dev_chieftain (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-01-16 01:28 am
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-01-16 01:28 am
Honeyed oats
Honey oat bread!
This is what Danny made when I said before workouts "but I did not buy bread from the store, because you promised we would make bread!"
Not just any bread but delicious honey oat bread! It is ridiculously awesome.
Lately we've been cooking a lot more because we both see the cost effectiveness of it, and honestly it turns out we both like cooking. I find it more enjoyable when I'm not doing it alone, and hope Danny enjoys that too, as it would mean we will both continue with the cooking. As a result, we have needed to acquire things we'd previously gone without-- like smaller mixing bowls and ingredients that combine to make delicious things. And a big old cutting board. The one I got is made of bamboo, which smells weird and milky like bamboo shoots do when they are fresh-cut. I'm hoping that smell will fade with time, because it's a swanky cutting board, otherwise, and well worth the purchase. Being big enough to make bread on, it may significantly cut down on Danny having to sterilize the counter every time he makes things, which I'd like to do since I like it very much when he makes things and see every reason to make the process easier for us both.
The only downside is, Danny doesn't like the bread too much since it tastes a trifle more like wheat bread than it might've without the oats, so we'll just have to make more bread in the future. No hardship there!
In TOR I've been annoyed with the game's difficulty level in general. I have a lot of problems because of lag-- the game jerks around, my framerate drops to 4 frames per second more often than I care to acknowledge, and suddenly I find myself or my friends dead because I didn't even realize the enemy was still up. (I have a habit of listening for the sound of my guns firing on Danny's computer if I can, because then I know if I should keep tapping buttons or it's just not working.) That's a problem on my end, sure, but even when everything's going smoothly, certain NPC types are just not possible to kill solo. I couldn't take down a level 29 "Champion" when I was level 37. Not without bringing Dustin in to help me, and Dustin, at level 34, still nearly died (both our companions went down) before we were able to kill the bastard. Pit me against a level 37 "Elite" (slightly less difficult than "Champion", but not much) and I frequently cannot take the guy alone. I have to play the game a couple of levels higher than the recommended level for EVERYTHING if I want to be able to do it by myself. Sometimes I don't mind having to go grab a group, but sometimes I'm in an area with so few other people that that's not an option-- or sometimes, I'm doing a quest for my class, specifically, which SHOULD mean I can do it on my own. When I can't play the game because of this ludicrous difficulty curve, it makes me pretty damn frustrated.
Enemies have staggering amounts of hit-points; at level 20, when I had only 4000 hit points myself, the appropriate-level "Champion" enemies had 60,000. When we fight them now, we're looking at 120,000 hit points on these enemies. They also can generally toss out area-of-effect attacks like candy, which hit all members of my team (even if I have a team of four, which is the max); they can rattle off damage-over-time spells that do such MASSIVE damage that without a healer actively healing me, I WILL go down no matter what; sometimes they can heal, which you might say "so interrupt it!" to, but-- A. My lag ensures that any power I try to activate goes off anywhere between 2 to 5 seconds after I notice I need to click it-- a fact that often gets me dead when my medpac (the only option I have to heal) fails to go off in time. B. I have exactly ONE interrupt power, and it has a minute or longer on cooldown after I use it. These enemies can just keep using their heal power, so even if I successfully interrupt it, they can heal to full in the time it takes me to try to stop them.
It doesn't make for positive feelings towards the game when it's clear that some classes are just better than others. I am playing gunslinger because I wanted to be Han Solo-- which means no healing powers or stealth. But because of that, I obviously get no stealth, which means I have to fight almost every enemy (a mind-numbing chore that has led me to running through many areas just ignoring enemies until they leash, or I die, at which point I wait to be resurrected (AN INSANELY ANNOYING FEATURE-- death is, I assure you, punishment enough) and the resume running through the field of idiotically densely placed enemies); I also can't keep myself UP through fights, which is pretty detrimental to getting things done; and the only control power I have is restricted to "works on droids only-- and not all droids". When I see Jedi Sage running around able to do AOE damage to enemies, Bounty Hunter capable from the beginning of the game of adding DoT effects to their basic attacks, and so on, it feels like the balance is pretty fucking awful. But the thing is, I have friends playing these other classes, and they're just as frustrated as I am with the difficulty. The game is a goddamn leisure pursuit. It should be FUN to play, not a chore; but whenever I have to deal with these enemies that are so overpowered I can't even take them when they're gray (ie, they wouldn't even give me experience if I killed them), it becomes the opposite of fun. Especially if that's what I have to deal with to keep questing.
As a smuggler, I was sort of expecting to get quests to go talk to big groups of scary guys in bars. Pick up illegal equipment. Take it to someone else, sell it. You know, smuggling. In fact, I was expecting to actually get some kind of decent crafting system. TOR's crafting system is horrible-- you have to spend time, a fair amount of money (that quickly adds up), and you have to be lucky. Why? Because the missions you send your companions on to collect items for you are randomized. The items they retrieve? also randomized. Here's an example.
To craft ANYTHING with my actual crafting skill right now, I require "Hallucinogenic Compound" (biochemical compound grade 3), "First Aid Kits" (medical supplies), and "Unknown micro-organism" (biochemical sample grade 2), let's say. Simple enough, right? I send my companions on diplomacy missions for medical supplies, and bioanalysis missions for biochemical compounds and samples of the appropriate grade. Right?
No: I might get any biochemical compound from the mission, likely one I can't use in anything because I can't learn more recipes, because I can't even make the basic one. I might get any biochemical sample, including "better" ones, in any number-- so I get one micro-organism, but I need 6 to make even one thing with my Biochem crafting skill. My everything in crafting is outdated because trying to raise it goes through my money so fast, I sometimes have no credits left when I'm still trying to learn a SINGLE new recipe. The cost should be nullified; the time cost is honestly severe enough already, and the random element of the whole thing is AWFUL. There are simply not enough 'nodes' to harvest from in the game to make it possible to collect the needed materials without waiting patiently for nodes to respawn for several hours just to make the first step. It's ridiculous, and it's annoying. But I could forgive it being bad if I was at least getting Class-quests that FIT me choosing to be a Smuggler.
Not only are the "sidequests" (quests anyone can take, regardless of class) getting more and more 'forced patriotism' on me, but my own class quests have been as well, which is extremely irritating. These people have no reason to like me. I make a business of stealing from them and breaking their laws. There should, at the very least, be a third faction that counts as "neutral", and I should have the option to join it and get missions better related to what I want to do. I really hate WoW for being so successful, and such a BLACK/WHITE kind of game. Thanks to the wild popularity of "only two factions" faction-based PvP in WoW, everyone does it now. I would be fine with faction-based PvP if it were like Eve, where there are lots of factions-- many player-run-- and you can pick and choose based on whether a faction matches your individual desire from the game. I don't like PvP, however, and would appreciate it if the entire game's dynamic didn't have to be dictated by what PvP players want. For some reason, it is-- and as a result, I can almost never have a satisfying experience.
Arrrgh.
I might not be so put out if the latter part of the smuggler story didn't involve forcing me to work for the Republic. I picked the class I picked because I have no interest in being dragged into yet another two-warring-factions-are-both-actually-evil-and-you-can't-fix-it plot, Bioware. Thanks, but fuck you: I'm a fucking smuggler. I should be allowed to freelance. I should be allowed to work for the Empire if I feel like it too. The Hutt Cartel should be a faction I can join if I want. There should be a fucking smuggler association, I don't care.
If I seem particularly foulmouthed, it's because I'm really sick of being forced, by lack of options to say "no!", to work for the Republic. I don't even mean I wouldn't give it a shot, but the fact that I haven't got an option is a real pisser.
Additionally, the longer the game remains online without the ability to romance same-sex, the less I want to play it. I find that extremely fucked up.
Anyway. Time for sleeps.
This is what Danny made when I said before workouts "but I did not buy bread from the store, because you promised we would make bread!"
Not just any bread but delicious honey oat bread! It is ridiculously awesome.
Lately we've been cooking a lot more because we both see the cost effectiveness of it, and honestly it turns out we both like cooking. I find it more enjoyable when I'm not doing it alone, and hope Danny enjoys that too, as it would mean we will both continue with the cooking. As a result, we have needed to acquire things we'd previously gone without-- like smaller mixing bowls and ingredients that combine to make delicious things. And a big old cutting board. The one I got is made of bamboo, which smells weird and milky like bamboo shoots do when they are fresh-cut. I'm hoping that smell will fade with time, because it's a swanky cutting board, otherwise, and well worth the purchase. Being big enough to make bread on, it may significantly cut down on Danny having to sterilize the counter every time he makes things, which I'd like to do since I like it very much when he makes things and see every reason to make the process easier for us both.
The only downside is, Danny doesn't like the bread too much since it tastes a trifle more like wheat bread than it might've without the oats, so we'll just have to make more bread in the future. No hardship there!
In TOR I've been annoyed with the game's difficulty level in general. I have a lot of problems because of lag-- the game jerks around, my framerate drops to 4 frames per second more often than I care to acknowledge, and suddenly I find myself or my friends dead because I didn't even realize the enemy was still up. (I have a habit of listening for the sound of my guns firing on Danny's computer if I can, because then I know if I should keep tapping buttons or it's just not working.) That's a problem on my end, sure, but even when everything's going smoothly, certain NPC types are just not possible to kill solo. I couldn't take down a level 29 "Champion" when I was level 37. Not without bringing Dustin in to help me, and Dustin, at level 34, still nearly died (both our companions went down) before we were able to kill the bastard. Pit me against a level 37 "Elite" (slightly less difficult than "Champion", but not much) and I frequently cannot take the guy alone. I have to play the game a couple of levels higher than the recommended level for EVERYTHING if I want to be able to do it by myself. Sometimes I don't mind having to go grab a group, but sometimes I'm in an area with so few other people that that's not an option-- or sometimes, I'm doing a quest for my class, specifically, which SHOULD mean I can do it on my own. When I can't play the game because of this ludicrous difficulty curve, it makes me pretty damn frustrated.
Enemies have staggering amounts of hit-points; at level 20, when I had only 4000 hit points myself, the appropriate-level "Champion" enemies had 60,000. When we fight them now, we're looking at 120,000 hit points on these enemies. They also can generally toss out area-of-effect attacks like candy, which hit all members of my team (even if I have a team of four, which is the max); they can rattle off damage-over-time spells that do such MASSIVE damage that without a healer actively healing me, I WILL go down no matter what; sometimes they can heal, which you might say "so interrupt it!" to, but-- A. My lag ensures that any power I try to activate goes off anywhere between 2 to 5 seconds after I notice I need to click it-- a fact that often gets me dead when my medpac (the only option I have to heal) fails to go off in time. B. I have exactly ONE interrupt power, and it has a minute or longer on cooldown after I use it. These enemies can just keep using their heal power, so even if I successfully interrupt it, they can heal to full in the time it takes me to try to stop them.
It doesn't make for positive feelings towards the game when it's clear that some classes are just better than others. I am playing gunslinger because I wanted to be Han Solo-- which means no healing powers or stealth. But because of that, I obviously get no stealth, which means I have to fight almost every enemy (a mind-numbing chore that has led me to running through many areas just ignoring enemies until they leash, or I die, at which point I wait to be resurrected (AN INSANELY ANNOYING FEATURE-- death is, I assure you, punishment enough) and the resume running through the field of idiotically densely placed enemies); I also can't keep myself UP through fights, which is pretty detrimental to getting things done; and the only control power I have is restricted to "works on droids only-- and not all droids". When I see Jedi Sage running around able to do AOE damage to enemies, Bounty Hunter capable from the beginning of the game of adding DoT effects to their basic attacks, and so on, it feels like the balance is pretty fucking awful. But the thing is, I have friends playing these other classes, and they're just as frustrated as I am with the difficulty. The game is a goddamn leisure pursuit. It should be FUN to play, not a chore; but whenever I have to deal with these enemies that are so overpowered I can't even take them when they're gray (ie, they wouldn't even give me experience if I killed them), it becomes the opposite of fun. Especially if that's what I have to deal with to keep questing.
As a smuggler, I was sort of expecting to get quests to go talk to big groups of scary guys in bars. Pick up illegal equipment. Take it to someone else, sell it. You know, smuggling. In fact, I was expecting to actually get some kind of decent crafting system. TOR's crafting system is horrible-- you have to spend time, a fair amount of money (that quickly adds up), and you have to be lucky. Why? Because the missions you send your companions on to collect items for you are randomized. The items they retrieve? also randomized. Here's an example.
To craft ANYTHING with my actual crafting skill right now, I require "Hallucinogenic Compound" (biochemical compound grade 3), "First Aid Kits" (medical supplies), and "Unknown micro-organism" (biochemical sample grade 2), let's say. Simple enough, right? I send my companions on diplomacy missions for medical supplies, and bioanalysis missions for biochemical compounds and samples of the appropriate grade. Right?
No: I might get any biochemical compound from the mission, likely one I can't use in anything because I can't learn more recipes, because I can't even make the basic one. I might get any biochemical sample, including "better" ones, in any number-- so I get one micro-organism, but I need 6 to make even one thing with my Biochem crafting skill. My everything in crafting is outdated because trying to raise it goes through my money so fast, I sometimes have no credits left when I'm still trying to learn a SINGLE new recipe. The cost should be nullified; the time cost is honestly severe enough already, and the random element of the whole thing is AWFUL. There are simply not enough 'nodes' to harvest from in the game to make it possible to collect the needed materials without waiting patiently for nodes to respawn for several hours just to make the first step. It's ridiculous, and it's annoying. But I could forgive it being bad if I was at least getting Class-quests that FIT me choosing to be a Smuggler.
Not only are the "sidequests" (quests anyone can take, regardless of class) getting more and more 'forced patriotism' on me, but my own class quests have been as well, which is extremely irritating. These people have no reason to like me. I make a business of stealing from them and breaking their laws. There should, at the very least, be a third faction that counts as "neutral", and I should have the option to join it and get missions better related to what I want to do. I really hate WoW for being so successful, and such a BLACK/WHITE kind of game. Thanks to the wild popularity of "only two factions" faction-based PvP in WoW, everyone does it now. I would be fine with faction-based PvP if it were like Eve, where there are lots of factions-- many player-run-- and you can pick and choose based on whether a faction matches your individual desire from the game. I don't like PvP, however, and would appreciate it if the entire game's dynamic didn't have to be dictated by what PvP players want. For some reason, it is-- and as a result, I can almost never have a satisfying experience.
Arrrgh.
I might not be so put out if the latter part of the smuggler story didn't involve forcing me to work for the Republic. I picked the class I picked because I have no interest in being dragged into yet another two-warring-factions-are-both-actually-evil-and-you-can't-fix-it plot, Bioware. Thanks, but fuck you: I'm a fucking smuggler. I should be allowed to freelance. I should be allowed to work for the Empire if I feel like it too. The Hutt Cartel should be a faction I can join if I want. There should be a fucking smuggler association, I don't care.
If I seem particularly foulmouthed, it's because I'm really sick of being forced, by lack of options to say "no!", to work for the Republic. I don't even mean I wouldn't give it a shot, but the fact that I haven't got an option is a real pisser.
Additionally, the longer the game remains online without the ability to romance same-sex, the less I want to play it. I find that extremely fucked up.
Anyway. Time for sleeps.