Action RPGs

Action RPGs along the lines of the Diablo Franchise

Kenzie and Walled City

by
Kenzie.exe is hibernating

This morning is one of those mornings when I am not exactly sure what to write about, so as a result I figured I would give an update on Kenzie. Some weeks back in a stress filled post I talked about her being diagnosed with diabetes. In the time since then we have begun an insulin regiment in the morning and evening and are going back for another round of tests on Friday morning. The good news is that the insulin has seemingly halted the weight loss, and she may have gained some back but I am not sure if I am imagining that or not. The bad news is that due to some miscommunications the Vet was not able to successfully complete a glucose curve last week and we have to reattempt it this Friday.

A very tiny shoulder mounted Kenzie

Another positive however is that because she has been with me since a kitten, she pretty much will tolerate me doing anything that needs to happen. That is not to say that she does not protest furiously when I do have to poke her with a needle, but she more or less forgives me immediately. I am so thankful that if I were to have any cat come down with this disease… that it is Kenzie, because there is no way in hell that I could have given twice a day shots to Mollie. I can barely even pick her up without her freaking the hell out. Kenzie on the other hand I can carry around on my shoulder indefinitely because I have done so since she was super tiny. Above is photo evidence of this era when she would sit on my shoulder and watch me game.

While not super evident by the fact that I am only level 50… I have been spending a lot of time playing Diablo III on the Switch. This has recently replaced Dragalia Lost as my before sleep game that I am playing while laying down in bed. Last night I was not feeling super great and wound up going to bed around 9 pm and then hanging out and playing D3 until the news came on. I am mostly spending my time going through bounties, and I doubt that I will complete the seasons journey on console… but it does give me something to work towards. Seeing how freaking brutal Kolrath was I opted to play as a Barbarian, and I like the female Barb way better than the male one.

Another thing that has been going on recently is that I have been playing a lot of Minecraft. I opted to start in creative mode and started piddling around on a giant castle project. I started work on this as some point during Saturday and this is around the time of recording the podcast Saturday night. You can see that I started putting up a giant wall but hadn’t made much progress in actually hollowing anything out. I find the whole process relaxing as hell and lately I have been in this weird funk of not really knowing what to play. I could be finishing up Outer Worlds and I could also be finishing up Jedi Fallen Order, but instead I have spent my time building a castle.

This screenshot is from this morning and hopefully shows off some of the scale of this monstrosity. Inside there are four levels worth of construction, and the “ground floor” enters into what is effectively the 3rd floor going up, with two floors below the ground. I am not entirely certain what I am going to do with the 1st and 2nd floor as of yet, but I think the next big project is to build essentially a “keep” on top of the peak that you can see on the right side of the walled city area.

Since I have been building on creative mode, I have not been super concerned with torching things off and as a result I have a basement full of monsters that have spawned in. This is the second floor or Basement 1 depending on how you think about it, and I need to sort out what I have planned for down here. My general idea was that the ground floor would be shops and this floor would be small houses/apartments and maybe the same for the lowest floor, but ritzier houses since everything floats out over a giant underground lake of sorts. I want to build some other buildings out along the countryside as well, because there would be an assemblage of housing NEAR the walled city but not quite in it as well. Maybe build up a walled farm or two that are protected to feed resources into the city.

I am back playing the Java version of Minecraft because for a bit I kicked around starting a server in my home for this map. I also really miss the minimap addon whenever I am playing on the Windows 10 client. Ultimately this is sorta what I do when I am playing the game. I invent civilizations and build the structures that they would have used. The funny thing is… once the process is over I do absolutely nothing with the end product and often times just discard the maps after having spent hundreds of hours working on them. All that ultimately remains is a series of screenshots to prove that I did the thing.

Halo and Wolcen

by

Halo Reach

I have to admit I got caught up in the Halo hype last night like so many other players. The key difference for me is that I have never really been a Halo aficionado. I never owned an original Xbox and I first played the game with the pretty tragically bad PC port that came significantly after the fact. At the time I thought Unreal 2 was a much better game and doing a lot of the same things that Halo was. However there are times when you see how much a franchise means to people that you respect, and you desperately want to understand what they like so much about it. This is why I keep throwing myself down the path of Halo games and trying to figure out how to flip the switch inside of me that makes me love them.

With the PC release of The Master Chief Collection, Microsoft has opted to dole the games out one at a time rather than giving us all of them at once like exists on the Xbox One. The first game up is Halo Reach, which came out in 2010 and is in theory the second game chronologically, centering around the defense of a planet called Reach. That is pretty much all I know about the game because at this point I am only two missions into it. The controls do not feel amazing by modern standards and the voice acting in 2010 was significantly lower fidelity than what we are used to today as well. Both of these things lead me to bounce out pretty early last night on the campaign.

The core problem that I always have with Halo is its weapon system. There are weapons that feel good to use, but they are generally the Spartan weapons and while out in the field you can never seem to find ammunition for them. This means you are going to ultimately have to keep throwing away the gun that you like and picking up some random piece of trash just to survive. This gameplay feels awful to me, and I am super thankful that Bungie went on to create Destiny… a game largely focused around playing with amazing feeling weapons. I appreciate that Halo exists because without it I wouldn’t have gotten Destiny, but I am still struggling to glean what makes the game so magical.

Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem

On a whim I decided to reinstall Wolcen the other night, because it had not significantly played the game since February of 2018. At that time I believe my assessment was that the game was “very alpha” which is my polite way of saying it is a buggy and formless mess. In the months between then and now the game has completely changed into something that is extremely playable, and to the best of my understanding has at least one act completely finished. There is also a planned launch in January, which would indicate to me that we are getting pretty close to its final form.

The end result is a game with a pretty solid storyline and good voice acting, as well as combat and systems that feel pretty polished. Gone is the complete free form system and instead one that sort of nudges you into one of three paths largely centered around melee combat, ranged combat or magical casting. However you can at will jump off the rails and go in whatever directions you want to because in theory there isn’t much difference between these paths at the beginning of the game. You pick up spells while roaming through the world and these serve as your abilities. Each one has specific weapon requirements, leading your way down those three paths for the most part.

Combat feels solid and fluid and a seemingly good blend of difficulty, where it is absolutely easy to sink into but can be punishing if you are not paying attention to your surroundings. There is a dodge system bound to the space bar and it follows a pip based system giving you 4 charges of dodge before you have to wait for them to regenerate. Shocking to no one I am largely centered around a melee build and have an interesting blend of abilities including: a leap attack, a charge, a death grip, a warcry shout of sorts and a big hammer that I slam down dealing AOE damage. The interplay between abilities feels really good and they have added little perks like you automagically charging into combat with your primary attack as a gap closer if you were out of combat.

The gearing system all seems to more or less be standard fare for an ARPG, with the added element of wearing armor of a specific play style giving you extra attribute points for that play style. So ultimately your “build” becomes a combination of your skills that you use, your talent picks and the items that you happen to be wielding… all of which sort of adding up to a total character identity. I’ve more or less stuck to heavy armor which greatly increases my resistances, but there have been moments when a significantly better item drops of another armor family, and I was able to freely swap stuff around to fit the need.

I know Grace also has Wolcen and at some point I would like to group up with her and see how the group play feels. Ultimately that is going to be the make or break for the game, because while I enjoy playing an ARPG solo… there is limited life in doing that. We come together each Diablo 3 season because group play is fun and rewarding, and while I want to see the story play out in Wolcen, unless it also has rewarding feeling group play I am not sure if it becomes a real option for the long haul.

Diablo 3 Keybinds

by

Over the Thanksgiving break I spent most of my time playing Diablo 3. I go through these periods at the beginning of a new season where I play hard and heavy for a few weeks and then taper off once I have achieved whatever goal I thought I wanted to achieve for the season. This time around Blizzard put a Tyrael themed Goblin pet at the end of the process and as a result I ground my way to the very end. This was supposed to be the season that I learned the joys of playing a Wizard, but I have to say I am just not a big fan of that class. The highest I managed to get my Wizard was a solo Greater Rift 60, and now that I am in the post seasons journey I might try finishing out the set I was going for and seeing how well it plays.

My friend Grace bailed me out and helped me power level a Demon Hunter and get some of the basic gearing that I needed. This ultimately was the class that I finished the Seasons Journey on and has rapidly become the class that I am the most familiar with. Effectively it and the Thorns Crusader are pretty much my favorite ways to play Diablo 3. I should branch out more, but when I find something I like I end up sticking to it. On the Demon Hunter I effectively ran a variant of the Unhallowed Essense Multi-shot build that you can find on Icy Veins. The most important part about playing the build is never stopping long enough to get hit, because you are still relatively squishy… but Demon Hunter has the mechanics to keep that from happening whereas I felt like the Wizard lacked them.

I’ve seen a bunch of friends dipping their toes into this season, and because of this I thought I would spend this morning breaking out the most cogent advice that I have. I have to credit Grace for starting me down this path initially, but the single best thing I did to improve my gameplay in Diablo 3 was set a keybind for “Force Move”. This effectively gives you a key that pressing it down moves your character towards your mouse cursor. I highlighted the keybinds that I am going to be talking about in the above image but the first one is that when I hold W my character moves towards where my mouse cursor is allowing me to move the mouse to steer rather than relying on the sometimes sloppy click to move. This is important because it allows you to be moving independent of any other actions you might be taking with your character and rapidly change directions as needed.

The next important keybind is that I bound my first skill slot to space bar. This is where I put my movement key on whatever class I happen to be playing. So on Barbarian this would be Leap Attack or Furious Charge, on Demon Hunter it would be Vault, on Witch Doctor it would be Spirit Walk, Wizard it would be Teleport, and Crusader it would be Steed Charge. It is plays on a key that is super easy to spam because you are going to want to be moving as fast as possible most of the time especially when dealing with higher level Greater Rifts.

You are probably questioning why I have Action slot 2, 3 and 4 bound to 7, 8 and 9… and I have to admit this is a fairly new revelation. I play with a Logitech G600 gaming mouse with a keypad on the left hand side. For me the most natural and comfortable keys to hit are in the 7/8/9 row as that seems to be where my thumb naturally rests. That means I can comfortably move up to hit 4/5/6 or down to hit 0/-/= without really interrupting my play in MMORPGs. Most builds involve putting your most important abilities on Left Mouse and Right Mouse and then anything you just want to keep hitting periodically on keybinds 2/3/4. I find it takes me out of the action less if I am hitting these on the mouse as opposed to trying to reach them on the keyboard while holding the W key to be moving forward. Ultimately you sorta have to figure out what feels best for you, but for me this works.

The truth of playing higher tiers of Diablo 3 is that standing still is going to kill you. You effectively need to stay in constant motion to be able to avoid the cavalcade of nonsense that is being thrown at you as far as ground effects and missiles headed your direction. I find it way easier to do this while staying shifting around the battlefield and in order to do this effectively you need to be able to move independent of you performing any attacks. Similarly there are a bunch of attacks that are effectively skill shots requiring you to swing your mouse cursor around in a specific direction and I find this easier to do it I am doing so without worrying about what directional inputs I might be sending my character. Keybinds made Diablo 3 feel so much better and I need to see if I can set up something similar in Path of Exile to maybe fix some of the bad feelings I have towards that game.

As far as my late game seasonal journey, I have had a decent amount of luck with Primal Ancient drops. I aligned these in the order of which I got them, and the one I got from clearing my first 70 Greater Rift is the Nemesis Bracers, which are usually a cube item… but I wound up shifting up my build a bit to accommodate them. The most important drop was my Primal Ancient Yangs which I managed to get by re-rolling a spare Yangs over and over trying to get an Ancient and then somehow winning the Jackpot. The St. Archew gloves are mostly a throw away drop, but I got them on a character I will be talking about in a few minutes making that a little bit more viable. Lastly I got a Primal Ancient piece of the Unhallowed set which blends perfectly into the build on the Demon Hunter.

At the beginning of the season I mentioned that I had never played a Wizard or a Witch Doctor before and apparently this is the season where both of these have been remedied. Grace mentioned that since we are both done with the seasonal journey that we should roll a couple of “Chicken” build Witch Doctors to do some nonsense farming with. I leveled a Gem of Ease and ground up the Witch Doctor yesterday afternoon for fun. I have to admit while I don’t have anything close to a final build, the leveling build I am running is rather enjoyable. The class as a whole feels like this weird blend of the Necromancer and the Demon Hunter… both of which classes that I greatly enjoy. So I can see this being enjoyable.

I’ve only managed to get up to Torment VI with the character, but right now I mostly need the rest of the Helltooth Items and the weapon set that makes the Chicken build work. More or less this is going to be the thing that keeps me invested in this season, and I may even dust off the Wizard and get it moving again. Weirdly at night I am going from playing Diablo 3 on the PC to laying in bed and playing Diablo 3 on the Switch for awhile as I play up a seasonal Barbarian there. Apparently I am in the zone as far as it comes to playing Diablo, and I am sure this will last right up until the point that the new season starts in Destiny 2.

Goodbye Wizard

by

I am weak. After reading yesterdays post, Grace offered to boost my Demon Hunter and I grabbed hold to that notion with both hands. As a result we spent most of last night boosting and gearing while she worked on leveling her gems. I somehow managed to collect the vast majority of the gear I need for an Unhallowed Multishot build. In theory I still need a Ring of Royal Grandeur which I only found out last night can be gotten through bounties. I should hopefully get one while doing the bounties needed to get Avarice which is my new goal. I also need Wraps of Clarity, but eventually Kadala will pay out here and give me them. The most important item I need I believe is the Dead Man’s Legacy, which I am honestly going to focus with Blood Shards before anything else.

So the first Rift took me into my low 20s, but high enough to be able to craft three pieces of Cain’s gear with which I equipped the biggest red gem I could make into the helm. I also at the suggestion of Grace equipped my Gem of Ease into a weapon and then pretty much rode the express elevator to 70. The funny part about doing this is that the game gets real confused and backlogged with those level up ability granting messages. I took this screenshot to illustrate the problem… notice my character is 46 and the game is just now congratulating me on reaching level 28. I think it took three rifts in total at T6 to get from 1 to 70, and for most of it I barely had any gear equipped and was just hanging out at the entrance until Grace transitioned. A few seasons back I boosted up a Witch Doctor for her in a similar manner so I don’t exactly feel guilty, but regardless I am super thankful for her exceptional effort and willingness to continue doing nonsense.

I managed to push the Wizard to a solo Greater Rift 60, which isn’t horrible. The problem I realized is that I just wasn’t actually having any fun playing it. The amount of grinding ahead of me to get all of the stuff this season, on a character that I was not enjoying… just seemed like an insurmountable gulf of misery. So I am once again back on my bullshit and playing the cheatiest class ever… the Demon Hunter and one of the cheatiest builds… Multishot. I tried a Solo GR70 this morning and failed, but I was seemingly really close. Once I get some levels on my gems and once I finish swapping out Royal Emeralds for Flawless Royal Emeralds… I should be in a good place to push higher. I think also once I get a RoRG it will increase my speed significantly when I add back in the Captain Crimson’s items into the mix.

I would have gone faster, but we paused when my wife got home to do some cleaning and in the process I decided to set up our Christmas Tree. We have cats and as a result we don’t put up a large tree, but instead a small one that goes on top of the entertainment center. The star is a little wonky, but it cycles through rainbow colors when I get around to replacing the battery in it. Christmas lights make me happy and since I will be spending a lot of time this weekend hanging out downstairs grinding in Diablo 3… I decided it was a fine time to get things set up so I could enjoy it. I realize it is a little early for some people, but whatever.

Since I probably will be lazy and not post much over the coming days, I hope you and yours have a Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for each and every one of you who has enriched my life over the last decade and some change. If you are not having Thanksgiving tomorrow… then I guess I wish you a happy Thursday and Friday, because you absolutely deserve to have good days too.