All posts by Ashgar

MMO

On Role Balance

Class design is always an interesting topic for me, and Bel’s post about Final Fantasy 14 classes yesterday sparked a bit of discussion. Final Fantasy 14 has 8 classes which promote into 9 jobs, all focused on either tanking, healing, or DPS. Ideally, every class option would be equal for every role, but this is impossible without giving every class the exact same abilities. Let’s take a look at some of these.

Tanking

The one I’m most familiar with by far, the two tank jobs in FFXIV are Warrior and Paladin. Both classes wear the heaviest armor and have a number of skills that grant bonus threat.Eventually (Level 30 for warriors, Level 40 for Paladins) they get a stance that increases their survivability, decreases their damage done, and increases threat generation. The differing way in which this is accomplished has led to some perceived imbalance in the classes, and at launch (a year ago) this was actually true. Warriors had more health, but not enough damage reduction (leading to the “healing sponge” complaint that Druids faced in WoW). In addition, they had nothing that matched up to the invincibility that Paladins have as their level 50 class ability. This has been tweaked, and Warriors are just as good now, but the perception still remains that Paladins are good for MT and Warriors for OT. (Interestingly, if you’re optimizing for damage, the ideal situation is the other way around.)

In the mid levels, there’s some actual imbalance. Paladins don’t get their tank stance until level 40, whereas everyone else gets a massive stat boost (and usually some important ability) on hitting 30, making the levels from 30-40 extremely rough in terms of holding aggro. (Survival is less of an issue, as Paladins have better cooldowns than warriors at this stage.) Nowhere is this more clear than in Brayflox’s Longstop, a level 32 dungeon; this is the first instance most people do with their newly acquired jobs as it’s required for the story. Healing this dungeon is generally harder with a Paladin tank than a Warrior tank, but not insurmountably so.

Healing

The two healing classes are Scholar and White Mage, and unlike the tanks these have been pretty balanced since the game relaunched. The White Mage is more traditional, with a toolbox consisting pretty much entirely of direct heals, with a long-cast-time shield spell (used before combat more than anything else) and a decent heal-over-time. The Scholar has a pet fairy that helps heal, and an assortment of shielding and damage reducing spells (They can also cross-class the White Mage’s shield spell). Because so much of their healing is preventative, I feel like people notice less when they’re doing a good job.

Not helping is that the class that Scholars promote from (Arcanist) is not a healer, so if you take that path you can’t queue as a healer until you get your job crystal. As such, Scholars sometimes reach Brayflox and have no experience healing in a group, which is compounded by the issue I outlined earlier with tank variation. It’s further compounded by the last boss making use of stacking poison, and Scholars not having a dispel until level 40.

The Longest of Stops

The instance I’ve mentioned twice in this post, Brayflox’s Longstop, is run by a lot of players more than once because of all of the nice things that drop out of there. There’s a set for physical DPS, a set for mages of all kinds, and a set for tanks, all with unique graphics, along with a full set of class-specific rings which are fairly nice. Since dungeons are also used to level now, it’s a fair bet that most players will also hit it many times during the 30s as they work their way up to Stone Vigil(the next required dungeon in the story) even if they don’t need any gear from there. While the game is fairly balanced at max level in regards to the above roles, it’s anything but balanced here. I have to wonder if the impressions left from doing this instance color impressions at the cap more than they probably should. I’ve seen both White Mages and Scholars carry groups on their back in the 8-man content. I’ve seen both Warriors and Paladins pull off incredible feats of survival (and I’ve personally done it a lot more as a Warrior than a Paladin). It’s a bit unfortunate to see one of these classes get the shaft in most rundowns.

There’s an additional issue of DPS balance, but that’s an issue that deserves its own full post.

Tabletop

On Random Number Generation, Continued

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One of the things I like about d20 systems is that doing math relating to a d20 is really easy. There’s a 5% chance to roll any given number, so probability calculations can be done quickly without having to get out a calculator. That said, D&D does have a fair bit of math for which a calculator can be helpful. Usually I resort to anydice for complicated math, because I believe in making informed decisions. The most obvious thing here is the Advantage/Disadvantage system 5e adds.

More Like “This Advantage”

Advantage and disadvantage were among the first new mechanics revealed in playtesting for what was once called D&D Next. If you’re unaware, having advantage (or disadvantage) on a d20 roll allows you to roll two d20s and take the highest (or lowest) result. Mathematically, how many pluses or minuses this works out to depends on what number you needed to hit; it’s exactly equal to +5 or -5 if you’re looking at a target number of 11, decreasing as you need rolls that are farther from “average”.

advantage graph
The nature of this bonus makes sense if you stop and think about it. If you only need a low number, then your already high chances of success aren’t increased much by rolling a second die. If you need an extremely high number, your chances of success still aren’t very large. The system math keeps things mostly in the middle, so estimating it as +/-5 works in most cases.

Let Justice Be Done

I looked at it when examining fighter features, but paladins also get to pick a fighting style (but from a reduced list consisting of Defense, Protection, Dueling, and Great Weapon Fighting). It turns out that Paladins don’t value these equally, as great weapon fighting would appear to apply to smite damage, making it way out of line.


Normally, GW Fighting is an average boost of 1.33 damage per hit normally, but if you start adding smite damage this changes, getting better and better as you roll more dice. Jury’s still out on whether or not this works, so check with your DM. (Speaking of checking with your DM, it turns out the dueling style is intended to apply to sword and board. Point them at this if they say otherwise, but remember rule 0.)

Tabletop

On Random Number Generation

2 Comments

Blaugust is over, but that doesn’t mean my posting is going to stop. I’m aiming for Tuesday/Thursday, with maybe an extra post on the weekends at times. This week is a bit weird due to Labor Day.

This past Monday was the first D&D session with the new group, starting with being captured by a very powerful wizard and then escaping from the bandits and trapped dungeon she left to guard us. The party is now headed to Watchwall for various reasons, united primarily in the goal of figuring out why we were captured in the first place.

My virtual dice primarily failed me: I did not manage to hit anything with my Paladin’s giant stick at any point and rolled a 2 on survival (a skill I’m allegedly proficient in) in trying to figure out where we’d been taken. My track record with physical dice isn’t much better, I still remember rolling a 9 on a 6d6 Flame Strike. There were some successes: I rolled max damage on dragon breath and a very high persuade roll, earning us a break in the fighting until someone else put a dagger in the back of the person we were attempting to get information out of. (Even as a Paladin, you can’t save everyone.)

Like the Mountains of Illinois

D&D 5 is very flat, and the difference between being good at something and not good at it is not very large, especially at low levels. Previously (in 3.5) full ranks in a skill meant level+3, or +4 at level 1, going all the way up to +23 at level 20 (but probably much higher than that from synergies and magic) which meant that some skills had unusual rules interactions at high levels, and the difference between trained and untrained was impossible to overcome on any dice roll. By contrast, proficiency bonus is +2 at level 1 and only goes up to +6 at level 17, which means that even an untrained character can make certain rolls (albeit with a flat 30% lower chance of success). Rogues and bards can get double proficiency to certain rolls, so they can get up to +12, but they’re intended to have outlandish values on skill rolls as part of their class design.

In general, I like this approach, but I can see how some people would not. It does lead to a lot of chance inherent in most actions, as it’s next to impossible to have anything be a “sure thing” (although you can get close in some special cases). The trade-off for this is that untrained actions have an actual chance of success without rolling 20. (As a side note, this edition doesn’t give 20 or 1 special effects on skill checks or saves. They’re just numbers.) The highest suggested DC for anything in the player’s handbook is 30 for tasks that are “nearly impossible”. A non-bard/rogue with a 20 in the relevant stat at level 17 or higher would only hit such a target number when rolling 19 or better, so that description is fairly accurate.

I was going to discuss how I use anydice to sort out numeric things, but I think I’ve rambled on long enough. Maybe I’ll get to that next week.

Gaming, Meta

On Definitions

2 Comments

There’s been a rash of stupidity in the gaming field lately. I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t weigh in on it in some way, especially when we agreed to avoid talking about it in last week’s podcast. When I answered the questionnaire from “Cannot be Tamed” I glossed over the question about whether or not I considered myself a gamer. It’s time to expand on it a bit.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes, but that doesn’t say anything useful about me.

Words Have Meanings

I’m an incredibly literal person. To me, the word “gamer” denotes “someone who plays games regularly”, kind of like biker, or moviegoer. Given the giant segment of the population that it applies to now, I’d say that attempting to apply any qualities to this label is a lost cause. I suspect that as my generation grows older, this segment will continue to grow. I’m sure that almost any descriptor you can think of, you can find a “gamer” that it would apply to. As of late, this includes assholes, nice people, women, men, students, people who play MMOs 12 hours a day, and people who play Candy Crush on their way to work. “Gamer” isn’t meaningless, but its value as a label is questionable.

With that out of the way, it’s completely stupid some of the things people have been doing in the name of this label. Regardless of what your personal opinions may be, it’s never okay to embark on a campaign of harassment against someone who doesn’t share your opinions.

#IStandWithGanondorf

I don’t always agree with the things he says, but I’m with Jim sterling on this one. Even ignoring that you should be a decent human being to other people, it’s not a bad thing for the medium if games are made to appeal to a larger audience than “18-25 year old white male”. The industry’s treatment of women and minorities is usually pretty terrible, and AAA games will probably have to get over that to appeal to a wider audience. This is really irrelevant to the issue, though.

I guess I’m annoyed that a thing I like is now associated with terrible behavior. It’s really not the first time, but it’s not going to stop me. “Gamer” covers half of the people in this country, and I know they aren’t all dicks. I’ll be over here playing games like usual. Destiny’s out in a few days, after all.

-Ashgar

P.S. Have I mentioned that attaching “-gate” to things is supremely stupid? Watergate got that name from the actual name of the location it took place. Not everything needs to be “something-gate”.

P.P.S. If someone wants to place me in the SJW camp for this post, can I please be a druid? Warriors are so boring.

Gaming, Meta

On The End of the Party

First things first: It’s the final day of the Job Fiesta. I challenged a bunch of people and only 3 have shown evidence of completion, so I guess I owe $30.


https://twitter.com/belghast/status/506151268239175680

Personally, I turned in two completions of my own.

Without any contributions from people seeing how the results came out, the Fiesta earned $10,385.64 as of this writing. If it keeps growing like this every year, it will become one of the larger events for Child’s Play. I know a large amount of money comes in from Something Awful, so many thanks should be extended to them each year.

It’s also the end of Blaugust, and all of the festivities that entails. It’s been fun, etc., etc. I could say that I hated everything and everyone, but that would be untruthful and my actual thoughts can be found here.

With the ending of things, it’s time to start anew. A new D&D campaign is starting tomorrow, and my Dragonborn Paladin will show up, probably to ruin everything. With the end of the Job Fiesta I can use my PSP to go back to playing Breath of Fire 3 (although I want to beat Azure Striker Gunvolt first.) Destiny’s coming out in just over a week. A friend is starting a new job, and it’s a time of transition for a lot of people. Hopefully the end of things just means new things are getting started, and I’ll be here to chronicle wherever things take me.

Records of the month can be found here. Thanks for the trip, Bel!

Gaming

On A Blue Bomber

2 Comments

At some point I need to admit that Mega Man is dead. Other people already have:
double-xp

Thankfully, other companies are picking up the slack. Inticreates continues to put out action-platformers even though they aren’t tied to Capcom, and the latest project from them is Azure Striker Gunvolt for the 3DS. It’s a bit different from the games you might be used to. Gunvolt does have a dash and a wall jump, but the mechanics of the dash are a bit different than Mega Man X. Also, while GV has a gun, it does very little damage. The primary purpose is tagging things, which can then be zapped with electricity. The “Flashfield” damages things near you a small amount, and anything you’ve locked onto a large amount. To go with this, you have an energy meter that depletes when you use it, or if you get hit while not using it (getting hit while using it decreases your actual health). Depleting it completely will lock you out of things that use it for a few seconds, this includes it taking damage for you.

This causes the game to play somewhat differently in practice, as you can’t really kill things with primary fire. The fact that taking damage is a multi-step process also makes the game a bit easier than the Zero and ZX games that this takes after in looks. It makes up for this with a somewhat complicated score system in which you build a bonus and can “cash in” by either hitting a checkpoint or using a special attack. This bonus is lost if you’re hit, whether you take damage or not. Time is also a factor in the score, and the game grades you on how well you did. Outside of the levels, you can use materials and currency to get abilities in the form of equippable gear.

I’m only about halfway into the game (and much less than halfway done, since there are many challenges for levels I’ve beaten that I haven’t met). I really like what I’ve played, and if the second half maintains the quality of the first I’ll highly recommend this one.

Bonus content: The game comes with an 8-bit demake featuring GV along with Beck from Mighty No. 9. This is kind of like the “Model a” mode in ZX Advent, and I’m guessing it was thrown together after finishing Gunvolt before work starts in full on Mighty No. 9. It’s quite fun, and Beck controls a lot like traditional Mega Man, so it feels really familiar.

One more day of Blaugust, more posts can be found here.

Tabletop

On Fighter Options

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I was asked about this, and what was a short email became a blog post. Fighters in D&D 5 have a number of choices to make quite early in their character development, so let’s examine them in a bit more detail.

Fighting Style

The first choice is what fighting style to take. For the sake of this particular discussion, I’m ignoring the fighting styles that don’t boost damage in some way, although they’re certainly worth considering (Protection in particular is rather powerful). We’re going to be examining these using Kodra’s assumption of 15 AC as a decent target, and a 16 in the primary attack stat.

  • Archery: This is a +2 to hit, or a flat 10% increase in your chance to hit (advantage/disadvantage can mess with that a bit). Longbow damage is therefore going to be .6(7.5)+.05(12) = 5.1 DPR at level 1. Fighters don’t get any thing that directly boosts this until their subclass choice, but that’s for later. No other style provides a boost to hit, so this one provides the most consistent damage.
  • Dueling: This would seem to be the default choice, but our DM has ruled that it doesn’t apply to sword and board. Anyway, at +2 to damage modeling this is also pretty straightforward: .5(9.5)+.05(14) = 5.45 DPR. Not bad, and it gives you a free hand to work with (which might be important depending on later choices).
  • Great Weapon Fighting: The important note here is that if you’re in this category, you’re probably planning to use the King of Weapons, the Greatsword, as it’s the objectively most damaging weapon in the book (although the Maul got moved up to match it). As such, this would come out ahead of the Dueling numbers without taking the style (5.85) but the style is another damage boost on top of this. The end result (assuming that you always reroll an initial roll of 1 or 2) is 6.65 DPR.
  • Two-Weapon Fighting: This should probably be evaluated differently because hitting with both hands requires your bonus action, but as a low-level fighter you don’t have any other uses for that anyway. This also requires light melee weapons (without a feat), which means you’re down to shortswords (or similar). Final damage is (.5(6.5) + .05(10))*2 = 7.5. This lead decreases when Extra Attack comes into play.

Martial Archetype

The choice between these really depends on what you want to do with your fighter. One thing to keep in mind is that fighters are still mostly supposed to use their weapons on things, and this remains true even if you’re a Battle Master or Eldritch Knight.

Champion

This one’s definitely the most straightforward. More criticals, another fighting style, and some bonuses to checks you’re probably not doing a lot (although it’s worth noting Remarkable Athlete does cover stealth checks if you don’t have proficiency). I don’t quite have Kodra’s patience for calculations, so I’ll trust him when he says that the critical bonus isn’t worth that much at low levels. The additional fighting style can be used either for defense or versatility. This archetype gives nothing that uses a bonus action, so TWF works fine with it.

Battle Master

All of the things people liked about the 4e Warlord ended up here, except constrained by a limited pool of superiority dice (which are recovered in a short or long rest). Many of the maneuvers you can pick from allow you to add the superiority die roll to the damage of an attack, making it better for damage than Improved Critical (as long as your dice last). Some of these require you to use a bonus action, making TWF a less attractive option for this archetype. There are other interesting things you can do in this one, like getting an off-turn sneak attack out of a rogue in the party if you have one (requires your bonus action and the target’s reaction). Once you run out of superiority dice, this archetype doesn’t have much to offer, but I know it’s Kodra’s favorite.

Eldritch Knight

This one’s a bit odd. The paragraph at the start of the archetype description hints at where this one is going, and what it gives you. While it does grant cantrips, they’re less likely to hit than weapon attacks unless your INT is abnormally high for a fighter (maybe you rolled for stats; consider Blade Ward if you’re more… typical) and will also do less damage in most cases (especially if you’re using a greatsword). The primary power here is access to one of the better Wizard defensive spells (Shield is very good) and some AOE that other fighters cannot duplicate (look for spells that still deal half-damage on a successful save like Burning Hands, or later, Fireball). At much later levels, you can start taking other wizard buffs, like Haste or Stoneskin. Spell slots are limited, so the primary thing you’ll be doing is still using your weapon. Because casting most spells requires a free hand, and later features do use your bonus action, TWF is a no-go for this archetype. Jury’s still out on if you can cast spells with a two-hander, so check with your DM. (I’d say yes, but it’s not entirely clear.) I personally think this might be the best archetype for “tank” type fighters.

Conclusion

That’s a lot of words to say “different choices work better in different situations”. Unlike Ranger, where I firmly believe one of the archetypes is weaker than the other, the fighter ones are all good in their own way. The Fighting style question is a little easier, as Great Weapon is great unless you have compelling reason not to use it (dex-based fighter, want protection style, etc.). Hope this helps anyone who’s intending to play a fighter in an upcoming game!

You know what this link is by now. Also, you have until the end of the weekend to finish the Four Job Fiesta. I apparently owe another $10 now.

Meta

On Blaugust, Redux

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Blaugust is almost over, and I have a few thoughts on the whole process. Kodra wrote about the same thing yesterday, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

Worth

First, I believe the event was absolutely worth it for me personally. I’m a lot more comfortable writing things on relatively short timelines. I feel like I know a bit more about what sort of posts people actually click on (and while it might help, I’m still not going to change how I title my posts). Some of my habits while playing games have changed a bit. I’m always looking for ways to take screenshots now, and taking note of things that work and things that don’t, so I can say things about the games I play other than “It was fun” or “It sucked”.

More importantly, it’s been a good way for me to see what other people are writing about. I’ve taken the opportunity to see a lot of content from people who weren’t part of NBI (and some people that were, but I wasn’t following that closely). Special mentions in particular to Isey and Murf, who’ve given me plenty of ideas about things to write about, whether they know it or not. Both Rae and Kodra (fellow Aggrochat participants) used the opportunity to start posting more. Because this is as good a place as any to mention it, Tam has also started a blog this month (although if he manages to write 31 posts before the end of the month I’ll be both shocked and impressed).

But…

However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to go back to posting 2-3 times a week in September, probably starting the second week of September. It’s had the desired effect on me, and I’m going to finish out the month, but daily posting is not something I’m willing to do long-term. It’s a bit easier during the week, especially if I can get a draft up (or sometimes a post, if it doesn’t need actual screenshots) during lunch. It suffers a lot on the weekends, when I’d rather be playing games than writing about them using that time. There have also been a few days where I worked on a post, and then decided that it needed more work than I had time for and posted something else instead. (This is what happened yesterday, I’m sure the original idea will surface eventually).

A journey of self-discovery is worth it even if we fall a bit short of the end goal, so this one satisfies. You should really check out the Blaugust Initiative for more posts on a variety of topics by other people. Did I mention that Tam wrote an introductory post?

Gaming

On Upcoming Games

1 Comment

Now is a good time to be a gamer, I think. There are a variety of upcoming titles this year that look interesting, and they aren’t all coming out in October. (In fact, the three I’m going to mention are all pre-October.) Let’s take a look.

Azure Striker Gunvolt

Inticreates is the company actually behind the Megaman ZX games as well as Megaman 9 and 10. As such, I have a lot of interest in their 2d platformers involving guns. (They’re also working on Mighty No. 9.) Azure Striker Gunvolt involves a hero with a gun of sorts used to lock on his actual weapon, witch seems to be electricity wielded in a variety of different ways. This hits the 3DS on Friday, and I’m looking forward to picking it up.

azure_striker_gunvolt

Destiny

Halo 2 was the last “big” shooter I enjoyed, before everything became Call of Duty and things like it. I was iffy on this one until I got to play the Alpha and Beta with other people, and now I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time in it. It releases on September 9, so I hope I have enough time to beat Gunvolt before this happens.

battleground_desktop_1

Gauntlet

Red Warrior needs food badly. I know someone else is also interested in this, and I’d hoped to play it soon, but it was recently delayed to September 23. I like arcade-style games like this (I’m apparently the only person who likes Sacred 3, for example) and this looks like an interesting and varied take on the formula. It’s also made by the people who made Magicka, so the deaths should be entertaining.

Gauntlet-2014

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative.

Gaming

On Crimzon Clover

1 Comment

I mentioned it a bit when I was talking about other shooters, but I feel like I should give Crimzon Clover a good writeup. It’s made me interested in the Japanese indie scene again, when previously I ignored every part of it that wasn’t Touhou.

The Basics

If there’s a story, I don’t know it. You fly through 5 levels firing massive amounts of bullets at things that fire almost as many back at you. In this context there are 4 modes and two difficulty levels, although two of the modes are only available on “arcade” difficulty. (One of the modes, Unlimited, is just standard with everything turned up to 11, with a few special rules that allow you to theoretically survive everything being turned up to 11.) You have your choice of three ships at the start, with a 4th unlockable. The Type-I is the balanced ship, with a wide spread primary attack and homing lasers for a lock-on attack, The Type-III (my personal favorite) is much faster but has a narrower primary fire and a slower-charging lock-on attack. The Type-II is somewhere in the middle, with the fire spread being determined by how you position the Gradius-style options. The final ship, the Type-Z, is better than the others in almost every way, and you can consider it your reward for playing the game for long enough to unlock it.

Seriously, this ship is broken.
Seriously, this ship is broken.

Standard Mode

A key feature of the game is the Break Gauge in the upper right. If this meter is over the small line, you can use a bomb (although using one will cause the bomb line to move further to the right, making it take longer to earn the next one). Using a bomb destroys all shots and most small enemies on-screen and gives you temporary invincibility, so it’s a good way to get out of trouble. If the gauge is full, using the bomb button instead enters break mode, causing your firepower and max number of lock-ons to go up, as well as doubling the score multiplier (This still clears the screen of bullets and grants temporary invincibility). This lasts for a certain duration or until you use a bomb. If you manage to fill the gauge again while in break mode, you can enter double break mode for screen-filling ridiculousness in your firepower and doubling the score multiplier again. The downside to this is that your break gauge completely empties when this ends and you can’t use a bomb during it.

2014-08-26_00009
Other than this upgrade to the bomb button, this mode is fairly standard. The difficulty ramps up as you move through the stages and beat the bosses, with an EX-boss available if you can beat the normal boss of Stage 5 without using a continue. (Despite calling the easier difficulty “novice”, this is not any easy task in any sense.) Beat the EX boss to see the credits and beat the game (and join about 11% of the players on Steam).

2014-06-22_00048

Boost Mode

Boost mode works a little differently. Instead of being able to activate break mode, it activates automatically when the gauge is full and lasts until you either use a bomb or die. Instead, the UI element that normally counts down break duration has a timer that counts up, and enemies and bullets speed up based on how high it gets. Many attack patterns are slightly (or in some cases significantly) easier in boost mode to compensate for this. Dropping out of boost mode will reduce things to a normal speed, but it will go back up to full speed when you fill the gauge again, something that’s certainly going to happen eventually.

2014-06-22_00006
If you’re not playing for score, I think Boost Mode is easier, as you can bomb to slow things down and if you don’t need to do that, you have the increased firepower of Break Mode all of the time. I like it better, but that might just be because I’m better at it. If you have any interest in shmups at all, you should give Crimzon Clover a shot. It’s on Steam and is supposedly coimg to GoG soon, so it’s much easier to get than many other games in the genre out of Japan.

2014-06-22_00057
For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative.