New patch broke my retail game.

[Roland]

I can no longer play HG:L with my RETAIL copy, because the game refuses to identify my REGISTERED product key. Looks like I'm stuck without the game until FSS fixes whatever the hell they broke.

The summary:
I signed in, downloaded new patch, and Hellgate restarted. Upon signing in again, I get booted off with an error saying I'm still using the Beta client (which was COMPLETELY uninstalled BEFORE installing from the retail DVD), and must register a product key. I CAN'T register any product keys, because I already have. So, game's broken. I'm stuck. See you whenever.

Edit:
So... yeah. It's working fine now. I don't know what they did, but it's fixed. Very fast turnaround. Less than an hour. Very nice.

[Zed-F]

I found that if I went to visit the account page, then logged in to HG:L, it worked. But since they fixed the problem, I guess that's not terribly useful to you now.

[Roland]

It's ok. The very brief downtime didn't bother me nearly as much as the idea of "How long do I have to wait until this is fixed?".

Also, whoever designed Black Friar's should be SHOT. Zed, if you haven't gotten there yet, let me tell you this now: BEFORE embarking on that journey, set all your settings to the lowest possible. Otherwise, it will be a hellish (literally) nightmare to get through. EVERYTHING is on fire, and it just cripples my system (and IIRC mine's a bit faster than yours, at least in graphics, which is all this concerns). I love the idea, but it literally cut my performance down to ~2 FPS the whole time through. I made it through without much trouble, thanks to easy mobs, but I don't know what I would have done if it had been filled with more dangerous mobs.

Also, I broke down and Subscribed. I was holding off to purchase a Founder's, but I can't afford it right now, and I want the themed goodies (and more stash space), so I broke down. :P Oh well. It's only $10, for now. Hey, at least I can play. :D

[Zed-F]

Heh, I took a short break from my engineer to get a temporary marksman toon up to level 10 to try out phase grenade and a calldown (napalm strike), mainly for research purposes for my engineer, but also just because I wanted to try sniper stance. Back on the horse with my engineer tonight, probably.

Verdict on sniper stance -- I like it. Nice with an assault rifle, but sniper rifles still suck even in sniper mode. Possibly worth putting extra points into to increase the range and accuracy bonus. Too bad my engineer can't get it, it would be much more useful than an unsynergized tactical stance or rapid fire.

Phase grenade was pretty meh, I was looking for damage but I guess it's mainly intended to phase. Need more practice with it to really get a feel for it, I think. Starting to think that throwing grenades in combat is generally not as useful as just shooting. Even though a lot of the point of grenades is the elemental attack bonus, which doesn't work through shields, they nevertheless seem better suited to softening things up before a battle, due to the difficulty of landing them accurately while in a furball. They might work better in a party environment though, where someone else is holding the aggro. Though I've yet to try concussive crash and molotov cocktail out with my engineer, I'm thinking she might prefer to save her energy for those, as they seem likely to be considerably more accurate.

The calldown was ok but 40s is too long a recharge. I figure 30s on an engineer calldown is about right (though it could stand to be shorter still.) This is in some ways better than grenades because it seems more intended to be used as the opening shot in a battle, when you have time to throw the thing accurately, and if you do throw it while in a furball you're more likely to hit something with it, even if you just bomb your own position.

[ShadowHM]

Zed, you talk gibberish at times.

Please provide english translations of the following?

difficulty of landing them accurately while in a furball

So how do you get into a furball? And do you want to?

where someone else is holding the aggro

What is aggro? And how do you hold it?

[Zed-F]

Furball -- close range firefight. Derivation: originally, a military aviation term for a group of planes in a mutual dogfight. In HG:L, you often get into situations where you are being attacked by multiple attackers at a variety of ranges, including some melee attackers. In these situations, you generally don't want to be taking your targeting reticle off your current target in order to throw a grenade; the odds of hitting are too low and the time it takes to perform the action too long relative to the amount of damage the grenade is capable of doing. It's much easier to target with grenades accurately if you are not simultaneously having to evade enemy attacks, whereas dodging whilst shooting with a gun is much more natural.

Aggro -- Common MMORPG term (picked up from Guild Wars) for enemy aggression, that is, which PC the enemy monsters (mobs) are targeting. For instance, a guardian might precede other PCs into a room and perhaps use taunts to ensure that all the enemies are attacking him, since he's more capable of surviving such an onslaught than his allies are. This is called 'grabbing aggro'.

Bonus explanation:

Calldown -- A skill from the Precision Strike tree, i.e. Napalm, Smackdown, or Shock and Awe. From 'calling down an artillery barrage'. I find the term 'Precision Strikes' for this skill tree to be something of a misnomer, especially since you are not using any sort of laser targeting for it.

[Roland]

Aggro -- Common MMORPG term (picked up from Guild Wars)

Actually, this term predates Guild Wars by about a decade (or two), but it is most commonly used in MMOs. I think it originates more in MUD games, but I may be a little off here.

Grenades I haven't touched thus far (I only got them in the Beta because I wanted to try everything on that side of the tree), and Precision Strikes I've only put 1 point into Napalm Strike (haven't decided on delving further or not). They are more of an opening salvo weapon, although grenades can take down softer targets (like zombies) in one hit, even up through Temple Station. Precision Strikes are more useful for softening up a larger cluster, due to the greater AoE, but Grenades can be chucked almost one after another, so they make good general purpose use (low cooldown, extreme range). Unfortunately, their insane range and physics make them a little unwieldy in close-quarters combat. I have no problems with that, but some people prefer the up-close approach, especially with Rapid Fire, so YMMV.

I'm surprised you don't like Sniper Rifles. I regularly one-shot boss mobs with my plain jane Sniper Rifle (with Beacon; without I usually take them to less than half health, including removing Shields). I assure you, despite their long cooldown (~4s), you can easily clear a small mob (3-4) before they ever reach you if you start from far enough away, and moreover sometimes they won't even notice you shooting them (40-50+ meters away, in Beta, I could snipe with impunity). I never used my assault rifle in Sniper Stance until release, and I do enjoy the added damage, but I prefer to snipe from long range. For that, I need my Sniper Rifle (now a Triton, since I'm in Monument Station).

More things to note: difficulty ramps up in Act 4, as do the corresponding items. Granted, I'm sure if I spent some skill points this would ease things somewhat, but surely not as much as finding solid equipment (and Mods, which I have yet to outfit).

[Zed-F]

Re: Phase grenade...

I found out tonight using my test Marksman why I found the damage to be so unimpressive. It's bugged, or at least seems to be so. Against really weak monsters like tiny mobs (e.g. blood coil) or the weaker sorts of zombies, it deals damage correctly. Against stronger zombies or imps or anything else, it will damage shields but only does very negligible damage to health, plus a chance to phase... even if I vastly out-level the mob in question.

For instance, it might take a half-second burst with my assault rifle to kill a weak zombie, or a one second burst to kill an imp. But while it takes one phase grenade to kill the weak zombie, a phase grenade will take down an imp's shield but otherwise barely scratch it. Even multiple phase grenades have very little effect.

I don't notice this problem with frag (fire) grenades, which seem to apply their damage correctly, so I conclude that phase grenade is bugged. If I want phase, there are probably better ways to get it, that also deal meaningful damage at the same time.

-----

Re: Sniper rifles...

They seem to miss more often than they hit, for me. Also the shots don't display correctly, so often I can't tell what's going on; either the monster drops or nothing happens. Sniper rifle shots are also very wide and often hit stuff that's apparently in the way, but doesn't seem like it should be. I don't tend to have these problems sniping with an assault rifle. I tend to find that after one shot with the sniper rifle, monsters are charging me and I'd be better off with the assault rifle anyway, as it's far easier to snipe moving targets with the assault rifle (the shots travel much faster and the delay between shots at different targets much less.)

[KingOfPain]

I like throwing the grenades, even at close range. More often, I would back into a tight quarter for that and let the grenades bounce around to hopefully land when I am being attacked - Its got a decent aoe range anyway. I just tried Phase Grenade last night, assessment as Zed, bleh.

I enjoyed sniping (only) with Janie the last couple of days. Somehow that make the Marksman more real/intense. It was more fun tho much slower going. Theres got to be a variant in that.

KoP

[KingOfPain]

They seem to miss more often than they hit, for me.

Ditto. Perhaps this is when one need to actually pump Accuracy because of the longer range. By all right, if its not already, distance should be part of the tohit calculation.

KoP