Happy to Say I'm Completely Wrong About Sekiro! (Monday Musings 74)

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Masterpiece?

I am so happy to say that I'm 100% wrong about Sekiro. I watched my streamer friends and the gameplay looks incredible. It has the same meticulous combat as the prior Souls games, and perhaps melee mechanics as complex as Nioh. At that time, I found Nioh actually having better combat mechanics than Souls series, but suffering from graphics causing migraine, lack of level design, limited variety of enemies, and being unbalanced at the last area as described here.

Perhaps the saltiness in my assessment is not only stemming from Activision, the review embargo not lifting until the day prior to release (so if the reviews are negative, pre-orders can't be readily canceled), but I feel my bitterness is mostly rooted in not being able to afford Sekiro at this stage, after doing taxes with my accountant.

What I'm planning to do is to take charge of my finances with All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren. I recall when I followed her program faithfully, I was able to max out my IRA contributions, having emergency savings, and having fun money to spend on whatever I want!

I will hopefully post a synopsis of what I consider the best personal finance book I've read (and I've read numerous titles), including sample worksheets that the average American will have, such as internet, utilities and food, to see if this book is doable for the average American income at 24K (perhaps 20K after taxes). 

Since I won't be playing Sekiro until much later, given my continued addiction to Assassin's Creed Odyssey, as well as working on my backlog of 100 games, I'm going to wait until the complete bundled edition comes out at reduced price. The benefits of waiting later is further described here.

I'm hoping to finish this All Your Worth post for the next Monday Musings, but for now, I'd like to conclude that Sekiro is exactly the game that I would love and find a masterpiece. 

The How of Happiness Review

Sekiro Only From Software Game I'm Not Pre-Ordering (Monday Musings 73)

In general, it's always best to wait until the about to be released game comes out much later with a complete bundled package, including all the DLCs, because at that time, the price comes down from $60 to the more affordable $20 or $30. Further, patches would have been out by now that will fix the glitches. 

Therefore, not only will the game be cheaper in price, but you get more content for less money, and a more polished experience! Additional benefit is, during that period of time, you can watch others play the game, to make sure you really want it.

However, there are some games that I have to pre-order and play right away, and those are the From software games. I played and fell in love with Demon's and Dark Souls years after release, Dark Souls being my favorite game. Therefore, I had to pre-order Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, as I played them on day of release. It was worth the full price, even as Bloodborne eventually became free for Playstation Plus (PS+) subscribers.

The only other thing I can think of in terms of pre-ordering is to get the preordered bonus content, but usually the bonus content doesn't justify buying the game now, rather than waiting for the complete and more affordable game to come out.

Sekiro just didn't appeal to me, as it won't have the RPG elements and character building that I've come to love in video games. This has gotten to the point where it was hard for me to play games other than RPGs.

I know I've been whinging about Sekiro since it was introduced back in E3 2018, but I hope that I'm 100% wrong about this game. If my friends really love the game, I'll be sure to wait until the complete bundled package arrives - usually From Software comes out with future DLCs.

What are your thoughts about pre-ordering and will you pre-order Sekiro?

The How of Happiness Review

Bimonthly Progress Report For My Twitch Channel, FuzzyJCats, Dec 25 through March 1

Twitch Channel FuzzyJCats

This is a much overdue monthly report! I've also decided to make it easier to remember by writing the report on the first day of the month, so progress will be discussed up through today, March 1.

Also, as I'm only streaming 2 times/week, I've decided to make these bimonthly progress reports as not much change occurs in only 8 streams.

Since Christmas, I have improved in terms of being able to multi-task without any preparation almost as smoothly as when I'm fully prepared, that is being in good health and having exercised before streaming! I recall when I first started streaming, I was flustered and struggled whenever anything goes awry, and my resilience in streaming has improved over the months of practice.

Therefore, I can stream more spontaneously, and as a result, I streamed after work yesterday, when I tend to be completely brain dead, and it wasn't a bad performance!

I felt that by streaming after work and having my days off to do whatever I need or want to do, it will improve my lifestyle. The issue with work is that I dread having to get up and being tied to a schedule as well as paperwork. But if I have streaming to look forward to, it would make me look just a little bit forward to work, rather than having that sinking feeling.

It's more ideal to be able to live in the moment and enjoy the day off before work, but that's easier said than done. Instead, I think about how I have to get up and be rushed to go to work, which gives me a sense of dread. I'm the type of person who likes to do chores and responsibilities in a relaxed manner (again, something that I have to work on).

While getting to the ideal state of being able to live in the moment, and not being so non-plussed about being rushed to a schedule, I think streaming after work can help with not feeling as much dread, since again, it will be something that I look forward to.

I believe I have gotten over my issues with viewer numbers. Tired of having the post-it blocking my viewer numbers on screen, as it blocks the game, I decided to take off the post-it. The fact that I don't even notice the red viewer numbers flashing means that I'm immune to feeling one way or the other by these numbers!

However, there are times when I feel a little demoralized when I see that my Wed viewer counts aren't as high as my Sun numbers, and noticing that my average concurrent viewers over the months haven't really increased, but remained stable at around 10.

Even so, I believe that not caring about the viewer numbers while live shows progress and also helps with gameplay as I can see the more of the game.

The other thing that came up as an improvement is that in the past, I streamed because it forced me to exercise - but now I no longer need to exercise before streaming. Furthermore, before I came down with current bronchitis, there were quite a few days when I exercised when I didn't have to stream! Now that I no longer need streaming to force me to exercise, the only reason for me to stream is if and only if I find it fun!

I believe I was burned out at one point and decided to stop Twitch completely since I got deeply involved in a niche Japanese RPG game, Atelier Sophie. During that time, I was thinking, wouldn't it be nice if I can spend more time playing video games with complete focus and immersion on my days off than having to stream!

However, I then felt guilt that if I stopped streaming altogether, it'll be unfair to my viewers who subscribed to me - they're paying monthly fees to watch me - and I feel that I need to give them their money's worth.

Whenever I have to do something out of duty and responsibility, it tends to be a wet blanket. I don't know what changed and made me find streaming a joy again - perhaps it was taking off a week due to getting chest cold - because streaming the past 2 days in a row was a joy!

In other words, anytime I feel that streaming is a burden and an obligation, that will be a sign to me to take some time off - hopefully I can stream a couple of more times just to give the community a heads up that I'm going to take a break. 

When I was caring about viewer numbers, however, I joined stream teams and found out that they tend to have extreme favoritism, where members who may not support but are friends reap all the viewer numbers. I've noticed quite a few members who support the leaders of these stream teams through buying and gifting subs, bits, and donations, yet had low concurrent viewers. On the flip side, those who are friends (despite not supporting at all) had very large numbers, despite the quality of streams between the two groups being more or less the same.

As a result, I stopped making these stream teams my main team. Fortunately, I'm not going to fall for these stream teams anymore since I'm more or less able to not care about my viewer numbers as evidenced by no longer needing post-it to block these numbers during broadcast.

I still need to work on habits such as making a cluck sound at times when I complete a thought, and again decreasing filler words. Making sure my eyes go back and forth from game to chat has not come naturally by any means. There're still quite a few times when I get so enthralled in the game that I forget to look at chat, or I get too involved in chat, that gameplay comes to a grinding halt.

Progress made:

• Being able to change my schedule after work to improve quality of life - I can multi-task almost as well even if I'm not in perfect condition thanks to months of streaming practice.
• Streaming is no longer a "crutch" to force myself to exercise as I no longer need to exercise before streaming, AND I was exercising on days when I wasn't streaming.
• Therefore, only reasons for streaming are for fun and obligation to paid subscribers.
• Recognizing if I feel burnout, taking time off is a must!
• No longer caring about seeing viewer numbers while streaming, no longer needing to block off screen with post-its, so gaming is easier and more pleasant with greater visiblity.
• Recognizing stream teams to gain followers don't work - no longer buying into stream teams that promise increased viewer numbers, but end up showing extreme favoritism.

Improvements to be made:

• The usual being able to chat and gameplay at same time (this is not habit yet).
• Decreasing filler words and vocal "tics".
• Continuing to not care at all about numbers.

The How of Happiness Review