rei
1626
ea access/origin down for anyone else?
Whoa my squaddies are actually talking now. A lot. This is amazing! I’m kind of pissed I did all of Eos already and missed the dialogue.
Seriously this is bringing the game to life. It’s giving these people personalities. What a horrible bug to ship with. People who already beat the game never heard their squad banter or comment on the missions.
I haven’t played post-patch yet, but I never got this bug pre-patch. My squadmates were very vocal on Eos, and on Haralr and Vesorl. I might have misspelled some of those names.
I’ve hear banter before the patch, was that a fix in the patch notes?
olaf
1630
I was having problems with it when I tried to patch around 8p central, but I killed the process and restarted Origin and it patched pretty quickly.
I’m experiencing the squad chatter in the Nomad and probably more than I had been, but it’s still getting interrupted by SAM notifying me of nearby mining opportunities. Was that not supposed to be fixed?
rei
1632
I don’t recall seeing frequency of mining notifications/apex strike missions available in the patch notes, just some wishlists.
I didn’t read the patch notes too closely, so I may have just assumed that. Anyway, I agree with everyone who says the loyalty missions are the best part of the game. I already did Cora’s, Peebee’s and Drack’s and they’re all great. Really looking forward to the others. One other thing about Drack - playing on normal, having that guy in your party is practically a ‘win’ button. That guy just runs rampant among the enemies I’m plinking from a distance. He’s a wrecking ball. It’s kind of fun to hang back and just watch him go, actually.
I’ve never heard them speak before today, outside of cutscenes.
Scrax
1635
My squaddies talked before, but now they talk A LOT. Like they have conversations. Drack and Jaal are best buds.
Also, the eyes look much better.
My inventory space went from 60 (w/ the upgrade) to 150, which makes you wonder why they would have a limit at all at this point.
My last few play sessions, I’ve been having this battle at a labor camp on the ice world where I have to free some prisoners.
I’ve been fighting this fight and losing it many times. But it hasn’t felt repetitive at all. In that way, the game reminds me a little of Halo. Remember how you could die and reload from a checkpoint in Halo two dozen times, and the fight would always feel pretty fresh because the AI would react in different ways?
It’s a very similar thing here. This labor camp happens to be on a plain and I can approach from any angle, 360 degrees around the camp. There’s no fences. But there is a trench on one side of the camp, and a lot of crates that can be used for cover. There’s also platforms so the enemy can fire down upon you. Or you can be below those platforms and use them as cover. Or you can rush in and free a set of prisoners and they’ll fight alongside you. At any point during the battle, you can get back in your vehicle and go to a different point in the battle, as long as you can avoid fire. And the enemy gets two or three sets of reinforcements from their nearby base via troops being transported into battle.
There’s just so many factors to the equation here that it never ever feels like the same fight twice. There have been times when I got really close to beating the second wave of reinforcements, but then got killed by the original labor camp troops who don’t even have shields. How embarrassing! But yeah, I’m loving this fight. It’s a great example of a good fight in an open world situation, where the level designers have designed a battleground, but there’s lots of factors and game systems that interact within that battleground. It’s a great example of emergent gameplay that results from a confluence of gameplay systems.
I am starting to regret not having researched anything yet, or looked at merchants and bought any equipment though. I could really have used better armor or fire power in this situation, playing on Hardcore.
Finally had the Nomad conversation between Peebee and Drack where she reveals her father is an elcor. It’s about as great as I imagined.
I remember that fight. That camp forced me to bust out the Isharay. That gun is basically like nuking them from orbit.
How do you get that weapon? Do you have to buy it from a vendor at the Nexus? Or research it or something?
Like I said, I haven’t bought any equipment or researched anything yet, so I’m not sure how all that works yet.
You could in theory buy it from some later planets but you can only place augments in stuff you make yourself, so anything you R&D yourself is going to be a lot better.
The As best I can tell, every ten levels a new “level” of research opens up for pretty much everything. At level 1, you had access to the Mattock I, for instance, and at level 11 you gained access to the level II. That applies to stuff you craft but also stuff you find in containers - at level 11, you started finding level II stuff and stopped finding level I. So if you’re at level 30 for instance and still running around in level I armor and weapons you’re probably underpowered.
I crafted it. I don’t know how I unlocked it, but I wanted a bolt action SR and that looked like the only one. Hits like a tank, I can 1-shot Observers with it if I cloak first and it’s only level 2.
Hmmm, I think I’m at Level 10. But I could be at level 11. I’ll have to check when I get home tonight. The two weapons I use so far are Assault Rifle and Shotgun.
@divedivedive, that’s a good idea about finding stuff. I haven’t looked into my inventory yet. Maybe when I get home tonight, I’ll look through my inventory to see if I have a weapon that is better than the level 1 stuff I’ve been using.
From the brief look I had through vendor inventories and research at the nexus, it was hard to tell if weapons were better. Sometimes they did more damage, but then had a slower fire rate, and smaller clips, and smaller max ammo. And considering that I’m always running out of ammo, I thought that would be a losing proposition overall, since the total damage I could do before I ran out of all ammo would be less if I “upgraded” weapons.
Rethinking my post, and I’m not sure my math checks out. I’m level 35 now, and kitted out in level V weapons and armor. If I gained new access every 10 character levels, I should only have level IV gear. So maybe it’s not every 10 char levels, I should pay closer attention.
Anyway, my experience so far indicates that skill advancement had a much greater impact on combat than gear levels, at least on normal difficulty. My companions are running around murdering dudes willy nilly, often before I’m near them.
