I have a large dislike for Gleba, and the list of grievances is long my friend! In order.

First, the enemies. I don’t mind biters, you can build walls and by the time you launch a rocket, no biter will ever enter your base. Gleba has stompers. These buggers take a beating, and each step they take breaks stuff. Walls are meaningless. And you need to farm material from quite a ways, so the spaces you need to defend are massive. You need lightning guns that have AE/stun attacks and they are constantly firing. Turning on no enemies mode is awesome!

Second is that nearly everything you can produce on this planet has a spoiler timer. There are only 2 practical items you can ship off planet as they have 15m+ timers. The rest you need to have built-in off-ramps to remove spoilage. It means you cannot truly have a main bus, and instead mini-factories that are rate controlled to reduce the chances of spoilage.

Third, the Biochamber is the only way to build anything here, and it takes nutrients as a power source, which you guessed right, spoil. Creating nutrients is a fun little challenge, as it starts off being from spoilage itself, then you realize Bioflux prints it for free.

Balancing items #2 and #3 are a fun little puzzle. Trains are useless here, and only robots can get stuff around quick enough without spaghetti belts to actually be optimal. It takes 200 or so running at all times to keep the basics going. Everything becomes modular, so you can’t really add 1 or 2 buildings, but a cluster of them to keep it working. The end result is a very organic factory, with dedicated cells. I really do think that this is an amazing design achievement.

Having #1 around meant that I was always under attack and non-stop messages about armies attacking my base. I had a ship just flying between Gleba and Fulgora for lightning ammo and to replace busted pieces. It was also an absolutely massive power draw. Without enemies, Gleba is actually fun!

Sure, shipping the spoiling science packs requires some extra math, but it works! Power issues are non-existent. Supply is easy (mind you collecting Pentapod eggs is it’s own journey), expansion is simple, and the planet went by in a relative jiffy. The items research unlocks are extremely useful – access to Aquilo obviously, but also stack inserters (amazing for Vulcanus), essentially free plastic/rocket fuel from Gleba, rocket turrets (needed to get to Aquilo), and Biolabs (which give a 50% bonus to research production).

Next step is not actually Aquilo but:

• building a farming space ship to put above Aquilo, since the planet has no natural resources
• building a space ship to go to/from Aquilo
• moving all research production from Nauvis to Vulcanus
• getting Biolabs
• Upgrading Nauvis to use Foundries + getting enough calcite to make it run
• Starting the build of a legendary farming station. It takes a long time to build and I’d rather have it ready for when I need it.

Let’s go!

My blog, my rules.

With Vulcanus done, time to move to Fulgora. The Electromagnetic Plant is key for all chips, and is priority #1. And honestly, #2 & #3 since it is that powerful.

Fulgora has no water but instead islands of trash in seas of oil. Every 5 minutes or so, a massive lightning storm hits the planet, and if you or your buildings are hit, it’s 2 hits to snoozeville. Thankfully the planet has a bunch of natural lightning rods strewn about, mostly near the minable trash piles. Mine that by hand, recycle the trash for some RNG materials, and that’s enough to unlock the Recycler, and off to the races.

The Recylcer randomly generates stuff from trash, so you need to build a triage line to store the items together, then let the overflow go back into the Recycler line. Some items are results of other items, so it can get a bit busy. With quality items, you need chests/filters per rarity, which is honestly painful and very low return. Blue concrete has very small value. The epic stuff is super hard to get, and therefore even less useful. I made the choice to keep everything normal quality, and when I’m done with Aquilo I can build a legendary farm method instead.

The net result is that Fulgora took about 1/10th the time because it honestly is quite simple. The planet gives you everything you need, with the exception of plastic. The Recycler/triage line is on one area, liquid processing in another, and finally holmium processing. That’s it. 10 Big Miners and I’m done this place.

Well sort of. Power is a challenge on this planet, as you need to collect lightning. You can build batteries (you need them for the planet research) but this is the only time I actually did do a quality roll. Two plants building batteries, one of them randomly upgrading the outputs. The regular ones go for research, the upgraded ones replace those on the map. An uncommon (green) battery has 2x the storage, rare (blue) 3x. This is an absolutely massive difference. And this is the first planet where I had to put in efficiency modules. Two of the Mk2 bring the power usage down by 80%, which is needed to have power last the entire cycle.

Didn’t take long to get my Electromagnetic Plants back to Vulcanus. It is now raining blue chips, which allows every pass of my science space platform to collect 2k purple, yellow, and pink research.

Preparing for Gleba comes next. Good news, with no enemies mode enabled I am actually going to enjoy this ride!

There’s a saying that you can’t cross the same river twice and that’s certainly true in games. The initial experience of discovery, trial and error, and simply awe just doesn’t exist the next time through. It may give the sensation of comfort, but it’s not the type of emotional event that typically marks you.

This is why NewGame+ exists, and why there are challenge modes. You have the sense of familiar, but with that extra challenge. I wouldn’t say this works for every game, especially those that are narratively driven, but it’s a relatively simple option to extend the shelf life of a game.

Logistics games are similar to action games, where you as an individual become better at the game. You’ve optimized builds, strategies and tactics. Think about it, rogue-likes are based on this exact model. The difference is in how long you gain that experience before a reset. MH Wilds is ‘easy’ because mechanically the game has less friction, but moreso because I’m just a better hunter.

End game Factorio has planet-sized factories that are ultra-optimized. I have spaceships that farm legendary material. Tons of blueprints to quickly build complex structures. And importantly, hundreds of automated robots to do all the menial work for me. I am build an entire factory while standing on a different planet as a result!

I have ziltch of that in a new game. I have a forest, rocks, a pick axe, and legs that run in molasses.

New Game Rules

To make this run different than the last, I need to set some ground rules. Concepts and goals that come from experience and desire.

• Compact builds means maximum distance between roboports. 50×50. This also means that I need to build a blueprint from late game to frame things, as it takes hours to normally unlock this tech.
• I want to get off Nauvis as soon as possible and head to Vulcanus. Vulcanus has absolutely every raw material I need in near-infinite supply with much smaller factories as a result.
• To leave Nauvis quickly, I need to drastically limit my resource expenditure and sprawl. Smaller builds require less material, especially trains to get access to Oil/Nuclear.
• I do not want any enemies or cliffs. Enemies are a resource drain, all risk and no reward. Cliffs on Nauvis are dumb because you can’t get rid of them until much later. I could care less about cliffs once the bombs are available to build on Vulcanus.
• The planet order will be focused on meaningful unlocks. Vulcanus (will be the main factory planet), Fulgora (elevated trains and recyclers), Gleba (I really don’t like this planet, but you need heat plants for later), and finally Aquilo (fusion power).
• I am not looking for quality crafting until after Aquilo is unlocked, at least not in any meaningful sense. That is a major resource drain, with minimal results until you have the appropriate unlocks available.
• Space Ships will maintain the prior build structure. One for the interior planets, one for Aquilo, one for beyond.
• The game is ‘complete’ at the solar system edge.
• I am not interested in a time challenge. I prefer clean and optimized lines that can be re-used. Frankly, time challenges require some RNG luck and double the time in preparing the necessary blueprints to skip design work.

So let’s see where this goes.

I am Canadian, no secrets there. While it’s been rocky times this past year+, the last month has been like no other. I am finding it difficult to sleep with the seemingly non-stop news of things that were inconceivable a few months ago. And well, a lack of sleep has all sorts of other impacts. And now we’re in election mode, with one month to go for some sense of ‘stability’. I tend to avoid writing anything that leans towards a political position, that will continue. What I will state is that these processes seem mechanical, but are social agreements. Trust takes years to build, and seconds to lose. So regardless of the outcomes of the process, the people will remain, and positive relationships are the fundamental key to long term prosperity.

Monster Hunter Wilds

Interesting crossroads here. A recent patch causes the game to randomly crash with any bluetooth controller. Not fun. Especially when I’m resting trying to get a decent investigation to pop up. Feels like a giant waste of time when farming 1-2% power increments. And honestly, at this point I’m really trying to farm level 3 decorations, which is better done through Pollen farms.

With title 1 update just around the corner, I’m going to put this game on pause. I enjoy it, but the time/reward math just isn’t there right now.

Hockey

Kids hockey is nearing the end. I’ve got 2, and one finished this weekend. Another in less than a month. Going to be weird having an extra 20-30 hours of free time a week. Knowing me and my family, we are for sure going to fill it with something. Likely a lot of time at the cottage.

Other Games

While I have a back catalogue of games to play through, I am finding it really hard to find one that sticks. My value of time is so out of whack right now, that I need to find comfort rather than exploration, and in bite size chunks. I don’t have the mental bandwidth to learn new mechanics, but I do have enough to optimize existing ones.

• I’ve tried a few cozy games (similar to Stardew Valley) and none have stuck. Bunch of reasons, though most is due to their balance of time & progress.
• Metroidvanias are everywhere, but the good ones are still the good ones! Animal Well is honestly too mentally taxing.
• Base builder / survival games are not scratching the itch. I gave Enshrouded another pass, it has a ton of new content but there are still friction points that annoy me. I may give Nightengale a shot, the mechanics seem to have greatly shifted.
• Logistic simulators are interesting. Techtonica is done. Foundry has a roadmap but no actual content for a while. Dyson Sphere hasn’t had a content patch in a year, and the last one (Dark Fog) really, really sucks. Satisfactory supports mods (yay!) and has yet to improve trains (boo!). 1.1 is coming with mostly QoL things. 1.0 was great and everyone should play it, but building for “beauty” is not what I play those games for.

Factorio

Ever since I put away my MMOs, no game has taken up as much attention as Factorio. There’s always some problem that is present, one with an evident math solution. The challenge in all logistics games is related to concepts. Your fundamental beliefs and design principles are challenged every minute, and sometimes pushed into very uncomfortable spaces. More than once I realized I made a design call a dozen hours ago that was so wrong that I had to rebuild it all to fit a larger need. The good news it that after you unlock robots (~4hrs or so in), these rebuilds are relatively easy to do. This is not the case in Satisfactory, which is a major friction point for me.

My first playthrough in Factorio was a spaghetti fest. I barely got to rockets and then put it to rest. My second playthrough was organized around city blocks (from Nilaus), which dedicated space and blueprints to focus on specific items. A block for smelting, a block for science, a block for rockets and so on. I played 2.0 in that mindset and got to the end game, RNG and all.

City blocks are a great design principle. The challenge is that aside from Nauvis (the first planet), you don’t actually have that much space to build when you land. So I am starting a new game, and using a smaller design principle that is based on the minimal roboport distance – 50×50 blocks. I will have much less space to use, requiring more creative use of belts, but also much less sprawl as a result. Should be fun to optimize.

Oh, and I turned off enemies and cliffs. I can get PvE in another game.

At this point, I have ‘completed’ all the structured content in Monster Hunter Wilds. All the main quests, optionals, events, and side quests. I think I’ve mapped out everything so I can plop down camps across the maps. This effectively caps off the exploration phase of the game, and transitions to the achievements phase. That phase has 3 main parts – weapons, armor, and decorations.

Weapons

There are two types, and the ‘best one’ depends a lot on the type. Artian Weapons have a pile of RNG and the materials only come from tempered monsters (let’s say they are 20% harder than normal versions). Regular weapons are better for elemental damage and don’t have a RNG roller coaster, and they don’t need tempered fights.

If you do need Artian weapons, there’s some small RNG in crafting them and then a PILE of RNG when upgrading them with 5 random rolls. It is min-maxing at that point though and the long term grind for 1-2% gains. Good news is that only the material to craft the weapons is lost in the RNG machine, the material to upgrade items is always recovered. And if history is any judge, the weapons will be replaced in 3 months with something better.

Armor

This part is rather straightforward. Hunt for parts. It may take time for some pieces (notably gems that have a 2-3% drop rate), but optional quests are usually enough here. I would not recommend taking on tempered monsters here until you get to 300 or so defense, you spend too much time healing. You may need to for some material, but generally can be avoided. I personally find tempered Arkveld easier than Gore Magala, but your mileage may vary.

Upgrading armor is very useful. HR armor usually has 7 tiers, and each tier costs more to upgrade, so spread out the love. Later monsters will certainly unlock better armor, so I wouldn’t concentrate in upgrading them too much.

Decorations

Right, this part sucks, big time. Always has. At HR50 you can target level 1 decorations at the melder, and at HR 100 you can target level 2 decorations. So if you need either of those, wait until you reach the proper HR level.

If you need level 3 decorations, you’re gonna have to spin the RNG wheel. Either you get melding tickets or you hunt, both are quite long in the tooth. Is it worth it? I have never found so, but it is a carrot of sorts to keep going. Decorations are good forever, keep 3 of each.

Investigations

This is the bread and butter of the late game grind and somewhat obtuse as a mechanic. That said, it is a massive improvement on the prior versions… no need to run around and collect material to unlock quests. From the world map, you can take a look at available quests per zone, and then save them so you can repeat them up to 3 times. Don’t see a quest you want? Use the rest feature to reset the quests.

Understanding what makes a GOOD investigation is part of a dance mind you. Once you get the hang of it, the cadence is pretty decent. Right now, there’s optimal investigations and then everything else.

Other Notes

• Capturing monsters is best, unless you have the rare food buff for extra carving. So 95% of the time, capture.
• The AI hunters are both great and ok. Great in that they are super helpful in combat (heal + tank) and WAY better than actual people in terms of etiquette. Ok in that their damage is substantially less than actual people. I’d strongly recommend them until you are at the end game and solo work becomes much faster.
• ‘Farming’ materials is extremely hands off and RNG heavy. Seems that there’s missing a Palico farming system.
• Cooking is still super important, but now consumes material for stronger buffs and longer durations. I personally dislike this change, if only because getting the cooking material is cumbersome. I fully expect farming to tackle this issue in the future.
• The Palico is much less useful than before. You can’t select their skills, and some have massive cooldowns.
• The Seikret mount is both amazing and curious. It can traverse the entire map in less than a minute, vertical and horizontally. It defeats the purpose for camps/exploration, with very specific exceptions. It will save your life when a monster is about to kill you as well.
• There’s very little incentive to actually explore the map. This is very jarring coming from Rise that forced you to collect boosting bugs before every fight. Which is too bad, because the map is really cool! (end game, still a good idea to have a maxed herbalist/geologist set of gear to get mats)
• I find that the game strongly focuses on raw (physical) damage and avoids nearly all status effects except frenzy. Given that there really are only 2 relevant monsters at end game, it is less complex and therefore easier. Or more accurately, Arkveld is substantially less complex than Nergigante.
• Finally, it’s important to note that the content in the game today is a fraction of what it will be within a few months. That’s how Capcom keeps people playing. Judging Wilds against Iceborne or Sunbreak is not even close to being fair. What’s here is good, really good.

I played Pillars of Eternity + Avowed more for the plot than the mechanics (slightly). Both are dialogue heavy games, where choice matters and you want to be involved.

Monster Hunter Wilds is not that type of game, you are there to attack big monsters and the story itself is more of a blur than much else. For some odd reason, the game has 2 types of cutscenes, one where you can skip ahead on the text, and another that’s locked to the entirety I always play with subtitles, too much experience with key words missed in some elvish language or something. So reading during a cutscene is instinctive and miles faster than any voice actor can deliver. Some games it’s super worth watching the nuance (Mass Effect 2 is a real highlight), others not so much. Monster Hunter Wilds is far from a bad game in that sense, but the story is superfluous and the lines given to the actors right up there with the best Monster B-movie. I get it, the whole point is exposition, so they need to tell much more than they show. I will say it’s interesting for your character to have spoken lines!

You can gather than I have the majority of the main line stuff done by this point. I’m into a multi-option quest in Chapter 5, with an HR of 30+. By my math of MH games, I should have 1 or 2 steps left after this, which would them put me in the farming stage.

I had it last post, and will say it again here, MH Wilds is mechanically a superior game to its predecessors in every regard. Combat, movement, interactions, crafting, monsters, environments, sound, art, group play… you name it, it’s done better here. The Seikret mount negates almost all of the in-world friction points from prior games and I absolutely do not miss the Wirebug from Rise. The difficulty is still here, the last quarter of the game is full of 1-hit kill monsters if you’re not paying attention. The grind is there at the tail end, so that you don’t need to farm in Low Rank. Cooking may be a bit of an adjustment as the ingredients are not infinite, but the ability to cook anywhere is amazing.

I’m still in the mix of things now, and normally only come up for air near HR50 or so (e.g. once I have the armor & weapon I want, not the decorations). The top end consumables are not really a consideration right now, nor optimization. So far, the entire vibe is Monster Hunter World 2 – Even Less Friction. Impressive.

All the way to the credits, I enjoyed the ride. There’s just so much here that simply works that it’s extremely easy to dismiss some polish pieces. May be some spoilers in here, will try to avoid.

I played a Wizard build. I tried a more stealth-based role but the combat mechanics don’t really support it. Caster, Bow or Tank are the only real options. Works for me! The character progression options as a wizard are limited for a decent while, as it has a rather unique requirement of using grimoires for spells. Grimoires are spellbooks with pre-assigned skills, so you’re generally looking for a specific type.

The challenge with a wizard, and the game in general, is that 90% of combat is against 6 or more enemies, including ranged attackers & healers. As a caster, you need to use AE attacks which have some rather weird dynamics. Fireball is super useful at the start, if only in pure damage, but the range is small and recast time long. By about level 10 you get accustomed to status effects (fire DoT, thunder stun, ice freeze) and quickly realize there’s only one true path – ice. You can clear entire camps in 2 spells if you specialize in ice attacks (skills + armor), which can feel trivial at levels 20+. I truly don’t mind feeling like a god by that point, cause it sure as heck was rough roads to get there.

Story-wise, the game moves from luscious lands to barren volcanos, with similarly ever depressing quests along the path. The pace and structure are really good though, as nearly every quest has some sort of long-term consequence, either in NPCs moving towns, or help later on. An interesting one in the 3rd zone has you visit a tower with a good 50 traps along the path, to meet 2 NPCs who are doing everything in their power to protect their land from invading forces (which you represent). It’s an interesting bit to talk them down.

Which gets me to the truly fascinating bit here, in that a large chunk of the backstory is defined by your interactions. At key points, you interact with ancient lore and select the behaviour of earlier NPCs. These choices impact the larger story, all the way until the final credits. It feels like choose-your-own-adventure here, and it works really well!

The penultimate choice is the more difficult of them all, and depending on choices / discoveries you made along the way, is either very obvious or very hard to make. I had done everything by that point, discovered a ton of lore, all sidequests, been generally ‘good’ with a couple exceptions and had a really tough time squaring the choice in front of me. It felt like a large gamble. The final choice is super obvious, you either side with a genocidal undead lich, or not. (You should try actually siding with them, I think you’d be surprised how it turns out – or not.)

Having completed the story, I am absolutely impressed with what was presented. While it does have a couple rough spots, the high points shine and make you quickly forget. All the NPCs are well constructed, with interesting and non-obvious drivers. Many of them have hubris, or are outright liars, where you need to discover more contextual clues to navigate. The companions are interesting, with varied backstories and quests. Progress is mostly self-driven through exploration, with only a dozen main quests. The choices you make are generally consequential, and it’s cool to see them come together in the final act.

Avowed does so much right, and with clear and consistent direction from Obsidian, that is honestly puts other modern RPGs with quadruple the budgets to shame. The Pillars of Eternity storyline continues, and I am looking forward to the next chapter!