Belghast

GenX • Husband • Petfriend • Daily Blogger • Weekly Podcaster • Eternally Confused • avatar by @Ammosart@gamepad.club He/Him

Noelle the Battle Maid

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Yesterday was the first official day of Genshin Impact, seeing as how the servers were not supposed to be active for nearly as long as they were last night. I am not sure how much I talked about it yesterday, but the game has two ranks an account level rank called the Adventure Rank, and a per character level. Many of the things in the game are gated on your Adventurer level and not your character level, and right now my goal is to get to rank 20. Currently there is a promotion going on and if you get to rank 20 before the 1.1 patch lands you end up getting what is supposedly the best healer in the game as a character that you can play. Currently I am Adventurer rank 12 and it feels like it is slowing down considerably already.

All of that said, the core problem folks seem to be having is an inability to download the game. I managed to get it down on PC and my phone… but when it came to installing on the tablet I was doomed with the same challenges that everyone else seems to be having of prodigiously slow download speeds. There are a bunch of “fixes” floating around but it largely seems to be random chance. I won the lottery with my first two connections, and now am in the dregs with so many other people on the tablet. Some folks say that starting and stopping the download can maybe get you a faster speed, and others claim that on the PC at least running it as administrator helps. Whatever the case this seems to be the worst part about this launch because I have not run into any issues actually playing the game on the servers.

Were it not for the download issues I would honestly consider this one of the smoothest MMORPG launches I have ever experienced. I’m now in the process of populating my friends list with players and I gotta say Yuhki is making me feel completely inadequate here. Dario is just a bit ahead of me and Namaslays just a bit behind, but I figure she will catch up rapidly. I’ve not had a chance to test out any of the multiplayer options, but I will say one of the huge positives of this game is that there will always be another character to level. Right now I am in the midst of trying to sort out what I want to be my primary team of characters.

My favorite character by far is Noelle the Battle Maid. She is a Geo character which seems to be a fairly neutral element that isn’t super weak to much of anything but also not really super strong. She is by far the most tanky character that I have because her E is a crystalline shield that she can surround herself with. It has a neat intrinsic ability of absorbing the first element that it comes into contact with and then any damage taken of that element actually heals Noelle. She is a two handed wielding character so I tend to main her and use the other characters to apply elemental debuffs that she then exploits while they are weakened.

Another character that I pulled is someone that I think Ashgar would like, because it is essentially Kevin from Trials of Mana. Instead of transforming into a werewolf however, he has a void spirit wolf that is his ultimate and allows him to take that form and dish out massive damage. Other than that he is a two hander character, which makes me highly likely not to use him much given that I am already pretty damned attached to Noelle. Had I gotten this character first though, I would have likely spent more time playing it.

The last of the characters that I have pulled is Sucrose and honestly… I am not feeling her at all. I mean I don’t love the way that the pure casters feel in this game for starters. On top of that she is the same elemental type as the Traveler so it immediately hampers her usefulness. Maybe at some point I will stop playing with the primary character, and then her value might become more evident. I was really hoping when I saw her that she would end up being a healer of some sort, but sadly instead is a wind mage.

At the moment my party looks a little like this with the main character leading, Amber in the two slot for sweet sweet fire debuffs and when I need to do ranged attacks, Noelle in the three slot as my tank and the one I end up running around the world with the most and the four slot is mostly swap space for whoever I need to run with for a specific encounter. I lean towards Lisa because she can at least apply a decent damage debuff but I am also not super thrilled with her as an actual damage dealer. If I could find a four star or better two-hander I would probably kick my traveler character to the curb and replace him with icy boy or just run a double mage combo with Sucrose giving me some wind power.

Noelle so far really is my jam and having a lot of fun playing with the character. The only problem is without having that four star weapon I am really questioning if I should be pouring resources into her weapon, which in turn limits her damage output. I’ve heard for brawler type characters that the base damage of the weapon ends up making a huge difference in how much damage they are capable of dishing out. I need to do some research to see what quests can end up getting me a two hander that is at least four star, since adventure rank 10 got me a four star one handed sword.

All in all I am super into this game. We’ve talked on AggroChat about a mobile/pc hybrid MMORPG being the next big thing. I don’t think this one works exactly like Tam had envisioned but it does make me wonder if we are witnessing the birth of a new phenomena here. I played Dragalia Lost for a really long time, and had I been able to play it on my PC I probably would STILL be playing it. I think for me the real determinant is going to be if the Switch version cross plays with PC. If that happens then I am so on board with this game because it will let me play the same characters on the two platforms that I care the most about, all the while still giving me access from a phone in the times when it is the only gaming device I have on me. I wish Sony would have not been butts about cross play yet again, because right now they are the only platform that is walled off from the others. That almost happened with Destiny 2 until Bungie and the community shamed them into supporting it.

Now that hopefully more folks have had a chance to play, any new thoughts about the game? If you are playing throw me a friend request at 600023101. I have no clue how any of the multiplayer stuff works yet but I am sure at some point there will be grouping happening. Are you feeling the game or is this going to be a pass for you? I ‘m still poking my head into World of Warcraft on a daily basis as well and I hope to finish my Rogue before the expansion pre-patch but right now I am trying real hard to hit 20 adventurer and then I can chill out a bit. I want that free healer!

Genshin Impact

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Yesterday a game launch happened that was not even on my radar. Genshin Impact is a new action MMORPG from Shanghai based developer miHoYo. The sub text of their studio logo says “Game Otakus Save the World”, so it is not shocking that Genshin Impact is super anime style. I had seen the game advertised to me on Google Play but honestly didn’t think much about it. What ultimately interested me is the fact that the game is available on a number of non-Mobile platforms and reported features cross play across them all. Since the Genshin Impact website is nonsense here are some direct links.

One word of warning is that this downloads and patches notoriously slowly. The above image appears to be about the worst case scenario that I have seen. The image is snagged from a friend of mine that posted it on twitter. For me I saw between 2 MB/s and 5 MB/s and the PC download completed in about an hour and a half. I just want you to go into this expecting that it is going to take a long time to complete the client. If you are playing on mobile, the game downloads quickly but you are slapped with an almost immediate 6 GB download, so make sure you are doing this on WiFi to keep from getting exorbitant mobile charges.

Genshin Impact is the sort of game where you collect a large number of characters who each perform slightly differently. Then you make a part of four out of that larger stable of characters. I’ve been lead to believe that playing through the main story campaign will ultimately unlock a total of six free characters, and then additionally characters are “summoned” via a “gacha” mechanic. For those not used to mobile games there is almost always some sort of a summon or “draw” mechanic that allows you to spend a currency that can be purchased or often times very slowly accumulated in game in order to get random chance at getting something good… aka like a gachapon/gashapon capsule machine. This is ultimately where these games make their money because a lot of players won’t want to wait for the currency to build up but instead spend money outright for a chance of getting new characters.

The game starts with a sequence that makes absolutely no sense, and the game does not attempt to explain it. You are fighting some sort of a god with your sibling and you the player are given the choose of which sibling to play as. I chose the male sibling which set my main character and also sets the key goal if the game… to save your sister. This is a well trodden trope for this sort of mobile game. In Dragalia Lost there is a very similar opening sequence where someone is captured and the goal is in theory to get strong enough to be able to find and get back this person. Shenanigans ensue while trying to make this happen, and I figure the same will be true with Genshin Impact. I am just wondering if they will set up my sibling to ultimately be the eventual end boss of the game as they become perverted by whatever force captured them.

Like so many of these games there is a rock paper scissors style elemental buff and resistance scheme going on. Each character you will have access to has some sort of an element associated with them. Your named character will end up being able to wield the power of wind, and the first character you encounter is an Archer that can use fire attacks. Each of these are weak or strong to various other elements. The above chart is the best I have seen as of yet, created by a beta tester. I am hoping as this game becomes more popular someone will create something that is a little more straight forward and easier to read. You can do interesting things like combo two elements together… like if there is something on fire and you cast Swirl a wind ability it will turn the Swirl into a sort of Fire Tornado.

So far the game feels very much like what would occur if you took Dragalia Lost and combined it with Breath of the Wild. In fact the game borrows an awful lot from the most recent Zelda game in the way you traverse the world and even in the way chests appear from solving simple puzzles or defeating a camp worth of enemies. Very early on you get a glider and it has a stamina bar just like in Breath of the Wild. Additionally you have surfaces that you can climb which also depletes your stamina meter, and other metal walls that you cannot traverse in such a manner. There is also a very similar cooking mechanic that takes place at campfires allowing you to convert everything that you collect into various stat buff foods.

Instead of Shrines there are various temples that you will need to delve in order to complete puzzles and get to the other side. These puzzles might involve lighting something on fire or freezing water to create a bridge. They are nowhere near as clever as Breath of the Wild but it gives you a very similar feel. Instead the temples are a number of hidden chests that you can unlock and these become more out of the way and often require you using your elemental abilities in interesting ways to get to them.

I’ve not played much of the game yet as it launched last night around 8 pm CST, but I did play enough to get a general feeling for the game. So far I am enjoying myself greatly, and the world is extremely fun to traverse. If I understand correctly the first world you visit is the world of wind, and then as new areas open up in the game they will each be themed off of an element. Much like Breath of the Wild there are a bunch of side objectives, like finding shrines of the seven gods which serve as Sheikah Towers and give you visualization into a region of the map. You have a level associated with each character and another level that seems to be associated with you the player called an adventurer rank. Doing random stuff in the world seems to make this one go up.

There are of course a ton of videos out there talking about the game and how to optimize this thing or that thing, but of the various ones I watched yesterday I found myself enjoying DemoneKim the best for delivery. I am sure I will be writing about this game some more as I figure things out, but right now it is extremely fun just to roam around and explore. If you have ever enjoyed mobile MMOs and wished you could play them on a PC… then this might be a game for you. If you find yourself easily frustrated by Gacha mechanics… then maybe give it a pass.

The game uses a friend code type system called your UID, which can be seen at the bottom of the screen in all of the screenshots I have taken. If you find yourself exploring this game over the coming weeks, feel free to throw me a friend request at 600023101. I have no clue HOW friends work as of yet, but usually there is some passive mechanic in this sort of game where it is beneficial to have active friends. Also if you are playing this game I would love to know your own thoughts. Drop me a line below in the comments to let me know what you think so far.

AggroChat #316 – Microsoft Buys Your Memories

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Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

Tonight we have a show that basically is Bel carpet bombing the trello with current events topics.  First up we talk about the acquisition of Zenimax by Microsoft and our thoughts about that.  From there we discuss the wildly tinfoil hat theory that Microsoft is going to acquire Sega next.  We also talk about how poorly the Xbox One performed in Japan and how it seems Microsoft is attempting to fix that with their TGS 2020 showing.  Kodra talks about playing Pokken with his son and how it is a fighting game that allows you to look awesome without frustrations.  We end up spinning off a side discussion about Fighting games in general and how they expect you to learn the characters.  Ashgar talks about Monster Hunter Rise and how the main line Monster Hunter series seems to be borrowing heavily from Monster Hunter World…  also Doggos.  Finally we talk briefly about the flaws in the RTX 3080 design, at least in some of the add-in board partner cards attempts to save money.

Topics Discussed:

  • Microsoft Acquisition of Zenimax
    • Rumors of a Sega Acquisition
    • Xbox Series Sold Out in Japan
    • TGS 2020 Microsoft Show
  • Dreamhaven founded by Mike Morhaime
    • Spotty track record of Blizzard Spinoffs
    • Irvine Area Studios
  • Pokken with your child
    • Fighting games are bad at teaching fighting games
    • Fighting game story modes
  • Zendikar Rising Commander
    • Extreme Value but likely not a permanent change
  • Monster Hunter Rise Announcement
    • Hunting with Doggos
  • Flaws in the RTX 3080 third party cards
    • Why we should maybe wait a bit

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Excellent Warcraft Lore Primer

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I realized I tweeted this out yesterday, but it is Friday and I am not sure what else I was going to write about. Yesterday I was thinking about the Warcraft movie and the Tweet by Metzen that folks are taking as acknowledgement that there is a second movie in the works. The truth is I remember very little about the early lore of the Warcraft universe apart from a vague sketch of the flow of the timeline. I played the hell out of Warcraft II, but mostly in multi-player and while I am certain that I played through the campaign I remember very little of it. When Warcraft 3 came out I was already deeply engaged in MMORPGs and either playing Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot and never quite got around to playing it other than in office LAN parties.

That means there are large chunks of the story that I only know from the perspective of how World of Warcraft presents that information. Doing some googling I stumbled onto this recap video by Drew Peezick aka @dpeezick / lawllypop. What I particularly like about the video is that it takes either real or created Hearthstone cards to represent the major players and presents the story in fairly simple terms. Warcraft as a universe is this sort of self contradictory mess that has evolved over time and rewritten bits as needed to support whatever the new story initiative happens to be. We are in truth heading into this territory as we approach the Shadowlands expansion and the lore that is being spun up about the pantheon of death.

I had originally arrived looking for the lore of the first two games but found that this is apparently a sequence of videos that carries forward with the first chapter being “before warcraft 3” the second chapter being “Warcraft 3” and then moving forward into classic World of Warcraft and through each off the expansions. It is funny that for even not playing the game Warcraft 3 I found myself familiar with a lot of the lore that was presented. I guess this comes as a result of playing the game for some sixteen years and having bits and pieces of it fed to me in a very slow drip through quest lines. World of Warcraft is a game that has regularly strip mined its past in order to present a path forward.

I think the thing that I really enjoyed the most while watching these videos is the way that they attempt to weave modern and past lore together into something that makes a reasonable amount of sense. Things get messy at times when you try and figure out the actual canon story of the dungeons and raids since these are ultimately multi-player experiences. The videos however do a really good job of shifting back and forth between the perspective of the Horde and Alliance and weaving our way around some of the key plot points that ultimately lead to the phases of the Classic wow release schedule and the key conflicts that were involved in each. For now a large amount of the Troll lore has been pushed off to its own video in the future.

I really enjoyed the Burning Crusade video because having not played horde during this era, I found some of the motivations of the Blood Elves to be a little obtuse and how exactly Kael’thas, Lady Vashj, Akama and Illidan fit together other than just being large set piece battles for us in the raids. I’ve never been a fan of Night Elves so I was turned off pretty early when I attempted to read War of the Ancients, so I greatly appreciate all of the lore bits from the novels, game and other canon sources woven back together into something that makes sense. Nobbel does an excellent job of deep diving into specific segments of lore, but what I was craving was an overview to understand how all of these disparate pieces are supposed to fit together… or at least a narrative that weaves them into something that makes sense. I think there exists a need for both types of content and I am happy to see that this channel is approaching it from a primer standpoint.

When we get to the Wrath of the Lich King, I think is where lore starts to become extremely cogent given that Shadowlands in essence feels a bit like a return to the themes of this expansion. Legion felt in many ways to be a return to the themes of Burning Crusade, so it makes sense hat we would have an expansion that attempts to continue the story forward from Wrath as well. Most of this lore I was already familiar with because I was actively raiding during this time and also I think in Wrath the way the stories were presented did a significant better job of pieces together the bits into a cohesive narrative. That said there were still a good number of things that I learned along the way and the video was well worth a watch.

With Cataclysm we reach the end of this journey so far. This video came out on September 19th, and I am certain that the creation of these requires a significant amount of time. The Pre-WC3 Lore video came out a year ago, Warcraft 3 9 months ago, Classic WoW 4 months ago, and then it seems like things have accelerated considerably with BC, Wrath and Cata coming out roughly a month apart. I would love to see a new video each month, but that still seems like an awful lot of work considering how much sifting through storyline it has to take and then the creation of the really cool Hearthstone style assets. It did remind me however that there were absolutely bits of story that I used to love about this game, and that while time and layers of story on top of it have muddied the water, the core is still enjoyable.

Even though the cosmology of this World of Warcraft has shifted and changed over time, I find it terribly interesting to at least mentally revisit the stories from its past. I think this video series does an amazing job of simplifying things enough to make it all work together. I think this is in essence what Blizzard has been trying to do over the last few expansions, is meld everything that came before with everything that is happening currently and attempt to lay out the cards in a manner that makes sense. All of that said I think these videos do a better job of presenting the core thrust of these expansions, and while there are hundreds of important side bits that blur our perspectives I greatly appreciate the way these present backstory at the moment it is important rather than trying to lay everything out in a strict chronology. I highly suggest you check it out and I greatly applaud someone who can make the nonsense that was the comic book series blend cleanly into the timeline. The entire playlist of six videos is just shy of two hours, and I personally consider that to be time well spent.