#(we also had a super powerful op npc with us who helped but still it took a long time)

[mike-haters-dni]

Cool Buffs El Should Get in the Next Stranger Things Patch (Season 5)

Also a discussion of how El's powers work, because they're really fun to think about. If any of these actually happen in the show I will spontaneously combust. Anyway, here are my ideas:

Learning hand-to-hand combat/martial arts and incorporating it into her powers.Ok, so the theory goes like this: what is El’s most consistent weakness when it comes to combat? Overtaxing herself and then being unable to continue fighting—barring some intense surge of emotions to act as an emergency energy burst, which is neither a dependable nor healthy thing to rely on in the long term. No, what El needs to do to mitigate this weakness as much as possible is learn to be more economical with her psychic attacks and incorporate more physicality into her moveset. Think of it as having both a mental and physical battery. So far in the show, she has pretty much exclusively utilized her mental battery when doing anything. I mean, she literally stances up to stand completely still while using her powers most of the time, which works if she can take every enemy out at once, but every other time it ends either badly or extremely badly. The worst example of this is during the cabin mindflayer fight where she just stands still after fucking up a couple tendrils (which took like, waay to much effort btw), and then gets grabbed very easily due to her legs being completely stationary along with her subpar reaction time (probably not helped by being overexerted). She then panics and doesn’t do anything to try to free herself from its grasp, which is fair enough, but still. There’s room for improvement here. Of course, this is good storytelling because it would be really boring if she was super op, flicking every threat out of the way, but I think s5 should get to be the late-game, full-build, onslaught arena season. El (and everyone else) is at full power but so are her enemies, who attack in hoards. Anyway, this is all to justify the first powerpoint that I will be giving to the Duffers: Reasons why El should learn hand-to-hand combat and also incorporate physical movements into her powers Avatar:TLA-style:

1. She’ll get tired less easily. Being economical with attacks means instead of squeezing a dude’s body to death for like 5 seconds, maybe just snap his neck? Or throw a sharp object at him? Or break his kneecap? She could break a lot more kneecaps in a row than she could squeeze dudes to death, and if she had a weapon to throw around? Forget it. And that’s not even bringing the combat training into the mix. She could throw a knife across the room into a guy’s neck, while ducking under another guy’s attack, kick him in the knee (with a little extra psychic force), and then call the knife back in time to stab him on the way to the floor. If she fights half-physical half-psychic that means neither battery gets depleted too quickly, and she could take down an entire squad of npcs and walk away with nothing but a light nosebleed. Also, 2. It would look really cool. Like really super fucking cool. Go ahead and imagine how cool it would be. Listen, the stand-still hhnng-ing really hard psychic fights are cool and all but I mean, we can do better than that. She does already do the hand thing most of the time, but I want like full-body motions here. Big dramatic sweeping martial arts motions that perfectly match the force she’s applying to objects. Her powers are clearly emotion/perception-based, so by that logic, anything she does to make it feel like her attack should be stronger will actually make it stronger. i.e. she should swing her body around harder, and coincidentally land in really cool anime poses while doing it. 3. It would demonstrate mastery over her powers. Having to stand still to concentrate is really giving training wheels vibes. Although, I do have a theory on why she does that: I imagine her powers require her to use either her whole body or a part of it as a sort of anchor that she moves the thing she’s telekinesis-ing in relation to. Or alternatively, she can apply more force to an object the more of her body she’s using as a conduit for her powers. So like, standing still to concentrate while moving a heavy object is still easier, especially if we aren’t using the physical motion augmentation method. When she’s got her arm outstretched she’s directing the power from her brain down through her arm, making it stronger and easier to direct, which make it actually feel like the power is flowing out through down her chest into her arm vs if she uses her powers without conducting them it feels like they flow straight out of her brain, which is harder to control because it's completely thought based. When she really has to use 100% power it fills up her entire body, which makes it harder to her move in any way that isn’t related to whatever she’s doing with her powers. Does that make sense? Let me know if that makes sense. Anyway, I don’t think she would ever stop needing to stay kind of still to use her powers, especially while expending huge amounts of energy, but that urge could be mitigated as much as possible to allow for her to dodge a little while in combat.

Learning to move herself with her powers, in order to do things like jump really far or dodge out of the way really fast, or break her fall from a really high jump.If my power anchor theory makes any sense (or even if it doesn’t because whatever), El could learn to direct her powers back towards herself by using something solid in the area as an an anchor and then instead of moving that thing, pulling herself towards or away from it. This might lowkey be canon already since that seems like what was happening when she started levitating while closing the gate in s2, also s4 did mention her having to learn to fly so...I guess we'll see 👀.

Gaining/honing the ability to sense things within a radius through passive diffusion of her powers. So, in the show its demonstrated many times that El can move/feel things she can’t see with her powers, like in all the times she unlocks doors from the outside. So I’m thinking, we take that ability, amplify it, and make it a passive thing that only requires a very small use of energy that she can keep it up to feel everything that's going on around her in a room-sized radius. It wouldn’t be something that she can do permanently—like it would still take some degree of concentration to keep up, but her powers could become strong enough that some part of her is always feeling around just a little. Like regular human perception, she could be more likely to notice any sudden movements when not concentrating at all. Basically, she would become immune to being snuck up on, and she could also specifically train to get good at stopping any projectiles (or otherwise) that enter a 3-foot or so radius around her. She could also use the power to see in complete darkness or into rooms from the outside, and not have to rely on sight or hearing to locate any threats in fights, allowing her to attack enemies behind her without having to turn around, anticipate attacks, etc (in my mind, there's a scene where El practices this blind-fighting by sparring all the boys at once, who only have the goal of hitting her once with any attack, which they fail spectacularly after she takes them all down in like 5 seconds lmao). She could also specifically use proficiency in her voidwalking ability to passively sense any humans in an even larger radius, without knowing what they are doing exactly but maybe being able to vaguely sense whatever emotion their feeling. Also, speaking of sensing emotions: it’s just canon that El can feel/manipulate people’s organs, so she could totally sense when people suddenly get nervous in a conversation…or literally anything else physical going on in someone’s body. Kind of a disturbing thought, actually. It’s shit like that that makes me want her to lose her powers at the end of the show lol.

Gaining the ability to perfect parry. Alright we’re entering pure self-indulgent gamer ideas now but—While practicing her projectile catching and throwing one day (with a pitching machine), she accidentally deflects a ball so precisely that it goes flying back in the opposite direction without losing any force, with the deflection itself taking almost no mental energy at all. She’s surprised by this, and then spends a couple scenes trying to do it again, but can't figure it out. Until, of course, the climatic scene where she manages to do it again in a last act of desperation and is able to save the day against impossible odds. Or something something.

Getting a bunch of knives. If I could make Duffers do one thing in s5, it would be to give El a bunch of knives that she floats around to fight with Irelia League of Legends-style. This is a fantastic idea ok listen. As I mentioned already, they would take minimal effort to fight with, and also be super deadly, work against the demogorgons, look cool as hell, and also they could make menacing halos behind her head when she gets angry at people. Is this too anime of an idea for the 80s monster show? Who cares, give El a bunch of knives. Other random cool shit she should do:

Matrix a bunch of machine gun fire from a bunch of soldiers that were finally ordered to just kill her before she takes down the entire government (or whatever other reason), creating a giant cloud of bullets around her and pushing her back from the sheer force of the momentum she's countering. Then when they finally empty their magazines she sends all the bullets back in an epic display of raw power, fucking murdering every solider at once and emerging unscathed and unbothered. I just think that would be cool.

She hasn’t done the psychic power cyclone thing yet. There’s still time to fix that.

I think it would really enhance her powers if she had some kind of like dirty, smudged eyeliner look going on. You know like its makeup irl, but styled to kinda look like its apocalypse grime, but it still looks really cool and menacing. idk it's an idea. character design.

Insane this hasn't happened yet but she should at some point like absent-mindedly spin something above her hand with her powers. Like a bunch of marbles or pen or something. Just to flex a little.

Anyway hope you enjoyed reading leave a comment and make sure to like and subscribe for more s5 pipe dreams :)

#sorry for being so gamer coded #but that's the vibe #stranger things #el hopper #stranger things analysis #st5 headcanon

[randomkiwibirds]

yay for going to work on 4.5 hours sleep!

#becca's personal posts #game ran late last night #it happens when you're up against 14 vampire spawn and have no magical weapons #(well the fighter does but he's the only one) #dm was generous and gave us half damage but still we had to chisel our way through them and it took a loonng time #(we also had a super powerful op npc with us who helped but still it took a long time) #12 rounds and we finally hit their master and made him call the session there as it was super late for all of us

[lenaellsi]

Was there a moment Wilde became your favorite? Or did you enjoy his appearances from the start?

People seem to find him annoying at the start, but i didn’t mind him until i loved him at the end of Paris

@quantifierrasing THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME TALK ABOUT WILDE YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE BECAUSE I WROTE AN ESSAY

under the cut because i am a merciful and considerate soul

wilde's introduction is absolutely hilarious, obviously, but it's also so damn confusing. like, what's his game? at first you think he's going to be a one off, maybe one of those recurring characters that pops up to annoy the NPCs every so often and write about their adventures in completely skewed ways to complicate their public image (and create work for hamid, who was originally hired as PR). i got like...team rocket vibes. and i loved him even then, because i already hated b*rtie and i thought hearing wilde's take on the party's adventures would be super fun! then dover happened and i forgot about wilde for a bit, though he was still my favorite historical NPC. so for his initial ep 25 intro, while I thought he was a little annoying, it was very much "insufferable (affectionate)" even then.

and then paris. things we learn in paris:

1. wilde is a SPY. like international man of mystery hyper competent intelligence officer. but he's still Like That!!! he's still an annoying punny idiot!! he contains MULTITUDES.

2. he's a BARD and even better an ILLUSIONIST BARD. aesthetically that kicks ass, and it is such an amazing metaphor for his whole Thing. never saying what he means, drowning every word in irony, hiding his real feelings and motivations under sarcasm and puns and lies until it's impossible to take anything he says as truth. and yet he STILL manages to establish himself as a trustworthy contact for the party, and someone who genuinely is trying to do the right thing.

3. he's insanely powerful, bad rolls aside alex makes a point of that, plus there's a check against hamid that indicates a base charisma score that is like. 23-24 or something stupid like that. OP king

4. he's got a lot of enemies.

5. by the time the guivres attack on paris happens, he's already doubting the meritocracy and his place in it.

prague is where we start to see his illusion start to slip, obviously, and where the dynamic shifts from him and the party antagonizing each other equally to the party just.........poking at him while he's too tired to hold up his side of the banter. through cairo and damascus i got the sense that he was actually trying to connect with them and be helpful, but between the curse and the assumption that everything he said was meant to be antagonizing, he just...didn't, except for that perfect moment with sasha in the pun war.

and you see the results of that in season 4, where he's much more...careful, i guess? when it comes to party interactions. I think literally once a day about his line from the japan arc, where he and zolf are talking before hamid and azu come in for the rome debrief--zolf says something like "just try to be a little warmer, okay?" and wilde says "they don't like me when I'm warm." just!!! fucking!!!! GOD.

the only member of the party he had connected with at all was sasha, because she was the one that saw his wordplay as an attempt to actually joke around and make friends (something something sasha is no stranger to hiding her motivations and true feelings, something something unlikely kindred spirits, something something rome is the worst)

if you listen back to season 4, every single convo with azu and hamid he's constantly clarifying that he's being serious and he's not trying to antagonize them. he hardly ever jokes. it's a mask again, only this time instead of hiding behind humor he's just...not expressing anything at all. (except with zolf, who is the only person we see him being completely honest with).

i could get into his changes after the resurrection--how he's no longer using illusions (magical and otherwise) against his allies, and how he has committed to speaking more honestly with the people who matter to him, while reclaiming his humor as a way to express camaraderie and love--but i've already rambled enough on this post.

TL;DR: wilde was my favorite NPC from the start. after paris, he became one of my favorite characters in any media i've consumed. if he dies (again) i will personally sow myself a victorian mourning veil and you will not hear from me for a month. he deserves a peaceful, restful post-canon life.

#rqg #rqg oscar wilde #thank you for asking about wilde and im sorry it turned into This. #also sorry for clogging the rqg tag this morning. #i simply love him. #whatever you do don't ask me about sasha because the same thing will happen #sometimes characters in podcasts just hit different

[kitkatopinions]

(Rabbithole Anon) Y'know, I was going to send in an ask about just they could have made a compelling way to show how some people may have become hunters through pressure rather than an age excuse if they wanted to say some people weren't ready (joining to protect a friend who wanted to be one, wanting to travel for a variety of reasons, it being a general expectation but the person being hesitant) but it led to me wondering wait, would certain careers require a hunting lisence?

Okay, I love this rabbit hole. XD It illustrates a couple of RWBY problems here and it's the fact that they often are lacking in the character development/character journey department, and that they're often lacking in the world building department.

We actually have plenty of characters that can serve as examples for people who maybe should've thought twice about entering the Academy (when they did.) There are people who entered the Academy for the wrong reasons/not noble reasons, people who entered the Academy during a time they might not have been ready, and people who would be full on dangerous with a Hunter badge, and most of our mains fall under one of these categories (though mostly the first two.)

Ruby - Two years below the standard age of her class. Whether or not she was at the skill level of a first year (she was,) and whether or not she'd received special training from Qrow (she had,) Ruby was still essentially a kid, and her mind and body both hadn't developed completely. Ruby should have been traumatized after the Fall of Beacon and been allowed to show that more as a character, she should've had straight up PTSD, she should've been allowed to have emotion in Volume 4 than Jaune's sidekick who makes sad eyes when she sees him grieving. Weiss - Her main motivation for joining Beacon was to reclaim her family legacy. Yes, her desire was to reclaim it and use it for good, but it was still arguably more about personal and familial glory. On top of that, Weiss has been blatantly anti Faunus and has never so much as addressed that. Weiss's character journey should have reflected more personal growth, and either her unlearning much of her Faunus racism and clearly changing priorities from her name and family legacy and onto the actual people in need, or her flaws should've led her into being more of a morally gray character who displays her selfishness and pride (in a way that's actually addressed and treated like a flaw.) Yang - She expresses admiration for people like Ruby who want to help people and be kind, but her main point in becoming a Huntress was getting thrills and going where the wind takes her. She didn't join Beacon for any sort of serious purpose, and even when she rejoined Team RWBY in volume five, it was to be with her sister and not because of her own morals (not that I think she's lacking in morals, just that her main motive was different.) This could lead to her having to figure out a lot of what she actually wants, being unsatisfied with being a Huntress in Atlas, being in over her head when things get serious, being more mentally exhausted than the others after long days, etc. Jaune - Wasn't ready to enter Beacon. Idk if he just wasn't allowed to go to a lesser combat school like Signal or if he flunked out, but he wasn't up to scratch to get into Beacon and cheated his way in. On top of that, he lacked in the emotional maturity department as well when he entered. Jaune was a little more invested in his own appearance than Ruby was, but still seemed to have similar good reasons for wanting to be a Hunter. And he did grow a lot. But he was much less prepared, skilled, or equipped to deal with the training or the career and it's a miracle he didn't die in the initiation. Granted, Jaune was handled arguably better than anyone else, since a lot of this was addressed, but these days it feels like it isn't actually playing a part in his character anymore that he's way below the people around him, and I feel like it should still be impacting him. Penny: Honestly, Penny seemed very newly born during the Beacon Arc. She might have been combat ready, but she also started spilling secrets to the first person who was a little bit nice to her, and was clearly naïve and childlike. Imagine if it had been Emerald that had befriended Penny instead of Ruby. Penny dying and then getting resurrected should've been deeply traumatizing for her and it should've made her undergo some major changes and been treated with importance in the show. Qrow: Literally wanted to be a Hunter in the first place to try and learn how to murder Huntsmen. He might have changed later and it’s not exactly relevant, but he arguably shouldn't have joined when he did either. Meanwhile, Nora's just one big mystery, because we don't know why she joined, and Ren likely joined for good reasons, but neither of them have ever actually talked about their motivations. The only character we can safely say joined for noble reasons and who was up to scratch and ready when she entered is Blake, who also had good reason to not fully trust the system she was working with, so there could've been complications and character interest there as well.

Please don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean I don't think the others should've been in school, I love that they were! I just think the writers should've explored the various ways they might've been not fully ready, not completely well suited to the job they took. The characters are allowed to be flawed and to flounder and it'd make them more full, nuanced characters imo.

On top of that, we have other Hunters to look to as well, outside of our main cast. Cardin, for example, was a terrible person, still in school and already abusing what little power he had to target a member of an oppressed minority group and blackmail other kids into doing his bidding, while plotting revenge on someone for correcting him on his anti-Faunus answer to a question. People like him should not be Hunters, and he was arguably our first sign (of many signs) that the position of Hunter can and will be taken advantage of and misused by bad people. And although the After the Fall/Before the Dawn books aren't canon, while reading BTD (I haven't finished it yet,) Coco and all her team members but Velvet also struck me as people I wouldn't want to be Hunters and wouldn't want to wield any sort of power. Coco is proudly described by one of her friends as sadistic, lets her unfounded opinions of people cloud her judgement, shows respect and admiration towards criminals, and enjoys her classmates being afraid of her. Fox is self-described as sadistic as well and is a bully who tried to use a classmate's phobia against them in a brute-like interrogation. And Yatsuhashi is leagues above the two of them, but also bullied Neptune despite saying the words 'I don't want to be a bully' and threatened him.

There are so many ways the writers could've explored people who went to Beacon too soon, weren't ready, or entered for the wrong reasons. Instead, outside of one conversation in season two about the girls’ motivations and Ren exploding that Jaune cheated his way into Beacon all the way in season eight, it seems like the only take away we're supposed to get is 'all these kids are officially the thing they wanted to be in the beginning and they're all amazing at it, woo!' No acknowledgement of the fact that they could use higher education still, that some of them are still immature or naïve, that some of them are still below the combat level they should be in, that some of them kinda haven't done super well since they left Beacon (cough Ruby cough.) It's all just... Flat, lackluster. And meanwhile, characters like Cardin were written out of the show easily. We've had plenty of examples of corruption in the Hunter business, but the show hasn't paid any attention to that and still is treating being a Hunter like the only true noble goal and the only good and non-corruptible way to defend people, despite the fact that it clearly isn’t. Being a Huntress is not better or safer or more noble in-universe than being an Atlas soldier/Ace Op/Atlas hunter. I’m not saying that all of this needed to be featured, but exploring the differences in motivation and how the Hunter lifestyle affected the various mains could really flesh out their characters. Instead, by the time everyone is heading to Atlas in volume six, they all pretty much have the same reactions to everything and the same motivations and the same beliefs. The rare deviation - like Ren in volume seven and eight - is treated as bad and a mistake that must be rectified, rather than... A natural consequence of the group being full of different people with different upbringings and different motivations that result in different opinions. That sort of thing is only ever explored as a problem that makes someone lacking, and it’s really weird and it makes the show feel... Juvenile, and lacking in nuance or depth when it comes to the characters, which is a really big shame, since the characters have a huge amount of potential and exploring the differences between them and their reactions to being in way over their heads would be - I think - the natural place to take their characters? Especially because so far their storyline has been... Not the highlight of the show.

But, as for how semblances and Hunters should impact the world building, there’s a lot to say about that! They don’t explore a lot in RWBY outside of what’s relevant to the mains, leaving the world building feeling flat and like the world itself doesn’t matter much. RWBY often feels more like a video game world than anything else, which I believe @why-i-hate-rwby-now has pointed out, so credit to them for helping me realize it. There’s one large location per continent and a couple small villages where they only really talk to a town leader and village blacksmith, or encounter a fight, relevant NPCs and characters only going to certain locations that can further the plot, characters only mattering through the ways they interact with the protagonists and seemingly getting benched with nothing to do if they aren’t currently plot relevant, health bars that can be monitored over scrolls, every weapon and semblance has a name even if that name isn’t ever mentioned in show or might not really make a lot of sense, frequently encountered enemies of various threat levels who the characters can plow down without remorse because they’re not sentient or don’t have souls... The list goes on. But one of the ways that it feels very video gamey is that the magical powers actually don’t seem to impact the world.

We know people can have auras even if they don’t have semblances (Mercury, Torchwick, Watts,) and we know lots of even grown people don’t have auras (the citizens of Mantle in danger of dying of cold while our aura having mains aren’t,) but also that auras can be unlocked, by well trained seventeen year olds (Pyrrha,) and we also know that semblances can be unlocked from a very young age due to trauma (Ren, Neptune in EU) but some people are born with their semblances (Qrow and notably Blake use language suggesting they were born with their semblances,) and some semblances are passed down or hereditary (the Schnees.) Semblances can be passive (Qrow, Clover, Ironwood in word of author,) and uncontrollable, or active (almost everyone else,) and some semblances have carried personal negative effects like in the case of Qrow who was even named for being bad luck and Robyn who said people were on edge with her because she can sus out the truth via skin contact when she wants to. Also Mercury’s father was able to somehow take away his semblance.

That’s... Pretty much the extent of our knowledge and it doesn’t tell us much. What RWBY does is give each character abilities that make them iconic and different from each other as fighters, with a shield function that wears down slowly to explain how they can take certain hits and keep going while also allowing them to eventually suffer higher damage when that shield wears down. They had a character get this shield ability unlocked to explain the existence and function of it, and featured some characters who didn’t have the super powered abilities like Roman, an early enemy meant to herald in new, harder enemies who are more plot relevant, and Mercury, who makes up for it by having higher speed and functions exclusive to him through his prosthetics. And then they seemingly built a regular world unaffected by these powers. It sounds like a video game. Civilians just don’t have this power or the shield because they act as non-playable characters. In a way, it almost makes sense to me in conception, because when RWBY was originally created, it was high on visual appeal, fight choreography, and character design. The plot elements were small and the character stories seemed to be pretty simple, the only real complication to this being the White Fang plot, which has always been a major blight in RWBY. But one of the reasons why this video-game feel kinda worked at the start of RWBY was because the story and characters weren’t meant to be the focus of the story, so although the world building at the start was definitely lacking, the audience knew that things like auras and semblances were meant to hype up and add interest to the main highlights of the show: Design and fight choreography. At least that’s what I assume. But in volume three, they started to lay the groundwork for more, bigger plots, more focus on the story, the characters journeying to the outside world, undergoing personal arcs, and that’s what V4 and onward started focusing on.

To be clear, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I started really liking RWBY for its potential and concepts after getting through the first couple episodes of V1, but I actually really enjoyed quite a bit of V4 and V5 even though the design drastically changed and the fighting had gone way down in quality because I found some of the new focus on characters and the plot to be compelling, interesting, or to also have a lot of potential (though I was let down over and over in regards to pay off later.) However, with the new focus on the characters and storyline rather than design and fight choreography, they really needed to do some legwork on fixing the aura and semblance systems and paying attention to world building and making sure the world felt well put together, nuanced, and real. And I don’t feel like they ever did that.

Why is Pyrrha able to unlock auras? Well, because the writers wanted to explain the concept of auras and used Jaune - the unprepared - to do it. But now, auras are actually an important part of the story - for example, the people of Mantle don’t have unlocked auras, so will die of cold, but it doesn’t affect our heroes because they do have unlocked auras. So who can unlock auras? Is it a learned skill or is it hereditary? If it’s a learned skill, why isn’t everyone eager to learn it especially in places where it’s life or death if they don’t like in Atlas? If it’s a hereditary skill, why aren’t the people who have that skill put on a pedestal and being pressured into using that skill to save civilians in places where having an aura is the difference between life and death? In either case, why aren’t there people who professionally unlock auras? Why aren’t they on the pay roll in Atlas and Mantle? If it’s a skill that all powerful hunters have, why aren’t our heroes (who we’re supposed to think are now more powerful than Atlas’s best) unlocking auras for dying children in Mantle? Why don’t specialists and longtime fighters with Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James have this ability if it comes with skill, time, or talent?

Why are semblances unlocking or morphing in times of trauma so rare? Why didn’t the Fall of Beacon unlock loads of new semblances and new semblance abilities? Why didn’t Ruby get a new semblance upgrade when she saw Weiss getting stabbed? Why didn’t Weiss unlock a new semblance ability when her plane was crashing? Why didn’t Pilot Boi unlock his semblance during the same occasion? Why is it that Jaune didn’t get a semblance upgrade when the light bridges were disappearing? Why didn’t Blake get a semblance upgrade when Yang fell into the void? Why did Ren get a semblance upgrade because he was upset while with the Ace Ops after Oscar got captured, but Nora doesn’t get an upgrade while she’s electrocuting herself? If semblances sometimes unlock in times of truama, why is it that some characters like Oscar and Torchwick and Jaune pre-V5 who we know have encountered lots of trauma just still don’t get semblances? If you can train your semblance into upgrading, why is it that we don’t see long time hunters and fighters unlock more semblance abilities, like Qrow, Winter, Robyn, Maria, or James? It just doesn’t make any sense! And I get that stories always have things happening just because the writers want it, but in RWBY, the hand of the creator is so obvious that it’s ridiculous.

And then there are other questions. Do people avoid bad labor practices out of fear of causing a semblance awakening? Well, from what we see of the SDC, the answer is no. So why not? Why weren’t they worried about an uprising? Work rights becomes a lot trickier when you have to add in tons of qualifiers. Maybe it’s illegal to use a semblance at work, but the SDC also has a history of child workers like Adam who can’t always control it (like Neptune couldn’t control his,) so are there laws protecting child laborers? Perhaps not, since you know, they were already child laborers, so were already suffering unchecked. Are there laws forbidding the use of semblances in government buildings, non-combat driven schools, or parks and libraries? And meanwhile, how would any of this apply to people with a passive semblance? How do you figure out that someone has a passive semblance? How do people know if they’re born with a semblance? Are there people that spend their whole lives having semblances that never get discovered? Do people have semblance detection... Semblances, that they get paid to use or do so out of charity? Did the Schnees rise to power due to their powerful and hereditary semblance, perhaps? Are people discriminated against if they don’t have semblances or pressured to become Hunters if they discover they do have semblances? Shouldn’t civilians in Mantle and Atlas be joining combat schools in droves in the hopes of unlocking an aura so they can better survive? And shouldn’t there be discrimination against people with certain semblances? Outside of Robyn saying she’s personally experienced mistrust, and Qrow’s self-hatred, we don’t see any real prejudice against certain semblance types, or for that matter, any praise or extra significance pointed to certain other semblance types. It would go a long ways towards world building if there were things like people having to divulge their semblance or lack thereof before entering Beacon, or for people to have to register a semblance evolution, or for Emerald to have lied about her semblance because “everyone knows illusion semblances automatically draw suspicion,” or for Qrow to comment that he’d never seen Clover in a Vytal Tournament, only for Clover to say his semblance was deemed ‘cheating’ back when he was in school so he hadn’t qualified. And on the flip side, you could have things like semblances being judged as better and more powerful based on how useful it might be, Pyrrha keeping her semblance on the DL because it’ll just bring more unwanted admiration on her, Sun keeping his own semblance on the DL too because it always make people put a lot of expectations on him, while Neptune’s semblance leaks and he deals with people treating him like he’s selfish and cruel for not wanting to use his own “gift of a semblance.” And people like Jaune could be bullied extra because he doesn’t have his semblance yet, and people in the stands at the Vytal Tournament could be chatting about “when are they gonna pull out their semblances?” and get annoyed and pouty when people don’t. To be fair, we do get things like Mercury’s father having declared his semblance a crutch, but... Still. why isn’t there more of this?

And we see the need for Hunter protection in villages like Kuroyuri and the village that Team RNJR stops to help on the way to Mistral. Small villages outside of the four kingdoms fall to Grimm, or are in danger of falling to Grimm. Ships get attacked by large and dangerous Grimm, we see (corrupt) Hunters on the train to Argus, accompanying for safety, and we see that with a rise of Grimm activity in Mantle, Hunters are dispatched to help kids travel to school. In a world like RWBY, fighting is essential for survival outside of the Kingdoms, and became very essential in the kingdoms as well once schools started going down. You’d assume there should be Hunters accompanying everyone traveling outside of the Kingdoms, resident Hunters living in villages outside the Kingdoms as their on-hand protectors (and more than one Hunters seems to be needed.) Hunters also could be extra protection for anything that’s definitely going to increase negativity, like hiring Hunters to bodyguard funerals seems like something that could be normal in the world of Remnant, and for visiting graveyards (we see Ruby get attacked by tons of Grimm when she visited Summer’s grave in the red trailer.) On top of that, celebrities and rich people hiring Hunters seems like it’d become pretty common. But all that we see outside of Dee and Dudley are traveling Hunters stopping to help people out of the goodness of their heart while they go place to place, and Kingdom Hunters who are assigned to things like border control, clearing out Grimm near or in the Kingdoms, and things like that. What we see is a Kingdom-centered morality complex our protagonists are one hundred percent invested in, Hunters are Kingdom driven and anything outside of that is a kindness, a job they can take or leave in passing. And on top of that, it seems like there aren’t a lot of people in the Hunter profession, and I feel like there should definitely be more. There are people like Jaune who didn’t make the cut but accepted that, we can only assume that there are drop outs too, so like... How many kids are there actually in a year at Beacon? I mean, look at where the Relics were found in the forest during initiation at Beacon.

This gives us a rough idea of how many people are in each year at Beacon. Assuming everyone graduates school and there’s no drop outs and no deaths, that’s a graduating class of twenty. That’s a very small number, comparatively. The job of a Hunter is dangerous. We know of Hunters that died (Summer, Pyrrha, Amber.) We know a lot of Hunters that have other jobs that take a lot of their time (Glynda, Ozpin, Robyn,) and lots of people who quit being Hunters too (Maria, Tai, Raven,) and Hunters who aren’t always on the field like Qrow who was a teacher for a stretch and acted as Ozpin’s spy, the Ace Ops who became part of Ironwood’s inner circle and therefore had a bigger picture, and even all of Team RWBYJNR, who got their Hunter licenses but are also more concerned with bigger picture stuff (if you don’t believe me just look at volume eight where JRY stopped defending Mantle to go rescue Oscar, and Team RWBN + Penny, who were involved in big picture stuff like launching Amity and then saving Penny the Maiden/their friend.) So out of a class of twenty, how many of them are even staying on the field? For a show pushing the narrative that Hunters are the ultimate saviors who are the only true good defense for the world, that condemns even the notion of an army... Like they villainized sending Team FNKI onto the battlefield while also treating it like proof of Ironwood’s evil when he didn’t want to stay and fight when Team RWBY said to, and also made Ironwood’s desire to move into having a robotic army to get soldiers off of the battlefield part of his... Over reliance on machinery, which is full on suspicious considering their ableism towards Ironwood and the fact that he literally has to rely on machinery, but that’s a topic for a different post and this one is already so long. But yeah, my point is that we’re meant to see the army as bad. So if we’re meant to see Hunters as the only true and pure form of defense (which is already off because we know it’s corrupted,) there ought to be way more people in the Hunter field.

As for the schools, we only know of a couple of schools that exist outside of RWBY as combat schools that seem to act as basic training before people go to Beacon. We know of Signal, the school Ruby and Yang went to that Qrow was a teacher at for awhile (I have lots of teacher Qrow headcanons, but sadly Qrow being a teacher wasn’t very well explored,) and we also know of Sanctum in Mistral and (in the EU) Oscuro in Vacuo, presumably one of these existing in Atlas as well. I personally headcanon that there are a lot of these smaller combat schools littering the whole of Remnant (but then again, I also headcanon that the Kingdoms of Remnant are bigger than just one very large city, lol) and that a lot of people attend these schools even if they don’t go on to join one of the Hunter Academies, but this isn’t necessarily supported by canon, I think. But as for other schools...I think it’s fair to assume that there are at least elementary schools, since everyone can read, write, and presumably do basic math, and what we do know is that Ilia went to a prep school in Atlas (which was info dropped in Blake’s pre-V5 trailer, not even stated in the show proper,) so we can probably safely say that people who don’t go to the Huntsman academies go to some form of high school, but you’re right that we don’t see this actually in action. I personally always headcanon that Whitley had a tutor, since Jacques wanted to avoid too much outside influence.

I am so sorry that this response got so away from me and I myself got into so many rabbit holes as well. XD I just have a lot to say about the world building in RWBY (or sometimes lack thereof.) Although I admit that I’m not as into or as good at analyzing as blogs like why-i-hate-rwby-now, but yeah, this is... A very long post. Sorry!

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby hate #this post includes some #pro ironwood #pro james ironwood #also it's not like I've done a lot of extensive research so please be kind #if I missed something #IW antis please leave me alone

[inventors-fair]

Lessons Unlearned: Short Story Commentary and Reflection

Well. 21 entries isn’t exactly a 50+ commander extravaganza, but that’s where we’re at. This contest made a lot of sense to me, in my own head, and I think I got lost in the concept without considering the full execution, or that Other People Might Not Think Quite Exactly Like Me. 

Still, I would say that almost all the entries created their own unique worlds, some plane-based, some personal, and it made for great and creative reading. I feel that something more concrete would help a contest like this in the future, like... Well, I’ll have to save that for another time.

Onto the commentary!

@abzanhero — Captain Morgan the Vengeful

The Card: It’s interesting design space you’re playing with here, and I’m actually a fan. You could pump him up to a 2/2 for a little battlefield presence, but it’s not out of the question. The fact that there’s not consistent graveyard tutelage means that he’s not as overpowered as he could be, and it’s only one counter, which... Admittedly, it’s powerful, but there are a few moving parts to make this less than incredibly overpowered. I’d rather the trigger happen at the end step for that “final fate” feel, personally. Minor templating: “shuffle it into your library” (only planeswalkers get personal pronouns), and I think contemporary design supports “when you do” as a trigger to respond to instead of “if you do.” 

The Story: Ha, it rhymes! ... And yeah, it doesn’t precisely explain the ins and outs of the curse, but it’s swashbuckling as hell. It’s one degree off-kilter to have a rhyme that isn’t part of a meta-tale, but I like it, so. I can imagine younger players doing their best pirate voice as they shuffle him (the character, not the card, I know, pedantry) into their library. Arr.

@dimestoretajic — Eternal Bond

The Card: I had to go through the Zendikar image gallery to make sure, but yeah, “party members” isn’t a term. I believe this card would read “Exile two target creatures in a party. (reminder text)” And it would be “combined” toughness, right? Either way, this is a hyperspecific and expensive removal spell, at rare, with a modest amount of lifegain. That simply doesn’t feel good, and I’m not getting a feeling of a “bond” out of, well, a removal spell. Let’s move on.

The Story: So, a kind of love story, framed around a removal spell? That already doesn’t make a lot of sense. I don’t have anything positive to say about the writing itself, so for Magic critique, I’ll say that it doesn’t feel like a Magic card or part of a Magic world, absolutely not Zendikar. There’s a time and place for those kinds of cards, such as Cathartic Reunion and Planewide Celebration. But Magic doesn’t need single-card love stories, unless they’re remarkably well-written.

@fractured-infinity — Baddon, Rivstalt’s End

The Card: Okay, that IS a real town in Innistrad. Had to check that. Anyway, man, someone would love to make a commander out of this bad boy. Kinda eh that he doesn’t do anything specific on his own, but the death effect is cool as-is, I suppose. The only issue is that HOO BOY you are going to have a LOT of memory issues with all your Zombie tokens capital Z. It’s flavorful and I think it would be worth doing, but the second part... Nah, keep it simple. 3UB, no protection, just Zombies, and you’re golden.

The Story: I’m having a really hard time parsing your writing. It took a couple reads to understand that he’s talking about... Well, actually, I don’t know. What do emotional bonds have to do with taking the town, or damaging the bodies? How does that work? Do we get that anywhere else in the story? Hate to say it, but this little snippet doesn’t really make much sense in or out of context, without heavy inference about the world that we don’t really get.

@gollumni — Tempest Serpent

The Card: I love the idea of off-color emerge! Emerge was a fantastic mechanic and I feel that it could come back again. It creates some really neat draft ideas that unfortunately may bend a lot of the pie rules. But also. A three mana 3/3 flying hexproof? That’s OP at uncommon, no question, good lord. Small templating note: Flying comes before hexproof, and the second should be lowercase.

The Story: I can just see the art of a guy on a boat cowering as the ship snaps in half and a massive stormy elemental electric snake monster BLOWS UP outta the ocean ready to eat him. It’s cool how it’s not about the serpent itself, but rather the human/NPC interacting with the serpent. It’s not Hemingway, but you conveyed something great! I liked this story.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Gravedigger of the Order

The Card: I don’t get how all these parts come together. Pro zombies, sure, she’s a zombie caller. The blocking/blocked trigger, uh, I don’t see that coming up a lot considering that she’s only a 2/2 with no significant combat-oriented keywords. And the last ability implies a strong return mechanic that I’ll admit makes a lot of cool sense with your flavor but doesn’t translate to perfect gameplay. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t grok this card, but it feels like there was cohesion sacrificed in favor of flavor.

The Story: Well, this sure as heck ain’t Innistrad. I’m curious about where this would take place, and what kind of world you’re going for here. Let’s try looking at it from an isolated perspective. It’s an alright macabre story, so I’ll give you that. But the name. What is the “Order?” Is she part of it? Do all members of the order whisper to bones like her? I don’t understand her goals and motivations, what “kindness” she whispers, why the dead are coming back at all.

@ignorantturtlegaming — Demonic Mentor

The Card: It feels unplayable and yet extremely playable at the same time. It’s expensive and creates some really crazy shenanigans in Commander with surplus life. Oh my goodness, Oloro would LOVE this card, good GOD. It’s unfortunate that it does have to be costed this way and that it makes sense for a tutor. I believe the wording could be adjusted to one chunk of text: (using Covetous Urge and Thief of Sanity as references)

“Search target player’s library for up to X cards and exile them, then that player shuffles their library and you lose X life. You may cast those cards for as long as they remain exiled and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells.”

The Story: I don’t get it. What does having  a demonic mentor have to do with brother rescue? I assume this is part of a larger story, but we don’t have that story for context, and mentorship doesn’t have to do with rescue. This is a card about tutelage and power and losing life, not losing a mind. The library is so often represented as the mind, and you’re not losing that, you’re saving part of it. Really iffy on this one, despite the coolness of the card. Also, watch out - you switched tenses in the second sentence. 

@macaroni-and-squeez — The Iroan Race

The Card: RRR for haste, sure, whatever, that’s fine in this day and age, if a little color-heavy. But this card isn’t meant for limited. This is a build-around-me if I ever saw one. “Four instances of haste”?? I don’t want to call that brilliant because it frustrates my sensibilities, but dammitall, it’s...it works. For those of you doubting me, the Zendikar Rising release notes for Attended Healer states “Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.” So, if that is to be believed, this card is designed for some combo player to go nuts with haste nonsense. Or maybe I’m just reading it wrong. Either way, I like this card. But I would make it win the game for you, not anyone else.

The Story: Sure, I’m into it. A guy running a race for Iroas checks out. I would have condensed it a little, but in general, yeah, it fits the world and makes a neat little story. I’m really hung up on the name “Kris.” That...doesn’t feel like a fantasy name as much. I mean, we have things like Gideon, and Judith, etc. but Kris? I can’t help but feel that it’s a smidge too out of touch with Theros worldbuilding. Yay, nitpicks.

@milkandraspberry — Burn Down the Library

The Card: Conceptually, this card is pretty cool. Very strange. It’s a different take on anti-blueness in red, and I can go for it. Sorry about MSE and fonts. Reinstallation is a pain but it’s possible. Anyway. I wouldn’t call this card a breakout all-star, but it would be...fun, I suppose. A good combat trick enchantment thing. Shame it doesn’t do much if you have an empty hand. With wording: Use “can’t” instead of “cannot cannot.” Use “cast blue spells” instead of “play;” that’s been phased out for a while. You also can’t discard spells, but you can discard blue CARDS. Question: what if you couldn’t cast blue spells from your hand? Eh? Eh? Flashback and madness? Ehhhhhh?

The Story: This time, I’ll give an example of how this could be shortened. “After years of fruitless study, the young scholar found a better use for her teacher’s wisdom.” Maybe “frustrated young scholar,” or something to give her motivation. Why is she burning down the library? That’s the most important question to ask. “Because she felt like it” is the obvious answer, but that’s not motivation, that’s not intrigue. We have to ask “why,” always. Your story makes sense, but it’s just on the brink of great characterization.

@nine-effing-hells — Arch-Evoker’s Capstone

The Card: I want to like it, and I probably do. I don’t know what kind of deck would play it, as it feels like a Commander card for sure, but yeah, I think I do like it. It’s got powerful stuff attached to it with very red sensibilities. The land destruction is pretty wild, but it’s expensive as hell. Or is it? Five mana to destroy two lands... That’s actually, hm. That’s actually really, really, super strong if this were to see any limited play. You may even have to make it XXRR to get around that if you want to keep that effect. Land destruction is unfun. (I <3 Ponza though, so)

The Story: With this specific card, I wouldn’t have recommended also adding three lines of flavor text on top of four paragraphs of rules text. Additionally, um, I don’t get that last line. “It wasn’t every day the horizon was on fire for a week straight”? It’s exerting too much effort without a strong effect on the reader. Edit and save for a card without as much rules text.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff — Spiraling Depression

The Card: Buries? What opponent? Is this targeting? Is this an edict effect? Least power among creature they control, I assume? I legitimately don’t know what you’re trying to do with this card. Wretched Banquet-esque?

The Story: Instead of attempting to give this flavor text legitimate critique, I would instead advise you that referencing real-world conditions such as “spiraling depression” without a critical lens might appear as insensitive to individuals legitimately suffering from those conditions.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Blazing Sacrifice

The Card: I really love this card, actually. The choice to do CMC over power I would argue requires playtesting, and I would prefer power to compare to other cards in the family such as the lovely Fling, but I can see the argument against it. Yeah, not much to critique or add onto that front. You made a really great card mechanically.

The Story: And then the story lost me entirely. “monsters that would surely go on to destroy everything he loved” is clunky to say the least. “Surrounded by monsters” is fine, it’s decent, it gets the job done. Monsters are monsters, that’s that. But that last line. That’s...a D&D reference, right? I can’t take that seriously, I just can’t. It’s verging on cliche, and it makes sense on a rudimentary level but adds nothing to the Magic world. I’ll be the first to say that yes, it’s personal bias and that some players would appreciate the memetic qualities, but it simply doesn’t do it for me.

@scavenger98 — Walking Stick

The Card: It...is a stick. You know, I think I like this one, and frankly I would consider it for constructed play. I’m a Krenko guy, what can I say. But yeah, it’s fun, it’s fragile, it’s got good equip synergy, and I might actually be underestimating its power. I don’t know, is there some crazy combo that you could do with it? This stick is made for walking, not fighting. Heh. Good flavor tie.

The Story: And there it is, right? It’s kinda funny how it’s implied that the whole story about this thing is that this piece of equipment is breaking. And that’s kinda what makes me on the fence about it. Like, if you had a creature, and the text was about the creature dying, that wouldn’t make a lot of sense, right? Maybe if the text was about Bredik fearing the day when he WOULD face a sword? Eh, I’m just being picky here. I think that it’s still pretty good. I like Bredik. He’s not a fighter, but he walks very fast.

@tmstage — Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies

The Card: Yeah, once again, looking at Zendy Risey, I think the wording would be different than “full party.” I’ve been sitting here and I can’t come up with a better way to word it, but it still doesn’t mesh well even if it groks. And it’s a situational card that’s either going to do literally nothing or it’s going to destroy four creatures for one mana. That’s...not great. Hey. I understand if you don’t like a specific mechanic, but I’ve seen some really great ideas from your neck of the woods. Let’s keep going.

The Story: Technically, uh, this does not fit the criteria. Who was praying to the vengeful god? Was it the creatures in the other party? Is there a god of making rocks fall down? What’s up with the name, anyway? There’s a strong sense of disconnect and many questions that go unanswered. But considering all the factors that are going into this card, I have a feeling they aren’t really asking to be answered anyway.

@walker-of-the-yellow-path​ — Marathon of Mogis

The Card: Wow, I wasn’t expecting two Theros-themed God-themed enchantments that gave a number of creatures haste. Great minds and all. So, this card. I don’t think you need to reference the active player. The whole thing can be toned down a little. “At the beginning of each player’s combat (or end?) step, that player sacrifices all creatures they control that didn’t deal combat damage to a player this turn.” Keeping it simple. Honestly, though, I...am not sure I like it for four mana. It feels like a game-ender kind of card. Frankly, I would make it six. And I know that’s a lot and I know that it might be too much, but to be honest, this would be an unfun card otherwise, in my opinion. It’s really, REALLY powerful for a clock.

The story: Is that Mogis’ deal? Does he make people run? I checked the wiki and read through it all and I don’t understand why Mogis would get pleasure out of people not dying. The point of the stampedes and the destruction is to invoke slaughter and sacrifice, not to run humans to the bone. The ferocity of minotaurs is not sadistic. This feels like a Rakdos card — the cult, not the color combo. I feel that there was a misunderstanding.

@wolkemesser​ — Otherskin Scarecrow

The Card: I’ll go out on a limb and say that you could make this a little more Horizons-y and give this card Changeling instead of just saying it has all creature types. Could that make it a shapeshifter? Hm, what if, because it wears clothing from characters in the past, it also has the creature types of all creatures in graveyards? But I digress. Anyway, this card. It’s not bad! It’s not making me super excited, but it’s not bad. You meant for this to have a Reaper King vibe, right? Or at least to work well with it? I think you succeeded. 

The Story: Love the first sentence, don’t quite understand the second one. My interpretation is that it’s taking skin from others, right? Well! Um! That’s actually scary and makes me miss the world of Lorwynmoor even moor. Er, more. It’s unfortunate that the mechanics of the card don’t necessarily depict “skinning intruders alive and taking their identity in a grotesque fashion” as much as I’d personally like. Still, that’s a risk, and you know what, the implications aren’t super strong but it’s enough for me to grok.

Once again, thank y’all for your entries. New contest tomorrow. Be prepared. Be scared. Be....ard. 

-@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #contest #entries #short story #commentary #inventor's fair

[samsbastardzone]

Hey, you know that 35 d&d questions ask meme? I answered all of them.

This is a long ass post. Be warned. It took up seven and a half pages in google docs. Original post here.

1. A favorite character you have played.

Would have to be Zize Fortier, dragonborn gunslinger. Their tag on this blog is #zize and you can find their bio and info on my character page. Love that bastard!! He’s sweet and bratty and a total delight to play (we are such an OP party, y’all).

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

UM UM gonna talk about a few here. To be fair to people I play a *lot* of games with, I’m only gonna  talk about one PC per person.

- The bastard trio in my Wildemount game– @toomanyorphans ’s Nakoria, @overplannedbutunnamednpc ‘s Zier (also an NPC in the campaign Zize is in), and @glasyasbutch ‘s Nissy. They all really suck so bad but in SUCH funny ways. They’re varying degrees of self centered and awful, but we trust each other in this campaign, and those 3 players are SO funny in their RP.

- (RIP) Avri in my Wildemount game. They and Bly named each other,,,,  they were parent and child…… VERY sweet. huge goliath with tiny bird in backpack.

- @bekahdoesnershit ‘s Raini. Zize’s BFF, and her tag on that blog is rich. She’s SUCH a bitch but we love her.

- @bhissar ‘s Saela. She is a dream character for me to DM for– very little fleshed out backstory with room to explore, with still-concrete events in it. Consistent character choices and personality, to the point I can sometimes predict what she’ll do. Very cool aesthetically. And overall? EXTREMELY sweet. Baby, baby bird.

3. Your favorite side quest.

Either the one going on right now in amnesia, where we have to collect brain matter from big powerful elementals, or the stop we made at a family of vampires in Acarnya (the one I played Osfyr in).

4. Your current campaign.

There are five of those, with two on hold. 

-Wildemount, aka the Frozen Sick module from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount (we’re almost done with that, my PC is Bly). 

-Amnesia campaign aka high level campaign: we woke up in hell with no memories! PC is Zize. 

-Hoard of the Dragon Queen module, near the beginning of that, PC is Pointy. 

-Horror campaign, only two sessions so far, but we’re trapped in an alternate dimension carrying out tasks for a creepy dude. PC is Vinny. 

-Kithan, where we’re high level monster hunting guild members searching  out ancient artifacts of the gods (campaign based on the Monster Hunter games), PC is Topaz.

-Silas, party is currently trying to help dragons free themselves and stop a… dude? No spoilers! I DM. On hold because I had too many campaigns going at once.

-Silas v2: extremely vaguely based on the plot of season one of the web series Carmilla. A tweaked version of the first arc the Silas party went through. On hold because it was played in person at school.

5. Favorite NPC.

I don’t really have any NPCs in my campaigns that I’m super attached to, except– Nikeo, a goliath rogue PC in Silas 1, had many adopted children. Three of them– kobolds– sometimes stand on each others’ shoulders, put on a long coat, and help out around their parent’s store. They’ve named themselves Koby.

As for favorite NPCs in campaigns I’ve played, I can think of… a lot. The first is Laurel, a blue dragonborn loner type who followed Osfyr and friends in Acarnya. They were kind of broody and dark, but they really drew me in. They were the first NPC we really talked to– they were sitting on top of the post office laughing at the mob scene of people protesting not getting their mail delivered.

I’d also pick Osfyr’s partners in that campaign– Yelkian, a backstory love interest I came up with, a flamboyant soft sorcerer. Jupiter, politician’s niece, who took pity on Osfyr’s attempts to seduce information out of her and let them succeed on both counts (seduction and information). Xerxes, extra AF rogue with a big loving family, who swept in after a fight on the back of an eagle-wildshaped Brysth (npc druid). 

There’s a blue dragon in the HOTDQ campaign that we don’t know much about. I really enjoyed the way @dungeonsanddraconicqueer played him. He’s just a dude! Lex’s warlock made a Deal with him to leave the town alone. We still don’t know the implications of that. It’s fine, guys.

And then, there’s Stewart the Skin Steward, a servant of False Mystra. Fun dude.  Very cavalier– nigh, enthusiastic!– about the fact that his entire city was made of skin. Something of a skin connoisseur, in fact!

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Saela, hands down. She got breathed on by a dragon, yo. We then had to stop playing for 4-5 months because a player lost access to the Internet. I wrote a vision/speech from her warlock patron, the Raven Queen, the night she died, and basically didn’t touch it until I read it out in game. It involved a confession that the Queen was  tired of being a god, and showing Saela all the lives she’d touched. Then we used Matt Mercer’s rez rules for her. She came back– but it was her choice.

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

Fucking tinkering dude!!! I don’t get to do it enough as Zize and that is entirely my fault. @ morgan, eyes emoji

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

I LOVE creepy shit. There was a train car with people dancing in it, and party members got enchanted to dance along and eat the food,  and the revelers were clearly in pain, and snuffing out a candle caused a reveler to disappear. Creepy shit!

In Kithan, we had to climb a staircase, and we timed it with produce flame which is a 10 minute duration cantrip, and we were climbing for 50 minutes. We started to see things in the edges of our vision. Then someone realized it was an illusion, and it all vanished. It freaked me out so bad.

In amnesia campaign, at level 19, we were traversing a cave, and our shadows started dripping the same black goop we were there to investigate. We killed one and it took down the max hp of the person whose shadow it was, and then they straight up didn’t have a shadow until they long rested. It really freaked us out, realizing the shadows were actually creatures, but they were like CR 1. Really effective use of a low level monster.

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

The way it has something for everyone… the way it’s brought me so many friends… the way it’s inspired my OC creation like nothing else.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

I’m not sure if this is asking about NPCs I’ve had as enemies, or any monster in D&D canon? The longest campaign I played in didn’t have long term enemies  per se. I’d say I was frustrated with the cultists that ambushed us last session in HOTDQ,  but I didn’t hate them! I just couldn’t seem to hit or dodge them. As for a favorite… probably False Mystra: the demon lord Orcus who’d taken over  the position, and therefore the duties, of Mystra, the god of arcane magic.  We killed it,  but then whoopso!! Our wizard lost her powers.

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

I play an ideal amount, honestly: four times a week, for about 2.5-3 hours a session. HOTDQ Tuesdays, Kithan and horror campaign switching off Wednesdays, Wildemount Thursdays cause we miss CR, Amnesia Sundays.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Amnesia: Yocheved, the party barbarian/full time fish, has a secret third arm and/or a prosthetic ass. Cylthia, the druid, does arson (but actually). Relentless is a Crown paladin, so she puts her fingers in her ears when we do crime/lie. She also has a rod of lordly might that, immediately post amnesia, she made into a 32 foot climbing pole. Yocheved eats pounds and pounds of raw fish for every meal.

Wildemount: just the shenanigans and sabotaging each other that the Bastard Trio get into. Example: Nissy was tasked with buying Zier a cloak for cold weather and purposely got him an  ugly one. Zier then prestidigitated it to be a nicer color.

13. Introduce your current party.

Oh boy, I have 6 of those. Here goes. Keep in mind many of these characters are played and games are DMed by my friends who have OC blogs of their own: Raini and Ayen are bekahdoesnerdshit, Ezra, Nissy, and Roona are glasyasbutch, Horror DM, Lent, Eve, and Nakoria are toomanyorphans, Wildemount DM, Saela, Daecyne, and Cylthia are bhissar, HOTDQ DM is dungeonsanddraconicqueer, and Amnesia DM, Zier, Nyxi, and Sarril are overplannedbutunnamednpc. Not an OC blog, but Yocheved, Avri, Arbor, Thraf, Nikeo, and Whisper are mickgoesabsolutelyhamforbarbie.

Amnesia (Zize): Lent, tiefling paladin, former crownsguard who “fell” (became an oathbreaker), then un-fell when we lost our memories. Cylthia, tiefling/elf druid who can shift between tiefling and elf forms and loves setting things on fire. Yocheved, 14 foot tall nereid (fishfolk) barbarian with a dry sense of humor, is the party parent. And Raini, aasimar wizard, sass machine and Zize’s bff.

HOTDQ. My PC is Pointy. Ezra, quiet human paladin. Theata, moon elf rogue. Freya, sweet (human?) light cleric who sometimes misreads situations. Eve, 13 year old (!!) human warlock who kinda sucks, but like, she’s 13. Nyxi, motherly gnome bard who Is going to adopt Pointy. 

Wildemount (Bly): Alene, human barbarian. Quiet and with somewhat of a parent instinct. Some sort of Mysterious Backstory. Delta, aasimar rogue, similarly shady backstory? Unclear. Sticks with Alene. Nissy, drow rune knight, sucks. Zier, drow sorcerer, also sucks. Nakoria, dragonborn warlock, ALSO sucks. (Those three make up the Bastard Trio.) Avri (F for them), goliath bard and Avri’s guardian, died last session by falling on a floor full of knives. 

Horror campaign (Vinny): Roona, halfling bard, very impulsive, eats exclusively with her spoon that says ASS, and chills in Vinny’s fanny pack. Ayen, elven teenage warlock with a dark backstory. Sarril, Ayen’s not-dad, half elf beast barbarian who got it from his wife. Arbor, dryad  monk, who wears an all white plague doctor outfit at all times.

Silas v1 (DM), Original party before 1 left and 1 died: Hacka (RIP), human luchador-styled drunken monk. Nikeo (left), goliath rogue with so many adopted children. Inferno, fire genasi paladin/phoenix sorcerer with anger and impulse control issues. Saela, babiest aarakocra warlock of the Raven Queen. Hacka’s player now plays Voda, a stoic water genasi tempest cleric who cast Raise Dead successfully on Saela. Nikeo’s player now plays Whisper, a tabaxi astral soul monk.

Kithan (Topaz): Thraf, monsterborn (universe-compliant dragonborn) barbarian. Very social, very outgoing, very stupid, and very traumatized. Fucks majorly. Daecyne, sweet tiefling druid and Topaz’s good friend. Viosa, aasimar homebrew class I forget the name of, uses her small stature and allure to her advantage. Damur, half-orc eldritch knight, the party’s only braincell.

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Acarnya. My PC was Osfyr. Soraphine, traumatized halfling bard. Azalea, human fighter. Durzuell, haughty high elf sorcerer. James, nerdy half elf wizard. Drago, erratic Russian dragonborn monk. Kairon, slightly edgy ranger/paladin (but we love him). 

Nordenheim. My PC was Cap. I will admit: we only played 2 or 3 sessions, so I don’t really remember  most of the other party members except Rory, a fire genasi ranger who almost burned to death.

Silas v2 (hopefully will continue; I DMed): Kysseris IV. Half-elf paladin, uptight. Tower 1-6, warforged wizard who crawled out of the desert and is looking for info on how he was made. Mae “Pock”, gnome rogue, very small and  sweet. Josh, human trickery cleric, kind of an asshole, but in a way that’s funny and hasn’t bled over into IRL annoying.

[school] West Marches campaign (Ner): by the nature of West Marches, there was never a consistent party, but a few stood out to me. Red Foot, a hyperactive kobold sorcerer who’s level 8 against all West Marches odds. Lyra, Great Old One warlock of Tzee’Mhor, an abomination goat that a party I was in accidentally created. Fildo Baggins, divination wizard who can only affect allies whose toenail clippings he has in his vial.

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Hell yeah babey!!! I mostly play digitally, especially during COVID, and I need something to munch after DMing for a while. Shit’s exhausting.

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

Welp! Online mostly, since everyone I want to play with has the audacity to live far away, and now exclusively online because of COVID.

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

Our Amnesia party is so rich that we just don’t keep track of money. In Kithan, a lot of rules that make characters less powerful are just… abolished (like the bonus action spell rule). (The DM likes super OP characters so she can throw SUPER OP monsters at us.  My character has a necklace that gives 5 additional uses of channel divinity.)

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Nope. No opportunities for them. Zize’s party has a little water snake on the druid’s arm but I doubt that will last very long.

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

Absolutely. Cursed dice get j a i l.

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

Acarnya got me into d&d, it was my first campaign, and it was happening at the place I lived. I’ve been playing almost 2 years. (Critical Role inspired me to DM)

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

Not sent a fucking letter to say goodbye to their boyfriend before the world-fate-deciding bullshit that was gonna happen and possibly destroy shit. It was fine in the end though!

22. What color was your first dragon?

Red. Man, that guy sucked, he almost killed Osfyr. We were investigating a monastery secretly run by dragons disguised as humans.

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

Original campaigns. I’ve never run a module before! I’m not opposed, but most of my campaigns came from ideas  that I had. I’ve never been short on ideas for a game.

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

As a player, I just open my character sheet and get out dice. As a DM, I try and think about what material I want to get through this session, and write some narration and/or stat things out if I feel like it.

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

A lot of times, Inferno has rushed into battle from what I’d built as a stealth mission, and gotten her ass and sometimes the party’s asses kicked. I should really have learned by now.

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters?

Definitely Saela’s resurrection ritual and vision.

27. Do you allow homebrew content?

Yes! I’ll check it first,  but I’m all for expanding the boundaries. I homebrew items and monsters all the time, why shouldn’t my payers get to homebrew their shit?

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?

Too often in my first arc. I had like 7 NPCs running around at all times (they were Carmilla characters). Super not recommended. I have 0 right now.

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

I’m still finding my groove with RP as a DM. I like encouraging my players to RP amongst themselves. I consider myself fairly good at combat on both sides of the equation, DM and player, so that’s always fun to me, especially when my players enjoy it too.

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

I have one actively reforming murder hobo player, the rest are diplomatic. (The character, Inferno, is having a great growth arc. I’m super proud.)

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

I fucking love genasi as a concept. Favorite class would have to be rogue or cleric, but gunslinger’s up there too.

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

I  honestly don't have the patience to not play DPS. I love doing lots of damage. Healing is satisfying, support is satisfying, but there’s a reason I picked rogue twice and tempest cleric over other domains.

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

Sometimes the backstory is part of the character concept– especially for Pointy, because I had the name first, then went hmm why would she have this name. Almost always, though, more backstory gets written during the campaign when I have an idea. Sometimes a character will act in a way I don’t expect, and it’s fun thinking of a justification to fill backstory gaps.

34. Do you tend to pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

Mostly  usefulness honestly. I’ll make choices among several for flavor, but I’m a big proponent of using mechanics to build character. What I mean is, think about Magnus in TAZ Balance– his protection fighting style contributed a lot to the way Travis played him as a protective person. I love that shit.

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

I like to do a lot, but unfortunately my  energy is pretty down lately so I haven’t been doing as much.

#zize #pointy #cap #bly #osfyr #ner #vinny #topaz #dm thots #meta thots #asks #amnesia campaign #hotdq #horror campaign #wildemount campaign #silasverse #kithan

[nokikissa]

Whooooooooo did it, beat the story of borderlands 3 now. It took me 42 hours but I think I got still like some of those fight wave of enemies arena things I could do but I’ll look into that later, I did all the crew challenges and side mission outside of those type of things.

Story and character wise it was a bit of a mixed bag, there were a lot of things I like and couple things I really didn’t like, but all in all I had fun, the gameplay was excellent, and most likely I will play it again, to co-op with buddies or to try out different vault hunters.

Putting more in-depth thoughts about some story and character things under the cut, extreme major spoiler warning as I’ll be talking about like big plot moments and such.

I quite like most of the new characters they introduced in this, I’ve only played Fl4k and loved them, but from everything I’ve seen I feel like I’ll love the other new vault hunters as well. The Calypso twins were delightful villains, very entertaining but also like I couldn’t wait to get to kill them lmao. And then there’s like Ava, I loved her and her relationship with Maya that was good stuff. And Wainwright I quite liked as well, and I was very happy that Hammerlock finally has a boyfriend and is in a good relationship. And also Lorelei and Clay were both good too, tho I probably like Lorelei more of those haha.

How it handled some old characters tho.... That’s a bit mixed. Like I liked a lot of them: Lilith, Eliie, Tannis, Maya, Zer0, Sir Hammerlock.... Even Rhys! They got Rhys down surprisingly well in my opinion! Obviously he was bit more comedic and doofy but like it was still reminiscent of how Rhys acted in like comedic moments of tales, I could recognize where they got his personality from and so on, it was fine!

...Which makes it even more baffling that they fucked up Vaughn so completely that with Vaughn it feels like the writer maybe got a super vague description of the character at best which had been passed down through multiple people twisting it around like a game of broken telephone. I just don’t understand where they pulled some character traits for him at all.... During the game I tried my best to ignore his existence, which worked well for a long while until the game made you go back to pandora and made him story relevant again, god every time he spoke my reaction was like “please shut up...”

But. I knew that was coming. The Commander Lilith DLC and promotional pics and so on made it clear ahead of time that I would not like Borderlands 3 Vaughn. I had had time to go through the stages of grief and resign to being all well I’m gonna be one of those salty tales fans and keep on drawing content of like tales Vaughn and ignore the rest of the canon for him.

So anyway I was really liking the story during like the Promethea Atlas Vs. Maliwan Arc actually, Rhys and Zer0 and their interactions were fun, Katagawa was an enjoyable villain as well, I just hope the fandom don’t make him annoying to me... So yeah that arc was good and fun.... and then the Promethea Vault happened. I am still a bit on the fence about how I feel about Maya getting killed off. On one hand, I did not see that coming and it did get an emotional “Nooo D:” reaction out of me, which well I’ve seen games with similar character getting killed off scenes that are supposed to be a big deal but my reaction is just like “ok”, like Borderlands 2 with Roland for example. But like yeah I didn’t want her to die, and it feels like kind of a waste cos let’s face it in 2 she didn’t have that much personality since the game didn’t do voice lines for the vault hunters reacting to the story etc. So now she was finally getting to be her own character I feel like aaaand then she dies. :/

And then we moved on to the Eden 6 arc and initially I was excited all Oh get to meet Hammerlock’s Boyfriend! But soon my excitement soured............

So Aurelia’s evil now huh.... And like cartoonishly evil...... Man I hate what they did with Aurelia in this game, it really smashed my good mood coming from the promethea arc to this.... Like in pre-sequel sure she kept claiming herself to be evil and a bitch and so on, but yet when Jack did like actually horrible shit she did not agree with those, she felt bad about Felicity’s fate and didn’t agree with Jack killing the scientist, she even objected when Jack was killing off all claptraps! But nah here’s she’s evil, murdering people left and right and also fucked Troy Calypso cos idk she evil now  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Like god............ I really didn’t expect Aurelia of all the characters whose portrayal I’d be having this much issues but here we are... I guess I’m more pissed about it atm cos as I said with Vaughn I knew what was coming, but with Aurelia I kinda feel Bait and switched by the promotional material cos in all of those that I saw they showed like both the Hammerlocks and Wainwright standing next to each other so you know I was expecting her to be an ally, like maybe she and Alistair had started to tolerate each other and so on but NOPE! Go kill this character you like! Thanks a lot gearbox...

That’s the major issues I had with characters I suppose, Tho it is a bit disappointed Maya and Zer0 were only vault hunters from 2 that showed up. Would’ve been fun to get more personality for more of them. I did find some echo logs involving Krieg at one point which were interesting, aaaand according to like the sort of background filler assets Axton does porn now lmao. Also hmm where were Athena and Janey? Fiona and Sasha? So many characters missing... I know they’ve said probably more characters show up in dlcs, but still. Story wise kinda funny tho, like did Lilith contact the vault hunters from 2 for help at all? Were all of them like “sry I’m busy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “??

Also one weird bit about the Eden 6 arc, it felt kiiinda out of place for borderlands that there were npcs being all “Oh man I sure love the Jakobs family they treat me well”, borderlands has sorta been all “the gun corporation suck” beforehand... I suppose the Promethea arc was bit too pro corporation in some way, but with that at least mostly the npc I saw were like “Rhys says he’s trying to do good with atlas... hm we shall see how that’ll pan out...” suspicion, but with the Jakob there were characters being all oh Jakobs is so great such good corporation :)

At the end side of the game you could get sooo much lore about like sirens which I loved, translating the eridian artifact things like clarified on like how sirens come to be and all which is great! According to that siren in her life can choose who specifically inherits her powers after she dies, or “release her powers into the unknown” which when described kinda gave me the impression that it’ll pass those onto some baby that’s born at some point, which yay clarification on the whole are sirens born as sirens or do they get their powers later: answer is both!

And it appears that Angel decided to pass her powers onto Tannis before she died? Which is interesting. And aw Maya chose Ava to inherit her powers.

That ending tho..... uhhh isn’t Elpis an inhabited place? How did that whole thing affect the people living on elpis lmao....?

And god that ending credits song, it is fitting but I just can’t take it seriously asfsfdggs...

i guess I’ll now move onto talking about the gameplay....

The gameplay was great. Same old Borderlands gameplay except with some improvements making it better, and that is exactly what I wanted from the game.

I especially love the way the guns are now and how much variety there is between the manufacturers, and even within them! Like previously I rarely liked to use shotguns in borderlands games, but in this one I fell in love specifically with the Maliwan Shockwave shotguns, and when one I had started to be too low leveled I desperately tried looking for new one everywhere lol.

And also Atlas gun’s smart bullet gimmick is so good especially now that I played on console, I know I joked about that before the game came out I’m sorry Rhys lol.

I really enjoyed the environments in the game, the planets looked cool and unique, and the maps were interesting. And god some of them are so huge! Which does cause some issue tho... They are weirdly stingy with ammo vending machines. In previous games they usually had ammo vending machines before like boss fight rooms, but in this one nope! Most of the time they only have those in like beginning of the map or like where fast travel points are? That’s annoying... And another issue is that the maps are big and sorta maze-like at times, so even though you have the mission marker in the mini map, I still needed to constantly open the map to see how to get to it, you can’t just go straight in the direction of the mission marker.

Gotta say, I was bit disappointed that we only visited Athenas to get Maya, I was hoping we’d return there cos the planet was very pretty but nope....

Fl4k’s gameplay was really fun, I got the skill that lets fl4ks pet heal you and man that skill is a lifesaver, there were some boss fights I survived purely because of Mr Chew keeping me alive by reviving me lol.

I did encounter few glitched that caused me to have to restart the game cos some mission objective got stuck somewhere and I couldn’t advance, that was a bit annoying. But it was only very few and like well into the game, compared to the hours I played it feels like a pretty good track record for playing a game right on it’s release haha.

So uh yeah. In summary again: Extremely fun gameplay, mixed bag story and characters. Had fun, will play again.

#lol enjoy my +1700 word thoughts on the game #pointless text post is pointless #bl3 spoilers #i really mean the spoilers thing for real yo #borderlands 3

[xb-squaredx]

B-Squared’s Top 10 Games of 2019!

2019 was a year full to the brim of GREAT games, and as is the custom at the end of the year, people love to rank their favorites, so…I’d like to do the same! Of course my own tastes might be different from yours so if you don’t see a thing on here that you liked, chances are I didn’t like it…or more likely, there’s just too many great games out this year, and I couldn’t get to everything. I’d like to stress to that the rankings don’t really matter all that much, especially the farther down we go. Everything on here is an easy recommendation. Without any further ado…let’s take a look at my Top 10 Games of 2019~

#10 - River City Girls

I love action games, but 2D beat-em-ups never really clicked for me. They were largely before my time and I was thinking that it’d be impossible to get me into one in the current era of gaming. And then I saw Marian’s redesign for River City Girls and bought the game. What can I say? Abs are a great sales pitch. But seriously, getting Wayforward on the helm of a beloved classic franchise is already a great way to pique my interest, and while there’s SOME aspects of this game that I don’t quite gel with, it’s a fun, colorful romp through a ridiculous universe that I’d LOVE to see more of down the line. Featuring a role-reversal, with the girlfriends saving the boyfriends this time, River City Girls has gorgeous pixel art, an AMAZING pop-synth soundtrack that’s worth the price alone, and it’s a game that clearly had fun with the concept and that fun rubs off on you. From the stylish animated boss intros, to the co-op fun that can be had with a friend, everything in this game is brimming with charm. Basic NPCs have great designs in their own right, being able to recruit enemies as assists is a neat idea, and it all adds up to a fun, bite-sized adventure with a bit of depth under the hood if you’re willing to give it a look. Can the character designers get a raise for this game, please? And let Megan McDuffie just do all the songs from now on. ALL OF THEM.

#9 - Astral Chain

Most people assumed if we were going to get a Switch exclusive game by Platinum this year, it’d be Bayonetta 3 but instead Nintendo surprised us with Astral Chain, the anime cop action game we didn’t know we wanted. The game boasts great visuals and is probably the most content-rich Platinum game ever made for starters, but for me the true draw is in the combat. Playing as your police officer in tandem with an alien creature known as a Legion, this tag-team action game is unlike pretty much anything else on the market. While the game starts off very simplistic, the Legion itself moving and attacking with no input from the player, over time more and more options unlock and things get considerably more complicated. By game’s end, you’re drowning in options, and once things clicked, combat was always a treat. With plenty of enemies to practice with, Legions to master and a gigantic post-game filled with challenging encounters, I had more fun with the combat in this game than I did with a lot of other games this year. That said, I do feel that Astral Chain could have benefitted from trimming some fat or rethinking its overall structure. For being a new IP with some bold ideas, I’m willing to accept these as kinks that can hopefully be ironed out in a sequel. Oh, and add Lappy to Smash already. You know you want to, Sakurai.

#8 - BABA IS YOU

Puzzle games are hard sells for me, since I don’t like the frustration that often comes from being stuck. You feel dumb, you get embarrassed and turn the game off in shame, or at least that’s my experience. But then sometimes you get a game so clever, so…weird, that you can’t help but be sucked into it. BABA IS YOU is a block-pushing puzzle game, with the twist being that the “rules” of a particular stage are often physically present in levels and are in fact blocks that can be pushed and manipulated by the player. ROCK is PUSH, WALL is STOP, FLAG is WIN and BABA is YOU. But what if you can’t touch the flag because the wall is in the way? Well, make it so WALL is PUSH to move it aside, or maybe make it so that BABA is WIN and you become the win condition itself. As the game goes on, more modifiers and rules are slowly introduced and absorbed into your own internal logic of the game, logic that increasingly has to be broken and remade to suit your needs. It’s a very empowering experience when the solution clicks and the results can often be hilarious and surprising. This game also GOES PLACES the further you go in, and I’d rather not ruin that surprise for anyone who might be looking into the game. Definitely one of the most innovated titles I’ve played in a LONG time. BABA is GOOD.

#7 - Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid

OK, so…hear me out. Power Rangers was a franchise I was obsessed with as a kid, and while I don’t follow it anymore, there’s still some love for it flowing in my veins. So when a small, no-name studio puts out a Power Ranger fighting game that takes the simplified controls of Smash Bros. and the tag-team craziness of Marvel vs. Capcom and slaps it all together for a cool twenty bucks or so? Well you got yourself a purchase and it ended up being WAY more fun than I expected. Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is far from the best looking fighter on the market, it’s single-player content is lacking, and it’s roster, while interesting, isn’t as big as a lot of the competition, but damn if it isn’t fun to play. With characters taken from across the franchise’s long history, from the live-action movie reboot to the comic books, each choice has been inspired and resulted in an incredibly varied cast. With no crazy inputs for special moves, combined with a tagging system that lets you cycle through your three-Ranger team quickly, the game is the best kind of chaotic fun, but true masters can command that chaos and channel it into cool combos that make you want to say “Morphinominal!” Considering it’s a budget title, it’s also received a fair amount of updates throughout the year to pad out the roster with both free and paid DLC fighters, a full story mode and improvements to the netcode and overall presentation., so if you passed on it at launch, it’s much improved now. It’s not gonna be a fighting game on everyone’s radar, but I’d rather support it than the grind-heavy slog Mortal Kombat has become…Now just hurry up and add that monster that baked the Rangers into a pizza!

#6 - New Super Lucky’s Tale

If your name isn’t Mario or Sonic, 3D platformers are effectively dead. That said, there’s been a few up-and-comers in recent years that are trying to revive the genre. Hat Kid from A Hat in Time, the duo of Yooka-Laylee, and now Lucky from the folks at Playful Studios. The cute fox has quite the history, starting from the Oculus Rift title, Lucky’s Tale, to a full-fledged platformer on the Xbox One X, Super Lucky’s Tale and now the enhanced port/reimagining New Super Lucky’s Tale on Switch. Halfway between a full-blown sequel, and enhanced edition, the game takes assets from the Xbox original game, tweaking and refining everything from visuals to controls to level layouts. The result is a game that is incredibly well-polished. It looks great, Lucky is a treat to control as he moves from jumping, burrowing and sliding around fluidly, and the variety on display keeps things interesting. We’ve got full 3D levels, 2D levels, auto-runners, and even some marble maze levels and puzzles thrown in for good measure. It’s not a hard game, but it IS incredibly fun, and well made. We don’t get many 3D platformers these days, so cherish what little comes of the genre. I hope Playful and Nintendo continue to collaborate, as they really seem more at home here. Just…maybe don’t add more words to the title of the next game, guys.

#5 - Katana Zero

There’s no nice way to say it: there’s too many pixel-based, side-scrolling indie games out there, so the ones that DO stand out deserve to be celebrated. Katana Zero has a real ‘80s flair for starters, using bright neon, TV and VCR visual effects, and a synth soundtrack to give it some real style. When a game kicks off with you slowing down time and reflecting a bullet back at an enemy with your katana, you make a good first impression! Add in the trial-and-error that is planning the perfect route through a stage, the satisfying slicing and dicing of enemies, the unique, challenging boss encounters, and you have a game that was on my radar for a while, before I finally got into it at the end of the year. Its storyline is pretty interesting too, with some slight variances in how events unfold depending on your words and actions, though it ending on a bit of a cliffhanger is a bummer. That said, when a game leaves you wanting more, there’s worse problems to have. At the very least, there’s some DLC hinted at that might be interesting, as well as the implications that this is the merely the first in a trilogy, and at this point I’m game for whatever developer Askiisoft has in store.

#4 - Luigi’s Mansion 3

The GameCube was an odd era for Nintendo, as they attempted to innovate and try new ideas rather than rely purely on their old standbys. Case-in-point, rather than launch the console with a new Mario platformer, his second-banana brother Luigi got his first starring role in what would become the Luigi’s Mansion series. While not making QUITE as big of a splash as maybe Nintendo hoped, it’s garnered a decent fanbase, and when a sequel was announced for 3DS, people ate it up. Considering the gap between the first and second games, I think many people were surprised at the relatively quick turn-around for the third installment. I was also surprised at the overall quality and how much I enjoyed digging into it. For starters, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is easily one of the better-looking Switch titles, boasting some great lighting and particle effects, with some fun physics implemented for just about everything in the massive mansion. Luigi and company are animated with a lot of expressiveness that never gets old, and the music sets the tone perfectly too. From a gameplay standpoint, the toolset Luigi gains gives him ample options to poke at every nook and cranny, with the slimy doppelganger Gooigi being the clear stand-out. Some of the floors of the Last Resort hotel that Luigi must ascend are particularly massive and intricate too, some floors feeling like Legend of Zelda-style dungeons. While not a particularly challenging game, it’s still really satisfying to poke and prod at everything in sight, sucking in all the coins, gold bars and stacks of paper bills you can handle, not to mention slamming the ghosts around like the Hulk does to Loki. There’s also multiplayer! That I…haven’t really touched but…hey! More bang for your buck, surely!

#3 – Dragon Quest XI S

I don’t consider myself a huge fan of JRPGs. Or at least that’s what I thought before I tried out the Dragon Quest XI demo on Switch. I ended up falling for the game hard and bought the full release, carrying my demo data over and not stopping until I hit credits. Despite having never touched a Dragon Quest game before, outside of an hour or so of VIII, I was overcome with this feeling of nostalgia when it came to this game. That’s because Dragon Quest is THE quintessential JRPG game, the originator of all that we take for granted today. It was nice to feel right at home with a simple, effective combat system, rather than having to watch games re-invent the wheel in an attempt to stand out from the pack (sorry Xenoblade), and the story itself, while predictable and a little basic at times, was told well and told earnestly. It really nailed the feeling of going on a grand adventure, with enough twists on the formula to keep things interesting. The turn-based combat was elementary, but always presented me with fair challenges and lots of ways to solve the encounters laid before me, with enough quality-of-life features added in to minimize grind and make things more convenient. The Switch version of Dragon Quest XI featured a bunch of new content on top of a game that had more than enough going for it, and it’s clear a lot of work was done to make this port as faithful as could be, and it stands out not just as a great port on a system known for some shoddy ones, but as a title that’s brimming with as much polish and quality to rival first-party Switch titles. Don’t ban Hero in Smash and don’t miss out on this game if you haven’t taken the plunge already!

#2 – Devil May Cry 5

The Devil May Cry franchise has had its share of ups and downs over the years. For every game that’s considered a success, you have another game that doesn’t quite measure up. For years many thought the franchise was dead in the water after the attempted reboot, DMC: Devil May Cry failed to grow its audience, but when Microsoft’s E3 2018 show revealed to us a new installment, fans were ecstatic. Devil May Cry 5 boasts crisp visuals, deep combat and trims the fat, removing the wonky platforming and puzzles of earlier games to create a high-octane action experience that ultimately exceeded fan expectations. Its storyline firmly plants Devil May Cry 4’s Nero as a main character in his own right, wraps up the story of the Sparda brothers neatly, and if this ended up being the last title in the series, I think it’s that rare ending that ends up being totally satisfying. Combat is the real draw here though, the game giving players three distinct characters to learn and master. Nero’s robotic Devil Breaker arms allow him a decent amount of variety, while having a balanced, beginner-friendly combat style for new players. Dante remains the king of variety, having more weapons than ever before combined with his signature style switching, though the game is actually designed with all these options in mind so he doesn’t end up breaking the game like he did in 4. Newcomer V ends up being a breath of fresh air, controlling up to three demonic summons at once, forcing players to really think more strategically. The music is incredible too; Nero’s own theme, Devil Trigger, has been stuck in my head since last year and I don’t see it leaving any time soon. All things considered, Devil May Cry 5 might be the best game in the franchise, and a worthy contender for game of the year personally. Now if only we had a special edition with Vergil and the ladies playable…

#1 - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I got into the Fire Emblem series with Awakening and really liked it a lot, however Fates, the next installment, left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn’t really get into Echoes, itself a remake of the second game in the series, and I began to wonder if this franchise was really for me. I was willing to give Three Houses a shot, but I was not prepared for the game to blow past all my expectations. Fire Emblem: Three Houses isn’t just a good game, it’s a game that’s redeemed a franchise that’s stumbled a bit in recent years, and it likely cements Fire Emblem as a core Nintendo franchise for years to come. It has class, depth and real heart...with only minor creepy or pervy elements! Making a grand return to home consoles after more than a decade on handhelds, it goes big and it ultimately paid off, on track to become the best-selling entry in the series. The school setting might seem weird at first, and I wondered how well I’d adjust to it, but being able to instruct your units and influence their growth in battle was worth the learning curve. Things are introduced slowly enough that the flow of the game becomes relatively easy to manage, if a bit time-consuming overall. With four distinct storylines you can explore, TONS of character interactions and some interesting tweaks to the strategic gameplay the series is known for, I’m confident in saying that Three Houses is well-worth a purchase for newcomers to the franchise. Divine Pulse is a great quality-of-life addition that lets you undo mistakes, rather than force you to start over from scratch, and overall the UI and layout of the game gives you enough information to make informed decisions without overwhelming you. Makes me wonder how we survived before the games showed us who enemies would target on their turns before now. Admittedly, some aspects of the progression have some issues, especially at endgame, and visually the game really is not up to par most of the time, but these end up being tiny blemishes in the long run for me. They certainly weren’t bad enough to prevent me from starting a new path the instant I finished my first route. If I have one request…just make Claude a gay option. Give the people what they want, Nintendo!

Honorable Mentions

I’d like to add on some honorable mentions here before we close things out, though most of these are things I didn’t even get a chance to play, but they certainly might have made this list. For one, Resident Evil 2 Remake seems like a high-quality reinterpretation of the survival-horror classic, but I can’t do horror so I’ll likely pass it up. It’s also for that reason that I might not get to Control but I might try jumping out of my comfort zone for that one. The confusion surrounding both The Other Worlds AND The Outer Wilds is funny, but they’re both space-based games I’d be keen on getting to at some point down the line; the former is a great Western RPG by the folks who made the GOOD Fallout games, while the latter is an interesting space-faring puzzler with some interesting mechanics I’d rather not spoil for those not more in-the-know. Indie titles Sayonara Wild Hearts and GRIS definitely caught my attention with their great visuals, and in the case of the former, its soundtrack, even if the gameplay wasn’t quite there for me, and the weird fighting-game-but-kinda-RPG that is Indivisible demands my attention sooner or later. Bloodstained is the Castlevania follow-up I keep forgetting is out, and I hear great things about Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. The team behind the Yakuza series recently made a spin-off of sorts, Judgment that hit the West this year and while I like the Yakuza series for its quirky tone and fun combat, there’s still six other games I’d have to sift through, so going with Judgment, which is set to possibly begin a new franchise, seems like a good alternative. And how could I forget the likes of Shovel Knight as we finally receive the last expansion that’s been years in the making? I haven’t touched the King of Cards expansion yet, but I have the upmost faith in anything Yacht Club makes, so that’s surely a game of the year contender. 2019 was crazy good! Glad to close the year out with so much quality, and tons of great stuff to add to the ever-growing backlog.

Hope you had some good gaming memories made this year!

-B

#gameoftheyear #GOTY #GOTY2019 #astral chain #lucky's tale #baba is you #river city girls #devil may cry #luigi's mansion 3 #katana zero #power rangers #fire emblem three house #dragon quest 11 #xb-squaredx

[less-than-hash]

Holes in the Firmament

Every dev I know has at least one dream game - stuff that they'd love to be able to make some day. The more ambitious these get - the more complex or long - the less likely they are to get made. And in a collaborative medium like games, the more people (and the more money!) involved in a project, the less control any given individual has over it.

This isn't intrinsically bad. (It can also be wildly valuable to a project and rewarding personally.)

But we devs still dream of those games we'd make if we had, say, the resources of a two hundred person studio, the backing of a major publisher, and absolute freedom.

Three of mine are behind the cut.

As a note, none of these reflect upcoming Obsidian projects. Nor are they projects Obsidian would likely ever make. They don't fit the studio's brand. Which is why I'm dreaming about them here, and not pitching them internally. 

So, first up!

A Squad-Based 1st-Person Firefighting Game with a Robust Relationship System and a Branching Narrative

I don't understand why there aren't more games about firefighting - though if I had to guess it's largely because making fire look good in-game is extraordinarily difficult. As is making an environment decay over time (though I suspect there are probably some pretty good, easy solutions for this using dev sleight-of-hand).

There are actually a Iot of interactive sim games about firefighting for training purposes. Much like war and flight, firefighting is something best trained without risking real life and limb.

Firefighting appeals to me as a gameplay space because it's actively protective - it's about limiting destruction and saving lives. But it can very easily be modeled with similar gameplay loops to shooters - ultimately both are about emptying rooms of danger - here it's just with water instead of bullets.

I could be water!

In short, firefighters engage in almost unequivocal good. They're heroic. They’re human. They’re flawed. And they brave dangers every day. But our industry basically ignores them.

Firefighting would give us the opportunity to set games in the modern world with people who, during their off hours, experience much more relatable struggles than your average freedom fighter, super spy, or elite soldier - relationship difficulties, debt, children, and the like.

So what would this game actually look and play like? It would likely be mission-based (calls come in of their own accord, after all), make use of movement and environmental hazards (not unlike a cover-based shooter), and have simple companion-direction mechanics similar to the Mass Effect trilogy or Spec Ops: The Line.

(Alternatively, the action could be dialed down a bit to focus on positioning a la Valkyria Chronicles.)

The gameplay would be focused on keeping your squad alive while saving as many people as possible.

Between missions you hang out at the station, or the bar, or at home - or try to balance all three, a la Catherine. You build relationships, helping your squad perform better together. You never recruit anyone, but your companions, your fellow firefighters, can die in missions, altering the narrative in both tone and content.

tl;dr: Mass Effect 2 meets Rescue Me with some dashes of Catherine

Next!

Narrative-Focused Urban Fantasy RPG/Immersive Sim

How does this not exist yet? Where's our Dresden Files or Hellblazer inspired RPGs? Or even The Magicians or Harry Potter, for that matter?

Where my Chilling Adventures of Sabrina RPG?

There's Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, which, while fantastic, is 13 years old.

While I'm looking forward to Necrobarista, that seems like a pretty tight, focused experience.

We've plenty of games with magicians in fantasy realms or in space - AKA BioWare's entire oeuvre - but few in the AAA space set in the modern world.

Unless you count superhero magicians.

Wait. Did Dr. Strange even get a game? Google suggests no. What’s going on here, videogame industry? Why won’t you suffer a witch to live?!

Honestly, I get to an extent why this is. There's a reason there've been Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse games, but no Mage games, either for Ascension or Awakening. Magic is broad, and often (especially in games) wildly destructive, which can be at odds with a modern setting (or rather what makes a modern setting interesting).

Art by Jason Chan, from Reign of the Exarchs by White Wolf.

But it doesn't have to be.

The flexibility of magic actually allows for a lot of different gameplay styles. You can do straight up first-person action like The Darkness or stealth survival like Last of Us. If I were to adapt Phonogram, a comic I love deeply, you can bet your ass there'd be beatmatch spellcasting.

A lot of gameplay mechanics we take for granted are actually damned-near magical. 

Maps that point you where to go and tell you where your enemies are? 

Dropping from a second story window without difficulty? 

Regenerating health? 

Items that make you smarter, stronger, or more likable? 

Bullet time? 

Rewinding to an earlier point in time to avoid death or a bad decision? 

So that's another question a developer has to answer: if magic comes in so many shades, what color is yours? What are you hoping to accomplish?

For me, the presence of magic in the modern world demands a layer of secrecy that implies other layers of secrets. A modern world in which magic functions immediately deepens. What else lurks out there? Where are the other magicians? How are they using their abilities?

Additionally, magic is surreal. Bend and twist reality, and you're forced to look at it from new angles. If you can tweak people's emotional responses to you, how do you know the relationships around you are real? 

And that's before you realize your dreams literally might come true - especially the nightmares. Is the face in the mirror a reflection, or something sinister and jealous? Is the ghost haunting you your literal past reaching out to reclaim you?

My dream modern magician game is an open-world immersive sim in an urban setting. Drop Prey, Dishonored, or BioShock style gameplay into a sprawling city filled with physics objects ripe for transmutation and NPCs waiting to be enchanted. Add an otherworld accessed by stepping through mirrors (the entire map within is reversed).

It's about what power can accomplish, what justifies its use, and what its limits are.

Populate the world with a few powerful magician NPCs with their own agendas; dozens of NPCs to chat up, learn more about, seduce, and manipulate; and a threat that could consume reality's very soul if someone doesn't step up to deal with it. Shake. Serve.

tl;dr: Dishonored meets Vampyr by way of Hellblazer and Hellboy

And finally!

Friendship Simulator 2019

My favorite parts of the Persona games and Catherine are the things outside of the core gameplay loops. The bits where you're hanging out with your friends, chatting with them, finding out more about them, and guiding and supporting them (or tearing them down).

Or hiding in the toilet to text your significant other.

One of the things I love about Persona 5: Dancing Star Night in Starlight is that the narrative is almost solely in this mode. It's entirely about learning more about your fellow Phantom Thieves.

Lest you think I uncritically and unabashedly love it, P5D has some major narrative problems - it entirely fails to pay off its initial premise, for example, and there's no persistence to the player choices or (player-driven) reactivity within the narrative.

Nor does the way the player "progresses" the narrative make a tremendous amount of sense within the fiction of the world.

Sorry I got distracted.

Point is, from a narrative perspective it's a game about getting to know people better - literally exploring their lives - and then supporting (or undermining, if you're terrible) them.

Similarly, nothing the player says in Persona (or, for the most part, Catherine) has any impact on the game. The player might progress a Social Link more slowly by being an ass to the protagonists' friends, but they'll still increase that Link over time, provided they put time into it.

And I don't want to be dismissive here. Time management is one of the major ways in which the player engages with the Persona games. Outside of combat and maybe monster-training, it's probably the most important mechanic at play. Taking longer to max out a Social Link means you're missing other content and missing opportunities to increase your stats. Or maybe the Social Link doesn't get completed at all. (Sorry, Haru.) Or maybe you’re not powerful enough to overcome the next Shadow in time and your game ends. Those are non-trivial consequences.

But the story of the Social Link, or the story of the game, will never change based on (the vast majority of) the player's interactions with their buddies.

Despite that, the games give the player a lot of freedom as to when (or whether!) they approach those relationships.

On the other end of the spectrum, Life is Strange (and Before the Storm) does a fantastic job of letting the player get to know the characters around Max (and Chloe) and responding logically to the player's choices.

The kid who has a crush on Max (Warren, I think?) remembers what the player promises him and then responds to whether or not the player follows through on it.

If Chloe plays A Game That Absolutely Involves Neither Dungeons Nor Dragons with her friends, they'll refer to it excitedly later and ask her to join in another round.

The TellTale games are also pretty good at this, especially Wolf Among Us, but that'll take me a bit far afield.

What Life is Strange does not provide the player is any control at all over the flow of the narrative. When the player completes a narrative beat within a scene, they're rushed along to the next scene, which is never one of their choosing. There's plenty of flexibility within the relationships (and within many of the smaller subplots), but little within the game's larger structure.

Ultimately, Persona provides little variability, while Life is Strange provides little narrative control.

I want to make a game that grabs the strong aspects of both of these while jettisoning their weaknesses.

(Far, far easier written than done!)

Basically, I want to make a game focused on the exploration of relationships. Where the personalities are the mysteries to unravel, and the interpersonal relationships between characters the dungeons to be navigated. Where the inner demons are the beasts in need of slaying - not through mystically entering the subconscious and doing battle with the Shadow, but through conversation.

I want a game about building a community, a family, and helping it come to support itself.

I think that one essential change that would make this significantly more doable is discarding the larger threats to the characters, especially those supernatural in nature. The relationships among the cast of Persona 4 are propping for the story of the Midnight Channel Murders. Arcadia Bay's pending apocalypse distracts from the relationships that seem to be the actual core story of Life is Strange.

(I find Before the Storm a stronger narrative than the original Life is Strange in large part because it's not being torn in multiple directions.)

Which isn't to say that there can't be threats, obstacles, and dangers. The world presents all manner of difficulties. Most of them requiring far more challenging and interesting solutions than "stick a sword in it."

That's a lot of abstraction, so what would this game actually look and play like?

Well, as I mentioned above, I think the Persona games, esp. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 already do a fantastic job of providing the player the framework for exploring a space and approaching relationships at their own pace.

Add into this characters that the player can engage with in order to learn more about them (not unlike Vampyr), help with their problems, and build (or break!) relationships with them or others, and you have something of an open-world interpersonal relationship game. 

The narrative of these relationships would change based on the player's actions (both in regard to how they interact with the character and how they deal with (or fail to deal with) the character's problems). So would the player's reputation, which impacts their interactions with other characters.

(The reputation system is actually one of my favorite ideas in Pillars, but I think we sometimes fail to use it to its full potential. I certainly know I do.)

Side note: in this dream game, the relationships I'm describing are not expressed in a systemic way. They're not ranked like Social Links, and they don't have reputation bars like in Dragon Age or Tyranny. It's much more akin to Life is Strange here, with each character containing their own narrative(s) to be navigated.

Over time, you bring some of these characters closer to your protagonist, recruiting a tight-knit circle that helps you face the game's primary conflict. These relationships bounce off of one another. You can never make everyone happy, after all, and some people will never get along. Late game play requires that the player balance these relationships and help forge friendships or avoid catastrophic fallings out.

Yeah, but what is that primary conflict? 

Potentially anything the world could throw at a person. A lot of television shows have provided us a framework we can borrow from. Veronica Mars comes immediately to mind. (Or one of my favorite films, Brick.) Then there's Lost, which is overtly about building communities and relationships in order to survive. The Wire is another possibility. (Imagine playing as a Stringer Bell type trying to build a crew while maintaining relationships with rival crews.)

My point being that we already know what these kinds of stories look like. We just have to be brave enough to make a game that's focused around understanding other people rather than shooting them.

tl;dr: Life is Strange meets Persona, minus the strange and the personas

And that’s three glimpses into my brain. Into my dreams.

You may have noticed a few through lines. I'm pretty clearly interested in making games:

Set in the modern day

That tackle modern, realistic (and I use that term extremely loosely) concerns

That are largely non-violent

With non-linear narratives

That involve exploring the lives and feelings of non-player characters

And give those interpersonal relationships systemic narrative bite

Obviously, the projects I've been involved in recently don't check off every one of those boxes on my wishlist. That's generally how it is, if you're making games with other people.

But if you're very, very lucky, you get the opportunity to work on projects that scratch at least one or two of those itches.

I've been very, very lucky.

Cheers, <3 <3 <#

#gamedev #game design #narrative #relationships #persona #catherine #mass effect #life is strange #prey #dishonored #vampyr #necrobarista

[veetlejuiced]

Fallout 76 Thoughts

I've rented Fallout 76 and played until I hit about level 15. There are some things about it that are kinda cool. It plays in some respects like more of a survival game (not an optional mode) so you have to do things like actually carry food and water around. It also has handfuls of new critters and creature enemies which is something I was hoping to see more of in 4 so I have liked seeing it in 76. It looks nice in the same way that people like playing Skyrim because it feels very "nature walk" simulator (only with more of a dystopian feel depending on what area of the map you are in). Environmentally it does a lot of what other Fallout installments have done well. There's these petrified corpses about and how they're arranged in areas makes one think "what exactly happened here?," the same way skeleton arrangements in past installments have helped add a grim vibe to the setting.

But I have quite a few issues with the game. The lack of human/ghoul NPCs really makes quests feel even more barebones "fetch" in style. Since I've never played a game that has quests without any sort of real NPC interaction, I just...didn't realize how vital that was to quests (which sounds silly but it really kinda smacked me in the face, so to speak). Every quest feels like, go here, kill that, read this, come back, here's some stuff. There's not even an illusion of choices to be made. I really love reading notes and terminals in past Fallout installments, but in such an empty world it makes quests feel like something in the past and that you're never really interacting with the present, if that makes any sense. It's kind of bizarre. Robot NPCs just sort of talk at you, sometimes appearing out of nowhere, and a couple quests have lead me to the dead bodies of NPC's. It makes the world feel empty.

Servers are never that populated. If you're not anywhere near a main quest or an event, odds of seeing another player are low. If you do see someone they usually just run by, looting as they go. Playing with other people makes everything you're doing feel rushed. I felt like I was just in a race with friends to look through every desk and dresser for adhesive scrapping items and telling friends to shush while trying to listen to quest holotapes was not great. lol There are a lot of holotapes and sometimes so many you'll find others in the same location before even finishing what you're listening to. I don't know why if they were willing to pay for so much voice acting they couldn't include a few NPC populated areas (besides maybe not wanting to do a a voiced protagonist, but we could have gone back to 3's style since it's not like they haven't developed text speech options before). Not to mention the way they implemented PVE is really boring. Basically you shoot someone for a very very low amount of damage no matter your weapon or buffs and the player you attacked has to shoot you back to engage. This makes PVP completely avoidable when I think, ideally, it should be unavoidable, but I think maybe they feared letting players just free for all it. I could see why some players would not like that, but I'm just the opposite end of the spectrum in that regard. If you don't have to interact with a hostile player, why would you? It makes other players feel like ghosts and not even the scary kind. There are some event like areas where you can "claim a workbench" and basically invite hostiles, but players can avoid that feature if they choose. Event quests that attract other players can be fun because at least there's other people there, but I found the content to be a little cut and dry. A lot of wave survival which is fun for a while, but not forever, for me anyway.

There are some other odd reworks like the perk system, which I don't dislike to be honest. You put points into your attribute and can place "cards" into them, on some level up's receiving card packs that give you a variety of perk options. I think I like it because Fallout 4 kind of let you become a jack of all trades and that's not really a fun "role" to me. I also like that the survival aspects of 76 make me actually make perk choices having to do with water, food, and even the weight of various options. It can seem more important than perks like "10% more pistol damage" and the like. I can see how this system would be disliked by other players though. Weapons and equipment also have level locks on them which I've heard complaints about, but I like. It gives me something to work towards and not become too overpowered immediately running around in the multiple power armors I've found. Another downside is that I do feel fairly invincible. I died once in 15 hours and have a never-ending surplus of ammo. There's ammunition purchasing machines and workbenches and I really don't know when I'd ever have to use them. Caps only use appear to be for purchasing blueprints and fast traveling (small fees like 11 caps to travel a third length of the map). I would never buy anything else with them besides maaaaybe stimpacks because they can feel a little scarce sometimes, which is something I like. It makes me think twice about entering Super Mutant stronghold areas. I am also kind of salty over some of the lore-breaking. It gives me that "copy and paste" vibe that Fallout 4 gave me. See there's Nuka Colas here, it's a Fallout game! Only now there's Super Mutants before they were made and a satellite branch of the Brotherhood who is only just forming and then subsequently going underground for more than a minute. (Not to mention I heard there's Enclave power armor somewhere which is also...a no-no.)

There's also the C.A.M.P.ing feature which is basically portable settlement building. I didn't really see much of a need to do it since you can always just fast travel back to your first campsite and the only reason to go there is to unload materials into your stash box (larger off-person inventory which probably needs to be expanded at only 400wg). Train stations also have a stash box so I don't really see the point in them, but perhaps they'd have some use at a higher level? I'm not sure. I think I put around 15ish hours or so into the game and I kind of hit a "this is boring" wall. I love to loot. I loot a lot, but it feels like all I'm doing is looting and fighting "scorched" ghouls and Super Mutants who don't have the best A.I. It's literally harder to kill a few bloatflies than half a dozen Scorched. The improved gunplay from 4 is present, but it almost makes it too easy. The rework to V.A.T.S. makes sense but it also kind of blows my mind how in an instant it can go from 96% hit percentage to 0% and I miss. Not to mention it is rather buggy. I'm playing on the PS4 and I've had enemies do that floaty strafing across the ground or see me and instead of approaching, running away. On the PS4 some areas have really atrocious frame rate issues, like I felt dizzy the frame rates were so bad. Also some of that "white flash" sort of issue on various textures and sometimes almost full screen flashes of white. Lit areas at night don't always appear at a distance and suddenly "turn on" as you come up on them. I'm sure these issues will be resolved with patches, but yikes.

Overall, even though there are some things I like, it's gonna be a big no from me and even though I don't like living in the middle of nowhere, still having video rental stores has really given me the privilege of being able to check out games like this for a few dollars before investing 60 bucks to play multiplayer Fallout which I should have been very very excited about. The game just feels too empty and too much like a feature they could have slapped onto 4. I think instead of trying to take the MMO approach they should have just included a co-op mode the same way games like Borderlands or Dying Light implemented. I think there's definitely people who will have fun playing this game with friends. All MMO's allow for players to make their own fun, but that's not really what I'm looking for in a game myself. I want the game to make the fun and Fallout 76 falls flat in doing so.

#fallout 76 #lol holy shit i was not trying to write that much and could have said more but im sleepy lol

[tumblunni]

Oh yeah I TOTALLY FORGOT to talk about environmental monsters lol

Okay well what I mean is.. in games with enemies roaming on the map, why don’t we ever see them doing anything? They only ever home in on you when they see you. Everyone in the entire world does nothing except run screaming at you to initiate a battle. No matter what the enemy is, no matter what the story is, no matter the genre. its even rare to see minimal differences like some enemies running and hiding, or whatever.

And like.. i can understand this in some genres, at least. In some genres ‘creating a vivid world’ isn’t really a priority, or there’s an actual reason for all the enemies to attack on sight, like if its a stealth game infiltrating a base. or it might just be hardware engine limitations of the time. i think the majority of this trope used to be because it wasnt possible to do anything else on those consoles, and its stuck around even on more powerful consoles just cos its “a tradition”... I think this idea could specifically be very useful in monster-catching games, where the goal is to find them and gain their power. Having ones that appear on the map and run away or hide would be a better form of challenge than some of the bullshit in pokemon where there’s a 0.5% of fishing up a certain fish only on five tiles out of 140. And like.. the weaker more basic ones could just stand around doing cute animations instead of chasing you down. Chasing you down is only a challenge instead of an annoyance when the chaser like.. actually poses a threat. For minor monsters where the aim is literally just “allow player to enter this encounter” then.. do that. They can stand still in a predictable spot so its easier, and they can have cute animations so it doesnt draw attention to the fact they’re just standing there. Plus there’s loads of other ways you could make it difficult to get them! like ones that camoflage with the scenery or have different movement patterns for their escape, or only appear under specific conditions!

but BASICALLY the concept i mean here is that... I want to run through a field and see monsters everywhere I want to be able to run past ones that don’t attack I want to see them interacting with their environment as if it’s real I want encounters that’re possibly completely optional I want to be able to find little secrets of monsters being cute that i can take a screenshot of i want a world that’s memorable as if its a travel trip i want all the fun of actual animal-watching!!! ^_^

IDEAS!

* Peaceful grazing herbivores in a field. * Shake bushes or flip over rocks to find smaller bug monsters. * Flying monster that can only be caught during a brief window of time when it swoops down to eat smaller monsters. you have to find which small prey is marked as its next target, by seeing a shadow overhead. And then when you engage that prey in battle, instead you get the rare flyer! kinda like the shaking grass that gives you audino in pokemon BW? * Monsters hiding up in trees who only emerge when they cant see you, and jump back up when they can. So you have to avoid their line of sight and wait until they appear, or set traps for them. * Similar sort of thing with monsters in burrows? But you could perhaps get a shovel item to bypass this restriction, at the cost of permenantly destroying that monster spawn spot. You’d get a horde battle with all of the rabbits at once and they’d be angry and harder to catch.

* Possibly having to balance ecosystem stuff like that? you can only fight a certain amount of a certain monster during a single adventure, and have to wait various different times for them to respawn. Perhaps areas have sorts of levels for the ecosystem too, so stronger monsters with higher chances of rare abilities would start appearing if you favor a certain area a lot. And maybe a few choices at certain levels where you could kinda customize it? like go on a quest to improve one part of the ecosystem which will increase the amount of one monster and decrease another. Or there’s two rare species that have just been sighted but theyre competing for the same territory and only one of them will stay- you get the choice of which side to help out.

* Possibly monsters who have rivalries! If you happen to initiate a battle with one monster while its predator is within eyesight, it’ll join the battle and help you fight against it. or you might have certain monsters that’re rare because they spawn near their predator and you have like a time limit to catch it before the other monster does. or maybe lesser rivalries instead of eating each other- like two different patterned variants of peacock who do elaborate dance battles! Thei AI could switch from peaceful to aggressive whenever there’s more than one of them together.

* Possibly monsters could have schedules? like, a time-based system of changes for this ecosystem. More than just only finding certain ones at night, they’d all have their own set walk-routes of being available in different sections of the area depending on the time of day. Figure out the brief time window for a very rare creature, and enjoy that satisfying feeling of pulling off a successful ambush. And maybe different cute idle animations that make you feel like they have a life outside of when you’re there. See the wildebeast herd making their daily trip to the watering hole, see birds digging up worms, see baby lion cubs playing chasing games together while mama and papa watch~! This would work really well with having an integrated screenshot system, and maybe some achievements for getting certain rare photo ops? * Maybe this could also relate to the rivalries? like, have two monsters whose schedule runs on wildly different timescales, and only matches up once in a full moon to have them both competing over the same food source in the same area.

* A good hints system would probably be necessary if we’re gonna pull this off. Or at least a logbook that keeps track of details you’ve already found about each monster. Encounter it at a certain time of day and its written down now, etc. And have a general idea of how many different times and different behaviours you havent found yet. * Could have various npcs who reward you for different things instead of just for catching X monsters or defeating X monsters. Like ones who just want you to find out what time you can find that monster, or what its favourite food is so they can lure it. these could help give you the hints towards finding rarer secrets!

* Hoarder monsters. A rare archetype which can reward you for finding their nest during a time that theyre NOT there! Like squirrels burying their nuts or magpies stealing shiny and potentially valuable things. You have a chance of scoring a bunch of useful items, even if it makes you feel like a bit of a jerk. * Monsters who’re sleeping on the world map and you have to sneak past them to not wake them up (if theyre dangerous) or sneak up to them instead (if theyre ones that normally run away) * Possible ability to lure in monsters by throwing food, or chase them away with stuff like smelly salts or items theyre scared of. (Giant cat: *no like banana*)

* Pet button. not many monsters are tame enough to just accept it immediately, outside of the ones in the basic tutorial area. But it can be super rewarding to win a monster’s trust and be able to do this! It’d be like a small chance of capturing them without a battle, and be boosted by taking various actions that particular monster likes. * Maybe not all of them are as simple as just giving them food they like and being unthreatening? There might be monsters who respond positively to ‘bad’ actions, like ones who respect you for seeming tough and simply think you’re too boring to deal with if you seem unthreatening. Maybe even ones who want to see you prove yourself in battle? So if you fight enough other monsters in the area, suddenly all these ones start following you around cutely and practically forcing theirself into your team! Oh, and also maybe if you defeat the predator or rival of a certain monster?

* Similarly, other forms of affection and temporary allyship you can have with monsters even before you catch them. Like maybe monsters that’re teetering on the edge of trusting you might display certain behaviours to try and convince you to catch them, and then you can benefit from that for a little while before they get frustrated and leave. The ones who respect your toughness might join you in fights as a guest party member, or reward you with an item for every fight you finish within their time limit. * Probably the most common and useful temporary allyship would be mountable wild monsters! Cos I’m thinking maybe how many mons in your party would be determined by ‘party points’ or something, rather than each taking up one slot. mount monsters are bigger so you could take one of them or like six small monsters for the same amount of upkeep. Finding a good reliable mountable wild mon and bringing all the stuff you need to befriend it will help you cut costs on your adventure! Tho probably they have more limited abilities compared to a tamed mount, like worse obedience and stuff.

* The design of this monster is something I’m gonna enter into a kickstarter backer reward thing, so i probably won’t be able to still use it in other projects afterwards. But here’s the idea I had for that Sombul monster if it was in a game style like this! I was thinking it could be one of those sleeping on the map type monsters, but also it fights back with sleep magic when awakened. So it just puts you to sleep and then falls back asleep next to you XD There could probably be other monsters that evade you using other techniques instead of regular fighting. Various sorts of stunning or weakening your attacks, so they can run away while you’re distracted! But I think Somnul in particular would be super cute if it doesn’t even run away afterwards. Its just like the ultimate no-sell “NO FIGHTING” monster who you can only catch by befriending it. And even its no-sell just has it cuddle up to your sleepy self and take a nap too~ Probably its befriending technique would be to just sit down next to it and go to sleep on your own. I know i’d really wanna just lay around and watch the monsters frolicking in a game like this~ Weird ghostie friend admires your napping technique! It joined your party! Woo!

#blunni thoughts #i edited it to add some more ideas

[theclarkystuff-blog]

E3 opinions ( Nintendo)

Not the last show of E3 but possibly the last big one of the event, Nintendo strut into E3 with their usual pre recorded segment although I have seen people either dead excited for what a future Switch line up or seem to have no faith in Nintendo at all with only a half hour slot, so let’s review and see how it fares.

Opening the show is what appears to new a new advertising campaign maybe for the Switch but indie sensation Rocket League appears to take the opening slot and even showing off Fifa, neither games necessarily interest me but it seems to show a change in Nintendo, where they would usually promote one of their own works first usually it is nice to see them throw a bone to third parties. While Nintendo may not be able to boast having the kinds of support Sony and Microsoft receive at least Nintendo looks like they are trying to garner support now. 

Xenoblade 2 gets a re-introduction with a new trailer in English which showcased some story elements including game-play which shows that it will play similar to the last two entries in the series and also include some incredible looking worlds to explore once again, although it looks like someone turned up the anime inspiration to the max, mind you. The biggest surprise for me being that Nintendo are still aiming to release this Fall, despite earlier rumors stating that it had slipped into early 2018 so that is cool. 

Kirby comes crashing back with his Switch debut looking like follow up on his 2D adventures in the style of the ever classic Kirby’s Dreamland. While I don’t expect this to be a blockbuster seller, Kirby plat-formers are usually a solid experience and with Switch’s multiplayer possibilities which could allow you to play co-op on a single Switch or maybe even over multiple Switch’s via wireless

Yoshi also makes a Switch debut in a new game which appears to be continuing with the Wooly World theme with worlds that appear to be made of cardboard and moving away from the 2D plat-former mold by allowing Yoshi to move in the back and foreground. One of the biggest surprises about this game is that it will be built on the Unreal engine as confirmed by Epic Games spokesperson, Dana Cowley.

Fire Emblem Warriors while looking nice i felt a little disappointed in as the trailer appeared to mostly show cut-scenes over game-play as I would have liked to have seen how the game preformed in action , with the Switch specs in mind and being able to handle hundreds of enemies and big maps and also wondering how the N3DS port will handle, I expect similar results as seen in Hyrule Warriors on Wii U and N3DS respectively but with the game aiming to release this year I get the feeling we may see a dedicated Direct for this later in the year. 

Breath Of The Wild’s DLC was revealed showing some visual for the previously talked about and upcoming content, the first of which is dubbed The Master Trials will add a hard mode and new quest which will enable players to power up the Master Sword to deal out double damage, this DLC will also include some new costumes based on previous entries into the The Legend Of Zelda series such as Tingle’s costume and the infamous Majora’s Mask. This first expansion reminds me a little bit of Dark Souls in some respects but I guess we will get to find out in a matter of weeks The second DLC being dubbed The Champions’ Ballad focuses on the Champions in BOTW which makes me wonder if they have unfinished business after the game concluded or if this is set 1000 years before Calamity Ganon’s appearance or something? 

The big close out of the show was given to Super Mario Odyssey, opening with perhaps the oddest trailer involving a dinosaur but in this short trailer we get to see many of the game-play elements which displayed massive worlds to explore, going into walls playing as an 8 bit Mario in a similar style to The Legend of Zelda : A Link Between Worlds and what appears to be Mario’s gimmick in this game, being able to take control of enemies and NPC like citizens found in New Donk City or a tyrannosaurus-rex by throwing Mario’s hat at them. This game sent me over the top and into hype mode, this game looks fantastic, looks to be amazing fun, looks like it runs at a solid 60fps and oozes a confidence that it isn’t afraid to embrace with its big band styled title song delivered with some beautiful vocals. Super Mario Odyssey looks like it will be the successor that Super Mario Galaxy 2 deserved, having everything you could hope for packed into a Mario game alongside a October release, coming sooner than I expected, this may well be my game of E3.

The other big talking points and announcements I feel I have to address for most part seem to come about after the presentation into the Tree-house broadcasts so let’s address them, Nintendo listened to the uproar over Metroid in recent years and not only talked about giving us one new Metroid game, but 2 of them. Nintendo confirmed that Metroid Prime 4 is in development but having nothing to show for it, not even any concept art or a teaser trailer. While this is a little disappointing I am sure the announcement of the game will bring many tears of joy to fans of Retro Studios trilogy it appears that Retro Studios themselves will not be returning to the series, that ponders the question of who is making it? and what the hell has Retro been working on then for the past 3 years? The other reveal being Metroid : Samus Returns for 3DS, a modern remake of the Game Boy sequel to Metroid being made by Mercury Studios, famous for Castlevania : Lord of Shadow. This reveal looked cool in concept although I felt like it was missing polish despite its launching within months, hopefully the next time we see this game it will be looking better.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle which had its official unveiling at Ubisoft’s event on Monday already looks like one of the strangest concepts with these 2 big franchises coming together for a game which plays like X-Com. The game looks like it could be some massive fun although I may hold out until I see some reviews to help decide if and when i will buy into this.

Mario and Luigi - Super Star Saga DX was another remade gem for the 3DS which looks to be running on the modern M&L engine as seen in Dream Team and Paper Jam, this remake will include a new mode based around a trio of Bowsers Minions which I guess will add a humorous alternative view of the story that many maybe familiar with. Being a big fan of the original Game Boy Advance version I look forward to trying this remake out soon.

I guess I should address Skyrim coming to Switch as well despite it only having a small segment in the presentation but it is cool to see Nintendo willing to allow Bethesda to include BOTW costumes, shields and armors. Despite Skyrim feeling like it is getting ported to anything and everything, including a VR version, the idea of being able to play a grand expansive adventure like Skyrim in a portable form without hopefully getting an entry as bad in performance as the infamous PS3 port, the motion controls looks like they could add some fun interesting ways to play this game but I imagine many will probably default to the regular controls.

I was overall impressed with Nintendo’s presentation despite the short presentation, although they did not waste much time promoting games releasing within the next few months like Arms or Splatoon 2 but they are being given special competition events at E3 to act as promotion there, it is nice to see we wasn’t bogged down with more info about it at the presentation. While I am confident Yoshi and Kirby will be good games they hardly seemed like big announcements I was expecting for the Switch at its first E3 but with Metroid Pime 4 and a new RPG Pokemon being confirmed in development I would only wish Nintendo had more to show really, many have been hoping for ports of Mario Maker, Super Smash Bros 4 or Bayonetta 2 to Switch or even talk of the Virtual Console service coming to Switch but it feels like we are getting small servings for this year. While Nintendo has it’s Directs to spread awareness of upcoming titles which they can use any time of the year I can see why Nintendo maybe holding back some announcements for a later date, similar to how I feel Sony may have been holding back on announcing new stuff for its PSX expo later this year but overall I was happy with what I saw Nintendo seem to employ an unusual method of unveiling games as a few were presented through the Tree-house segments instead of the presentation which strikes me as weird as some of these would have been more than welcome during this brief conference.

This years E3 I felt was only mediocre for most part this year, while we got some interesting updates to games announced in previous years I felt like there was a lack of anything really new or fresh at least for most part throughout the whole show. I feel Microsoft while having an impressive new console had a serious lack of impressive software to make it stand out like BOTW did for Switch or Uncharted 4 did for the PS4, Forza 7 could well be that game for all I know, but I get the feeling it won’t be. Sony and Nintendo had good presentations but neither really felt like they ignited a fuse, while not every E3 can be an amazing one, this one certainly wasn’t a bad one, until next year I guess, have fun.

#nintendo #nintendo switch #switch #3DS #nintendo 2ds #splatoon #splatoon 2 #rocket league #skyrim #bethesda #fifa #e3 2017 #e3 #super mario odyssey #metroid prime 4 #metroid #the legend of zelda #breath of the wild #pokkén tournament dx #metroid samus returns

[murasaki-murasame]

I was planning to make a whole post anyway about my hopes and predictions for Gala Leif if he ends up happening next month, but there’s also a whole lotta other stuff to talk about now with the FEH rerun, the Ciella fight teaser, and our first gala dragon, so I guess I’ll take the chance to just talk about everything all at once, lol.

I feel like I went through every possible human emotion in the span of like ten seconds when I saw the gala banner announcement a day or two ago and then saw what it was actually about. That sure was a roller-coaster.

I honestly don’t really care about Mars that much [mainly because I’m always just more interested in adventurers than dragons], but I’m really curious about the precedent this is setting, with this being our first gala dragon, and this also happening only one month after the last gala banner.

They’ll probably talk about it in the next This Month post in a week or so, but I’m gonna just assume for now that we’re gonna get gala banners on a monthly basis from now on, rather than every two months. Which is a little bit scary to think about since it gives us less time between each gala to save up for each one, but we’ll just see how it goes.

Everyone’s predicting that we’re gonna alternate between gala dragons and gala adventurers, but I’m not sure it’ll be strictly scheduled out like that. I feel like we’re just switching to a monthly schedule and we just happened to get a gala dragon as the start of the schedule shift. I think it’s more likely that we’re going to start seeing reruns of old gala units between entirely new gala characters. I mean, it’s pretty obvious how much revenue it’d get them if they ever decided to rerun Gala Cleo or Gala Alex, lol.

Mostly I just can’t even think of that many options for what they could release in terms of gala dragon alts. We might get some of the other dragons that the royal siblings have pacts with, but we only know of like two other ones.

Mars’ introduction is bringing up the whole hot button issue of powercreep in the fandom, but honestly I don’t think Mars being really powerful is that big of a deal. He’s not exactly essential for any content, and tbh at the end of the day I just think it’d be weird if our first gala dragon WASN’T notably powerful. People already complain about dragon banners as it is because they have such low value. I can only imagine how many complaints there’d be if we got our first gala dragon and it only ended up being a sidegrade to the existing options. From what I’ve seen of how Mars changes up things on the DPS sim, I think they struck a good balance of making him powerful without him being super gamebreaking. I honestly think that Marth’s mana spiral is a much more blatant example of powercreep, and has had more of an impact on the flame meta than Mars alone.

Anyway, on the note of Marth and co, the FEH rerun has finally begun, and I kinda have to agree with everyone that the defense gamemode just doesn’t really feel good to play at all when it’s locked to solo, lol. It’s so obviously designed for co-op instead. It’s not really that big of a deal, but it does feel like more of a slog than it should, especially since you have to do it like 45 times for the event endeavors, and since there’s so many valor rewards. I’m curious to see how it pans out when this becomes a regular gamemode for future events, though. Hopefully they get better at balancing it and making it fun to play.

Even though I still don’t have any interest in pulling on any of the FEH banners since I just want to save for Gala Leif, I did decide to 70MC Alfonse, because haha bad decision machine go brr :) But I honestly do like him a lot, and I’m excited to get Sharena from the upcoming event. I hope she’s a light lance since I don’t have H-Elly or H-Vanessa, but we’ll see how it goes.

We also got some more teasers of the new FEH event and how it’ll play out. It looks like it’ll be a wave-based arena mode of sorts where you fight lots of enemies, which apparently include boss versions of different gacha characters. I think they mentioned a while ago that they’ll be introducing a new event type to the event rotation along with defense battles, and I assume this’ll be the first example of it. If they do, I hope they keep the part with you fighting boss versions of gacha characters, since that’s a neat idea that makes them feel different from the other events we get and the bosses we fight.

They haven’t really said anything about what the new FEH units will be like aside from Sharena, and I can’t really make any guesses since I’m not a Fire Emblem fan to begin with, but I’m already bracing myself for the inevitability of us getting a two-part banner for the new units, lol.

We’re also getting Ciella’s fight at around the start of next week, and they posted a preview video of the standard difficulty version of it. It seems like she inflicts a unique debuff called Vulnerability, so I’m really curious to see if I end up being correct with my previous theory about certain wind units getting debuff cleanse mechanics added via mana spiral upgrades. I think there’s at least one part in the video where Lowen heals the team and it doesn’t cleanse Vulnerability like it does with Plague, and it’d be a bit weird if you’re just meant to deal with having the debuff until it eventually wears off, so it’d be neat if they do introduce a new debuff cleanse mechanic.

Though tbh I can’t actually tell exactly what Vulnerability is meant to even do, since I don’t think it seemed to have a big impact on how much damage characters took, even though it definitely sounds like it’s meant to be a defense debuff or something. Either way, it’s probably going to be the central mechanic of Ciella’s fight, so hopefully we get tools to deal with it.

They only showed off the standard version of her fight so things will probably get more complex in expert, but it looks like her fight’s going to be built around making you move around a lot to dodge attacks. She seems to have various purple attacks, as well as homing attacks, and one move that seems to fire projectiles that bounce around the map. I don’t know how much this will really impact things, but it at least seems different to how relatively little you have to move around in Kai Yan.

It also looks like she might have unavoidable freeze-inflicting attacks, which might be interesting. They probably want you to use at least one freeze-res character. Which might not really diversify the meta much from where it is now, since Hawk has freeze res, but we’ll see how it goes.

We haven’t heard anything about us getting more wind mana spirals, but I’d be kinda surprised if we don’t get any more for this. In general wind is in a bit of an awkward spot, and if we don’t get more mana spirals for it soon, I feel like the Ciella meta is just going to be Tobias + Hawk [and maybe Lin You] again, if only just due to a lack of good options.

I’m also still really interested to see what the wind Agito weapon buffs end up being, and how much they might benefit certain characters. I think that a crit rate buff might be pretty nice, at least for characters like Ku Hai, but that sort of a buff probably wouldn’t help people like Lin You or DY-Xainfried much since they have crit rate buffs in their kits already. A crit damage buff could be interesting, but unless you’re playing as Lin You or have a DY-Xainfried on the team, it might not be as good as a crit rate buff.

Either way, I’m slowly getting a 0UB wind CT2 of each type just so I have all my options available to me, but I feel like the first wind Agito weapon I get will probably be a blade or wand, since I’ll probably end up using either Tobias, Noelle, or DY-Xainfried against Ciella most of the time. I do have a 70MC Lin You, though, so I might get an axe too.

We’ll see how it goes when the fight comes out, but I’m gonna assume that Ciella will probably be about as difficult as Kai Yan. Though since she doesn’t seem to have the same ‘you deal twice as much damage to the boss as you normally would for some reason’ mechanic as Kai Yan, and since wind is way less broken as an element than shadow as a whole, it’ll probably take a bit longer to clear. Though tbh I’m still like 100% expecting people to be able to clear it notably faster with full shadow teams than wind teams, so there’s that to consider, lol.

Anyway the main thing I’ve been thinking about recently is Gala Leif, who I’m still hoping against hope will come out at the end of next month.

It’s not like we know for sure he’s gonna ever be released at all, but with chapter 13 he’s officially joined Euden full-time, and he got a whole new redesign and 3D model to commemorate it, which really seems like blatant set-up for him getting a gala alt. Like how Sarisse has her NPC design, and a 3D model based on it for Melsa’s event, but then she got a new outfit and 3D model for her gala alt. Even Mym technically got her design tweaked a bit for her gala alt compared to her regular NPC artwork.

I wasn’t even sure at first if Leif got a new outfit for chapter 13 or if it was just a different pose, but it’s definitely a different outfit. Or, more accurately, it’s basically his old outfit but tweaked and redesigned to be more ornate and fancy and detailed, which is pretty telling. And I’m pretty sure his 3D model from the Void Poseidon fight was a new one based on his new outfit, which is also just even more additional design work to put into someone who’s currently just an NPC.

I heard that in chapter 9 he was basically given the same sort of internal coding as Albert [like how NPC Zethia in chapter 1 was apparently based on Hildegarde’s data], but I don’t really think he’s going to be a light unit, at least if he does end up as a gala unit. We already have Gala Euden as a gala light sword adventurer, and I don’t think they want to double up on that. I also feel like one way or another Leif is going to be fairly support-based, which would make him overlap with Gala Euden even more if he were a light sword. So I’m just hoping that doesn’t happen.

In the long run I think that his role in combat will be more relevant to the question of which units he’d overlap with, rather than his element/weapon combo. I mean, we could have a purely offensive gala light sword and they wouldn’t actually conflict too much with Gala Euden because they’d do different things. The various changes we’ve gotten to how co-abilities work, and the introduction of unique co-abilities, means it’s not really a big deal to have two units with the same weapon type in a team together so long as they do different things.

Which is also why I don’t want him to be a wind or water element sword unit, either. Gala Ranzal is [kind of] defense-oriented already, and also he just doesn’t deserve to get directly overshadowed by a hypothetical new gala wind sword, lol. And even though Gala Elly is a different weapon type, Leif would definitely conflict with her in practice if he was a support-oriented water unit.

Funnily enough I think him being a shadow element gala sword built around team buffs could work fine, and he wouldn’t really overlap with anyone aside from maybe Patia, but realistically I doubt we’ll get another gala shadow sword so soon after Gala Alex, no matter how different they might be in practice, lol.

So basically due to process of elimination I think I’d want him to be a gala flame sword. On the one hand the idea of a gala flame sword doesn’t really interest me at all, but honestly I think he could be surprisingly interesting and really shake things up if he’s support-oriented. Nearly all of the flame swords we have are pretty much entirely offensive, and nobody uses Karl even though he can technically be used as a support-based flame sword with the right set-up. So I honestly think that Leif could have his own relatively unique niche in the flame meta even if he ends up with such a common element/weapon combo.

There’s also the fact that Volk seems like it’s going to end up being the hardest Agito fight by a substantial degree, so I think it’d make sense to start introducing more flame units designed to let people break into that fight. And from what I know of the Volk meta [from having never actually played eVolk myself, lol], it seems pretty obvious that the big hole in the flame meta at the moment is how H-Lowen is basically the only accepted support unit, and he’s an entirely support-focused unit who does next to nothing to contribute to the team’s DPS. If eVolk and HMS didn’t have unavoidable damage and high difficulty in general, he’d probably lose his place in the meta, which I feel like is kinda already happening as a result of Hawk and Marth’s mana spirals. So I feel like what flame really needs right now, rather than more good DPS units or more good healers, is a support unit who can also contribute to team DPS.

So basically what I want is for Gala Leif to be like a mix of Tobias, Gala Elly, and T-Hope. If he wants to be an alternative/replacement to H-Lowen, he’s going to need at least SOME healing, on top of offensive/defensive buffs. I wouldn’t actually want him to have enough healing to straight up replace H-Lowen as a healer, but if he wants to be an alternative to him then he at least needs enough to deal with stuff like cleansing plague.

In general my basic idea of how I think his kit could work in order to fulfill that role is that he could have an S1 that has a big strength boost and a smaller defense boost [so like a reverse of Patia’s S1], and an ability/chain co-ability that gives Team Healing Doublebuff. Preferably on the level of 5% HP per tick instead of 1% HP per tick like with T-Hope. I think that’d basically be all that he needs to be able to work as a team support unit who can contribute to team DPS while also providing enough healing to deal with plague and recover people from unavoidable damage, even though he wouldn’t be as good of a generalist healer as H-Lowen.

For both Volk and HMS there’s also the issue of interfering with melee baiters, and needing to do ranged baiting for certain moves, so in spite of him being a sword unit, maybe they could give Gala Leif an S2 that gives him a ranged attack stance like Tobias, so he can let the melee units do their thing.

This is all just more or less baseless speculation, but this is just what I’m thinking they could do to address the fact that Volk is the hardest Agito fight, that the support role is the most exclusive and difficult role in that fight, that H-Lowen is basically dead weight DPS-wise who seems to slowly be losing his relevance in the face of 4DPS team comps, and that Emma has basically never been meta for Volk and has become way less important for HMS with how co-abilities work now. So introducing a new gala unit who provides fairly substantial team DPS buffs along with adequate healing seems like it’s exactly what the flame element needs right now. And considering that Gala Alex has poison and buff dispel it’s not exactly impossible that we could get a gala unit designed to work against Volk. It might make more sense for us to get a wind gala unit next to go against Ciella, but I still think that Ciella won’t be as hard as Volk, and wind also already has more in the way of viable support units than flame does at the moment.

The fact that our first gala dragon is also a flame one designed for DPS units, along with Marth getting a super powerful mana spiral, also just makes me think that they’re still trying to address the Volk meta and give people more options for it, so I think it’s reasonable to assume our next gala unit might be designed to address the support/defense part of the flame meta.

It’s worth noting, though, that I’m pretty sure Leif had some sort of team defense buff when he showed up in chapter 9, which is basically the main reason why I’m assuming he’d be a support/defense-based unit rather than an offensive one. Patia also ended up being a team support unit so it’d just make sense if he ended up being kinda similar, lol.

Anyway this was way too many words to just say that I want my boi to finally come home :v

#murasaki rambles #dragalia lost #TL;DR: please just let Gala Leif exist and be worth getting :( I've been waiting like eight months for this bastard to be playable

[battleborntap]

First Person Shooters as a genre have been around since Doom was released in 1993, and ever since, it has been widely considered one of the most liked genres (at least by Americans). With a wide variety of games and an even wider variety to the genre itself, let's take a look at some of my personal favorites!

Please note, these games all take place in the first person perspective, and have one of their main mechanics involving firing a gun or weapon of some kind. Games like Mirror's Edge and The Stanley Parable are omitted on the grounds that they are more First Person Puzzle Solvers rather than shooters, despite having the ability to shoot in these games. Also, I will only be doing one game from any given franchise, simply because I could pack this list with four or five sequels easy with all the games I've played. And finally, I can't say this enough, this is all based on my personal favorites and opinions. If you don't agree, that's fine! We all have our favorites, but this is simply a way for me to talk about mine!

So, without further delay, here are my Top Ten Favorite First Person Shooter Games!

#10. CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS (2010)

Of course a Call of Duty game made it onto this list, and MAN what a game it is! Call of Duty: Black Ops released on Ps3 and Xbox 360 in 2010 to much fan praise, and is often considered one of the last good Call of Duty games. While I am quick to argue that point (Advanced Warfare brought a focus to story for the first time in years and Black Ops 2 had probably, in my opinion, the best multiplayer in recent history), The original Black Ops had all three main modes (Story, Multiplayer and Zombies) on point for the launch of the game.

While the Multiplayer may not have aged well for the game, the Story mode is simply wonderful, and unlike the rest of the Black Ops series, YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING IN THE STORY! If you have to read a plot summary to fully understand what the hell happened in it, it's not a good story. As for Zombies, simply letting players become former presidents and fighting time traveling nazi zombies...what more do i need to say?

Overall, it's an impressive game by all accounts. It helped to prove that Treyarch had what it took to keep delivering on the CoD formula, and while it wasn't World at War 2 like me and several others had hoped for (Still hoping for it, personally), it was a great game to play all the same.

#9. DOOM (2016)

Doom is the grand daddy of all First Person Shooters, and the latest iteration into the franchise really does not disappoint. With brutal carnage kills, impressive graphics, and a return to what made the franchise fun in the first place, DOOM (2016) is easily one of the best games of that respective year.

The story is as basic as it comes; Hell has invaded Mars, and you were about to be sacrificed when s**t goes sideways. You escape, get a Master Chief Power Armor ripoff, and fight through rooms and hordes of Demons to try and prevent Hell from getting to Earth...You know, like the last three Dooms!

The combat in this is where it truly shines, giving you the ability to kill enemies when they are weakened with brutal finishing attacks. The weapons are all fantastic, and the enemies are tough, but manageable. The real problems are outside the story; Multiplayer seems tacked on and rushed, while SnapMap, the mode I was really excited for, is basically just Corridor maker, the more. Still, the story itself is fun as all hell...

#8. BIOSHOCK (2007)/ BIOSHOCK INFINITE (2013)

This one might seem like a bit of a cheat, but hear me out...I personally feel that these games are very much the same thanks to something called "Service to the Brand."

Let me ask you this. Why do people in Bioshock use plasmids? They are a part of a world where everything has gone to Hell, and now they need to do whatever they need to survive, including injecting themselves with chemicals to give them super powers! Now why do they do it in Bioshock Infinite use vigors, which are basically plasmids?...There's really no reason is there? The reason they use them is because the last two games released had Plasmids, and it wouldn't be the same game without them!

This is a common problem with sequels that differ from their original game, and honestly, the only reason I decided to lump them together is that, aside from story and some situations you encounter, they are basically the same game. Well crafted gun play with elemental magics, expertly written dialogue and story, and an all around impressive and fun universe to explore, these games fill me with a sense of wonder each time I play them. If I had to choose one, it would have to be Infinite, but it's by such a slim margin that I felt it best to lump them together. My list, my rules...

Also, We don't talk about Bioshock 2...just...no.

#7. STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT (2015, Fight Me)

I know the original Battlefront games are well regarded and adored. I know many of the people who played this felt betrayed and hurt by the micro transactions and lack of content. I know it just feels like Battlefield with a Star Wars skin...But you know what? I don't care!

Star Wars: Battlefront is the Star Wars game I wanted to play when I first put the original Battlefront into my PS2. Was I disappointed by the lack of content? Sure. Did it feel like a cash grab on EA's part because they has acquired the license? Of course, it's EA. But I still enjoy the hell out of it.

The game play is fun and engaging, as well as more balanced than some large scale shooters. The available content, while infuriating that it's behind paywalls and a slow progression system, are rewarding and fun. The Heroes are overpowered, but not too much. Overall, I feel the game is good for one simple fact; for the first time in years, I felt like I was in the boots of a Stormtrooper.

Also, you occasionally get a Wilhelm scream to occur when you kill someone...so there's that.

#6. LEFT 4 DEAD 2 (2009)

How do you make a sequel to a decently balanced multiplayer zombie shooter? Change only who you play as and what their main quest is, then add more! That's exactly what Valve did with Left 4 Dead 2, and it worked great.

Playing as four new survivors with fun personalities, the game introduced three new special infected to deal with on top of the five introduced in the last games, the addition of choosing melee weapons instead of pistols, and helped to balance old issues and new ones that made the game well rounded and just plain fun to play ,whether you were with friends or a few randoms online.

Then Valve went one step further; They added in new content through DLC, some of which included the original five levels from the first game, where you can play as the first four survivors in the first five campaigns from the original game, but with the new enemies, weapons and everything! In general, Left 4 Dead 2 is just a damn fantastic game is you AXE me! HAHA!!

            I'm sorry...

#5. HALO 3 (2007)

Bungie hit pay dirt with the Halo franchise, and the third installment in the game is where all that effort peaked. Great gun play, multiplayer modes, and engaging story line that (mostly) resolved the conflicts of the last two games and more, the game was damn impressive on Xbox 360 when it came out, leading to it becoming the fifth best selling game on the console!

This was one of the big games me and my friends played for days on end, sometimes literally. It's one of the first games to give me a true love for shotguns in first person shooters, and the rest of the games since haven't felt as impacting to me. They've been fun to play, but this was the last game that made me truly enjoy the franchise in a nostalgic sense.

Maybe I'm just getting old? Maybe...

#4. PORTAL 2 (2011)

Portal 2 is much like Left 4 Dead 2; change little to nothing about the game, but improve the writing, add more content, and fix some bugs from the previous game. Unlike Left 4 Dead, however, this game didn't have a multiplayer mode in the original, so this one added one!

While the first game was a series of puzzles linked loosely together by an uncaring, vindictive god/computer named GLaDOS yelling at you and calling you names, the second game is a series of puzzles linked loosely together by an uncaring, vindictive god/ computer named GLaDOS yelling at you and calling you fat before you overthrow her and put a mentally inept ball in her place who slowly begins destroying everything around you, shoves GLaDOS into a potato and sends you both into a 1950's version of the labs you were exploring to be yelled at by a 1950's style billionaire voiced by J.K. Simmons!

The puzzles introduce familiar and new concepts, keeping them fresh well into the game. The dialogue is on point through out, with minimal dialogue feeling out of place or forced. The humor is even better than the first, allowing for visual gags more than the first game did and a few running jokes to boot. Ultimately, an impressive sequel to an already impressive game.

Also, this game made me fear/ hate certain birds...just sayin'

#3. BORDERLANDS 2 (2012)

how do you top a game that had literally a bajillion guns, a rapid fire sense of humor AND a cell shaded art style set in a semi-unique world? MORE GUNS! MORE HUMOR! MORE CELLS SHADED! AND A VILLAIN!

Yeah...if you really think about it, the first game didn't really have a main villain. Sure you had some minor ones, like Baron Flynt and Mad Mel, but they were more like sub-bosses than anything. Borderlands 2 had plenty of sub-bosses, but also gave us MOTHERF**KIN' HANDSOME JACK, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BEST VIDEO GAME VILLAIN OF ALL TIME EVER PERIOD! With an actual story to get through, a villain to thwart, tons of fun new characters and old returning ones, as well as giving personality to the playable characters and the first games characters who act as NPC's this time around, the game did everything it needed to and then some.

This game established Borderlands as a franchise that's here to stay, and with follow-ups including The Pre-Sequel (Not bad, but not great) and Tales from the Borderlands (Fantastic Story, weird execution thanks to it being a TellTale game), there's no doubt in my mind that Borderlands is here to stay...

Can't really say the same for Battleborn...which is sad cause I kind of liked that one...

#2. OVERWATCH (2016)

Honestly, how could this one NOT be on this list? What is easily one of the best new franchises in YEARS, Overwatch brought exactly what it needed, and we keep getting more! With new characters and game modes being added, as well as regular balancing updates and more, the game shows no sign of slowing down.

If I had one complaint, it's that the game doesn't have a story mode. That said, we get plenty of information about the world and its characters thanks to digital comics, animated shorts, in-game dialogue and costumes, and a few other means. The roster is rich with diversity and ranges from easy to play to hard to master, and overall just is a fun time for everyone.

Hell, hte game hasn't even been out for a year yet and already we have three new characters, a new map, a new game mode and additional features like being able to make your own game mode ADDED IN FREE OF CHARGE! That's doing it right!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The following five games are all fantastic in their own right, but didn't quite make my top ten. To save time, I'll only do a quick sentence or two for each, so please enjoy!

COUNTER-STRIKE: SOURCE - One of the first first-person shooters I played. Good combat and lots of customization both in game and in the variety of game modes.

GOLDENEYE 64 - A fun multiplayer title with an okay story mode. Best played with friends split screen...No Odd Job, please?

KILLZONE - I like to think of this as Sony's answer to Halo, but with space Nazi's instead of aliens. Regardless, it really made you feel like a soldier in an army instead of a lone wolf like most FPS games.

DESTINY -  Bungie's follow-up to Halo after leaving their flagship behind, the online, MMO hybrid was engaging, but didn't have much staying power if you didn't have a dedicated group to play with. With that and a lack of a real story, it felt like this was a half bake idea that will hopefully be more fleshed out in the sequel.

TITANFALL 2 - Improving on some of the pitfalls of the first game (Like console exclusivity), this is fun, fast paced, and in general a good game to play, especially if you have a friend or two in tow. Also, the story mode grabbed me with it's tutorial mode...so that says something.

Now, without delay, Here's Number 1!

#1. TEAM FORTRESS 2 (2007)

What started as a Quake mod eventually became the military themed hat simulator free-to-play sequel that Valve won't let you forget about. Tons of games release on Steam with some tie in to this, usually being a hat themed after whatever you're buying.

That said, once you get past the confusing as all hell economy the game has, there's a fun and engaging "Hero"-based shooter underneath. With nine classes to choose from, nearly limitless combinations for cosmetic customization and weapon loadouts. The story to the game is don similarly to that of Overwatch (Animations, comics, in game items, etc) but unlike Overwatch, many of the comics, animations and such contribute to the overall story of the game instead of just add little references to it.

The story itself is long, convoluted and silly, and perfect for the style of game it's trying to be. Overall, it's the game I've spent the most time in since I bought it back in 2007 (That's right, some of us PAID for this game), and it's easily my favorite First Person Shooter!

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Wat are some of your favorite First person shooters? Let me know in the comments below, and until next time, I'm McNutty891! Have fun!

source : http://ift.tt/2oGhx4Q

#battleborn beta sign up #battleborn beta test #overwatch beta #battleborn beta release date #battleb