Fortnite

RawkGWJ wrote:

I will stream whenever I am playing. But maybe after I've finished the tutorial.

I bought the $59.99 version on Xbox. I feel like all of the extra swag that I got is helping me grok the game more quickly. I have bonus xp that I can give while I play with friends. It's a bonus to xp earned while we play.

I think the early game can feel a little too easy with the swag you get with Founders Packs, which you can hear in Certis' and Rabbits' commentary occasionally. Once you're hitting 15-plus-level missions in Stonewood the gap closes relatively quickly so missions become entertainingly challenging.

Whoa. If this actually works, I can play with you guys! This guy looks to be on PC and playing with friends on both PS4 AND Xbox:

I want to try this when I get home.

I haven't tried it and that person seems pretty well-intentioned but I kinda smell some BS. That's exactly how you join parties in the game as it is. That is, it's not really a hack or easter egg or anything.

That said, I'm gonna try it too because it would be awesome.

Exactly, I am quite skeptical, but hey, no skin off my nose to try it. I already have my GT linked to my Epic account, so it's just a matter of downloading the Epic launcher.

I'll be trying this tonight from PC. I'll track someone down from the thread who's said they're on PS4 and Xbox One.

IUMogg wrote:

Cracked and picked this up on ps4. Downloading now. Will probably be playing tonight after 9pm est. psn name IUMogg

Hey there. What's your Epic name?

muraii wrote:

If you use the Collection Book in Fortnite, be careful: you are permanently retiring anything you add to it. This wasn't clear to some folks who haven't been in the alpha (Fortnite forum link). I think the warning is pretty clear, but I'm not about to tell people they're doing it wrong.

Transformation is a little less clear to me; I haven't used it much. In overview, you combine multiple items of a similar category toward creating something new and usually getting some item XP (schematic, hero, etc.) as well. I initially understood the system to reward higher rarity items as you add more and more items to be transformed, but I've heard slightly different notions from more-experienced players, that is, that to receive an item of a given rarity you must transform at least one of that rarity. At first you don't know what specific thing you'll get back, only its category and rarity (e.g., Rare Hero). There are Transformation tokens I think later in the game that determine the type of item you'll get back. As such, at some point, it seems like a mechanic that could allow you to cash a lot of things you don't use toward a very specific item you want. I have not taken it that far, though.

Again: when you transmute schematics, heroes, survivors, or defenders, by whichever mechanism, you are abdicating any claims to them forever.

Hm, the collection book warning was pretty clear to me, but it's worth emphasizing. Every now and then I'll go through the categories and check for extras to slot into it. I think I'm around the same level, and I got a mythic-quality team leader out of the jackpot llama it gets you.

I didn't realize that recycling schematics and heroes got you the training manuals. Still learning.

I haven't tried a transformation yet either, although I've looked at the recipes I have in the game. Some are 1-use, and some are unlimited. I think I have enough for some of the recipes to play around with it.

Grrrr Downloaded and installed the Epic Games Launcher, but it immediately crashes on startup. Not sure why, don't really feel like spending play time troubleshooting this right now.

deftly wrote:

I haven't tried a transformation yet either, although I've looked at the recipes I have in the game. Some are 1-use, and some are unlimited. I think I have enough for some of the recipes to play around with it.

I haven't unlocked it yet, just had it in the last alpha test iteration. There are so many systems I'm not sure I need it, least not until I get the tokens and can specify what kind of thing I want out of the transformation.

Abu5217 wrote:

Grrrr Downloaded and installed the Epic Games Launcher, but it immediately crashes on startup. Not sure why, don't really feel like spending play time troubleshooting this right now.

That sucks, homie. I don't blame you.

I finally did load up on PS4 and at least the UI works well. As well as it does on PC anyway. I have only sifted through the Home Base, and haven't entered a mission yet.

I guess I'll be joining the PS4tniters in a couple weeks when I can afford to actually buy the game. If I end up enjoying it, I'd like to get into a semi-regular crew, but that's typically hard for me to do since I keep very unusual hours. Some weeks I would be better off playing with Australians, some weeks with Indians, some weeks with Ukranians, some weeks with Moroccans, some weeks with Brazilians.

I think I'm ready to shift co-op gears after five months of nightly Mass Effect Andromeda matches.

I think Certis nailed my biggest confusion right at the beginning of the first stream. It has all the free-to-play (microtransaction) trappings. If I'm buying a 40, 60, 80 dollar game...what's with the uT's? I really think that is making me very wary...

muraii wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

Cracked and picked this up on ps4. Downloading now. Will probably be playing tonight after 9pm est. psn name IUMogg

Hey there. What's your Epic name?

I think it's also IUMogg

discoursian wrote:

I think Certis nailed my biggest confusion right at the beginning of the first stream. It has all the free-to-play (microtransaction) trappings. If I'm buying a 40, 60, 80 dollar game...what's with the uT's? I really think that is making me very wary...

It's not immaterial and I don't have the same foundation of playing games as lots of folks have, but I find it okay. What you're paying for right now is access to a pretty solid game a year before it's F2P and with some extra goodies you would only be able to get through buying in-game currency or playing. It's definitely a decision worth considering, but what you get for the $40/60/80 is heroes and schematics for weapons and traps and XP boosts and some exclusive stuff, stuff you'd otherwise have had to work for or buy anyway. Does that help at all?

I played the alpha for around two years and never paid a dime. I made it decently far in a couple of the Online Tests ("OTs") before progress was wiped, and had a good time most of the time. It might be that you've got a pile and don't value early access to the game plus goodies enough and that's cool.

I'm having a blast and especially because I'm playing with GWJers.

Not to mention, this is the route some games choose to go. There are plenty of great games that many, many people love, that offer you in game transactions for loot. Here's off the top of my head:

GTA V
Titan Fall 1 and 2
Battlefield 1
Forza Horizon series

These are all AAA titles, that ask a premium price up front, and then offer you DLC. They're also all multiplayer games. I totally understand if you're not into that. It took me a few years to get used to the idea. It's counterintuitive, but a reality of being a gamer today.

discoursian wrote:

I think Certis nailed my biggest confusion right at the beginning of the first stream. It has all the free-to-play (microtransaction) trappings. If I'm buying a 40, 60, 80 dollar game...what's with the uT's? I really think that is making me very wary...

It looks to me like the majority of the cost for the initial purchase right now goes to micro-transactiony stuff anyway. You're basically just buying a bunch of microtransactions up front, and you're getting bonus founders' stuff to boot. It seems more like a good deal than a cash grab.

Protip: hold down the left mouse for auto-attack. I was halfway through strip-mining the tutorial area before I realized this.

I'm Aetius2.

Ok, so pro-tip: Don't leave the game running just before starting the zombies to make your kids breakfast, because you'll get booted for being idle and lose all of the materials and weapons you spent getting to that point in the level.

I understand why they do that, but as a parent it stinks to lose half an hour of resource gathering and fort building because something important came up. I wish there was a pure-offline mode where I could set my own idle-timer and, oh I don't know, pause the game.

I can't complain (too much) because I knew going in that it was a multiplayer-focused game, but I'm starting to wonder if I wasted my money on this one. Not because it's bad, but because I can't commit to it the sort of time resources it needs.

BadKen wrote:
discoursian wrote:

I think Certis nailed my biggest confusion right at the beginning of the first stream. It has all the free-to-play (microtransaction) trappings. If I'm buying a 40, 60, 80 dollar game...what's with the uT's? I really think that is making me very wary...

It looks to me like the majority of the cost for the initial purchase right now goes to micro-transactiony stuff anyway. You're basically just buying a bunch of microtransactions up front, and you're getting bonus founders' stuff to boot. It seems more like a good deal than a cash grab.

I appreciate everyone's responses. I don't have a problem with uT's per se (spent entirely too much money in keys to open Rocket League crates, and those are purely cosmetics), but let me ask this: how likely do you feel that this game won't go pay to win? I only watched 10 min of the GWJ stream last night, so maybe it's covered there. I need to watch it, the game looks so good, I just can't quite put my finger on what is jiggering the back of my mind. Anyway, y'all have been great answering questions. Thank you very much.

discoursian wrote:
BadKen wrote:
discoursian wrote:

I think Certis nailed my biggest confusion right at the beginning of the first stream. It has all the free-to-play (microtransaction) trappings. If I'm buying a 40, 60, 80 dollar game...what's with the uT's? I really think that is making me very wary...

It looks to me like the majority of the cost for the initial purchase right now goes to micro-transactiony stuff anyway. You're basically just buying a bunch of microtransactions up front, and you're getting bonus founders' stuff to boot. It seems more like a good deal than a cash grab.

I appreciate everyone's responses. I don't have a problem with uT's per se (spent entirely too much money in keys to open Rocket League crates, and those are purely cosmetics), but let me ask this: how likely do you feel that this game won't go pay to win? I only watched 10 min of the GWJ stream last night, so maybe it's covered there. I need to watch it, the game looks so good, I just can't quite put my finger on what is jiggering the back of my mind. Anyway, y'all have been great answering questions. Thank you very much.

This is my big question. Since I bit before doing the research, I now have dropped $40 on a game from a class of games that, in my experience, becomes almost literally impossible after a certain point unless you spend more money. (See: Plants vs Zombies 2, and just about any iOS game ending in "battle.")

Had a fun time last night with a full, four person group. Really interesting to see how the game plays out when you have so much firepower. I think they spawn more husks, but it still felt like a cakewalk.
Starting to realize that later levels are going to be more interesting, tactically.

A few points:

As mentioned upthread, my PC (which is in the Windows Insider program, itself an entirely different issue) simply will not launch the Epic Games Launcher to test the cross-play solution provided earlier. I have a second PC (not Insider) that I may try it out on later today.

Was able to finally play a bit of multiplayer with Mrs. Abu last night. The game is a lot more fun when you have a team, especially when you "know" each other and can talk strategy. We only did the very first Ride the Lightning level, but it was fun to work together. She sent an invite that simply never showed up, but I was able to find her in the friends list and join her game (in game, not XBL friends list) with no issues. Side note: since she had not bought the game but is playing on our "home" Xbox, she gets none of the Founders Goodies. There is a marked difference in our characters due to the stuff I have, and I can see how this would make the game appear easier than it is at the beginning.

With regard to the Pay To Win/Pay To Progress discussion, I know that this is a HUGE topic on the subreddit and other places. I am not as familiar with games in this genre as in most of the games that I play that have microtransactions, they are cosmetic only. That said, I can see where there would be concern, but I have not yet hit a point where progress stops. Obviously, I have probably not played enough to see the paywall (if it exists), but I do see plenty of areas to keep me interested without spending more $. Time will tell if that continues.

I have watched several streams and such featuring the dev crew, and it really looks as if they are taking player feedback quite seriously, which gives me a bit of hope that this game will follow a good path. They obviously need to make money somehow, so I understand their pricing at this time. It will be interesting to see if they can continue to add to the game in a way that makes playing without paying interesting and satisfying.

Finally, the game is part of Microsoft's Summer program. If you are an XBox Live Rewards member and buy over $40 worth of certain games between now and August something, you get 4000 rewards points. Of course, I bought the base version on the 20th and the start of the program was the 25th. Just wanted to point that out to any XB1 folks still considering this.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Ok, so pro-tip: Don't leave the game running just before starting the zombies to make your kids breakfast, because you'll get booted for being idle and lose all of the materials and weapons you spent getting to that point in the level.

I understand why they do that, but as a parent it stinks to lose half an hour of resource gathering and fort building because something important came up. I wish there was a pure-offline mode where I could set my own idle-timer and, oh I don't know, pause the game.

I can't complain (too much) because I knew going in that it was a multiplayer-focused game, but I'm starting to wonder if I wasted my money on this one. Not because it's bad, but because I can't commit to it the sort of time resources it needs.

i've done this multiple times and i swear i kept the resources i had gathered up to that point. I'll have to try it again.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
discoursian wrote:
BadKen wrote:
discoursian wrote:

I think Certis nailed my biggest confusion right at the beginning of the first stream. It has all the free-to-play (microtransaction) trappings. If I'm buying a 40, 60, 80 dollar game...what's with the uT's? I really think that is making me very wary...

It looks to me like the majority of the cost for the initial purchase right now goes to micro-transactiony stuff anyway. You're basically just buying a bunch of microtransactions up front, and you're getting bonus founders' stuff to boot. It seems more like a good deal than a cash grab.

I appreciate everyone's responses. I don't have a problem with uT's per se (spent entirely too much money in keys to open Rocket League crates, and those are purely cosmetics), but let me ask this: how likely do you feel that this game won't go pay to win? I only watched 10 min of the GWJ stream last night, so maybe it's covered there. I need to watch it, the game looks so good, I just can't quite put my finger on what is jiggering the back of my mind. Anyway, y'all have been great answering questions. Thank you very much.

This is my big question. Since I bit before doing the research, I now have dropped $40 on a game from a class of games that, in my experience, becomes almost literally impossible after a certain point unless you spend more money. (See: Plants vs Zombies 2, and just about any iOS game ending in "battle.")

There's certainly a concern about pay-to-win but in its current incarnation, and with the trajectory of design considerations evident from Epic's work on the game, I don't think it's a problem. I say that chiefly because the only win condition amounts to "First!". It's a cooperative game, not competitive, and while they may introduce competitive elements I'm not sure they'll be so easily ganked by wallet warriors. For instance, the only competitive mode I know of was introduced around Christmas for something like a week. It boiled down to competitive building with cooperative defense.

Right now the only thing I see that buying more in-game currency gets you is a shorter game. I don't know how this has played out in other F2P games, but I'm not currently worried.

sortimat wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Ok, so pro-tip: Don't leave the game running just before starting the zombies to make your kids breakfast, because you'll get booted for being idle and lose all of the materials and weapons you spent getting to that point in the level.

I understand why they do that, but as a parent it stinks to lose half an hour of resource gathering and fort building because something important came up. I wish there was a pure-offline mode where I could set my own idle-timer and, oh I don't know, pause the game.

I can't complain (too much) because I knew going in that it was a multiplayer-focused game, but I'm starting to wonder if I wasted my money on this one. Not because it's bad, but because I can't commit to it the sort of time resources it needs.

i've done this multiple times and i swear i kept the resources i had gathered up to that point. I'll have to try it again.

Agreed. It appears that you retain resources (both general and crafting) as well as any weapons / traps you found, but lose XP, BluGlo and any survivors that you have rescued. This makes sense, as there will always be an inherent need to farm resources but allowing people to farm survivors would likely break the "economy", as survivors play a far more important overall role in the meta than an individual resource.

Abu5217 wrote:
sortimat wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Ok, so pro-tip: Don't leave the game running just before starting the zombies to make your kids breakfast, because you'll get booted for being idle and lose all of the materials and weapons you spent getting to that point in the level.

I understand why they do that, but as a parent it stinks to lose half an hour of resource gathering and fort building because something important came up. I wish there was a pure-offline mode where I could set my own idle-timer and, oh I don't know, pause the game.

I can't complain (too much) because I knew going in that it was a multiplayer-focused game, but I'm starting to wonder if I wasted my money on this one. Not because it's bad, but because I can't commit to it the sort of time resources it needs.

i've done this multiple times and i swear i kept the resources i had gathered up to that point. I'll have to try it again.

Agreed. It appears that you retain resources (both general and crafting) as well as any weapons / traps you found, but lose XP, BluGlo and any survivors that you have rescued. This makes sense, as there will always be an inherent need to farm resources but allowing people to farm survivors would likely break the "economy", as survivors play a far more important overall role in the meta than an individual resource.

Concur. Not to say you didn't lose something, but if you did, it's a bug. I lost some Legendary weapons someone gave me when we were in my Outpost, because of an issue on Sunday (I think).

------

For PS4 players at least, I figured out how to do the map. It's up on the D-pad. I'm just roaming around my Outpost getting familiar with how the controls work differently than PC. At some point I wanna test if cross-platform play works.

Yeah, found the map on XBox last night as well (also up on the D-Pad)

Bunch of random things:

You definitely keep materials you gather and items you craft if you abandon a mission. I've done several missions solo solely for the purpose of farming materials.

I'm pretty sure traps do count against the build limit, I've checked this a few times. Upgrades do not count.

I don't think there will be a progression limit for F2P players, but progression will certainly come slower. I can't say this for sure though. I saw some stats gathered for a large number of loot lamas, and the upgrade to silver and gold is fairly consistent.

There are two +5 backpack upgrades in the first research tree. There's also a +5 upgrade to your storm shield storage somewhere, I forget where. I'm currently gathering with my outlander and depositing mats, and then switching to constructor to do the building. I've seen some pretty amazing storm shield defense setups.

deftly wrote:

Bunch of random things:
I'm pretty sure traps do count against the build limit, I've checked this a few times. Upgrades do not count.

That's odd, because I am certain that traps did not count against the build limit of 30 in the first Fight the Storm (ATLAS) mission in the game.

Source: Played it last night.

Still deftly wrote:

There are two +5 backpack upgrades in the first research tree. There's also a +5 upgrade to your storm shield storage somewhere, I forget where.

In the skill tree. The first split of the skill tree gives you either a backpack or shield storage upgrade.

Taharka wrote:

Had a fun time last night with a full, four person group. Really interesting to see how the game plays out when you have so much firepower. I think they spawn more husks, but it still felt like a cakewalk.
Starting to realize that later levels are going to be more interesting, tactically.

It was indeed fun! Thanks to the group for your patience with my bumbling, first-time-Discord-using, dying-in-a-cave-while-afk self. I do look forward to a bit of a difficulty increase as the game progresses, as building anything more than a couple of metal walls and a sniping platform roof to defend the Atlas seems all but pointless thus far. It makes me wonder if the optimal early game strategy is conserving ammo primarily for ranged/more powerful enemies and leaving the traps to deal with the rest, but it seems like that would sap a good bit of the excitement the game has to offer.

As for f2p concerns, if the progression system, erm, progresses in a predictable way, I do see that there may well be a point of diminishing returns where I'll either be comfortably settled in the game loop and thus unconcerned or I'll lose interest as progression grinds slower without kicking in more $$. Given my current enjoyment level and general time restrictions, I'm more than comfortable with a conservative estimate of when I might encounter that vs what I paid. As it is, this hit at a perfect time for me to get in, skip some of the initial grind, and get in a week's worth of time with the game relatively unburdened by other responsibilities.

Just a quick note about 'pay to win'. Unless they suddenly start giving you maxed out weapons, the gear you get is level 1 and usually 1 out of whatever x numbers of stars it is. That takes time to level up and upgrade to the next star. So it might give you a small boost early on but in the late game you HAVE to have maxed out guns, traps and heroes or you will get decimated.

I do wonder if there will at some point be a wall where you need max Legendary gear and that's only found in Llamas but I dunno, maybe Muraii can speak to that. The highest I got was the third area and even then the game was pretty brutal.