cakedotavi

But you know what is really satisfying? Surprising and murdering people.

Cool! I did not know this existed - thanks Haha, don't worry about it too much. The game does include skill-based matchmaking, so you should end up (largely) paired against people of approximately your own skill level for the most part. I *think* I heard something about FPP not including skill-based matchmaking for now though. I could be wrong, but something to bear in mind if you play that mode.

I don't think the Thumbs community has a group for PUBG beyond these forums, but Waypoint (Vice's gaming site) does. Badfinger and I have grouped up via their Discord a few times. You can find an invite link here - if it's expired just post asking for a new one (I had to do this and a mod refreshed it pretty quick for me). That, or just add me on Steam and I'd be happy to show you the ropes! Name is the same as here. Regarding the die-out-of-nowhere thing, that happens less and less as you get more familiar with the game. It's pretty rare that I die and go "I have no idea what just happened" now that I have a decent number of hours logged. Most of the time when I die I either just straight up get out-shot and lose a gunfight, or I'm forced into what I know is a terrible move because of circle position. Aside from a bit of jank and the circle sometimes really fucking you, I don't have many complaints with this game. A few bug fixes, small map tweaks, and a refinement on the circle mechanic would turn this into a really ideal game for me.

Oh god damn. Just had a game where I got a silenced M416 + silenced SKS with ACOG basically right off the bat (killed 2 guys early, each of them had one of those). Went on to get the dinner, and killed literally half of the final 10 myself. Such a bloody, intense top 10. It was on the hills overlooking the military base. Super fun. No game makes me shake with adrenaline the way PUBG does. Unrelated to that match, anyone watch the Gamescome event? Spectator features look promising - with some better camera work it could be a pretty watchable game.

My experience with the one other PUBG meetup discord I've used has been very hit-and-miss. Lots of very young and/or very aggressive (read: toxic) players, so half the time you get a decent match but the other half you get called no end of slurs by your own squad before you even drop from the plane. Waypoint has had a much, much higher average maturity level - if that is something you value & want to contribute to, it's a great place to meet like-minded people.

After playing with Badfinger & others for a bit, I can confirm the Waypoint Discord is pretty great for getting a good group. Tons of good people on there who are mature & communicative, and generally just fun to play with. The server itself is well organized with lots of good alert options etc. Highly recommended!

Cool, thanks for the info - I've added the Waypoint discord server. Do you have the info for any other good meetup channels you'd suggest? I've found a few random "LFG" discords for PUBG that certainly let you group up quickly, but half the time that leads to your squad being literally 10-12 years old & flaming each other before even leaving the plane... not exactly what I'm looking for!

Anyone want to squad/duo up today? I'm a reasonably competent player with 5 dinners to my name who likes to emphasize communication and teamwork. I tend to like getting into it and fighting instead of camping for the most part, though of course a bit of mid-game camping can still be a good idea in many matches. Very few of my friends play this game, and I find solo a bit boring compared to squads/duos. Any like-minded players out there looking for a duo partner or squad mate? I'm playing right now, and my steam handle is the same as here.

I find duos and squads to me remarkably more enjoyable and rewarding than solo in this game. While solo is still reasonably fun due to the overall tension of PUBG, adding a friend or two really makes this game shine. I think there are a few key reasons for this: First and foremost, when your group is communicating and coordinating really well it just feels great to be a part of. You’re responsible for watching your team’s back, just as they watch yours. Pulling off a coordinated ambush where you all peak and open fire at the exact same time to down an entire squad with no losses is just *so* satisfying and exhilarating. Playing with more than one person also mitigates some “RNG” aspects of PUBG that can be really frustrating. For instance, the chance of you *all* finding zero loot when you land is pretty low; you’ve almost always got a friend who found a gun you can flee towards if you yourself strike out and are being chased by an armed enemy. Later in the game having a buddy or two also helps with mitigating circle RNG, where your squad can leapfrog forward towards the circle taking turns covering each other. Compare that to solo games, where I often find myself forced from cover by the circle and simply left hoping for the best as I sprint across an open field. Even the downed vs killed mechanic helps here, as it gives you a chance to get back in the game instead of just having one long-range headshot you never saw coming end things. Lastly, the sense of shared victory after winning is huge. You get this great sense of accomplishment that you can share with your friends, and they actually get it and understand it because they were directly part of it. TLDR: Play duos and squads to make the good parts of this game even better, and take some of the sting out of the shitty parts. Give it a try!

It's a consumable that you get by leveling up your battlepass. You get 2 250 BP boosts at like level 4 or 5, then not sure on the next unlock. They're pretty rare, unless you're paying to level your battlepass.

I am loving the new battle pass - some really cool changes from the last few passes. I especially like the MMR recalibration option, and the wager boosting. The wager stuff has already led to some pretty insane amounts of battle points being on the line, such as in my most recent game below (I was LC; we won).

Cool! Finally won a solo game. Got pretty lucky with the circle at the end, and had a few close-calls where I almost got shot out of my car twice (down to ~20% HP while driving both times), but managed to hold on. I really do think the RNG for circle luck in very late game (last ~10 people) is ridiculous. Everyone camps behind hard cover that late, so who wins is mostly determined by who gets flushed out by the circle moving vs not. If you're forced to move from cover, you are almost certain to get shot in the open. If you get to sit behind a tree and pick people off who get forced out, you will almost surely win. Hopefully they find a way to reduce the RNG late game, but otherwise this game is super fun still.

I think aggressive early is just the optimal playstyle honestly. There is near zero penalty for dieing in the first few minutes, and if you successfully lord-of-the-flys your way out for a big target like the school you're basically kitted out by ~10 minutes. Leads to a *really* boring mid-game if you play for optimal win chances though, as if you're that kitted that early the "smart" thing to do is just get to the circle and camp.

I am also playing quite a bit of this, and enjoying it. In many ways it's the best Battle Royale game I've played, but there are some pretty serious pacing issues too. I really like the restricting play area mechanic; it does a great job of focusing the action. Some of the timings for this need a tweak (mid-game play zones are way too big - I'm literally alt-tabbed mid-match typing this it's so slow), but overall it does its job of moving players around the map. However, late game has the opposite problem. You're in a tiny area with constant fighting, and the zone is more of a danger than the other players. It introduces this really unpleasant RNG aspect to the late game, where if the zone centers on you, you win. If not, you are almost for sure dead because of how it will force you to re position in the middle of a firefight. If they can fix the mid and late game zone restriction mechanic, this will be a hell of a game. As it is today, it's still good fun - just a bit too much RNG for me late game.

I am very, very excited to try the new matchmaking patch. http://blog.dota2.com/2017/04/matchmaking-update/

This never stops being good. Support is one of the less popular roles, at least up to where I'm at (3.7k), and having someone clearly saying they'll pick it up and picking it first (so the other team can't counter-pick cores) is really helpful. The rest of the team knows they will get certain really important things like wards and rotations taken care off, and can plan their draft better.

I'm all of an hour into this game so take this with a grain of salt, but so far I think Torment will live or die based on your expectations of it. If you're looking for a slick, modern game that will keep you interested with engaging minute-to-minute mechanics like movement or combat you will be disappointed. If you want to basically read a well written choose-your-own adventure novel that has some cool systems not possible in a book, and an opportunity to show you the world you're adventuring through instead of just tell you, you will be very pleased.

I played this at launch, but fell off after about a month due to rampant hacking in competitive. Is that still an issue, or did Ubisoft defy everyone's expectations and actually address the cheating problems in one of their games?

Answering my own question here: Dotabuff just put together a neat run-down of post-7.00 offlaners, including Slardar. Worth a read, for those interested in meta theory-crafting & the offlane position specifically. I certainly agree with their comments about Slardar needing a nerf, given how my recent ranked games have been going (see below).

Yeah, I mean I get it that Normal AP attracts people that want to practice a specific hero... but it seems like there are always at least 2 or 3 people every game that are in that boat; they just want to do one specific thing and are not willing to be flexible at all. Nobody seems to care about the draft, and communication is minimal or non-existent. As someone who's main strengths are (perceived to be) drafting and communication, it makes games substantially less enjoyable for me. I think you're right; I just need to switch my normal queues to Random Draft on the (rare) occasion I don't just play ranked instead.

I'm 3.5k at the moment, and my ranked games are also generally good. Normal though...

Looks really neat. If anyone can make a game like this really great it's the FTL guys. Thanks for the link! (You're missing an "L" at the end of your URL by the way)

I agree with the UI somewhat fitting the tone/theme overall, but I'd argue you could have a UI that fits that tone without having it be a bit of an unwieldy mess. A lot of that character is from the art of the interface, and not the actual "what do I need to click on to accomplish things" side of it. I never got far enough to have the quirks really bother me, but I could see how that would end up feeling a bit out-of-control over time, with old ones constantly being removed and new ones added & limited ways to influence that. Thanks for your thoughts on my writing as well. I'm always trying to improve (despite having been inactive for a few months), so I appreciate the feedback. You're right that this piece was written for an audience that doesn't already know the game. Typically, my long-form posts break down as follows: Initial Impressions are for when I've spent only a few hours with a game and want to share preliminary thoughts with casual readers. Reviews are for when I've beaten the game, or spent a substantial number of hours with it if that's not possible, and are focused on a traditional "buying advice" style. Deep Dives are for things I've spent serious amounts of time with, where I have something very specific I want to investigate or argue. These assume my readers also have a fairly detailed understanding of the topic at hand coming in. I think my next post will be a review of Doom, if I can get off my ass and flesh out the skeleton post I've drafted

This is a bit belated, but I finally got around to finishing a post about Darkest Dungeon from ages ago. Here's a copy-paste of the text: What do you guys think? Happy to hear thoughts about the game itself, and/or the writing in my post!

Hah, cool! I'm learning lots in this thread In exchange, here's something cool I just learned - you can refill a bottle by dropping it into the inventory of anyone affected by fountain regen, including someone who just TP'ed to your lane. If you're fast, that person can even control-click the bottle onto you & have it refill again before the buff dissipates. Here's an example (doesn't include the control-click for the extra charge).