#it was actually pretty easy and if my PC wasn't bad i could actually make animations with these title cards

[polaris-modding]

i learned how to make these and i didn't know what to put sooooooo

memes

[mdhwrites]

Was Ratio a Good Free Five Star?

TL:DR All the things that make him look bad on paper as a free five star are exactly why he was frankly a FANTASTIC choice.

But I do mean it when I say that on paper he looks like Hoyo taking an L while we get left with Ratio. Not because he's bad though. For entrenched players like me, he was exciting. A main DPS that had to have a team comp that was pretty different from a lot of the other hyper carries out there since most supports, especially the hyper carry ones, don't do debuffs. If you try Tingyun and Bronya next to him, you'll often end up missing on MASSIVE damage since you need those three debuffs on the enemies. So who supports him best? That's an exciting question for someone with a wide variety of characters.

BUT.

A free five star like this is literally never for the entrenched players. It's a nice gift to them but this sort of thing is either a sign of desperation as they plead for old players to come back or it's a marketing trick to pull new players in. As Star Rail is still one of the best in its genre monetarily and Ratio was put out specifically because of all the awards it had just won, it was clearly the latter. A way to pull people in while the buzz around the game was big. Finally convert any last Genshin players who were on the fence while also finally moving people over from ALL the other team comp focused, turn-ish based gachas out there. A flex of dominance.

With that in mind... Think about who your first half a dozen, guaranteed characters are. Only half of Trailblazer has a debuff and it lasts one turn. March 7th has her freeze on her ultimate and that lasts for one turn. Dan Heng is the only member of the team with a debuff through his skill but it's only a two turn debuff and again: requires a skill point.

Then after that, the next three guaranteed are Asta, Serval and Natasha. Asta doesn't have a debuff without her trace ability to burn on basic meaning you have to get actually a decent bit into the game to actually get a debuff through her. Serval finally gives you a long lasting debuff with her Shock DoTs and can even extend those, making her not that skill point intensive. Then Natasha is, well... A healer who eventually dispels debuffs, not adds to them.

So two planets into the game and a new player could theoretically have a team of characters who all have debuff on skill but one of those debuffs lasts one turn and they ALL need to be using their skills most rounds in order to keep up the three debuffs to guarantee Ratio has good damage... On his skill. In a game where, unless you have a limited time 5 star that ISN'T free, you only have up to five skill points a round and that's only if you used a lot of basic attacks before hand. If you invest in her, you can swap one of them for Asta who I think would have her burn on basic to help but you'd still be running at a pretty extreme deficit mostly.

That is what you're guaranteed and so the shiny five star you were given, who was pushed towards you, is... Awkward. To put it mildly. Even potentially frustrating as every time you miss with his skill is a failure and feels AWFUL. Worse yet, you can so clearly see how he could work and how he could be strong!

And that's why he's amazing as the free five star.

I've jumped into plenty of long running gacha games that had guaranteed five stars or the like and do you know what happens? They make my brain turn off entirely for the starting content because they are usually demonstrably more powerful than anything else I have and the early game content wasn't designed around them. Even 3rd Impact, which I tried to get into now that it's on PC, has this problem where early on, they actually throw so many 5 star characters at you that you have to pick and choose between them instead of literally anyone else they give you early on. It's overwhelming but it also makes any curve of power just vanish as suddenly you are tackling content already meant to be easy with a character you don't have to think about with.

Ratio (and admittedly a lot of things about Star Rail) avoids this by being a character that requires characters who can work with him to function. He DEMANDS thought and in a way that leans into Star Rail's greatest strength: The fact that team comp matters. I could do an entire blog on how I think Star Rail is genuinely a breath of fresh air for turn based combat but this really is the big one for this blog. A new player is given this new five star who not only demands intelligence as a character trait but also for gameplay purposes. Can't figure out how to make him work? Then his gift is wasted on a fool like you. Maybe find someone a bit more your speed?

And as a Seele main who's only 5 star they used (besides Trailblazer) for over a month of play was Seele when the game came out... I wouldn't have wanted to be given Seele for free. Seele is a great character but she is monstrously powerful, even when played poorly. I don't even hyper carry with my Seele and I can tell you that she'll wreck house for a LONG time just on her own. She doesn't showcase the depth and strategy of the game, especially early on, and so a new player would just think that the game is simple and basic. They'd get bored with the character they potentially see as their win button and move on to a different game.

And for those stubborn enough to go "No, I am using Ratio!" then he becomes a goal. Not only does every limited 5 star that comes out suddenly look all the more appealing if they do debuffs (Boy was Kafka a fucking perfect pairing with Ratio's banner btw) but every four star is all the more exciting because hey, do they do debuffs? How many? How efficiently? How can they fit into the dream team that made me first get into the game?

Just by existing within a player's roster, one way or another, he raises questions about the game that ask the player to dive deeper into the mechanics of the game than they would have otherwise. Makes them think more about the early game, when it's going to be at its slowest, than most mobile games would ever even risk doing until they can hope sunk cost is keeping you there. He's not just a shiny trophy but an actual hook into players, old and new.

Frankly, if I had to say anything critical about choosing him, it's that he's just not had any good content associated with him. I think his quest, especially post 2.0, will mostly be a let down for any new players who came in partially because of him, especially if they decided to force him as their main. Admittedly, he's the like ONLY good thing about that quest (I could do a blog just about why that quest is bad) but even he doesn't get to shine in it. Penacony hasn't done him any favors either with his brief appearance so far. His writing is very strong though, easily some of the best of the smart characters in Star Rail, and his personality is interesting even in those appearances so they're not all bad, just that they could easily be disappointing to those new players who had to wait a while to get to see their boy in story.

But I suppose it had to falter somewhere. Hoyo has a tough act to follow if they ever give out a free five star for Star Rail again and keeping it in the realm of those who are simply intelligent, rather than having pulled off something only a genius could, is befitting for the good doctor. Have a good day everyone and until next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[ideahat-universe]

I'm thankful for Pizza.

Hey, it's thanksgiving so lets give thanks for a variety of things.

It was honestly a pretty good year for me. Especially when it came to gaming.

Pizza Tower came out after years of waiting. I honestly would have released it shortly after the SAGE 19 demo given that the version was so well approved and already had a fanbase and a mod base for it.

But that didn't happen. Mcpig worked on more of the game, adding a bunch of stuff and removing just as many things.

There are plenty of videos about what ended up on the cutting room floor but my favorite thing is the Mansion because it was such an ambitious level that almost always had some kind of lore for its backbone only to get dropped because it was too large or too slow of a level.

Other stuff like having a two player mode with distinctly different characters to play as looked like a nice idea but in reality was just bloat.

In the end it all became mods and with a fully fledged game to cut their teeth on, modders would go absolutely bonkers with what they add and change. From making Pepperman actually functional to bringing back multiple versions of all the dropped levels the game is basically a huge success and has a really devoted mostly sane fanbase.

Emulation is here to stay

The Steam deck is a very successful device and with good reason. It's well made and easy to modify. The Steam Machine didn't work because there was no logical way into the PC market in a way that wasn't redundant.

Handhelds however were a different story. While the Switch and the 3DS dominated for years a secret project was being worked on. Handheld devices that can play multiple games from different franchises. Different developers. It wasn't streaming. It was emulation.

Emulation devices were more than just a knockoff device that Rerez would end up playing where almost all the games were bootlegs of bootlegs.

Real attempts at making real devices that could play real games using the various open source software that was available to them were being worked on.

This took many years. The PSP line actually held the title of being a really high quality emulation device but after the last couple of years true successors have been found.

The Steam deck, even with its massive potential as a device that can play thousands of games sold on the Valve store has the capabilities to easily play several generations of games flawlessly through emulation.

But it's very expensive. Which created a market of people who wanted a Steam Deck but couldn't afford one. So since the release of the release of the Steam Deck the emulation handheld scene exploded with a much sharper level of quality.

Emulation handhelds went from being Meh to Good overnight and with a massive amount of variety, portability, custom firmware, the ability to run Linux, Windows, or Android (depending on the device) and a community that easily maps out what does and doesn't work well on these devices.

Hell, half of these emulation devices already come with thousands of actual, working games on them. I bought a emulation device a couple months ago and it had Cave Story and Shovel Knight as well as several other playable stand alone titles.

There was also the option to mod a 3DS into an emulation device but if you wanted to play non Nintendo releases you were quickly entering scuffed territory (same with the PSPvita when playing Nintendo games).

If you wanted a really well rounded experience, it is more than 200 dollars but an Ayn Odin or upward would get you an impressive range of play ability.

You really are spoiled for choice these days when it comes to games which brings me to my next point.

The game industry is not video-games

I keep getting told that gaming is actually in a bad spot right now. Lots of layoffs, some truly terrible releases, and the ones that do find financial success are complete parasites sucking the blood out of willing whales.

Oh, and what was it? 90% of games being lost?

That last one sounds really bad on paper until you realize that all of human history is like that. Can you even imagine all the stories that were lost to time because the average man couldn't read or write or how certain experimental attempts at music were forgotten because they were before the age of music recording, made by a person whose work was too far ahead of its time?

Hell, a centuries' worth of film is lost because the owner of the property threw it away or it was destroyed in a fire or the original copy naturally degraded over time and there were no other copies of it or even worse, the original was edited meaning that the original master copy was effectively erased.

I get it. We shouldn't have games become unplayable due to bullshit DRM or the game needing a remote server to run or it being tied down to very specifically designed hardware and firmware but to act like gaming is going extinct is hyperbolic.

The reality is that for most people, a life time's worth of video games is already at your fingertips.

It's just a fact, you have way more games than you do time on earth to play them all and any game that becomes lost to the sands of time can probably be recreated as long as you aren't a stickler for copyright.

It's never been easier to play older games and it's never been easier to make a game simply running on the inspiration of a dead or mishandled franchise.

All the stuff about the layoffs and big game studios feeling the squeeze?

THAT'S GOOD.

The reality is that gaming as an art is doing just fine. If you make a really nice game that comes from the heart, even if when it's technically just okay. You can find some kind of success out of making it and people will have fun playing it. No triple A publisher would green light a Visual Novel like Slay the Princess even though Slay the Princess is probably the greatest Renpy visual novel game that has ever been made (which was tough competition seeing as it had to beat Doki Doki and Snoot game) and will have a profit margin which is more than I can say about Gollum.

Aside from whales who vary between being addicts and people with good jobs but no one in their life to dump money into (you can decide for yourself which one is sadder, having a crippling addiction or having nothing in your life other than Genshin Impact), the real thing keeping Triple A gaming afloat was investors.

As someone who is knee deep in the investment field, infinite growth is a real delusion pressed upon by stock holders. If you do the same as last year people want to sell the shares and buy something with moon potential. Sure literally every world renown investor whose word is so valuable stadiums get packed just to hear what they have to say in 0.5 speed (those old men take their time to deliver a speech) will tell you to find something that is stable enough while also offering value in the form of good dividends. From Warren Buffet to the Motley Fool they'll tell you to buy and hold for decades.

But uhh, people want their generational wealth now and if you have enough of those psychos in the boardroom when you decide the direction of your video game company you're going to get into some shit and into some shit a lot of them did.

But now investors are feeling the pinch so it's harder to press your thumb on the CEO when you have to sell off some assets just to make sure you don't end up in a bad spot.

But don't feel too bad for those big suits. They got used to gamblers throwing money at them so when money started drying out they cut talent rather than their paychecks which tells you what they really value in a company (I mean is it a surprise? When you've never worked in the industry you're a Chief Executive Officer in, you don't even think about if something is or isn't replaceable).

So you should be prepared for a crash, a lot of stuff is going to fall over if they don't figure out a restructure that doesn't accounts for priced in growth.

But um, like I said. There are thousands of playable complete, and easily modded games out there for you to play. You don't need to play a new game every year. arguably if you've never played it, heard of it, or know anything about it, that game IS NEW. For you.

So go play it. And if the game you want to play absolutely doesn't exist then ya know what.

[willddheartt]

24 Days | Wilbur Soot

30 days to fall in love with someone? Sounds easy right? It would be if that person wasn’t so unbelievably annoying in almost every sense.

You’re not sure how you found yourself in this situation, but you were positive there was no backing out now…

Series Warnings: Mostly fluff and angst, and a very poorly constructed enemies to lovers plot.

Word Count: 1685

Masterlist Series Masterlist

24 Days

It was Friday, you were in the middle of doing your two-hour-long stream that you did every Friday. Since you took weekends off from your own streams you did a long one every week. It worked out, you seemed to get a lot more views on Friday anyways.  All the donos seemed to ask about you and Wilbur, you forced a smile to tell everyone you guys were well and that you’re very happy together. The viewers seemed to be happy with your responses and didn't catch you falter.  You were on the DreamSMP cleaning up things and repairing things from any creeper explosions, as having holes in the walkways annoyed you to no end because it didn't look pleasing to the eye. Many ties you were passed by Fundy, Tubbo, and even Tommy.  The in-game chat stated to be spammed by Tommy, VC 2 VC 2 VC 2 over and over again. 

“Well chat, let’s see what Tommy wants,” You giggled and switched to discord.  “Hello Tommy,” You smiled, wondering what type of shenanigans he was up to today, you noticed he was also streaming so you knew it was something that was going to be very entertaining to the stream.  “Y/N!” He yelled  “Tommy!” You yelled back, matching his energy.  “How do you do?” His sudden calm tone almost made you burst into a fit of laughter.  “I do well, Thomas. What are you up to tonight?” You asked, smiling to yourself when using his full name.  “Well, you see, Y/N. See here’s the thing. I am out of supplies, I don’t even have iron to my name Y/N-” “Do you want me to help you get some?” You offered, cutting him off  “Well, actually I was hoping you could just give me some.”  “Tommy,” You laughed, “That’s- unfortunately, that not how it works my friend.” You paused, taking a sip of your water, “I am more than willing to help you go mining, I know a pretty good spot actually, but I’m not going to just give you stuff for nothing.”  “C’mon Y/N you could write it off your taxes as a charity donation,”  You had to give it to him, although Tommy could be annoying at times he was so effortlessly funny, you were almost certain that he didn't even have to try. 

“Ah yes, hang on let me see what I have to give to Tommy’s charity fund,” You laughed, looking through your inventory, pondering for a few moments, making it look like you were going to give him half your stack of iron only our stream before clicking to the three seeds you’d picked up some time ago and throwing them at his feet. His character's head went from looking at you to the seeds, then back to you and back to the seeds again, you pulled up his stream on your other monitor so you could see his face, trying so hard to not burst out into laughter when you saw his unamused look. 

Feeling bad you pulled up a donation, giving Tommy Five bucks so the text-to-speech would work, “Tommy Charity Fund.” You sent and waited for it to go through.  He paused, hearing the dono tts voice, before looking back up at you in the game.  “Fuck you,” He said running away. You couldn't suppress your laughter any longer and it all fell out at once, chat exploded into laughter and emotes, everyone found it hilarious.

A few seconds after you were still in the voice chat with Tommy, he had ventured off to go mining, I guess stealing from people wasn't going well. Since the last war, nobody has really been gathering supplies, taking a break from the lore to just get things done around the server. Tommy still bringing up the ‘charity fund’ you found it hilarious. 

“You’re a bitch you know that,” He mumbled, you knew he was only joking, with Tommy you never took anything to heart, if he had a true problem with you, you know he would message you privately.  “Tommy,” Wilbur's voice came over discord, making you jump slightly.  “Hi Wilbur,” He said, sounding like a little kid when their mom gets them in trouble.  “Apologize to Y/N.'' Wilbur's voice was playful, yet stern, sounding exactly like the older brother who was put in charge of his younger siblings. 

After a second, you could see Tommy bow his head on his stream that was still pulled up on your other monitor.  “Sorry, Y/N. You’re not a bitch.” He said  “It’s okay Tommy,” You chuckled  “Thank you.” Spoke Wilbur before leaving the voice chat. 

You and Tommy stayed on call until his stream ended. You were left alone, talking to your chat. Without anyone else there to keep a consistent conversation you started to daze off, forgetting you were on stream, yawning and leaning forward onto your desk. Your back hurt from how long you’d been sat in front of the monitor. 

Your discord made a noise again, but this time you didn’t bother tabbing out to see who had joined.  “Hey, Y/N,” Wilburs soft voice came across your headphones  “Will,” You smiled, sitting up  “You look tired, how long have you been up?” He asked 

You looked at the clock, it was only 11 PM but you could have sworn it was later.  “Since one,”  “AM or PM?” Will asked  You looked down, “AM,” You mumbled. “You should go to bed,” He said You sighed, knowing he could break you eventually, as your eyelids were drooping shut and your eyes were burning. “Its not even that long, Wil, I’m fine.” You argued 

“How long have you been streaming?” Wilbur asked  “I’m almost at my five hour mark, I’m like forty-five minutes away,”  “End your stream early and get ready for bed than we can chat,” His voice was soft and warm speaking over your stream, your chat exploded, loving Wilbur and you together.  “But I’m so close, just a few more minutes,” You sighed, tabbing out of your game and switching the stream to a full face cam. “I’m sure they wont mind if you end a little early, you've been streaming for a while, love.” He continued, slowly wearing you down. “I can even entertain your chat for a bit while you go get ready for bed, or even make yourself a cup of tea, then when you come back, it will be close enough that you can end the stream, how does that sound?”  You sighed, knowing he had won. You looked at chat and back to the timer of how long you've been on stream, “Okay.” You nodded. 

“Alright Chat, I’m sorry for ending early but you heard the man. Next week will be extra long to make up for this, I promise.” You said, looking at the chat, everyone was spamming ‘goodnight’ and ‘goodbye’  “It was nice spending this fine evening with you all, but I must go now, I will see everyone Monday. Bye!” You ended stream 

“Hi, Wilbur,” You smiled to yourself after ending stream  “I’m going to call your number now, and you can go get ready for bed, okay?” He said  “Alright, Wil,” you nodded, closing all the windows you had open on your pc. 

After shutting everything off you grabbed what you needed and went to the bathroom. Wilbur called you halfway through taking your makeup off, you had eyeliner smudged all around your eyes when you answered his facetime.  When his face popped up on your screen, he was wearing his glasses and a big smile, his hair was a mess and he was already in bed. 

“Getting ready for bed?” He asked, as if he didn't already know.  “Of course,” You shook your head, leaning closer to the mirror making sure you had all the bits of makeup taken off before washing your face with warm water  Picking up your phone you held up a peace sign, making Wil laugh and attempt to take a sneaky screenshot.  “Hey, no, delete that, I look terrible.” You quickly argued after hearing the noise.  “You do not.” He was fast to respond. “You look refreshed, you're glowing.” you shook your head at him as you walked back to your room through the dark house. 

Your roommate had already gone to bed, close to an hour ago. You were always the last person up, being an internet person with many American friends who are in a different time zone and a night owl at heart. You flopped down into your soft pillows, pulling your duvet over yourself and propping your phone up on your laptop so you could still see Wilbur and he could see you. You pulled the corner of the blanket up to hide your face. 

“Don't do that, I want to see your face,” Wilbur frowned.  “No you don’t,” You shook your head  “Yes,” He spoke, “I do.” You moved the blanket so it wasn't all the way covering your face but it was still pulled up enough that your shoulders were covered.  “You realize next week you’ll be here for your stream?” Wilbur said.  “I do now,” You pinched the bridge of your nose, “I’m sorry, I didn't think of that,”  “Its okay, you can stream from my computer,” He smiled. “It will surprise chat,”  “Oh my god, can you imagine, they're going to go crazy,” You chuckled  “They will,”

Wilbur continued to tell you about how he was truly getting excited to have you meet him in person, but his soft voice had been lulling you to sleep, your eyelids struggling to stay open and your warm bed weighing you down. Eventually you were out. Wilbur didn't notice until he asked you a question and did not respond. Your laptop screen was still shining light on you, and he saw you were asleep against the black screen, smiling at you. He snuck another screenshot, making sure the sound was off this time. 

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He said sweetly before getting comfortable in bed himself and slowly drifting off.