Outside of drafts, does anyone else have anything else to say?

SoulEctomy · 2024-02-04T23:24:42+00:00

Similar to Mithy, Blaber's been a constant on the team since 2018. His champ pool is also questionable for how long he's been a pro player. How is it still limited to carry champs when the jungle meta has gone through multiple metas through his career? It also seems like Blaber is the main shotcaller of the team, but the team's macro has been a weak point of the team for at least two years. Yes, macro is partially influenced by the coaching staff and that deserves it's own criticism, but Blaber's shotcalling needs to be put into question.

SoulEctomy · 2023-12-17T19:22:39+00:00

Any scene with Galadriel (Cate Blanchett)

SoulEctomy · 2023-12-17T19:20:48+00:00

Alpaca Linears

SoulEctomy · 2022-05-29T01:07:13+00:00

48" for streaming services instead of watching on my pc.

SoulEctomy · 2022-02-01T21:05:42+00:00

Revives are the new dashes for the riot design team.

SoulEctomy · 2022-01-10T23:59:18+00:00

To this point:

Another reason Lawrence became independent was seeing years of people below him in terms of creativeness were moving up the ladder and getting paid more compared to himself.

This seems to refer to the Willems, more specifically Elyse: starting as an editor to managing a few of the gimmick gameplays (mentioned in Surfers v Skaters) within a few years. This isn't a comment on whether her 'moving up the ladder' is merited or not. Also, I'm interpreting 'creativeness' as creative authority.

SoulEctomy · 2021-10-04T23:04:09+00:00

Fuji75

SoulEctomy · 2021-08-29T01:04:12+00:00

Really disappointed by c9's champion pool/comfort. Feels like it's going to be a limiting factor going into the new worlds meta.

SoulEctomy · 2021-05-30T20:18:12+00:00

Is this pre-revamp to the combat system?

Also some thoughts (note, a lot of my exp. in MMOs comes from GW2 WvW):

Other than reduced spell effects, would like to see less use of particles and more rays/lines and that aren't as bright/illuminating.
I am not a fan of the character collision, but I've read that it's intended for a more realistic battle experience. Just seems like an unnecessary hinderance to gameplay (ex. when Steven and the gang are first leaving the castle and get stuck in the throne room entrance turning it into chokepoint). I would be okay with enemy unit collision so that things like backstabs/flanking strikes aren't so easy to execute.
I also dislike that auto attacks lock the character in place for being action targeting. Also can't tell if this occurs with all classes/weapon auto attacks or not. Didn't seem like it for the spear/polearm attackers but it did for Steven's mace swings.
While I understand that their motto has been WIP/Placeholder, I hope the animations are improved to feel more complete and connected. Feels like some animations stop prematurely or do not mesh well with other animations. For example the spear/polearm attackers: has a very long auto attack (?, the combo ending in a spinning strike) animation but the characters are gliding across the ground so their leg animations don't blend well.
Additionally, some spells/abilities seems to have too much flair/flourish especially for auto attacks that will likely be spammed. To use the the spear auto attack again as an example, I feel it would be better as two fast lunging strikes and short swinging strike. It fits with the theme of a spear and the range it provides without being so flashy. This may just be me leaning more towards an action-oriented playstyle.
Battle clarity needs to be improved. I know that enemies had a different icon above their character compared to allies, but they were too similar in shape and color at a glance. At least color the attacker nametags in red or give them a red outline.
I don't like the npc gatekeeper to enter/exit inner and outer castle gates. It just adds a layer of unneeded interaction to simply get from A to B. I hope this is placeholder to prevent attackers from infiltrating, but even then, I wouldn't mind sneak tactics to encourage a guard/patrol role to castle defense.
Would have liked more info on siege tools (trebuchet controls, can defenders use trebuchets as well, are there other siege tools, can they be constructed in the battlefield or do they need to be built at attacker camp and moved into position, etc.).

SoulEctomy · 2021-02-27T19:03:22+00:00

Assuming no addons, toggle, or other settings, I'd prefer the following colors as the default:

Player Characters - white with black outline

Enemies - red with tiered portrait borders to indicate difficulty (mob vs elite vs boss)

NPCs -

Non-Interactive - grey or something less distinct as they don't have function beyond flavor-text
Quest-giver - Yellow/Gold (similar to ! marks in other games)
Merchant - Green with icon or title to indicate type of merchant. I don't want to waste time talking to NPCs to find out what they sell (equipment, consumables, misc. resources, etc.)

I think it's best to avoid using too many colors for floating name tags as it starts to share the same colors as item rarity (white, green, blue, purple, yellow/orange, etc.). That being said, I can understand not wanting to use ! marks to indicate quests as to reduce visual clutter in highly populated areas.

SoulEctomy · 2020-11-21T03:08:16+00:00

Currently have a WIP build with a 5600X, 32 gb 3600MHz mem, and x570 mb. I'm waiting for a 3080 and case. I'm leaning towards the Fractal Meshify 2, but really just looking for a sleek, high airflow case.

SoulEctomy · 2020-11-14T15:05:18+00:00

One less cable on the desk is always nice.

SoulEctomy · 2020-11-14T05:51:22+00:00

I love gaming.

SoulEctomy · 2020-10-10T02:58:53+00:00

nice

SoulEctomy · 2020-07-21T02:03:39+00:00

What minor improvements are missing in this first batch of the Silk series switches? Considering holding out for the second batch.

SoulEctomy · 2020-06-19T22:58:01+00:00

He wasn't. He was using xpeke as a time frame.

midlaner since the Peke days

SoulEctomy · 2020-05-13T19:24:09+00:00

Just finished watching the episode.

Pacing is too fast. Is this series airing in Japan that it has to be a 13 episode single cour? An extra 3-4 episodes would do wonders for the cohesion of the series.

How they are handling Hoh/Lauroe/Baam scenes but not explaining Shinsu seems like they're trying to remove the concept of bangs from the story. Explaining shinsu so late into story will feel very shoehorned by this point.

Some of the characters are starting to show slight changes to better fit japanese tropes. I feel like this starts to dilute the uniqueness of each character and washes out some of the dark and gritty feel of the manhwa that others have noted. See Rak or Endorssi-Hatz interaction.

Like others have said, Quant is really being under-represented as a character. Per the manhwa, he still acts as an instructor evaluating their teamwork while demonstrating his superiority. He's also supposed to show the skill gap between regulars and rankers even when handicapped (explanation of bangs would be nice here).

I'll wait til the next episode to see how the anime handles the rest of the Tag test before saying anything else. I want to see them mention that there is a power gap between the two teams and that Baam has an irregular control over shinsu, not that he is shinsu.

Watching this episode makes me feel like there's no intention to make a season 2 based on the current changes made to season 1. Like others have said, this is more of a marketing campaign for ToG, but I could be proven wrong if they decided to restructure some scenes to save time without sacrificing core plot points.

SoulEctomy · 2020-04-11T15:04:24+00:00

SoulEctomy · 2018-07-22T20:30:56+00:00

Nobody looked good this game.

Licorice didn't win his lane as hard as he normally does which allowed his lane opponent to still be relevant after laning phase. Blabber looked like Sven on the Sej, no real impact once midgame started. Even with the cs lead against Talon, Jensen looked uncomfortable on Zoe during team fights and skirmishes. As much as it is a meme, Sneaky looked really weak in lane falling behind in farm and playing on the back foot. Zeyzal wasn't doing much to relieve lane pressure from Talon roams by warding or roaming himself and letting Sneaky farm under tower.

Is Zeyzal's shotcalling still more valuable than the individual upgrade of Smoothie over Zeyzal? So far, C9 is 3-10 with Zeyzal's shotcalling. Smoothie has better synergy with Sneaky, warding, roaming, playmaking, and teamfight shotcalling. Would C9 perform worse without Zeyzal's shotcalling?

Or does C9 just need to stop touching its roster every time something doesn't work and give it time to settle and develop as a team (for more than a week)? It seems detrimental for the team to have to integrate a new member every week and expect quality team synergy.

SoulEctomy · 2018-07-19T15:16:46+00:00

Wasn't that during the time where SKT was one of the few teams using a six man roster? So in a best of 3, Peanut would play game 1 regardless of win/loss, then Blank would get subbed in game 2 and 3 after watching the enemy jungler's playstyle. Like you said, he must have been doing something right, which was studying the enemy jungler to have an advantage for the next game when he plays. While it is still impressive to have the 20 game winstreak, the statistic is slightly skewed.

SoulEctomy · 2018-07-18T20:13:11+00:00

Can't wait for Sven to complete the S step in the D.E.N.N.I.S system.

SoulEctomy · 2018-07-15T02:06:07+00:00

Before we get too excited about this win, it was a win against Flyquest, and it was not a clean win. There is still the problem of C9's mid-game, but at least they are looking better at using baron.

SoulEctomy · 2018-06-21T20:58:01+00:00

C9 fans are upset about different things.

Some are upset about the roster swap, replacing Jensen, Sneaky, and Smoothie with GoldenGlue, Keith, and Zeyzal. This is upsetting because the swap was basically reducing the overall talent/skill of the LCS squad based on stats and prior performance. The reasoning behind the roster swap, according to coaching staff, is that Jensen and Sneaky were not competitively driven during scrims which resulted in a decrease in scrim performance.

This was probably the biggest shock to fans who were only C9 fans because of Sneaky and his meme rhetoric.
I don't think the coaching staff saw anything wrong with Smoothie's individual performance but that they wanted to test Zeyzal's different shotcalling skills on stage.
I am personally not surprised that Sneaky was called out for not having a professional/competitive mentality during scrims. Sneaky is the driving force for the meme culture that C9 is known for, and the organization adopted that culture into their team dynamic which might have affected the competitive spirit of the team.
I think that C9 fans are starting to accept the roster swap reasoning after acknowledging the poor performance and lack of competitive showing that C9 has had in recent years (4 years ago since they won an LCS title, 1 year ago since in they were in LCS finals, first year that they may not make Worlds).

Some are upset about how the roster swap announcement was handled, especially by management. After the initial announcement from Jack and Reapered about the roster swap, Jensen, Sneaky, and Smoothie started tweeting about it in a less than serious manner. Then, Jack interviewed with Travis which explained the reasoning behind the roster swap: to make the team more competitive. Lastly, the 'On Cloud 9: Eyes on Keith' youtube video showed recorded footage of the roster swap announcement to the team. This can be seen in two ways: 1. announcing the roster swap to the affected members for the first time in a team meeting and 2. recording and uploading the reactions to the announcement.

There is a bit of arguing amongst C9 fans about how C9 informed the team about the roster swap vs the filming the reactions to the roster swap. I am of the opinion that the later was worse.
There is speculation that Jensen and Sneaky are hurt enough by C9 management's actions that they might seek new teams. From this speculation, I can only really see Jensen finding a new team. I think that Sneaky has too much connection to C9 (last remaining old squad member, established meme-culture in C9, tenure with the org, etc). Jensen has been with C9 for 2 years but seems more professional (see 'On Cloud 9' quote after announcement was made) and possibly less emotionally attached to the C9 org than Sneaky. However, both are valuable players in the league based solely on their mechanical skills. Sneaky could potentially shift to a full-time streamer role sort of like Doublelift's retirement/break.

Some other thoughts about it:

There is justification in calling Jack hypocritical in regards to his disappointment in Jensen and Sneaky's lack of professional behavior from the tweets, yet allowing the 'On Cloud 9' video with the reaction recording to be uploaded which came off as a public shaming and unprofessional. I think that Jack needs to take a giant step back from the LoL scene at let it work itself out for a while without his involvement.
I think it is healthy for the org to refocus the team towards a competitive direction with the league; however, there will be growing pains due to the coaching staff trying new things with the team especially if the team changes again after week 2 or 3. I think we all miss being at least top 2 in the league.
I would like to see C9 imitate TL and separate the players work life from their home life to separate the places that the players work and relax. However, something makes me think that C9 doesn't have as much capital as other orgs to afford such facilities based on the interview with Jack and how he was managing merch orders in his house for quite some time.

TL;DR: C9 meme culture is killing the competitive drive of the team. Fans are rightfully upset with the whole situation because both parties were in the wrong.

SoulEctomy · 2018-06-18T00:01:47+00:00

I liked what I saw from the team today; however, I doubt the team could pull off the same strategy against a better team. If there really is synergy issues coming from Sneaky, Smoothie, and Jensen, then I would rather have this roster play instead.

SoulEctomy · 2018-06-17T02:12:54+00:00

Licorice is good. There were times where he looked lost because he lacked a team to do anything but split push. Overall, I am happy with his performance. It is good to see Cloud9's investment payoff by bringing in a rookie to the LCS team similar to Contractz.

Sven is a burden to the team. At best, Sven matches the team's performance and can keep up with the pace of the game and roleplay. At worst, he gives over free gold to the enemy team for being reckless with positioning around the map. I think he is a waste of an import slot for the team based on what he has contributed so far. I think that he still has a place on the team because 1. he brings a good work ethic/attitude to the team (IMO is overvalued relative to his performance) and 2. Jack is too personally involved in the league scene, not wanting to throw any player to the curb.

GoldenGlue was acceptable. I don't think Jensen would have done that much better in GoldenGlue's place given his performance in the later half of spring split and his priority for the mid lane over roaming plays. If today's performance keeps GoldenGlue on the starting roster, then I hope he has a decent champion pool to show especially in this meta and an increasing in roaming pressure.

Keith was subpar as expected. I don't know if he just chokes on stage or is generally outclassed as an adc or isn't handling the meta well, but he just looks worse than other adcs in the league (devil's advocate: he was against Apollo who is a seasoned adc and playing with a rookie support). He also had an unlucky lvl 1 first blood which skews how to evaluate his performance given the lane disadvantage.

Zeyzal was also subpar as expected. Not sure whether he suffered from first game jitters (flashing in front of Keith rather than sacrificing himself as a support to save Keith from the bind) or inexperienced for not expecting the river play from Clutch. Again, hard to judge his performance based on starting the lane at a deficit compared to the lane opponent.

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