, frustratingly, done three end game maps on my own that were quite expensive and failed all three. I'll need a better success rate or I'll never finish lol I'm going to stop trying on my on for now until I can beat the free endgame stuff in my sleep. I should have checked before I ran the map...but I learned last night that one of the unique maps I failed is worth 6-10 Exalt orbs on the trading board  That hurt lol If you get a good build or know someone who can carry you through the hard stuff, it could probably be done in 100 hours or so...not likely but could be done.

 

4 hours ago, Spaz said:

Diablo II is hands down one of the best and most memorable action RPGs of all time. It did in my opinion what DOOM did to first person shooters.

I agree. I played the first Diablo more than the second, mostly due to the timing of the releases and what I was doing at the time...but my brother played the hell out of D2 and I believe he still plays D3 a lot. Last I talked to him he said he was like the 15th rated Monk in the world during the last season/league or w/e. I played D3 on release and enjoyed it quite a bit...but then got into trophy hunting and moved on.

[Briste]

Put on your Sunday clothes there's lots of world out there!

 

It was a good day A game I thought was going to take me several weeks more to complete, (if I could complete it at all) I was able to knock out today thanks to the help of four awesome guys. I played through the majority of the game solo and then met the right group at the right time and shaved hours and hours off of what could have been. Having said all that!

 

Platinum #107

Path of Exile

I have to say that I did really enjoy this game. It is a Diablo clone on steroids and it truly has a lot to offer, especially for a free game. You could truly play this game for free, however it would make it much harder because you can't sell any items without buying an enhanced stash tab. It doesn't stop you from buying anything...just selling. There is too much to this game to really be able to sum it up in a few sentences. I will say that it does a ton of stuff well and some basic stuff very poorly. Graphically, this game won't blow you away on the PS4, and it suffers from serious rubber banding and frame rate drops at points. The servers aren't great (however were much better recently than when I started). The difficulty in this game ramps up enormously by the time you reach the end game. I went through the entire main story line only dying maybe five times and then died about a thousand times once I hit endgame. The game really lulls you into a false sense of security as you can be cruising along, disintegrating everything in your path with bolts of lightning and die in an instant. Once you hit level 90, it's not as big a deal since there is no trophy for level 100, but death looms constantly.

 

While I got quite a bit of help at the very end with a few extremely rare and expensive maps, and a couple end game bosses...I'm really proud that I was able to do most of this on my own. I was able to beat all of the Elderslayers and beat the current iteration of a 'final boss' in Sirus. They all were very challenging and caused several moments of rage, but were very satisfying to beat in the end. I won't say much about the game itself since it truly is a Diablo clone, only with so much more depth and nuance. I easily played this game for 200+ hours and still have no idea about most of it. I played as an Arc Lightning witch (Enki's build if you Google it) and had a good time with it. There are probably some better end game options, but this build was fun and pretty easy to learn. I definitely recommend starting off using a known build your first time around if you plan to play this game. It is way too easy to break your character in the passive skill tree and not every build can survive in end game. Having said that, the world is your oyster with regards to variety and between the passive skill tree and the gems you socket to your gear, the possibilities are near limitless.

 

My biggest issues with the game revolved around the stability of it. While the server lag seemed to improve recently...the game would shutdown about once every two hours due to an error which, thankfully, never really negatively impacted me. It very easily could have though and would be extremely rage inducing considering how hard, expensive and rare some of the levels are.  If you do plan on playing this game...do know that the current trophy descriptions are inaccurate and if you want to know what you need to do to pop them, you need to check the Achievements on the POE website. Not sure if they'll ever get around to updating the trophies. While I enjoyed the game a lot, I have a real hard time recommending it since they run a new season every 3-4 months which seems to break the trophies every time. I could easily seeing this platinum become unobtainable at some point with how drastically they alter things each league. Having said that, if you don't care about 100%, they are constantly working on this game and clearly care about it. This ranks in my top 5 most proud platinums, but I'm happy to be able to put this game behind me and move on to something else.

 

In real life...hope everyone is being smart and staying healthy! My job is forcing me to work remotely for at least two weeks and perhaps longer. I'll probably sneak a little gaming in here and there, but really want this to work so it can be an option when the world returns to normal. Be safe out there!

Edited March 18, 2020 by Briste

[det_gittes]

Congrats! It must be a huge relief knowing that this mammoth of a game is over. I wonder what will kick in first when you wake up - that you're done with PoE or the coronavirus ? Poland has entered lockdown, too - it's crazy what's going on, but at least Naughty Dog is getting a lot of free marketing for TLOU Part II  (though they may push the release by a few months given what's happening). 

[Litha]

8 hours ago, det_gittes said:

it's crazy what's going on, but at least Naughty Dog is getting a lot of free marketing for TLOU Part II

If the Coronavirus mutates and turns people into bitey fungus-men I think I'll finally hang up my hat and start living in a forest or something.

[Briste]

16 hours ago, det_gittes said:

Congrats! It must be a huge relief knowing that this mammoth of a game is over. I wonder what will kick in first when you wake up - that you're done with PoE or the coronavirus 

Thanks! It is a huge relief. Between the unknown around the Locomancer trophy and just how steep the difficulty ramps up at the end...I had serious doubts if I would be able to achieve this anytime soon. I was debating starting a new character in the new league and try a more end boss friendly build, but that would have just about doubled the time I would have needed so I'm happy I didn't have to go that route. It's definitely POE also lol The whole coronavirus thing doesn't seem like real life to me still...I'm doing my part with the social distancing...but still is very surreal. There are going to be some serious lasting economic impacts from this and I'm hoping that isn't what makes this turn real for me. I'm trying not to think too much about it and just take it day by day. My wife is my more on edge about this than I am...but I'm keeping her from going to crazy....she create a 'zombie apocalypse' crate that has canned goods and medical supplies...however in fairness to her, she made this a while ago in case of a storm/hurricane and just made sure it was stocked with stuff that isn't expired  

 

7 hours ago, SpaghettiGrabsy said:

If the Coronavirus mutates and turns people into bitey fungus-men I think I'll finally hang up my hat and start living in a forest or something.

You and me both lol

 

So it's been a good week with the games for me...without further ado:

 

Platinum #108

Heavy Rain

 

With all the challenging games on my slate, I took advantage of the fact there is no difficulty related trophy in this game and just played it on easy. With how stressful Indigo Prophecy was on hard...I didn't need more of that in my life lol. This game is markedly improved over Indigo with regards to the controls and QTE's. I didn't love that the QTE's could show up anywhere on the screen, but it was vastly better than the 'Simon Says' way of Indigo. I enjoyed both stories quite a bit with this game taking place in the realm of reality with Indigo being more in the fictional realm. I thought they did a great job with this story and I didn't find it to be predictable at all. I quite enjoyed the twists and turns and enjoyed the character arcs and the directions they took. My biggest problem with the game (and it's not really a problem) is how awkward it is to do QTE's during sex scenes. In both games, I felt the sex scenes were a little forced and felt unnatural (especially in Indigo). Other than the awkwardness of them, they were fine.

 

I got really lucky with what is considered one of the hardest trophies in this game...the Kamikaze trophy for taking the best route during the car chase scene. There is an occassional glitch in the game where the screen flashes...kind of like a strobe light. It happened to me the very first time I turned the game on and I had to restart to even get in the game. It happened again during the car chase scene and the strobing/flickering really slowed down the frame rate. I was able to take my time through that section since the game was moving in almost slow motion and got through it with no problem at all. I did learn something valuable too...the trouble spot where you can't hit the cop car...there are two QTE's there. You have to jerk the wheel to the right and then immediately to the left. The second QTE happens so quickly (even on easy) that it is really easy to miss. I didn't see it the few times I tried it while the game moved at a normal speed. But when I came back to the game after a couple weeks of POE, I got that strobing and could clearly see the second QTE. I did that part in normal speed when I went back for my Perfect Crime playthrough and it worked. I've seen a ton of speculation on how that part needs to be done...but I can say for a fact it is a hard right and then a hard left immediately after.

 

The only other trouble spot was the part where you have to crawl through glass. The controls were very hard and turning was near impossible. I discovered you have to lightly hold down R2 if you want to be able to turn. I was just clicking it slowly so I didn't get all tore up and was unable to turn that way. Other than that, this game ran well and was pretty easy to get through. It was free and a good story and I would recommend it if you haven't played it. I followed the guide on here for the Perfect Crime trophy and it worked perfectly. I have to give Quantic Dream credit...so far they are 2 for 2 with their storytelling. I'm looking forward to the last two games in the 'series'.

 

Next up for me is probably Beyond Two Souls. I started Jurassic World Evolution to play with my son since he loves dinosaurs AND museums so he's really enjoying building the park with me. That will be a long term project that I just play with him and I have no timetable for when that needs to be completed. I also swear that after I finish Detroit: Become Human I will finally play the ME series lol

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 19.3.2020 at 4:11 AM, Briste said:

I also swear that after I finish Detroit: Become Human I will finally play the ME series lol

 

[ ] We shall see...

[x] Finally

[ ] Huh?

[Rally-Vincent---]

Sneaking a milestone by unnoticed? Sneaky...

[Briste]

On 3/25/2020 at 4:08 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Sneaking a milestone by unnoticed? Sneaky...

lol yeah a little bit. I had a few things in mind when I got there and wasn't sure how it would shake out. If it took me a while longer to beat PoE and I hadn't gotten as many trophies as I have lately, I would've probably had a FF7 Remake trophy. But after I got PoE done, I got on a role and my other choice was A Man of Action, which kind of fits my prior milestones. I almost changed it up last minute and got G.O.A.T. from MLB the Show 19, but that ended up going a little longer than expected....speaking of which...

 

Platinum #109

MLB The Show 19

I started this game back around my 4500th milestone. I wanted to Nothing Like the Smell of Bacon from Alice and I needed about 10 trophies or so to get there. This had just come out and was free and I like MLB 18 enough so figured what the hell. I should've looked at the trophy list first, but assumed it wasn't bad since 18 was easy enough. Boy was I wrong...Welcome to the Chip was just a terrible trophy, trapped behind a shitty MP setup. The game is actually quite fun and I had a blast playing the 'Road to the Show' game mode where you create a player and work him up through the minor leagues and into the major leagues. That is actually one of the coolest things about this game is all the different game modes there are. You can play 'Moments' where they put you in a famous situation and you have to come through just like the player did in real life.

 

Your team is compiled of baseball cards you get from packs or buy on the auction house. Some of the cards are insanely expensive and that's why they put in micro transactions to buy stubs...the in-game currency. It is an absolute waste of money though since you can get a pretty stacked team pretty quickly by playing the different game modes. I got a team full of diamond players (85 rating or higher) pretty quickly and didn't spend a dime. The biggest downside to this whole system is you cannot trade your cards or give them away. I'm sure they did it to prevent RMT, etc...but that was the cool thing about baseball cards growing up was the trading. It seems like a hugely missed opportunity to me...

 

The biggest drawback in the whole game is just how hard it is to hit. On the easy settings it's not too bad at all, but once you start playing Diamond Dynasty mode (MP) for Welcome to the Chip (achieved by attaining 800 points in MP), it gets extremely frustrating. You can make square contact on a good timed swing and ground out to short. Sometimes when you clearly pull the ball it goes the other way. Unless you're godly at the game...hitting seems more luck based than anything else. I tried getting this trophy legit and gave up in December...it's really easy to get to 400 points since you don't lose any when you lose a game until that point. Once you hit 400 points though, you start to lose them after a loss....and the point loss is pretty significant. When I made my run in December, I won 9 games in a row and got up to 635 points from 400. I then lost 5 games in a row and was back down to 465...and then the league season reset and it dropped me all the way back to 400 points. The league resets once a month and my plan was to wait until MLB 20 came out and season infinity started (no resets) and try again. As luck would have it, several other people had a similar idea and a boosting thread was made on the trophy page. I was able to hook up with those guys and get it done I will say that they make it really hard to boost. You can only match up with the same player once every three days so it involved several people...several alt accounts just to feed points and many hours of trying to match up with a guy in the group. We got a really good system down and I have to give a shout out to @CupOfJoe4, @Zmanphins54 and @Im2Fast_4U who I did the majority of the grinding it out with. I also need to give a huge thanks to @ryuji_sakujo and @KriiuZ for setting up the thread and staying up very, very late for them to make sure everyone that joined and contributed got their trophy.

 

While I genuinely enjoyed this game outside of that one trophy...I am really happy to be able to delete this game off of my system after the weekend. I'll probably end up getting MLB 20 when the price drops just to play 'Road to the Show' again. Now, it's time to finish up Spec Ops: The Line and Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human so I can finally get to my Mass Effect series run.

[ryuji_sakujo]

On 3/27/2020 at 6:18 AM, Briste said:

I was able to hook up with those guys and get it done I will say that they make it really hard to boost. You can only match up with the same player once every three days so it involved several people...several alt accounts just to feed points and many hours of trying to match up with a guy in the group. We got a really good system down and I have to give a shout out to @CupOfJoe4, @Zmanphins54 and @Im2Fast_4U who I did the majority of the grinding it out with. I also need to give a huge thanks to @ryuji_sakujo and @KriiuZ for setting up the thread and staying up very, very late for them to make sure everyone that joined and contributed got their trophy.

You got it buddy! ?

 

I read through your bio, wow really interesting gaming journey.

I think you and @KriiuZ are both megafans of Final Fantasy, I've only enjoyed a few of them in the series but I did get FF7 as a birthday present when I was like 11 years old, and it will forever be the best one, in my own subjective opinion.
Best of luck in your gaming journey going forward and enjoy whatever you decide to play. ?

[Zmanphins54]

On 3/27/2020 at 1:18 AM, Briste said:

As luck would have it, several other people had a similar idea and a boosting thread was made on the trophy page. I was able to hook up with those guys and get it done I will say that they make it really hard to boost. You can only match up with the same player once every three days so it involved several people...several alt accounts just to feed points and many hours of trying to match up with a guy in the group. We got a really good system down and I have to give a shout out to @CupOfJoe4, @Zmanphins54 and @Im2Fast_4U who I did the majority of the grinding it out with. I also need to give a huge thanks to @ryuji_sakujo and @KriiuZ for setting up the thread and staying up very, very late for them to make sure everyone that joined and contributed got their trophy.

 

Glad I could be a part of it! Feel free to hit me up if you ever want to boost again!

[Briste]

On 3/28/2020 at 9:00 AM, ryuji_sakujo said:

I think you and @KriiuZ are both megafans of Final Fantasy, I've only enjoyed a few of them in the series but I did get FF7 as a birthday present when I was like 11 years old, and it will forever be the best one, in my own subjective opinion.

I have been a megafan and I can't wait for next week when the Remake comes out. I feel like they've slipped recently as they have changed the type of game they were. I know the turn based games are more a thing of the past...but I really loved them and Final Fantasy is turning into every other style of game. They were built on good stories, interesting battle mechanics and amazing sound tracks and I think they've kind of lost their way a bit. I'll keep buying whatever they put out due to nostalgia and the hope they recapture that magic...but I don't feel the same buzz about them that I used to.

 

On 3/29/2020 at 11:45 PM, Zmanphins54 said:

Glad I could be a part of it! Feel free to hit me up if you ever want to boost again!

This was my first real boosting session and it was overall a pretty good experience. I definitely prefer to do things without gaming the system...but for bullshit trophies like that I guess I'm good to make an exception Same goes for you too! I'd be happy to help if you need someone some time!

 

I'm a little up in the air with what I want to do right now...I've been playing Jurassic World Evolution a lot this week. It started as something to do with my son who loves dinosaurs...but the game is actually really fun and addicting. You lose track of time so easily and on more than one occasion I went to bed waaaay after my bed time by accident. I've basically finished the main game and it is a good spot to pause and finish up Spec Ops: The Line hopefully before Final Fantasy 7 Remake comes out. I did want to beat all of the Quantic Dream games in order and in a row...however they really have nothing to do with one another, so I don't mind a few games in between. I'll still finish the series in order...just not in a row.

 

My current plan is to finish Spec Ops first and then go right into FF7R. Once that is done I will finish up Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human and be ready for ME...I'm in no actual rush to beat Jurassic World and will probably just play it off and on with my son to get the DLC and final regular game trophies done.

 

How's everyone handling quarantine? My wife is going bananas....I, however, am living the dream...if it weren't for the whole 12 Monkeys/Outbreak life we're living right now...

[AJ_Radio]

I only just saw your platinum on MLB The Show 19. Very impressive man. That's definitely a game I probably can't do myself. Hopefuly MLB The Show 20 is much easier.

 

It's stupid that Beyond Two Souls requires two controllers for the platinum.

[Arcesius]

Man, congrats on the MLB plat! That took quite the effort, mhm? ? 

 

5 hours ago, Briste said:

I've basically finished the main game and it is a good spot to pause and finish up Spec Ops: The Line hopefully before Final Fantasy 7 Remake comes out.

 

Did you pre-order FF VII? I'm still a bit hesitant... When the announcement was made I thought it would be a day-1 purchase for me. But now that we know it's episodic, plus the guys that played the Demo and loved the original really weren't all too impressed with the new combat system, among other things... 

 

You could put me on a deserted island with the three games I'm playing right now (Crypt, Trials and Nioh 2) and I would never get bored ever again, so I think I might wait a bit before I decide to purchase the remake, since I have plenty to play right now... 

 

 

Quote

How's everyone handling quarantine? My wife is going bananas....I, however, am living the dream...if it weren't for the whole 12 Monkeys/Outbreak life we're living right now...

 

Lol ? I think a couple of months ago my girlfriend and I would be in the same situation you are now.. she would go crazy and I would be pretty much indifferent. But actually it's working out very well for the both of us. On the one hand she has plenty to do with the baby (I have to work during the week), so she has no time to be bored, and I can work from home and get to see them all the time ? And while I don't get to play as much as I'd want to, once the little one is sleeping we don't have any other commitments, so I can still get some gaming time in... 

 

Hope you all stay safe! 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Arcesius