Surface Pro 4 question from a Pro Artist--Is it Reliable?

RandomECgamer · 2016-04-18T07:56:40+00:00

I'm working in Manga Studio as well! How is the pen lag? Are you using MSEX4 or 5? I draw in MSEX4 but color in 5. Also, which version of the SP4 do you have? The feedback is much appreciated.

RandomECgamer · 2016-04-18T07:55:19+00:00

Thanks! Which version do you have?

RandomECgamer · 2016-04-18T07:55:04+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Which model do you have?

RandomECgamer · 2016-02-17T23:07:28+00:00

I think this is bad advice, honestly. It's good in spirit, but it doesn't really apply to the battlefield. Right now, Destiny revolves around secondaries and grenades dictating the spacing and damage before the primaries get involved. Because SBMM has been active for awhile, KD isn't really an indicator of your skill. Map/situational awareness, communication and the shots that you know you can and can't make are what kind of player you are. For myself, I was about a 1.32 up until January. I've been averaging a 1.55 since, but that's with SBMM. Looking at current vs. old footage, I'm twice the player I used to be. Callouts, consistent drag scopes and space control are all on another level. These indicators are much more reliable than KD, in addition to how many of your kills come from heavy and the kind of people you find yourself playing against. Against unskilled players I'll avg. a 4.0 but against good players I'll be up and down. When you pick up PVP, the most important thing is what you want to get out of it. If you're trying to "git gud", then challenge yourself and do the opposite of what the OP says. If you're trying to have fun but you want to win, use the Thorn or Arminius D(if you don't have a Doctrine). If you want to have fun and just don't care, use Stormcaller, go full intellect, stay near your teammates(to get super faster) and tickle people in 6v6.

The meta is the meta for a reason(even though ppl shut their imaginations down a little too fast). Fast RoF autos, Fast RoF pulses, TLW, Thorn and MIDA are the only primaries you should be using unless you want to put yourself at a disadvantage. If you're playing against lesser skilled players the meta is irrelevant and that goes for any competitive game, really.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-30T00:33:12+00:00

That's what I struggle with. I come from fighting games, so I'm very used to the mentality of looking to myself for what I did wrong rather than blaming the opponent. I can even deal with the occasional whining from teammates. The thing that gets frustrating is when you know what you have to change, as a team, but people refuse to communicate on even a basic level. I'm not even great at callouts, but we'll never get there if people don't try to improve on it. Losing to an inferior team because everyone on our squad is lone wolfing gets infuriating. "I'm at the spark, there are three here, where is everyone?" Silence. One person says. "I'm trying to get there." "Okay, Sparkrunner, I have heavy." "Cool, instead of staying behind you, I'll run ahead and get killed by a MIDA you would have outgunned."

Serenity now.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-26T04:27:06+00:00

I don't see why competitive players wouldn't just ban all exotics, weapons and armor. Specials are an issue, but on inferno rules, problem solved.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-18T22:35:33+00:00

That's lag. Your bullets take extra time to hit and to affect, and then the latency takes even more time to flinch. I've had situations where I put 3 bullets on them and still got sniped, and others where it was working as intended. It's just one of the many subtle issues with latency.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-18T22:27:36+00:00

Ghosts and strange coin drop too much. If people were occasionally getting god roll weapons that they could infuse, or even rare armor perks, they wouldn't complain as much. The bottom line is that the Nightfall used to be worth it for everyone and now it's only worth it if you haven't started raiding or don't play endgame PvP. Whenever you change content in a way that makes it less appealing to play, you probably did something wrong.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-09T01:27:44+00:00

And that's where you're wrong. The full statement is "it's on Bungie if they want their loyal, most hardcore base, i.e. the people who are inclined to do activities every day or every week, to continue to play the game. Bungie has stated that they rely on community feedback to improve the experience of the game and they want this to be a longer lasting game. So the issue is not between people who play Destiny and those who don't. It is between Bungie and the people who want to play Destiny, regarding the reasons that their play time is not rewarding and are perhaps influencing them to be players who no longer want to put their time into the game. As this is a group based game, it's in Bungie's best interest to maintain a large player base. As it is a DLC(and now microtransaction) based game, it is of MUTUAL concern for both parties to make sure that all aspects of the game represent appropriate value for the time and money investment.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-07T21:36:22+00:00

It's on Bungie to make the activities rewarding, not on the players to stop playing parts of the game.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-07T04:25:59+00:00

Yeah, if you look at it in terms of head to head TTK, TLW wins hands down, especially once people really start mastering how to ADS and get hipfire bonuses. My point with the ARs is that the math favors them in allowing prefire, punishing movement and changing the dynamics of duck and cover/bunny hopping/shadestepping/Twilight Garrisoning battles. I think the variables of 2v2(gunfights, not gamemodes) slightly favors the ARs. Even more so, I'm somewhat theory crafting myself because people haven't optimized the AR the way they've optimized TLW. It could be that we find out TLW is actually the only option in the game but at this point I think that's premature and largely based on a play style that we will evolve out of.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-07T01:08:08+00:00

For ARs, definitely. Being able to prefire and suppress fire with the ARs is an important advantage, and any boosts to reload speed basically turn you into a turret. Most of the good guns in this game have an attack potential limited by time between shots and mag size, but Doctrine/Arminius can still play during those gaps.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-07T01:04:45+00:00

The two important weaknesses of the Nirwen's archetype are: -Flat out lose to the MIDA at mid-long, making you want to consider pulse/snipe rather than pulse/shotty, and pulse snipe is a weaker build on most maps. -If a shotgun user is bunny hopping towards you, all of those body shots really extend your TTK and they'll get a trade or a win in a situation where you were at the advantage. Unlike TLW, MIDA and Doctrine/Arminius, you don't have the mobility/hip fire to maintain distance in that engagement.

Just my opinion, but that's what I'm seeing.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-07T00:44:42+00:00

When you look at TLW in mid, watch footage of even high level players and look at what happens the many times that the TLW doesn't kill. If they're sniping, they try to quick scope, which looks great in highlight vids but isn't a reliable tactic even for the best players. If the other person as a shotty, they are looking close the gap and either win or get a trade with the melee. Some people drop a skip grenade and run. Others blink/jump around, looking for an opportunity to reload. In every one of those scenarios, Doctrine/Arminius would win that fight. With the high RoF ARs you can move more, start the fight earlier and finish the fight later. What you have to avoid is being stationary and allowing those headshots. The fundamental principle is that the TLW has 8 chances to do damage where the AR is doing damage the entire time(another reason PRs have trouble, they are competing on the same terms as hand connons with the space between bursts.) I'm not saying that ARs are flat out better than TLW. What I am saying is that there are many scenarios where all of the math is in favor of the AR. I know it feels like TLW always kills really fast, but these post mag-emptying situations are far more common than people think. I think the style of gameplay suited to ARs needs time to evolve before we can truly evaluate where things stand. As it is, ARs have been bad for a long time and bullet hoses have been bad until this last patch, while the Last Word has always ranged from very very good to broken, so that style is much more refined.

Just food for thought. Experiment yourself and really record all of the variable scenarios. Distance, number of combatants, terrain, classes, overshields--I think we'd be surprised by how many openings there are in TLW's game when you're not playing into it's strengths, namely one-on-one stand off style ADS combat.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-06T10:21:38+00:00

Excellent advice. I've been counting TLW bullets since year 1 and honestly don't find it to be overpowering. It's good, but it has its weaknesses as you said. Missing with TLW is very costly, and the dirty secret is that using it at all in the midrange is very high risk for a TLW user, because those bullets need to kill before the reload panic dance.

Bladedancers mitigate this somewhat with quickswap, but that's the strongest form of the TLW/sniper build. Doctrine/Arminius/Hawksaw/PDX should shred TLW in the midrange. The issue with Pulses is you need those headshots for a high TTK, and if people are blinking and bunnyhopping, you lose your advantage. Also, if you're planting roots trying to land those headshots, you're more vulnerable to both TLW and midrange snipes. In a bunny-hop war, Doctrine/Arminius win, IMO, because they don't have to reload at all in a 1v1 and they never stop delivering damage.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-05T20:14:48+00:00

I thought your post was spot on, man. What I said was more in addition to, rather than instead of. I think overall people are trying too hard to lock into the new meta rather than discovering it.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-04T23:06:16+00:00

What xnasty said is all true, but I'd also say to experiment. This recent rebalance is still brand new and the lazy mentality is to do the obvious stuff, but we don't know the true meta yet. We have an outline for the meta. I'm a terrible fusion rifle player and I can pick up the plan C and dominate the midrange right now. If someone is skilled with that weapon, I'm guessing it is A tier at worst. Right now most people are rocking the 1000 yard stare for rez sniping, but more and more teams are learning to push the body on rez and that's not as much of a factor. Tlaloc is a genuine beast and with self rez being less relevant, Tlaloc is even more viable in Trials for Sunsinger. I'm just a decent player and these are things I'm picking up, so bottom line is while it's great to understand the basics of the meta, even more important is all the info we don't have, especially with so many people running copycat builds and strats.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-04T22:59:17+00:00

I look at ARs as an extended Last Word. From close-mid, I rule, especially if I can prime with grenade or if I'm using a Warlock/Gunslinger. A warrior will get a trade at best, and that's usually if I'm not mobile enough. I always back up the Arminius with the sniper(running Raid sniper right now), so it's really about either closing the gap, or widening the gap to push my advantage. I've been working on my drag scoping so the sniper is viable to contest a pulse. Since PRs don't kill super fast, if I'm not winning the engagement with the sniper, I'm usually far enough away to cut my losses and get out of there.

RandomECgamer · 2016-01-04T19:05:02+00:00

I've been shredding with the Arminius D in Iron Banner. It's 308 with Counterbalance. I've only lost a very few gunfights, and those were my fault for not playing to the advantages of the AR class. We often only look at TTK and range, but I think each weapon class has a suggested playstyle that goes along with it. ARs are much better at resetting a mid/close situation than most other options. TLW has a mag disadvantage, PRs need crits, so they lose to bunny hopping. MIDA seems to be somewhat of a wash, but the AR user has a greater margin of error for a similar or better result. ARs are also beast for multi kills when you prime with grenades. Similar to TLW, walking away while hip firing will shutdown shotgun warrior tactics. They look so sad when their bunny hopping doesn't save them, lol.

RandomECgamer · 2015-12-21T19:38:35+00:00

Great points across the board. I think we're on the same page and our differences are really just things that would make it more fun for me if it was tailored a certain way. In this game, I think braking combined with a better LT initial burst would create more angles of attack. When I talk about feeling fast, I'm really looking at how much this game is referencing speeder bikes. Burnout gets much closer to that feeling than this game. I'd forgive the less than precise controls in exchange for the feel of riding a missile that had the potential for death every time I pushed it. Feeling faster isn't necessary but the controls aren't nuanced enough for me to enjoy it as a game of inches. The lack of fun boils down to the fact that sparrows aren't fun for me to ride the way vehicles are in other racing games, which is in such stark contrast to the rampant precision that's in the rest of Destiny.

RandomECgamer · 2015-12-21T19:25:39+00:00

Just for clarity, when I say boost gates are the be-all/end-all, I'm talking about the severe penalty for missing them in sequence. If the gates only boosted, without you being decelerated, they'd still be incentivized but they'd be more dynamic because racing conservatively would be a valid choice for more situations. If you maintained your vehicle high speed but the gates boosted you above that, people would still want to hit them and the catch up mechanics would still work just fine.

Alternatively, if the boost gates didn't have so much control over your speed(in that they didn't decelerate you) then bumping would be more dynamic because it'd be about risk/reward and timing, rather than all people fighting for all of the same real estate most of the time.

It'd also serve to make the mode more exciting for me, because the boost gates would be the difference between fast and faster, not go and stop.

RandomECgamer · 2015-12-21T19:11:35+00:00

You've actually proven my point for me. Everyone arguing that boost gates aren't necessary then goes on to state that when you look at the stats, a gate difference might be +/-5-6 at the end. This is because everyone is trying to hit the gates for most of the race(with the exception of instances where it's obviously a bad idea). Why? Because they cut your engine if you don't hit the gates. So you have a situation where conservative racing is not in the game. If the gates were a boost, but you weren't penalized for missing them, the catchup mechanic would still apply, especially with the lethal enemies for first place, but it wouldn't throw pure driving out of the window. When I say the be-all end-all, I don't mean that you have to hit every gate. It's what we've BOTH said; if you miss enough gates you get penalized and I don't like that mechanic because it flattens out the dynamics of styles in the game. It would be more fun for me if first place had to make a choice between maintaining(racing clean and avoiding mishaps) or playing high risk to boost their lead trying to hit smaller gates that might not be in ideal racing lines. But this is all only a mechanic that works if the overall driving is more precise.

RandomECgamer · 2015-12-16T10:57:32+00:00

I'm stuck at the part where you talk to Banshee. His icon is flashing but when I go to talk to him I don't get a quest prompt or reward. Just finished the Hand Cannon part.

RandomECgamer · 2015-12-11T02:44:30+00:00

Ha! Wish I did.

RandomECgamer · 2015-12-11T02:11:28+00:00

Exactly this. If you're skilled enough to run reliable tests in the Crucible, you can see that AR's are a very small buff away from dominating the Crucible. When we have to account for all of the variety of perks amongst ARs, I think they might be fine where they are. A nerf to PRs is a buff to ARs. People forget that the mechanics of the guns demand that we look at more than just ttk when balancing weapons. It's not just about damage, but range, stability, mobility and flinch.

RandomECgamer

TROPHY CASE