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crystalelemental · 2 years

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Another request from @books-are-my-life-stuff, for Lodge units. This is a fairly subjective list, based on how well these units perform, and whether or not they're strictly worth the acquisition and investment. Please note that all of my Lodge units, barring one who will be named on appearance, are 5* 3/5. So this is a review of performance at what is, essentially, their best. With that, let's get talking.

A quick note before the breakdown though. Almost every single one of these units excels in only one format. Either they're way better in CS than Gauntlet, or way better in Gauntlet than CS. Almost no one is good in both. Based on that, the following scale has been determined for ranking purposes:

S: Extremely valuable traits that can make them defining in one meta, while maintaining a decent presence in the other.

A: Valuable traits that can make them dominant in one meta, but may have significant difficulty in the other without support.

B: Valuable traits that make them decent picks in one format, but may significantly struggle in the other regardless of support.

C: Traits have value, but are rarely significant choices so much as filler options.

D: Performance across both metas is limited without significant support. Performance often falls short of expectations.

F: Performance across both metas is actively poor, with other common options significantly outclassing them.

S TIER

Dawn - Lodge Dawn is absolutely ridiculous as a unit. Vigilance on grid. Team Sharp Entry. Natural Remedy as a passive to blank an instance of status. Buffs Def/Sp Def/Speed on trainer move, and special attack separately. Has Gradual Healing. Moves lower special attack of the foe, and can heal with Giga Drain. Dawn, as an F2P unit, is hilariously powerful. Built-in Vigilance in particular is ridiculous for her, because normally you'd go Status Immunity, right? But rarely do stages apply status more than once, so don't need that. What about Interference Immunity? The only one of those that's scary is Trap, and she has Escape Artist on grid. And Healthy Healing is natural tool. Dawn is an F2P unit that can freely run a random lucky skill. Need a Head Start 1 bot for your fast-ramping comps? Lodge Dawn has it covered. Need someone to debuff special defense? Mind Games 2. Her utility is wildly successful, and she's unparalleled as a Gauntlet support. But. CS is understandably worse. Not that she's bad, but the usual lower stats and lack of Endure can significantly threaten her. Like it does all the supports. But very little out of Lodge works as well as Dawn, and holds such flexibility.

Morty - Morty has been downright exceptional. Finally, even if it is a six-turn mess, we have an F2P unit who can cap special attack and crit. Better still, Morty's trainer move provides evasion for survival, and team speed for gauge control. Full Heal is an odd choice, but it's particularly useful, blanking things like Tornadus' Toxic if you don't pack Antitoxin from grid, or helping recover off Cresselia's Thunder Wave. Gastly even boosts its own stats with Ominous Wind, which can be hilarious with good rolls. Where Morty fails is...RNG. Evasion is a powerful defensive tool, but only when it works. If you don't dodge, Morty's defenses are not good enough to take repeated hits, and he has no significant healing potential. And of course, no Endurance, which means he's much better at Gauntlet than CS. OR IS HE? Because evasion play as a defensive tool is how BP Janine works, and she's been capable of holding up plenty of teams, based on similar buffing proficiency to Morty here. She's a little more cohesive for special attackers, but Morty can actually cap crit, which is a massive niche. This dude is nothing short of S-tier.

A TIER

Blue - Blue has this odd issue of separating the attack buff from the crit buff. He can cap both, but they're separate moves, so it takes forever. So he's exactly like Maylene. Only, where Maylene has Rock Smash, Blue has Stomp with Aggravation. 60% flinch gets a lot more mileage than -1 defense drop. Interestingly, Blue also gets way more passive healing than Maylene, and even gets Pep Rally on trainer move like her. So he's a far better survival unit that...still has some stat trouble for CS and no Endure, and lopsided defensive ability like Cynthia but physical instead of special. The main thing that's in Maylene's favor is she has Precision Pals. But in all other regards, I feel like Blue has her beat.

Elesa - Doom Spider. Elesa buffs crit and accuracy at the same time, and has special defense separate. Would've been nice to get crit/sp def, but oh well. She's Cynthia, allocated differently. But unlike Cynthia, Elesa got good attacks and Endurance. Elesa's Electroweb actually does help Cakewalk in CS, and Leech Life is fantastic for Gauntlet, though it...often fails to recover much. Elesa definitely shines more in Gauntlet, but Endure means she can accomplish her goals in CS as well, having quite a few options to choose from when it comes to her focus. But, as always, stats are a problem. Even with Endurance, she can drop early, and it...causes some problems. The lack of serious recovery also means Gauntlet stages wear her down, so while she’s good, she’s not exactly exceptional.

B TIER

Cynthia - I love Cynthia, but this is not her best work. Max crit buffing in two turns is nice, and the combination of special defense and accuracy is...unique, being able to answer Latias very effectively, and Cresselia maybe. The problem is, defensively she's wildly lopsided, unable to take physical hits well. Her healing is good, but stats aren't ideal, and there's no Endure to fall back on (Safety Tether is bad without EX). And her moves are atrocious. Had she gotten Mud Slap and Bulldoze, this would be a wildly different discussion. But instead she got...Rock Tomb and Earthquake. So she does very little to facilitate Cakewalk in CS, and has a useless 3-bar spam. Delightful. Group Water Guard is also strange, because it rarely comes up. I guess it helps block Surf from the Latis? The ultimate point is that Cynthia has nice tools for some Gauntlet stages, but is woefully lacking in several key aspects to be top tier.

Serena - I once had Serena a lot higher. She can solo Tapu Bulu, after all. And has two different debuffs to apply. Gradual Healing and evasion too. Even a natural 30% flinch rate on all her attacks. Serena’s got incredible tools, she must be amazing in Gauntlet! Haha...ha...Hmm. See. She’s still really challenged by Latias. Her flinch is inconsistent, her debuffs too slow in 3v3 contexts, she has no DPS, and honestly? Her sync is good, but Kahili can match or exceed it. In fact, considering 3v3 contexts, Kahili is far above Serena for damage output. And Serena’s debuffs being Atk/Spd is...limited. Attack is fine in some contexts, but useless in others, while speed is universally useless as a single-target -1. Kahili, even with a 50/50 shot, is more useful with Defense Crush. I will say Serena can perform some really impressive feats at times. But I’ve also seen her struggle so bad she couldn’t take out the sides in Johto Flying-weak stage on sync when all debuffs were targeted toward the side, including Nanu debuffs. Meanwhile Kahili just obliterated them. I’m sorry, this is a Kahili Appreciation Blog now.

Raihan - Raihan is the only one I have 1/5 due to 4* Support Candy being rarer than gold, so forgive me if this feels inaccurate, but having looked at his kit there's a reason he's the last winner for supports. Raihan's good is buffing both offenses, a widely useful tool that makes him non-specific. Most people want a specific support, and Raihan ain't it. He's giving whichever offensive stat you need, and in the rare situation you need both, hope you don't need crit. He also has Endurance, which is wildly significant for CS stages, allowing you to take heavier hits and reach your goal with more certainty than those without. What bothers me about Raihan, is that all Lodge supports kinda suck in CS regardless because low stats, so he doesn't do any better despite Endurance. And in Gauntlet, all he gets is Gradual Healing. There is no other healing in his kit. And only at 3/5 does he gain a 50% chance of boosting special defense by 1 stage, off Smack Down. It's really slow. To make matters worse, he's Sandstorm. Two of his passives are all about Sandstorm, but he only sets it on entry, so it cannot last until first sync. He just...can't do anything in that time, and if you want to run his Sandstorm specific traits, you need a very specialized and dedicated team. But. He did carry C!Serena to a duo clear against Latias, so B-tier it is.

C TIER

Lillie - Lillie is a utility bot. Wrap, debuffing attack each hit, and Satisfied Snarl 4 to potentially debuff special attack. Dazzling Gleam makes those debuffs AoE. And if you're keeping track, you know where this is going. Lillie can have decent damage, especially on-type, but it is wildly contingent on support. She's slow to debuff, slow to self-buff and still reliant on crit support, and then still often fails the damage checks. I once brought in Lucian and SC Jasmine to support her, and still, STILL she failed to OHKO center on sync with SEUN. Lillie's damage is sad, but her utility in Gauntlet is...okay. Debuffing offenses can keep you alive, at least. And her sync can ramp up to respectable levels. It’s not exceptional but she has use.

Marnie - I feel bad ranking Marnie this low, because she is good Poison-type damage. But Marnie's also kinda hard to use. Accuracy debuffs are really hard to acquire, especially in CS, but that's the crux of her sync. Her ability to Poison is also split AoE, so she seriously struggles with CS. But...I've also cleared stuff with her. And frankly, cleared with low-cost tools like BP Janine. So why only C-tier? Because Koga. Koga's sync nuke is super strong, still strongest in the type, and he has Mind Games 9. Marnie, I feel, does not come close to competing with that, even with Sludge Wave as technically higher DPS when single-target. What keeps Marnie above D-tier is realistically the fact she has Mud Slap, which is useful in Gauntlet contexts.

Gloria - Gloria’s damage output is ultimately fine, but it’s not doing a whole lot. The recoil, while fairly limited by Standfast 9, can still add up in Gauntlet contexts, similar to BP Sophocles, leading to some unfortunate situations where she isn’t sustaining well enough. Gauges were also an intermittent issue, depending on team composition. I think the biggest mark against Gloria I can make is that her teammates felt like they were doing more. Molayne pulled more weight in Regirock, and Marshal carried Tapu Bulu and Entei more effectively. She’s an alright supplementary DPS, I guess is what I’m trying to say.

Sycamore - Sycamore's not terrible, but has stiff competition with Gardenia. The good is, he's not completely reliant on special attack buffs like she is, isn't reliant on Sun, and has natural immunity to stat debuffs. The bad news is, his DPS is lower, his multipliers harder to achieve, he stills needs 1 point of crit, and his sync nuke requires Poison which means Sludge Bomb which means taking away from DPS. I have used Sycamore to beat a CS stage. But getting him to work in Gauntlet was mostly as secondary DPS in a team comp that could handle gauges well enough. He really can't do main DPS. He couldn't significantly threaten Regirock's early phases.

N - Okay let me be frank. N is consistently used, but only as a sleep bot. And I initially thought hey, maybe that should rank higher? But the more I think about it...no. It shouldn't. Because for most, you're just aiming for a 10-win clear in Gauntlet, right? Sleep in CS sucks ass, this is a fairly Gauntlet-specific skill. Not even all Gauntlet stages, just some of them. And at 10 wins, you may need, at most, four. Ramos, Agatha, Tech Victreebel, Tech Venusaur, Tech Exeggutor. That's five right there. N is the sixth. Not, to N's credit, he's more valuable than Victreebel, who cannot cap accuracy. N's Pinpoint Entry and accuracy tiles do get to a flat 100. And he's arguably better off than Ramos, Venusaur, and Exeggutor, because he only needs 1MP to hit +4 speed, while they need two. Agatha would still beat him, though. The end question is, why is N necessary? This is perhaps unfair, but you need to pull a PokeFair for this, and his utility is just sleep. His base special attack stat isn't strictly bad, but being a Tech nuker with only 80% bonus damage for on-type and sleep? That's a nightmare. And DPS is just Psychic with a 50/50 debuff to special defense; Shauntal outperforms this dude. N just doesn't have anything beyond sleep, which is useful, but...come on.

D TIER

Rosa - I say this as someone who likes Rosa and Dewott a lot: they are not great. I'm sorry, this isn't something I feel can be argued. Gauges are constantly an issue, damage output is surprisingly poor unless you're knocking yourself to critical HP, utility is either -1 defense per hit or a 50/50 at a -1 debuff to a random stat only on Aqua Jet which only has a 40% chance to refresh an MP. She takes three turns of setup and can't cap her physical attack. Rosa's kind of a mess. I like using her, but I cannot in good conscience call her good. A lot of matches where she has theoretical utility in Gauntlet don't work out, and she downright struggles without serious support in CS. Her debuffs are just too slow to get damage moving without a proper Leer/Screech bot and someone to handle buffing beyond crit. It’s just a lot more work than you want.

Silver - If Rosa's bad, Silver's bad, because they are the same person. Silver's damage is a little more accessible due to not needing to cause himself to bleed out, but Silver has the same gauge issues, the same limited DPS, the same limited utility, and most distressing, poor self-setup. +4 atk, +2 speed, +1 crit is a nightmare, I'm sorry. Unlike Sycamore, he can't get Team Sharp Entry and call it a day. He basically needs full buffing support. The only thing that puts him above Rosa, and it is not by much, is Aggravation Waterfall, and Hostile Environment 3 Ice Punch. Silver has disruptive effects, but only at a 40% rate each. Which you would think put him above her! But these traits are awful. You ever tried to rely on a 40% flinch rate for a Gauntlet stage? It does not work. And the only time you’d want that much Freeze stacking on your damage dealer whose focus is Water, is when he’s supporting a team with it. Which, usually, means Uxie and Cobalion, given the status. Do not fall for this. Freeze is so painfully useless in these fights. Sure you can use it to stall, but it’s the same as flinch just it’s freeze instead, and it’s still the inconsistent 40%. Eggmons have better disruptive ability than this, and usually with two uses of X Speed, so their gauges are better. God, I’m comparing him to an eggmon. I wish I could say he was a powerhouse sync nuker but...he’s not. It’s okay. Not really that good, even.

F TIER

May - I once called May the worst Lodge unit, because Water Striker and who needs those? This remains true. However, May's kit is...not terrible with one caveat. While on-type, I have seen May perform some pretty impressive feats. Her damage gets pretty respectable. Off-type? May is a mess. She struggles wildly to apply anything close to good damage, and CS is a nightmare for her. Yes, even on-type is rough. I overall kinda like May, but I do still think she’s one of the least impressive options here. Also, as a general issue with her and the D-tiers. For primarily damage-focused units. Cyrus exists. Hydro Pump wildly outclasses them, with far less setup, far less support, and way better gauge control. So why in god’s name would I ever use May, knowing that Cyrus just wildly outperforms her?

#pokemon masters #lodge unit war #lodge unit war round 1 #tier list #sync pair tier list

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hillary-wang · 1 year

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Maximizing Your D4 Trading Potential: What to Look Out for When Buying or Selling.

Maximizing Your D4 Trading Potential: What to Look Out for When Buying or Selling

Introduction

As a gamer, you are always on a lookout for ways to advance your gameplay and increase your wealth of in-game items. One way to achieve that is by trading D4 items with other players. But how do you make sure you are getting the best deal? In this article, we will discuss what D4 items are tradable, how to assess their value, and what to look out for when buying or selling them.

What are D4 items?

D4 items are rare and valuable items in the game, sought-after by many players. They can include weapons, armor, mounts, and other items that are either difficult to obtain or have unique features. The rarity and value of D4 items depend on various factors, including their stats, level requirement, and availability. Not all D4 items are tradable, however, so it's important to know which ones can be bought and sold.

Which D4 items are tradable?

While some D4 items are bound to the character who obtained them and cannot be traded, others can be sold or exchanged with other players. These include:

BoE (Bind on Equip) items - items that become soulbound to a character only after being equipped and can be traded before that

Crafted items - items that are created by players with different crafting professions and can be sold on the auction house or directly traded

Rare boss drops - items that have a chance of dropping from rare bosses or in rare circumstances and can be sold or traded to other players

Evaluating the value of D4 items

When buying or selling D4 items, it's essential to assess their value properly. Here are some factors to consider:

Stats - The better the stats, the more valuable the item

Level requirement - The higher the level requirement, the more valuable the item as it indicates a higher level of skill and progression

Availability - If an item is rare or difficult to obtain, it's likely to be more valuable

Popularity - If a specific item is in high demand, its value may increase

Condition - D4 items can have different levels of wear and tear, which can affect their value

What to look out for when buying or selling D4 items

Now that you know what D4 items are tradable and how to evaluate their value, it's time to look at some tips for successful trading:

Research the market - Check the auction house and trading forums to get an idea of prevailing prices and demand for specific items

Negotiate - Don't be afraid to haggle or negotiate with other players to get the best deal, but also be mindful of fair market value

Be patient - Sometimes it may take a while to find the right buyer or seller, so be patient and persistent in your search

Use a trusted intermediary - If you are uncomfortable with direct transactions, consider using a reputable third-party service to facilitate the trade

Be cautious - Avoid scams and only trade with trusted players if possible. If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Conclusion

D4 items can be a great way to enhance your gaming experience and wealth, but it's important to approach trading with caution and knowledge. By understanding what D4 items are tradable, how to evaluate their value, and what to look out for when buying or selling them, you can maximize your trading potential and avoid costly mistakes. Happy trading!

Article by: None Anyway, what is accepted and accepted by people is what d4 items are tradable.

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utilitycaster · 2 years

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So the thing about D&D stats is that they actually are balanced if you understand that D&D is more than just combat. I can elaborate on request about how weird it is I have to say that, but that's the gist of it.

Constitution and dexterity both do a lot for your character's ability to survive (HP and, typically, AC) and along with wisdom, they make up the three most common saving throws. However, the skills based on dexterity and wisdom are either easily replicated or just not terribly important on a larger narrative scale, whereas you are fucked without intelligence.

That's where the balance comes in. There are 5 intelligence based skills that you truly cannot fake from other sources without potentially compromising your party. The charisma skills are also hard to avoid.

Stealth is definitely useful, but it's often a situation where you only need one really stealthy person; it's a group check that will average out to ok since few people will truly dump dex due to its importance in AC/the fact that it's a common attack stat; or you can achieve the same intended result via charisma-based means. Acrobatics and sleight of hand are very much only to the benefit of the person who has them, so again, if that's your skillset, great, but they aren't actually terribly important.

Wisdom, meanwhile, is grossly overhyped. You will almost certainly have someone in the party who is wisdom-based; a third of the classes, including clerics, are. Perception is a useful skill, but you don't need everyone in the party to have it. Insight is wildly overrated and can be substituted with good social skills (charisma), good knowledge of the situation (intelligence), or if you really care about calling yourself an empath or whatever, you can always take the proficiency while having a mediocre wisdom score and get along fine. Survival is both woefully undervalued (which is why rangers are woefully undervalued) but also replicable with a good nature score; animal handling is already, famously, kind of a joke, and medicine is also worth replacing with nature and/or just healing people. It is rare that you will learn lore from these things (perception notwithstanding) you couldn't get elsewhere.

On the other hand, arcana, religion, and history absolutely cannot be replicated by anything else. You can fudge nature with survival, sometimes, but the other three skills - and investigation - are absolutely vital if you want to actually make decisions as your character instead of the DM pinching your nose and making you swallow the plot. You don't need everyone to be good at these skills, but you do want at least one person per intelligence-based skill to have a decent bonus, and the most efficient way to do this is via a high-intelligence character. Dumping intelligence means saying "I don't want to understand the world; I don't want to go deeper than what I can notice at a glance; I don't want to be aware of why we're doing something." So no, you don't need intelligence saves nearly as often as wisdom saves; but you need intelligence checks to know anything about anything.

I think people understand charisma and value it approximately for what it's actually worth; it's also more commonly required than intelligence as a casting stat and is the casting stat of the game's most notable skill-monkey class, so you're more likely to have it around anyway and I can skip that one.

In short: if your goal is to crawl through a dungeon and live, then you can dump it and cling to the con/wis/dex trio. If you are interested in finding things in that dungeon; learning why the dungeon is there in the first place; perhaps avoiding some pitfalls through guile and analysis; and actually engaging with the dungeon beyond hacking and slashing - in short, if you want an actual story - then you need intelligence.

#d&d mechanics

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300iqprower · 3 years

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Just for posterity’s sake:

If you ever feel like these Hypothetical Rank Ups have gotten way more powerful as time goes on, that’s because I wasn’t always taking into account Lostbelt 6 onwards powercreep at the start, and because as i’ve done these i’ve gotten way better understanding of just how fcked the balance of FGO is, gacha or otherwise, as i’ve learned more and more from systematically comparing stat and scaling values.

Side note: Things I generally try to avoid giving characters are invincibility, pure NP battery, DOTs, Sure Hit, and Heal Amount Up. This is because the former 2 are all purpose solutions that are often a lazy way out; they’re useful on literally anyone rather than a matter of dynamic/reactuon synergy or a fix to a specific issue. This is also why I usually use charges when handing out invincibility since raw invincibility is a more limiting yet a more powerful tool, especially when on demand support COUGH Merlin COUGH. This is why an overall bad servant like Danzo (believe me she’ll have her day) could have incredible potential in certain situations and the failings her kit are pure failings of the game’s inherent design. NP battery meanwhile is self explanatory…and i admit is also ironic when the first HRU was me giving one to my favorite servant but I explain in that why it’s specifically the exact thing needed and synergizes with his pre-existing kit (although looking back on it, it probably would be better off on his first skill…I’m probably gonna end up revising an HRU or two down the road-)

The other 3 are cause…they suck. And are basically unsalvageable. DOTs need a complete overhaul into being percentage based rather than flat damage amounts and are fubar the same reason Noble Phabtasm Damage down is ALMOST as pointless as the other three, which is the sheer scaling of hp where enemies have thousands of times as much hp as your servants yet enemy servants have their damage scale the exact same way. It’s why without hard survival or a dedicated wall strategy, an aoe boss np is near guaranteed frontline wipe. In fact enemy NP damage down is probably about as useless as Sure Hit, which isn’t as bad as the other two but is still terrible because ignore invincibility isnt rare enough to justify the idea if invincibility being Evade but even more safe. This is exactly why Castoria has true invulnerability, because they fucked up the idea that ignore invincibility is supposed to be super rare super special. The end result is that I.I. isnt Sure Hit but better, it’s the new default while Sure Hit is just a worse/incomplete version of the same effect.

HP Recovery is is its own entire bag of worms. A large part of it is definitely the aforementioned lack of separate scaling fir enemy damage but a large part of it is the skills cooldown and how high they are. The ONLY servants who can reliably make use of HP recovery up are dedicated healers in a game that us hardwired to be anti-healing meta beca of sheer damage output that means without a full set of healing skills you cant heal often enough to get better use out of Recovery Up than if you just put a flat amount of recovery per turn. Your options are hard survival or a combination of defense increases AND ho recovery and at that point team compositions benefit far more from stacking those things than giving up a CE/unit/skill slot in favor of HP recovery up. This is all not unrelated to us only having ONE servant with HP Recovery support to date, and that’s Medea Lily. No Santa Jalter doesn’t count it’s there for pure flavor and cant even affect active skills. Oh and btw this is all why Asclepius, YA KNOW, ASCLEPIUS, does not have heal up and in fact his np has NO heal and instead provides Guts, a form if hard survival.

This is a game where the meta is so fucked that the God of Medicine has no heal on his ult, and TWO SEPARATE Goddesses of Love has no charm in their entire kit. Gods help me.

…Nothing really brought all that on like i said this is all for posterity’s sake. But yeah that oughta give a good chunk of insight on how this process goes.

#fgo #hypothetical rank ups #i still want medea lily for my Argonaut collection but I absolutely refuse to actively go for her #everyone is playing elden ring meanwhile im dissecting and talking about how to fix a game that is intentionally terrible for the sake of $#where did my life go so wrong

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thehubby · 3 years

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Mike I need help. Every single time my players hit town they shop. Even if we had just gotten a bunch of stuff in the last session, and they swore up and down they didn't need *anything else*, they still go immediately to shop for more things and I'm getting frustrated and bored. We just had four weeks worth of sessions like this and I'm at the end of my patience. I had to shut the session down tonight before we even started because I said "we did a lot of shopping yesterday, so why don't we speed that up and leave town since there's nothing else you need." They immediately vetoed the idea and said no, actually, there was stuff they wanted to shop for!! Even though we just spent SIX HOURS shopping and talking to npcs yesterday!! My brain hit a wall and I had to tell them "I'm done, I can't do this anymore."

Help me MikeyWan Kenobi. You're my only hope.

Long post ahead.

I am here for you, Anon. I feel your pain. Actually, that's unfair of me -- I understand your pain but have not experienced it myself because my table of players is very well balanced, and although one or two of them have an affinity for shopping, it's partly my fault for making so many homebrew items and letting them occasionally nab a few from shops. Still, the other players at the table keep them in line and keep the game moving reasonably. It sounds like your entire table (or at least the majority) is driving you crazy in this regard, which is a more difficult challenge.

Here are my suggestions. I can't guarantee that they will work against diehard shopaholics, but this general flow often works for obsessive player behavior in general (murder-hoboing, insistence on lots of combat, refusal to fight, power-playing, and so on). You may tackle any or all of these in whatever order you think will benefit your group. You know your players better than I.

Figure out and understand why your players are doing this. There could be lots of reasons. Some players, particularly long-time veterans (who were often brought up in "Monty Haul" adventures) or raised on modern MMOs and computer RPGs, become driven by the acquisition of items -- to them, if their character isn't adorned like a Christmas tree, they aren't a success. There are also players who have "big spender" syndrome, an actual behavioral condition that exhibits in tabletop and digital RPGS: the player believes that their rise to power and success as a character can only be evidenced when they demonstrate their wealth. Not to put on my Psych 101 hat, but this is sometimes a projection of the player's own worldviews and experiences with wealth (or lack thereof; after all, some people play games like this as an escape from the reality of their own hardships). In addition to staying at upscale inns (if they haven't acquired their own property) and eating fine foods (if they haven't sought out a private chef on retainer), their characters also interact with a lot of shopkeepers, who are generally pleased to see people laden with coin and interested in their wares. I mean, who doesn't like being able to throw around money for the latest glimmering bauble while the sales associate waits ever patiently? But for some, it goes much further, and can be every bit the same pleasure as getting the killing blow on that blue dragon. And finally, some players are really just there for the talking. That's their whole bag. They would be happy putting all their skill points into Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense Motive and using every stat as a dump except Charisma. It's weird, given the combat-oriented nature of the game, but those people really do exist.

Understanding the motivation behind your player behaviors will give you the best chance of curtailing that behavior in a way that satisfies both you and them.

You said your players vetoed leaving town and immediately said that there were things they wanted to shop for. My question, were I in your shoes and with your level of frustration, would be to ask what such things were, and if the characters had a legitimate need for the items. If the characters know what they are looking for, you as GM can immediately determine if they're available in town, and if they're exotic, perhaps there might be some searching or wheeling and dealing to even find where they are sold. If the players are looking for typical fare like more healing potions or a replacement for those +1 arrows they used up, this is easily handled without a 20 minute chat-fest, especially if it's your third such today. If the players don't know what they want, and just want to see what's available, don't hesitate to ask them why they believe they are ill-equipped for their continuing adventures despite you or NPCs telling them as such.

Such behavior can also be forcibly slowed or even stopped through the world-controlling power you wield as the GM, although if not handled delicately, this can significantly raise tensions at the table. The PCs, having arrived in town after a week subduing trolls in the Sootblack Hills, find that the stores are all but empty of magic items. Even the most basic potions and scrolls are a crapshoot to find; they might scour the entire city in search of any place that even has a magic weapon available? Why? Plenty of reasons. War has broken out, and supplies for every city in a couple hundred miles have been bought up or seized by the warring factions. Perhaps the ruling monarch (or council or whatever) has decreed for unknown reasons that the manufacture and sale of magical items is forbidden, punishable by imprisonment. An ancient order may have been awoken and has begun the theft or destruction of arcane equipment -- except for their own, of course. These turns of events might cause the PCs' own equipment to become even more valuable (or a threat to their safety) -- but any newfound wealth will do them little good with nothing magical to buy. All of these and similar actions are only stop-gaps; eventually, the PCs would be expected to help resolve the war, overthrow the sovereign, defeat the ancient order, or whatever is in their way. And then you're back to where you are now.

Always keep in mind the Wealth By Level restrictions for characters. This represents how much wealth a character possesses at any one time for their level (some GMs take a more stringent view that it represents the total wealth a PC will have accrued by that point in their career, so if the players fritter it away on women and chimichangas, tough noogies.) Characters can only buy things if they have the wealth to do so. Selling items they don't want comes with a steep penalty. Even in great condition, shops rarely pay more than half price for an item due to taxes, restocking fees, how long it might take to sell, and so on. What this ultimately comes down to is that you control just how much these characters can buy and sell. They can only buy items if they have the coin, and they can only get the coin that you give them, or a lesser value for selling items they don't want. Become more stringent with money. At some point, the money runs out, and selling hard-earned loot for half its value stops being so fun. Do you really want to lose effectively 2,000 gold crowns for selling that +2 axe, or do you want to maybe put it to some use and come out more powerful than you would have buying some weaker item with the proceeds? If players decline to ever sell their equipment yet still expect to find new equipment, you can accommodate them by destroying their equipment. Enemies can sunder weapons and armor; a number of spells, magical effects or environmental hazards can deal damage to and potentially break anything exposed to them. This isn't being vengeful; it's being a good GM. [I remember watching Critical Role and over many episodes, perhaps the most traumatic and thrilling experience the players had (apart from character deaths) was when their beloved flying carpet was eaten by acid or lava or something. But it was a natural consequence of their actions, and they took it in stride, as they should.]

Finally, as with all things, you are the law. I always, always recommend talking with your players, either individually or as a table if needed, to tackle either your own frustrations or those of one or more players. But if push comes to shove, it's your game. You (presumably) respect the players by coming up with adventures, scenarios, NPCs, locations and all sorts of other stuff for them to tackle in a manner you expect to be fun. If they refuse to respect your preparation time and the time you spend at the table, by insisting to engage in continuous, pointless NPC discussions despite you expressing your dissatisfaction, then tell them you can't do it anymore. It isn't fun for you, and if the only way that they can have fun is in a way that is directly contradictory to you having fun, the game isn't going to work, period. If they sincerely change, fantastic; try to accommodate their need for shopping when you can and get on with the grand story at other times. If they refuse to change, leave them and get another table. That last part isn't always easy to do, and depending on your area, it might take a while to get another game going, but often a table where you're not having fun (and working hard to do it) is worse than no table at all. I wish you luck.

#Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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ka-za-ri · 4 years

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Obey Me wants to do Too Much and in an attempt to please the fans, it’s failing them instead.

Based on the post @1abbie7 made regarding the common complaints players seem to have with OM and its choices as a game. I just wanted to put my two (very long) cents in while looking at OM as if it is the gacha game it truly wishes it was.

MAJOR DISCLAIMER: this post is based on my experiences and is not a reflection of the community as a whole. These are observations and personal thoughts and should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, please feel free to discuss or correct me if I have any of the information wrong. For reference, I’ve reached 5-3 in OM!, 9-2 in AL, and 6-17 in AK.

Now that we have that out of the way… ON TO WHAT I WANT TO SAY. Buckle in folks, I’m rambly and I have a lot to say. Obey Me! Has a lot of potential, and it’s a shame that a lot of things Solmare does are not helping it grow in a way that it could.

So this post is MOSTLY going to be comparing Obey Me!’s (OM) gacha and gaming experience with Azur Lane (AL) and Arknights (AK) since I feel like both those games have a very good f2p model and don’t really have any PvP/Ranking system that affects the main gameplay. I will have other examples from other games that I’ve played before as well.

Ignoring any issues with storytelling and plot holes, since I feel like there are people who are much more qualified to speak upon that than I am, I’m just going to look at the more game and gacha experience.

EVENT SPACING, GAMEPLAY, STAMINA REFRESHES:

OM! As far as I know, is marketed as an Otome game with gacha and … Rhythm??? Game??? Elements? (I’m not quite sure how to even describe the ‘battle’ stages tbh) to break up the story stages. With the battle stages being the main way you can farm for materials to power up your cards, the bottlenecks that are built into the game are surprisingly super frustrating.

OM! Does not have an auto battle option, but it does make up for it by allowing you to sweep the stage once you’ve received 3 stars. This does make resource farming much quicker, but this also means that your stamina will disappear faster than ice in a desert. Coupled with the fact that the battle stages don’t really have much interaction or strategy for a good portion of the beginning of the game, there’s no real replay value in trying for older stages unless they have the resource you want to farm.

I guess I can let this pass since interaction isn’t what’s really marketed, but it IS important to keep your audience logging in and eager to play. At Level 40-ish, my current stamina cap is around 70. WIth the average stamina cost of a regular stage being 5 AP, and the hard stages being 8. This means you’ve got 14 normal stages and less than 10 hard stages in a full bar of stamina. Assuming I log in twice a day to get the bonus AP, that’s really not a lot of stamina to work with and just enough to maybe get through my dailies.

Having that little stamina makes farming resources exceptionally difficult especially for the high requirements needed once you get about half-way through a devil tree. Add that to dealing with farming event points almost constantly, with your limited stamina pool, you’re pretty much forced to purchase extra stamina to meet the requirements to finish said events to get the rewards. Assuming you spend all of your daily Devil Point reward on Stamina, that’s only 180 stamina a day which makes for a really tight run IF you’re aiming to get everything in an event.

ADDITIONALLY, this is also the fact that events and new lessons don’t seem to be announced prior to them dropping. Almost every gacha game I’ve played before will give you a few days notice before an event drops whether it be via Social media or through in-game mail. This is to mainly generate excitement and allows players some time to prepare, whether it be hoarding what stamina refreshes they have or saving premium currency for gachas to hopefully get the chase card/unit that they’re looking for. Not being able to prepare makes it difficult to stay engaged considering you CONSTANTLY have to have resources/stamina to partake in all the events and you can’t plan accordingly.

AK announcing the current event two days prior to it starting in game and on twitter:

AL’s announcement on the 12th, almost a week prior to it starting. Maintenance was on the 17th when the game reset.. (In game notices update regularly and I don’t have a screenshot of what it would look like since maintenance has already passed.)

OM! basically giving people on twitter about 24 hours notice of a new event dropping followed by announcing that the new lessons are available on the day it drops:

I understand that OM! Devs may want to keep the new cards a surprise to players. If stats and skills played a more prominent role in the game, maybe there would be a better way to tease these events to build up hype. As of right now though, it feels like a surprise slap in the face to force players to purchase currency in order to maintain that stamina requirement. IF Solmare is adamant about having back-to-back events, at least provide players with a roadmap or a calendar so they can pick and choose what’s important to them.

Just… Don’t let it become like the FEH calendar…

Please, do not let it become like this.

In my opinion, it feels like OM! Has a bit of an identity crisis. It sorely wants to bank on the money making powers of a gacha game while also clinging to the claim that they’re an otome game revolving around the plot. It’s hard to really promote the plot when it’s locked behind a power requirement that a majority of players will not be able to reach.

With how difficult it is at the end game, players are most likely going to look for transcripts or screenshots of new lessons instead of playing the main storyline in order to save what little they have for the constant limited events. Either give the players time to recoup resources to prepare for your events so they can pull for all your new cards or lower the difficulty cap to give players the story you’re emphasizing so much.

Tl;dr: back-to-back events will burn out players and not announcing them prior does not allow players to prepare resources, forcing them to drop money on the game. The amount of stamina it takes to complete an event AND level your cards does not make it f2p friendly.

GACHA RATES AND PITY SYSTEM:

Call me spoiled, but I feel like OM! ‘S banner rates are too low. Consider the following image for the current banner pool:

That’s a combined 1% to get your UR and that’s still not going to be guaranteed to get what you want. Consider the following rates from other games:

Azur Lane:

(Ultra Rare was a new rarity that was added with this new banner. Before that the highest rarity you could pull is a Super Rare)

Arknights:

Fire Emblem Heroes:

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Visions

For a game that’s always introducing new cards, you’d think that OM! Would maybe consider raising those rates so people won’t be so heartbroken when they don’t have enough currency for a 10 pull. (Especially if they have been spending what Devil Points they have on stamina to complete event stages) Yes, a majority of banners have bigger pools and the chance for a specific 6*/UR/SSR is ultimately lower; but considering in OM!, you have stories and characterization locked behind devilgrams connected to these cards, the rates are pitifully low. At least in the other games listed, the units/cards/operators/ships aren’t tied to stories.

I will say, the pity system isn’t absolutely abysmal. Keep in mind though, this is based on the assumption that you’ve saved up for 100 pulls. Considering how difficult it is to save that much currency while being f2p 100 pulls per banner is a tall order and impossible without the help of goldie or somethin. The frequency of new cards along with the difficulty obtaining gacha currency creates an extremely predatory model of currency purchase. With no guarantee of when event banners will be rerun, you’re pretty SOL if you make it half way through this pity system and you’re sitting on shards you can’t use.

Players will get tired of this model mega fast. Especially with these kinds of rates. Assuming that your luck is the worst on earth, you need 2,700 Devil Points to reach the pity breaker. That’s more than two packs worth of Devil Points. So we’re looking at over $160.00 USD to get a guaranteed UR. Seeing as new banners come what feels like every two weeks or so, you’re looking at over $300.00 USD a month JUST for the gacha. If OM! Was purely a gacha game without such a heavy emphasis on the characters and the stories/scenarios they unlock, I might be able to overlook it. However, since the cards themselves unlock cheats for events and outfits and devilgram scenarios, that’s a steep price to pay, so I kinda just have to say… Yikes.

Tl;Dr: For a game that has so much content tied to limited cards and events, gacha rates for OM! Feel too low. Pity system is average as long as you have the currency to complete all 100 pulls. The reason to purchase premium currency is predatory and likely will not be sustainable in the long run.

MONTHLY PACKS AND PREMIUM CURRENCY

So, we can agree that if you don’t have some cash on hand, it’s not going to be a real fun time to play OM! So, where do you spend your money? Let’s take a look at what they offer in terms of premium currency and how far that will get you. It’s also almost 3AM here and I’m losing my patience and filter, so excuse me if I sound more angry here than in the rest of the post.

So, here’s the basic Devil Point Shop for reference:

If we equate Devil Points to stamina, you’re looking at about 100 stamina per dollar you spend. But let’s be real, Solmare makes their money off of gacha and them pretty pngs ‘cause y’all want those spicy devilgrams and sweet outfits for your secretary.

To even get a 10 pull, you’re looking at $22.00 USD worth of premium currency. (Why they didn’t make the $19.99 pack a full 10 pull is BEYOND me tbh.) Now most gacha players that I know who are willing to go all in on a specific banner will want to spend a pack, which means they’ll go for the most expensive option as it is the most bang for your buck. That’s an $80.00 pack for approximately 4 10 pulls and some change. Let’s compare that to the price of some Originite Prime from AK:

It takes approximately 33 OP for one 10 pull in AK. 1 OP = 180 Orundum (currency used for gacha) Keeping this in mind, if you don’t count the first time purchase bonus, at first glance, it’s overall more expensive to purchase this currency SOLELY for gacha purposes.

Here are the packs offered for AL:

If you’re using gems to purchase the cubes needed for the gacha, it takes about 600 gems for 1 10 pull. One pack will net you about 8 10 pulls. Out of all the models we’ve looked at, this is honestly the most value for your dollar specifically for gacha purposes.

Take into consideration what the premium currency is used for. As stated above, 1 DP = 10 stamina. 1 OP = 1 Full stamina refresh in AK, so that’s a pretty equivalent exchange rate. (I won’t go into the AL stamina and gacha system since it differs too much from OM! To really make a good comparison.)

But, what else can DP do? A quick glance under the “Items” tab in the shop, you’ll see that it can also purchase Keys to read your devilgram stories (integral to your gaming experience), Demon Vouchers for summoning, Glow Sticks to help you in battle (Integral to gameplay), and consumables for your Surprise Guests to raise intimacy (arguably connected to gameplay). Compare this to what you can purchase with your OP outside of summoning currency in AK: Furniture (cosmetic) and Skins (Cosmetic). That’s it.

What I’m trying to say here is that Solmare has made DP the currency for so many things that affect the game itself. This subtly pressures the players to purchase DP in order to maintain the same quality of life that they might have experienced at the beginning of their gaming experience when the level ups came fast and when the rewards were plentiful for completing all the beginners quests.

“But wait!” you say. There’s ways to earn DP passively through dailies! You’re right! You’re given 18 DP per day for completing your dailies. That equates to 1 10 pull per 2 weeks if you’re diligent in keeping up with all your quests and log in daily. Comparatively, AK will give you 2,800 orundum per week for completing all your quests and the weekly annihilation runs, so just short of 1 full 10 pull in the game. However, AK gives you the specific currency used exclusively for gacha. This leaves your OP relatively free to be used for stamina refreshes, or you can hoard them for when new skins come out, or you can use a few to supplement your missing orundum for a banner pull.

Without knowing what could be coming up next in terms of events and banners, OM! Makes it very difficult for you to hold onto your DP due to the sheer stamina sink that events can be. Unless you’re really good at optimizing your resources, you’re likely going to be spending DP on things outside of gacha, making it difficult to save those 20 pulls in a month.

Tl:dr: DP is used for too many things that aid in gameplay which leaves less for gacha, forcing players to make a choice between moving forward in harder story stages or unlocking card specific stories.

Alright, but let’s say you don’t have enough for packs, but you still want to support a game. You don’t wanna whale ‘cause you got bills to pay, but maybe you’ve got enough to be a minnow or a very sad and small dolphin. For this, most people turn to those delicious monthly packs. Usually, the monthly packs or subscriptions are really a good bang for your buck. Usually, the bonuses that these packs provide will add up to a value that is much more than your initial investment in them. So, let’s look at what OM!, AK and AL offer, shall we?

Let’s break down what the VIP gives you since there’s quite a bit and it’s presented in a less condensed format. So, at first glance, I have to ask… “VIP login bonus?” What does that even mean? When you look at the details the description is as follows:

I’m sorry, what? This vagueness will not help sell this pack to me. Most monthly packs will give you premium currency right away that is equivalent to the amount that you paid. You can see that both AK and AL list this and also let you know exactly what else you get for the next 30 days. There’s no vagueness in what these packs provide.

Next thing to look at:

I’m sorry. What? I don’t understand why a max AP increase is the choice for a VIP perk here. This is banking on the fact that you’re going to be playing at max efficiency and will be under max stamina in order to take advantage of the refill timer giving you the extra AP. Why OM! Doesn’t just give you the stamina in your mail is beyond my comprehension. This is just saying “yeah, you could have more stamina if you’re playing this game and making sure you’re below your cap. I … no. Just why.

NEXT PERK:

No. This is useless for higher level players. Perks should benefit all players, not just your new players that you’ve tricked into spending money ‘cause this pack is only $9.99 a month. I’m so angry at this I don’t want to look at this anymore. NEXT.

This is a fine perk. Paying for easier passive resources is fine. I don’t have anything to say.. Next.

Oh thank fuck. An actual good perk. Passively getting the harder to get resources which cuts down on your already limited farming? Hell yeah. Also fine in my book. NEXT.

“Spend money to spend more money! Because we know this monthly deal ain’t shit!” is all I’m getting out of this.

Finally, I need to talk about this:

So… you’re telling me that for $10.00, I’m going to get $6.00 worth of DP and I won’t get the full value unless I STAY subscribed? If I cancel and then resubscribe, will that go back to 60 DP when I subscribe later? Why would you do this other than to give your players less than what they deserve? These packs are supposed to be designed to give you the value of your purchase and some extras as incentive to keep playing and coming back to pay. This just… as a first impression leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Also, let’s talk about the fact that you’re BILLED MONTHLY? Listen, I get that they’re trying to be ‘convenient’ so you can set this up and forget about it and reap the benefits, right? It’s about the same cost as a Netflix subscription, no big deal. But listen, that means they’re also banking on you to forget you even have this subscription if you’re a casual player and you’re going to continue to give them money Stop that Solmare. Bad.

I’m too tired to look at sales. Just as a quick glance. the discounts and deal are meh at best.

Tl:dr: Monthly pack is underwhelming and likely not worth it. Automatically being billed monthly is the worst thing I’ve seen all week and this was written in 2020.

SOME SUGGESTIONS? IT’S NOT ALL BAD, I PROMISE.

So, how can Solmare improve? OM! Is honestly one of the most stylish otome games I’ve seen and has a lot of potential to continue growing its player base if the devs directed their energies in the right direction. Right now, OM! Suffers due to the fact that it’s trying to do too much in too little time. For a game that’s less than a year old, it’s pushed out enough content in the last three months to last six. Dialing back the gacha and collecting elements to focus on the story and a slower pace would really help, if you ask me.

OM! Really needs to slow its roll. Events are losing their impact from being rolled out at such a quick pace on top of current pop quizzes, new lessons and banners. Every week I feel like I’m watching the more hardcore players yell at having too much to do when everything is layered on top of one another. This is not inherently a bad thing. Having a lot to do keeps the player base engaged and excited for your game.

The problem arises when you’re not giving your players any time to recover from events and just throw things at them all the time. Finding a good balance between events and downtime is difficult and it likely won’t happen overnight, but it would be nice to see them maybe give a week or two to really let the impact of events sink in and let players really find time to nurture or use the new cards/rewards they just got.

First step in the right direction would be giving more notice prior to events and lessons. Just something more than 24 hours before, or the day of. Not providing a notice makes it feel like these things are being rushed.

If Solmare is adamant about keeping the pace it’s set up, then give us a roadmap or event calendar of when new lessons or pop quizzes are coming. They can keep the details of the lessons and quizzes limited until closer to the actual dates, but at least this will let players prioritize where they want to put their resources.

Gacha rates for URs being raised to 2% would likely make a reasonable difference. When so much story and cosmetic content is tied to a UR or SSR cards along with their frequency, it serves to likely benefit them to make it more accessible to players. Locking so much behind luck and a paywall makes it more obvious that they only care about the money that they can get from the diehard collectors in the game.

Make skins obtainable by DP. Stop locking them behind event cards. Allow players to have easier access to cosmetic features. It’s a less predatory model than what they’ve got right now. Granted, Lonely Devil has sort of helped this issue considering they’ve grouped event reruns all in one place to play at your leisure, and if I remember some of the event cards have skins tied to them. Still, just… idk sell the skin on its own. It makes more sense than to pray that you roll that UR with the one 10 pull you have.

Make resources easier to obtain passively. I’m sure I sound like a broken record, but limited resources make this game difficult to enjoy. You’re barely through doing one thing to level up a card and you’re met with a giant wall of requirements for the next step. AL has commissions and the dorm, AK has the base. OM! Has Jobs, which gets you grimm and some items if you’re lucky, but it definitely needs expansion considering the power checkpoints late game.

Hell, just making some of those DP purchasable items actually farmable might help.

Get a publisher to work with you. I know Solmare has been around the block and this isn’t the first otome game they’ve made, but I definitely think working with a publisher who’s familiar with the ins and outs of a proper gacha helping them will benefit them. Having a publisher will help ensure that there’s adequate funding for the game to be as good as it can be. Not only that, you’re looking at a better social media presence which the player base can interact with and get more attached to.

Literally, having a publisher could solve so many pacing and announcement issues since they would be in charge of when events come out and likely has a better eye on how players react. This way, Solmare can concentrate on making the content as quality as they can and not inundate people with a new lesson or event as soon as it’s done.

Tl:dr: Solmare, please get a proper publisher so they can help with quality control and balancing your game. Please. I’m begging you. You have so much going for you please don’t let this game die before it turns a year old.

Ok. it’s 4 AM and I spent most of the day writing this post. If you’ve made it this far, congrats and I’m sorry for being so rambly. I’m so sorry if none of this made any sense in the end. I’m sure there are points that I’ve missed out on like stage replayability and a more engaging battle mode, and the lack of any sort of meta which makes the lower rarity cards you pull feel completely useless… but uh… I can’t think anymore and I haven’t had time to farm in my horny ship girl game. Feel free to let me know your thoughts or discuss!

Thanks for your time and I hope y’all have a good day. Happy romancing some demon boys!

#Obey me!#Some long winded critiques #this is barely edited I'm sorry for any errors you might find

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fallout-lou-begas · 4 years

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Questions for OC Creators

Shamelessly stole this from @tarberrymentats‘ post because I’m always a sucker for behind-the-scenes character inspiration and meaning stuff, so if you steal this in turn, feel free to tag me!

(I’m also stealing Halk’s usage of lovely art by @yesjejunus for this one 🖤)

Agnes Sands, Courier Six of the Mojave Express

A) Why are you excited about this character?

Agnes was an opportunity to create what felt like a very unorthodox OC, and it’s an opportunity that has certainly paid off. She’s not young, and she’s not a particularly pleasant or easygoing person to be around, but she’s also not the endearingly tragic loner type or a badass army-of-one. She’s not “spunky” or “fun” and isn’t the kind of Fallout character who’s necessarily motivated to do every quest, meet every companion, accomplish every thing. She’s not an important person; being an important person is anathema to her, and the looming, overarching themes of It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ are these ideas of the hard limits on unlikely heroism, and how you really can’t fly that far on circumstance and luck. I’m very excited for everyone to see how it goes when the going gets tough.

Furthermore, the design and writing process for Agnes was very informed by finding justifications, reasons, and origins for all of her personality traits, skills, and various hang-ups. The result is a character that feels, to me, so deeply real and well-rounded and alive, that Agnes is a person who has lived every one of her 34 years of age, and that in each of those years were key developments that molded her into the person she is. When I write her, I feel like I know her because of how intimately I’ve researched and come to understand the life she’s led. I don’t want to say it comes effortlessly, but there’s a very genuine, sculpted depth to her character that I’m proud of, and it forms the bedrock of It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’.

It is also very important to me that Agnes is a trans woman, and is a trans woman who looks the way she does with a strong jaw and a big nose and long face and a wide body and hairy arms and so many other “masculine” features, because I wanted to create a character with a very real, visceral, visible transness to them, and for this transness to be a meaningful part of her character that informs her relationship to other people and the scarce world of the Mojave Wasteland instead of just an auxiliary character trait. She is no less of a woman for existing the way she does, but I simply wasn’t interested in creating a character or interpreting the Mojave Wasteland in a way that wouldn’t meaningfully grapple with what it really feels like, to me, to be a trans woman.

B) What inspired you to create them?

Many of Agnes’ character traits actually come from mechanical and specialization decisions that I play in game. I often joke that Agnes “just plain sucks,” but it’s true that in my Fallout: New Vegas game, I have encumbrance set to a measly 25 lbs without backpacks (necessitating her shoulder-slung duffel bag), use a directional flashlight instead of the Pip-Boy light (necessitating the shoulder-mounted flashlight), play with dramatically decreased total S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and skill points per level (which is why she’s so bad-to-average at most things except key specialties), and so on. This was the most obvious level of inspiration, and much of Agnes’ personality and backstory is reverse-engineered to justify the aspects of her character suggested and represented by her mechanical stats.

C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?

Epiphanies have come over time, but ultimately I more or less hammered out Agnes’ whole “story” upfront. I have a detailed character bible saved away that covers not only her entire life pre-courier, but the story beats of her experience as the courier thrown into the center of the events of Fallout: New Vegas and the seismic geopolitical power plays leading up to the second battle of Hoover Dam. So, uh, stay tuned for each new issue of IKROAH!

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

I wouldn’t say that I’ve meant to meaningfully change her appearance over time, but as I’ve been working on the comic, I’ve simply gotten better at drawing and the result has been an Agnes that more consistently looks like how I want her to look. One deliberate change to her appearance has been that her hair is a lot fluffier and voluminous than it used to be, just because a few other peoples’ fanart of her would be like that and I really liked how it looked.

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

Hard to say. Agnes has such a defensive, prickly, and particular personality and is so shy and anxious that she’s someone very hard to get along with in general, regardless of who you are. Cass could only ply her through a combination of drunken genuineness and total embarrassment that razor-cut right to her trauma. I don’t think I’d have the...audacious wherewithal to be that blunt with her if we’d just met. The best case scenario is that she imprints on me as a younger trans woman and feels compelled to look out for me because if there’s one soft spot she has, it’s that.

F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?

Pride at the amount of work I’ve put into developing her and crafting her story so far, pride at how it’s been such a rewarding and enjoyable vehicle for getting so much better at art and writing since this summer, and occasionally sadness just because, man, I really let her fucking have it sometimes, huh.

G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

Her solitary lifestyle made it necessary to find a way to write Cass into the story, just so that there would be some more dialogue while she traveled. She has a lot of interpersonal flaws, her habit of going from totally reclusive and private to hollering mad with no steps in between would certainly be off-putting to me especially. She gets a bad, sad, crying kind of angry, and she doesn’t get there quick but she goes get there suddenly.

H) What trait do you admire most?

She has a dedication to her and a commitment to what she’s good at. She understands the value of stability, good work and a good job. Sometimes this value is so much to her that it keeps her stagnant, and she’s very much a person who’s stuck in their ways in so many regards, but there’s a resilience to her that may not be obvious at first, but that she simply wouldn’t have gotten this far or survived without.

I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

Agnes’ story is so tailored to the source material of Fallout: New Vegas that I thought that transplanting her into other AUs would be difficult, but it’s actually been pretty seamless inserting her into the a modern AU with a few friends called Courier House, where instead of being a courier, she kept up her medical training and works as an EMT. That also spun off into a modern zombie AU, which is just fun and tragic in a lot of juicy ways.

I also have a lot of thoughts on an AU in which she makes it to the Commonwealth, in which she’d become Nick’s partner at the eventually-renamed Valentine and Sands Detective Agency, helping to solve cases of burglary and theft, B&E, and advises on various security concerns. She’d also get extremely invested in tracking down missing children. There are a lot of parallels and dramatic development potential between Agnes Sands and Nick Valentine that I’d kill for more time to explore one day.

J) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?

I didn’t have to, no, but I chose to and at least filled in some holes. My theory on transitional health care in the wasteland is all my own (the Followers are the primary manufacturer and distributor of hormones, which can be inefficiently synthesized from Auto-Docs so they’re not impossible to find but are considerably rare) and I’ve taken some liberties in the IKROAH canon so far for convenience, such as Primm never getting taken over by convicts and the Cassidy Caravans buyout offer being a letter at the Mojave Express instead of something she’d have had to get personally from Alice McLafferty later on. Expect a lot more little twists like this in the future.

#agnes sands #ikroah meta

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super-famicom-star-inactive · 4 years

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Friday Special #7

January 9th, 2021

So it has come to my attention that when people talk about RPG Maker the series, many aren’t aware of how far back the series goes.

Did you know that series dates back to almost thirty years?

That’s right, next year will be the 30th anniversary of RPG Maker!

So why don’t we have a history lesson into arguably one of the most important franchises in gaming history?

Alright, where does the story begin for this iconic series?

According to sources, there has been games similar to RPG Maker that were made by ASCII (the original company behind RPG Maker) and that were released as far back as 1988, with the following titles:

Mamirin (1988)

Dungeon Manjirou (1988)

RPG Construction Tool: Dante (1990)

Dante 2 (1992)

Chimes Quest (1992)

The very first official RPG Maker title came in the form of RPG Tsukūru Dante 98, released on December 17, 1992. This game, along with its 1996 sequel RPG Tsukūru Dante 98 II, was originally made for the NEC PC-9801 Japanese home computers at the time. It was originally made when ASCII pulled from other games (listed above) and combined them together to create a RPG-making development title with its own toolkit. The genre of RPG specifically was thanks to the rise of JRPGs in recent years like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to name a few.

The next major release of RPG Maker was in the form of RPG Tsukūru: Super Dante in 1995, which marked the very first time that the series has landed onto a console. The console was the Nintendo Super Famicom and it was later broadcasted a year later using the Satellaview service. While it did exhibit some restrictions in terms of content due to system limitations, it was famous for providing hundreds of character, monster and scenery assets with color swap palettes to save on memory in the cartridge as well as designing the stats of characters and monsters pre-determined by the player. It was said that the game was popular with players but sources are limited about actual reviews. RPG Tsukūru 2 is the sequel and it was released in 1996 on the Super Famicom as well.

Windows saw the release of the third installment with RPG Tsukūru 95, which was released in 1997 and was the first of many RPG Maker titles for Windows. Unlike its predecessors, it boasted higher resolution in sprites and tilesets as well as higher screen resolution. It also has the honor of being the first version to have an unauthorized English translation and release due to demand. Also with this version, the number of party members was boosted to 8 people with the first 4 acting as the main battle party. RPG Tsukūru 95 Value! was released not long after with the added bonus of having Windows XP support, which was new at the time and very valuable.

So when did the West finally receive an official version version of RPG Maker?

On November 27, 1997, Enterbrain released the following title RPG Tsukūru 3 for the original Playstation and chose to release the software simply as RPG Maker in the West three years later on October 2, 2000 under Agetec. This was the first time the West would finally receive a version of RPG Maker and experience the magic of RPG development, but it was reported that a limited run of copies were released outside of Japan. It was also one of thirty games that utilized the now-rare Playstation Mouse (which is usually an arm and a leg to import). Players got to customize their own assets using the Anime Maker that was also built into the game and, like the original Super Famicom versions, utilized color-swap palettes to save on memory. Another cool feature that was a first for the series was saving your created game onto a memory card so that you could share your creation with your friends.

One of the most beloved and popular versions of RPG Maker is next on the list and it is RPG Tsukūru 2000 for Windows on April 5, 2000. Despite the popularity, it was Japan-exclusive and it featured a lower resolution for graphics and assets overall than its RPG Maker 95 predecessor. Despite this, it boasted more functionality with unlimited sprite sheets and tilesets.

The last in that trio was RPG Tsukūru 2003, first released only in Japan in 2003 before being released worldwide in 2015. Improvements to this version included the side-view battle system that was popular in Final Fantasy, and interchangeable resources. From this point, the development company Enterbrain would take over RPG Maker as it was part of the ASCII company.

Starting with the released of RPG Tsukūru 5 on the Playstation 2 in 2005, Enterbrain was starting to look into developing the series for an international audience of players. They would beginning to craft titles that are now iconic in the RPG development community, with the first of these releases being RPG Tsukūru XP (RPG Maker XP as it was known world-wide) released on Windows in 2004. While many of the simplified features have been removed from this version, it was the first RPG Maker game to use Ruby, a type of programming language first seen in 1995, and it was the first title to distribute assets online amongst the community thanks to the rise of the Internet. It allowed greater control over sprite size other gaming aspects, which helped it become more versatile than previous titles. However, a drawback is the steep learning curve, which was intimidating to new players. It was released to Steam in 2015.

The next modern RPG Maker title was the release of RPG Tsukūru VX (RPG Maker VX as it was known world-wide) in Japan in 2007, world-wide in 2008. It has the one-up over XP for its more user-friendly layout and faster framerate of 60fps over XP’s 40 fps. The programming was completely done over to be more accessible in scripting and the battle systems were now similar to Dragon Quest with a front-view battle system and detailed text. Because of these aspects and other improved features, it became a popular choice for modern developers since release. However, one of the biggest drawbacks was the lack of support for multiple tilesets when mapping that frustrated players. It was released to Steam in 2016.

Right after that, RPG Tsukūru VX Ace (RPG Maker VX Ace as it was known world-wide) was a direct sequel to the version mentioned above. Described as an “overhauled version of RPG Maker VX”, it removed the multiple tileset issue that plagued players in the previous version and re-introduced battle backgrounds during battle scenes. Magic and skill systems were re-worked to have their own recovery and damage formulas in the programming, and a new set of music tracks were accompanied in the database files. It was released to Steam in 2012.

Having the distinction of being released by Degica for the first time world-wide, RPG Tsukūru MV (RPG Maker MV as known world-wide), underwent quite a few adjustments by introducing multiplatform support as well as side-view battles and high resolution features and assets. For the first time, JavaScript replaced Ruby as the default programming language. Players also saw the return of layered tilesets, which were missing from the previous installments. Not only was it released for Windows, but also for PS4 and Nintendo Switch (A XBox One version was planned but unfortunately scrapped), giving players new ways to share games. It was released to Steam in 2015.

The newest installment to the famous series is RPG Tsukūru MZ (RPG Maker MZ as known world-wide), and it was just released last year in August of 2020. Reviews for the game were mixed as players noted that the trailers leading up to release were very similar to RPG Maker MV. It did have some positively-received features such as autosave functionality and XP-style autolayer mechanics. It was released to Steam in 2020.

So with the history side taken care of, what about some of the most iconic games ever made using the software?

Good question! Given the extensive list of successful games to come out of RPG Maker, that will be a separate Friday Special so I can cover them more in-depth. Maybe next week perhaps?

So there you have it, a comprehensive history of RPG Maker!

(Now, there were some older Japanese titles that weren't mentioned because of lack of sources, I do apologize. I also wanted to stick more to the major installments of the franchise itself.)

Thoughts From The Head

I was formally introduced to RPG Maker by some mutuals of mine on Discord a few years ago when I expressed interest in wanting to create scenes like a movie of sorts. My software of choice is RPG Maker VX Ace as it was suggested to me for being better at creating events than any other version. It's understandably intimidating at first, especially for newcomers, but there are hundreds of tutorials on Steam, Youtube and all over the internet.

I also have other copies of RPG Maker, including the PS1 version of RPG Maker and even RPG Tsukūru: Super Dante for my Super Famicom that I just received a few days ago! It's definitely wild how much the series has grown and improved upon over the years.

From what I have been recommended by friends who are long-time players of this series, either go for RPG Maker MV (if you're interested in mapping) or RPG Maker VX Ace (if you're interested in creating events). From what I have seen, those two are some of the more popular choices. In terms of platform, always go for Steam (and get them on sale when you can) because you will have better accessibility and it's more user-friendly than the console versions. The abundance of community-generated assets also help.

To end this post, here's some pics from RPG Tsukūru: Super Dante!

#been wanting to make this for a while #hope you learn some new things!#my voice!#friday special #gif #gaming #retro gaming #irl

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tigerkirby215 · 4 years

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I’m a particular fan of wasting my time so I decided to rate all the Half-Feats for no real reason

(Artwork from the Acquisitions Incorporated 5th Edition sourcebook, because I can’t just use artwork from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.)

If you have been around my blog for any lengthy period of time you will know two things about me.

I often fall into flights of fancy mostly under the guise of attempting to branch out with this blog, even though the real reason is that I wish to publicize any and all work I do for this hobby.

I really like half-feats.

And who could blame me (at least for the second point.) It’s always exciting when you can get a feat, and half-feats allow you to round out a stat of your choice while still allowing you to diversify your character with unique abilities to make them your own. Feats are always strong and even the most basic half-feat still provides you with unique traits to differentiate yourself from the standard adventurer. But it can be hard to choose when they are all so diverse which is why I’m making this list for myself and anyone who may find it useful.

I would also like to thank LudicSavant from the Giant in the Playground forums for their organized list of Half-Feats. It has made the creation of this list far easier and I frequently reference it when making builds.

WHAT IS A HALF-FEAT?

For the sake of understanding (because the last time I used the term “half-feat” on Reddit a lot of people got confused) I will define a half-feat here: A half-feat is any feat that gives half of an ability score improvement (+1 to a given stat) along with its regular features. They are obviously good choices for any player with an uneven stat, as they can make that stat even (for the increase in ability modifier) while also gaining an additional bonus.

HOW IS THIS LIST ORGANIZED

This post is split into 6 sections, one for each stat. (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma.) The feats are organized in alphabetical order. Basically I’m lifting the formatting from LudicSavant.

Each feat will be shown as follows:

FEAT NAME

Description

Summary

Rating

Feats that can be applied to varied ability scores will be mentioned multiple times, however unless the feat changes based on the ability score chosen the entry will simply be shown as a redirect to where it was summarized earlier.

And I guess it also has to be said: This list is just my opinion and is in no way an objective ranking of the half-feats that currently exist in D&D 5th Edition. Feel free to make your own decisions when designing your character: this post is merely meant to share my opinion and provide a reference resource for people making characters.

(Artwork still from the Acquisitions Incorporated 5th Edition sourcebook. Damn this book has some nice artwork.)

STRENGTH

Athlete

Grants you the ability to stand up from prone faster, climb more easily, and jump further.

You’d think with the amount of builds I’ve included this feat in I’d have more positive things to say about it. But no: this feat is trash. Climbing is rare and jumping is pretty much never used in D&D. Even if it was there are low level spells (Spider Climb / Jump) that allow you to do what this feat does.

The only really useful addition to this feat is the faster speed to get up from the prone position. Being prone sucks and it can heavily restrict your movement when it happens. Putting yourself prone is also helpful in a ranged build to give enemies disadvantage to hit you from range. (You can technically knock yourself prone after attacking to make it harder to hit you.) But this strategy loses effectiveness quickly and it isn’t worth taking a feat to combat the rare possibility of being knocked off your feet.

Ultimately if you genuinely see any of the features of the Athlete feat as being useful chances are that either your DM forces way too much jumping / climbing, really likes knocking people over, or you really like knocking yourself prone.

2/10

Crusher

Grants extra utility to bludgeoning weapons, allowing you to move foes into more favorable positions.

RIP in piss Monks am I right lads? To be fair there aren’t any Finesse Bludgeoning Weapons with the only exception being the Sling. But regardless: this feat has two features along with its Ability Score Improvement:

The pushing ability is situational at best. Displacement abilities in 5th edition rarely have a significant impact. You may push an enemy off a cliff on occasion but unless your DM makes a significant effort to present these opportunities to you it won’t come up often. There is some niche use for this feat to work as a poor man’s Mobile feat, as you can push a foe back 5 feet before running away without needing to disengage.

But perhaps the biggest problem with the displacement ability of Crusher is that Shield Master does everything it does almost objectively better, all while providing additional benefits to Dexterity saving throws. Shield Master isn’t a half-feat, granted. But one could get one of the better +1 feats to STR / CON along with Shield Master.

The effect on a crit is incredibly potent. Giving all allies advantage to hit a foe will lead to more damage being dealt and an even higher chance to crit. However relying on crits usually isn’t a smart idea, and crits are already deadly enough without a feat to boost them.

7/10

Dragon Fear

DRAGONBORN EXCLUSIVE FEAT

Allows you to roar with your Breath Weapon ability, frightening nearby enemies.

This feat singlehandedly makes Dragonborn viable. I’m not even joking: being able to replace your CON based, low damage Burning Hands-lite with essentially the Fear spell which comes back on a Short Rest and is based on Charisma is insanely useful for any Charisma character. The most obvious use is for the Charisma casters: Bards and Sorcerers can get an extreme amount of value from this feature. But other Charisma classes like Paladins, Swashbuckler Rogues, and any other class that requires Charisma can use it well. Warlocks get a little less use out of it than most since their abilities already come back on a Short Rest but it’s still nice to have in your pocket.

It’s less useful for non-Charisma classes but it can’t be flawless. But it removes the problem of choosing between a subpar AoE damage ability or just attacking with your weapons / spells, and instead gives you a utility ability to give yourself space. It doesn’t scale well late when most enemies resist fears, but neither did your breath weapon. Especially with the Dragonborn subraces from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount this feat is extremely good.

I mean, you could just play a Leonin and get the fear without investing in a feat, especially since Tasha’s lets you move ability scores around. But Dragonborn have more fun roleplay and other abilities that the Leonin lack.

10/10

Dragon Hide

DRAGONBORN EXCLUSIVE FEAT

Your AC is equal to 13 + DEX and your unarmed strikes do a d4 + STR damage.

The Mage Armor feat / the worse Tavern Brawler feat. What confuses me about this feat is how at-odds it is with itself. On one hand your AC is still based on DEX but on the other hand your natural weapon is based on STR?

Let’s just ignore the Unarmed Strike damage because let’s be real here: you can just pick up a dagger instead of slashing people with your dragon claws. Is Mage Armor really worth losing half of a feat? If you have nothing better maybe, but this list alone shows that there are better options. There are some very specific niche scenarios where Unarmored Defense is more valuable than actual armor but those scenarios are usually campaign-specific or a choice done more for roleplay, and you could just as easily accomplish the roleplay by taking the Magic Initiate feat to get Mage Armor along with two useful cantrips.

Honestly this should’ve just been added as a base feature for the Dragonborn, and most DMs I know give this feat to Dragonborn at level 1. (Minus the half feat ASI.) Lizardfolk have innate AC, crafting skills, and a healing bite; Dragonborn should get innate AC, damage resistance, and a crappy breath weapon that can be upgraded by the Dragon Fear feat.

3/10

Heavily Armored

Gain proficiency with heavy armor.

The vast majority of classes that are expected to wear Heavy Armor have Heavy Armor Proficiency. In fact the only Martial class that doesn’t have Heavy Armor proficiency (minus Barbarians and Monks who can’t wear Heavy Armor) is the Ranger, so this feat is good if you want to play a Ranger like a Paladin. Huhn. Ironic that I am playing a Horizon Walker Ranger like a Paladin in one of the campaigns I’m in.

(Artwork by Bo “chenbowow” Chen. Made for Riot Games.)

Like, you can grab this feat for Clerics and Druids I guess, but why would you? Medium Armor is on-par with Heavy Armor, and 14 DEX is far more useful than the 15 STR required to wear Platemail.

The only other two (well technically three) subclasses I can think of which could grab this feat are the Hexblade Warlock and the two Martial Bards. (College of Swords / College of Valor.) For Hexblade... why do you need Strength? You can swing your sword with Charisma. Bard however... I guess if you want to play a Strength Bard it’s an option?

But yeah: the only time I ever used this feat was to play a Ranger like a Paladin. And saying “I used this feat to play one of the worst classes in the game like a better class” isn’t exactly an accomplishment.

1/10

Heavy Armor Master

While wearing heavy armor, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage that you take from nonmagical weapons is reduced by 3.

The word that kills this feat is “nonmagical.” I can tell you as a fact having had a Fighter use this feat in a level 1 - 5 campaign that it is TORTURE for any DM. “Oh boy I finally hit the 20 AC Fighter annnnd I did 5 total damage, even though I rolled max damage.”

But this feat literally becomes useless past level 8 or so when enemies start getting magical weapons. There are a few enemies that still technically do nonmagical damage at high levels, but even then this feat isn’t going to save you from foes that are normally doing upwards of 15 damage per swing. It adds up yes, but it’ll rarely add up in my personal experience.

Take this feat on a Variant Human at level 1 if you’re doing a level 3 one shot, just to be an asshole.

2/10

Lightly Armored

Gain proficiency with light armor.

?????

Mage Armor exists. The only classes in the game that don’t get proficiency with at least Light Armor are Sorcerer and Wizard. You can afford to lose a spell slot for Mage Armor. Seriously.

1/10

Moderately Armored

Gain proficiency with medium armor.

The best of the “armored” feats because (hot take time) Medium Armor is the best armor in the game. It requires the least investment which makes it the most easily accessible armor in the game. If you have a 13 in DEX I’d highly recommend grabbing this feat. If your DEX is at a 16 (+3) or higher I’d honestly maybe just recommend Light Armor / Mage Armor instead?

8/10

Orcish Fury

HALF-ORC EXCLUSIVE FEAT

Get the ability to choose to roll an additional damage die once per short rest. Additionally, you can use your Reaction to make a weapon attack after being knocked down to 1 HP via your racial trait once per short rest.

Anyone find it amusing that this feat is only available to Half-Orcs but not full Orcs? Anyways: having the ability to essentially crit on-demand is nice. Having the reactionary attack after being knocked to 1 HP is situational, but still alright. I think if I was playing a Half-Orc and I needed to round out either my Strength or my Constitution (more likely my CON since there are far better feats for STR) I wouldn’t be upset taking this. Is it worth playing a Half-Orc just for this feat? Not by a long shot lol.

6/10

Piercer

When you deal damage with a piercing weapon you can reroll one of the damage die on one attack per turn. When you crit you can roll an additional damage die.

Savage Attacker as a half feat, proving that Savage Attacker is a bad feat lol. I’m actually going to talk more about this feat when I go into the Dexterity section which makes this the first feat where I’ll actually rank it lower for a specific Ability Score.

3/10 (if using STR)

Resilient (STR)

Gain proficiency with Strength saving throws.

Strength saves are common and pretty bad, but not as bad as Wisdom or Dexterity. What’s more is that most classes that will be forced to make Strength saves have proficiency in Strength saving throws already. If you have an uneven Strength score this isn’t the worst way to round it out, but I’d sooner get a stronger feat for another ability.

3/10

Revenant Blade

Essentially Dual-Wielder for the Double-Bladed Scimitar.

A very specific feat to the Eberron setting, and even though I use Eberron content frequently in my builds I’ll be honest: I know very little about the setting. The DBS honestly just seems worse than uh... wielding two scimitars? 3d4 damage is about on-par with 2d6. This feat is something you take more for roleplay than actual practicality with your character, though I have played with people (outside of Eberron lol) using a double-bladed scimitar and it seems like a cool weapon. Dual Wielder is also a good feat and it seems you can use the DBS without grabbing the Dual Wielding Fighting Style.

5/10

Skill Expert

Learn a skill and gain expertise in a skill.

A very good skill to round out any build. Expertise can actually shape your character quite a lot, as it allows you to be good at things even if your Ability Scores are bad. A good go-to feat to round off any uneven Ability Score if you have nothing better imo.

7/10

Slasher

Slashing weapons lower the speed of the target hit by 10. On a crit the target has disadvantage on all attack rolls until the start of your next turn.

Easily the worst of the weapon damage type feats, which is a shame because I like slashing weapons. The slowdown effect is rarely useful: the only class which I really think can use the slowdown effect well is hit-and-run Rogues, but Slashing weapons are heavily restricted from Rogues for some reason. The crit effect is nice but you shouldn’t be banking on crits, even as a Champion Fighter. This feat at least has a niche if you plan to play a Whip Rogue but that’s about it.

3/10

Squat Nimbleness

Increase your movement speed by 5, gain proficiency with Athletics or Acrobatics, and gain Advantage to escape grapples.

It is actually goddamn hilarious how good this feat is. +5 movement is already nice (especially if you’re playing one of the later-added small races [or a Homebrew race] that has 30 feet of movement) but you also get a free skill proficiency in either of the two most commonly used skills in the game, and to top it off to my knowledge this feat is the only way to gain a bonus to escaping grapples. (Outside of like, the Freedom of Movement spell.)

Take this! Good lord take this! If you have an uneven ability score and are small don’t even hesitate!

10/10

Tavern Brawler

Gain a d4 unarmed strike and proficiency with improvised weapons. After striking a creature with an unarmed strike or improvised weapon on your turn you can grapple them as a bonus action.

This feat will either be the best or worst feat you take depending on your DM. If your DM lives up to the Dead Rising promise of “anything is a weapon” and lets you pick up a stick off the ground and use it as an improvised weapon: congratulations your Wizard now has an infinite supply of short swords!

The grapple after making an improvised or unarmed strike is... interesting. I’ve expressed my distaste for grappling in the past but on its own at lower levels its not the worst option. The main problem is really just that the Grappler feat is bad, but if you want to keep an enemy from running then grabbing them isn’t the worst option!

5/10

Weapon Master

Gain proficiency with 3 weapons.

Just take a single level in Fighter. Honestly upgrading your weapon’s damage die isn’t worth losing the ASI. Even in the most extreme example of upgrading a dagger (d4) to a rapier (d8) you’re only getting +4 damage potential max.

The only application I really think is worth it for this feat is Rogues, because for some stupid reason Rogues don’t get proficiency with either Scimitars or (more importantly) Whips. So if for whatever reason you want to play a Reach Weapon Whip Rogue but still get Stroke of Luck from the 20th level of Rogue then I guess Weapon Master has some use? But you could just as easily grab the Mobile feat to reap similar benefits without being forced to use a d4 weapon.

1/10

DEXTERITY

Athlete

See above.

Elven Accuracy

ELF / HALF-ELF EXCLUSIVE FEAT.

Roll 3 d20s instead of 2 when you have advantage and are attacking with DEX or a spell.

Otherwise known as “why Elf Samurai is secretly overpowered.” If you have a reliable way to get Advantage this feat is absolutely nutty. If not well... It’s still a nice way to round out an uneven Ability Score, and it works with spell attack rolls too which gives it plenty of versatility!

Basically if there’s any semi-consistent chance that you’re going to get advantage I’d take this feat. If not? There are better half feats out there. Really a shame this doesn’t work with STR attacks but I guess they didn’t want Elf Barbarians to be the most overpowered shit in the game.

8/10

Fade Away

GNOME EXCLUSIVE FEAT

Use your reaction to become invisible after taking damage. You remain invisible until the end of your next turn unless you perform an aggressive action.

Invisibility is never a bad thing. This feat gives you what is essentially a stronger version of the Shield spell once per Short Rest since (rules as written) enemies can’t target you if they can’t see you. Now of course a lot of this depends on your DM (how many enemies with Blindsense are around, and if enemies will swing where you just were because metagaming) but this feat is almost exclusively why you should play a Gnome as opposed to something else.

This feat plus Squat Nimbleness is honestly worth losing an ASI for. Fade Away, Squat Nimbleness, and Moderately Armored combined can be three very good feats for a Gnome spellcaster who already has a high casting stat.

9/10

Gunner

Crossbow Expert for guns.

Crossbow Expert for guns. The only part of this feat that affects non-firearms is the lack of disadvantage in melee range which I mean... if you’re not planning to use crossbows it might be useful? But I’d sooner take Piercer, Elven Accuracy, or another more useful feat.

GUN/10 3/10

Lightly Armored

See above.

Piercer

When you deal damage with a piercing weapon you can reroll one of the damage die on one attack per turn. When you crit you can roll an additional damage die.

The first and probably only feat where increasing one Ability Score is far more useful than the other! Let’s start with the obvious: Savage Attacker doesn’t work with ranged weapons, but since all ranged weapons (minus the Sling) do Piercing damage this feat affects them! For most ranged weapons this isn’t that big of a deal but if you’re using one of the ranged weapons with a bigger damage die (Longbow / Heavy Crossbow) it’s still nice to have, especially if you have multiple attacks and will henceforth have a higher chance of rolling low for damage.

The triple damage effect on a crit is also very nice for a ranged weapon, and lets you live out that sharpshooter fantasy. But again banking on crits is unreliable. Overall this feat is a very nice way to increase an uneven Dexterity score and get some benefits for your ranged weapons. It’s not something I’d go out of my way to get but it does feel very good to grab.

7/10 (if using DEX)

Moderately Armored

See above. Slightly better when increasing DEX because DEX is more universally useful than STR.

Resilient (DEX)

Gain proficiency with Dexterity saving throws.

Dexterity saving throws are some of the most common saving throws in 5e. Being able to halve the damage of a Fireball is always worth it.

9/10

Revenant Blade

See above.

Second Chance

HALFLING EXCLUSIVE FEAT

Force an enemy that’s attacking you to reroll their attack once per combat.

This feat interests me because (to my knowledge) it’s the only feat that replenishes when you “roll initiative at the start of combat.” But regardless: being able to force an enemy to reroll a hit on you is really nice, but mind you that there is the chance to turn a regular hit into a crit.

If your class already has reactions this really isn’t worth it. But if you’re playing something like a Fighter this can be a nice way to shrug off a hit or two over the course of the day. A good way to round out your stats and give yourself some safety, but not something I’d go out of the way to get.

7/10

Squat Nimbleness

See above.

Skill Expert

See above.

Slasher

See above.

Weapon Master

See above.

CONSTITUTION

Aberrant Dragonmark

Get one Sorcerer cantrip and one level 1 Sorcerer spell. Constitution is your spellcasting modifier for these spells. Additional effects when you cast your level 1 spell.

Veterans of this blog will know how much I love Aberrant Dragonmark. If you’re taking Magic Initiate to have a ranged attack then Aberrant Dragonmark is pretty much just universally better than Magic Initiate. The only real flaw with this feat is that you can only take from the Sorcerer list... oh and that it’s very Eberron specific. It’s unlikely that you’ll be allowed this feat, but I would recommend it for just about anyone who needs a ranged backup. Constitution becomes a lot more exciting when it’s used for more than just health.

8/10

Chef

Allies heal more during short rests. Prepare treats allies can use to gain Temporary hitpoints as a Bonus Action.

Song of Rest? Never heard of her! A fairly mediocre feat on its own, though admittedly fun for roleplay. The treats are actually not that bad to give allies a tiny bit of bulk. The definitely-not-Song of Rest feature is also good in its own right.

It’s a nice way to round out your Constitution or Wisdom if it’s uneven, and is very fun for roleplay. But it’s not the most impressive in terms of utility.

6/10

Crusher

See above.

Dragon Fear

See above.

Dragon Hide

See above.

Durable

Add double your Constitution modifier to rolled hit die while Short Resting.

I mean, it’s nice? But the only real use I see for this is for a Barbarian. It can definitely allow you save up on your hit die but unless you have a 13 in CON (14 with this feat) I wouldn’t recommend it. I’d much rather not take the damage in the first place: an ounce of prevention beats a cure!

5/10

Dwarven Fortitude

DWARF EXCLUSIVE FEAT

When you take the Dodge action you can heal with a hit die.

Otherwise known as “Dwarf Monks are super legit for no good reason.” It’s a very interesting feat that allows you to tank in interesting ways, and it’s particularly good if you know your DM doesn’t let you frequently short rest. It can be nice to heal in a pinch, but much like with Durable I’d rather negate the damage than heal with hit die.

And if your DM allows frequent short rests? This feat is objectively worse than Durable, since it doesn’t really matter when you heal with hit die.

5/10

Infernal Constitution

TIEFLING EXCLUSIVE FEAT

Resist Cold and Poison damage, and gain Advantage on saving throws against Poisons.

You already resist Fire damage, which is extremely common. This feat adds two more common damage types to that list, and also helps you against a common debuff. This is just a very good way to give your character more bulk! Of course if you aren’t fighting a lot of poisonous or cold enemies this feat won’t be too practical, but in a standard campaign with varied foes this will quickly carry its weight!

7/10

Orcish Fury

See above.

Resilient (CON)

Gain proficiency with Constitution saving throws.

Constitution saves are extremely common, most notably for Concentration checks. Other people have done the math that Resilient scales better than War Caster to help with Concentration checks. This feat is a must-have for spellcasters, and very good all-around.

10/10

Second Chance

See above.

Skill Expert

See above.

Tavern Brawler

See above.

INTELLIGENCE

Elven Accuracy

See above.

Fade Away

See above.

Fey Teleportation

HIGH ELF EXCLUSIVE FEAT

Learn Sylvan. Cast Misty Step once per Short Rest.

Otherwise known as LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON TO PLAY A HIGH ELF. Holy shit if you’re playing a High Elf take this feat! A free language is nice and all but Misty Step is one of the most useful utility spells in the game, and you have near-constant access to it!

10/10

Fey Touched

Learn Misty Step and one additional first level spell from the Enchantment or Divination schools. You can cast both of these spells once without using a spell slot.

Misty Step is one of the strongest spells in the game: if your class doesn’t normally get it I’d definitely recommend Fey Touched just to get Misty Step. Being able to grab strong first level Enchantment and Divination spells like Hex, Hunter’s Mark, Bless, Heroism, and Detect Magic are also very useful.

9/10

Flames of Phlegethos

Reroll 1s when dealing Fire damage. Surround yourself in Fire when casting a Fire damage spell.

Otherwise known as “Elemental Adept lite.” Only really useful if you’re planning to consistently be in close range, but very fun and flavorful if you are casting fire up close.

I honestly wish this feat wasn’t Tiefling exclusive because it’s cool as shit but so situational: I’d love to see a version of this feat that’s damage type exclusive and race exclusive. Hm maybe that’ll be a Homebrew project of mine.

7/10

Keen Mind

Know some information you should probably already know.

Otherwise known as “hey mister DM I forgot to buy a compass or a watch in town, and I’m too stupid to take notes.” This is the feat for bad players, and most DMs will ignore it even if you do take it.

1/10

Linguist

Learn 3 languages. Write cyphers.

The languages are honestly useless: Comprehend Languages is a first level spell, and Tongues is a third level spell. The cyphers are a lot more interesting, but they’re admittedly extremely situational outside of specific campaigns. It also really sucks that your feat can be undone with the Comprehend Languages spell, which can be cast as a ritual.

4/10

Observant

+5 to Passive Perception / Investigation. You can read creatures’ lips if you understand the language they’re speaking.

The ability to read creatures’ lips is honestly really interesting for espionage, but let’s be real: you picked up this feat for the increase to Passive Perception. Honestly if you don’t want to be ambushed just take the Alert feat.

7/10

Resilient (INT)

Gain proficiency with Intelligence saving throws.

Intelligence saves are rare. Devastating when they occur, yes. But I’d sooner take Observant, Linguist, or one of the Tasha’s feats over Resilient.

5/10

Shadow Touched

Learn the Invisibility spell and one additional first level spell from the Necromancy or Illusion schools. You can cast both of these spells once without using a spell slot.

Invisibility is less universally useful than Misty Step, and Necromancy / Illusion spells are weaker than Divination / Enchantment spells. (At least if we’re talking first level.) There are some nice ones like Disguise Self and Inflict Wounds but generally speaking mobility is more useful in my humble opinion.

7/10

Skill Expert

See above.

Telekinetic

Learn the Mage Hand cantrip. If you know it already, increase its range by 30 feet. You can make the Mage Hand invisible. Additionally, you may shove a creature 5 feet towards or away from you as a Bonus Action on your turn.

Mage Hand is one of the best cantrips in the game and being able to make it invisible was a subclass feature restricted to just Arcane Trickster Rogues previously. Having an invisible grabbing arm is insanely useful, and extending it to 60 feet is even better.

And that isn’t even the best part! Being able to shove people around isn’t necessarily the most overpowered thing but it still gives you a way to use your Bonus Action every turn! If you play on a tabletop you can use this feat to push enemies back into AoE damage abilities or pull allies away from danger! In Theater of the Mind however this feat isn’t as strong and I wouldn’t recommend using the shove too much as its liable to annoy your DM.

8/10

Telepathic

You can speak telepathically to a creature within 60 feet of you. They have to understand the language, and don’t gain the ability to respond telepathically. Additionally, you learn the Detect Thoughts spell, and can cast it once per Long Rest without using a spell slot.

Detect Thoughts isn’t that great of a spell, though granted this is just my personal experience. That being said having telepathy is extremely useful, and this is speaking from experience!

I will say right now: take this feat if you are a Druid. Unless your DM is a real stickler for the rules this will let you speak to people while Wildshaped! This opens up a whole world of possibilities for your Druid! I unironically consider this feat mandatory for a Druid, and fairly useful for any other character who wants to speak quietly and stealthily. And you know: doesn’t have access to Message.

8/10 - Mandatory for a Druid

WISDOM

Chef

See above.

Elven Accuracy

See above.

Fey Touched

See above.

Observant

See above.

Resilient (WIS)

Gain proficiency with Wisdom saving throws.

Wisdom saves are very common, but most Wisdom classes already get Wisdom saving throw proficiency. If you have an uneven Wisdom score it can be worth it to get the proficiency, but Wisdom saving throws are arguably the most common saving throw to be proficient with.

7/10

Shadow Touched

See above.

Skill Expert

See above.

Telekinetic

See above.

Telepathic

See above.

CHARISMA

Actor

Gain advantage when pretending to be someone else, and become capable of mimicking someone’s voice after listening to them.

A very good feat if you plan to do any infiltration or other political intrigue stuff. With the Disguise Self spell this feat can be used by just about anyone, but the real value comes for Changelings. Having Disguise Self as a racial trait means the “be better at fooling people” feat is insanely useful. Inversely this feat isn’t as useful for Kenku since you can already mimic voices more-or-less perfectly.

This feat is inherently situational but it’s beyond useful for the campaigns where it can be used. And again: it’s near-mandatory for a Changeling or a Warlock with the Mask of Many Faces invocation (or anyone who takes Eldritch Adept for Mask of Many Faces.)

7/10 - Mandatory for Changelings

Dragon Fear

See above.

Dragon Hide

See above. (How the hell this feat increases Charisma I have no idea.)

Elven Accuracy

See above.

Fey Teleportation

See above.

Fey Touched

See above.

Flames of Phlegethos

See above.

Resilient (CHA)

Gain proficiency in Charisma saving throws.

Charisma saving throws are extremely rare, and more often than not they’re more of the “don’t get to play the game” variety and less “die super bad and become a living vegetable” like Intelligence saving throws. Even if looking to round out uneven ability scores feats like Skill Expert and Telepathic are better.

3/10

Second Chance

See above.

Shadow Touched

See above.

Skill Expert

See above.

Telekinetic

See above.

Telepathic

See above.

HELPFUL CHART OR SOMETHING

#dnd #dnd 5e #dnd guide #dnd feats #feats #half feats #tier list #list

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evas-idiot-box · 4 years

Note

hey Eva, first of all your blog is cool and interesting and nice. So i got me a new phone 2 weeks ago, insralled GF, flashforward to this evening - i dont have any resources, i run out of cores, all my eshelons are 50ish level and i cant beat 4-6. I guess i mught have stupid :( Gimme any advices please or i dunno. Sorry for bothering you, dont know who else to ask/

So! First of all, sorry for my late reply!

Now, on the topic of resources. Try to have logistics running as often as possible. I assume you've only got the starting 4 echelons, so try to have at least one squad constantly out for missions, though two is better. Before you head to bed or any time you're not gonna be playing for a while, send all four echelons on missions. Try to prioritize ammo and rations the most, cause that's what you'll use the most.

For other resources, try to complete as many daily, weekly, and career missions as you can. Additionally, look at the achievements in the Index tab. You can get plenty of things like gems and tokens for free. With tokens you can roll gacha for dorm furniture, which increases dorm comfort, and in turn gives you more batteries daily. Use the batteries to upgrade facilities.

With facilities, some of the most important ones to max as soon as possible are the Data Room and the Forward Basecamp. The better your Data Room, the more exp you earn, which you can then turn into combat reports and fast-track your dolls to high levels. The FOB is great because you basically get free stuff. A small(ish) amount of resources gets currencies that can be used on the black market shop. Sometimes you also get things like cores, tokens, and even 4 or 5 star gear!

But the black market is good because you can get resources like combat reports, cores, and batteries in huge supply quickly. To make the best of the expeditions, use the advantaged dolls as often as possible. They give far better bonuses than just high level dolls. (Though high level helps a bit.) Also, pets determine where your expedition is most likely to explore and therefore what resource they are most likely to collect. Dogs like the snow, cats like the city, birds like the forest, and "others" bring you to the wasteland.

On that note, upgrading the pet rescue centre is helpful to the FOB. More pets means you're more likely to have the advantaged pets of the week. Also, pets in a dorm give a bonus 1000 comfort points up to three pets per dorm, meaning more batteries. Which means you can buy more pets and upgrades. Lots of growth in GFL is exponential.

Now, back to some of the other resources I was talking about. Gems. The gacha currency that lets you buy the other gacha currency. Some of the most important investments for your early game gems are echelons and dorms. More echelons means you can have more teams on logistics runs. More dorms means more batteries. Extra repair slots are also nice, so that can be a secondary goal for your gems. The monthly gem card is a good deal if you're willing to spend some money. 5 bucks (Canadian) gets you 30 gems a day for 30 days, 900 total. Sometimes there's also a rate up on the cards, getting 60 daily for a week.

Next, let's talk about things that burn resources. One of the things I did at the start was not at all understand crafting. More resources aren't immediately better. There's plenty of guides on maximizing your resource value per roll, providing you know what you want to roll for. For your four daily crafts of dolls (this gets you a free token, same for equipment!) either go bare minimum, or 130, 130, 130, 30. This can get you a decent chance at 3, 4, and 5 star dolls for low prices, and if you get duplicates of dolls you've trained, you can retire them for 1, 3, and 5 cores respectively. (However, many 5 star pistols are among the few dolls that are truly worth raising duplicates of.)

At the same time however, higher rarity dolls are expensive to raise, especially early on. If you don't have a duplicate of a doll when dummy linking, you will use cores. 2 stars will need: 1, 1, 2, and 3. 3 stars will need: 3, 3, 6, and 9. 4 stars will need: 9, 9, 18, and 27. 5 stars will need: 15, 15, 30, and 45 cores for maxed dummy links. See how this can burn cores? Especially when you're more likely to have duplicates of less rare dolls?

Try to focus on some of the better 2 and 3 star dolls! You'll find that plenty of dolls are better (or worse) than their stars suggest.

Of 2 stars, M1911, M1895, PPK, M3, MP 40, FN-49, BM-49 (VM-49), G3, Galil, SIG-510, LWMMG, MP-446, and cutecat IDW have all done me well.

From the 3 star pool: M9, G17, Ingram, Skorpion, STEN, M14, (quite possibly one of the best girls in the game, even pre-MOD3 she can beat many 5 star rifles and ARs!) SV-98, FNC, M2 HB, and GSh-18 are choices I've found quite helpful.

Raising many of these dolls is also good because later you can unlock their "MOD" upgrades, 1 through 3. This gives them extra abilities, better stats, unique equipment, new art, and some side stories! Though this is more endgame content.

Another thing. Even though I listed a few MGs in there, for now, try to avoid MGs, and also shotguns. They use lots of ammo and rations respectively. They're more for endgame or weird stuff.

As for getting through lots of the early story. Use the AR Team members. Do not sleep on them. Eventually they will become purposely overpowered for story reasons because of MOD3. They are some of your best dolls for just melting enemies, and M4 is special in that her buff tiles effect ARs instead of SMGs.

For most earlier content, teams made of ARs and SMGs are best. Steady damage and SMGs have good evasion to stay in the fight longer. You can maybe mix a pistol or rifle in there for buffs, or if you need to kill other snipers. Rifle dolls, unlike other units, target the enemies furthest away (within range) first, and work forward. This makes them good for preventing your tanks from getting shredded by snipers with accuracy that out classes your evasion.

Also, having "dummy" echelons can help with clearing maps cheaply. If you are cleaning enemies off a map, you can probably get away with having an echelon for combat, and others that only need to capture nodes. So since they are not going into combat, you can use a single pistol doll for very minimal resource loss if they have to retreat.

As for 4-6 you can likely beat it by having a strong echelon rush to Intruder as soon as possible, with another echelon defending your command post. An ARSMG team should work quite well against her, with the SMGs dodging her attacks and the ARs chipping at her health. As a general tip, flash grenade skills do not affect bosses, but other grenades do, and this can make smoke grenades a good choice as they lower enemy ROF and movement speed. The ROF debuff can keep pressure off your dolls for a little bit. If you need to, have a third echelon behind the one you spawn in the north if they get too beat up getting to Intruder. Then have the fresh squad attack her instead.

Uh. I think that's all. A lot of rambling from me. Probably didn't make it as clear as it should be. But hey, I'm trying, and honestly I'm still sorta noob-ish myself. Check out people like @scarletlotus182 @commander-frostii @give-fnc-chocolate @rpk-16 and @shikikanshenanigans too, 'cause they're better than me at this lol.

P.S. If I have any glaring errors, please tell me, guys.

#girls' frontline #gfl #Uhh tips i guess?#long post

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felassan · 4 years

Text

BioWare Blog Post: Anthem Update – Loot & Equipment Goals

by Christian Dailey, Studio Director, on 7/31/20

Hello Again!

I hope this finds you well and I appreciate everyone’s patience as we work through the right timing for new information. We’re excited to share with you our next blog, but we also want to be respectful of the larger conversations happening in the world.

Recently I started answering questions on Twitter and asked all of you to name some of the changes you would be most interested in hearing about – the response was pretty awesome. Lots of good topics and themes and an excitement to know more about where we are going. So, to kick this off we thought a good starting place would be to go over our high level goals and changes we are exploring with loot and equipment.

Before we get started though, we love that we are able to share the progress and give a peek behind the curtain. That said, the ideas, images and video clip below are works in progress and all subject to change. Remember how the sausage is made…

Satisfying Loot Experience

A good player experience depends on the loot system being extensible and robust, and a lot can go wrong. A lot did go wrong. We fell short here and we realized that building something new from the ground up was going to be required – starting with taking a long look and understanding the best in class of the many great games that inspire us. Based on this research, along with your thoughts and feedback, we planned some high-level goals and changes we wanted to try:

Respect Your Time:

- Increase the frequency of Loot Drops

- Loot is viable more often; All items are better and more competitive, but there’s still a chance of getting something exceptional

- All loot rarities have strategic value throughout progression

Embrace Choice:

- You can pursue specific loot without relying on randomness alone; Quests; Specialized Vendors; Unique Loot Tables

- Modify your loot, including rerolling inscriptions and leveling up items

Create a Rewarding Loot Experience:

- Loot feels exciting and more noticeable when it drops, and is celebrated when collected

- Rare enemies (aka “walking treasure chests”) create exciting moments to get a burst of loot all at once

[short vid of Anthem 2.0 representing the game in development, see source]

Keep it Accessible and Immediate:

- Reveal and equip loot right away

- Complete revamp of the equipment sheet – including a detailed stat sheet (not shown)

- The equipment sheet can be accessed from anywhere, allows you to easily see what you have equipped in each slot

Reliability of Equipment and Rewards:

- Each item has an inscription “budget”, based on its Power and Rarity

- No more useless items because they were missing must-have inscriptions (see “Increased weapon dmg by +225%”)

- Exceptional items are about getting the exact types of bonuses you want, instead of maxing values on every bonus

Scale for the Future:

- Your power cap can be easily increased, and the loot system scales accordingly

- Advanced telemetry data allows us to identify trends and make meaningful balance changes

Aligning around these goals has really helped us focus on the right priorities as we continue iterating and seeing the progress in our internal playtesting. It is early days though and we will continue to test and experiment over the coming months, hopefully with your feedback.

Other Areas of Exploration

In addition to loot and equipment, there are some really good improvements to the feel and types of items we are supporting. Gunplay is overall more responsive with enemies reacting to hits near instantly with improved client-side prediction, we are looking into the role of melee items and builds, and of course, being able to spend skill points to unlock new types of equipment and synergies. One of the things I am most excited about is seeing all the awesome new weaponry concepts based on our factions.

Until Next Time

I hope this helped give some context to the changes we are testing around loot and equipment and what future blogs may dig into. Changes like these are exciting to us and hopefully to you as well, but I want to set expectations that there is a lot of work behind each of these and in some cases a rather large tech undertaking – this is not an “easy fix” and will take time.

Thank you again for your interest, curiosity and passion for Anthem. Please keep engaging online, asking questions and continuing to be part of making the game better.

Stay safe. Be kind to one another. Stronger together.

Christian [x]

#bioware #anthem #video games #long post #longpost

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crystalelemental · 5 months

Text

Okay, wife's on the controller but I did some testing in the character creation for Class of Heroes, and while this is fairly preliminary, I'm ready to talk initial thoughts.

This game is, at present, not particularly good. At all. I understand it's basically a faithful rerelease of an old game, so jank is to be expected, but I'm kinda floored at how bad we're talking sometimes.

The biggest issue is that it is hilariously wasteful of mechanics. When you make a character, you select gender, race, and alignment. You get a set amount of Bonus stats, determined upon hitting Enroll, and based on all of these factors, you select a class. So for instance, the base classes - Warrior, Mage, Priest, and Thief - only need one stat at level 12. Easily achieved. Then you have slightly more advanced classes, like Ranger, who seems to be the next step up on Thief. At the very least, they have the same level 1 skill that implies thief skills. They require not only stats, but also your alignment must be Neutral or Evil. So if you put in for an Elf with a Good alignment, please disregard that bow in their portrait, you may not have a Ranger Elf, and that's the only archer class. WHOOPS. This gets super granular with the latest classes needing a ton of stats, specific gender, and specific alignment. It is wildly specific.

To make matters worse, you might think okay, Bishop requires 13 in both magic-related stats, and either a Good or Evil alignment. Clearly, this is the blended class for Mage and Priest, right? Wrong. If you somehow manage to get this out of the gate, You will get just the healing magic. Not the offensive. You don't know this until you've done it. And the only way to do it is to roll a high Bonus points to allocate.

But wait, there's more restriction! Let's say you realize that later classes aren't good until later, and opt for basic classes out the gate. You decide that ranged weapons, like Bows, are absurdly expensive (we'll get to this), and want back row mages to cast. Well that's great, let's set up some magic! Gnomes have high Int, they'd do well. So you allocate Mage, and you get Fire, the basic offensive spell. Great! So okay, you have three back row characters, let's get one more Mage. So you go alright, let's try Fairy or Elf. Those are traditionally magic-aligned classes, surely they'll be able to-they don't learn Fire. They can learn useless options, but they can't learn Fire. So they cannot contribute to combat ever, being on the back row without offensive spells, and unable to afford ranged weaponry. Apparently, your spell list associated with each class is restricted based on race. You will not know this until you've one it, and check what spells are acquired. Getting higher-tier stuff with access to those spell types does fuck-all, near as I can tell.

The only benefit I can find is that it's really easy to reroll for high Bonus numbers. Mostly, it'll give between 6 and 10, but sometimes you'll see like 16-18, and think okay yeah, big money. No. No, that's not the big money. Rarely, you will see 26-29. And in one blessed instance, I saw 37. Which is great. Without a clear means to reclass, at least not easily, you may think that it is beneficial to allocate these points in a way that allows early access to stronger classes. But, as mentioned, you'll tech into Bishop and find out oops, no offensive spells, and then high physical defense enemies just wall your entire team. I'm not sure about this, but something increases EXP needed to level as well. I thought it was stats, but did some tests and it is not. I made the same character over and over with different Bonus values, and the difference between 6 and 37 bonus points was 0EXP. So there's no reason not to just reroll for bigger bonuses. But I assume class increases EXP. I do not know that for certain.

Okay, so that out of the way, how about the gameplay?

Dungeon exploration is immediately concerning because there is no map. You need a spell that will only temporarily reveal what the map looks like. Hope your memory is strong, or your team is big enough to not need to worry about encounters. Which. Mine have not been. I had similar difficulties with early game of my first Etrian Odyssey, so better understanding of systems might help, but right now it's a mess. I've legitimately considered dropping difficulty to Easy just to manage.

Drops are random materials, which are unknown until you identify them. This can be done one of two ways. If you have a specific class or character, either Gnome or Bishop but assuming Gnome, you can identify for free. But it can fail, and if it fails too often they get performance anxiety and can't cast for a while. Which is. So great. Or you can pay for it. Guaranteed success, but the cost to identify is the same as the selling cost, so you make no money off of doing this. Best of all, you cannot sell unidentified materials. So you are required to do this. I assume it's percentage based odds to succeed, but when an identification failed, they got scared really easily and I never saw an initial fail run into success. Like, ever.

Speaking of, money is a nightmare of unspeakable proportions. Apparently the devs are fans of Genealogy, because every character has their individual funds. This can be pooled to a specific character or redistributed evenly, but that kinda makes me wonder why that mechanic exists at all? Like, I can also just give items to others, so trade is free. I don't like it in Genealogy, but at least money was reasonably plentiful if you did all your Arena grinding and the pawn shop meant decisions had to be made. This is just free and therefore meaningless. More pressing, however, is that you start with no gold at all, random encounters are giving me only 1-2 gold, and materials are basically unimportant. The only way to make money is to find Ancient or Magic Coins, which are...100 to 150 gold at the current Bronze level. For reference, when I unlocked Ranger, I attempted to get a bow. 3200 gold for just the bow. You pay for ammo separately. I cannot even remotely afford that.

This could be mitigated if money were easily acquired, but grinding is very, very hard to do. You have spell slots, usually 3-4 casts of a particular magic type, before you're completely spent. Which means your healing situation is brutal. Frontliners are the only ones who can attack regularly, the back row needs those ranged weapons. So what winds up happening is nothing gets done. You go in for a little bit, fight a handful of fights, hope to god you got a coin or two so you can afford literally anything, then go back in. There is synthesis, but that's also random. You can find recipes, but near as I can tell, unless you get the specific things you're after, all these materials just take up space. I am dreading the moment it tells me "inventory full."

Lastly, I want to mention something that is so inane, it actually had me break down into fits of nervous laughter on audio last night. After much back and forth, I finally achieved one (1) level up. Excited to see the deal, we proceeded to go through each stat individually. Strength up! Int up! Wisdom down! Agility up! Luck up! HP went up by 1!

...I'm sorry, back that up a second. Did you just say Wisdom down? Are you actually telling me, in complete sincerity, that my stats went down on a level up? Are we serious? I have never, in my entire life, seen anything like this. I've seen stats go down with things like reclassing, but to have a level up occur and be told that any stat went down is so baffling it loops right around infuriating to hilarious. How in the fuck did my stats go down? I have so many questions about this. Is it stats not aligned to your class? I went for late game classes, maybe the early game ones are going to have more stats go down because I tried to roll 20+ bonus points on everyone and they're considered unnecessary. Maybe it factors in specific skills, like if we only attack on the frontline then we don't need spells? I have actually no idea, and am horrified by what I may uncover.

The bottom line is, game kinda sucks right now. This is some premium jank, and I am not yet attached enough to feel endeared to these systems. I'm going to keep at it, but no promises. If I continue to not get a foothold on it, eventually the other game I ordered will arrive, and I can't promise not to jump ship.

#class of heroes

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freelancer-chronicles · 4 years

Link

A new blog from Christian Dailey!! And here’s a link to a tweet if you prefer.

Hello Again!

Satisfying Loot Experience

Respect Your Time

- Increase the frequency of Loot Drops - Loot is viable more often; All items are better and more competitive, but there’s still a chance of getting something exceptional - All loot rarities have strategic value throughout progression

Embrace Choice

- You can pursue specific loot without relying on randomness alone; Quests; - Specialized Vendors; Unique Loot Tables - Modify your loot, including rerolling inscriptions and leveling up items

[ Image ID: A possible quest list screen featuring our Sentinel contact Brin. ]

Create a Rewarding Loot Experience

- Loot feels exciting and more noticeable when it drops, and is celebrated when collected - Rare enemies (aka “walking treasure chests”) create exciting moments to get a burst of loot all at once

There is a video here that I will add later, go to the blog to watch it for now!

Keep it Accessible and Immediate

- Reveal and equip loot right away - Complete revamp of the equipment sheet – including a detailed stat sheet (not shown) - The equipment sheet can be accessed from anywhere, allows you to easily see what you have equipped in each slot

[ Image ID: a demo inventory and weapon stat screen for Glorious Result vs Sledgehammer. ]

Reliability of Equipment and Rewards

- Each item has an inscription “budget”, based on its Power and Rarity - No more useless items because they were missing must-have inscriptions (see “Increased weapon dmg by +225%”) - Exceptional items are about getting the exact types of bonuses you want, instead of maxing values on every bonus

Scale for the Future - Your power cap can be easily increased, and the loot system scales accordingly - Advanced telemetry data allows us to identify trends and make meaningful balance changes

Other Areas of Exploration

[ Image ID: concept art for guns for Freelancers, Scar, Dominion, and Urgoth factions. ]

Until Next Time

Thank you again for your interest, curiosity and passion for Anthem. Please keep engaging online, asking questions and continuing to be part of making the game better.

Stay safe. Be kind to one another. Stronger together.

Christian

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operationrainfall · 6 years

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Title Dragon Marked for Death Developer INTI CREATES CO., LTD. Publisher INTI CREATES CO., LTD. Release Date January 31st, 2019 Genre Action RPG Platform Switch Age Rating T for Teen Official Website

Editor’s Note: For simplicity, the italicized sections represent Marisa’s impressions, while the regular ones represent Steve’s.

I recently spent some time with the latest offering from Inti Creates, Dragon Marked for Death. I went into this one expecting your standard Action RPG with some different classes and some ho hum missions. What we got was way beyond what I expected. You will hear from both myself and my partner in crime for this review, Marisa. We’ll answer the most important question of all, was this game fun?

In this game you take control of a member of the Dragonblood Clan. This was a group of humans that were caught up in the war between the Celestials and the Astral Dragons. They were saved by the blood of a dying dragon named Atruum. Why he decided to give them his blood is not known, but anyone born into the clan from this day forward would bear the Dragon Scar on their body and worship Atruum. In present day, your clan has sworn revenge on the Medius Empire for destroying your home, but first you will have to prove your place in this world as the clan isn’t seen in the best light.

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When purchasing the game, you have a couple of different options. You can take the fighter pack which contains the Empress and Warrior, or play more strategically with the Shinobi and Witch. These packs cost $14.99 each and you can purchase both if you want to have access to all four different classes. I played with the Warrior mostly, but I did check out the Empress as well. They are very similar, but the Empress seems to be a bit faster than the Warrior. She also seems to do a little less damage, but that could’ve been because the weapon I had equipped wasn’t as good as his currently equipped axe.

In terms of raw gameplay, the game does a decent job in tailoring a smooth and quick experience. Combat moves typically don’t have huge amounts of delay and it’s simple enough to access the menu and use equipped items. Characters themselves are also easy enough to understand that with practice, using their abilities is basically second-nature. Even the Witch, which relies on incantations based on repeated button inputs, is not complicated to play as. Speaking of characters, there are four different characters, two designated as Frontline attackers and two as Advanced attackers. Each has a specific playstyle, ranging from brute force to utility. This means that a party of four has tailored roles to support the group.

After the tutorial mission you will find yourself in town. Here you can visit shops, take items out of your truck and take on quests. The shops in town will provide you with weapons, accessories and consumables that will be vital to your survival. You do need to watch out when purchasing equipment, as a certain level is required to use most of it. Once you setup all your gear, it’s time to take on a quest. The objectives of these are widely varied. They can be anything from clean out the monster dens to catching up with a floating balloon. While some of these are less fun than others, variety is the spice of life and this certainly works in the game’s favor.

Combat and exploration is perhaps the game’s best attribute. Quest areas typically have treasure chests to find, along with other secrets. As usual for Inti Creates games, enemies have specific reasons behind their attacks. Like the frog enemy may suddenly do a tongue attack at times, but will only do so if you are close enough for it to trigger. For bosses, they can either have a specific pattern for attacks or have a specific animation to tell what they are about to do. As such, fighting enemies and bosses is not typically a chore. Quests themselves also help to keep gameplay variety.

Quests are where the majority of EXP and gold are received from. They can range from merely going from point A to point B, to gathering a certain amount of items, and protecting civilians. For the most part, the requirements to complete a quest are lenient. The actual main concern is the time limit. For some quests, particularly if you are playing single-player, the time limit can be exceptionally tight. If you don’t rush for the goal, you might merely have a minute or so to spare. Combined with at times bulky enemies, this aspect of the game can be rather annoying.

Unfortunately, the game’s progression can require a bit of extra work. The EXP granted from defeating enemies is typically merely a fraction of the EXP gained in a quest. Even then, much of the time completing a quest typically won’t give a level up even if your level is that suggested for the quest. What makes the issue worse is that you can only keep accessories and weapons found if you have successfully completed the quest. If you are having a difficult time completing quests, either due to running out of lives or time, minimal progress will be made. Even if you can complete quests in one go, it feels like you have to do every quest available to even keep up with the level curve. It would be best if enemies gave better EXP as to not have players feel they have to grind slowly to level up or do every quest imaginable just to complete the game.

Graphically, this is one of the best looking sprite based titles I’ve seen in quite a while. This came as no surprise to me when I found that the character designer was Toru Nakayama, known for his work on the Megaman Zero franchise. Throw in graphics designer Hirokatsu Maeda, who worked on the Gunvolt series and Blaster Master Zero, and it’s no wonder Dragon Marked for Death looks amazing.

The character designs are richly detailed and you can customize your avatar with a few colors. Enemy models are equally impressive, especially some of the bosses. That first big ogre you fight is massive and he bites the head off some guy right off the bat. I think the most impressive thing are the actual levels themselves. Some span many areas, from forest to caves, and onward to castle interiors. They are all masterfully crafted and look amazing. It really makes you want to explore each level thoroughly, not to loot items, but to take in all the amazing level design.

The soundtrack here is top notch. Most of the tracks are a mix of something you’d find in a medieval fantasy movie and a classic samurai film. The two styles mix together very well, and I found myself humming along often as I laid waste to all of the foes before me. The sound effects are pretty much what you would expect for a title like this, and you can customize the voice of your created avatar. While a few more voice choices would’ve been welcome, there is enough here to get the job done.

Combat here is your typical side scrolling hack ‘n slash. You will run around slicing up all enemies in your path. You do have some dragon skills that will allow you to do things like guard attacks, gives you some buffs or restore a bit of HP. You can also hold down the attack button to charge up for larger attacks. These usually cover more ground and do lots of damage. The odds are very much stacked against you most of the time. This is where the items you brought with you really save your bacon. The enemies will also drop some items that may fix your status aliments, give buffs or maybe even restore a bit of HP. This is all about luck and ironically, your luck stat plays into how often you get drops.

Now, this game is meant to be played with other players. Indeed, the game is best played with other people as it makes the time limit and bulky enemies much less of an issue. Having played with another online, it’s safe to say that the game runs smoothly as ever with very few issues. There was rarely a hint of lag while playing, not to mention the game’s balance became much more appropriate. That said, there were times where the other player would just disappear from the screen but was still registered on the minimap. This hasn’t affected the gameplay at all, but it was a notable visual issue hinting at an improper connection. The main issue in the end however is not so much the multiplayer itself, but rather that the game is specifically balanced around multiplayer. This is why single player is not as balanced. What could’ve been done is that if played in single player, the game merely auto-adjusts values to level the playing field.

The problem I found with the fighter classes is they simply take too much damage. The weapons have little range, so you have to be up close and personal with monsters to take them out. You do way more damage than the ranged fighters, but item management and effective dodging are very much key to staying alive. Though in general, this game is not really all that much fun in single player because of the difficulty. I highly recommended you play this one with friends via local multiplayer or the internet. Having even just one more party member that is ranged class makes a huge difference. You basically cancel out each others weaknesses and can fight as one well-oiled machine. Marisa and I played this quite a bit online and there was zero lag, and we had no issues finding each other to party up. Honestly, this is one of the smoothest online experiences I’ve had.

While I think Dragon Marked for Death isn’t balanced very well for a single player game, I think the online play more than makes up for that. There is a ton of quest variety, the levels have tons of depth and the game is just simply a blast to play with a friend. I’m not even a big fan of multiplayer games like this, and if I had more time I’d still be playing right now. I think the amount of quests here and replay value more than justify the inexpensive entry price, and hack and slash fans should grab a friend and be all over this one.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.0″]

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Game provided by the publisher for review purposes.

REVIEW: Dragon Marked for Death Title Dragon Marked for Death

#Action RPG #Dragon Marked for Death #Inti Creates #Sprite Work

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