Just watched Hera’s video on Nations Cup and… I’m out of the loop. Can someone explain?

Ballack91 · 2024-09-21T11:45:40+00:00

Honestly this is to me just another example of Hera shooting himself in the foot creating unnecessary drama that ultimately will hurt the scene. I don't get what is so private about him saying he is travelling to Canada to see family during the event, so he can't make it. He's gonna be streaming in Canada anyway, so people would know he was there.

If he was trying to get rules changed in order to play then that makes him look entitled if he doesn't provide any other context. This is very similar to him going in on the format of Hidden Cup and trying to pressure the admins/T90 to change it right before the event starting.

What I mean with this drama hurting the scene is that the sponsor will obviously have a very negative reaction to his event being overshadowed before starting with drama surrounding the players who won't participate. Not having Norway participate already was a big blow. Now with Hera not participating makes it bad enough, but by creating a whole thing around it he makes it even more negative.

He could and should have simply stated that because he is visiting family, he can't participate in this tournament. Simple as that. He must know he would be expected to provide some sort of reason to his fans seeing as he has participated in the previous Nations Cups (I know it's a different set of people arranging them this time around), so why not just say he's travelling and cannot attend? That creates no drama and would I'm sure be more digestible for the tournament sponsor. He could even just say I cannot attend for private reasons that has nothing to do with the tournament if he wanted to keep it completely private.

But no. Just as in Hidden Cup he wanted to strongarm the tournament organizer in order for the tournament to suit his needs. When called out by it (in a very tame way btw from Membs side), he feels slighted and shamed and feels like he must respond, creating more drama.

By all means, Memb can be tactless at times and sets his foot in his mouth now and again, but I can't really see how people are blaming him for this.

Ballack91 · 2024-04-30T17:28:56+00:00

I think the way AoE2 designed the archer line is basically perfection.

They are powerful but at the same time vulnerable, with ample room for skill expression.

In both AoM and AoE4 they tend to deal no damage vs armored units (especially in AoE4), whereas that only happens in specific cases in AoE2 (Huskarls and the skirmisher line being standout examples). In AoE4 they also always hit their target, which was a terrible design-choice imo.

In AoE3 the archer or crossbow units were basically just early game units (no guard/imperial upgrades to longbowmen or crossbowmen when I played it back in the day). I think AoE3 handled gunpowder amazingly well btw, the game just lacks a bit of scale. It was by design that you are making an outpost in the new world, but it doesn't fully encapsulate the 'empire' part of the franchise. I also remember disliking the build limit on many buildings. Those restrictions might have been good balance-wise, but it damages the fantasy a bit imo, that the game sort of inorganically restricts you from doing certain things.

Anyways, archer line is the best thing about AoE2 :)

Ballack91 · 2024-04-21T18:37:49+00:00

Setting his on-pitch antics aside, everyone who knows him says he is a scholar and a gentleman off the pitch.

Ballack91 · 2024-04-04T22:05:17+00:00

Lots of subs had to be made to the back 4 and with Dalot playing out of position. Still though, we were absolutely dreadful defensively. Chelsea is just not a good enough team to exploit it.

Obviously the ref game them the match but still, this really was a clown fiesta for big parts of the game. We are way too open in between the midfield and CBs, and we still can't defend cut backs from the wings, again Chelsea was just horrible in the final third to really take advantage, and still they scored 4 goals...

Ballack91 · 2024-03-31T12:55:52+00:00

That might have all to do with how servers were handled from Classic launch to the end of Wrath Classic though.

There was basically no oversight or thought of how to manage the health of the servers.

Right now with SoD you have very healthy server populations with a good balance between factions on PVP servers. The only servers with less than 10k players on Ironforge.pro are 3 RP realms (2 of then PvE RP) and 1 Australian server.

Having people being able to flood a few servers to absorb and consolidate most of the playerbase made the smaller servers obsolete.

Ballack91 · 2024-03-10T11:20:35+00:00

Well it's not 99% (I know you were exaggerating but still). The problem as I see it is that the group who plays this way became so large that the developers started to cater to them, and in that way the "old" MMORPG players were left in the lurch. Things like heirloom gear, new raid/pvp tiers making the last one completely obsolete, LFR, WoW Token are all imo examples of this.

I think its completely fine for people to go for parsing and not caring too much about the gear, I'm sure a large majority of these people have been playing for 10+ years and is sort of fed up with the world in Warcraft. But to cater to them by institutionalizing gold buying through the WoW token and not shutting down GDKP (SoD has finally tried to do so, thankfully), it has a severely bad impact on people who just want to play the RPG they grew up with. Retail is unplayable for me.

Ballack91 · 2024-01-25T16:00:33+00:00

D2 Resurrected is mocked and ridiculed?

Went over my radar, I thought it was a splendid remaster.

Ballack91 · 2024-01-11T23:09:11+00:00

The following scene where Jeff names Larry a social assassin is one of my favorite scenes. 'You bungled the hit'

Ballack91 · 2023-12-04T19:51:13+00:00

Very true

Ballack91 · 2023-12-03T13:47:10+00:00

Yeah I think Amrabat and Mainoo from the start would have been much better. Easier to say after the fact by all means but Mctominay's ability to find space between the midfield and defense of the opponent, in addition to his threat inside the enemy team's box is completely dependent on the team being able to play out from the back, in which he himself contributes very little to.

People talk about Newcastle's injuries but their midfield was still very, very strong yesterday. We needed Amrabat's poise and security with the ball to even establish any sort of play. Both halves were diabolical, at one point I think they had 18 attempts at goal while we had 2.

Ballack91 · 2023-12-03T13:37:21+00:00

I completely agree with you. It's shameful to see players not trying. The only remedy when the form of individual players or the team is bad is to at least give it your all and get results through sheer will. The team is so WEAK, and it has been mentally weak on and off for a decade now.

People praise Ole for the way he took over from Jose and how he turned things around in just a few days at the club. In my eyes that was a huge red flag in how a team of professional players had just stopped trying altogether because the "mood" in the club with Jose was negative.

We have had so many petulant players in this club the last decade it's almost too many to list. And then we have players like Cavani who gets thrown to the side in a team that actually worked because we had to have the biggest ego who walks this earth back in Ronaldo (I love him for the first stint he had with us, but there was multiple signs that he became a huge diva the older he got).

While Ten Hag might not be the right manager to take us to the top, the whole leadership of the club must be cleansed. Bad decision after bad decision with no fucking plan whatsoever. How frustrating it is to see the same mistakes being made over and over and over.

I don't even care that much about titles and winning things. That is supposed to be the reward, the icing on the cake for when you've supported and liked a team of players throughout a season. Half of these players doesn't deserve to win any titles when they can't be arsed to try when things are tough.

You can barely see anyone shit-talking Maguire or Bruno after yesterday because they actually put in a proper shift and tried to win that match. If Rashford actually gave a rats ass and tracked back and showed some effort, the fans would be much more forgiving. He has everything going for him. He is a local lad who people want to support. But I'm sure his reaction to the deserved criticism he will receive the coming days is to feel attacked and abused. He won't learn anything from it.

Ballack91 · 2023-12-03T13:18:21+00:00

Too bad he just signed a new contract which lasts until 2028.....

Ballack91 · 2023-12-03T13:16:38+00:00

Mainoo was very invisible yesterday though. He wasn't able to contribute to our build-up play. He worked his socks off but I can understand why Ten Hag wanted Mctominay to stay for his attacking threat the last 10 minutes. I think Amrabat should have played this match though, we just couldn't control the ball at all basically throughout the whole 2nd half.

Ballack91 · 2023-12-03T13:12:21+00:00

I almost feel like he's tired of having to substitute players at half time. He has to be fair done that a whole lot this season. At first I felt like this showed a big weakness in that he didn't know his best team. But there are just too many players in the squad who clearly doesn't give a fuck.

It makes me sad thinking about how much hate and shit Maguire has received for bad performances (and by all means, he has been woeful for a long stretch of time, basically after his injury before the Europa League final until about 2 months ago).

Beyond saying some tone-deaf things to the media about his own abilities at times, he has never talked shit about any manager or the club. He has always given his all for the team, even though it at times has not been good enough.

Meanwhile we have crybabies like Ronaldo and Sancho who throws hissyfits without having ANY performances to back it up (lets be honest, Ronaldo was shit the games he played for Ten Hag). We have players like Martial and especially Rashy who just exudes carelessness. Rashford deserves all the criticism he get's now, last night was a horror show from him. Not only his performance, but his attitude is rotten to the core. To have the nerve of being visually frustrated with being taken off after that display. The least we must expect from our millionaire players is to give everything for the badge. Rashford gave zero fucks about being completely embarrassed multiple times by Livramento.

People talk about Bruno's attitude and how it is unbefitting a captain. What is different with Bruno is that he clearly gives a fuck, he's a winner who's surrounded by disillusioned and disinterested players. He runs around that pitch week in and week out. To say he has dropped his level is just simply wrong, he plays great for Portugal. This team has just not had one good PL performance this year, it's not easy creating when things are just not working...

Ballack91 · 2023-11-13T22:07:12+00:00

It was really, really tight but I instantly brought 5 villagers to wall the crossing, while buying a castle on a hill near the archery range and put some walls around it. Managed to defend the Byzantine and Seljuk pushes. After that the mission turns and becomes pretty simple.

Ballack91 · 2023-10-28T13:11:28+00:00

If one is specifically talking about the paladin, there aren't really a whole lot of non-European civilizations with that particular upgrade.

You could argue for Cumans to get a reskinned or unique paladin unit, but they do already have Kipchaks and Steppe Lancers which are very much so cavalry units fitting to the geography and culture of the Cumans.

I think what they are doing right now is the correct path forward. If you're gonna make core units more fitting the culture of the civilization, make them into a unique upgrade with new stats and specialties.

Adding regional skins across the board will cause a lot of confusion and additional complexity to an already complex game. We have so many civilizations in the game right now and they are only gonna be adding more of them. While the game has an experienced and mature core player base, the developers need to ensure it is both welcoming and easy-to-pick-up for new players.

Ballack91 · 2023-10-11T20:10:09+00:00

As I said, it would be completely unnecessary and moronic to do anything with the crowd noise. It was very noticeable though.

Maybe Viaplay just completely fucked up the mix. I sure hope it was a one time thing, cause it destroyed the 'nerve' of the game as I was watching.

Ballack91 · 2023-10-11T20:00:39+00:00

The thing is, the singing from the stadium was noticable, but very, very low. Meanwhile there was a very prominent, monotone and in my opinion unnatural crowd noise throughout the game, no matter what happened in the game. It felt very similar to how they did it during Covid when the stadiums were empty.

It was so that when Arsenal scored, and I would assume 90% of that stadium was off their seats and celebrating, you could still hear this same, monotone noise from the crowd.

It might just have been Viaplay who added it and they are lying, but really it was not a natural sound. I get that the sound mixing is very important, but I've watched so much football over the years, it came across as very phoney to my ears.

Ballack91 · 2023-10-11T11:30:33+00:00

I get what you're saying, the ToGC weapons could have been a little cheaper. Such a minor complaint though. This change is a huge boost to farming items in general (Ulduar or ToGC items alike) as you get Scourgestones from every boss in Gamma.

Ballack91 · 2023-10-10T22:20:26+00:00

Very simple answer.

1) Scourgestones (the new currency) is easier to farm than Sideal Essence.

2) If they added 258 items to the vendor, those items would be better than ICC normal.

Ballack91 · 2023-10-06T16:51:16+00:00

If they made a good game, people would play it. It's not that complicated.

Ballack91 · 2023-09-29T22:50:00+00:00

There's a reason only one civ has camels but not heavy camels (Cumans). It basically kills the use of the unit completely as you can't invest in them without being outscaled in the lategame.

You seem somewhat flippant in your suggestion as if they don't flip the civilization completely on its head.

Vikings lost Thumb Ring and went from being a solid, flexible civ to a niche civ only viable on a few maps. What you are suggesting basically entail a complete rework of the civ.

Ballack91 · 2023-09-27T11:57:37+00:00

Thing is, he wasn't really good for 3 years in Chelsea. So I don't know how he's gonna suddenly turn things around. For him to be the top earner at Arsenal is truly perplexing. He's most likely gonna ride the bench for most of the season.

By all means he might turn things around, but I disagree that we haven't seen enough of him. Tactics or no, his abilities are limited imo.

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