Hero Protagonist

Apologies if there is already a thread. I didn't see one when I started writing this 4 hours ago. I type like your great, great, great gandmother's father. Sega and Creative Assembly released a game last week titled Total War: Rome II, which they say is a sequel to something called Total War: Rome. I'm pretty sure they mean Rome: Total War, but it's possible we have a Prince situation, so maybe we should be calling this the sequel to the game formerly known as Rome: Total War. This is a serious matter that warrants discussion. Maybe the next patch is Rome II: Total War II? Anyway, has anyone else fired this up? I've played 2 campaigns and have been having fun despite the innumerable complaints I have. Ignoring the bugs, like the weird AI problems and units practically ignoring my orders, I don't like the direction they took the game in a lot of ways. It feels much more like a video game than I would've thought, especially given the promotion this game has received.

In my... let's see... wow, okay... 40 hours of Rome 2 the only time I've ever resolved has been blowouts in my favor. The problem inherent to the system, as I see it, is if the battle chances are anything below 70%-ish, auto-resolve is almost certainly going to sim worse than if I were to control the fight myself. Conversely, if the fights are over 70% they're a complete snore and should be sim'd. The only exception I've had here has been I was too far into german territory using macedonian armored peltists against entire armies of mounted archers, where my forces were so out-technologied and out-numbered that whether I sim'd or played, it was a huge defeat.

I played as Macedon in my first campaign, but after completing the first set of objectives I swapped to play Sparta, motivated purely by "I like the way they look." That suit commercial guy guaranteed I was going to like the way I would look too! I agree with you, a lot of the mechanics are illogical and seem to make no difference. A lot of the new features feel really dull or uninspired, and they really went in the opposite direction that I hoped they would. They shifted focus more heavily toward settlements and cities, the only battles I've had outside of sieges have been as a result of raiding, setting ambushes, or fortifying narrow passes... and don't get me started on the ability for any army to just become a boat and cruise the aegean. Why build fleets at all, especially given how irritating I've found the naval combat. With that said, I am having fun playing with the realm development, creating heroes and using them to train my armies to amass crazy zealots. I like marching my armys into enemy lands to raid and force open-field conflicts, or retreat and lead them into my ambushes. I still find the battles fun. Conversely, autoresolve feels awful.

I knew I wanted to convert a CK2 save to EU4, but then I heard about the customization DLC and decided to go all out. You're welcome, Europe. My original goal was to conquer all the world before 1066, but once I had steamrolled Eastern Europe and Greece I decided that was too easy. I decided I am just going to conquer Europe and let it ride. Once I've conquered the lingering farts in Italy, Lotharingia, and East Francia I will put the game into observer mode and run until EU4 era. Looking forward to that. Oh, and here is the religiosity:

Okay, but I am not talking about preference. There are certainly some games where I prefer a gamepad; I can't imagine playing InFamous or Prince of Persia without a gamepad, and I'm perfectly willing to say that there are games that seem tailored to a specific controller, as the previously mentioned fighting/flight sim genres can illustrate. However, in most of those cases the games aren't unplayable with a K&M. I literally couldn't play Dark Souls because the mouse got stuck about 4 times. I'm being completely forgiving and ignoring the fact that the game will still spitting out 360 Button callouts, I can deal with having to memorize keybinds.

That franchise holds no interest for me, so I don't know. I play flight sims without a joystick, and always have. I didn't even know Street Fighter on PC existed, and I've never tried, but I can see why this would be challenging. I don't see how you can compare Dark Souls to fighting games though. There is literally nothing in the design of Demon Souls or Dark Souls that inherently favors a gamepad, so your analogy doesn't hold up. Unless you count "the mouse stops working" as being in the scope of the design. Plus, there is a huge difference between "the game is completely unplayable due to bugs" and "the game is more complicated or challenging". RE: First Person Shooters. So I'm not really sure what your point is. I prefer both of these games on PC with M&K, and I've never had a problem with either.

I find it rather silly to simply dismiss the issues that Dark Souls' PC has with M&K controls for either of those reasons. I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't have a controller, nor that I am the only person who expects a game to function on a system's native devices. Assuming I am willing to give it another shot, please recommend a suitable controller for me to pickup?

Picked up the PC version, tried to play without a controller. I stopped within 10 minutes. Can't deal with bad PC ports.

I usually start the game as a heavy or soldier, and around wave 4 switch to medic. I don't dump any cash until the swap, and a medic with kritz is pretty nuts.

Yeah, using the automated tool is an exercise in futility. Here is the best way to play MvM: Manually search for a server. Enter "mvm" in the map name field. Join a server with fewer than 6 players. Enjoy MvM

MAGGOTS!

It's pretty glorious...

Why don't the forums use the Puffin icon?

I wish this post were a woman.

I'm in Act 2 inferno in hardcore, and Act I inferno in softcore, but I very, VERY rarely play my softcore characters.

They put the axe to hydra healing in today's patch, anyway. You died too soon to bask in the glory of the nerfs!

Hey, I've managed to make almost $200 off the RMAH, so I am not going to complain about it. If Fry wants to give me his money, I am going to take his money!

It depends on what you're after, I guess. I personally found normal and nightmare difficulties much too easy. I didn't have to drink a potion until hell difficulty, and even then hell wasn't really challenging. On the other hand I found act 1 of inferno to be sufficiently challenging that I had to divert from my standard tactic of charging in like a maniac, at least until Act 2. Act 1 requires you to have a solid understanding of the mechanics of each champion ability, and the math involved in the game. Act 2 and beyond require you to farm endlessly for gear and rely on exploits to progress, which is where the fun ends for me. I'd go one step further and say it only really applies to hardcore inferno. When I was running normal inferno, I just looked to improve general statistics, it wasn't until I started playing characters that could actually die and lose progress that I started trying to figure out optimal builds, because if I didn't I wouldn't last long in Inferno.

My battle tag is in the MP thread (CHIM#1603) add me and I'll hook you up with some moderately good wizard gear in hardcore.

It really depends on your playstyle and comfort. I would prioritize Vitality until I have about 50k health in hardcore. If you're hard up for gear in hardcore and need vit/int I have some good items US-Side. I have a wand with 501 DPS, 210 Vit, 110 Int, 700 LoK, 14 Max Arcane. I could probably sell it for close to a million, but I could let it go for cheap to a thumb.

You want: Int > Vit > IAS > Resist All/Life on Kill Hell shouldn't give you tooooooo much trouble. Learn from my mistake, don't try to progress beyond Act 1 inferno. My monk had 32k health, 70+% reduction from armor, 70% reduction from resists, 4% reduction to melee attacks, and an additional 25% reduction of damage taken due to tempest rush being active. On top of all that, my attacks cause enemies to deal 50% less damage due to resolve and concussion. Unfortunately my boots only had 12% run speed adjustment and that was apparently insufficient to overcome LATENCY in my singleplayer game, so I got one-shot by Shatterbone and my hardcore character is dead. Thanks Blizzard.

Definitely not in hardcore.

It's been in since the beta, and it's been known and used since. Blizzard is pretty good about fixing abilities that are being exploited (Mage Armor rune, Quickening Rune, Boon of Protection Rune, Smokescreen all being examples). I think that if it was going to be patched, it would've been patched already. I could be wrong though.

Actually, Hydra is one of the most important spells at higher difficulties. If you re-cast Hydra you "kill" 3 monsters mechanically, so stacking "Life on Kill" and repeatedly casting Hydra is a really potent way to heal yourself.