[Multiplatform] Dinklageforce: Interdinklage Dinklage

The extra codes were a thing they gave out for everyone. I have some extra PS4 codes still.

I'm not sure I'm as enthusiastic. I want to like it. Really, really do. But there are some pretty critical issues in this beta, and I can't tell if it's because it's not content complete and if it was held back for the beta, or if it's an honest to goodness pacing issue.

The strike bosses as presented are dumb as hell. The AI is awful for them, and they are bullet sponges of the highest order. It recommends level 6, but level 6 specced gear and abilities and such take way too long to accomplish anything. The spider boss is a slog. The sphere boss slightly less so.

The loot as presented has little variety and doesn't come often enough. I still pop too many identical guns. Chest rarity is annoying and the gear pacing is unfortunate.

I like the standard mission structure. I like the gunplay a lot. I like the standard story bits and the emergent community content is super neat. World exploration is nice. The zone they give you us is interesting and has a few neat out of the way places to look at, and I hope that all the planets and zones are a good size and have enough variety.

PVP is kind of a crapshoot.

It feels like, to me, that it should be amazing or fantastic, but all it's constituent parts are under-baked or under-deliver. It's on the cusp of something wonderful but, at the very least, the first bites of this game are bland and dull. I want to like it REALLY BAD but it's sure as fuck trying it's hardest to not let me.

That said, I think the final, with the multiple subclasses, the gun upgrade trees that are more interesting and the high end loot sound more fun, and with a co-op full sized fireteam it should be at the very least worth a play through. I'm not floored, though.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I played both Alpha and Beta, and you're right, it is better in Beta than Alpha, but it's still a ridiculously long fight for something that's otherwise so limited. I wouldn't call it's AI any good, the tank just has nothing to do. It can drop you in one cannon shell if you're level 6 during the normal run anyway. In my experience, each go at the thing is taking 10 minutes, even if you know the leg-->neck routine. It's just ridiculously boring and way longer than it needs to be considering it's limited nature.

I agree on the pacing issues. It's impossible to tell how it'll be, moving forward. I legit can't tell if it's because of conscious choices during the beta, if it'll improve in the final, or if this is a design concept they'll run with to the end. It's not really that clear.

And yeah, leveling itself is really, really quick. Getting any sort of gear to go with of any value really, really isn't. It's a strange dichotomy.

PVP is hit or miss, yeah. I'm not particularly keen on it. It's not...bad, or anything. It just is there. It's kind of pedestrian. I don't really care, though. The PVE co-op is why I care about the game.

And all these little, niggling complaints aside, I'm still enjoying myself, I'm just not super pumped about it. The co-op will scratch an itch we haven't had a chance to scratch for a while, and I do trust Bungie to fill in the content gaps. If anyone does anything to make a package feel 'complete', it's these guys.

I will be getting the quadruple version, and it'll provide a solid and fun distraction. I'm just not sure it'll be much beyond that.

Most amazing jew boots

Keep in mind every fire group I've had at spider tank has been me, one person I know, and one random knob goblin idiot instead of a full team of three people on comms. That said, the knob goblins have always been halfway competent and know to aim at the legs/neck.

Generally the plan between two of us is to each take a set of legs and focus on those ourselves from opposite sides of the engagement area to minimize splash damage catches and to alternate between safe zone stuff. Even still, this takes forever.

And yes, the Orb boss is much improved. The orb boss also has fucking music so it's less boring. The mob dynamic for it is much better too.

The final raid thing I heard has checkpoints and you can basically go into and out of it as required, and you have something like a week to complete it before it resets? I don't know if that info is entirely accurate or what, but it sounds like a neat mechanic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm keen on Borderlands a lot, and I adore this game's Halo gunplay, it's just a few weird design decisions that hold it back from my sporting a 40 foot boner.

PVP I think needs a bit of tuning re: how it works with weapons you carry into it. Impact and fire rate are ridiculously important, and some specials are kind of ridiculous in their one-shotty-ness. I think it will even out with more content and more gun variety though.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

How's performance between circle and triple? I'm hearing a surprising amount of variance there.

Also, would you be going triple --> quadruple, thinking you'd be focusing on that ecosystem and upgrade or would you nab on circle and not revisit on quad? I don't know what your plans are.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The live fixes they are making as this thing is going on are really, really impressive.

It's an infinitely better game than it was 6 weeks ago in Alpha and it's even miles better than it was 3 days ago.

Strike boss health has been mega nerfed, but their attack seems higher. A fair and appreciable trade off. Spongyness in general is down, and I found more loot today than I have pretty much in the last week combined.

And I found a blue I can't use because level 10. It's a pulse rifle.

MP is stillllllllllll really flaky and I'm not that much of a fan, but the PVE balance concerns have been improved greatly.

How ya doing, buddy?

I'll definitely give the Moon a shot, and the beta emblem is nice.

And yes, while we can't be sure what MP will be like on the whole, I hope it's a bit less...exploitable than it is right now. I hope that there isn't much interesting content locked behind Crucible progress.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Went to the moon.

Moon was neat.

There was bad guys on the moon.

I got a pair of pants out of it.

FELIPE NO

Game is hollow, empty and unfinished. Crucible is an unbalanced mess. Loot mechanics are broken. The story falls flat on it's ass and the grind is hilariously bad. Weapon variety took a dump somewhere along the line too.

It deserves the 6.5/10s it's been getting.

It's still fun, but a lot of that stems from the co-op experience and the quality gunplay. The act of shooting people in the head is great. Excellent, even. The levels are gorgeous, if not completely devoid of any reason to explore them. Love looking at the skyboxes, love looking at the mobs, love popping them. Wish I had a reason to find alternate routes, because the level 20 enemies guard...nothing. No reason to go down alternate paths.

Say what you will about loot 'em ups, but gearing up is still a quality itch to scratch. The method OF gearing up is complete horseshit, but you put up with it because the movement is wonderful, the act of interacting with these environments and enemies is pretty rad. I just wish you got to do more of it than just "go over here, insert dinklage bot, fight three waves of dudes".

I've enjoyed the strikes, although the bosses themselves are spongy. They are a good length, and a good challenge. The rewards for doing so are generally shit, though.

There is a good game here, and there's even a great one buried under all the flaws, but god damn.

More than practically any other game I've played in a LONG time, this is made by it's co-op. If I didn't have Omagnus to play with, I'd probably be done with it already.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

It's shithouse in solo. Borderlands was better.

Your Crucible concerns are spot on, the game has painted itself into a corner with it's reliance on supers and associated horseshit. And I definitely feel that the more I give it a go, the less I'm liking the PVP.

I want to try the Raid, since I hear there was actual effort put into the design of that thing and people actually need to do something other than survive 3 waves of AI that throw themselves at you, but I'm not sure.

Being entirely locked in terms of progress based on loot drops and hilarity grinding of rep in the SLOWEST PROCESS EVER really isn't that cool.

Hard to believe this is what half a billion dollars buys.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Saw an exotic drop for a dude with a 0.2 KD/R earlier.

"SmokeWeedErryDay found SOME CRAZY BULLSHIT"

I hope he dies IRL

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yeah, this game can only be described as "a shame", I'm basically done with it now.

Too bad. If someone asked me a few months ago if "two weeks" was as long as this was gonna last for me, I'd go "that seems unlikely", but here we are.

Exceptionally frustrating, I was hoping for a long term co-op experience. Guess I'm going to have to keep looking for that.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, these staged MP examples aren't going to be anything like what the final game will play like.

And after the last few Tom Clancy's whatevers, I'd be hard pressed to be that psyched about anything further. We'll see.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Needs more hiding in the corner with the riot shield and pistol shenanigans.

I was speaking idiomatically.

"Amazing" depends entirely on if Face is playing or not.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Oh hey so.

In their infinite wisdom, Bungie has decided it'd be rad to nerf progression EVEN MORE by patching out a popular farm method, reducing loot drop if you die, and removing a reason to do the current event.

This game is literally the largest disappointment I've had in vidya in...I don't know. Years.

So my agony can be your gain!

Do you want this garbage? Do you hate yourself AS MUCH AS I DO?

Yes?

Well, it's yours. Free of charge. Let me know. If I don't have any takers for this crap by the end of the day I'm just trading it in for credit towards Toad's Amazing Indiana Jones Adventure Wii U Edition.

Edit: No takers before the time limit, trading it in then.

FELIPE NO

I chumped out on it, you should have texted me to remind me.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

When no one took me up on it, I put it on the shelf. The trade in price wasn't worth the gas it took to get down to Gamestop. (25 dollars my ass)

It turns out a friend I haven't played games with in two years bought it, and asked me to play with him. Since I don't get the see the guy very often, I took him up on it and have dicked around a bit in the interim.

You of all people shouldn't be giving me shit about playing games you get consistently angry at.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

That's a hard question to answer.

The literal only reason I even still have it around is because my friend asked me to carry him around. I made it farther with Omagnus than he made it with some of his friends and asked if I wanted to see the end game content. We filled in a few blank spots with GAFfers, actually.

There's a lot to be said (and has been said in this very thread) about how the core game is solid but everything surrounding it is absolute, unadulterated dogshit. That hasn't changed. My opinion on that remains the same. I still hate the PVP with a burning, fiery passion. The PVE is samey, recycled shit that isn't rewarding.

The Raid is...sorta ok, and weird. It has many mechanics in it that are unique to the rest of the game. It involves teamwork! That's awesome. No other parts of the game really do. It requires communication, and a battle plan! Look at these things, where is this in the rest of it? NOWHERE.

That said, all that Raid shit is IDENTICAL to vanilla WoW shit. Like, literally stolen ideas. Timed buffs, teleporting based on position, item couriering, enrage timers, DPSing and tanking. It's not got anything unique in it at all from a gameplay standpoint, a raid standpoint, an MMO standpoint. It's just...in first person. And it's not difficult. It's a gear check and a mic check, and that's it. Our group of six was completely fresh and had zero issues outside of ironing out timing and roles. It's also short (two two-phase boss battles, a small maze and a mega man jumping puzzle.) It's not exciting content on it's own merits. The only reason it stands out is because it's completely unique to the rest of the game, not because it's actually that interesting.

And the rewards are still hilariously crap. It's almost funny. Almost.

So, I guess...no? I'm not liking the game anymore than I was. Not as an experience, but it facilitates interaction with people I like, so that's one thing it has going for it.

Much like I said earlier, how I wouldn't be playing if I didn't have Omagnus, I wouldn't be playing now if I didn't have this guy. That's literally it. I got nothin' else riding on this.

Legit talk, I probably won't play it again now that we've gone through the Vault and laughed at how awful IB is. He is winding down on it too.

--

Also we haven't played games recently so that was just a snark based on things in the past. You're probably better now than I am now, clearly. Furious bloodpressure noises and all that.

And yeah, my Gold ran out when I moved last year and haven't refreshed it. There has been actual zero MP titles on the circle that I give any fucks about anymore. I'm not sure I'd be bothered to resub based on replaying a game as old as BC2, even though in retrospect it's probably the best Battlejerks game of the last decade.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

IB is a shitshow. Take everything wrong with PVP as is and multiply it by a factor of 1.3 and you've got it to a T.

As for the rest of the game, yeah, that's basically it. Which is extremely sad. Maybe the second game will be better in a couple of years. Who knows? I certainly won't get hyped about it though, not after this showing. And if they think I'm buying the Comet releases they can go fuck themselves with a rake.

BC2 rules on PC, have you looked at it on Steam? It would probably run on your laptop. If not, yeah. I'm not interested in resubbing to Gold for a revisit for that game. I'll snag gold again when I finally get a One, which...keeps getting put off, actually. The only thing I play on the circle these days are a series of shmups. I don't even have the circle hooked up online for that shit anymore.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.