Ammokkx

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

just one more thing, sleeping

But I just can't sit there and cook/fish. I'll go insane.

@SleepingSilence

I hesitate to say anyone can play videogames wrong, but this is dangerously close to having the wrong mindset going in.

Speaking as a guy who got fishing to 80, fishing sucks big time. But the thing is, it's also extremely optional. Not only are there two other gatherers you can use for Beast Tribe quests (which I don't think you even got to), but being an active gatherer requires a radically different mindset compared to being someone who's in it for the combat classes. You almost need to be thinking you're playing Runescape instead of FFXIV 'cause it takes a similar grind mindset for it.

Even then, you can level Fisher/Miner/Botanist and all the crafting classes ludicrously easy through Levequests. It would only take you a couple days to, at the very least, get most everything at 70 (if not maxed out purely on Leves, as I have done on a fair number of them). And this is only if you want to do it; plenty of people in my FC and a couple of my friends don't even bother with the crafter/gatherer aspect of the game.

There's only one thing the game 100% definitively asks of you to do: Get a class to 80 and do the story. The rest is all up to your discretion. You can pick and choose which elements of the MMO you want to engage with, and if you're not engaging with craft/gather, you'll do just fine. Either you buy what you need off the MB or you bother a crafter/gatherer friend to make something for you if you need it for whatever reason.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

*shrugs* I don't know how much "fun" I had playing FF14 exactly. Since the combat is fairly mindless for the class I played. (Summoner)

@SleepingSilence

Up to how far did you play? Because one of the problems I'll happily admit XIV has is that the skill pruning done each expansion has made earlier levels feel incomplete. Summoner actually becomes fairly intimate with having to keep track of various timers at level 80, but you need to get to level 80 and do level 80 content for that to matter. Summoner only gets something resembling its intended gameplan at 60, and doesn't even start to feel like itself until 70.

No real good solution to it either because of the linear progression FFXIV is built on and the fact they want to have a hard cap on how many buttons you press to keep it controller-friendly.

Greetings! Candy Cane Service!

Also, you need to remember the ratios. If you didn't send any out, I think two is pretty good.

@BrokenPromise

i sent four

Greetings! Candy Cane Service!

Ammokkx

@rebornfan320

Oh don't worry.

I knew.

EDIT: Also, the only other one I got was a signed one from Savo after I'd told him this existed. Clearly, I am very popular and beloved.

Secundi Lux

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Captain Wei getting back on her feet helped calm Chie's nerves ever-so-slightly, desperately clinging onto people as she was in the moment. The captain didn't have to tell Chie twice to stick close, the teenage girl tailing her like a puppy would tail the litter's mother. Her heart was beating so fast.

Wei was aiming for the stairwell and Chie figured that out pretty quickly, so a bit of hope was able to take root in her heart. Unfortunate for her, then, that it wouldn't last long before being weeded out again. She'd all but forgotten about the attackers for a minute, despite the fact Chie really should know better at this point, so she was unprepared for the creaking from above. At first she ignored it, but then a piece of rubble fell in front of her eyes. Chie let out a brief shriek of shock and surprise, her eyes darting up above. She saw the panels of the railstation coming loose. Not only that, but one of them seemed to be right above her. "Ah... aaah..." she muttered fearfully, reason briefly escaping her as she felt herself paralyzed. It fell and Chie tried to shield herself, closing her eyes. A loud crash rang out, but Chie felt herself unharmed. When she opened her eyes again, two parts seemed to have fallen; A set of displays blocking the party's path forward, and a piece of paneling that hit the soldier behind her.

At that point, Chie briefly forgot about her attackers and escape both. She rushed over to the soldier's side, crouching down next to him much like she had done for Wei. "I-It's okay... it's okay, I can get you out of this, so please get up...!" she desperately told the soldier. Chie didn't have a lot of time to save them, even if she didn't realise that herself. There was one thing she could do to help out, something only she could. Making a snap decision, she attempted to gather whatever traces of Nox that were in the area. It pooled at the edge of her hands, flowing into the ground beneath the soldier and Chie both. Something was changing. The weight of the paneling seemed to drain out of it, as if it were a sack gradually oozing sand. It felt like the floor was starting to push against the body of the soldier, rather than having it be something needed to push back against.

Unfortunately, Chie wasn't particularly versed in her magic, nor did she have the benefit of channeling like an Ars Magi would. She'd given the soldier some literal breathing room and, if they had enough strength, the ability to push themselves off the floor. More than this, however, was too much to ask of the girl. She couldn't make the floor beneath them feel weightless and floaty, even though she wanted to. Not only did Chie foolishly exhaust herself a fair bit by trying, but whatever Nox she was able to gather had all but been used up.

Chie had also stopped running for the exit to do this. She was too focused on saving the soldier, forgetting all about trying to escape.

Just a thought

I've barely got any interest in whether or not a PW actually comes onto the guild, but there's a conversation I had with someone not too long ago about this RP idea from @stone.

We both looked at it and came to the conclusion that, essentially, Stone is running with elements from a Persistent World and doing it on a smaller, more private scale. Each character is in the world and permanently a part of that world, and those characters can interact with each-other, but the players just don't know it. It's just one layer removed from having multiple threads that people happen to stumble into each-other on. The key is that you need enough characters to make it work, that's to say, there's enough of a brute force method to bringing them together. More people = inherently more chance that two of them cross roads, but that being said, it's also a massive amount of work for one person to undertake. My friend was of the opinion you'd need upwards of 10-12 characters merely to fill out the world to be breathing enough, an opinion I didn't quite share in its entirety. I'd argue that's an impossible amount of work for one person and that you'd need to throw in a second co-GM, but at that point there's even more communication that needs to be done and less chance of it working out. But the argument you'd need to bring in a co-GM(or, for comparisons sake, a mod) to make it work kind of shows the miniature-PW nature of Stone's RP.

Honestly, I think experiments like Stone's are the closest you can get to a living, permanent world with an ever-changing cast of characters that aren't confined to a singular (main) storyline. 'cor there's still the question of whether or not it will work out at all, but I'm not going to judge over that when I've not got a hand in it myself.

(also apologies to stone if I dragged them into a conversation they didn't want to be dragged into, I just think your RP is one of the more interesting ones to pop up in recent times and I really like the unique shit ;w;)

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

I don't generally enjoy games from that genre or any genre that don't require skill

@PPQ Purple

But that's wrong. They do require skills, they're just different skills.

An RPG tests your ability to strategize on the fly given limited resources and a ton of information you need to keep track of, as well as needing to not push your luck. And there is an elment of mechanical prowess involved in hack-and-slashes, that being the mere fact you need to dash around and kite enemies 'cause if you stand in one place, you're going to get overwhelmed and die.

Chess doesn't challenge the same skills as something like Magic the Gathering does. Both require intimate knowledge about the game you're playing, but one is static and never changing while the other is continually evolving and requires you to adapt on the fly based on what you're given.

In another example, you wouldn't say Poker is a lesser game to, say, Shogi. Shogi has no elements of luck, while you can get dealt straight pairs all night in Poker. Yet both games are still very skill intensive, but with Poker it's knowledge about what your opponents have Vs. you, as well as being able to read a room.

It's fine if you don't like the appeal of these games, but saying they require no skill is... odd. They challenge a different set of skills than what you'd like them to, sure, but they still challenge skills. When I'm playing FFXIV, I'm not going to be able to do a level 80 dungeon with level 50 gear. That being said, you can clear any content with any class that does have appropriate gear, and the community that forms around doing Savage content isn't any less skilled because their characters need to have the appropriate stats first.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

I newer quite got the attraction of Diablo and that sort of game in general. I mean, it plays like an RTS only without the strategy part and like a fighting game only without the challenge.

@PPQ Purple

A fighting game challenges very different skills from a top-down action game. Fighting games, especially anime fighters, are some of the most raw skill intensive games when it comes down to executing button presses, on top of having to learn fundamentals like spacing. A game like Dota 2 has infinitely more in common with a fighting game than Diablo will ever have, because there is a similar sense of tactical awareness mixed in with mechanical skill required to play a game like this.

RTS is an equally fucky point of comparison when RTS games are notorious for turning into micromanaging nightmares on the highest level. Sure, it doesn't have to be starcraft II levels of bonkers micro, but watch TheViper play in AoEII and you'll see how he's just way better at pressing buttons compared to most any other player on top of knowing the game extremely well.

Diablo is best compared to the genre it's actually inside of, that being roleplaying games. Knowing how to build a character to make BIG NUMBER on top of not picking fights you can't win. Anything with even vague RPG elements will come down to, at least partially, number crunching on top of actual player skill. I've only dabbled in a bit of torchlight II myself, but there is something incredibly satisfying about mowing down a horde of enemies as you're slowly running out of resources and kiting them halfway across the map in the hope of you not biting the dust. This only gets more fun the harder the difficulty you put the game up to.

Getting more powerful through raw stats, or compensating your lack of stats by gitting gud, is part of the appeal. If you want games that are focused entirely on your mechanical prowess, well, you're obviously in the wrong genre. You can't just compare a hack-and-slash to a fighting game, that's madness.

Greetings! Candy Cane Service!

I think that's the first time I've been wished a happy holiday in the same breath as someone implying to dislike me.

I've got a good feeling I know who this is from, too. But eh, it's almost christmas, who gives a shit? Happy holidays to you, too, stranger. I don't really care how mine turn out, but try to have a good one, alright? Everyone deserves a bit of R&R. Except for [insert friend here]. He can go shove a tree up his spinal cord.

Secundi Lux

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Chie continued to writhe and struggle beneath the iron grip of her two would-be captors. The girl didn't have any time to think; merely kicking and screaming on instinct while her body felt electrified from the adrenaline pumping through her. "Let GO I said-!" she yelled in vain defiance.

"I've got our back! Is Chie still in trouble?"

"Selma!?" Chie blurted out in a panic at hearing her name being called. Then, a gunshot rang through her ear. A flash of light scraped by her face, and unbeknownst to her, it had hit one of her assaulters. "Eee-!" she gasped, her eyes widened from the sudden shock. For a moment Chie had stopped struggling, but then noticed the grip on her had weakened. With as much force as she could muster behind her pulling, somehow, Chie had managed to break free. She staggered back, fearfully looking back at whatever, or rather whoever, had attacked everyone and grabbed her.

They were tall and dressed head-to-toe in black, save for the ominous white mask. Or, at least, one of the two wore a mask. The other was clutching their face, shattered pieces of white at their feet. Though the shadows obscured their features, Chie could still tell that something was dripping onto the floor from between their fingers. Blood.

"A-Ah... aaah..." Chie whimpered, slowly pacing backwards. She didn't know what to do, or where to go. She couldn't take her eyes off her attackers in case they tried to grab her again and she also had nowhere to run. The exit was past them, Chie knew as much, so running for it wasn't an option. There was nothing to gain by running back, either. She and everyone else in this tunnel were stuck.

It was lucky, then, that Crystal dived in front of Chie and started scrapping with one of her assailants. "Get to the others," she'd growled back at her. Chie briefly glanced at Selma, Rivka and Wei, then back at Crystal.

"O-okay!" she replied and ran back towards the other three. Of course she was worried about Crystal, too, but with everything going so fast she hadn't the time to dwell on these things. Chie narrowly avoided Selma throwing another one of the masked men, letting out another small shriek, before crouching down next to captain Wei. The woman's gun lay only a short distance beside her and without thinking, Chie grabbed onto it with her right hand and then reached out to Wei with her other arm. "Please let me help you up!" Chie asked of her, trying to throw Wei's arm over her shoulder.