#all stats start at 0 including health

[windfighter]

I tend to have a hard time getting stuff done so ONCE AGAIN I've tried to gamify my to do-list. Sadly none of the apps I've tried have worked for me so I've had to go a more manual route and just... write stuff myself.

Currently playing as Kouji because OF COURSE I AM! Just reached level 2! Go me!

I would love to have treasures and battles in this as well but eargh I think that'd be too much for my brain (at least atm), so this is fine. Even if it's a little boring to just collect stats for the sake of it.

(for every task you complete you get 1 stat point that you can put in whichever stat you want, but I try to keep it... somewhat logical to what the task was)

(the amount of xp you need to level is calculated with "current level*100" so it's easy to remember x3 In case anyone else wanna join in and see who can reach level 100 first!)

I write the task-list every day before I go to bed and try to stick between 3-5 tasks, mostly because otherwise it'll be like 2 weeks until we're preparing to die again ^^' But there's no limit to how many tasks there can be! If you want to add 100 tasks a day to quickly level go right ahead xP

[casually-salad]

cutie pox chronicles, full master-post.

welcome to my sick and twisted world.. everything will be found below.

so firstly! i know theres a couple people coming from off tumblr sites to check this out (( hi jay!!! )) so ill explain somethin real quick!

All of my comics have hand written text! now sometimes these can be hard to read, and so if you press this button ( image below ) and ive wrote out all the text in there for your convenience! make sure as well to read the body of the post and also the tags! usually i have some post upload thoughts or feelings i talk about there - some add context and some are fun!

normally i would recommend going through my archive and searching for "mlp infection au" or "cutie pox chronicles" but you wont have to do that here - but for nontumblr users if you want to check out other blogs i recommend that method.

now before reading there is a massive trigger warning: on all posts with these topics everything is tagged as "tw (topic)" and so i would recommend blocklisting ones that make you uncomfortable or understand what youre going into! triggering contents include: blood, gore, body horror, eye horror and eye trauma, child death, dismemberment, and cannibalism.

now! all posts will be in upload order, liked here with the title and the in story date ( as it changes. ) as well as which posts are single images and which ones are comics. when looking at stat sheets, the more full the better! 0% - or empty health is death, and 0%- or empty, composure is maina. alright!!!!! here we gooooo!!

The Cutie Pox. (day 0) comic

stat sheets ( day 1 ) comic?

Lillys last cutiemark. - single

first sightings -single

first nights out. - comic

how far away does a home stray? - single

lillys last mark - comic

the everfree - single

from hell and back - comic (day 0)

imbalance - comic (day 2)

finding the spark - comic

moon dancers melancholy part 1 - comic

moon dancer sheet - single

fleeting feelings - comic

helping hoof..? - comic

moon dancers melancholy part 2 - comic

freezerburnt - comic

fleeting calmness - comic ( day 3 )

dreams fall hard today - comic

princesses stat sheets - comic?

wilting lilly - comic

youre going to live with that guilt - comic

home - home again. - comic ( day 4 )

hurt everywhere you go part 1 - comic

bracing for impact ( hurt everywhere you go part 2) - comic

get well - comic

fly free canary. - comic

getting worse - comic

a storm on the horizon- comic (day 5 )

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

i really never thought this comic would get me as far as it did, seince i started posting i went from having 100 followers to about 210, thats more than double! thats insane. i wont lie i am SOOOO ANXIOUS to have such a following!!!!! usually my posts prior wouldnt get more than 5 notes but now!! almost all of them ( at least of this comic ) have over 30 on every one!!! thats just, so crazy. i hope everyone continues to look forward as i begin preparation on chapter 2, and what else i have to offer on here - i have a whole lot more story to tell and im excited to!

[mythaura-blog]

Development Update - May 2023

Hello hello folks, Miyazaki here! We've got a big update for this month--we've rolled out Mythaura's battle demo and are so excited for you to give it a try!

Topics covered include:

Battle Demo & Guide

Quarter 4 (2023) Rewards Reveal

Beast Creator Contest

New Homepage Splash Screen

More info available under the cut!

Battle Demo Guide

Welcome to Mythaura's battle demo! Here's a concise guide to help you navigate the 3v3 battles and make strategic decisions:

1. Battle Setup

The battle takes place between your beasts (on the left) and the enemy beasts (on the right) and ends when one side is defeated. For this demo, all beasts in this demo are level 1 and have average size for their species.

2. Beast Details

Click on the info icon in the corner of your beast's avatar to view its details. From here, you can read their abilities and see a breakdown of their stats.

3. Elements

Each beast has 2 elements, including a species element that is always shown. You won't know your opponent's secondary element.

For this demo, a beast's secondary element is currently randomized.

Check the elements page for more information on elements and for a breakdown of type effectiveness.

4. Turn Actions

Each turn, your beasts can perform one of the following actions:

Use an ability or surge ability.

Defend themselves or an ally.

Rest to regain stamina.

Once all players have submitted their actions, the round is resolved with the following priority:

Resting beasts rest first.

Defending beasts defend next.

Abilities are resolved.

Within each action type, the order is determined by ability priority, beast speed, weight (with lightest going first), and then randomly if all those values are the same.

5. Abilities

Beasts start with 4 abilities: one surge ability (species-based), one neutral ability, and one ability for each element. If a beast's species and individual element match, they will have 3 abilities.

Abilities with elements can be super effective or resisted, affecting the damage dealt. Pay attention to moves' effectiveness and your foes' abilities for better results.

Abilities incur fatigue and the fatigue cost is shown on the ability button.

Abilities will generally have a small chance to miss or be a critical hit. The chances of these can vary per ability.

Abilities have 3 types: Combat, Projection, and Support.

Combat: Attack vs Defense

Projection: Focus vs Barrier

Support: Non-damage dealing abilities

6. Surge Abilities

When a beast's surge meter is full, they can use their surge ability for a powerful effect. Surge abilities don't incur fatigue and never miss. After using a surge ability, the surge meter goes back to 0%. Please note that the surge abilities in this demo may be changed before the game’s official launch.

7. Defending

Beasts can defend themselves or allies, reducing incoming damage by 75% for that turn. This effect does not stack. Defending slightly charges the defender's surge meter and recovers a small amount of stamina.

8. Resting

Resting recovers a substantial amount of stamina and a small amount of health.

Remember, understanding abilities, elements, defending, and resting will help you make the best decisions during battles. We have provided an in-app form you can use to report bugs and provide feedback. Good luck and enjoy the demo!

Planned battle demo updates for the future:

A "quick queue" button that queues with the first available other quick-queue person and does not require a PIN

PvE Mode versus an ai battler

Timeout for move submission

Controller support

Weather effects

Ailments

Ability to set desired element from the queue screen

Better reporting and improvements to history, such as remembering when you discover a super effective element on a specific opponent

Quarter 4 (2023) Rewards Reveal

Our Quarter 4 rewards have been completed and are ready for their public debut! Thank you to the Ko-fi Sponsors who voted on the different Glamour and Companion concepts, we appreciate your support and feedback.

Q4 (2023) Glamour: Koi Pond

Q4 (2023) Companion: Blooming Jackalope

Q4 (2023) Solid Gold Glamour: Adult Basilisk

Special One-Time Companion: Radiant Golden Ossiflage

1x copy will be awarded to all previous and/or current Bronze, Silver, and Gold Sponsors

Sponsors of all levels may purchase one (1) additional copy of the Radiant Golden Ossiflage in our Ko-fi Shop.

Beast Creator Contest

We're back with another Beast Design Contest! We're looking forward to all the fantastic creations that this community comes up with.

Here are the parameters:

Each individual can submit one (1) Beast option for consideration

Any species fine (babies included)

Fill out Google form; provide both a picture and the preview code

We’ll pick three winners to have their Beasts featured on the front page for Quarter 1 (July 1 - September 30). Winners will also receive:

1x Beta Key

1x Quarter 4 (2023) Skin: Koi Pond

1x Quarter 4 (2023) Companion: Blooming Jackalope

These rewards will be applied directly to your account.

Submissions for the Beast Design Contest are due by June 15, 2023. The form will close at 11:59pm PST. Winners will be announced in the July 1, 2023 Development Update.

Homepage Splash Screen

Our wonderfully talented senior artist, Luci, created a scene detailing an early stage in a group of adventurers' journey in Mythaura. This perfectly captures the vibe of the opening series of introductory quests that players will undertake at the start of the game. We hope you enjoy the art, and hope that you look forward to playing through Mythaura's single-player story when we launch!

Mythaura v0.17

Updated homepage layout

Merged and finalized battle demo, fixing several bugs found along the way

Thank You!

Thanks for sticking through to the end of the post! We hope you love the battle demo and are looking forward to your feedback, which will help shape the nature of the game while still in its early development--leading to a lasting impact when Mythaura launches. Your help here is invaluable!

See you around the Discord!

[if-rambling]

My mc for “One Knight Stand” by @oneknightstand-if

Name: Alejandro Rodriguez

Nickname: Al

Pronouns: He/him

Orientation: Gay

Height: Tall

Vice: Lust

Addiction: smoking

Past: Childhood abuse

Secret: changeling

Club: fencing

Skill: magnetic personality

Hobby: influencer

Job: news reporter

Arthurian level: Lore newbie

Romancing: in denial about liking Adrian

Magic +mysticism: 10%

Physical strength + Athleticism: 31%

Intelligence + perception: 17%

Charisma + diplomacy: 35%

God I love the fact I can choose to be in denial about having a crush. It’s such a fun choice

Al and Adrian started off as friends so I definitely imagine that plays a huge part of why Al is in denial about his crush. Besides the whole commitment issues and secretly a changeling thing

Definitely gonna try and go for a charisma based build this game. I just like playing pretty/charismatic characters

Al doesn’t mind Merlin and is willing to be friends with him but he’s honestly probably a little intimidated by what Merlin may or may not know about his secret

I love all the flavor text in this game it’s so fun to see. I already like Adrian and Merlin so I can’t wait to see the rest of the RO’s and how they interact with each other. The game is great so far and I can’t wait to see more

The picrews I used for Alejandro

Below is some end of game stat stuff and in game description of Al

You are currently known as Alejandro (Al) Rodriguez a seemingly normal male reporter. You have green eyes, waist-length straight green hair, and a tall and athletic figure clad in a biker leather jacket with a P-100 respirator. People tend to take particular notice of your figure. At first glance, people tend to find you somewhat intimidating.

You excel at sword fighting, influencing the internet, and having a magnetic personality. Meanwhile, you've got a weakness for cigarettes and spiders, as well as having commitment issues.

You have a modest assortment of piercings in the ear, tongue, eyebrow, and genitals. As well as having a small selection of tattoos including a celtic chest tattoo, dragon back tattoo, floral arm tattoo, and star finger tattoo.

A tragic childhood of abuse lies in your past and the fate of your future remains murky with the apocalypse ever looming in the background. At least no one has suspected that you are actually not human.

Your past incarnation is unknown

Your ultimate weapon is unknown

Your favored warcry is "unknown"

Your final words were unknown

Blobbed: nope

Bold : 96 Sweet : 110 Sassy : 36 Optimist : 61

Health : 99 Mark Status : Healed Merlin Healing : 2 Merlin Forced Healing : 0

Caution : 39 Will : 5 Cloudcuckoolanderness : 9 Silent : 9 Curse Level : 4 Fear Level : 9 Corruption : -1 Mute : false Mindcontrol : false

Downtime : Had Breakfast |

Route : Went into Store Whole Time |

New Inventory : Matches | Multi Lighter | Cigarettes | Towel | Plain Mask |

They Know : false | It Sees : Masked | You Replied False

[gear-project]

How to become Immortal in Soul Calibur 6

There's a nifty little trick you can do to guarantee victories in Libra of Souls Mode, though it takes a bit of crafting (and some skill) to pull off:

First off, you'll need a 3-open-slot Weapon with the following Three abilities affixed to it (I'll include the item drops associated with the abilities as well):

--Hero's Jade (Superb Quality) Attack/Defense+20% (Reversal Edge Followup Hit) --Tranquil Bloodstone (Superb Quality) Attack/Defense+35% (When HP is 30% or Lower) --Scapegoat's Turquoise (Superb Quality) HP Recovery 30% (When HP is 0)

In addition to these, you'll need to Feed your character one of two Food items prior to the start of a battle (you can buy these in the game's shops easily enough):

--Brandy (Superb Quality) Attack/Defense+40% (When HP is 30% or Lower) --Spicy Wine (Superb Quality) Attack/Defense+35% (RE Followup Hit)

Doing the math, your Base Weapon's stats (assuming you successfully won a Reversal Edge encounter) will give you a stat boost of +55% to Attack and Defense when your Health falls below 30% (the game's Lifebar has a little line indicator that can tell you when your Health is low enough).

By consuming either Brandy or Spicy Wine in addition to using this weapon effect, you'll get either +90% or +95% to your Attack and Defense stats regardless of what weapon you have equipped.

The effect will basically completely cut off all damage at the 30% Health mark, and no matter what tricks or effects the enemy opponent has, they absolutely cannot win.

And all you had to do was guess right once in a single match of Rock, Paper, Scissors!

Well, if you're not good at Janken (Reversal Edges), fear not! I've got a more casual alternative build for you:

Here's the materials you'll need for your weapon:

--Draught of Immortality (Superb Quality) Health+40%

--Draught of Regeneration (Superb Quality) Health Recovery every 1.5 Seconds

--Vampire Opal (Superb Quality) Health Recovery on Damage+20%

In addition, feed yourself either of these Food Items (You can buy them in the shops once they're fully upgraded):

--Chapati (Superb Quality): Health+60%

--Mandrake (Superb Quality) Health Recovery+50% (When HP is 0)

The Full Effect gives you +100% to +90% added to your base Health in addition to Regeneration on Damage and passive regen buff with no complicated requirements.

The enemy would have to absolutely overwhelm you to beat you with this buff, so it's actually a good build to use when you're practicing honing your skills in combat until you're confident in using certain fighting styles. You can also use a similar build on your Mercenary Servants (Weapons Under Level 90) to help ensure they carry out their mission of protecting you and getting rare weapon drops!

It's also recommended that you put the Vampire Opals on weapons with the Highest Critical Hit rating (max is 50% depending on your Light/Dark Affinity), more crit hits means more health recovery!

Use either of these builds to ensure victory against the Level 90+ Legendary enemies you come across in Libra of Souls... you'll be glad you did!

[pipermca]

Writing Year in Review - 2023

I have to say, 2023 was an odd year for me.

I finally made it to TFCon again (after taking a long hiatus during the pandemic), and it was absolutely lovely to see everyone. I got to meet some new folks face-to-face, and meet up again with people I'd met in 2019. Spouse came with me this time, and he had a pretty good time (despite only being a TF fan via osmosis).

We did no other travel, though. Part of that was because we got a new cat, so we're back to needing to make kenneling arrangements before going anywhere. And as much of a joy as our cat is, that has made travel a little more inconvenient.

I had some major disruptions at work this year, completely upending the end of my summer and start of fall. As a direct result of this, the coming year is going to be extremely challenging work-wise as I get caught up on some things. Hopefully by late summer 2024, the pressure will be off and I can relax again (back into my usual level of work-related stress).

I also had my first round of Covid in 2023, which absolutely sucked. F minus, not recommended. I came very close to going to the ER during the worst of it, and the aftermath continued to kick my ass for months. The fatigue and brain fog was real, but the other health issues that it produced are still with me. Thank god for vaccines; I don't know how things might have gone if I hadn't been vaccinated.

In the coming year, I am going to try to focus on being kind to myself, both mentally and physically. Part of that is going to include the expectations I'm setting for myself for writing.

In December, I wrote 5,500 words, most of it in the story I've started posting, A Matter of Propriety. The story is still being posted (and I need to finish writing it!!) and I'm hoping to keep up my once-a-week posting schedule. If I can't make good progress on the next chapter this week, I'll probably drop into an every-other-week schedule instead, just so I can maintain my chapter buffer. (The story will likely have eight chapters total.)

For the year, in 2023 I wrote 62,502 words. Most of that was on A Matter of Propriety and Again and Again and Again (my TF Big Bang fic). However, I only posted 24,184 words to AO3, split between 4 completed works. (A Matter of Propriety will finish in 2024, so its stats will eventually count for that year.)

Most months I didn't set a specific word count goal, and that's ok. But possibly as a result, my output was all over the map. The two major peaks are in April (when I did the bulk of my Big Bang fic writing), and July (when I got a smutty fic idea and banged (hah) it out really quick).

Like always, my average words per hour is pretty consistent, although not as much as in previous years. Still, it shows that when I do sit down and write, I get consistent work done.

As I mentioned, I didn't make specific writing goals most months, but when I did, I never reached them. That tells me I am setting my goals too high, and I need to be more realistic.

As for the goals I set for myself for 2023, I did pretty awful. 😅 Again, I think I was just setting expectations too high for myself.

Finish Sun and Moon (working title) Nope. I barely worked on it at all.

Finish one Sparkr story (any of my bunnies or WIPs!) In progress? Call this 50%.

Write two comic scripts for practice Nope.

Make more progress in IDW2 reviews Nope, 0% progress made.

Finish The King and the Bounty Hunter Barely worked on this, either, so no.

Rewrite/repost stories that I took down. Call this 50% done.

When chatting about this with a friend last night, I realized that THREE of my goals were basically "finish this longfic." Considering how much brainpower longfics take, it's no wonder I failed. So as part of my "be kind to myself" vision statement 😅 I'm going to focus on do-able goals, with one "stretch" longfic goal.

Write two comic scripts for practice

Finish reposting taken-down fics

Write and post three one-shots

Start posting Sun and Moon (working title)

My rationale for these is: I really want to practice scriptwriting. I really want to finish getting those old fics back up in a better format. I LOVE the instant quick gratification of getting a short story written and posted. And the stretch goal is to start posting Sun and Moon. If I'm starting to post it, that means I am confident about finishing it. ✨

Behind the cut is the first sentence of each of the stories I posted (sans the reposted fics, since those were all backdated to their original posting dates), and the month it was posted in. I wish everyone a happy and safe 2024!

August. Sharing is Caring. "That's it… There you go." The words were whispered into Bluestreak's audial.

August. Plans in Plans. The tiny dot in the distance grew in size as it approached, until Megatron's optics were able to resolve it into the shape of a Seeker.

September. Again and Again and Again. Create log file.

November. A Nice Set of Wheels. "So who is this guy, again?" Mirage asked, slipping between a box truck and a van.

December. A Matter of Propriety. Orion picked up his comm pad for approximately the thousandth time since being shown to his table, and checked it for messages.

[firubii]

ok you know what fuck it 2 am kirby research dump time: kirby fighters 2 story mode/buddy tower stones since thats what ive been researching recently while mapping out the game's exefs (main executable) in ghidra

first off, every level for each stone is its own item. while this seems like a weird decision at first, it does make checking for the cursed stones for the debuffs a lot easer since the game only needs to check if you have any amount of the level 5 stone

each stone has a specific function for calculating that specific buff. first, the game gets the amount of each level stone you have, then multiplies each count by the corresponding stone's bonus, and finally adds the products of all of them together.

(L1_count * L1_bonus) + (L2_count * L2_bonus) + (L3_count * L3_bonus) + (L4_count * L4_bonus) + (L5_count * L5_bonus)

because you will never have more than one of each level, this works very nicely!! if you don't have a specific level, that will result in 0 due to multiplying by 0, and if you do have one, itll produce the bonus due to multiplying by 1. this also has the side effect of being able to stack multiple of one level stone, though this wont happen in normal gameplay, but it would be fun to mess around with!

there are two stones that are actually completely unused!! they're unobtainable in normal gameplay since the item table has them disabled for every single chapter, but they are fully implemented in both the native code and hal's scripting bytecode, mint!!

BlowAway the "BlowAway" stone causes opponents launched by your throws to be in hitstun for a longer period of time, and as such more susceptible to buddy tosses. the base amount of frames is 40, so the hitstun for each level is:

45 frames (+5)

53 frames (+8)

64 frames (+11)

78 frames (+14)

96 frames (+18)

98 frames is a lot of time for a video game, especially a fighting game!! specifically, its 1.6 seconds of hitstun!!! this stone was probably way too strong and was cut because of that. interestingly, the maximum this stat can go is 200 frames, which is 3 and 1/3 seconds. that is WAY too much hitstun for any game, even if its just what you deal to opponents in a situation that isnt super common unless you're one of the two grapplers in the game.

ShieldTime this stone is interesting due to the fact that everything related to guarding isn't handled in mint, but rather the native game code itself in exefs!! what the "ShieldTime" stone does is reduce how much your guard meter depletes while holding the button.

the base is a multiplier of 1.0, and has a minimum of 0.25. this stone's formula subtracts the bonus from the maximum value instead of adding to the minimum. so, for each level, this multiplier is:

0.7x

0.25x (result is 0.2, which goes under the minimum)

0.25x (result is -0.45, which would cause the guard gauge to increase rather than decrease)

0.25x (result is -1.25)

0.25x (result is -2.25)

looking at how this starts to scale negatively, this stone was probably scrapped pretty early before the values could be actually fine-tuned.

interestingly, the level 5 stone items are referred to as "PieceDevil__Ex", while the level 4 stones are called "PieceDevil__". these probably were going to have a negative health drawback like the level 5 stones. in fact, the yaml file that dictates which items can appear inbetween floors actually tells us this!! there's a "name" property that is named uniquely for only the two unused stones i just talked about, and at the end of that for both of those there is a short description of the stone's effects not present in the other stones's name properties. this actually includes the health debuff!!

it seems like the level 4 stones used to take away a quarter (25%) of your health, and the level 5 stones were actually buffed in the final game!! originally, it looks like they were going to take away 40% of your health instead of half of it (50%)!!

thats about it for now, this has been very fun to document and i will probably make more big posts like this when i can!!!

[chaussurre]

Some thoughts about healing in combat in games

Hey, I'm no game designer, so please be very critical of everything I'm about to say. Please do say if you don't agree with me, I'm very much in need of external point of views. Also, everything following is my point of view. If you find that I present it as general truths or whatever, this is because I have a hard time expressing myself correctly. Autism will do that.

I've thought about a way of representing and considering combat in games. What triggered this was my frustration about how healing and anti-healing mechanics are handled in games. Mainly, the two games that inspired this are Paladins and League of Legends (yes I know, "league cringe", but that's besides the point)

What I'm about to describe is the way I use for modeling HP-based combats when considering balance. Like all models, this will be very inaccurate when considering actual examples, but it serves as a basis as to how tackles the problems existing in games.

With all content warnings done, let's dive-in:

Hp-based combat, for a lack of better name, is what I call combat where fighters have a set quantity of hp and have to bring their opponents' to 0 before them. We can start the model as two characters, each having HPs and dps. The metric as to who will win is whichever of the two has the lowest "required time to kill the adversary". Here, in the simplified model, it is computed as "kill time = Opponent HP / Your Dps"

Dodging, attack range, and many other mechanics can be translating in these terms: dodge lower the opponents dps, range delay the moment the enemy starts to dps, etc.

In such a context, it is important to notice that the two variables we have, health and dps, have a diminishing returns effects. If you go from 1K hp to 2K, you doubled the time required to kill you. If you go from 10K to 11K, it's just a 10% increase. Meaning that an opponent with a higher dps will be less impacted by that extra HP. The same goes for DPS.

To understand it mathematically, in the computation "HP / DPS", you may say that increasing HP increase the time linearly, and yes, but it only does so while DPS is stagnant. So, if you increase both HP and DPS linearly, at some point DPS will take over. And increasing DPS linearly does not reduce the kill time linearly. It will only reduce it by a lower and lower amount.

Diminishing returns are an important factor in balancing these types of combat. They encourage diversifying your stats, and overall they prevent situations where an opponent could not be taken down in a humanely reasonable amount of time, or situations where an opponent is killed before they got to play.

This is why, for example, when you introduce other variables to the model, you design them in a way that includes diminishing returns. If you were to introduce a defense value to the model, under the form "the damage dealt to a player per second is dps - defense" then you'd get a situation where, since dps has diminishing returns, defense, instead, would get increasing returns. It can be seen when you rewrite the formula: "kill time = HP / (DPS - Defense)". The closer defense gets to DPS, the closer the kill time gets to infinity. So very few games design their defensive stats that way (and those that do do it for reasons that are specific to their games, so I won't include them in my reasoning)

The way League of Legends handle defense, for example, is by giving you an armor stats that translate to a "percentage of damage reduced" value. Kill time would look like "kill time = HP / (DPS * (1 - damage reduction))". Damage reduction itself still has increasing returns, but the way armor converts to damage reduction uses a formula so that it reintroduce diminishing returns. The exact formula is complicated and I can't be bothered to look it up, but basically 100 armor = 50% damage reduction, and as armor increase it gets closer and closer to 100% without ever reaching it. It makes it so that while tanky characters are encouraged to get some armor, you will need other defensive stats at some point.

So in the words of Voltaire, all is good in the best of possible worlds.

Let us talk now about healing. Healing is the amount of HP a fighter regains as time progress. They exist in different forms, but most of the time it's in the forms of "I get set amount of hp upon casting an ability" or "dealing damage heals me for x% of the damage dealt". In the model, we will represent them both as "per second, I heal x" as it is close enough to what actually happens in games.

Now, remember when I talked about defining defense in terms of your opponent's dps so that you never get unkillable ? Well, it is quite hard to define healing that way. Removing defense from the formula and adding healing, it now looks like "kill time = HP / (DPS - Healing)" which as you remember is exactly the formula I described as being problematic. Healing CAN causes you to go infinite. The amount of damage you need to deal to kill your opponent increases with time, which in turns increase time needed to kill, wich in turns increase the HP needed to be dealt, etc.

There are plenty of clips from PvP games where a character cannot die because they reached a tipping point in healing amounts.

And unless my model is fundamentally wrong on a point I failed to consider, game designers are very much aware of it. We keep including healing in PvP games because it is a genuinly fun mechanic. I love playing healing supports and being the one to bring my friends to glory. I love lifestealers and the dopamine I get when I'm so close to death and yet so far from it. When the only way out of a fight is to kill my way out of it (yes I am very much a warwick mid enjoyer). And I'm clearly not the only one appreciating a good healer. But because of the increasing return nature of healing, which means there is a tipping point where healing goes from useless to overpowered, many games have to include counter-balancing measures.

Battlerite made a mechanic where damage would also reduce your max HP by a percentage of it. You couldn't heal above it, and even with infinite healing there would be a point where your max hp is just 0.

I'm ... not a fan of this. First, there was something that didn't really tick for me in Battlerite, and I didn't enjoy the combats for some reasons I couldn't really put into words, so I am biased here, but the issue I have with this approach of anti heal is that it does not make it have diminishing returns. it just straight up puts a ceiling on it. Healing continue to have increasing returns BUT past a point it stops doing anything at all. And I don't like that. If I increase some stats on my character, even if I increase the wrong ones, it should always help me a little more.

League of Legend and Paladins took a different approach. There, you can buy items which reduce the healing the opponents get under certain conditions. The healing reducing is a set percentage, that does not stack.

I'm ... also not a fan of this. Similarly to previous anti heal, it doesn't remove the increasing returns. But even worse, in this case it just overall lowers it. Meaning that because of the tipping point nature of healing, whenever an opponents buys an anti heal item, your heal based character either suddenly becomes completely useless if you go too low under the tipping point, or is completely unaffected if you stay too high above it. Not only does that make the design of healing characters really hard for the game designers, because they are suddenly walking a very unstable bridge, it also makes fights that will always be frustrating to at least one player.

Here's what I propose: Your anti-heal item no longer reduce healing. Instead, whenever you see your opponent healing, you gain increased damage as a percentage of your DPS against them, stacking with no limits for as long as the fight duration (and is reset afterwards). The total bonus damage dealt this way cannot be more than the total healing you saw your opponent get (as a way to make sure you can't be punished for healing).

The main idea here is that healing still has its utility for short fights. You are still buying more time for yourself. But as time progress, the tipping point keeps getting higher and higher and at some point will get too low below it. Your time is still limited. Also, it redifine your dps and your opponent's healing in a way that links both, as armor in league does. Your 1v5 hyper-carry lifestealer may look unkillable in the fight, and you may feel the dopamine from being so low hp and yet so far from dying as you kill enemies after enemies. But your enemies still stands a chance. You may still see your HP yo-yoing between being full life and on death's door, which is deeply fun for you, but at some point if you fail to win fast enough your opponent will land an attack that will straight up one shot you, which will be satisfying for your opponent. A real unmovable object meets unstoppable force situation.

What are your thoughts ?

[wetthandss]

i should elaborate on this more tomorrow but i feel that within fantasy TTRPGs theres a tendency to think of "HP" (whether based on the text of the game or not) as a direct measure of physical injury, relating it to blood loss, number/grievousness of wounds, organ failure. i dont think thats a particularly useful way to describe or portray HP on its own because then i see GMs (including myself) fall towards tendencies to overthink the HP of an NPC of ours (typically an enemy) where we question why the enemy is functioning just as well at 2 HP as it was at 50 HP, it has all its limbs and physical function and the same stats and abilities, and when we're taking HP literally, our instinct to soothe a need to relate mechanics to narrative (a good thing to do, dont get me wrong) creates situations where an enemy just becomes more incapable as its HP slides downwards, creates scenarios where we invent moments of disability like a hand being severed or an eye being scratched and blinded when the enemy reaches 30% of its HP or whatever. but then what happens when the enemy casts heal and it is once again at full health, now you're not dealing with the same enemy as before, it can only become an easier and easier challenge as the fight goes on, creating a feeling of just whittling down an enemy rather than overcoming a challenge. this kind of HP literalism can ABSOLUTELY be super cool and engaging to the narrative of a conflict, but i dont think thats a universal case or that that even has to be achieved by relating it to HP at all. I think I need to start thinking of HP as more like "stamina", a gauge of energy that an enemy has for fighting before exhaustion, unconsciousness, or succumbing to wounds. just like in that last case you can still easily have a physical injury narrative as the battle goes on, if youre playing a game with called shots or youre adding your own called shot rules chances are that narrative aspect is alread tied to the mechanics. but its no longer universal, its a narrative choice you can make about a fight. another way it can be useful is for battles where you dont want the enemy to simply die when reaching 0 HP. when theres an expectation that as the HP of an enemy goes down it sustains more and more physical wounds and ailments, it can feel kinda strange when your enemy hits 0 but the GM's narrative wants them to be alive, but defeated/exhausted whatever, making actually finishing them off a choice (or in some cases giving them forgiving death mechanics like the player characters). it feels strange because you're sitting there with the knowledge that this was a narrative shield, it can feel a lot more obvious and unimmersive to notice that. when the expectation is that HP is by default a measure of exhaustion/energy/stamina whatever you wanna call it, its easier to not see that narrative shield so barely, whether the enemy hits 0 and either dies, is unconscious or is conscious and defeated can all be explained by the depletion of energy for the fight, while i dont think the same can be said for physical injury. anyways thats just my thoughts on how fantasy TTRPG GMs think about HP. theres not an inherent narrative problem with a literal view of HP (and all of it is very much dependent on the game youre playing, listen to how the game describes it and interacts with the mechanic first and foremost) but i think it would be a lot more convenient, easier, and more intuitive to think of it as something like stamina, exhaustion, energy, will to continue the fight and so on.

[melancholic-pigeon]

HEY ALL

Long story short, I had a health scare that I have been assured is almost certainly nothing and that even if it is something it's the kind of something that's basically nothing. I'm okay!

But I have decided that now is the time to seize the day jump the final hurdle and quit nicotine entirely. I'll put my experiences/rant about vaping below a cut in case the validation is helpful for anyone, but the nuts and bolts are that I might be distant for a few weeks more.

My mood tends to tank pretty catastrophically, and that virtually always ends up directed inward, but just in case: if I get snippy or short with anyone, I'm so sorry; it's not your fault!

I'm going to work with my doctor on this, because I've tried hundreds of times before and never succeeded, and this was my main goal for this year: I want to be off nicotine completely by my thirty-first birthday. I'm still well within that time frame.

Wish me luck! Either I'll disappear completely or I'll be posting like mad to distract myself from the cravings lmao.

also, vaping is an important harm reduction tool, including flavored liquids.

the banning of flavored liquids is much like the banning of flavored alcohol: misguided, when the real issue is that they should be stricter about checking IDs so adults aren't punished for liking things that taste nice.

The flavors are actually a big part of getting people to reduce/eliminate nicotine entirely: the weaker the juice, the more you taste it. Also important: all those stats about people still using an ecig after x years or whatever fail to mention that most of them have reduced their nicotine levels in that time!

I started smoking when I was nineteen out of self-destructive impulses and a desire to be holding something that was on fire so I could easily get away if someone tried to hurt me (in other words, rampant PTSD). I tried to quit and failed about a million times. Eventually, I switched to a vape.

I started at 15mg of nicotine. I went down to twelve, then six, then three (which is the lowest you can get). Over the past couple years, I've been switching between 3, 0 and a handmixed blend of 1.5mg. I'm very, very close! It's just that last jump to "none, ever" that I can't seem to make on my own.

But I am determined. I never went into this thinking it was going to be permanent— I always knew it was a slow, slow stepdown. I have had this goal (quit by 31) in my head for years. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I do know I need help, and I guess the biggest change is that I'm ready to ask for it.

@monstersandheartache told me a while back that there's a reason David Bowie found it harder to quit nicotine than cocaine, and that's something that's turned into a mantra for me (so thank you, my dear, dear friend 💜). In case anyone else needs the reminder:

Nicotine is addictive! You have an addiction! By definition, it's hard to quit! You are not weak for struggling with the exact things addicts struggle with. You deserve the same compassion and support as any other addict (which is a lot). This is an extremely difficult undertaking, and it's engineered to be that way. Addicts are human beings struggling with an illness, not failures of society who should be scorned.

Much love.

[willofgamesposts]

My Thoughts after Beating Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

Recently, I had played Castlevania: Circle of the Moon via the Castlevania Advanced Collection on Switch. I had not played it before (only played around 3 entries), so I figured it was time to give it a go.

And now, having played the game on Twitch (didn't complete it), I can say for certain that it was one of the more frustrating Metroidvanias that I've played.

About the game

To lead into why, let me give a small synopsis on the game, to get you all on the same page. In Circle of the Moon, you play as Nathan Graves who, along side his friend Hugh and Hugh's father, have just stormed Dracula's castle to prevent his resurrection at the hands of Camilla (Carmilla depending on the game/media). As they arrive, Dracula is resurrected and separates the vampire hunters. From there your objectives are: reunite with Hugh and the master, and defeat Dracula.

With that stage set, you begin to explore the castle doing the Metroidvania thing; explore the environment, defeat enemies, level up (if it's an RPG), and find movement upgrades to explore earlier areas further.

So far, things sounds as normal as can be for a Castlevania game of the Metroidvania variety, so where do the problems start? The answer is in the gameplay--specifically how Nathan controls, and how it affects the rest of the game.

My Grandpa Walks Faster than this Guy

It's something that can be immediately felt when you gain control of Nathan after being separated. When moving, Nathan walks at a snail's pace, roughly the same movement speed as the Castlvania heroes of old (Simon, Trevor, Richter, etc.) and this presents an immediate issue as the enemies attacks, projectiles and movement speed feel more in line with a Metroidvania.

The game attempts to help in this matter by providing running boots early on, but that presents an different issue, one where you only have two modes of movement: being so slow that you won't be able to dodge attacks in time, or too fast and run into a hazard or attacks that you can't react to in time. 0 or 100.

It's an issue because having proper control is a fundamental thing you need to figure out for a video game, if the character you're controlling has movement speed that clashes with the how the rest of the game is designed, then there's something wrong.

The best way to sum up the problem is that controlling Nathan is like playing as a classic Castlevania character in a Metroidvania designed world, with enemies and bosses that doesn't match well with what the character is capable of. This even extends to Nathan's capabilities in combat. He only gets a whip to use for the game, as well as the classic sub weapons that the series employs throughout its many entries.

This movement problem became a particular thorn in my side in the final segment of the game, where I was having to get to a boss room by jumping around enemies that could take off around 10% of my health with their projectiles moving far too quickly for me to avoid, alongside another enemy that can petrify Nathan, which turns that 10% to 50%.

This would have not been as annoying if there was a save room near the boss room like the other bosses in the game, but I suppose Hugh's boss room drew the short straw and ended up with no save room.

If it weren't for the rewind feature that the Advanced Collection includes, I would have quit the game on my live stream.

Other Issues

The movement is not the only problem that makes itself known. I also found an issue with the inventory, not so much in finding equipment and usable items, but in their distribution. Let me present a question: if you are playing an RPG and you have an excess of a type of armor that you don't use or need, should you have the ability to sell or drop it to prevent inventory clutter?

If you answered yes, then you and I are on the same wavelength. Throughout the game you pick up different kinds of armor that can affect your stats and have some kind of passive buff. The problem here is that I ended up with so much low-level armor that it cluttered my inventory (55 leather armors for a specific example). It stacks thankfully, but with no shop to sell or discard items, it just makes the loot system feel excessive. A shop really would have benefited this game in another aspect: the limited ways you can heal in the game. You heal fully at save points (as you should), and enemies *can* drop potions, but that's the problem: can. In my playthrough, I counted that I picked up around 8-9 potions from different enemies. 8-9 through the whole game.

So to count with the issues of start and stop movement and limited healing together, it feels like the game is putting rocks in your pockets and telling you to swim.

DSS the (sort of) Saving Grace

There is something of a saving grace for the gameplay that can help with combat and exploration, something that I sadly did not employ until about halfway through: the Duel Set-up System. The Dual Set-Up System (DSS) is probably the most interesting thing about Circle of the Moon mechanically, and something that saved me a lot of frustration in my playthrough. How it functions is like this: you have two rows of cards, these cards can be found throughout the game by killing enemies (though they are very rare) and they essentially acts as Nathan's version of spells.

The difference is that the card system is based upon pairing a top and bottom card to have effects that can help in combat and exploration. These effects range from: the whip being replaced with different weapon when attacking, different types of projectiles that fire from the whip when attacking, to even my favorite, a barrier of varying elements that damages enemies *and* block some projectiles.

There are some things that could be fixed regarding the DSS, I would have preferred that the cards were in a fixed location in the castle and you had to find them instead of them being enemy drops. But DSS is OK as it currently is.

Would I Recommend?

I suppose for this final part I'll say that you really should only play this game if you're interested in playing the series in its entirety. It's not the worst Castlevania out there, but it definitely feels like a first attempt at a handheld metroidvania. Though there are some cool ideas and designs, I just can't recommend it. If you are still curious to try it, please get the Advanced Collection, it has that rewind feature that basically salvaged my playthrough from being a rage fest. From that collection you also get Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, and Dracula X. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I get that this is a little sudden, but I wanted to practice this kind of blog style writing, and I find that Tumblr is the right spot for this. I'm not sure if you could call this a review or a rant, probably just a guy talking about a video game that irked him.

Hope you all have a good rest of your day.

[shadowron]

The Mage/Decker, a multi-classed archetype for Shadowrun (1st Edition)

Multi-classing

His name was Suria.

His sigil was a lightning bolt.

He was a ½-elf fighter/mage/thief for 2nd Edition AD&D.

You 3.X+/Pathfinder chummers might not know that demihumans (which isn’t at all a demeaning term, right?) could have more than one class simultaneously at 1st level.

And you same chummers are looking at that list going… Mage? Thief?

It was too much of a temptation – we all had to make a triple class character at least once. These were the campaigns that never progressed far anyway, so why not get the most you can at 1st level?

Shadowrun “Classes”

Of course, one of the boons of Shadowrun is its classless system – you got to pick your own skills and gear and, except for magic, could add as little or as much of a given role as you wanted. However, there will still well-defined lanes that characters funneled into:

Street Samurai

Mercenary

Decker

Rigger

Mage

Shaman

Adept

Face

The Mage/Decker

I realized I panned the concept back in this article on The Lonely Decker, but I’ve come back around on the idea. Remember that Samuel Vernor, a.k.a. Twist, the protagonist of the Secrets of Power trilogy (the first Shadowrun novel series), started off as a zaibatsu decker who later Awoken as a Dog Shaman. The conflict between Magic and Matrix was written as a headache Sam would get whenever he was in the Matrix, despite the high quality datajack that Renraku has just implanted at the start of the first novel.

There is nothing in the core rules that preclude, or even give a penalty to, magicians operating in the Matrix. Both the adventure Ivy & Chrome and the sourcebook Virtual Realities introduce those penalties (tied either to the magician’s Magic Rating or Sorcery Skill Rating, GM discretion), but those were optional.

Let’s make a Mage/Decker.

Attributes and Skills

We are taking Magic and Tech as the top two priorities (4 and 3, respectively), which means that these two fall concordantly. Take Attributes Priority 2 (20 points), Skills Priority 1 (20 points), Race Priority 0 (human).

For Attributes, Body, Strength, and Charisma are dump stats since they’ll need high Willpower for spellcasting and high Intelligence and Quickness for decking. Can’t put all the latter at 6, so let’s go with:

Body: 2

Quickness: 5

Strength: 1

Charisma: 1

Intelligence: 5

Willpower: 6

Essence: 5.8 (including datajack from Equipment below)

Reaction: 5

Magic: 5

That low Charisma means we won’t bother with Conjuring (spirits won’t like them). Otherwise, they’ll need Sorcery, Computer, Etiquette, and Firearms. Yes, it means they’re lacking in both Magical Theory and Computer Theory, but this character probably won’t last long enough in the campaign that they’ll have to worry about writing programs or spells.

Sorcery: 6

Computer: 6

Etiquette (Street): 4

Firearms: 4

Tradition and Spells

Throughout this build, I’ve envisioned them as a Mage rather than a Shaman, though there’s no strong impetus one way or another. If they’re a Shaman, a good totem would be Snake: they’re not going to use the extra dice for summoning spirits, though they do get +2 dice for Healing, Illusion, and Detection Spells, plus “Snake Shamans are obsessed with learning secrets and will take enormous risks to do so”, which meshes perfectly with being a decker.

The upside of Tech Priority 3 is 50 spell points. Since Magic Rating is 5, take 10 spells at Force 5 (makes the math easy), and use this handy article about the best spells to choose:

Combat: Mana Bolt, Sleep

Detection: Mind Probe, Clairvoyance

Health: Treat Deadly Wounds

Illusion: Mask, Invisibility

Manipulation: Control Thoughts, Levitate Person, Petrify

Equipment

There is one rule working against us, and that’s:

“Additionally, characters using magic receive only 150,000¥ not 400,000¥ for Tech Priority 3”

Presumably this is so that characters can’t load themselves up with spell locks and power foci, but this is really going to frag us when it comes to decks and progs.

Math time.

The Fuchi Cyber-4, wielded by the Decker and Elven Decker, is 150,000¥ alone, not counting the extra 100,000¥ for Response Increase 2 (which is the Wired Reflexes of the Matrix). One step down gives the Sony CTY-360 at 111,000¥, which has the same MPCP, Hardening, and Load speed as the FC-4, but with decreased Memory, Storage, and I/O speed. Getting a datajack (1000¥) and the Sony leaves only 38,000¥ for Response Increase and Programs. Response Increase 1 is 25,000¥, but we’re going to need every nuyen we can spare, so Response Increase is out.

For comparison, the two decker archetypes have the four persona programs (Bod, Evasion, Masking, Sensors) maxed out at 6 (total cost 69,000¥) plus three utility programs (Decker has 9200¥ worth, Elven Decker has 10,000¥ worth), for a total of around 80,000¥, and we have less than half of that to work with. Expect program ratings to be half that as well.

Working in our favor(?) is that the Rating:Price ratio is tiered, so the jump from Rating 2-->3 is much cheaper than the jump from 3-->4. Having all 4 persona programs at Rating 4 costs 46,000¥ (out of our price range) but having them all at Rating 3 only costs 6900¥. Tacking on three utility programs (Attack, Evaluate, Sleaze, all at 3) is an extra 3450¥, or a total of 10,350¥. Which means that Response Increase 1 is back in.

Grand total:

This leaves us with 2650¥ to spend on everything else, but don’t worry, we’ll still get the 3d6 x 1000¥ that all new characters get. Pick up an Armor Jacket (900¥), a Ruger Super Warhawk (300¥) to fit in with the Decker, Laser Sights (500¥), 30 rounds of explosive ammo (150¥), and a concealable holster (100¥). Top it off with a Handset Unit Portable Phone (500¥) and Low-Light Binoculars (200¥) and we’ve spent every nuyen.

[chaosgrenade]

TRICUBE TALES

I'm going to start moving (and updating) reviews from my website, and today I wanted to start with a rules-lite system that packs a surprising amount of punch: Tricube Tales by Richard Woolcock of Zadmar’s Games. There’s a lot I want to say about it, which is crazy because it’s also pretty lite and simple. Also, the damn game is free (full thing in the DTRPG preview) so you can easily check it for yourself.

I’ll keep this brief: Tricube Tales is a minimalist, lite RPG using a mechanic where you roll 1 to 3 six-sided dice, and if any of them hit the target number you succeed. It uses fluctuating difficulty (a base scale of 4, 5, and 6) and Players make all the rolls. This makes it a great system for solo gaming and asynchronous play-by-chat games over Discord.

Character creation is very straight forward, appearing almost too simple but there is weight for it. Here’s what a playable character looks like at a glance:

Sam Strongblade, a Brawny Dwarf Soldier Perks: Dwarf Stamina Quirks: Wooden Peg-Leg Karma: 3 / Resolve: 3

That’s it. You can glance at that, have an idea of what the character does, and maybe dismiss the fact that there’s no stats (Karma and Resolve are point pools, which I’ll explain in a bit.)

That first statement is your archetype, which includes a trait (Agile, Brawny or Crafty) and a concept. Your archetype will help determine if you’re rolling two or three dice (or 1 if it has nothing in common with the action being performed). Your Perks establish special qualities, powers, abilities or unique equipment. Often you can spend a Karma point to use a perk significantly in an action (such as lowering the difficulty). Quirks, likewise, can hinder the character. A player can actively choose to work their Quirk into the narrative, taking a penalty but in doing so restores 1 Karma.

So, if you haven’t guessed yet, Karma is the luck/fortune/power pool that lets the players do cool things. Resolve is the stress/health/endurance pool for every character. When a character hits 0 resolve, they’re taken out of the conflict, and the victor (either PC or GM) gets to narrate what happens. When this happens to player characters, they return next scene, their Resolve restored but now with an Affliction — usually a temporary quirk, but sometimes these can become more serious. Character death isn’t off the table as long as GM and Players agree to the arbitration.

Running things on the GM side is pretty easy-peasy. Most challenges are static pass-or-fail; more elaborate obstacles or tasks are assigned a pool of Effort tokens (where each successful die roll against it removes a token). Combat encounters can track multiple foes separately or you can just say “a horde of goblins” and track a single pool of effort tokens.

There’s a lot more going on — the game covers some quick ground on genre rules, like handling cybernetics, fear, magic & psionics, varying power levels, superheroes and vehicles. For the most part, all of these are just common-sense guides for arbitrating things based on context. This may be the deal breaker for some — this is a game system where players and the GM should be comfortable going back and forth making their own judgment calls on how things go down. It’s pretty much “Roll the dice, and if you succeed — narrate what happens.” It was a system originally designed with kids in mind, but obviously it has appeal to older gamers as well.

I love the damn thing. I’ve played solo games with it, and even made a pocketfold game based on it.

Definitely check it out, and if you dig it — toss the guy a couples bucks. Buying the game gets you a PDF scaled for tablet/PC use as well as a Word doc so you can hack it and make your own stuff with it.

[dust-punk-development]

General Details on: Chicken

Chickens are one of the most basic resources on the farm. You start with 10 hens and one rooster. All chickens have hidden stats, that can be assed by picking one up and observing them individually. They are:

- Health: generally indicate how hurt/sick they are, probably on a value of 20 to 0. Chicken with less than 10 will not lay eggs, and those health point transpose to how much you could yield from them if you were to butcher them at the moment. Each 2 points represent one (small) portion of meat. They get back their health by having no thirst and Hunger.

- Thirst: a chicken loose 7 health a day if they don't drink, and get a thirst counter. If they hit 4 thirst counter, they die.

- hunger: a chicken will loose 4 health a day if they cannot eat. If they go 7 days without eating (getting a hunger stack each day), they die.

- Happiness: very hidden stat. Taking care of your chicken every day, including petting them, will make them like you and might make interesting things happen.

Chicken AI is quite simple. They will walk around. If there is water accessible to them (no walls, no chicken fence), they will walk to it and drink one portion of water. If they have access to food, they will walk to it and eat it. When the sun goes down, they walk back to their home, if they can access it. If their roost is unavailable, they will go to sleep where they are. If they are outside, there is a 75% chance that they will be eaten.

Chicken can produce: meat, bones, feathers, eggs, and special gifts if you have high enough happiness with your chicken. Each of those things can be sold, and each can have many uses.

Chicken can feed themself if they have access to tall grasses/bushes. But they might also eat berries/sprout that humans can also eat.

If an egg is left with a hen for 21 days (time to adapt, maybe), you get chicks. Chicks will become chicken after a month, with 50/50 hens and rooster. Chicken lay every 2-3 days

If their is more than 1 rooster for 10 hens, they will start fighting and loose health every day.

----

EXTRA MECHANICS IF I HAVE TIME:

-Genetics (bigger chicken, more eggs, friendlier, etc)

-Different breeds

-Fear mechanics

-Possibly a mechanic with feed quality.

[screensavorstudios]

1 Week of game dev!

It's now been 1 week since I started creating my Horror RPG project in Godot. No add-ons, no packages, just research, a lot of community help, and my own programming. There are a lot of bugs and incomplete features, but I've gone from nothing to the ability to create a chosen amount of enemies on a screen, give them their own stats, create a series of menus and buttons to attack them, and removed them and their menu options from the game once their health hits 0. And I did it all from scratch! I'd never have been able to do this without the help from the godot community. They've helped me understand a lot of very complicated stuff to the point that I could being applying and experimenting with it in new ways! The code isn't elegant, but it's functional, and I'm updating it as necessary. I thought a turn based RPG would be a simple first project since it didn't include any physics or hit detection, but it's been a much more complex task then I expected. Also, fuck Zenva. Apart from their "basics" courses they really don't teach you how to do shit in any meaningful way. Don't waist your money on them even in a bundle. :P Prototype sketch

End of Day 1, created a hud and placeholder enemy

End of Day 3, can spawn multiple enemies and they have health and can die

End of Day 7: Most of the original code has been reworked to be more reusable. Can now select enemies and their sub targets, and switches to enemy turns after the player has selected theirs.

It's still a long road ahead, but every day I'm making some progress. It's a rewarding feeling, and I'm looking forward to having something more exciting to show you all!

[freyayuki]

Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia Seymour Guado Banners

The Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 event just started in the Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia (DFFOO) mobile game. This event came with 2 banners.

Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 Banner 1

The Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banner 1 features the following chars and their weapons:

Seymour Guado from Final Fantasy X - 15cp, 35cp, Ex, LD, Burst or BT, and Force or FR

King from Final Fantasy Type-0 - 15cp, 35cp, Ex, and LD

Guy from Final Fantasy II - 15cp, 35cp, Ex, and LD

Have everything on this banner except for Seymour’s FR, Seymour’s BT, and King’s LD.

Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 Banner 2

The Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banner 2 features the following chars and their weapons:

Seymour Guado from Final Fantasy X - Force or FR only

Prishe from Final Fantasy XI - 15cp, 35cp, Ex, LD, and BT

Oerba Yun Fang from Final Fantasy XIII - 15cp, 35cp, Ex, and LD

Trey from Final Fantasy Type-0 - 15cp, 35cp, Ex, and LD

Have everything on this banner except for Seymour’s FR, Prishe’s BT, and Fang’s LD.

Thoughts about Seymour Guado from Final Fantasy X

I think Seymour Guado from Final Fantasy X (#ad) is - well, I guess I can’t say I hate him but I can’t say I like him all that much either.

Maybe it’s better to say that I just feel neutral towards him, or that I don’t really care about him.

Right now, my Seymour has his 15cp, 35cp, Ex, and LD fully MLB. His Ex has been Purpled or upgraded to Ex+ 3/3. He only has up to his second armor maxed.

Seymour has his Bloom Stone. All of his Summon Boards have been completed. Unlocked parts of his Character Enhancement Boards, particularly the tiles that would give me his LD Call and LD extension passive.

IIRC, I only Purpled Seymour’s Ex because I wanted to give his Sphere to another char. I think it was Noctis Lucis Caelum from Final Fantasy XV.

Seymour’s Ex gives an E Sphere that raises the ATK stat by up to 15%. This is one of, if not the, best E Spheres in DFFOO.

Then I remember pulling for Seymour’s LD because I heard it was a really good Call ability.

Seymour’s LD Call afflicts all enemies with multiple debuffs, including one that will increase the BRV and HP damage that they take. Said Call can also delay all enemies by 2 turns and remove all of their buffs.

This Call is so good that it’s still one of my go-to Calls even up to now. But although I still use Seymour’s Calls regularly, the same definitely can’t be said about him.

I don’t bring him to fights. I’ve never felt like I needed to have him in my party. I do remember trying to use him on a Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier and a Dimensions’ End: Entropy Tier. But that was only because I had him built so I thought I might as well try to use him.

Seymour is a debuffer. He deals decent enough damage too, I suppose. Seymour has this gimmick where he’ll deal greater damage the lower the HP of the enemies are.

If the enemies are still at full health, then Seymour’s damage won’t be as good. IIRC, he even does follow-ups and such but this will only happen if the HP of the enemies are at a low enough amount.

Even now that Seymour has his own Force and Burst weapons, he still retains the same gimmick of becoming stronger the lower the HP of the enemies are.

Seymour isn’t really meta, and I’m really not interested in him. Even if I get his Force and/or Burst weapons, I have no plans to spend any more resources to further build him.

I am kinda interested in his FR though. Not because it’s all that good but simply because Seymour’s FR partner is Kadaj from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Not interested enough to gem either of the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banners though.

Honestly, I shouldn’t bother tossing tickets on these banners either but - well, I did say I was kinda interested in Seymour’s FR. FF7 FTW! LOL.

Plus there’s the fact that I’m still missing Fang’s LD and King’s LD. Don’t have any plans of using either of these 2 for endgame content since they’ve basically been powercrept by now. They don’t even have their own BTs and FRs yet.

But it’d still be nice to get their LDs anyway as well as Prishe’s BT. Maybe I could use them on a Transcendence Tier or something.

Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 Banner 1 Free First Multi-Draw Results

As part of the Winter Festival campaign, we get a free multi-draw on both of the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banners.

Banner 1′s free pull gave me a dupe of Seymour’s 15cp. Bleh. Bad pull is bad.

Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 Banner 2 Free First Multi-Draw Results

My free multi-draw on the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banner 2 gave me a dupe of Trey’s 15cp. Meh.

Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 Banners 1 and 2 Tickets Pulls Results

Currently have 319 tickets on hand.

Went to the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banner 2 first. Decided to pull here because we’re going to get 2 more banners that will feature Seymour’s BT.

One of those banners will also include the Force weapon of Yuna from Final Fantasy X.

I want Yuna’s FR, and I’m even thinking about actually using gems to get it so, even though the chances of getting a Burst via tickets is very low, still didn’t want to risk getting Seymour’s BT here only to get a dupe on Yuna’s FR banner.

If I was gonna get a Burst via tickets, it might as well be Prishe’s since I might get Seymour’s while chasing Yuna’s FR.

Unfortunately, the results of my pulls on the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banner 2 were really bad. Just kept on getting regular blue orbs.

And most of these orbs don’t even have a single gold. Whenever I get gold items, they always turn out to be nothing more than a 15cp and/or 35cp dupe.

This really sucks but can’t even bring myself to be too mad about this because I guess having bad luck like this was bound to happen sometime.

I mean, lately it feels like I’ve been pretty lucky on this game. For instance, was able to get the Force weapon of Cid Raines from Final Fantasy XIII via a free multi-draw. I talk more about this in another post.

There was even that time wherein I was able to get the Burst weapon of Celes Chere from Final Fantasy VI from a 10-draw. I talk more about this in another post.

And those 2 are just some examples. So can’t really complain about getting crap now, I guess. Besides, at least I got crap on a banner I’m not that interested in.

And sure, it’d be nice to be able to get the weapons featured on these banners that I still don’t have but it’s not like I really need them. They’ll all eventually come back on a different banner anyway so I can just try again when that happens.

Anyway, since I kept getting nothing but trash on the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banner 2, decided to try my luck on banner 1. Still kept on getting crap though so just started interchanging between both banners.

Here’s a list of some of the golds that I was able to get on these banners:

3/10 - dupes of Guy’s 15cp, Guy’s 35cp, and King’s 15cp

1/10, came from a gold orb - dupe of Prishe’s Ex

1/10 - dupe of King’s 35cp

3/10, came from a gold orb - dupes of Fang’s 35cp, Prishe’s 15cp, and Prishe’s LD

Meh. Wish that dupe Prishe LD had been Fang’s LD instead. At least the dupe Prishe Ex is kinda useful. That’s because Prishe’s Ex gives an A Sphere that raises its user’s ATK and MAX BRV by 10%.

1/10 - dupe of Prishe’s 35cp

3/10, came from a gold orb - dupes of Trey’s Ex, Prishe’s 15cp, and Prishe’s 35cp

Ugh. The results of my pulls on these banners are so bad. The dupe of Trey’s Ex is useless. Would have preferred another Prishe Ex dupe.

That’s because Trey’s Ex gives an A Sphere that only raises its user’s ATK and MAX BRV stats by 5%. That’s way too low.

2/10 - dupes of Fang’s 15cp and Fang’s 35cp

3/10 - dupes of Trey’s 35cp and Trey’s Ex and my very first copy of Fang’s LD

Was so annoyed by all the bronze and silver trash and dupes that I keep on getting that whenever I get a regular blue orb, I’ve taken to just quickly tapping the screen to get to the draw results already. Because more often than not, a regular blue orb just means more trash.

When I got yet another blue orb, didn’t even think twice about tapping through the screens. So imagine my surprise when I get to the draw results screen, and I notice Fang’s LD.

Wow! Talk about a pleasant surprise. Super pleased to have finally gotten something new from these pulls. Was down to 119 tickets when Fang’s LD came home.

I should really stop pulling now. Just walk away from these banners and save the few tickets that I have left. After all, it didn’t seem like I was ever gonna get Seymour’s FR and BT, Prishe’s BT, and/or King’s LD unless I use my gems.

Definitely don’t want to use gems on either of these banners. And it’s not like I’m even all that attached to the weapons I’m missing on these banners. But couldn’t seem to help myself.

Decided to just keep on pulling until I run out of tickets. This is a bad idea. I regret this already. Sigh.

2/10 - dupes of Trey’s 15cp and Fang’s 15cp

1/10, came from a gold orb - dupe of Prishe’s Ex

4/10 - dupes of Fang’s 35cp, Fang’s 15cp, Trey’s 35cp, and Trey’s 35cp

3/10 - dupes of Fang's 15cp, Fang’s 35cp, and Fang’s 15cp

2/10, came from a gold orb - dupes of Prishe’s Ex and Fang’s 35cp

Argh! Why are the results of my pulls here so bad? And why do I keep getting dupes of Prishe’s Ex? I don’t need any more. Have more than enough already. Can I get something new already, please?

1/10 - dupe of Trey’s 15cp

After getting that dupe of Trey’s 15cp, was now down to 8 tickets. Since this isn’t even enough to do a 10-draw, was finally able to tear myself away from the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banners.

Now I’m basically all out of tickets and need to get back to saving all over again. At least I was able to avoid using gems here. It does suck that I wasn’t able to get the weapons that I’m still missing from these banners but oh well.

Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 Banner 1 Daily Free Single Draw

Each day, players can pull on any one of the currently available banners in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia once. This pull doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t guarantee anything either.

You only get 1 item from this draw and it can be anything from bronze and silver trash to one of the golds featured on the banner you’re pulling on. Basically, this is just like doing a ticket pull, only it doesn’t cost anything.

Anyway, so I decided to do my daily free single draw on one of the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banners. Was thinking of pulling on banner 2 but I ended up tapping on the free draw on banner 1 instead.

Ah, well. It didn’t really matter to me either way since I didn’t think I’d get anything good anyway. I mean, I have been able to get some golds from these free draws before but they’ve been few and far between.

More often than not, I just get either bronze or silver trash. Was expecting to get crap again like usual but was completely and utterly surprised when the free draw actually gave me a force orb.

OMFG! Also hell, yes! Yay for finally getting my very first copy of Seymour’s FR.

Seymour Guado from Final Fantasy X

Equipped Seymour with his Force weapon but for now, I’ve opted not to bother leveling it up or limit breaking it.

Still don’t feel like fully building Seymour even if I luck into his Burst weapon while pulling for Yuna’s FR. But at least I already have his FR in case I need it. Will just MLB it if I really have to or something. For now, it can stay as is.

I did decide to buy Seymour’s High Armor since there’s a time-limited mission that wants players to bring him to the Shinryu (level 300) quest of the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 event.

Also equipped Seymour with 3 RF Spheres - Oerba Yun Fang’s RF A Sphere, Seymour Guado’s RF E Sphere, and Yuffie Kisaragi’s (from Final Fantasy VII) RF E Sphere.

Conclusion

So, what about you? Did you pull on either of the Dimensions’ End: Transcendence Tier 12 banners? What do you think about Seymour Guado, Oerba Yun Fang, and all the other chars featured on these banners? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below or by reblogging or replying to this post.

Notes:

screenshots are from my Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia game account