Saturday, November 26, 2022

Going to give Battlefield 2042 a try

I have been itching to pull some triggers so I grabbed Battlefield 2042 on sale for $20.  Will share my thoughts as I play it.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

A New World Tip and Happy Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving (to those that celebrate)!

 And a relevant New World tip.  Make sure you get your Feast-O-Plenty Food Trophy from the Turkey Terror event.  This buff is great and combined with the same buff on your bags can almost double your food buff duration!  Players have until Dec 6th to obtain this from the Turkey Terror event.



Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Call of the Wild:The Angler Patch 1.1.3

 Call of the Wild: The Angler has a new patch out: 1.1.3

 The big change in this patch is the ability to toggle off the strike indicator.  This change also came with some developer commentary.

  • We’ve added the option to toggle on or off the Strike UI during the biting phase.

    • Dev Team’s Notes: There are two separate options that reside within the Accessibility Menu, which allow you to change the audio and visual cues independently. In the near future, we’re also planning to do more to further improve this phase of gameplay - including improvements to the float and line behavior on the water.

 This is a step in the right direction as the STRIKE flashing across the screen firmly placed this game in the "arcade" category of fishing game.  It will be interesting to see how this works, but I suspect the latter part of the dev statement about improving this phase of the game will be a requirement before you get a decent experience out of turning the strike indicator off.  As it was before this patch I am not sure I could tell you what the game gives as far as feedback for a strike.

 For the rest of the patch there were some quality of life improvements. The biggest of which is a chat feature added to multiplayer.  Maybe a little late unfortunately as almost no one is playing the game anymore (me included).

 Steps forward with this patch but still too little to get me back fishing.  What about you? 

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

New World: Greatsword/Sword and Shield Build

 Under the weather today so just sharing a video guide for greatsword/sword and shield.  Looks like a fun build.

Monday, November 21, 2022

New World 300 STR and the Grit problem

 New World has five attributes: strength, dexterity, intelligence, focus, and constitution (STR, DEX, INT, FOC, and CON).  Investing 300 points into any one attribute unlocks a final bonus for that attribute.  In the case of 300 STR that is grit on all heavy and light attacks.  This is a problem; grit is strong and no other attribute's ultimate ability comes close to the grit provided by 300 STR.

 Grit is important in that it helps prevent a player from being staggered.  Normally grit is reserved for specific attacks or abilities and thus players can plan around those specific moments and what grit brings to that moment.  With grit on every light and heavy attack the nuance is gone and the power is obvious as the 300 STR attacker stays upright and doesn't suffer staggers that every other player has to either dodge or endure.  There is no trade off being at 300 STR.

 Compare 300 STR's grit passive to 300 FOC 300's.  FOC 300 grants faster mana regen when mana is down.  300 FOC bonus mana regen in a game where there are mana potions and mana regeneration potions you can quaff!  300 FOC has a pointless bonus.

 Now combine 300 STR's grit bonus and the fact it is a primary damage attribute and it gets even nuttier.  Any STR weapon player is going to want to get 300 STR for the damage; grit makes it a no brainer.  Throw in the Thwarting Strikes perk that gives +12% damage to attacks with grit and voila!  Top damage stat and one of the best passives in the game to help you stay upright to dish out that damage?  Sign me the freak up!

 Obviously I am ranting on the 300 STR passive for grit but anyone that knows the weapons and builds I like to play knows that I abuse that 300 STR.  In fact I've played with it so much that when I swap to any other build that is not 300 STR I feel like I am playing an entirely different game as I am stuttered across the battlefield.  Grit just unlocks "smash left click" mode and without it the player has a little more thinking to do.

 The question is: does grit on all attacks make sense anywhere?  Actually it does: for tanks.  Tanks need to stay up right and out of stagger to do their job.  Grit on attacks being tied to 300 STR means tanks are almost exclusively going 300 STR.  Ideally tanks would be encouraged to go 300 CON. Some tanks do because the hit points are nice and for PvP the 300 CON passive that increase duration of roots/slows/stuns can be helpful (though no where near grit on all attacks), but giving up grit on all attacks means as a tank you spend a lot of time not doing your job in PvE and PvP.

 Is there fixes to the situation?  Yes; two jump right to mind.

 The first change that could be made is to tie grit on all attacks to 300 CON.  CON is not a damage skill so it makes sense that it could gain an advantage in attacking by giving 300 CON players grit on their attacks.  It fits right into tanking where this sort of benefit is a great synergy without dipping into the "it's just broken" category. 

 The second approach to take is to give grit on all attacks to heavy armor users.  It makes thematic sense and mechanical sense.  Heavy armor is penalized a huge loss in damage (30%) and gets a much worse dodge.  It would make sense to reward heavy armor with the ability to not get smacked around easily.  Other than PvE tanking heavy armor doesn't have much of a clear role.  Giving it grit on all attacks would give it an immediate role.  

 The only issue with grit on all attacks being moved to heavy armor is this bridges top damage attributes with grit on all attacks (heavy armor + 300 STR) so just shifts the problem somewhere else.  That is why I think the first proposal makes so much sense.  In fact if I was sitting in a development meeting about balance that would be the first thing I'd question.

 Hopefully AGS is listening because this conversation is on repeat in the community and most recently exasperated by the popularity of the greatsword which is a top target for 300 STR.  Knowing that AGS wants to both improve heavy armor and melee in PvP I am hopeful addressing the 300 STR grit issue will be top of mind.  Until it's addressed I will just keep on using it because without it this is an entirely different and clunkier game.

 

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Friday, November 18, 2022

New World: Obtaining Motherwell Wisher's Coin

 I have used Sword/Shield for the majority of my time playing New World.  I leveled up as Sword/Shield and Firestaff.  I spent a long haul playing Sword/Shield + Hatchet when leaping strike + shield bash was the king combo build.  I have most recently done a bunch of tanking in PvP and a bit in PvE using Sword/Shield.  So it came much to my surprise to learn there was a round shield, Motherwell Wisher's Coin, that had the Rogue perk (increases backstab damage).  More curious was what was required to farm for it!

 The shield drops from Well Guardian inside of the Motherwell.  Players that played at launch may remember the original version of Well Guardian tied to the main story quest line and it's millions of hit points creating an excessively long and exhausting fight (which meant players just exploited terrain to spank it to death).  Well Guardian was brought down to normal hit point levels appropriate to its position in the quest chain.

 Well Guardian also features some named item drops which now always are a minimum of 590. As mentioned one of those drops is the round shield with the rogue perk.  The only problem now though is that players cannot enter the Motherwell after having completed the quest.  In comes the creative players who always seem to find a way around these sorts of inconveniences.

 Through some creative jumping and crawling a player can make it back into the Motherwell and farm Well Guardian.  If interested you can follow this guide on Youtube.  Then it's just down to farming Well Guardian over and over and over and over (as is MMO tradition!).  I would recommend bringing Blight Tinctures with you as you will get blighted (damage over time and healing effects significantly reduced) and while Well Guardian is a shadow of his former self he still can smack around a level 60 (got me one time).  Some spots on the rock wall will save you from blight but best to just bring tinctures (I bought a stack of 100x powerful tinctures for a few hundred gold).

As a note I had +luck on my bags (x3), no luck on my armor/weapons, and 3x major loot trophies in my house.

 Fifty or so kills later and voila!

Well guardian also drops these named items (I got several of each before I got the shield):



Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Turkey Terror in New World

 New World's annual Turkey Terror event kicked off this morning.  A giant turkey, new rewards, and more await players throughout Aeternum.  The team shared a neat event video via Elon Musk's new toy.


 I journeyed out and slayed my daily quota of turkey.  I found it interesting that there are weapon coatings that do extra damage to Turkulon (the giant monster turkey) instead of just giving us a use for all the "beast" related items (coatings, ward, bane).  The boss turkey is also not a challenging fight so not sure why players would need the extra damage from the turkey coatings.  

 As far as rewards there is a new armor skin for your boots that replaces your feet with turkey feet.  I absolutely love this skin (see image at right).

 Also available is a turkey-specific skinning knife which gives event items when you skin regular turkeys such as the the aforementioned turkey-specific weapon coatings and also is the current way to get your daily diamond gypsum.  

 Probably most important though is the Feast-o-Plenty Food Trophy that increase food buff duration.  A trophy obtained from the mighty Turkulon, Feathered Avenger of Death. It inspires you when you eat a meal.  Only works when placed in your home.  Grants +25% Food Buff Time when you eat beneficial food.  I have yet to unlock the trophy but it is definitely a reward worth working towards!  It also looks like you can only gain one copy of the trophy during the event so no stacking to 75% through 3x trophies.

 There is also the giant turkey legs and the recipe that goes with them to create +Luck/Con food.  The big change though is everyone that contributes to the giant turkey kill gets a leg compared to last year where only the person that skinned the turkey got a leg.  Legs and this +Luck food will be a hot commodity!

 Most refreshing is there is a pity system so if you don't get a specific reward you will be guaranteed to get it on your 16th Turkulon kill.  It took me about an hour to get five kills in today and that was mostly just waiting for spawns while I did other daily tasks.

 Over all the event is light weight and fun.  The Turkulon fight seems either bugged or it is undertuned (i.e. its easy).  Players who want the rewards will be able to get them and still enjoy other parts of the game.  Another great event in the bag for New World!

 Fighting Turkulon and have different opinions of the fight?  Think the rewards are dumb?  Maybe brilliant?  Let me know in the comments.