I was watching the final game of the NFL regular season on tv last night when a very interesting commercial came on. It would seem that after 12 years and 21 seasons on US tv the reality show The Amazing Race is finally coming to Canada. They're changing things up by containing the entire thing within Canada itself and not traveling all over the world. I would imagine the primary reason for doing this is to keep costs down but I figure Canada is a pretty good country for traveling around in given how big it is and how many diverse climates exist.
Applications are now up on the CTV website. From the reading I've done it looks like any Canadian (or permanent resident) who is over 19 years old is eligible. Since it's all within Canada you don't need a passport. You need to be willing to block off a month this spring (you need to be 19 by April 1st so I'd guess it starts after that date). You need to be physically and mentally fit enough to race around the country and do all kinds of crazy things. You need to submit an application by the end of February. Oh, and you need a teammate.
It seems like you're allowed to submit as many different teams as you want, though the FAQ is certainly worded in such a way as to make it seem like doing so won't really help your chances. They want the show to be about relationships and racing so they want interesting teams. Now, I must confess that despite really liking the show the few times I watched it I never really went out of my way to find out when it was on. So I don't know if awkward smart guy with an awful lot of quirks is something that they'd find interesting enough. But I do know I want to give this a try if at all possible.
So... Anyone want to bugger off work for a month and go on a cross country adventure? I'd say the odds of getting on are pretty slim but we should be able to figure out some way to game the system! The prize is still unknown but is undoubtedly a reasonable chunk of cash. Oh, and a chance to be awesome. Who doesn't want to be awesome?
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Final Fantasy VII: Mini-Games
When someone asks me what actually links the Final Fantasy games together I tend to answer with a list of similarities. Turn based combat systems. Magic. Summoned monsters. An epic storyline. A guy named Cid. Chocobos. Challenge bosses. Side quests. Mini-games. Magical crystals. The same sets of spells. While playing Final Fantasy VII recently I've been thinking about the mini-games part and how there seemed to be an awful lot of them. And then I tried to think of mini-games from any other game I've played so far in this marathon and only managed to think of a single one: the sliding tile puzzle in the original Final Fantasy which was more easter egg than legitimate mini-game. (It turns out there's a memory game easter egg in FFII as well?) Maybe you could count the battle arena and the multi-party Mog combat in FFVI but those feel more like extensions of the regular combat system than an actual mini-game.
Why would that be? I think mini-games are a fundamental aspect of Final Fantasy games but they didn't even exist at all until FFVII? What happened? I think the big revolution that let them start happening was the switch by Square from the Nintendo series of consoles to the CD based PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 (the comparable system at the time) had a cartridge size from 4MB to 64MB. A CD for the PS could hold 700MB and games could easily span multiple CDs. FFVII came on 3 disks. FFVIII and FFIX each had 4 disks. You can have a lot more stuff over 2800MB than you can have crammed into 4MB. This is what made the awesome FMV sequences possible but I'm thinking it's also what allowed mini-games to flourish as well. FFII was going to be ported from Japan to the US but they couldn't find space in an NES cartridge to fit an English translation. They were having to rewrite from scratch when the project was cancelled in order to do FFIV instead. I can't imagine them finding space on the FFVI cartridge to fit in a snowboarding mini-game when they couldn't find space to include vocals for their opera scene.
FFVII has been absolutely inundated with mini-games. It certainly helps that there's an actual arcade in the game that could be used as a logical place to replay the mini-games but it's felt like I couldn't go a dungeon or two without hitting one. Snowboarding, motorcycle combat, attack subs, rock-paper-scissors boxing, basketball, whatever the heck Mog House is, tactical combat at Fort Condor, triangulation digging, a shooter roller coaster, the battle arena, and most importantly chocobo raising/racing. On top of that there's a ton of one-shot mini-games where you have to press buttons at the right time in the right sequence. Also body heat management, kicking barrels at Aeris, a lot of the cross-dressing stuff, the Shinra parade, and CPR.
The sheer number of such mini-games has felt a little jarring at times, especially compared to the none at all from previous games, but they give a ton of diversions along the way. I'm on disk 3 and close to finishing the game except I haven't done anything with chocobo racing or the battle arena. I haven't yet decided if I want to just go kill Sephiroth soon or if I want to do the chocobo stuff first. I've raised a gold chocobo in the past so I don't feel a pressing need to do it, but I remember it being fun...
Why would that be? I think mini-games are a fundamental aspect of Final Fantasy games but they didn't even exist at all until FFVII? What happened? I think the big revolution that let them start happening was the switch by Square from the Nintendo series of consoles to the CD based PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 (the comparable system at the time) had a cartridge size from 4MB to 64MB. A CD for the PS could hold 700MB and games could easily span multiple CDs. FFVII came on 3 disks. FFVIII and FFIX each had 4 disks. You can have a lot more stuff over 2800MB than you can have crammed into 4MB. This is what made the awesome FMV sequences possible but I'm thinking it's also what allowed mini-games to flourish as well. FFII was going to be ported from Japan to the US but they couldn't find space in an NES cartridge to fit an English translation. They were having to rewrite from scratch when the project was cancelled in order to do FFIV instead. I can't imagine them finding space on the FFVI cartridge to fit in a snowboarding mini-game when they couldn't find space to include vocals for their opera scene.
FFVII has been absolutely inundated with mini-games. It certainly helps that there's an actual arcade in the game that could be used as a logical place to replay the mini-games but it's felt like I couldn't go a dungeon or two without hitting one. Snowboarding, motorcycle combat, attack subs, rock-paper-scissors boxing, basketball, whatever the heck Mog House is, tactical combat at Fort Condor, triangulation digging, a shooter roller coaster, the battle arena, and most importantly chocobo raising/racing. On top of that there's a ton of one-shot mini-games where you have to press buttons at the right time in the right sequence. Also body heat management, kicking barrels at Aeris, a lot of the cross-dressing stuff, the Shinra parade, and CPR.
The sheer number of such mini-games has felt a little jarring at times, especially compared to the none at all from previous games, but they give a ton of diversions along the way. I'm on disk 3 and close to finishing the game except I haven't done anything with chocobo racing or the battle arena. I haven't yet decided if I want to just go kill Sephiroth soon or if I want to do the chocobo stuff first. I've raised a gold chocobo in the past so I don't feel a pressing need to do it, but I remember it being fun...
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Final Fantasy VII: More Awesome Cutscenes
As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I didn't recall ever being terribly impressed with the FMV scenes in Final Fantasy VII in previous plays. Be it some function of playing it after FFVIII, or playing it after FFX, or initially playing it on a really old CRT tv I just never got what other people would get excited about. But man, playing it on the PSP has been pretty awesome. The screen resolution is apparently only 480x272 and a whopping 4.3 inches but the videos come out without any pixelation or anything.
I just watched a couple FMVs in sequence near the end of disk 2 which were pretty amazing. The music in the second one was really great at setting the mood, too. They're so good I wanted to share them here, though it turned out when finding them on youtube that the picture quality isn't quite as impressive. But still pretty great and worth watching.
For those who may not have played the game, and who don't mind spoilers from a 16 year old game, or who may just need a refresher...
There are 4 main groups in the game. My party is a group of eco-terrorists trying to save the planet from a corporation (Shinra) which is making a profit by mining the life force out of the planet. Sephiroth is an alien zombie thing which is trying to merge himself with the life force of the planet in an attempt to become super powerful. In order to do that he's summoned a giant meteor to plow into the planet which the intention of making the planet gather a ton of life force in one spot to heal the wound. Shinra is fighting Sephiroth because his plan will wipe them out. We're fighting both of them because they're both killing the planet. The fourth group is the planet itself which has summoned up some ancient robot weapon things to defend itself from Shinra and Sephiroth. But it's not really sentient so it doesn't know we're trying to help it out so we end up having to fight these weapons too.
This scene comes about right after my party wounded Diamond Weapon, the giant robot thing that was trying to destroy the Shinra capital. Meanwhile the Shinra people have cobbled together a huge weapon and intend to shoot Sephiroth with it...
We head off to check out Sephiroth now that his big shield thing got blasted away when we get some bad news... With the Shinra president dead his underlings have started to do crazy things. One of them has decided to help Sephiroth out by shooting more lifeforce at him from the cannon which hasn't had time to cool down. It's going to overload and blow up the city killing a ton of people. We want to go in and stop this from happening but another underling would rather let Hojo destroy the city and kill us himself than let us through. So we've got our work cut out for us getting in... The result? We're going to parachute in! (This video is longer than just the parachute bit, I couldn't find a good video with just the jump lead-in.)
I don't really understand how either Red XIII or Cait Sith can use a parachute, but whatever. Suspension of disbelief!
These videos are one thing that really makes FFVII stand out from the rest of the games I've played thus far.
I just watched a couple FMVs in sequence near the end of disk 2 which were pretty amazing. The music in the second one was really great at setting the mood, too. They're so good I wanted to share them here, though it turned out when finding them on youtube that the picture quality isn't quite as impressive. But still pretty great and worth watching.
For those who may not have played the game, and who don't mind spoilers from a 16 year old game, or who may just need a refresher...
There are 4 main groups in the game. My party is a group of eco-terrorists trying to save the planet from a corporation (Shinra) which is making a profit by mining the life force out of the planet. Sephiroth is an alien zombie thing which is trying to merge himself with the life force of the planet in an attempt to become super powerful. In order to do that he's summoned a giant meteor to plow into the planet which the intention of making the planet gather a ton of life force in one spot to heal the wound. Shinra is fighting Sephiroth because his plan will wipe them out. We're fighting both of them because they're both killing the planet. The fourth group is the planet itself which has summoned up some ancient robot weapon things to defend itself from Shinra and Sephiroth. But it's not really sentient so it doesn't know we're trying to help it out so we end up having to fight these weapons too.
This scene comes about right after my party wounded Diamond Weapon, the giant robot thing that was trying to destroy the Shinra capital. Meanwhile the Shinra people have cobbled together a huge weapon and intend to shoot Sephiroth with it...
We head off to check out Sephiroth now that his big shield thing got blasted away when we get some bad news... With the Shinra president dead his underlings have started to do crazy things. One of them has decided to help Sephiroth out by shooting more lifeforce at him from the cannon which hasn't had time to cool down. It's going to overload and blow up the city killing a ton of people. We want to go in and stop this from happening but another underling would rather let Hojo destroy the city and kill us himself than let us through. So we've got our work cut out for us getting in... The result? We're going to parachute in! (This video is longer than just the parachute bit, I couldn't find a good video with just the jump lead-in.)
I don't really understand how either Red XIII or Cait Sith can use a parachute, but whatever. Suspension of disbelief!
These videos are one thing that really makes FFVII stand out from the rest of the games I've played thus far.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Blood Bowl: Line Up And Punch?
I've noticed that there's a tendency in Blood Bowl games for the players to ultimately end up lined up beside each other ready for a shoving match. Often it seems like one team or the other fails a roll on their turn (either by missing a dodge away from the line-up or by rolling skulls in a hit of their own) with disastrous consequences. Snuggles scored a touchdown against me yesterday when I failed a 1 in 6 chance near the start of my turn 3 turns in a row. Robb keeps getting a third of his team casualtied out on dodge rolls. I figure there's got to be a better way to go about doing things and wanted to really look at the turnover chances of different actions dealing with a line brawl.
Dodge away (2 agility, no dodge skill) - 1 in 2 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (2 agility, dodge skill) - 1 in 4 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (3 agility, no dodge skill) - 1 in 3 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (3 agility, dodge skill) - 1 in 9 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (4 agility, no dodge skill) - 1 in 6 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (4 agility, dodge skill) - 1 in 36 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 1 die block) - 1 in 3 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 1 die block) - 1 in 6 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 1 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 9 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 1 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 36 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 2 die block) - 1 in 9 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (2 agility, no dodge skill) - 1 in 2 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (2 agility, dodge skill) - 1 in 4 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (3 agility, no dodge skill) - 1 in 3 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (3 agility, dodge skill) - 1 in 9 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (4 agility, no dodge skill) - 1 in 6 chance of a turnover.
Dodge away (4 agility, dodge skill) - 1 in 36 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 1 die block) - 1 in 3 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 1 die block) - 1 in 6 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 1 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 9 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 1 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 36 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 2 die block) - 1 in 9 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 2 die block) - 1 in 36 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 2 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 81 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 2 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 81 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 2 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 1296 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 3 die block) - 1 in 27 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 3 die block) - 1 in 216 chance of a turnover.
Punch (no block skill, 3 die block, reroll available) - 1 in 729 chance of a turnover.
Punch (block skill, 3 die block) - 1 in 46656 chance of a turnover.
Stand still - no chance of a turnover.
What if you stand still? What are your chances of getting knocked down on the opposing punch?
2 die, no block, no dodge, opponent no block - 5 in 9
2 die, no block, no dodge, opponent block - 3 in 4
2 die, no block, dodge, opponent no block - 11 in 36
2 die, no block, dodge, opponent block - 5 in 9
2 die, block, no dodge, opponent no block - 5 in 9
2 die, block, no dodge, opponent block - 5 in 9
2 die, block, dodge, opponent no block - 11 in 36
2 die, block, dodge, opponent block - 11 in 36
1 die, no block, no dodge, opponent no block - 1 in 3
1 die, no block, no dodge, opponent block - 1 in 2
1 die, no block, dodge, opponent no block - 1 in 6
1 die, no block, dodge, opponent block - 1 in 3
1 die, block, no dodge, opponent no block - 1 in 3
1 die, block, no dodge, opponent block - 1 in 3
1 die, block, dodge, opponent no block - 1 in 6
1 die, block, dodge, opponent block - 1 in 6
If they have a 2 die block lined up already without needing to move anyone, without block, and you have 3 agility without dodge then dodging away causes your guy to go down 1 in 3 times. Just standing around causes him to go down 5 in 9 times, or almost twice as often. But you need to consider that forcing them to throw that block gives them a 1 in 9 chance themselves of generating a turnover (or using up a reroll) and uses up their own guy's turn when he might well have had something better to do. If it's only a 1 die block then you have the same odds of falling down either way but give your opponent a free 1 in 3 chance of falling down themselves. Or you make them dedicate a second guy to coming over and thugging you just to get back to the first case.
If it's a 1 die situation then you may be better off throwing a punch yourself. Certainly compared to dodging away you have the same fail chances and a different (and probably better) positive result (you knock him over as opposed to you running away).
Guys with 4 agility have a much better set of options. 1 in 6 to dodge away is a lot safer than 5 in 9 on a return punch. Especially when you assume that 4 agility guys will tend to have less armour and be more likely to have the dodge skill and you can see where dodging away can be a good plan. Even then, if you make enough 1 in 6 rolls you will get your turnover so you should take any 'free' actions first just in case.
The block skill numbers on throwing 2 die blocks are pretty huge. I have a chaos team I play in a public league and I find I'm constantly falling over. I only have a 1 in 9 chance to fall down but I built the team with only 1 reroll and often found myself throwing 6+ punches in a turn. I'm going to fall over a lot with this plan. Just getting block on some guys (or buying more rerolls) will go a long way to how good a line brawl is for my chaos team.
These numbers in particular are why dwarves are so ridiculous at low levels. They have block on pretty much the whole team. They have tackle on pretty much the whole team (negating opposing dodge skills which both means the dwarf blocks are better and the enemy dodge aways are worse) so they present enemy teams with two losing options when they engage in a line brawl. Either you dodge away (causing lots of turnovers) or you stand still (causing lots of safe thuggings) or you try to fight back (dwarves have high armour so they don't mind getting punched as much as other people). Eventually the other teams will get more block themselves and negate some of that early advantage. They'll also buy more rerolls to allow for more dodge aways or riskier blocks.
I wonder if the solution with the faster, squishier teams is to not line guys up near the line of scrimmage? Try to spread the play out over a larger area to try to keep the line brawl from developing? You're going to give up the guys on the line of scrimmage but maybe that's a small price to pay?
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Final Fantasy VII: Morph
I've reached the point in the game where I've acquired the submarine and can go exploring the ocean floor. One of the things down there is an airship containing powerful monsters which are the primary way to completely twinking out your party. Each of the monsters that can spawn down there can be killed with the morph skill (does 1/8th attack damage but if it gets the killing blow the monster turns into an item) to obtain stat sources. Drinking these sources is the way to max out your stats. I vaguely recall finding this place the first time I played the game way back in the day and then just sitting around morphing them for days until I was awesome. I get drawn to being awesome so I found myself doing that on the bus yesterday despite it being pretty difficult at this point in time. (Pretty sure last time I did it was later in the game so I was higher level.) Of course, it's one of those things where the more I do it the faster it will become since Yuffie will start hitting harder with her morph and everyone will be higher level so they'll have and easier time surviving the brutal enemies.
I'm pretty sure going to find Yuffie's ultimate weapon would be a good idea since it does a bunch of bonus damage that I think works with morph. (Turns out it's actually in the sunken plane... I guess I missed a room or something and need to head back!) But beyond that, I was wondering if there's anything else really worth morphing. I morphed pretty much everything I could the first time I played (including killing Sephiroth solely with morph damage... He didn't turn into anything which made me really sad. Come on, Square... Turn him into a potion or something!) but that gets tedious. I want to skip that tedium by using the power of the internets...
Unfortunately the internets are failing me here. Surprisingly it would seem no one has bothered to make and analyze a list of morphable items. I did find what purports to be a list of items and I guess I can go through the list to see if any of them are interesting...
Escort Guard - interesting armour item with 6 linked slots and good elemental defenses, morphed from iron man who appears to only exist during the end game sequence
Guard Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 4 monsters (in Mount Corel, Gelnika, Mideel, or the final dungeon)
Guide Book - used to get the underwater materia and morphed in the underwater tunnel which I've already passed and therefore might not be able to get? Apparently it might also spawn in the battle arena?
Luck Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 1 monster (Gelnika)
Magic Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 2 monsters (Temple of the Ancients, Gelnika)
Mind Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 3 monsters (Whirlwind Mazex2, Gelnika)
Power Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 3 monsters (Gongag Reactor, Mount Nibel, Gelnika)
Ribbon - makes you immune to negative status conditions, can be morphed from Master Tonberry in the final dungeon
Speed Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 1 monster (Gelnika)
So really it looks like morphing isn't much use except maybe at the end of the game to finish up some gear, to make killing emerald weapon easier, and to twink out your stats. So I'm not missing much, except that thing I probably already missed. Oh well! Tomorrow on the way to work I'm definitely going back to see how I missed Yuffie's ultimate weapon and then probably morph some dudes. Or maybe I'll just continue the plot because I've already done the morphing a ton of dudes thing in the past? I donno.
I'm pretty sure going to find Yuffie's ultimate weapon would be a good idea since it does a bunch of bonus damage that I think works with morph. (Turns out it's actually in the sunken plane... I guess I missed a room or something and need to head back!) But beyond that, I was wondering if there's anything else really worth morphing. I morphed pretty much everything I could the first time I played (including killing Sephiroth solely with morph damage... He didn't turn into anything which made me really sad. Come on, Square... Turn him into a potion or something!) but that gets tedious. I want to skip that tedium by using the power of the internets...
Unfortunately the internets are failing me here. Surprisingly it would seem no one has bothered to make and analyze a list of morphable items. I did find what purports to be a list of items and I guess I can go through the list to see if any of them are interesting...
Escort Guard - interesting armour item with 6 linked slots and good elemental defenses, morphed from iron man who appears to only exist during the end game sequence
Guard Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 4 monsters (in Mount Corel, Gelnika, Mideel, or the final dungeon)
Guide Book - used to get the underwater materia and morphed in the underwater tunnel which I've already passed and therefore might not be able to get? Apparently it might also spawn in the battle arena?
Luck Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 1 monster (Gelnika)
Magic Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 2 monsters (Temple of the Ancients, Gelnika)
Mind Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 3 monsters (Whirlwind Mazex2, Gelnika)
Power Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 3 monsters (Gongag Reactor, Mount Nibel, Gelnika)
Ribbon - makes you immune to negative status conditions, can be morphed from Master Tonberry in the final dungeon
Speed Source - gives you 1 permanent stat increase, can be morphed from 1 monster (Gelnika)
So really it looks like morphing isn't much use except maybe at the end of the game to finish up some gear, to make killing emerald weapon easier, and to twink out your stats. So I'm not missing much, except that thing I probably already missed. Oh well! Tomorrow on the way to work I'm definitely going back to see how I missed Yuffie's ultimate weapon and then probably morph some dudes. Or maybe I'll just continue the plot because I've already done the morphing a ton of dudes thing in the past? I donno.
Monday, December 24, 2012
League of Legends: Penetration Changes
I played a ranked 3v3 game on the weekend with Robb and Adam that really got me thinking. The other team played 3 spell damage based champions. This feels wrong on the surface for a couple of reasons... The first being that typically melee bruisers dominate the map and they didn't have any at all. The second is they all did the same type of damage. As such our team could get away with ignoring armour and focus entirely on magic resistance as a defensive stat. They ended up blowing us apart. We stacked magic resist (maybe not as early as we should have, but we definitely had a lot by the end) but they stacked spell penetration and it really seemed to do quite a job on us. I did some rough napkin math after the game and thought my MR of around 150 was cut down to around 50 with the items they bought. That's a lot like not having any MR at all!
The season 3 changes made resists more expensive to buy and changed the way penetration stacking worked. Did those two changes combine in such a way to make it impossible to actually build defensively? Would we have been better off stacking health? Should we have ignored defenses entirely and just hoped we could burst them out before they could burst us out? We did have Kayle on the team so it's plausible that we could have glass cannoned them out. I want to look more into how penetration is set up now to get some answers...
Enemy Rumble:
8.55 magic pen from runes
8% magic pen from masteries
15 magic pen from blackfire torch
35% magic pen from void staff
Enemy Diana:
8.55 magic pen from runes
8% magic pen from masteries
15 magic pen from blackfire torch
15 magic pen from sorcerer's shoes
35% magic pen from void staff
I had 173 magic resist at the end of the game if my wit's end was stacked up. With the new way of calculating penetration, and using Diana as she had the most in this game... My actual magic resist against her was 173*(1-.43)-38.55=60. Under the old way it would have been (173-38.55)*(1-.43)=77. A difference of 17 which doesn't sound that huge, but it works out to about 11% more damage taken.
What about if I'd gone for health instead? 130 of my magic resist came from items bought more or less solely for the magic resist. Without those I would have had 43 magic resist. Under the new way of calculating penetration that would leave me with 43*(1-.43)-38.55= -14, except the formula has a cap of 0 for magic penetration. So I would have had 0. For reference, under the old way I would have had (43-38.55)*(1-.43)=2.5 magic resistance.
I have to spitball an amount of health here, but I figure I spent 7350G on the magic resist items and could have bought something like 1550 more health with an overlord's bloodmail, phage, and rylai's. That's only 6820 but it's close enough. In the actual game I had 2400 health (with 300 from my magic resist items), so I could have gone up to 3650 health. 60 magic resist means I take 62.5% damage from magic sources, so my actual EH would have been 3840. With the health items I would have been at 3650 EH. Unfortunately the blackfire torch also does a magic damage dot and scales based on my max health so even if they'd been about even it would have been worse to stack health. That said, focusing a good chunk of my money on either health or magic resist has about the same impact on surviving, and neither one would have been good enough in the actual game as it turned out. Magic resist was still better than health even with some of the magic penetration wasted in the health build by dropping me below 0.
Ignoring any defensive stats at all and going full glass cannon would have meant I'd die very quickly. I'd have had 0 magic resist and only 2100 health. Maybe this would have been a reasonable plan against a single target team but having melee bruisers against Rumble/Diana/Alistar meant bad things with all the AE damage they did. I don't know that we could have bursted them out even if we'd skipped defensive stats, especially since they had 2.5s immunities from items themselves.
So maybe it was a team comp failure? I donno. We'd just won a game pretty handily with the same setup, but they were playing a typical setup with Olaf/Rengar/Chogath. Maybe we could have won if we'd played tighter? One thing that is pretty clear to me though is stacking a damage type is not the end of the world anymore. At least with magic damage there's more than enough good penetration items around (they didn't even buy abyssal scepter) to completely negate any threat of stacking magic resist.
The season 3 changes made resists more expensive to buy and changed the way penetration stacking worked. Did those two changes combine in such a way to make it impossible to actually build defensively? Would we have been better off stacking health? Should we have ignored defenses entirely and just hoped we could burst them out before they could burst us out? We did have Kayle on the team so it's plausible that we could have glass cannoned them out. I want to look more into how penetration is set up now to get some answers...
Enemy Rumble:
8.55 magic pen from runes
8% magic pen from masteries
15 magic pen from blackfire torch
35% magic pen from void staff
Enemy Diana:
8.55 magic pen from runes
8% magic pen from masteries
15 magic pen from blackfire torch
15 magic pen from sorcerer's shoes
35% magic pen from void staff
I had 173 magic resist at the end of the game if my wit's end was stacked up. With the new way of calculating penetration, and using Diana as she had the most in this game... My actual magic resist against her was 173*(1-.43)-38.55=60. Under the old way it would have been (173-38.55)*(1-.43)=77. A difference of 17 which doesn't sound that huge, but it works out to about 11% more damage taken.
What about if I'd gone for health instead? 130 of my magic resist came from items bought more or less solely for the magic resist. Without those I would have had 43 magic resist. Under the new way of calculating penetration that would leave me with 43*(1-.43)-38.55= -14, except the formula has a cap of 0 for magic penetration. So I would have had 0. For reference, under the old way I would have had (43-38.55)*(1-.43)=2.5 magic resistance.
I have to spitball an amount of health here, but I figure I spent 7350G on the magic resist items and could have bought something like 1550 more health with an overlord's bloodmail, phage, and rylai's. That's only 6820 but it's close enough. In the actual game I had 2400 health (with 300 from my magic resist items), so I could have gone up to 3650 health. 60 magic resist means I take 62.5% damage from magic sources, so my actual EH would have been 3840. With the health items I would have been at 3650 EH. Unfortunately the blackfire torch also does a magic damage dot and scales based on my max health so even if they'd been about even it would have been worse to stack health. That said, focusing a good chunk of my money on either health or magic resist has about the same impact on surviving, and neither one would have been good enough in the actual game as it turned out. Magic resist was still better than health even with some of the magic penetration wasted in the health build by dropping me below 0.
Ignoring any defensive stats at all and going full glass cannon would have meant I'd die very quickly. I'd have had 0 magic resist and only 2100 health. Maybe this would have been a reasonable plan against a single target team but having melee bruisers against Rumble/Diana/Alistar meant bad things with all the AE damage they did. I don't know that we could have bursted them out even if we'd skipped defensive stats, especially since they had 2.5s immunities from items themselves.
So maybe it was a team comp failure? I donno. We'd just won a game pretty handily with the same setup, but they were playing a typical setup with Olaf/Rengar/Chogath. Maybe we could have won if we'd played tighter? One thing that is pretty clear to me though is stacking a damage type is not the end of the world anymore. At least with magic damage there's more than enough good penetration items around (they didn't even buy abyssal scepter) to completely negate any threat of stacking magic resist.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Blood Bowl: Mini-League
Earlier this week 4 of us started up a short league in the Blood Bowl client. We each made a starting team at TR 1000 and the game automatically builds a double round robin schedule with a cut to a final game. So each team gets to play 6 or 7 games and then we're done. What happens at that point is up in the air. We could run it back. We could start new teams. We could call it a day. The bottom line is it's fun to play games and this gives some structure and an obvious goal without actually tying up too much time.
What are the consequences of playing such a short schedule? Well, leveling up seems fairly rare. In general it can take a lot of games to level up some of the players on your team and you're not going to get those games in. So ideally you want to play a team which has good default guys. As Duncan commented on an earlier post chaos teams can turn into real monsters with enough play... They have access to mutation skills and you can build some pretty sick dudes. But if you aren't going to gain many levels they're just going to be a bunch of mediocre thugs with absolutely no ability to play football. Similarly you're not going to earn enough money to buy a full roster of awesome dudes so some of the more expensive teams aren't going to have time to come into their own.
Another consequence is winning matters a lot more. We all want to win in general, but in a long league format sometimes you're happier just skilling up some dudes and surviving. In a format where half the teams don't make the play-offs and there is no long term? Just win, baby. Again, this means a team with some ability to play actual football should be a plus.
Dying matters less. With the new loaner system the game gives you enough dudes to field 11 guys. So while I'm still sad that one of my players died in game 1 and two more suffered permanent injuries in game 3 it isn't the end of the world. My team is still playable with a bunch of loaners. In a long term open league I'd probably have started a new team after that first game since losing an 80k guy off the hop is crippling in the long term. But here I'll just run with a loaner dude on the front lines and be ok. I'll whine about it, of course, but the team can play on. You get loaned a lineman so this means it seems like you want a team with good linemen. Getting a free halfling is pretty pathetic. Getting a free 70k dwarf or elf seems a-ok.
Inflicting damage on a future opponent, oddly enough, matters more. Especially if you know you're playing the same team two weeks in a row... After my game with Sceadeau was getting out of reach you better believe I was trying to foul his skilled-up players in an attempt to knock them out for the next game!
I ended up playing a dark elf team in this short league. I figured I was happy getting free 70k linemen when guys went down. I figured they'd have a decent shot of pulling out wins with crazy passing plays if it came down to it. I hoped having 8 armour would be enough to stop complete blow-outs. I wanted to get better with agility teams. Perhaps most importantly I had a good theme lined up for a dark elf team (I started one in the open league but it had a bunch of guys die in the first 2 games so I deleted them). I figured deep space is pretty dark, so my team is the Deep Space Elves, named after characters from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Elim Garak, my assassin, got killed in the very first game. Poor guy. Odo, my runner, is leading the league in running yards, passing yards, catches, and touchdowns. The team is only 2-2 and I'm catching brutal game losing mistakes before I make them... And then making them anyway. Eventually I'll get the discipline to actually skip stupid actions that I know are stupid!
What are the consequences of playing such a short schedule? Well, leveling up seems fairly rare. In general it can take a lot of games to level up some of the players on your team and you're not going to get those games in. So ideally you want to play a team which has good default guys. As Duncan commented on an earlier post chaos teams can turn into real monsters with enough play... They have access to mutation skills and you can build some pretty sick dudes. But if you aren't going to gain many levels they're just going to be a bunch of mediocre thugs with absolutely no ability to play football. Similarly you're not going to earn enough money to buy a full roster of awesome dudes so some of the more expensive teams aren't going to have time to come into their own.
Another consequence is winning matters a lot more. We all want to win in general, but in a long league format sometimes you're happier just skilling up some dudes and surviving. In a format where half the teams don't make the play-offs and there is no long term? Just win, baby. Again, this means a team with some ability to play actual football should be a plus.
Dying matters less. With the new loaner system the game gives you enough dudes to field 11 guys. So while I'm still sad that one of my players died in game 1 and two more suffered permanent injuries in game 3 it isn't the end of the world. My team is still playable with a bunch of loaners. In a long term open league I'd probably have started a new team after that first game since losing an 80k guy off the hop is crippling in the long term. But here I'll just run with a loaner dude on the front lines and be ok. I'll whine about it, of course, but the team can play on. You get loaned a lineman so this means it seems like you want a team with good linemen. Getting a free halfling is pretty pathetic. Getting a free 70k dwarf or elf seems a-ok.
Inflicting damage on a future opponent, oddly enough, matters more. Especially if you know you're playing the same team two weeks in a row... After my game with Sceadeau was getting out of reach you better believe I was trying to foul his skilled-up players in an attempt to knock them out for the next game!
I ended up playing a dark elf team in this short league. I figured I was happy getting free 70k linemen when guys went down. I figured they'd have a decent shot of pulling out wins with crazy passing plays if it came down to it. I hoped having 8 armour would be enough to stop complete blow-outs. I wanted to get better with agility teams. Perhaps most importantly I had a good theme lined up for a dark elf team (I started one in the open league but it had a bunch of guys die in the first 2 games so I deleted them). I figured deep space is pretty dark, so my team is the Deep Space Elves, named after characters from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Elim Garak, my assassin, got killed in the very first game. Poor guy. Odo, my runner, is leading the league in running yards, passing yards, catches, and touchdowns. The team is only 2-2 and I'm catching brutal game losing mistakes before I make them... And then making them anyway. Eventually I'll get the discipline to actually skip stupid actions that I know are stupid!
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Upcoming EdX Courses
Back at the start of this year I posted about the free debut online course from MitX: Electrical Engineering. I started in on it, got bogged down a bit, and ultimately stopped paying attention to it. The bottom line was that while I found it interesting enough it didn't really seem to be going anywhere useful for me. I didn't really have the prereq knowledge and ended up in a position where I'd need to do a lot of catch-up work in order to keep up with stuff I didn't really care about. And I'd have rather played League of Legends anyway.
Regardless of how I did it seems the trial course actually worked out well for them. So much so that more US Universities have joined in and formed a coalition of sorts: edX. I'd stopped paying attention, though I believe they've run at least one semester since the trial. It looks like this coming online semester will at least have courses from MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley. I just got an email (presumably harvested from the EE course I started) urging me to check out these courses and to spread the word about them.
Well, while EE was only a minor interest of mine there are actually two courses this time around that I'm really interested in. Heck, reading my old post I even wrote that the sort of courses I would want to take started with 'statistical modeling and quantum physics'. Well, the courses this time around include an intro stats course and an intro quantum computing course. I feel like I'm probably beyond an intro course in either subject but it has been many years since I was a student myself so it can't hurt. And hopefully this time around the topics are interesting enough to actually prompt me into finishing the courses!
At any rate, it's a free service and all they asked in return was to tell my friends about the course offerings. Well, considering yourselves told. And if you happen to have an interest in stats or quantum physics we can be online classmates! Woo?
Regardless of how I did it seems the trial course actually worked out well for them. So much so that more US Universities have joined in and formed a coalition of sorts: edX. I'd stopped paying attention, though I believe they've run at least one semester since the trial. It looks like this coming online semester will at least have courses from MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley. I just got an email (presumably harvested from the EE course I started) urging me to check out these courses and to spread the word about them.
Well, while EE was only a minor interest of mine there are actually two courses this time around that I'm really interested in. Heck, reading my old post I even wrote that the sort of courses I would want to take started with 'statistical modeling and quantum physics'. Well, the courses this time around include an intro stats course and an intro quantum computing course. I feel like I'm probably beyond an intro course in either subject but it has been many years since I was a student myself so it can't hurt. And hopefully this time around the topics are interesting enough to actually prompt me into finishing the courses!
At any rate, it's a free service and all they asked in return was to tell my friends about the course offerings. Well, considering yourselves told. And if you happen to have an interest in stats or quantum physics we can be online classmates! Woo?
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