GTA Online - The Saga Continues

[LowPolyOWG]

 

[BinnZ]

The second stream is a quick tour of the garage, no new stuff there, looks like any other garage, do some customizing on the car I bought and then thought I was going to spectate a match but ended up playing in it? Go figure....

Hahaha, D_B you look like a mole rat exploring that garage

I like your Russian mechanic. By the time I was about to upgrade a car into an arena monster I didn't have the money left to get the primary upgrade

I also liked my first couple of matches because the game gave me a good, maxed out vehicle. But then after that I could only choose between some standard *bleep* cars and it was pretty hard to make a difference.
Some game modes are nice, others might be if you have a monster of destruction in your possession. At the moment I don't. I decided to keep 25 million in cash with my 'old' character for possible future expenses and had only 4 million with my second  character, with which I bought the workshop. So I bought my workshop and a Declasse Impaler. The car is GREAT! It's the muscleman's dream. Like the Virgo or the Dukes, but better. No luck, you can't upgrade that car @ bennies and upgrading it to an Arena fighting machine costs too much for my purse at the moment.
However, it's a damn brick, you're gonna love it. I'll post a screeny as soon as I arranged some hardware related stuff here

Anyway; the game modes are cool if you have a competitive vehicle. If you can't shoot, and are weak, it's pretty hard to make a difference and have fun. So right now I'm grinding to get the money AND the unlocks to get a good vehicle up and running.

The vehicles look cool and seem to be available in the free-roam environment as well. These garages, belonging to the workshop and Arena shizzle, provide space for up to 30 cars of ANY type and you can just drive them out and in same as normal garages. I wonder how they oppose to the other weaponized vehicles in the game. I mean; a Gargoyle with double minigun turrets might be cool


Oh, and that monstertruck of yours is cool, D_B!!!

[Dweller_Benthos]

I did a little more in the arena, but didn't actually do any matches, the game is a bit glitchy for me. Binn, you say you can drive your car out of the garage? I tried that and it just drove around in the garage and I couldn't get out of the car or leave the garage. I had to leave the game and join a new session, respawn at my apartment and then go back to the arena. I didn't try it again, so maybe it was just a one time thing, but the next time I got in my karouma in the arena garage, then took the choice to customize the car, then used the menu to leave the garage. I'll try again next time, see what it does.

I used some more money to add the battle package to the car, and was thinking about hiring the weapons guy, but I'm now under a million in cash and didn't want to drain my money any further. I did get spectator mode working, which is interesting, you have a lounge to hang out in and other players can be there as well. You can watch the match in play, either through the window or using the telescopes available there. You can also spin the wheel for a cost of $5K and get a random item to use in the match that's playing. So you could get the mini RC car, drive it around and detonate it near one of the players in the match and ruin their day. You can also rent a drone, and fly it around the arena and watch the match that way. I don't know if it was a glitch or not, but I was watching the match which was a last man standing kind of thing and there were two people left as I was flying around watching. So the one guy dies and the match ends and I get third place?!? I also got paid some money, so there you go, a way to get something for doing almost nothing. I'm sure it's not supposed to be that way, and if it wasn't a one-time thing, it will probably be fixed.

The monster truck wasn't mine, I'm not sure what was happening in that match as I was supposed to be spectating, not playing. And it gave me all those options so I picked the big truck just to fool around with it.

[BinnZ]

Strange glitch about not being able to leave your garage D_B. I'm pretty sure I can leave it in the car of my liking whenever I want, upgraded or not. I just sit in it and hit the gas, like all other garages. It first promps you to press "E" for customizations.
I did a little more than a few rounds now and I must say I like it. The arena provides fun gameplay with a lot of variety and a truckload of customization options for all those wild vehicles, making you want to rank up and  buy all the goodies. However, that's also where the downside is to this update. Get your own vehicles will become a must. With stock cars you are no match for the upgraded ones, and the arena is filling up with the latter. And hell, they don't come cheap. This might be most expensive update ever, when looking at vehicle prices. I spent 10 million so far on this update, which gave me the garage with all the modding options and a nice interior and two upgraded arena monsters. Well, the second isn't even completely upgraded, because I lacked money.
For the stock car you don't pay that much, but the upgrade it into an arena readt war machine costs you 1.26 million. And that's only the start, you'll have a car that equals the free stock cars available in the arena when you play. In order to benefit from your purchase you need to upgrade it. And you can easily spend another 2 million on that. Boost upgrade? 500k. Proximity mines? 300k. Weapon? 400k. Proper armoured plating? 400k. And all the rest of less necessary but nice custom options like bumpers, livery, horn, suspension etc.

Now there's a way to get discount, on both purchase-price of the cars and all the customizations. You'll get them by earning AP, Arena Points, that you will get from competing in the arena and, of course, spinning the wheel of fortune in the spectator box. There goes your earned money before the race is even over, lol!

It has never been more obvious that, in order to have fun with this arena war update, you need a lot of money. Earnings aren't spectacular so either you spend your savings or buy shark cards. Or go find a cheater of course

I think that is a bit lame. The pay-to-win principle is very present in thise new dlc, more than ever before

[Art Blade]

that doesn't sound good.. Rockstar becoming greedy despite the fortunes they made selling the base game. RDR2 apparently is following suit from what I gathered when reading PZ's posts about that game. So Rockstar is becoming one of the companies I am likely going to avoid in the future.

[LowPolyOWG]

Well, they started being greedy bastards once online connectivety on consoles became a thing.

By "they" I mean the AAA companies (Activision-Blizzard/UBI*bleep**bleep*/EA/T2)

Oh, gambling in a R* game?!  Geez, Take Two really wants that loot box $$$.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah it was just a temporary glitch not being able to get out of the garage, the next time I tried it, see video below, it worked. I tried the car out after upgrading to the arena style, and it does a bit of damage but I didn't like the handling, so I gave it some more upgrades which cost me some cash. Then I tried a battle where it was a game of "hot potato" as well call it, as in there's a ticking time bomb being passed around and you don't want to be "it" when it goes off.

I didn't last too long, lol. But it was fun while it lasted, and then you get sent to the spectator box where you can watch or interact either with a drone or spinning the wheel. So I bought a drone as it was cheaper and I'm getting low on funds. Then once the match was over, the voting screen came up and the next match was selected as usual but then it never started, I ended the video there and a few minutes later all the players got booted out to the stadium entrance. So still a few kinks to w0#k out.

[Art Blade]

I watched all your vids so far. This one's most funny scene was the "road accident" with that motorcyclist flying up into the sky and later coming down landing on their wheels as if nothing had happened

I am not impressed by that arena stuff, however.

[BinnZ]

I don't think it's your kind of gameplay Art... it's very PvP and pretty chaotic. Some nice features have been added though, and to me the Arena wars are good gameplay. It's just a shame they sneak in these dirty tricks to make more money on you.
What I really like is something called shunt boost. It took a while to find out what it is and how it works, see for that the following video:

[Art Blade]

alright have fun, guys

[LowPolyOWG]

Is this still GTA or, did I accidentally bought a Saints Row game?

[BinnZ]

They lost it. I'm out

[Art Blade]

this isn't the GTA anymore that I loved when it was new.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah there are a lot of things from the arena update that should stay in the arena, they are too OP for the normal on-the-street game. Even the car I have now with pretty much basic minimal upgrades is pretty OP as far as going against the AI cars, and is also pretty heavy duty against other players, see the video below.

Speaking of, I had just got done with a pretty fun arena session where my favorite game so far was one where one team tries to collect checkpoints scattered around the arena and the other team as spectators tries to stop them. Once the players I had with me, and myself, got the gist of how it worked, it was very fun. The first time around, the players on the field on my team were going against each other trying to get the checkpoints, and not working as a team. Well, as much as a bunch of random people in GTA can w0#k together, but you get the idea. The other team apparently didn't have a clue either and we got 50 points, and won that round easily. Once we switched, it then became obvious what we were supposed to do and I got on a machine gun turret and blasted away at the players on the field. Once we switched again, the second round was more intense as both teams now knew what was going on and we didn't get nearly as many points and just barely squeaked in under the time limit to win the match. That was really fun. The next match was hot bomb again and this time I picked the motorcycle to use as my vehicle. One thing I've noticed is that each game type really has a specific type of vehicle that's best to use and the motorcycle is pretty good for a lot of them as it is fast and highly maneuverable, which in the confined space of the arena is a bonus. So I lasted quite a while in that game until I was handed the bomb and just couldn't catch up to anyone to hand it off. But that was also a fun round.

After that I got back to my garage and found Christmas trees here and there and was wondering what was going on. There were three and I walked up to two of them and got $2000 for each and then thought to record picking up the last one, which is here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/350615810

Just a minute of video as I look around for more. The recording didn't start as soon as I expected so I pick up the last tree almost immediately as it starts.

So I left the garage intending to just go home and quit the game when I saw in chat that we had a hacker on our hands and it was all snowy outside. Well, I had some fun with it:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/350617081

And gave into the temptation to mess with another player on a cargo run. Sorry dude, but you can see my basic arena vehicle does some hefty damage on even other players. Then I got into a snowball fight with the AI characters. Also fun. The hacker messed with me a couple times which was only fair, I suppose, but all in all I wasn't too mad, then I drove home and quit the game.

[LowPolyOWG]

I wonder where and when we can buy those weapons. Screw balance, let's make people be able to ragdoll eachother and add a MG that works like a minigun They could have gone ahead and added the stun gun/railgun from SP aswell...