Dates with Death, and a poll

[IanForce]

Yes, and then perhaps not. Two rival tanks approaching at high speed could be a date with death

[Bootie]

Hey @IanForce, look, it’s not me fishin’ to be a Mod!

[pegnose]

Lollllllllllllllllll

[Ennui]

I’m curious how you all handle battles with the robots. Specifically, I’m curious how you all approach death in the game.

I started playing with a good friend who then got sucked into real life for a while. So rather than run quests alone, I started scouting the entire map, avoiding fights, moving quickly, quietly by night, and such like. Great fun. Tried hard not to die. Which if you pick your fights or avoid them altogether isn’t that hard (as long as you don’t run off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote).

At some point though, I figured I wasn’t getting any younger. For most games, I’m less interested in having a minimum amount of play time that I want out of them, but a maximum time I can allot to them.

Once I started on battles and quests … well, familiarity breeds contempt, doesn’t it. I noticed that the machines took unrealistic liberties (like using a quasi-infinite amount of rockets, teleporting into buildings, melee-ing you through walls, etc.). So I figured, if the machines get to cheat, so do I. So when the quest or situation look interesting, I play it straight and aim for realism. When it looks boring or stupid and I just want it over with, I’ll use any and all tools at my disposal, including unrealistic ones, to make up for all the things my avatar should be able to, but can’t do.

Example: Ticks are annoying. They’re not a fun enemy that you can be proud of defeating, they’re just a nuisance. They’re the game equivalent of cleaning the toilet.
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So hypothetically, if there were a long, long hallway or cave or whatever full of ticks, I couldn’t be bothered with that, I’d just run through, aggro all of them, die at the far end, and then take an adrenaline at the last second, hopefully after they’ve all exploded, because hell knows I can’t be arsed with shooting them all individually. I might have bothered in the beginning, but now I just want things over with. Life’s too short for boring enemies.

I have two experimental weapons - the AG4 and the .50 cal. The .50 cal only does what I thought a .50 cal should do in the first place, so that fixed an unreality issue for me (and I like the humm), and the Ag4 is just such fun to fire, since it looks so destructive and cool, though I am unconvinced that it kills any better then my AG4 5*.

Yes and yes. The .50 was too weak, and I’m never quite sure about the AG4x either. It’s fun, but that whole setting windows on fire as you shoot out thing is annoying.

You have finished the Main Missions (which are enough to keep you interested so far) but you have Rivals (and Experimental Weapons) to keep you playing thereafter.

Yeah, that’s one of those differences in expectations. Some people seem desperate to linger. For that matter, Avalanche seems desperate to trick us into lingering. I for one value closure. Beginning, middle, end, move on. Manageable commitment.

That is one of the major advantages of VR games over pancake games. Very short total play times.

The last pancake game that had the perfect length for what it was was the first Portal.

Rivals and especially experimental weapons should have been introduced by story (something about page 1 in the screenwriters handbook). And I totally agree.

Not sure I do. It’s much easier to ignore 'em if they’ve never become part of the story.
As it stands, there are so many things that are weird and silly especially about rivals that I see them purely as an out of character mechanism that to our avatars does not exist. If I expected them to be part of the game lore, it would just stupid the game. Your mileage may vary.