BropolloCreed79

The only reason I play online is because I was able to customize the character. I'm intentionally playing the slow burn with the Story Mode (I'm only partially into Chapter IV right now) because I want it to last. Although I will say, I was pleasantly surprised in the online

Gun rush is so unbalanced. You take the time to line up a headshot, but they laugh at you and one shot you with a pistol from across a field because they have a higher level and more cards equipped. I still enjoy it a bit, though.

Last winter, Oreo released a limited edition with a cinnamon red-hot flavored filling that almost sent me into poverty. The only thing better is a soft ginger cookie that's still warm from the oven. My dreams are haunted by those Cinnamon Red Hot Oreos. When they released their "Holiday" edition with red filling his year, I almost cried with happiness. That cry turned into a wailing and gnashing of teeth when I found out the same red filling was no longer cinnamon based. I'm pretty certain my emails to Nabisco have put me on some sort of watch list as a result. I randomly stumbled across a thread in Reddit that said you could make a homemade Bilzzard with just ice cream and one of those big, heavy duty Kitchen Aid Mixers. As we have the mixer already (wedding gift), I tried it out, and I'll be damned if it wasn't better than a regular Blizzard from [Insert Franchise Frozen Dariy Provider Here]. Probably because I could load it with whatever I wanted. I chose Fireball and Nerds.

I'm sorry, but that is fantastic, and the perfect encapsulation of what I expected this game to be. Bravo! You mean Fawn Knutson?

Nice. I use a similar argument when people complain about violence in "The Punisher" and think it's gratuitous. The response is always along the lines of "He's 'The Punisher', not "The Kitten Cuddler". So your point is well taken. But I think what @YodaMan 3D is referring to is a more collaborative gameplay experience, like being in a group or posse and tackling missions together or raiding enemy hideouts as a group activity. I think we can all agree that the core gameplay mechanic that's available in the current beta is significantly lacking for things to do, apart from griefing, which is why I think it's so prevalent. People are already maxed out and have hundreds of thousands of dollars saved up, and they have NOTHING better to do at this point. The game needs the MMO equivalent of raids or gated instanced content that is immersive and takes an hour or more to complete, not a bunch of five minute missions to retrieve a boat, guard a wagon, or a quick firefight with some hobos in the woods. Let's have a prolonged siege of the forts, or robbing an armored and well defended train. Add a mission for 5+ players to defend one of the military forts or hold out for reinforcements in a prolonged, difficult engagement with a numerically superior enemy (not all unlike a horde mode, but with preset "win" conditions). There's so much potential for the missions in the online mode, and what we've seen from the beta has been, largely, lazy and uninspired. But boy are they sure happy to take our money when we buy gold bars! "Here's a new handkerchief, some sparkly suspenders, and a knock-kneed horse, now go out and replay the exact same content again!"

I wouldn't go that far. But it's an argument why separate servers isn't the answer. You'd be flagged for PvP for the duration of the mission, but would revert to PvE at it's end if that is your status prior to starting it. This also prevents you from being shot in the back of the head when you exit the cutscene before being able to defend yourself (something that happens to me at LEAST half of the time, which is, frankly, Bravo Sierra). That was me. My argument is, "if it works for the most successful MMO of all time, it should be good enough for this." An important point, because the many of the same griefing activities that could be carried out in a toggle system would exist in a PvE environment as well, so the argument to separate the two into different servers is ineffective because it literally changes nothing except for gimping griefers/trolls.

Have everyone's default status set to PvE when it's rolled out. PvE players get what they want, and PvP players get the opportunity to activate at their leisure--which provides plenty of strategic opportunities if you think about it. That's not a logical argument. FFA players are already in the game with passive players--the passive players don't actively seek out PvP opportunities, so FFA players are simply looking to impose their will on players who want nothing to do with it. All you get now is the coercion of passive players into attempting to defend themselves (if they're even given the opportunity to do so). FFA players have no idea what a player's intentions are, so by having them toggled PvE, literally nothing changes, except for their ability to be ganged up on or shot in the back while off hunting/fishing/etc.... As long as there's no distinguishing feature or identifiers if a player is PvE or PvP, that element of FFA remains because you'll never know what to expect. Unless you're advocating for the ability to indiscriminately murder other players as you see fit, there's not a logical argument there. That's an argument for straight up PvP--calling it FFA is gilding the lily; just say you want PvP in Free Roam or dedicated servers. I'm trying to avoid having dedicated servers because once that road is traveled, there will be a push by the PvP community to have modifiers like increased XP gains, or nerfs to PvE servers because of the ability to farm or stat boost in peace. That's a dangerous precedent, and it creates a caste system within the game. Bigger posses that run amok on a server can rack up XP with impunity by harrying smaller or less well equipped posses/gangs. If that's what R* wants and intends, fine, but until they make a clear, definitive statement about their intentions, I wouldn't expect separate lobbies anytime soon. Loot tagging systems have been around forever. The simplest solution would be that if you "tag" a target by hitting it, any loot pulled from it is replicated and placed in your inventory if you're anywhere near it when it's looted. It actually would make more sense, in that a posse or group out hunting would have the benefit of not having to split loot or have everyone dismount and loot. If two groups or unallied players are chasing the same animal, whoever kills it with one shot DESERVES the loot. And locking looting behind the tagging system would prevent people from stealing someone else's loot. As for the fish thing? No system is perfect, but do you honestly expect full posses to roll up on lone fishermen and sit there tossing dynamite into a lake or stream? Trolling is going to exist no matter what they do, but mitigating things like spawn camping when players can't even defend themselves (like coming out of a cutscene) is WAAAAAAY different than ganking someone's fish or deer. A toggle addresses that. The argument for a separate lobby is all well and good, but I'd be wary about that because the same people accusing PvE players of "whining" are going to start whining themselves for extra XP or special status for paying in a PvP or FFA lobby instead of a PvE one; mark my words.

There's a difference between marketing a game as authentically pvp, and saying there's pve gameplay, but then not providing it. And you can disparage PvE players all you want, but the fact of the matter is, RDRO is being branded and marketed as a Western themed MMO. Not everyone who enjoys a PvE experience is "crying to water things down", as you put it. That's an elitist attitude, one born of an intentional blindness to altruism. You and many others have repeatedly disparaged those seeking a PvE experience, clamoring for things to "not be watered down". Perhaps you could provide a detailed explanation of what you desire/expect from the free roam experience. Is it nothing but chaos? The thrill of having to "watch your back"? Or is it simply that you enjoy having the opprotunity to prey upon lower level characters or team up to harass solo players? Not judging, I'd just like to have a clearer understanding of what your specific expectations and desires are for RDRO, because at the moment, R* has completely misrepresented what the experience was going to be to a large (perhaps half) of the potential player base. The current game caters exclusively to PvP players. Every single non-Free Roam game mode is a PvP mode. Free Roam itself is a PvP mode. There are literally no dedicated PvE elements, apart from isolated group missions, in the current Free Roam experience. 95% of the online content is geared towards PvP gameplay, so demanding things not be "watered down" is arguing in favor of maintaining a strict PvP status for the entirety of the experience, aside from a few isolated missions. Or would like to be able to betray your teammates during those missions as well? I have proposed many, many times that PvP/PvE status be a toggle for the player, subject to a 30 second cool down once out of combat. To date, nobody has provided an effective rebuttal to this proposal. Players who like the surprise element of Free Roam game play literally lose nothing. PvP players can leave their toggle active and do whatever they please to other PvP flagged players. PvE players can hunt and fish, or do missions in peace, without being shot in the back of the head exiting a cutscene before they can even orient themselves. The only "loser" in this scenario is the troll/griefer who enjoys preying upon lower level or solo characters with a pack of cohorts. So, to summarize:

Word.

Thou shalt not disparage thine life-force sustaining refreshment. May The Dew of the Mountain flow forth freely that thine people may drink of it and have their extreme thirst be quenched. May their energy be replenished, and their vigor restored. That has not been my experience. Looking at The Division, skilled PvP players looking for a challenge tend to play Last Stand, the dedicated PvP mode. Trolls and griefers play in The Dark Zone, actively looking for easy prey, often hunting in packs against solo or unorganized players. Once PvE players no longer had to venture into the DZ to obtain gated loot, the PvE population in the DZ dwindled, and now, it's literally packs of Rogue Agents looking for solo players, and griping about "how much it sucks" now that there's nobody to kill. RDRO is NOT a "PvEvP" environment. It's straight up PvP. PvEvP infers that the PvE crowd has an option or a choice, but there is NO choice, no dedicated PvE mode. The entire game is built to PvP gameplay, and that's fine, but R* should not market the game as having something for everyone to lure PvE players or folks looking for a western-themed RPG into what is essentially a reskin of GTA Online. Edit: and you could have at least quoted me on that, since I just said it in this thread yesterday.

I actually have a video saved on my PS4 that shows about five disconnects in the span of six minutes, mostly trying to matchmake for Gun Rush, but I also have video support for my internet speeds too, so I'm going to put it on Youtube and then email them. They'll have a hard time refuting that.

It's not that bad, as long as you have protection.

The larger issue with The Division was the introduction of gear sets that were specifically designed for a pigeon-holed game play experience. Either you farmed and maxed out PvP gear, or you farmed and maxed out end-game PvE gear--there was no balance between the sets. Players who hadn't farmed or learned the PvP mechanics and built their character around PvE endgame content (i.e. "Legendaries" or "Raids") didn't stand much of a chance against a player in the DZ who was built to melt them down. Think back to the imbalance issues with things like a full set of D3 armer being mulched by Striker, or any of the other trendy "DZ" builds. Then they started nerfing skills and abilities for the DZ and gimped PvE gameplay, or they buffed enemies to the point that it took two whole mags to burn down an NPC. Meanwhile, a Rogue could mow you down with half a mag from behind. That's not balanced game play, and it was a major issue with the game for a LONG time. Is it wrong that I think of New Jack from ECW when I see the title of this video, let alone hear the song. Still the most impressive wrestler I've ever seen perform live.

The only counter-point to this would be what happened to me last night; I accepted a stranger mission to retrieve a boat, which I was doing solo. A posse of three rode after me, but I made it to the point in the river where I entered a cut scene. The millisecond I came out of the cut scene, I took a head shot, got called a "noob b*tch" and then harassed for the next five minutes by this threesome, riding down on me within seconds of spawning and just running a train on me. It didn't bother me, but when you literally have folks approaching level 100 grouping up on a level 8 player, no amount of head shots or tactics are going to offset better weaponry, equipped cards, etc., I can easily see why some folks would be aggrieved and just quit the game. Once they got bored, I rode to the nearest fast-travel post and just jumped across the map to greener pastures. No sweat off my nose. The game's mechanics encourage players to gang up and bully folks like a bunch of Alpha Hotels that didn't get enough hugs from mom and dad growing up. Judging from the voices, I'd put them at high-school age or maybe college, but far from fully formed adults. But the point is, not everyone has the luxury to posse up with a group of good, let alone reliable, players. I'm slowly building my group up, but when I'm forced to endure constant disconnects when I do try to join a session, R* is effectively putting up roadblocks to the very activity that is most commonly proscribed to truncate being victimized or aggrieved. Telling folks that they need to posse up or wait for R* to implement private lobbies isn't a viable solution when neither is reliably available at this juncture. I'm not into taking hints, but I am a glutton for punishment. On the plus side, every moment a griefer spends focused on me, other innocent players can get away. I'm content to waste someone's time who doesn't realize their being distracted. When R* is marketing the game as an RPG with PvE gameplay, having the entirety of the experience be nothing but PvP is misleading. Not advocating that they change the core mechanics, but they'd be alienating half the game playing population by having no PvE elements. And right now, that's exactly what they have, ZERO true PvE gameplay. Literally every mode is PvP, from the entire showdown and Gun Rush game variants, to "Free Roam" which is really just a playground for opportunists to prey up on players of disproportionate skill. There's literally five or six other game modes devoted to PvP, is it really so unreasonable to allow players who wish to opt out of the PvP experience and have a PvE environment. You seem to be focused on what is necessary for your own personal enjoyment of the game, which is fine, but ignoring that there's a very large portion of the player population who view the online mode as an online story mode that lets them play with friends. R* markets the game as such, so it's disingenuous to expect everyone to buy into the online experience when it's entirety is PvP. Labeling Free Roam "PvEvP" is a blatant misrepresentation because PvP is ALWAYS on. I've said it before and I'll say it again: making PvP and PvE status a toggle with a 30 or 60 second cool down once out of combat is still the most effective way to cater to all parties in a fair and equitable way. PvP players lose nothing, they can still PvP against anyone else so inclined. If anything, it adds complexity and nuance as players could have PvE decoys to lure PvP players in and then pounce on them. PvE players gain the peace and serenity of not being bushwacked and ganged up on by a bunch of trolling losers whose only enjoyment comes from aggrieving others. Trolls are the only losers in this scenario, and I have yet to see a valid argument against this model. If it's good enough for the most successful MMORPG of all time (WoW), it should be good enough for RDRO. Exactly my point. The core gameplay of TD was built around cooperative gameplay that allowed players to actively choose when to endanger themselves by entering the DZ of their own volition. And I agree about the rush--I don't personally PvP, but I knew what to expect when going into the DZ and goofing around. It's a great "change of pace" mechanic from the main game play, but I couldn't see an entire game built around that mechanic being sustainable in the long term, and that's what we're in danger of with RDRO--once the PvE players go away, and there's nobody for the Trolls to prey upon, they'll get bored as well. You go into the DZ now in TD, and all you hear about is people whining about how much it sucks now because PvE players aren't forced to go in there for loot like they were back when some of the best loot was gated in there. Can you imagine if the entire TD experience was like the DZ? It'd never be sustainable long term--if it were, TD2 would have gone that route, but they didn't. Completely agree. There's plenty of NPC's and anyone begging for more needs to step up and go into St. Denis with a posse pulling "a Number 6". No shortage of NPC's there...

No joke, I've restarted online about five times now (the most recent being two weekends ago), and I'm not the least bit sorry. Sure, I'm probably about fifty or so levles behind where I should be, but the only thing I've lost has been some clothing. Not a big deal, imo. But now, I'm finally happy with the end result. If my laudanum-addled, overall-clad, shirtless, alcoholic with a heart of gold could just get into Gun Rush games with more frequency, I'd be happy.

So, basically EVERYONE on PS4, then?

"Have some god d*mned faith!" --Dutch Van Der Linde, to basically anyone who would listen.

I need something different, like aliens. I could get onboard with that as a later dlc.

The regular free roam is lacking, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't addicted to Gun Rush. You know, on the one out of every 10 time I try to get into a lobby that actually succeeds.

1) Halo 3 2) Marvel Heroes 3) RBI Baseball/Tecmo Superbowl. Halo 3 was a revelation when it came to sci-fi shooters and online matchmaking for consoles. No other shooter has ever come close to recapturing that feeling. Marvel Heroes? Two words: playable Taskmaster. I still play RBI baseball and Tecmo Superbowl on emulators to this day. RBI baseball is still the best baseball game ever made, and I can use Bo Jackson in Tecmo SB. Madden is great and all, bit I do that more for simulating franchises with friends while pounding brewskis. When I want to play, I play Tecmo Superbowl.

I can almost guarantee it. You hear it in open chat or lobbies everywhere; prepubescent kids using edgelord language to sound "cool" to an audience of strangers. They are prone to using exploits, hacks, and glitches, simply because they can, and unfortunately, the racist and sexist elements you see online in gaming start with home life more often than not.

I fail to see the problem. Edit: I pinned and featured this thread, @Kean_1, pretty important stuff, and having it atop the page and flagged may preclude copycat threads. Hope you don't mind.

How the hell are you going to carry an elk or moose back down the mountain on a bike? And I'd be willing to bet your family still calls you from time to time for help with computers. Us "folks of a certain age" who grew up when the first wave of home computers became ubiquitous will be answering questions from family members for a few more decades. It's like reading my own autobiography, but mine has less acid and more home-made pyrotechnics. Though I did have the 32X instead of a gamecube.

Not the person, but the object. and I was a bit more... circumspect about the adjective modifying the noun.

I may or may not have received a temporary ban from Xbox Live at one point for pointedly using a clever euphemism to describe a player that reflected a common cleaning implement deployed in ramshackle establishments known for their close-quarter video booths and privacy that were used for decidedly unsavory and non-family friendly activities.