Battleborn

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Don't know if any of you have been following this game or are interested in it but I tried the open beta out for it today. I'm actually impressed with this game based on what little time I actually spent playing it (it might help that the team I played on completely smashed the other team). It's fun, the characters are hilarious (they say random shit during matches when they meet certain characters and what not), it's quite easy to understand, and honestly I love the art style (which is weird because I normally don't like this type of art). This, I think, will be Overwatch's major competitor for players until Lawbreakers hits the scene but I'm going to reserve my final judgement until I play the Overwatch Open Beta to see which one is better in my opinion. I'd suggest, if you have the time, to dl and try out the beta. It runs until Tuesday if I'm not mistaken. Thorn, the only character I played, is awesome btw. She wrecks face once you get here up to level 7 and above.

Trailers:

 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

The multi arm chaotic spell caster and the mushroom guy that throws knives looks pretty cool to me. I looked into battleborn when I first heard about it but I haven't seen much about it lately. Is it being promoted more for a pvp game or is there a horde mode of some kind I saw in that trailer? If there is a campaign I'd be very interested in this. If not, it could still be alot of fun. If I have the time this weekend I'll try the beta.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

There is a campaign and you can play the first two missions in the beta. I personally haven't done the two story missions yet (probably tomorrow) but it's multiplayer based (like Titanfall) or you could go private and do it yourself but I think they're really pushing the whole mp thing so it's probably balanced around a party of 5 (and by what I could tell it is a horde mode based thing but like I said I won't really know more until I give it a try). I think they're going to push the PVP aspect more because it's a hero arena but at least they included a campaign to give you the basic premise of the story and whats going on, which I believe will be absent from Overwatch (and is absent from every other MOBA out there, they have backstories and what have you but they don't have a campaign to help explain it and you're hero's role in that story).

This trailer actually give you a better look at the background story and actually introduces the whole cast of characters unlike that other character video. I'm honestly considering getting it but only if I'm not satisfied with the gameplay Overwatch has to offer. Its been along time since I've been into a MOBA type game like this and this reminds me a lot of the original DotA with a first person twist (and the ability to build, upgrade, and maintain turrets and AI mobs (DotA never had this nor do any other MOBA's that I know of)).

 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

That was a great video. I love the comedy of it. I like what I've seen of overwatch so far but battleborn actually has a campaign and more substance. Overwatch has a couple cool animated shorts but without anything in the game to tie into that it'll be just another fps team death match game. This is looking more like something I'd want to spend time on than overwatch at this point. I'll set the beta to download in a little bit.

 

I might end up getting both of these games but anything with a campaign takes precedence for me. 

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

If the campaign is like Titanfall then it's not a campaign. It's a bunch of MP matches with cutscenes during loading sessions. It definitely didn't work for the "must have campaign" crowd. That's why they're actually going to have one for Titanfall 2.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

That Titanfall "campaign" was so dumb. I played the 6 MP matches for it in one sitting on a free weekend. I missed one cutscene because I got DC and when I got into another round it skipped me forward to the next "campaign mission" and the brief cutscenes made no sense at that point. That game had no story at all. Just by watching that trailer for Battleborn theres already more lore in this game than Titanfall and just about as much lore as Destiny. lol.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I did both of the campaign missions earlier and they're nowhere near what Titanfall's were. They're in the style of a horde based game mode that has you taking out waves of enemies, fighting mini-bosses (that are extremely fun and extremely funny, I almost died laughing during the Geoff fight in the first mission), taking care of objectives, and fighting one major boss at the end of the level. Difficulty is ramped up based on how many people you play with so you can do it alone no problem or with 4 others for more difficulty (and there is a hardcore mode for missions that does not allow respawning once you die (which believe me will make it rather difficult the first time you run through). You can definitely tell the missions were built with teamwork in mind health drops, while plentiful, seem to always be lacking during hard fights so a healer is a must and with the massive waves of enemies having a tank is a must as well. Gearbox did a very good job balancing this game around that concept for the campaign.

Honestly I'm impressed with this game. If I wasn't in the bad financial situation I'm currently in I'd definitely pre-order it.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Sounds good. I got the beta downloaded but I wont have time to get on tonight. For some reason I thought the beta was only for the weekend. I checked just a minute ago and its going to stay open until the 18th. Thats a damn good beta window. I'll definitely get to try it by this upcoming weekend.

[Myk JL 1,731]

I may or may not preorder this. I like Benedict & Toby. But I feel like I have a lot already to spend time on if I wanted to.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

The more I play this the more I want it. I started playing as Orendi (the little multi-armed caster) tonight and she's a hoot. She's bat shit crazy (and I mean bat shit crazy, some of the things she says are down right nuts (and completely hilarious)), her ultimate can damn near one shot most heroes if it hits just right (hell I got a double kill with it the first time I used her), and all of her abilities complement her play style so well (she's pretty much a glass cannon on crack as she moves extremely fast and has little to no health (though she does have shields, the one thing Thorn does not have)).

I forgot to mention I tried out Montana in one of the story missions. While he's probably not going to be my first choice of character to use (even if he is extremely funny) he's just to slow and cumbersome for my tastes. Plus he does little to no damage (even though that minigun puts out a lot of rounds before it overheats) but then again he is a tank. With the right player he can be devastating but for me I just end up getting surrounded and slaughtered when I play him.

I think the Beta is going that long because PS4 users got it first while everyone else gets it on the 13th. Good for us, bad for everyone else.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I didn't have time to jump in on this beta, but from the videos I watched, it just isn't for me. I never have liked slow TTK FPS. I'm just not good at them. I guess its because of how I play FPS... I tend to build an internal clock on TTK to where I know when to stop expending bullets and move on to the next target. This game looks like a cartoony version of Paragon which my friends tried to get me to buy, but once I watched the videos, I was immediately turned off and didn't bother. I'm sure it will be fun for those that like the playstyle. It also does in match upgrades... the sole reason I never could get into Counterstrike. The premise looks cool and the characters look interesting. I didn't even realize Gearbox was the one that made the game. It will be interesting to see how it does. Blizzard is already trying to steal their thunder by holding Open Beta for Overwatch during its launch. While there are similarities, they are pretty different games. Overwatch has much faster TTK, and the same hero can be selected by multiple people. Its not really a true MOBA like Battleborn and Paragon. Neither one of these games have the marketing hype that COD and BF have, and thats probably a good thing TBH. I know Overwatch has a huge word of mouth hype and it's reddit hit 100k subscribers yesterday. Neither of these games need the crybaby "everything that kills me is OP" crowd.

I hope both of these games kill it. The FPS genre needs some new life breathed into it. COD has ruined the market... and with this last game showing their greed with P2W supply drops, the industry needs to change. I made the mistake of doing nothing but play BF4 for 160 hours within the first 2-3 months it came out. It was amazing, but I got burnt out before all the DLC was released and basically never touched it again outside of a few occasions. That was partly because it was the only thing worth a damn out for PS4 on launch. XD. I've been pretty down on the genre ever sense. I got blops 3 only because all my friends did, so I figured I'd suffer with them, and the game left a REALLY bad taste in my mouth with whats going on in it now. The series has just become one huge joke, ripping off anything and everything another game does. Titanfall is why AW had the exo suits, and Blops 3 added wall running because they had more time to rip them off. There is no telling what Sledgehammer will do after Overwatch and Battleborn come out.... hell Ghosts 2 may already have a AW style half-rip off going on for it.

 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I played the beta yesterday for almost 2 hours. I didn't try the multiplayer and went straight for the missions since that's what I'd prefer for this game anyway. Aside from the clipping issues on some ledges it was a fun experience. I played as Orendi and tore thru the first handful of mobs with ease but the first mission definitely got progressively harder and more enjoyable. The drone purchases are a nice twist. I'd always buy a combat drone, but in the last half of missions, those drones would get destroyed so easily, they seemed worthless. The genome upgrades were interesting but it'd be nice to have a reset option for it since once you make a selection its set and felt a bit too restrictive. It makes sense to have that kind of system in StarCraft since it gives you some replay value but for a FPS it felt like I was setting up my character to play a specific role and when I realized it wasn't working good for me I had no option to try something new. While in starcraft, whatever options you choose for upgrades are completely viable and not necessarily OP over other choices, except maybe 1 or 2. I did get screwed at the final battle against Isic on the first mission. I could have sworn I had 20 mins left on my server time in the pause menu when I started that fight but by the time I got to the final phase of the fight and he was a floating head, I got a count down timer. I don't know if it was the server time on the beta running out or if it was a "hard enrage timer" for the boss. If it was a hard enrage timer then I have no interest in this game. It was beyond annoying to play thru the entire mission while exploring the environment and taking my time to get to the final boss, see it has about 10 hp left and then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.. mission failed. And no option to restart the boss fight. I'm going to assume it was my server time expiring. Other than that it was a fun experience.

I tried the second mission with Thorn and I sucked bad with her. lol. After going from Orendi with an endless spam attack to basically a sniper class, it threw me completely off. shes an interesting character, but in mission modes I often felt like I was getting swarmed with enemies faster than I could shoot arrows and had to spam my aoe and melee. Orendi felt much easier to play, but was quite squishy.

Overall it was fun, but I don't think it sold me on the game. It felt like a gearbox game with borderlands style humor and I love that. But if I still have borderlands 1 and 2 to play so I might stick with those for now.

The campaign mission seemed a bit generic in regards to the characters. Since you can play any character in the campaign there were no points where the player character would interact vocally with the events going on so it didn't feel immersive to me. Much like a battlefield campaign, the player character is just some generic mute character. I never like that in a campaign. With this many characters, they could have made a campaign that is locked to a specific character in a "story mode" and each mission could have been tailored to that character to give you insight on their background and their personality. And then after you unlock more characters, you could replay the mission in an "mission" mode like what we got in the beta.

btw, how does Orendi's ultimate work? I swear it never hit anything in the missions. I'd hit the button see her do this great animation with symbols.. and nothing. I thought I was using it wrong, so I literally stood in front of enemies and did it, only to take damage during the animation and not see it do anything.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

11 hours ago, Sledgstone said:

btw, how does Orendi's ultimate work?

It does damage to everything that it's front of her when it goes off. I did notice it's a little buggy in MP but I never played her in story so I'm not sure if it's a story bug or if something just wasn't working right for you. I've generally had not trouble with it (hell 90% of my player kills with her are from her ultimate).

The helix upgrades are a great system and I actually like that it's permanent once you choose it (for the round), it actually makes you think before you randomly choose something. Yea it sucks if the choice works against you but I like it. For MP it's key to make the proper choices so you contribute to the group as a whole (and for someone like Orendi there really is no wrong choice as she's full on DPS, I usually went the glass cannon route with all helix upgrades being spent on dmg increases, faster recast times, and life steal (plus I had 3 epic quality equipment pieces that increased my damage, health and shield regen (plus health received from healing abilities) and increased attack speed)). For the story aspect of the game being able to retrain you talents would be nice but considering how this game is entirely balanced with MP in mind (yea I know story can be soloed but it's obvious that it's balanced for MP play) which is why they I think they made choices permanent.

The story is kind of generic but that's most likely due to the cast of characters. With that many characters to choose from it'd be a nightmare and extremely pricey to record lines for different character reactions. Kind of a ball drop but I was more interested in the MP feature of this game because, while I love it, Siege gets extremely boring when you play by yourself and get in shitty teams (and I'm not the best Siege player in the world) so I need a new MP game to play (and I'm bored of play BF4 and The Division just isn't as fun as I was hoping it'd be, its a great game but in only shines when playing with others and now that I'm endgame I lost pretty much all interest I had in it). Plus the random comments that come out of characters mouths when you're in MP is hilarious (Orendi is by far the best, she's a bloodthirsty little maniac and I love every bit of it). Also the lore section of every character is meant to give you the characters insights into whats going on (the ones I've unlocked for Orendi are hilarious). I also never ran into the time being a problem aspect that you had. I played the story missions with others so we pretty much decimated the missions well before time ran out.

Honestly this probably isn't the best game out there for this type of play style but for me it works. Overwatch looks great but I've been burned by Blizzard to much over the last 10 years that as much as I want to play this game I feel it'll be a disappointment for me (I'll reserve full judgement for the open beta). I like slower TTK games if they're done right and Battleborn was done right (like Siege). It's not to fast but it's not too slow (depending on what character you play you can kill other characters extremely fast (Orendi absolutely slaughters and can one shot people, Marquis is probably the best dps character in the game with his cane sniper rifle (I've seen players absolutely slaughter the entire enemy team with him), Thorn is a beast if you take the right Helix upgrades and understand what role she plays in the game (I like her but I will admit she has a steep learning curve), and I can't say much about the others as I really didn't get to try them)). It has a story based aspect to it which has me sold because I don't like buying games for multiplayer alone as I feel I'm not getting my money's worth (which is why I quit buying COD besides it completely sucking now, the story/sp always sucks) which is one reason why I'm skeptical about Overwatch. I also like that you can't have more then one of the same hero on the same side, it actually adds balance to the game. Sure it sucks when you can't play you're favorite hero or the hero you are absolutely great at playing but it forces you to try other characters. If it wasn't for that I would never have tried Orendi, Galilea (tank), or Reyna (support). I absolutely suck at playing a tank in MOBA's but I did extremely well playing as Galilea the other day (mostly because she's more of a dps tank then an actual tank). I also suck at support classes but the best match I had throughout the entire beta was when I played as Reyna. I was made to go outside my comfort zone and found that it's actually fun to play as a different role and made me get good with other characters so I don't rage quit like my old days of DotA (I always rage quit when I couldn't be the Drow Ranger, mostly because most people wouldn't let me play as her do to my reputation of steamrolling entire teams when I played as her). Like I said not for everyone but I enjoy Battleborn, sadly I won't be able to buy it for awhile.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

2 hours ago, Strider Hiryu said:

 (which is why I quit buying COD besides it completely sucking now, the story/sp always sucks)

Blops 3 consisted of hearing the quote "Imagine yourself in a frozen forest" 32849328432 times, and then the last mission you're character sobs and whimpers the line over and over again loudly as you hallucinate through the objective.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

12 hours ago, Strider Hiryu said:

It does damage to everything that it's front of her when it goes off. I did notice it's a little buggy in MP but I never played her in story so I'm not sure if it's a story bug or if something just wasn't working right for you. I've generally had not trouble with it (hell 90% of my player kills with her are from her ultimate).

The helix upgrades are a great system and I actually like that it's permanent once you choose it (for the round), it actually makes you think before you randomly choose something. Yea it sucks if the choice works against you but I like it. For MP it's key to make the proper choices so you contribute to the group as a whole (and for someone like Orendi there really is no wrong choice as she's full on DPS, I usually went the glass cannon route with all helix upgrades being spent on dmg increases, faster recast times, and life steal (plus I had 3 epic quality equipment pieces that increased my damage, health and shield regen (plus health received from healing abilities) and increased attack speed)). For the story aspect of the game being able to retrain you talents would be nice but considering how this game is entirely balanced with MP in mind (yea I know story can be soloed but it's obvious that it's balanced for MP play) which is why they I think they made choices permanent.

Ah, it must have been bugged in the mission then. Its a beta so that must have been the issue. I chose the same upgrades for Orendi and I loved that damage she does.

12 hours ago, Strider Hiryu said:

Plus the random comments that come out of characters mouths when you're in MP is hilarious (Orendi is by far the best, she's a bloodthirsty little maniac and I love every bit of it). Also the lore section of every character is meant to give you the characters insights into whats going on (the ones I've unlocked for Orendi are hilarious). I also never ran into the time being a problem aspect that you had. I played the story missions with others so we pretty much decimated the missions well before time ran out.

Orendi was non stop crazy talk in the missions and it was awesome. She got me laughing pretty good.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

http://www.vg247.com/2016/08/08/2k-not-giving-up-on-battleborn-despite-poor-performance/

I fear Titanfall 2 is going to get caught just like this. This game was released too close to Overwatch. While they aren't the same game at all, Paragon has been f2p from the start and also was around at the same time. Way less games come out these days than a few years ago, there is literally zero excuse to try to compete with hypetrain games. If you're trying to create a new IP, don't come out near established series or games that have millions of more dollars in advertisement.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

While launching so close to Overwatch did hurt it sales a lot of the blame can also be put on the marketing team behind Battleborn. The game had very little advertisement prior to it's release (hell I think I only ever saw one trailer for it after it was announced and they focused on advertising it in a medium that very few people even look at) which can seriously hinder a games chance at becoming big. It also doesn't help that the game, while it's a great game, doesn't have what makes Overwatch great. Yes it has great heroes and a great back story but it's maps are just kind of bland and the play style actually promotes solo play where as Overwatch's maps are great (if not a little tedious sometimes), the characters are awesome (and extremely well balanced), if you actually dig around and watch the story cinematics it has a great back story, and the game actually promotes and down right enforces the need to play as a team (something that most FPS games lack).

Titanfall 2 is going to have a rough launch and that's extremely disappointing, especially for someone like me who never got to play the original and is really looking forward to playing it. EA really set up Respawn to fail with the launch window it gave them. Titanfall 2 will still sell well and do great but it's just going to be hard to get gamers off the BF1 hype train. Honestly if it was so important to release Titanfall 2 this year they should of shot for a July/August release or pushed it back to come out around Christmas (the July/August mark probably wasn't feasible since I'm sure the game is still in Alpha testing with a beta test window coming up here shortly (if it's not already live)). This would give gamers a few months with BF1 and allow them to transition into a completely different FPS, something I'm sure a lot of us would welcome since I'm pretty sure we'll all pretty much be playing BF1 every chance we get from launch. Plus another thing that will probably hurt it is all the talk about it not feeling like a new game and feeling exactly like the original Titanfall (almost every streamer I watch or follow on youtube has said the game almost feels like a re-release of Titanfall (MP wise)). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, look at COD, but most gamers don't want to hear this (especially since it'll bring up the same concerns that plagued the original, like lack of maps/game modes/etc).

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I passed on buying Battleborn for PC after reading some of the reviews. The PC version is apparently a port of the console game and has bugs that have yet to be fixed. It can be played solo but many missions will take upwards of 1-2 hours to beat, but if teamed up with people the same missions could take only 20-30 minutes and population on PC is crap. The last review I saw said that if you have limited time to play don't expect to be able to save the game halfway thru a mission and then resume because the game will make you start the mission over which kills the solo aspect for me if the missions could take me more than an hour. I figure it'll go free to play by november at this rate. The same thing happened to Defiance a few years ago and I'm completely expecting it with battleborn at this rate.

I actually saw quite a few commercials for the game on tv and online. But they screwed themselves with their launch date. The same thing happens in the movie industry all the time too. I really don't understand why they didn't just change the release date to give themselves a better chance.

Titanfall 2 releasing around the same time as BF1 is dumb. I know I won't buy it on launch specifically for this reason and depending on the reviews it gets, all launch day hype for it could easily be destroyed and drastically cut into it's sales.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I never saw any ads for battleborn until after the beta was out. But what hurt it more is that it has virtually zero coverage. That hurts a game more than advertising tbh. I never saw anything on Kotaku, VG247, etc. There wasn't any hype. Someone dropped the ball in inviting the press to play the game and report on it. TV ads are probably the worst type these days with how low live viewership is. Ad blocker plus is also a hindrance. Coverage is the best advertisement. I couldn't tell you the last time I got interested in a game because of a commercial, I could tell you of a gaming mag ad that did before I could a TV ad.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I'm the opposite, I rarely if ever follow any coverage a game might get (I honestly don't like VG247 anymore (I honestly don't like them anymore, they're to focused covering shit that doesn't matter. I could care less what Xur has on sale this week or what Ubisoft did to fuck the Division up more. Give me honest news about things that actually matter in the industry) and I've never liked Kotaku). Most, if not all of my interest in a game, is generated solely from trailers and ads (and of course the youtubers/streamers I follow (like Jack, Level, Matt, etc)).

As much as I don't want to admit it I don't even think coverage of any kind would of saved this game from its fate, Overwatch is sadly the go to Hero Shooter (I only say sadly because it has no competition as Paragon is more of a MOBA than a hero shooter) and that won't change until someone else develops one that can match it (which, lets face it, probably won't happen. Blizzard games rarely, if ever, have any real competition on the market. Starcraft 2 honestly has not opposition (there are plenty of RTS games out there but very few follow the old school format like it does and that's its main selling point (besides the millions of loyal SC fans who would of bought anything with the SC name on it)), there really isn't a good Action RPG out there that can compete with Diablo 3 (there are plenty of them out there but none of them satisfy that loot grinding itch like Diablo does), and WoW is still dominating the MMO market and will continue to do so until they pull the plug on it (no matter what anyone says there has yet to be an MMO as successful as WoW since it was released (at its high point it had 12 million active subscribers, I believe FFXIV is sitting at around 5 million at thats after 2 years (3 on the 27th of this month)). That's the one good thing about Blizzard, they're a developer that always releases a high quality product (even with the bugs) and very few developers can compete with that quality. As much as I've grown to dislike them more over the years I can't help but admit that they always release a quality product (even if I don't agree with their butchering of their own lore and universes (this is a topic for another discussion but I'm pretty sure my hatred for how they treat their franchises is well known)).

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

They're def killing it with overwatch. From the harsh stance on cheating that zero other games have done to the free post release content. (Hell, you only get banned for a week on The Division, you don't get banned at all on COD). Like I was telling Sledge, they game will have a longer life span than a normal shooter. With the many different characters the game has, it makes sense just to keep adding more, instead of pulling a street fighter and release the same game every year. You could make Overwatch 2, but people are going to want all their favorite characters back. Then you have to do a balancing act or old and new to avoid getting accused of recycling content. 

[Sledgstone 8,672]

10 hours ago, Strider Hiryu said:

(I honestly don't like VG247 anymore (I honestly don't like them anymore, they're to focused covering shit that doesn't matter. I could care less what Xur has on sale this week or what Ubisoft did to fuck the Division up more. Give me honest news about things that actually matter in the industry)

I hear that. I don't look at vg247 nearly as much as I used to. There are so many pointless articles just to get page views.

Blizzard might not make an Overwatch 2 for another 10 years. They could just keep adding characters and maps indefinitely. But to keep making money off it they'll probably sell more and more character and weapon skins either directly or thru rng loot boxes. They could treat it like WoW and release a paid expansion for it that unlocks a campaign. They could do that for every hero in the game and milk this initial title for the next decade.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

http://trib.al/KE6LQ3E

F2P soon

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I'm strangely ok with this and it's about time. As much as I feel the game deserves the money that was being charged I'm sadly in the minority there and I'd hate for it to die just because 2K made some shitty choices with it's launch and afterwards. I'll definitely be grabbing it when it goes F2P (even if the servers are sparsely populated).

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I bet it will at least get some love between OW competitive weeks. A lot of competitive players dont like QP, and if I'm not mistaken, Battleborn doesn't allow dupe heroes in regular play.