Action RPGs Archives - Page 216 of 253

Crusaders and Guardians

May 1, 2016 by Belghast

Season Six

While I greatly enjoy the concept of the Developer Appreciation Week… I am always somewhat happen when it is over. During the week I feel like I have to be making posts along that them, so when things happen that I want to talk about… I end up pushing them down until the week is ultimately over. Now as I sit here for the first unfettered post in awhile… I am finding it super hard getting started. The biggest happening of this weekend is that Friday evening at 7pm my time the newest Diablo 3 season began. For season six I opted to roll a Female Crusader, because I had so much fun playing as one last season. I have this general goal of getting a male and female of each class eventually, but that also means that someday I will have to finish playing that mage and attempt to play a witch doctor. The only problem I am running into is that it feels like what made the crusader so amazing last go round… was the fact that the Invoker set was just phenomenal. Now that I have my six piece Akkhan set, it doesn’t feel anywhere near as powerful as I did last season. In fact while the set dungeon was a breeze for me last go around, this one is only causing chain wipes. Granted I am not nearly as geared as I was at this point last year, in part because I am not getting drug by Carthuun.

When the season started we ended up with six people on the guild discord, and as a result we split into two three player teams. Ultimately ending up with me and Grace playing together, with Solaria and Kodra joining up for short periods of time. Towards the end of the evening Kylana was with us as well as the other three player team ultimately disolved with Ashgar got pulled away for work, and Callalil went to bed. I myself only lasted through level 60, because that was ultimately the point at which I was starting to fall asleep at the keyboard. So I went to bed around 11pm and the rest of the group pushed onward. Yesterday morning Grace and I ended up playing together, and she helped me get the rest of the way to 70, and unlock my gear set. She was sitting over 100 paragon levels, which means that more than likely Carth is sitting around 300ish. At some point I will join in his Torment X shenanigans because I really need some gear. All in all it was a great start of the new season, and at some point I will sort out my spec and with gear should be able to solo more stuff. Right now the challenge is finding thorns on gear, and I have ended up burning through all of my materials trying to enchant away useless stats and turn them into thorns.

Banana Split

Another awesome happening this weekend is that yesterday while waiting on folks to show up for the AggroChat game of the month show, I managed to push my Hunter to rank 5. This is the first month that I managed to get to characters to rank 5, and I’ve since started working on getting the warlock there as well. My hope is that after I finish knocking out this blog post I will head upstairs and work on that. Iron Banner has been really damned good to me, letting me amass a lot of gear and weapons that will ultimately either get used as is or serve as infusion fodder. In theory I should probably be doing matches on my Titan with the hopes of getting more 335 items, but it feels good actually working on my other characters. After playing the hunter I can absolutely see why they do so damned well in the crucible. Throwing knives are amazing, and I had so much fun yesterday finishing off people with them. I still feel like golden gun however is the least exciting of the supers, but I am getting used to using it to optimal efficiency. There was one point where I managed to get three kills in a row with it and earned the way of the gun trophy.

Over the course of the week I have picked up so much gear, with the latest acquisition being a 335 Tormod’s Bellows. The only challenge here is that I am not sure if I will keep it or infuse it into one of my heavy weapons. I could really use a 335 sword… just saying. The funny thing is… I got the 335 drop on my absolute lowest level character while working on the Warlock yesterday. So I am wondering if maybe the buff in faction that you get for pushing up additional characters does something as well to the chances of getting max light drops as well? In any case another Iron Banner has come and almost gone, and I have loved every minute of it. I finally sorted out why I like PVP in Destiny and never have in other games. There is something about getting real loot at the end of matches, as opposed to a currency in lieu of loot that can maybe someday add up to be enough to get something interesting. I love random chance, and I love being rewarded with interesting stuff. More so than that… I love getting not quite perfect items… and then trying to figure out how to use them to my advantage.

Purple Hand Cannon

April 22, 2016 by Belghast

Challenge of Connection

There are some nights where things don’t go quite as planned but ultimately work out okay in the end. Last night was one of those nights. The original plan was to do some Challenge of Elders with Squirrel and Sagacyte. I got home at my normal time, but I couldn’t really commit to doing much of anything until after we ran some errands. So the plan was once my wife got home, we would go run errands, and then grab dinner on the way home. After munching some food it would be challenge time. Unfortunately my wife got home significantly later than I had expected, and then our errands themselves took significantly longer than expected… and when we went to grab food there was a longer line than expected. The end result meant I didn’t actually get upstairs on the PS4 until a little after 8 pm. By that time Squirrel was having all manner of connection problems. While sitting in voice chat together we were getting only every third word he was saying, making it damned near impossible to understand what he was trying to say. We gave it the good college try and made an attempt at doing the Challenge of Elders without him on voice chat.

However a few minutes into the match he disconnected which lead Saga and I to end up having to try and solo Sylok the first boss. We attempted to duo the Cabal boss but had absolutely zero luck there, and ultimately went to orbit. It was around this time that in the clan channel that Broken and Havel were asking for a third for their own CoE shenanigans. I felt like a dick leaving Saga, but he assured me that I should grab the open spot. Last week the bonus was primary ammo headshots, which was super easy and lead to allowing folks well below the suggested 320 light to be able to complete it without much issue. This week however the bonus was grenade kills, making it significantly harder. I went in as Sunbreaker because the Simmering Flames perk meant that so long as I had a super ready my grenade recharge was greatly increased. To that I ended up swapping all of my gear so that I was sitting around 360 discipline. On top of that I wound up getting a 324 Armamentarium moments before the first attempt at the Challenge, meaning that I also had double grenade charges going in. Both Broken and Havel did similar steps to allow them to get super grenade action, and as a result we managed to get 108k score over the course of two matches. So while it sucked that I didn’t get to run with Squirrel and Saga… it is pretty awesome that I managed to finish on my titan regardless. During the course of the weekend my new goal is to make sure that both Squirrel and Saga get through as well.

Spoils of War

The result for me is that I walked away with an interesting Hand Cannon that I am not quite sure if I will actually use. I spent the rest of the night doing bounties with it to see if it was something I actually enjoyed using. For ages I swore by the Hand Cannon, but then I got used to Auto and Pulse Rifles… and quite simply never use them. The state they were in after the serious round of nerfs held me back from really enjoying the experience. During year one I used the hell out of the Last Word, and then for the first part of year two I largely rocked the Hawkmoon… enjoying both weapons greatly. As far as Her Revenge goes… I like how it feels and it has an interesting sequence of perks so for now I plan on leveling it up and seeing how I enjoy it in its final form. As for my armor piece, I ended up getting a 328 chest piece… which was below my current 329 so instead of keeping it I wound up shipping it off to my hunter. As I talked about yesterday, there has always been a pecking order when it comes to gear… which generally falls in line with Titan > Hunter > Warlock. My hunter is closer to being viable for things like Challenge of Elders so my goal is to buff him up enough to be useful when it comes to the current “end game” content.

That said I did also manage to throw a few handmedowns onto the Warlock, bringing the light level up by a few points. If I can keep stair stepping them up with no more than a 10 light level difference between them I think life will be pretty grand. I think the mission for tonight is to try and run some content on either the warlock or hunter with the hopes of bringing their light level up a bit. The biggest thing I need right now are legendary artifacts for both. The best route to that is of course the Court of Oryx, but neither of them has an antiquated rune to make that possible. I do have a few skyburner keys and wormsinger runes… so in theory I could burn through those hoping for some drops. The other awesome thing from last night is that I managed to get another Sublime Engram which takes my set piece count up to three… with 2 chests, 1 helm, and now 1 Titan Mark of the new Jovian Guard set. I really love the look of that thing, and while I am not sure it would win out over my Iron Banner set… it is still something that I would proudly rock. Speaking of Iron Banner, Bungie has apparently announced the next bits of gear that will be available and I am super pumped. I should finally be able to get legs to complete the Iron Banner look, and it also seems like I will be able to get a Titan Mark in the process. Other than that this round is offering the Auto Rifle and Rocket Launcher, both things that I am super interested in. Right now the goal is to push both the Titan and Hunter through, so I will be trying to do daily bounties on both of them.

Ghosts and Spectres

April 21, 2016 by Belghast

Destiny Bucket List

One of the things that I love about Destiny is that there are so many intricate things to do… but unfortunately a lot of them require a full group to actually do them. I mean it is awesome that I have Axioma Clan to back me up in doing these, but my default “non-raid night” stance is wandering around aimlessly soloing things. So as a result there are several things that I just have not been able to accomplish for one reason or another because I needed to organize a group. One of those was finding all of the pieces for the Dead Cult Ghost from the Paradox Daily heroic mission. I love the Stranger’s Rifle so much, and when I found out that there was a year two version called No Time To Explain… I knew I wanted it. Unfortunately to get it you have to go through a series of jumping puzzles in the daily heroic and retrieve several different dead ghost shells. After turning that piece in the next weekly reset you should in theory get the follow up quest from Lakshmi from the Future War Cult. I had watched a handful of videos and I knew that under pressure there was zero chance of me successfully navigating the jumping puzzles and finding all of the ghosts on my own.

This is where my amazing friend Jex comes in because he seems to have the sort of mind for remembering strange destinations. The problem being that Jex is just about to head out on vacation for a week… and as of writing this post he should already be travelling. I had a ton of other folks offer to help out like Broken and Wet, but by the time I made it in game I had an invite waiting on me from Jex and shortly after my friend Sagacyte joined. I of course died a few times doing the jumping bits, and as far as the sped up vault of glass jumping puzzle… I just hung out watching Saga complete it like a pro and pull me through to the other side. I died a handful of times but not apparently during the critical junctures, because I believe there is a piece of this quest that you cannot die during. In any case if all works well next Wednesday I should have the final step that ultimately leads to my shiny new No Time to Explain. I am super thankful to Jex and Saga, and all the other people in Axioma Clan who offered to help out with this. Now I guess this just leaves the Black Spindle that has eluded me, but hopefully with all the light levels we have been gaining getting that done will be significantly easier.

Spectre Time

So last night Jex literally snuck on just long enough to get me my cult ghost and then disappeared into the background again to prepare for his trip. After he left, and ultimately Sagacyte left as well I wound up heading downstairs to play Destiny from the comfort of the couch and remotely connected through my laptop. It feels like my Warlock is the unwanted orphan of my characters, because he always seems to get the worst hand-me-downs. This is largely a side effect of simply being the last class that I leveled, and as a result having the lowest overall light level. The truth is though that I like playing my Warlock way more than I like playing a Hunter. I think I would probably enjoy the hunter, but it is going to require copious amount of time unlocking class abilities to really get to that point. Gunslinger seems like the hunter for me, but it is also the class I have progressed the least. Whereas on the Warlock I pretty much like all of the classes for one reason or another, with Sunsinger probably being my least favorite. In any case I wanted to chill out and spend the night working through some of the bounties that I had stacked up for the warlock. On both the Hunter and Warlock I tend to accept bounties until I have no more room, and then once a week work through most of them.

The interesting lesson learned last night while wandering around and completing bounties is just how much I like the Red Spectre. I mean I only held onto this weapon because it looks like Red Death… and I am so in love with Red Death. The roll on this weapon is not amazing, but in spite of that I find that I really enjoy using it. It kicks like a mule, but it seems to do so way more predictably than a lot of the other weapons I have with shit stability. In theory once I get it properly leveled it will be performing better, but even in the stock form I enjoy it. What it ultimately feels like to me is Fabian Strategy… that is once the rate of fire boost kicks in. This thing is a really strange archetype, because it is not really a bullet hose because it has way more impact than they do… but it has a much faster rate of fire as compared to a lot of the slower rifles I have. The only problem is… whether or not I will be stealing this for my Titan once I get it leveled up. I have a bad habit of stealing the best weapons for that character, and giving the others my scraps. In theory I would love it for all of my characters to be self sufficient, and I know that thanks to the miracle of the website and mobile app… there is never a situation where I need to use a crap weapon. However when it comes to day to day play I always seem to just go with whatever happens to be in the inventory of a given character. The positive of this however is that I end up testing out a lot of weapons that I would not otherwise play with… and often times finding some gems in my dust bin.

Light Improving

April 20, 2016 by Belghast

Catching Up

One of my favorite things about the April patch is that I finally feel like I am catching up to all of the folks who have been playing since the dawn of time. More important than that… I feel like I have a clear path to be able to reach 335. There are things within my control that I can do solo that will allow me to slowly but certainly make progress. Namely one of the big ones right now is faction packages. Many of the factions have the code that make sure an item that comes from that package is better than your current light level. So this means I am constantly getting upgrades that I can either use as is, or infuse into my existing item from doing Vanguard and the three Tower faction missions. This also means that those daily bounties are more important than they have ever been, and the same goes with the crucible bounties whenever I am feeling my Wheaties and decide to do some serious pvp. More importantly than any of this… I feel in control of my own “Destiny”… pun intended.

Much of my early frustration with this game is it felt like there were missing rungs on the ladder that I had to have someone show me where I should be climbing. Now I feel like there are objectives that I completely understand that I can be knocking out regularly to better myself. At this point as the above image shows I have managed to take my Titan to 321, Hunter to 310 and as of last night Warlock to 302. The Warlock and Hunter will likely always be second stringers for me, but I do want to spend more time pushing them up. Namely I would really like to unlock all of the stuff on all three sub classes but that simply requires a lot of play. As for now I am still very much enjoying the process of infusing up old weapons and dusting them off to enjoy them once more. I have a lot of really great weapons, that were just lacking light level to be used on a regular basis. At some point however I am going to have to reconcile a bunch of the stuff and figure out which versions of which weapons I intend to keep permanently. For example I have six different Havoc Pidgeons sitting in the bank and five different 1000 Yard Stares… as well as a large assortment of Zarinaea-D. I don’t really need ALL of them… just keep the best rolls and swap weapons as needed via the web site or mobile apps.

Pipe Dream

Every so often I come up with an idea that while I lack the technical know how to actually build it… I know it is functionally possible. Within the server services world.. there is a marvel of modern science referred to collectively as the IP KVM or remote keyboard/video/mouse switch. While remote desktop is a thing that works great most of the time… there are times when you need to literally lay hands on a box because something has hung on boot up. This is where the IP KVM steps into play, because it emulates sitting physically at the keyboard from quite literally anywhere on the network that can reach it. The other awesome thing about them is that generally speaking they are almost as good as sitting on the box with many of them getting to the point where you can hardly tell the difference. What I want is for some budding entrepreneur or kickstarter campaign to come up with this technology… but for consoles. Sure PS4 Remote Play is cool, but I also want to be able to play remotely from my PS3… or even say older analog systems. The idea would be a rack mounted type system so in theory you could dump all of your consoles in the equivalent of a server room. Instead of harddrive arrays you could build special four unit high rack cases that allowed you to plug in a whole slew of console games and have them selectable remotely.

The other idea would be that each console had custom hookups and the hardware KVM device would allow you to configure emulation of the devices. So you could remake your Nintendo controller to be fully functional from something like a PC connected Xbox 360 controller. Now there are oddities like the Wii/Wii U that would be difficult to emulate but in theory most controllers work just fine for other controllers. For years I’ve loved this idea of having all of the games I want to play “on tap” and thanks to both the Twisted and official PS4 Remote Play app I am using the hell out of this functionality. It is cool as hell to be able to sit downstairs on the sofa with my laptop and have full access to all of my PS4 games, and be able to play them with minimal latency. I just wish this same concept worked with everything. It feels like this is the sort of thing that would be doable, just no one has tried to make it work. Even if you started with only consoles that supported USB controls and HDMI output… that would give you a decent base unit that could then maybe be expanded with retro modules that daisy chained onto the base unit. So here you go… I give this idea freely to the world… just someone make it happen because I want to throw money at you.