Good Morning, Friends. I apologize for not blogging, but this seventh round of chemotherapy has pretty well debilitated me in both mind and body, and I am honestly barely holding in there. I got them to add an extra week to recover, so I am hoping that will make the final round doable. The main problem is that I am never fully recovering from one round before the next one starts. Anyways since I have been stuck on the couch most of this time, I have been playing a lot of both Path of Exile II due to the new 0.5 league, and more recently a lot of Path of Exile 1 due to the Phrecia event. I think I have landed on some of the reasons why mapping just has never felt as good in POE2 as it does in POE1. So we are going to go on a journey where I rant a lot, but I will try my best not to go too far off the deep end. ## Too Much Ground Clutter The biggest problem I have with POE2 maps is that they have too much bullshit on the ground that clips and blocks your model from moving. For example, the above picture is from POE1 and has plenty of ground clutter, but none of it blocks your model from moving freely. I have no clue why GGG decided to fuck this up by making the smallest of stupid items on the ground clip your model and block your progress. It feels extremely bad to keep getting hung up on terrain and not understanding which tiny object is doing it. ## No Agency in Map Choice In Path of Exile, you have complete control over the maps you run. If there is a specific layout that you enjoy, you can literally run nothing but that map for your entire league. This was even improved further more recently as they added generic maps per tier that you can just run with whatever map layout you choose. In Path of Exile II, you instead have biomes and maps associated with those biomes, and if you want to path through an area, you have no control over what maps you end up running. This feels like a massive step backwards and a universally worse experience. I feel like they were trying to go with a delve-like experience, but delve only works because it is micro bursts of activity. ## Maps are Roughly Twice as Big This is something that I have noticed coming back to POE1… the maps on POE2 are just too damned large. They are roughly twice as big as your average POE1 map, and as a result just take too long to complete. You spend so much of your time searching for those last few rares, or last mechanics, that it kind of ruins the super chill head-down mapping experience. It would be different if that extra space meant extra fun, but so much of it is just filled with generic packs that don’t do anything but block your progress. ## Variable Number of Portals This is one of those things that I personally hate, but no clue if anyone else does. In Path of Exile, you have six portals per map. It feels like about the ideal number of attempts, and honestly makes me willing to try maps at greater difficulty because I know I have a safety net to fall back on if I die. Path of Exile II, however, reduces the number of portals you have based on how juicy you have rolled your map, with each affix removing a portal. So it creates this situation where you are either playing one of the immortal builds of the league, or you are running all of your maps on blue. You can look at POE.Ninja and see that every league tends to end up with the entire player base running a specific immortal build. Right now, 23% of the player base is essentially playing the exact same martial artist build, with 15% playing the same Spiritwalker build. 12% are playing gemling legionaire in a few different spell damage configurations, and 9% are playing Fubgun’s Deadeye build. So roughly 60% of players are playing builds that are either effectively immortal or have so much damage potential that they are. I can’t say this is due to the limited portals, but it certainly is not helping. You can exist on a janky build in POE1… that is not really a thing in POE2. ## Failing a Boss Wipes Your Map Another insult-to-injury aspect of POE2 mapping is that if you do a boss rush strategy and fail to kill the map boss, all content on the map will be wiped. No more rares, no more mechanics, just a bricked map that you are likely going to have to redo. My natural path through these dumb maps is to work around the corner until I find a boss, kill said boss, and then use the guidance that gets turned on to find the rest of the content. God forbid you end up with a tanky boss that gets a lucky slam against you… Oftentimes, because you are getting hung up on bullshit ground clutter, you end up with a bricked map. It just feels awful. Mapping is supposed to be this relatively chill activity, and Path of Exile II has mostly ruined that. It is better than it was, but it still feels awful. ## Atlas Passive Tree Still Bad One of the big changes that came with 0.5.0 is updates to the Atlas Passive tree, and I admit it is a massive improvement over the Passive Twigs that we had previously. The problem I have, though, is that it fails at being an Atlas Passive Tree and mostly only allows you to impact things that don’t really matter. In Path of Exile 1, we have three Atlas Passive Trees, and each of them more or less allows you to force three league mechanics onto every single map that you run. This is phenomenal for your average alch and go player, and allows them to target specific clusters of league mechanics that work well together. The equivalent of this in POE2 is tablets… which end up being ridiculously expensive. So the general investment required to run specific league mechanics goes through the roof. Who cares how many lockboxes or spirits you can force onto your map when you cannot reliably force a league mechanic through the passive skill tree? All of these are reasons why mapping feels worse in Path of Exile II. Do I think this post will change anything? Not at all. There is a clear design space that they are working on at GGG for POE2, and I think it just isn’t what I wanted. I just hope they continue to support the original game, because really, it is the one that I enjoy. POE2 is generally something I mess around with when I am bored more than anything else. It just isn’t as good of a game as the original. ### Share this: * Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * More * * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * ### Like this: Like Loading… ### _Related_

I am still playing a heck of a lot of Guild Wars 2. Last night I spent my evening doing sibling time with Ace, and I feel bad for how not into GW2 they are…. yet I continue to talk about it. I managed to catch Tequatl last night, which always makes me happy. This is, without a doubt, my favorite event in the game. I think it was legitimately one of the first events that I stumbled onto on my own, and I have loved it ever since. I have also had better-than-average luck at getting ascended gear. In fact, I have a few coffers in the bank waiting to be used by someone. At some point, I need to start properly working on legendary armor sets. I, of course, had to set loose the Pineapple Choya. These are, without a doubt, the best parts of the Castoria housing, and I have to set them free anytime I am in housing collecting my harvest nodes. Basically, right now I am only playing Belgraves, my hunter, for dailies and assorted reset collection. I have my housing, then three guild halls to collect resources from. Additionally, I have a bunch of characters parked at various chests around the world. These are mostly for collecting rare resources that can only be gotten daily. The level of detail in this game and the systems within systems is one of the things that attracts me. However, in talking with Ace, one of the biggest problems is how far behind you feel when you are just starting out. I’ve been spending most of my time on Belglorian, my spearbender guardian. At this point, I have completed four of the Human zones, four of the Norn zones, and last night I spent the majority of my time doing world completion. I am currently working on the final Norn zone, and at some point will return to the Human lands and pick up the final zone there. This is still the chillest activity in any game, I swear. There is just something relaxing about following the marker to all of the objectives that I have not completed. I think I am over halfway through the zone I am working on. Over in Path of Exile II, I have now made it far enough to collect the free passive skill that comes from a player having sacrificed their level 100 character to the void. I really think this concept is cool, that one player in each league can sacrifice themselves to give everyone an extra passive. I have been grinding away on my Raven RF Witch, trying to get it to level 90 and knock out one of the achievements. The build works well enough, but is nowhere near as broken as some of the other popular builds in this league. I had to drop one of my minions, which was a bit of a bummer, but I picked up Morior Invictus to greatly increase my survivability. It is unfortunate that this one chest piece is better than pretty much anything else in the game. All of this said, I am very likely dropping POE2 entirely tomorrow when the Trial of the Ancestors Returns event happens in Path of Exile. The big thing about this event is that we get back Trial of the Ancestors, but with the Phrecia ascendancies. The big thing about it is that we are getting these alternate ascendancies without the bullshit that is the Gauntlet, and without the Idol-based Atlas passives. I played a Poison SRS build on the Servant of Arakali build during the gauntlet and had a lot more fun, but would have had way more fun if I could have just played it in a normal league. As a result, I am resurrecting BelLovesArakaali and seeing how far I can take it without all of the restrictions. The event starts at 5 pm CDT, and I am hoping I can get back from chemo, take a nap, and be ready for the launch. Have you made a return to Guild Wars 2? Are you still playing Path of Exile II? Are you going to try the upcoming Phrecia event tomorrow? Drop me a line below. ### Share this: * Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * More * * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * ### Like this: Like Loading… ### _Related_

I’ve been a big fan of Spryfox games since I got hooked on Alphabear, and have played at least a bit of every game released since then. One of the games that I had looked forward to was Spirit Crossing, right up until the point that I found it was initially going to be mobile only. While I play games on my phone, I have no interest in playing a game as complicated as Genshin Impact on that device. So I waited and have apparently been rewarded with that patience, as you can now join the Steam Playtest. Mo was faster on the uptake on this one, but I joined in starting Sunday morning. Last night we played together during our regularly scheduled sibling time, and the game is a heck of a lot of fun with other players. One of the first things that happens to you as a new arrival is that you are tossed straight into a storm. These are the only real dangeous encounters in the game, and there are these giant spirits that remind me of the Hollows from Bleach. Essentially, during a storm, your stamina does not regenerate, and I have not pushed my luck to see what happens if I stay out in the storm for too long. During this first storm, a spirit gets damaged, and your initial mission is to try to help her out by collecting fragments that were knocked out of her in the crash landing. It would not be a Spryfox game if you were not immediately introduced to a rather losenge shaped bear. The lost bear ultimately becomes Roomie, your mildly curmudgeon room mate and guide to helping you figure out how to repair Maya. The only annoying thing about the game is that you are time-gated not only in the collection of resources, but also in questing. For example, I have a quest right now telling me to go somewhere…. but the somewhere is not available to me, and I figure logging back in today will grant me access. This is very much the sort of game where you want to play a little bit of it every single day. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, in that it ultimately limits how much time I need to spend in-game each day. The collection mostly comes in the form of a harvest mini game, where a small ring will appear on the screen, and you are supposed to hit the E button when another ring appears within that space. Not all collection functions like this, for example, you can just pick up flowers and fruit, but ore and wood specifically require you to play this game. The more you harvest, the more skills you gain, allowing you to upgrade your tools and, as such, harvest more difficult things. The pickaxe and axe have upgraded rather quickly, but others like the shovels, machete, and shears have gotten almost no progress. I need to roam around aimlessly a bit more in the entry lands because I think there is more of the low-level vines that you use with your machete. I am having a heck of a lot of fun. It very much lives in the “cozy MMO” genre like Pokopia and Animal Crossing. It seems like anyone can sign up for testing currently via the Steam page. However, if that changes, here is a sign-up code that I was able to generate from my account. If you are at all interested in this sort of game, I highly suggest checking it out. Weirdly, it reminds me of Guild Wars 2 if you took out the combat elements. I think this is probably the heavy reliance on gliders to get around, and the core focus on harvesting materials, both of which I do plenty in GW2. Clearly, I need more real-world friends in-game because there are things that need four players to optimize. Probably my favorite aspect of the game is what happens when a storm comes into the wilderness. Players flock around a fire to wait it out, and inevitably, someone starts playing music. You can then join in with your own instrument and play a jaunty tune to pass the time. The players that show up as shadowy are folks you have not introduced yourself to. I’ve made it my mission to try to introduce myself to every player around the fires so that I can see more friends on the map when I am doing stuff. Making random friends is deeply charming. Eventually, you get the ability to trade gifts with other players, which will increase your friendship levels. What this actually means in the grand scheme of things, I don’t really know, other than some gifts are gated by this level. Anyway, if anything I have said interests you, then I highly suggest you check out Spirit Crossing. ### Share this: * Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * More * * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * ### Like this: Like Loading… ### _Related_

Good Morning, Folks. This is going to be one of my imageless real-world blog posts. It has been a bit since I last gave an update on the joy that is dealing with cancer. This has been a ride that I would not wish on anyone. So many of the issues that I have had have been hard to pin down the actual source. I dealt with blood pressure issues that caused me to drop down to round 70/40. I’ve struggled with anemia and, for a while, was being fed iron supplements that really helped quite a bit. However, my numbers came up, and my “dealers” cut me off. The constant through line, unfortunately, has been that I keep losing energy and stamina and feel like I can’t really do much of anything without long pauses in between activities. My usual morning looks a little something like this. I get up and go to the restroom… then take a break before feeding the animals. Then I get up again and take my meds, fix a water, and then take another break. After that, I usually hit the shower, which will require pauses after getting out of the shower before getting dressed. Then another break before going into the kitchen and figuring out something for breakfast, and then finally landing on the sofa where I am parked for a bit and start doing work, or like this morning, banging out a blog post. All of this is stuff that used to be trivial to do, but now feels daunting. I hate the way that my body has betrayed me, but it seems that I have also betrayed myself in the process. I was put on tirzepatide around the start of this process because losing weight would both help with complications from the surgery and also make it easier to deal with radiation. I have no clue how many weeks I have taken it, but today was an injection day, and I have effectively gone through one vial from the compounding pharmacy and eight vials from the drug manufacturer via mail order. So my guess is about 14 weeks, as I think I got six weeks out of that first vial of magical serum. My friend is also on tirzepatide and has had all manner of complications, but luckily, as far as I can tell, I have not… or at least they pale in comparison to what it is like to go through chemo. At this point, I have lost around 70 lbs, and need to lose at least 20 more before I am truly ready for radiation. One of the things that you need to understand about tirzepatide is that you lose your concept of what hungry feels like. I do not mean to say that I don’t get hungry often, or that my hunger has lessened… but instead that the concept of hunger no longer exists in my world. I have no biological censor telling me that I should be eating food. Instead, I try to feed myself on a regimented basis to make sure that I do not miss a meal. I occasionally get cravings, but the problem is that I cannot eat anywhere near as much food as what a modern delivery meal ends up being. So instead, I carve that up into at least two meals, if not sometimes three meals. I tend to order something that I can eat on for a while and then ration that out into individual servings. For example, I have some large chicken chunks and potato wedges from my favorite chicken joint, and I will have a few chunks and a few potatoes and call it a meal. The other thing that you need to know is that eating is physically painful for the first several days of a chemotherapy cycle. It isn’t that it causes indigestion or anything simple to fix like that… but instead that I have pretty severe jaw pain any time I attempt to eat or drink something. This means that when you combine it with my lack of hunger, I end up trying to eat the most nutrient-dense thing I can possibly scarf down so that I don’t hurt for long. Lately, this has been the humble protein/granola bar. I was eating these for most meals… which means that I was also not getting a ton of total calories for someone my size. I was trying my best to survive… but I have come to realize that I was effectively starving myself, which made the weakness and fatigue all the more awful. Once I started forcing myself to eat at least two decent-sized meals a day… my strength began to improve significantly. So essentially, without meaning to, I have been starving myself. I need to sort out some options to have on hand that are more calorie-dense than a protein bar but equally easy to consume. I’ve contemplated leaning on my old friend, the humble oatmeal packet. I used to fix that for breakfast regularly, and was pretty partial to the brown sugar variant. I am also wondering if I need to start tracking my caloric intake, not from a dieting standpoint, but more from making sure that I am getting enough. I’ve been on tirzepatide long enough that the concept of hunger is a distant memory. It had some other benefits, like generally quieting my busy mind and letting me focus more deeply on things. As such, I am pretty sure I will be on this for the rest of my life. I just need to strike a better balance with figuring out what a proper portion of something looks like, because whereas I used to be on the side of eating too much… I am now apparently in the opposite extreme of eating too little. Anyways, love you all and appreciate all of the support you have given me. I figured it was time for a proper update on life. I will begin my sixth round of chemo tomorrow, so keep me in your thoughts so that the side effects are not too awful this time around. ### Share this: * Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * More * * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * ### Like this: Like Loading… ### _Related_