With a new league launching later today all organization of the guild bank is wiped out. The new league will have a brand new stash with 13 unnamed bank tabs in it. The question I have is what should we do with those 13 tabs? How did we use the bank last time and how could it be better this time? What do other people want out of the bank?
Gems: Personally I really liked having a lot of space dedicated to gems. At least while I was actively playing and staying on top of it we tended to have at least one copy of most of the skill gems sitting in the bank in case people needed something specific. It was awesome when I wanted to create a trapper guy and was able to just take most of the needed gems from the bank, and I was able to do that because for the most part people loot and quest for gems they don't need, but someone else might. Storing them all in one spot seems really good because it reduces the need for personal stash overlap (I'd keep one of everything myself otherwise) and spreads out the luck factor of who gets what stuff to drop. I don't know how the vaal gems are going to screw with things, but if we went with 3 gem tabs again I wouldn't complain.
Currency: Maybe it's just me but I feel like having currency in the guild bank was a bit of a disaster. One of the cool things about PoE is how you can spend a stupid amount of money trying to randomly make a specific item better. Different people are going to have different ideas of what items are worth pimping out, and that's just fine. The issue that crops up when everyone pools all their money is it's so easy for someone to end up spending it all trying to pimp out something that other people think is silly. I kept getting myself into a situation where I wanted to try to make a good 5 link item but didn't want to waste other people's currency so I never did it. Eventually I switched to just storing my own currency in my personal bank and used it to make my 5 link and was happy. So I feel like everyone should store their own currency and do with it as they feel best. (I also think when running in a group we should do permanent allocation loot so the people playing ranged characters can get their share of the currency.) So I feel like using a couple guild tabs for different types of currency is probably not a good use of space. I'm not going to stick any currency in the bank, and won't be taking any out either, with the exception maybe of map enhancers when running maps in a big guild group.
Loot: I feel like leveling items and niche uniques are the real things that make a guild bank so useful. Having a bunch of resist rings, and damage rings, and belts, and 4 socket items, and life/resist/resist/resist items seems really strong. Being able to walk up to the bank and compare your current belt with a big selection of other belts of various levels seems really good. When I was playing hardcore and basically had the guild bank to myself I wanted a tab for each inventory slot, basically, so I could easily compare with all the gloves we had at that point. When I found a new glove upgrade I'd store my old gloves I wore in the bank so next time I died I could use them again. I feel like that's the sort of thing that could come in really useful.
So we have 13 tabs. How would I use them? Well, 3 for gems, 1 or 2 for incoming stuff so people could just dump them in, 1 for a selection of flasks and dinky stuff like some portal and identify scrolls, 1 for good 5+ link items, 1 or 2 for build defining uniques, and 4-6 for slot specific stuff. Maybe? I don't really know. What would other people want in a guild bank? Should there be a tab for maps? I feel like maps should probably be personal like currency. What about vaal fragments? I don't even really know what they do other than summon a big boss fight. Are they even tradeable? Who knows!
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Path of Exile: Sacrifice of the Vaal
Tomorrow at 4pm the Path of Exile expansion is coming out. They've put up the patch notes already, and it's sounding pretty sweet! The new softcore league has the added twist of bonus treasure chests guarded by packs of monsters which sounds pretty fun. The new hardcore league has other monster types invading each zone (including a unique boss in every zone) which should make the hardcore league more chaotic and scary which seems good.
There are also some changes to all game modes... There are going to be corrupted portals randomly showing up from time to time which sound like they'll work a bit like a map with a boss inside. The boss will drop corrupted stuff like skill gems that are better than normal ones or vaal shards that can be combined to go fight Queen Atziri who is the big boss lady of the expansion. There's even a race for the first 50 accounts to kill her in each league to get some skins.
There's a new type of currency which does something random to an item. Probably awesome like creating white sockets or changing the intrinsic bonus to something cool but it may be terrible (no examples have been given but the patch notes say there are some undesirable ones). The interesting thing here is no further modifications can be made to the item. So it's a way to cap off your stuff. I don't know how rare these things are going to be, but they sound cool. Apparently they can be used on skill gems to raise level or quantity above 20 which could be stupidly powerful.
They've also adjusted the power of the scion start to the skill tree. Details of how it's getting nerfed aren't out yet, but it's probably a good idea. Scions were just the best, after all. They're nerfing some of the life nodes and buffing some of the energy shield nodes so maybe CI will be good now that I've sworn it off.
This expansion doesn't look to be as fundamentally game changing as the Diablo III expansion, but Path of Exile started off in a better place. Randy asked on Facebook what my plan was between the two games and I'm definitely going with Path of Exile for the next couple of weeks and then I'll see if I want to swap over to Diablo III or stick with PoE or do something else entirely. Like play FFX HD. But I liked the ideas in the DIII expansion enough that I expect I'll buy it and play it at some point even if it isn't right at launch. Blizzard expansion launches are pretty safe things, so it'll just be if I have something else I really want to play instead.
There are also some changes to all game modes... There are going to be corrupted portals randomly showing up from time to time which sound like they'll work a bit like a map with a boss inside. The boss will drop corrupted stuff like skill gems that are better than normal ones or vaal shards that can be combined to go fight Queen Atziri who is the big boss lady of the expansion. There's even a race for the first 50 accounts to kill her in each league to get some skins.
There's a new type of currency which does something random to an item. Probably awesome like creating white sockets or changing the intrinsic bonus to something cool but it may be terrible (no examples have been given but the patch notes say there are some undesirable ones). The interesting thing here is no further modifications can be made to the item. So it's a way to cap off your stuff. I don't know how rare these things are going to be, but they sound cool. Apparently they can be used on skill gems to raise level or quantity above 20 which could be stupidly powerful.
They've also adjusted the power of the scion start to the skill tree. Details of how it's getting nerfed aren't out yet, but it's probably a good idea. Scions were just the best, after all. They're nerfing some of the life nodes and buffing some of the energy shield nodes so maybe CI will be good now that I've sworn it off.
This expansion doesn't look to be as fundamentally game changing as the Diablo III expansion, but Path of Exile started off in a better place. Randy asked on Facebook what my plan was between the two games and I'm definitely going with Path of Exile for the next couple of weeks and then I'll see if I want to swap over to Diablo III or stick with PoE or do something else entirely. Like play FFX HD. But I liked the ideas in the DIII expansion enough that I expect I'll buy it and play it at some point even if it isn't right at launch. Blizzard expansion launches are pretty safe things, so it'll just be if I have something else I really want to play instead.
Monday, March 03, 2014
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
Path of Exile isn't the only action RPG coming out with an expansion in March. Diablo III has a big expansion due out March 25th. It's going to work like a pretty standard Blizzard expansion. All the things are getting increased (a 6th class, a 5th act, and 10 more levels on the level cap) and pretty much all of the game systems are being reworked. They can't well mix the old systems and the new ones so they just patch everything into the new systems. That patch came out last week so a lot of the new changes can be tried out now. Some pretty major things have changed...
First off, the auction house is dead. They've decided people want to find their own loot, not buy their own loot. Personally I want to be able to progress with my own loot and that wasn't possible in the original game. That made me very sad. So I like this change. One might think this would just funnel all the loot sales into disreputable external websites to they've also made all the unique items bind on account and you can't trade gold anymore. So if you want a specific build defining item you'd better kill a lot of monsters!
Loot has also changed substantially. The days of enemies exploding in a shower of loot you need to sift through are gone. Now it's pretty rare that an enemy will drop anything at all, even white items! White items are actually in high demand because you can disenchant them into valuable crafting materials. They've narrowed the ranges for item stats so you can't get a truly terrible item anymore. If a max level item has int on it then it will have a pretty reasonable amount of int. Loot can be 'smart' which means it will spawn with stats your class wants and skip ones it doesn't want. So a wizard won't get drowned in items that buff witch doctor skills or have strength. You're still going to need to kill lots of monsters to find the specific stat mixes you care about, but it should be a lot more likely to find something you can use.
Paragon levels have changed. They used to give a flat amount of stats and magic find. Now they've added in a system of paragon powers similar to the end game leveling systems from games like Final Fantasy XI or Everquest. So my wizard gets to put 6 points into either int, vit, movement speed, or maximum arcane power. Then 6 more points into either attack speed, cooldown reduction, crit chance, or crit multiplier. Then 6 more between life, armour, resist all, or life regen. And then finally 6 more between splash damage, resource cost reduction, life on hit, or gold find. So we get lots of different options for how to spend extra levels. Oh, and all characters on your account share the same paragon levels. So my level 1 alt also got to spend 24 points getting more powerful! Unfortunately this does mean that the best way to power up any character is to play your best character... Well, unless you want loot to drop for the other character since the smart loot system will prevent it for dropping on your alt!
Difficulty levels have been drastically changed. There is no more normal/nightmare/hell/inferno anymore. Instead all the enemies scale based on your character level and you can use a slider to make them even harder for more rewards. I didn't mind playing the same stuff through 4 times but some people did and this change will be good for them I guess. I'll end up playing everything through multiple times anyway to grind paragon levels anyway! Leveling is also a lot quicker, especially with a friend. I started a new character on maximum monster difficulty and the enemies had 41k health and I would attack for 17! On the plus side I had a ring that would summon a fireball that hit for 2k so I could eventually kill them. But then Tom pointed out his max level character could do 41k damage and joined me... I hit level 58 in a couple hours!
Perhaps the biggest change, and certainly the most needed one, is the addition of guilds and chat channels. There were plenty of reasons why I got tired of playing Diablo III but the lack of a guild to easily rant with people was the biggest one. And they finally fixed it! I created a guild that's up to two whole members! If people are going to play Diablo III again they should join the guild too. I can't find a way to send an offline invite, but if you message me on any sort of system (Facebook, Gmail, Skype, ICQ...) and I'm awake I'll log in and hook you up. We can maybe run the infernal machine ring quests for a 35% xp ring!
First off, the auction house is dead. They've decided people want to find their own loot, not buy their own loot. Personally I want to be able to progress with my own loot and that wasn't possible in the original game. That made me very sad. So I like this change. One might think this would just funnel all the loot sales into disreputable external websites to they've also made all the unique items bind on account and you can't trade gold anymore. So if you want a specific build defining item you'd better kill a lot of monsters!
Loot has also changed substantially. The days of enemies exploding in a shower of loot you need to sift through are gone. Now it's pretty rare that an enemy will drop anything at all, even white items! White items are actually in high demand because you can disenchant them into valuable crafting materials. They've narrowed the ranges for item stats so you can't get a truly terrible item anymore. If a max level item has int on it then it will have a pretty reasonable amount of int. Loot can be 'smart' which means it will spawn with stats your class wants and skip ones it doesn't want. So a wizard won't get drowned in items that buff witch doctor skills or have strength. You're still going to need to kill lots of monsters to find the specific stat mixes you care about, but it should be a lot more likely to find something you can use.
Paragon levels have changed. They used to give a flat amount of stats and magic find. Now they've added in a system of paragon powers similar to the end game leveling systems from games like Final Fantasy XI or Everquest. So my wizard gets to put 6 points into either int, vit, movement speed, or maximum arcane power. Then 6 more points into either attack speed, cooldown reduction, crit chance, or crit multiplier. Then 6 more between life, armour, resist all, or life regen. And then finally 6 more between splash damage, resource cost reduction, life on hit, or gold find. So we get lots of different options for how to spend extra levels. Oh, and all characters on your account share the same paragon levels. So my level 1 alt also got to spend 24 points getting more powerful! Unfortunately this does mean that the best way to power up any character is to play your best character... Well, unless you want loot to drop for the other character since the smart loot system will prevent it for dropping on your alt!
Difficulty levels have been drastically changed. There is no more normal/nightmare/hell/inferno anymore. Instead all the enemies scale based on your character level and you can use a slider to make them even harder for more rewards. I didn't mind playing the same stuff through 4 times but some people did and this change will be good for them I guess. I'll end up playing everything through multiple times anyway to grind paragon levels anyway! Leveling is also a lot quicker, especially with a friend. I started a new character on maximum monster difficulty and the enemies had 41k health and I would attack for 17! On the plus side I had a ring that would summon a fireball that hit for 2k so I could eventually kill them. But then Tom pointed out his max level character could do 41k damage and joined me... I hit level 58 in a couple hours!
Perhaps the biggest change, and certainly the most needed one, is the addition of guilds and chat channels. There were plenty of reasons why I got tired of playing Diablo III but the lack of a guild to easily rant with people was the biggest one. And they finally fixed it! I created a guild that's up to two whole members! If people are going to play Diablo III again they should join the guild too. I can't find a way to send an offline invite, but if you message me on any sort of system (Facebook, Gmail, Skype, ICQ...) and I'm awake I'll log in and hook you up. We can maybe run the infernal machine ring quests for a 35% xp ring!
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Bridge Match 2 - Board 44
Board 44 - Dealer West - NS Vul
Opponents convention card: Jack
Opponents playing strength: Intermediate
My hand: ♠ A 2 ♥ K Q J 9 ♦ T 3 ♣ A T 8 7 5
Partner opens 1 diamond in second chair. East interferes with a preempt of 3 spades. I double. Partner bids 3NT which gets passed out.
East leads the Q of spades.
I have 2 spades and 2 clubs. So I need to find 5 more tricks. It's entirely possible East only has 2 spades though (I would think West has 7 for the 3 spade bid), so I may be able to give up the lead twice without getting slaughtered. Clubs I can choose which hand to lose to, but I want to make that choice after they play the second round of spades. Getting all the clubs also isn't enough so I should probably play hearts first anyway. Or maybe diamonds? Diamonds are pretty scary, actually, since I'm missing the A and Q. The problem with hearts is I may lose a trick to the T of hearts. But then I can try to get all 5 clubs... Anyway, worry about that later. First I win a spade and play hearts. Q-2-8-K. 4-A-9-3. Huzzah! 3 heart tricks now. East returns the spade. J-A-4-6.
Ok... Should I cash my hearts first? If I do I probably set up a heart for them, actually. I think I need to just play clubs. Should I finesse the Q or play for the drop? If I was sure West had 7 spades I'd go for the finesse for sure. Against Andrew that would be a safe bet for sure. Actually, East had QJ of spades and my team had the AK. Would Jack really jump to the 3 level with 6 spades to the T? I have to assume no. Ok, finesse on East it is. I start by casting the A from hand. A-2-6-3. 5-Q-K-4. Everybody's a winner!
I cash out my 10 tricks and give them whatever 2 tricks they want. Making 4.
3NT+1 was a top board. There were 6 different contracts on this board with 8 different results. EW went down 1 in 1 heart. My side played 3NT twice (+1 and just in), 5 clubs twice (-2 and just in), 6NT-1, 6C-2, and 4H-2. It also turns out East bid spades, not West, so my entire logic while playing the hand was backwards and wrong. I was planning on finessing into the dangerous hand. Better lucky than good!
Captain Jack disagrees with my double of 3 spades. He wants me to just bid 3NT. Now, I didn't think my double was penalty. I thought it was negative. If I'd known it was penalty I would have bid 3NT instead. But in what world is it penalty? Jack also wants me to play clubs first, not hearts. I think that is wrong.
Ranking after board 44/60: 1/16 with 57.95%
Opponents convention card: Jack
Opponents playing strength: Intermediate
My hand: ♠ A 2 ♥ K Q J 9 ♦ T 3 ♣ A T 8 7 5
Partner opens 1 diamond in second chair. East interferes with a preempt of 3 spades. I double. Partner bids 3NT which gets passed out.
East leads the Q of spades.
| NORTH ♠ K 6 ♥ 4 2 ♦ K J 9 6 4 ♣ K J 9 6 | ||
| EAST ♠ Q | ||
| SOUTH ♠ A 2 ♥ K Q J 9 ♦ T 3 ♣ A T 8 7 5 |
| West | North | East | South |
| Pass | 1♦ | 3♠ | Double1 |
| Pass | 3NT | Pass | Pass |
| Pass | |||
| 1Penalty | |||
I have 2 spades and 2 clubs. So I need to find 5 more tricks. It's entirely possible East only has 2 spades though (I would think West has 7 for the 3 spade bid), so I may be able to give up the lead twice without getting slaughtered. Clubs I can choose which hand to lose to, but I want to make that choice after they play the second round of spades. Getting all the clubs also isn't enough so I should probably play hearts first anyway. Or maybe diamonds? Diamonds are pretty scary, actually, since I'm missing the A and Q. The problem with hearts is I may lose a trick to the T of hearts. But then I can try to get all 5 clubs... Anyway, worry about that later. First I win a spade and play hearts. Q-2-8-K. 4-A-9-3. Huzzah! 3 heart tricks now. East returns the spade. J-A-4-6.
Ok... Should I cash my hearts first? If I do I probably set up a heart for them, actually. I think I need to just play clubs. Should I finesse the Q or play for the drop? If I was sure West had 7 spades I'd go for the finesse for sure. Against Andrew that would be a safe bet for sure. Actually, East had QJ of spades and my team had the AK. Would Jack really jump to the 3 level with 6 spades to the T? I have to assume no. Ok, finesse on East it is. I start by casting the A from hand. A-2-6-3. 5-Q-K-4. Everybody's a winner!
I cash out my 10 tricks and give them whatever 2 tricks they want. Making 4.
| NORTH ♠ K 6 ♥ 4 2 ♦ K J 9 6 4 ♣ K J 9 6 | ||
| WEST ♠ 8 5 4 ♥ T 8 7 6 5 3 ♦ A Q ♣ Q 2 | EAST ♠ Q J T 9 7 3 ♥ A ♦ 8 7 5 2 ♣ 4 3 | |
| SOUTH ♠ A 2 ♥ K Q J 9 ♦ T 3 ♣ A T 8 7 5 |
Captain Jack disagrees with my double of 3 spades. He wants me to just bid 3NT. Now, I didn't think my double was penalty. I thought it was negative. If I'd known it was penalty I would have bid 3NT instead. But in what world is it penalty? Jack also wants me to play clubs first, not hearts. I think that is wrong.
Ranking after board 44/60: 1/16 with 57.95%
Friday, February 28, 2014
Kingdom Hearts: Early Blind Choices
At the very beginning of the tutorial level of Kingdom Hearts you get asked to pick an item and reject an item between the trio of sword, shield, and staff. Presumably the sword lets you beatdown more, the staff lets you cast spells, and the shield makes you tankier. But you don't know what those things actually do. The first time I played the game I believe I was living with Byung and Tom and we all picked different items to start. I took the shield and the difference was insane. The shield seemed to us to be by far the best, and for one key reason: Second Chance.
Second Chance is an ability that converts any attack that would kill you into an attack that lowers you to one health. An attack that hits you when you're already at one will actually kill you, but if you're at two or more you're invincible. If you start with the shield you get that ability at level 18. If you start with the staff you get it at level 48 and if you start with the sword you get it at level 51. I don't remember what level you're expected to be at when you beat the game, but by the time I was fighting the boss of the third world I could have been level 18 easily. That boss was able to kill me when I was at around 40% health, so I was stuck healing myself with a potion and an awkward menu every two attacks. I wasn't even falling into the 'low health beep beep beep' window. The boss could just burst me over that window. I actually ended up running out of potions and had to fly around a bunch to go buy more before I could win.
There's also a second blind choice section where you choose your experience progression by answering inane questions from young Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka. You can either have tougher levels early, late, or always have average progression. Early with the shield feels like it's by far the best for the early game and it's unclear if the actual game would even end before it peters out in power. I ended up taking the staff and going for the late game progression. I'll get to level 48 fastest this way! Assuming I don't get frustrated by not having Second Chance, anyway.
Having the staff means my magic is better and my attacks are worse. This feels wrong for me since I normally like to beat down in games, but I'm giving something new a try. It also turns out the staff significantly increases your spells (you get 25% more max mana and 25% more spell damage and deal 5% less physical damage). Will the extra max mana be worth losing a couple points of strength? I don't know!
I've now completed Alice in Wonderland, the first part of Hercules, and Tarzan. I'm a little sad that I don't have Second Chance since I've died a _lot_ so far. But you generally respawn in the same room where you died without losing any progress except for the fight that killed you, so it's only a little sad and not the absolute end of the world. I suspect I won't end up restarting to pick up the shield. Heck, if worse comes to worse I can just grind my way up to level 48, right? Right!
I think this is a terrible game mechanic though. I'm fine with different difficulty settings (the game actually has one of those as well!) but I don't like obfuscated difficulty settings. No one who just picked up the game would know that the shield is the best by far. And no one would know what answer combo to give the FF kids to get the right experience progression either. I like that there's this level of customization for difficulty, but I don't like that you wouldn't have a clue how to play the game you want to play without turning to the internet. Especially back in 2002, where turning to the internet was less of an expected thing, I think.
Second Chance is an ability that converts any attack that would kill you into an attack that lowers you to one health. An attack that hits you when you're already at one will actually kill you, but if you're at two or more you're invincible. If you start with the shield you get that ability at level 18. If you start with the staff you get it at level 48 and if you start with the sword you get it at level 51. I don't remember what level you're expected to be at when you beat the game, but by the time I was fighting the boss of the third world I could have been level 18 easily. That boss was able to kill me when I was at around 40% health, so I was stuck healing myself with a potion and an awkward menu every two attacks. I wasn't even falling into the 'low health beep beep beep' window. The boss could just burst me over that window. I actually ended up running out of potions and had to fly around a bunch to go buy more before I could win.
There's also a second blind choice section where you choose your experience progression by answering inane questions from young Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka. You can either have tougher levels early, late, or always have average progression. Early with the shield feels like it's by far the best for the early game and it's unclear if the actual game would even end before it peters out in power. I ended up taking the staff and going for the late game progression. I'll get to level 48 fastest this way! Assuming I don't get frustrated by not having Second Chance, anyway.
Having the staff means my magic is better and my attacks are worse. This feels wrong for me since I normally like to beat down in games, but I'm giving something new a try. It also turns out the staff significantly increases your spells (you get 25% more max mana and 25% more spell damage and deal 5% less physical damage). Will the extra max mana be worth losing a couple points of strength? I don't know!
I've now completed Alice in Wonderland, the first part of Hercules, and Tarzan. I'm a little sad that I don't have Second Chance since I've died a _lot_ so far. But you generally respawn in the same room where you died without losing any progress except for the fight that killed you, so it's only a little sad and not the absolute end of the world. I suspect I won't end up restarting to pick up the shield. Heck, if worse comes to worse I can just grind my way up to level 48, right? Right!
I think this is a terrible game mechanic though. I'm fine with different difficulty settings (the game actually has one of those as well!) but I don't like obfuscated difficulty settings. No one who just picked up the game would know that the shield is the best by far. And no one would know what answer combo to give the FF kids to get the right experience progression either. I like that there's this level of customization for difficulty, but I don't like that you wouldn't have a clue how to play the game you want to play without turning to the internet. Especially back in 2002, where turning to the internet was less of an expected thing, I think.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Kingdom Hearts: Plan
There is no plan. I'm not checking out the internet for a potential plan, either. I'm just going to play the game.
Ok, maybe that's not quite true. I played this game once quite some time ago and I'm pretty sure I did everything there was to do in the game. I definitely remember eventually beating the challenge boss: Sephiroth! I guess my plan is probably going to be have fun and try to kill Sephiroth again. Because while I don't remember much about the game, I do remember that fight was awesome.
It's funny, my mind thinks of Kingdom Hearts as a new game, but I last played it over a decade ago. It's almost like my brain is stuck in the early 2000s. Oh well!
Anyway, Kingdom Hearts is an action RPG where you team up with Donald Duck, Goofy, and stars from various Disney movies in an attempt to fight evil and save Mickey Mouse. It plays a little like Secret of Mana in that you have two allies trying to help you out in combat. The Final Fantasy twist comes in by the addition of Final Fantasy characters to the Disney universe where you end up hanging out with Squall and a bunch of other dudes in town and fight Sephiroth at one point. It's a bit of a stretch, but I remember having a lot of fun with this game so it counts!
One thing that does make me sad about this game is I haven't seen all of the movies the game uses for worlds. I don't know why, but when I was a kid I felt like Disney movies were for girls and little kids and therefore I shouldn't want to watch them. My little sister had a lot of the movies and I did end up watching many of them as a result. I liked them. But I felt like I shouldn't like them. So I may not have full context for every level, and that's sad, but I can platform and kill enemies even when I don't know what they are!
Ok, maybe that's not quite true. I played this game once quite some time ago and I'm pretty sure I did everything there was to do in the game. I definitely remember eventually beating the challenge boss: Sephiroth! I guess my plan is probably going to be have fun and try to kill Sephiroth again. Because while I don't remember much about the game, I do remember that fight was awesome.
It's funny, my mind thinks of Kingdom Hearts as a new game, but I last played it over a decade ago. It's almost like my brain is stuck in the early 2000s. Oh well!
Anyway, Kingdom Hearts is an action RPG where you team up with Donald Duck, Goofy, and stars from various Disney movies in an attempt to fight evil and save Mickey Mouse. It plays a little like Secret of Mana in that you have two allies trying to help you out in combat. The Final Fantasy twist comes in by the addition of Final Fantasy characters to the Disney universe where you end up hanging out with Squall and a bunch of other dudes in town and fight Sephiroth at one point. It's a bit of a stretch, but I remember having a lot of fun with this game so it counts!
One thing that does make me sad about this game is I haven't seen all of the movies the game uses for worlds. I don't know why, but when I was a kid I felt like Disney movies were for girls and little kids and therefore I shouldn't want to watch them. My little sister had a lot of the movies and I did end up watching many of them as a result. I liked them. But I felt like I shouldn't like them. So I may not have full context for every level, and that's sad, but I can platform and kill enemies even when I don't know what they are!
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Final Fantasy IX Conclusions
Earlier this morning I plowed my way through the last two dungeons in Final Fantasy IX, beat up the final boss, and saved the world. Woo! It took me a little longer to beat this game than I would have liked, but that's partially due to watching a lot of Olympics coverage and it's partially due to being sick since the Olympics ended. Concentrating on manipulating the ATB system wasn't the easiest thing for my frazzled mind to do, so I kept pausing and wandering off to read pro wrestling recaps because that doesn't take any real thinking.
I really liked how this game went back to a more standard class based system. The last 4 games have featured essentially interchangeable characters with small differences. Sure, only Locke could steal, but everyone in Final Fantasy VI could learn all the spells and max whatever stats they wanted. In this game each of the 8 playable characters has a wildly different set of active and passive abilities to learn that make them all significantly different from each other. If you want to blow people up with black magic spells you simply have to use Vivi; there is no other choice. They have a good set of characters too, that interact in good ways, so there are a bunch of viable parties. This time I wanted to really max out Vivi so I built a party to make him better. So I used Freya for her mana restore ability, Zidane because I think you have to, and Dagger because she would also make use of the mana restore ability and having a healer had to be a good plan.
It turned out that I entered the final dungeon sequence with 81 ethers in my inventory so it's entirely possible I didn't need Freya at all. She did less damage than anyone else which seemed bad, but she did have the most health and the best defenses so that was probably a good thing. If I had to do it again I think I'd want my party to include Steiner and Amarant instead of Dagger and Freya, but they'd both be good parties. And I know the first time I played I put a heavy emphasis on Quina because that character is just plain awesome.
I really liked the art style used in the game. It took a step back from trying to use the hot new Playstation graphics to make 'realistic' people and went for a more cartoony feel. The resolution for the gameplay wasn't great on my tv, but I don't think FFVII or FFVIII would have faired any better (and likely would have been a lot worse). The FMVs were awesome. And I think Garnet may actually be the prettiest character in any of the Final Fantasy games.
The game had tons of little throw backs to previous games. Key items named after characters from Final Fantasy III that let you play music from that game. A dwarf village like the ones in Final Fantasy IV. Two planets merging to become one like in Final Fantasy V. Souls becoming a mist and feeding the planet like in Final Fantasy VII.
It wasn't all good though. The ATB battle system was even more frustrating in this game compared to previous ones. The fact that the optimal way to play was to have one of your characters never take an action and instead open the menu to pause time during animations was pretty terrible. Even worse was when I had auto-regen on my whole team and the best way to heal up was to cast a long animation spell and not open the menu. Bahamut should not be my best healing spell! It really made having a 'healer' pretty silly, though at least Dagger had a long animation spell to be a good fake healer on top of being a potential real healer, too.
The random encounter system is complete garbage. Normally in a game like this exploring a dungeon completely for all the treasure isn't much of a chore. Maybe you take 40% more steps, which gets you 40% more fights. That's fine! In FFIX the random encounter counter resets each time you change screens, and most screens are pretty short. So short, in fact, that it's possible to beat the game with only 5 random encounters total because you can run through almost every screen without getting a fight. Fights also take a long time to load in. Fully exploring a dungeon is probably more like 20 times as long, not 1.4 times as long. Which is frustrating now that I know it, and it really makes limited resource characters like Vivi terrible if you're getting into a ton of extra fights. My playthrough this time was a little over 34 hours, and there's a reward for making it to the final dungeon in under 12 hours, and other than putting off the chocobo stuff and card game stuff until later the main way to save time is to learn the path through each zone to minimize encounters. I don't like it one bit.
The game also put in an homage to Beyond the Beyond, and not in a good way. In the middle of the game Dagger gets stressed out and can't talk. You can put her in your party still but she loses her trance bar and about half of the time she gets distracted instead of taking the action assigned to her. Can't move... CURSED! This was not a good thing. In retrospect I think Eiko would be a better healer since she gets esuna, full-life, and holy. And you can keep using her in the middle of the game! Holy should have a long enough cast time to be a healing spell...
The card game was disappointing and most of the timing based mini-games didn't work on my tv. Chocobo Hot and Cold was still very good. And I don't feel like I should ding the game because it doesn't work well on a new tv. The card game was disappointing on every playthrough though!
One thing that blew my mind was the final boss... His name was Necron and you learned that he existed 10 seconds before fighting him. Kuja and Garland both could be the final boss from the story... But no. They both end up helping you after you beat them up. But then there's just this random dude after you beat the final Kuja form. A dude who wants to put an end to the entire universe, to be fair, so you sure want to kill him. But where did he come from? Why is he there? Who knows. Kill the scary thing and win the game.
The ending was nice and happy. I still want to know how Vivi had kids. It was nice to see that pretty much all of the characters had a happy ending. Steiner loosened up a little and ended up with Beatrix! I was watching a speedrun of the game and someone commented in chat about how Steiner always starts off as everyone's most hated character but eventually comes to grow on people. No one there disputed that assessment, and I think it's true for me too. It helps that he's probably the most powerful character.
Anyway... Where should this game go in my little ranking chart? I liked a lot of things about this game, and it's definitely a worthwhile play. But it has some pretty big flaws too, and it's never really stood out in my mind one way or the other. I think it's definitely better than the NES era games but I think it has to slot in as worse than the rest of the core series. And Tactics, for that matter. So for now it gets to be #7 on my list. That's still pretty good, and I really think the reason it's so low is that the games ahead of it are all fantastic games with fewer glaring flaws.
Next up would be Final Fantasy X, but I'm holding off on playing that game until the HD version comes out on March 18th. I'm going to skip ahead to the next game, which is one I've been looking forward to playing again and which is really only tangentially part of the marathon anyway: Kingdom Hearts.
I really liked how this game went back to a more standard class based system. The last 4 games have featured essentially interchangeable characters with small differences. Sure, only Locke could steal, but everyone in Final Fantasy VI could learn all the spells and max whatever stats they wanted. In this game each of the 8 playable characters has a wildly different set of active and passive abilities to learn that make them all significantly different from each other. If you want to blow people up with black magic spells you simply have to use Vivi; there is no other choice. They have a good set of characters too, that interact in good ways, so there are a bunch of viable parties. This time I wanted to really max out Vivi so I built a party to make him better. So I used Freya for her mana restore ability, Zidane because I think you have to, and Dagger because she would also make use of the mana restore ability and having a healer had to be a good plan.
It turned out that I entered the final dungeon sequence with 81 ethers in my inventory so it's entirely possible I didn't need Freya at all. She did less damage than anyone else which seemed bad, but she did have the most health and the best defenses so that was probably a good thing. If I had to do it again I think I'd want my party to include Steiner and Amarant instead of Dagger and Freya, but they'd both be good parties. And I know the first time I played I put a heavy emphasis on Quina because that character is just plain awesome.
I really liked the art style used in the game. It took a step back from trying to use the hot new Playstation graphics to make 'realistic' people and went for a more cartoony feel. The resolution for the gameplay wasn't great on my tv, but I don't think FFVII or FFVIII would have faired any better (and likely would have been a lot worse). The FMVs were awesome. And I think Garnet may actually be the prettiest character in any of the Final Fantasy games.
The game had tons of little throw backs to previous games. Key items named after characters from Final Fantasy III that let you play music from that game. A dwarf village like the ones in Final Fantasy IV. Two planets merging to become one like in Final Fantasy V. Souls becoming a mist and feeding the planet like in Final Fantasy VII.
It wasn't all good though. The ATB battle system was even more frustrating in this game compared to previous ones. The fact that the optimal way to play was to have one of your characters never take an action and instead open the menu to pause time during animations was pretty terrible. Even worse was when I had auto-regen on my whole team and the best way to heal up was to cast a long animation spell and not open the menu. Bahamut should not be my best healing spell! It really made having a 'healer' pretty silly, though at least Dagger had a long animation spell to be a good fake healer on top of being a potential real healer, too.
The random encounter system is complete garbage. Normally in a game like this exploring a dungeon completely for all the treasure isn't much of a chore. Maybe you take 40% more steps, which gets you 40% more fights. That's fine! In FFIX the random encounter counter resets each time you change screens, and most screens are pretty short. So short, in fact, that it's possible to beat the game with only 5 random encounters total because you can run through almost every screen without getting a fight. Fights also take a long time to load in. Fully exploring a dungeon is probably more like 20 times as long, not 1.4 times as long. Which is frustrating now that I know it, and it really makes limited resource characters like Vivi terrible if you're getting into a ton of extra fights. My playthrough this time was a little over 34 hours, and there's a reward for making it to the final dungeon in under 12 hours, and other than putting off the chocobo stuff and card game stuff until later the main way to save time is to learn the path through each zone to minimize encounters. I don't like it one bit.
The game also put in an homage to Beyond the Beyond, and not in a good way. In the middle of the game Dagger gets stressed out and can't talk. You can put her in your party still but she loses her trance bar and about half of the time she gets distracted instead of taking the action assigned to her. Can't move... CURSED! This was not a good thing. In retrospect I think Eiko would be a better healer since she gets esuna, full-life, and holy. And you can keep using her in the middle of the game! Holy should have a long enough cast time to be a healing spell...
The card game was disappointing and most of the timing based mini-games didn't work on my tv. Chocobo Hot and Cold was still very good. And I don't feel like I should ding the game because it doesn't work well on a new tv. The card game was disappointing on every playthrough though!
One thing that blew my mind was the final boss... His name was Necron and you learned that he existed 10 seconds before fighting him. Kuja and Garland both could be the final boss from the story... But no. They both end up helping you after you beat them up. But then there's just this random dude after you beat the final Kuja form. A dude who wants to put an end to the entire universe, to be fair, so you sure want to kill him. But where did he come from? Why is he there? Who knows. Kill the scary thing and win the game.
The ending was nice and happy. I still want to know how Vivi had kids. It was nice to see that pretty much all of the characters had a happy ending. Steiner loosened up a little and ended up with Beatrix! I was watching a speedrun of the game and someone commented in chat about how Steiner always starts off as everyone's most hated character but eventually comes to grow on people. No one there disputed that assessment, and I think it's true for me too. It helps that he's probably the most powerful character.
Anyway... Where should this game go in my little ranking chart? I liked a lot of things about this game, and it's definitely a worthwhile play. But it has some pretty big flaws too, and it's never really stood out in my mind one way or the other. I think it's definitely better than the NES era games but I think it has to slot in as worse than the rest of the core series. And Tactics, for that matter. So for now it gets to be #7 on my list. That's still pretty good, and I really think the reason it's so low is that the games ahead of it are all fantastic games with fewer glaring flaws.
Next up would be Final Fantasy X, but I'm holding off on playing that game until the HD version comes out on March 18th. I'm going to skip ahead to the next game, which is one I've been looking forward to playing again and which is really only tangentially part of the marathon anyway: Kingdom Hearts.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Final Fantasy IX: Chocobo Hot and Cold
Yesterday I finally obtained the airship in Final Fantasy IX and the story is building up to a big climactic battle where my party has to assault a stronghold in order to break down a barrier and invade another planet. Instead of making haste directly there I take the 'minor' detour to go play the chocobo mini-game! A little under 6 hours later I've dug up all the chocographs, found all of their treasures around the world, and have a ton of awesome new cards and gear.
Chocobo Hot and Cold has a fairly straightforward premise. You pay a moogle some cash and he lets you dig for a minute. When you dig in a location you get told how close you are to a randomly generated treasure by how excited your chocobo sounds. Use those sounds and future digs to narrow down the treasure. Once you've found it, mash the button until you dig it up. Repeat until you find 8 treasures or the minute runs out. Mostly the treasures are worthless junk like potions but every now and then you'll find a chocograph which shows a little picture of the world along with a hint for what is being pictured. Head out into the world, find that spot, and dig again to get the loot! Some of those outside treasures power up your chocobo to let him swim, or climb mountains, or fly. Each new ability unlocks a new way to dig up chocographs and opens up more of the world for finding chocographs.
Anyway, this is at least the third time I've done this. I find it pretty easy to zone out and play the mini-game. It's fun, and it gives good rewards. One thing that changed this time is I didn't have to look up anything on the internet in order to finish it off! There's this one chocograph where the picture is just ocean and the hint isn't very useful. And it's not that I remembered where it was, either... No, this time I just refused to give up until I'd searched the entire area of the ocean. And I did pretty much that, too... Not only was it in the last place I looked (because I stopped looking when I found it, duh) but it was pretty much in the last place I was going to look. I was just about to give in and turn to the internet once more when I got it. Woo!
Final Fantasy IX has a lot of little mini-games in it, and most of them have fallen pretty flat for me this time around. The card game is tedious and a lot of the games rely on precise button timing which flat out don't work on a non-CRT tv. But the chocobo game remains a lot of fun. Think about it more, it's probably the 3rd best mini game in the series...
Chocobo Hot and Cold has a fairly straightforward premise. You pay a moogle some cash and he lets you dig for a minute. When you dig in a location you get told how close you are to a randomly generated treasure by how excited your chocobo sounds. Use those sounds and future digs to narrow down the treasure. Once you've found it, mash the button until you dig it up. Repeat until you find 8 treasures or the minute runs out. Mostly the treasures are worthless junk like potions but every now and then you'll find a chocograph which shows a little picture of the world along with a hint for what is being pictured. Head out into the world, find that spot, and dig again to get the loot! Some of those outside treasures power up your chocobo to let him swim, or climb mountains, or fly. Each new ability unlocks a new way to dig up chocographs and opens up more of the world for finding chocographs.
Anyway, this is at least the third time I've done this. I find it pretty easy to zone out and play the mini-game. It's fun, and it gives good rewards. One thing that changed this time is I didn't have to look up anything on the internet in order to finish it off! There's this one chocograph where the picture is just ocean and the hint isn't very useful. And it's not that I remembered where it was, either... No, this time I just refused to give up until I'd searched the entire area of the ocean. And I did pretty much that, too... Not only was it in the last place I looked (because I stopped looking when I found it, duh) but it was pretty much in the last place I was going to look. I was just about to give in and turn to the internet once more when I got it. Woo!
Final Fantasy IX has a lot of little mini-games in it, and most of them have fallen pretty flat for me this time around. The card game is tedious and a lot of the games rely on precise button timing which flat out don't work on a non-CRT tv. But the chocobo game remains a lot of fun. Think about it more, it's probably the 3rd best mini game in the series...
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