Board 8 > SaveEstelle & LeonhartFour in New Houses: The Wheel Weaves Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

wow we actually got both the Cowboys and Titans games locally today, which never happens

My fantasy team is a mess and I've picked all the wrong players to play this week and I still have a chance to win somehow

I came into the 8:30 games with a reasonable shot, but Tom Brady shitting the bed so far is probably sealing my loss.

My opponent has Brady so that's what's giving me a chance...!

It's frustrating because I was almost coming back from the Kelce deficit when my TE also went nuts this afternoon.

I'm going to need Justin Jefferson to light up the Bears tomorrow. Which, given that it's the Bears, is possible. But he's gonna need like 3 TDs.

Well, Cousins is my QB so that would be a mutually beneficial situation!

To be fair, I had no business being in the playoffs this year anyway.

But it would have been nice to take down the guy who won our league the last two years.

Hawkeye Episode 5 complete!

Yelena is so good. And heck yeah Kingpin.

The Wheel of Time Episode 7 complete!

I don't know what I expected the Blight to look like, but it wasn't that. Looked cool though.

The Expanse Season 6 Episode 2 complete!

It's still so weird not having Alex around, but it's good to see Clarissa get accepted as part of the crew now.

Cousins got outscored by the Vikings D/ST (which my opponent had) last night, so I need a combined 10 points from the Eagles TE and the Rams kicker to win this very sad playoff match

Oh and I also need a Cooper Kupp TD reception to pass Ladder Level 7

Dragon Ball Z Episode 151 complete!

The return! We got sidetracked watching Frasier for a while, but now that we're finished with that, we're back!

Heck yeah Android 16

aw yeah its back

oh I forgot about that

nice

Dragon Ball Z Episode 152 complete!

Nice to see Tien get a moment for the first time in forever

Also Cell absorbing Android 17 walked a weird line between being hilarious and disturbing

Also looks like I will win my playoff matchup but I'm losing RBs left and right so I probably have no shot next week

oh man, two fantastic episodes right there

The Expanse S6E2 watched.

Huh, so I guess that other planet stuff is going to be a continuing subplot... as a tease for a movie? Or something?

It has to be a setup for at least one movie because the Laconia stuff shouldn't come into play during the main plot for this season.

Mai-HiME Episode 1 complete!

My wife randomly remembered this show and decided we needed to watch it, so here we go. A lot of stuff happened in this first episode, and I can't tell what kind of show it wants to be yet.

That came out of nowhere. I remember liking the show. I remember parts of the ending. Not much else. Are you watching it subbed or dubbed?

We're watching it on Funimation, so we're watching it dubbed. I might use this as an excuse to introduce her to Steins;Gate and consider it an anime exchange.

I remember enjoying Mai Hime too. Must be over 10 years since Ive seen it at this point though.

Hawkeye complete!

Great finale and solid show overall.

Loki > WandaVision > What If > Hawkeye > Falcon/Winter Soldier

Dragon Ball Z Episode 153 complete!

Hopefully Krillin with that remote won't doom all of civilization by disabling Android 18 at the wrong time...!

Mai-HiME Episode 2 complete!

I still don't really understand what's happening here, but I like the mixture of slice of life with the action sequences. It reminds me of Full Metal Panic.

LeonhartFour posted...

Hopefully Krillin with that remote won't doom all of civilization by disabling Android 18 at the wrong time...!

that would be a blunder

whew just gotta survive one more day and the Christmas rush is over

ya go my Titans

now we're virtually assured to make the playoffs at this point, now it's just a matter if we can get Henry back or not

Tales of Arise Update: I was going to say perhaps the most garbage design decision in the game thus far was only being able to set 3 Artes (well aerial artes are separate so 6 technically) after previous games were basically 8 minimum and even like 16 that one time but lo and behold I now can set 6 (12 w/ Aerial) so I guess it's slightly better.

Had to remap the controls though because the most natural button for my muscle memory is L2 + [Button] for these and I had mapped L2 to dodge/guard previously so I have to unlearn that now.

The decision to gate this behind an item and not have it from the start/almost immediately after the start is still dumb but at least it exists.

I feel like most Tales games do that sort of thing, where combat feels super basic at the beginning and expands to let you do more later on.

Oh, yeah, they definitely do. It's just the locking of the number of artes you can assign to shortcuts is a mean one to include in that - particularly if you're going to make that initial number 3. Like if you start with 8 assignments and there's a later item that makes it 16, yeah, okay sure. But 3 was just an insulting number tbqh!

Locking controls and QoL functions behind items sounds like a terrible idea

Well, it's a mandatory item so it's not as though you could accidentally miss it but yeah.

Can't remember a specific example but I feel like there was a game that wouldn't let you change your camera orientation controls until you got through an opening section.

These are more like extra ability slots. It's pretty common for games to give you more of those as you go. Same with stuff like CP in Tales games.

See, I'd argue this is more pure QoL like Leon said. Theoretically there's nothing preventing you from pausing to go to the menu and reassign arte shortcuts mid-battle - they could give you just one shortcut and you could just pause repeatedly mid-combo to swap them out to chain a combo it'd just suck.

I feel like Arise's combat has a much stronger emphasis on Arte Combos than say, Symphonia, though and so it just feels mean-spirited to start you out at 3 - even moreso when you consider properties/elements. I've been maining Alphen for instance and so for my ground artes it's basically been: "Okay, I want an arte that results in putting me in the air so I can transition to using my aerial artes and also to juggle enemies so that's one slot down. Also a cheap/quick arte that I can use whenever and also transition into a blazing sword arte and there's a second slot down... and now I'm down to one slot left and like 10 choices for it and since different situations may call for different approaches..."

6 is... manageable. It still feels a bit stingy but it's a lot more freeing - I can basically get most of what I want loaded up there.

But when I was playing with the other characters in Arena Solo Battles it stood out as so deficient lol. Like playing as Rinwell? Man 3 Artes is just an "f you" to casters. >_>

Tales has done extra ability slots and that's a different beast IMO. Don't think Arise really has a comparison. Accessories maybe? I haven't really delved into the crafting game there.

I don't necessarily mind the idea of starting players off with less options so as to ramp them up to the battle system. The fact that it's specifically tied to an item doesn't matter since it's unmissable--it's basically the same as unlocking a new ability after a certain plot point.

That said, iirc they don't actually give you this option until like 8-10 hours into the game which I feel like is where the real problem was.

pyresword posted...

iirc they don't actually give you this option until like 8-10 hours into the game

*laughs nervously*

y-yeah 8-10 hours

I'm like 35 hours played lmao

This sounds like the problem people had with the FFXIII battle system. The issue wasn't the gradual rollout but how long it took to unlock everything.

That being said, the idea of being able to assign shortcuts being restricted feels really dumb, no matter how they do it.

I might be forgetting when it was but either way it's not great.

So apparently I've made a mistake with my Nintendo account. I set up 2-step authentication, which uses the Google Authenticator app. They also give you a list of backup codes.

Well, I tried signing in using the authenticator, failed. I tried using one of the backup codes, failed. I looked it up online and apparently switching phones can screw the whole process up (I switched phones earlier this year after I set it up initially), and it looks like the only way to fix it is to contact Nintendo's customer service, so that should be fun.

The Expanse Season 6 Episode 3 complete!

That was a great part of the book, too, so I'm glad to see they did it justice.

The Wheel of Time Season 1 complete!

Laying the groundwork for season 2 at the end there with the Horn of Valere and the Seanchan, I see. I thought the scene at the Eye of the World was kind of a letdown compared to what it was in the book.

Aw yeah got Metroid Dread for Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my SELF friends!

Metroid Christmas

Samus, you can't stand the cold either, huh? I'm with you there. Also, this is the famous Adam I've heard so much about from Other M. He seems nice.

He's in Fusion too - not sure if you played that. It's kind of a different character, too - an AI based on the original Adam, who was human and had a different personality.

Cold areas being deadly was fun.

Charge Beam get

the E.M.M.I. chases are pretty intense so far, I'm just glad the punishment for dying is pretty light because I've been killed several times already

LeonhartFour posted...

Samus, you can't stand the cold either, huh? I'm with you there.

Nerdy lore alert!
Only since Fusion because she got Metroid DNA and they can't stand the cold!

prime for instance has cold levels she has no issue with.