Tales of the Aggronaut

Northern Thanalan Problem

July 12, 2015 by Belghast

Button Mash Bard

Last night during the podcast I piddled around in Final Fantasy XIV as I often do. The fact that I had to edit a section of the podcast out because of my rapid fire keyboard mashing… means I was piddling around on my bard. Of all of my classes… this is the one that I seem to give the least shits about actually playing correctly. I will leave good barding up to Shiana, Warenwolf and Thalen… me I just mash buttons and pray. One of the problems is that I have all of these characters currently sitting at level 50 that I got to cap last expansion. The bard, the white mage and the paladin among them. The problem being right now without quest support there is no real handy way to get to level 51, which is the level you need to be to hit the first dungeon. On my dragoon I have been pretty much living in dungeons, and as a result I have managed to make a significant push in level, as he is roughly half way to 55.

So last night I struggled to figure out just how to get my bard over the hump, so I could start doing the same with him. I wandered around a bit in Western Coethas only to remember that even with the armory bonus… FATEs in Heavensward are still pretty terrible. Then Ashgar mentioned that I should do what I did at 49… and just go to Northern Thanalan. So I zoned into that area and it took longer to load than either Ishgard, Mor Dhona or Idyllshire. It turns out that pretty much everyone is living in this zone, and I guess it makes sense. On average FATEs in Western Coerthas rewarded my bard 28,000 experience. On average FATEs in Northern Thanalan rewarded around 21,000 experience… and the zone is about a fourth of the size of Western Coerthas… and has just as many FATEs. This means that there is a constant train of pink marks showing up all over your map.

Northern Thanalan Problem

On the live letter this week they mentioned that they would be tweaking FATEs to make them a better value proposition for players, and I think this is a bit of an understatement in the level of the issue that is happening. One of the interesting things about the internet and mmos is that players will figure out the shortest route to solving a problem and abuse the hell out of it. Quickly players realized that they could simply level faster by living in Northern Thanalan… and that is quite literally what is happening. I would estimate last night during the podcast there were somewhere close to 200 players in zone fighting over the FATEs that spawned, and in a crazy game of whack-a-mole as soon as one dropped the next one would be up and the rush would begin across zone to get the first hits in on it. We experienced these same problems at release with the abuse of a very specific FATE in Northern Thanalan called “Dark Devices” and it seems like once again this zone is the king of the fast leveling curve.

The problem with this is that it makes the game boring. You stand in zone and hang out there until you are 60… and quite literally players are doing this on their alternate classes, riding this elevator to the top floor and then getting off just in time to gear for Alexander. The end result is that we are starting to see level 60 players who have not done a single class quest and as a result have NONE of their new class abilities. Time doing class quests is time taken away from the “super efficient” level mill of Northern Thanalan. Here in lies problem two… this zone is a fun zone to run FATEs in… and absolutely worth while for players post 45 when Central Coerthas starts to slow down. My biggest fear is that we are going to see a bit of an overcorrection that leads to Square nerfing the FATEs in this zone once again to try and prod players to leave it. What I want to see instead is that they incentivize the content in the new areas… to make it worth spending time there and doing the FATEs.

More Carrot to the Stick

Those first days after launch, the FATEs were getting run and every single major boss fate was dropping all sorts of awesome items. Then players realized, or at least Reddit realized that mathematically the FATE grinding experience was shit. I want to see players in the zones doing the content the zones have to offer. We long speculated that they purposefully under-incentivized the FATEs to get players to actually do quest content, because at the launch of A Realm Reborn… it was absolutely a problem with players completely ignoring quests until they hit the level cap. The issue here is that dungeons are gated through the storyline… and without players entering the dungeon system… the queues got more than a little out of whack. So I guess I support the notion of nerfing FATEs temporarily… but at this point something needs to be done to derail the Northern Thanalan train once again. I don’t think we can probably afford to wait until 3.1, so I am hoping that we see a minor patch that introduces a series of tweaks that right this ships course.

In the meantime I am guessing I will start running Levequests to get over that 50 to 51 hump, because after the madness of last night… I really did not find the Northern Thanalan experience enjoyable. I had way too many flashbacks of the way the dark devices grind felt. I absolutely rode that up on my Bard and then never touched it on another character again. The game has some really awesome FATEs in the new areas that each tell a story… some of which we ended up talking about last night. I want Square to find a way to add enough carrot to their stick, in order to convince players that staying in the zone they are currently in and running FATEs is a valuable option. Mostly I want to be able to knock out all of the different zone boss fates because there are interesting things sitting on their loot table if you manage to get to gold contribution. Two weeks into the expansion though I am still loving it in spite of all the minor problems we have complained about. We talked about this last night in the podcast, that it seems like we complain a lot… but it is more a case of us wanting them to iron out the rest of the wrinkles… because the game is really damned polished already.

Be Stronger Than Me

July 11, 2015 by Belghast

Horrible Events

Yesterday was a phenomenally bad day, but not for any of the normal reasons. My wrist is doing mostly better, and my knee while swelling a lot more is also starting still progressively healing. My day was horrible for a bit of news I received. When I got out of a meeting yesterday morning I had two missed calls from friends in the Little Rock area. My mind immediately jumped to something having happened to a third friend and member of our AggroChat podcast Thalen. It turns out Thalen is fine, but the news I received was so much worse. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail but one of my friends and sometimes guild members took her own life. I don’t know the specifics, but having had a suicide in my life before… you never really do know the specifics. All we really do know is that she is gone.

She struggled with a lot of things, a toxic work environment, a family that was largely unsupportive… and the lack of a support network in her area. I talked over the years with her about these things and more, as I tried to just be someone who would listen. The problem with gaming friends however is that if you don’t happen to be playing the same game… it is extremely easy to fall out of touch with each other. It had been at least six months since I last talked to her, and now I am kicking myself for not reaching out and making more of an effort. I saw her pop on steam a few weeks ago, but I myself was going through a “speak when spoken to” only mode… but now I am agonizing over not saying anything. This is the problem with a suicide, there are so many unanswered questions… and the ones that get left behind feel guilty for not doing more.

My Own Struggles

This morning I am going to be far more candid than I normally am. I have struggled with these suicidal thoughts my entire life. Right now I am taking something that helps, for pretty much the first time in my life. I’ve always been afraid to seek help, and even now I am largely self medicating with a holistic remedy instead of actually seeking treatment. There is something terrifying about talking to someone and unpacking your soul. I know personally I just keep ramming things down on this pile of frustration and shame until it overwhelms me. I was actually scaring myself a lot lately… which is why I am trying to do something about it. There are moments where I catch myself running down these scenarios in my head about how I would do it… and what planning would need to go into it. The fact that my brain can run down those pathways terrifies me.

The thing is… I know these are not “right” thoughts, and as a result I have always been able to bring myself back from that line of thinking. I’ve always had a friend to talk to, or someone to cheer me up. Last night a few moments in Free Company chat and watching the friendly green text wash over me… erased so much of the days frustrations. On top of that the remedy that I am taking really does seem to be working for me. I’ve felt so much more balanced over the last few weeks since I started taking it. I can get “bummed” but it never really reaches the point of turning into that crippling morass of depression that just paralyzes you. I guess my problem has always been that I never really even know how to start a conversation with a medical professional about my inclinations. Here in the bible belt, we are taught to keep up a good appearance no matter how fucked up your own life is… that folks want you to smile and nod and be sociable… and I am absolutely a product of my upbringing. I could be dying inside… but I would still try my damnedest to be kind and courteous to the people around me.

Be Stronger Than Me

Basically this morning I am unpacking my soul, because I am begging you to be stronger than me. If the world is threatening to take you down with it… please go find some help. I don’t care if that is a professional that can prescribe some good drugs, or just someone you can talk out your problems with. You are never as alone as you might feel because there is always someone who cares… even if that someone is a person you have not even met yet. I had a really bad experience with a psychiatrist in college, and it has kept me from ever trying to find another one. Please be less proud than I am and go find some help. There is literally nothing in the world worse than a suicide. In 2004 my nephew committed suicide and even a decade later there are still times where it all comes back to me and I keep grasping for the answer “why”. I’ve had so many deaths in my own family, but nothing is worse than a suicide because at least when cancer takes a life you understand it. You know what lead to the chain of events that caused you to lose someone you love… suicide makes no sense.

I realize that might come as counter intuitive for m to say that, considering that my brain naturally keeps trying to end itself… but in part it is because I have lived through it… that I am steadfastly pulling myself down from the brink. I know just how truly devastating it is to anyone who ever cared about you. Every one of you out there reading this matters, and more so than that… you are important to someone. There is no life that can leave this world that does not cause a hollow void to form. So please if you are struggling reach out to someone. I’ve not met a single person who struggled with this that was not also uniquely beautiful in some way. This curse, often times comes with its own blessings. I care deeply about the pain others, even when it is really not healthy for me to try and take that sort of thing upon myself. So while you may not be able to see it yourself… there is something special about you that would be a travesty to destroy. So please… if you are struggling find someone to help you through it.

Steam Devaluation

July 10, 2015 by Belghast

Short, Linear and Lacks Replayability

Yesterday I stumbled across a good video from Jasyla of Cannot be Tamed. In it she questioned exactly when the terms “Short”, “Linear” and “Lacks Replaybility” became negative monikers for games. It all stems back to her looking up a review of Parasite Eve from when the game was actually released and expands out from there. She makes the point that games that have a tight and direct narrative are often preferable to long messy open world games for her. She makes some really excellent points, but the main point I was reminded of is the fact that “game reviews” are only really useful if it is a person very much like yourself that is reviewing the game. There are no objective measurements for a video game, or quite frankly any other piece of entertainment. What is a negative to one person is a positive to another person. When I review something I try and touch on a bunch of the points because I realize not everyone is wired quite the same way I am.

Personally I tend to favor those long rambly open world games, and do pretty much everything I can do to avoid actually progressing the storyline. In the video she mentioned Witcher 3 which turns out is a game very much in my wheelhouse, in that it has allowed me to pretty effectively ignore the narrative of the game and revert back to my base state of wandering around aimlessly and enjoying the world. I’ve put in around twenty hours and I just now moved to the next zone. I prefer games that I can lose myself in the random bits of neatness that the game has to offer, and if you allow me to jump off the path… chances are I am going to do it as soon as possible. My first playing of Skyrim for example… I had to back track later to find the stones that allowed you to choose your “path” because from the moment I got control of my mouse I was off on my own ignoring what the NPCs were telling me to do.

Steam Devaluation

All of this said I am coming to appreciate more narrative “ride” games that present a clear concise “movie like” experience. It is not the sort of thing I want to play on a regular basis, but if a game is elevated to a point where everyone seems to be playing it I will give it a go. The irony is one of my biggest praises of Final Fantasy XIV is for its clear and concise storytelling. The difference there is that this main storyline is a “feature” of the game and not the entirety of the game itself. There are absolutely times I want to sit back and be told a story, but there are other times when I want to be out in the world making my own… and I guess in part I expect a game to give me both experiences, at the very least if they are going to earn my $60. So while “short”, “linear” and “lacks replayability” seems like an odd admonishment … I do find myself paying attention to it, simply because it helps me file a game into one of several bins.

I have talked about this in the past, but for me to be willing to plunk down $60 and pre-order a title when it comes out… it has to be offering pretty much the total package. Jasyla has this great series of videos called “Short Games for Busy People” but they also all have one thing in common other than the duration. They are all relatively cheap titles, and I am more than willing to spend $5 for a four hour game experience, but I may not be willing to pay $60 or even $30 for that same experience. One of the biggest disappointments over the last several years was in the ID Software game Rage… not because the game did not provide me a very interesting experience, but instead that it was too short of one. Granted I went into the game mostly expecting “Fallout” by ID, so that was strike one… but the game itself provided this really interesting game world that I wanted to roam around in… but trapped me in a super short story arc that felt abruptly ended. Had I spent even $10 on that game… I would have been completely happy with my experience, but I was frustrated that I spent that $60 preorder on it.

Value Proposal

In order for me to be happy with spending full price on a game I need to be able to milk at least 30 hours out of it, and that is actual content… not just chasing achievements. This means I tend to lean towards big open world “exploration porn” type game experiences. My favorite “modern” games are those of the Fallout Series because they let me wander around aimlessly and explore the world at my own pace. While I am getting used to the narrative train ride, I still have this instinctual frustration anytime I am locked into a length intro story cut scene. I remember the first time I played God of War III I kept thinking to myself “why won’t they just let me play the damned game?”. There are times I need to temper this instinct, when I know if I allow myself the time I will enjoy the story. For example I am trying to go back and play the modern Batman games because I think I will ultimately like the story arc. Similarly I really want to play the Uncharted games, but I struggle with their “on rails” sequence of event based game play.

Ultimately all of this said… I will never damn a game and treat it as worthless just because it does not align to my personal preferences. This is why I guess I struggle with writing “game reviews” because really I tend to focus on the positive aspects of most games because I know going into it… that my particular preference in gaming, does not necessarily represent anyone other than myself. In truth the fact that I surround myself with a group of fairly diverse gaming tastes in the form of AggroChat on a weekly basis drives this home regularly. All of this said I still do find reviews like this valuable in that they help me decide if I am willing to plunk down my dollar at release, or instead wait until the first, second or third steam sale to offer the game. The Steam Devaluation is a real thing, in part because at this point we all have such a back log of games that we are NOT playing. Then again the ability to actually “beat” a game has never ranked very hire on my meters. What I look for is a bit of escapism and the ability to wallow around in a world that is not my own for awhile. For me personally nothing beats an experience that lets me explore new places while harmlessly venting my bloodlust.

Extreme Whales

July 9, 2015 by Belghast

Last night I got a little piece of advice from Syp, who said that I should take care of myself and that no one would care if I took a few days off. I greatly appreciate the sentiment, and while I feel like this is probably the most brilliant idea… I am not likely to do it. In part this “every morning” thing is a much needed routine in my life. Much like dreams are a way for us to sort through the days events, in many ways this morning blog post is a way to reorder my thoughts before I start a new day. While it started with the goal of “write more content” It has wound up somewhere in a therapeutic space. Getting up every morning and writing something… is important to me in ways I don’t fully grasp. Additionally I have now done this two and a half years roughly, so another part of me simply does not want to “break the chain”. I am however likely to fiddle with my format a bit until my wrist is fully healed.

Extreme Whales

Right now we are in this limbo area where people are still in the process of gearing in order to be able to do higher level content. To do Alexander the first raid you must be ilevel 170, which means you need to have a full set of Tomestone of Law gear with at least one upgraded item. Since I only hit 60 a few days ago I am not quite there yet. As of last night I managed to hit ilvl 166 and in theory should be able to upgrade another piece of gear tonight if I manage to get any play time. For awhile now I have filled in for the Wednesday night raid group, which was admittedly a bit of an imposition when I was still raiding in World of Warcraft… but now is not so much. Wednesday night is generally speaking a pretty good night for me to raid considering that my wife is off at church for a large chunk of it. So as we move forward into Heavensward I am probably going to offer myself as a more permanent part of that group. Since we could not do Alexander we set our sights last night on Bismarck Extreme, which only has a requirement that individuals be level 60.

The fight is in essence a series of dps checks, because apparently the island we are standing on gets more and more battered as the fight goes on. At a base level the fight works pretty much the same as it does on hard, except for the fact that you realistically need to get down the back scale during the first chain phase. I feel like Wulf and I made a lot of progress on learning this fight as tanks, with the hardest part being the elemental snake swap. The snakes send out a debuff that makes it so that players need to be dpsing the snake of the opposite color of the buff they currently have. This means tanks also need to swap targets, and at first we were trying to meet in the middle and trade off, but it seems that quite honestly this is a job for provoke. Right before a potential swap Wulf and I would target each others snakes and then hit the taunt if we saw that we needed to. Thankfully it seems to work magically, because normally speaking “just taunting” has minimal effect in this game when it comes to swapping targets.

While we beat the first dps check, we consistently failed at the second one… which is burning down the elemental snakes before hitting the point of no return where the skies to dark… and Bismarck nukes us into oblivion. Thankfully each of us still has a lot more gear we can get so we are simply hitting a gear wall. I think if we get enough upgrade pieces in the next week we will totally rock this fight and down us the first extreme primal of the expansion. Then we will move on to Ravana Extreme… that happens to drop the best weapons in the game currently. I have to say I had a blast with the fight, and it was awesome working with Wulf. The few times I had tanked for the WoW raid, it was when he happened to be out for the night, so I think this might be the first time we have actually worked together in progression content. In part I somewhat hope we have the people to pull this together for an attempt on Saturday during the pre-podcast raid block.