I spent nearly 15 years working in customer service – from the grocery store up until IT support.  I think it’s something that everyone should do, just to get a better appreciation as to how to deal with people.  It is generally one of the most thankless types of jobs that exist, one that generally follows with the pure misery of customer stupidity, but from time to time you get that one person who just makes your month.  As a customer, that experience makes you more empathetic to the other side of the fence.  And good customer service means repeat business.

IT services are commodity based, like electricity, you only notice it when it’s gone.  People don’t phone IT services to thank them for how well things are going.  The job is to take a frustrated person and turn them into a happy person.  In many companies, the immediate bottom line matters more than the long term prospects.  That’s one of the reasons telecom companies are notorious for poor customer service – the staff just isn’t empowered to help, nor are they terribly motivated.

I like to shop around, to get a good deal.  For quite a few things, that works out.  For other things, I prefer to pay a bit more, in order to get better service.  My gaming laptop is a custom build out of Vancouver.  I was able to talk to them over the phone and the service was top-notch.  I’ve bought various brands, if only to have the semi-lifetime support behind them.  I have avoided US automobiles after having a rather disastrous experience as a teenager, and now tend to stick to brands with quality cars that don’t require weeks in the shop on a regular basis.

Fitbit is one of those brands, where the support has been superb.  Sure, the technology behind the Aria needs some tweaking, but I can’t deny that their support agents tried everything to get mine working.

Recently my Charge HR started to come unglued.

I’ve put in a lot of mileage on this thing, hockey games included.  The glue itself doesn’t seem to hold up to the combination of heat/humidity that comes from sweating, at least not once the initial seal is broken.  I read online for some options and sure enough, there’s a replacement program.

So I ended up sending an email late last night, around 11pm, with the attached picture.  7am this morning, I get a response and they needed a few clarifications.  After that, I get another email with a choice – either replace the device for free, or get 30% off another device.  That’s it, no bills, no esoteric questions, no shipping shenanigans, just “I see it’s broken, let’s fix that”.  The question then becomes, do I trust the company enough to simply replace what I have, or enough to keep investing in their products?

And due to the previous support, and this one that took all of 10 minutes once I got the first email, I opted to get an upgraded product – the Charge 2.  It has everything the first one had, with some nice upgrades.

Superior customer service means that I’m writing this post and telling my friends about it.

Explicitly triggered by Syp’s post, but something my wife and I have been chatting about recently.

Plain and simple, people grow through challenge.  If you’re not challenged, you’re not growing.  And we all know people who have opted to stop growing.  One of the side-effects of challenge is stress, or out ability to manage the challenge.  Some people crumple, some people thrive.  Everyone is different and everyone has their own level of comfort.

I was on a course recently related to career progression.  I’m at the point in my career where the next step is not really an increment but a leap in responsibility.  The burnout rate at that level is substantially higher, and the training is supposed to help folks come to terms with that reality.  We were 25 in the course and after the first day, about 5 had decided it wasn’t for them.

On the 2nd last day was a group exercise.  It was a mining simulation where you mined for a particular resource in order to gain credits.  These credits could be exchanged at the local market for a variety of items, including the ability to automatically mine more resources.  There was a distinct lack of details and direction, and there was a rather strict time factor.  Every 15 minutes the prices at the store changed, the clerks either became helpful or impeding, and stock levels would go up or down.  It was very hectic.

As a player, we were tasked with collecting credits to leave the mine within the allotted time.  No one knew how many credits were necessary, you just guessed and tried a special door.  If you go through, there was no way to tell the others.  You needed to work individually for that goal, but in order to get resources/credits you needed to work with other people.  At various parts, there were rules and instructions.

I would think that most people reading this blog would have excelled at this particular game.  The wide majority of online games use this model.  So for me, I just went with the flow.  I mined the optimal path (after a few minutes of reading additional instructions), bought excavators very early and soon had a massive amount of credits.  I wasn’t sure how many were needed to win.  I found a rather obscure rule entry that stated I could buy and item (for half my credits) that allowed me to see how many credits were needed and then tell the rest of the group.  Time was short, but I did it anyway.  I found out I had enough credits, ran back to the group and told them if they had X amount to follow.  Those that had more, they could share with the others.

Of the 25 that played, 1 guy succeeded without group play and was sitting alone in the other room.  I brought over a dozen people with me.  When we finished the simulation and broke down what happened, those that didn’t get out had one of two responses.

• That was too crazy, I had no idea what was going on, panicked and just gave up
• I didn’t find it fun, so I gave my credits to other people and played dead

Which upon reflection is how most people deal with stress.  They either succeed alone, succeed with others, crash and burn, or simply give up.

While there were people on the fence before that simulation, once it was complete it was rather clear who was cut out for the next step in their career.  From 25, there were 3 of us left.  And that’s a good thing because everyone learned more about themselves.  Folk had started with assumptions, and through trial, they grew.  They all learned how they dealt with stress, and at what level they were comfortable.

I enjoyed it.  Not only for the actual activity, but for the lessons I learned about myself.  I found that I have great focus when under stress, and that I will make efforts to bring people along through the journey, if they want to.  I much prefer a team victory than a solo one, but that I won’t hesitate to leave someone behind who has no interest in success.  (side bar, my wife fills in that gap, with a very large heart for other people in times of stress).  There are things I can tweak here and there, some additional techniques that I can hone up on, but generally I am quite happy with the results.

Now for another escape-the-room event…

Ok, maybe not my own.  It’s a gift for the kids for Christmas.  My eldest played a bit of the SNES at our friend’s place a few weeks ago, and her face was something to behold.  I want to see how that works out.

Ever since I’ve had a computer, I’ve had emulators.  I modded my XBOX way back when to include an emulator.  My tablet has a SNES and PS emulator… It’s the way to go.  I’ve owned a lot of consoles and games, and having them all accessible makes a world of difference.  Having the save battery die in an NES game…or SNES game for that matter… not fun.  Doesn’t happen with an emulator.

So for this project, I wanted to build something with controllers that my kids could enjoy.  It had to be relatively mobile to transport, and it had to be relatively cheap.  So either a cheap tablet with a mini-HDMI and bluetooth controllers, or…RetroPie

I went the latter.  I started hunting on amazon for a new Raspberry Pi, but remembered that I am cheap.  I was also looking for controllers… again, cheap.  I then remembered that I had a Pi running a Minecraft server and that the entire thing was based on a microSD card.  Off to the store.

Found a 32GB Class 10 card for $12 and two F310 controllers (USB) for $18 a piece.  So all told, less than $50 for all the gear.

The RetroPie config process is almost a joke.  Download a file, load an image, transfer to the card, done.  I think it took 20 minutes to complete all the steps.

A couple quick searched and I had Atari, NES, and SNES games ready to go.  That was about another 30 minutes of work.  Transferring them through SAMBA requires no extra software either.  Even the boot up was a simple thing, as it detects the controllers and let’s you map button presses.  I hooked it up to wifi (needed a USB keyboard for that) and bob’s your uncle.  Even my wife was impressed and took a seat to watch.

Adventure Island, Yar’s Revenge, Super Mario World…my youth in a tiny box.  More specifically, my youth on a microSD card no bigger than a fingernail.

All that’s left to do is wrap up the package and let them unwrap it.  Then a couple plugs and we’re good to go.  I realize I have lofty expectations here, and that compared to today’s gaming options emulators seem ancient.  Still, there’s something to be said about a gaming system with a joytiq, one button, 16 colors and giant blocks and nothing but your imagination.

I had started it a few months ago, on sale naturally, and drifted away at the halfyway marker.  Batman fatigue perhaps.  After playing through Tomb Raider, the itch came back, since the controls are quite similar.

I will say that the game mechanics are better here than in any other game previous.  The combat flows better, the gadgets are smoother, enemies are more diverse.  FF13s “Press A” this is not.  There’s a very strange difficulty curve here in that the mid-point is absolutely more challenging than the tail, solely because of upgrades.

And that gets me to the Disruptor. See, Batman isn’t bullet proof, or stun proof, or knife proof.  All those things hurt, a lot.  The Disruptor prevents enemies from firing guns, restocking, reviving and a few other things.  It essentially turns them into target dummies.  So the game ends up having 2 phases, before the ugpraded Disruptor, and after.

Two of the side missions are to take down enemy fortifications.  These have sensors that shoot if they detect you, small and giant sentry guns, enemies packing more than Rambo, and usually only 1 way in.  They are the dragons of AK, that cannot be defeated until you get the holy sword.  I’m pretty sure this is the reason I stopped playing, now that I think of it.

I like challenges, more specifically I like puzzles.  It is very satisfying to play a stealth event, picking off enemies around corners, using gadgets to distract and disarm.  There’s a logical end.  Combat challenges are more like button mashing fighting games.  I played a lot of them when I was younger, and you needed tight controls and reflexes to make it work.  Batman controls are not agile, they are brunt and blunt.  So throw me in a ring with 10 enemies who can all shoot me, odds are I’m going to die.

So I move forward with the story, unlock more gizmos and then come back.  The combat challenge suddenly becomes a puzzle.  1-2 tries and it’s done.  Odd that.

Tanks But No Tanks

I like the concept of the Batmobile, I do not favor its execution.  Moving, transporting, puzzles – that works.  Me vs 50 other tanks, that doesn’t.  There is one side mission, and one of the main missions that puts you in this combat scenario.  Again, upgrades make a massive difference.  I much preferred the AI hack to take over the big tanks and get allies.  Without a fully upgraded car, some of these would not be possible.  Heck, two of the main boss fights are in tank-mode, and I needed to cheese line of sight to finish them off.

And yeah, let’s believe that Batman, shooting a cannon, is “not killing anyone”.  OK.

Joker’s End

Spoiler I guess?  Well, he’s dead in the last game, less dead here.  It’s a neat effect to have him part of you, adding color commentary throughout.  The final portion makes little sense in terms of gameplay (all of a sudden you’re playing an FPS), but thematically it’s a neat closure.

The game ends as I fully expected it to.  As all Batman series do.  It is so strange that Batman is the only superhero that cannot continue to be a hero and let the public know his identity.  You think that if people figured out Supes was Clark, that all of a sudden he’d leave the planet?  Miller did it first, and it made sense in that context.  Nolan did it, and it made no sense.  It’s done here and makes less sense.

Riddler Can Jump Off a Bridge

Who completes them all?  I mean that seriously.  Who in their right mind wants to explore every nook and cranny.  Who wants to fiddle with the wonky physics engine to make the ball fall just so.  I think the core Riddler work is ok.  It teaches you how to use Gadgets in a different way, and you get to banter with Catwoman.  Cool.

But finding the little trophies, hidden in sewer drains, or taking a picture of a random element at just the right angle.  I’m good.

Overall

Taken as a whole, there’s way more good here than bad.  Combat is excellent, the story is tight, Scarecrow (John Noble) does an excellent job.  The world building is superb.  Side missions make sense.  The high notes are some of the best in all games I’ve played this year.  Even the lows are better than the high notes of some other games.  Well worth the trek to play Batman one last time.

Rise of the Tomb Raider has been on my wishlist for a while, and last weekend it went on sale for 50% off.  I have a general breakpoint for AAA games, and that appears to be $30.  That doesn’t appear to apply to indie games, as I paid full price for PoE, Tyranny, Grim Dawn and quite a few others.  I think it has more to do with expectations, where a AAA game must be super polished, and in most cases, that doesn’t happen until a few months in.  Dishonored 2 is a good example…

Anyhow, back to Tomb Raider.

I had played the reboot a few years ago, and have re-run it a few times since.  It boiled the series back down to basics – exploration, combat, and story.  It played a lot like an action movie.  I much preferred the structure here than within the Uncharted series, which focuses almost entirely on combat and story.  Don’t get me wrong, the story is good, but I can only take so many waves of bad guys before I’m noped out.

So, RotTR takes what the reboot did very well, then expands on it.  There are more options for movement across the world.  Crafting combat aids is now present.  Self-healing, skills, customized weapons, outfits… it’s all there.  So where the previous game had 2-3 options for combat, this one has a solid half dozen or more.  My favorite right now is 3 silent arrow headshots, followed by an incendiary grenade (molotov), a grenade arrow, then some more fire.  You can wipe out entire streams with that.  And the beauty is that combat is usually limited to 5-6 enemies at once, so you strike, move on, and strike again.  Short and sweet.

There’s one fight in particular where you stalk enemies from the water, while surrounded by a haze of gas.  It’s a strike and flee scenario, and it works wonderfully.

Exploration also gets expanded upon, with the majority of content available when you encounter it.  There were only 3 tombs where I needed to backtrack once I had the appropriate skills/tools.  There are more hidden treasures, the lore is all over the place, little nooks to explore, caves to spelunk and animals to hunt.  Animals in particular are an interesting twist, with wolves, tigers and bears coming out of nowhere to lay a beatdown on you.  Killing them gets you some extra resources to further improve your character.

A few spots have actual quest givers, sans question mark, that rewards extra materials or the unique gold currency used to purchase items from the in-game shop.  You can get a silencer, grenade launcher, laser sight… even a tool to unlock the final upgrades on weapons, though that one is supremely expensive.

So combat and exploration have undergone a rather significant expansion.  Great.  What about story?

Tomb Raider has always been about a MacGuffin chase.  Heck, all of these games are based on this premise.  Here it’s a divine source that provides immortality.  You’re competing against Trinity, a secret cabal that’s lasted for centuries, bent on world domination.  Their avatars are an interesting pair, one a fervent believer, the other more practical.  There’s some grey here, and their story is fully exposed.  This provides them motivation that you can relate to – it’s their ethics that don’t line up.

There’s certainly a theme of immortality in many of these games, Tomb Raider in particular.  The last one was about an immortal spirit keeping people on an island, this one is about a tool that gives people eternal life.  It’s certainly a trope, but it works.

Overall, the game is a definite improvement on the previous game and that was the best one of the series in a long time.  RotTR is to me, the best game in the exploration/combat genre, and well worth the play through.

Many RPGs allow you to form a party of motley characters.  Sometimes you make them yourself, sometimes they are preset.  Tyranny follows the latter model, where you make the main character but then get to select up to 3 companions, of 6 total, to accompany you in your travels.

Companions fill 2 roles.  First is the story aspect, where they add color, comments, and context to the events as they unfold.  Maybe one is a hardline militant and another is a hippy. Each brings a unique flavor to the game – or at least they should.  Iron Bull in DA3 is a good example.  Companions in Tyranny do this job fairly well.  I do wish they would interject more often, but each is rather firm in their beliefs.  Verse loves chaos, while Sirin is distrustful of everyone.  It does make it so that you want to interact with the party, and see where the story takes you.  One tweak that I’ve yet to find is a way to expand on a character’s abilities aside from what you see at level 1.  Barik, the game’s sole true-tank, doesn’t allow for armor upgrades.  You’d think that would change over time, especially if he’s always in the party.  Maybe I’m missing something.

The second role is the numbers role – stat machines.  Most events are resolved through either combat or some magical dice roll on other stats.  Given that you’re in a small (4 person) group, and most combat is against groups of enemies, you’re going to want a tank.  Since damage spikes are normal, and you’re going to find some big monsters, you’re going to want a healer too.  Now we get into the damage dealers, and this part gets complicated.  Similar to MMOs, AE damage is everywhere, and that’s a rather massive disadvantage to melee classes.  Stealth plays a very minor part of the game, as it only impacts the start of battle – there’s no way to get back into it.  Positioning also doesn’t appear to have any effect, so no backstabbing here.  Finally, casters are not bound by manage but by cooldowns.  4 spells or so is usually enough for a full rotation.  All told, that means that you’re likely going to want ranged attackers.

So let’s review the companions, in the order I encountered them.

Verse

DPS role, either dual wield in melee or from range with a bow.  She has a stance that improves her damage if she takes damage, but you should only ever have her in light armor.  The ranged skill selection is rather poor as compared to melee, but it’s next to impossible to keep her alive once she gets into the fray.  That said, there are some amazing bows in the game.  Might, Finesse and Quickness are your friends.  The solid part here is that you can set Verse on pure AI mode and not have to worry.

Of special note for Verse in Duelist mode.  Three Whispers stance, Killing Spree, dual wielding, high speed and Volcanic Weapons makes for some rather interesting combat mechanics.  Every hit will shoot out laser beams of elemental damage, and she will be hitting quite a few times per second.  She’s essentially a lawn mower.

Barik

Pure tank, made to take the big hits.  It takes a while for taunt to work on large groups properly, and he lacks defensive cooldowns, but he gets the job done.  Giving him a couple spells to self-manage is good too.  His combo attack with Verse is insane.  Putting stats into Vitality, Might and Finesse are a solid bet.  Unless you’re making your own tank, he is miles away the best option.

Lantry

The source of the healing sigil (talk to him for a bit), he’s a solid mage option to either nuke or support your team.  The only character with a res spell, and he can have the highest lore score of all characters (including the PC) – meaning the most devastating spells.  His combo with the PC is a massive AE heal from the group, which is extremely valuable.  Wits, Quickness and Finesse the stats you want to stack.  He’s the only true healer in the game, and with tweaking can cast the best spells.  Really hard to dismiss that value.

Eb

Casts water and gravelight spells, and is a serviceable mage overall.  She’s quite good at crowd control and knockbacks, as well as draining enemies.  I find that playing with her is more of a skill/talent affair as compared to customized spells – and in that regard, the AI is really the issue here.  I like enemies to stay put on the tank, and that’s hard to do with Eb.  She’s a mage, so Wits, Quickness and Finesse are the stats to take.  A pure DPS mage, you need to invest in her Lore skill early to get enough skill upgrades to work in the late game.

Sirin

The group chanter, which is a similar role found in Pillars of Eternity.  This is a set-it and forget-it character, as it takes a while to build up enough power to cast spells.  I dislike that you cannot build your own songs, and that the ability to sing 2 songs takes until Act 3 to really unlock.  The songs are ok at the start but quickly get eclipsed once you upgrade other characters.  She’s quite strong in AE fights, but when against a boss, she provides little value.  The best benefit from her is a rather deep investment in her talent trees, which is unfortunate.  Wits, Quickness and Finesse here as well.  I like the character story-wise, but always feel hampered when she’s in the team.

Kills-in-Shadows

A melee DPS/tank hybrid that is meant to deal big hits. Some of her best skills are from stealth, so you only get to use them once per battle (if pathing works).  She has next to no armor and takes a massive beating if she does end up tanking, without some talent investment.  She can’t wear armor, but can equip a 2handed weapon in 1 hand.  Might, Finesse and Quickness are the best stats here.  On paper, her best build is an unarmed melee attacker, as when she hits, it’s a massive amount of damage.  In reality, she rarely hits and takes all the hits, dropping like a fly.  There is so much potential here…She even has some late-game accessories that improve her damage further.  There’s a pile of potential here.

Player Character

I play mages in my games.  Tyranny lets you build spells, and the power of them is limited by your Lore ability (which improves as you level).  I can de/buff, heal, and damage – but not tank.  The mage talents are solid enough, especially the last one.  Leadership after that is pretty good too.  Remember to train Lore between level ups.  If you do this every time, then you’ll likely be around 150 Lore at the end game.  Of particular note, Frost deals the most consistent damage, Lightning for the stuns, and finally Fire due to resists.

That said, a tank is also a solid option, as you have tons of customization options available to you.  Barik does a more than serviceable job, but you can be essentially invincible by mid-game.  Even swapping out the shield for more damage is a good option.

Melee DPS, that’s a weak point in this game.  There’s too much AE and you’re made of paper.  Unarmed deals a pile of damage but is bugged.

Ranged (bow) DPS has some solid options, but still feel highly limited when you compare them to mages.

My Party

For now, my Party consists of Barik, Lantry and myself.  Verse is there as a passive DPS increase as she provides more value than Sirin, more area control than Eb, and none of the bugs of KiS.  Once the unarmed attack bug is fixed though, KiS is going to rock it.