So the battle with Van didn't go quite as I'd planned, but it worked out in the end. Revive looked good on paper, and indeed both melee characters ended up using their auto-res, but I couldn't get it back on them as I'd spent too much TP healing people in the meantime. That spell is hella expensive.
We killed Van pretty quickly even with having to resurrect a couple times.
Then party split... which basically amounts to Luke moping about the manor for a month before getting the idea to go meet up with his friends again. Eventually we had everyone back.
So... then we did a shitton of side quests and a little story advancement. We'd gotten sufficiently pissed off about not being able to land the Albiore on anything other than grass, and used the World Map on GameFAQs to find the flightstone that would let us land anywhere. It turned out we had to go to Mushroom Road anyway since we had to get a shroom for Luke's mom to smoke so she'd feel better or something. We grabbed the flight stone and the shroom and got the hell out of there.
We tried to get to the other flightstone that would let us fly through bullshit like storms and whirlpools but encountered a puzzle that we think we need Mieu Fire 2 to complete. So bleh, back to sidequestan.
Shortly thereafter we went to the spa and got the swimsuit costume titles. Jade is such a pimp with his. You have to walk rather than run for the full effect. Also, there's a hilarious skit for everybody once they've fought enemies while wearing a swimsuit. "Why are you wearing that swimsuit?" "I was forced to!" "By who?" "I don't know!" "Why don't you just change?" "I... I can't..."
When can I has Healing Force kthx
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
this kind of disturbs me
I won't be naming names, but depending on who you are you might be able to figure out who I'm talking about anyway. That and I basically make the identity of the person who actually said the disturbing thing blatantly obvious to anyone who actually knows me. (if you're here from Twitter, note the date above)
So last night, CAINE had its usual after-meeting dinner and store run activities. After that, some people went home, and a small group of us went to one member's dorm room to watch movies. The movie, though it had Bruce Willis, was rather predictable with its plot twists. 'Surrogates', in case anyone was wondering.
After that we were just talking about things.
Somehow the topic shifted to loli and this is where everything went wrong. I didn't say anything at the time because I couldn't get the proper words to come to my head, but now having slept on it I've figured out what to say.
Basically, I was the only person in the room who actually likes loli. CAINE has a few of us. It's been one of CAINE's major principles that while you may not personally like what someone else likes, you don't ever under any circumstance persecute them for it. This has been highlighted recently because we had to exile one specific person for doing what basically amounted to trying to rip CAINE apart from the core, all because we didn't follow her narrow-minded feminazi beliefs, which was mostly related to this principle.
One of the three of us (not the person whose room it was) made the worst comment he could possibly make. I'm not going to quote it exactly, but it basically stated his desire to beat one of our members who likes loli with a shovel until he doesn't say he likes loli anymore.
The person making this comment so happens to be the person who was once my friend, who introduced me to all sorts of things that I like, such as anime and CAINE. He disappeared for five years or so because he was playing World of Warcraft and couldn't be bothered to leave his mom's basement. During that time I only ever really talked to him when the realms were down for maintenance. He also only ever contacted me when he wanted something from me. Then recently he quit, which is a good thing, and started coming to CAINE again, which I can't legitimately form an argument against as it's basically his own free will.
I don't know if he thinks we're best friends again or what. Our interests are very different now. He buys practically every new game that comes out for PC. With, as far as I know, his parents' money. We had a long AIM conversation a few weeks ago where I was basically having to shoot down the immature hardcore PC gamer whining argument of "there's nothing consoles can do that PCs can't, why aren't more console games released on PC". I'm not going to delve into my rebuttal here, I'm just trying to illustrate that we are very different people now. Basically the only things we have in common is that we're both fans of anime.
I recognize that we were once friends, long ago. I will join in on reminiscing about things that happened in high school or anything up to when he dropped off the face of the earth. I will not however restore him to friend status. For some reason I accepted his friend invite on facebook. I dunno really. Maybe it's because I have to see him on a regular basis even though I don't really want to.
He still has this attitude of "my opinion is fact, everyone should agree with me or risk being ostracized for liking what they like" that old CAINE kind of relied upon before we came to our senses and realized if we were more accepting of others' opinions that we could increase our membership.
The issue here is loli, which a lot of people who can't differentiate between fiction and reality immediately assume anyone who likes loli is a pedophile. This is not the case. Just because someone likes it in 2D doesn't necessarily mean they like it in 3D. In that statement, 2D implies anime/manga/games and fiction, and 3D implies the real world, actual people (live-action porn included), and, well, not fiction. I don't think any of us in CAINE that do like loli actually like real-world little girls, at least not that way.
There's one member that doesn't like wincest. He just doesn't. We recognize that, and generally try not to bring it up around him or have the conversation when he's there, but at the same time it doesn't restrict us from talking about it. It was completely hilarious (and I think he'd agree, to some extent) that a week or so ago we were watching Kiss x Sis episode 2 on the projector in CAINE house when he came in the room. For whatever reason he didn't recognize it right away, so he was watching it. He actually kind of enjoyed it and asked what it was, though none of us could really bring ourselves to say. Then he figured it out and it was funny.
That kind of thing is, as far as I'm concerned, completely fine. But what's not fine? Saying you want to beat someone with a shovel over a petty difference in tastes.
So last night, CAINE had its usual after-meeting dinner and store run activities. After that, some people went home, and a small group of us went to one member's dorm room to watch movies. The movie, though it had Bruce Willis, was rather predictable with its plot twists. 'Surrogates', in case anyone was wondering.
After that we were just talking about things.
Somehow the topic shifted to loli and this is where everything went wrong. I didn't say anything at the time because I couldn't get the proper words to come to my head, but now having slept on it I've figured out what to say.
Basically, I was the only person in the room who actually likes loli. CAINE has a few of us. It's been one of CAINE's major principles that while you may not personally like what someone else likes, you don't ever under any circumstance persecute them for it. This has been highlighted recently because we had to exile one specific person for doing what basically amounted to trying to rip CAINE apart from the core, all because we didn't follow her narrow-minded feminazi beliefs, which was mostly related to this principle.
One of the three of us (not the person whose room it was) made the worst comment he could possibly make. I'm not going to quote it exactly, but it basically stated his desire to beat one of our members who likes loli with a shovel until he doesn't say he likes loli anymore.
The person making this comment so happens to be the person who was once my friend, who introduced me to all sorts of things that I like, such as anime and CAINE. He disappeared for five years or so because he was playing World of Warcraft and couldn't be bothered to leave his mom's basement. During that time I only ever really talked to him when the realms were down for maintenance. He also only ever contacted me when he wanted something from me. Then recently he quit, which is a good thing, and started coming to CAINE again, which I can't legitimately form an argument against as it's basically his own free will.
I don't know if he thinks we're best friends again or what. Our interests are very different now. He buys practically every new game that comes out for PC. With, as far as I know, his parents' money. We had a long AIM conversation a few weeks ago where I was basically having to shoot down the immature hardcore PC gamer whining argument of "there's nothing consoles can do that PCs can't, why aren't more console games released on PC". I'm not going to delve into my rebuttal here, I'm just trying to illustrate that we are very different people now. Basically the only things we have in common is that we're both fans of anime.
I recognize that we were once friends, long ago. I will join in on reminiscing about things that happened in high school or anything up to when he dropped off the face of the earth. I will not however restore him to friend status. For some reason I accepted his friend invite on facebook. I dunno really. Maybe it's because I have to see him on a regular basis even though I don't really want to.
He still has this attitude of "my opinion is fact, everyone should agree with me or risk being ostracized for liking what they like" that old CAINE kind of relied upon before we came to our senses and realized if we were more accepting of others' opinions that we could increase our membership.
The issue here is loli, which a lot of people who can't differentiate between fiction and reality immediately assume anyone who likes loli is a pedophile. This is not the case. Just because someone likes it in 2D doesn't necessarily mean they like it in 3D. In that statement, 2D implies anime/manga/games and fiction, and 3D implies the real world, actual people (live-action porn included), and, well, not fiction. I don't think any of us in CAINE that do like loli actually like real-world little girls, at least not that way.
There's one member that doesn't like wincest. He just doesn't. We recognize that, and generally try not to bring it up around him or have the conversation when he's there, but at the same time it doesn't restrict us from talking about it. It was completely hilarious (and I think he'd agree, to some extent) that a week or so ago we were watching Kiss x Sis episode 2 on the projector in CAINE house when he came in the room. For whatever reason he didn't recognize it right away, so he was watching it. He actually kind of enjoyed it and asked what it was, though none of us could really bring ourselves to say. Then he figured it out and it was funny.
That kind of thing is, as far as I'm concerned, completely fine. But what's not fine? Saying you want to beat someone with a shovel over a petty difference in tastes.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
the little things
So for whatever reason I decided to do Nolani Academy in Hard Mode earlier. The only thing that really makes it difficult in HM is that you're still limited to a party size of four. I went in pretty much all guns blazing, using a fairly balanced team consisting of myself as a ranger, and then a warrior hero and two monk heroes, one running healing and the other protection.
Everything went fine up until I went to go start the bonus. Out of nowhere about five extra devourers ran in and steamrolled my party. I made a timely retreat and resurrected most of the team but I couldn't fully recover.
So I tried again. This time I got the bonus active with no problem. Carried the book to the bonus area, started the long and arduous process of pulling and killing everything there. Somehow yet again I managed to get some random devourers aggroed that I hadn't even known were there (probably due to the ledges in the area). This time I got more than just myself out of there, the spirits took care of the devourers (lol enemies being hostile to each other) and I went back to killing spirits. Turned the book in, got the bonus.
Steamrolled everything between the wall and Nolani and met up with Rurik. Took him back to the wall, babysat him all the way to Stormcaller. Killed the cutscene and went to go pull some Charr out of the mass below Horn Hill. All of a sudden I'm swarmed with Charr (I'm guessing patrols + heroes running around) and I wipe.
I go back in with a slight team change, swapping my protection monk for a fire elementalist, and changing my warrior hero's build to have Wild Blow in it so I can get a hit in on the stupid Whiptail Devourers. Made it back to the Charr at the end of the mission, wiped there again.
At this point I didn't really know what else to do, so I checked GuildWiki. It suggested abandoning Rurik after taking him through the wall by going down the set of stairs he doesn't go down. This lets you take advantage of the fact that NPCs that aren't on your radar don't take damage. Seemed like it would work, but I had my doubts since Rurik's death ends the mission.
Went back in, steamrolled to the wall, and said "fuck you" to Rurik. Kept him off my radar, walked a short distance and found myself in the end area of the mission. Killed a group of Charr, went up the steps, and killed Bonfaaz Burntfur. End of mission.
How on earth did I get Legendary Cartographer and not know about that shortcut?
Everything went fine up until I went to go start the bonus. Out of nowhere about five extra devourers ran in and steamrolled my party. I made a timely retreat and resurrected most of the team but I couldn't fully recover.
So I tried again. This time I got the bonus active with no problem. Carried the book to the bonus area, started the long and arduous process of pulling and killing everything there. Somehow yet again I managed to get some random devourers aggroed that I hadn't even known were there (probably due to the ledges in the area). This time I got more than just myself out of there, the spirits took care of the devourers (lol enemies being hostile to each other) and I went back to killing spirits. Turned the book in, got the bonus.
Steamrolled everything between the wall and Nolani and met up with Rurik. Took him back to the wall, babysat him all the way to Stormcaller. Killed the cutscene and went to go pull some Charr out of the mass below Horn Hill. All of a sudden I'm swarmed with Charr (I'm guessing patrols + heroes running around) and I wipe.
I go back in with a slight team change, swapping my protection monk for a fire elementalist, and changing my warrior hero's build to have Wild Blow in it so I can get a hit in on the stupid Whiptail Devourers. Made it back to the Charr at the end of the mission, wiped there again.
At this point I didn't really know what else to do, so I checked GuildWiki. It suggested abandoning Rurik after taking him through the wall by going down the set of stairs he doesn't go down. This lets you take advantage of the fact that NPCs that aren't on your radar don't take damage. Seemed like it would work, but I had my doubts since Rurik's death ends the mission.
Went back in, steamrolled to the wall, and said "fuck you" to Rurik. Kept him off my radar, walked a short distance and found myself in the end area of the mission. Killed a group of Charr, went up the steps, and killed Bonfaaz Burntfur. End of mission.
How on earth did I get Legendary Cartographer and not know about that shortcut?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
tales tales tales
Since I doubt there are very many people left who would be interested in playing Tales of the Abyss but haven't yet, I'll go ahead and just mention spoilers. So if you're in that exact situation I just ruled to be statistically not important (and you care about story spoilers), read no further.
Natalia finally levelled to 54 and I got Revive. I tossed it onto my d-pad (I now only have two attack artes, lol) since we saved in the Absorption Gate literally just before the boss fight with Master Van. I'll be tossing Revive onto Anise right at the beginning of the fight since she dies pretty quickly (I don't think Honya blocks much). Just so my immediate TP cost at the beginning of the fight will be 128, I'll probably toss it onto our other melee character (either Luke or Guy, probably Luke so we can have master vs. disciple (and party) showdown) as well. Then it'll be Sharpness for Anise/Other Melee and Scare Shot for Master Van. That equals a lot of TP at the beginning of the fight. Maybe I'll save Sharpness for later, since lowering his defenses is a little more important.
I'll have to arrowspam like crazy in the fight to make up for the immense TP usage. Man, auto-resurrect status is expensive. Also I'll have to take healing into account. Hopefully it'll just be Master Van with nobody supporting him (I haven't bothered to read an FAQ to check). If it really is just him, I won't have to heal nearly as often as the fight with Largo, Legretta, and Arietta where I was basically casting Heal again as soon as I recovered from the previous cast. And we had to repeat the fight once because Honya wanted to steal an item off of Arietta and we didn't get it the first time.
Also I finally got a fucking capacity core that will let me get some enhance. I don't remember the name, but it has physical attack and agility +2 and enhance +1. My old one had physical attack and agility +3 (and that's it). I kind of wish we could grind for a while so I could raise my stats up a bit and get one or two more of the AD skills that I really need (like reduced casting time or Spell Keep so if I get interrupted I won't have to do the entire spell cast all over again, which is rather important considering I'm a healer).
Then after the fight with Van I get to not do anything for a while since the party splits up and it takes a while before we get Natalia back. Then we walk around for a bit and eventually I'll get my last arte, Healing Force. I'll probably equip it, I dunno. I'm still entirely unsure of how much health Heal gives an ally. The game only uses vague terms, but I see several thousand health going onto the health bar with each cast.
Oh I know, I should overlimit right away (assuming I have the gauge for it) when we fight Van. Since one of the properties of overlimit is decreased casting/recovery times, it'll help me get auto-res onto Anise and Luke, Scare Shot onto Van, and then I can follow up with Gallant Barrage->Astral Rain (mystic arte) for some damage. Then I'll go into my usual routine of staying on the opposite side of the screen while filling Van with arrows and healing/removing status ailments periodically, trying all the while to get the last hit just so I can say "oh my, is it over already?" after the fight.
Natalia finally levelled to 54 and I got Revive. I tossed it onto my d-pad (I now only have two attack artes, lol) since we saved in the Absorption Gate literally just before the boss fight with Master Van. I'll be tossing Revive onto Anise right at the beginning of the fight since she dies pretty quickly (I don't think Honya blocks much). Just so my immediate TP cost at the beginning of the fight will be 128, I'll probably toss it onto our other melee character (either Luke or Guy, probably Luke so we can have master vs. disciple (and party) showdown) as well. Then it'll be Sharpness for Anise/Other Melee and Scare Shot for Master Van. That equals a lot of TP at the beginning of the fight. Maybe I'll save Sharpness for later, since lowering his defenses is a little more important.
I'll have to arrowspam like crazy in the fight to make up for the immense TP usage. Man, auto-resurrect status is expensive. Also I'll have to take healing into account. Hopefully it'll just be Master Van with nobody supporting him (I haven't bothered to read an FAQ to check). If it really is just him, I won't have to heal nearly as often as the fight with Largo, Legretta, and Arietta where I was basically casting Heal again as soon as I recovered from the previous cast. And we had to repeat the fight once because Honya wanted to steal an item off of Arietta and we didn't get it the first time.
Also I finally got a fucking capacity core that will let me get some enhance. I don't remember the name, but it has physical attack and agility +2 and enhance +1. My old one had physical attack and agility +3 (and that's it). I kind of wish we could grind for a while so I could raise my stats up a bit and get one or two more of the AD skills that I really need (like reduced casting time or Spell Keep so if I get interrupted I won't have to do the entire spell cast all over again, which is rather important considering I'm a healer).
Then after the fight with Van I get to not do anything for a while since the party splits up and it takes a while before we get Natalia back. Then we walk around for a bit and eventually I'll get my last arte, Healing Force. I'll probably equip it, I dunno. I'm still entirely unsure of how much health Heal gives an ally. The game only uses vague terms, but I see several thousand health going onto the health bar with each cast.
Oh I know, I should overlimit right away (assuming I have the gauge for it) when we fight Van. Since one of the properties of overlimit is decreased casting/recovery times, it'll help me get auto-res onto Anise and Luke, Scare Shot onto Van, and then I can follow up with Gallant Barrage->Astral Rain (mystic arte) for some damage. Then I'll go into my usual routine of staying on the opposite side of the screen while filling Van with arrows and healing/removing status ailments periodically, trying all the while to get the last hit just so I can say "oh my, is it over already?" after the fight.
fizzy coke
I don't know why exactly, but with the last several 12-packs of Cherry Coke Zero I've had, every single can has been extremely fizzy. I know they carbonate it, but the can hasn't been tampered with in any way (i.e. shaking, dropping) and while it doesn't rush out right away, it slowly builds up after I open the can. If I'm not attentive it can head up and out of the can itself.
Once it dies down, the rest of the coke predictably tastes flat.
This is really annoying and I wish it would stop.
Once it dies down, the rest of the coke predictably tastes flat.
This is really annoying and I wish it would stop.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)