Morning folks! I am getting a very late start this morning because… well… it’s my birthday and I slept in significantly later than normal. However at this point I have had breakfast and piddled around a bit and decided to go ahead and blog. I contemplated skipping because I am technically on vacation. One of the lessons I learned early in my career is that it is perfectly okay to take your birthday off. Each birthday seems to have a different reaction for me… some of them are broody and introspective and others relatively happy. So far 43 doesn’t seem to be coming with any major negative side effects, so we are going to call it a good one.
Last night I continued my madness and managed to finish the Trials of the Braves. When I started down this road at least partially inspired by Ashgar I had no clue how far I was from the finish. It turns out that I was three books away and between the last two days I managed to knock those out. The other side effect of this process is it seems to have cleared my mental block against tanking as I spent at least part of my night tanking a dungeon for Lyle. For some reason soloing a bunch of dungeons has allowed me to get back into the swing of Warrior-ing and in essence prepared me for the expansion. Now the irony is… I will have to relearn everything as soon as the patch hits because Warriors change quite a bit.
So now I am on the step that is going to likely cost a bunch of money depending on how much I can get various materia for. Essentially were I doing this when it was actually relevant it would have cost an awful lot more. Now however I just need to research the number of materia that I need and then just buy whatever is cheap. There is a certain amount of pride in infusing the correct stats, but me… I don’t care at all and simply want a cool looking axe that comes from the end of the chain.
As far as today however…. I have already been playing my Birthday gift as I had a kickstarter backer key waiting for me in my inbox when I woke up this morning. It was awfully nice of Bloodstained Ritual of the Night to release on my birthday. I will say they have scaled up the difficulty a bit since the backer E3 demo and scaled down the loot drops. Also there is some weirdness where my Backer Demo character tried to transfer across… but did so poorly so it saved my progress but none of my gear making it extremely difficult to survive without any weapons or armor.
So far the game has improved greatly since even the Backer Demo, namely in the lighting and shading department. I am looking forward to playing some more of it, so I think I will go do that now. I hope you have a great day and I greatly appreciate all of the warm Birthday wishes I have gotten this morning.
I’ve been piddling around in Final Fantasy XIV for awhile now, but have largely languished without a real purpose. This weekend I guess I got a sense of purpose and managed to push my Machinist up to level 50 with darkest dungeon. I had been piddling around during the podcast in Palace of the Dead for a few weeks now, but largely just wound up running around the top of the wall in Quarymill while we talked. I refer to this activity as Dalaran-ing because anytime I would need to talk to someone in game I would find myself running laps around whichever incarnation of Dalaran was in World of Warcraft at the time. I find I do the same with Final Fantasy XIV hubs, and I greatly miss the running friendly walls that our old Free Company house used to have.
As it stands I have every class that is currently in the game above the level of 50, which in theory should allow me to massively clean my vaults and get rid of anything lower level that isn’t particularly cool looking or at least dyeable. I did dump a ton of stuff into ye olde glamour commode, and was pretty happy to see that we are getting an increase in storage space with the upcoming Shadowbringers update. At this point I have dumped every Axe and Katana that I care about keeping as those two classes are already at the level cap. I need to start working my way backwards through my weapon archives and saving anything that I particularly want to keep. Inventory management is the bane of my existence in most MMORPGs and FFXIV is no exception sadly.
After tooling around on my Machinist I decided to push Bard up to 60… at which point something started to bother me greatly. At the end of everything I have completed I get a warning telling me I am capped on Tomestones of Poetics. This lead me down a path of trying to research ways I can spend said Poetics… which lead me back to the original expense that I had previously used them for… Books. I never finished doing books for my Bravura Animus. In fact right now I could not tell you where I am exactly in that process, but I am working my way through a speed book that involves a FATE that apparently never spawns.
So there it is folks. I am making poor life choices and apparently drawn back into piddling around with my Zodiac weapon. I solo’d my way through several dungeons last night and at current moment find myself just needing to do Amdapor Keep and get a FATE in Coerthas to spawn that seemingly doesn’t want to. I figure at some point I will have to start farming down the FATEs that have popped since I believe every zone has a limited number up at a given time. This is apparently what I am doing with my life now… in this lead up to Shadowbringers. Sadly I have not even begun to go through madness because I still have to do my melding materia step. The good news however is that I probably won’t be able to complain about not having something to spend my Poetics on shortly.
For those who have been reading this blog for some time you will know that I have a semi-monthly series that I call “regularly playing” where I attempt to update the sidebar on my blog. I failed miserably at the last incarnation, because the side bar never actually got updated. Additionally May was a crazy month with all of the weather issues and I never quite got one of these done. Instead I am shifting to a June edition where I attempt to start doing these towards the start of the month instead of the end of the month. I seemingly inhaled my coffee this morning so… lets do this!
To Those Remaining
Dragalia Lost – Android
I continue to truck along happily in Dragalia Lost and especially now that I have my Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 there is rarely a night that goes by that I don’t at a minimum play through my dailies. I’ve said this before but there is a release cadence of content that keeps me engaged and the fact that another character summon is just around the corner. The whole summoning process feels much better than that Wyrmprints have been completely removed from the mix. After playing effectively the entire time I have gathered up a good stable of five star characters that I have not even bothered leveling yet. I still sorta wish there was a switch version.
Diablo 3 – PC and Switch
If you have read the blog over the last few days you will know that I am fully engaged with Diablo 3 right now. Last night I attempted to farm some more chests but sleep claimed me. I am however on a mission to get the Avarice Conquest and will get there sooner or later. I love Diablo 3 so much and while I fade in and out of its focus… I will always sooner or later return to it.
Final Fantasy XIV – PC
While I am not playing a ton of it… I am still very much engaged with Final Fantasy XIV and am looking forward to the upcoming head start on June 28th for Shadowbringers the next expansion. Pretty excited especially considering the drastic class changes that I think will lead to a more accessible environment. Right now the plan is to level the Samurai through the story quests and then level Warrior with Dungeon Finder given that Tank queues are a breeze. I’ve always done it the other way around and I think a lot of what leads to my burn out is trying to claw my way up to level as a DPS when I could simply go the easy route and level through the story.
Magic the Gathering Arena – PC
While I am not playing it a ton I am still fairly engaged with Magic the Gathering Arena and the War of the Spark expansion seems to be pretty interesting. We talked a bit about this on the podcast but I am really wishing they would make it so that constructed is a format that is always available for play, given that is probably my favorite of the “event” types. It also serves as an amazing way to obtain cards from a specific set.
To The New and Returning
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night – PC
I did a lengthy post about this the other day but I am starting to play Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night which is as close as we will probably ever get to a proper Symphony of the Night sequel. While I only have the E3 demo version right now, I will be getting access to the full thing on my birthday… June 18th and plan on picking it up for pretty much every console that it will be available for. It is likely going to be a toss up between Switch and PC as to which version I actually play the most.
Destiny 2 – PC
With the Season of Opulence starting I believe today… I’ve been poking my head back into Destiny 2 of late to try and reacquaint myself with the way that the game as a whole feels. I completely missed the Season of the Drifter because I was off doing other things, and the start of a new Season seems to be a good time to get engaged again. I still very much love the game but at this point am so far behind that I am not exactly sure what the most ideal catch up mechanic would be. This is the problem with Destiny as a whole is that there isn’t a painfully obvious way to gain a ton of light levels quickly.
The Elder Scrolls Online – PC
I’ve also of late been spending a significant amount of time playing Elder Scrolls Online. A new expansion released and it has made me want to start playing again… in spite of not actually being willing to start the new content. Instead I am working my way through Vvardenfell… aka two expansions ago? The game is pretty great and ends up filling the same niche that Star Wars the Old Republic does… in that I mostly want to come in and gobble up a bunch of story content and then wander off.
To Those Departing
Grim Dawn
I know I will revisit this game again, but for now I am not playing it and it leaves the list. Based on screenshot evidence I seem to have stopped playing sometime mid April. Still a really great game and I expect to get the itch at some point in the near future… but being engaged with Diablo 3 again mostly pushed it off the table.
Marvel Future Fight
I played this a significant amount of time for a short period of time… and now find it really hard to get back into it. I feel like I hit the free to play wall where I have done as much of the content as I want to do before needing to spend a significant chunk of money. The grind set in and all of the things that would offer advancement require either a lot of money or a lot of time.
Mortal Kombat 11
Going forward I am going to try to filter titles like this off the list in part because there are a lot of things that I play furiously for a weekend and then never play again. Mortal Kombat 11 was one of these and while I fully expect to return to it periodically it isn’t really worthy of the moniker of “regularly playing”. Its still a really cool game and you should check it out especially when it goes on sale.
Outward
This again is another example of a game that probably shouldn’t have made it onto the list since I played it obsessively for a few nights and then never again. I’m going to start an honorable mentions section below for some of the games where I play in this manner because I have a few of them this month as well.
Star Wars the Old Republic
I came in… I gobbled up the entire Eternal Throne storyline and then wandered off once I started the content immediately following that. I have no clue why I suddenly stopped playing but I did. I expect honestly at some point soon to add this back to the list especially with a new full expansion on the way. I still really like this game and am happy it found its feet post launch. I would love more of the content along the lines of Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne because both were phenomenal.
Honorable Mentions
Again for those who didn’t read all of the blurbs above, this is a section I am adding in part because every month there are a handful of titles that I play furiously for a few days and then wander away from. They don’t really deserve the title of “regularly playing” but they are also worth noting.
Crowfall – PC
While there is actually a game here I am not entirely certain if it is a game I want to play. This is something I have been poking my head in to check on since the backer alpha began. I had a few fun nights with it but more or less have consigned it to hibernation once again.
Dragon’s Dogma – PC
I have no clue how much of this I will be playing. I randomly installed it and started playing a few weekends back after watching a series of videos on it by Gaijin Hunter. It is a really cool game and I think it might be something that I could settle into as a bizarre “what if capcom had made skyrim” experience. Not quite ready to add it to the regularly playing list, will see if it returns by the end of the month.
Rage 2 – PC
I had a lot of fun with this game right around the time of launch and then I wandered away… and am not exactly sure why? I really need to get back to playing it and at least make my way through the main story. I get easily distracted when it comes to gaming and I am guessing me getting into World of Warcraft Classic beta was the shiny object that caused this one.
World of Warcraft Classic – PC
And… last but definitely not least… we have World of Warcraft Classic the aforementioned shiny object. This is coming in as an honorable mention and not a regularly playing in part because I have forcefully pulled myself away from it. This game launches officially in August and given the amount of time you need to spend leveling in this game… I don’t see a point in burning myself out before that point. We are completely nonsense and are going to be making an attempt at 40 player raiding again. I will give more information about this as time gets closer. However for now it claims a spot on the Honorable Mentions.
The other day I noticed that there were three NPCs with the same face standing in line at this meat shop. I figured it was probably just a weird occurrence with the NPC generator putting the same model all clumped together accidentally. However last night I noticed that there were 4 standing in line… and when I turned the corner there were two more. I made a post on twitter about this and by the time I got back to the game as I had simply alt tabbed out, they were ALL within the frame of a single screenshot. Sure there are subtle differences between each of them but they ALL have the same face. This leads me down a path that I was talking about in Slack the other day… but there is no such thing as a random number generator. Effectively you try your hardest to create randomness with a computer, but you will never quite get to truly random because in my experience trying to write them over the years… they have a tendency to get stuck. This makes me wonder if a lot of the loot generation within this game is suffering from a stuck sequence. Imagine if you will a D&D encounter table… with the really interesting encounters happening towards the top of that scale. Imagine also that you have percentage dice that for whatever reason don’t want to roll anything higher than a 85. I have no clue why loot is as fickle as it is, but a when you see things like our six clones it makes you wonder. Additionally not in this shot there are two kids running around with the exact same face, so this may be fairly common in game and I just didn’t notice it until recently.
As far as content in Anthem goes… they have at least roped me in with the whole Elysian Chests thing. At a minimum each night I do whatever the daily challenge is that rewards a key, and then run at least one Stronghold to open that chest. So far I have gotten a bunch of shitty crafting materials and a handful of extremely lackluster vinyls. The ones you purchase off the shop apply a design to the majority of your lancer, but the ones you get for free… are in general a sticker on your shoulder and maybe something on your helmet. Again very disappointing as compared to what I went into that system expecting. However the limited nature also triggers my desire to catch them all before they disappear. I am certain that at some point in the future this game will pull its head out and become extremely fun, and I sorta want to make sure I don’t have pangs of regret by not getting something cool along the way. After a very long dry streak I did manage to pick up a Legendary version of the weapon I use for priming targets, so I am super excited about that. I would have probably rather had some defensive stats on it, but I will deal with it as is because it is lime green and not orange. I also wish that 50% physical damage was not limited to the weapon, but oh well you cannot control the rolls in Anthem.
Other than Anthem I spent a significant amount of time playing Breath of the Wild on Cemu, and have cleared my second Divine Beast. I did the Zora Beast first and then since it seemed to be the next closest worked my way through the Goron area. I found the second Divine Beast way easier than the first one, but I am not sure if it was simply that I went into it knowing what to expect or if it was simply that the fight was much easier. There was a mechanic that I glommed onto pretty fast during the second boss that largely trivialized the encounter, so maybe it would have been rougher had I not tried that. Now I have made my way over into the Gerudo are and am trying to figure out how to sneak into the town. I’ve already seen the next encounter which is apparently a giant robo Camel? So effectively you have an Elephant, a Salamander/Lizard thing, a Camel and a Giant Birb? I say Salamander largely because in Japanese games they tend to be fire aligned, and a lot of other lizard types are lightning aligned.
Regardless still having a blast finally getting deep into this game, and key is one small tweak that made the experience immediately better. There is a plugin for Cemu that allows you to disable weapon durability, keeping you from having to play the game of constantly swapping weapons. That one tweak changed the experience from something I bounced off of out of the frustration of trying to keep finding more decent weapons to use, to something I have dug into hard and am loving. This was my biggest complaint when the game released, and not shockingly once it was gone my experience felt so much better. When playing on the Switch I made a conscious decision to go for the Zora area because I had read online that you could get a repairable weapon there. So much was my focus on trying to stay fully equipped that I altered my path just to make sure I could keep some reasonable gear. Take weapon durability out of the game and I just wander freely without a concern of getting into an area and not having any weapons. It has been a liberating experience, so much so that I really think there should be a toggle in the official game to disable the stupid durability system. In the meantime however I have Cemu and it gives me that functionality.
And finally… I have seen the second credit roll of Stormblood and am officially ready for the release of Shadowbringers. This one was way shorter than I was expecting, and largely entailed a single quest chain. So here is where I am going to complain about Square Enix because they have started doing something that drives me insane. There have been a few quests towards the tail of Stormblood that involved a bunch of cut scenes and multiple phases… all without checkpoints so if you fail at any point you have to complete the entire sequence over again. I absolutely failed the final quest of this expansion a few times until I sorted out the dance of the fight, and each time… it forced me to play through a sequence that was largely on auto pilot and un-fail-able… before getting to the REAL fight. They need to quit this shit and divide things up into multiple quests. That said I did enjoy the tail end of Stormblood quite a bit and I am looking forward to Shadowbringers continuing things. Overall I think Stormblood was a much stronger expansion than Heavensward was… however nothing holds a candle to just how great the post release content was for A Realm Reborn. Stormblood however was way closer to that, so I am hoping this means a return to wider themes. Based on what I saw at Fanfest Tokyo, I am guessing that is absolutely going to be the case. Heavensward had its moments, but there was way too much horrible Elf politics for my tastes, and the Dragons were not much better.
How was your weekend? Do anything interesting in game or in the real world? Drop us a note in the comments.
