Month: October 2017

TV

Death note live action – Giant failure?

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Death note live action – Giant failure?

I wanted to like the live-action version of death note. Now I want to forget about it completely. Lacks the vision to do something interesting with the source material. Ignores the source material only borrowing the basics elements. Tension at the heart of the story is ignored. Detailed complex characters are diluted down.

The story feels half-baked does not do anything.  Understand that the source material is not easy to convert to the big screen. Writers could use some liberty crafting a new story from the source material. Keep the basic elements behind it and tension. Live action version throws out the tension between L and Light Yagami. Ignores most of the story decides to create its own ending. A story is loosely based on the source material. Fails to create a compelling story compared to the original.

The original story was about Light, trying to mould the world in his vision. Killing criminals building a detailed process.  Attention to detail trying to outsmart the police and L. Another death note user is able to track light, light ends up using her. A massive amount of time is spent L against Light. Light trying to catch himself by staying close to L. Ending is a showdown between Light and L.  Tension during the whole show as the stakes build over time. Builds up each character even the more minor ones.

Live action story Light moulds the world based on a love interest who only wants the death note. No conflict between L and light. Light saves himself by killing off his love interest. Confesses to his cop dad after almost killing himself.

Ye not much ground is covered in the live action version. Most of the elements which make the story is ignored. First 10 minutes failed to get you hooked or interested in light. And the story is based in America not the Japan like the original. Could forgive that choice if they did anything with that new location. Nothing is done with the story changes and nothing done with the story choices. Failure to adapt the story to the longer movie format. Lack of tension makes the story feel empty.

Recommend you avoid watching it.

Gaming News, Playstation, PS4, Smite

Smite Season 5 Conquest update

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Smite Season 5 Conquest update

Conquest is getting a big update with season 5. First details appeared during the patch notes for 4.20. The following screenshots which explain the changes. Incomplete information due to the designers not giving us the full picture. Current map was released during season 2, slight path changes with balance changes. Various art changes like the allied tribute. A major update is coming 20% wider, lane changes including jungle, new art and gameplay changes.

Designers have given us the shape, size and entrances to the jungle. Unclear which parts are entrances. A large amount of jungle detail missing. Gameplay may be different compared to what the image shows.

Left side and right side –  Three new jungle entrances in the middle of the lane. Wider more open jungle entrances connecting the towers. Lane appears to be the same size. Two major ways into the jungle start near the tower and one at the middle. Much more open compared to before.

Middle – Fewer jungle entrances connecting across the map.

Designers made a point talking about new jungle paths. Another point is the lane shapes are going to be similar for both sides. Looking forward to learning the new map. Don’t want to make to many wild assumptions. Own personal guess going to take 22 seconds to travel between lanes using tier one boots. Subject to how the jungle paths are designed.

Smite

Smite S4 spear of magus mages

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Smite S4 how to build mages

Understanding how to build requires basic ability knowledge. At the time of writing 91 gods within the game. Understanding the basics base numbers with scaling. High base power with low scaling benefits from penetration.  Low base power with high scaling benefits from power with penetration. Oversimplification which is rather a generic rule. More power equals raw damage, more penetration makes that damage more effective. Simply put you build power with penetration, more penetration means that power goes further.

General rule build power, build penetration to make use that power. 

Protections reduce incoming damage abilities which do 400 damage, in reality, do 300 damage. Add some penetration that damage can be increased to 400 damage. Penetration allows for power to be more efficient damage wise. Penetration is rather important to mages and should be building it.

Two types of penetration, flat and percent based. Which one you build depends,  on the other teams builds and your own goal. Against high-value targets which don’t build protections want flat penetration. Against targets which you want to kill with protections over 110 want percent.

Protections reduce how effective power can be. Consider that power does not give you a 1:1 return. Not every ability scales at 100%, extra power you build could be wasted due to protections.  All damage is subject to protections apart from true damage.

Can learn more from the book of Thoth which covers smite mechanics in detail.

What counts as high scaling and low scaling?

Magical high anything above 70%, low anything below 60%. Guardians on an average scale very poorly with high base damage. Mages scale rather highly with decent base damage.

General rule build power, build penetration to make use that power. 

Seen far too many players ignore penetration on the console. Main damage classes have base 30 magical protections at level 20. Penetration boots with one penetration item remove base protections completely.

Every single god can make use of flat penetration. Just need abilities which can easily apply it. Damage of time abilities works great with the spear of the magus. Below is a table of gods I build spear of the magus. Note I don’t always build spear but these can make very good use of it.

Name
Agni
Ah puch
Anubis
Ao Kuang
Aphrodite
Freya
Kukuklan
Nox
 Poseidon
Raijin
Thoth
Zhong Zui

Core concepts behind builds are likely to stay the same. Items are likely to change. General rule build power, build penetration to make use that power.  Penetration is undervalued by far too many players.

Smite

Smite Season 4 Mage archetypes

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Smite Season 4 Mage archetypes

Patch 4.19 this information could be outdated at a later date.

Season 4 saw big changes to magical items changing how build path works.  Balance changes happened, changing how certain mages worked. Professional players even changed builds going for less damage overall. Mages at the moment are the biggest class within Smite. Huge variety of situational build choices. Each mage fits into general archetypes but can be built differently. Not every mage wants to build the same items as each other.  Ability scaling with the design of each ability impacts the build path. Core build idea remained the same for many mages.  Item knowledge however changed with some balance changes.

During season 3 I made a post about archetypes.

https://resistthesun.co.uk/2016/07/smite-build-every-god-archetypes/

Time to revisit that principle and update the mages. Couple big changes later have seen some shift towards new designs.  New classification of each archetype.

  • AA – Mainly using basics attacks for damage
  • Burst  – Massive amounts of damage very quickly.
  • Combo  – Combo abilities together
  • Healer – Main focus is on providing healing
  • Warrior – Want to be near the action dealing damage

Certain mages can fill other archetypes based what you want to do.  Class is rather flexible, Agni can provide burst or abilities together. Aphrodite can a backline defensive warrior or pure healer mage. Certain mages can provide high amounts of control or damage.

Same ideas as before just different item choices. Basic attack focused mages want attack speed. Burst want power with penetration.  Combo requires cooldown with penetration.  Healers require survivable with bonus healing.  Warrior needs survivable with some penetration.

God name Archetype
Agni Burst, Combo
Ah Puch Combo
Anubis Burst
Ao Kuang Burst
Aphordite Healer, Warrior
Chang’e Warrior
Chronos Burst
Freya AA
Hades Burst, Warrior
He Bo Burst
Hel Healer, Warrior
ISIS Burst, Combo
Janus Combo
Kuku Burst
Nox Combo
Nu Wa Burst, Combo
Posdeion Burst, Combo
Ra Burst, Healer
Raijin Burst, Combo
Scylla Burst
Sol Burst
The Morrigan Combo, Warrior
Thoth Burst, Combo
Vulcan Burst
Zeus Burst, Warrior
Zhong Zui Warrior

 

 

Playstation, Video Games

Fortnite first impressions

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Fortnite first impressions

Epic games newest title is called Fornite, early access battle royale game.  Half the game is free player vs environment part is locked behind early access. Battle Royale genre random loot-based shooter within a massive background.  Elements of the rouge like games one life and random loot. Crossover between arena shooters and rogue-like games. Add some survival elements plus scavenging with a little bit of last man standing gameplay that the genre. Arena style shooters have disappeared with none finding major success for almost a decade.  Rouge-like games have been a niche with small studios behind them. Bringing together various genres helped create a new last man standing focused genre.  Fortnite adds building to the genre.  Genre roots started with a mod for Minecraft based off the Hungry games movies.  Now couple years later Epic games have made Fortnite.

Stylised as cartoony, simple yet realistic graphics. Crafting is rather basic just select the thing you want to build. A building system simple yet feels good.  Weapons feel deadly and require a high amount of accuracy.  Weapon spreads exist for moving and firing.  Collecting resources turn into a mini-game. A high amount of detail when comes to sounds.  Overall core of the game is rather good.  The only complaint comes from how the sprint system works. Not a fan how sprinting works, the momentum just does not feel good. Sometimes you can lose all sprint momentum with no idea why.  Other times can feel awful when moving around the map.  The movement just does not feel right. Most of your gameplay comes down to moving around the map. Can spend massive amounts of time running. Stopping and starting just feels rubbish. That my only real complaint about the game.

The only complaint comes from how the sprint system works. Not a fan how sprinting works, the momentum just does not feel good. Sometimes you can lose all sprint momentum with no idea why.  Other times can feel awful when moving around the map.  The movement just does not feel right. Most of your gameplay comes down to moving around the map. Can spend massive amounts of time running. Stopping and starting just feels rubbish. That my only real complaint about the game.

Battle royale gamemode is rather fun.  No real progression system which is a nice change of pace. Real progression found in the random loot drops placed all over the map. Race to find the best gear and stay alive. Personally, can’t get hooked on this genre.  Not saying the game is not fun just not fun for me. A vast majority of games you end up running for 90% of the time.

Crafting system makes a difference, able to destroy the environment. Changes how you play certain fights can destroy cover or build cover. Combat is super rewarding lacking any arcade feel at all. Focus on collecting resources and staying alive. Every single part of the map is interesting with different focus points. Players are driven towards each other using a storm system. Health is lost when you stay outside of the eye of the storm which gets smaller and smaller. A perfect answer to the slow campy nature of the genre. Can drive players to various parts of the map making the game feel different. Combat comes down to how the players react to the map.  Epic games have released a great title and nice take on the genre. Look forward to trying the full game once they complete it.

Not a fan of the genre still a nice change of pace. Have I asking questions just how much rewards system mean to video games.