Hard to write about upcoming news for the day, when it comes out after midnight…Anyways, finally there’s the news of the new event + banner for Dragalia Lost. And hoo boy, folks are upset.
The event itself was pretty much a known entity, since it got datamined earlier. Typical facility event, though it looks like this time the facility boosts bow and dagger units, instead of elemental units. Certainly this is an attempt to pull these weapons out of the gutter, but it’s going to take a lot more than a damage boost to fix them (that will help, since part of the problem is low dps in a dps game, but it’s not enough).
But what has people mad is the units. Reddit, gays, and girls are mad that ‘all’ the units are again girls; and one of them is Cleo, who just got an alt (even though it’s a main-character limited after the event that heavily featured her, so it doesn’t really count). ‘All’ because, again, a guy got a summer alt too – and it’s Luca, who finally gets his first alt after almost a year. But only SSR’s count, I suppose, and Luca, like Ranzal, is only SR. People also seem to be mad about Siren getting an alt, even though she was the last dragon released. And /drag/ is mad because, like usual, they’re assuming that every unit is bad, even when it’s clear they’re not (like, Verica is a very good healer, she just isn’t necessary in the content she’s made for, so thus she SUCKS).
As for me, they’re not limited, so I’m not rolling. Yet again. Feels good being a savechad. Anniversary, here I come! Nor am I upset about the units. I look forward to Halloween Cleo, Thanksgiving Cleo, and Hanukkah Cleo.
I know, I know, a very original observation. But I think this is the first game that has different clothes entirely between battle and crafting/gathering. I mean, it makes a certain degree of sense – they are completely different tasks. You don’t need a lot of armor to go mining, generally speaking. But I’d’ve expected to be prevented from equipping the intended tool, not to equip my tool, and then all of a sudden be denuded. Apparently, “All classes” doesn’t actually mean “all”. Would really have been nice to have been informed about that beforehand.
This might be the first MMO I’ve seen that adds some sort of shoe as underwear.
As can be seen, I decided to go with miner for my first non-combat class. I’ve always favored mining to other forms of gathering in games like this. Even though it usually amounts to the same action, there’s definitely a different feeling to it, just from the animations and sounds and such. And while this might be the least engaging form of mining I’ve seen in pretty much any game that has it, I still find it strangely compelling. Until late last play session, my miner job was leveled higher than my combat job.
But, as I want to actually do the summer event before it goes away, I got back to my main job. As everyone says that the MSQ is the best way to advance, I got back to that, too. I didn’t get very far (judging from a guide I read, I’m actually quite behind where I should be, based on level), but somehow this low-level sprout is the hero of the city. Having been spoiled a bit on the story, I guess that makes sense – merely “hero of the city” is small potatoes compared to where this bun is going.
One thing I have found quite annoying is that you can take some quests, but not be able to turn them in, because the level requirements at either end are different. I took one quest at lvl 15 or 16, and couldn’t turn it in until 19. That makes no sense. And it’s not like the xp gained for completion makes up for that.
I have a bunch of thoughts, but none of them coherent or thought-out enough for a whole post, today. Nothing special about Friday, though – how’s that for random?
–Syp of Bio Break asks, Do racial variants add value to MMO’s? It looks like the conclusion is, they can! But do they? I don’t know. On first thinking of it, I had thought the first time I saw this was when I recently started FFXIV, and saw that the Viera had two variants: a forest viera and a mountain viera. Besides a very slight favoring of the base stats to martial or magical pursuits, respectively, it didn’t seem like much of a difference, besides flavor. I don’t even know if anyone else can find out which one you picked. Maybe there was some slight difference in their starting fetishwear, perhaps.
But as I was thinking on it, Star Trek Online has a variation of this. There are, technically, three Federation factions: the normal one, the TOS one, and the STD one. All three have different starting locations, different tutorials (well, the STD tutorial is merely a literal reskin of the standard tutoral), and a slightly different post-tutorial experience. But after that, the only difference is cosmetic. It could be argued that the Romulan and Dominion factions are similar, especially in how the ship distribution has been changed recently. I know three Federations isn’t exactly a race thing (especially since there are actual race differences inside the faction), but it feels the same as what Syp was describing.
-Twitch is going to be making their own streaming software, to go with their service. Makes sense. The move is because they perceive that streaming is too complicated, and that drives away potential streamers. I believe that is absolutely the case. I’m no streamer, mostly because I don’t have content I think needs to be streamed (streaming for yourself is way more pathetic than blogging for yourself), but also because there was just way too much setup to get it going. I made a Twitch account for the purpose of streaming, once, so that I could stream me sparking in GBF. It’s always a hoot to get everyone in on someone’s bad luck, and I wanted to spread that joy. But instead of some easy pick-up-and-go thing, like I thought it was, there was a whole load of other software that was needed to do it right. And I wasn’t going to get into that for 15 minutes of streaming every six or so months. This is a very encouraging development, though one I think is way past due.
-I saw that FFXIV was having a summer event, and I wanted in. There was no in-game encouragement, like I thought there would be. It was just on the launcher. So, I followed that link, and find out you need to be lvl 30 to participate. Well, I’m only 17, so I was planning on powerleveling (as much as one can do so at low levels and not knowing what one is doing, like me) last night. But, I bump straight into global emergency maintenance! I’ve never played a huge game like this before, and I’m not really part of the active community yet, so this blindsided me. So no playing last night for me.
Oh well, I have another MMO to play. Went back into ESO. Forgot that they have login bonuses, which I’ve been missing the past couple of days. Whoops. Not that it skips or anything, but I figure most of the better stuff is towards the later part, to encourage consistent play. No sign of a summer event, so that’s somewhat disappointing. Went and did some quests, one of which wanted me to do some PVP thing. I did it, but for some reason they mix low-level people like me with almost-post-tutorial players. The whole bracket is lvl 10-49. That was crazy. I was nothing but a short distraction at best, and an active detriment to my team.
Also, tried what is apparently a dungeon meant for multiple people, by myself. Despite the quest being lvl 11, which was my level, I wasn’t able to even scratch a single one of the swarm of enemies that I somehow agro’d. There was no in-mission indication that this was intended as a group activity. And I saw one other player there, who looked to be about my level. They probably did the same exact thing I did: just followed the quest marker, and got wrekd. Not the best game design, perhaps.
2014 was a crazy time
-Arena of Sompek is back in STO. Honestly, this is probably my favorite recurring event in the game, especially since they changed how the Crystalline Catastrophe event worked. I’m one of those weirdos that loves the ground game, and this is everything good about it distilled, without most of the bad parts (that aren’t inherent to the gameplay itself). And I’m very close to getting the free ship. I’d thought I would have it by the end of the last Featured TFO event, but I’m only a couple days away. Don’t care about the completion prize this time, and not just because it’s more STD material (though combined, I’m just not going to even get it for completion’s sake). But I will play this every day, because I like the event. Though it does lose some of the fun by trying to pack what should be a gauntlet into something everyone can do easily; both the infinite and timed versions are better, I think. But it sounds like maybe they will become permanent additions after this event is over, which would be so cool.
All images will have only limited relation to the topic, because I’m on my laptop but addicted to posting pictures.
From the scuttlebutt I’m hearing, lootboxes are ‘back’ in the news. I guess the major console makers are trying to get ahead of the various governments to “do something” about this “menace”. And it looks like they are going to make those games that do use their systems, or perhaps will use their systems (I didn’t read any articles or anything; why do actual work and/or research for a blog post?), publish odds for winning the various prizes in the boxes. I think would make industry practice at the very least follow gacha rules in Japan, which is pretty much the same thing: the rates for the items in the gacha must be published (and presumably actually be accurate, too). (For further reading on this, search for “Monkeygate”.)
As for my personal views on this, I think this is a good move. I’m morally opposed to gambling, but I don’t think lootboxes are gambling, in the strictest sense: the player (or someone else, presumably) pays for a chance to get something they highly value, which they have a low chance of getting; but unlike real gambling, what they are wanting isn’t anything of actual real value, and if they lose, they don’t end up with nothing. I’m not opposed to lootboxes in the abstract. I do agree that the way they are used is predatory, that lots of psychology and research goes into it. But that’s not, in-and-of-itself, bad – that’s just marketing and research. Just because this way might be more effective than others of getting people to voluntarily trade their money for something of questionable value doesn’t make it wrong.
However, I do think they should be what people are led to believe they are: that the player has a random chance to get the various things in the boxes. If the boxes are being manipulated to change the odds at various times, or to tailor the results to specific individuals, that ain’t right. It’s at the very best misrepresenting what these things really are, and at worst it’s fraud. Having the odds published prevents that kind of thing: if anyone suspected that the odds were wrong, they could complain to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo, and the game could be audited, or at the very least the publisher/devs questioned. The player (or rather, payer) knows the odds, and can make a rational decision based on those odds, and what they value the various prizes to be.
I also think that the box should give something of ‘equal’ or greater value compared to the cost of opening the box. For example, in Star Trek Online, even the worst booby prizes in their boxes had equivalents in the normal cash shop that were the same or greater price than the keys to open the boxes. Even if you didn’t get what you wanted (and most people just want the top prize or two), you still got something for your 125 Zen that would cost 125+ Zen if it were in the store. (Whether those things were worth what they cost in the cash shop is another argument entirely.) This also, conveniently, throws out the gambling argument, at least from a legal (and thus actionable) angle. (Also, all of the actually decent prizes are tradable, so you don’t even need to engage the boxes themselves to get even the top prize.)
The most common thing said against lootboxes is that they are predatory towards children, in that children can’t control their spending, since they don’t associate the price with what they get, or something to that nature. That might be so, but the counter to this is: children can’t get credit cards, and they can’t get bank cards very easily. If they are running up their parents’ credit cards, that’s on the parents not having control of their financials. And as for going to the corner store to buy Google Play cards or whatever? That’s got a limit, because they have to use money they actually have, in-hand, to get that stuff; and if that’s how they want to spend their money, that’s their thing, and it’s between them and their parents.
I’ll leave with my personal view on personally using lootboxes, myself: I don’t really mind that they exist, but I don’t make much use of them. I’m certainly not averse to putting up my dosh for random chance stuff: I do play gacha games, after all, and even sometimes pay for those rolls. But lootboxes are different from gacha, in a sense. More limited, I feel. But they are fun to open, on occasion, just to see what comes out. I’d never open them for the chance at the top prize. But, like going to Vegas just to play the games, opening the boxes can be somewhat fun in itself.
Man, I’m really not feeling it, with the mobile games at least. This happens every so often; I’m sure folks who play the same type of games every day get that burnout feeling. But it’s odd for me to get it with two games at once. I haven’t really played Granblue Fantasy, in any significant amount, in like, a week; I even missed a day of getting that free 10-roll. And with Dragalia lost, I haven’t even done my dailies yet, and it’s an hour before reset.
I was wondering why. Like I said, burnout for two regular games at once is not usual for me. Partly because I don’t really go hardcore, so even on days when I’m really into a game it’s only for a couple hours, at most. But on thinking on it, I have a few ideas.
First, it’s kind of a dead period in both games. GBF has a rerun going, and the prizes are not inspiring. The game mode to get those prizes is also a bit annoying. DL has a new event, but it’s been out for some time now. One of the problems DL has, in general, is that its events go on quite a bit longer than they should. A week is a good length, I think, but DL has theirs for at least ten days. I especially think the raid events take too long to play, over and over and over again.
Next, I just don’t have anything real to work towards. Like I said yesterday, the thing I like about these games is the story, and a lot of the story is in the gacha. In both games I have quite a lot of resources saved for drawing the gacha, over a full spark’s worth in GBF (388 at the time of writing this; ten more for sure when I get the surprise ticket). Since I don’t have incentive to save much more in the immediate future, I don’t want to play.
Additionally, and maybe most importantly, I’ve got two new games I’m playing at the moment. The new and shiny has made the old and well-known (and well-worn, in some cases) games lack luster in comparison. Why play these old, simple, kinda boring games when I can play these other games I haven’t played before. During the work week I only have so much time for games, after all.
Not a crisis by any means, but just something I was thinking about. Some new event will come soon in both games, and then it’ll be back in those mines, too.
Yes, that up there is missing an ‘M’. I’m going to be talking about multiplayer online RPG’s in general, not specifically the ‘massive’ ones. I’m a loner, in real life. That’s just how I roll. I’ve got some friends, but I mostly just keep to myself. My ideal vacation is sitting in my room, lights off, being on my computer. Alone. In game I’m pretty much the same way – I just stick to myself, only joining random groups for missions that I absolutely can’t do by myself. In some games this is quite a bit of content; in others, it can be rare (or I just ignore it).
So why play these games that are specifically designed to get me together with other players. There’s even a chance someone could talk to me! I’ve said it before, but in my case it just happens that the kind of games I like to play are can be found in MORPG’s, even MMO’s. I really like RPG’s. They’re pretty much almost exclusively what I play. (I have a pretty wide and non-specific definition of RPG, in the which I would include games like the Far Cry series as RPG’s. But that’s a subject for another day.) I’ll even create a story for what’s going on in those few non-RPG games that I play, like Crusader Kings, or Cities: Skylines. I like stories. I like headcanon. I like real canon. All of that, I can find in online RPG’s.
I also tend to like action games. Games where you move your dude around, pressing buttons and moving the mouse/stick to make said dude do stuff, directly. I can stand turn-based RPG’s, but action games are where it’s at, for me. Don’t really like tactics games, which are unfortunately (for me) increasing in popularity. But, fortunately for me, online games generally don’t do turn-based very well, at least not in an exciting way for a lot of people at once; so, they tend to be more actiony. Even if it is tab-targeting, waiting for cooldowns, sort of action.
However, I’m not terribly good at action-action games. I don’t know if it’s my reflexes, or my Stupid Fingers, or what the deal is. Never was good at them. Things like Devil May Cry, Soulsbourne, or any of that, are way out of my league. Even things like FPS are out of my ken, unless I push the difficulty down. And I don’t like not winning, because the alternative is failure, instead of merely losing. But, action RPG’s tend to be pretty forgiving, for the most part. Online ones even moreso, as they (supposedly, and ideally) take things like lag, latency, and so on into account, from the base design stage. (And it’s why things like Soulsbourne games have funky online experiences, since they try to have the precision gameplay of the single-player experience, while having online issues that always crop up that mess up that experience.)
Also, Online RPG’s just tend to be longer – they have more story. Because they add more story over time. They have to, or players are going to move on. The gacha-based games add story with every new character. I joined ESO and FFXIV yesterday – I have years of story to catch up on. That’s appealing to me, even if it isn’t terribly dense, and even if the gameplay isn’t the most exciting.
That’s why I play these things, and why I keep coming back to them.
I decided I was going to try both. My plan was to get ESO all up and going, then when I got a bit bored/advanced, start FFXIV, already downloaded, patched, and ready to go.
Didn’t work out that way.
The main thing I want to focus on today is the first few hours’ experience: from deciding to play, to the initial steps of play. These games are different experiences, and different from what I’m used to.
First, I went on Steam, as one does, to check out ESO, and what options I had. Boy, did I have options. DLC, expansions, and so on. So, I went to /vg/ to the general to check out their newbie guide. Very first thing was DON’T GET THIS FROM STEAM. OK. So, off I go to the official (and rather Web 1.0-looking) site, give yet another organization all my personal and financial info, and then start downloading. I just got the basic pack; if I like it, I’ll sub; and if I really like it, I’ll get the expansion.
First download: 60+GB. Yikes. So I sit there for a while, browse online, do some Dragalia Lost. First download done, start the game. Whoops, now need to patch. Another ~60GB. Took quite some time, even though I have a gigabit connection. But, once that was all done, time to start the game!
Rolled up a STEALTH ARCHER, as is right and proper for an Elder Scrolls game. Well, not really, but I did roll a Bosmer not-ranger, and am focusing on the bow. Nice thing is, I can just change it up at any time if I get bored with that. Nice start to the game, once it started. I guess Bosmers start in Vvardenfel, so it was quite a similar start to Morrowwind, after the nice tutorial. Gets you right into the thick of things, sending you almost straight to Vivec, and right into the crafting and specialty guilds. And that’s where I am – some low-level scrub learning how to make gloves.
About then it was time for bed, so I figured I’d just get FFXIV downloading while I slept. Big mistake. Getting it off Steam was easy enough. Then, when it came time for the download to start, I needed my Squeenix account. I go to make one, and it turns out I already had one (I figure from FF: Record Keepers: a game that preys on FF nostalgia, which nostalgia I don’t have). So I have to recover my password; that meant trying to remember not only which security question I used, but which fake birthday I used, as well. Soon enough I have it all figured out. Ready to go, I thought.
Not so fast! I then needed a one-time passcode. Comes from one of those app thingys, like the Steam phone app (which I also needed to access, to put the product key in on the website). Another ten minutes fiddling with that, finally get it all working, and I’m downloading, and off to bed. Oh wait, forgot there was a subscription…and I have 30 free days. Starting now. So much for my plans to start later.
Wake up, and ready to play. Get started on a new character, and realize I don’t get the Viera; I’d need to pay twice as much again to get Shadowbringers for that. Tough call: what if I don’t like the game? Why pay full price for this? Well, the Viera were kinda what made me want to get the game in the first palce. I really, really like the Harvins in Granblue Fantasy, but the Lalas here just aren’t the same.
Pictured: Sexy Potato from GBF. Not pictured: Sexy Potato from FFXIV, because they can’t exist.
Well, I splurged, and spent my entire monthly gaming budget for Shadowbringers (hope there aren’t any suprise tickets in GBF or Dragalia Lost). Rolled up a Viera thaumaturge. I actually thought to take some screenshots from this game, so here she is:
It’s interesting how different the starts are between the two games. Here, you are hand-held through a bunch of fetch and kill quests. Typical MMO stuff. I still don’t really get how the ice/fire thing works for this class, just that doing fire while in ice mode is bad, and vice versa. Made it to level 8 so far, after a couple of hours. Also, Viera apparently can’t wear hats. You can equip them, but they don’t show up. Kinda sad; I was hoping to see some hats with ears clipping out of them.
I finished it, it’s the end. It took 55 hours, but I’m finally finished. Managed to beat the boss in only two tries, too; it was extremely close, but I managed it. Found an easy way online to level friendship (just go to the first area and beat up punis), so that wasn’t an issue like I thought it would be, either. Also, got all but one of the endings (there’s often some ridiculous-requirement ending(s) in this series), including the true ending. I’ve already given my general impressions before, so I won’t give a full review here, but I will talk about the story and endings. So, SPOILERS from now on.
I’ve never been a fan of alternate universes and timelines. I like the Back to the Future method best – you’ve just got one timeline at a time, and what you do changes (or doesn’t change) that one single timeline. Infinite universes are the worst, as far as storytelling goes: they don’t allow tension or resolution, as far as timetravel goes, because what you do doesn’t matter, and you can’t get back to where you’ve been. The way this game goes is kinda in the middle: you alter the past, you merely create another timeline; your present/future is unchanged, but for some other timeline, it can be different. Gets rid of some timey-wimey stuff, while allowing change. But the resolution to this doesn’t make sense – if you can just use that item to lock the timelines, why even go into the other one to save that Stia that didn’t get saved, when you can just lock it to your own outcome (where Stia did get saved)? There are also hints at various other places in the game of timeline changes – whatever happened with those? Oh well, it’s alchemy, it doesn’t have to make sense.
Gotta say, that boss-before-the-boss was a pain. It’s pretty easy (if a tedious use of resources) if you do it right; if you mess up at all though, you’re dead. I started out at level 78-79; I figured a few levels wouldn’t do me much better, since gear adds stats instead of multiplying them (unless you have the +% traits, but those are pretty rare, and generally not as good as flat bonuses). Stupid dragon attacks FOUR times in a turn; that’s pretty bad, especially when it gets to go first. But it’s just a doorstop get you to use your items before the actual end-boss.
And what a jerk he is. I think the ideal team is Sterk-Lulua-Rorona in front, with Aurel-Piana in back. Aurel’s better in the back, since his status ailments rarely work, while his backline healing and cleansing is quite valuable, especially on Sterk. Lulua and Rorona of course get to share status boosts, which is key when using the Draco Elixers – you get a 2-for-1 deal there. Piana doesn’t really do a whole lot herself in back, but it’s good to have her as backup when your front alchemists get wiped, and getting a few hundred more damage when you actually do manage to land a status ailment isn’t nothing.
Something I should have been doing from the start of the fight, but didn’t, was using Sterk’s line ability instead of the massive gorilla ability. The boss doesn’t resist magic, so a magic+physical ability, at half the MP, would have been better than the added faint from the big attack. Could have saved my butt earlier on, but no. Also, hate how resistant the boss is to status ailments. All the tricks the game has given you, up to that point, are mostly pointless. Unga bunga is the way to be, and hope you get lucky. Which I did – the last Executioner attack didn’t kill either Rorona or Lulua (though they were in bad shape), and I was able to finish off the boss.
As far as the endings go, I’m going to rank them in order of “how well these fit with the story and feeling of the rest of the game”:
Piana end
Normal end (+ Eva end)
True end
Aurel end
Niko end
Ficus end
(The Rorona end fits in with any and all of them, because it’s not about Lulua.)
At least since the Mysterious trilogy they don’t…
The Piana end seems like where the game was leading up to the most: Lulua sticking with her teacher (and presumably Stia), going around in the mobile atelier, spreading the teachings of alchemy around the place. The whole Arland arc of this game was all about Totori preparing Lulua for this; Rorona and Meruru are hopeless teachers, but Lulua can actually do it, and has the skills to back up her teaching style.
The next best ending is the basic Normal end: Lulua shacks up with Stia at Atelier Lulua, doing the normal alchemist stuff of helping the townsfolk with stuff. This seems more in line with the feel of what was going down than the True ending, which is Lulua and Stia going off on a random journey. Also, it supports the Eva ending, with Lulua helping Eva run the orphanage (while also operating her atelier); this just seems like the most satisfying set of endings.
The other endings are Lulua going off with one of the three guys on their own personal journeys. Aurel is the most likely of the bunch, just because it’s a regular journey, much like the one Firis takes in her game. But I don’t see Lulua ever going with either Ficus or Nico – they’re just too specialized, and they didn’t seem like such good friends as to journey together (especially Nico, when his last event was basically “see you later maybe.”).
Isn’t it sad, Eva?
But of course, if there is an Arland 5 game, they’ll probably all be canon, somehow, just like all the endings in the other games got mashed together to all be true.
Now it’s time for a new game. Final Fantasy XIV, or Elder Scrolls Online? Or…?
Last night/this morning (it started at 3am local) was the now-annual Granblue Fantasy Summer Extra Festival stream. Had a bunch of voice actors, along with the director and producer of the game. Every player loves these streams, because they provide news about future stuff (there’s also stats about the past, and a variety/game show with the VA’s, but not many people would tune in for that). Big thanks goes to @granblue_en for both doing a live stream translation, and a Twitter translation as well. You can go over there to check out all the news, but I’ll just focus on what I really liked.
First, Re:Link actually had news! I figured it was alive, but I didn’t think it’d be mentioned this time, what with the Vs. hype and all. News wasn’t anything significant, just that there’d be news in the December stream. Pretty much the same exact thing that they said last summer, but it was nice that it was acknowledged.
Vs. actually was kinda exciting. No new character revelation, but rather a whole new mode. I’ll be honest, I was basically planning on skipping the game. I’m not a fighting game fan, and they rarely have enough story to keep me going through even the story mode on Easy (Persona 4 Arena is pretty much the only exception, and even then I never played the sequel). But the big announcement, that’s been hinted at since at least Anime Expo, is that this game has an RPG mode. Looks like a side-scrolling beat-em-up, with enemies, bosses, etc. They demoed it a bit on the stream, with some of the VA’s playing their characters (the VA’s for Charlotte and Ferry looked like they had never touched a FTG in their lives). They got rekt’d, since it was secretly on Hard mode. But it was interesting, and definitely got me thinking hard about buying a PS4. The game comes out next February, so I’ve got some time to think about it.
There was a new class announced (all pictures from @granblue_en):
Tormentor; Djeeta can torment me any time…
Some skins/recolors added to the existing classes, and in a complete surprise move, the MC can use existing skins of other characters. There’s also some Arcanum improvements, a new class of weapons, Magna/Omega+, uncaps to the Primal summons, the rest(?) of the summer characters, and some other skins.
Not so Thighsworn anymore; has she been skipping leg day?
The second season of the anime was previewed, with a whole different studio and creative staff behind it. Looks like it will be a continuation of the first season; the producer said that they took fan feedback from the first season into account when they made this one, so hopefully we’ll get something more than following the generic storyline this time. But we did get a shot of Aliza’s boob, which hints that we’ll get at least something like the few good episodes from the first season (like the treasure hunt one).
Good stream. Even though it was quite late, and I had a migraine, I’m still glad I stayed up for it (well, technically, woke up). Unlike some, I do generally enjoy the variety show segments, and the stats. Looking forward to the changes in the game that have been previewed.
Dragalia Lost had its first summer event drop a few days ago, and I’m only now going into it. There’s just been too much on my mind that I’ve wanted to write about first, and this just kinda fell on the wayside. That’s OK, because it’s just a mobile game’s event, nothing huge.
Though this event looks like it had a lot of effort put into it, much more than most past events, for sure. New enemy models, an entirely new boss model and skeleton, new art for characters that won’t even be in the gacha probably, new stage art, new animations, the works. It looks like the most effort since at least the FEH colaboration, if not the New Year’s event. Even got another song for the OST (though it’s not for the raid, which uses the normal raid boss music for some reason).
The event itself even makes more sense than usual. Basically, Luca finds some “treasure maps” from a “reputable dealer in antiquities,” and the prince-king (don’t know when they’re going to actually refer to his assumed title) decides to use this as an opportunity for a team-building retreat at a beach resort island. There are games, traps, dragons, demons, adventure, the whole bit. It’s actually pretty fun and funny. And, for those concerned about it, the bathing suits are relatively reserved, as far as anime bathing suits go (bikinis of course, but nothing fetishy or otherwise in too bad taste). Also a good use of a couple of past gacha characters, and the return of a past event character; I thought those three (especially Estelle) would be overbearing with their various gimmicks, but they were fine.
By this point we’ve gotten the high-difficulty raid as well. /drag/ said it was easy, and when I asked if my team could handle it (mostly as a joke – they aren’t even fully leveled), I was told I was good enough. Well, things didn’t turn out so easy. Pubs gonna be pubs, so in at least ten attempts, only two were promising at all, and neither succeeded (one was a connection failure though, which ruined everything). Of course, the common element was me, so…
Make way for a day one player…
All told, it’s a good event. Probably my favorite event so far.
In other news, as I had thought, I was able to get to a point in Atelier Lulua last night where I could go to the end boss right now, if I wanted. Which I don’t; I’m not prepared at all. Gained 1-2 levels for my party, when I need 10-15. Would have gone faster, but I’m also going to try to get 100% exploration on all the areas (I’m not usually a cheevo chaser, but that’s an easy one, so why not?). That requires an unfortunate amount of initiating battles and then fleeing, since that advances the clock, and many enemies are exclusive to day or night. And I have a lot of friendship leveling to do as well, to get the true ending – still missing quite a bit on Sterk and Niko.
For some reason, Twitter seems to be taking the second picture in my post when I tweet this out. Very annoying. Maybe I’m supposed to make the first picture the Featured Picture?
Dating Sims on the Holodeck 