Codicier

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Codicier

  1. Posted

    Speaking of which, this is one of the more irritating aspects of Finn's character.  Finn could have been a substantive character with a lot of conflicting emotions.  But he was just an incompetent goofball.  What part of the way Finn acts screams "brainwashed storm trooper"?  In the film itself, one of the New Order guys even claims some absurdly low defection rate.  If their brainwash techniques are so damn good, why does Finn appear to be utterly unaffected?

     

    I'm sure other people think this too but Me and my sisters theory on this is that both Finn and Rey were (very young) pupils at Luke's Jedi academy who escaped the slaughter.

     

    Rey is obviously the more force sensitive of the two but Finn has a affinity too, which partly explains why he's partially resistant to brainwashing. If he has been present at the slaughter this would also give another reason for him not being able to bring himself to slaughter civilians, not only is he free of the brainwashing but that he also has a repressed trauma of surviving such a slaughter. It would also explain his "love at first sight" reaction to rey, because it would actually be him remembering a connection he had rather than a overwhelming reaction to someone he's never met before. Just because he doesn't remember having a proper name doesn't mean he never had one, it depends what age young storm troopers are taken at. 

    His silver armoured commander also seems to take more interest in him than perhaps a normal commander would be expected to, and since she (i think the commanders a she?) showed up in Reys vision of the massacre there's a possibility she saved the young/infant finn in a moment of humanity and had him inducted into the storm troopers rather than kill him.

  3. Posted

    I don't even find it visually interesting. The art style is kind of original (aka not the art style anime usually is) and I could see why it might work really well on a better animation budget, but because the animation and direction is so stiff the art style comes off as kind of uneappealing and way less expressive than any one still would suggest. I can see the limited production budget seeping through the 15 second long zooms on a still image.

     

    I dropped it a week ago on episode 4 so I don't even know what happens in the story, but 4 episodes of exposition feels like way too much. Characters go on and on about how everyone has a hidden past and how the white haired dude doesn't like to talk about his past, and it's all to build up this sense of mystery surrounding the people in the organization. But if it's just shoved in my face consistently, it's hard for me to to feel intrigued. Also it's all expressed very verbally and dryly, and doesn't seem to take advantage of its setting to tell its stories.

     

    Maybe I should finish it since it's only 11 episodes but really I was totally bored by what I've seen.

     

     Animation wise i think some of the things you say could easily be aimed at something like mushishi at times but i think i'm far more willing to forgive them in that case because it knew how to put together a compelling self contained story in a single episode, where as there wasn't really any real narrative flow driving HoFL's forward moment to moment.

     

    I do like the idea of the art style consisting of these very unevenly drawn ink lines and shadows as a sorta metaphor for the type of story/person they are depicting but they really don't do enough to make up for the fact that these vague characters dont do much intresting

  4. Posted

    I haven't played this game much since LotV came out. Did you guys see that new recruitment thing? Lot of people up in arms about it because of all the smurfs that are going to dominate low-level games and people feeling cheated out of the rewards because they "recruited" all their friends back in the beta.

     

    Personally I thought this would be a good time to get back into it with more friends, shame other people don't see it the same way.

     

    I think the big problem people are having is that this comes directly AFTER the Cho'gal event, because of the unique nature of that hero i know i had a fair few people who play other LoMa's from my greater social circle asking to play a few games just to try it out. Which would have seemed like the perfect thing to combo with a recruit a friend.

     

    I also get the worry about Smurf accounts, blizz made a big change to the game balance recently which although theoretically making the difference that developed between two evenly skilled team's as the result of a pickoff less dramatic in terms of leveling up has also meant due to a increased death time those individual pick off have more impact moment to moment. Which basically means a well co-ordianted group of players can swing a early game far more dramatically if they get a couple of early pickoffs because they have the knowledge on how to exploit those pickoffs that a new group of player might not. One Smurf account isn't so much of a problem its when you get say 2-3 of them working together it creates a scenario where genuine new players are going to get a really shitty experience.

  5. Posted

    Btw are any of your guys playing this on a lower end system?

     

    it looks it would perfectly fit a particular group of friends of mine but one of them has a bog standard laptop and refuses to think about ever getting a dedicated gaming pc. SO i'd be curious to know how well it scales its aesthetics and performance

  7. Posted

    Just watched Ouran Host Club. It was good! 

     

    Also watching House of Five Leaves. It is unbearable!

     

    That Ouran is good this is one of the fundamental truths of anime, but what's so bad about House of Five Leaves? my memory has it filed down as visually interesting but not particularity compelling. 

  9. Posted

    If there ends up being a group of thumbs readers playing this together i need to see videos, because there's nothing that brings a community together more than killing each other in amusing ways in a video game. 

     

    plus i cant afford to by new things atm so i want to live/play vicariously :D

  11. Posted

    So, I just decided to dig out my citadel paints and try this again. They're about 3 years old at this point and thankfully haven't dried out completely, but they are a bit thick and gloopy. Is there anything I can add to them? I was thinking water, but I also have some acrylic paint thinner I use to liquify my canvas paints some.

     

    Ok so there are some things which might work but it depends how bad its got.

     

    I have some klear acrylic floor polish (like this) 

    4.tb-canopies-clear-parts-pc-johnsons.kl

     

    which i use as a glaze diluent but also can also be used to add to arcylics which have dried out. get something you can still the pot with and add a very small amount of the polish.

    The main disadvantage is it can make the paint a little more glossy but in terms of getting it liquid again it works better than water generally

     

    apparently the type i use has been discontinued though and it now sells as pledge multi surface wax

  12. Posted

    Dreamhack's Hots tourney had a really quite tense last game with two quite different lineups and a quite different styles from the teams

     

     

     

    nipping back to jaina the build i use in games where there is either no support or a stealth assassin on the opposing team is a variant on what's called the machine gun build

     

    http://www.heroesfire.com/hots/talent-calculator/jaina#gWHa

     

    basically it allows you to spam your frost bolt at a decent distance for even more single target burst along with gaining extra protection through ice armour and iceblock, and decent poke dmg with the water ele for when you don't want to hard engage. Once you get more comfortable with her or against less agressive comps you can run ring of frost & icy veins

     

     

  14. Posted

    Blizz made their biggest change to the games meta since beta (and some people are arguing since alpha) last patch by changing the power curve 

     

     

    As a result of these changes, all Heroes will have more power early, but gain less from each level.

     

    this means basically assassins are waaaaaaaay more deadly early game, they also increased death timers which means death matter more. Kinda a tough time to be learning a new hero :D

     

    Anyways as a result of the scaling change and a change made to a talent called gathering power which gains you %dmg per hero kill, Zeratul and a couple of other assassins now have quite strong (if very high risk because you loose all stacks on death) snowball potential

     

    also btw I (& osmo) are on the thumbs id spreadsheet so feel free to add your battlenet to the list or add us

     

    https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/9197-consolidated-id-exchange/

     

    maybe we should arrange a Heroes night or something I'm happy to help people get to know the game a bit better

  17. Posted

    I'm not sure if it should be classed as a damage type or not or if its been mentioned allready but ......................over the years because WoW has struggled so hard with players fighting bosses with huge hit point pools then fighting players with comparatively tiny hit point pools. Blizzards 1st solution was a stat called resilience which was essentially player damage resistance. 

  18. Posted

     

     But gameplay isnt landing, feels clunky and not very deep. Perhaps I need to play more, but how to gain advantage is unclear except by simply playing better/lord matchups - even after double digit kill leads and several forts down the other team was still just as powerful and almost same level.

    I've also been playing dota from before all stars - the hots style wasnt something I needed to get into the genre

    I'll keep it around for quick games, but won't be spending any money - the in game money accurement is bonkers too. 30g per game? Even with daily quests would be weeks before buying a top price lord

     

    The rhythm of a Hots match tends to be dominated by talent tiers in particular lvl 10 (but also lvls 16 and 20.) 

     

    If a team has a tier advantage it will very rarely loose a engagement if both teams play well, but if it has a level but not a tier advantage it can still very easily loose a engagement.So the correct tactic at this point for the team which is behind is to split push/soak and look for a pickoff. The one thing i find myself shouting at people in QM all the time is "they have 10, back off and soak"

     

    The fun part of higher level play come from very map specific picks and play that other Lords Managements don't have, so in a way it can take alot more time to become aparant

     

     

    Yeah that's my main problem with the game. In fairness to them, though, that's how it works in LoL too.

    Edit: Oh, you do know you get gold for levelling player account and hero levels too, right?

     

    Overall i haven't found the F2P aspects too bad, the one thing they seem aware of its that people need to be able to build a good roster of heroes from the heroes that cost the lower gold amounts and to be able to get gold from levelling up at both a fairly early stage (lvl5) and after playing it a while (lvl9).

    There was a period where they very fairly came in for some criticism for not properly tuning new heroes who came in and dominated the meta (leoric, Johanna & Kael), but that seems to have been put behind them and recently new heroes though having a definte place in the meta have not been instant first picks

  20. Posted

    Both are very solid now. Jaina is a great burst character but can get caught out of position so easily, Silv has a lot of viable builds and while she will never do the burst of Jaina she has a really good escape. I'd also highly recommend Valla atm, she has a good variety of skill, a lot of freedom in how you can build her, including 2 powerful ultimates and a decent escape

     

    sidenote:

    Actual best hero(s)

     

     

  21. Posted

    He's free to play every single rotation so unfortunately that gold could have been better spent, sorry.

     

    are you sure Raynor's unlocked all the time? I wasn't aware of that?

     

    there's a what i consider a good bundle for beginners of Him, Mafurion, & Muradin plus a stim pack(bonus xp & gold), all of whom are very well balanced and competitive heroes

     

    Also rumour has it there's going to be a sale on tuesday/wednesday. Idk if that includes the starter bundle though, because that might allready considered as discounted

  22. Posted

    I played a bunch last night. I kinda like it, it strips out all the things I hated from League and Dota and leaves you with the action part. There is probably a bunch for me to still learn, but in general it's simple enough to pick up, play a few matches and do OK.

     

    My first game was a disaster, I died constantly. I was playing a healer, and using a track pad (lol). Just being generally useless. Of course I was called a cunt and a faggot etc.

     

    I then spent coins and played as a ranged character, with a mouse. After 2 matches of mediocrity, I was suddenly getting the highest number of kills or assists on my team. I was actually ok! Granted my teams were generally awful, but I played a good 15 matches yesterday and won the vast majority of them.

     

    I also tried out the free character - a woman warrior because I had a quest. I did alright using her, but I felt like I didn't do any damage. I could just be wailing on someone for ages and nothing would happen, so I had to adjust my play style to something I wasn't as suited to, but I think I kinda got the hang of it. 

     

    So yeah, I like this game. Only one match where I got "reported" for being bad in a 0-stakes match. The rest were silent with GG at the end, so already a better community than dota or league. 

     

    Iirc who's on free rotation atm that lady warrior would be Johanna.

     

    She is basically designed to be the tankiest of tanks, her role is to wave clear when in lane and to keep others safe in teamfights she does (as you noticed) very little damage. I'm not sure shes who i'd recommend early on when your not getting much team play happening. 

     

    Of the current free rotation i'd recommend Zagara (aka bug lady)

     

    here's a typical build for her

     

    http://www.heroesfire.com/hots/guide/zagara-team-ranged-dps-zero-downtime-72

     

    although idk if thats actually possible with new account talent gating.

     

    Shes basically one of if not THE single best solo lane choice, just spread your creep tumours as much as possible , launch banelings when your opponent is out of position (ideally splashing the dmg onto their mobs too) and fire off hunter killers whenever you have the mana and ranged attack when safe. If your careful you can harass someone right out of lane and force them to hearth

     

    Edit: have also added myself to the big old id database thing

  23. Posted

    I nabbed Cho'Gall with a friend, so if someone still needs them, I now have a quest to spread the love to two other people.

    I'm in the multiplayer ID thread google doc thing (as you all should be).

     

    man after spending my whole gaming life being someone who always tended to get to know people before handing out things like battlenet/steam ID's the fact they have switched to almost the gaming equivalent of business cards which you throw out to people youve just met is really taking time for me to adjust to :D

  25. Posted

    I love reading some of the stuff people have got up to with characters. The idea of handing of the teleporter beacon is really neat i hadn't thought about that at all, i just tended to dump it at the exit and then send him of as my mule to carry whatever loot the end objective needed and fill up his inventory then teleporting back