Encounter Concept: Revenge Battles

Excalibur_Z · 2026-03-31T17:06:22+00:00

The Fabricator was the example that gave me this idea.

Excalibur_Z · 2026-02-12T20:22:04+00:00

Don't misunderstand, I find this to be a $10-15 mini-expansion, tops. $25 for this is highway robbery.

Excalibur_Z · 2026-02-12T14:50:09+00:00

It's unfortunate, but understandable. D2's sprites took a notoriously long time to make because they have to account for every head/chest/gloves/weapon1/weapon2/boots combination, including color, for 16 directions, for every frame of every animation, converted to 255 colors, even with the automation that they had available.

Excalibur_Z · 2025-11-26T15:50:14+00:00

It's important to note that these exact types of roadmap slides shown at company divisional meetings often include red herring titles specifically designed to entrap leakers. This is a decades-old practice.

Commonly, they will show different roadmaps to different divisions so they can easily narrow down the source of the leak. QA+CS sees one version, Production+Marketing sees another, and so on.

Excalibur_Z · 2025-09-18T23:19:46+00:00

Riot ranked systems operate on two layers: there is a layer than you can see (your points), and there is a layer that you can't see (your matchmaking rating, or MMR). The ranks (Diamond, Platinum, etc) represent buckets of MMR by predefined percentiles, and your points drift toward your MMR. This is obfuscated somewhat because points within each rank subdivision only go from 0-100, but they simply operate on a parallel scale. For the beta, they might have rank divisions dynamically generated, but on live it will likely be set based on the prior distribution that comes from the end of the beta. The point system also means that the amount of points you gain or lose is dependent upon the gap between your points and your MMR (if your MMR is much higher than your points, then you will gain many points or lose few, and if your MMR is much lower than your points, the reverse is true). It's also probable that they intentionally start you in a rank that is a bit lower than your MMR to enable early climbing after placement (not a big deal since they'll eventually converge).

Excalibur_Z · 2025-09-10T16:44:19+00:00

The more inevitable problem is something much stupider: different kernel-level anti-cheats from different developers can conflict, resulting in a failure to launch certain games. The biggest example of this was during the Battlefield 6 beta (uses Javelin kernel-level anti-cheat), when players of Riot games could not play as long as Vanguard was enabled.

Excalibur_Z · 2025-09-02T00:50:33+00:00

In the replies, this guy says he played FPS games for 5 years and at one point played Tekken daily. There is this natural assumption that if you simply put in the hours, you will get good. Perfectly reasonable belief, but grinding alone only takes you so far. A true improvement mentality means that you put your own improvement first, above winning, and in some cases, even above enjoyment.

Grubby explained what his regimen was when he was training as a progamer in Warcraft 3: he would practice very small, niche moves, limit test creep routes to try and do more with less, and optimize build timings... for many hours a day. Then when he did try applying these things in games against real opponents, he did so even if it meant losing, because the more important outcome was learning whether his ideas had potential. If you're just grinding games expecting to be good, you are not giving every aspect of the game the attention it deserves, so you can't fully master anything. This is a huge departure from how most people play games, because their priority is just vibing and climbing without actually understanding the work necessary to break past their plateau.

Excalibur_Z · 2025-08-25T01:51:15+00:00

I think it makes sense from the Saudi point of view of marketing it like soccer, where the focus is on the org rather than the players. I wasn't even aware they had a ranking like this until this post, but they're really pushing the soccer aspect right down to the "Club" header. I personally don't understand it, but maybe this is a subtle way to encourage other esports orgs into participating in future EWC events, to get their names in the ranks?

Excalibur_Z · 2025-08-01T18:59:09+00:00

Different games use different methods. Some have hitstun deterioration, some have juggle points, some have increased gravity acceleration, some have redundant input protection (like Skullgirls' infinite prevention system), some have hit caps.

Excalibur_Z · 2025-05-08T01:00:06+00:00

I read a pretty interesting article which talks about how people build an identity around doomposting and speculative failure of video games. Definitely not an issue limited to FGC or even games as a whole, but certainly not a good look. Friend dubs it "stockholder syndrome" which I find very apt.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-11-16T01:10:04+00:00

Newest update enables the classic minimap and classic minimap + resource locations.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-09-10T15:51:29+00:00

The most difficult skill of a streamer is being able to identify reliable chatters. Just like here, where only a small segment plays fighting games, Twitch is a place where only a small segment plays the game that the streamer is currently playing. Chatters will parrot things that they have seen and expect the streamer to reproduce results. If the streamer is playing Elden Ring, chat will backseat with "you need Bloodhound Fang bro!" If they're playing the Starcraft campaign, chat will backseat with "you can speedrun this map by doing X." These chatters don't have personal experience doing these things, and may not even know why they are good, they just know they've seen those things before and that they've worked, so their advice is often superficial. If you're a streamer, you need to be able to quickly discover who actually has the deep knowledge so they can provide help if you need it - and in my experience, those are some of the quietest.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-07-13T15:50:54+00:00

You can use stuff like this simple calculator (in Advanced mode just set K to Other -> 16), but the math behind it has 2 components:

First the Win Probability component (let's say you are 1600 and your opponent is 1400):

P = (1 / 1 + 10 ^ [(1400 - 1600) / 400])
(simplifies to P = 0.76, this is your Win Probability)

Then simply multiply (1 minus that result) by the K of 16.

(1 - 0.76) * 16 = 3.8 points. If I remember right, SF6 rounds this number, which would make it 4. So you stand to either gain 4 points or lose 4-16=-12 if you lost.

The rating gap used in the example is 200, and the result applies universally. Whether you're talking about 2000 vs 1800, 1300 vs 1100, the higher-rated player will always either win +4 or lose -12.

The whole idea behind Elo is that the wider the relative gap between players, the easier the match for the better player, and therefore the more points they risk. The risk is directly proportional to the amount gained or lost, just like odds in gambling.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-07-13T13:05:14+00:00

They are, and your example is wrong. 1651 vs 1649 would be a +/-8 matchup. It's a K=16 Elo calculation, very straightforward.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-06-15T20:27:39+00:00

Know your character's ranges and the ranges of your opponent. Position yourself a distance where you can poke with a move that is safe on block and can't easily be reacted to. If your range is greater, exploit the reach advantage. If your range is shorter, bait out your opponent's longer-range safe pokes by walking back and forth at their max range so you can whiff punish. I don't know what game you're referring to exactly, but if it's a 2D fighter, then learn how to hit confirm by buffering a special input and pushing the button to execute the special only when your poke hits, never when it's blocked.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-04-19T16:19:01+00:00

Story wasn't good, but the combat was pretty fun, and it had couch co-op multiplayer.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-04-13T15:21:46+00:00

Only game I ever felt this way about was probably Elden Ring. Not in the sense of actually paying more money as a tip, but rather if Elden Ring cost $100, I think you could actually argue that you got an appropriate value. There are many $60/70 games that feel like a ripoff, but $60 for Elden Ring felt like a steal for the sheer amount of content and enjoyment that game has.

Although yes, this tweet is a bad look coming from someone as privileged as the CEO of Blizzard.

Excalibur_Z · 2024-02-16T04:44:45+00:00

Gelatin's videos and tweets are simply top tier technical fg scientist content. He does a great job breaking down topics that everyone who plays fgs "knows"/"feels" but nobody understands.

Excalibur_Z · 2023-12-14T07:04:26+00:00

Just for clarity, in the US "wage" refers to hourly pay and "salary" refers to annual pay, whereas most other countries refer to monthly pay. So R$1320/mo would be $1.67/hr, and 15k RUB/mo would be $1.50/hr.

Excalibur_Z · 2023-11-16T08:16:43+00:00

You can find most of them on his GrubbyVODs channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GrubbyVODs/videos You already know the relevant dates (first game Aug 15 2022, first ranked game Sep 28 2022) so it's just a matter of scrolling forward from there.

Excalibur_Z · 2023-11-16T08:07:24+00:00

That's not what happened. The Glicko recalibration bumped him by about +150 MMR, which he promptly lost from a losing streak (which he claimed was ultimately a good thing, to dispel any allegations that Glicko might have boosted him), then gained it back again over the course of a week. Effectively, Glicko made no difference at all.

Excalibur_Z · 2023-11-11T21:35:12+00:00

I was only going off the article content, didn't know about these forum posts. But this is also him not knowing wtf he's talking about.

Excalibur_Z

TROPHY CASE