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oltammefru · 1 year ago

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IS4 is coming out soon so I'll post some things about IS4 I've heard from CN players. Some of these are probably outdated and no longer true. Also fair warning that these things are very D15 IS4 skewed because the people who told me these are D15 players.:

Endings are actually consistent (although I've been told double ending is decently hard?).

The primary enemy gimmick of the theme is absurd mobility, so good slows and immobilizing effects are very good.

There's no more +res at higher difficulties and casters are a lot better than they are in IS3. They're still generally one of the weaker classes though, since they are now living in Reed's (flame) shadow instead. Mostima is still goated.

It actually plays like a roguelike in that there's so much more room to pick operators based on what collectibles you get rather than the optimal picks still mostly being the same regardless of relics (in earlier ISes.)

Boss 2 is an anomalously easy boss one and is generally considered to be easier than Boss 1. One person in particular told me that D15 Ending 2 Boss 2 is easier than IS2 normal mode phantom (just comparing boss to boss, the side enemies in the IS4 D15 ending 2 stage are definitely harder.) I'm not sure if I quite agree with that statement but it seems quite reasonable (you can stall this boss with 1 defender 1 medic at D15.)

One of the endings requires picking up a collectible which affects (by which i mean increases) the enemy spawns for every subsequent map. I think is a really neat way of doing an ending collectible but also like holy fuck that's an impressive amount of work done for like just one ending.

With how foldartals work it's much easier to avoid specific hard stages since you can actively change the layout of the map to some degree, although the hardest stages in is4 are somewhat harder than in is3. (this was said before expansion 2 I'm not sure if that's still true.)

Cuora has a fair argument as a top 10 operator at d15 and actual defensive defenders are really strong in the gamemode in general. (I think this one might be outdated.) Horn is not terrible but definitely a lot worse. Jessicalter has a reputation as an incredibly versatile unit that synergies with a ton of otherwise generally not that great collectibles.

Pre-expansion 2 D15 IS4 is generally considered to be a lot easier than D15 IS3. CN players complained hard enough about all of this that they added alternate (which is to say, harder) versions of all the bosses The ending 1 boss also seems to be widely disliked among D15 players (mostly for being boring. I very much see where they're coming from this boss does not seem very good and I'm already expecting to not like it.)

There's a lot more variety in the starts you can play. Someone played Carnelian start in one of the CN IS4 tournaments. I've been told about someone playing Hoederer start and having it be reasonably ok.

Taking advantage of the new investment system is sort of annoying since normal gameplay generally involves taking out way more than you put in and you so should play IS4 with MAA to fill your investment if you care about that.

Between how anti-interference index works and how much much stronger shops are, it's way easier to get to a critical mass of really good collectibles. There's a video on bilibili of someone getting 103 collectibles.

Healers are far far more important in IS4 than IS3 (in which they were barely even necessary). As far as a specific focus on healing goes, Eyjalter is considered the best healing option despite IS4 being very elemental damage light. (which I think says a lot about her, that she's far far better than IS4 than IS3, this is because she isn't actually an elemental healer and her ability to elemental heal is a relatively small part of her kit, despite what her "subclass" might say.)

The IS4 analogue of the rejections system provides team wide debuffs instead of individual ones.

Surtr finally manages to be a good unit. Qiubai is one of the best guards. Popukar is the best 3 star guard. Beagle is generally the best 3 star defender. Dorothy is very good.

The ending badges on each of the squads have multiple variants, the highest one requires at least D10. Post expansion this goes up to D12.

Deep investigation still doesn't have difficulty select. Maybe can we get it by IS6 or IS7.

Reed2 is generally the best starter before expansion, Degenbrecher after. Lava/Spot/Kroos is a pretty good start team that I think does everything f1 leakless except 1 or 2 emergencies.

Early rushes are more prominent, especially in contrast to IS3 where opening never really requires vanguards (with the exception of like 2 stages total.)

Hope is way way way way more plentiful than any of the previous ISes.

#arknights #is4 #integrated strategies #cn spoilers #also ama if you want any questions about is4 you wanted answered but also i might not be able to answer

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sunskate · 4 months ago

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2024 Cup of China November 22-23, 2024 Chongqing, China

G/F's FD is a misfire. skating right after Marjo and Zak whose FD is emotional highlighted how theirs is cold by comparison. for G/F to do well with this program, they'd have to be surgical in their precision, which they weren't today. i thought maybe their intention was to be exciting and edgy, but the new costumes are pretty conventional - hers is a regular skating dress. it emphasizes how their sensibility isn't daring. Lopareva/Brissaud do the edgy lane much better. so G/F eked out a FD win over LaLa by less than a point - LaLa had higher TES, but G/F won with skating skills

LaLa - i was already tearing up in the dance spin when she bends her head to his haha it's so interesting how the same move can be emotional again no matter how many times they've done it. in that way, they're the musicians among the dancers. the same song you love can make you feel things the 10th or the 100th time you've listened to it. they're going to need more fresh material for Olympic season, but for now, this is still working because they're leveling up in performance. they're so good at the big strokes - they understand how to build the program. but having the emotional depth and performance and skating ability to pull that off is what sets them apart

CPom - not their best skate, they still did very well, but that final bit of fire and attack and flow wasn't quite there today. they collided with Olivia and Tim during the 5 minute warmup, and even though it was Olivia who got knocked down, i kind of wonder if these nice people were shaken up more. Olivia and Tim also had a great skate, and the judges went for them more - CPom had higher BV and PCS, but S/D went ahead of them in the FD on their higher GOE

but CPom making the podium at both of their Grand Prix is a huge achievement. and doing both GPs in Asia with such a short turnaround is resilience and training. they're having an amazing season so far. so now a little break and some sleep before a push towards Nationals 🔥❤️

Olivia and Tim looking so good - really happy for them 😭 after some really rocky times and a lot of comments about it not working out (is TSL ever right about anyone's potential 😅) - Tim rising to meet Olivia and them having such good material is exciting

T/V - this tango program is very beautiful. they set such a high bar of difficulty and complexity with it, but i'm not sure it's entirely paying off - they have to be so perfect for the GOE to rain. like the mistake that dropped their score was so tiny compared to what they'd achieved to that point that it feels unfair. but there are a few moments in this where hitting the choreo exactly on the music would be huge, and they're a little bit off. so i hope we get to see it like that at Euros

Green/Parsons: this is a lovely program, but it feels too much on one level. if the energy is going to stay similar throughout, then emotionally it needs to be deeper, the flow more seamless, the skating more powerful or sharper to move up

Demougeot/Le Mercier: i'm not sure what happened at French Masters where it looked like they were getting dropped for Dupayage/Nabais- D/LeM are a far stronger team right now, and this was a good skate for them. glad to see them looking so assured. i didn't know this was a Benoit program, but it makes sense lol

Davis/Smolkin: this program is so strange how it has difficult and interesting elements, and then they'll do a bunch of stroking for half a lap to go into what looks like their most standard lift? i like the way the StaLi hits right at the drum beat from Kashmir at the start. Mark said she's playing Medusa - IAM doing another snake program lol though if you can't tell what it is from watching, is it working? in this field of stellar teams, i'm glad the scoring seemed restrained for them. though their PCS look really high, and at GP France this FD score would have had them in 3rd above R/A

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coraniaid · 4 days ago

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Opinion: mass effect 3 is the best game in the trilogy (aside from the last 10 minutes)

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I can see the argument, sure. I know a lot of people prefer the combat of Mass Effect 3 to either of the first two games: it's faster paced and less of a grind at higher difficulties and requires much less use of tactical pause. I'll admit too that ME3 is a lot more ambitious in scope than ME2 ever was, that it mostly avoids using quite so many recycled assets as ME1, and that it has to juggle far more moving pieces to try to deal with the plot threads the first two games set up.

The high point of Mass Effect 3 -- everything on Tuchanka leading up to curing the genophage -- is arguably one of if not the peak of the whole series ("Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."). I remember really liking both the Leviathan and Omega DLCs (and not just because in the latter Bioware finally remembered that turians weren't supposed to be an entirely male species), and of course I loved the Citadel DLC as well.

And ... okay, full disclosure: technically Mass Effect 3 is the only game in the trilogy I have not actually played all of (I've completed the bast game a couple of times, but I never played multiplayer and I never bought From Ashes for the original trilogy so I've never actually met Javik). I actually caved and bought the Legendary Edition remaster at some point last year when it was on sale (so technically I do now own all the relevant DLC), but I've not found time to replay it yet. Oh, and I last played the first two games with all sorts of quality of life mods installed, whereas I don't think I've ever played the third game with any mods at all. So I'm not really comparing like with like.

But.

Okay, I think this might be something of a minority opinion nowadays, but I actually really like Mass Effect 2's combat. I know it's just chasing the then-popular trends, but I honestly like the cover shooter elements a lot. And I love tactical pause (it's probably the one thing I missed most in Andromeda). So, while I can acknowledge that the combat in ME3 is technically better, I always find myself slightly disappointed when I get to the third game and have to start actually running and rolling around while shooting things. I miss cowering behind a solid wall while I shouted orders at my subordinates and they did all the hard work.

And while Mass Effect 3's plot is more ambitious than ME2, that ambition often isn't realized in ways I find especially pleasing. More than either of the first two games, I think this is where it starts to become obvious how little your choices in the first two games ever really mattered. The first time you run into Balak or the Rachni queen from Mass Effect 1 again it does feel very satisfying. But then you replay the trilogy and make different choices and ... oh, right, the story plays out pretty much the same either way, just with somebody you don't know taking their place. (Obviously it wouldn't have been feasible to code completely different games for every possible set of choices made earlier in the trilogy, but all the same it really starts to feel like you're on rails now in a way that wasn't so obvious before this game.)

I think the story problems start well before the last ten minutes of the game, too. Really, from the very point the plot starts focusing around building some sort of magical lost Prothean super-weapon. And there are lot of lore changes of various prominence that I don't approve of: I really don't like what ME3 does with/to the quarians and the geth, for example. In ME2 Legion is so passionate about being a truly collective entity and not wanting to be anything else -- it's why they chose the name we know them by! -- so the big pay-off to their story arc being that they get to use the word "I" because they're now magically a Real Autonomous Person is really irritating.

And I don't like the fact that for a third game in a row Cerberus are almost completely re-imagined (there's no way the Cerberus of the first two games had access to this many resources), or that there's no way for even a completely renegade Shepard to suggest that, well, actually, maybe the Illusive Man makes a good case. (Even just sticking it in as a token Bad Ending near the end of the game would be something.) Or that the game sidelines so many of the crew from Mass Effect 2. (Isn't Jack the most powerful human biotic in the galaxy by this point? Why isn't she on the front lines? And why is there space on the Normandy for Diana Allers but not Miranda Lawson? Why does Emily Wong get killed off between games?)

But yeah, if the last ten minutes of the game were better I'd be a lot more forgiving of the game's other flaws, definitely.

#mass effect #asks #thanks for the ask!#I really should try to play through the Legendary Edition this year

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nia-academia · 1 year ago

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How to Choose a Stream?

With boards ending, a lot of you guys are wondering what stream you should choose, and a few people have hmu in my dms asking for advice, so i figured I'd make a post about how I suggest choosing a stream. Fair warning, I am a PCMB student so my advice will be a little science-stream focused because, obviously, I don't know what problems other streams might face, so additions are welcome from other people who have more to add <3

First off, this is one of the most important decisions of your life. This decision determines what the next two years of your life will look like, and it plays a strong role in determining your career for the rest of your life. So don't make this choice lightly.

Make an informed decision. I cannot stress upon this enough- do. your. own. research. Don't trust people who say there is no job opportunity in abc stream or that xyz stream will make your 'life set', all of it is bullshit. Half the time the people giving you these advices finished their schooling 20-30 years ago, respectfully- they have no idea what they're talking about. So sure, listen to everyone's inputs but check everything for yourself.

Websites are your best friend. And no, not "Top 7 High Salary Careers' type websites, I mean college websites. The best way to choose your stream is to explore various careers. For this, start with exploring the type of courses and degrees available, then head to the college's websites and check out the curriculum, the eligibility and the entrance exam requirements. Of course you don't have to choose a degree from now itself, in fact even if you have chosen something 9 times out of 10 you will change your mind by the time 12th ends, but knowing what options there are other than NEET, JEE, CUET and stuff will help you understand if you're more inclined towards science, commerce or humanities.

Subjects change after 10th, for example- what you think physics is and what 11th-12th physics is are two completely different things, so if you are more inclined towards a particular stream, go through the books. Either borrow from your seniors or go through the free NCERT pdfs (ncerts are the easiest versions of science subjects, at least, so your actual material will be 1-2 levels higher in difficulty, keep that in mind). Going through the material is not that efficient because everything seems easy at first glance but it still gives a general idea about the type of stuff you will learn so whatever piques your interest most should be a good choice to consider. I would suggest going through the books of all the streams if you have time, that way you can check which is the best fit for you. (Also go through multiple chapters, not just the first few ones)

Work on attraction rather than elimination. Dismissing a stream just because you don't like one subject in it is not a good way to go about it. Choose the stream which has a majority of subjects you do like, rather than choosing one which has the least number of subjects you don't like. Overall the purpose of a stream in 11th-12th is to get you into your desired course in college, so your biggest indication of stream will be the degrees you like, not the subjects you don't like.

Remember to prioritize yourself and your choices, trust yourself. People might have all sorts of opinions about what stream you should take and what career you should pursue. Of course some people have your best interests in mind, but ultimately it is you who has to go through with it. Being pushed into making certain choices is really harmful because there is absolutely no motivation to keep going once it gets hard (and it will). So it is best to choose your own poison so that when times get hard you know that this is something you actually really want and that way you will genuinely feel like working for it, rather than being forced to work hard for something you aren't even sure you want to do.

Don't stress too much. I know I said this is a super important decision, and it is, but it is not life ending. You can only do so much and there is no guarantee whether what you choose today will work out for you two years down the line. And that's okay. Remember that there is always an option to change plans, no matter how far along you are. So don't bind yourself to the choice you make today, you always have more options. Try your best to choose what feels right for you, and if situations change later in life, so can your plans.

If you don't know what exactly you want to do with your life, stop blaming yourself for it. I promise 90% of us had no idea what we were doing when we were your age either, even if we thought we knew what we wanted, we didn't. It's okay to not know what you want to do for the rest of your life when you're 15 or 16. Trust your gut and try your best to be informed about the stream you're choosing. As you go along, you will find your calling when the time is right. It's never too late, you'll be fine

lots of love to everyone starting on this really tedious path, the next two years will teach you a lot about yourselves and I hope you all make the best of it, all the best <3

#desiblr #student life #self improvement #self help #studyblr #studyspo #chaotic academic aesthetic #study motivation #studying #desi tag #desi tumblr #light academia #dark academia #desi stuff

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hugintheraven · 6 months ago

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I see people saying a lot "Oh, X game is too hard even on Easy" and then when they get pushback responding "I just suck at video games". And I don't think that's a good attitude to have(and the people pushing back are usually severely unhelpful). Yes, there's some games that are poorly balanced, and some people with physical or cognitive issues that make gaming much harder. But that's not what's going on in the majority of cases.

The thing is, playing video games is a skill. Gaming in general, each genre, and any individual game, all are skills. And like any skill, they can be trained. So, the key question if someone thinks they're bad at a game is, "how do we get better at this skill?" And I can't answer that for every game, but here's a basic start:

Are you fluent with all abilities? Even the one that doesn't seem to do anything? Often there's something(a boosting ability, something defensive, or something that gives information) that players can ignore early on but is vital for later portions of the game.

Pay attention to the whole experience. Games are very busy these days, and will use things like audio cues, enemy animations, or popups in the corner of the screen to tell you things. Make sure you're noticing all of that.

Manage resources well. This includes things like using healthpacks in RPGs instead of hording them and also learning when not to use them because you're near an auto heal. But also resources like your time and attention, physical space on the map, cooldowns on abilities, etc. Learn what to spend liberally and what to keep in reserve for an emergency.

Learn what is effective where. Pokemon has a type chart, FPS games have weapons with effective ranges, citybuilders yell at you for putting the coal plant in a tourism district. Learn the rules, and the resources from the previous step will be much more effective.

So how do you learn this for the game you're having trouble with? After all, if you could figure this out easily, you wouldn't be having trouble. The thing is, most of this stuff is too basic for online guides to spell out. And watching someone else's playthrough on YT/Twitch will show you what they're doing, but not why. The ideal is to have a friend who's good at the game watch you play and then yell about it, but that's not always feasible.

My trick? Restart the game, play through again on a higher difficulty. "But I'm getting my ass kicked on easy, why would normal be any better?" Thing is, you're probably getting your ass kicked BECAUSE you're on easy. You were able to make it to the midgame without developing basic skills because there was no challenge, and now the game is demanding you use skills you don't even know exist. But you have at least learned some of the game, so restart, and play through with more knowledge. Focus on beating the early portions of the game BETTER than you did your first time through, and you might be surprised how much easier the later portions are when you get there.

And don't forget that gaming is supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, it's fine to stop. But also, developers put a lot of time into the game thinking that it would be fun*. If you're not having fun, it's also fine to ask what the designers were expecting you to do instead to make it fun.

*Gacha games need not apply

#Video Games #Gaming

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northwest-cryptid · 9 months ago

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This shouldn't be nearly as much of a controversial opinion as it is; but I miss when games were literally and firstly designed to be fun experiences. That fun can absolutely lean into the demographic of the intended player; but the entertainment and fun used to be very clearly emphasized for the common player.

And see this is where I lose people. They get too caught up on the first part of that and ignore the last 2 words. I've heard people tell me "you're just salty because you're bad" but at the risk of sounding arrogant, no I'm actually salty because I'm better than the average player and if I'm getting frustrated and struggling to ENJOY the game then there might be a problem here.

Sure you can wave this off saying "you're arrogant if you think you're literally better than the average player" but honestly I see this issue a lot of in the communities of actually difficult games, where the difficulty is part of the fun. People treat it like a dick measuring contest and refuse to hear anything bad about it; as well as anyone saying they're actually good at it.

Thing is, I actually do enjoy difficulty in games. When I played ULTRAKILL I made a point to start the game on Violent. Even when I was told to go get all the weapons first; I found that I enjoyed a challenge that was designed with what I had available to me in mind. Sure I didn't P rank everything on my first go of it; but soon after I not only felt motivated, but enthusiastic to go back and P rank those stages with my new fun weapons.

Dark Souls 3 is literally one of my favorite games, it's clear that for all it's faults; there was a good bit of care put into the difficulty to match with where the player was expected to be at the time. Even with it's branching paths I never felt underleveled for a boss encounter. Bosses didn't have over the top wild combos that they could switch up on the fly; or ridiculous AoE spam that comes out exclusively in the last 10% of the fight. They were just balanced, challenging, entertaining fights.

I think the major problem people fall into with "Difficulty Is Fun" type games is that devs fail to understand who they're making the game for and when they're making the game for them.

Again going back to ULTRAKILL here, because it's a GREAT example of how a difficulty is fun game can be done right.

See the game starts very slow with a firm understanding of your basic weapons leaving you to figure out how to parry fairly early on and use it alongside your guns without thinking of it as something that's difficult to pull off. It's not this high risk high reward thing, it's just another tool in your kit.

But the dev/devs clearly understands this game is made for the Difficulty Is Fun crowd; so they don't just give us a difficulty option for the game; they additionally make sure the difficulty ramps slowly.

Throughout the first half of the game you're more than allowed to get used to how things work before being expected to use them well; and when you clearly have more experience and confidence with the game it begins throwing harder stuff your way.

But you know what's cool? The ultra-hard content that's made for the dick measuring contest elitists? That's locked behind getting Perfect rank on all the stages in an act; doing so unlocks the super hard boss mode stages and if you beat all of those you unlock the like ultra-hard masochist gauntlet stage.

Did I mention you can do this on any difficulty? Or that different difficulties actually change up how the game plays? With easier difficulties allowing you to counter your way through the whole fight but at Violent and higher you can't parry throughout the second phase? This means if I enjoy getting into the thick of it and scrapping by on 1 HP and a dream, I totally can; but my friend who wants a stress free fun time with the game can actually experience all the same content on an easier mode and guess what; we're both happy?

Like I'm sorry I'm not saying every game needs to have an easy mode; that's an argument in a totally different ball park. This isn't about "easy mode" because that's not what I want from games. I don't want my Difficulty Is Fun game to have an easy mode; I just want it to be fair and enjoyable.

People shit on Dark Souls 2 for a lot of stuff, but you know the one thing that has always bothered me?

There's this really pretentious achievement you get the first time you die, it's literally titled "This is Dark Souls" and you know why that bothers me?

Every SINGLE time I see someone unlock that the reaction is roughly "oh no, I'm not going to enjoy this game am I..." Which all the "hardcore Souls fans" laugh at and say "yea get ready to die for 40 hours lololol"

I'm sorry but like, that's the dumbest shit I've ever seen; go wank off to difficulty somewhere else. Did you hear what they fucking said? They're not going to ENJOY the game they paid for? What's the point of doing the thing that's supposed to be entertaining if they're not entertained?!

Are these games meant to be "rage games"? No that would seem almost insulting to call them that.

Why do I like Dark Souls 3? Because the game doesn't feel like it's looking down on you, the whole game is designed to cheer you on, to coach you. Every time you get knocked down the game is telling you "get back in there champ you got it this time." If you're not sure what I mean I should likely explain it like this,

I once watched a playthrough in which one person had never played Dark Souls and the other was a veteran player. The vet was a sort of coach to point out things about the game the newbie was likely missing.

The first boss encounter was pretty scrappy but whenever he's die the vet would ask him "did you see what happened there?" Essentially talking him through like "you dodged right but he's right handed so you dodged into the swing, try sicking by our left, his right; and dodge under his weapon instead." Or he'd explain things like attack opportunity and such. The idea of their turn and your turn, the enemy attacks; and then during their recovery you get to do an action as a reward for actually dodging the attack. This lets you heal, attack, or set up something for the fight. It's a classic back and forth that leads to players being able to play in different ways and not just build for Poise, Vigor, and Strength so they can play the most boring character known to man.

It's cool to watch because having someone there to point things out is a great way to show how a veteran vs a newbie is going to view the game. If you've played a lot of Souls before, or you've played the game longer you're likely going to pick up on the ways the game is trying to hint at you to do something.

I recently did a Dark Souls 1 stream in which I literally beat the first boss with the broken straight sword and doing so was a way for me to sorta showcase how. No the game isn't about DIFFICULTY; it's about understanding. I know that's a big meme in the souls community but I'm serious you know, if you learn the attack patterns (which they don't constantly switch up), you figure out what animations are tied to which AoEs and which attacks; and you focus your efforts on dodging those attacks and learning their timing. Now you know where your chance to hit the enemy is, you know how long you have, you can learn and gauge how you need to weave in and out of range.

There's this constant "git gud" saying that I really hate, because on one hand that explains nothing; on the other hand it's absolutely true. However when you tell a new player or even an existing player to "git gud" they're not going to know what that means, they're not going to actually take that to mean:

If you feel squishy, throw some levels into Vigor.

If you're rolling to slow, take off some gear; you won't need the defense when you learn the attack timing well enough to dodge it better; the extended i-frames will help you dodge more.

Take a moment to study the bosses movements so you know where your chance to attack comes in and roughly how long you'll have when it does come up.

Remember how scaling works, dumping 30 points into STR isn't going to do as much as upgrading your weapon to scale better. You can dump those points into Vigor and then throw a few points at whichever damage stat your weapon scales with and still deal considerable damage.

Use your estus early, if you heal for 50 HP with each estus, and you have 10 estus. With a total health of 100, you have effectively 600 health. If an enemy hits you for say, 30 damage; that looks scary, that can 2 shot you right now; but if you actually use your estus liberally you'll realize the boss needs to hit you closer to 20 times. As long as you're healing you have plenty of mistakes you can make.

When I say that games aren't made with fun or entertainment in mind anymore; and they're made to circle jerk the other top players and elitists of a community. I'm not just talking about how hard a game is to beat. I'm talking about nerfs made exclusively for PvP that effect the vast majority of PvE players who will never touch PvP. I'm talking about nerfs made to weapons that could help struggling players with specific bosses because they happened to pay attention to how damage resistance/weaknesses worked.

I'm even talking about how Elden Ring is a so called "Open World" game that refuses to tell the player the recommended level for an area. Meaning it's very much still a linear experience, just with more steps. You're not playing an Open World game, you're playing a Linear game with extra steps and longer walks between quest NPCs.

Okay so you start in Limgrave, cool; most the world isn't accessible to you until you beat some bosses; other parts are totally accessible to you, let's explore some of those first right?

Now if we assume you're a common everyday player, maybe new to Souls games because you've been hearing all the Elden Ring hype and want to try it out. You're probably not good enough to immediately go and fight the first real boss of the game. You're also likely not going south, because the game doesn't point you in that direction.

In fact, one of the early game paths leads straight into a level 60 area. How would you know this? Surely the game has some form of a warning right? Like you know, maybe an NPC along the most common path that will tell you that you're not ready yet. Maybe a message left at a grace warning of powerful enemies ahead; this isn't uncommon for Souls Games having little messages around to clue the player into things.

But no, it doesn't; it just lets you go in and attack something and see you're dealing no damage and then when you inevitably get 1 shot you go "guess I'm not supposed to be here" right?

Well no.

Remember, This Is Dark Souls, you're gonna die fucker; you better get back in there and keep trying until you get it, because THIS IS DARK SOULS.

That's when they inevitably get fed up and if they're smart, they go somewhere else. So let's say you try to skip over the first remembrance boss of the game; you finally got passed Margit. You do not want to have to fight another big boss right now. You just want to explore the open world, maybe get a few levels; see the sights.

Well I hope you're already level... 40-50?

See this?

This is the wiki's recommended level per area, do you notice anything about it? A sort of linearity? Now you might not at first, you might say "but Cryptid there's multiple areas with the SAME recommended levels!" Sure there are, and accessing those areas may require you to beat a boss in another area, or travel through an area to get to that one. In other words; it's still a linear path, and while more than one of these is accessible to you. If you're not already a vet who might have over-leveled or who may be skilled enough to fight enemies significantly higher level than you; then it's possible to go from say Liurnia of the Lakes to Siofra Aquaduct and get your ass handed to you.

That's all well and good but the issue here is that it creates a sort of metronome of frustration.

When you know where the game wants you to go, and you're on par with it's damage output and such; you feel fairly confident even when the game does some genuinely bullshit AoE spam. However when you ping-pong between higher level (but technically "accessible") areas getting killed repeatedly and always having that core philosophy of "this is Dark Souls stupid, get used to it" in the back of your head where you can't tell if this is the intended path or not because sure it's hard but, and say it with me now; This Is Dark Souls.

You might be thinking "but Cryptid, even the cult classic Fallout New Vegas does this!" Which is wrong, they do in fact use high level enemies to dissuade the player from attempting specific paths and essentially railroad them into the intended route. However, there is one key difference; the fallout community doesn't pride itself on the difficulty of their games. The fallout community doesn't use the saying "git gud" in place of real advice. The fallout community is very open about cheese, breaking the game; and how this is a fun and acceptable thing to do. Not that if you cheese a fight or make something easier for yourself you're somehow "playing the game wrong."

So more often than not, if the player encounters a field of 50 Deathclaws they think "yea I'm not meant to be here yet" and move on. With many NPCs telling the player safer routes, the player actually not only has options if they want to leave, but actually knows where to go to progress as intended. They're still allowed to try to break that progression and do things their own way but you can't say they weren't literally warned by the in game system designed to make sure they understood the difficulty of what they were undertaking.

Dark Souls 1 and 3 feel like flawed, but enjoyable games; If I found myself frustrated with them; it was often because I was frustrated with myself for making the same mistake multiple times when both I and the game had been telling me not to do that again.

Elden Ring felt like a hot mess until I started paying more attention to things like recommended levels. Then it felt like a bit less of a still hot mess because I'm sorry but that's what it is.

Now I'm on the DLC and I hate that every time I get into a boss fight I begin to enjoy myself; I think you know, it's fun it's cool this feels fair but challenging. Then in the last like 10 - 25% of the HP bar they have to pull out some extremely spamming AoE that locks you into multi-hit and can 1 shot your entire health bar; or heal them for their entire health bar; or both!

Which you know, if I was a squishy glass cannon build or something then I wouldn't really complain. But I'm not, I'm literally playing the boring Vigor Poise Endurance heavy armor fucking bleed build ass piece of shit mimic tear summoning HP talisman + defense talisman build. I'm still getting consistently through most of the boss fight and then suffering because there's some cheap shit they pull out last minute to ruin the fun.

It's still impossible to know if you're on par with the area you're in, I don't want to look up a guide; sometimes everything leading up to a boss feels really solid; I dish out as much as I take; I'm feeling good about it. I go into the boss room, nope 1 shot. What, is the point?

Okay so now do I throw myself into the brick wall 40 more times or do I go grind? Or do I explore somewhere else? I don't know man I think I'll do the first because I got pretty close that time. Oh wait no I didn't not this time because I didn't really get to learn any of the moves. My camera is a mess, sometimes they can hit through walls, sometimes their hitbox extends outside their actual model; and sometimes they have a multi-hit AoE that launches so if you even get hit by 1 part of it then you're hit by the whole thing. Hope you somehow knew what this boss was and already preemptively built resistances to it or else you're not going to have fun dying to the last 5% of the HP bar repeatedly because oh yea it can still do other attacks while doing the bit multi-hit AoE bullshit. Fuck off.

I hate the feeling of "this is a fun boss fight I'm actually enjoying this; that's pretty solid I feel like I'm enjoying this game again." Being met with "oh no can't have that; let's throw some absolutely bullshit mechanic at the last 5 seconds to make sure you're here for 3 hours longer than you should be."

Look if I were particularly bad at these games I'd honestly shrug it off, but I'm not. I'm sorry if you think I'm fucking arrogant; I can't sit here and justify my confidence to you; if you think I'm arrogant there's no telling you otherwise. The truth is I used to speedrun DS3, I've done full no-hit runs of DS1 for fun; I actively enjoy getting P ranks on the fucking Prime levels of ULTRAKILL on Violent and fucking Brutal difficulty.

Not only am I actually good at "difficult is fun" games; but I genuinely enjoy them for it. I've not had a single boss fight in the DLC where I've won and still been excited about it. It's always a "fucking finally done with that bullshit" never a "WOO YEA BABY" is that what you want your players to experience?

There's absolutely a sort of bell curve in my opinion when it comes to the enjoyment of Difficulty Is Fun type games; they're the sort of thing you likely will be frustrated with a lot up front; but then as you spend more time with the fight you're going to learn it's mechanics and it's attack timing. So you begin to enjoy the flow of the game, you get into the sort of groove for when you can attack and when you need to dodge; or when you need to do a specific thing; or swap to a specific weapon. It all starts to come together in this kind of fun exciting back and forth between the game and you. However that runs out after maybe 15 - 30 minutes; now you've hit the point where you're confidence is so high that you don't feel like "you CAN do this" you feel like "you should have ALREADY done this 5 attempts ago." Your understanding of the attacks isn't "oh wow I should dodge INTO this one and AWAY from that one!" Now it's just "ugh right it's this one, god I'm fucking stupid I should be able to dodge that by now- oh right, cool yea fuck it go on do the fucking unavoidable chin move right right okay I don't get a turn to attack..." You don't celebrate a victory, you sigh in relief of it being done and over with.

I don't know about you, but I'm really sick of how especially in the souls community, if you dare to say something is bad and you've not beat it on your first try and mentioned how easy it is. You're ignored, told you're just salty; told to git gud, told to go play a different game if you don't like it. Now look where we are, FromSoft acts like the worst of the community, they refuse to let their game be accessible to the common average player. You pay $40 to get mad, frustrated, and give up repeatedly until you finally overcome the problem and don't even feel happy about it. Congratulations, I hope you "enjoy" your suffering because it's just not a good fucking time.

I remember how many people refunded Elden Ring back when it first game out, and I remember every fucking elitist dick measuring contest participant out here laughing about it. Why? Do you not think those people deserve to enjoy the same fucking game we do?

#Aye well I'm just venting then ain't I? Yo fuckin' know it lads

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zaptap · 10 months ago

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so i was right, gold rotation this weekend while i'm out of town. i'll try to play on it some, but it'll be awkward since it'd be in tabletop mode

also it's on bonerattle. so me getting 999 on hydroplant last week just in case it was the gold rotation stage was sort of unnecessary (except for the fact i don't have to do that now. and that hydroplant climb was very smooth btw, so it worked out very nicely)

either way this will be the first gold rotation i don't get a badge out of (because i got all 4 bonerattle ones in its very first rotation)

feb 2023 (marooner's bay): got plain + bronze + silver stage badges

may 2023 (spawning grounds): got plain stage badge (this is the only one i wasn't able to put a lot of time into)

august 2023 (jammin' salmon junction): got bronze + silver + gold stage badges, and hlm badge

november 2023 (sockeye station): got silver + gold stage badges

february 2024 (salmonid smokeyard): got gold stage badge (and to think i started that season without the bronze badge, when checkpoints were just being introduced)

...i could end up getting the gold maws badge then though i guess. if i don't end up getting it when i try for 999 on marooner's bay tomorrow (currently at 9732)

i feel like gold rotations aren't as good a way to hit 999 as i thought before though. sure the weapons are fun, they're better, but it likely attracts more casual players who then rank up higher than they're used to dealing with because the weapons make it easier, which makes it harder to outrun them in matchmaking. instead of struggling in early/mid evp you end up struggling around 900

idk maybe it evens out to being the same difficulty in the end. but missing the gold rotation probably isn't as big a deal as what i was thinking (also taking into account the fact that they'll probably be rerun indefinitely like in splat2)

that hydroplant 999 climb i mentioned going smoothly? it was right after eggstra work, so the casual players had had their fill of salmon run i guess--just about everyone i matched with had gold salmon run badges. only lost like 11 times, mostly wave 3, only twice wave 2, and never wave 1. matchmaking times whenever people didn't continue were almost always 3-4 minutes, but i didn't mind since it gave me plenty of time to stretch my wrists in between. dream 999 experience tbh

anyway. i plan on going to bed early and getting up in like... 11 hours? for the marooner's bay rotation tomorrow. i really hope it works out. that's the last one left

#splatoon 3 #salmon run #splatoon

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notajinn · 3 months ago

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Top Games Played in 2024 - 1. Sonic X Shadow Generations (PS5)

Surprising absolutely no one who knows me, Sonic X Shadow Generations is my top game of the year.

The reasons are actually more complicated than "it's a Sonic game" though. In fact I'm not even accounting for the original Sonic Generations being one of my favourite games because I only played the Shadow story so far in this remake.

The Shadow section is genuinely that good.

What I Like

As someone who loved Sonic Frontiers, I love the way they adapted the "open zone" concept to a smaller scale. The area of the whole game is honestly smaller than any one island in Frontiers, but in exchange it's very dense. The white-space aesthetic of Sonic Generations makes the floating architecture more fitting than in Frontiers. There's enough to explore that I haven't found everything despite the small space, and most of it involves fun platforming. Some stuff is gated based on powers you've obtained so far.

Speaking of, the new abilities you get as Shadow are great from making the gameplay feel unique and not just "a Sonic game but with Shadow's character model". Most of them also involve momentum so that you still have the feel of a Sonic game. For example you can launch enemies into the air then away and Chaos Control teleport to where you launched them. So with good aim you can dispatch an enemy and shoot forward in the stage simultaneously. There's also a swinging mechanic which I always enjoy in games.

The stages themselves are much higher quality than the traditional stages in Frontiers. It helps that they're more unique even though they're based on stages from previous games. They are also much closer to Sonic Adventure 2 stages in length and design. There's alternate paths you can take and a little bit to explore if you want. They have enough "I clapped when I saw it" references to their original stages while having enough unique things to not feel like you're just treading old ground.

There are similar small mission stages required to unlock progression just like Generations, but they're all at worst "fine". And some of them are really fun. Importantly none of them are too long so even the "fine" ones are done with quickly.

Most of the bosses are also really fun to fight against, and they're all great on the spectacle side. They don't measure up to Frontier's bosses since you don't have anywhere near as many combat options, but they're still some of the best bosses in 3D Sonic.

The music shouldn't need to be mentioned; it is as incredible as you'd expect from a Sonic game.

The story isn't something I want to spoil, but I think the characterization of Shadow and the others is spot on. There's some comedic elements mixed in like Omega, but the stars are the more grounded Adventure-esque parts. It's a great foundation for Shadow moving forward.

What I Don't Like

On the PS5, the game starts in "quality mode" and runs at 30 FPS. It feels a LOT better once you switch it to "performance mode" so it goes 60 FPS and it still looks great. This default setting did make the first stage feel off for me since I didn't know about the settings yet, so that's a bummer.

One of the powers is just allowing you to travel on water. Unfortunately this power is also the focus of one of the boss fights that I was really looking forward to, so that ended up unremarkable for me.

The swinging power I mentioned has a mechanic where if you release the button when perpendicular to the sphere you're swinging on, you get a bit vertical jump straight up. However the game never tells you this. I didn't discover it until I was doing some of the later missions, required it to progress, and looked it up online. Sure would have been helpful to know before I had already finished all the stages!

Shadow's section also has the common 3D Sonic game problem of the final stage being a sharp difficulty spike over the rest of the game. Fortunately it's not as harsh as Cannon's Core in Adventure 2 or Eggmanland in Unleashed.

One extremely unusual thing is that this game has no set stage from Shadow the Hedgehog (2005). Black Doom is a major part of this game, so it's not like this game is afraid to reference 2005, so why not have a stage from the solo game Shadow has starred in? There are two stages that incorporate elements of 2005, but they are clearly much more Adventure 2 inspired. Instead there's a stage for Frontiers, a game Shadow wasn't in. Mind you I liked having the Frontiers aesthetic in the normal gameplay style, but 2005 would have been a better choice if those were the two options.

Final Thoughts

Between this and Sonic Frontiers, it's clear that 3D Sonic is in a great position. And with it being one of my favourite series, I'm excited to see what the next installment brings building off these two.

#top games of 2024 #sonic x shadow generations

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a-bit-too-much-of-a-pokemon-fan · 2 years ago

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My Thoughts on Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

Uh oh, someone else's take on these controversial ass games. I'm sure everything that can be said about them, has. But as is my custom, I need to vent. For a bit of background, I have never played Diamond or Pearl. I got Platinum for Christmas in 2008 and have only ever played that for my Sinnoh experience, up until this month when I borrowed Brilliant Diamond from the library and hardcore Nuzlocked it.

First, let's talk about the ways BDSP is better than DPPt, because it would be flat out dishonest to pretend that they offer nothing to Sinnoh and are completely horrible.

HMs are gone. Thank god. HMs have always been bad, but with 8 of them in Sinnoh, it's especially bad in DPPt. It actually fundamentally changes how you can build a team when you don't always need to have a Surfer and Flier with you.

EXP All. I love to see it. Majorly cuts down on grinding. I really wish I could turn it off just for purposes of not accidentally overleveling, but that's kinda okay because of...

Access to your boxes anywhere. Honestly probably the best contribution that SwSh made to the series. I love this feature. Aside from when you're in gyms, overleveling isn't always a problem. It's easier to switch up your team to try out new mons and experiment, too. If you liked the difficulty of having to make it through a dungeon or route with the team you went in with, that's the best part: it's optional. Options are never a bad thing.

The music and sound effects are in higher fidelity. There's a charm to the Nintendo DS sound font, but the remastered soundtrack sounds great (I generally prefer Zame's remasters though). Don't get me started on the unpatched Day 1 soundtrack, though.

The Grand Underground is neat. It doesn't do much good for me in a Nuzlocke, but I can appreciate its value for vanilla runs. There's more to do on the singleplayer side, and Scarlet and Violet have me totally roaming-encounter-pilled. For all purposes besides making encounters straightforward in Nuzlockes, fuck random encounters.

You can register four key items instead of just one. Switching between fishing and cycling was never easier. They took the Gen VI approach of directional registration, which works off of muscle memory instead of Gen V's list. I like it.

Boss fights are now harder. They have better held items (including super effectiveness nullification berries), better abilities, and trickier coverage moves. They're harder to plan around and I like that minor bump in difficulty.

The town map moving from being a key item to a button on the pause menu, and being able to fly from the town map screen. Both things just make navigating Sinnoh a bit easier (which you know it needed). Also a welcome addition from SwSh.

That's it. From here on out, it's just complaining. Those complaints fit into two camps. 1) Quality of life updates aside, BDSP is a poor remake of DP, and 2) BDSP is a remake of DP, not Platinum. The direction of the game seemed to be "make it as faithful as possible to Diamond and Pearl, but also make it worse in random and baffling ways." I can go off about the Platinum problem later, so let's go over the ways BDSP is just a bad remake.

The friendship rework. Gen VI introduced Pokémon Amie, and anyone who bothered to put enough time into it would find their Pokémon randomly doing better in battle. Having high affection created a chance that your mon will either dodge an attack, tank a fatal hit with 1 HP, or land a critical hit. This has been folded into the friendship mechanic, so now any Pokémon who hits the newly-raised friendship cap will now have these buffs. I'm of two minds with this one. I think it's neat that the Pokémon you spend the most time with can do better in battle. It rewards sticking to a team of your favorites, which is what NPCs usually encourage you to do. Thing is, I think this should be optional. Anything that makes the game easier or harder via RNG should be in the player's control, and this isn't. Where this becomes a real nuisance is that once a Pokémon reaches the point of using these buffs, using them is battle is a slight but cumulative time loss. Every time you send them out, the game takes the time to shake them back and forth and put up a dialogue box with pointless flavor text. Every turn you do an attack, there's another useless and repetitive dialogue box. Every time the buff PROCs, a little heart animation plays. Bro. Just shut up and let me play the game. It's actually very annoying, especially during grinding sessions when I. Just. Want. To. Kill. My. Opponent. Jesus Christ.

As a side effect of the friendship rework, the friendship checker Pokétch app is now tuned to the higher cap. That means it's just about useless when checking on your friendship evolution mons. Your Golbat, Budew, and Buneary will all evolve before they show two big hearts. Now they'll have two big hearts when they have access to the RNG buffs, but you'll know that anyway because every battle just got several seconds longer.

The art direction. I won't spend too much time on this because it's been torn to shreds already, but I do need to mention it. Come on. The chibi style worked in DPPt because the DS required it. At every opportunity, they showed characters at true scale. They were intended to be life-size and just appeared small when they had to. I'm sorry, I just can't take Cyrus seriously when he's talking about his plan for recreating the world because he just looks like an angry little Funko Pop. And that little waddle that everyone has... ugh. Gross.

This is truly a tiny nitpick, but it looks like chibi Lucas's textures were applied to the T-posed model without consideration as to how they looked when he is standing normally. Look closely, his vest looks like it has tiny sleeves that come over his shoulder. It probably wouldn't bother me if I felt better about the game as a whole, but now every little problem sticks out like a sore thumb.

The bicycle has some weird problems. In high gear, it can't move just one tile at a time. It has a long windup time on low gear. It can't maintain speed when making a 180 turn on one tile. It's just weird and functions worse than it used to. The cycling outfit is also not as stylish as the defaults, but that's not major.

Registered key items are activated with Start, not Y. Uh-uh, no. Not having it. DP took advantage of the new buttons on the DS and functionally replaced Start with X and Select with Y. This was the format all the way up through SwSh, and they just randomly decided to fuck it up. They didn't even map something different to Y! It's just a useless button now! Sure, it just means I have to move my thumb a bit further, but it's frustrating that they threw away over a decade of precedent for a less convenient system. (P:LA and SV get a pass for changing things because they alter the whole control scheme)

Pokémon have their Gen VIII movesets. Some of the changes are non consequential, like how Zubat now has Absorb because Leech Life got buffed. Some are sucker punches, like Jupiter's Skuntank having Belch at Spear Pillar. Others fuck up how Pokémon function. Mime Jr needs to know Mimic to evolve, meaning it is now a useless baby until Lv 32 instead of 18. Infernape used to learn Flare Blitz at Lv 57, giving it a powerful STAB move in the very late game. Now it's at 68, making Flame Wheel its most powerful Fire move by level up until the post game.

That's all that comes to mind right now. I'm sure I'll pile more nonsense onto this. I just want to be done with this game but there's so much grinding before the Elite Four. Psh.

#pokemon #pokemon bdsp #brilliant diamond and shining pearl #my thoughts #this is why I have this blog

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pythi-the-drawing-writer · 2 years ago

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Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance From the Perspective of a Series Newcomer

So to explain, I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game before until now, I picked up 3D cause it was kinda my only option since with the power of 3DS Hacking and hShop it's completely free. I played it to the completion of the main story on Standard Mode and then put it down, haven't 100% the game or done any secret bosses or anything extra aside from hunting for most of the treasure chests. So with all that out of the way time to talk about the game. First

Gameplay

To start I think it's very solid and I like how customizable everything is. The basic controls feel alright. Flowmotion is really fun to just run around the overworld with and has some good utility in combat although it can be a bit annoying if you happen to accidentally trigger it when you didn't mean to, especially during a boss fight.

I honestly really like the Command Deck, I enjoy the customizability and being able to order how it scrolls for sorta quick combos, (Zero Gravity into Circle Raid or Quick Blitz into Aerial Slam for example). Admittedly it does have it's small issues, mainly not having a quick cycle or hotkey as far as I'm aware meaning it can sometimes be a bit panicky when you're on low health and need to scroll to Cure or a potion really fast. Still an enjoyable system none the less

Next the big part of this game's combat, Spirits. To start I really like most of the designs, they're all pretty adorable in their own ways for the most part and they're surprisingly important too, being able to grant you powerful spells and keyblade attacks earlier than you'd normally get them and the abilities come in really important. Plus their own unique abilities in combat are really helpful from Wheeflower's healing coming in clutch, big bodies like Zolephant blocking shots for you, or Jestabocky just flat out removing enemies from the field for a short time. They all became surprisingly more important and useful then I expected and tbh I honestly kinda grew attached to the ones I used the most.

Dive Sections. These are pretty alright, I at first kinda thought they were just gonna get annoying but in my options they quickly solidified themselves as just natural parts of the progression and they're a nice little gameplay mix up when traveling to new worlds with some fun visuals that in some cases add more to the worlds aesthetic and charm.

Also I guess I could talk a bit about the Flick Rush minigame? Eh, a nice little distraction but it really feels like you need to bring the exact right spirits to win any of the higher level cups, Which can mean a lot of grinding for materials. That's all.

Worlds

These are gonna have to be brief for each on what I think about their aesthetics, difficulty, and level design. The story comes later.

Traverse Town: a strong start, pretty good layout that allows for a lot of Flowmotion usage for fun ways to traverse(see what I did there) the area. I like the peaceful nighttime look and feel to the place and every room is very distinct so you're not going to get lost. For your introduction it's a good difficulty balance and the revisit is fine too although the boss rush is a bit annoying.

La Cité des Cloches(The Hunchback of Notre Dame): the place looks really good. Bright colors but still feels very downtrodden and somber, especially thanks to the music. Difficulty is overall solid although Riku's version of the boss fight can be tough for with it's ridiculously massive hitboxes.

Pranksters Paradise(Pinocchio): I'm not quite sure about this one. For what(in Sora's version) is supposed to be a massive carnival the place feels completely abandoned and devoid of any real sense of life. I like the circus aesthetic so it's a shame to see it fall flat. The inside of Monstro(Riku's version) meanwhile works pretty well, the walls and textures all slightly pulsate if you pay close attention and all the gunk make the whole Inside another creature thing work well. Difficulty is perfectly fine, nothing to comment on.

The Grid(Tron Legacy): I don't like the aesthetic here. The music is good but it sucks that everything looks exactly the same so if you're not using a map it is really easy to get lost. Difficulty is fine if the Guard dudes do present a slight jump with their bomb spam and long combos that feel inescapable. The Rinzler boss fight is really fun and I feel it deserves some recognition.

Country of the Musketeers(Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers): by far my favorite world. Every room is very distinct from the castle to the canyon and dungeon. It all works together quite nicely and it has my favorite music too. The difficulty here is a very smooth transition from the Traverse Revisit to here and all the boss fights are great.

Symphony of Sorcery(Fantasia 1940): this world is probably the one I dislike the most. This is the world where they start putting in enemies that can really easily stunlock you or run up to you in a split second so you have no time to breathe and barely any time to cast any version of cure let alone use a potion. Also everything here is just.. too bright, whether it's flashes of lighting acting like a flash bomb or pure white clouds making my eyes sore. And the constant classical music gets really annoying fast. Also you basically Require Collision Magnet for the boss fight if you want it over before your drop timer runs out.

The World That Never Was(Kingdom Hearts): this world presents a pretty sharp difficulty spike and you basically need to be level 30 or higher going in if you want to stand a chance. The mixed aesthetic of an ethereal city and some futuristic lab/liminal space or something works pretty well together, music is nice too. Also this world throws like 3 bosses back to back at you. You better have a good boss fighting deck and spirits.

The Story

I can understand why my friends warned me that this was a weird starting point for a total newbie, the story apparently reveals a lot of stuff that was set up in previous games, mainly what the Organization's actual purpose was, how the events of KH1 all started, and how Xehanort travels through time. Admittedly I think I followed along really well, I'm not gonna do a big story recap but I really like how the world's factor into Rikus character arc. Sora's version of The Grid made me actually emotional and I found Riku's little "all for one and one for all" moment touching. I understand better that ok the Organization was basically going to take all the people in them and turn them in Xehanorts by replacing their hearts with pieces of his own and it's part of a bigger plot to bring 13 Darknesses and 7 Lights together to reforge the Ki Blade because that's how it's fragments were split up way back when. I'll wholeheartedly agree the story is... A lot. I liken it to wires. You can follow one along but occasionally it's going to cross with other wires or tie into knots. But really just tackle em one cross and one knot at a time and you'll understand. It helps that the game itself contains a glossary of key words or things to help you better understand that you unlock at a steady pace as more things get revealed, as well as the essay long summaries of previous games (admittedly I didn't read those). But yeah. The story really does have it's moments, the worlds add up to have their own particular impact on the story even if the final world is where all the more important stuff happens, I love cute moments like Lea swooping in to save Sora from Xehanort announcing his name to the entire room and then 10 seconds later Riku calls him Axel anyways. But yeah like... When I went in here I didn't expect to have like the best writing, I expected to just laugh at it and have a good time so I was pleasantly surprised by what I got.

Conclusion

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this game. The combat was fun, the story held up better than I expected it to and everything works out very nicely. Soooo congratulations Dream Drop Distance, you've gotten me into the series, can't wait to try out more games in the franchise. Soooo that's all.

#kingdom hearts dream drop distance #kingdom hearts #dream drop distance

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friendcorp · 2 years ago

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Session 4: Day 1 Deja Vu

So I realize it's been some time between Session 3 and Session 4 and that's for very good reason. See I want to constantly be making noticeable forward progress in these posts, I don't want to muck around explaining that I'm stuck with a particular challenge rather than just showing you a few of the failed attempts and then being able to progress past it and show the eventual success.

That being said, we pick up on Day 21 having just opened Central Command. Grabbing Spider Bud and Bloodbath as I trust these abnormalities won't pose too much of an issue for even our new recruits in Central, which; in a rather uneventful turn of events is true. Day 21 goes by slowly, but we manage to hit the required 420 power quota before even reaching our noon ordeal.

On Day 22 we take a couple more easy abnos with Ppodae and Old Belief and Promise, and again; you may notice that I'm playing it really safe with my abnormalities here, outside of Big Bird (who is honestly really manageable when you understand how it works) nothing here is even that dangerous if it breaches. This seemed like a good idea, we're on our first loop, we're dealing with mostly Teth and HE level abnos, so we shouldn't be working with too much low level gear, and there's nothing here that is too dangerous that I'm really worried about our employees! This seems like the perfect plan, but "seems" is the key word here, and as I know you've already read the Session/Episode title I'm sure you know what's coming down the line shortly. On Day 22 I mostly focus on training up the new hires while almost exclusively working with the HE and WAW level abnos, this was because I knew very few of our employees would actually survive a Noon ordeal, perhaps they could handle Red Noon if I micromanaged the fight, but if we get hit by a Green Noon or even a Violet Noon I have some concerns about Big Bird breaching. So the new dilemma becomes generating more energy in less actions while simultaneously not neglecting the lower level abnos we're picking up for their gear while ALSO not neglecting the new hires who need to train their stats. It's all a juggling act to the say the least, but it's one I've handled many times before and I'm no stranger to this song and dance. We pass Dawn with a little over half our daily quota and I'm feeling pretty good about how things are going, and sure enough I'm able to pass Day 22 before we even hit Noon. However, we're getting a little too close for comfort.

There is a moment at the end of Day 22 where I do some critical thinking, I take a moment to reflect on my facility and it's employees,

Bella here is only level 3, and is only having to handle Teth level abnos, but should the noon ordeals start rolling in everyone in Central will need to be able to pull their own weight.

Remi and Yuri are both only level 2, and this is when I realize that... Yuri doesn't even have an EGO suit. In fact most of Central doesn't have EGO at all. I have to rotate out who gets the "good" EGO for the day (good meaning HE level at this point) just so I can work them with higher level abnos in hopes of getting them ready for noon ordeals, but the day we'll need to face those ordeals is fast approaching and with 10 members of Central and only a few days to ensure they're ready I'm put in a tough situation.

Starting off Day 23 we pick up Rudolta (which, trust me I'm as happy about this as you...) and Little Red, at this point I have to be willing to escalate the risk if I'm going to keep pushing through this. I need to be willing to work lower level employees with higher level abnormalities, and well; that goes about as well as you'd think. There's panic, there's death, and there's plenty of days being reset. I literally go through so much difficulty with this that I legitimately opened a google doc spreadsheet so I can record work results, EGO defenses, and abnormality damage and I put all my experience with data entry work to good use calculating exactly who has the stats to work with what abnormalities while wearing the lowest possible grade EGO gear. Because you see, if someone already had higher stats it means I could essentially transfer their EGO onto someone with lower stats to help balance out the overall defense levels of the entire facility. Sure I'd be weakening my best agents to do it but in doing so I would create a facility where I know anyone can work with anything. It was ultimately a lot of work for very little progress, but it did help me to push some of the lower level employees into high risk high reward scenarios where they were able to actually survive and drastically boost their stats. However, then my fear became reality;

So for all of you reading right now please note that the reason this took so long to come out is that for whatever reason despite having a draft saved all the way through DAY 26 tumblr just decided to delete everything I had written, everything I had included; and put me back here. Talk about meta narrative, I feel like I'm really in a damn time loop... but I suppose I should get back to it...

Where were we, ah right; The Noon Ordeal of Day 23... while this might not seem like such a setback just trust me there's a lot to cover here.

This was the point I realized that our agents weren't nearly strong enough to take on a Noon Ordeal, not even Harmony of the Skin (which is arguably one of the easiest to manage) and I'm still a good ways behind on quota, so I do the only thing I can think of.

I gamble, I know there's abnormalities in this facility my employees can work with to the point I don't even need to worry about them, they know these abnos inside and out, what makes them tick, what makes them produce just a metric truckload of energy; and that's precisely what we needed in this moment. I gather everyone into the main department room of Info and send my regulars off to their abnormalities; keeping a select few stronger agents with the group to act as a sort of suppression team. I figure if the Harmony enters the main department I can at least let them distract it safely while the others run off.

Right when I think things are under control, like maybe I actually managed to wrangle this hellhole of a day into something achievable...

We hit another meltdown. At this point Harmony is just down the hall and I don't have a choice but to send off most of the remaining employees I have. At first I think that I could send one of the weaker employees to work with Fairy Festival, it's just Fairy Festival after all! However no, Harmony is in the way and I can't risk that, not when I'm this close to success. I send who I can but it dawns on me that there are still agents working, there are still agents on their way, if I can just hold it off long enough those who are working might be able to generate enough energy! If there's one thing you should know about me, I'm a gambler at heart; and everyone I've ever gambled with has told me I'm a damn good one.

Since there's an elevator on both sides of the room Harmony is in I can easily shield anyone passing by so long as I'm quick about it, this will allow them to survive a hit or two very easily while passing through and it also means Harmony will stay still so long as I keep a constant flow of employees coming through. This means no more dead clerks so I don't need to worry about Big Bird, and I can also safely buy my other employees just enough time to finish the day.

Day 24 rolls around and I'm feeling good, our agents may not be powerful enough to handle a noon ordeal just yet, but we have something these ordeals don't; we have a strategy. I pick up both the Luminous Bracelet and Dreaming Current as we desperately need the higher energy output and higher grade EGO at this point. The day seems to be going off without a hitch, that is until as always;

Yet again we're faced with the dilemma of another noon ordeal that seems unavoidable; but I know better, I was smart about this I knew the only chance we'd have at meeting that quota was to send our best and brightest to work with our most deadly energy producers; and it was working; we just needed to wait but unfortunately for us, we didn't have the luxury of time. Rudolta had decided that we should take a pay cut today and breached without warning. Rudolta is slow, but the damage it dealt would be an issue, no not for my agents; but for the clerks. With Big Bird in this facility I had to be constantly mindful of my clerk numbers and I knew if Rudolta hit the main department of Central Command it was over, that bird was coming out; and I didn't have white shield bullets unlocked yet.

By some miracle everyone finished their work with mere inches between Rudolta and the door and I wasn't about to question a suppression effort; I took the minor penalty to the Lob Points and moved on just happy to have gotten away with not having to handle another Noon Ordeal on top of the breach...

Day 24 may have been seemingly simple, but 25 was an entirely different beast... The day started with a mishap resulting in Maritza's death;

Sorry you had to see that... don't worry I'll reset the day and it will all be not but a bad dream.

Finally understanding how Portrait worked (I hardly ever use the abnormality). I restarted the day and confidently sent everyone off to work, but the facility decided to have other plans, two back to back ordeals would be our obstacle today and the first was the Amber Dawn, I took a moment to reflect on a mishap back on Day 22 that I neglected to actually discuss... Vanessa had been killed by an Amber Dawn and hearing Tiph announce that "this could have been avoided had you paid more attention" stung for the first time in the entire run; see most of the deaths in this run have come from unavoidable circumstances, situations where I had to put agents in situations they weren't ready for, a few others like Maritza's had come from a lack of understanding with abnormalities I don't often use but... a Dawn ordeal? This late in the game? It felt like Tiph was right, and I couldn't deny that, had I just paid more attention everything would have been fine, and I wasn't about to make that same mistake twice. I knew I couldn't just throw my agents at this ordeal and expect everyone to survive; I use the best weapon in my arsenal and yes that once again is strategy.

I had Rain and Marx meet up with Central Command 1 and 2 respectively, I figured the extra firepower would come in handy given their lack of EGO currently.

It was working perfectly

This time I was ready for a proper fight; I knew I had a Violet Noon right after this and that above all else I had to make sure there weren't too many casualties in this ordeal, I knew the Violet Noon would take out a large chunk of my clerks and it was far too early in the day to have Big Bird breach and still have any hopes of finishing the day. I had to move fast, but I had to be cautious.

I had to pop in and check on every group but I couldn't linger for too long I literally paused, checked how it was going, paused again, zoomed out and moved on.

I had been dealing with quite a lot of deaths lately, and I was determined to put an end to that; I no longer considered them "a dawn ordeal" I no longer thought of them as "only a Teth" they were a threat, they were capable of killing my agents and I realized if I didn't treat them like the threat they were, more would die.

I had to prioritize my use of shields, I knew I needed to keep the clerks from dying, at least I needed to calculate my losses here; but I had to prioritize keeping the agents alive, sorry clerks...

As each group killed their department's set of ordeals they joined the others... while I know the Asiyah branch agents may have their differences they sure make for one hell of a team when they put those differences aside and work together. It's nice to see them fighting together instead of fighting each other.

Though to say this ordeal didn't have a few close calls wouldn't be doing it justice. Our agents fought valiantly and a few even risked their skin for it;

Geminiano and Kanna took it upon themselves to handle the ordeals in the control department even without Dia.

I had to get them out of harms way however as their brave efforts nearly resulted in Geminiano's death. Though while the wounded ran to recover, Kanna wasn't ready to leave things as they were; charging back into the fray and being joined by fellow agents none the less;

It always warms my heart to see these nuggets work together, and just like that; after a long fought battle we managed to emerge victorious without so much as a death to our tally.

I had to be very careful about who I sent to work now; I couldn't afford to lose someone after that, I didn't want to betray all their hard work.

This was it, time to prove ourselves;

There was no way around this, there was no way to rush work or simply avoid the ordeal. We were going to have to face this one head on, and while I wasn't worried about the damage (thanks to having black shield bullets) I was scared of our lack of damage output...

But literally it was over before I could even get good footage of the agents fighting; I really underestimated everyone; Violet Noon is a pushover however Big Bird did only have 1 counter left so that was a little scary...

Thankfully clearing both Ordeals pushed us to quota and day 25 was complete with all 30 agents alive and breathing!

Day 26 however, was a very different beast. It became apparent very quickly that we no longer had enough EGO to support everyone, we needed to fix this. I couldn't keep pushing through the research and bullets wasn't enough to counter the sheer damage output of these abnos, we didn't have enough energy output nor did we have enough EGO so I did the only thing I could; I reset... to day 1.

S̴t̴a̵r̷t̸i̸n̴g̸ ̶f̸r̸o̶m̴ ̷t̷h̸e̵ ̷b̵e̸g̶i̷n̵n̶i̵n̵g̶ ̵w̷e̸ ̵s̵t̸a̴r̵t̷ ̴D̴a̸y̸ ̸1̸ ̴w̸i̷t̶h̴ ̷o̵u̵r̷ ̴F̷r̸i̵e̷n̵d̶ ̴C̴o̴r̶p̷ ̷C̷o̶m̵m̴u̴n̵a̵l̸ ̴N̸u̶̠͋g̵̱͝g̴̪̈́ȩ̷͐ṭ̶̏ ̸̟͂O̷̘̅C̶̩̓ ̸̙̉r̸͕̄ẽ̸͜ṿ̷̏ê̷̝a̴̫͒ḷ̵̔!̷͉͛ ̶̹͊P̴̬͋l̸͈̎ẻ̴̦a̷̞̾s̵̘͘e̴̳̓ ̷̣̇w̸͇͊ë̴̪́l̷͓̾c̶̱̏ŏ̸̹m̸̤̓ẹ̴̊ ̴̪̽S̸͓̎Ǫ̶͍̰̤̗̼̲̎͊̈́̾̾͝M̷̢̨̡̜̥̞̓͗́̆͐ͅU̴̢̠̙̣̣̮͆̄!̷̲̼̫̫͙̲̹̿̈ͅ

...Sorry about that; don't know what happened there. Anyways I'm sure it's fine, you know tumblr is weird sometimes LIKE WHEN IT DELETED ENTIRE DAYS OF MY WRITING!

Now I won't waste your time on the boring stuff, we all know how Day 1 goes, there's no way we don't just throw Dia in there and get the day done; so let's jump back to the good stuff, the new stuff!

I streamed a lot of the Day 1 -> Central Command over on Discord in an open VC with a lot of the FriendCorp fam; it was an absolute blast and I fully plan to do it again sometime so if chilling in a VC with friends and having input on how this run goes sounds fun to you well you know where to find things (I promise we're gonna be fixing the pinned post soon lol)

Our facility this time around was designed with 1 goal in mind, get more EGO. I cared about little else, I needed our nuggets to be stronger; which is precisely why we picked up abnos like Crumbling Armor, Singing Machine, Knight of Despair, Judgment Bird, Burrowing Heaven, and Naked Nest just to name a few.

I knew we'd likely need to do another reset, this facility had no rhyme or reason to it, there was almost no synergy to be found; however it did allow for a spectacular combo...

Epsilon (who somehow became the new Safety Captain) could now pick up the Heart of Aspiration and then complete work with Knight of Despair which would give them a bit more defense when dealing with ordeals; while I unfortunately didn't catch it on camera Epsilon did finally solo a Doubt ordeal by themself; and don't worry I'm sure it's not the last time it will happen and I promise I will get it on camera for you all because it was a glorious moment to behold.

This new facility held a lot of abnormalities I'm not used to, Singing Machine, Naked Nest; these were things I would avoid like the plague before and learning to manage them under these conditions was brutal but rewarding. By Day 25 we were back to where we once were, except now we were stronger; much stronger. We had a plethora of EGO at our disposal and high grade EGO at that, and I wasn't about to not see how we'd hold up against Apoc Bird even with half our facility in Zayin level gear.

Oh. Well, uh; this was expected but I'm sure this wasn't the CC Sweep we were all looking for...

There were some issues regarding Central Command's SP levels; simply put I couldn't even get the gate to spawn without the majority of them taking so much fear damage they'd spiral into a panic and from there they'd either scatter and kill others or kill themselves. I tried pairing them up with people who had white damage weapons so they could hopefully recover the needed SP before doing anything drastic but it was easier said than done. I realized even on the off chance I could survive until Apoc's spawn there was no way we had the current damage output needed to take on the egg. I mean, it was hard for us to even take down Grandma...

But we DID! (RIP GRANDMA RIP GRANDMA YOU'RE DEAD NOW! NOTHING CAN HURT YOU RIP GRANDMA... why was I sending white damage to fight her...)

The nice thing was, with all our fancy new EGO even Noon ordeals became something of a joke to us, we didn't even need shields anymore which meant we could use them for the bigger threats.

oh and boy did need the shields because Grandma give us some trouble... (fun fact this gif is played back at literally 800% speed because it was so long tumblr wouldn't upload it otherwise but please enjoy THE ENTIRE FACILITY taking turns whacking Grandma... which is something I didn't think I'd write when I woke up this morning...)

PLEASE GRANDMA STAY IN YOUR CONTAINMENT UNIT PLEASE!

With Grandma staying in containment and the facility producing a moderate amount of energy we're able to push on to Day 26, look forward to welcoming the Welfare Department in Session 5!

-Cryptid

#FriendCorp #FriendCorp Plot #Friend Corp #Sorry for the lack of activity here I'll be fixing that shortly just been absolutely swamped between the holidays and work #I hope you don't mind all the little references to the discord server shenanigans #there's a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes and I'm working to bring that to you all here

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vivi-the-goblin · 2 years ago

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Should've waited until the video was done to start rekitting my art model, but oh well, the occasional hectic rush never hurts. Next in this character series is Dungeon design. Not the physical buildings, but the steps you make to fill them and think them up. After all, anything can function as a dungeon in the DnD sense. A narrow winding road, a factory, something's house or even body if there's a big enough size difference. Coupling with it, my thoughts on how to run them.

youtube

Ok so here's the part where I undercut my own video by summarizing, because not everyone can watch the vid. Essentially with my method, we start with 4 questions, first answering with a list of ideas and then returning to add detail. 1- Why are they here? this is what adds the structure for us to build on. Is this an escape, or a rescue mission? are they hunting an artifact, or the creature living here? 2- Where is this? simple question, but the biome will give us plenty of details to work with later. 3- What is stopping them? We aren't trying to build encounters yet. Try to come up with vague trap ideas, concepts for puzzles, look through monsters and come up with a list of anything that sounds interesting. 4- is there anything special? A point of interest, a mechanic or theme tying the encounters together, a regional effect. Optional, but I find players remember "That place with all the bees" better than "yeah that one coast where we were getting that rock thing? I think?"

With all that done, think for a moment on how you want this dungeon to flow. The DM guide says to have 6-8 medium or hard encounters with 1-2 rests spaced out, grind the party down slowly. That's boring and takes forever. You're the DM, you can control the pacing better than that. If you're making a rescue mission, perhaps you want a hard encounter at the front as you pierce the main defense, then 2-3 weaker encounters as you dismantle traps and fight the shattered defense, then spike back up at the end! Or you have a timer, and the tension slowly creeps up over time! point is, this is your session's pulse, ignore the book telling you to flatline.

Now that we have an outline for where our difficulty lies, lets take another pass at the the questions, any order that inspires you. For instance, you work out the details of where exactly this is, working with how the Special Detail from step for shaped the region. Then you have a better idea of what lives here and why. You take the loose encounters you've thought up and slot them into the encounter slots from the flow step, scaling them appropriately. For instance, the loose idea "mounted goblins" when slotted in a slow step might be 2 riding wolves, but in the finale slot might be 4 riding wargs.

As for my thoughts on running them. There's two main camps.

1- the old school. The DM facilitates the world. They're fair. If the players bite off more than they can chew, they should run, be creative, or get thier spare character sheet. On the other hand, if they think of a way to trivialize the dungeon, that's fair play too. The threat of death makes the journey meaningful, the fact that the DM won't save you makes everything feel SO earned. The highs are higher than ANYTHING when you beat the odds...downside however is you don't always beat the odds. I have good friends in this category.

2- The new school. The DM facilitates fun. They're on the player's side, wanting to offer challenge but making sure it's never too much. They will change anything and everything on the fly as needed, be it enemy HP or encounters or the dice they rolled. The narrative brings satisfying arcs, and the story is told together. They bring consistent good sessions, but have trouble raising tension, especially if the players aren't connecting with the arc. If they break this and kill a player, it can lead to quite serious strain on the group. Iknow you change rolls after all, you saved Ella and Amelia those other times, how come I died?

These are the main two camps, and honestly, the best of the two is whichever your party wants. talk to them, or at least tell them how you run and ask if that's ok. Make sure everyone's on the same page. Neither are wrong, both have thier ups and downs, but if you run one way for a group of people expecting the other way people likely won't be getting what they want from the game.

...that said I'm not really either, I'd argue most people fall inbetween. Personally I'm fine tweaking my encounters as they go or changing floorplans, but once they see an encounter everything is set and I do not change rolls or DCs. But I'm upfront about this, and work out where the lines are drawn with each group. You get nearly as good benefits as both styles, while lessening thier weaknesses.

Oh, and when you're running, try to give every player some moment to shine every session. You won't always be able to, some characters will sometimes star a session, but try to rotate who's left out and who's the star. Learn thier weaknesses and strengths, and present everyone with both. Then you can make sure that one character (you know the one) doesn't snag the spotlight every time. Everyone gets a chance to remind the team why they're here, and everyone gets a chance to be reminded why they're on on a team.

#Youtube

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transmasc-wizard · 3 years ago

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Ok this is a broad question so you can answer however you want. I am growing to love the gfw characters more all the time lmao, I'm not sure if he characters change, so specifically for the first one, what are their backstories?

they do Sort Of change (they're always there but of varying importance) so. i shall indeed go with book 1 as u requested

so. in case it was not clear from my disconnected rambling (probably isn't ll) the book 1 main characters are Angel, Bea, Corey, Oliver, & Hope! (fun fact: Rowan is in like 4 chapters sdkfhksdfh. she's mostly there to cause problems)

under the cut so people who don't want to read it can just scroll past lol

Angel's backstory is that their first 7 years of life were pretty solid. They have a little sister (Gabrielle) who's about 5 years younger, and they had a mom who loved them, a good dad, etc. Then their mom died, and their dad became Not As Good since he was just focused on trying to grieve his wife. Angel basically had to raise themself after that, as well as their sister. They do wind up getting a stepmother like 5 years after their mom died, but she's about as helpful as the grieving dad. By the story's start, Angel is used to looking after themself and stealing things to help their family survive.

Bea's backstory is... significantly more chill. She's got good parents and is an only child, though she's always wanted more than the teeny-tiny town she lives in can offer her. She feels like the only people who understand her are her parents and Angel, but even then, when they were 14 they stopped being friends, so.... yeah. The main important part of her backstory is that she found out she had "minor" (turns out they're more than minor lol) prophecy powers when she was 10.

Corey's the son of a king and a peasant woman, who was born in Teyrsea but moved countries to Zyk when he was 11. He had a non-royal older sibling (James) but said sibling died shortly after they moved. Corey's royalty is not even a little bit legitimate, and this is actively bad for him, bc in Teyrsea anyone found to be a bastard royal is executed. (He has not yet been found lol.) His mother is just a shitty, shitty person to him, since she blames him + his bastard-prince-ness for being the reason her life went to hell.

Oliver has 2 loving parents, but his mom is often really busy travelling for work and his dad went missing a year before the story. His younger sister is only at home in summers and on holidays, as she goes to a dance school up north. His dad used to be the stay-at-home parent, but. you know. (he is found later, alive! in spoilery circumstances.) This all means that besides Tiff--his magic mentor who's been semi-watching him since his dad went missing--he is alone a lot :(

Hope. oh boy. Hope. Uhh being a god, they don't have parents. They came into existence during a thunderstorm. They were then taken in by some slightly higher-level gods who lived on a nearby mountain, but mostly ignored due to their difficulty communicating (autism + fibromyalgia brain fog = hard to hold conversations sometimes).

One of the villains of the story, Dotty, promised Hope a boost in power and status if they would do her a favour. But Hope couldn't read the contract's language--Dotty read it out to her and blatantly lied--so when they found out that the thing they were supposed to do was attack godly royalty, they turned themself in so they'd just be exiled instead of destroyed.

They were put into the mortal realm as a 10-year-old child with vague memories of godhood, and spent the next 8 or 9 years travelling around places and learning new things while they slowly got their memories and (some of) their powers back. As the story starts, they're specifically looking for the bastard prince of Teyrsea, which is how they come into play.

that was!! a lot!! thank u for letting me ramble. rambling is fun. i hope this is what you were looking for sdkhfkdsjf

#asks #will/lee #wip gfw1 #angel #bea #hope #corey #oliver

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