Looking for group (R6:Siege + Others)

Fretmute · Post by **Fretmute** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:00 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I'm pondering investing in a small Teamspeak server. It would only be a couple of bucks a month for a 10 or 15 person, works in any game, and there are utilities (like Overwolf) that will display the speaker's name onscreen when they're talking.

I have a Mumble server. I can post the information when I get home tonight.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:07 pm

Blackhawk wrote:Except that Brian wasn't able to get it working last time. He could chat, but I believe he couldn't hear anyone else.

Actually, I believe I have resolved that issue. Was able to get it working when we were playing the Division on Monday.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:11 pm

GreenGoo wrote:My lack of interest in Vermintide before we played has given way to a keen interest and excitement anticipating our next play session.

I assume we are still on for Sunday again?

I'll be driving back to Omaha from Chicago (well, technically Delavan, WI) on Sunday but should be home well before 7pm CST.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 6:17 pm

I'm available on Sunday. I can mostly work around other peoples' schedules though, so if people need to change when we're meeting, that shouldn't be a problem for me.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 6:28 pm

I can do Sunday.

And I like the addition of loot. I just want more. More. MOAR! I tell's'ya!

As an aside, I thought that you could get an 8 person teamspeak for free. But maybe that's changed. As long as we stay away from MMO's, that should be more than enough slots.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 9:57 pm

Brian: Have fun in Delevan, but it is nowhere near Chicago! Make sure you grab some authentic Wisconsin cheese before you leave!

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Wed Jan 18, 2017 10:53 pm

Right but we're planning on swinging through Chi-town and Tinley Park for a couple stops on the way back home.

morlac · Post by **morlac** » Fri Jan 20, 2017 5:43 pm

New headset is here! I am now ready for Monday night Division and whatever other Multiplayer anyone wants to get into!

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 1:08 pm

Hey - when you guys play Vermintide together, what characters do you usually like to play? I ask in case I ever play with you - I'll know what characters to not play.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 1:13 pm

I played the witch hunter. But I don't think it really matters much. Since the gear that drops seems to mostly be for my other characters, they may end up being better geared.

Since the gear is less important at this stage than the ability to play, I don't mind if I need to play someone else.

For that matter, there are actually five characters. We had the elf ranger is out last time. So there is room for a fifth player if you want to jump in.

A bunch of rambling to say... I don't think anyone is locked into their character.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:37 pm

I can play tonight but I'm going to need the occasional break to deal with the kids as my wife is working.

Just a heads up.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:23 pm

I was running the Bright Wizard.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:28 pm

8pm eastern, right?

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:36 pm

I was playing the blunderbuss guy last time. Will likely run him again tonight as the last drop I got before we quit last week was a new, improved blunder buss and I'd like to try it out.

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:43 pm

I could play with you for a little while, if that's okay (and you're not playing on anything harder than normal). I might bow out after a while because I haven't played fp in 2 weeks and that's making me a little queasy.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 8:45 pm

GreenGoo wrote:I can play tonight but I'm going to need the occasional break to deal with the kids as my wife is working.

Just a heads up.

Never mind, wife has the night off. Open gaming season!

I played the elf for 1 mission, hated it, played the dwarf for the rest.

I like the dwarf but I'll play pretty much anything but the bright wizard. A bit too fiddly for me.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 12:07 am

Wow. I did not expect us to fail so many of these. This game is not very forgiving!

But it's a blast.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 12:11 am

You lacked a Blackhawk!

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 12:13 am

Very true. We never got set on fire once!

On a serious note, I saw that there was a patch that may make playing her a bit easier. Unless, of course, the patch was already there last week. I couldn't find a date for it.

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:33 pm

Blackhawk wrote:You lacked a Blackhawk!

And instead they got me.

I should spend more time (practice) with the archer, if only to try to get better weapons. Although I think I got more of her weapons when I was playing the dwarf with my other (non OO) friends. (gasp! non-OO friends??)

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:39 pm

Bad Demographic wrote:
Blackhawk wrote:You lacked a Blackhawk!
And instead they got me.
I should spend more time (practice) with the archer, if only to try to get better weapons. Although I think I got more of her weapons when I was playing the dwarf with my other (non OO) friends. (gasp! non-OO friends??)

You were excellent. Don't be so hard on yourself!

I think I generally had the most kills/melee kills because I am an idiot and charge into everything. I'm very thankful that you and Goo are there to come help me up after I get overwhelmed. And to take out the ranged guys... I've been pretty bad at that aspect so far.

I'm pretty sure I easily won the "who died the most" as well as "who went down the most often" awards. But I still had a blast!

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:42 pm

Theeeeroy Mixkins!

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:50 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Theeeeroy Mixkins!

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 5:14 pm

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 6:11 pm

Combat has a very specific cadence at higher levels. It's less about max dps and more about crowd control and supporting each other. When the mob is focused on 1 person, you kill those mobs from the flank or behind, then push to shove what's left away AND taunt/aggro them so they switch off to you, giving the rest of the party time to recoup their stamina.

Stormvermin will one shot you at the highest difficulty level, so you block and push and support or you don't make it out of the starting area.

On the easiest level you can swing away and if you've got a heal proc you are good to go for the entire level.

We play on normal and we wiped a few times, but we always eventually succeeded, which is awesome. I don't play pickup games past easy difficulty because it's hit or miss whether pugs can deal with multiple specials at the same time.

As we play we'll get better and be able to handle tougher fights, which will lead to better loot.

As far as loot goes, higher difficulty levels have better loot, but you can significantly increase your odds of better loot even at the lower difficulty levels by finding dice (max. 2 per level), tomes (max 3) and grimoires (max 2).

Normal dice (i.e. you found nothing but finished the level) give 1/3 success per die.
cursed (found dice) = 1/2 success
tomes = 2/3 success
grimoires = 1/1 success.

cursed dice don't take up inventory spots so they are "free"
tomes take up healing slot, but you can put a tome down, pick up healing, heal, then pick up the tome again.
grimoires can't be swapped out. I don't know if this means they can be dropped and then disappear, or if you're stuck with them until the end. Haven't checked.

Grimoires reduce everyone's max hp by 1/3. So you have 66% your hp with 1 grimoire, and 33% your hp with 2 grimoires. So while 2 grims make for better rolls at the end, they make it far harder to reach the end.

Here's a link to a pretty cool loot calculator I just found. No idea how accurate it is since I haven't verified the numbers, but given that the math is pretty basic, I'm assuming it's good.

Loot Calculator

I know people are somewhat adverse to reading up on the game and want to just experience the learning curve as they go, but as you can see, loot is gained by doing very specific things. Running a mission over and over again without grabbing tomes/dice/grimoires will result in terrible loot overall, while running the exact same missions and gathering everything will produce much better results.

Something to think about. If you're loot-focused, we should grab at least 1 grimoire and a couple of tomes. If we are happy bonking rats on the head (Hammers have pretty hilarious head crushing animations) then we can keep on keeping on.

Of course you can fuse lower level loot to gain higher level stuff, but that can be pretty grindy since you only get 1 piece of loot per successful mission (plus whatever you get when you level up).

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 6:23 pm

This sounds like someone took MMO endgame raiding and turned it into its own FPS.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 7:07 pm

Well, it's L4D with melee weapons and 1 random loot item at the end.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 9:01 pm

Trying to log on to play some Division but it's giving me issues.

Might try a quick reboot.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Brian wrote:Trying to log on to play some Division but it's giving me issues.

Might try a quick reboot.

I am in game waiting.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 9:16 pm

GreenGoo wrote:I know people are somewhat adverse to reading up on the game and want to just experience the learning curve as they go, but as you can see, loot is gained by doing very specific things. Running a mission over and over again without grabbing tomes/dice/grimoires will result in terrible loot overall, while running the exact same missions and gathering everything will produce much better results.

Something to think about. If you're loot-focused, we should grab at least 1 grimoire and a couple of tomes. If we are happy bonking rats on the head (Hammers have pretty hilarious head crushing animations) then we can keep on keeping on.

I'm certainly game to try. But we've been having enough trouble getting through without inviting problems. I've been pushing the pace because every time we go slow, we end up getting chewed up by the specials. As we get better that will likely be less of an issue, but I'm not sure that we can handle it now.

There is another option, we could drop down to Easy. That might give us the breathing space we need to actually explore the levels. Would that end up yielding better loot than trying to push through Normal?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 10:49 pm

The loot calculator gives you the probabilities of white/green/blue/red(orange?) loot based on the difficulty level and how many of the various items you have at the end of the mission. running a mission on normal but not grabbing any items means you have almost a 60% chance of a white item, whereas running easy with 1 of each of the items (1 tome, 1 cursed die, 1 grimoire) drops that down to 50%.

So an easier mission but more time spent gathering items for an 10% increased chance of a non-white item. Not great, but not terrible. The grimoires are basically level secrets, so you either need to really really explore or just look them up online. I know where the two grimoires are for the Horn of Magnus but not much else. The tomes are only slightly less well hidden. The dice are randomly located in chests.

An easy mission with 1 grimoire, 3 tomes and 2 dice gives you only a 23% chance of a white item, but that requires a bit more work and not all levels have 2 dice on them (the shorter ones only have 1).

In my opinion we should probably keep doing normal, make an effort to pick up 1 grimoire which we can probably handle, although 2 would probably doom us right now. Dice will come or not as we look in every chest we see, and the tomes, well, we could pick them up if we find them or if we don't, just move on.

The grimoire is the biggest change, since it replaces a 1/3 die with a 1/1 die.

For example, a normal run with 1 grimoire and nothing else results in only a 35% chance of a white item.

Normal with nothing = 60% chance of white item.
Normal with 1 grim = 35% chance of white item.

It's up to you guys if the better loot (well, a better chance at it, RNG's being what they are, you can still end up with white items every time) is worth the extra hassle or not. Of course we'd need to be able to finish a mission with only 66% hp.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:56 am

Noticed there is a options setting for flame opacity. Blackhawk you can make it easier to see when you're over heating.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:37 am

That would be very, very nice. It really does make it tough to see. In the past I just tried to avoid overheating, but the kids give me the strangest looks when I'm sitting there with no pants.

Bad Demographic · Post by **Bad Demographic** » Tue Jan 24, 2017 4:23 pm

Are you guys playing Vermintide Thursday night? If so, what time?

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Tue Jan 24, 2017 4:32 pm

I'm down. I was assuming the same time (8pm EST). However, I'll likely be around earlier if there is interest.

Fretmute · Post by **Fretmute** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 3:31 pm

I managed to finally pass the first (!) mission in Vermintide on normal with an all bot crew. I snagged a blue bow (would rather have had a sword) that's double the damage of my old one, so that's a plus.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:05 pm

Fretmute wrote:I managed to finally pass the first (!) mission in Vermintide on normal with an all bot crew. I snagged a blue bow (would rather have had a sword) that's double the damage of my old one, so that's a plus.

Heh. That`s like TheMix picking up a sword with insta-kill chance early on. I`m level 15 and still haven`t seem an insta-kill weapon. Not sure how many blues I`ve seen. Maybe...2?

Give me a shout if you want to run something sometime Fret.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:19 pm

Vermintide is on sale right now for $8.85.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:24 pm

Bad Demographic wrote:Are you guys playing Vermintide Thursday night? If so, what time?

TheMix wrote:I'm down. I was assuming the same time (8pm EST). However, I'll likely be around earlier if there is interest.

I'll be there.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 7:34 pm

If you're all still at it tonight and have a slot, send me an invite.