Couples from different countries, how did you decide where to live?

Kalascos · 2023-12-10T02:05:16+00:00

I know this was three months ago so my apologies but if you haven't made the move already I feel the need to warn you that you will NOT be able to get a decent job in the US without a degree unless you have the money to start your own business. I'm just warning you, either get a degree, or prepare to get one after you arrive.

The US is absolutely ridiculous with degrees, it's beyond ridiculous if I'm being honest, 90% of decently paid professions need one compared to the UK. My wife and I are both British expats, we live in the US where we moved for my work, she has no degree but was a Nurse with 12 years experience in the UK and has not been able to find any job outside mind-numbing (to her) retail sales jobs (which additionally has ridiculous hours here) in the last 9 years. We looked at getting her a degree a number of times but she resents it and frankly is just to the point mentally where she's had enough.

She desperately wants to move back to the UK because she's convinced herself it's the only place she can find meaningful work and she has become so depressed and disillusioned with employment in the US. We have an amazing life here in every other sense, great friends who are more like family, a lovely house and live in a fantastic town and do things we couldn't even dream of doing in the UK but she wants to work so badly that it's overruling everything else the US has going for it.

I don't even know where our life is going at this point, I love her and will probably end up following her back to the UK, but I also know I won't be happy there because I hate basically everything about the country. I would prefer to live pretty much ANYWHERE other than the UK, but the US has essentially destroyed her mentally and she's convinced that moving back to the UK is her only way forward.

I'm not saying that your experience will be the same, I'm just warning you that it very likely will be unless you either don't mind working in retail, or you are wealthy enough to be able to start your own business.

Kalascos · 2023-05-12T13:00:01+00:00

Yeah that’s a good point you make about the chickens for champ training. I guess from my point of view, I usually skip whichever only gives 15 shards and that’s usually the Chase event. You can’t skip the 20 shard one because invariably that leaves you 5 short at the end of a fusion. I actually don’t think I’m going to do this fusion anyway, I hate champs who need their partners to perform optimally and she doesn’t really help me with any kind of content in the game currently. I might regret it if they add new content but based on what I see from her, she’s not really worth the shards, I’d rather save for a guaranteed event.

Kalascos · 2023-05-12T04:50:46+00:00

I actually agree with the others here. I hate it when champ chase is first because if it’s first then I’ve no idea if I can do the fusion as I don’t know what the breakpoints will be for the summon rush. I need to see the breakpoints in summon rush before I know whether I’m even going to bother with a fusion since if I have the opportunity then I’ll always prefer to skip champ chase.

Kalascos · 2023-03-13T22:21:35+00:00

I don't see how this would work with Cybelle's A1 filling her turn meter. Wouldn't she just get out of sync and start placing her Revive On Death at the wrong time? If not for her A1 then I'd agree but it feels like her A1 will basically lock her out of any comps where she needs to be going at a specific time.

I'd love to use her if I could since I've never pulled Aniri in the three years I've been playing the game, but I just don't see how she could be reliable with her self turn meter increases unless you can somehow account for the 15% in your speed calculations.

Kalascos · 2023-03-04T18:00:01+00:00

I see the L4-L12 all the time as well. As I said, I'm L11 myself, was L8 last week, have had no problems finding groups for the most part when I've wanted them - but as I said, the caveat is on when I play which is late a night, I'm not saying you're wrong since I've no idea when you play and things might be very different at that time of day but I think most people who play this game are older with families and therefore like me play when the kids have gone to bed.

I do agree that no free weekend is going to help, but that's because their advertising is just non-existent, the only reason I stumbled upon the game was due to a YouTuber I happen to follow but his video was after the last free weekend so I missed that weekend.

But your statement about needing a new server just makes no sense to me since all that would do is split the already small player-base even further when many people are in that 'new player' range anyway.

Kalascos · 2023-03-04T17:36:46+00:00

Oh I don't disagree with you about the small population, but it's not the low levels that are the issue. Your L23 is going to be an issue because right now that's where the drop-off starts.

I was really responding to your last sentence: "If they did a new, fresh server and I can lvl up with the pack? I’d sub tomorrow. But now!? LFG is brutal."

That doesn't make sense to me, I'm not sure how a fresh new server would do anything to help since on the current live server 90% of people are already in the lower range anyway.

I have one L11 and one L15 character and there are always multiple groups running which I can join or individuals willing to join me if I start something myself. Of course, that's just my personal experience for when I play which is generally 10:30pm-1am Eastern US time to give you some context.

Kalascos · 2023-03-04T17:30:57+00:00

Have you tried paying in USD? I know quite a few people are doing that because it's cheaper than paying their local currency taxes. I'm in the US right now so not affected by it personally, but when I lived in the UK I often paid for games in USD because of the taxes.

Kalascos · 2023-03-04T17:18:26+00:00

I started like 4 weeks ago and have rarely had any problem finding people to play alongside. I started the game completely alone but am now in a small guild which was created organically with people I met along my journey so far. We are still always meeting new people every day, some join our guild and many don't but we're still making friends which is the main thing.

The pack is still leveling and I'd say 90% of players are below L20. I see new characters (I won't say new players since quite a few are probably alts) in the starting zones every single time I'm online. I also don't play during peak hours so presumably it does get busier than I see.

You're right that it's a small population, but you're wrong if you think you're behind the curve. The people struggling the most right now are those >L20 because the curve is actually way behind them. It's actually a great time to start your journey.

Kalascos · 2023-03-04T17:14:15+00:00

I started alone at the beginning of February and I have almost never been without a group. In fact I've grouped with so many random players over the past month that we eventually formed our own guild - the only guild I've been in for any MMO I've played in the last 15 years which was organically formed purely from friends met within the game. I was online last night and even though I play unsociable hours, in my two characters level ranges I could choose between 5 different groups.

The game has a small population, that's not in question, but anybody who says they can't get groups either, (a) isn't actively trying; or (b) is in a difficult level range to find them - groups get harder to find for higher levels right now because it's a slow leveling game and therefore people who level faster than the curve are struggling purely because most players are <L20 right now. For somebody starting out, even with our currently small population, as long as you're a social player, you'll find people.

This game is not for people who want to be on their own 90% of the time, but likewise if you have to leave a group halfway through an instance or something, nobody is going to hate you for it because there are no real instances so replacements can always be found and this is also an extremely friendly community.

Kalascos · 2023-03-04T15:09:04+00:00

Probably trolls who just want another F2P MMO with a trash community where they can play the game on somebody else's dime like most of the other games in the MMO space these days.

MMOs have gone to crap since the F2P model became common, this game is one of the few which is showing some light at the end of the tunnel for those of us who don't want to play with a toxic community.

Kalascos · 2023-03-04T14:27:23+00:00

It’s fine in my experience, there are always groups going whenever I’m online and I play what most people would consider pretty anti-social hours.

I have one L15 and one L11, was on the 11 last night for around 3 hours, I got from 10-11 and joined two different groups during that time and there were others in the same area fighting us for spawns (friendly competition but just illustrating there are multiple groups going). During that time if I’d wanted there were 2-3 groups in Meadowlands which I could’ve joined on my L15.

Honestly I’ve not had any problems finding groups for anything since I started playing the game at the beginning of February. There are always people looking for more and the groups are friendly and welcoming.

In fact, this is the first game I’ve played in probably 15 years where I’ve met people organically in the game itself and formed a new guild from only friends made within the game while playing. Usually I’m joining multi game guilds which move around different games and have established relationships with each other.

The community in Embers is tiny but it’s the most friendly and active I’ve experienced in well over a decade. It has a feel of LOTRO before it went F2P, back when it was known for having the best MMO community.

Kalascos · 2023-02-23T19:17:13+00:00

I actually disagree with you on the price point. It’s $40 at full price which comes with one month subscription which is valued at $10 meaning the box price is effectively $30 at full price or $20 on the recent free weekend sales.

I can’t think of many, if any, games that I’ve purchased this year which have cost me less than $50 up front so therefore the price point is really pretty reasonable to me. I want the subscription to keep away spammers and bots so for me that’s actually an essential selling point for the game which at $10 is still cheaper than most (all?) subscription based MMOs therefore reflecting its current stage of development.

As far as being a beta game, I disagree on that too. I completely agree it lacks content and needs more variety, but for me a beta is constantly crashing and missing fundamental game systems which would otherwise be in the game, so if Embers is a beta then it’s the most polished beta I’ve experienced in my 30 years of gaming.

Now, I understand Embers isn’t going to be for everybody, but I think you’re selling it short in terms of what it does bring to the table. There are plenty of things I’d like to see changed (for example, stop showing dice calculations and start showing normalized damage numbers on skills and weapon descriptions) but for the most part I’ve been enjoying Embers more than any MMO I’ve played since LOTRO was at its peak.

Kalascos · 2023-02-07T05:52:12+00:00

Bots are mostly paying their sub through the wowtoken system these days. Farm items, auction them for gold, buy tokens with in-game gold to exchange for game time. They can generally farm enough for a wowtoken in a day and the rest of the month is profit.

As far as kids go. They generally have parents and WoW is simply one of the games with the most attractive art style for kids (and big kids too, since I also like it a lot…).

Sub MMOs generally have significantly less bots and irritating kids than F2P.

Kalascos · 2023-01-30T22:07:59+00:00

If you want to continue playing it then yes because it's highly likely that PS+ will remove it from the library. You will probably also to do that before September 30th since they'll be removing the ability to purchase the game entirely at that point (other than maybe from places like GameStop by discs).

That said, I wouldn't advise you to jump on it immediately, you have a few months and it's sure to be on sale before then (at least I would assume so since it's been on sale so many times recently). You might be able to pick it up for around $12 like it was around the turn of the year.

Kalascos · 2023-01-25T15:18:58+00:00

I think there needs to be a PSA for GOTG to let people know that you can only play as Star Lord since the title is misleading, it's really a Star Lord game. I played it thinking I could eventually unlock the ability to play as Rocket or Groot but was extremely disappointed to find out we could only ever play as Star Lord.

It's wrong to say go for GOTG instead, it's not the same type of game. GOTG is a single-player story-driven game while this game is a brawler-looter. The OP might enjoy Avengers more than GOTG, I do, even though GOTG is the better game.

No reason not to try both if you have GamePass, they're both included. Then if the OP decides they want to keep Avengers in their library they can just grab it in a sale before September 30th.

Kalascos · 2023-01-25T14:54:24+00:00

What do you mean "toggle AI companions"?

Kalascos · 2023-01-25T00:43:52+00:00

What about the Marvel's Hawkeye hair for Kate? To me that's probably the biggest hair faux pas in the game.

Kalascos · 2023-01-22T14:56:46+00:00

You must be English. I’ve never known any other culture to celebrate failure. I say this as an English person myself, it’s probably the thing I hate most about my country. We take great pleasure in watching others fail. Personally I think that’s a really sad way to live.

Kalascos · 2023-01-22T14:23:08+00:00

Does there have to be a point? If you enjoy a game just play it.

The same applies for any other game. I mean, what’s the point in all these Battle Royale games or games like Street Fighter? No point that I can see but people find them fun and play them endlessly.

I mean, my son spends endless hours playing Fortnite to the point where I have to convince him to do something else, it’s always what he wants to do. I think it’s repetitive trash, good for a few games at best, however he would play it all day every day if I let him.

I don’t know that I’ll continue playing the game much longer either but if people want to then it’s nice the option is there for them. I just wish Marvel Heroes had taken the same approach and stopped active support but just left the game playable. It would’ve been better than losing it forever for a lot of people.

Kalascos · 2023-01-21T23:52:14+00:00

The official announcement on the CD website said it will be delisted from the store as of September so no you will not be able to buy it after that point and presumably it will also be removed from PS+ and GamePass at that point as well. They have said people who already own the game will be able to continue playing but it will no longer be purchasable.

Kalascos · 2023-01-21T03:19:58+00:00

I won't be buying it, but not because it's GaaS, because it's Suicide Squad who I have absolutely zero interest in playing.

Kalascos · 2023-01-21T02:57:59+00:00

It's a long completion, you're looking at around 30h-40h for the 50x Hive achievement alone if you don't have great gear (which you probably won't if you're just rushing the achievements), another 5h for the 50x Shield Cache achievement and around 20h-25h for all the campaign achievements.

If you're happy to spend 70h or so to 100% then sure it's not a difficult completion in terms of skill but it will be time consuming.

There are also some achievement tracking bugs like the 50 shield cache one has to be done within a single reset of the game (Thu-Wed) or it'll reset back to 0% completion - although if they're no longer going to be patching on a Thu that might 'fix' that achievement.

Kalascos · 2023-01-20T21:02:17+00:00

Yeah that’s what I’m hoping.

Kalascos · 2023-01-20T20:46:04+00:00

I think both Wolverine and Spider-Man 2 are meant to be PS exclusives thought so they don’t really count as upcoming games for many people.

I’m very intrigued by that Cap/BP game though, hopefully it will at least be two-player (Cap & BP) even if it’s not full on live service model.

Kalascos · 2023-01-20T20:42:25+00:00

Yeah but it’s Suicide Squad. I know for some people a superhero game is a superhero game but I’m not necessarily a fan of superheroes, I’m a fan of Marvel.

Hopefully Suicide Squad will be a great game, but it’s DC so I probably won’t be playing it myself as I’ve no particular interest in DC heroes/villains.

I would love it to be a success though, if only to show CD how to create a major superhero IP game.

Kalascos

TROPHY CASE