The Gamer Thread Vol. 5 (General Gaming News & Discussion)

[Parrylakks Neko Samurai Find all posts View Profile Close Parrylakks]

This situation certainly won't help their floundering business, that's for sure. Looking at it from the outside, I'd say it's a lot like Blockbuster, but I was kinda on the inside of that one as it began (on the management team of a local store), so I might be reading too much into the similarities I see.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Beat Asylum on normal, grabbed all collectibles and a few trophies, and am almost to the second boss on hard while grabbing as many collectibles as possible (helps to have a fresh memory). Not having as much trouble as I expected, mostly the sometimes-wonky physical movements cause me to miss a punch and take one or get caught in enemy vision, but other than that I'm doing very well.

And of course this makes me wish an Arkhamverse Deathstroke solo game existed, or at least a short DLC campaign where he completes various takedowns or some such existed. Supposedly he's unlockable in Arkham Knight but I haven't played that in ages and didn't get very far so I don't want to spoil myself just yet.

edit -- took a few tries but I managed to beat the second boss on hard (oddly, the sewer maze portion before that was somehow less frustrating and overall easier for me, probably because I had just done it), but I'm stopping there because the final boss is next and I can do that after work tomorrow.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

[Parrylakks Neko Samurai Find all posts View Profile Close Parrylakks]

A remastered version of Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy was released on PS4 this week, and a friend of mine was kind enough to buy it for me. It was one of my earliest online gaming obsessions back in the day, setting the stage for what would eventually become a full blown CoD addiction. Playing it again is full of nostalgia, but the way they set up the controls to be like a modern shooter actually makes it fun to play again. Unfortunately, every time I tried to get into an online game, the connection would time out. I wonder if there's even anyone playing online. Regardless, it's fun to play it again.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Seriously!? Damn, I loved that game on Xbox when it came out. Gonna have to load up my PS wallet with funds for all the shit I need to get, including that.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Spent the whole day grinding side missions and control points and finally got my Hardcore mode agent to level 30 in Division 2.

I still have the one mission left, I think, and then the three strongholds before I have to do everything all over again against Black Tusk while working to gear score 500/world tier 5. And then I can take a huge fucking break to grind my ass off in Destiny 2 for Redrix's Broadsword (75 Crucible matches my ass!).

But at least I remembered to renew my PS Plus for another year.

edit -- decided to go ahead and do the last mission tonight so that I only have the strongholds and Black Tusk reset to worry about next. Didn't have much trouble, thankfully.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Beat District Union Arena last night, and Roosevelt Island and Capitol Building just now. Managing to enter world tier 1 was a huge relief, especially considering I never thought I'd get this far. Even exploiting the recalibration library to apply max stats to my gear, I still had a few close calls (especially when my stupid drone decided it didn't want to do anything other than hang around like a clay pigeon, not even trying to attack enemies).

I'm going to have to play it relatively safe from here on because Black Tusk can be truly annoying and there will be a few spots where I need to be prepared for difficulty (especially the timer near one mission's end, that'll drive me nuts). But now I have a fair bit of in-game money to repeatedly modify my gear with max stats so that I'm not always at a severe disadvantage.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

Using my extra time, I finished all challenges (apart from yet-to-purchase DLC) on Hitman Season 2. Dang was sniper, silent assassin suit only difficult on the last level, professional difficulty. I must be nuts.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

https://www.reddit.com/r/thedivision...or_dps_glitch/

Division 2 is a blazing inferno of problems at the moment for everyone except a relative handful of players.

1) DPS glitch that allows you to do absolutely astronomical amounts of damage (one guy in that linked thread says a teammate he matchmade with was doing 1800M using a pistol/shield). This allowed players to destroy difficult content with ease and utterly nuke other players in PvP encounters.

2) Massive declared they would be using temporary bans and marking accounts for violators, and reset your personal saves to March 17 so that anything earned since then is lost and must be regained.

3) Huge problem: the ban is based on session host, so even if you've never glitched you will be banned if a total stranger in your matchmade team did, totally screwing over innocent players. Of course, a number of YouTubers/streamers are apparently untouched by this and enjoying a good laugh at everyone else's expense.

4) Massive may have directly violated Ubisoft's Terms of Service by issuing a sudden ban without 5-day notice first. How this will play out remains to be seen, but Massive getting sorely chastised for a knee-jerk action and forced to properly address the issue would be immensely gratifying.

I'm very disappointed in the poorly-thought-out and poorly-executed actions. I wasn't affected because I've been doing Hardcore only and I've not even touched the Dark Zone since forever, but this is still unacceptable.

I was looking forward to Warlords of New York and wanted to get it once it was on discount (and with some debugging), but this failure of quality control makes me deeply upset at someone I should be enjoying.

edit --- cleared two Hardcore missions to get ready for the first invaded stronghold, and after I beat that I'll enter world tier 2. Had some trouble because the damn grenade launcher hesitated to shoot and if I didn't have insanely high armor, I'd probably be dead and have lost the will to play Hardcore. I doubt I'll get better guns/gear so I'm just going to have to work on taking down the enemies as carefully as possible and not rushing. I didn't have any serious issues yet so I should be fine.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

More close calls, but I managed to clear Invaded Roosevelt Island and enter world tier 3. I barely managed to scrounge up funds though, because you get experience and crafting materials more often than you get currency in this game, and the frequent amount of loot you don't want/need is your only regular source of funds.

In turn, I can barely find a suitable assault rifle, but it shouldn't be long before a random drop fixes that. I'm going to need it for the Invaded Space Admin boss. And much better skill mods, because my drone is pathetic.

edit -- good news is I can grind low-level bounties for plenty of funds. I also managed to get through Invaded Capitol Building and reach world tier 4. Now to be absolutely sure I can take on Tidal Basin and "beat" Hardcore mode.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Killed by a fucking free-roaming named boss who spotted me from a distance as I was heading to a control point. Enemies were from different factions but naturally all were shooting at me instead of each other. Even though I had fairly high armor it was shredded and my health disappeared almost instantly under that much firepower.

Nearly 72 hours' worth of playtime down the drain. And all I had left was Tidal Basin and then I could have quit out.

God fucking damn it.

It's gonna take fucking forever to grind all of it back up.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Well, I immediately restarted a new Hardcore character, and this time I'm going to be a lot more diligent and check more frequently so I can make best use of available upgrades so I get through it all faster than before. Also going to remember not to sacrifice a little more armor in favor of a little more damage, that was definitely a contributing factor to my demise last night.

I figure that if I crack away at it regularly and with previous lessons in mind, it should only take me a couple weeks to get through it all, at least reach my last point.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

We had power outages (caused by winds fucking with power lines, I'm sure) so I held off on even using my PS4 until late tonight. When I turned it on I didn't feel like playing Hardcore so instead I grabbed a number of collectibles in Arkham Asylum and then started playing Arkham City.

It looks gorgeous in its remastered state, even better than Asylum (though I swear that was the case with its original release). Gameplay is still smooth as melting butter even though I need to get used to the flight controls all over again. I remembered to throw a remote batarang at Azrael after taking out Dent, so I deserve a pat on the back.

But looking over the trophy list reminds me that visiting fucking Calendar Man for 12 days an entire year is something expected of players. I swear I got it on Xbox 360 back during original release but not on PS3, and I doubt I'm going to get it on both PS3 and 4 since that would mean constantly reconnecting plugs just for one goddamn trophy. I still somewhat admire the idea, but this trophy shows that even Rocksteady can make mistakes.

But other than that, I already know I'm going to have a total blast playing it. Already I'm recognizing a ton of old clues (like Tommy Elliot in the church).

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

We had power outages (caused by winds fucking with power lines, I'm sure) so I held off on even using my PS4 until late tonight. When I turned it on I didn't feel like playing Hardcore so instead I grabbed a number of collectibles in Arkham Asylum and then started playing Arkham City.

It looks gorgeous in its remastered state, even better than Asylum (though I swear that was the case with its original release). Gameplay is still smooth as melting butter even though I need to get used to the flight controls all over again. I remembered to throw a remote batarang at Azrael after taking out Dent, so I deserve a pat on the back.

But looking over the trophy list reminds me that visiting fucking Calendar Man for 12 days an entire year is something expected of players. I swear I got it on Xbox 360 back during original release but not on PS3, and I doubt I'm going to get it on both PS3 and 4 since that would mean constantly reconnecting plugs just for one goddamn trophy. I still somewhat admire the idea, but this trophy shows that even Rocksteady can make mistakes.

But other than that, I already know I'm going to have a total blast playing it. Already I'm recognizing a ton of old clues (like Tommy Elliot in the church).

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

...But looking over the trophy list reminds me that visiting fucking Calendar Man for 12 days an entire year is something expected of players. . .

I think I rolled the clock on my PS3 to get that. I know I did some legit (I remember going on for a minute one Christmas to get that), but I think when I learned that 'hack' I decided it was worth it for 100% before waiting a year.