🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 19:00:39 -0600, "rms"
<rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote:

>>I've been playing Player Unknown's Battlegrounds for about a week.
>
>    Very good summary.  And it pretty much covers why it's not for me -- I'd 
>likely get frustrated with dying repeatedly without ever seeing who got me 
>:)  It does sound great for the modern casual gamer:  Jump in immediately, 
>play a fixed length round, repeat as desired.  But this all-on-the-surface 
>gameplay is also it's drawback, and I'm seeing multiple posts where players 
>fairly quickly get to the 'ok, I've seen all there is to this' point, and 
>they're done.

If someone explained the inevitable death ending to me on paper, I
would probably get the impression the game is not very fun.  It's not
the process of dying that's fun, it's the moments leading up to it.
It's the gaming manifestation of something like Battle Royale or
Hunger Games.   The sense of having a relatively large portion of the
world to yourself (for a while), then being under time pressure to get
to a specific area of the map.  And, with each successive move, you
know there is a greater chance of running in to someone else.  So
there is this sense of increasing tension as you scramble from
building to building, trying to find the best supplies and weapons you
can so that when you do need to fight you'll be hopefuly in better
shape than your foes.  That part of the game is more of an explore and
looting exercise, but there is something about the open world in this
game that is completely immersive.  

In most games, being in a small village and running into an enemy
(computer or human) is no big deal, they are usually all over the
place.  But in this game, contact with the enemy early in the round is
quite rare, so that if you're in a village trying to loot and all of a
sudden you hear something, there is this "oh shit" feeling where you
go into stealth mode, trying to gauge where he is, what he's doing,
etc.  The tension at this point is off the charts.  And yes, if you
should die, you're quickly pulled out of the tension into a moment of
disappointment, but then you realize the game just found the optimal
endorphin cycle in your brain and you feel compelled to try one more
round.  That aspect of it makes it so much more than a typical
shooter.

>You don't mention playing with teammates, but one positive comment I've seen 
>is that in PUBG you don't have to worry about what they're doing or not 
>doing, as in some of these competitive MP games.

This reminds me, I actually have not even tried playing duo or squad
yet, I'm having too much fun playing solo.  I haven't even researched
team play enough to know whether the game puts duo and squad teams up
against solo players, or if the choice to play solo / duo / squad
determines the type of match you enter.  I think one of the reasons
I've stuck to lone-wolfing so far is because of the importance of
audio in these stealth-combat situations.  If I am working with
someone else, and they are talking when I need to hear where twigs on
the ground are breaking, then it is going to offset any advantage of
working as a team.  And some of these guys are like chatty cathy dolls
when they have a mic, they don't know when to stop screwing around and
use voice comms as an effective team mechanism, so I always wonder
about the maturity of my team mate in games like this.  But they say
team play is good, so I will try it soon.

>I like the audio tips.  Audio is so neglected in games. 

I've noticed that audio has a huge impact on immersiveness of a game
for me.  Everything from the sounds the guns make to the ambient
environmental sounds to music matters in huge amounts.

> Does PUBG directly 
>support surround sound in some fashion?  I've pre-ordered a '3D headphone' 
>set, but how well it will be supported is a big unknown.

I'm not sure if it supports Dolby surround or not, there is no toggle
that I can see in audio settings.  I can tell you that at least with
my headphones (Steelseries Siberia 840), determining position of enemy
movement or fire is not a problem, because for example if you hear
gunfire in the right earcup, and move the mouse slightly you can
determine by the volume increase or decrease of the noise whether the
enemy is front right, front rear, or straight right.  Many years ago
during my competitive CS days, I used to use a 4.1 speaker setup with
front and rear speakers, but over time I just determined that
right/left is enough in most games for the reason I mentioned above. I
haven't really done extensive 3D audio tests with my 840s, maybe I
should.  The few times I have experimented with Dolby surround I
wasn't really impressed with the results, but one of these days I'll
try again.

I can't say enough good things about the Siberia 840s.  They are
expensive, but I noticed the Siberia 800s (same I think but without
Bluetooth) are going for peanuts right now at $160 a pair on Amazon,
big price difference between the 800 and 840.  In addition to overall
quality, the killer feature is the easy swap battery and the way they
recharge in the dock.  This means even though they are wireless, you
are literally never have to worry about charging hassles, you just
keep one battery in the unit, and when it runs low take it out, put in
the charging dock, and put the fully charged one in the headphones and
repeat (takes only a few seconds), and they go for crazy amounts of
time between charges.  You can of course get a wired set of headphones
that will work just as well in terms of game audio, but for me the
wire is a hassle, I love being able to get up and walk across the room
or whatever without removing the headphones or just generally having
wires hanging off of me when I'm gaming.

I do like the Bluetooth feature of the 840s, I can listen to music
from my phone while gaming (in games where it makes sense, wouldn't
want to do that in PUBG because it would mask important game sounds),
but given the current price difference between the 800 and 840 I
wouldn't pay an extra $200 just for bluetooth.  The 840s have
apparently gone up in price while the 800s went down, creating a
larger price gap.

For speakers (games where headphones aren't an absolute necessity), I
use Klipsch Promedia 2.1.