Transitioning from rally racing to buggies on a short track was not without its challenges.
Final Fantasy XIV is really welcoming to us noobs
Through an unexpected sequence of events I won’t recount here, I’m back playing Final Fantasy XIV.
I have the weirdest history with FFXIV which I also won’t recount, but for all intents and purposes I went back to the game as a total noob. Couldn’t remember how to play so I rolled a new character and I’m playing exclusively on the PS4 (so far at least).
FFXIV has always indicated noobs (they use the more polite term Novice) by putting a little seedling icon next to the player name. You’re considered a novice for 168 hours (14 days) or until you hit some point in the story that I’ve already forgotten. I ~think~ it is the end of the main story questline from the original game at launch.
In addition to Novices, there are Mentors. Mentors are players who have offered to help Novices, but there are guidelines for who can become a Mentor. You have to have accomplished certain achievements in game and there are different types of Mentors (Trade Mentor, PvE Mentor, PvP Mentor or just plain Mentor). Here’s a list of Mentor requirements.
When a Mentor and a Novice group up, they both get a 20% experience bonus (up to level 20), so there’s an incentive for the two groups to interact.
Additionally there’s a persistent chat channel called the Novice Network. It’s only open to Novice players and Mentors. It’s supposed to be a channel for getting questions answered. The only flaw in the system I’ve seen so far is that a Novice has to be invited into the channel by a Mentor. My new character was level 20 or so by the time he’d encountered a Mentor to invite him in. I’m surprised Novices aren’t auto-joined to the channel.
There’s a new (to me anyway) NPC in the starting hubs called a Smith and they’ll tell you all about Novices and Mentors. At level 15 they’ll also direct you to the Hall of the Novice. This is essentially a series of solo mini-dungeons that teaches you how to play an MMO as your class. I’m an Archer so I got sent through the DPS series of tasks. The Hall taught me to avoid telegraphed attacks, taught me to attack the mob the (NPC) tank was tanking, taught me to pull adds off the healer, and so forth. I knew all this stuff but I imagine if this had been my first MMO rodeo the Hall would’ve been a great learning tool, plus you get some new gear for going through the mini-dungeons (you can do them all in maybe 30 minutes, tops).
If you don’t choose to do the Hall of the Novice at 15, you’ll get sent there before Sastasha, the first dungeon that you unlock. Since I’d already done the Hall, I’m not sure if doing it is mandatory before Sastasha or if it is just recommended.
In addition to being a Novice, you may be a Returner. A Returner is someone who has returned to the game. In order to qualify you have to have one class to at least level 50 and have been gone from the game for 45 days. Returners get the same bonus exp and access to the Novice network. They have a little flower next to their name.
I don’t usually interact with other players in MMOs (ironic, I know) but when I was randomly invited into the Novice Network I accepted. It’s a pretty active channel and at least for the short time I’ve been in it, quite civil. It’s definitely kind of chatty…I saw a long discussion about Pokemon games taking place in it. But when I did ask a question or two I always got an answer, and often several.
This experience drew me out of my shell a bit, and by Sunday afternoon I’d dug out a bluetooth keyboard so I could talk in the Novice Network more easily (typing with the controller isn’t ideal). I saw that there’s a linkshell that extends the Novice Network; I guess folks were making friends in the NN and then getting kicked out thanks to no longer being a novice, and so they created a player-run version to keep in touch.
I played a ton of FF XIV over the weekend and had 1 bad experience (playing a female character and having some creep sending my tells about how sexy I was) but other than that, my experience with the player base was very positive. I ran 3 dungeons, they all did not go perfectly, but no one was giving anyone grief about it.
Overall the way FF XIV welcomed me as a player kind of re-kindled my love of MMOs.
Dirt Rally is a pleasant surprise
I’ve been interested in Dirt Rally for a while now but always avoided it because I kept hearing about how difficult it was. One reviewer called it “the Dark Souls of racing games.” I know myself well enough to admit that I’d probably never get good enough at Dirt Rally to enjoy it. I’m just too much of a game grazer.
Then the stars aligned. I watched the Indy 500 on TV Sunday and that put me in the mood for a driving game. I fired up Drive Club but I have never been able to get the hang of that game for some reason. Then I noticed Dirt Rally was on sale for $20 including all the DLC so I said what the heck and bought it.
My first surprise is that the cars on-offer go back as far as the 1960s and the first car you get is a Mini from that era. It’s not very fast, which means it’s pretty easy to drive. I left the transmission set to auto and I’ve been playing from outside the car and I’m finding driving this thing is pretty manageable.
The second surprise was how fun the ‘meta game’ is. I jumped right into the Career mode. They start you off with a free car and a small wad of cash and send you off to an event. Each event (so far anyway) is comprised of 4 rally races. Damage to your car accumulates over time. Between race 2 & 3 you get a chance to make repairs but there’s a limited amount of time so you need to prioritize what needs attention most.
At the end of the event you get prize winnings based on how well you did, but you also have repair costs deducted.
I love this system because it means during each race you have to balance the desire to place well with awareness of how much damage you’re doing to the car. In fact if you wreck badly enough you’ll be out of both the race and the event, and you’ll probably lose money on that event. You need to play smart. For example in one event I was doing pretty well then had a bad wreck in race three. The car was still driveable but from there on out I was more concerned with not having it break down than I was in coming in first, so I had to nurse it through the remainder of race 3 and through race 4, since I knew coming in farther back in the standings was a lot better than not finishing due to car failure.
Another aspect of the meta game is hiring team engineers. You pick from a list of engineers that are rated for different systems of the car. Better engineers expect to be paid more. The overall rating of your team impacts how many repairs can get done during an event. If all your engineers are experts in suspension it’ll take very little time to get the suspension repaired, for example.
So, I’m having fun so far. I don’t expect I’ll ever work my way up to the super rally cars since I probably won’t have the skill to control them, but for $20 I don’t mind if I only access half the game, if that makes sense.
There’s a lot more to the package, including Hill Climbing, Rally Cross and of course there’s an online component. But for now I’m practicing in my Mini and trying to get used to driving according to the instructions of my co-driver. I usually crash when I stop paying attention to him. Sometimes his instructions become white noise in my brain since there are so many and I don’t understand them all. But I’m learning! And having fun, and that’s what matters, right?
OMG Finished Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force
What a slog that was. I started playing Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force in December, after getting it for cheap in a Black Friday Sale last November. Initially I liked it. It was goofy and kind of crude but it made me laugh. Fifty-ish hours later, my feelings have changed considerably.
When I say I finished the game, I mean I got to the ending credits and saw one of several endings. Essentially I got to the ending of Fairy Fencer F, the original game. Advent Dark Force adds more endings, I guess. I am NOT going to play through this game again to get another ending, and I’m not going to chase trophies.
The problem with FFF, for me, is that it’s just kind of shallow for an RPG. There’s no real exploration or crafting and there’s not even much character development. You just teleport into dungeons and grind your way through mobs, and the turn-based combat gets dull fast. As you fight you get Weapon Points that you can use to unlock different skills and such, but honestly I mostly spend 50 hours hitting the X button over and over again.
Characters have a couple of gear slots, so there’s a little bit of loot collecting, but nothing very satisfying.
I also found it irksome that the monsters play by different rules than characters do. While characters all take a turn based on some kind of speed rating, monsters often attack several times in a row, which always felt really cheap.
Combat is slow paced, but holding R2 down speeds up the animations and stuff. I basically played the 2nd half of the game while holding down R2 and it still felt like a slog.
But what really ruined the game for me was that about half-way through, there’s like a time-jump and you go back to the start of the game and have to play through the same dungeons a second time. When this happens you lose all the characters you’ve added to your party and have to re-add them.
Anyway, not for me. I’m not sure why I got it stuck in my craw that I was determined to finish the game, but I did. So every Monday since the start of the year I’d play a little bit. And I did it. I guess that’s something. But man, it was NOT fun.
Skip this one.
Marvel Heroes early access wrap-up and open beta info
Everyone on PS4 can start playing Marvel Heroes Omega today! We hope. As of now it isn’t showing up in the store yet. You should be able to find it under Free To Play sooner or later. There ARE a bunch of Founder’s Packs available now that you can pay for, but at some point today a totally free option should pop up. It’ll give you Daredevil and then when you finish the tutorial you should get enough Eternity Splinters to buy a 2nd hero. Maybe not any hero.. a few carry a premium price. But most will be affordable.
[UPDATE]It’s up now. Here is the link to the beta in the store.[/UPDATE]
[UPDATE #2]There’s a separate link for Daredevil in the store. Not sure if you need to ‘buy’ him (he’s free) separate or not, but here it is.
And if you’re a PS+ member you can get a free “Man Without Fear” costume for him, too.[/UPDATE #2]
The Twitter account suggests that Gazillion expected the free version to be available by now:
Sorry for the inconvenience guys! We are looking into the store page for our game. We will update you asap. Thanks! https://t.co/7AlZqPoXIZ
— Marvel Heroes Omega (@MarvelHeroes) May 23, 2017
There won’t be any more wipes so even though its Open Beta you can play it like its launched.
I finished out Early Access at level 47 or 48 and having completed chapter 8 of the 9 chapter campaign. I stuck with Angela. If you’re looking for an easy-mode hero that is cheap, Angela is for you. I think she cost 250 Eternity Splinters (most heroes are at least twice that) and I think the first time I died was at level 35, and then mostly because I wasn’t paying attention.
Doctor Doom, the final boss of chapter 8, was a different story. I died to him a few times before I finally took him out. He dropped a level 52 item though, so I guess maybe I got there ‘ahead of schedule’. Fun battle though. Lots of dodging and weaving and the bastard has the audacity to heal himself!
Yes I guess that’s a spoiler but really the story here is pretty basic; I don’t think anyone is playing this game for the narrative. It’s just a mechanic used to walk you through different regions of the Marvel universe to do battle. I’m actually looking forward to finishing the story because then I’ll start doing all the side-stuff that I’ve been ignoring. (Stuff unlocks pretty early…I just opted to stick with the story.)
I bought a Founder’s Pack that came with Spiderman and 500 Gazillion Bux, or whatever the currency is called. I spent 200 of those to expand my inventory once. I’m thinking of buying more Gazillion Bux to expand my stash just because I’m a pack rat. But really you don’t have to do these things. Pretty early on you unlock “Body Slide” which is the Town Portal of Marvel Heroes and it becomes quick and easy to go back to a base to sell off your excess gear.
Once I get Angela to 60 I’ll level up Spidey, I guess. We’ll see. I have enough Splinters to buy someone else, too. The desire to “collect ’em all” is strong in me.
Anyway, rambling. Just wanted to remind PS4 owners that you can start playing today!
Quick tip for Marvel Heroes on console
I’ve played a decent amount of Marvel Heroes Omega beta this weekend on PS4. I got one character to level 35 or so and so far I’m having fun.
After a long play session though, one thing did start to bug me, and that was inventory management. You collect a lot of loot while tearing through swarms of enemies; I guess some players just ignore most of it but I’m too OCD for that. So I’m constantly filling up on loot then needing to sort through it to see what’s worth saving and what’s worth selling/donating.
The basic way of accessing inventory is through radial menus. You open the main menu, point at Inventory which opens a second radial menu with loot categorized by slot. Then you pick a slot, look at everything, then back out and drill down again to look at another slot. It isn’t bad, really, but after a while it gets tedious.
Happily Gazillion gives us some shortcuts but if you’re as dense as me you might not notice them right away. Ergo this post. First, a screenshot.
You see I’ve used my advanced artistic abilities to highlight two areas.
The first at the top-center is the L2 indicator. Tapping L2 lets you sort items within a slot in various ways. It defaults to By Name but you can cycle through By Rarity, By Defensive Power, By Offensive Power and so on. When you have a ton of stuff in one slot this can be really helpful (it might not be so obvious given I just had a few swords when I took the screenshot).
Second is towards the bottom. By holding R2 you can use the D-pad Left-Right buttons to quickly move from slot to slot. It took me HOURS to notice this and it really helps a lot. It’s much faster then backing out and having to “aim” at the slot you want to look in.
Not illustrated, but when you’re donating gear to a crafter there’s a shortcut in this area to Donate All, so in general keep any eye on this area to learn the various shortcuts they’ve given us. You can also use R2 (hoping I’m remembering that right) at the crafter to switch between your inventory and your stash.
I know for most people all of this will be completely obvious, but like I said, I’m dense and it took me hours of play to notice them. Hope this helps someone else!
Marvel Heroes Omega Early Access report
Open beta for Marvel Heroes Omega starts next week, but if you were in the closed beta you get to start today. I was and I did. Everyone else can play free I believe on Tuesday.
I’m really enjoying this game. I know all my PC gamer friends have been playing Marvel Heroes since forever, but for some reason my PC and Marvel Heroes never got along, so even back when I was playing PC games I never got a chance to play much of MH. But the nature of this game just makes it ideal (to me) as a couch game. In fact it supports couch co-op so you and a friend can play together, side-by-side.
If you haven’t played Marvel Heroes in a while, you may be surprised to learn that the whole “Level up, earn points, spend points” system has been replaced. Now you just unlock powers as you level from 1-30 and don’t have any choices beyond what keys to bind powers to. I WANT to complain about this since it “dumbs down” the game, but in practice I like this just find. This is just a fun game to me and I’m OK if I don’t have to research builds or what not in order to have a good character. There’re systems beyond powers that kick in much later in the game and maybe that’s when you have to start thinking hard about what you’re doing, but early on it’s just a casual hoot.
There was one glitch with the launch of early access, in case you hear stories about this. When you create a Marvel Heroes account, you get a bundle of “Eternity Splinters” to spend on a hero. Between closed and open beta they bumped up the cost of Heroes, but they forgot to bump up the amount of Eternity Splinters they gave new accounts. That meany very few heroes (2 I think) were affordable for new accounts.
Gazillion realized their mistake pretty quickly and gifted affected players with an additional 500 Eternity Splinters, so we actually made out. I’d purchased Angela (from Spawn, I’m told) since she was cheap, but now I have enough Eternity Splinters to buy another hero.
Of course everyone is mad at Gazillion but it wouldn’t be the Internet if they weren’t. I’m not. Like I said, I feel like I got a bonus and I’m enjoying playing Angela.
So far, servers seem stable, everything else is working well. People are grinding through mobs and busting boss-loot-pinatas and it’s just a gas. I can’t wait to play more. Hopefully everything will stay as solid when the doors are open and everyone comes rushing in.
OK, maybe I was wrong about Destiny 2
[UPDATE] Playstation Blog just published a good Destiny 2 post. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned:
Class Abilities: A new, third rechargeable icon next to your melee and grenade. Warlocks can hold circle to create a small rift on the ground that either heals or empowers allies. Hunters get a dodge ability (a la Shadestep, but on a cooldown) that will refill your melee charge if used near enemies. Titans can create a small barrier in front of them to protect themselves and teammates. As this barrier takes damage, it displays a cool “shattering” effect so you can tell at a glance how close it is to breaking.
[Original Post Follows]
I have been pretty strongly anti-Destiny 2 for the past few months, but after today’s reveal event I’m having second thoughts. I may have been — likely was — wrong about the direction Bungie is taking the new game.
First let me set the stage. I LOVED Destiny when it came out. I loved it when everyone was hating on it for not having a story and all that. And when The Taken King came out, I was pretty happy..for a while. But then it seemed to me like Bungie was really emphasizing the PvP (Crucible) content and the end-game Raids, and they were kind of leaving solo players behind. I assumed, now that everything is esports and games-as-a-service, that the company would really lean-into those two pillars in Destiny 2, and any single player content would be more or less an afterthought.
But assuming we take everything we learned from the stream today at face value, I was wrong. First we learned that there are Bungie team members who prefer playing solo. Yay! And they talked about how exploring the worlds being a much bigger part of Destiny 2. There will be more to do on planets than the campaign quests and patrols, though the details of what these additional features entail are a little vague. But adding “Adventures” sounds like a good thing. Announcing ahead of time world events so you have time to get to them? Also a good thing. Hidden areas that sounded a bit like The Elder Scrolls Online’s delves (areas that contain a loot chest with a boss to hold the key) — that sounds good too.
Of course Destiny 2 will still have Crucible PvP, 6-man Raids and 3-man Strikes, so we’re not losing anything. The additional solo content is additive. Everyone should be happy and I’m back on board.
I’m less sure about Guided Gaming which is a fancy name for their matchmaking. Destiny 2 will have proper clan support. The idea behind Guided Gaming (maybe Guided Games? Forgive me if I have the name wrong) is that if you’re solo you can rent yourself out to a clan that has a slot to fill. I guess the idea is that instead of 6 random people joining together to do a raid, it’ll be 5 people from a clan and 1 random person. Or maybe 4 people from a clan and 2 randoms. The argument being, I guess, that if at least 4 or 5 of the players know each other there’ll be less chaos and more group cohesion (when compared to a group of complete strangers).
I understand the logic, but wow, do I ever find that even more intimidating than joining a random group. At least when you join a random group everyone is a peer. But if I join a group consisting of 5 people who know each other and game together regularly, I don’t see any way I’m not going to feel like the 6th wheel.
It’s an academic point for me because I’m too old and sucky at shooters to ever inflict myself on a group, but it’ll be interesting to see how this all works out. I guess I have to applaud Bungie for trying something new. They freely admit that they’re trying to do something about the frequently toxic environments brought about by matchmaking. The one silver lining for me is that as the solo player, you don’t just get tossed in with a clan group. Instead you choose them, and you can browse the clans that are looking for an extra player. You see the clan name, emblem and a brief description. Who knows, maybe I’ll find a clan with the description of “People too old to be any good at shooters looking for same” clan. Then I will have found my home. đŸ™‚
Here’s the stream, in case you missed it:
Finally finished Dishonored
Years after everyone else played it, I’ve finally finished Dishonored. The first one, not the sequel. It took me a few goes before it really stuck and just recently I was talking about how it stressed me out.
The weird thing about Dishonored is they have you playing as Corvo the Lord Protector, a bad-ass with all these lethal weapons and magical skills, then reward you for not using them. To get the best ending (I guess?) you have to keep your chaos levels down, which means non-lethal solutions to your problems. Those problems generally being guards between you and your goal.
I did pretty good at being non-lethal for about the first half of the game, but as I said I find it really stressful. Also I saved constantly, which kind of broke up the narrative immersion for me (a ‘Quick Save’ button would have helped there).
Eventually I acknowledged to myself I’d never finish the game if I kept trying to be non-lethal, and this happened at about the same time that me-as-Corvo lost patience with the troops defending the bad guys. At some point you need to open your eyes and see that your boss is an evil bastard, and if you refuse, well, Corvo has no mercy.
Then, as I neared the very end of the game, faithful boatman Samuel told me he was disappointed in me because of all the killing I’d done. I regretted my decision then, but not enough to go back and replay it all.
Dishonored is one of those games where I see why others really enjoyed it, but for me it was just OK. I think my issue was with the aesthetics. Not that they were bad, they just weren’t right for me. There’s a plague happened and everyone is sick and gross and hacking, coughing and puking, and the world is brutal and ugly, with corpses everywhere. It just got pretty depressing after a while. Also, the graphics haven’t really aged too well, and I’m shallow like that.
The story was actually pretty good, though, and the voice acting was awesome. The cast includes Susan Sarandon, Lena Headey, Michael Madsen and Brad Dourif. Also Carrie Fisher credited as “Alternate Street Speaker” but I’m not sure what that’s about. There’s a male voice making announcements on the streets and I assume there’s some way to swap that, but I don’t know how that works. [Google provides: At one point you encounter the voice of propaganda in the city. I didn’t kill him, but if you do, Carrie Fisher takes over the announcements from there on out. If only I’d known!]
All that said, I’m glad I played it because at some point I do want to check out Dishonored 2, and I wanted to know “the story so far..” But this isn’t a game that I’ll replay to chase trophies or get alternate endings of anything. One and done is enough for me.
The Witcher coming to Netflix
Before The Witcher was a series of games, it was a series of great books/short stories. Well, at least the ones that were translated to English back when I was reading them were great. I need to go back and read the ones that have been translated since then.
Anyway, now we’re getting a TV adaptation of The Witcher. Just to be clear it seems like this series will be based on the original source material, NOT the games. I’ve never actually finished a Witcher game so I can’t honestly say how true the games are to the books.
The good news is that the author of the original material, Andrzej Sapkowski, will be a creative consultant for the series, and executive producers are Sean Daniel and Jason Brown, who are the executive producers of the absolutely awesome SyFy show The Expanse (which is based on books by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, writing together under the pen name James S. A. Corey).
I have a good feeling about this. We know Daniel and Brown know how to take a written story and make it into a great TV series, and we know the author is involved, and it’s going to be on Netflix so it probably won’t be stretched or squashed or watered down.
The bad news is, I can’t find any info on a release date, so we’ll have to be patient I guess.