October 2017 - Page 4 of 6 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Advertisers Suck

October 14, 2017 by Belghast

Okay this is going to be a bit of a departure from my normal content. However one of the things I get sick of as a blogger is dealing with the constant deluge of people wanting me to link to something, or do some sort of half baked paid content scheme to increase their SEO numbers. I’m feeling a little vindictive today so I am posting the sort of thing that I deal with on a regular basis.

Hey quick question –

I hope everything is going well on your end 🙂

My name is [Dude You Can Google Keywords], and I’m on the content team at [Cloud Storage Company I Have Never Heard Of].

I just finished going through your article here: http://aggronaut.com/category/games/action/. Thanks for the resource!

My colleague [Some Writer At The Company] recently put together a pretty comprehensive piece on cloud storage for photographers. This really is good information for anyone in this realm. There is a ton of information out there; our guide was designed to cut through the noise a bit.

The post is here: [Link to a post about hosting photography]

Would you consider linking to it in the article of yours I mentioned above? I saw you linked to store.playstation.com in there, so I figured I’d see if you’d link to mine as well. Perhaps your visitors find it helpful, but hey, it’s up to you.

Thanks,

– [Dude You Can Google Keywords]

P.S. I respect the relationship you have with your readers, I wouldn’t ask you to link to anything I didn’t think was an excellent resource for you guys.

So firstly… my blog is not a photography blog. Secondly he is linking to one of my categories, this one specifically is for action games so nothing to do with photography. The reason why he suggests I link to it… is because I link to store.playstation.com??? I mean I do this thing because I am talking about how to claim your Playstation Plus titles without logging into your console. Anyways this makes zero sense given what my blog is. As is usually my first line of defense I just ignore the email hoping they will go away. However this doesn’t always work as is the case with the follow up email that I get.

Hey again –

I figured I’d try one more time 🙂

Did you happen to get my last email? If you have a moment, could you let me know what you think about this idea? Or maybe you could put me in touch with the person in charge of content?

I’d love any help you can give!

Thanks!

– [Dude You Can Google Keywords]

Now one of the things I have learned the hard way… is that if they ever do this… email a second time… you are NEVER getting rid of them unless you give them a forceful shove off. I had one person from a website on e-sports betting pester me on and off over the course of an entire month through a string of probably twelve emails where I kept trying to politely say that I am not interested… and that they kept trying to get me to allow them to post promotional content on my site. So as a result I have to end up sending an email like this one…

Hey [Dude You Can Google Keywords],

I had not responded to the first email in part because I just get tired of responding to emails like this one. Tales of the Aggronaut is a personal blog and anything that appears on it means that its there because I personally suggest people checking it out. I don’t do paid ad placement nor do I link to products or services that I did not find organically and I am not actually using myself. Firstly you included a link that makes zero sense given that it is the action games category of my blog and has nothing to do with photography. Secondly… the fact that I link to Store.playstation.com also makes zero sense giving that its a tutorial on how to retrieve your Playstation Plus games of the month through the web interface without having to log into the console. Essentially nothing you wrote me fits in any way to what I actually write about. Clearly you spent exactly as much time reviewing my website as was required to fill in what is essentially a madlibs style form email.

None of this makes me interested in your product. Had you actually found a way to relate this back to my readers in any fashion, and simply approached me with an offer of “we have this awesome product, is this something you maybe want to review? Here is an account to check it out. Let us know what you think and tell your readers if you like it.” then bam that is a reasonable way to approach a content creator. This just feels sleazy.

Anyways hope you have a good day.

Bel

Here is hoping that I never hear from this person again… but deep down in the back of my mind I know that I will. There is a slimy underbelly that exists when you get to a certain point with a blog, where all of these people start crawling out of the woodwork wanting to use an anchor on your site as part of some network to increase their search engine ranking. Some offer to pay… somewhere between $50-100 for placing an article laden with links to their product on your site. Others like this schmuck seem to want you to do it out of the goodness of your heart. One guy claimed that it was unfair to my readers to only show part of the story, because I had linked to Libsyn a hosting provider that I use myself for AggroChat and have zero business relationship with. I could go to the trouble of writing a rule or flagging it as spam, but that doesn’t stop the constant onslaught of people just like them. Writing this post more than anything is for me personally… because sometimes I just want to scream obscenities at my email. Instead I am creating a post which is at least somewhat therapeutic. Monday we will return to our normally scheduled posts.

Xur Week Five: 10/13/17

October 13, 2017 by Belghast

This week is an interesting week namely because it answers a question I had rolling around in the back of my head. Since this is the first week Xur is returning to a planet that he had already been to… I had wondered if he would always appear in the same place on each planet. While we may not be absolutely certain… he did in fact appear up in the tree in the Watcher’s Grave area once again. I am curious to see when he goes to Titan next week… if they do follow the pattern if he also still appears in the little building that he did last time. I feel like this is going to be one of those weeks where you are either highly disappointed or really excited based on a handful of variables. So without further delay, lets rip that wrapping off and see what Xur brought us.

Every so often in Destiny 1 they had an exotic that equipped in the wrong slot… No Land Beyond the primary slot sniper or Universal Remote the primary slot shotgun are prime examples. This weeks bounty is the Fighting Lion… an energy slot grenade launcher that has a significant number of negatives that I feel have been placed on it in order to let it sit in a slot that is easier to get ammo for. The exotic perk is Delayed Gratification that allows you to do a timed explosion sort of thing where so long as you are holding down the trigger it will bounce the grenade around… then when you let up off the trigger it will explode. This continues to go into the generally fiddly and unreliable nature of grenade launchers as a whole that I went into a whole diatribe about yesterday. The most interesting perk is Thin the Herd which causes direct hits with the grenade to do significantly more damage to enemy shields… and then rapid kills to enemies damaged in this fashion cause the weapon to reload. Given that this is a single shot weapon… I feel like this is actually the perk we should be caring about. In function I think this weapon is designed to be a shield stripper and for you to swap over to it… hit an enemy decimating its shield in a single hit and then swap back to your kinetic to kill it quickly so that the weapon reloads and is ready for the next encounter. I mean this is a cool mechanic, but it also means you are losing one entire weapon slot to effectively a gimmick. I rely way too much on both my kinetic and energy weapons for moment to moment game play and cannot really afford to have a one hit wonder taking up one of those slots. Your mileage may vary of course and it is probably still worth a pick up if you have not yet unlocked this item in your collection.

Peacekeepers are an item that I would have purchased… were it not for the fact that I literally just got a pair from an engram last night. The perk on these is interesting in that it effectively gives Sub-Machineguns a stronger version of the cocoon perk. Effectively Mecha Holster does two things… firstly it causes submacs to reload when you stow them and secondly it causes submacs to swap instantly. I feel like this is screaming for a build where you are running two different archetypes of submachinegun in both your kinetic and energy slots. Were I doing this build I would go with a highly stable 600 rpm weapon like the Antiope-D or the Adjudicator in my kinetic slot, and rock something like the Royal Dispensation II in my energy slot. This is more than likely a PVP build sort of thing given that submacs akimbo is probably not the best idea for PVE engagements because you lose a lot of utility. This is a cool item that is inspired by the way Robocop drew his weapon, but it just isn’t good enough to probably get me to stop using the exotics I already have in rotation. Once again this is another if you don’t already have it, buy it to unlock in your collection sort of setup.

This week we have yet another repeat in the form of the Wings of Sacred Dawn… that actually last appeared in Xur’s inventory on week one when we were back here on Nessus. This still is one of the most ornate chest pieces that I have seen in the game and I know a lot of players seem to rock this almost for looks alone. I am still not really a fan of the Dawnblade sub class nor am I really a fan of the whole hover in air while hurling blades at your enemy that the Exotic perk gives you. If you like hanging mid air and performing attacks though then this might be the ideal weapon for you… for me that just seems to make you a giant target and I absolutely love when a warlock is using this in the crucible for that reason. It is worth the pick up for the unlock and maybe there will be a situation where this sort of gameplay is really needed in the future.

Now I present the diamond in the rough… Knucklehead Radar. There has been this trend in Destiny 2 of bringing underutilized exotics from Destiny 1 into the game, but this one sort of breaks that pattern. Knucklehead Radar has always been useful because it grants an insanely good exotic perk in the form of Upgraded Sensor Pack. What this effectively does is grant you radar 100% of the time regardless if you are aiming down the sight of your kinetic, energy or heavy weapon. The shine off of this item tarnished a bit during year three, when they introduced the Memory of Gheleon artifact… that effectively did this same thing. However for now… this is the only exotic that I use on my Hunter and if you do not already have this in your arsenal you should do whatever it takes to buy this item this week. Sure there are items that are functionally better in different situations…. but I like the fact that this is legitimately always going to be useful regardless of what sub class you are using or what situation you are in be it PVE or PVP. One of my favorite Destiny 1 items… and still one of my favorite Destiny 2 items… I just wish there was an equivalent for Titans.

Another thing I have started trying to do on my Friday morning post is show of what Xur is selling in Destiny 1, since no one seems to still be doing this thing. This week he can be located on the Reef, and apparently talked to his Destiny 2 counterpart as he is also offering the Knucklehead Radar. I am not going to talk a lot about his offerings but instead just list them out for any players who are still trying to complete exotic sets from the first game.

Legacy Heavy Weapon Engram – 31 Strange Coins
Helm of Inmost Light – Titan Helm – 13 Strange Coins
Knucklehead Radar – Hunter Helm – 13 Strange Coins
Nothing Manacles – Warlock Gauntlets – 13 Strange Coins
Hereafter – Sniper Rifle – 17 Strange Coins
Last Word and Sequel Ornament – Hand Cannon – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust
Truth and Prototype Ornament – Rocket Launcher – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust

Autos and Grenades

October 12, 2017 by Belghast

Apart from the recent jaunts back into Final Fantasy XIV brought on by our amazing Free Company house… I have been spending most of my time this week with the Iron Banner. There are a whole lot of things that have changed from Destiny 1… most of which for the better. For me at least in D1 Iron Banner was this holiday event in part because I knew that I could get gear that would help bump my light level up. Unfortunately that is not the case with D2, and this is all part of a larger discussion I want to have at some point about the general problems with the way progression feels. In D1 the only way you made progress through the ranks of the Iron Banner reputation was by winning, which meant that if you hit a frustrating unlucky streak you could stall out complete. Gear drops were rewarded as part of bounties that you could get on each character, and as random drops at the end of matches. On average I seemed to get a new piece of gear every three or four matches… but you also had dry spells where you could go upwards of ten games without seeing anything. In D2 this situation is largely resolved by shifting everything to token based loot. It takes 20 tokens to get a package with one iron banner exclusive item and then the potential of getting a random filler legendary and/or some shaders. You gain 2 tokens for a loss and 5 tokens for a win, so if you can manage to get on a streak you can rack up several packages in a row. Additionally there are challenges that can be completed each day and turning those back in to Lord Saladin rewards 15 faction tokens.

My goal so far has been to earn at least 2 packages a day, and in part this is only because I cannot really handle a bunch of crucible in a row. So far in Destiny 2 the length of time I can reasonably play crucible matches back to back lines up almost perfectly with the amount required to get the Call to Arms engram. My biggest problem is that I need a breather every so many matches because I notice that my own abilities start to wain greatly as the stress and anxiety sort of catch up with me. As a result I notice that I am completely all over the map when it comes to my ability. I also have certain maps that I am just not good at, or do not fit whatever it is that my play style actually is and as a result my Destiny tracker profile is a mess. The biggest problem for me is that the core reason why I spent so much time playing Iron Banner was the overarching goal of increasing my viability in the game by getting more powerful gear and infusing it into stuff. With this gone… some of my drive to keep playing is largely toast and at this point my goal is to get 10 packages so I can unlock whatever it is that I earn by doing so. Right now I have opened five packages and gotten the same auto rifle twice… which admittedly was the primary weapon I was interested in… as well as helm, chest and a grenade launcher. I thought I would take a moment this morning and talk about the two weapons I have seen so far.

The Forward Path looks like the Origin Story which is ultimately what initially got me excited about the weapon, but winds up being a vastly different weapon archetype. It lives in the 600 rpm bracket which means its most direct competitors are Scathelocke, Ghost Primus and Martyr’s Make… at least of the rifles you see in regular rotation. All of these weapons are really closely grouped on most of the stats but The Forward Path has significantly more handling than most of the other weapons in this class. The big take away from me after using this a good deal is that it feels really reliable and easy to hold on target… especially with a moving target. It benefits significantly from the Tap the Trigger perk which grants increased accuracy and stability the few moments after pulling the trigger. When I am taking down targets at max range I tend to habitually pump the trigger firing off short bursts… a habit that I picked up from playing the early FPS titles and this weapon plays directly into that instinct. The only negative is… this feels like a PVE weapon… that is being rewarded by a PVP event. There is just not a case where you would not choose to take Scathelocke or Origin Story in your kinetic slot because High-Caliber Rounds and Rampage are just that good. However Armor-Piercing rounds makes this thing a beast for strikes and other PVE content where the mobs are shielded because this gives you the ability to easily break shields with both Kinetic and Energy weapons. I am super glad to add this weapon to my arsenal, but it is right now a weird mixed bag for me… and in truth I am probably going to rock Ghost Primus/Scathelocke in a lot of the situations I would normally use it.

Grenade Launchers need a great deal of work. As it stands this is my least favorite weapon type and is voted most likely to get sharded on sight when one drops into my inventory. I’ve found exactly one Grenade Launcher that I actually like using and that is the one from the crucible/packages Play of the Game. The reason why this weapon shines above all others is because of a single perk… Proximity Grenades causing the payload to detonate when it gets close to a target rather than hitting it. Grenades are insanely unwieldy and bounce like mad… making them completely unreliable other than being used “for funsies”. The Day’s Fury suffers from all of these problems with grenade launchers in general… but is increased by having a fairly small blast radius and perks that don’t really help make up for the weaknesses of the genre. You have Mini Frags which increases reload speed and magazine size at the cost of blast radius, or Spike Grenade that inexplicably increases stability. When I think Spike Grenades I think some sort of a claymore mine action where it hurls shrapnel into nearby enemies when it explodes… which would have been awesome and maybe would have made this weapon reasonable to use. As it stands this just ends up being vault clutter that I will end up holding onto because it was hard to get… hoping maybe they will turn Grenade Launchers into something useful in the future.

Have you gotten anything cool from the Iron Banner? What are your thoughts of the event so far? Drop a line in the comments and let me know.

Shirogane Extreme

October 11, 2017 by Belghast

For most of my journey through Final Fantasy XIV, my home has been The Mists Plot 13 where we managed to snag a small house and turn it into our Free Company house years ago. The sad thing at this point I can no longer seem to remember what ward we were originally located in. Once we placed that Aetherite shard in our lawn… I stopped needing to care about which one I was intending to visit. Over the years we contemplated trying to move houses to something larger, but we were so ideally situated in the ward that nothing ever felt right. We were across the road from a market board and retainer bell, and just a few short paces away from the vendors located centrally on the zone. Similarly we were only a row of houses away from the beach making it feel like everything was close at hand. One of the key problems with housing in Final Fantasy XIV is that it is extremely expensive… and secondly it is completely unavailable most of the time given that it is physical housing rather than instanced. Each Ward having a limited number of potential spaces divided up among small, medium and large plots, and unfortunately Square Enix has been extremely slot to add additional resources.

With the launch of Stormblood came a golden opportunity because they announced that they would be adding a brand new housing area in the city of Shirogane. It was about this time that we started talk of actually finally moving to a new area, especially after seeing that this new zone had beach front lots. There was still the logistical problem of having to sell one house and then immediately turn around and try and buy a new one… all the while hoping you didn’t get sniped and end up without a Free Company house in any form. However at some point along the way they announced that they would be adding in a relocation system that allows you to move houses and everything in them. There has been a standing joke online over the last few days of the opening of the Shirogane housing area being the ultimate extreme battle… and reading reddit it definitely seems the case. Functionally how we got the house was having Tam and Ash both online at 3 am PST when the housing area opened… both with enough money to buy a house in the hopes that one of them would be able to get in and purchase something. Tam absolutely nailed it and got us Ward 7 plot 49, which is a great medium house right off the beach and beside the entrance to the zone. The nearest Market board is up the hill from our house making it still a short distance away, though I have to admit they have done an amazing job of trying to make sure ALL of them are a very short distance away.

This is a different shot of our new home, and the one that Tam posted when he made his “we got one” post. It is a freaking nice location and the only problem we have right now is dealing with trying to decorate it given that we moved up from a small… and this thing seems massive with three floors. There is currently some sort of a bug hitting a bunch of us with our private rooms, but I put in a ticket and am hoping they can do something to fix that. The Free Company house has been this hub of activity for our members over the years, and while it is going to feel weird to be in a new location… I am sure given a short amount of time it will feel just as much at home as the last one did. I’ve not really had time to meet our neighbors but I am hoping they are as cool as our last batch was. It seems however like we were the lucky ones, given that everyone is clamoring for more available properties. I think if you were not awake at 3 in the morning when the plots went on sale… you didn’t get a home simple as that and it reminds me of the land runs that happened in Horizons each time a new housing area opened up. This is the problem with physical player housing, and one of the reasons why I tend to prefer implementations like Everquest 2 or Wildstar that have unlimited instanced housing. I will say the feeling of a physical neighborhood with other players that you get to know over the years as you hang out at the market board is pretty great. It just sucks that so many players have to go without housing because of this.