1723

No one who’s actually very good at low level coding works anymore on PC, they’ll just raise the hardware requirement.

Every time you see a console game that is CPU limited on PC that’s your refresher to the fact that PC ports have been, for years, afterthoughts. At this point no one knows anymore how to do that.

Time is money, and time spent on PC optimization isn’t worth it. You can now bruteforce it by spending $2000 every three years or so on beefy hardware.

1724

Different strokes obviously, but I’m bewildered that people find the combat boring. Of course, I found the combat super boring in the Call of Duty games so clearly what makes my brain tick is a lot different than many others.

1725

I mean, not really. CPU speeds haven’t exactly been increasing in leaps and bounds the past decade and besides, the architecture between PCs and consoles is far more similar now than it’s been in the past.

I do agree that heavy low level optimizations by game devs is not worth it, but they’re also doing a lot more than they were the previous console generation.

1726

Yeah, I love it. To me it is so much better than combat in Borderlands or Destiny 2. I love BL 1/2 but it wasn’t the combat that made it awesome for me. The combat is different from, but much more on par Warframe in terms of uniqueness and cool moment to moment crazy things you can do.

I suspect that people that think it is boring are unable to break out of the mindset of playing it like your standard shooter. It isn’t.

1727

I thought it looked fairly boring from having played the demo, but then I watched part of Tom’s Qt3 stream last night, and the combat in that looked really cool where Tom was freezing stuff and bringing down lightning and occasionally firing his weapon.

1728

Like 20% of his review is loading screens, brutal!

1729

Yeah that’s part of the fun. I love coming up with cool primer and detonator combos, especially when I’m playing with a friend. Combined with the mobility involved, I find the combat to be really engaging, far more so than something like Destiny or other shooters. That’s just me, though, obviously a lot is just personal taste.

1730

The missions disappointly ARE boring. The same “go here, press the USE key” rinse, repeat from Mass Effect though. Bioware needs to diversify on how to do better quests.

1731

Ah, he was playing Storm. From what I understand, it’s possible to go all abilities on Storm if you want. Frost Shards can be spammed endlessly with one component that reduces gear cooldowns (haven’t done this, but read that it could be done).

Every javelin is a bit different in this respect. Ranger tends to play more like destiny with more gun usage. With colossus, I am using melee more than guns or abilities. But will use guns on more difficult targets to wear them down or finish them off (e.g. shield slam an enemy then fire a grenade launcher at point blank range). Abilities get used to prime targets and set up combos.

1732

Is “playing with a friend” viable in this game? Or do you need a party of four? How does the game handle lower numbers of players, if at all?

1733

#bringbackmasseffectelevators

1734

Tom invited McMaster to play last night, but I had to go to bed, so I missed out on the action. And the video isn’t up yet on the youtubes.

1735

For the first few hours of playing this last night, i had zero trouble or issues on the PS4. Load times were shorter than previously, and really don’t seem disruptive to me most of the time. I feel like maybe the biggest reason why folks are complaining is that they aren’t hidden. It’s actually a loading screen, rather than Warframe or destiny where you stare at a spaceship pointlessly flying.

The story and characters are better developed than most games these days, and their voice acting and animations make them far more real.

Combat is extremely good. Exploration in Freeplay is extremely good, with actual stuff to find hidden in the world.

One weakness is that the story involves a LOT of dialog. This in itself isn’t bad at all, but it can be problematic if playing with friends on comms, because someone may talk and make it hard to hear what characters are saying, and what they are saying actually matters.

1736

I’ve still got the email notification, so I’ll take a look at that.

A link, for anyone else that’s interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVHwmkbbXeA

1737

We did about the first 4-5 missions as a duo, and we did them on Hard. It was hard in a few places, but we could have turned the difficulty down if we wanted. Keep in mind he was just learning how to play the game so well and I’m fairly inexperienced myself, so we’re not exactly at the skill cap.

From that, I would say a Duo feels very viable. I know Strongholds are 4 player but you don’t need those to complete the story. Free roam is also public, but everyone is typically off doing their own thing.

1738

My loading screens are reasonable on a 970 Evo. Loading a mission is about 40 seconds. Inventory is maybe 2 seconds. They have never bothered me.

I think the big problem is for people with HDD’s playing with impatient fast loaders. With that combo, the tether mechanic can cause them extra loads.

1739

I forgot how horrible his armor looked (bird poop), and then he made it worse. :D

oh wait, Tom never actually did anything with McMaster in his party , due to the cortex not working I guess?

Wow did that stream ever end with a whimper of excitement.

1740

So far the only thing that’s rubbing me the wrong way is playing with all these randoms who want to race through the goddamn missions like there’s candy at the end. I know I’m more of a ‘stop and smell the roses’ kind of player and that could bug people in the opposite way, but then I get into that loop where everyone’s ahead of me and I get pulled forward which means loading screen, and in the meantime I’m seething thinking about all the kills they’re stealing. Goddamn teenagers. Yeah, I just know they’re teenagers.

1741

Thanks for the info.

Sounds pretty much like Destiny, which is not a model I’m fond of. I actively resent being forced to play with pubs in any capacity, honestly. From Tom’s stream it also looks like it fights you every step of the way in trying to secure a private game. Probably not for me, then.

1742

I played with a single friend, on hard… And on hard, it can be pretty brutal. But totally doable.

On normal, everything is soloable, so you can easily do it with just one friend.