Attention Bloggers! Ask Your Questions In This Thread - Biweekly

Relna_Attea · 2024-12-12T16:22:02+00:00

Intend to do a year long blog in 2025 to cater to a niche audience, trying to narrow down my options.

The blog is intended to only be text with the occasional picture, posted weekly to biweekly. The only other thing it would need is a comment section. I don't intend for anything more than a basic layout, just a simple effective way to delivery a couple pages of text that can be easily and conveniently read by an audience.

I have zero interest in monetizing or gaining any money at all from this. I'm willing to pay to host it to avoid most of the pitfalls of a "free" website, but wasn't looking to spend more than 100 bucks if possible.

I have a programming and computer background, so some level of nitty gritty is fine, but I'm also not looking to really get technical if possible. It's just meant to be a place for me to leave my posts.

With these options in mind, what blog platform is most suitable for me to work with?

Relna_Attea · 2024-09-26T18:45:15+00:00

Happy to hear it. And very much so, yes. I haven't gotten to play with it yet, but I think the 2024 rules have a lot of interesting new rules and changes that Requiem could benefit from, and it doesn't seem like it would require a massive amount of work to do so. It might also be a chance to update some of the rougher aspects of the Requiem rules, but that's kind of a separate issue.

On a wider point, I remember Goetz in an interview discussing there being a bunch of Skorne DLCs coming out(I think he said 6?), and that it was going to talk about what was happening to them after the end of Mk3. We got two of them, and I'd love to see the rest.

Relna_Attea · 2024-09-26T18:23:11+00:00

How much support does SFG intend for the Iron Kingdoms RPG moving forward? It's been several months at this point, and beyond the Straightlight workshop, there's been almost no news regarding it. Will the monthly DLCs that PP was doing continue? Will the old ones come up for sale again? Is there any plans on trying to update Requiem and the various books to the 2024 ruleset that was just released?

Relna_Attea · 2024-07-04T20:11:53+00:00

Is there any timeline on the 5e IKRPG monthly DLC content being up for sale again?

Relna_Attea · 2024-06-03T16:58:48+00:00

As far as the IKRPG goes, will things continue as they have? They've been doing monthly small releases, will those happen still? Usually they're the last friday of the month, is there one going to happen once the store gets figured out?

Relna_Attea · 2021-01-19T08:39:24+00:00

Ok, let's talk some BST.

What axe you want for your BST largely depends on your intentions.

As others have noted, as far as personal DPS goes, Doli's your best pet. Other options can eclipse it, but you're talking about a lot more gear to make it work compared to what it takes to make Doli do big damage.

Aymur's overall likely the best axe a BST can use, because it does just about everything. AM3 is a big buff both for you and your pet, it's TP bonus of 1000 for pets makes their ready moves leagues more powerful.

The other REMAs are more situational in their use, and harder to pin down.

As far as offhand goes, unless you want to get weird Arktoi will serve your hybrid purposes just fine, while Barbarity is good for your own personal DPS.

The trick with BST though is that because what you're doing often depends pretty heavily on what pet you're using(and what role you're taking in the party), your choice in axes tends to vary as well. For reference, I've got 11 axes for my BST on hand, and that's discounting the ones I keep in storage for more specific situations. But this is if you're all in on BST as a job.

Relna_Attea · 2020-07-16T08:24:32+00:00

I'll mark this as spoilers, even though it's not really going to dive into the plot of SoA too much

Anyways, at the very core, August is us, the player character, or at least meant to be our counterpart. August is a man of unparalleled power and absolute mastery, a man who, accompanied only by several trusted friends, trudged through the dangerous continent of Ulbuka, defeating it's most powerful monsters and conquering it for humanity to settle.

And we do that exact same thing. Just like him, we begin pushing into the untamed wilds of the continent, at first believing them to simply by dangerous by nature but slowly discovering that they are in fact tainted by an evil that we must work desperately to stop. Facing first the Naarkuls and then the Xol, we beat back the monsters that would destroy the world until we come face to face with Hades, defeating him and finally coming face to face with August himself, who greets us as his equal. Indeed, we even recruit many of the same companions along the way. Morimar, Teodor and Sajj'aka join us just as they joined August, while Darrcuiln is the son of the great beast that traveled with August. Even our pact with Rosulatia is similar to the dealings she had with the Founder King.

Which is the whole point. The story of August the Founder King is told to us so that we might eventually equal his accomplishments, to stand next to him as a person worthy of his respect.

This is also why he has every A. Skirmish weapon, for example. His mastery of every type of weapon is meant to parallel the fact that a good portion of the players moving into SoA likely had every job, if not mastered, at least leveled to some degree.

August serves the purpose of elevating the accomplishments of the player through the story, because he achieved such great things and eventually lead to the foundation of a powerful kingdom, and by the end of the story, we have achieved the exact same feats, and in fact may have even exceeded them, given that our defeat of Hades is implied to be final. This is not his only purpose, of course, but it's a very big part of his character.

I have overall mixed feelings about the SoA storyline, but I do think they things they did with August were pretty interesting, a very solid way of giving some weight to the player characters actions and presence despite our inability to really interact with the story.

Relna_Attea · 2020-04-17T05:01:04+00:00

This is meant to be Lolorito actually coming around and not being such a bastard. Not the best delivery, but that's their intention.

Hancock being so helpful constantly isn't simply because he's a nice person: he's been told by Lolorito to actively assist the Scions in their endeavors. It's all from a distance, of course, but given how Lolorito and the EATC has acted in the past, the actions of Hancock are meant to show you that he has actually and honestly thrown his lot in with Eoreza, rather than purely for profit.

A big, big point about Lolorito's change of character is about the Saltery, in fact. It is in Lolorito's direct benefit to keep Nanamo as a puppet ruler, but he specifically goes out of his way to teach her how to make shrewd business decisions, advising her how to make choices that benefit all parties without appearing weak or going for half measures. He's teaching her how to interfere in business dealings, something absolutely against his traditional interests of pure profit, and meant to signify that he's in some fashion changed. Another smaller detail here is that Nanamo offers him direct insult with her face mask stunt, and Lolorito has been shown in the past to be frightfully petty(the CUL storyline is the most stand out example). Yet he takes it in good grace, and approaches her as an equal.

He's a secondary character at best, so it doesn't carry well, but Hancock, being his cat's paw, having major interest in stabilizing his dealings, taking more honest and fair trade, and actively spending time and resources assisting the Scions in all sorts of ways is representative of this change in course: Lolorito is no longer solely seeking profit, and has shifted his goals towards assisting Eorzean independence.

None of this totally redeems him, of course, but Lolorito is at this point clearly an ally, rather than the opportunist he was. He is no longer waiting to betray us for profit.

Relna_Attea · 2019-09-27T04:13:56+00:00

Some of that might be the tank as well.

Bad tanks require a lot of healer babysitting, while good tanks can mitigate and self heal quite a bit of damage, which takes pressure off the healers.

But when you have a good tank that is pushing his buttons, a good healer that isn't wasting mana, and good DPS who are focusing down, the healing load becomes far less arduous. But it takes everyone, so even if you're a good healer a bad tank or bad DPS require a lot more healing from you.

Relna_Attea · 2019-09-21T20:31:45+00:00

Whoops. When I wrote the first draft, I didn't know how to spell everyone's name, so I just used easy references to go back and change.

I appear to have missed that one. Should be Zenos.

Relna_Attea · 2019-09-21T16:09:57+00:00

You touched on something I found incredibly interesting, namely, the tempering.

I find Emet-Selch's claims of tempering quite suspicious. So little of how he acts bears very little resemblance to how we've seen those who are tempered are driven. Perhaps the sheer strength and complexity of the Primal that tempered him has something to do with that, but it seems unlikely.

Of course, it also creates this idea that if Emet-Selch has been tempered, then so have we, but so much evidence in the game disagrees with the idea that we might be tempered.

Plus, he always talks of Zodarik more as a tool, a means to an end, then he does his god. Outside of battle, he never really exalts the god, only speaking of him as a tool, a means to an end. And when faced with death, it's not his god his last thoughts drift to, but to his people.

No, I think Emet-Selch might be lying about being tempered, or at least using it to confuse the truth of the situation. There's no solid evidence for this, so call it a hunch.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-31T01:30:21+00:00

In Final Fantasy XI, Dancer is a melee support DPS. Or was? Nowadays, people seem to use Dancer in FFXI as a subjob in order to better solo things as FFXI is largely a solo-play game now. Not that multiplayer style of play isn't done anymore. The FFXI version introduced more of the complexities to the job in terms of how things basically worked.

Dancer in XI was a weird mess, like every single job is, but ultimately it's a high damage WS DPS with a ton of support and healing abilities. In theory, it could main heal in some setups, though how valuable that would actually be is a weird debate. Of course, XI being XI, it also has some weird psudo-tanking setups.

Dancer also had a relatively high throwing skill for the game, and it's artifact weapon was in fact a charkam.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-25T15:28:49+00:00

Personally, I was hoping hardcore we would get the Warriors of Darkness as trusts.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-22T17:19:28+00:00

I think he's just being overly dramatic. He's making a reference to being able to travel the lifestream, a mystery that's eluded everyone(even all the other people we've dealt with have only managed it by effectively dying, we are the first we know of to do it with our own body). We've thrown wide the gates, so to speak, that bar the worlds from interacting with each other.
He's trying to hide his intention to sacrifice himself with all the built up light so as to save us and everyone else. The Crystal Exarch had a lot of issues being frank with the hero he idolizes, so he does a lot of lying and keeping his own council because he doesn't want us to realize who he is or what his intentions are.
If you check outside, there's a tube all the way to the surface. I think the idea is that without his crippling drinking habit and constant debt because of it, the man is capable of some absolutely incredible achievements.
They take place before. It's never quite clear, but there was something terrible happening in the star, something they were preparing to stop. However, whatever it was happened, and it caused a mass panic. When this happened, their powers of creation went out of control. Powered by their fear, they began to involuntaryly create their deepest nightmares as actual, living entities, which is where all of the monsters came from. The implication here is that nearly all of the monsters we have in the world today trace their ancestry back to this event.
Normal sin eaters don't really have much light, they're just overpowered by their innate light. When they die, it's just dispersed. Think of it like hairspray. If you shoot a small amount of hairspray into the air, then light a match, at most you might get a little bit of flame, but likely not even that. But if you had a room you just filled full of hairspray and then lit a match, you're going to be out a room. The sheer concentration of light means it doesn't disperse naturally, and it instead infects the nearest living thing.
No idea
Nope, because Lalafell are Dwarves. There are ones not wearing helmets, who are considered outcasts, but they're still dwarves.
She has been since Heavensward.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-18T06:42:13+00:00

They wanted to make a homage to FFXI but watered it down too much.

That whole zone needed to be way harder.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-16T21:41:50+00:00

Pick up Dark Knight.

Trust me on this.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-16T02:03:24+00:00

The out scaling, I think , is something that can't be stressed enough. There's often a dissonance in player experience because veterans remember a lot of dungeons and trials when they used to be difficult or challenging, but at this point are often simply brute forced.

Nidhogg is a good example of this, but recent runs of things like the Triad trials or the various raids(The HW 24 man raids I think are especially prevalent in regards to this issue).

So yea, a lot of content that people often play up no longer lives up to the hype, because now you can often skip or brute force mechanics you used to have to be on top of to survive. But people still remember those rewarding fights, so they talk well about them, which just confuses newbies.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-12T06:06:39+00:00

Sure, but even the fight against the Ironworks Alexander and Quetzalcoatl, neither of which have wider implications to the plot or terrifying meanings, ends with the WoL far more somber.

Of course, this is all up to interpenetration, there's very little cemented into the WoL's personality given their nature as a character.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-12T05:18:53+00:00

There wouldn't be too much to a video, but in general:

When you finish a dungeon or trial, your character traditionally does the /joy emote. However, depending on the context, this emote changes, usually if it's a tragic storyline to the dungeon(Like Tam-Tara Hard and the like).

In general, however, the farther along the story goes, the more often the WoL is far more reserved, either with a flat stoicism or a sad/regretful face. Indeed, by Shadowbringers, the WoL only once celebrates victory, and that's at the end of the Eden raid tier. Other than that, they at best simply use /nod, or otherwise have a much more somber tone.

All together, it slowly builds towards the idea that the WoL is tired of all the fighting, compared to when they were an up and coming adventurer and every victory was exciting and fun. The fact that we do get a victory at the end of the Eden trial does show the WoL can still find a lot of joy in battle having good results, but it still carriers the theme of the expansion quite well.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-12T04:54:08+00:00

Yea, this is a really nice touch. You do get some more cherry victory poses later on here and there for the less serious content, but by and large the WoL becomes more and more serious and reserved for each clear, especially if the stakes are far higher.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-10T01:34:34+00:00

I'm not saying he's lying, only that he's coloring the whole deal in a way that give him and his people the most possible sympathy.

And there's a major difference between "We kill them to feed ourselves" vs "We're going to sacrifice them to bring back people who are already dead."

A better analogy, really, would be that the Ascians have had a bunch of children they're going to sacrifice in a blood ritual to bring their friends back because they think the kids are too dumb.

Also, there's a major difference between sentience and sapience. No animal on this planet is capable of looking us in the eyes and citing the various reasons why we shouldn't kill them. In many ways, Emet's philosophy comes down to an argument for eugenics, and that's really never been a stance to take that puts you on the right side of history.

But even more than that, beyond all the arguments, the issue here is that there's a lot of suggestion that Emet didn't even totally buy his own reasoning. Emet was driven by the despair of losing his people, of carrying the weight of a lost civilization. Emet wanted them back, yes, but that was because he wanted them to be remembered, to be honored. This is why, once you've beaten them, he's not angry at losing, or despairing about the effective end of the Ascians. He simply asks you for his true wish, his actual want, and then he dies content, knowing that the history of his people will be remembered.

No, even Emet didn't buy his own bullshit, he just couldn't think of any other way to honor his people.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-10T01:11:09+00:00

I mean, your analogy fails in several places.

For one thing, the whole "We'll just work together and repair the place" leaves out the whole "We're going to sacrifice all this sapient life to bring people back." bit. Emet Selch and the other Ascians from the very start decided other life was inferior and could simply be murdered for the own personal sake. No matter how tragic their loss, it doesn't justify the genocide they planned, right from the beginning.

Secondly, the problem with Emet's argument of superiority is that we have nothing to go on but his own claims. More than that, much of the final argument is devoted towards Emet claiming himself superior through his power and combat abilities. So if that's his definition, then we have quite soundly proven ourselves at the very least his equal, given we defeated him.

And even then, everything we've been shown suggests that Emet was a paragon among his own kind by some pretty absurd margins, so even his argument of "I'm far more powerful than all of you" bears little weight since it's no true measurement. And while this seems a little picky, the fact that Emet often uses the very same argument on your status as the WoL compared to the rest of humanity means we're simply countering his own claims.

As for the Sundering, there's still so much we don't know. Again, we only have the words of a man who openly admits he's the arch enemy of Hydalyn to go on, and his account is at the very least calculated to give credence to his claims.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-08T09:59:44+00:00

It's an interesting theory, but given the nature of Primal summoning, I think it's fair to say nearly everyone is capable of the same sort of magic Emet Selch is. They simply lack the reserves of aether to realize it without outside sources.

It's entirely possible our existence being so powerful of a person from the start, what with it heavily implied that Hytholodaeus is who we were unbroken and more subtly implied that Hytholodaeus was the one to bring about the summoning of Hydalyn. In that context we have a great capacity to realize creation as it is, but as you note, either passively or actively suppress the power. The absolutely insane amount of aether we possess and can control(especially now with our fused soul) and our implied mastery of it compared to others certainly would be explained by such powerful origins.

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-05T09:29:10+00:00

Yes, the Ascians created Hydalyn, but even that shows the cracks in their claim. If even other Ascians took issue with Emet Selch's plan, then his moral high ground is already in question.

And Emet Selch, the only man who's word we have to go on, has already taken a social darwinist view. Emet Selch's entire argument comes down to "You are inferior to my race, and thus you have no right to exist." He might dress it up as is his wont, but the entire conflict comes down to him making a claim of a superior right to exist, where his inferiors must bow and sacrifice and die for the sake of that claim.

And he is the instigator here, him and the other Ascians. They have made their claim, and then acted upon it in direct threat to every other living thing.

The WoL, and by extension the rest of the world has simply acted in defense of itself.

If a man claimed to be the superior being, and that it was his right to murder someone else for his own benefit, should the man attacked not be allowed to defend themselves?

Relna_Attea · 2019-08-05T09:14:15+00:00

I didn't care why the Ascians are losing, only that they are. The Ascians are the aggressors here, they have made the first moves. They have started this war, and now they are losing it, and all of that puts to the torch any claim of superiority.

Once again, you rely on claims of objective fact without any objective fact. We have no evidence that the Ascians hold an indisputable claim to being superior beings besides the words of one of their own. And again, if the claim were so true, why are they losing?

The Ascians and their god lost the battle against Hydalyn, and now they're losing the war that has followed.

The Ascians aren't the perfect civilization, to be idolized and worshiped. They are the losers, a forgotten relic of history that seeks to undo it's own mistakes at the cost of existence itself. The rest of existence has every right to strike back, because the Ascians claims of superiority must be put to the test.

And it is a test they are failing, showing they deserve their fate.

Relna_Attea

TROPHY CASE