[Steam] Thread XXXIII: The only winning move is not to play

[hobbitkniver]

Ugh, the final boss. Spoilers for that fight:

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I hate how the boss cheats. Being hard is one thing; it's quite another to be unfair in ways that no other enemy in the game is. Ridiculously OP weapons, that crazy drone attack, and a recharging Zoltan shield...

And let's not forget that

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The ship keeps fighting after you kill the crew.

[Brother Oni]

I have more questions to whoever has the dawn of war games. My friends and I are trying to put together "LAN" games with the help of the program Evolve, which can effectively make us play a game as if it were LAN. My friends and I have done this multiple times with different games without a hitch, however the Dawn of War series doesn't seem to work with this.

Anyone know how to play multiplayer with DoW after the multiplayer servers went down?

What version of DoW are you running? Retail or Steam?
This page has a suggested fix for a Steam version.

Are all games patched to the same version?
Are any of them running mods?
Are you setting up the games with Direct Host/Direct Connect?
Are you running the game in Compatability mode (assuming that a Windows OS newer than XP is involved)?
Are ports forwarded correctly?
Have exceptions in the firewall been made for DoW?

There's a whole raft of troubleshooting steps to try, especially when networking is involved.
To be honest, I think Triscuitable's suggestion may be better for you and your friends.

[Hiro Protagonest]

So, this new trend in the Humble Bundle worries me.

I have to pay $16.74 for DF-9 in the new Bundle? I mean, I'm sorta interested in Psychonauts and Brutal Legend (the latter more to see what it's like than because of how good it is), but DF-9 would've been the deal-sealer. But that price is a dealbreaker.

[Forbiddenwar]

So, this new trend in the Humble Bundle worries me.

I have to pay $16.74 for DF-9 in the new Bundle? I mean, I'm sorta interested in Psychonauts and Brutal Legend (the latter more to see what it's like than because of how good it is), but DF-9 would've been the deal-sealer. But that price is a dealbreaker.

I'm not sure what the problem is.
The fact that a preorder for a game is not more than 60%-100% off? (as it includes all the other games and depends on how much you decide the developer should get)
Or
The fact they are selling preorders for brand new games at all?

(personally, I hate they are selling brand new preorders, all it does is devalue the game. If they were selling brand new preorders for $5 or, even worse $0.01, the game would be devalued even worse.)

60% off as a preorder bonus sounds huge and leaves me very worried about the developers cash flow. Will they even have enough money to release the game? Or will they even have enough money to release the last 2 games they promised but haven't released in full yet?

[IthilanorStPete]

And let's not forget that

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The ship keeps fighting after you kill the crew.

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There's also that. I've never run into it myself; I've never been able to use boarding/combat strategies well. (Also why I've never been able to get the Mantis ship)

[Pendulous]

Borderlands 2 is free til Sunday, and on sale. Might as well try it. I have been playing the first game on and off the last week or so, but I have not liked it. Too many problems.

[Antonok]

Borderlands 2 is free til Sunday, and on sale. Might as well try it. I have been playing the first game on and off the last week or so, but I have not liked it. Too many problems.

The second one is better imo. I just got it for the free weekend myself (owned it on xbox previously but never beat it)

EDIT: I just got a 75% off coupon for Krater that expires Feb 20th and I have no plans on using it if anyone wants it.

[Pendulous]

Well, that didn't take long. Just under two hours in and already quit and uninstalled. Glad it was free at least.

[Grif]

P.S. Good luck beating the final boss on easy, without resorting to cheese tactics.

What qualifies as "cheese" tactics? Full Burst Laser II loadout with Weapons Pre-Igniter? The classic Mantis boarding party surprise extravaganza? Full EMP loadout with drone support? Fire, fire everywhere?

[factotum]

Well, that didn't take long. Just under two hours in and already quit and uninstalled. Glad it was free at least.

See, I would have suggested to not try B2 if you didn't like the first game, because they're very, very similar--in fact, B2 is more of an expansion for B1 than a new game in its own right, IMHO, with enemies that are even *more* bullet spongy than the first game.

@Forbiddenwar: I think his criticism of the new Humble Bundle stems from the fact you have to pay so much more to get that single extra game. It's 3 games for any price, $6 to add Brutal Legend, and $16.74 to get Spacebase DF-9.

I don't have a problem with that myself...however, they already did some sort of bundle for Double Fine games not so long ago, which I got at the time, so I already have every single game on offer *apart* from Spacebase DF-9, which I won't buy yet because I learned not to do alpha/beta games with Minecraft (mainly because I'd played the game to death and was bored of it by the time it was officially released!).

[Rodin]

What qualifies as "cheese" tactics? Full Burst Laser II loadout with Weapons Pre-Igniter? The classic Mantis boarding party surprise extravaganza? Full EMP loadout with drone support? Fire, fire everywhere?

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Well, the one I learned was to carefully kill all of the crew except one in the first phase - you leave one guy trapped in a weapons room and devastate everything else. If you kill the entire crew, the ship goes automated and there's no hope.

With no crew apart from one trapped guy, all you have to do is punch through the Shields one time on the subsequent waves and you can disable the ship's systems at will. Plus, you can teleport over boarding parties to wreck the most dangerous systems with impunity.

Even using that tactic, the boss is still hard, even on Easy. I don't think I've ever beaten it on Normal.

[Tylorious]

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Well, the one I learned was to carefully kill all of the crew except one in the first phase - you leave one guy trapped in a weapons room and devastate everything else. If you kill the entire crew, the ship goes automated and there's no hope.

With no crew apart from one trapped guy, all you have to do is punch through the Shields one time on the subsequent waves and you can disable the ship's systems at will. Plus, you can teleport over boarding parties to wreck the most dangerous systems with impunity.

Even using that tactic, the boss is still hard, even on Easy. I don't think I've ever beaten it on Normal.

Does disabling the droid section of the ship remove the droid wave during the second battle?

[Grif]

Does disabling the droid section of the ship remove the droid wave during the second battle?

IIRC, it doesn't. But it does disable any that lingers after.

[Cikomyr]

I just noticed a new game available on Steam, goes by the name of "Horizon", it appears to be a 4X space game.

Anyone ever tried it?

[Tylorious]

IIRC, it doesn't. But it does disable any that lingers after.

So when it comes to the ridiculously difficult wave of droids, best bet would be cloaking?

[Grif]

So when it comes to the ridiculously difficult wave of droids, best bet would be cloaking?

Yep. Though having Shields 4, and good evasion would be a good backup plan. A level 2 cloak recharges fast enough to avoid 1 in 2 drone surge.

[Antonok]

So this game caught my attention yesterday.

For some reason its now a little nagging imp in the back of my head wanting to play it, and seeing as I'm broke atm I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in trading it for a copy of Alan Wake.

[Pendulous]

So this game caught my attention yesterday.

A classic turn-based RPG? This looks better than any of the other ones I've seen before (like Cthulhu Saves you Money if you Don't Buy This Game). Might have to add this to my wishlist.

[Bayar]

A classic turn-based RPG? This looks better than any of the other ones I've seen before (like Cthulhu Saves you Money if you Don't Buy This Game). Might have to add this to my wishlist.

Mostly because it doesn't go the "pixelize everything to appease to nostalgia" route.

[Pendulous]

When's the next big sale anyway? My wishlist is starting to pile up.

[Morph Bark]

Meanwhile, my wishlist has't grown much in the past half year. I didn't even buy anything during the winter sale.

Partly my computer specs and internet ar to blame, but mostly there not being anything new that I found really interesting.

[factotum]

A classic turn-based RPG? This looks better than any of the other ones I've seen before (like Cthulhu Saves you Money if you Don't Buy This Game). Might have to add this to my wishlist.

You might want to try episodes 3 and 4 of the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness adventures from Penny Arcade--they're done by the same guys who did Cthulhu Saves the World, but they're much better (IMHO, of course).

[Pendulous]

As much as I dislike Borderlands, I'm trying really hard to give it plenty of chances. But I'm having an issue that doesn't help. Usually when I play, I stop because the game crashes. Always during a loading screen. I don't know why.

[Antonok]

As much as I dislike Borderlands, I'm trying really hard to give it plenty of chances. But I'm having an issue that doesn't help. Usually when I play, I stop because the game crashes. Always during a loading screen. I don't know why.

List of general questions:

Borderlands 1 or 2?

What operating System are you using?

What are your system specs?

Are your drivers up to date?
~If yes, have you tried rolling back to a previous version?

What graphics settings are you using?

[Avilan the Grey]

My biggest problem with Borderlands (2) is that nothing stays cleared. It's just something I can't stand, the fact that every time you go back to or have to go back thru an area you have to fight the same damn guys you killed ten minutes ago.

My other real problem with Borderlands 2 (never played 1) is that I don't really like any of the classes. I don't know why, I just don't like the "feel" of them.

[Pendulous]

List of general questions:

Borderlands 1 or 2?

1, and the rest doesn't matter. It just lost its last chance. I spent 20 minutes standing on top of a quest objective. I ran around the entire area looking for it, and never did. Also, I was constantly dying and running out of ammo. The sad part is I was playing a Berserker. It would have been nice if I didn't get stuck with three badass skags at once. And for whatever reason, alpha skags took no damage from any of my weapons.

[factotum]

My biggest problem with Borderlands (2) is that nothing stays cleared. It's just something I can't stand, the fact that every time you go back to or have to go back thru an area you have to fight the same damn guys you killed ten minutes ago.

The problem there is that you're thinking of it like a single player game, and certainly Gearbox never wanted anyone to see it that way! If the enemies don't respawn you can't grind them for epic lewtz and XP, which is apparently all that's important in the multiplayer world.

[Antonok]

1, and the rest doesn't matter. It just lost its last chance. I spent 20 minutes standing on top of a quest objective. I ran around the entire area looking for it, and never did. Also, I was constantly dying and running out of ammo. The sad part is I was playing a Berserker. It would have been nice if I didn't get stuck with three badass skags at once. And for whatever reason, alpha skags took no damage from any of my weapons.

There's a couple of the quests that stick the objective on top of beams and pillars. Also sounds like you need to upgrade your weapons or level up. The borderlands games like to punish you for going into an area 3+ levels higher then you are. Which does suck since it gives you quests for that range quite often.

Edit: Also some of the gather quests mark a center point of an area and make you hunt for the items on your own.

[Avilan the Grey]

The problem there is that you're thinking of it like a single player game, and certainly Gearbox never wanted anyone to see it that way! If the enemies don't respawn you can't grind them for epic lewtz and XP, which is apparently all that's important in the multiplayer world.

And yet this doesn't happen in other grind - loot based games like Diablo or Torchlight.

[Rodin]

And yet this doesn't happen in other grind - loot based games like Diablo or Torchlight.

But it does happen in Torchlight. I believe Torchlight had a 2 or 3 level memory - any time that you went back up past a certain point you would find the level re-populated. I actually lost a Hardcore character when I forgot to buy Town Portal spells and had to reverse directions in the Goblin Fortress. In trying to get back up to the Waypoint, I entered a level I thought was cleared only to be ganked by a boss that had respawned and was sitting on the entrance to the level.

Diablo II repopulated in multiplayer. Diablo III also re-populates, which I know quite well because I had to grind certain levels incessantly to get some required materials for

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The Pony Level

Heck, the end-game of Diablo II was entirely focused about repeatedly grinding certain bosses and areas with your magic find maxed.