Spoilers for some mechanics and vague story points in Phantom Liberty
Loothound:
Okay, so I know that we've generally been in agreement on how vehicle combat sucks, but I had a different look at it last night. After mowing down a bunch of Barghest goons to get a loot crate, I drove off in one of their armed/armored trucks. They sent people after me, of course, but with a fully armed vehicle on my side it was a completely different story. So, key takeaway, buy an armed vehicle. It changes things dramatically.
Feminina:
Note to self: steal more Barghest vehicles.
Although the time we drove off in one with the president didn't work out that well for me...
Loothound:
Fair, but I don't think that vehicle was armed. There are some cool weaponized vehicles for sale on El Capitan's website kiosk thing. Probably gonna buy one as soon as I build back up from buying all the cyberware. Things are getting pretty close to unstoppable tank mode. I accidentally got into a slugfest with one of the mechs guarding the Dogtown checkpoint, and it wasn't all that hairy of a showdown.
Feminina:
Nice!
I feel like even if that one had been armed, I had no idea how to use its weapons, so it would really be on me if I didn't get much out of it.
I abandoned it down the hill from the building I drove it out of, and sneaked around in the undergrowth with the president. She was cool with it. Not getting shot at improves everyone's mood.
Butch:
Dude, I couldn't even figure out where the fuck I was in that vehicle. It said "Hold R1 to autoaim" or something like that, so I was holding R1, shooting at...who knows? not being able to clearly see out the window, trying to follow the line. I eventually rolled over five times (seriously. I thought I was going to die), it came to rest on its side next to a building. I thought I had glitched through the map. I had to jump four times to get away from it. I was so far away from the patrols it was easy after that. I think drove so badly that I wound up in a place the game never expected me to be.
I'll go with the patrols thought I was dead.
Needless to say, I'll stick with walking.
Feminina:
"Patrols thought I was dead" is a pretty good explanation. Although "patrols just weren't looking carefully in the underbrush" apparently also works.
No one ever looks in the underbrush.
Well, except those guys in Assassin's Creed who come around and poke suspiciously at piles of leaves. Those guys are on the ball.
Loothound:
That's still the preferred option for me, too. Much less hassle. Just saying that it's a lot less frustrating to drive around in an armed vehicle.
Also, got to meet Mr. Hand last night. Pretty cool guy, and a VERY sweet pad. He was reading The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Not sure if there's supposed to be some significance there, but it was an odd detail.
Butch:
Mr. Who now?
Loothound:
Mr. Hands, the fixer guy. Sends us gigs. I think he was in the main game, but he comes up a lot in Dogtown.
Butch:
Ah. I have not gotten that far.
But, played some, got to the safehouse with the prez, talked with Johnny about not trusting anyone, met the fast talking guy and his nomad friend and immediately trusted them, got my spy token, didn't take an oath, heard of Solomon Reed who MUST be Idris Elba. Then, Kerry called about going to an US Cracks concert, so off I went. Songbird will be fine, I'm sure.
Feminina:
Songbird is going to be fine. I'm sure she's very comfortable wherever she is. Or dead, in which case, what does it matter?
I also did not take the oath. Seemed...enh. Way more of a commitment than I felt V would be prepared to make. I guess I could see taking it without really meaning it out of a sense of 'maybe there's something in this for me', but...nah. Pass.
Loothound:
Okay, so none of us took the oath.
I agree that I don't really see V as being a big joiner, but solving the ticking time bomb of the Relic is a definite motivator. I find the game's approach to getting the Relic perk points a bit strange. I got one from the super secret locked room of a Voodo Boys hideout (another "murder all the things" scenario, unfortunately), then walk outside and there's one about 50m away just underneath a highway overpass—no guard or anything. Very inconsistent. Not a big deal, as I don't find many of the Relic perks to be that exciting anyway.
Feminina:
I have also not been that excited about the Relic perks. I think maybe if I had come to this in the middle of the game and were expecting to play for longer after this, maybe they would be more interesting? If there were more of a chance to look ahead and try to see how they would fit in with the development of the character and so forth.
But right now it's more like, well, I pretty much already do what I do, I'm not sure this extra stuff is going to really change my life.
Loothound:
Exactly. Especially since a bunch of them only apply if you have certain cyberware installed.
Butch:
Well, if we had started the game with Phantom Liberty installed, it would have been available right after meeting the Voodoo Boys, which, if I recall, was pretty early, if not before half time, very close to half time. WAAAY before the endgame, anyway. Had we done it at that point, we'd have many hours to mess around with the relic stuff.
But we didn't do it at that point.
Loothound:
So, do you think there are Relic upgrades out in the world beyond Dogtown? If so, it's going to be really tough to find them all.
Butch:
I don't think so. Songbird, I think, said "around dogtown" when telling us where to look.
I think, from the skill tree, there aren't that many of them. Skill tree seems kind of compact. Many of them seem to be for mantis blades, anyway.
On that....
I don't really use melee weapons. I have mantis blades. They seem cool. They seem to have a lot of perks attached to them. That said, I don't use them.
I think the game is irked at me for it, too. Based on the skill tree, it seems that there's a whole lot of cool stuff they wanted me to do with melee weapons and blades. That said, the guns just....work.
Feminina:
I also have mantis blades, and feel like they could be cool, they're supposed to be cool, in theory I could like them, but...I don't do melee. The guns work, especially in conjunction with the hacking. Why would I want to get close to anyone?
And I have all these iconic katana! Fancy baseball bats! Heavy tire irons! Never use them.
Loothound:
Yes, she did say that, didn't she. Okay, that's good. Yes, the Relic skill tree is pretty small, but they each take 3 Relic perk points to unlock. I'm in the same boat with mantis blades. Got 'em, never use 'em. I've thought about swapping them out for the rocket launcher, but haven't bothered because I don't seem to need it for anything. There seems to be a whole branch of the Relic tree for the arm cyberware weapons (mantis blades, gorilla arms, mono wire, and rocket launcher).
I think they really beefed up melee combat since we played the first time through. I don't remember that you could block bullets with blades before, which is WAAAAY cool. I would love to restart the game with a blade melee based build. If I run out of things to do in this while you two are still grinding, I might just do that. I've also been curious to see if the character creation changed in the updated version.
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