Significant Gear Swaps

Significant Gear Swaps

I thought I would talk a bit about my varied experiences with The Division of late.  I wrote the other day about some of the difficulties I had and frustrations that it was not easy to swap gear around to fix those problems.  That said I decided to start trying to incrementally improve my lot in life.  I sifted through my bag and my wallet and decided that I had enough components to be able to craft a single item…  which luckily rolled with stamina on it.  After that I found that the base vendor also had an item I could afford that added stamina to a slot I had none in.  The above image is the original state of my character before swapping anything around.  Notice how heavily I am apparently leaning into electronics…  more than likely because that is just what I was able to get through drops.

Significant Gear Swaps

This image is after that first swap of two items…  gloves and mask.  Firepower and Electronics obviously took a hit but my stamina went up significantly.  This was enough of a change to make the game feel completely different for me.  No longer was it feeling like a single shot was taking an entire pip of health off and I did not really notice that much of a difference in my ability to kill things.  This little act alone was enough to revitalize the game for me, which makes me question…  should stats make that much of a difference in the way the game feels?  It basically took something that felt horrible every single time I attempted to play it over the last year…  into something that feels pretty good.  Sure I still feel squishy if I get caught in the open but so long as I stick to cover I can hold my ground, which is absolutely not something I could do before without swapping out those two items.

Significant Gear Swaps

After a few more gear and mod drops this is where I am sitting today and the game feels pretty great.  I played some last night, but eventually sleep claimed me.  I did however managed to knock out a few lengthy side quests including one that had like five phases two it and involved taking down two yellow mobs.  Now I am not entirely certain the yellow mobs were connected to the particular quest…  but I took then down nonetheless in the progress of doing it.  I also seem to have completed some Division Shields mission that rewarded me three pieces of endgame gear that will sit there and wait for me to hit 30.  I am just shy of dinging 28 so I sorta can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I had a lot of fun playing last night and it just seems weird that two item swaps could make all that difference.

Significant Gear Swaps

I still have a significant number of quests to knock out in the world and there is at least two areas of the map that I have never even been to.  I seem to be getting back into the swing of things and enjoying my time.  It is funny how E3 works because it often has these side effects of making me interested in games that I dropped along the wayside somewhere.  The coverage of The Division 2 gave me the drive to give the original another shot.  Based on some twitter discussion that happened yesterday while I was completely swamped… it seems like there are a handful of other people still playing as well.  I still have yet to fully catch up from the threads that went nuts while I was sitting in meetings all day.  If you are playing Division however…  friend BelghastStern my UPlay handle.  I still don’t fully know what I am doing but I am dying a hell of a lot less.

Final E3 Rundown

Final E3 Rundown

Yesterday was the Nintendo Direct E3 edition, and the truth is not enough came out of it to really do its own post.  I am sure if you are a huge fan of Smash Bros it was an amazing presentation because they went into copious detail on how exactly that game will work on the switch.  The only Smash Bros game that I have played is the WiiU version and it honestly felt weird…  like I was unable to see why everyone is such a huge fan after playing so many other better fighting game options.  I realize this is probably blasphemy but whatever… it’s my blog.  Some of this will be a recap for those who follow me on twitter…  but I figured I would put a pin in my E3 coverage with an ordering of the show I thought was the best downwards.

  1. Ubisoft
  2. Bethesda
  3. Microsoft
  4. Sony
  5. PC Gaming Show
  6. EA
  7. Nintendo Direct
  8. Square Enix
  9. Devolver Digital

Truthfully Ubisoft and Bethesda are really close, so close that I almost gave them a tie.  There were so many games that I was amped for coming out of the Bethesda show, but it also provided a whole lot of awkward moments.  Ubisoft on the other hand is just really good at doing a presentation and has mastered the flow of dialog to game trailer.  I think they are just technically better at these shows than most of the other companies.  As much of a Sony Playstation fanboy as I am… it pains me to admit that the Microsoft show was just better in every conceivable way.  Sony itself almost got marked down significantly for how bad this new show concept was that involved intermissions and shuffling the live audience between venues.  What gained it the fourth position however was the simple fact that everything they showed was awesome.

Final E3 Rundown

The PC Gaming Show has always been a mixed bag that never really felt like a blended experience.  While the production value has increased massively each year it still lacks something in cohesiveness and flow.  Electronic Arts would have been dead last on the list were it not for Anthem and my desire to get more information about it.  The problem with this show is the majority of things covered are recursive sports titles that I have never cared about.  I still feel like they would be better served having two shows… one with a high sports flavor that they could maybe partner with ESPN on… and one with everything else.  Nintendo Direct was a massive disappointment because the things I wanted to see…  didn’t show up.  We had no news of Metroid Prime 4 and I was honestly expecting something along the lines of Pokemon Lets Go but for Animal Crossing with a Pocket Camp integration.

Square Enix didn’t really have what I would consider a proper show.  What they released was a YouTube video that they just happened to be streaming.  The only thing I was really interested in like I said yesterday was the FFXIV/Monster Hunter crossover.  They should have simply skipped having a “live” event and just released a big YouTube video instead since everything was prerecorded.  Admittedly so was everything we saw from Nintendo Direct but at least it had some dialog interspersed between the game trailers…  Square was one statement at the beginning and then fifteen minutes of trailers.  Devolver Digital on the other hand I don’t even consider a real show… given it is mostly a running joke at this point.  That said they did at least announce two games this year…  but the majority of the experience was something straight out of an episode of Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show.

Final E3 Rundown

The E3 experience does weird things to me… like I fully expected to be having a resurgence of Elder Scrolls Online after the Bethesda show case.  Instead what I find myself doing over the last couple of nights is running around and attempting to get back into The Division.  I left that game in a really weird place in that I never actually managed to make it to the level cap.  Right now I am 27 and still struggling to get back used to the way it plays.  I feel insanely squishy, and in truth I think it is all because I failed miserably at gearing my character.  The problem there is I am too poor to do anything about that by picking up gear to fix this problem of any of the vendors.  That was a huge thing for me when I last played is that it felt like I simply was not getting the drops I needed, and never got enough cash to go the vendor route instead.  Similarly all of the crafting patterns that I have really don’t do much to dig me out of this whole either.

I missed the train with the Division.  Those players who got in early and power leveled their way through the content seemed to have a much easier time gearing up.  I remember that first patch and the nerfing of the drop rate of materials combined with an increase in the material costs of crafting really hit me hard.  I think more than anything that was the point where I was largely demotivated from moving forward.  I have been going with the solo build of med pack and turret and in some cases it works nicely…  in other cases it feels like I keep getting one shot by things that should be well under my level range.  I did one of the missions last night and it wound up taking me eight or nine attempts to get through the final phase which involved two yellow mobs that rushed in with a yellow sniper type mob.

Final E3 Rundown

The whole cover mechanic thing is a foreign concept for me as I am way more used to the run and gun style of Destiny.  I am very much not used to finding the best option as far as cover goes… or often times ending up getting pinched from both sides as something spawns in behind me.  These are things that are likely mitigated with more players, but as a solo player it is pretty much death.  There lies another problem… I attempted to queue up for another mission and managed to find exactly one other player wanting to run it.  Things went mostly well until once again we got to the end encounter and kept getting overwhelmed by a wave of purples and two yellow bosses.  After eight attempts the other guy just left and I found myself frustrated for the evening and logging as well.  It always feels like most of the encounters have one or two mobs more than are really manageable, and in turn I just die an excess amount.

I loved everything about The Division for a really long time but I just sorta hit a wall around level 26 where everything seemed way tougher than I could handle.  I am sure it is a combination of the fact that the game does a poor job of messaging how you should actually be gearing for solo play.  It also does not do a great job of letting you dig yourself back out of that hole because drops seem really spartan.  If they offered the ability to boost to level 30 and give you a decent starter set of solo gear…  then I think life would be grand.  Right now the only way I succeed is to just never get hit, which isn’t always a viable option when there are eight things rushing towards you.  I figure with time I might get used to the game play again… but for the moment it feels miserable.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

I am once again starting this post ahead of my normal morning routine because there is just too much stuff to cover for me to cram it all in without a little pre-work.  As a result some of my tenses might go haywire given that I am at least in theory writing parts of this at different times.  Hopefully you will bear with me, because it feels like the conferences are way more tightly stacked than they have been in past years.  On Monday June 11th we had Square Enix, Ubisoft, PC Gaming Show and the Sony presser and I am attempting to cover at least all of the things that interested me from each.

Square Enix – 1 pm EST

This one was a bit of a let down and did not follow the standard E3 press junket format, but instead reminded me an awful lot of a Nintendo Direct.  Instead of a bunch of commentary connecting the clips we just got a rapid fire succession of trailers back to back.  The truth is… there just wasn’t a lot here that really interested me.  I feel like a horrible human being but I am one of what seems like a handful of people not terribly excited for Kingdom Hearts 3.  I only played a little bit of the first game because it came out in a weird time for me and I never caught up on any of the others.  I keep telling myself I will play them but never actually get around to it.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Monster Hunter Final Fantasy XIV Crossover

This is legitimately the thing that excited me the most from this press conference, the announcement of a crossover between Monster Hunter World and Final Fantasy XIV.  This one appears to be inside of XIV but that is still awesome.  My hope is we can end up earning a Palico mini pet or some of the iconic weapon skins for glamour options sorta like the Lighting Returns crossover event.  I am still holding out hope however that we will see the other side of this equation at some point and FFXIV stuff showing up in Monster Hunter World.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

Another game I am very interested in is Dragon Quest XI since I have not played a Dragon Quest title since Dragon Warrior IV on the Nintendo.  I am completely out of touch with this series and at some point I would really like to try some of the games out.  I absolutely loved Dragon Quest Builders… and I realize that game barely relates to the modern core of the franchise but it was still enough to raise my interest level enough to try this one out when it releases.  It looks pretty freaking cool which is enough of a reason for me to play almost anything.

Ubisoft – 4 pm EST

While they don’t always have what I would consider to be the best possible line up of games, Ubisoft always seems to have the most watchable show.  What I mean by that is many of the offerings have relatively low production value and Ubisoft seems to take a very holistic approach to the show carefully placing games in such a way that you are never very far off from something you are going to find awesome.  This time around though there was a lot to see and I am pretty pleased with the overall product line up.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

I can honestly say I have never before been excited about an Assassin’s Creed game.  I am not exactly what you would call the core demographic of most sneak around and don’t be seen sort of games.  However Assassin’s Creed Origins pushed the game into more of an Action RPG genre.. and I have really enjoyed it.  From all signs this appears to be Origins wearing a Greek skin… and I am perfectly okay with that.  This time around you get to choose between a male and female protagonist…  which is a permanent decision point that has been long overdue in this series.  It was a blast running around in Ancient Egypt and I am certain it will be similarly awesome running around in Ancient Greece.  Definitely looking forward to this one in ways that I never thought I would prior to Origins.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

The Division 2

Please lord help me temper my hype because this game continues to look extremely good.  It is making me want to give the original game another shot as I attempt to finally push my way to thirty.  As I said in this mornings post… the game seems to have what the first one was missing…  a sense of hope.  Things are going on in the world that lead me to believe we are actually the heroes instead of potentially making everything worse with our presence like the first game.  It grated on my nerves that everyone seemed to be deathly afraid of me as a player character, and that there wasn’t much that I could actually do to help folks I stumbled onto in the world out in a significant way.  Sure there were those random encounters that would take a piece of food and give you something frivolous like a beanie, but the only people I seemed to help out in any significant way were the JTF agents.  I wanted to help the suffering citizens out and what I am seeing hear leads me to believe that is actually a gameplay style.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Beyond Good and Evil 2

I still don’t really have a clue what sort of game this actually is.  It seems like some sort of an action RPG, set in a really interesting world… and I am okay with this.  I never played Beyond Good and Evil because I missed the boat when it was actually cutting edge and struggle to bring myself to go back and play those older 3D titles.  The folks who did play it tell me it was an amazing experience.  I am mostly just enthralled by the world building that is going on here because it seems like an insanely intricate setting.  That is the sort of thing I go in for more than a narrative story…  giving me a world that just begs to be explored.  Glad to see this continues to be less and less vaporware as time goes on.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Starlink: Battle for Atlas

I really hate that this game exists and that I want it.  I got caught up in the thrall of the whole digital toys thing with both the Amiibo and the Disney Infinity generation 2 and 3 (Marvel and Star Wars) and have way more of these figures than I should admit for the sake of sanity.  Starlink appears to be the same sort of thing, but this time you are piloting modular starships that change your vehicle in game based on the pieces you have assembled in the real world.  The real hook for me however is the inclusion of Star Fox…  which just seems cruel.  I am not even the biggest fan of space ship shooters but this looks extremely excellent.

PC Gaming Show – 6 pm EST

This show is always an awkward beast, though I have to admit each year it has become closer and closer to a real production.  This year they cranked up the quality significantly but in my head I still remember the cheaply thrown together high school theater experience sort of feeling.  They showed off some thirty games but it always feels a little jarring because the quality and style of the games always varies so much.  I am not really going to talk about most of these but there were a few that did stand out for me.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Sable

This game is some sort of hyper stylized open world exploration and adventure game.  The setting reminds me so much of a Jean Giraud/Moebius comic from the 80s.  The main character even feels like it could have been one of his designs.  More than anything I think it is visually interesting and might be something I pick up at some point just because I like the look of it.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Overkill’s The Walking Dead

I know a lot of people are simply done with the zombie genre but I am not…  in fact I continue to enjoy the hell out of the Walking Dead franchise and have been looking forward to this game for awhile.  I am not really a fan of mobile games, so the majority of the Walking Dead branded titles are really not for me.  Similarly I have for whatever reason not really been able to get into the Telltale style of adventure game so that one fizzled for me as well.  This however looks like a game right in my wheelhouse set in the Walking Dead universe.  I am down with it on so many levels.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Ooblets

I am so ready for this game to come out already.  This was hands down my game of the PC Gaming show last year… and it continues to look amazing.  It is a quirky mash up of Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon and Pokemon where you grow pets and then “battle” them.  However as of today we have learned that those battles are awesome dance fights…  I am so down with this and it is so fitting to the setting.  Please release this game already because I want to run around doing nonsense things with tiny pets.

Sony – 9 pm EST

This was a really odd show as far as E3 showcases go.  It started with a word from Shawn Layden…  that essentially stated that we should not expect to see anything new.  This was followed by a very lengthy banjo performance in this huge custom built set piece that looked like a church in a tent.  Immediately following the banjo time we were treated with a new trailer for Last of Us Part II… where we find out the church tent stage design came from the game.  Immediately following this however…  there was a lengthy intermission as they asked every single person in attendance to move to another theater…  at which point some generic commentators showed up and started commenting on their own show.  Finally once we moved venues almost 20 minutes later…  we were presented with a bamboo flute solo of some sort.  Then finally after that… the show became a little more traditional…  but it was a really weird ride to go through.  The positive however is that almost all of the titles shown looked excellent and as has been the case in so many other years…  most everything they talked about landed firmly in my wheelhouse of things I was interested in.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Last of Us Part II

I thought about what screenshot to include for reference to this game but since this is literally the moment everyone is talking about…  I figured I sorta had to include it.  My timeline erupted with praise of this portrayal last night which tells me I have done a pretty damned good job of curating it over the last several years.  Supposedly however in other pockets of the universe it somehow was shocking that the lesbian character from the first game was in fact still a lesbian character and erupted into a chorus of faux controversy.  I am thankful my little corner of the twitterverse is generally a sane and rational one, because instead I personally focused on how damned amazing this game looks.  I still have yet to play the first one and I need to make sure that happens before the release of this game.  I am hoping my nonsense parsec solution to play console games remotely is going to help me clean out my backlog of PS4 games.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

The biggest thing from the trailer is it revels in reminding us just how damned brutal a world Last of Us really is.  There are two start juxtapositions between the quiet times of the revival tent and the stark brutality of hunting down the people that I think were cultists in the first reveal trailer.  There are two fades that happen with the last one being the most biting given that we go from Ellie chopping off someones head…  directly into this kiss sequence.  It was a strong way to lead the showcase, but a weirdly dramatic set up that largely fell flat followed by a twenty minute intermission that felt needless.  Great game… weird presentation for it.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Control

Another game that seemed to cause my timeline to erupt into excitement was Control, which appears to be a game where a lady uses a rubiks cube for a gun and travels through a M.C. Escher drawing.  This is apparently the spiritual successor to Alan Wake and Quantam Break…  games I have never played but always thought looked interesting.   If I am remembering correctly this is also the team behind the first two Max Payne games which were essentially rag-doll physics sandboxes as far as I was concerned.  They seem to like really playing with the narrative space within games and sending us to weird places…  and this trailer is definitely one of those weird places.  However some of the combat sequences specifically do look really awesome, so I will have to watch this one as it gets closer to release.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Marvel’s Spider-Man

It is really difficult to take a coherent screen capture of a high action video like this, which I guess should tell you what the game play is going to be like.  Spider-man was essentially in constant motion and one of my friends referred to this as the Arkham Spider-man…  referencing the Arkham Knight series of games.  I personally don’t think this is a bad thing because they were high action and high enjoy-ability as you went on a wild ride with that character and were presented a ton of signature villains.  We seem to have a plot line that centers around a version of the Sinister Six as they are breaking out of the Raft and you as Spider-man are trying to prevent this from happening.  The Playstation 2 game was amazing and just insanely fun to swing around town… and this looks similarly crazy and enjoyable.  I am not exactly the biggest Spider-man fan in the world but this is going to be a fun game, and it looks gorgeous.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

Death Stranding

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

The only way I can really explain this game is to show you what I was tweeting while watching the trailer.  This is the third or forth trailer I have seen for it and I still have no more idea what the hell is actually going on.  You have to understand… I never played the Metal Gear Solid games because the whole sneaking around bit pissed me off and was exactly the opposite sort of experience I wanted to have in a game.  I don’t generally like stealth games, and especially not ones where you have to repeat entire sequences if you get seen.  So I am not as indoctrinated into Kojima nonsense as I think most of my friends are.  If I was basing anything on this trailer I would assume Norman Reedus is some sort of a post apocalyptic UPS delivery guy that occasionally has to deliver creepy babies.  I don’t think anyone knows what is going on, but I continue to be intrigued by it.

E3 Monday Roundup: Square Enix/Ubisoft/PC Gaming/Sony

The Death of Cayde-6

While not part of the Sony show… Bungie did release a tweet with a video attached giving us some more background story surrounding the Forsaken story.  Now for some time there has been a back plot in Destiny 2 that has existed only for the lore hounds revolving around the fact that the forsaken we are fighting don’t appear to be any one house… but instead a mixture of houses all unified under one banner.  If you dig hard enough you uncover evidence that it appears that Uldren Sov… The Master of Crows and brother to Mara Sov has survived the battle that occurs at the beginning of  The Taken King cinematic and is gathering up the remnants of the forsaken and uniting them for his purposes.  In the trailer from last night we see a very beaten up Cayde-6 that is then summarily executed by Uldren with Cayde’s own Ace of Spades Hand Cannon.  It is my sincere hope that Cayde is not actually dead…  but would serve as a decent revenge plot as we hunt down Uldren and make him pay.

AggroChat #207 – High Chaos Splinter Twin

Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra and Thalen

aggrochat207_720

Tonight we return with a regular show but are unfortunately down a Tam and a Grace.  We talk a bit about Magic the Gathering and more specifically the Battle Bond expansion set as well as Magic Arena getting the Full Standard compliment of expansions.  Kodra is more excited however about the ability to do draft mode all the time without having to wait for the weekend events. Bel talks a bit about his recent binging of Dishonored and how playing those games in order turns it into a Mass Effect series sort of experience.  From there Bel goes on about the madness he has been doing with Parsec Gaming. We talk a bit about how much we think the Atari VCS is highly possibly vaporware… which leads to some discussion about the lies that are often told at E3. Finally Thalen talks a bit about his experiences with a shop keeper roguelike called Moonlighter.

Topics Discussed:

  • Magic the Gathering: Battle Bond
  • Magic Arena – Full Standard
  • Dishonored Series
  • Parsec Gaming
  • Atari VCS
  • E3 Lies
  • Moonlighter