November 2018 - Page 2 of 5 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Regularly Playing: Late November 2018

November 26, 2018 by Belghast

One of the constants of Tales of the Aggronaut is my sheer inability to keep any form of a series going for any length of time. There is a thing that I used to do semi-monthly where I trued up the regularly playing widget on my blog’s sidebar and talked a bit about the games that I have actually been playing. I would talk about the things that I was adding to the list, the things that I was for whatever reason still playing… and then talked about the things I was removing from the list and a bit about why. Unfortunately based on a quick search of my blog… this is not something that I have done since August of 2017. A lot has changed since then and a lot of games have come up and gone away, and quite frankly I am not sure how valid any sort of a comparison might be. However I wanted to get this started again. So from now on I expect to be updating these towards the end of the month rather than at the beginning of a new month. I’ve also decided to start including the platform I am playing on, since in a few cases that actually does matter a lot.

Destiny 2 – PC

I’ve been having a bit of a renaissance with Destiny 2 and I spent the vast majority of the weekend hanging out downstairs and playing it while remoted into my desktop upstairs. My nonsense Parsec setup is amazing, and this really has become my default gameplay method most of the time. I mean who doesn’t want to play sitting on the sofa, wrapped up in fuzzy blankets… with two cats snuggling into them? I got the Trinity Ghoul to drop after completing Ikora Rey’s bounty objective, and it is awesome… unfortunately I will probably never actually use it. The fact that we can only use one exotic weapon pretty much means that choice is always going to go to the Thunderlord. If they introduce some legendary HMGs into the game again… that decision might shift… but for now it feels damned good to have access to one again. For the most part I am spending my time knocking out various things that award Powerful/Prime engrams, and other than that I started leveling the Hunter last night while watching Walking Dead. The game really is in the best state it has been in period… and I am probably counting all of the awesome stuff that was available during Year 3 of Destiny 1. If you are not playing this game you owe it to yourself to check it out again.

Monster Hunter World – PC

The other primary game that I am spending most of my time playing is Monster Hunter World on the PC. This game is so much more enjoyable with a mouse and keyboard, and I have recently been grinding away for the Dante weapon and armor set that came in with the Devil May Cry cross over event. I also had no clue how often I use the term grinding… until this weekend when a Chinese Cutting Wheel and Grinder company reached out to me to see if I wanted to do a paid product placement. It is weird how things like that happen… how the gaming sphere takes a perfectly normal and reasonable word and shifts it into something else. I still have yet to get over the level 49 hump that is Tempered Kirin… but I figure in the coming week I might start devoting some of my play time towards doing that. I would really like to be uncapped again by the time the Winter Festival starts up, so that all of the time spent doing those events can bolster my hunting rank. The highlight of the weekend was the Code Red match when three of us were using Kulve Taroth Paralysis weapons… and it was shocking just how often we had the mob locked down tight… even Teostra.

Final Fantasy XIV – PC

Somewhat shocking to me… I am apparently back playing Final Fantasy XIV regularly after my extremely long absence? The last update from August 2017 was just about when I started to peel away from Stormblood, because that was also the month that I played a significant amount of Guild Wars 2… enough to probably consider it my main game back then. In the year and some change that has passed since that post… I really have not spent all that much time playing the game. I came back a few times attempting to get caught up with the main story quest, only to stall out in this place or another. However lately it has felt really good to roam around and play something like this, especially when paired with my more action oriented main squeezes of Destiny 2 and Monster Hunter World. I can only take so much of that in a single setting and need to retreat back into something slower paced… and for now at least hotbar combat works nicely for that.

Diablo 3 – Switch

Another game that I have been enjoying the hell out of is Diablo 3 on the Nintendo Switch. It is a really great platform for the game and I had never really given the console version any serious play prior to this. My only gripe is the way it requires connectivity to play seasonal characters. Essentially if you want to play these in a disconnected state, you need to have the forethought to start up a game before you leave the safety of WiFi… and then place your switch into Airplane Mode. From there the game will allow you to continue playing your seasonal character, and eventually synchronize everything when you get connected once again. This is somewhat maddening, but at least I have the ability to tether to my phone if for some reason I did not think ahead to do this thing before I left the house. I am spending a lot of my “while trying to fall asleep” time playing Diablo 3.

Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee – Switch

While I did not play much of it this weekend, I am still very much enthralled with Let’s Go Pokemon. When I last played I had just beaten the third gym and was grinding my way towards the next one. However when I get back into game I want to do some backtracking and train my Eevee with some of the silly named abilities that the mentor is offering. Based on Ashgar’s suggestions, these are apparently really good moves. This is the biggest problem that I have with Pokemon games in general, is that I never know what moves I should be allowing it to learn and what ones I should be ignoring. As a result I tend to largely favor straight damage attacks and ignore the more fiddly nonsense of raising and lowering accuracy and such. Pokemon is a game about collecting cute pets for me… and the combat nonsense is largely just something I have to deal with in order to collect said cute pets.

Fallout 76 – PC

This game is still very much on the list but I have not devoted near enough time to it. Largely this requires me to be upstairs… and since I have been spending most of my time downstairs it just isn’t getting played. I’ve also been dealing with a lot of stress and that makes me turtle and avoid doing any manner of group activity that requires voice communication. This is coupled with the fact that I don’t really have a great comms set up downstairs, and as a result simply avoid joining voice servers. I could of course go into “listen only” mode but that doesn’t really work in situations where the in game chat is not amazing. I did spend some time this weekend hanging out with Rae and walking her through the finer points of Monster Hunter World… or at least answering a bunch of the questions anyone has starting that game. I know Tam, Kodra, Shiana and Waren have been having a massively fun time running around in a big group… and as cool as that sounds… I just can’t bring myself to be that interactive. I am hoping when the private servers release that there will be a second awakening of this game and I can hop on the bandwagon at that point. In the meantime however I am playing a very quiet and crafting-centric version of the game as I expand my nifty roadside base.

Hellgate London – PC (Steam)

As generally “not good” as the Steam version of this game is… I find myself still regularly booting it up and playing around with it. I did however dig out my copy of Hellgate London on DVD, and plan on going through the nonsense to install it and get set up to use the London 2038 emulator servers to see just how well that version of the game plays. In the mean time however… it is still Hellgate London, no matter how cludgy it might be and I love this game. I am guessing this would be on my list of guilty pleasure games that no one else really understands… like Vagrant Story… or Simon’s Quest. Remember kids… Excessive game play may affect your lifestyle.

Dragalia Lost – Android

While this is not necessarily an every day thing anymore… I am still very much playing Dragalia Lost on a regular basis. At this very moment there is a special summon event going on, and I seem to have missed the guaranteed five star adventurer summon… and currently it is a wyrmprint. No one gives a shit about wyrmprints… so I will wait to use mine until the five star dragons kick in at the end of the cycle. The current event is somewhat enjoyable, but I do greatly prefer the cycles where we have a raid open and a new character that we can gain faction with. So far it seems to alternate back and forth between kill a boss and get bonus loot… and earn a new character and do a raid. Since this is a wind event and that tends to be the crew that is the least used overall… I am using it to work up their levels and have largely coalesced on using Melody the Samurai Maid as my main for the event. Admittedly I mostly like her because it reminds me of my friend PizzaMaid… only because she is a maid that kicks lots of ass as well.

Pokemon Go – Android

With the connectivity between Let’s Go and Pokemon Go… it has also spurred me to be a lot more active in this game as well. I don’t have an awful lot to say about it other than the fact that I am regularly checking what “Mons” might be around when I am out about in the world. The fact that I got a Google Wear watch has also increased this experience because I am now getting credit via Google Fit for the time when I don’t have the app open. As a result I am hatching a lot more eggs than I did previously, since it seemed inconvenient to keep the app open all of the time. Mobile games are generally a massive drain on the battery, and none are harder on it than Dragalia and Pokemon Go… so as a result I tend to play them sparingly when I am at fear of running down my battery and without a way to charge it again.

Walking Dead Our World – Android

This game is barely holding in there and since being punted from the clan I was in… a lot of my reason for playing on a nightly basis has disappeared. It was enjoyable to feel like my little bits of play were adding up to larger objectives, but without that incentive… I am just not motivated to play that often. The game has a problem of not making it really reasonable to acquire better characters or weapons. 99.9% of the activities you do will give you white cards, which might as well go straight into the dumpster. The only things worth using really are purple or orange the highest tiers, and they have tied a number of objectives to doing things with specific legendary weapons making it really hard to knock those out each week. They really want you to spend money on the game, and I feel like I am just not getting enough joy out of the game to do so. I’ve lucked my way into a few items and they were running a special where Legendary Morgan and Rick were super cheap to purchase with one of the in game grindable currencies. I fully expect however that by the time I do my next update this game will be on the outs.

There are other games that I might boot up here or there but for the most part this is the crux of games that I am playing regularly as the title of the post suggests. What are you my wonderful readers playing lately?

Thanksgiving Ramble

November 22, 2018 by Belghast

This morning’s post is going to be fairly rambly… so just letting my brain go where it takes me.

For anyone who might be curious, as far as we can tell everything went well yesterday. Mother-in-law made it through the biopsy just fine and while she was a little out of it from the after effects of the anesthesia, but someone hung out with her last night to make sure all was right. We expect to see her today, but so far everything seems okay. The doctor made a comment that it did not look cancerous, but it will be awhile before we hear anything official back. However I want to thank everyone that reached out to me about it yesterday, I greatly appreciate it.

For those of us in the United States it is Thanksgiving, which in itself is a holiday with a shady past. However I do like the general concept of taking a day out to spend time with those you care about, share a nice meal, and remember all of those things that you are thankful for. A few years back I did this thing that I called a Month of Thankfulness, and tacked a paragraph or two onto the tail end of my blog post every morning. I had all intention of rebooting it this year, but as November 1st ticked around… It just did not happen. Given how busy and frustrating this month has been for me personally… it was probably a good idea.

Firstly I want to say that I am exceedingly blessed or lucky depending upon your point of view. I am constantly humbled by the fact that I got where I am today because of the help of countless individuals along the way who gave me the time of day and decided to take an interest in me as a human being. I’m not a very competitive individual, and I think I am proof that you don’t necessarily have to be to get ahead in the world. In fact I think collaboration and helping others is just as valid a means of forward momentum… as trampling others with your ambition.

That said I also feel like it is my responsibility to help out others as much as I can. Leading guilds and building communities was always my way of making this happen, and more recently that skill set has been applied to managing a team of fifteen individuals with all of their different needs. This is one of those moments where I wish gaming were more accepted, but as someone in management… I can tell you that everything you learn as a guild and raid leader is completely applicable to leading individuals in the workplace. Getting folks to band together to kill an imaginary monster is no less valid than trying to get them to finish a project by the deadline.

I’m very lucky that I have a partner in this journey that while she may not be into all of the things that I am… still considers them completely valid. She has her things and I support her in them, and she supports me in mine. I am also very lucky in that we have a comfortable life where we can both be doing our own things at the same time… but also feel like we are spending time together. That interaction though can easily transition into one of our many jaunts out into the world to go wandering and looking for interesting things. We’ve been together for over two decades at this point, and I cannot fathom existing without my navigator.

I am also extremely thankful to the AggroChat podcast crew and the assorted friends of the podcast we have gathered over the years. This group has become a family that I care about deeply, and even if we don’t happen to be playing the same game at the same time… is a place that I can easily settle into and that accepts me for my transient ways. While I have struggled at times with the constraints of recording a weekly podcast, there is no group of people I would rather be doing it with. I love all of my co-hosts so much, and if tomorrow we decided to stop it all… none of that would change.

I am extremely thankful to the folks who hang around and comment on my blog and who make up the greater blogging community that participate in events like Blaugust. You are all an inspiration to me each time I venture and and visit your blogs. The fact that I have a community is a good part of the reason why I keep talking. So often when you have a blog it feels like you are shouting into the void, and while I honestly find it easier to write like I am talking to myself… it is nice knowing that there is actually someone out there. We’ve shared so many events through this blog, and as I have said so many things… it is part confession, part exposition and part therapy. Thanks for being willing to keep reading my nonsense.

I think one of the hallmarks of my generation… is the fact that we have very permeable lines as to what constitutes family. For my mom, it is very much a case of blood is stronger than anything else, but weirdly I never latched onto that notion. I consider anyone who I care about and who is there for me… to be family. The news has been making a big deal about “Friendsgiving” this year, but in truth I would never refer to it as such. My friends are just as much my family as the one I was born into.

Maybe it is a side effect of not really having ever seen eye to eye with much of my family, or the fact that as my grandparents passed away… all of those formal holiday structures faded with them. Today I am going to be spending time with an assemblage of my parents and friends of the family, and it feels no less valid to me personally than we used to have to squeeze twenty people around a dining room table that only got the leaves put it in once a year. It will be a blend of my family, my wife’s family, and a few people that we wanted to make sure had a gathering to go to. The thing is… I think the most important part of Thanksgiving is the symbolic act of sharing a meal with the ones you love.

I am going to go ahead and wrap this post up because otherwise I will have written another four page epic… that on one actually wants to read. I hope all of you out there have a very Happy Thanksgiving… and even if you are not in the United States… take some time over the next few days to share a meal with some of the people that are important to you in life. That is the root of why I care about Thanksgiving, and it is that moment and tradition that I am thankful for among so many other things.

Lurk Longsword

November 21, 2018 by Belghast

This morning is a little bit odd given that I am not at work, but also had to get up at 5:30 like normal. I guess I technically didn’t but I still have things that need to get done. My mother in law is going into the hospital today for a lung biopsy, so I would greatly appreciate any thoughts, prayers or just general good vibes channeled her direction. Our hope is of course that it isn’t anything serious, but just the act of taking a biopsy from your lungs is fairly serious. A few days ago I wrote about how hardcore mobile gamers can be, and I guess further evidence proves that even more true. Yesterday I booted up Walking Dead Our World while waiting on a meeting just to check and see what objectives I should be focused on… and found that I had been kicked from the group that I wrote about. It seems as thought a group leader can see various stats about the players, and it appears that it is common place to purge anyone not killing at least 200 walkers a day.

I am WAY more casual than that… and I had apparently somehow avoided notice for a few weeks before the hammer dropped down upon me. I don’t even really know the people in the clan, but it was surprising how much it generally bummed me out. I’ve since joined another group, but I have to say… the drive to play is largely gone. Previously I felt like I was working towards something with a bunch of other players, but now I mostly just don’t care as I have to get acclimatized to another group of randos. I’ve contemplated forming my own group and calling it something along the lines as “Casual AF” and just seeing what sort of players I get to join. The clan size is limited to 25 players, so if you are in a group of high achievers I totally get why they might want to punt casuals. The objectives are things like kill 300 armored walkers with a specific character, and in a given encounter you might come across two of them… meaning at that rate you would have to take out 150 of these randomly occurring encounters to get the objective. The game is balanced for hardcore players, so also maybe not balanced for me personally. It was interesting while it lasted.

One of the things I love about the Kulve Taroth event is the random weapons that you end up walking away with. Generally speaking there are a few gems scattered in amongst the dross… and one of them is this longsword. The base damage is a little low, but it makes up for it in the utility of having a longsword with fairly reasonable paralysis on it. Ultimately I have been using this a lot as I have been taking on the Devil May Cry event quest where you fight four different monsters, and this ends up giving a fairly early proc of paralysis to help out the burn phase. It also works shockingly well on Kulve Taroth itself, which is goofy given how damned big that is to see it paralyzed. It does allow for a lot of good burn time whenever it happens which makes me heavily favor the weapon, and if I shifted out my item build a bit I could get quite a bit of white sharpness on it.

I also spent a good deal of time last night playing Final Fantasy XIV and managed to get off high center in the quest chain. There was a very specific quest that I was struggling with, that involved killing a bunch of mech suits that cast self destruct. This stupid thing took me roughly four attempts to finally get through it, and is one of those fights where the NPCs are vulnerable to death… and if they die you instant fail. I finally figured out exactly what I was supposed to be doing and on the last attempt it felt way less arbitrary. I will say this is one of the frustrations at times with Final Fantasy XIV… is that for all of the really good visual messaging… there are at times in the solo quests that they don’t give you much of an explanation of what you are supposed to be doing. My hope however is that this gets me unstuck and I can continue questing my way through all of the Main Story Quest content that I had missed.

Tiny Samurai vs Eureka

November 20, 2018 by Belghast

One of the things that happened over the weekend that we did not talk about on the podcast, nor have I mentioned on the blog… was the reveal of the next Final Fantasy XIV expansion Shadowbringers at the Las Vegas Fan Fest. I mentioned Fan Fest when I was talking about BlizzCon and how they only hold one when they have a big announcement to give us information about. As such you go into the experiencing knowing you are going to see something really cool, and while the trailer for Shadowbringers is cool… it was not the big reveal of the weekend. That said I do find it interesting that we are not going where I thought we were going at various points in the Stormblood storyline. It seems like in order to restore balance… we are to become the Warrior of Darkness.

The more important reveal however was that of the Blue Mage… aka the MMO class that I questioned if was even possible to do in a multiplayer game. With it they are introducing this concept of “Limited Jobs” and by that they mean Jobs that you can do… but are purely solo/open world only. Blue Mage will launch with 4.5 and be locked to a maximum of level 50 in progression. Like a Blue Mage in any other Final Fantasy game, you will not learn new skills by leveling up and instead learn them by fighting the monsters that perform certain abilities. So to learn Bad Breath you will need to fight a Morbal and watch it do that move… or similarly you will need to watch a Sabotender do 1000 Needles to be able to pick it up and start doing it yourself. I really dig this concept because it allows them to do this class with all of its flavor and power… without having to worry about balancing it against any other class. Level 5 Death would have been super hard to balance around… and I am wondering if they will start bringing other challenging classes in to the game under this Limited Jobs banner.

All of this thought about Final Fantasy XIV lead me to patch it up, and attempt to figure out where the hell I left off in the Stormblood post expansion main story quest. I bounced very hard on Stormblood and I am still not entirely certain why, but after leveling the Warrior and then grinding up the Samurai… I just ran out of steam. I’ve made a few attempts to get engaged again and similarly bounced out. Hell recently there have been a few times I logged into the game and then right back out when I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed to do in order to gain traction. All of this time however Sol has kept Greysky Armada active and there is a group of folks that do a cycle of regular events. Last night was Eureka night and I decided to log in and join the shenanigans.

Ultimately it was myself, Mor, eventually Neph and a character that I have seen around but can’t really place a person to… being babysit by Pix who deserves a hero medal for easing us all into the concept of Eureka. I remember when this first opened I spent some time solo grinding and managed to make it to level 2 just by killing random stuff. It seemed insanely grindy and a love song to Final Fantasy XI which itself was effectively the Japanese version of Everquest. Soloing it was miserable but with a group of friends it felt an awful lot better. Even more so once we started gathering up the materia shards that effectively gave us a 60% damage boost. I entered the night at level 2 and managed to push through to level 8 before we finally called it because it was getting late.

Seriously Pix deserves massive thanks at herding us around Eureka and helping us get the objectives we needed to get knocked out. Effectively he was out of group and AOE taunting everything onto him… while we sat there killing it down as fast as possible. As a result I spent most of the night as Samurai and while it took me a bit to remember how to play the class it eventually came back. When Neph joined us I feel like she went through the same thing with Machinist… which I guess is to be expected for as long as we have been gone. I know they have other themed nights, like one in which they do crafting maps… so for the time being I am probably going to be logging in and doing those activities at least until I get my bearings. I had an awful lot of fun, and I most of it was due to the fact that I was getting to hang out with a bunch of friends that I had not hung out with in a really long time.