Diablo III Season 5 and FFXIV

I am making a feeble attempt at posting more often.

I had an odd urge and almost MMO relapsed into resubscribing to Final Fantasy XIV a couple of days ago. But, I had remembered how much of a drag early combat was and how much of the main quest line was gated fairly early on in the game. It’s not necessarily that bad of a thing to force people to run instances early on in the game I guess, but it’s not really what I was looking for. I had every intent on enjoying the game solo and then grouping for middle-high levelish instances with the intent of eventually finding a suitable guild, etc. Well, that and newbie instances are such a drag.

Everyone says that Final Fantasy XIV’s story is really good but do they mean good as in on par with narrative games or good as in not shit/decent for an MMO? I am legitimately curious. If I had a regular group of people also leveling through FFXIV, I am sure that the game would be much more fun. But that said, I am not sure I am interested in playing an MMO at the moment anyway.

I did however, pick up Diablo III. My husband was so kind as to power level my season 5 crusader to level 70 paragon 100+ so that we can play together in some capacity. The downside of course of power leveling a class being that I have limited knowledge as to what exactly I am supposed to be doing with my crusader.

Diablo III isn’t exactly that complicated game so at this point, I am sure it is a matter of sorting through the mounds of phat lootz and set items, picking out the best ones/gemming/re-rolling stats, and then basing a build off of that. I can at least, not be insta-gibbed while being carried through some of the harder rifts though jumping into Torment X was a bit…much lol. TL;DR: Pew pew pew with friends = much fun.

On the FFXIV Heavensward Benchmark and Time Management

ffxivbenchmark

Not that I am going to be pre-ordering or purchasing the FFXIV:ARR expansion anytime soon but hey, curiosity. I guess that’s okay for a three year old computer? Despite being mostly home all day today, I did not get a whole lot of FFXIV play time in today (or this weekend for that matter) by virtue of busy time hay fever. We are having guests over next weekend and therefore not likely to get much play time in either so I guess that leaves before and after work? Lately our time has been filled with other hobbies and activities that aren’t computer gaming related (most being recreational, others being discovering the joys of new home ownership/housework), which isn’t at all a bad thing by any measure but it is what it is. Oh such is the life of an adult I guess.

Odds and Ends: April 27th 2015

For one reason or another I chose to drop my level 9 character on Midgardsormr and reroll on another server: Same class and most other choices except for race, for aesthetic reasons. Upon character creation I had chosen to create a max height Elezen. I am discovering that the problem with tall characters seems to be that because of their super wide strides, they look like they are running in slow motion. Also, who the hell does server maintenance on a Monday evening?

  • I have been playing the new Hearthstone expansion on my iPhone on and off at work during my lunch hour. Not so much lately because…busy busy but pretty good port all around. Surprised at how well the interface works on the smaller screen.
  • We got home late on Sunday evening after running around and driving all day so I ended up falling asleep during roughly half of Game of Thrones :/
  • I vow to pick through, edit, and upload my GoPro footage from Sunday’s airsoft game within reasonable time.
  • Because I burned through my previous, “I need a random sitcom or something to watch on Netflix while I either work on or play something” show, I started watching Dexter on Netflix. I don’t recall exactly where I had originally dropped the show.
  • We should have another podcast episode out soonish.

I doubt anyone really cares but I recently migrated this site from Drupal to WordPress. As a whole, it really is a better blogging platform. Unfortunately, my Sims legacy section and a fer other things fell victim to the migration as I was too lazy to port the custom content types over.

That MMO Itch: Final Fantasy XIV

It has been several years since I have played any MMO for an extended period of time aside from dabbling with WoW for short spurts to poke at new raid content in LFR or to say hi to people. Nevertheless, I guess the thing about being any MMO gamer is that the urge to play, though dormant, never truly subsides and rears its head from time to time to sneak $15 or so from my pocket. So what I am getting at is that I had a big MMO itch and a small hole to fill. So, the small hole that was once filled with WoW at some point is now being filled with Final Fantasy XIV, at least for the time being (ie: at least through the free month of play that came with the client purchase).

Final Fantasy XIV A Real Reborn is without a doubt, unapologetically an MMO down to the fetch questing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it is what it is. My FFXIV ARR beta character was a gladiator if I recall correctly. I decided to step outside of my plate/paladin class box and roll a pugilist which to my understanding is kind of like a rogue but with a lot of dancing? I like the movement based combat abilities. Pugilist abilities as a whole thus far seem to revolve around being able to use certain abilities in certain stances. Suffice it to say, I do not yet fully or even close to fully have a grasp as to what I a supposed to be doing with this class but I am only level 5 at the moment.

I don’t have my Logitech G13 configured for FFXIV yet so using a WASD configuration for combat is mildly irritating because I am use to being able to move my character with the thumbstick while having my other four fingers free to do whatever. It feels rather limiting having to choose between the ability to use my middle finger to press the ‘W’ key to move forward or the ability to use my middle key to press one of the combat hotkeys to punch punch.

The game is pretty fun so far if not exactly what I was expecting down to a tee.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper: Of Shinra and Legends Tips and Notes

I have been playing Final Fantasy Record Keeper lately, which has occupied most of my phone gaming time. Yes, it is another stupid F2P social RPG but it is surprisingly fun and well done for a game of that sort. The pricing structure and stamina per minute regen rate seems decent enough where I do not feel like the game is actively trying to shoehorn me into spending real money; At least at this point in the game (to my understanding, inventory space becomes an issue later in the game). Anyway, an event titled “Of Shira and Legends” started a couple of days ago. Some of the key rewards being Tifa and Sephiroth.

Invest in lightning damage. At least a third of all mobs and most bosses seem to be vulnerable to lightning damage. It’s also needed for the current event. If Rydia isn’t leveled and a part of your normal party, it is definitely worth spending time and growth eggs to bring her up to par as she is by far the most powerful black magician in the English game at this point. Two of the bosses (floors 60 and 65) are immune to melee attacks and weak to lightning.

Ideal level range seems to be at about 30. I have heard that it’s doable but difficulty at level 25-ish as long as you have an idea party setup. It’s really only the last 3 bosses (floor 60, floor 65, and floor 70 the final boss) that are difficult. Everything else was trivial, especially with maxed out FFVII armor.

Level 60: Hundred Gunner & Level 65: Heligunner
Both are immune to melee attacks and immune to all status effects exceot for Slow. Vulnerable to lightning. Equip Rydia with Thundara and keep her in the back. Have Tyro equipped with a ranged weapon, Cura, and Thunder Strike. Heal Rydia when she is damaged, if everyone is full assist with damage by using Thunder Strike. Equip Wakka with a ranged weapon and Salve to assist with damage and self heal. The melee only party members can either Boost Rydia or Defend to soak damage.

Level 70: Rufus and Dark Nation
Rufus is vulnerable to Blind and Poison. Dark Nation will buff Rufus. Blind Rufus with Dark Attack and Poison him if you have Poison. Kill Dark Nation then Kill Rufus once Protect and Shell Have worn off. Having Dark Attack is key to this fight…

Necessary Spells and Needed Components:
These are the materials that are needed for both crafting and upgrading the following spells. I don’t have the exact amounts because, too lazy to check.

  • Dark Attack: Lesser Power and Lesser Dark
  • Cura: Lesser White an Lesser Holy
  • Thundara: Lesser Black and Lesser Lightning
  • Thunder Strike: Lesser Power, Lesser Black, and Lesser Lightning.

Ideal Orb Farming Locations:
Figaro Castle is an ideal orb farming location since it is, if I recall correctly, the only location that exclusively drops orbs needed by the spells listed above.

  • Figaro Castle (VI): Lesser Power, Lesser Lightning, and Lesser Holy
  • Imperial Camp (VI): Lesser Black (and Lesser Earth, Lesser Wind)
  • Mt. Kolts (VI): Lesser White, Lesser Dark (and Lesser Non-Elemental)

Final Fantasy VII Armor Farming Locations:
Remember record synergy: FFVII dungeon + FFVII character, weapon, armor = Massive bonus. There doesn’t seem to be much in the ways of FFVII weapons aside from the ultra rare relics that you can roll for, but there are a few armor pieces:

  • Iron Bangle: Mt. Hobs (IV)
  • Protect Vest: Antlion’s Den (IV)
  • Mythril Armlet: Baron’s Castle (IV)
  • Bronze Bangle: These will drop during the tower, unsure if there is an idea floor to farm on

Final Fantasy Record Keeper: Light Against the Darkness Event Notes

A new FFRK event started that allows you to recruit two more characters: Dark Knight Cecil and Paladin Cecil. It’s similarly structured to the Shinra event but shorter and way easier. As of now, my party members (Cloud, Tidus, Sephiroth, Tyro, and Rydia) are in their low to mid 30’s and have breezed through the event. Don’t bother spending mythril to finish the event, there is plenty of time.

Spells and Needed Components:
The event is pretty easy to brute force but having at least Fira + Rydia just decimated everything.

  • Fira: Lesser Fire and Lesser Black
  • Cura: Lesser White and Lesser Holy
  • Curaga: White Orb, Wind Orb, Holy Orb

Ideal Orb Farming Locations:
There are other places to farm the orbs other than what I have listed below but these are the locations that I have found to be most efficient. Also keep in mind that the Thursday Daily Dungeon is just around the corner.

  • Abandoned Mineshaft (VI): Lesser Fire, Lesser Black (and Lesser Ice)
  • Figaro Castle (VI): Lesser Holy (Lesser Lightning and Lesser Power)
  • Mt. Kolts (VI): Lesser White, Lesser Black (Lesser Non-Elemental and Lesser Dark)

Strategies:
Bring Cure and Fire spells. All bosses except for the last two are weak to Fire. Equip Rydia with Fire spells for massive damage. Some of the bosses that were supposed to be weak to Holy weren’t?

  • The second to last boss on Level 6 is technically weak to fire but will do an AoE status effect on your party if you cast it. Use Cura/ga on him to reach the target condition. I think there’s a typo in the game hint in-game.
  • Some of the bosses (zombie dragon…) were supposed to be weak to Holy but weren’t when I had encountered them. I am unsure that was an English localization change or a bug /shrug
  • My party members are in the low to mid 30’s and just breezed through the event and bosses.

Rydia’s FFIV record synergy + FFIV gear record synergy + black magic bonuses + massive fire weakness on most bosses = massive damage.

Squall Isn’t THAT Bad of a Character

Finally approaching the end of my Final Fantasy VIII playthough; I have been picking it up on-and-off this past month (mostly off lately, but I hope to at least ummm finish the game at some point in the near future). There are several things that I really like about FFVIII: The pseudo-futuristic/modern setting, the characters (most of them at least), and the fact that it is ultimately a character driven story (versus being politically driven for example). That said, I had forgotten how odd and polarizing this game was. I am trying to think of another JRPG as or close to as polarizing as FFVIII and I really can’t think of any. I suspect the main reasons being: Bizarre gameplay mechanics/character progression, ludicrous plot, and Squall. Squall of course having been crowned as the gaming champion of emo.

When I had originally played this game as a teen I disliked Squall as a protagonist, but as an adult, I don’t really understand why Squall garners so much hate. He is sort of tactless if not a bit rude and definitely socially distant, but he’s not really all that emo or angsty in my opinion. He is a good student and works hard to complete the missions as professionally as possible. Amongst his peers, he’s probably one of the least emo given that the task of baby sitting a group of bipolar teenagers is suddenly thrust upon him. Let’s review:

  • Quistis, his instructor (he was not aware that she had been relieved of that position at the time), takes him aside out of class for the sake of hitting on him and using him as a receptacle for all of her personal issues. So awkward and inappropriate.
  • Zell “I need Ritalin” Dincht is unable to appropriately channel his bountiful energy and enthusiasm in an appropriate manner or direction that does not involve annoying people in the middle of a life-and-death mission.
  • Irvine, a horndog cowboy who clearly cannot keep it in his pants. Freezes up at the most critical point in the mission.

It is also worth noting that at least half of Squall’s dialog is in head. It’s unfair to judge him by his internal monolog as he does manage to keep most of his shitty thoughts to himself, unlike the rest of the cast. It’s not that he is cold hearted, it’s that he is an introverted character among a group of distinctly extroverted characters that in contrast make him appear more apathetic than he really is. That said, “whatever” is probably the most irritating quotation in the game…

FFVIII (Steam) FMV Audio Stutter Fix

The Steam release of Final Fantasy VIII is a pretty terrible and lazy port. FYI, If anyone else is using an ASUS Xonar sound card and has been experiencing a sound stutter approximately every minute into any FFVIII FMV sequence (for example: At the point where the feather leave’s Rinoa’s hand during the intro movie and literally every minute after that): I was able to instantly resolve this issue by disabling GX DPS Mode in the Xonar Audio Center; No other audio setting that I tested (Dolby headphones, audio channels, etc) had any effect on the stutter. If it matters, I am using the UNi-Xonar drivers.

xonaraudio

If you are still having problems after disabling GX, then I have no idea what is causing it. Neither the Roses and Wine soundtrack mod nor the FMV replacement mod had any effect whatsoever.

FFXIV: ARR (Beta Phase 3) Impressions

I am impressed, Square Enix really did overhaul the shitbag that was Final Fantasy XIV 1.0. What can I say, it’s actually decent; At least on par with any other run if the mill new MMO on the market if not better. I am pretty torn on this game though. I really do want to buy A Realm Reborn, but I am unsure if I have enough time or interest to regularly play an MMO nowadays, even casually. I was going to preorder ARR but after hearing pretty awful things about the launch servers and experiencing many many bad launches myself, I think I’ll hold off then reassess how much I need ARR in a week or so.

  • Questing: The quests are a mixed bag at least early on (unsure if that remains true through high level zones). Plot line quests seem decent enough but everything else feels like leveling filler. It’s your standard fare quest hub grinding x and gathering y.
  • Character models: Probably the best character creation system that I’ve seen. It has a lot of options without overwhelming players with sliders. You can also save and import character blueprints which is a nice and seldom seen touch.
  • Performance: It looks great and runs smoothly on my machine. Leagues better than the FFXIV 1.0 beta. No comparison. Very few technical issues. I don’t think I experienced any noticeable frame drops or lag even in busy cities or FATEs
  • Interface: ARR actually has a functional and clean mouse & keyboard optimized user interface. It is intuitive to use with Bo interface lag; You can even move and scale bars and other UI elements.

I can’t say if the game will be handled any better or if they are going to stay true to the supposed 3 month content release cycle, but we will see.

Post Response: The “Japanese Game Decline”

This post was interesting and spurred some interesting conversation on Kotaku, Destructoid, etc:

Because we merged with Eidos and had games like Tomb Raider, Deus [Ex], and Hitman, as a company we were able to keep face. But the decline in Japanese titles was almost humiliating. This has been a week where I worried daily about how we can fix this.

Ironically, Japanese titles were what attracted me to video gaming back in the late 80’s and early 90’s (look, I just dated myself, hah). We had a Nintendo before we had a personal computer. Much fun was had playing Mario, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, etc. Good times.

His post seems like a fair concern, though perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. We can probably though, all safely say that Square Enix’s slice of the market is in decline based on the quality of their latest releases but the entire gaming industry? Eh maybe so maybe not. I have a sneaky feeling that the Japanese titles that are decent aren’t being localized over here because they are either deemed too niche or just didn’t sell well enough in Japan to justify the expense. Square Enix’s problems more-or-less seems to be a problem with the way Square Enix handles things.

Then again, for every clever JRPg and clever Japanese puzzle/attorney game, there are at least a dozen crap-ass filler titles. I really wish that certain Japanese game developers would stop catering to fanboys and weeaboos. Please cut it with the games pandering to Western audiences, but made by developers who do not understand what Western audiences want and what the current trends are. Also, especially stop the moe shit; It’s creepy and borderline pedophilia.I really love games that retain the Japanese aesthetics and culture but aren’t afraid to push gameplay boundaries. Worry about the writing, gameplay and art direction, not if a game is going to be too “Japanese-y”. Besides, I am of an opinion that a legitimately good game story surpasses cultural boundaries.

I just don’t feel that the Japanese gaming industry as a whole have met the maturing tastes of gamers as a whole. The average age of the American video gamer is 37 years old, having played for 12 years according to fairly recent statistics (side thought: what does that study consider gaming? If stuff like FarmVille is included, that stat is bullshit). That statistic is actually up from an average age of 33 in 2006 (also from an ESA study). Teenagers with super powers saving the world have a very limited appeal to that demographic. If anyone has a similar study for the Japanese gaming market, please link it. Very interested in reading that.

Though to be fair, a similar argument can be made of the Call of Duty series or any number of popular shooters. I love them all to death, but even I am getting a little bit tired of nitty-gritty, gray area morality shooters done in a brown color pallet. To be even more honest, I am thinking that the BioWare style choice RPG system is starting to wear a little thin (I love love love your games but they are kind of all the same). Gaming fads come and gaming fads go; Move with them or fall into obscurity. Who knows, 12 year old bishounen pony superheroes could be next year’s thing…or not. Different strokes for different folks I guess.