My boycott continues, which I think prefaces the rest of the tone of this article.

By most measures that I have seen, Dragonflight is a good expansion to WoW and Overwatch2 seems to have hit some stride. Ok, enough of the good news.

ABK got a nice rejection letter from the UK competition board with regards to Microsoft buying it out, on account of the existing size of the latter’s cloud gaming division. If anything, I think it fairly obvious to anyone who buys groceries that less competition is bad for the consumer. We’re not talking a mom and pop shop here, this is two massively large companies that should be able to operate independently. All the other reasons are certainly valid, but that one in particular is the giant red flag – it only serves to reduce competition, cut staff, and make rich people richer.

Second, ABK came out with their quarterly report. Not so good news for Blizzard. The key bit is that the monthly user count went from 45m to 27m, and that doesn’t count the NetEase drama which comes out for the next report. That’s 18 million users, or about a third. In fairness, it’s higher than the same period the year before, but it really makes you question how MAU as a metric actually has any true value when you’re in F2P land (Overwatch 2). So Blizz is back into the sub-30m numbers it was trending some time prior.

I get how most companies would be ecstatic to have a fraction of this player base. Blizz is not most companies – it is lead by a rather ruthless corporate overlord who answers only to shareholders. If the money coming in doesn’t go in the right direction, bad things happen.

To compound these issues, Blizz is also losing key talent. Anyone with high school team project experience knows for a fact that some people carry way more than others in any group setting. They are the lighthouse by which the team is guided through thick and thin. Losing these people, in any organization, is extremely painful. Enough of it, and the cascade effects are next to impossible to stop.

Tangent here, but one technique used by many large companies is to make the environment so unpleasant that people quit rather than have to lay them off, theoretically saving money. This model made sense pre-pandemic, and to in some markets post-, but what is actually does is cuts from the top and incentivizes the bottom to to less. Your best employees will rather easily find another job, which leaves a disproportionate hole in the team. Your worse employees will typically dig in their heels, because they can’t easily find another job. Rather than the immediate “pull the band-aid” effect on morale of a mass layoff, you get the continual drain to sanity, which people can feel but rarely adequately measure.

Back on topic. Or so.

Blizz is in an unenviable position where the culture has shifted so gradually that it would be all but impossible to pinpoint the exact item that caused the current state. Was it Warcraft3 Reforged? The double down on borrowed power in Battle for Azeroth, or tripling down on Sylvanas in Shadowlands? Ben Brode leaving Hearthstone? Kaplan leaving Overwatch? Shuttering of HotS? The all but abandonment of StarCraft? The announcement of Diablo Immortal? Blitzchung? Sexual harassment? The multiple lawsuits? The lack of a personable leader since Morhaime?

It’s more likely that this adheres to the Ship of Theseus metaphor, where aside from the company name ablazed on the games, Blizzard today is not recognizable from 10 years ago, let alone 5. So many parts have changed, and will change, that the gamer goodwill that brought it this far along is all but gone. Not saying too little too late, far from it. But the idea that Blizzard can attain some of it’s past glory/impact is quite the pipedream.

Matsuda is “leaving” his position as CEO. I’m amazed it took this long given the stunning trail of disaster these past few years. The only reason that this company is still around is FF14, and by the grace of some deity, they haven’t milked it to death. Yoshida must have pictures of someone to build that wall.

SquareEnix has gone to some rather impressive lengths to self-detonate for western gaming. The Avengers is a poster child for an idea that lacked time to gestate, on an IP that was/is overpriced. (Side note, Suicide Squad is being delayed… but will still tank for similar reasons.) Outriders is an amazing piece of gaming that outshone Avengers on nearly every level, yet had no real support. Guardians of the Galaxy is a great game, just not one that will sell 4 million copies.

And Forspoken didn’t meet sales expectations. I’m not sure if people have paid any attention to, you know, the world-state, but if you’re going to sell something at a premium price, it better be premium quality.

The real kicker here is that they still believe that NFT are the future. So much so that they sold their current IPs (Tomb Raider, Deus Ex) to fund the activity.

The shining light here is that there doesn’t appear to be news on HR/harassment, which is refreshing. This just seems to be boardroom decisions for investment that were poorly placed. Perhaps with new leadership at the helm, they can refocus and get one victory, which will certainly help with morale. Fingers crossed.

My larger goal here was to get every class to at least 50, then slowly move up the others. Mission accomplished. I’ll readily admit I got distracted and took way longer to get the last one up there (Monk). I have at least 1 of every role at 90, all crafters at 90, and a should have all my healers at 90 pretty soon. Also have acquired about 15m gil through a combination of venture sales and PotD cosmetic sales. No idea what I’ll do with it though.

The distractions are rather substantial.

My private island is now at level 12, and I’ve collected everything I could from there. I think it’s rather zen, though could use with a tool/buff to improve the amount of a given item you can harvest in the wild. At ~80 Laver required per week, it feels burdensome to collect them 1 at a time. Still, it’s a neat distraction.

I’ve collected mounts from all but the Vanu beast tribes now, which is an interesting grind. I think beast tribes are a great microcosm of the development improvements over the years. Earlier quests are all over the place, with multiple pickups, tons of travel, and multiple steps. Later quests are beelines to the goal, a single step, and honestly better experience. A Vanu (50-60) quest may give me 5% of a level. Arkasodara (80-90) give about 15% per quest.

Tails of Wonder is a weekly event where you complete 9 tasks to get about 3/4 of a level. Useful in the 80 level range, especially when it comes to 2.0 content (raid and trials) which are easily soloed by a level 90 tank. My challenge here was that I didn’t have all that content unlocked, which is gated behind multiple quests. Getting to phase 3 of the Alexander raids requires 8 different raid be completed first. Heavensward raids are doable too, though twice as long. Stormblood raids are not generally soloable.

The Duty Roulette has 3 main venues for experience. Leveling dungeons (I’m missing maybe 1 or 2) are simple enough, but gear levels can make them hard if there’s no sync (e.g. you are 68, with lvl 60 gear and put in a 67 dungeon). MSQ duties are slightly less boring than they were before 6.1, but barely. Alliance Raids are what I enjoy the most, if only because you get really easy runs, then runs where you wipe multiple times with new players. I spent some time unlocking all of the potential raids here, to add some variety. Shadowbringer raids… those are never easy.

All of this content generates a LOT of Tomes of Poetics, which gives access to 50/60/70/80 gear sets. These gear sets are enough to get you through the next 10 levels, as long as you are not tanking in an non-synched dungeon. I’ve got all the level 50 gear and weapons now, staring to collect level 60.

I will say that the rate of acquisitions of tomes is slower than the rate of leveling for a given role… so far. The issue I foresee is how the melee DPS gear works. See, Healers, Ranged Physical, Ranged Magic, and Tanks all use the same gear within their roles. For healers, that means 4 jobs with the same gear. Nice! For Melee Physical though… Dragoon/Reaper has a set, Ninja has as set, and Monk/Samurai share a set. That effectively means that this role will be the last one that I level, in order to collect the necessary gear. (Yes, I could buy the gear with the millions of Gil I have. Call me Scrooge.)

Patch 6.35

Today we’ll see 6.35 launch, which brings Lopporit Beast Quests (crafting) and the newest Deepest Dungeon (rogue-like) for leveling 81-90. Up until now, Bozja was the best bet for that range, which is also used for 71-80. There are other bits added, as glamours for crafting classes.

Next Steps

I should be able to finish up the Astrologian pretty quick, which would close the chapter on my healing roles. Next up is Ranged Physical (Bard + Machinist). I am conscious that the roulette queues for these will be longer than my healer roles… so let’s see how that goes.

I know there won’t be an expansion in 2023, so I am in no rush to get anyone to 90. FF14 is hitting the 10 year mark, which most likely means a pile of cosmetics instead. Plus there is a rather substantial pile of quests to unlock content I’ve yet to give a shot.

I’m still finding it quite zen as compared to RL work, what with 2022 having a rather large dearth of games to play. There are other games that seem interesting, but it would seem that most are launching with debilitating PC issues, effectively making them open betas at a full price tag. I’ve got my Steam wishlist set up to advise me of sales, and I’ll pick up a few in the summer I bet. Probably end up with a Steam Deck by that point as well… my library is overfull and the Switch is showing its limits.

I like Metroidvanias. I enjoy their puzzle like construction, the incremental power, the build variety, and the rewards for precision. Hollow Knight is right at the top of my list, just an all around amazing game from end to end. Bloodstained, Ori, and Blasphemous are up there too. Metroid Dread is good. Even the indie versions, like Gatto are a decent play as they focus on a specific aspect and go from there.

F.I.S.T. is a game from a smaller gaming developer, using Unreal Engine to try and capture the Metroidvania spirit. You play an anthropomorphic rabbit with a large metal hand attached to your back, on a McGuffin quest. I say smaller because while the game does look good (Unreal will do that) there are some polish pieces missing. I picked this up for free from EGS during the holiday event.

I’ll go over the items I think are essential to the genre:

Puzzles: There are secrets here, lots of backtracking based on new skills/abilities, and new movement abilities. Backtracking / shortcut doors are quite common. I’ve yet to unlock any type of fast travel, but given the size of the map I have to assume it’s there. On that, the map is very large and windy. While you unlock a dash very early, traversal feels laborious.

Incremental Power: You have a skill tree that improves your weapon combos. You don’t actually hit harder exactly, you just unlock new button press combos for say an extra swing or such. This does mean that even the starting enemies still take the same amount of hits later on. For shorter games, I don’t mind. The weapons themselves you unlock have different aspects… one is pure melee, another AE, another for mid-distance attacks.

Build variety: This is a tougher one, because I enjoy multiple playstyles. Metroid Dread doesn’t have this and it’s a major annoyance to me. F.I.S.T. ‘s variety is based on the 3 weapon types and your preference. The skill combo unlocks are only based on damage. It sort of works here.

Precision gameplay: After you play through the White Tower in Hollow Knight, you will understand why this is important… and this is where F.I.S.T. generally disappoints. The world in general feels “floaty”, where gravity doesn’t really exist unless it needs to. Hitboxes are oddly designed and not related to what you see on screen. All attacks have an AE component and your lack of mid-air controls makes its very hard to be precise. Staggering appears to be random, and there are no i-frames or cancel-out abilities. You press a button and you have committed to that movement occurring – the enemy too, meaning that either you hit first and they die, or you take damage. For normal enemies this is an annoyance… for bosses, this means death. You can certainly complete most bosses with zero damage, the mechanics are simple enough. But there are no rewards for playing accurately, which is quite fascinating to me.

F.I.S.T. is an interesting game, with some interesting choices. The map in particular is simply too large with too much filler. The precision puzzles lack the controls to feel rewarding rather than simply lucking out. Combat feels slow and random, with the same enemy types throughout. If you can get this for like $5-10, it’s an interesting distraction. It will also remind you that there are much better Metroidvanias out there, for the same price.

I’ve been pushing a tad more in IXION, and I keep hitting walls – literally in some cases. When you truly start the game, it boldly announces that you have a 6% chance of survival. Quite true.

This is a game where you’re consistently managing failures, but the tools to manage them are scarce. Resources are limited, but the goals of the game require a rather substantial amount of balance to keep the ship going forward.

For example, in order to complete the first act (not the tutorial), you need to collect 500 cryo pods. These are containers with frozen people in them. You don’t need to thaw them, just hold them. You start this act with around 100 people on board, and in a broad sense, the resources to feed/house twice as many. These people also have continual request from you, such as constructing a new building, or repairing an item. These tasks rarely have any strategic benefit… building a 3rd of a building will keep you off balance.

Completing this task in time gives trust, failing to do so lowers it. As long as you are balancing resources (not tasks), you should be gaining positive trust. If you fail to balance, you lower trust. 0 trust, game over. Ignoring the task has zero consequences – so you learn very quickly to ignore tasks. The reward for the task (a temporary boost) does not at all compensate for the loss of overall economy balance. In the case where you actually need to gain a boost of trust, your population is probably half on strike, you’re low on resources, and it’s nearly impossible to complete the task at all, making it a double negative. It’s unfortunate because this could be an interesting part of the game, but as it stands, the risks exponentially outweigh the gains.

Back to the cryo pods. Now, if you have too many people and not enough work (the only item you can overproduce is food, everything else is restricted), trust goes down. It’s simply not possible to have enough work for everyone. For every person you have, you need to house them. The basic building houses 15… so the math isn’t in your favor here to house 500. Not enough housing, trust goes down. If you have more cryo pods than you have people, trust goes down.

I should add that the space limitations are managed through opening new zones. Each zone you do open though, increases the stress on the hull, increasing your need for resources to repair it. You can open 1 extra zone in the first act and get through. Open a 2nd and you will be on very thin ice, with limited tools to balance the next failure.

Access to better buildings and housing is behind research. The housing requires level 2, which can only be acquired after you have collected the 500 pods due to an in-game event. What this effectively means is that you are forced into a failure state, and given a very limited set of options to proceed. A set of options that you are not aware of until the failure occurs.

You can construct specific buildings (which take space and resources) to boost trust. You don’t need these buildings if things are going well, and space/resources are scarce enough that it’s frankly seen as wasteful. Like buying a snow shovel in a city that has snow once a year… you can get through that day.

You will likely reach the point in act 1 where collecting these cryo pods works, and things are balanced. You will also reach a phase where there are too many cryo pods and you lose trust. Then a point where you have too many people and not enough food/housing. Then not enough resources to build new housing, or the necessary research unlocked to build the thing that fixes the problem. Then trust will dip. Then they will go on strike and stop producing the things you need (like food, which *blows mind* is so dumb). In 10 minutes you’ll go from a super content and balanced population to a cascade failure that you just aren’t equipped to get out of.

And then you’ll get a task requesting thawing more people.

I am super into games where there is an optimal way to play… I am less into games where there is only one way to play. IXION without doubt has an optimal way to play, but it also has a very narrow window of successful options. I am sure I can get into the right mindset to crack this nut, bu holy macaroni is it not today.

A tale as old as time, and one that can be hilarious or frustrating. All multiplayer games have this, even board games. There are those that have a passion for the meta and those that are checked out. When success is determined by the whole, then this can lead to friction.

In challenging content, the group enters with an understanding that each member needs to bring something to the table. Top-end raiders need the best gear, potions and strategies. Many games avoid any random group generation for this, as the skill levels are next to impossible to figure out… or if they do, then MMR is the way to do so (with accompanied gripes.)

In non-challenging content, the group rarely has any understanding and there are opportunities to simply check out. Especially if the content is repetitive and seen as “filler”. Maw runs from WoW/Legion were a good example. FF14 MSQ (pre 6.1) was the same, where cutscenes were 3x as long as the actual content. The interesting bit is when randomness is applied to the challenge.

FF14 has a random group finder for raids. Raids that are scaled down to a given level. Some raids are extremely under-tuned so that you really don’t have to pay attention to anything. Others have 1 shot mechanics that require group coordination. Access to these events is gated through the main quest, so it is entirely possible to have a first time player surrounded by veterans.

While not a challenge to spot the AFK players, it can be hard to tell the difference between a new player or a troll. The sprout icon (indicating less than 168 hours, or not having completed Stormblood) is sometimes an indicator, but unreliable. Hell, there are times where you simply forget the mechanics because there’s just so much frigging content to begin with! There are 13 Alliance Raids, and over 30 Leveling dungeons…that’s a very absurd amount of content to remember.

FF14 doesn’t support mods like other MMOs do, and it doesn’t have meters either, giving a much more cooperative approach to content. Mythic+ runs simply do not exist, which is a glorious thing for the social glue of the game. In the 10 years I’ve played, I’ve seen less than 10 vote kicks total. Lucky if I saw less than 10 in a week while playing WoW.

Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t need to adjust my own expectations here. Moving from the go-go-go mindset into a more relaxed approach was jarring. I had to re-evaluate why I was playing, so that the journey was as valuable as the goal. That a 5 minute delay (if that) doesn’t matter. That if the tank did go LD/AFK, that the group honestly could still progress rather than fully stall. This mindset doesn’t apply so much to the end game crowd exactly, as the purpose of the game when all your classes are 90 is way different, but for the core game it slows it down just the right amount. Enough so that people generally have ample patience with “slower” players, where info is shared and bad puns.

And when the stress levels drop and you have more opportunities to chat with players, it tends to make for a much more pleasant environment. I’ve got enough stress in my day to day life, no reason for gaming to be one of them.