#Paragon:#Epic fail-Part 2

When I finished my previous article on this game, I was pretty damn disgusted with the game but did not bother uninstalling it. I felt like that was just a waste of even more of my time. Thus the game remained and then I noticed they had updated to version 28.2 and thought ” why not check it out and see if they fixed anything in the game”. I even have some pics as proof of the some of the games flaws, so let’s get started!

Much to my ill-fated belief, they proved my previous article, right. The game had not improved. In fact, I was stunned that they somehow managed to make the game considerably worse. The more I viewed and learned, the more I began to question the sanity of anyone working for Epic games.  They had not done anything to the travel mode/auto-sprint mode. ADC’s were ganked even sitting under their tower, with the gankers being able to get away alive or destroying the tower too. The games were filled with more and more enemy teams just choosing all fighters(melee) because they were able to do everything, and the adc and caster heroes were too weak, to stop this kind of team.

They also managed to ruin the game matchmaker even further. It was not bad enough that you could wait 2 or 3 mins for a game to even get to the “Ready Phase”, then you had to wait for the ‘draft phase”, which dropped every player from the game and match, if even one player did not lock-in the hero. Then if you actually made it past the “draft phase” you got to wait for everyone to be connected the game and the countdown. All told this was a 10 to 15 min. process. With v.28.2 they managed to mess up the cue timer. It was making you sit on average 6.mins. before actually trying to find a game. Then it got to where it was about 8 mins in cue. Remember now this is just the first phase of the matchmaking process. With special events causing people to decide they wanted to play a certain hero, a lot of draft dodging was going on, thus you would get thrown out of matchmaking and have to restart that 8 mins. + cue again.

Now you would think with all the other problems, this one is a ”’ no brainer “. Nobody, no matter how big of a fan they are of a game, is gonna wait that long for a game that has terrible matchmaking to begin with. Sure, we all realize this game is in early-access. But the game should be improving but it is not. It is systematically getting worse, almost as if someone working them, is actually working for the competition and deliberately sabotaging the game. How could you possible explain how they made this game EVEN more of a disaster with version .29 released today?

Somehow they overlooked the 3 most obvious things they needed to do and completely did the opposite of every community suggestion. They did not buff the casters, this has been a huge complaint of most of the game players. They did not remove the travel mode/auto-sprint (slow mode). The fact that you actually slow down if you run away is beyond stupid. Every time the enemy hits you it breaks the countdown for the auto sprint mode to kick in. This is terrible gameplay mechanics for everyone except the fighters. They already have a faster movement speed. Clearly they wanted all laners under towers, so the melee heroes get fed quicker, no matter where they are at and they can dive the tower, where you are supposed to be safe. This is no MOBA game. It is fighter team death match. Just people running around ganking. Actual strategy seems to have no bearing on this game. Just build a five fighter team and you will win every time.

Lastly, with the latest patch(v.29) they somehow managed to mess up the cue timer even further. Now it refuses to find a match at all. It will “Search for players” but never find the tenth player needed to get to the “ready phase”. If it “connects to the lobby” it will lose all players you had in cue with you. Then you start over with “searching for players”.

So basically they did not to fix any serious issues (in version 29) and did everything they could to make it harder to play casters, adcs, and the game in general. So now you tell me, who would do such a thing to their game unless they were out to destroy it? Either Epic has someone working for them who is trying to sabotage the game, or they have one hell of an #Epic dumbass making the decisions. I don’t know which is the case but I do know one thing; I won’t wait over 15 mins just to cue, if it even does go through, after that time. That is as long as I wait for any game. Especially when you consider that if I actually got into a game, it would be with a bunch of no-level idiots. I have included in the screenshots, just one of many screen shots I could have taken. In fact, despite me playing games like the game end screenshot down below, I have a losing record. Yet, am not nearly as mad about that, as the fact that direction Epic is heading, is one of total fail.

I am highly unlikely to give this game a 3rd try, seeing the direction they are going in. It is rare that I give a game a second chance, I have never given any game a third chance. There is no sense in wasting time on game that is going in reverse direction.

As promised, here are some screen shots to back up my long cue times and the game end screenie that shows just how bad most of the players I get teamed up with. (In the screenie, I am player named Axewielderx, duh!) The cue time screenes were taken from version 28.2 and v.29. It should be noted the last took was 15 mins. with v.29 installed this morning. That one was finally taken after 3 previous attempts to get into a working cue and after I closed the game and reopened it. In all fairness, I did get to play one v.29 game before this began happening. In-game is seemed pretty much the same as v.28.2 which most definitely was not good.

It should be noted I played the only class of hero unaffected by the badly chosen nerf and buff bats. I used Steel who is a Tank and does not use damage cards. As a tank I can only say that the hits did not seem any softer and the movement was exactly the same.

For now, going to let the pictures do the talking, I hope you found this review informative and like, subscribe, and share! Take care fellow gamers!

Axe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#Overwatch updated. A chance to impress is a fail!

With Blizzard’s high standards and good reputation(in-general) I decided to give Overwatch another chance, after the new updates that came to the console today. Sadly, their game has not improved even one tiny bit.

With this update they were supposed to nerf one hero and beef up another. They were also supposed to release the competitive mode. Let’s talk about the character improvements first.

McCree was supposed to receive some kind of nerf to his flash bang stun. I did not play him and in fact, saw nobody playing him at all. I am certain that was not the intention. When you nerf a hero, you want to make him useable. That is not what Blizzard did. Oh well, I never cared for the idiot cowboy who was a one trick pony bitch anyway.

The other hero the were supposed to beef up was D.Va. They again failed at this task. In fact, when I played her I actually felt weaker. She was so bad to play with  that it only took one try to figure out this was a terrible change.

Lastly, they released Competitive play. At first upon playing a match I thought this must be some kind of joke. In a way, I suppose it is. Not one single suggestion made on the message boards was used. Blizzard COMPLETELY ignored the players. Hero stacking was still in the competitive mode.  Obviously nobody at Blizzard can read and those that can, do not understand how unbalanced this type of behavior is. Competitive games will be filled with nothing but Torbjorn teams. Hey Blizzard, I have to ask just how fucking stupid are you? There is a reason nobody else allows hero stacking. It makes for unbalanced play and a competitive game, it not competitive, without balance.

Here is a video of someone pointing out the flaws of competitive play. Even though he does not mention such issues as hero stacking, it still goes to prove this game is not worth your time or money- https://youtu.be/krZtUqNx6i8

So is guess, the joke was on all those suckers that paid money for this shit game and how this ultimately will affect your reputation as a game developer. I know I will never invest my money in any game made by Blizzard. I feel sad and sickened, for all those poor suckers who invested money in loot boxes, to end up with a game that is so unbalanced as to be a complete waste of time and money to play. Good luck in all your future endeavors Blizzard, you are gonna need it. You can most definitely count me out. This is the last game review of a Blizzard game you will ever see on my blog. Hope the readers enjoyed it and heed my words.

Until I type again…

Axe

#Overwatch should have been named Underwhelmed!

Now don’t get me wrong when I state that. The game does have some good qualities. However, it completely lacks any kind of depth and after playing for awhile, you will come to the same conclusion. If you are looking for a game to waste a couple of weeks on, then this is the one. But, let’s get into what is wrong and right about this game.

On the bad side of things, this game is not nearly as polished as reviewers have stated. It freezes up in the middle of a match and kicks you out of the match. The estimated cue time is not even close. It was closer when I started playing a couple of weeks ago, but now as I leave this game behind, the cue times are not even remotely close.  It often says 15-30 seconds. What it really means is 2-3 minutes or more. The game will finally put you into a game, only to have the game not fill up, supposedly, and then you will have to go back to cue. If this was a smooth design decision, then obviously previous reviewers have no concept of what smooth, slick, or polished is. Because the cue system alone is fucked up!

The game also likes to keep you limited to a 50% win ratio. That means when ever you get to 50% wins, it will put you in a game with totally sucky players. It even goes to the point of throwing you into a match, and before you can even move your hero out of spawn, the game is over with a defeat for you. How the fuck is that fair? Basically is punishes good players. Thanks Blizzard, that is just what good gamers want. To be screwed over for being good. To further exasperate the situation, as a side consequence, this keeps your k/d (kill/death) ratio down too! It is hard to get a lot of kills when your team members spend most of their time in spawn.  A 6 vs 1 is not a good situation for even a great player. Now don’t think this means I have a sucky k/d. I do not! It is  2/1 but if I played with decent players all the time, it would be at least 4/1. The games where you are stuck with bad players just to keep your win/loss ratio even, really do affect much more than just that. They completely affect your kill/death ratio too!

Another small issue is the lack of variety in the game play. While there are maybe 6 maps (not a lot but certainly more than Battleborn’s 2 maps per mode) there are really only two modes of playing in this game. You either are attacking or defending. Trying to move a payload or to defend a capture point.  That is it!

The worst thing about this was how they designed the game launch for these two modes. The defenders are always able to go anywhere on the map and set up their defenses. This allows them to to spawn camp! Essentially if you are on attack mission, you can expect to die often right outside of spawn. Combine this with the next item I mention (hero stacking) and you have a total stomp of the attacking team. They cannot leave spawn to attack anything with multiple turrets just waiting for them to exit spawn and Repears abundant to make sure nobody can get near a turret to kill it. It is just death after death with no chance for kills. The longer this game has been out, the more I was seeing this in matches. I knew if my mission was attack, that the game was setting me up for a loss.

The last thing this game does, is allow people to pick whatever hero they want. While on the surface this may sound good, but it is so totally not! You have teams made up of the same hero, I.E. 6 Torbjorn. Tell me something, how can this game be balanced if this crap is going on? It cannot possibly be balanced and people who play online shooter games, expect some kind of balance for every player to have a fair chance of winning. Allowing players to do this, is akin to allowing them to freely cheat. I have been in some many COMPLETELY non-fun games because of this one simple design decision. I am guessing every reviewer on the planet forgot to mention this too!

They also included a quitting penalty so if you find yourself stuck in a match where the other team is all the same hero, you get to enjoy that crappy match or suffer a 75% experience loss for 2 hours. Even worse is the fact, if it throws you into one of these games and then you get booted by the system for not making your hero pick fast enough, it boots you from the game and gives you a quitting penalty. I did not quit you stupid fucks! YOUR system booted me and then gave me a penalty. I’ll give you a quitter penalty assholes…it is this review.

Lastly, there is no real hero progression. Your hero has the same abilities and weapons no matter how long you play. Yes, they do eventually get to wear different clothes, but this is entirely based upon luck of the draw, from random loot boxes. How many levels are you willing to grind for a set of clothes you cannot see in game? Of course you do gain overall levels but what does it matter when the game likes to keep you to a 50% win/lose ratio. You are playing with players that are way under your level every time you get over 50% wins. So even that progression is completely useless. It seems this game was nothing more than a quick cash grab, as the only way to feel any accomplishment is to drop more money on loot boxes in the hopes you will finally get that legendary set of clothes for the hero which you like, because you certainly are not going to get it from the level loot boxes.

I played this game to level 58 (could not stand playing crappy matches any longer) and never received a single legendary skin for ANY of my favorite heroes. NOT EVEN ONE! If it even gives you a legendary skin, it will ALWAYS be for a hero you do not play. This is Blizzard’s way of trying to get you to GAMBLE. By forcing you to either wait an amazingly long period of time to spend in-game credits to buy the legendary skin or to spend REAL cash to buy loot boxes which are completely random. This definitely is not incentive to play this game long term. Players expect progression and rewards for effort. This game simply does not have any.

Now onto the good.

It has good graphics and usually plays fairly well. Most of the heroes are fairly unique enough to make playing each one entertaining. some to a lesser degree than others, of course. Not every one of them is going to fit your play style, obviously. The game can be fun when you have two evenly matched teams and no BS going on.

Too bad that is such a rare thing! This is a game that will take some serious work to turn around or there will be a mass exodus in the near future.  The problems with hero stacking, combined with bad decisions in progression and basic attack and defend mechanics, will need to be completely overhauled.

As I played, I found that the good matches became fewer and fewer, and it just grew into a frustrating piece of shit, with no incentive to keep grinding away. I was not going to obtain legendary clothes for my favorite toons and it was not worth going through all the bad matches to even try anymore. I have to wonder if these game designers are brain dead or just don’t check out their games by actually playing them, before they release their crap. They put nothing in this game to make anyone want to play it long term. If you are looking for a game with depth and reason to play, this game is not it. You will be completely underwhelmed inside of a couple of weeks, if you last that long.

Supposedly there is update coming out at the end of June. Hopefully this update will addresses these issues. So many games with great potential fall to the wayside because they simply fail to fix what their customers complain about. I have not been playing as much since my wife deemed worthy of passing on her latest cold to. Not sure, even if I was healthy, how much of this game I would be playing. My recommendation to those who have not played this game yet, wait until July to see if Blizzard corrects the gaping design flaws or not. Until next time I type…take care, thanks for reading, and have an awesome day!

Axe

Neverwinter…never again!

Let me start by saying that the game itself is not a bad game. It is fun, a challenge and the graphics are ok. However, every MMORPG has that going for them mostly, so those good things don’t matter when you look at the overall picture.

This game claims to be like D & D, I am here to tell you they lied. Sorry, I played the actual paper D & D game back when I was growing up. This is nothing like that. Granted it does have the actual monsters from the game, but that is where the similarities stop. Wizards do not use a staff or dagger which means you have no immediate weapon damage like every other MMORPG. This is to prevent you wizard from dying so fast, morons. Although, that was not a huge issue, it became one after the release of Elemental Evil. More on that later.

In D & D you could use magic to indentify items but not in Neverwinter. Instead you have to use the Astral Diamonds(AD) to see what an item is. Not only do you end up with crap in your very limited bags, but that also slows down any progress you might make converting those into Zen(the real money currency). This is the only MMORPG I have played that does this. This is just absolute stupidity. A huge loss of time have to go buy the scrolls just to know what you picked up before you can keep or sell. Of course, they did this so people will buy more bags at $10 each.

Then there is the storage bag issue. In D & D you can craft bags with the leather profession and most MMORPG’s, but not in Neverwinter. In fact, every profession is a complete waste of time. You cannot make anything to sell in the auction house, unless you dump a million hours and lots of in-game gold, to get up to a high level and then hope, a random rare item appears in your crafting area so you can craft it. I have seen many crafting systems over the years but NEVER have I seen one so completely useless. Of course, it is like everything in this game. The game may be free but EVERYTHING is geared toward taking your AD or preventing you from making any AD, so you have to spend money or just end up blocked from anything.

I played for little over a week and got one character up to level 60 right after the latest update to my Xbox. Then Elemental Evil came out and I was completely stopped from all advancement. I could not do any Skimishes because there are none at level 60. Well, I could do them but not earn any AD. Kind of pointless. I could not make any progress in the campaigns, because they made all the enemies at that level ridiculously strong and mages get one-hit killed so easy. It was litterly costing me gold to adventure instead of making it. The healing potions did not heal enough and the injury kits get really expensive. I have a healing companion and have been upgrading my con and int since I started. I suppose, if I would have spent real money I could have bought another health stone and maybe made it through. But why would you want to spend money on this game. There are far too many ways they try to steal your money and no one can afford everything.

Then there is the lag and connection issues. I can’t play even an hour without getting disconnected at least once. I am running a 15mb/5mb connection and do not have this issue with most other games. Even crappy Gears of War did not disconnect as much.

It makes me wonder just how dumb these players are. Why would you spend money in a game like this? They just keep looking for more ways to make you pay. It is not that I have a problem paying for something, but it must be something of quality. This game is not…by any means.

In a way, I am glad Elemental Evil came out. It saved me from wasting anymore time in the game and showed me just how incredibly greedy and stupid these devs are. If you make it so that people cannot earn money in a free game, they will leave and they won’t support your work. I will never support a game that creates a new expansion just to rob players and that is exactly what they have done.

They took away more ways for players to earn AD and made it so every high level player has to get new equipment, which of course, costs AD. Another player did the math. It will take players over 2 yrs. just to level up the enchantments on their new gear and for what? So they can do a bunch of repeatable quests that can only be done once a day. Yep, they did not even take the time to add in real quests to the the higher areas. They blatantly did it to drain people’s AD so they would have to spend real money.

How anyone can see this and still play is beyond me? I guess it takes a special kind of stupid to continue playing a game, when it is clear this game is nothing but roadblock after roadblock.

Thx Neverwinter devs for showing me the light and now it is time to move on.

Axe

@GearsofWar -Ultimate Laggy Edition, Part 2

After my last post on this game https://axewielderx.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/gears-of-war-ultimate-laggy-edition/ I decided to play the campaign and forget about online play for awhile. However, I did check for the any official responses when not playing. If the online got fixed, I wanted to know about it. Finally, they posted this article about the game’s issues and I learned exactly what is going on.-

http://gearsofwar.com/en-us/forums/98be6d5e03f642a5b8b561883802d401/threads/official-faq-frequently-asked-questions-for-ultimate-edition/55c1444e-0c8c-4fab-9231-6acc854d7f18/posts

They claim their servers are working fine and there is no lag. I have to wonder just how dumb they are to tell people the problem is not them.  After going into the game and checking my region settings I discovered it was putting me on the Brazilian server. Wtf? Why? My Xbox one knows it is in central standard time, North America.

The funny thing is switching to a server in North America did not solve the issue because that are NO servers in the ENTIRE central USA.  What the hell was The Colition thinking when they decided to leave out the second most populated state in the USA, Texas?

So every single game is twice the ping of anyone on the east coast and west coast. Minimum 80 ms on a 15mb download/5mb upload speed. To top that off they decided to add animated skins to the game. Even Epic, who were not too good at fixing their mistakes, was at least smart enough to avoid doing this, realizing it would just add lag to the game.

What they have done here is show me that Gears of War is not Central USA friendly, and made certain it would be unplayable to anyone living in the middle of this country. They showed me that don’t intend on fixing it by adding a server or removing the skins. In fact, they won’t even take responsibility for what most certainly were decisions they made. The Colition decided not to put servers here and sold animated skins.

The console makers wonder why people are abandoning traditional gaming but it is clear to see why. App makers fix their games or die on the vine. Apps cost less money and take less time to start. People don’t have time or money for companies that just take your money for a broken product and then won’t fix them.

Now that I know how this company works, I won’t be waiting to buy GOW 4. In fact, I am saying goodbye to my favorite shooter of all time. As long as this company is in charge of this game, there is no sense in even bothering.

In fact, even the campaign has bugs in it. I got completely logged out of my console and was unable to play at all because it got stuck while playing campaign. But I bet that is not their fault either.

Oh well, it was fun for time and now that time has passed. On to better days and games. Thanks The Colition for reminding me just how bad console game developers really are.

Axe