• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Battleborn |OT| Multiplayer Online Bad-Ass Shooter

Unicorn

Member
$27 was too good a deal to pass up. It's too bad I can't crank settings low enough to play this on my laptop though.
KuGsj.gif
 

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
So, caved on the Season Pass, because Alani is too cool to wait to play, and the content of quick access to such well-made characters more than justifies the price. (Those SP stages and stuff are just a bonus!)

(Note: A purchase of the season pass on XB1 only applies to the purchaser. For a split-screen player to get the benefits, they'd have to buy it themselves too. This is rare on XB1, and even rare for this game, as the gold pre-order skins actually apply to the main and splitscreen account...)

I'm surprised more people here aren't screaming *BROKE! BROKEN! NERFFFF HERRRR!* Her burst healing once she gains orb stacks is AMAZING. She can pull a person out of death like no one else, she has a great lane presence, she's tanky, semi-fast, and has a good knock up/ capture that can pretty much render any melee that doesn't kill her potentially dead instead.

Alani VS Alani is a pain, but it also feels like a nice match of skill, rather than just throwing a flaming frag bomb and getting instantly lucky.

Her Unleashing the Kraken! ULT is also very nice, though I haven't felt be anyway near as annoying as massive airstrike or Thorns incredibly bursty damage. It pairs very well with the rest of her Kit, however.

I got a kick out of her (paraphrased) "Oh no, my Nanotech isn't workin- err, I mean, my deep connection with nature!"

That Lore Challenge to kill off Ambra is going to take a good while...
 

deoee

Member
I played against a Alani for the first time yesterday and didn't get her skills.

She heals, has this wave thingy, can shoot bubbles around and never dies.
Just how do I approach her?
 

Slathe

Member
If I buy the season pass do I get five of the keys or one that recycles when I pay the 47k credits to unlock a character properly?
 
I played against a Alani for the first time yesterday and didn't get her skills.

She heals, has this wave thingy, can shoot bubbles around and never dies.
Just how do I approach her?

She's very tough, but get a couple of burst and/or sustain dps characters on her (Orendi, Rath, Phoebe, Mellka, Benedict etc) and she'll fall apart.

She is very strong, however.
 

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
I played against a Alani for the first time yesterday and didn't get her skills.

She heals, has this wave thingy, can shoot bubbles around and never dies.
Just how do I approach her?

Whittle her down. Her basic heals are burst-style, and after that, they're weak without her building more heal stacks. So hurt her or her ally until you see them get a chunk back, then unleash all those "sure kill" techniques after the heals.

Her first level forces her to make a choice between tick healing with the wave, or another burst heal with the water column. Try to figure out which she's using, so you know when she's out of "additional heal". Much like Miko or Reyna, she's pretty much "impossible" to kill as long as she's got someone around to give her time to re-align herself, so trying to get rid of them, before her, is ideal.

If I buy the season pass do I get five of the keys or one that recycles when I pay the 47k credits to unlock a character properly?

The way it looks for me on XB1, I used 1 key to get her, and it says in the in-game marketplace that I can get it refunded? I don't know if that's the suggested method to "reuse" you key or what yet.
 
One thing about Alani, is that she's pretty slow moving. She's as slow as some of the tanks in this game. Her Riptide(tidal wave) does push enemies away, but she is still very slow. Keep this in mind when engaging her. Stun her, slow her, and just whittle her down.

I will say that she does get a helix mutation which increases her movement speed by 30% when she gets full Osmosis stacks. This talent is great, it really gives her a noticeable speed increase.

I'm currently at level 10 with Alani. Just one more helix mutation to go!
 

Skittles

Member
Hitting about 50% of my arrows with Thorn on PS4. That's a pretty good percent all things considered.

Man Alani's healing power is fucking nuts, she's stolen so many dead souls away from me
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Finished up the story missions last night. Got super lucky on the final boss. I spawned as the last one alive as Alani and managed to leap around and finish off his last 5% or so of health with a sliver of health left myself.
 

Gurrry

Member
Alani's healing is super strong. Being able to instantly fully heal someone is a little nuts. I havent played her, so I dont really know how it works, but she stopped me from killing Gal like 5 times in my last game by healing her fully when she was near death.
 

Menome

Member
One good thing about everyone rushing to use Alani is that for the first time since launch, you're guaranteed to have a support character on your team.
 

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
Alani's healing is super strong. Being able to instantly fully heal someone is a little nuts. I havent played her, so I dont really know how it works, but she stopped me from killing Gal like 5 times in my last game by healing her fully when she was near death.

It's a burst heal, and is her secondary attack. She builds stacks when she hits normal attacks basically, and the more stacks she has, the stronger the heal. The Burst is really strong, but after that, she'll heal for really slow and low 32s or something until she can get some stacks again.

Thus, get a person to a near crit state, have her heal them, and then use all your bombs and stuff to kill them now that she's got some gaps in healing.
 

Mossybrew

Gold Member
At this point since Alani was released she's been in every single game I've played, so I've seen her in action enough to think the character is ridiculously OP. For a healer she is able to put out way too much damage, full stop. I think only one game she wasn't the top in damage dealt.
 

daedalius

Member
Got to lvl 40 today and unlocked last character. Also mastered Rath. Can't wait for more story missions, wonder how long till they start to come out.

Rath is definitely my current favorite. His skills seem to synergize really well for what the character is all about.

Also I just love the knock up move and dreadwind
 

Unicorn

Member
-Every game seems to end in time out.
-Certain characters like Phoebe just seem broke as fuck.
-I can't figure out if having only one lane is what makes this a battle of attrition, or if it's that minions seemingly are inconsequential.
-Mercs are just on constant rotation of being summoned/respawned and may as well be what the lane pushing bots are.
-Turrets aren't treated as they are in typical moba or even SMNC in that bots seemingly don't give two shit, plus they would have to go way off lane just to tackle them in the first place.
-Even Single Player is difficult as teammates fail objectives or constantly die, so unlocking most characters seems impossible.

The things that bothered me in the beta are still here - mainly the merc system and character imbalance.

tl;dr fuck Phoebe. What should the flow of Incursion be? I keep seeing even high level players floundering to carry us through a match without a timeout.
 

SAB CA

Sketchbook Picasso
Unicorn:

Hmm, I rarely get Time outs all that often. It's really easy to make a concentrated push at some points, and force points in Incursion. In Meltdown, I feel somewhat similar. If you can clear a side of obstructions and push a giant minion, you get quite the solid boost.

LoL at Phoebe Broken. Her ranged attack is one of the weakest in the game, and getting an Oscar Mike Napalm on her after warping in can totally seal her fate, even if she tries to warp out. The Warp has solid start-up that can be cancelled, leaving her open to damage, and she always moves in the direction she's facing, which makes it easier to track where she's going.

The minions fuel your EXP growth, they drop shields best, they distract the sentry's cannons from ripping you up, and they even hurt enough to kill player characters that are escaping. Plus the Shield pulse from the Shepherds are lifesaving. In a way, I find them more useful and meaningful than the creeps in SMITE.

Merc's distract players from fighting in lane. And they removed the ability to knock them off edges. So it's always some degree of a time commitment, even with all critical hits. And if you Burst your Ult to take them down faster, that's something you can't use in the PVP that comes soon after.

I do have issue with how fast Turrets can be silenced by certain characters, but I like that they can purely count towards a players kills. I'm glad bots don't get hung up on them. Buying a gun while running away has saved me loads of times.

And LoL at unlocking seeming impossible. If there weren't 2 ways to get everyone, I'd agree. But you'll get rank eventually... and that will get you the characters. I never felt like I'd seen all the unlocked characters had to offer before unlocking new ones, and even with them all now (at like 80+ commander rank), I still feel like there's something new for me to try or do on almost every character.

I've encountered more suicidal Phoebe's than almost any other character, in all reality. She can't throw Boomerangs like Shane & Aurox, she doesn't have the absolute power and Status effect of Rath, and people like Kelvin take forever for her to kill. Her slow and Instant-Phasegate mutation really help her a lot, but they're not unbeatable in the least. If True strike made it harder for people to escape her, and Blade Rush shots were more spammable + had better damage, I'd be more willing to find her OP. But as one of my most played characters, I feel she's a solid specialist with a lot of counters if players are smart.

Character balance in general is something I've chilled out about as I play. I'm not getting one-shotted by Oscar Mike Air Strikes anymore, as I've learned to move much better, and are much more aware of my surroundings. I've seen characters properly outplay others in their disadvantageous situations, and I really feel like the player is more often at fault, than the character balance.
 
Alani's definitely getting nerfed, but hopefully not before I get those Ambra kills

that challenge is lightweight BS, made worse by the fact that 1) everyone's trying to use Alani and 2) less people are using Ambra accordingly
 
Looks like this game is dead on PC? Less than 2000 players logging since Overwatch?

I wonder what Gearbox will do. With sales sub 1 million, this game can't be profitable.

Logically it would make sense to finish their current run of support (6 months) then cut their losses. I'm sure the games servers will stay live for a number of years, but it doesn't make sense Gearbox to funnel any more money into this.

Shame because the game itself is a really neat idea. I hope they review it in a few months time. Maybe include it with Borderlands 3 preorders, haha ;)
 
I feel really bad for Gearbox.They release this amazing game and look at the sales. :(
Anyways, i still play the game and the population on Ps4 is fine.
 

Tapejara

Member
Picked this up during the GMG sale and I'm really glad I did, but I hate how unoptimized it is on AMD hardware. Best I can get in singleplayer is 30 fps with everything on the lowest settings, though multiplayer performs better with 40 - 60 fps. Hoping to upgrade my GPU soon so that shouldn't be a problem.
 
-Every game seems to end in time out.
That should mean the teams are pretty even, or that they are both pretty bad.

-Certain characters like Phoebe just seem broke as fuck.
Not really.

-I can't figure out if having only one lane is what makes this a battle of attrition, or if it's that minions seemingly are inconsequential.
You are talking of Incursion which yeah, it's a battle of attrition. It's the whole point. The "real" game imo is the other mode, Meltdown, which have 2 lanes. Minions are not inconsequential, you can't go and beat up the sentry robot by yourself, you die in three seconds, you need the minions tanking it.

-Mercs are just on constant rotation of being summoned/respawned and may as well be what the lane pushing bots are.
But you have to invest time in getting them, and that's time not used pushing the lane. So it's a decision of what to to. And fighting for them in the central point is one of the more important things you can do.

-Even Single Player is difficult as teammates fail objectives or constantly die, so unlocking most characters seems impossible.
Except a pair of missions, in normal mode the game is a bit too easy.

The things that bothered me in the beta are still here - mainly the merc system and character imbalance.
Character balance is pretty good. Alani excepted, maybe.
 

Menome

Member
Just completed an Advanced story mission with myself as Reyna, a Shayne & Aurox, Marquis and an Alani who did not heal anybody else at all.

I got the highest healing score with Reyna at 95,111. This Alani healed a total of 20,238 which was pretty much all to themselves.

How can you play a character so wrong?
 

Slathe

Member
I don't mind the sale on the base game, but I'm a little sad the digital deluxe edition is lower than the base price I paid but without a season pass discount. I'd love to pick up the season pass for 12 bucks or so.

Feels like the season pass isn't being discounted as a way to milk money from early adopters, as I don't see why someone wouldn't pick up the deluxe edition at the current prices if they were going to buy in.
 

Cowie

Member
Just completed an Advanced story mission with myself as Reyna, a Shayne & Aurox, Marquis and an Alani who did not heal anybody else at all.

I got the highest healing score with Reyna at 95,111. This Alani healed a total of 20,238 which was pretty much all to themselves.

How can you play a character so wrong?

So basically, you played with an Alani.

This seems to be everybody. It's a rush to get to Alani and then promptly heal absolutely nobody with her. There's a few exceptions, but man. I feel weird picking Miko when there's an Alani (thinking another hybrid support might be a better choice) but if she's not going to heal anybody else at all (probably!) then fuck it.
 

Meccs

Member
Tempted to buy it on Steam now. I heard it is badly optimized, especially with AMD cards. How true is that?
Also if I play this game online but solo. Will this work out or do you need to communicate with people?
 

Slathe

Member
Tempted to buy it on Steam now. I heard it is badly optimized, especially with AMD cards. How true is that?
Also if I play this game online but solo. Will this work out or do you need to communicate with people?

I have an older amd card and coldsnap and echelon are really laggy. Paradise and the normal insurrection map are fine. About half the single player stages are really choppy as well. Some amd players with better cards don't have this problem, but some do.
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
I feel really bad for Gearbox.They release this amazing game and look at the sales. :(
Anyways, i still play the game and the population on Ps4 is fine.

I feel bad too, but I'm still one of the people on the fence/waiting to get it, and now that I see the sales are so bad considering just skipping it.

My primary issue with the game, and the reason why I didn't get it at launch is because I hate the idea of unlocking gameplay relevant stuff in a competitive online game. I have zero interest in the co-op campaign stuff. I've been saying since the beta that I wish they had a multiplayer only version of the game with all relevant heroes and unlocks available from the get-go and I would have gladly paid full price for that.

It's almost a shame that they tried to be everything to everyone and added what I feel are superfluous modes instead of just focusing on making a pure multiplayer product.
 
I feel bad too, but I'm still one of the people on the fence/waiting to get it, and now that I see the sales are so bad considering just skipping it.

My primary issue with the game, and the reason why I didn't get it at launch is because I hate the idea of unlocking gameplay relevant stuff in a competitive online game. I have zero interest in the co-op campaign stuff. I've been saying since the beta that I wish they had a multiplayer only version of the game with all relevant heroes and unlocks available from the get-go and I would have gladly paid full price for that.

It's almost a shame that they tried to be everything to everyone and added what I feel are superfluous modes instead of just focusing on making a pure multiplayer product.

Normally I'm like you, but trust me, unlocks mean very little in this game. You dominate or you lose on your own merits and those of your team. It's not razor-edge competitive like DOTA, but it's not an imbalanced mess - far, far, far from it.

As for sales, PC it's struggling, but, and I'll keep saying this until it's not true, I have absolutely no issues getting games on X1. None in the slightest.

You unlock heroes far, far, far faster than in something like SMITE, too.
 

Gryph

Member
I feel bad too, but I'm still one of the people on the fence/waiting to get it, and now that I see the sales are so bad considering just skipping it.

My primary issue with the game, and the reason why I didn't get it at launch is because I hate the idea of unlocking gameplay relevant stuff in a competitive online game. I have zero interest in the co-op campaign stuff. I've been saying since the beta that I wish they had a multiplayer only version of the game with all relevant heroes and unlocks available from the get-go and I would have gladly paid full price for that.

It's almost a shame that they tried to be everything to everyone and added what I feel are superfluous modes instead of just focusing on making a pure multiplayer product.

I know it's all "different strokes for different folks" and all that, but I love the single-player and co-op modes. I've had a ton of fun with them and would've liked the game a lot less had they dropped their campaign...
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
Normally I'm like you, but trust me, unlocks mean very little in this game.

Specifically I mean unlocking heroes. I consider that extremely gameplay relevant. Even if unlocks are "quick" I'd still have to do it to get access to heroes I wanted to play. Most of my time in the beta was spent playing ISIC in order to unlock El Dragon. I barely got to play a single match with him before the beta ended because it took me the entire weekend to get 5 wins with ISIC. That's the kind of stuff I don't want to have to deal with.
 
I haven't played as Alani yet but damn is she awesome to have on your team if played right.

Unfortunately most people pick her and go the whole game without healing anybody which is pretty annoying, especially since she has so much potential that goes to waste in those situations.

On the flip side, I've had a handful of really great matches where the whole team was carried by her and always on the offensive thanks to her support.

Also really loving her dialogue, lots of great lines :p
 

DirtyLarry

Member
I also checked the game out thanks to GMG selling it for $27, and the fact I literally just beat Doom today and it's gameplay and controls were damn near perfect is not helping matters whatsoever. This game just feels janky to me. The game also felt as if it was dropping 10 frames at a time or something. Like something seemed really off. Is there any known issue with it on Nvidia cards by any chance? Something just seemed really weird on the performance front. Real jumpy.

Otherwise it was pretty fun for what it is. I have heard about it being somewhat difficult and I have to say even the first mission solo was a challenge, had to use Extra Lives for sure.

I feel it will easily be worth the $30, especially if I can figure out what if anything may be up with the performance or if that is just what it is.
 
Specifically I mean unlocking heroes. I consider that extremely gameplay relevant. Even if unlocks are "quick" I'd still have to do it to get access to heroes I wanted to play. Most of my time in the beta was spent playing ISIC in order to unlock El Dragon. I barely got to play a single match with him before the beta ended because it took me the entire weekend to get 5 wins with ISIC. That's the kind of stuff I don't want to have to deal with.

I see what you mean, but bear in mind the beta lacked certain story missions that provide unlocks. It's onerous for one or two, but in all honesty I had a dozen plus available within a few days.
 
I played Incursion with Alani for the first time.

I believe the hype. Sadly she's gonna get nerfed cuz holy shit she can constantly heal.

It's a shame about the impending nerf because I really feel like shes well balanced at the moment.

For example, if she could put out more damage then I'd say a nerf might be a good idea, but every time I encounter her she just seems like a supportive tank that can last for a long time.

If she had that kind of staying power as well as high damage output it would be OP but as it stands she can be taken out very easily if the team works together and prioritizes taking her out at the start of each fight, but if left unchecked, she can help push an entire team to victory in the same way that an experienced Miko can.
 
It's a shame about the impending nerf because I really feel like shes well balanced at the moment.

For example, if she could put out more damage then I'd say a nerf might be a good idea, but every time I encounter her she just seems like a supportive tank that can last for a long time.

If she had that kind of staying power as well as high damage output it would be OP but as it stands she can be taken out very easily if the team works together and prioritizes taking her out at the start of each fight, but if left unchecked, she can help push an entire team to victory in the same way that an experienced Miko can.
They'll probably nerf the time you stay in the air with her splash skill but I don't think they'll nerf her damage. Her damage output with her standard attacks and skills are pretty low. I think they'll nerf her healing. She can heal almost more than 75% of her's and her teammate's health with just her side ability. And her wave skill doubles that.
 

daedalius

Member
Someone picked Rath before I could get to him so I decided to give Mellka another shot

Wow she is a murder machine with spike, that thing is brutal.

Also to the people complaining about population, I always get good matches on xbone in like less than 2 minutes. Even when I just played at 3am CST

And yea, Alani seems a bit OP at the moment. Her heals are bonkers
 
Someone picked Rath before I could get to him so I decided to give Mellka another shot

Wow she is a murder machine with spike, that thing is brutal.

Also to the people complaining about population, I always get good matches on xbone in like less than 2 minutes. Even when I just played at 3am CST

And yea, Alani seems a bit OP at the moment. Her heals are bonkers

Mellka is godly, love her kit. So much fun.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Is there something funky going on with Ghalt's shotgun? I specked it for the longer distance but when I trigger his super stuff right in front of me would take no damage. Several times I've unloaded a full super into 1 shielded minion and nothing.


Play mostly the story mode so dunno if this happens in pvp or not. Now that I have everyone unlocked and mastered my favorite, trying all the different heroes.


Man I love this game.
 

Mossybrew

Gold Member
Man this game can be frustrating at times. Three Incursion games in a row last night playing with me and my son, after the loss we'd look at the scoreboard and there was always that one dude who did jack shit the whole round. It's like, I saw that character running around, I know they were present, WTF did they do the whole match? One was a Boldur that literally only built turrets the whole game. I try not to be too salty but when each round is like a half hour, yeah.
 
The best way to utilize Alani is to use her as a pusher. Teammates can ride her waves and get extra health and speed while the enemy is being distracted by the large amounts of water covering the battlefield.
 
Top Bottom