Too Human Catch-All

Isn't the thing that's supposed to make a berserker so dangerous his ability to completely ignore pain (and thus keep fighting until he is physically no longer able to move)? Seems like he should be harder to kill...

Certis wrote:

I'm finding the Berserker SUCKS for single player. I hit the 100 deaths achievement. Wheee ... eee?

I personally do not enjoy the berserker for a few reasons.

As I mentioned previously, they seem to be the class that a lot of the bad reviews played through as primarily (probably because the berserker WAS arguably the funnest class in demo,) berserker, and yes, a lot of the time until you learn the combat techniques a lot better, your play strategy as a berserker consists mainly of "rush in, kill as much as you can, burn all your ruiners you can cast, die. Rinse, repeat." In addition, since the berserker's melee is so ridiculously powerful, it really dissuades you from trying out stuff like spiders and warcries, they simply aren't necessary for the class, and won't increase your survivability much.

Sliding. Sliding is awesome, but after 50+ hours of this game, I definitely consider sliding without using special attacks combined, to be the "Light Attack" of the game, and not a bread-and-butter attack for most classes or in many situations. Frankly, it gets OLD, FAST. Sliding can be combined with abilities such as Ruiners, Finisher moves, and Launches, to gain extra combo meter, and get massive discounts on the combo cost of things such as warcries and Ruiners (and Ruiners get pretty good damage bonuses for being cast in a slide attack as well.) Most of the time my combat consists of launching, juggling, rolling, stick-and-move, etc, and it feels a hell of a lot like DMC or Ninja Gaiden when you do that. Sliding around ebtween enemies gets old, and even with 50 hours under my belt, I still just flail the R-stick in circles until I get overwhelmed by enemies, then i grind my teeth and smash the group with a hammer to knock them all away, retreat a little ways, and nthen go back to sliding around. Since your slide at high levels goes almost as far as a Commandos Cannon, there really is very little reason to try and expand your repertoire as a berserker.

Berserkers can piss off your friends. Playing through as essentially any class but a commando or champion, you'll need a saint of a friend if they're playing a berserker, or they'll ski through enemies so fast they'll literally be out of sight and on to the 3rd group of enemies, before you've managed to kill the stragglers and try to catch up. God forbid you get lost (Protip: if you lose track of your teammate, start firing yuor guns, it's much easier to see on an SDTV.) And when you friend DIES, get ready for a real treat when the three trolls, 12 dark elves, and 50 goblins he'd aggrod but died without killing, all come rushing straight to you!

So anyway yeah, Berserkers don't have any variety, don't have any survivability, and don't have any viable alternatives to their strategy, except sliding less and dodging more. but eventually you'll just start getting owned by ranged attacks you accidentally run into while sliding, and those will tear you up bad.

Also, the enemy layout in singleplayer are a lot more brutal in my opinion - although a lot less complex - than the ones in co-op, in large part because when you charge 12 dark elves solo, there's nothing to distract them from shooting at yuo with everything they've got.

As for dealing with polarity enemies, remember that launching is your friend, and it almost never kills an opponent outright, they die from the impact of their landing. Two launches back to back will kill most polarity trash mobs, and probably kill a bunch of other enemies too. Most polarity enemies are susceptible to ranged, some "heat up" when shot, and some have attacks you can't roll through (damn you, ice trolls with DoTs!), but ALL will drop like a stone from launches, Ruiner attacks, or Fenrirs.

Don't overlook the air juggle launching height skills, they both take you farther from danger of being hit while juggling, as well as causing enemies to take a LOT more damage from falling from a launch.

FYI about elite armor, the major elite sets won't pop up until you play at level 50, or with a level 50. The game will always drop 1 epic piece per run after 50th level and when you kill a boss, and it will match one of the players' class/alignment, so someone will get something they need every run.

If you don't want to risk missing out on your elite set loot, you can be a jerk though and use this method: Play a level on co-op, then at the last area (even durnig) the boss fight, kick them from the game. You'll be guaranteed an elite piece using this method. If you aren't such a jerk about it, you can back out of a game, make your own online private match by yourself, and continue from the final checkpoint, kill the boss, and get the elite gear.

Runes are HUGELY helpful, and basically any build you can think of will excel. The main key with loot and runes is to remember that everything has a cap (so check before inserting a rune that you aren't wasting it on a capped stat,) and that most stats will have more than one rune effect that will give them bonuses, such as plasma gaining from ballistics, ranged, and "Hybrid Damage" (aka plasma damage,) runes. Spider turrets also gain if you have damage type runes that match them, as well as gaining from your skills for the damage type. Spiders are CRAZY powerful, if you want to try getting a heavy "caster" build suing warcries and spiders, it's extremely viable and quite fun. The spider will recharge within 30 seconds or less if you cap all your possible cooldown reduction abilities and runes, allowing you to call them 2 or three times 9and their duration is LONG when maxxed,) in a big fight, and drop bosses in SECONDS when combined with ruiners abnd Fenrir attacks.

Spiders are mobile. Hit Y (and sometime s hold it) to make your spider run toward you. If you're running away from enemies, call your spider toward you so he can cover your retreat with cannon fire, or blow them up or freeze them as a mine. If your spider is not on cooldown, keep in mind that you're missing out on a lot of potential damage and a LOT of potential extra combo points.

Fenrir attacks are insanely powerful, but on a twenty minute cooldown which lasts between levels. When you call fenrir you throw you a clone of your weapon to fight for you, and it goes off and beats down enemies and gives you MASSIVE amount of combo, as in a full combo meter within 10 seconds for you AND YOUR PARTNER. I don't recommend putting more than 1 point into Fenrir skill, but I heartily endorse taking it, and use it on those "unfair" fights like the three trolls that are immune to ranged and have nasty nasty polarities. Each weapon type behaves differently when you call a fenrir, and fenrir bonus runes (especially speed!) make it ridiculously powerful, and a very easy way to change a really tough fight into a borderline laughable one.

I've been playing the heck out of this game and I think that I'll probably have most of the classes 50th, and 1000/100 achievements, possibly by next week. So if you have any questions or want to co-op and bullsh*t with me and maybe gain some tips from a chatterbox, send a message or invite to cj coyo7e on live. Even if it shows me "in a co-op game on X" go ahead and message me, I'll often just be idling in the armory in a private multiplayer lobby, buying runes and dyeing my armor different colors (remember there are shops in the armory and they often have very nice gear.)

As for the story, I really think the story itself is excellent, but it's presented in such a way that it's both slow, confusing, and hard to care about until the very end of the game. My personal suspicion is that Dyack consider the TRILOGY'S story to be the epic morality tale of blah blah nietzsche quotes and bighead books, but the fact is that almost nothing happens in the course of the actual game. This didn't bother me overall since I'm mostly enjoying co-op, but it is pretty sad that Silicon Knights couldn't present the story in a more gripping fashion, with more exposition and explanation of the characters BEFORE you're expected to be 5 to 10 hours into the game..

^^^^The berserker is the melee glass cannon. And even though they're able to ignore pain, berserker-type units in all games are used as shock troops, and almost never have any survivability. Think "WoW Rogue" instead of "LOTRO Champion."

Side note: having a weapon skill for your class does not inantely increase your damage witht hat weapon. A berserker with a hammer and a pair of dual swords/staves, both with identical numbers, will deal the same damage with either unless he puts skills and runess into the relevant categories. Their attack speed, slide distance, and fierce attacks are different, though. Abuse your fierce attacks as a berserker, they can do 10k damage easily once you get higher level, and can be used to fight a lot of bosses.

Also, if you stop sliding around and start paying attention to your spider and warcries and enemy layouts, you vastly increase survivability. Spiders recharge fast and will help a lot to do stuff like knocking off troll arms when you break their armor, or killing necromancers and driders without you being at risk. A friend of mine has beat 3 different maps without dying, on his berserker. He's also in the top 150 kills in the world though, and he's the only guy I know who plays more than i do.

A major issue with the berserker's death rate is that he's just enver anywhere but flat on the ground, and frankly you want to be jumping around and rolling constantly, to help avoid the majority of threats. Enemies can jump up into the air after you, but for example, running up to a troll and trying to hit him with a Finisher is essentialy suicide, he'll hit you before your third swing (and Finishers are uninterruptible *although retargettable* in and of themselves, and leave you exposed so they will cause a lot of deaths when used on the ground.) But if you just jump before hitting him with the same finisher, you're almost 100% guaranteed to break ALL of his armor and shields in one attack, regardless of what class you are or what melee damage you do.

After breakign a troll's armor with a finisher, run UNDER his arm and hit him in the side with a ruiner or a couple fast Launch attacks (the hammer's launch attack does nice splash damage, and is good for enemies that are hard to target,) or a ruiner, to totally destroy his hammer arm within about 4-5 seconds in two attacks. Don't jump up and try to melee his arm, it's way hard to hit, back away and use range, or get in close and melee on the ground, then roll when he tries to stomp. You can't roll through ice trolls' attacks, the stomp and hammer will both still freeze you even though they won't deal any damage while rolling.

Also, jumping will inherently increase your combo generation, so hopping around while firing is very helpful, too. Even if it makes you look liek a Halo-playing 12 year old.

PS: This is helpful, although some of the percentages are off it helps to give you an idea where to put points to get what you need. Keep in mind that if you are Human, the Ruiner skill is broken on this page currently. http://www.mycurrentgame.com/TooHumanSkillCalculator/Too-Human-Skill-Calculator.aspx

Rolling while you have a DoT debuff can aviod damage, for some types. It's probably a bug, but it can save you a couple deaths.

Dr._J wrote:
Certis wrote:

I'm finding the Berserker SUCKS for single player. I hit the 100 deaths achievement. Wheee ... eee?

Yeah, they are pretty much the personification of a glass cannon. I was playing co-op last night with a friend of mine who was a level 47 Berserker, and I was a lowly 32 Champion. All the mobs scaled to his level (45 and higher). While my friend was able to slaughter them with impunity, he died alot more than me, who was 15 levels below him with armor to match.

I think the biggest thing people have to realize about Berserkers is that they should not be standing on the front lines dishing hits and taking them. They remind me alot of the Assassin class from Guild Wars: Pack a hell of a punch, but are as soft as wet cardboard at times.

My best tip is try to be constantly sliding all over the place. Hit the leader of a group of mobs, then slide away from them into another, then slide to the left of that one etc. etc. I don't think Berserkers should be stationary for very long, especially in the higher levels.

Also, don't forget about juggling guys in the air. You can launch someone into the air, wail on them, and then slide to another mob while in mid air. I do this tactic frequently with my Champion and it has gotten me out of some tight spots.

Sage advise. Even with my Defender and well tweeked gear (IMO) sliding and air juggles are the only way to go. Standing in the middle of a pack and wailing on mobs will kill even me. I think people don't slide enough and they don't do air combat enough. My number one move: Slide into group, double tap R to launch them, jump, press L and R (this causes an air slide then finisher into one of the mobs), fall down and repeat. I can only imagine if I could chain in the air, I'd be REALLY lethal.

Even finishers on the ground can be risky as you will get beat on relentlessly. Air combat FTW.

You can chain in the air, get some melee juggle-time runes, and practise sliding between enemies in midair and between ground and air enemies. For Champions and Berserkers at least, I've noticed that when my cmobo meter is VERY high and I get a good slide combo going, my guy will automatically start following guys into midair (without jumping!) while he's sliding. Slide distance and attack speed are massively improved for any class, by a full combo meter, and my BioE is a Billy Badass with 3+ in his combo meter, with a nice slide distance and a pretty impressive reload and attack speed.

My personal favorite strategy against really strong goblins and stuff until higher levels, is launch -> shoot -> jump + a few hits -> land -> shoot -> jump + melee -> land -> shoot -> jump -> finisher. This can even kill a really high level elite goblin when you're low low level, if you can repeat it and move around enough while jumping, to avoid the trashmobs' attacks. If you use a finisher too early on a strong enemy in midair, he'll just get kncoekd to the ground, then get up and smack you at least once before you can launch him again.

Certis wrote:

I'm finding the Berserker SUCKS for single player. I hit the 100 deaths achievement. Wheee ... eee?

That could be my main frustration then, bad single player class. In the back of my mind I was wondering how much easier it would be to pick a class that roots/nukes from a safe little spot. I finally beat the last boss after promising myself not to snap the game disc, because the lovely people at Rogers Video would not appreciate that.

Some quick and dirty impressions of my 1P Berserker I got to level 26.

Graphics

A mixture of "It's not that bad", and what seems to be remnants of an old-gen game run through a new-gen filter. Some seriously janky rough edges with a few neat highlights is the best way I can describe it. The art design is a hit and miss, some of the characters looked greatly stylized, yet the environments were unimaginatively dull. The loot however looked pretty neat and provided a nice change in variety. By the time I got to level 26 decked out in Legendary items I looked pretty bad ass.

Story/Pacing

I went through a gamut of emotional ranges for the story. At points, I was thoroughly interested, at others, I was frustrated because I simply wanted to jump back into the action, but had to slog my way to the next triggered cut-scene point so I could just get on with the damn show.

Loot/Leveling

Loot, as stated above, had a beautiful shiny appeal - loot is the game, plain and simple. Without loot, this game would be akin to Marvel Ultimate Alliance and the like, but less engaging. The good news is, the loot looked fantastic. It's not World of Warcraft level of shiny, but it came close. One problem is the frequency so called epic items dropped. I think they should have balanced and re-tooled the system so when you get an epic item, it feels like an epic item. Every single enemy and weapons cache seemed like an epic vendoring machine.

Which brings me to my next point - you may look like a super bad ass, but the enemies never become easier due to scaling, so regardless of whatever sword-of-ultimate-kickassery you possess, you feel as if the stats are completely meaningless. I felt this recently in another game, Age of Conan - weapon upgrades are moot, other than the new skin they slap on whatever stick like smashy thing you are carrying. You can only assume the numbers are properly crunching in the background.

Combat/Death

The combat itself was fantastic. As a Berserker, I felt like I was practically surfing waves of enemies in a bizarre and violent version of Cirque du Soleil. Melee fighting was excellent, but as this class, taking out ranged enemies were not much fun. Some boss battles, in particular the last one, were annoyingly brutal, and death was frequent and swift. Near the end, the enemies were even tougher, and no matter what awesome gear or moves I had, it seemed like swarms of enemies chewed me up in seconds flat. It was not fun at all by this point.

As for death and infinite lives, I believe at it's core, it was a band-aid to solve a problem they couldn't quite fix at launch. The only penalty is a forced, unskippable animation of a Valkyrie (that clips horribly through objects) that is initially pretty damn cool, but by your 200th death, you want the Valkyrie to put her hands on her hips, shake her finger at you and go "Oh hell no, you carry your own lazy ass back to Valhalla".

Overall

Overall, It was good, it was bad, and it was ugly. I went from feeling the press reviews on this game were horribly unjustified, to completely warranted at times. Overall though, even with the amounts of frustration, lack of polish, and overall blandness of the environments, the stellar combat and shiny drops picked this turd out from the sewer and polished up a bit, into a more shiny, appealing turd. I am sure that like almost every other game, playing co-op enhances the experience two-fold. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to get any in as my sessions were sporadic, but I'm sure to snag it for cheap when it hits the ultra discount bins.

I have some faith that Dyack and Friends can clean this up a bit and come out swinging with a much better sequel, so here's hoping.

coyo7e wrote:

You can chain in the air, get some melee juggle-time runes, and practise sliding between enemies in midair and between ground and air enemies. For Champions and Berserkers at least, I've noticed that when my cmobo meter is VERY high and I get a good slide combo going, my guy will automatically start following guys into midair (without jumping!) while he's sliding. Slide distance and attack speed are massively improved for any class, by a full combo meter, and my BioE is a Billy Badass with 3+ in his combo meter, with a nice slide distance and a pretty impressive reload and attack speed.

My personal favorite strategy against really strong goblins and stuff until higher levels, is launch -> shoot -> jump + a few hits -> land -> shoot -> jump + melee -> land -> shoot -> jump -> finisher. This can even kill a really high level elite goblin when you're low low level, if you can repeat it and move around enough while jumping, to avoid the trashmobs' attacks. If you use a finisher too early on a strong enemy in midair, he'll just get kncoekd to the ground, then get up and smack you at least once before you can launch him again.

No, sadly, the defender's gimp is no air chaining. I can launch, hit 1 mob (and it's either 1 hit or a finisher, I usually choose finisher for obvious reasons) and then I land, period.

Swat wrote:

Loot/Leveling

Loot, as stated above, had a beautiful shiny appeal - loot is the game, plain and simple. Without loot, this game would be akin to Marvel Ultimate Alliance and the like, but less engaging. The good news is, the loot looked fantastic. It's not World of Warcraft level of shiny, but it came close. One problem is the frequency so called epic items dropped. I think they should have balanced and re-tooled the system so when you get an epic item, it feels like an epic item. Every single enemy and weapons cache seemed like an epic vendoring machine.

----------------

Which brings me to my next point - you may look like a super bad ass, but the enemies never become easier due to scaling, so regardless of whatever sword-of-ultimate-kickassery you possess, you feel as if the stats are completely meaningless. I felt this recently in another game, Age of Conan - weapon upgrades are moot, other than the new skin they slap on whatever stick like smashy thing you are carrying. You can only assume the numbers are properly crunching in the background.

---------------

As for death and infinite lives, I believe at it's core, it was a band-aid to solve a problem they couldn't quite fix at launch. The only penalty is a forced, unskippable animation of a Valkyrie (that clips horribly through objects) that is initially pretty damn cool, but by your 200th death, you want the Valkyrie to put her hands on her hips, shake her finger at you and go "Oh hell no, you carry your own lazy ass back to Valhalla".

First, if you're 26, none of those items are Epic. The earliest Epics are 30 from everything I've seen on the net. You're confusing Orange with Red, which is not your fault, since they look almost identical in this game.

Also, at your level you're just getting to a point where you can really twink your gear. I can twink a set of level 30 gear that I am still wearing at level 38 because I properly used runes and such to get insane armor values (or whatever I am shooting for). Just wearing dropped gear is so-so --- tweaking the gear with runes (and using those quest-like runes thingys) is a different world.

Finally, the valkerie is your "death penalty". That and some minor gear destruction. I actually have come to grow on the death penalty. When you see it once in a while your gear never breaks and it doesn't bother you too much. When you see it a dozen times a level (or enough to have gear breaking) then it's irritating, but it's supposed to irritating at that point.

FYI - I die the most in my 20s (some classes in my teens). By 30 you've either figured out the game or broken your disk .

Shoal07 wrote:
Swat wrote:

Loot/Leveling

Loot, as stated above, had a beautiful shiny appeal - loot is the game, plain and simple. Without loot, this game would be akin to Marvel Ultimate Alliance and the like, but less engaging. The good news is, the loot looked fantastic. It's not World of Warcraft level of shiny, but it came close. One problem is the frequency so called epic items dropped. I think they should have balanced and re-tooled the system so when you get an epic item, it feels like an epic item. Every single enemy and weapons cache seemed like an epic vendoring machine.

----------------

Which brings me to my next point - you may look like a super bad ass, but the enemies never become easier due to scaling, so regardless of whatever sword-of-ultimate-kickassery you possess, you feel as if the stats are completely meaningless. I felt this recently in another game, Age of Conan - weapon upgrades are moot, other than the new skin they slap on whatever stick like smashy thing you are carrying. You can only assume the numbers are properly crunching in the background.

---------------

As for death and infinite lives, I believe at it's core, it was a band-aid to solve a problem they couldn't quite fix at launch. The only penalty is a forced, unskippable animation of a Valkyrie (that clips horribly through objects) that is initially pretty damn cool, but by your 200th death, you want the Valkyrie to put her hands on her hips, shake her finger at you and go "Oh hell no, you carry your own lazy ass back to Valhalla".

First, if you're 26, none of those items are Epic. The earliest Epics are 30 from everything I've seen on the net. You're confusing Orange with Red, which is not your fault, since they look almost identical in this game.

Also, at your level you're just getting to a point where you can really twink your gear. I can twink a set of level 30 gear that I am still wearing at level 38 because I properly used runes and such to get insane armor values (or whatever I am shooting for). Just wearing dropped gear is so-so --- tweaking the gear with runes (and using those quest-like runes thingys) is a different world.

Finally, the valkerie is your "death penalty". That and some minor gear destruction. I actually have come to grow on the death penalty. When you see it once in a while your gear never breaks and it doesn't bother you too much. When you see it a dozen times a level (or enough to have gear breaking) then it's irritating, but it's supposed to irritating at that point.

FYI - I die the most in my 20s (some classes in my teens). By 30 you've either figured out the game or broken your disk .

See, I guess that's my overall main problem with the game. It seems like it's coercing you into playing more than once to be effective, when once is definitely enough for me. If the world was much more interesting, or if it was a quasi-MMO that planned to introduce new content, sure - I can understand the need to grind up a bit. But if grinding up continuously to play the same corridors over and over with scaling enemies is the overall reward, I just don't see the value in it, other than extreme repetition. It's like playing World of Warcraft, but being forced to run the same dungeon over and over, and absolutely no access to the rest of the world.

I shouldn't have to wait to 30 to start being effective in the game! That's like playing a JRPG for 30 hours before the story kicks in.

Yup I fully upgraded my spider and was rooting, it just seemed like it wasn't frequent enough even with talents maxed out/runes, and my ranged damage was pretty weak regardless of weapon so it almost made it a moot point, it just bought me a few more seconds before the inevitable Valkyrie visit :D. The auto-salvage feature sounds neat, probably would have shaved an hour off my play time salvaging greens.

Shoal07 wrote:

No, sadly, the defender's gimp is no air chaining. I can launch, hit 1 mob (and it's either 1 hit or a finisher, I usually choose finisher for obvious reasons) and then I land, period.

Ahh, my bad. My defender's the only class I have that isn't level 10+ yet.

Swat: Berserkers CAN root. Try some charms, or weaposn with ensnare, or other orange % chance effects. And as for too much loot, after level 25 or so I always turn my auto-salvage up to "blue". You get maybe 10-14 violet+ blueprints in most co-op runs like this, and most won't be upgrades, or will have lousy runes. Also, runes are really hard to take seriously when you are constantly swapping and upgrading weapons. I was dealing way over 20k damage on finishers with a level 30something orange weapon, on my champion when he was in high 40s. I just liked the weapon type and runes too much, and nothing was tempting enough to bother upgrading.

I really do recommend turning up the auto-salvage to blue and just buying stuff between levels if you need upgrades.

The spider turret is probably the easiest to use and most helpful overall, and even with the amount of melee bonuses you want on a berserker, it's pretty easy to cap your weapon type in two or three categories, and still get close to (or cap) your spider cooldown, range, and damage.

A fully upgraded spider turret can kill a Drider in about 5 or 6 seconds, has a duration of 30 or 40 seconds at least) and has a cooldown of about 30 seconds once you put a bit of effort into upgrading it. That can VASTLY improve your lifespan, and since you're a berserker, you won't be tempted to waste slots with armor or ranged weapon runes anyway.. Right?

[quote=Swat]

Certis wrote:

Which brings me to my next point - you may look like a super bad ass, but the enemies never become easier due to scaling, so regardless of whatever sword-of-ultimate-kickassery you possess, you feel as if the stats are completely meaningless. I felt this recently in another game, Age of Conan - weapon upgrades are moot, other than the new skin they slap on whatever stick like smashy thing you are carrying. You can only assume the numbers are properly crunching in the background.

As for death and infinite lives, I believe at it's core, it was a band-aid to solve a problem they couldn't quite fix at launch. The only penalty is a forced, unskippable animation of a Valkyrie (that clips horribly through objects) that is initially pretty damn cool, but by your 200th death, you want the Valkyrie to put her hands on her hips, shake her finger at you and go "Oh hell no, you carry your own lazy ass back to Valhalla".

The enemies scale with your level, but not your gear, so your uber sword of pwning does actually help, until you get past its appropriate level

As for the death penalty, later levels and with higher quality gear, the cost of repairs REALLY ramps up. I've had my ass beat into the poor house, ringing up repair bills that literally left me penniless.

Jack Random SX is the Live name, i'll be making the run for 50 tonight!

My opinion about the valkyries, is that co-op would be pretty lousy if people were able to instantly respawn. People would be dying even MORE and caring about dying even LESS and complaining about repairing their broken gear WAY MORE. On top of this, if you could respawn and jump back into combat instantly, then there is essentially no reason at all to have health bars and stuff, and you would end up with some kind of bastard child of Viva Pinata and World of Warcraft.

Also, I need time to switch gear or grab a drink or just wipe off my sweaty nerd-palms, and valkyrie are jsut the right amount of time for those (although they aren't enough time to use the bathroom.)

coyo7e wrote:

My opinion about the valkyries, is that co-op would be pretty lousy if people were able to instantly respawn. People would be dying even MORE and caring about dying even LESS and complaining about repairing their broken gear WAY MORE. On top of this, if you could respawn and jump back into combat instantly, then there is essentially no reason at all to have health bars and stuff, and you would end up with some kind of bastard child of Viva Pinata and World of Warcraft.

Also, I need time to switch gear or grab a drink or just wipe off my sweaty nerd-palms, and valkyrie are jsut the right amount of time for those (although they aren't enough time to use the bathroom.)

I was dying so much on the last boss I had my iTouch surfing GWJ between deaths. I got the timing down pretty good. Scan thread - shoot, roll, slash, dead - Scan thread.. etc

Swat wrote:

I was dying so much on the last boss I had my iTouch surfing GWJ between deaths. I got the timing down pretty good. Scan thread - shoot, roll, slash, dead - Scan thread.. etc :D

That is an excellent idea

Certis wrote:

I'm finding the Berserker SUCKS for single player. I hit the 100 deaths achievement. Wheee ... eee?

Yeah, the easiest singleplayer class I've found so far is actually the Commando. You spend so much time backpedaling you end up taking a tiny fraction of the damage you might with a melee oriented character. And the bossfights (except for Hod...) are cake with the Commando too. I think I killed Grendel in about 45 seconds the last time I fought him, Garm and Hel didn't fare any better.

A friend was just asking me about rune insertions and stat caps, so I thought I'd repost this here because I'm sure someone else besides us have not yet found the place in the manual where it describes the system in-depth.. It took a lot of "work" (and lots of credits!) to learn all this myself through trial and error.

longtimelurker posted:
Is that [stat affect due to rune insertions] cap per piece or equipment or overall? Any handy reference chart or effects and % caps?

That's the overall cap. For instance lets use some arbitrary values that I think are mostly correct in my memory... (note: almost all rune stat caps are either 30%, or 50%, and all dark blue runes will be worth slightly more than half the cap of whatever stat they affect)

Let's just say that Strength is capped at 50, Hammer Damage is capped at 30, and 2Hand is capped at 30. I want to max out my billy-badass melee and not get fancy, what do I do? math, of course!

I have some crummy violet item that already added +hammer damage 12%, so adding one dark blue rune for Hammer damage will pretty much max that stat, so if I want my attacks to hit even harder, I start putting runes for 2Hand Damage on..

Since I wanna bump 2hand now, I ads a rune that adds 18% to 2hand, leaving me 12% potential before cap. I add another dark blue because I'm looking ahead, and realize that when I lose that item, I'll regret having put a weaker 2hand rune onto the second item, so I don't mind adding another 17% 2hand damage. Now Hammer weapons and 2handers are capped, but Strength affects melee, too!

I add 3 strength runes totaling like 51%. Now, since level 40ish orange gear generally has at least 3 empty slots, that means I only used 1 + 2 + 3 runes for melee, and maxxed out most of the "vanilla" melee bonuses (we'll skip the slide damage, attack speed, juggle time, fierce damage, all of which also stack.. They did a very good job of overlapping runes to give you a really massive potential!) out of probably 24 or more Rune slots (6 armor pieces and two equipped weapons, assuming each only has 3 empty slots.)

Now I'm beginning to look at how few runes I had to use, and how much other stuff I could min/max, and I don't even have level 50 gear with FOUR slots, in this example!

When you start thinking like this, you'll start salvaging every item with a preexisting bonus that isn't at at least purple (if not orange), since you'll be thinking "sh*t, I have three runes that are stronger than that bonus, I'll just take that armor with no used slots and a better AC, and customize it myself!"

I hate to say this about any game, but if you’re dying/bored/frustrated with Too Human it’s because “you’re doing it wrong”. Now, before you tear into me, hear me out.

Too Human (2H) has a very basic combat principle – slide into the enemy, kill them, rinse and repeat. 2H also has “advanced” principles such as combo meters (and how they affect your damage, both with ruiners from combo levels and enhancements for high combos), finishers (both air and ground), air combat or “juggling”, damage vs enemy type, polarity tactics, proper armor and weapon use (runes, charms) and more. Many of these “advanced” techniques don’t even surface until the 30s, and sometimes 40s (depending on the class and the player). Up till then, simple slide attacks over and over will probably get you past most enemies, and frustrate the hell out of you when they don’t (I died A LOT the first time through stage 2… and I thought it was the games fault too).

No one bashes Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden for having advanced combat systems, but they are “known” to us, so we understand them. We know that in both DMC and NG we can just run around and slash things w/ a basic attack, but we’ll likely get pummeled, even very early. We understand there is a built in combo system for these games that require certain movements and actions in order to succeed. So does 2H, you just don’t know what that is right away, or even that it is there. Is that a failure on the design team – possibly – but it’s a failure of communication, not poor design.

There’s a complex system at the heart of 2H that requires delving into the depths and maximizing not only your tactics but your armor, weapons, runes, charms, and skill selections. At the end of the day there is no part of the game that requires you to die 20 or 100x to get past it, every level can be done in 1 life. Once you understand the depth of 2H’s system, and use it, a new game emerges. This is also why I HATED the demo but like the retail game. This is one of the few games I plan to ‘ever’ get 1000 achievement points in, and the depth of 2H in later levels (when there’s a real challenge and a wide variety of tactics) & Coop (which is challenging as well) is why.

Because 2H fails as a demo and only shines at later levels (character levels) is why it reviews sooooo G-Damn Poorly, IMO. Honestly, I feel a level 35+ character in stages 1 or 2 is a PREMIUM experience (stage 3 is bland and stage 4 is a nightmare). Want my advice? Play through the campaign once, then go back, play in coop mode (even if your alone) and tweak (get gear, test skill setups, test techniques) your toon (or alts, hehe) in stages 1 and 2, sometimes 3, and only 4 if you want to test your twink . A single player playing in a multiplayer game is fantastic because the story is gone and the enemies are numerous (and your buddies can jump in if you invite them, I think… )

Overall, this is a good game, but you'll have to play 10 hours to even see that, and most people are not willing to do that. I can't blame them, it is poor design, but a good game is there, even if the level design is uninspired and the story is, well, debateable. In my first 10 hours I easily could give this game a 6 or 7 out of 10. Once I got to the higher character levels I think I hit an 8/10 mark, which is argueably a good game worth playing.

PS - I still think Dyack is a tool.

My big gripes so far is that they don't explain all the fancy abilities you need to truly like the game, Shoal. Shouldn't it be shown to you even a little bit so you don't get frustrated to the point of never playing again? This game is almost worthless I feel because it's so unforgiving, but the infinite lives feels like the game is saying, "You should die as much as you want since there's no punishment!"

Oh, and the story is ok I suppose, but I wish they were more clear and detailed in the universe so I knew more than the few snippets of dialogue that are worth anything.

Shoal07 wrote:

I hate to say this about any game, but if you’re dying/bored/frustrated with Too Human it’s because “you’re doing it wrong”. Now, before you tear into me, hear me out.

I almost wrote a post agreeing with you. Almost.

After 40+ hours with the game, I'm still having severe control problems. There is no good reason why I should die because the game doesn't recognize my control inputs. Why does a troll knock me down if I'm 10 feet away from the shockwave? Or if I've jumped into the air. The graphic is clearly describing a ground effect yet I can roll through the shockwave and not jump over it. Or sometimes I can jump over it, depends on what the game feels like. Sometimes I am standing behind a troll, pounding on the A button over and over and I can't jump on his back, sometimes I am standing in front of him and I magically jump on his back. The controls are simply not tight enough. It's a credit to Too Human that the game is still fun, mostly, but it's extremely limiting to new players.

I'd say when you die often, 50% of the time you need to figure out a new approach, and 50% the game is just f*cking you right in the ear.

I love the sliding. I slid all over level 1, beat all the time-trial battle things with ease, and had a blast.

Then I got to level 2. I realize that there are real people out there that can get through level 2 without dying, but I really don't think there are that many, ie your normal joe gamer is not going to be able to.

So far I've found 2 "special" areas in level 2 (which I guess are supposed to be analogous to the time trial thingies in level 1) but get killed fairly easily in both. And once you are killed, they are closed off to you.

I kind of agree with Vrikk; there's very little learning curve built into the game. I slid my way through level 1, thinking "wow, cool game!" then slid my way into a brick wall in level 2. Literally. I find that about every 2 minutes or so I'm surrounded by 3-4 greenish goblin guys that take a crap load of hits and you can't just slide between. That in itself is fine, but when I have to deal with them, plus the rocket spider thing, plus 3 rocket goblins, plus 2 trolls all at the same time, something is wrong. When faced with that, I just don't have the ability to say "ok, gotta double tap this guy, and then do that to the other guy...". Nothing in the game up to that point reinforced that so that it is second nature. And even when I know to do that, I can't manipulate the sticks correctly to get the desired result. I like that they tried to come up with a new control scheme for the sake of hopefully coming up with new and cool gameplay, but I guess I just can't get the hang of it.

Part of it is the manual. Maybe I'm dumb, but the pictures showing how to do about 5 or so of the advanced moves all look exactly the same to me, so that when I'm trying to do something in game (that only becomes more frantic and button-mashy with 2 trolls and 3 rocket guys and a spider on me), I usually am just hoping that something magical happens by accident that will help in the current situation. Usually I'm trying to juggle, but I'll do the sword throw thing. Or if I'm trying to do the sword throw, I'll do a juggle. Usually it's ok, but in level 2 it means that I'm sitting there doing nothing against 1-4 enemies that are just chewing me up. I'm just not capable of wrapping my head around the game I guess.

I forgot to mention a very important issue that also dropped this game down a notch for me - the camera is brutal in certain areas, and not being able to adjust it is a huge pain in the ass. As much as I love running forward, staring at the front of my character, I would actually prefer to see what I'm about to run into. This didn't happen all the time, but there were quite a few camera cursing moments, that's for sure.

The absolute worst by far was the last boss fight, where there are multiple adds you must take down. There's a lot of boss warping and teleporting, and the piss poor ranged/gun targeting system combined with piss poor camera controls added two heaps of frustration onto my experience.

And yes, I know it has different mechanics for a game, I realize they were really striving to start giving you the goods the second time around, but they should have made it very aware this was their intent for the beginning. Like a little helpful loading screen reminder that you might not have the most ideal experience until you play it again.

Don't get me wrong, I'm Female Doggoing because I really wanted to like this game, and I do see a lot of potential for a sequel that addresses all these issues. I'm not sure if it's a QA/Testing thing, or if the designers need to start thinking like actual gamers/their target audience, and possibly adjusting this stuff so it's bearable before release.

Vrikk wrote:

My big gripes so far is that they don't explain all the fancy abilities you need to truly like the game, Shoal. Shouldn't it be shown to you even a little bit so you don't get frustrated to the point of never playing again? This game is almost worthless I feel because it's so unforgiving, but the infinite lives feels like the game is saying, "You should die as much as you want since there's no punishment!"

No, you're right, this is a shortcomming of the game. However, at higher levels (where I believe the devs expect you to know the advanced stuff, even though they don't explain it) there certainly is a death penalty, and it can get VERY expensive.

souldaddy wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

I hate to say this about any game, but if you’re dying/bored/frustrated with Too Human it’s because “you’re doing it wrong”. Now, before you tear into me, hear me out.

I almost wrote a post agreeing with you. Almost.

After 40+ hours with the game, I'm still having severe control problems. There is no good reason why I should die because the game doesn't recognize my control inputs. Why does a troll knock me down if I'm 10 feet away from the shockwave? Or if I've jumped into the air. The graphic is clearly describing a ground effect yet I can roll through the shockwave and not jump over it. Or sometimes I can jump over it, depends on what the game feels like. Sometimes I am standing behind a troll, pounding on the A button over and over and I can't jump on his back, sometimes I am standing in front of him and I magically jump on his back. The controls are simply not tight enough. It's a credit to Too Human that the game is still fun, mostly, but it's extremely limiting to new players.

I'd say when you die often, 50% of the time you need to figure out a new approach, and 50% the game is just f*cking you right in the ear.

I have noticed control problems as well, and they are unacceptable.

The game has issues, no doubt. However, no reviewer has identified the real issues like what we are discussing here, they primarily harp on two things A) Lack of depth/repetition (which is BS) and B) the game isn't the game they wanted it to be. Yes, the story is so-so (it had potential, but like a joke, it has to be delivered right or it stinks, and this one's rotten) and there are B U G S that never should have been in the final game. I feel if they fix many of the bugs we might see something less frustrating and very enjoyable over a long(er) period of time.

Anyone notice the Armor and Weapons "Live!" section that's blank? There's definately stuff comming that we don't know about.

Shoal07 wrote:

There's definately stuff comming that we don't know about.

Yep, and from the sound of things... it seems like SK will (...or might) also increase Character Level cap in DLC.

Nei wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

There's definately stuff comming that we don't know about.

Yep, and from the sound of things... it seems like SK will (...or might) also increase Character Level cap in DLC.

I'm fine with that - Does it include a multiplayer map pack that allows me to do COOP in new areas? If it doesn't (which it isn't likely too knowing a sequel is planned) the odds of the folks who would really care about an increase in cap actually playing the same levels again will likely be low (because we will have played them out)

I finally hit 50 with my Champion last night, what a ride!

Taking the weekend off to visit my girlfriend in Boston, but I'm looking forward to farming some epics when i get back!

Yea Souldaddy and I were doing coop with our kitted out 50's and the amount of purely broken sh*t we ran into was pretty unacceptable. When there is a horde of light polarity enemies running at me and I hit both sticks in the same direction to do the ranged fierce attack, my character should not slide into them and die instantly. Or if I hit both sticks in the same direction and actually successfully DO the ranged fierce, it should go in the direction I hit the goddamn sticks, not towards whatever random enemy it decided to lock on to.

Another note: I hate how they threw you right into the middle of an already indepth story. I didn't like when Mass Effect did it, and I hate it even more in Too Human because you have to be versed in Norse mythology to get a lot of the backstory (besides the Grendel/Beowulf story for "World 1").

I want to like this game. Heck, I want to love this game, and I can see where it can be possible... but it's just so unfair and unbalanced and stupidly, unforgivingly hard that I can't see myself putting a lot more time into it. I know that Silicon was trying to do more than a simply hack 'n slash, and it shows, but fans of the genre only want so much before they are satisfied and I feel like this went too much into the hardcore Ninja Gaiden territory without actually letting the gamers know what they were in store for. Give me Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Diablo, or even Marvel Ultimate Alliance over this any day.

Maybe Too Human 2 will fix a lot of what is wrong, and if so I'll be more than happy to love it. Until then, I'm sorry. This game isn't good. There are a ton of small pieces that make me giddy, but as a whole the entire actual gameplay dwarfs the positives that I get from the loot, graphics, and occasional story.

Oh yeah, protip for people who like and want to keep playing the game to get all the achievements: purchasing runes counts toward the 1,000 for the achievement, and the color-dye runes for 100 Bounty, also count toward the 1,000.

This game's achievements are all quite easy to get, and it will be literally the first game I've ever got the full 1000/1000 legitimately in.

Ad I have a question for people who don't enjoy the control scheme: If you borrow a friend's car and it is a Manual transmission instead of an Automatic, do you blame the car if you don't know how to use the clutch? No, you should blame Dennis Dyack, because all cars should be automatic!