Dark Souls

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Outside of gaming, my wrist still hurts and I’m off for a referral.  Physio hasn’t done much, unfortunately, though the last round found a good taping job that relieves the pain temporarily.  Basically, any pressure against the palm with the wrist at a non-neutral angle, causes spikes of pain.  Sleeping was uncomfortable, cutting veggies too.  Exercise is an odd one, as nearly all exercises should be done in a neutral grip, if done correctly. Upright rows, and twist grips (like a clean and jerk) simply can’t be done, nor can pushups.  But I can do a squat, deadlift, press, bench, pull up, chin up, bar curls and dozens more.  I guess it’s one way to make sure my form is perfect. Oh, and there’s something to be said about linear gains in exercise.  Supremely motivating.

Inside of gaming, I’ve put the Division on hold for a bit.  I’ve tried a bit of the Dark Zone and it’s like a dumbed down version of the 1-30 content.  It feels like a meat grinder, with the only goal being to collect more numbers, to grind more meat.  I realize that’s the entire point of “end-game” content, it’s just that there’s no strategy to it.  Point and shoot and that’s it.  The hard mode missions are neat though.  It’s just that I recently played all of them, and I can do with a break.

That brings me to Dark Souls.

The Heck Man?

My experience with DS starts with the NES.  Seriously.  I played Battletoads, TMNT, Ninja Gaiden, Punch Out, Ghouls and Goblins, Contra, and Castlevania.  I have played against the RNG of gaming, and I have played within the crazyness of pathing of the AI.  I was raised in the fires of a Game Over screen.  Clearing the Ninja Gaiden remake is the only recent high bar I can compare to… and that was nearly 10 years ago.

DS follows that thought process and applies a bit of an open-game mindset.  I like the concept of respawning enemies when you save.  I like that enemies have patterns that you can learn to exploit.  I like the complexity of the stats, and the interactions between items.  The feeling of being the little guy against a mosh pit of enemies.  I like that when you die, you can get the lost souls back, and that any gear you did acquire stays with you.

My only gripe is in the controls.  It took me an hour to break the instinct of pressing X to attack.  So much so that I had to swap out what X did and put in an item I couldn’t use to avoid drinking all my potions.  Rolling to avoid damage is inconsistent, along with the collision detection.  A roll that works the first time, you may completely miss the 2nd time.  Attacking is similar, where the lock-on doesn’t always register due to movement.  Enemies hit you with an unknown hit box, making it really hard to figure out if you actually evaded correctly, or if they missed you my an imaginary pixel.  Or that you can’t interrupt an attack (at least I haven’t figure out how to on anything other than a grunt).

I tried the first boss about a dozen times.  I was trying to figure out his attack patterns, and found that rolling in was more effective then out, for most attacks anyways.  When he transforms into that purple snake thing, the camera angle is so poor that I have no idea what he’s doing unless I’m so far out of range that I can’t attack.  It just turned into “dodge in, attack 3x, dodge out, circle strafe”.  And that strategy has worked wonders on anything since then that takes more than 5 hits to kill.

I clearly still have a learning curve to get through, in particular in learning how to be more aggressive when I get the patterns down.  The controls are slower and less responsive than I’d like, so that’s a big part of it.  I think it may have more to do with unlearning 30 years of gaming.

Still, it’s a fun game.  One where you feel yourself progressing, and there’s minimal AI cheating (mimics aside, those bums).  It’s not often I play a game where I learn something brand new, and I’m quite glad this one offers it.

Forbidden Desert

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A the Geek Market a few weeks ago, I picked up Forbidden Desert.  I played once with my 5 year old that week, then again last night with the 3 & 5 year olds.  They were not the same experience.

The game is based on Forbidden Island and follows a similar structure.  There are 24 cards set up in a grid, with the center piece missing, acting as a sand storm.  The goal of the game is to find 4 missing pieces of a ship and reach the landing pad to escape.  To find a piece, you need to uncover 2 indicator cards and find their intersection, then go and get the piece.  Each turn allows you to take 4 actions, move or dig the sand, and most character can only move north/south or east/west, and 2 levels of sand means you can’t cross but have to dig through.  There are tunnels spread about that can speed play, and you do unearth various gizmos to help clear sand, protect from the sun or zoom around.  After the 4 turns, you flip over storm cards, and that’s where it gets rough.

The cards move the eye of the storm around the board, and based on that movement, more sand shows up.  There are a few cards that increase the storm force, thereby requiring you to pick up even more sand cards.  Finally, there’s the sun card, which drains your water (effectively hit points).  Too much sand and you die.  Not any water and you die.  RNG can be a pain here.

The first game was, or felt, like an even spread of storm cards.  It was manageable and fun.  We barely escaped mind you, but the idea that there was some level of control was key.  We needed to refresh our water supplies and working together made it happen.

The second game had horrible RNG.  Within the first 2 rounds, the storm had picked up 4 notches and I was down to my last hit point.  I tried to get my character to water, but the storm cards had put so much sand on the board it just wasn’t possible to move there.  My 5 year old had her turn and pulled out two more sun cards, which wiped 2 of us off the game.

I’m thinking back to Pandemic, which also has RNG, but thankfully places the bad cards in an “even” spread.  Back to back epidemics can (will) kill you in the mid game, so a decent spread is very good.

The next run through Forbidden Desert, I will be splitting up the storm pile and distributing the storm/sun cards evenly between the piles, my guess 4 piles should do.  Then I’ll shuffle each pile and stack them up.  While it’s certainly possible to have back to back poor pulls, it should be an extremely rare occurrence to pull up 3 in a row.  Random within limits, because really, who gives a crap about pure RNG except when it’s in your favor?

 

The Division at 30

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I hit level 30 over the weekend and the game took an odd turn for me.

Each sub-zone has one group mission, and on the penultimate one I was teamed up with 2 folks who were level 30 and had a high gear score (or it appeared high).  Yes, this game has a gear score, easy to identify with other players.  They were both near 150, which is the average item level across all pieces.  I was having a tough slog through the zone, taking quite a few hits to take an enemy down.  15K per headshot, which I thought was pretty decent – at least in the solo play.  These 2 guys didn’t even both hiding, they just ran through the entire zone, a clip dropping an entire room.  My first thought was that they had hacked the game.

And then I hit level 30.  I crafted some level 89 gear and went to do the last mission.  In it, I got a new sniper (marksman) rifle and was now doing almost 60K per headshot.  My mine skill was clearing out any solo mission in a single hit.  In the space of 30 minutes, I had quadrupled in power.  The sad part is the difference in power between me at 29 and 30 was about the same as the difference between me at 30 and those 2 guys at 150+ gear score.

Now, I’m all used to power curves.  Diablo 3 has one of the worst I’ve ever seen.  Most MMOs have bad ones as well, though dying while leveling is a rare enough occurrence these days.  The Division just takes it to a level I’m not used to.  It feels like I’m using cheat codes.

But, this is only related to the “normal” level gameplay.  I haven’t done any Dark Zone content, nor any challenging/hard missions.  I’m fairly confident a level of challenge exists within that space.  Perhaps this is like SWTOR, where once you hit level cap, they provide you with a set of epic gear to take on the “now relevant” content.  It does make all the solo-content essentially irrelevant to complete (aside from credits I guess).

So now, I’m looking for some builds and better understanding of stats in the end game.  From what I can see so far, having scavenging up to 99% has a dramatic effect on drops, though getting it to 100% causes a bug to make it worthless.  Crit chance has no impact on head shots.  Weapon Damage has diminishing returns, Skill Power affects pretty much anything you do, and there’s a bear minimum level of hit points you need to survive a sniper shot.  In a game where defence means little (from what numbers I’ve seen), optimizing offence seems to be relegated to a very small set of stats.  Curious as to the long tail in this game.

I’ll give it another week or so, to see where things fall into place.  Afterwards I think I’ll give Dark Souls 3 a try.  We’re a month in, someone is bound to have a 50% off sale right?

Self-Motivation

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Duke of O has an interesting comment that bears some expansion.  How to get self-motivated.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m an outlier when it comes to motivation.  My wife thinks it’s borderline OCD, though in fairness it has more to do with anxiety & stress management.  At work, I take spontaneous decisions multiple times per day.  Each one is based on the available facts, my memory, expert advice, and finally the analysis of the long-view.  Most people can understand everything but the long-view.

Sure, a decision today has an immediate impact, but what about a few weeks from now, or a few years?  How does it impact me, the people close to me, and the people outside my circle?  How does it impact other decisions?  These are all items that go through my head and are incredibly hard to shake.  I’ll give an example, home renos.

For a long while we wanted to knock down a wall and open up the kitchen.  Sounds simple enough.  After I looked at all the details it actually turned into a whole floor reno.  I needed to re-arrange the kitchen cabinets, get a new counter, open up another wall to run pipes & electricity, move some switches, re-enforce an adjoining wall, change the flooring in the kitchen and remainder of the floor to match, which also joined into a bathroom…it was never ending.  What seemed like a simple job turned into a 6 week reno.  None of it was surprising, as I had thought it all out, but it took time.

How does this link to self-motivation?  I think long term and I think in terms of return on investment.  I worked for about 4 months on a particular work project from my basement. I spent a few weeks at the cottage too, working at odd hours to get it done.  I knew that if I crammed as much work as possible into the right time space, I could get double that in free time later in the day.  I made sure that the environment was conducive to that as well, so I eliminated any distractions.  I basically set up the perfect environment for me to succeed, removing any excuses.

Same goes for exercise.  I just don’t have time to physically travel to and from the gym.  The closest one is about 5 minutes away.  Including the driving, changing, and shower, I lose at least 30 minutes of my day.  And that’s not counting the waiting for a machine/weight to free up.  What would take me 60-90 minutes in a gym, I can get done in 45 at home.  That’s massively motivating.  The equipment I have, and the setup I have, make it extremely easy to get going, listen to music or a movie, and get the workout done.   I’ve removed all excuses from the equation, with the exception of “I’m too tired”.

And that’s the hardest one because it’s often true.  So I use various applications to keep me honest.  My wife uses social groups.  Getting a notification on the phone/tablet that it’s time to workout is motivating.  Seeing the progress between workouts is even more motivating.

Self-motivation is like a chemical reaction.  You need the right conditions and the right ingredients to get it going.  And once it starts, it’s usually quite hard to stop.

New Gear

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I’d been thinking about it for a few weeks now and when that happens, it usually follows with about 20 hours of homework for options.  It doesn’t matter what it is that I have my mind on, I am thorough.  This time it was replacing my home gym equipment.

Swapping from this

IMG_20160418_214001

It was far from useless, in fact I was using it every other day for quite a while.  It just limited my movements and isolated muscle groups.  Even though I was getting better at the exercises on the machine I felt I was losing in regular day to day activities.  Compound exercises are the way to go, and you need free-weights.  So I’m selling the above and swapping to the below.

IMG_20160420_212917

That’s a power rack and bench I got from Treadmill Express.  Buying fitness equipment in Canada is not the easiest…holy cow.  There are at least 10x the providers in the states and usually the shipping is included.  Anyhow, I bought on Sunday, it shipped out on Monday and was at my door Tuesday.  That’s impressive.

I spent about 2 hours Wednesday putting it all together.  That was a workout in itself.  Now I need to go and get an Olympic weight bar and some plates to complete the gear swap.  That’s also something that’s not the easiest to come by, since you know, shipping 300+ lbs isn’t cheap.  Thankfully there’s a store in town I can get a set for a good enough deal.  Then I can enjoy squats, lunges, benches and lifts galore.  And unless my math is wonky, all for under $1000.  That’s about 15 months of a gym membership.  Or half a gaming PC, hah!

That should set me up for this weekend and getting really into the stronglifts 5×5 program.  I’m much to rusty to lift anything more complicated.  It’ll be sore but it’ll be fun.

Wrist Issues

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I’ve been going to physio for a few weeks now, with a pain in the lower left part of the palm of my right hand.  It’s been nagging me for a few months, enough that push ups are too painful.  Anyhoot, a fair chunk of exercises and massages and treatment with basically more pain.

Last night I had a 2nd consult, from someone with a bit more experience with hand injuries.  It is difficult to describe the level of pain felt when he started some movements with my hand.  Sort of like stubbing all your toes at once and the body simply goes numb except for that single part flaring like fire.  He found some other issues at play and now I have a taped up wrist and a new set of exercises to do.  Apparently I have a month of rehab at least, then it may end up with surgery.  I am not looking forward to that possibility.

The worst part is that I play hockey and the injury is on the hand that does most of the work. And some of the exercises I do are limited by the movements of the wrist.  I’m told that as long as I have the tape, I should be able to keep doing what I was doing… but I’m now consciously aware of the issue more so than just living with the pain.  Ah well, cardio doesn’t really require the hands so maybe I’ll swap to that for a while.

I did order some gym equipment… and I think it’s being delivered today.  That should be interesting.

Books

I’ve read a fair chunk of Hugo books lately, though the most challenging was the Rama series.  I really like Clarke’s style of sci-fi, a real knack for the future.  The first book is exactly this, an exploration into a new world, with great pace.  A solid pitch.

The next 3 novels in that series were not really from Clarke but from Gentry Lee.  They go back to the same spaceships and focuses more on the people than the science.  Gentry Lee is not a very good “people” writer.  It is littered with tropes and needless sexual descriptions.  It’s got to be every 40 pages that the characters are getting it on.  The science and underlying ideas are solid enough, minus the last 20 pages or so.

spoiler.  If your main character has spent 60 years cheating and avoiding death, yearning to stay with their family, I am not certain that they would have a sudden change of heart and just accept they are going to die in 10 hours, when a perfectly viable solution is available.  end spoiler

The first book was done in 2 days.  The last 3 took me nearly a week each because it was so hard to get into it.  Then again, I guess it’s like asking someone to take up Michelangelo’s chisel and make another David.

The Division

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So I’ve been playing this one off-and-on for a bit now.  I’m not terribly far through, level 21 of 30.  I guess that’s about 70% of the map, based on what I’m able to see.  I’ve absolutely zero experience in the DarkZone (DZ) since that opens up in a level.  It’s a weird game.

The most obvious of all elements is that it’s mostly single player.  Aside from the shared hubs and the missions (that you can solo if you want), I never see anyone else in the game.  It’s quite jarring to be playing alone, having no help, then getting into a mission and having someone heal you.  I quite like the group aspect, I just wish there was more of it.  Maybe that comes later?

The RPG aspect is cool enough.  Gear drops with a multitude of stats, though only 3 really count (DPS, health and skills) in large portions.  Items have talents, there are mods for gear and skills, and there’s a fair amount of customization through talents.  I’m not certain the balance is appropriate mind you.  An even spread of stats doesn’t give much benefit compared to a high investment in DPS.  Even if you were to stack everything into health, you’d still get mowed down.  I do like that you can re-roll stats on gear (a tech room upgrade).  It allows me to keep the same stat balance, while getting general secondary stat boosts.

Guns.  There are many guns.  Machine guns, assault rifles, marksman rifles, uzis… you name it.  There’s a generic DPS stat on them, though it still requires you to pay attention to the other stats – namely rate of fire.  I have one rifle that allows me to unload an entire clip while aiming.  It does half the damage per shot of my other rifle, but shoots about 4x as fast.  Had I only looked at the damage stat, I would have been mighty peeved (I was on an earlier comparison). Mods on guns help tweak a few settings, thought it’s the talents that have most merit.  Kills that refresh skill cooldowns, or health on kill, or group stuns… all of it matters.  It’s different to have a game provide you with so much choice while leveling, but it’s refreshing.

The actual missions are all very similar.  Free some hostages, take down a bad guy, break up a deal, power up some towers.  All of them (minus investigation ones) require you to mow down a bunch of cookie cutter bad guys.  The controls are responsive, and the enemy AI isn’t dumb as dirt, so there’s some fun when they throw everything your way.

Group missions are different.  They usually cover big expanses of land, which only a few narrow hallways.  This allows for fairly large firefights.  The flamethrower and machine gun enemies are a right pain.  Solid team work, with a couple folk set to heal makes a big difference.  Bosses aren’t bullet sponges, and flanking is certainly required to make work.  Tight controls and the ability to perform quick headshots help a ton.

Overall it’s a good game.  I’m not terribly sold on the longevity, as I expect perhaps another 4-5 hours to complete the main portion of the quests.  The exploration part doesn’t hit any particular nerve and the grind for more stats died in my MMO raiding days.  Plus, it’s sunny and warm outside, after an un-ending winter.

Geek Market Family Outing

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Last post I mentioned that I had brought the family to a geek market.  This Geek Market.

I did a bit of pre-sale for the event, and both the little ones were all smiles about heading there.  My other half wasn’t so sure.  I knew that spending 4 hours wasn’t going to be an option, but a solid 2 would do.  We headed over, paid the entry and then started walking around the kiosks.

I’ve been to my fair share of these types of events, where people are selling stuff.  I have a great dislike of pressure sales, and the high level of energy required when you’re just browsing.  Geeks are introverts, by and large, so that was certainly the biggest shock (or lack thereof) while browsing.  People just smile and let you look around.  Those that built their own crafts are quite proud just to be sitting there, and are more than willing to share their stories if asked.  But there’s no pushing.  That’s one of the best parts.

Anyhoot, the first spot was a couple guys selling dice sets.  They also had a random dice bin, which my eldest treated like diamonds.  Every 30 seconds, “when can we get some dice”.  Jeebers.  It was the last thing we did before leaving and she was super happy with her choices.  She also managed to find a dice with two 5s and a 7.  Now that’s something!

There was a neat Lego setup, with a perpetual marble machine as the centerpiece.  Again, my eldest just stopped moving and stared for a few minutes.  I think we all did.  Off to the side were 2 millennium falcons, one of which was custom built.  It was like Christmas.  The gent had spent 3 months building it and was practically glowing with pride.  All the rest of Lego was custom sets too, and I could see the wheels turning in my kid’s head for future projects.

My littlest one really liked the toys, all of them.  She ended up with some miniature winnie the pooh figures, similar to one we found in one of our old boxes at home.  She was super pumped.

There were a bunch of other neat kiosks around.  Jewelry, clothes, toys, mugs, boardgames… even a bunch of furries and stormtroopers.  Another section of the floor plan was set up for tabletops and some cosplay.  We didn’t have a chance to explore that side with the time we had.

It was interesting to see my wife’s reaction in all of this.  My guess is that she was expected a set of boardgames and underground culture, when it reality it was just a bunch of people with similar interests, sharing them.  Ninja Turtles, GI Joe, Harry Potter (wands and all) all seemed to resonate with her, though not as a geek mentality.  She did mention that she appreciated the more calm atmosphere, compared to some other trade shows.

Long story short, brought my 2 kids and wife to a geek market.  Confirmed I have raised the 2 kids well, and wife is a slow convert.

Back From the Dead

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It’s been a loooong while since I’ve posted and I’m hoping that’ll change.  The last post was an explanation as to how I hate the month of February, and that bled all the way into March.  Winter in Ottawa has been a pain, with snow last Monday.  Finally, the good weather is back, and so am I.

Quick summary of the past 2 months.

  • Lost ~25lbs
  • Added and removed about 50 games from my tablet
  • Played and completed (well, sort of ) the Witness
  • Bought, installed and am running a Raspberry Pi Minecraft server, that my 5 year old loves
  • Went down south for March break with the kids and had a blast
  • Started a new project at work, which will allow our Prime Minister to do his job a bit better

Games

TapTap Far Away Kingdom is the main tablet game at the moment.  It’s a simpler version of Tap Titans, without multiplayer, and doesn’t require me to smash my screen.  I wrote a quick guide for it too.  I can just let it run idle for a while.  There are many idle games on the market, and it’s hard to find the one with just the correct amount of user interaction.  I’d prefer not to break my wrists.

I’m back into Minecraft after a couple years off.  My 5 year old is enamored with it at school and wanted to give it a try at home.  I had first tried to set up a server on my NAS, which event though it had the server specs, it wasn’t able to take the load.  So I bought a gen3 Raspberry Pi and within an hour, the server was up and running.  Less than $100, case & cables, and it was going.  Very impressed.

I’m also playing The Division, which is I guess like Destiny but for PC.  There’s no MMO part of it, unless you’re actively in a group or a PvP (well, half PvP) zone, which makes for a really empty game.  The mechanics are decent, the content is so-so.  I got a good deal on the purchase, so why not?  I don’t really have much time to play though.

Health

I jumped back on the health train a few months ago, using a personal exercise plan and paying attention to what I eat.  I get a 30 minute walk for lunch, and then another 30-60 minutes of exercise after the kids hit the hay.  It’s had a pretty drastic impact on my hockey speed (imagine carrying a case of beer strapped to your body).  My wife is also on this trek, which makes meal prep a whole lot easier.

I picked up a Fitbit ChargeHR which tracks steps, distance, heart rate and stairs.  That combined with MyFitnessPal app allows me to track my meals (calories + macros), weight, and calorie expenditure.  It is stupid easy to setup and once you’ve tinkered with a few things, it’s about 10 seconds to log a meal, with exercises being synced automatically.  It’s magic I tell you.

Upcoming

We’ve bought and are closing a purchase on a lake front cottage, with possession starting in June.  My number one stress relief activity is fishing, and given that I don’t have time to do much of it, having a cottage will change that fact.  Sure, it’s a massive debt load and responsibility, but it’s also a financial and sanity investment.  I have excellent memories of the cottage life as a child, and it’s something my wife and I want to share with our kids.

First of Many

I’ll try to keep on track with regular posts moving forward.  The next one will deal with a geek market I brought the family to visit over the weekend.  It’s rather clear that my eldest is a geek like her dad, with some spark in the younger one as well.  Not to say that my wife’s excitement at seeing Ninja Turtle action figures wasn’t cool as well.  There’s a lot to say there, so I’ll wait a bit.

Update on Things

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Da Books

I’ve finished a few more books along the way.

The 2nd book in the Three Body Problem series, Dark Forest, is done.  I enjoyed it a lot more than the first one, mainly due to pacing.  When the first book ends, there’s a 450 year countdown to the end of the Earth.  The second book starts with 4 people assigned to think of a way to avert that destruction, while being limited to today’s technology.  The baddies have found a way to prevent the quantum leap in technology.  From a writing perspective, this is actually pretty neat.  It makes the entire tech relatable from a human perspective, and the aliens tech work like magic.  The twist in the story is logical, which helps a whole lot, though the 4 people all use the same gambit. Of course, you can’t read this one if you didn’t read the first one…

I also picked up and finished Red Shirts.  As you can guess, this is a book about the Star Trek (TOS) phenomena where all the red shirts die on away missions.  It’s written through comedy and is quite meta.  It borrows a fair chunk from Last Action Hero, Stranger than Fiction and similar stories, but adds a human touch to it with the Jenkins character.  All of it is relatable, and quite hilarious.  The final quarter moves away from the main story and provides a different view on the problem sets.  I found it oddly similar to the Douglas Adams series of books, with quite a few absurd situations.

I’m now digging into some golden era books, starting with Stranger in a Strange Land.

Da Games

A little break from XCOM2 for a bit.  I have a few ideas as to what my next playthrough will include.  Going to plan a bit before starting up again.

Meanwhile, I found Assassin’s Creed Pirates on my tablet.  This exemplifies what I did and did not like from AC4.  The game is more or less a set of mini-games focused almost entirely on the ship on the sea.  There’s a very small component of infinite runner for some customization upgrades, but overall, it’s just about finding other ships and blowing them up.  The navigation is good enough, the combat is acceptable, and the art is quite nice.  It’s a F2P game that used to be B2P, so there are very few hurdles aside from time played.  It’s grindy, since there are really only a few types of missions in the game, but it’s fun.

The worst part is the storyline, which I think is endemic to the entire AC series.  It makes no sense whatsoever and the actual missions are horrible. It could have been any other IP and just pasted Pirates on it, and you wouldn’t have seen the difference.  It should be said that the main story is like 2% of the game though, so it’s really just a jarring stop to the gameplay when you encounter it.

Finally, The Room 3 is worth every penny.  It took about 6 hours to clear all the various parts, and aside from a single puzzle (the pendulum) I was able to get it all done without any hints.  The production values are amazing.  After playing these games, it really does beg the question why there is no competition in this field on tablets.  Firewatch, the Witness, and Monument Valley can show that puzzle games are really quite good.  Hopefully this section of the market can expand.  Really makes me want to play Myst again…