Quinn wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 20:55:
Two games came out at the same time.

Far Cry 4
Dragon Age Inquisition

The first has the EXACT (albeit good) gameplay and features as its prequel, which makes it moreso a glorified expansion pack than a new game.

This is not a glorified expansion pack, there is way too much content and new stuff added.

Quboid wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 22:46:
I haven't met a hunter yet but they are presumably to counteract this at more difficult bases. It feels a bit like using a spell, the animal seems to just appear as if you had waved a wand.

Hunters can use animals against you and the icon above the animal will change from a set of 'jaws' to the same symbol of the Hunter. The only way to break it is by killing the animal or the Hunter that is using it. Typically there's almost always a wolf or two that accompany Hunters and most Hunters roam in packs of 3-4, so if you find one, there's almost certainly a wolf or two and 2-3 more Hunters around. They don't show on your radar but for a few seconds, even when directly observing them. They coordinate via 'chirps', sound like birds. At night it's pretty easy to catch but during the day it's nearly impossible unless you're really paying attention. They use arrows and are very accurate, taking almost all of your health in one shot. I haven't encountered them 'in the wild' unless within a mission and they are sometimes posted at Outposts.

Spoiler: In the first 'Choose which side' mission, if you choose the girl's side, Amita, and go for the intel, you will encounter 3-4 Hunters at Alpha Base with 1-2 wolves, then another 3-4 Hunters with one wolf on the way to Base Bravo and another 3-4 Hunters and 1-2 wolves AT the base. Not an easy mission at all and one I was stuck on for quite a while. STEALTH is about your only ally here, going in guns blazing will get you killed quickly. I'm sure it's possible, but it will probably be a lot more frustrating and less rewarding. I didn't do the other mission, so I don't know what you encounter on that one.

When you finish the mission and see Sabal for the next, he gets all mad at you for choosing Amita's side and slams a door in your face, telling you to go to the monastery to 'learn about your Father's vision'. It pissed me off! I shot up the house he was in and used every last bullet and grenade. Of course it didn't actually do any damage to the building he was in, but this whole time up to that point, you were just caught in the middle of everything and asked to help. Now, the first time you make a decision on your own to do something to help these people, which you didn't actually have to do, your character could have just told them to go FUCK OFF!, and he gets mad at you?! I'm sorry, I didn't know I owed you a damn thing?! If I want to help, then I can do so any way I fuckin' please! If you don't like it, then BYE! So, yeah, it pissed me off a little bit...lol...

Like I said originally, a royal pain in the ass!


=-Rigs-=

This comment was edited on Nov 18, 2014, 23:47.

Loopy wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 22:40:

siapnar wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 13:02:

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 12:50:
Surprising that they're still going with the "skin an animal, and just pull a chunk of top sirloin out of it" routine.

I was also surprised by the hunk of meat you gain from "skinning" an animal.
A simple fur texture with a colour change would make a hell of a lot more sense.

Doesn't the hunk of meat actually serve a gameplay purpose this time? Like you can throw it at enemies to attract wild animals, kind of like the bugbait from Half-Life 2? Haven't played it yet, so just speculating based on trailers.

You get two items, the skin and 'bait'. Bait is a throwable item that conjures an animal to attack your enemies. I haven't met a hunter yet but they are presumably to counteract this at more difficult bases. It feels a bit like using a spell, the animal seems to just appear as if you had waved a wand.

Loopy wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 22:40:

siapnar wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 13:02:

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 12:50:
Surprising that they're still going with the "skin an animal, and just pull a chunk of top sirloin out of it" routine.

I was also surprised by the hunk of meat you gain from "skinning" an animal.
A simple fur texture with a colour change would make a hell of a lot more sense.

Doesn't the hunk of meat actually serve a gameplay purpose this time? Like you can throw it at enemies to attract wild animals, kind of like the bugbait from Half-Life 2? Haven't played it yet, so just speculating based on trailers.

Yeah, same as the cyberhearts in blood dragon. You toss it into a camp, and animals will run in, attacking people.

siapnar wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 13:02:

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 12:50:
Surprising that they're still going with the "skin an animal, and just pull a chunk of top sirloin out of it" routine.

I was also surprised by the hunk of meat you gain from "skinning" an animal.
A simple fur texture with a colour change would make a hell of a lot more sense.

Doesn't the hunk of meat actually serve a gameplay purpose this time? Like you can throw it at enemies to attract wild animals, kind of like the bugbait from Half-Life 2? Haven't played it yet, so just speculating based on trailers.

Two games came out at the same time.

Far Cry 4
Dragon Age Inquisition

The first has the EXACT (albeit good) gameplay and features as its prequel, which makes it moreso a glorified expansion pack than a new game.

The second is basically BioWare making a stand and a point proving that even while they are shackled by E.A., they can still make a fantastic, revolutionary RPG.

If you're a fan of both genres, it's a dead giveaway which one you should choose.

Thanks Rigs, good write-up.

I bought it and I've spent about 2 hours in it so far so I've seen little after the prologue. It feels like Far Cry 3.1, which has advantages and disadvantages but so far I'm happy enough with this aspect.

Performance is very poor, with a stutter that makes it feel like I'm getting about half the 70 FPS that Fraps reports, at 1080p with most settings at high (including God Rays, which are the beautiful sun rays filtered past hills and through trees). I have an Intel i7 3.5Ghz and two GeForce 660s. The fix for the stutter might be just a setting (I'll check Post Effects) and if that's sorted, it should run well with great graphics. But no 1440p for me I fear.

The fur effect is awful. It looks great when you and the animal are stationary and a few metres apart (i.e. pretty in screenshots) but in motion or close up it's terrible. The bait system as shown in the tutorial/prologue seems terrible, I hope there's more to that than conjuring an animal at will.

Beamer wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 18:11:
I've heard there are animal whisperers or whatever so that you can't just lure a tiger into the base and watch it kill everyone.
Which makes me a bit sad, as that never got old.

Hunters, actually. They're a royal pain the ASS! In a good way..kinda. I've been playing FC4 for a few days now (*ahem*), I mean, a few hours now and I'm really digging it so far. There was a problem in the beginning with the first door you go through after the intro would crash the game back to desktop but I finally fixed it and then there wasn't a map, it was all black, but I finally found a fix for that as well, though that fix makes my game stutter more. Some others are having trouble with it going to a black screen on start-up or having all black shadows, something to do with the 'Ambient Occlusion' setting, I guess. I didn't have trouble with that save for one time and fooling with the graphics settings fixed it.

Now, I have a Core i5-750/2.8ghz, 6gigs of DDR3-1666 RAM and an AMD Radeon HD7850/1gb (I know, pathetic!) running on Windows 8.1 and Catalyst ver. 14.4's. I get pretty good peformance with a few hiccups and stutters but my fps stay around 30 at the 'HIGH' settings.

PRO TIP: By setting 'POST EFFECTS' to 'Medium' or below, it takes a LOT of load off the GPU! At least with my HD7850. So if you are having trouble, try that first. I've had nearly everything jacked up to 'ULTRA' (except for 'Godrays' (WTF is that, anyway?!) set to 'Off' and the 'POST EFFECTS' to 'Medium') while that makes it a stuttering mess, my fps is still pretty respectable. I think if the stutter went away, it would be playable at 'ULTRA', which is surprising. Textures at 'ULTRA' are beautiful, btw.

Some possible semi-spoilers but not really...

The setting is gorgeous and the background mountain vistas are seriously jaw-dropping. Watching them along with some of the soundtrack songs (a couple of which are somewhat 'chillout-ambient' in tone) really blow you away.

For those that think it might just be FC3 with a mountain setting instead of tropical island....it is, in a way. There are a lot of similarities. The jumping animation is the same. The 'quick heal' animations are similar. The UI is somewhat similar. There's still crafting and outposts and towers. But it's been tweaked enough to not feel dull and like you're slogging through the same thing again. The villain is...meh. I'm about 40% through (I think) and so far he hasn't been as memorable as FC3's Vaas. At least the character you play is easier to relate to. I've just met Hurk, who seems to be the American frat-boy stereotype to a tee. *rolls eyes* Whatever...

There are a lot more guns available now and they are bad ass. I found myself throwing a lot of knives this time around, it just feels better implemented. There are a lot of new animals but like FC3, you've seen one, you've seen them all. They're just there as a nuisance (like the eagles that swoop down and take like 75% of your health every time) or to kill and craft with. The plants are there again, too. Not as many as FC3 and not as noticeable. The NPC's seem smarter and at the same time still pretty dumb. The enemy NPC AI has been stepped up, though and they are a lot deadlier than in FC3. Outposts are hella-hard to take out, especially if they call in reinforcements! They have mortars and THEY USE THEM! I can't count the number of times I've been killed by mortars when I was busy trying to kill soldiers. It's nasty.

The map is bigger and there are a lot more things to do. There are more side quests and activities. I've been focusing on the campaign but there are escort missions, assassination missions, racing, supply runs, hostage rescues...you name it. The driving is a little better this time around. The cars don't feel like bricks with wheels that pivot in the center anymore. And driving a big truck is definitely different from driving a car or ATV.

Overall, it's a worthy sequel from what I've played so far. It carves out it's own little space instead of being just 'another FC3' with new paint. There are similarities, no doubt about it. But you probably knew that. I can recommend it to even those that played FC3 and Blood Dragon (as I just played through BD like a month ago again)...


=-Rigs-=

Rhett wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 17:59:

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 16:51:
I really hope the outposts/fortresses whatever are a lot more difficult in FC4. They were way too easy in FC3.

Did a few outposts and one stronghold with a friend last night. Stronghold was very, very tough (on Normal). We had an RPG, but hadn't upgraded our ammo/holsters very much so we were kinda gimped. Took several tries and lots of accidental face-planting onto minefields, but we took it... I think it was probably the "easy" stronghold too, since it was the southern-most one. All the outposts we've seen have been pushovers though.

Considering putting difficulty on 'hard', however, when enemies get a bead on you, they already do considerable damage. I feel like I'm dying a lot more than in FC3.

That's good to hear. Thanks

I've heard there are animal whisperers or whatever so that you can't just lure a tiger into the base and watch it kill everyone.
Which makes me a bit sad, as that never got old.

However, the most I died in that game, outside one mission I hated, was liberating this one base. Every single time I did it and tried to walk out a tiger would maul me. Every time. Tiger spawning was random, right? So I'd go a different direction and get mauled. Or I'd look, see a tiger, kill the tiger from a distance, walk out and get mauled by an entirely different tiger.

It was like Peter Griffin and the raccoon.

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 16:51:
I really hope the outposts/fortresses whatever are a lot more difficult in FC4. They were way too easy in FC3.

Did a few outposts and one stronghold with a friend last night. Stronghold was very, very tough (on Normal). We had an RPG, but hadn't upgraded our ammo/holsters very much so we were kinda gimped. Took several tries and lots of accidental face-planting onto minefields, but we took it... I think it was probably the "easy" stronghold too, since it was the southern-most one. All the outposts we've seen have been pushovers though.

Considering putting difficulty on 'hard', however, when enemies get a bead on you, they already do considerable damage. I feel like I'm dying a lot more than in FC3.

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 16:51:

Krovven wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 16:35:

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:38:

Beamer wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:30:
FC3 had no infinite respawns

Well..... Technically it did, right? I mean, if you wipe out a patrol of bad guys, more of them will show up randomly.

This only applies if you never take over nearby Outposts. Once you take over an outpost, enemy activity and reinforcements just driving or walking by drops to next to zero.

"Keep in mind that both Pirates and Privateers will not be seen in the game world much after you have liberated all the outposts.
...
After patch 1.05, all outposts can be reset when the player has completed the story line."

I know, I actually said that.
Sidenote though, if you take out the outpost of an area, that area will become a friendly zone, and no bad guys will spawn there anymore.

I meant to say that you can't clear an area in FC3 of enemies just by being in that area and shooting them until they stop spawning. Conquering the outpost is the only way to do so.

I really hope the outposts/fortresses whatever are a lot more difficult in FC4. They were way too easy in FC3.

FC3 Patch Notes

Agreed - I remember only having issues at maybe 2-3 outposts that had those dudes that would appear out of thin air.

Krovven wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 16:35:

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:38:

Beamer wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:30:
FC3 had no infinite respawns

Well..... Technically it did, right? I mean, if you wipe out a patrol of bad guys, more of them will show up randomly.

This only applies if you never take over nearby Outposts. Once you take over an outpost, enemy activity and reinforcements just driving or walking by drops to next to zero.

"Keep in mind that both Pirates and Privateers will not be seen in the game world much after you have liberated all the outposts.
...
After patch 1.05, all outposts can be reset when the player has completed the story line."

I know, I actually said that.
Sidenote though, if you take out the outpost of an area, that area will become a friendly zone, and no bad guys will spawn there anymore.

I meant to say that you can't clear an area in FC3 of enemies just by being in that area and shooting them until they stop spawning. Conquering the outpost is the only way to do so.

I really hope the outposts/fortresses whatever are a lot more difficult in FC4. They were way too easy in FC3.

Beamer wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 16:40:
Once you took an area out the guys didn't come back. Prior to that they did, but it was mean to seem like the island was alive. No different than any open world, I guess. FC2, while I didn't get far enough in to see, I'd heard has spawns in front of you as you fight.

Not quite that bad, but you could wipe out a checkpoint, go a little ways away (so the checkpoint was actually still visible), fight some other dudes, and the checkpoint would respawn. And that in itself wasn't maybe even the big problem, but it would respawn with the exact same guys, in the exact same locations. Big black dude sitting at a table reading a newspaper? He'd respawn 30 seconds later sitting at that same table, reading the same newspaper.

FC3's implementation was a lot better, but still technically features infinite spawns. If you're fighting on a crossroads and are blowing up enemy jeeps, the game will just keep spawning them endlessly.

I had read another article on FC4 mentioning the "meta"ness of FC3. I didn't know the writer had said that. It didn't ring true for me. I didn't think it ruined the game, by any means, but it was just lame. Some seemed to think the older brother would have been better, but I disagree. The German guy, now that was a protagonist.

Yeah he would have been cool.

Here was an excellent interview with Yohalem regarding FC3's story, and you can see how his story changes to suit the needs of the thing he's trying to explain.

Whether he meant it as some kind of meta-commentary on the insanity of open-world shooters or meant the story absolutely seriously, the simple fact remains that if you have to later explain the story in an interview, it was simply a pisspoor story.

damn....that is a very good video. With the comments and watching that video - hard to ignore this game.....must resist!

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:38:

Beamer wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:30:
FC3 had no infinite respawns

Well..... Technically it did, right? I mean, if you wipe out a patrol of bad guys, more of them will show up randomly. And if you leave a particular area then come back a little while later, there will likely be bad guys again.

It hides it much better because it doesn't have the static checkpoints where the bad guys respawned every 10 seconds in exactly the same configuration a la FC2, but, I mean, it's also not as if you can just wipe out all the bad guys in one zone. I once wound up wiping up roughly a dozen jeeps' worth of bad guys, and another one pulled up, and I finally just said "Fuck it!" and left.

Sidenote though, if you take out the outpost of an area, that area will become a friendly zone, and no bad guys will spawn there anymore. I don't know whether that's really a better way of doing it though, because it would quickly make the whole island basically boring as hell, since it was WAAAAAY too easy to clear those outposts.

and was a fantastic open-world FPS that possibly went on too long (more accurately, did a bad job at making you realize you were only halfway done and not 90% done) but was a huge blast.

Agreed. Ignoring the crappy story, it's a ton of fun to play.

The vapid bro main character saving the world was weak, but some will argue it was supposed to be meta. Still, the actual gameplay was top notch.

The only one who ever argued that was the writer, Yohalem. And his arguments changed based on whatever he felt he needed to defend. The whole thing was just a pisspoor story, no matter how badly he tried to pretend that it was deliberate and was supposed to "make you think about all the stupid things games make you do."

Yeah, it's a game, Yohalem. That's kind of why I fucking play them.

Once you took an area out the guys didn't come back. Prior to that they did, but it was mean to seem like the island was alive. No different than any open world, I guess. FC2, while I didn't get far enough in to see, I'd heard has spawns in front of you as you fight.

I had read another article on FC4 mentioning the "meta"ness of FC3. I didn't know the writer had said that. It didn't ring true for me. I didn't think it ruined the game, by any means, but it was just lame. Some seemed to think the older brother would have been better, but I disagree. The German guy, now that was a protagonist.

Beamer wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:30:

Tipsy McStagger wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:26:
Ok I haven't played a far cry game since Far cry 2 (which I never finished) due to the annoyance of respawning camps of people. The game was really poorly done. Someone give me an idea if Far Cry 3 was even worth playing and is this any better?

FC3 had no infinite respawns and was a fantastic open-world FPS that possibly went on too long (more accurately, did a bad job at making you realize you were only halfway done and not 90% done) but was a huge blast.

The vapid bro main character saving the world was weak, but some will argue it was supposed to be meta. Still, the actual gameplay was top notch.

There was an update (or option) that would respawn camps at a certain point. But once you cleared one, there was no reason to go back anyway....(in FC3)

Creston wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:38:

Beamer wrote on Nov 18, 2014, 15:30:
FC3 had no infinite respawns

Well..... Technically it did, right? I mean, if you wipe out a patrol of bad guys, more of them will show up randomly.

This only applies if you never take over nearby Outposts. Once you take over an outpost, enemy activity and reinforcements just driving or walking by drops to next to zero.

"Keep in mind that both Pirates and Privateers will not be seen in the game world much after you have liberated all the outposts.
...
After patch 1.05, all outposts can be reset when the player has completed the story line."

The respawning was my biggest problem with FC2 too, I think FC3 hit the balance pretty well. There was technically infinitely respawning enemies but once you took control of that area of the map (the map had about 30 zones, each with an outpost control-point) then no patrols or guards would spawn in that zone. The respawn time was pretty good, I don't remember being bothered by an outpost that I had attacked but not taken being re-populated distractingly quickly.

Btw, some useful guides and benchmarks.