I hit my first “grinding” phase.
I played as far in the story as the game would let me progress. Now the next story quests require a higher Adventure Rank (AR 35 to be precise) and I’m only at 31. This means I have to increase it somehow, be it by defeating Hypostasis (cube shaped elemental enemies), Regivines (giant elemental plants), discovering stuff, doing side quests, etc.
It’s a bit of a chore but I’m eager to continue playing the story.
Until I reach AR 35 I can combine the grind with farming mats for increasing my characters’ levels and their equipment (weapons and artifacts) which is necessary so I don’t have trouble defeating enemies. Cause very few Adventure Ranks the levels of the enemies increases (next time at AR 35).
But the things I can do each day to increase my AR is limited by
a) the amount of Resin I have (160 max and you have to spend a various amount to loot the chests after defeating big enemies like the Regivines/Hypostasis or at the end of a domain; it replenishes itself - 1 Resin every 8min - and you can add some yourself with Original Resin which you get rewarded after increasing your AR)
and b) the amount of things you can do daily without spending Resin (like your 4 daily quests).
And at the same time I’m farming Primogems which is an in-game currency you need for acquiring stuff in the game’s store (like Wishes, which are for rolling on items and characters).
The banners are time-limited and the drop rates for the 5-star characters of each banner are very low. That puts some pressure on you. As the amount of Primogems you can get each day is also limited, the incentive is to get you to spend real money on Genesis Crystals, which can be converted to Primogems (1:1 rate) and then used for wishes again.
update: well, I made it to AR 33 but it was quite the grind. And that for only 1900 AR Exp. Now I need 6900 until I reach AR 34 and unlock the next small side quest.
Hypostasis/Oceanids/Regivines only give 200 AR Exp and cost 40 Resin. With the Resin (and Original Resin) that I have I can only get 2700 AR Exp. The 4 daily quests give a total of 900.
This situation is quite a bit annoying.
On top of that, the high you level your characters, weapons and artifacts, the more each level increase costs. And Mora (the currency in the world of Teyvat) is - at least as of now - not that easy to obtain.
Ascending a character from 50 to 60 costs 60k Mora (ascending means to unlock the next 10 levels so you can actually level up your character). And then using the items that give your characters exp also costs Mora. So just having those items doesn’t mean you can actually level your characters, you need Mora too.
Just reached AR 35, so now I can continue with the story quests (don’t know for how long before the next grind sets in).
I managed to get there faster than expected but it still felt like doing chores. Glad this phase is over for now.
The quest for Adventure Rank Ascension 2 but I’m gonna hold off on that cause completing it will increase the World Level, which means all enemies get stronger, thus forcing me to farm mats faster to increase my characters’ level and of their gear. Which would take longer than now cause the enemies are stronger.
I’m gonna call it a day for today and pick up the story quest tomorrow, so I have something to look forward to.
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Still Genshin Impact. Hit AR 55 recently. Now the amount of required AR Exp has skyrocketed. Gonna be a few weeks until I get to AR56 (not that it matters for now, I don’t think there’s anyone who even hit the current max - AR60).
The current event was a lot of fun. A whole new set of small islands to explore, with its own story line, mini games and rewards.
Got quite a lot new characters and/or constellations (referred to as C0-6, when you get a duplicate of a character you already have you get an item that unlocks the next C rank instead, unlocking new perks for their talents which make them even more powerful).
Got the best smol character - Klee, a child who’s obsessed with blowing things up, especially fish - and her signature weapon from the event shop (signature meaning it has the same color scheme as the character). In fact, I even got her on my F2P acc but I need to max out the weapon there before the current event ends because during that time it gets 1.5x the exp from materials so it’s faster to level it up.
There have been quite a few new things added since I last posted in here. There’s now a housing system called the SereniTea Pot (your own dimension where you can get a The Sims-ish experience), a new weekly boss (Azshdaha, unlocked after a new story line surrounding the Geo Archon who has one of the most pleasant male voices I’ve ever heard), new characters were introduced (Xiao, Hu Tao, Rosaria, Eula), old 5 star banner characters (Venti, Tartaglia, Zhongli and Klee) had re-runs, a new artifact domain was implemented with new artifact sets (artifacts are the gear you can equip, 5 total, there are set boni for wearing 2 or 4 of the same set), hang-outs were introduced (dating sim without the romance, quite fun and you get simple rewards for unlocking all route endings).
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apparently the remaster for dead island riptide fixed the bug was getting on regular riptide, so i can plays it, might do a dead island and riptide for youtube eventually, but mostly just doin the league episodes almost a year ahead still, but havent been playin that much really
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Still playing Genshin. New patch has been delayed, so there’s not much to do other than some small events, progressing in the story (the last new area is huuuuge).
New Path of Exile league started last Friday. Let’s see if I’m finally gonna get more progress in maps. And find a build that I really like playing and not half-assing like 3-4 builds cause they all feel sluggish during levelling or require a ton of unique items to really get going.
And also The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (thx again @Dje4321 ).
I’m pretty surprised I’m not getting motion sick playing it. Maybe cause it’s not a fast shooter.
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Maybe its the soothing tones of the Narrator as he goes on massive monologues completely inconsequential to the story or game
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Without the Narrator the whole experience wouldn’t be the same.
But oh man am I glad I looked something up despite my initial premise to experience the game on my own without any help.
I’m trying to stick to one option when a fork in the road is presented, go until the end, then start over and only change the very last decision.
Well, I got to the mind control room and after choosing “OFF” first I went back in and and chose “ON” where then the countdown appears. At first I was just standing there doing nothing, expecting that this is one option and gets me a different dialog. When the bomb went off I went back in but didn’t just stand there and tried to unlock a door (which was shown with a green light before only to close and have the light above it turn red). I tried to get to all the numbered buttons in ascending order and that didn’t work. Then I noticed the colored buttons and decided to look up hints only to find out the buttons do nothing. Good thing I looked it up, otherwise I’d be stuck there trying to figure out a way to get the door to open.
So now I can move on to the next fork in the road.
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This was pretty much the same apporch to took to the game, I wanted to explore every branch so deliberately went out of my way todo it which just gets way more interesting once you get to the extra content because of the format its in.
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Is it possible to get to the extra content before finishing the old one?
nope, you have to go through multiple different ending to be able to unlock the extra content depending on whether you answered if you played the first one or not when the game launched, if you did then you don’t need as many endings to get to it.
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That’s good to know.
I’ll try to play some more today when I get bored with PoE later.
Man…PoE really reminds me of MtG in terms of complexity and possibilities when it comes to builds. And I already suck at card games in general, so something on the level of MtG goes way over my head.
PoE is still fun. But compared to Diablo 3 it feels like you need some kind of degree to really be able to play it.
Also, those kinds of games stop being fun to me when you need spreadsheets to calculate things.
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Doesn’t really help that trading with people triggers my social anxiety so even though I’m playing in trade league I play as if I clicked on the Solo Self-Found option.
Which also means I’m having more trouble getting specific unique items.
Oh well, it’s not as if I’m going to get to end-game content anyway, so I’m just enjoying the journey to mapping.
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i just remember getting the one where he forced a restart and starting putting a line for me to follow and went crazy
Just wait till you get The Bucket. It gets amazing with The Bucket.
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Currently Playing:
Elden Ring, I reached where I planned to get in my 2nd playthrough, I’m going to grind in that area till my character reaches max level. Area I am in, in about 10 minutes runs in 1 hour I earn 2,000,000 XP, Once max level is reached, I’ll stop playing Elden Ring till the DLC comes out, if/when it gets announced.
Bloodbourne - This is the main game I am playing, at least till I beat it.
The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe - I am taking my time with this trying to figure out how to get all the endings without looking anything up. I’ve gotten six so far but I know there is more. Especially now that there is The Bucket thrown into the mix. The game is brilliant.
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apparently was the ‘confusion ending’ then when it restarted the last time i got the ‘not stanley’ one where you are like outside the room/game map and the credits roll
are you leveling to the soft cap or truely going all the way? if so that’s some serious dedication.
I’m going - All the way. It’ll take a bit to get there but the nice part is, the game is pretty chill to just play in the background and grind.
I’m going to work on getting the others to 50, working on endurance. Then max out strength, dex, vigor, and then the rest. I do a scary amount of damage. I’m close to doing 1000 damage per hit. Curious to see how much it’ll be when I get to max level
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Really should say what I played cause I finished it:
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Intergrade - Non Spoiler Thoughts -
I dig the music for the game. Very well done music. The music was so good I legit bought the CD Soundtrack (There are at least 7 discs which holy crap that is a lot of music.). It took me a little bit to get into the follow of combat… you can kinda get to be a hybrid between turn base and live action combat, which somehow clicked for me to the point I dominated all fights. It helps that I’ve played the Final Fantasy Series for a long time.
I am probably that weird odd person who still thinks Final Fantasy 8 was and is better than 7. The story was better. The graphics were better. The soundtrack is one of my all time favorites. The game scaled with you which I thought was neat because it meant combat would be tough but not impossible.
Final Fantasy 7 though I only played and beat it once. I had no real love for the game and thought people over-hyped it. The characters were paper thin. The story was ridiculous, granted that even Final Fantasy game.
When the Remake was announced, I honestly thought the game didn’t deserve to be remade. I did have to wait a bit to get it because Square Enix are nuts on their release schedule for PC where first Epic because greed and then Steam later. I got it on Steam.
The remake fixed a good bit of my issues with the game, the characters have better depth, the story is still nuts but it flows a lot better, and I like the new combat system.
What about the altering of the og story? - I have no attachment to it, so I honestly don’t care that they are going for something new with the characters. We might end up with something better. We won’t know till the other two games though. Heck in the side story they got me to actually like Yuffie which is a feat because I found her annoying in the og game.
Would I recommend this game? - It depends on what type of games you like. If your a die hard Final Fantasy 7 Fan… I honestly don’t know if I should recommend it to you. This is not a pure remake, they are doing something new. You should brace yourself it you decide to play it. If your use to Western RPGs like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, you should give this game a look. Classic Turn Based JRPG Fan - This game is not made for you… Combat is kinda of Hybrid which can get close to Turn Base but it isn’t. It’s more like what if VATS from Fallout 3/4 happened in real time and people where still moving just a little slower like bullet time.
TLDR - I actually like this better than the original. I look forward to playing the two sequels eventually, someday in a few years when they come to steam.
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