prettyunsmart

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Posts posted by prettyunsmart

  1. Posted

    OH MAN, the Untended Graves! So cool! Also, the area that leads up to Aldrich!

     

    I've also been having much better luck in general with beating bosses solo. I've always tried to do it, and then decided to summon if things started to get frustrating, but somehow it hasn't been too much of an issue this time around. I might finally be getting good at reading attack patterns and properly timing rolls.

     

     

     

     

    It's vaguely hinted at by a dev note, but you can cut the supports on the bridge, sending the skeleton horde falling to their doom. Then you can use the remains of the bridge as a ladder to climb down into the pit.

     

    Yeah, I caught on the second time around. But I just found the image of the suddenly appearing skeleton hoard on turning around to be not so much terrifying as it was kind of funny. The kind of thing that makes you think "you assholes" about the devs, but in a good way.

  2. Posted

    I'm working my way through the catacombs and I just died in a way that would have been annoying if I didn't find it so funny. 

     

    I made it to the rope bridge and decided to go up the alternate path. I found the knight looking for her friend and was sad that I couldn't help her. I turn around, go back down the path and see a huge number of skeletons (20? 30? 50?) and just book it back up the path, hoping the bottleneck could help me out. I fought a good number of them off, but they took me down before long. I had a full level's worth of souls on me, so that wasn't great. And of course I died while running back to the spot because I was rushing. But at the time, it felt more like a dark comedy than anything else.

  3. Posted

    I didn't have much difficulty with the abyss watchers. Maybe because I did a different area first, after the boss in Farron Keep. I'd suggest to do that route and then come back maybe? Also if you haven't found the firecrest ring, that helps the ol' fire attacks.

     

    So I just finished it up ("I did it!"). It turns out, I was making a few key mistakes. I wasn't wearing gear with fire resistance. I was refusing to switch from my giant mega mace which was too slow to sneak in hits during openings in their combos. Also, I had misunderstood what the bone shards were for, so I was still working with a base level flask in spite of having found three upgrades for it. Whoops. In any case, I made it through. I'm sure it all gets easier from here. Right? 

  4. Posted

    Wow. So I feel like I hit a wall difficulty-wise. I've fought the Abyss Watchers more times than I can count and all I can really think to do differently is to "stop getting hit." I don't want to summon a Sun bro and just take the easy way out, but right now I don't see myself getting past it just by grinding a bit.

     

    It's just impossible to get out of a combo once they start hitting you, especially in the second stage. I can make it through the first part pretty frequently, but even when I feel like I have a handle on when to dodge, if the timing is off a bit, I get caught and half my health bar goes away.

     

    Logically, I know that this is one of those "walk away from it for a while and it will be better when you come back" kind of things, but for now, each time I try I just get and more discouraged.

  5. Posted

    I'm in one of those loops where I keep fighting a boss and the boss keeps killing me even though I know exactly what I need to do to beat it. 

     

    The Abyss Watchers destroyed me the first time out but I figured it out the second time through. Once the second phase started, I had a few flasks left and was using a shield with good fire resistance, so it was alright. But I got him down to maybe one stab worth of health, went in for the kill and died. Next time, same thing. Next time, same thing.

     

    Probably time for a break.

  8. Posted

    I've also been disappointed by what feels like a dearth of good Str weapons.  I feel like I"ve found a bunch of interesting looking dex weapons, but only a few Str weapons.  That might be bad luck, or it might be a "Grass is greener on the other side" thing too.  I got the Great Axe very early, and have seen nothing that's come close to temping me to move away from it.  The Butcher's Knife I thought would be exciting, but it seems a bit underwhelming stat wise. 

     

    I've been running with the Butcher Knife for a little while and while the stats aren't the greatest, the health recovery has been really nice to have. And I figure that the A scaling will make up for the "meh" stats as I level up. The moveset is pretty fun too. Faster than you'd think it would be for a giant hunk of metal.

     

    EDIT: Actually, I just switched over to the first boss soul weapon. It is really slow but damn does it hit hard. And it looks funny with my skinny little dude carrying it one handed.

  10. Posted

    I like the look of it, but really it just makes me want to play the Trackmania2 Stadium demo some more.

     

    Edit: On a related note, there is an unofficial GiantBomb server currently up and populated.

     

    So I ended up buying Turbo after reading some reviews and watching the Quick Look. The look and feel of the game are both really great. Everything surrounding the races (menus, UI design, etc.) is all a massive improvement over the ManiaPlanet setup. Jumping from environment to environment online or solo is also pretty great. Online races just don't feel as good. I miss the Jurassic Park dubstep remixes of the Giant Bomb server and the unreasonably complicated user created tracks. I even miss the stupid horn sounds. 

     

    I ended up playing Turbo for as long as I wanted to play by myself and then switching over to stadium when I wanted some weird music and online play. 

  11. Posted

    Trackmania Turbo comes out tomorrow for PC, and Giant Bomb's Quick Look left me feeling unsure about it:

     

     

    I thought seeing Jeff play it would help push me one way or the other, but I'm still not sure if I want to pick it up. How are you all feeling about it?

  12. Posted

    I don't mind the Free to Play mechanics, since I enjoy the battle mechanics.  I don't want to play the game for more than 5 minutes at any moment, so I'm happy to the have time gating.

     

    When I think the best of myself, I think that playing the game for 5 minutes at a time throughout the day is a nice way to take a break from whatever I should be doing.

     

    When I think the worst of myself, I think that a game that reminds you to play it every 3 hours (even if only for five minutes) is probably not a smart thing for me to get into.

  13. Posted

    Against my better judgment, I started playing Clash Royale after hearing Brad from Giant Bomb talk about it a bunch. I only just started, but I can see why people get hooked on these things. The matches are nice and short, but there's way more strategy to it than I would have thought. The progression and deckbuliding mechanics are pretty well done. I haven't gotten in deep enough to really feel the pressure to spend any money on it, but I'm sure that will happen eventually.

     

    Has anyone else made this horrible life choice? 

     

    EDIT: I will say that the way the game handles rewards after each match is both brilliant and evil. You get a chest for every win that takes 3-24 hours to open, or you can use premium currency to speed it up. If you refuse to pay, it makes you open the app consistently throughout the day, which I'm sure is meant to lead to some habit forming behavior.

  15. Posted

    Odd question: is this game good? Or is it 3rd person Destiny? 

     

    I find myself agreeing with this RPS non-review, which is appropriately titled "Why The Division Is Better Than You Think." It's a well made cover shooter that's a lot more fun when played with people, but it has a story that's mostly forgettable and some tasks and enemies repeat too often. Somehow, though, when I'm in the middle of a mission, or when I find a better piece of gear, or when I'm waiting for the helicopter in the dark zone, I don't mind the repetition too much.

     

    I'd say that it is "good" (probably not great) for the kind of thing that it is trying to be, which you could sum up as third person Destiny. But I am enjoying it quite a bit.

  17. Posted

    I had a momentary twinge of concern that once I hit 30 there wouldn't be anything left, but roaming the north of the Dark Zone last night completely allayed those doubts. It is scary and brutal even without other teams of players.

     

    That is good to hear. I had been feeling like the game was mostly alright as I was playing it as a co-op shooter with some friends. But once I got into the Dark Zone, it really started to grab me. I wandered around for a while with an IRL friend and Dewar and it was pretty great. We ended up teaming up with another group and even got to fight a couple of over confident rogues.

  18. Posted

    There's been a lot of cross talk about how the enemies are "bullet sponges". If they are taking 20 seconds to down at-level, you need to upgrade your gear. In level appropriate duds, I can down 2-3 enemies per magazine out in the world. The normal enemies are easy. The purple enemies can definitely be taken down quickly. It's the elites that are rough. And they ARE rough. One of the things I liked about the missions is that the "boss" fights aren't just literally a single man standing there giving it to you. It's multiple enemies, lots of environmental stuff in play, verticality, stuff like that.

     

    I like that boss fights can break down into a big bad and a bunch of little guys, but I'm a bit disappointed that many of the big bads seem to be pretty similar. And most obnoxiously, many of them seem to be built on the "large flamethrower man" model, just with varying degrees of health. The encounters and the environments vary enough, it's just kind of underwhelming that there isn't much uniqueness to each boss character.

  19. Posted

    Yes, playing on normal at the appropriate level the missions seemed to work for less than a full squad.

     

    I basically injected this game straight into my veins. I don't recommend that, but I have really enjoyed it. It appears that you can basically mainline the game and be roughly the correct level. With a little side work, you can roll through as you unlock the new districts. There is a lot of video game here even if you're ONLY playing it as a single player/co-op experience. My friend really does NOT like the "large human with lots of health" model, but I am totally fine with it. However, the structure of the missions themselves is really interesting and varied. I liked them a lot.

     

    I'm interested to see the level 30 dark zone, and try the hard missions. There's also something called "challenge" missions, which scares me.

     

    I definitely recommend NOT doing this like it is your drug. The side missions can be repetitive if you do 40 of them in 2 days!

     

    My approach has been to save the repetitive side stuff for when I'm just roaming around by myself (usually while listening to podcasts). Then I can save the meatier missions for when I'm grouped up with friends. So far it's been really great.

     

    Except for that time when two of my group members who had just finished the tutorial thought it was a great idea to set a level 8 mission to hard mode our first time through. That did not go well for us.

  24. Posted

    For anyone who has played it, how difficult is this game? I could imagine a  game like this being either really relaxing or incredibly stressful. Part of me wants to escape from my day to day problems with a happy farming game, but another part of me is scared that failing at a virtual career will only deepen my anxieties about my real life one.

  25. Posted

    I think I like this game. Playing dress up and running around the High Line was cool, at least.

     

    Dress up really was my favorite part of the beta. Dark Zone loot was fine (guns and armor with better stats!). But nothing matched my excitement by finding a nifty hat. 

     

    I wonder how reviews for this game will work. The online component seems so important that just a small group of people with review codes might not give the best indication of the final product.