Category Archives: Uncategorized

Alt Time

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I’ve been able to find a few last pieces to get my DH to ilvl 850, which is sort of the cap for casual play I think.  It’s not that he’s immortal but with a particular artifact trait that heals me when I deal fire damage… I can take on 5-6 elites in Suramar without dying.  This is not something my Brewmaster can do.  To top it off, he’s 1 run away from maxing out the Withered Army training – in terms of chests remaining.  And aside from the 400 or so rep provided, the only thing left there is the chance at the cat mount.  My Brewmater long ago finished up that chain, but one of the Monk hidden artifacts is found in that chest… so more runs needed there.

All that to say, that for both of those characters, progress is now “stuck” at running dungeons.  I like dungeons, I do.  Finding time to do them is a bit of a gap now, though I do have quite a few quests locked in there.  Plus the whole Mythic not being part of LFG is a little annoying.  They are both still actively doing Artifact research.

So, that means alts come out of the woodworks.

At 100 I have a Shaman, Hunter, Druid and Rogue (this guy dates from launch in 2005).  2 of them are in the Legion pre-event gear, so around ilvl 700.  The rest are in WoD gear, so around ilvl 640 or so.

That’s a heck of a gap.  I completed all of their artifact quests and got the Shaman to 101.  Those quests all scale with ilvl, not actual level, so there wasn’t a huge challenge.  Scratch that, my Hunter died a half dozen times in that quest.  I went Marksman, which meant no pet…likely the cause of the pain.

Real world questing is something different.  My Shaman hit like a wet noodle.  My Rogue… wow.  I remember this guy just being walking death.  I died on the first quest in Stormheim – twice – not only because damage was so low, but the defense and health was as well.  I stuck with it for a few quests and got 5 gear upgrades along the way.  It’s starting to feel comfortable again.

It’s also a large shift from playing a tank, where the strategy is to round up 5-10 enemies and go to town.  DPS roles are meant to pick their targets, as AE isn’t exactly a strongsuit.  Plus, after years of playing a particular spec (Assassination), it’s rather clear that there’s a better alternative (Combat).  That means I need to hit 102 to unlock that artifact.  Not exactly a challenge, given that I’m likely sitting on 10 levels worth of rested xp.

It’s an interesting progress – going from focused goals and depth, to a more scattershot approach to the game.  I don’t have any particular goals other than just playing and having some fun with the various class quirks.  I figure by the time the rogue hits 110, I’ll just park him and do the various WQs for clear gear upgrades, then work on the next one in the line.

I do have a DK sitting at 94…

Two Sides to Suramar

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Monk finally hit 8000 rep with the Nightfallen, which opened up the 2nd last bit of Suramar and the 2 final mythic dungeons.  A month after launch and just over 2 weeks after I hit 100.  I’m sure this could have been done faster if I had paid attention, or in effect, cared to reach this point.  The truth of the matter is that these 2 dungeons don’t really mean anything to me right now.

The quests though, that’s the shindigger.  Getting to this point unlocks a half dozen or so quests. Let’s cover that, without too many spoilers.

First, it throws you back into the city proper, the lower west side in the Waning Crescent.  Super enough, the majority of the city quests take place here anyhow, so I’m familiar with the area.  It splits into 2 parts, nothing too fancy.  Except one guy you need to bribe with 1200 Ancient Mana to start the next quest – and he gives you no help or reward for it.  It feels like I’m feeding a junkie.

While the quests aren’t fancy, they do send you to the east side of Suramar.  There’s a reason people don’t go to the east side.  First is that every 2nd enemy can see through your disguise, and the ground design is full of small walls that make it feel like a maze to get out of.  Second, every enemy seems to be an elite.  Compared to the west side, where my Brewmaster can tank 8-10 enemies, I can barely take 2 on the east side.

I died more often on this tiny questline (4 times for one particular quest, as the target was below me) than I did my entire leveling experience.  And it was frustrating because it felt like the cards were just simply against me.  That NPC that was pathing would suddenly stop.  That tiny wall that I could walk over elsewhere, suddenly I couldn’t even jump over.  AE everywhere.  Large chains of enemies.  Dead end hallways.  And all of this to a) find an NPC, b) talk to 3 more, c) click on one on a boat, and d) kill one that is completely isolated from the rest of the map.  The quest activity was easy.  Getting to the quest marker was the challenge.

Note to self – avoid the east side.

Artifact Progress

I hit rank 5, which gives 200% yesterday.  That unlocked a new quest line from Xe’ra.  One that showed how Illidan changed from night elf to illidari (which actually makes less sense after seeing it).  The other was essentially you playing as Illidan on the final Black Temple raid battle.

Now that was cool.  Even though I knew the end result, the joy of taking out an entire raid, healer by healer, was pretty neat.  Seeing that 1 guy go AFK for the battle had me chuckle as well.  So far, that portion of Legion is working out well enough.  Sure, running around the world to view a cut-scene is dumb, but the lore from those scenes is actually pretty good.  And it smartly references Illidan without the whole “the Lich King will have coffee with you now” from previous expansions.

When the Shark Got Jumped

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I really like Wildstar.  My guides generate consistent page views.  I played a fair chunk of the game but it dropped off my play list just as most games do.  I am not a raider, certainly not one that can raid at the level that Wildstar demands.  I much prefer the casual approach and after a couple months, you’ve just seen and done it all.  I like dungeons too, but the queues, last time I played, were hours long with no goals.

When Wildstar went F2P (a near year later than most people thought it would), it brought in the bane of all games – lockboxes.  I have a general hatred for lockboxes as I do with most gambling.  It preys on the mathematically challenged.  It’s worse when there are lockbox-only items.  Most games start off innocuous enough, with cosmetics in those boxes.  Eventually they creep up to low level gear, or mounts.

Wildstar recently announced that they are going to offer lockboxes for raid content.  I am struggling to think of a western MMO that does this (many eastern ones do).  So while you can’t buy them directly from the store (yet) they will drop from raid instances and be tradeable.  So you’ll be able to get the rewards from a raid without running a raid.

2016-09-22-lockboxes-and-you

And I find that rather sad but perhaps at the same time, to the point.  Why bother with actually playing the game when you can just bypass it all with a couple dollars?  I mean, who wants to actually play the game when you can just bypass all that crud, stand in the middle of the crowd and sit down cause there really isn’t anything left do do anymore.  And then the stop playing, which means more money lost.

And what’s the escalation point after this?  Lockboxes will now contain all the items from the game, regardless of where they come from.  What exactly will people be buying after this?  What could be better?  I don’t see any carrots left.

This brings back to mind the whole Allods fiasco, where the game was great, but with a horrible business model.

I really hoped that Wildstar would be able to find a footing. I still do.  I’m of the unfortunate opinion that they, like the dwarves before them, dug too deep with greed.

Demon Hunter Alt

My monk is over ilvl 330, so Mythic dungeons are what’s left.  I still do dailies when I can, slowly working on the Pathfinder achievement.  I have alt-itis though, and picking #2 is challenging when you have 5 characters waiting at level 100.

The purpose of an alt is to provide a different experience and playstyle.  My monk has done nearly all the quests available, and that experience will be the same next time.  What’s left is the Class Halls and the minute to minute gameplay.  I like dungeons, but the DPS queue is around 40 minutes, so that more or less rules out pure DPS for an alt (Hunter, Rogue are out).  My druid (boosted in WoD) is ok, but always feels like a dumbed down version of a real class – it just doesn’t stick with me.  Plus, there’s only so much bear-butt and cat-butt I can stand.  The Shaman is woefully underpowered as Elemental, but plays great.  That leaves the Demon Hunter.

Considering that this entire expansion is focused around demon hunters, I think the story portion will play somewhat differently.  And the playstyle, while closest to the monk, is certainly different than any other class.  You fly around all over the place, and that free glide ability… that will make my life a whole lot easier.

The class hall itself requires gliding to get to.  The story is interesting enough, and the 2 weapon quests are good.  It feels a bit weird to be playing as the bad guys from BC, but at the same time, the lore behind it all is quite entertaining.  I’m not a fan of the hall layout, but the NPCs within seem more alive than in the other halls (druids excepted).

And I’m alternating between both the tank (vengeance) and DPS (havoc) roles, to see which fits better.  Tank is really hard to kill but doesn’t have the dash skill which makes movement a breeze, and somewhat low damage.  The DPS moves like a kite in the wind, but is made of tissue paper.  More tweaking required…

I Liked Pandaria

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First note, Stormrage queues are still in the 3000s, and waits nearing 2 hours.  Still no peep from Blizzard on the issue.  No other server has a queue above 10 minutes.  It’s fine from the outside, since I haven’t renewed a sub, but it certainly blows chunks for those that are trying to play.  Getting a DC and sitting in a 90 minute queue has got to hurt.

Expansions

I like ’em, plain and simple.  I like the fresh(er) take on a game.  It fits a good spot between horse armor DLC and sequels that are just re-skinned games.  MMOs have a very poor track record on sequels, and their concept of DLC is either patches or the item store for sparkle ponies.

But an expansion, woo, that scratches an itch.

I played through a half dozen with UO, similar with EQ.  I tend to go back to older MMOs when they launch one – RIFT being a good example.  Not only do you get the new content, you also get whatever patches were put in between when you stopped and now.  Aside from the people (which are really the basis of an MMO), playing the game every 6/12/18 months is a really good deal.  For $15, you get a ton.  For $50, you get the expansion and everything before it.  The downside is that you have to relearn all the acronyms.

WoW Expansions

I made Asmiroth, my Rogue, on launch day in 2005 on Stormrage.  The servers barely worked until January 2006.  While my Rogue was the main, I also ran a hunter to max level.  I tried PvP servers, RP servers, all the classes… but the time investment was crazy.  WoW vanilla was better than other MMOs of the time, but looking back it was really rough.

I played all the way until Burning Crusade came out, raided for the first bit there and then moved on to other pastures.  Enough to get my Netherwing drake mind you!  If I remember anything it was that BC was hard and flying was a massive accomplishment for survival.  There were no catchup mechanics, and gating was a nightmare.  That said, the world was solid and interconnected, dungeons were fun, and there was a reason to log in daily.

Lich King I raided a tiny bit at the start, managing a few 3DS attempts and then life took over again.  I came back for ICC.  Catchup mechanics and LFD showed up here, which were amazing for my casual playstyle.  There was too much Lich King for my tastes, and a simplification of many parts of the game.  DKs were way OP.  This is the expansion where you could clearly see the shift from “hardcore MMO” to “casual MMO”, for better or worse.

Cataclysm I played for about 2 weeks.  I am truly struggling to recall much good from that expansion, aside from making alts a joke to level up.  I did get to try Firelands mind you, and that daily zone was solid.  I truly believe that if Cata had followed BC, it would have been a success.  The problem here was that the pendulum swung so far from the ease of LK to the bash-your-head of Cata dungeons that people just gave up.  LFR showed up here because less than 1% of the population ever set foot in Firelands heroic.  This expansion was the death of “hardcore MMOs”, for every game on the market.

Pandaria I played  a lot, both at the start and at the end.  The island of open quests and gear pinatas was cool and fun.  I really appreciated the lore here, even though it had nothing to do with Warcraft.  The zones were great, monks I liked, dungeons were fun.  Unfortunately the devs didn’t understand what worked in LK and what did not in Cata.  We ended up with daily quests for everything, gating a lot of stuff.  Which is too bad, because there was a great opportunity for more content.  Scenarios were great.  Proving grounds were an amazing implementation. Re-roll tokens were good.  Raids were smart.  The farm was neat.  The big picture worked, but the reason to log in daily didn’t work until the Timeless Isle was introduced, way too late in the game.  Plus, it took nearly 2 years to get the next expansion.

Warlords I played for about 2 months.  Well, more specifically I played the actual content for about 2 weeks or so, the rest was sitting in my garrison playing farmville.  I completed 1 dungeon and a few raids in LFR.  If I recall, I was making about 2K in 15 minutes of work per day across all the alts.  This was another pendulum swing from Pandaria.  No more dailies, do what you want, when you want.  Open quest areas.  Dungeons were useless past the first 2 weeks.  1 patch (selfies are not a patch).  Even the lore (aside from sending Gul’dan to start Legion) is meaningless.

As for Legion, I’m about 5 days in.  Once the server stabilizes, maybe I’ll go back.

Take Away

BC, to me, was an extension of Vanilla.  It mostly addressed bugs and provided some new content, with some tweaks here and there (most notably adding flying and removing resistances).

Lich King on, we saw iterations on design and a generalization of MMOs, and each expansion made some rather significant changes to core systems.  Sometimes the changes were good (talent tree revamps, as only 2-3 builds are ever viable), sometimes not so much (the badge system is the answer to making content relevant).  Each expansion feels more like an interconnected sequel, where you can import a previous save, as there are few ties to what came before.

Not that it’s a bad thing, so much as understanding that the people who liked hot dog v3 and have eaten nothing but that for a year and a half, may not be all that pleased with hot dog v4 when they can no longer get v3 at all.  That puts a lot of trust between the players and developers.  Even more so since there’s a vendor down the street that’s selling something that look a heck of a lot like the v3 hot dog.

And I think it’s fair to say that WoW passed that point a while ago with the majority of it’s playerbase.  People return to the expansions with a hope of nostalgia.  They get a hint of it, then find a crunchy bit they don’t like and move on.  I know I’m in that bucket.  Time will tell how many other folks are there too.

MMO Rushers & Entitlement

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I’ve been on the WoW forums for a bit now, trying to get a heads up on the Stormrage queues.  You know what keeps people from posting on forums?  A working game.  Cause once things are unplayable, or monotonous, then you get some very interesting posts.

Aside from the 3 hour queue times on Stormrage (which are apparently the players’ fault, since they rolled on a busy server over 10 years ago), there’s one particular theme that’s popping up a bit more.  And that’s entitlement from the rushers.

Apparently, 2 weeks after launch is an appropriate time to a) release raids, b) flying, c) maxed out artifacts, d) deep knowledge of every dungeon and skippable area, e) go-go runs on mythic, and f) have maxed out the Suramar rep.

Each of these items has been stated by the devs to take months, with various catch up mechanics along the way.  The people chomping at the bit are from a wide variety of places but they all have 1 thing in common – they rushed to end game and are more or less, maxed out.  They have the loremaster achievement (the one that will eventually unlock flying), which meant hours of grinding.  They are sitting at ilvl 850, which requires a fair chunk of dungeon grinding.  They’ve maxed Suramar rep and have a lot of points invested in a single artifact.  They immediately boot warlocks from any LFG group.  And they deserve better.

Why?

Entitlement is based on the concept of having something, and setting expectations to be the same in a separate environment.  Sort of like teens who never cooked/cleaned at home, end up in college and are totally lost and expect others to do the work.

In WoW (and the same thing happens in other MMOs when they launch, as compared to WoW), the content drought is so severe that people play for a year+ with the same set of rules.  MoP to WoD was disgustingly long, and people were loathed to give up flying after 10+ years of it.  Then WoD gave them flying, super powers, amazing gear, LFR pinatas and essentially made everyone a god.  Legion comes out and you hit like a wet noodle, lost all the perks you had before and are told you have to wait months to get them back, if at all.  Did I mention that Inscription was gutted since glyphs were almost completely removed from the game? And you’re paying a company to do this to you.

So yeah, I can understand why people feel entitled.  They paid their $60 for Legion, they paid their $210 (patch 6.2 was June 2015) to play from then on.  They were allowed to eat their fill from the trough for all that time, only to have it taken away.

Counterpoint, those people are not who the first 3 months of an expansion are for.  Blizzard isn’t so dumb to think that those hardcore players are going to leave, no matter the hardships.  They will post til their fingers bleed but they will still pay their monthly fees.  The expansion is for the group of people who were not playing in 2016.  It’s a spike in sales and Blizz wants that long tail to stretch as far as possible.

Because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters to Blizz is the amount of subscriptions.

 

#WoW Sub is Up

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Actually, Friday was the day my sub was up, as I had gone back early to see the pre-legion events and try out a Demon Hunter.

The good news is that up until last Tuesday, things were good.  From launch until then, the queues were manageable, though server stability was a bit wonky.  From that point forward, every day was a 1-2h queue on Stormrage.  When I got in, things were good but there were a couple odd DCs which put me back into the queue.

I was away for the weekend and was going to make a call today to re-sub or not based on queue times or at the least, options to get off Stormrage.  I checked the forums and since about 10AM, there have been ~5000 people in the queue.  I new Stormrage post goes up every 5 – 10 minutes.

I get it that Stormrage is a busy server.  The busiest, with 3x the average population.  It’s one of the dozen or so servers that are not on the connected realm system.  It also has the most absurd Alliance:Horde ratio.

But that said, I can wait.  There’s no pressure to move forward to some arbitrary goal, in fact waiting makes it better since my Artifact Knowledge research will tick away.

So I’m not going to re-sub until a fix is applied, or the queues get to something reasonable.   The first one is really in Blizzard’s hands, the second is most likely going to be at the end of the month when the first month shine wears off and people decide not to resub.

And it’s not like I don’t a library of stuff to play with.  Batman is calling my name…

#WoW – More Time in Queue than in Game

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I’ve changed my laptop’s power settings so that it no longer shuts down on it’s own.  Whether it’s 6pm or 11pm, there’s at least a 1 hour queue on Stormrage.  The highest I’ve seen was 2 hours with 4500 people waiting.  So my tactic now is to start it up expecting a queue, leave the laptop alone and come back and check on it every 15 minutes or so.  If I do get through, then the AFK portion takes about 15 minutes anyways.

I’d honestly take a server transfer.  I have 11 characters, 6 at 100 or more, so I would certainly prefer to bring them all over.  But Blizz has been adamant that free transfers don’t work.  Eh.  I’m gone for the weekend, so maybe it will get better on Monday.  Ya right.

Shaman

I needed 20 leather and my shaman is a skinner, so only natural that I played him for a bit.  I got up to the chain shot quest in Stormheim before hitting 101.  Still way too underpowered, even though I’m sitting on 710 gear.  Which makes me think that scaling isn’t fully tweaked.

Still, 101 gets you some heroes in the Maelstrom and I started some missions.  Neptulon is back from his vacation.  The hall itself is a dank cave, not exactly what I was expecting.  Or maybe I’ve just been booned with the Monk class hall which is pretty darn cool.  I mean, I use a Turtle to upgrade my weapons.  My shaman uses a rock.

Monk

I finished the mask quest in Suramar and that took me to friendly.  The first chain is in the cave, second is to kill some withered and third is the mask thing.  So, about 30 minutes or so.  World quests are open but given that it was late, I called it a night.

Companion App

I am finding this thing to be quite useful.  Given the queue issues above and limited time, this allows me to manage the heroes on my tablet.  Otherwise, every mission would be a day+ long affair.  It also shows me the world quests, allowing for some planning before playing.  Now if they can only update the armory to include the adventure guide…

More #WoW

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I mucked it up in the comments but last night had a 1 hour queue at 7pmEST on Stormrage.  That’s nearly long enough for me to do an entire workout set, so I think I might actually try that out the next free night I have.  Mind you, I have 3 days left of time to play before needing to get another token.  I have quite a bit on my Monk that I should auction off…not like the ~30k it costs is something that bugs me.  I have over 500k, so I’m good for a while.

Monk Campaign

I figured out what I had done wrong here, and I needed to drop my outstanding quest for my 3rd (tanking) artifact before I could move on.  I needed to find a brewer over in Stormheim.  I hear tell that Stormheim has a fair chunk of campaign quests, which works great for me since it’s my favorite zone.

Anyhoot, find some folk, kill some buggers, get a key and rescue some more.  I will say that at 110, the scaling is on the rough side for a fresh geared player.  I’m a spot under ilvl 800 and things are hitting twice as hard as they were at 109.  Clearly that will get better as my gear does, it’s just a tad jarring considering the effort required previously.  The last “boss” in the zone wasn’t doable as a brewmaster and I barely scratched by as a windwalker.

Next steps are 5 class quests at 8 hours each, 20 leather to some bloke (why?) and then a dungeon run.  We’re slightly over the hump of people at 110 now, so melee queues are in the 20 minute range.  Think I’m going to polish up a bit on my mistweaver, then queue that way.  Not like I’m doing heroics anyways.

Brewmaster Artifact

I decided to do this one after all.  The lore was solid, again back into MoP world.  I needed to collect items to make brew, mix it together than run through Jade Serpent Palace.  I’m not sure if the difficulty was due to scaling or poor play but I did die at the eye boss.  The final parts were fine enough, given that you have access to a healer.  My talents are dungeon-based, rather than solo, something I’ll change next run.

All told, I prefer this artifact quest to the other two.  Windwalker is neat, what with LiLi running around the wind palace, but it doesn’t have the full feel that Brewmaster has.  And I can barely remember the Mistweaver one, other than the dumb AI (why would a DPS tank?)

What to Do?

When I was 109, my quest log had 3 items in it.  1 quest from Highmountain, 1 from the Class Hall and another for Alchemy.  When I hit 110 and exclamation marks appeared, all of a sudden I’m at 20 quests.  So from the narrowed experience leveling, to an open experience at 110, it’s hard to figure out what to do.

I guess I’ll work on my Suramar rep, so that World Quests open up, then follow that with some passive tries at getting my Campaign moving.  I could also work on my professions (including Archeology)… but that’s more passive I think.  Then there’s my alts to think about… though my gut tells me to wait until my Artifact Knowledge has moved up some ranks, so that catching up is easier…

 

#WoW Legion – Day 1

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It’s ok.

 

So a few more words.  I started with Stormheim, which is a cross between Game of Thrones and How to Train Your Dragon.  It’s mostly Vrykul lore (think Nordic gods) and you get a hook shot tool to swing yourself up on ledges.  The zone has quite a few vertical spots, so the hook shot is very useful.  I completed the overall zone story and I have to say it’s pretty solid.  The part where you get sent to hell and have to come back is pretty neat.

You know what’s great about Stormheim?  Not a single Orc.  Screw those guys.

I also started my Class Hall (Monk, since I want to heal) and it’s exactly in the spot it should be – turtle island.  The legendary quest was pretty straightforward – it scales with your gear and not level.  Instead of Garrison missions you now have Class Hall missions.  I am curious as to how that plays out at max level…

The cinematics are top notch, though each intersects with the other faction so you’re missing out on a lot of context. I have no idea why the horde is attacking the alliance (should be the other way).

Each zone has a flavor, which is more based on the most popular aspects of previous expansions.  Where each expansion had a unified lore behind the land, Legion does not.  Remember, this was supposed to be an island with only the Tomb of Sargeras.  Now it has people who have been living on it for centuries, people who were isolated on other continents (as per their lore).  So if you’re looking for a cohesive view of the expansion, look somewhere else.

Shout to the music.  I usually keep the music on for the first month or so of an expansion before tuning out.  So far, great stuff.  If you hate bagpipes though… might want to turn on mute.

Dungeon

I completed the Halls of Valor.  That was a neat dungeon that took just the right amount of time.  Boss mechanics were fairly simple, though there was a fair chunk of AE in each.  When I see “spread out” or “move from boss”, I think to my previous post.   The art is solid, the lore is great (sort of like Valhalla) and the final boss is hyuge (again, sucks for melee).

Mechanics

I think this deserves some consideration.  Combat is mostly the same as before – press buttons, things die – though there is arguably more AE stuff going on than before.  There are no new talents for existing classes.  There are less skills, though the skill dance is more complex than before as everything seems to be on cooldowns.

No flying.

Dalaran has it’s own Hearthstone.  But it doesn’t have an auction house.  So… everyone should be in the MoP capital, for practical reasons.  Again.

Very similar to WoD, there are world uniques and treasures to collect on the map.  Dissimilar is that all the bosses I’ve found so far can be soloed, and scale to more people.  Treasures seem more abundant and less based on climbing to weird places, but more about exploration.  It’s an overall improvement.

I’ve died.  A few times.  Not to gimmicks, but to actual combat scenarios where I mucked up – again mostly due to AE.

Artifact weapons are ok.  I’ve leveled mine up a bit based on drops (lots of drops) and taken some additional skills in its tree.  Item levels are boosted by slotting items in the weapons, and those are obtained from quests.  So there is some progression.

Quests are a mixed bag.  Lots of kill X or collect Y.  Lots of it.  There are some different ones, where you need to follow a set path, or sneak around.  Just not a whole lot.  The optional quests require you to spend double or triple the time in an area to clear the objectives.  Since they go away at 110, I would argue that they are not worth the time.

Overall

Clearly these are first impressions.  The game is an overall improvement over WoD.  It’s not baby-bathwater, but it’s forward movement.  I have some questions about longevity of certain design choices, but time will tell.

Playing as a Team

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I take athletics for granted.  I was raised with sports all around me, though the majority was hockey.  I like to think I have an aptitude for nearly any sport, as long as I understand the rules.  I can certainly appreciate sport plays, more so the ones leading up to the great play on the highlight.  I’m mentioning this because I’ve gone to see my wife play some ball hockey lately.  She certainly has a solid understanding of the mechanics, but the nuances of team sports are not her bag.  Give her a golf club and she’s a maniac though.

Which I think is an interesting idea to explore.  Working in a team, it’s fairly easy to find the best and worst players within a group.  They usually stand out.  The folks in the middle, those are a bit harder to qualify and find their personal spot.  As good as Messi is, there are 10 other players on the pitch with him and their play allows him to shine.  Each one needs to understand their role in the team and what’s expected.  They need to meet that expectation.  And often times it’s about multiple split second decisions while trying to stick to a game plan.  If the team is focused on zone defense, then chasing the opponents is going to go poorly.  Possession-based teams shoot infrequently, in order to maintain game control.

So watching my wife play ball hockey, completely recreationally mind you, puts into sharp contrast individual skill and team skill.  The former you can certainly practice on by yourself, but the latter takes hundreds of hours of group practice.  And as an adult, when exactly are you supposed to find that time?

Vault 75

I’m slowly moving around the Commonwealth, stabbing out away from Sanctuary.  I’ve hit Vault 81, Hubris Comics (which was awesome) and last night headed east to Vault 75, which was in the basement of a high school.  The experiment here really relates to the previous topic of skill refinement.  They studied and found genetic samples of teens that showed high potential and got rid of the rest.  There’s a target practice spot within the map too, fully functional with timer and everything.  My guess is that it was like a mini-Hunger Games or Logan’s Run in there.

It was also the first time I’ve actually met enemies with the skull icon.  These are folk who are a higher level and pose an additional risk.  One even had a plasma gun, which I was smart enough to pick up.  So while my super trusty sniper rifle helped out to clear the stragglers, these 2 buggers really took me for a spin.  I mean, how many sniper shots to the eyeballs can a dude take and still not realize I’m hiding around some corner? (the answer is 5).

I’m certainly appreciating the challenge here.  I’m making more use of Dogmeat as a distraction for battles, to help flush out the enemies.  He’s great at poking Deathclaws from their burrows (you can hear them breathing, which is cool and disturbing) so that I can send a missile on their foreheads.  The game is slowly inching away from a lone survivor vibe to one of effective team play.  I have a better understanding of how the party AI works, how they can disable mines or collect some loot for you.

I rather like the discovery aspect of the small things that make the game tick.  Sure, there’s a crapton that’s the same as in Fallout 3 but the finer details are where the meat is at.  It makes the game seem fresh while being familiar.  That said if people want to play it just like F3/NV, then there’s certainly nothing stopping them.  They’d just be missing out.