>>57288
If you're dead set on an integrated throttle, the Thrustmaster HOTAS X is one of the preferred products on a budget for both Elite and Star Citizen.

Like I said, though, most people are suggesting T.16000M and the CH standalone USB throttle. Yeah, the CH throttle costs a lot more than the T.16000, but it gives you better control over mapping of craft movement on the yaw or strafe profiles with the 4 hatswitches and front side buttons.
http://www.simw.com/hardware/throttle-quadrant/ch-pro-throttle-usb.html

The main downside is that it's light for a standalone throttle, so I've read, and that it's a slider, it pushes forward and backward in the movement slot rather than pivoting forward and back over a fixed point. makes it tricky to move without fixing it in place somehow.

There's also this if you want to get an all-in-one:
http://www.simw.com/hardware/stick-throttle/pacific-av8r-flightstick-pc.html

I had a Thrustmaster HOTAS setup circa '08 for about a week.

Overall, I was not impressed.

Weight was good. It felt like a good stick, had a fair amount of mass to it. It felt substantial and durable. However, something like 1/8 of the controls were broken to some degree. Research online at the time showed that enthusiasts were essentially saying "Yeah, buy one if you want to replace all the guts." I ended up sending it back and going with a $45 cheapass joystick that was a much, MUCH better value for the price.

Given that it was almost 8 years ago, maybe Thrustmaster has gotten their shit together in the meantime, but I'd suggest a bit of research to be sure.

Personally, I'm in the market for a good controller setup but haven't really started digging too deep yet. It's mostly going to be for Star Citizen / ED, but I'm thinking the way to go is 3-axis joystick, throttle, and then 2-axis pedals. Pedals are planar movement up/down & L/R, throttle is forward/retro thrust and a shit-ton of systems management buttons, and then the joystick is targetting/fire control/rotational movement. The CH throttle looks pretty hot for the thumb joystick and button layout, the pedals look...well...adequate, I guess, but the joystick is a total nonstarter on that front.

Honestly, I'm sort of surprised that the pickings are as slim as they are. Figured there'd be some pretty clear suites out there for just this sort of thing.

One other thing to keep in mind about going the joystick or HOTAS route for E:D or Star Citizen, is that both these games really control better with a mouse and keyboard, especially for targeting with non-gimballed weapons.

I alternate playing E:D with my T.16000M and mouse and I usually end up greatly preferring the mouse for everything except the immersion factor. Flight sims are one thing (can't even imagine trying to do DCS with a mouse, if it were even technically possible in the first place), but space games usually have a substantial amount of flight assistance that makes a mouse the preferred for precision targeting.

That's not to say that a stick is noncompetitive or anything, but it's definitely got a higher skill floor and a lower ceiling than the mouse, at least in E:D. Star Citizen's a bit harder to tell because the combat goes through so many revisions with such rapidity, but it's shaping up to be a similar deal.

>>57246
I went down the full tilt path...

I have Saitek combat pedals as well.
http://store.madcatz.com/brands/saitek/Saitek-PRO-Flight-Combat-Rudder-Pedals.html

All should be good though. Unless you have dollars to blow on potential paper weights, go with a budgeted choice.

As a player of SC, I can tell you this now. You will need a full hotas setup to not get full raped.

There are simply too many controls for any single stick setup to manage your ship adequately.

I would recommend the Saitek X-55 or even the 52 for budget reasons.

>>57341
so jelly. wish i had enough desk space for that thing, and the spare dosh. Would love to get one for IL-2 and Rise of Flight.

What do you mean free???

>>57320

It's a Steam "free weekend" meaning you can install and play it without buying it until late Sunday/early Monday (depending on where you are in the world).

>>57322

Actually I rescind that, apparently if you join during the free weekend you get to keep the game. That's pretty neat, though considering the games economy is clearly modeled on other F2P titles (like WoT/AW) I imagine releasing it for free is just the next step in their development cycle.

I'm a bit late to the free weekend party, but I'd be much more inclined to suggest Sunless Sea, particularly if you like story and roguelike gameplay. Plus eldritch abominations, some excellent dark and dry humor, and having to manage crew terror as well as supplies and fuel.

>>57276
Double posting again, sorry. Forgot to offer advice on the whole mech purchase question.

With 23 million you can kit out a pretty good MadCat and begin grinding out mech skills and stuff. This is where choosing cheaper mechs from the IS side might be an advantage though.

To move on to the second tier of the Mech Skill/Pilot Skill tree, you need to hit basic proficiency on three variants of the same chassis. That means if you want to get the mech skills maxed for T-Wolfs, you need to save up the 15+ million credits for another 2 variants as well.

Buying a BL-KNT is cheaper per chassis, leaving more money for weapons and upgrades like DHS, Endo or FerroFib armor, and engines. Then you still have money left to buy an entire other IS mech, or another BL-KNT, or whatever.

Both will serve you well, its more a matter of do you want to be able to try out more mechs besides the one you are grinding and the trial mechs, or is one mech for the moment ok? Oh, that's another thing. Aside from the Origins Clan mechs, Clan Mechs are locked to a single engine and you can't upgrade the speed at all unless you get to Tier 2 Proficiency and unlock Speed Tweak. Take that into consideration too. You're going to be travelling a lot slower in a Clan mech, generally, than IS mechs in your same weight class because they can switch engines at will.

>>57278
They're winning now, too. Clan space is currently cut into isolated pockets, and i've been having a blast shitting on jade falcon players whenever I can.

>>57276
IS mechs are ultimately more cusotmizable, and SOME of the weapons are actually better in practice.

As far as meta goes, clan mechs win.

If you're not going full meta, fuck clan mechs. Dicking with loadouts is the true joy of mechwarrior.

Buy an IS mech, poke around reddit/the forums/here, and buy different things as it strikes your fancy.

>>57276
Bear in mind, i'm actually low tier. I'll see if I can upload me dueling a moron in an enforcer in my crab-equal weight and similar loadout-he lost because he didn't twist in between firing.

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>57280
Short video.
Should show just how fucking useful torso twisting is-I wlak out with my profile red, but no structure damage.

we have roughly the same firepower, but the other guy isn't twisting, so I can core him out faster than he he can kill me.
http://plays.tv/s/Kel1JitEYWlj

  >>57308

I have finally started to get that reflex procedure into my skull. It's helped massively. Especially with waiting for cooling because I am sort of shit for managing my heat sink lacking mech.

I recorded a video of a match testing software and hardware. I was pleasantly surprised at the end of the round when I have a load of points, considering it was a mess at times.

I'll post it unlisted on youtube. Please excuse the laggy/juttery quality as my HDD is a touch too slow I think for recording. Enjoy my disgusting slideshow basically.

>>57310
You may want to make a heat efficient weapon group, especially if you're brawling a lot.

Anytime i'm using LPLs, I set two to an independent group. Reason being that LPLs are super heat efficient for the damage they put out, so I know I can shoot them consistently and keep fighting

  If DoAX3 is anything like the previous one, it's going to suck.
Unless they get rid of the game mechanic where you buy gifts for the various beach bunnies to curry their favor so they will play beach games with you. The PSP Dead or Alive Paradise game was ruined with that whole goofy gift-giving gimmick. Lose that. Just have a menu of games to play with bikinis, items and cash awarded as achievements for winning. The island casino needed a strip poker game. BIG TIME. And a bunch of fighting games from boxing to MMA beat-downs to gladiator knife fights. Pillow fights for the squeamish. Put this together and we got something.

Rage Quit - Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 https://youtu.be/cLDoSyLztog
This week on Rage Quit, Michael hits the beaches in Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 for the Xbox 360. Be warned. Things get extreme.

>>56891
The first DOAX had nude mods on the og xbox. Hell the characters were naked in some bullshots too.

Dead or Alive 2 was already bad enough.

It was probably for publicity. I didn't know they still made these games. Seriously, people to mind their own business, and have their faces smashed in for this level of ****.

I know it's hard guys, but every time we play dead or alive, a young girl hides in a latrine full of raw sewage to stay safe. Please stop this atrocity.

Life is all about perspective, and people who think this game exploits women simply haven't played DoA, it actually exploits horny males, tricking them into paying premium prices for an otherwise lousy series of games. Also they've never had to hide in raw sewage or they'd realize there are worse things on earth that bikinis.

>>57218
The kid on the right looks like a comic book villain.

Fucking Tremors: Medieval

>>57210
bought it, havent had a chance to download it yet.

>Pawn gets knocked off of cliff
"Tis' a troublesome foe."

>>57124
If you get to the end of the game in under 10 hours you get the most powerful weapon in the game.

There are also a lot of collectables you can miss, I'd look really hard for all of that coffee

>>57124
It might seem stupid but you should definitely commit to doing the frog-catching mini-game (and doing it right) and also doing the Chocobo mini-game. Good gear to be earned earlier than you'd otherwise earn it.

  >>57126
If you simply kill a crap load of dragons while making sure you steal throughout the entire game, you can have half your party doing 9999 dmg during the endgame or before. Freya's Dragon Crest does more damage for each dragon you kill and the same with Zidane's Thievery except with stealing. There's a spot to farm high level dragons in that tunnel before you get to Burmecia, the entrance to it is near two moogles who warn you about it before you to it.


Love this game though, only FF I've ever beaten. So much shit to discover, soundtrack is amazing, its a last hurrah of the old FF settings so no edgy teenagers riding around on motorcycles, and the characters are actually pretty fun to play with, especially Quina's Blue Magic. Amarant is really fucking OP though since can heal, revive and deal out shitloads of damage by throwing your junk weapons.

>you will never please that 1 noble

>>57128
Using Quina's Lvl 5 Death on those level 65 Grand Dragons above Gizamaluke's Grotto you mentioned is the #1 fastest, easiest way to power-level and do all that. If memory serves, they reward 3AP per battle before Ability Up too, so learning skills is a breeze as well.

>>57125
It's actually under 24 hours to get the Excalibur II in Memoria, I believe.

>>57157
>>57156
After more hours of couch gaming I can distill my opinion a bit.

1. The Steam controller should never be used as a 1:1 replacement for dual analog controllers, this is the number one reason it is bashed by reviewers, they're used to dual analog and the touchpads simply don't cut it in that role. Because you can't center them so you get drift and you lose position easily.

2. In regards to dual analog controllers the Steam controller is superior in every regard, BUT ONLY IF USING THE TOUCHPADS AS MOUSE OR MOUSEJOY.

From these two points I've inferred the true POU (philosophy of Use *Smacks swollen Nutnfancy lips*) of The Steam Controller:
To enable PC gamers to play on the couch with some ability no matter the game. There really isn't anything else to it and for that purpose it is more than fine, I've played through The Disappearance of Ethan Carter, several hours of 80 days, 1,5 hours of Final Fantasy VI, 1 hour of Primordia (2d mouse driven adventure game) and 2 hours of Blood Dragon. With the exception of Blood Dragon I got into groove with the controls in no time. With Blood Dragon it took about an hour until I got proficient enough to not constantly die like a bitch, by the 2 hour mark I was in a shape where I could with a bit of luck knock over an outpost on medium difficulty with only a few attempts.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your Steam Link review.

I've heard of some people having frame rate issues with theirs, but I wonder if that's because they have shitty routers.

>>57157
KB+M for FPS, no other substitute other than some kind of Zapper gun.


I mostly use this controller for playing 3rd person or side scrolling games.

>>57161
So it seems like it's more intended to provide a way to control PC games with a gamepad, than as a full replacement for a regular twin stick gamepad.

How is the D-pad for stuff like fighting games/platforming?

>>57167
I don't play platformers or fighters but I feel the d-pad is not suitable for that type of use. Use a controller with a real dpad or a fightstick.

I've been using the steam controller for quite a while now. I've played over 20 hours worth of different games using the controller and I'm still finding new neat features and tricks to improve the experience. The main thing that I've noticed is that I'm flat out playing more when I'm sitting on the couch, I don't alt-tab constantly and break the flow so to speak, because I would have to get off my ass to do it. If I have to find a guide or something I can use the built in Steam Browser with the controller. for the first time in years I've made a decent dent in my backlog. Also I've heard the gyro is awesome when playing racing games, going to test that out next.

>>57182
>Warhammer
Totally. It had promise starting out, but they missed out on a LOT of opportunities with it and played it safe.

>I also went through stints in Shadowbane, Darkfall, Mortal, etc. It's always so disappointing to see these ambitious MMOs fail so hard though, mainly because the MMO market at large is always afraid of games based on open world PvP and PKing
Agreed, I am a big fan of Shadowbane, Darkfall, and mortal as well. But you are correct, a lot of developers are afraid to take risks and they really really need to start. Because we need to shake off the comfort of WoW clones.

>I guess my main issue is just that MMOs are always so controlled and on-rails these days, I just like the concept of every player having nearly absolute freedom to do what they want.
My thoughts exactly. Theres a new one coming out tht might be right up your alley called "The Repopulation" or something to that effect. Its basically Fallen Earth + SWG pre CU on an alien planet.

Also Camelot Unchained is coming along nicely (Im in the Alpha).

Check out the classes (as they have been revealed. Some are really fucking cool (Im looking at you Black Rider).

>>57182
Right. That's why I never got into WoW much or anything either. There's really no "game" to it. If you die you go get your body and your stuff is a little damaged. Hurt your pocketbook, which is directly influenced by how much you play. Everything about it was designed to be a time sink to keep you wrapped up and paying the subscription fee.
Tried the same stuff with Diablow 3 and it sucked. I'm not sure if Blizzard has the talent left who knows how to make a good non-MMO type game. Their Heroes of the Storm team actually got laid off after it went "gold" I guess, cuz they expected it to die off in short order.

>>57185
>Diablow
If you want a game that is what diablo 3 was supposed to be, check out Path of Exile and Grim Dawn.

PoE is everything diablo 3 should have been with a fucking nuts final fantasy 10 style skill tree.

Grim Dawn is made by the people who did titan quest, so its similar to that.

>>57186
I was playing PoE on and off until they revamped it. Yes. much better. Feels much more like DII, which in my mind is SUPERIOR to D3 in all respects.

My buddy just got grim dawn and I've been watching him stream over steam. Looks pretty cool.

>>57186
>>57190
>PoE
Seeing that in posts, I can't help but think Point of Existence rather than Path of Exile.

Point of Existence was awesome. Would pay heartily for a VR vietnam shooter.

>>56989
I always heard how shitty people were in this game.

Only now do I understand.

Major props to the few people who were cool though.

>>56990
Yeah. I really like DayZ and the concept but the morality mechanic is fucked. There's literally no incentive to not shoot on sight.

But anyway it's a definite illustration of the same thing as Walking Dead and games like The Last of Us portray; zombies are shitty, but the survivors are worse.

Cuz really, imagine what people who trample, mace, or shoot each other for a TV on Black Friday would do when we run out of food...

>>56990
>>56992
The edge on the Steam community forums is prime example of actual edginess. By no means is it the autistic bullshit with teleporting behind you to backstab you, but it's there alright. It doesn't fucking help that with every new update for SA that seemingly feeds into that mentality.

But if there's one thing that just makes me fucking hate SA all the more is how everyone attempts to justify the idiotically empty cities and "veteran" players wanting everyone else to go out hide out in the woods and farm. Would it fucking kill the devs and community to not have you on the verge of starvation when you first spawn?

Yeah, I'm disgruntled and shit.

>>56994
Yeah. Totally agree. From what I understand virtually all dev time as of late has been used to make console ports rather than actively work on the game itself.

Too many people sham at Day Z because a) it's a shitty game to play on the lowest of low graphics, and people would rather play Roblox alternatives or b) it's just really shitty in terms of community.