I spent my day yesterday exploring a new galaxy.
It was a rich fantasy filled with beautiful colors, interesting creatures, and greedy aliens. And terrifying hell planets where everything is trying to kill you.
My first adventure into No Man's Sky was just that - an adventure. The game is unlike anything I've ever played before. And even though most of the games I've played before are JRPGs and Mario games, that really doesn't say much, but believe me when I say that this is very new. The game doesn't have a main menu. You start up the game and you're immediately playing. Your ship has crash landed on a planet. You're just there. There's no character creation. You don't name your character - the character is just you. And it's completely first-person, so you don't even know what you look like.
But it's not like it matters. You're not there to discover yourself. It's not about you. It's about what's out there. You need to get out there. The first thing you have to do is repair your ship. Using the materials and resources you find on the planet, you can blow that popsicle stand and get your ass into space!
Wait just a minute. It's not that easy. It's not like you can just pick up a pile of rocks and throw them at your ship and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am you're on your way. This game doesn't hold your hand. You need to repair each part of your ship before you can engage hyperdrive and jump to another star system. So if the game dumped you on one of the aforementioned hell planets to start with (because it's random where you start - my starting planet had toxic rain) you could be in for a rough time.
It took me about 3 hours to figure things out, fix my ship, and leave the first planet. I kinda wish I had spent more time there, though. Despite the toxic rain, the flora and fauna were beautiful and the animals weren't hostile. You get paid to upload data (to where, I don't know, because half the time my game was disconnected from online services - I think their servers might have been flooded - but the uploads were still supposedly working) so it's worthwhile to explore and find all the points of interest, analyze all the species of plants and animals on a planet. It can get you some serious units (that's the in-game currency). Of course, I didn't realize how to analyze the plants/animals until about my 3rd planet or so... much to my dismay. I would have definitely stayed longer on that toxic rain planet if I had realized. The toxic rain wasn't so bad. If I ducked into a cave, I could shelter from the rain. My exosuit would politely inform me "toxicity levels... rising" whenever things were getting dodgy, then inform me that they were "stabilizing" when I was under cover away from the rain.
I think the best part about the game so far is the encounters with alien species and how you learn their language. It's very slow. But you can interact with them and slowly learn one word at a time. As you interact and trade with the aliens, your reputation with them changes (increases or decreases) depending on what you do - which becomes easier the more words you learn. I feel like I'm on a diplomatic quest to learn their language.
That's what's so strange about this quest. There's no objective. There's no end. There's no way to win, no way to "beat the game." But you can still die. Believe me, I've done it. Many times already. It's kinda cool when it happens, too, because the screen goes black and in white text displayed on the screen is a classic quote by a science fiction writer.
By far the worst part in this game is the inventory management. Your starting exosuit and ship are pathetically small. For a game that encourages you to collect materials to repair and build things, it's extremely frustrating that there's just nowhere to put any of it. It's worse when you've been walking for what feels like hours across a planet and you have all this great stuff that you don't want to toss because you know that you can get some good money for it if you can find a trader or someone to sell it to, but you don't know when that will be, and you need to make room for materials to repair your life support system in your exosuit... goodbye valuable alien charm that has no use to me but to sell. I wish I could just set you down and pick you up again after repairing my life support. But that's not a thing in this game. And I can't just send it back to my ship because my ship inventory is full, too.
The best advice is to be on the lookout for drop pods because those are probably exosuit upgrades, which give you another inventory slot. As far as I know, the only way to get more inventory space on your ship is to buy a new ship. But so far I haven't seen a ship for less than 800,000u, so that's not exactly an option for me. I only have about 360,000 right now.
Something I've learned about myself is that I am a terrible pilot and it's a good thing I never became an astronaut. Space travel is not easy. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know. But I'm going to need a lot more practice before I become an ace pilot. I think I'll stick to the planet surface.
Overall, though, I'm enjoying the game. It's frustrating at times, and there are some buggy things that have been happening (no, I will NOT make the carlite plate for the Jet Pack upgrade that I made a half hour ago!), but it's a good game with a ton of potential. I'm really interested to see how good it looks on PC when that version releases on Friday. If it looks this good on PS4, it must be spectacular on a good PC.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Saturday, June 11, 2016
The Aquapolis (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Rainbow Disco Lights)
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward released patch 3.3 last week. I was pretty excited for this one, especially because the release date for the game No Man's Sky was delayed from June 21st to early August. Now I have exciting MMO fantasy fun to distract me this summer while I wait for (possibly boring) simulated space exploration.
My Free Company, Notorious Monsters, instantly jumped into one of the new features - we were so excited for it that we were preparing for it before the patch was released. The new feature is something called the "Aquapolis." It's a treasure dungeon. Do you remember the Cave of Wonders from the Disney movie Aladdin? It's kind of like that. Except instead of it opening from a magic scarab talisman, it opens through a portal that's hidden in a buried treasure coffer that's guarded by monsters. And the treasure inside the dungeon is guarded by monsters, too.
Ok, here's how it works:
1. You need a map to find the treasure coffer. If you have one of your gathering skills (Fisher, Botanist or Miner) leveled high enough, you can gather a Timeworn Dragonskin Map, decipher it, figure out where it is out in the world, and dig it up. But what if you don't have a gathering class at level 60? Just go to your favorite Market Board! I'm sure one of your fellow adventurers has listed one! Well, if your server is anything like mine, you had better get to leveling those gatherers because the price of the Dragonskin maps has skyrocketed. On Lamia server, the maps are around 200,000 gil last time I checked. That's up to you to decide if it's worth it or not...
2. Get some friends together. I'd recommend at least a light party of 4, though 3 is probably doable if you're paying attention. Make sure you're in at least ilvl180 gear. Dig up the treasure coffer. The person who owns the map has to be the one to do it. The way we play, the person who owns the map gets to call the shots on all the loot that you can roll on. Anything that falls straight into your inventory is yours to keep. Tell your friends before you start this adventure to have plenty of space in your inventory. If everyone brings a map or two, you'll likely be getting lots of stuff - crafting mats, gear, materia, gil, and crystals.
3. Kill all monsters that appear. Afterwards, get your rewards. At that time, there is a 50/50 chance that a portal to the Aquapolis will spawn.
4. If the portal appears, the owner of the map has to click on it, and everyone will be teleported inside. Proceed to the first room. There is a treasure chest on the floor in the middle. Again, only the map owner can click on it. Once he or she does, cages will open, releasing the horrors that guard the treasure. Defeat the monsters, open the treasure. Reap the rewards.
5. Killing the monsters gives the map owner a key, which will open one of two doors. How do you know which one it is? You don't. Well, I hear sometimes one of them is lit up and shiny, but I haven't witnessed that. Really, you've got a 50/50 shot of picking the right door, which will lead to another room with another treasure chest, with more monster guards to kill. Two more doors to choose between with only one key afterwards. There are a total of seven rooms. As you progress through, the treasure chests get bigger, the rewards get better, and there's more and more piles of gold and stuff in the background scenery. It looks pretty cool.
6. Sometimes a boss enemy will enter the mix. This is pretty exciting and why I suggest you should have at least 4 people (traditional setup - tank, healer, 2 DPS - any additional people can be more DPS). You can change classes inside the Aquapolis, though, so if you do feel like you need a different setup, that's ok. Sometimes a Goblin Treasure Hunter appears. Kill him fast! He tries to run away. But both the boss enemy and the goblin drop their own treasure, with bonus rewards!
7. When you try to open the doors, it will either open right away or a steel gate will slam down, blocking your way. This doesn't mean you've lost! It will struggle, and sometimes it will fling itself open, opening the door with it, revealing the next chamber. Sometimes it will stay closed, and the lights in the room will start flashing red, and an alarm will begin buzzing. Aw, bummer. You've lost... or have you? If you're really lucky, the red lights turn into RAINBOW DISCO LIGHTS in the ultimate heart-stopping fake-out, and the door magically opens! But usually the red lights mean you're out. You get teleported back to where you were and the Aquapolis has ended.
...
Our first night, we probably ran the Aquapolis five times. I have never had more fun playing this game. There were ups and downs, highs and lows. It was insane. We got so much treasure! We made so much gil! We saw so many (once-)rare minions! I finally got a Lesser Panda, but that doesn't matter because I GOT A NUTKIN! With my treasure map, we made it all the way to the 7th room. It was amazing. It was exciting. The adrenaline was pumping.
The downside to that, though, is that it seems like EVERYONE is running the Aquapolis a lot. So much that it's flooded the market with these minions and "rare" materials. The Thavnairian gear, which I painstakingly gathered the mats for, paid hundreds of thousands of hard-earned gil just for mats for, is now going for just mere thousands for whole constructed pieces. The Nutkin, which before this patch was so rare that it often wasn't even up on the market board, and if it was it was usually over 5 million gil, sometimes as much as 10 or 15 million, was selling for only 1 million last night. Prices for some crafting materials have dropped tenfold. Materia that used to be worth 100k is now only worth 1000. This is the Great Market Crash of 3.3. I only made gil this week from running the Aquapolis itself. That and my retainer brought back an ACTUAL rare crafting material that apparently doesn't drop in the Aquapolis, which I sold for just under 2 million gil.
Don't get me wrong, I like the dungeon. I'm going to keep doing it. But part of what made that first night so awesome was seeing those items and thinking we were making bank. I thought we were going to run back to our retainers and sell all that stuff for millions. I should have realized that every other team was doing the exact same thing we were. Here's my Nutkin and I. Aren't we adorable?
My Free Company, Notorious Monsters, instantly jumped into one of the new features - we were so excited for it that we were preparing for it before the patch was released. The new feature is something called the "Aquapolis." It's a treasure dungeon. Do you remember the Cave of Wonders from the Disney movie Aladdin? It's kind of like that. Except instead of it opening from a magic scarab talisman, it opens through a portal that's hidden in a buried treasure coffer that's guarded by monsters. And the treasure inside the dungeon is guarded by monsters, too.
Ok, here's how it works:
1. You need a map to find the treasure coffer. If you have one of your gathering skills (Fisher, Botanist or Miner) leveled high enough, you can gather a Timeworn Dragonskin Map, decipher it, figure out where it is out in the world, and dig it up. But what if you don't have a gathering class at level 60? Just go to your favorite Market Board! I'm sure one of your fellow adventurers has listed one! Well, if your server is anything like mine, you had better get to leveling those gatherers because the price of the Dragonskin maps has skyrocketed. On Lamia server, the maps are around 200,000 gil last time I checked. That's up to you to decide if it's worth it or not...
2. Get some friends together. I'd recommend at least a light party of 4, though 3 is probably doable if you're paying attention. Make sure you're in at least ilvl180 gear. Dig up the treasure coffer. The person who owns the map has to be the one to do it. The way we play, the person who owns the map gets to call the shots on all the loot that you can roll on. Anything that falls straight into your inventory is yours to keep. Tell your friends before you start this adventure to have plenty of space in your inventory. If everyone brings a map or two, you'll likely be getting lots of stuff - crafting mats, gear, materia, gil, and crystals.
3. Kill all monsters that appear. Afterwards, get your rewards. At that time, there is a 50/50 chance that a portal to the Aquapolis will spawn.
4. If the portal appears, the owner of the map has to click on it, and everyone will be teleported inside. Proceed to the first room. There is a treasure chest on the floor in the middle. Again, only the map owner can click on it. Once he or she does, cages will open, releasing the horrors that guard the treasure. Defeat the monsters, open the treasure. Reap the rewards.
5. Killing the monsters gives the map owner a key, which will open one of two doors. How do you know which one it is? You don't. Well, I hear sometimes one of them is lit up and shiny, but I haven't witnessed that. Really, you've got a 50/50 shot of picking the right door, which will lead to another room with another treasure chest, with more monster guards to kill. Two more doors to choose between with only one key afterwards. There are a total of seven rooms. As you progress through, the treasure chests get bigger, the rewards get better, and there's more and more piles of gold and stuff in the background scenery. It looks pretty cool.
6. Sometimes a boss enemy will enter the mix. This is pretty exciting and why I suggest you should have at least 4 people (traditional setup - tank, healer, 2 DPS - any additional people can be more DPS). You can change classes inside the Aquapolis, though, so if you do feel like you need a different setup, that's ok. Sometimes a Goblin Treasure Hunter appears. Kill him fast! He tries to run away. But both the boss enemy and the goblin drop their own treasure, with bonus rewards!
7. When you try to open the doors, it will either open right away or a steel gate will slam down, blocking your way. This doesn't mean you've lost! It will struggle, and sometimes it will fling itself open, opening the door with it, revealing the next chamber. Sometimes it will stay closed, and the lights in the room will start flashing red, and an alarm will begin buzzing. Aw, bummer. You've lost... or have you? If you're really lucky, the red lights turn into RAINBOW DISCO LIGHTS in the ultimate heart-stopping fake-out, and the door magically opens! But usually the red lights mean you're out. You get teleported back to where you were and the Aquapolis has ended.
...
Our first night, we probably ran the Aquapolis five times. I have never had more fun playing this game. There were ups and downs, highs and lows. It was insane. We got so much treasure! We made so much gil! We saw so many (once-)rare minions! I finally got a Lesser Panda, but that doesn't matter because I GOT A NUTKIN! With my treasure map, we made it all the way to the 7th room. It was amazing. It was exciting. The adrenaline was pumping.
I still haven't seen that 7th room again. We've made it to the 6th. In the 5th room, my boyfriend got a Dwarf Rabbit, one of the new minions. It's freaking adorable, and a nice friend for my Nutkin. He tried selling it on the Market Board, but after it didn't sell for a few days, he just gave up and used it. I'm glad, because it's too cute. I'm sure we'll get another eventually, because we've been running these a lot.Made it to the final room of the Aquapolis! Huge treasure chest and great treasure. Finally got a Nutkin! #FFXIV pic.twitter.com/mkDF2ze2nR— Original Fat Chocobo (@Nalia_FFXIV) June 8, 2016
The downside to that, though, is that it seems like EVERYONE is running the Aquapolis a lot. So much that it's flooded the market with these minions and "rare" materials. The Thavnairian gear, which I painstakingly gathered the mats for, paid hundreds of thousands of hard-earned gil just for mats for, is now going for just mere thousands for whole constructed pieces. The Nutkin, which before this patch was so rare that it often wasn't even up on the market board, and if it was it was usually over 5 million gil, sometimes as much as 10 or 15 million, was selling for only 1 million last night. Prices for some crafting materials have dropped tenfold. Materia that used to be worth 100k is now only worth 1000. This is the Great Market Crash of 3.3. I only made gil this week from running the Aquapolis itself. That and my retainer brought back an ACTUAL rare crafting material that apparently doesn't drop in the Aquapolis, which I sold for just under 2 million gil.
Don't get me wrong, I like the dungeon. I'm going to keep doing it. But part of what made that first night so awesome was seeing those items and thinking we were making bank. I thought we were going to run back to our retainers and sell all that stuff for millions. I should have realized that every other team was doing the exact same thing we were. Here's my Nutkin and I. Aren't we adorable?
So cute! I also got a lesser panda. The dungeon dropped lots of gil, materia, and crystals/clusters to all. #FFXIV pic.twitter.com/oWatezGU9x— Original Fat Chocobo (@Nalia_FFXIV) June 8, 2016
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Fallout 4: New Survival Mode
Recently, Bethesda Softworks released a patch for Fallout 4 that introduced the new, revamped Survival Mode. Previously, those of us who have been playing for a while have been playing on the old Survival difficulty setting and thinking "huh, this isn't a whole lot different from the 'very hard' setting." And it really wasn't. The enemies didn't seem much stronger. The only noticeable difference was an increased encounter rate for legendary enemies and a slower rate of healing. The only thing resembling difficulty that it adds is in the slower healing. If you find yourself swarmed with high level Super Mutants or Brotherhood of Steel Knights in Power Armor and gatling lasers, you might be in a tight spot. But those situations are rare unless you're seeking them out.
I should specify that when I started playing this game back in November, I started on the "Normal" difficulty setting. I found the game to be pretty hard at that point. It was my first Fallout game and I had no idea what I was doing. I usually play Final Fantasy-type games, so something like this that shares more with a first-person shooter than a turn-based RPG was very much out of my comfort zone. The Deathclaw that you have to fight in Concord in the beginning of the game really threw me for a loop, and I died to it at least a dozen times before finally getting past it. By the time I got to the Lexington segment of the game and the Corvega Assembly Plant, I had tuned the difficulty down to Easy. I couldn't handle it. But after more levels, more gear, more time playing the game, I moved up to hard, then very hard, and eventually Survival.
I was excited to try the new Survival mode. I wanted to try it on my level 85 character, and I also created a new character to try the mode from the beginning of the game.
Changes to the mode include (but are no limited to):
I severely underestimated how much I had to dump.
Before the mode change, my character, Adeline, could carry 325 pounds with her. Ammunition had no weight at all, so I always picked up everything I saw. I had thousands of rounds of every type of ammunition, including hundreds of Fusion Cores for Power Armor. I had missiles for missile launchers and mini nukes for Fat Man launchers that I never used. Those Fusion Cores weigh 4 pounds each in the new Survival Mode. The missiles weigh 12 pounds. I didn't even look to see what the mini nukes weigh. So I spent the first hour of the new Survival mode just making my inventory bearable.
I do have the 4th level of the strength perk "Strong Back" that increases carry weight and allows you to fast travel when overencumbered, but that obviously doesn't help in this new mode. And you get fatigued in this mode now, which can make you sick. So being over your carry weight is very dangerous, because being sick is difficult when antibiotics are hard to come by and a doctor isn't close by.
Finally, I was able to start adventuring. I had a quest to turn in to Preston, so I set a personal goal of walking from Sanctuary Hills to the Castle. It took me hours. In in-game time, it probably took me days.
I've decided that this high level character isn't worth playing Survival mode with anymore. I'll be moving her down to Very Hard for Far Harbor later this week.
But I do have a new character. Maybe from a new game this Survival Mode is more fun.
And it was fun! At first. I even managed to get past that Deathclaw in Concord on the first try without dying to it.
And then I played the same 45-minute stretch of game 3 times in a row, dying to things that I just couldn't avoid that were random chance. Just because there wasn't a bed to sleep in and save my game during that stretch. The last one happened when I was about to enter a building where I know there was a bed. So that I could save my game.
That part is not fun. There's a lot about the mode that is really just starting to feel tedious. I don't like playing the same thing over and over again because I'm exploring and I'm only level 6, but I don't want to miss anything that I've picked up on the previous runs.
I don't know. I think I just need to wait for Far Harbor's release. Take a break from the game until then. Maybe I'll have some new thoughts then.
I should specify that when I started playing this game back in November, I started on the "Normal" difficulty setting. I found the game to be pretty hard at that point. It was my first Fallout game and I had no idea what I was doing. I usually play Final Fantasy-type games, so something like this that shares more with a first-person shooter than a turn-based RPG was very much out of my comfort zone. The Deathclaw that you have to fight in Concord in the beginning of the game really threw me for a loop, and I died to it at least a dozen times before finally getting past it. By the time I got to the Lexington segment of the game and the Corvega Assembly Plant, I had tuned the difficulty down to Easy. I couldn't handle it. But after more levels, more gear, more time playing the game, I moved up to hard, then very hard, and eventually Survival.
I was excited to try the new Survival mode. I wanted to try it on my level 85 character, and I also created a new character to try the mode from the beginning of the game.
Changes to the mode include (but are no limited to):
- No Fast Travel (you have to walk or find other means to travel to your destination)
- Reduced carry weight
- Ammo and Stimpaks have weight
- Save only when you sleep in a bed or sleeping bag (all saves are now autosaves)
- You now get tired, hungry, and thirsty
- You can get sick or fatigued from eating uncooked meat, sleeping in an unclean bed, going too long without eating/drinking/sleeping, or being poisoned by an animal or other wasteland hazard
- The adrenaline perk has been added, allowing you to deal increased damage for a short period as you defeat more enemies
I severely underestimated how much I had to dump.
Before the mode change, my character, Adeline, could carry 325 pounds with her. Ammunition had no weight at all, so I always picked up everything I saw. I had thousands of rounds of every type of ammunition, including hundreds of Fusion Cores for Power Armor. I had missiles for missile launchers and mini nukes for Fat Man launchers that I never used. Those Fusion Cores weigh 4 pounds each in the new Survival Mode. The missiles weigh 12 pounds. I didn't even look to see what the mini nukes weigh. So I spent the first hour of the new Survival mode just making my inventory bearable.
I do have the 4th level of the strength perk "Strong Back" that increases carry weight and allows you to fast travel when overencumbered, but that obviously doesn't help in this new mode. And you get fatigued in this mode now, which can make you sick. So being over your carry weight is very dangerous, because being sick is difficult when antibiotics are hard to come by and a doctor isn't close by.
Finally, I was able to start adventuring. I had a quest to turn in to Preston, so I set a personal goal of walking from Sanctuary Hills to the Castle. It took me hours. In in-game time, it probably took me days.
I've decided that this high level character isn't worth playing Survival mode with anymore. I'll be moving her down to Very Hard for Far Harbor later this week.
But I do have a new character. Maybe from a new game this Survival Mode is more fun.
Trying new #SurvivalMode w new char to get a real feel for it. Welcome to the Commonwealth, Courtney Love. #Fallout4 pic.twitter.com/7aqsN93w4q
— Original Fat Chocobo (@Nalia_FFXIV) May 8, 2016
And it was fun! At first. I even managed to get past that Deathclaw in Concord on the first try without dying to it.
And then I played the same 45-minute stretch of game 3 times in a row, dying to things that I just couldn't avoid that were random chance. Just because there wasn't a bed to sleep in and save my game during that stretch. The last one happened when I was about to enter a building where I know there was a bed. So that I could save my game.
That part is not fun. There's a lot about the mode that is really just starting to feel tedious. I don't like playing the same thing over and over again because I'm exploring and I'm only level 6, but I don't want to miss anything that I've picked up on the previous runs.
I don't know. I think I just need to wait for Far Harbor's release. Take a break from the game until then. Maybe I'll have some new thoughts then.
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