Stage Gauntlet 1

Made an attempt at a stage gauntlet last week in 4S, using Matabei and on Extreme (ahaha, not going at it on Heaven without more training). It was to get an idea of how long it would take. I think the main takeaway was that I suck at using Matabei, considering that it took a little over 5 hours to get through the entire thing. 5:07:02.3 to be exact. I'm finding that I have trouble dealing with 1v1 because of how he plays. He's also classed as a "Technical" character, which makes sense since his style revolves around throwing away his weapon.

Some stages were pretty easy to rush. There were others that I think I should've just ran straight for the boss instead of taking out a few of the stage objectives along the way. I think Komaki Nagakute was one of those stages... But that would trigger Hondam fairly early. Even if he had low HP, there's still the issue of being swatted around while targeting Ieyasu (and Matabei in the Intrusion version).

Stage	Segment	Total Time
Eiroku Palace Resolution	4:30.0	4:30.0
Eiroku Palace Samsara	6:55.2	11:25.2
Mikado - Granting an Audience	2:20.9	13:46.1
Ounin - Ginga	7:34.8	21:20.9
Ounin - Souden	8:17.3	29:38.2
Azuchi Shiten Gathering	7:24.7	37:02.9
Toyotomi Reminiscence Struggle	6:46.8	43:49.7
Osaka - Toyotomi Hajou	9:56.8	53:46.5
Oumi - Sawayama Castle	10:23.8	1:04:10.3
Sawayama Castle - Chouhan Defense	8:12.2	1:12:22.5
Sekigahara Western Shadow	6:46.1	1:19:08.6
Sekigahara Eastern Sun	6:18.6	1:25:27.2
Mikawa - Komaki Nagakute	6:07.9	1:31:35.1
Mikawa - Komaki Nagakute Intrusion	8:23.9	1:39:59.0
Battle for the Nation's Peace	10:59.6	1:50:58.6
Oda - Azuchi Castle	7:32.5	1:58:31.1
Shizugatake - Oda Vanguard	7:36.0	2:06:07.1
Honnoji no Hen	4:43.5	2:10:50.6
Echizen - Kitanoshou	6:59.4	2:17:50.0
Oushuu - Aoba Castle	2:59.6	2:20:49.6
Oushuu - Aoba Castle Intrusion	4:43.4	2:25:33.0
Oushuu - Ushuu Annexation	4:23.8	2:29:56.8
Osaka Dragon-Tiger Formation	7:16.7	2:37:13.5
Kai - Tsutsujigasaki Yakata	5:04.6	2:42:18.1
Takeda Men's Dojo	6:10.3	2:48:28.4
Naotora Women's Dojo	7:58.3	2:56:26.7
Kawanakajima - Takeda Battle Formation	4:15.0	3:00:41.7
Kai - Takeda Grudge Time	5:36.8	3:06:18.5
Tootoumi - Iinoya Castle	7:07.0	3:13:25.5
Kaga Onsen - Gathering of Maidens	4:06.5	3:17:32.0
Tango - Sengenji	10:41.3	3:28:13.3
Dewa - Mogamigawa	4:27.9	3:32.41.2
Kaga - Maeda Kabuki Matsuri	4:07.3	3:36:48.5
Kaga Border - Shizugatake	4:00.6	3:40:49.1
Kawanakajima - Uesugi Battle Formation	6:23.4	3:47:12.5
Kawanakajima - Uesugi Battle Formation Intrusion	7:02.7	3:54:15.2
Kawanakajima - Takeda-Uesugi Intrusion	5:01.5	3:59:16.7
Izumo - Shiraga Castle	5:50.9	4:05:07.6
Pirate Fortress - Hyakki Fugaku	5:05.5	4:10:13.1
Floating Fortress - Tenkuu Nichirin	4:20.0	4:14:33.1
Aki - Itsukushima	6:33.4	4:21:06.5
Itsukushima - Sanbei Occupation	8:00.9	4:29:07.4
Xavi Land Grand Opening	4:53.1	4:34:00.5
Xavi Land Closed	9:37.3	4:43:37.8
Iyokouno Ship - Tsuru no Maru	6:12.6	4:49:50.4
Bizen - Ujou	7:25.6	4:57:16.0
Hinomoto Tunnels - Josui Line	6:17.1	5:03:33.1
Satsuma - Inner Castle	3:29.2	5:07:02.3

Additional info:
* no Play Books were in use, because menu-ing sucks and I don't want to
* timing started when "start" was confirmed (not when the first stage officially starts timing)
* time was split after exiting the results/rewards screen and back to stage select
* attempted to limit tagging as much as possible -> bound right on the d-pad to tag to disable tag on R3 (ends up resetting camera), set tag partner AI to Manual
** still allowed myself to at least command the partner; they're just there to extend the Style duration. Usually.

Looking at some of the times, still need to learn some of the stages. Battle for the Nation's Peace was definitely one of the stages that needs some tweaking. Some were just plain screw-ups. Oshuu was pretty bad. The Intrusion version should be fairly similar in timing, but I missed the second jump, which is about 40 seconds into the stage. Accidentally lost bases in the Osaka stages. Naotora's Dojo could've shifted right to the 3rd duel, but I whiffed the last hit. Xavi Land Closed was terrible, if only because I shifted right back to "try not to lose money" mode, rather than just gunning it. Ujou only took that long because of trying to fulfill the extra conditions along the way.

Inscription loadout needs to be tweaked. Might need to look into a weapon built for taking out bases since he's a bit weak in that regard. Damage isn't focused on one point and he's highly mobile. Which is, funny enough, an actual problem. Awesome at crowd control though. I think I'll keep one of the Bewitched Blade inscriptions on since the wide arc the Kiba travels when using 旋廻の奇刃 at least guarantees some number of kills. Not too sure on his PI. I do appreciate the boosted attack when the Kiba is thrown, but I don't want to be eating damage because I can't block. I'll see how things turn out. Rebuilding a save solely for making attempts since I resigned the save on the JP account for the US/CA account. ...Said rebuilding also reminded me of just how broken Kenshin is. All he needed was to be Lv20, and everything just goes to hell.

SPEED

I swear I didn't miss the 10th Anniversary for the series. It's really more of other things that were going on around the same time. Plus, playing SUMERAGI means not really bothering to type up anything. Anyways.

I have 2 copies of SUMERAGI, for both the PS3 and PS4. Can't play the PS4 version just yet because I don't have the console. Still want to grab a JP PS4 after having a friend test out one of the firmware updates. A little disappointing that it swaps the actual input type, unlike what happens with the PSP when it has CFW (can swap O and X, and it doesn't affect the in-game inputs). And... I don't like being locked 30fps while in co-op. It's not even locked since we experienced some pretty nasty drops on some stages, most notable in Tsuru's.

Made quite a bit of progress in the PS3 copy before deciding to stop, go back to SB4, then start working on making things easier for the PS4 copy. In other words... filling out those trophies and hunting inscriptions. Just need 2 more green ones! And the Fugitive Bingo is done!

Also have gone back to play the older entries. Mostly 3/SH with a friend (damn good progress and almost have Nobunaga in SH) and working on some SB HD Collection stuff. Because I feel like it. After flailing around for a bit, I think I've gotten back into the groove for the older titles. Gone is all the fun movement tech (seriously, you can do things faster than sprint), and back to the basics. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.


Speaking of which... With how there's a "reward" for completing stages in 8 minutes or less for SB4/S, I've been running stages much faster now. Almost to the point of some of the stages being less than 5 minutes. So. I've now signed up to speedrun.com (_zephyr), and might have started running the SB series. Might be my main speed games, since I'm generally better at testing and theory-crafting for LasRem, rather than executing everything for 6.5 hours (which by the way, we've gotten down to 6.5 hours). Main issue is that I don't have a capture card and submissions must be a vid link. Which means that the only games I can run at the moment would be Devil Kings and SB1/2/2H on an emulator. Can still practise the other games though. Might be seeing more SenBASA posts at this rate.

Satoru Iwata

Thank you

Ryan

#douchebag

Hackiversary Stream

Well, that was fun~ Managed to get to the office early enough to get a computer to work at, so I was able to catch the stream while generating, printing, and checking reports. It was quite informative as well. Didn't know some of the stuff behind the scenes, including some of the mocap stuff. Someone asked what Aiden's fighting style was, and the devs quite literally replied "beating things with a stick", which was apparently based on the animation director's friend who apparently carried around a metal rod in his sleeve. And he was from Toronto. Yay?

Some of the audio stuff was really interesting as well. The hacking mini-games have Morse code running in the background, signalling the audio team's names. I did notice some funny beeping that seemed to resemble Morse code, but I couldn't decipher it since I'm not familiar enough with it to do so in real-time. Still need to get a fire truck and ice cream truck to a specific point on the map... And maybe find that bird on a chimney.

Another interesting point was made: scale. I did notice that Chicago seemed rather... small. I had no issue with simply grabbing a random vehicle and traveling with it to my next point, or just looking around for random things (and maybe getting a few side missions done). Fast-travel made things a lot easier, but it's not like driving around was that bad either. GTAV is huge in comparison. Even though I haven't played it, just watching streams gave me a decent idea of how big the city and its surrounding areas are. You even get planes! Which is perfectly fine because the map is so big; flying around wouldn't be too out of place while also not break game pacing. Personally, I like small, compact maps with lots of things to do. That, and I suck at flying planes...


There's probably more that I missed since I was doing a bunch of work at the same time. I'll have to rewatch it... and maybe download the cast somehow if it's not uploaded to YouTube at any point.

わん

It's already been a year... Happy Anniversary, Watch_Dogs.




And Happy 6th for LasRem! Still playing it after all these years. Still much to discover!

Also, I'm not dead. Just been really busy with IRL stuff and speed running.

Clearly I'm not Batman

I can't get into it. I just... can't.

There's just something about the game that rubs me the wrong way. Graphically, my laptop can't keep up a steady 30fps with everything set to low or even off. No point in complaining about visuals there (I know it can look good). The animations are rather stiff at times, which kinda dips into the uncanny valley. FOV is rather low... I actually can't play the game for too long until I start feeling a little off. Tweaking the FOV does help a fair amount. Set it something like 100. It was a little odd that using "fov 80", the command I use for LasRem, actually puts the camera closer to Batman than the default (which is supposedly 45). Well, whatever. As long as it doesn't make me feel like I have tunnel vision. Something about the colour palette doesn't sit right either. Probably that weird green tint in some places... But even that I can get over to some extent.

The gameplay generally pisses me off. It's probably because of coming from other games that don't feature any of that "cinematic" stuff. I like my combat to be flowing and seamless, not needlessly interrupted by slowdown. Sure, it looks awesome, but I'd rather not eat an attack because of the massive timing change. I'm OK with slowdown only on the final hit taking out the last enemy.

Also don't like the camera. I really don't like it bobbing up and down while I'm moving, except while in first person.



It was also the first time that I've managed to crash out of a game with a "Runtime Error!" dialogue window. Turns out that 11 files were corrupted. How I managed to get through about 10% of the game without it catastrophically crashing out before then is beyond me. And then not too long ago, it crashed out again, but with a different error that actually concerned me. It either doesn't play nice with x64 systems since I see a SysWOW64 error, or that there's some sort of memory leak after poking at Google. There were other games that popped out an error with the viewport code, although at different lines. Might be because of playing in windowed mode, which makes tabbing out of the game a lot easier than when it's in fullscreen. Doesn't have a borderless option, although I think I might be able to use Borderless-Gaming or other options to force it. Hell, might even try Gedosato for it.

I'll finish it. Eventually. Hopefully before Arkham Knight comes out?