TGA Ghosts - co-op goodness for all

[Raid]

It's good to be having some regular co-op again, and these looter shooters we've been playing recently are perfect fodder for it. You get to revel in your fellow players new loot, and then curse them with the same breath because you didn't get anything.

The Division 2 is, in my opinion, really quite a bad single-player experience. Firstly it's a Tom Clancy game, so it's utterly predictable, tediously tacticool rubbish (although in fairness it's a little more restrained than some TC games on that last note because your character isn't part of the military). It's set in a post-pandemic, ruined Washington DC, absolutely filled with anti-government militants, and your base of operations is the fucking White House, but IT'S NOT POLITICAL because Ubisoft said so. It's a really quite galling piece of corporate disassociation to the point of actually feeling offensive because of it. Suffice to say I'm skipping every cutscene in this one. It's also either purposefully obtuse to make it seem more complex and appeal to stats nerds, or it's just incredibly badly designed, because I had to go and watch Youtube videos to work out how the hell its systems work.

But it's such a perfect co-op game. The gameplay is surprisingly good because the map design works so well with the game's AI and cover mechanics. Because of the famous real-world urban setting, fights take place in museums and libraries and the like, so you have multi-floored atriums with enemies spawning everywhere, and the very generous cover is spread throughout and you can be easily flanked as there are 20 bad guys and only 4 of you. You can suppress enemies by shooting at their cover to make them keep your heads down, or stagger them with weapons fire making them an easy target. I've got a combat shield that lets me easily advance on enemies without taking damage (but not able to deal a lot either as I'm restricted to a pistol), meaning I can draw enemy fire as I attempt to flank them, making them leave their own cover or pop their heads up to shoot at me, allowing the rest of the team to hit them. Ian has a drone that he can send off to deal with pesky snipers that we can't easily hit, Alex has an armour-repairing grenade launcher (it makes sense, don't think about it), and Lenny's Angry Love Eggs (little grenade drones that you command to roll over to a target and explode) can get those pesky bastards who won't leave the safety of the museum gift shop sign they're crouched behind.

And best of all the level and damage scaling works extremely well, so you're always dealing and taking similar levels of damage to your teammates, even if they're 20 levels above you. It's a game where you won't need to wait until everyone's online to play, you're not going to advance beyond where it's fun for them to join you.

[Lenny Solidus]

Don't you hate it when at times you suddenly have this perfectly formed makeup for a reply post pop into your head, you go over its structure and wish you could get it posted immediately? That was me - five minutes ago, unable to sleep. So here it is.

While I get the political oh who cares for this bullshit yawnings of everything going on in a multitude of cut scenes can be off-putting for some, perhaps even to the extreme ensuring some largely ignore absolutely all things story wise for me the entire premise of what it is to be a Division agent's journey to the dark side kind of fascinates me, that shift of what it is to be an actual Division agent and its extensive movement then actively forcibly turn against it. These agents all have their own dedicated ideologies and believe the path they are taking is the true god given path, extreme political leanings with a side serving of stuffing religion. What happened that was so impactful that someone who was a lifelong republican became a democrat and turned against years of political rhetoric and a once unshakable committed way of life? I'm spreading the butter mighty thin but such a premise intrigues me all the same.

It's the unique powers gifted to each and every agent in the field that makes it as such, not Spider-Man villain powers but tech tool kind and there's a wide variety of it too. For instance, we had been mowing our way through the game in a pretty standardized fashion, our set building to building tactics and combined gameplay style was working wonders - that is until the very moment we all stepped inside a very small innocuous looking room - click - all the lights turned off. Before you could say Rumpelstiltskin! our group of would be tigers was immediately incapacitated by a now rogue agent using god knows what kind of shade tech. We were now puppy dogs, unable to move or use any of our trusted methods to retaliate - this rogue agent could have wiped us all out as we electro danced our time away together stuck to the spot wondering just what the fuck was even going on, nothing had prepared us for what another single agent could do to our entire party and left us completely defenseless.

Given that this is indeed an open world game on a rather large scale an unexpected moment such as this shook us somewhat considerably as a group, it was a swift ultra direct taste of being too overconfident in the tactics and toys we had all chose to consistently rely on and a reminder that out there in the world are enemies who can make us look like a group of dead ducks in an instant. The most curious thing concerning our sudden co-op activeness and may I add thoroughly enjoyable comms adventures for a group who have only been playing together a short while is that both games we have elected to play are considered somewhat uniformly as 'dead games'. Well we do, so fuck off. As I type this only 900 people are playing Outriders on Steam and this is with the release of a pretty big expansion while The Division 2 has lost somewhere in the region of 90% of its player base since launch.

As Snowy so graciously always reminds us all (you can take any game concept and have it fail miserably in terms of sales or eventually players) but if there is a tightly realised co-op component neatly attached that is both well-balanced and has enough structure you can still have the time of your life within a dedicated small group, it not only elevates the experience but can be about as comparable as can be to being a completely different better in every way style of game.

Then Raid decided to try and set free a body from a roof. You pillock.

[Raid]

I suppose that's always going to be the downside of co-op games with a story; it's difficult to get invested when you've got other people chatting during pivotal moments. Sorry if I ruined the atmosphere of that bit, but to be honest it felt like it could have been so much more interesting - I realised pretty early on that it was a largely scripted sequence, it would have been better if the turned agent had actually run around disabling us one by one rather than us all spontaneously getting electrocuted at the same time.

And on that note on politics, I'm possibly going to make myself look an ass here as I've not been paying any attention to the story at all, but from what I understand from reviewers the game would never really have a storyline like the one you're suggesting, as the publisher don't have the nerve to say either side, Democrat or Republican, is right or wrong. It's not so much the in-world story that I have an issue with, it's the fact that they're not making any comment that I've heard about the US capitol swarming with armed militias, something that is so obviously politically charged given the state of that country's politics. The American gun lobby would have an absolute field day suggesting that The Division represents their "good guy with a gun" ideology.

It's difficult to engage with a setting when the developer themselves refuses to.

[Snowy]

I suppose that's always going to be the downside of co-op games with a story; it's difficult to get invested when you've got other people chatting during pivotal moments. Sorry if I ruined the atmosphere of that bit, but to be honest it felt like it could have been so much more interesting - I realised pretty early on that it was a largely scripted sequence, it would have been better if the turned agent had actually run around disabling us one by one rather than us all spontaneously getting electrocuted at the same time.

And on that note on politics, I'm possibly going to make myself look an ass here as I've not been paying any attention to the story at all, but from what I understand from reviewers the game would never really have a storyline like the one you're suggesting, as the publisher don't have the nerve to say either side, Democrat or Republican, is right or wrong. It's not so much the in-world story that I have an issue with, it's the fact that they're not making any comment that I've heard about the US capitol swarming with armed militias, something that is so obviously politically charged given the state of that country's politics. The American gun lobby would have an absolute field day suggesting that The Division represents their "good guy with a gun" ideology.

It's difficult to engage with a setting when the developer themselves refuses to.

It is quite laughable how Ubisoft in particular make you sit through a statement about the mixed racial, religious, sexual and gender make-up of it's development houses but won't criticise the indefensible for fear of upsetting the fuckers. Laughable and pathetic. Grow a pair and speak up.

[Raid]

Yeah, that's the problem. They've worked out that they've got customers on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the gun debate, and they refuse to come down on either side in case they lose those customers. That wouldn't be as big a problem (even if my personal beliefs suggest they *really* ought to come down on one particular side) if they didn't keep setting their military and firearms fantasy games in the US where there's such a clear division (heh). The same thing happened with Far Cry 5 (a game that featured a firearms-obsessed religious cult set in the US) from what I remember of the reviews. They want the settings for the sense of familiarity, but not without dealing with the massive issues those settings come with.

Anyway, sorry, I didn't really mean to turn this into this sort of discussion, I just think it's difficult to play a game like this without drawing attention to the financially motivated cowardice of the publisher.

[Snowy]

Yeah, that's the problem. They've worked out that they've got customers on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the gun debate, and they refuse to come down on either side in case they lose those customers. That wouldn't be as big a problem (even if my personal beliefs suggest they *really* ought to come down on one particular side) if they didn't keep setting their military and firearms fantasy games in the US where there's such a clear division (heh). The same thing happened with Far Cry 5 (a game that featured a firearms-obsessed religious cult set in the US) from what I remember of the reviews. They want the settings for the sense of familiarity, but not without dealing with the massive issues those settings come with.

Anyway, sorry, I didn't really mean to turn this into this sort of discussion, I just think it's difficult to play a game like this without drawing attention to the financially motivated cowardice of the publisher.

It is difficult though - with the battle against bigotry and abject stupidity as brutal as it is currently (Republican senators drawing parallels between the FBI and the Gestapo ffs, Wade vs Roe, the ever increasing spiral of mass shootings) by not coming down on the side of common sense, you effectively side with the morons. It is pathetically cowardly. If Ubi really are packing the tiniest cojones then change the setting to somewhere else - it only has to be a recognisable city after all. Paris, London, Milan, Madrid, there are no shortage of evocative cities to base your game in. I actually struggled with Washington as a setting as other than the white house and the Washington monument I have no knowledge of the city at all.

But, and it does have to be said, the game was released before the Capitol was stormed.

[Animalmother]

Washington was a bad choice not politically but because it's just fucking boring, as Snowy said most people only know a handful of locations. New York was a great location in the first game so much so they added it again in the second one as dlc. San Francisco would have been a better choice or Chicago.

[Raid]

So I had a bit of a wander around the first couple of areas in DC hoovering up the SHD tokens and unlocked a bunch of things. Most notably I now have the sniper variant of the turret which is just an absolute delight when you're out exploring the city by yourself. Stick it up somewhere high and it'll just start shining its (presumably invisible to the enemy) targeting laser and illuminating targets, but not firing. You move your reticule over the enemy and press the skill key, and it takes the shot. At the moment it's capable of killing the standard red enemies in one hit, so the few supply drops I did with it were a treat. You can command it to shoot even when you're performing some sort of animation, for example, hiding behind a crate trying to open it, so I had this brilliant little fight where I ran around snaffling the boxes up and having my little friend just outright execute all of those daft melee enemies that charge at you yelling. It's quite limited on ammo with just 7 or 8 shots per activation, but I think it'd be pretty funny if we had four of us with one each just sitting having a coffee break while the turrets do all of the work.

[Snowy]

but I think it'd be pretty funny if we had four of us with one each just sitting having a coffee break while the turrets do all of the work.

Sold.

[Lenny Solidus]

I just came off a quick play testing session after hard crashing my PC earlier and noted how invaluable my little drone is in combat, I had no idea I could set targets on the fly and the little guy will swap from an engaged target mid-fight to a targeted one. Now I'm just pinging enemies left and right, wish I had started using drones sooner..............

Skills like the Turret or Drone in Division 2 get upgraded/scaled by a few things:

Your level (so as you level up, it will get stronger; up to 40)

Skill Tier/Core (on each armour slot, an item can have a red/blue/yellow core - drone/turret increases with each yellow core, up to a max of 6)

Skill Damage attribute (any gear that has Skill Damage as an attribute, or brand bonus). You can re-calibrate some gear in the base to have skill damage if you have gotten it before from another item too. Also, some skill mods for your drone/turret can have a small increase.

Talents (some Talents on your weapons, or armour chest/backpack can increase skill damage temporarily)

I like the sound of a full drone sniper team though. Yes I do. It seems the crash issue I had was from nvidia control panel setting things to ultra low latency mode which can be quite taxing on the cpu, all reset now.

[Solitaire]

I'll chime in, though I'm missing all of the co-op action

I enjoy the Division 2 setting, because I think DC is an interesting location. Lots of Brutalist government buildings, mixed with much older historic buildings, museums, and old townhouse neighborhoods, many of which I've visited. The Hirschhorn Museum, which sits atop one of the safe houses, is an especially cool location for me, as I've been inside that museum and seen several of my favorite sculptors on exhibit. Also, I fucking hate New York City with a goddam burning passion, so I'll never willingly play a game set in that city.

I hope you guys don't get tired of it before I get a chance to jump in with you! Argh, I'm having withdrawals already, and now you're in D2?

[Snowy]

We'll still be here when you are available again mate, TGA Ghosts is a big chunk of many evenings now and I can't see that changing anytime soon!

[Snowy]

OK so some games being thrown around that folks might like to play.

My first suggestion would be Warhammer Vermintide 2

This is a game in the vein of Left 4 Dead, where you get missions to complete a specific objective that then plays out over 4 maps, similar to L4D's safe rooms. It differs over L4D though with weapon drops, crafting and a limited skill tree. You play as different race character classes*, many of which have variants which allow you to play as Tank, DPS etc and each plays very differently. The game enables you to increase the difficulty which increases the rewards and also has quite frequent mutations (no Warhammer gag intended) that change up the way the game plays.

Also each mission in the campaigns tends to take about an hour give or take, so nice and easy to fit in something meaningful.

Yours for a fiver on CD Keys just now and a lot of fun.

The downside is it is 4 players maximum, and as we were discussing today we now have a potential of 5 players, so be good to find something we can all play.

* if we do go for it, any objection to my playing the dwarf? I have one quite high up the level range who I really enjoy playing as, tanky to the max with a badass flamethrower for moments that demand it

[Sly Boots]

I would be up for more stuff like LFD2, so would that make it 6?

[Snowy]

It would indeed Be good to have you along mate