Fortnite Ninja Viability (Monday Musings 20)

I finished the second area of the game, Plankerton, and starting early Canny Valley, and I must say, as the Dragon Scorch or Sarah Hotep of the Dragon Ninja class, they are not just viable but more than viable. I'm basing this on my experience, which might be an outlier as I tend to grind a lot, and sheepishly, I got the ultimate edition so I have excellent support heroes and support survivors to beef up my stats.  But I'm also basing this on the other extreme end, my friend, who got the standard edition and purchased no v-bucks, and watching him play the Ninja class. Further, he even stopped using the Dragon Ninja as he felt it was too easy, and moved onto the not so overpowered Ninjas, Dim Mak and Energy Thief Mari, and routinely carried the team.

Literally, the only reason to play Dim Mak is because of her cute cat backpack, which is black if

Exhibit A: Epic Dim Mak's Cat Backpack at 3 Stars

she's epic evolved to 3 stars, and white, if she's legendary evolved to 3 stars. See Exhibit A and note the adorable pink ears. However, even so, my friend excelled as Dim Mak throughout Plankerton, with less than ideal hero and survivor support. I expect that he's of the Fashion Souls camp, where you're so good at the game play that you chose the armor based on looks rather than function, whereas I'm forever wearing that hideous Havel's armor in Dark Souls 3 NG+4 and beyond. However, based on these two extremes, I can safely calculate that anyone can excel as a Dragon Ninja (even feeling like a Tank) up through Plankerton, as long as your Dragon is near the level of the mission. Clearly, if you're a level 19 you'll get destroyed in level 40, and that goes with all the other classes, even what is considered the meta, the soldier class.

Exhibit B is a screen shot of my combat score. I striked through the names of the other players for privacy, but nothing else is edited. The key thing to note is that at the very top, note Plankerton, and level 40. FatNyams (me) on the left is level 49 with a combat score of 15, 670. Instead of a full team of 4, as you can see there's 3 of us. I took a screenshot of this particular mission as this was my highest combat score thus far.

Exhibit B: Ninja Dragon Combat Score Results

Although I was rather over leveled for this Plankerton Storm Shield Defense (SSD) 8, nevertheless, a combat score of 15K is nothing to sneeze at. Due to the fact that these SSDs tend to have waves and waves of enemies, and the fact that you can clear these trash mobs reliably with your Dragon Slash ability, you end up getting at least 8000 on your combat score. In other words, you're not just viable, but more than viable.

Starting in early Canny Valley, which again is after Plankerton, however, I died a few times, because I played Sarah Hotep as a Tank. The Dragon Slash was not taking out the elemental husky husks in 1 shot, as they did in Plankerton. Even so, that just means I have to adjust my play style because before, I can just Dragon Slash into deadly bees, laser-eyes and jump out, wait for my shield to regenerate, to jump back in. Now, in early Canny Valley, you can get killed as a Ninja if you play recklessly. However, the worst that can happen when you die is that your weapon degrades (if your teammate doesn't revive you) so it's really no big deal.

At any rate, I recommend evolving your Dragon Ninja to 4 stars if possible, as well as your support heroes as much as possible, as leveling these heroes improve your stats the most. Then, work on leveling up your survivors.

In terms of game play, I believe my friends carried because they know how to build the fort and carefully placed traps, as well as routinely killing the more deadly husks, leaving the trash mobs to me. However, if you're not doing a protect the objective type mission, but instead, a pure combat mission such as Rescue the Survivors or Destroy the Encampments, if you see a lot of Laser Eyes, hopefully your team will take them out, then you can Dragon Slash the trash mobs if your shield is full (as the Bee husks take a chunk out of your shield) then get out. If your team isn't able to take out the Laser Eyes, I recommend Dragon Slashing the trash mobs, get out ASAP, build 1 or 2 walls for cover and take out the Laser Eyes from range. This is easier said than done, so it's something that I need to work on.

However, as I'm leveling up my Dragon, early Canny Valley isn't that challenging as a Ninja, you just need to be more careful with combat and building. But it affords a new dimension in the game play as you feel compelled to improve your stats and game play, whereas in Plankerton, as a Ninja, you really don't have to think about cover and building, and just tank.

It's interesting to see if I continue to find the Ninja viable through the very last area of the game, Twine Peaks, so I'll be sure to update my progress in future posts. I want to continue as a Ninja as this class fits my game play style (less reliance on shooting elements) than the other classes, and being more offensive than the Constructor class.

Have you played the Ninja and what are your experiences like with this very fun class?

Video Games Are Sports (Monday Musings 19)

Are Video Games Sports?
I was thinking about this subject, whether it makes sense to call video games competition

e-Sports Stadium

e-sports, while playing Fortnite's Horde Bash Mode. In this event, you must protect 4 forts against 10 waves of enemy husks, increasing in numbers upon each wave. I believe you only have 30 seconds between each wave to repair and build the forts, before you face these husks.

I only did a few lowest level 5 to 9 missions, and after the first 4 to 5 waves, without looking at the screen, I thought we were almost finished due to the exhaustion, but then upon checking, my heart sank when I found out that there was still 5 or 6 more waves to go.

At the end of each horde bash, I was sweating buckets, my heart was racing, and I was wiped out from the mental fatigue. It really felt like sprinting at full speed. After these experiences, I avoided Horde Bash matches like the plague.

Imagine doing this for hours, which e-sports professionals do on a daily basis. Further, the top professionals also exercise, eat healthy with good sleep hygiene to improve concentration and mental endurance. I wasn't surprised at all since I was only able to beat the Dark Souls 2 no death run twice after getting a good 8 hours of sleep, exercising, keeping hydrated, and eating tons of fruits and vegetables.

So my experience with Fortnite's Horde Bash led me to believe that video games at the competition level should be categorized as a sport. Looking up the definition, the first Google entry defines sports as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment".

No one will argue that video games at the competition level takes immense skill, and that individuals and/or teams compete against each other for entertainment, and it's very entertaining as evidenced by competitions being placed in stadiums due to demand.

The issue is with the physical exertion part, and playing video games on a casual basis isn't physically demanding, otherwise, the average person cannot play video games for more than an hour. But you can say the exact same thing about every single sport including what I consider one of the most physically demanding sports such as gymnastics.

Even I can do gymnastics, though very badly as I probably can't even walk on the balance beam, and the most I can do is hang from the double bars, but I'm still doing gymnastics, technically. An analogy is that anyone can sing, but not everyone can sing well. But performing gymnastics at a competent level, it's clearly a sport.

In other words, playing video games at the elite level is physically exhausting due to the mental efforts and this academic article notes that playing video games takes physical effort, as defined by basal metabolic rates, perceived exertion, and other measures.

This argument that video games should be considered a sport is further strengthened by the current classification of sports into "mind sports" which includes chess as an example. This makes it even more obvious that video games, played at the competitive level, is a sport.

Conclusion: Video games are a sport, and hopefully e-sports will be recognized by the Olympics and included in events. 

Do you agree that video games are a sport, why or why not?

The How of Happiness Review

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Monday Musings 18)

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is Tempting Me To Buy the Switch

My history with the Xenoblade series started with Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii but never finished it when I got stuck at the part after Sharla becomes part of your party and you have to enter a tower. For some reason, I couldn't find where you're supposed to go. I literally went around and around the tower, and couldn't for the life of me find the entrance. I believe at that time, there were no guides or YouTube videos so I quit the game. I was pretty upset as I loved the story, characters and gameplay.

I then played Xenoblade Chronicles X on the Wii U, as I watched Craddoc play the game and it looked incredible with the skells. XCX was my favorite game of the year, even surpassing Bloodborne because of the characters, mechs, gameplay and all the customization you can do. It took awhile to build up the Laila skell (I call her the Laila Queen) and armor to completely demolish Pharsis, who is the hardest enemy as she regenerates very quickly so you need very fast and high DPS. 

As you can tell from that link, the RPG elements are very intense and detailed. Just being in the mech and having that freedom to fly and fall from great heights is an experience I've never had in any other video game, more so than even the Gravity Rush series. Despite being incredibly huge, the level design is such that there are tons of hills, mountains, huge tree roots that you can get lost in--the world has vertical and horizontal depth and variety, and it's definitely not copy and pasted. The music is lovely, here's the Sylvalum area theme music.

In fact, I'll have to revise my top 10 favorite games list to include XCX.

When Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was featured in the initial Nintendo Switch presentation, it looked really bad in terms of the art direction and game concept, so I was rather upset and not at all interested in it. However, recently, the Nintendo Direct showed gameplay, and the game looks fantastic. If you watch the section where you customize the blades, the amount of choices and leveling is an RPG gamer's dream. I dare say that the level of RPG elements seem to be more in depth than one of my highly anticipated RPGs, Ni No Kuni 2.

At the same time, I'm still holding off on buying the Switch. But, because of this game, I actually might get a Switch if and only if:

1. They fix all the issues such as the console bending, dock scratching the screen, left joy-con desyncing and so forth.
2. Drastically reduced price as we're forced to buy a screen protector, memory card and pro controller.
3. There are ways to back-up your files on a USB thumb drive and/or cloud storage.
4. Realize that this is the only game I'll get for the system.

The price will have to be very low, as this game may be the only one I want for the system. Therefore, my previous advice on whether you should buy the Switch still holds true--if you REALLY need that one game, buy the Switch only if the above list holds true.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will be released on December 1.

The How of Happiness Review

Video Game Shoulds

I've felt a lot of guilt as I'm continuing to play Fortnite instead of Horizon Zero Dawn, taking advantage of the new DLC, The Frozen Wilds. In the back of my mind, I don't want to play it on a 1080p screen, rather, wanting to play it when I save enough money for LG's OLED 4k HDR TV, which will actually come down in price by the time I have enough cash for it! Further with the advent of 4K gaming, LG has patched their last year's models to have faster screen refresh rates, culminating with this current year's model with decent numbers. In other words, I feel that this game deserves to be played on the best TV screen possible.

Additionally, I'm compelled to continue with Fortnite after reading aFrequ's discussion on the Dragon Scorch Ninja, and having not just a new goal to work on, but an exciting one. It's fun to see the progression as I now have evolved Sarah Hotep to 3 stars, which increased her Dragon Slash damage numbers from, at that time 3,666 to now an impressive leap to 7679.2, with doubled AOE! Any time a game has an exciting goal to reach, it's very hard for me to stop the game and move onto the next one.

Coincidentally, I had an interesting discussion with one of my recommended Twitch Streamers, Hilly_ yesterday, about "Video Game Shoulds". The discussion came up as Hilly_ was demonstrating Borderlands 2, a game that he has played and mastered many times over. Indeed, Hilly_ completed a no-death run on hardest difficulty, and I believe it was solo at that.

During yesterday's stream, Hilly_ mentioned that he felt bad that he was demonstrating Borderlands 2 and Bloodborne a lot for his viewers, and for variety, maybe he should move onto other games. He then caught himself, and mentioned that he loves these games so much, and there's a sizable community that want to continue to watch these games, so why not continue in a win-win strategy? Indeed, all of us in his community want to watch these games.

This was a revelation, so I chimed in and said that yes, why move onto another game, when you're having so much fun playing your current one, even though you played it for so many hours and completed it so many times? We feel guilt because most of us have a backlog where we feel we should get around playing, but yet we're playing the same game(s) over and over again.

Hilly_ agreed as he felt that it doesn't make sense to just go to the next game with the attitude, "well I might as well get it over and done with". The point of playing video games is to enjoy the game and immerse yourself in the world. If it becomes a chore where guilt is saying you must finish the backlog, you're not going to enjoy gaming, which is the exact opposite of a hobby's purpose. Further, this is video games, it's not a life or death situation where if you don't work on your backlog, people are going to die and/or suffer.

Likewise, the discussion moved to achievement and trophy hunting, and how we often feel that we must get a particular achievement or trophy, even though they're not fun, but tedious. Again, it makes no sense for you to force yourself to reach a video game goal if it's not fun. Albeit, there are some games that I love so much, that I feel compelled to get a particular trophy, such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, even though it includes completing timed hunting trial missions, and I dislike timed missions. Interestingly, I ended up finding the timed trials kind of fun in the end. So, it was worth it to get a shiny Platinum for this masterpiece of a game as that particular trophy isn't arduous like quite a few achievements and trophies are.

I want to get a Platinum for Demon's Souls, the only Souls game that I never Platinum'd, but then I cringe, as getting that pure bladestone takes dozens of hours farming this one area, that the trophy doesn't seem meaningful like mastering fun hunting trial missions. It doesn't even take skill or any sense of accomplishment to get it, just pure dumb luck.

Conclusion: Play the video game that you want, regardless of how many hours you spent on it and how much backlog you have. I recommend following Hilly_ for his gaming insights and philosophy, as he will soothe your frayed nerves.

The How of Happiness Review

Fortnite Ninja Dragon Tips (Monday Musings 17)

Fortnite Hero Choices
I've been feverishly playing Fortnite, wanting to finish the new Halloween Event before Horizon: Zero Dawn's DLC, The Frozen Wilds, comes out, which is tomorrow. The Halloween Event is, uniquely generous to its long-suffering fans, as you can obtain epic and legendary heroes by just finishing various questlines. You also get tons of legendary cosplayer survivors (often even more important than heroes) from just opening up the Halloween Llama Pinatas. Lastly, you get guaranteed legendary weapons. Please be advised, the event ends November 29!

Who are the best heroes? The general consensus on all the most prominent top-tier lists, including WhiteSushi's, are either the Special Forces or Urban Assault soldiers. However, even before the buffing of all heroes, there was one hero that my friends were playing who seemed to mop up trash mobs, covering an area almost as wide as an AirStrike, and could prove better than Mystic Master Grenadier Ramirez that I'm dying to have, as his or her Dragon Slash has a cool down of only 10 seconds, whereas Ramirez's grenades have a cool down of a considerably longer 30 seconds. Further, this ninja has shurikens and smoke bombs that you can use offensively while waiting during your Dragon Slash's cool-down. That ninja is the Dragon Scorch Ninja and, his Halloween variant, Sarah Hotep Dragon Ninja. Note: WhiteSushi's work on weapons is fantastic.

For some reason, Dragon Scorch was considered one of the lower-tiered Ninjas on prominent tier lists, but I was very skeptical after seeing my friends, even before the buff, mop up large trash mobs, so seeing is believing, and academic crunching of the numbers to get to where Dragon Scorch is one of the worst Ninjas simply didn't add up to real-life experiences.

In the meantime, I got the Halloween legendary version, Sarah Hotep Ninja Dragon, and was absolutely delighted, because she has the same exact comical lines as her Outlander counterpart, making fun of wall smashers, taunting them as Ham-Fisted (and I never noticed, but their left fists do look like hams) and Tiny-Footed Wall Puncher (again, never noticing until she made fun of them, but they do have small feet), as well as other sarcastic lines that I mentioned in this post.

Because I didn't have enough Hero experience to level her up, I got her at level 10/10 (1 star) and she was outperforming my legendary Special Forces Ramirez who was level 30/30 (3 stars), precisely because of her ability to mop up large areas and numbers of trash mobs. Although I died as Sarah Hotep a couple of times due to lower health and shield (and rarely die as Ramirez but she's at 3 stars), my combat scores were higher than Ramirez.

I was surprised that I even beat my friend in combat but only one time (he's literally 20 levels lower than me, but always beats me in combat) using Sarah Hotep, albeit, this is unfair as he was using the lackluster Outlander, who has the weakest offense. Of course, if he were using his Dragon Ninja, he would outperform me by multiplier 2 at the very least.

Exhibit A: Hero Load Out

I realized that I found my hero, and no longer wanting Mythic Master Grenadier Ramirez as much as I did! Further, this is Sarah who's absolutely hysterical. Since I wanted to see how to maximize her potential, I scoured the internet and came up with aFrequ's reddit posts.

I trust him, on recommended Ninjas, and which heroes to put in your Ninja's support and technical slots, as well as damage numbers and weapon recommendations, as he and his friend were using the two best Ninjas successfully in level 100+ missions. This real-life testing is much more valuable and realistic than the academic exercise of crunching numbers, and "feeling" that the Dragon Scorch is the worst ninja. I also used his Tech Breakpoints for Late Game as reference.

Hero Loadout For Your Dragon: aFrequ found that putting Epic Shuriken Master Llamurai

(Purple) at 4/5 stars in the left slot and Legendary Master Llamurai (Orange) at 5/5 stars in the right slot, as well as beefing up your tech, your Dragon Ninja at 5/5 stars will be viable in highest level missions in Twine (last area of early access). Fortunately, I have both epic and legendary Llamurai's as I was choosing Ninja's, but happily managed to easily land a legendary Urban Assault Soldier during this awesome Halloween Event. Easily in the sense that yes, you have to grind, but no, it's not RNG, being that Epic Game's RNG is such that it's almost impossible to get the ones that you want. See Exhibit A.

However, I noticed that when I switched the Shurikens so the Legendary is on the left, and Epic

Exhibit B: My Hero Load Out

is on the right, the Legendary gave higher ability damage percentage at 20% versus 15%, so my load-out is reversed. See Exhibit B. Note: This is after I revised this post, so my Sarah Hotep is now evolved to 3 stars!

The rationale of using these particular heroes is that aFrequ notices that anyone can get all three of these Ninja heroes as long as you play the Halloween Event, so this is due to practical considerations. Further, by placing the Llamurai's in those two slots, you increase your hero's ability damage modifier (HAD), so Dragon Slash ability can one-shot trash mobs of elemental husks even at level 100+ missions. Exhibit A/B is how your heroes should be arranged.

Of course, you will have the Halloween variants, but they are the exact same as Dragon Scorch and Master Shuriken, just reskins. Interestingly, at the highest level missions, the epic version needs only be evolved up to 4/5 stars, as aFrequ notes that most people don't evolve Epics to 5/5 given the grind to get there, so it makes more sense to max out your Legendary instead.  Obviously, it would be better to have the Epic at 5/5, and ideally both of them being Legendary's at 5/5 each. Again, the appreciation here is that aFrequ is interested in making sure that you can achieve his advised load-outs, which you can through the Halloween event. Indeed, the odds of getting Legendary Llamurai/Shuriken x 2 is pretty minimal.

Exhibit C: Damage Numbers

Damage Numbers: With the two Llamurai's lined up, your HAD stays the same at 2039%. The AD numbers change depending on the level husks. For instance, to 1-shot elemental husks in level 76 missions, your AD should be about 932%. The AD number goes up to around 2493% in level 100 missions. You'll find your HAD and AD numbers by going to your hero menu, click L3 analog stick for All Stats. Scroll down under "Combat" category, and you'll see the numbers for HAD, AD, as well as Energy, Energy Regen Rate, and Max Effective Weapon Level. Exhibit C shows aFrequ's numbers--fortunately your AD doesn't have to be as high as aFrequ's, but it needs to be around 2493% for level 100 missions.

As of this post, my HAD is 654% and AD 491% so I have a ways to go in achieving those numbers (these numbers are when Hotep was either 1 or 2 stars).

Survivor Tech Squad: In addition to leveling up your Dragon, you can boost your AD numbers through the Survivor Tech Squad. aFrequ mentions the importance of your squad survivors, and getting your tech squad members at the highest star ratings possible. I was relieved to find that it's better to put legendary survivors (regardless of mismatch personalities to the lead survivor) than your epic survivors with matched personalities, because when you reach 3 stars, your legendary's put up better numbers than epic with matched personalities. Again, I appreciate his advice as you get TONS of legendary cosplay survivors during the Halloween event, that you can slot them in your tech spots. He also notes that you don't have to worry about having matched abilities. Therefore, just slot any of your legendary survivors in the tech spots, so no more worrying about matching things!

Dragon Slash Final Number: By beefing up your tech squad and placing the correct heroes in your support and tech spots, you should get these hard numbers for your Dragon Slash.

Exhibit D: Dragon Slash Final Number

Your Dragon Slash should reach around 75,240 damage to one-shot elemental husks in level 100 missions. To find this number, go to your Hero menu and "upgrade/inspect", and look under Perks and see Dragon Slash. It should look like this (Exhibit D). aFrequ's Dragon Slash is an impressive 89522.5. My value is 3,666, but I'm only in Plankerton.

Weapon Loadout: aFrequ recommends Stabworth the IIIrd, as it's the fastest sword in the game for your highest level missions, and Super Shredder for killing the larger and stronger mist monsters. I can vouch for the Super Shredder, as I recall being level 15 or so, being carried by my level 40 friends, doing level 40+ missions, and the Super Shredder was the one weapon that was holding its own, even over the Nocturno. For now, I'm using the Founder's Legendary Masamune for my edged weapon, as it has better rolls than my Stabworth, since I'm not at the highest levels.

Even so, I have a feeling that at highest levels, my Masamune might outperform the Stabworth, as the Masamune has both fire and energy damage as well as high crit chance and other great rolls, whereas my Stabworth has sad mediocre rolls such as improved weapon degradation, and only doing extra damage to enemies when they have status effects. However, if you don't have a sword with good rolls, then I would certainly take aFrequ's advice and use the Stabworth when you reach very high level missions, which I think was also easy to obtain during this Halloween event.

That being said, I'm concerned that Epic Games will nerf Dragon Scorch and Sarah Hotep to the ground. But in preparation for that, I still have Special Forces Ramirez. I also have the Legendary Urban Assault whom I got during this unique and unusually generous event!

Conclusion: Completing the Halloween event is a must as you get guaranteed highest-tier heroes, legendary cosplay survivors and legendary weapons. With further grind, your Dragon Ninja will be viable in the highest-level missions. The event ends November 29.

Thank you aFrequ for all of your hard work and sharing!

The How of Happiness Review

delinquentMuse Twitch: No-Brainer to Subscribe

Exhibit A: Stitch Prints

I noticed on delinquentMuse's Twitch 's description page that if you're a subscriber of her channel for 24 months, that is when your Muse tattoo icon is filled up, that you're entitled to a handwritten note, a free autographed print, and then a free print every 4 months thereafter. I was excited about this prospect as I have a few more months to go to reach that milestone.

However, during one of Muse's streams when she was playing South Park: The Fractured But Whole, she mentioned that anyone who subscribes to her channel gets a free Butters print.

Despite not being a new subscriber (as I thought this was a "promotional event"), I then asked her if I can get a Butters print, as he's the only likeable party member in the game. Not only did Muse apologize, she also said that in addition to the coveted Butters print, she owed me several more prints, and that I can chose amongst her collection. Since Lilo and Stitch is one of my favorite Disney Movies, I requested the two Stitch prints, as displayed in her Disney art page link. One where he's holding up an "I 💗 U" sign, and the other, his sitting pose

Exhibit B: Butters

This week, I received a handwritten note from Muse. I didn't include a picture of it in this post, as Muse's notes are specifically personal and not the generic "Thank You for your Support".  I also received the promised autographed post-card sized prints.

I expected only the 2 Stitch prints that I requested from Muse as mentioned above, but I received a total of four Stitch prints, including an adorable Halloween-themed one of both Lilo and Stitch (BFFs), which you can see in the picture. This is "Exhibit A".

Exhibit C: Extra Prints!

In "Exhibit B", the Butters print is also not just adorable, but perfect for any South Park or non-South Park fan. 

The last picture, "Exhibit C" includes the extra 2, which was also unexpected, and included my namesake, Alice In Wonderland.

Of course, I will place these valuable prints in my video game collectibles corner!

Conclusion: The delinquentMuse Twitch stream is more notable for her wonderful, warm, generous, loving presence and community, but I felt that the art prints may sway you all into subscribing as well.

The How of Happiness Review