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You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. It all started with the release of Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following articles/books/videos as a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoin created and they are issued in a predictable fashion per the inflation schedule. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown tells you how much time until the next drop in block rewards.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read and contribute to the source code yourself.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoin resides has the authority to move them.
Low fee scaling - Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view fee estimates and mempool activity if you want to set your fee manually. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Secure - Blocks and transactions are cryptographically secured (using hashes and signatures) and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
Nearly instant - From a few seconds on the lightning network to a few minutes on-chain depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible by normal users after one confirmation and irreversible by anyone (including miners) after 6 confirmations.
Portable - Bitcoin are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can be transported by simply carrying a seed (a string of 12 to 24 words) on a device or by memorizing it for wallet recovery (while cool, memorizing is generally not recommended due to potential for forgetting the seed and the potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for most users for their ease of use and additional security).
Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
Bitcoin.org and BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
You can also purchase in cash with local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Bitwage. Note: Bitcoin are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Securing your bitcoin
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoin OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoin for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended.
If you cannot afford a hardware wallet there are many software wallet options to choose from depending on your use case. Mobile wallets like BlueWallet are generally more secure than desktop wallets. Beware of fake mobile wallets and check reviews from reputable Bitcoin websites. Avoid paper wallets or brain wallets.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini or Unchained Capital but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk. There is a saying in the community, "Not your keys, not your coins" meaning if you don't store your coins in a wallet that you control the keys to then you do not really own your bitcoin as you have to ask permission from the third party in order to move them.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code or a physical security key to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes. Avoid using your cell number for 2FA. Hackers have been using a technique called "SIM swapping" to impersonate users and steal bitcoin off exchanges.
Physical security keys (FIDO U2F) offer stronger security than Google Auth / Authy and other TOTP-based apps, because the secret code never leaves the device and it uses bi-directional authentication so it prevents phishing. If you lose the device though, you could lose access to your account, so always use 2 or more security keys with a given account so you have backups. See Yubikey or Titan to purchase security keys. Both Coinbase and Gemini support physical security keys.
Watch out for scams
As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the r / btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. As they say in our community, "Don't trust, verify".
Avoid using ad-based search engines like Google or Yahoo: ads are shown based on how much the advertiser bids, and scammers can easily outbid legitimate providers for ad space, since immoral ways of earning money are far more lucrative than moral ways. Use DuckDuckGo instead, which has no ads, and never tracks you as well.
Ignore private messages offering services.
Never enter your seed words in a website of any kind. Hardware wallets will recover by displaying possible seed words on their own interface, never on a website.
Always check addresses on your hardware wallet before sending or receiving. Some malware has been known to replace addresses in your web browser or that you copy-and-paste.
Avoid clicking on links like that look like links, such as https://www.google.com/, without first hovering over it and actually checking where they go to. Just because a link is labelled with an HTTPS address does not mean it actually sends you to that address. It is trivial for someone to comment a link on Reddit that looks like it will send you to one website when it actually sends you to another, and you might not notice the difference until a scammer has gotten all your money, or you have downloaded and installed software that steals your money.
Common Bitcoin Myths
Often the same concerns arise about Bitcoin from newcomers. Questions such as:
Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
Will governments ban Bitcoin?
Will quantum computers break Bitcoin?
All of these questions have been answered many times by a variety of people. Here are some resources where you can see if your concern has been answered:
Check out spendabit or bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the CashApp card or Fold card. Some other useful site are listed below.
Gift cards for thousands of retailers worldwide including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoin can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read the mining FAQ. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node. You can view the global node distribution for a visual representation of the node network.
Earning bitcoin
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoin by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoin by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoin for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoin).
Bitcoin-Related Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
bitcoin
BTC
1 bitcoin
one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC)
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.001 BTC
1 mBTC
1,000 bits
100k sats
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
GME Original Analysis and Thesis for why I bought in at $13.
Evernote link for better formatting https://www.evernote.com/shard/s406/sh/c770a0f8-21e9-75b5-9fa1-8afe83712c8a/b5c179b3717cccf990bd14b187d71dce Thesis: With the advent of online gaming and e-sport, Gamestop is prime to make a turnaround and grow again assuming it will change direction and adapt post Covid. The support of Ryan Cohen, a e-commerce marketing guru, has brought hope to a once-beloved brand and ignited the flame of this reality. The stock is also enticing because of its 138% short interest which is the highest percentage in the market. Thus, a remote chance of a short squeeze could occur. *Majority of investors do actually believe in the company and is not in it for just the short squeeze opportunity. * Background: Gamestop was once the most prolific gaming retailer in the brick and mortar time period. They made their profits by rebuying used games/gaming paraphernalia at low prices and marking them up greatly. They relied mainly on foot traffic due to a subpar online presence and they were slow to change. The low price and convenience of online shopping had won over shoppers causing the demise of brick and mortar. Large brands started disappearing left and right and now it was Gamestop's turn with a boost from Covid. Investors wrote GameStop off as a dinosaur company with its shares eventually dropping to $2.5 dollar. Results: Hedge funds saw this and decided to go short on them, betting on their demise like all the others. The funds abused the mechanism of the market to cause a large selling pressure onto the stock, forcing the stock price down and accelerating the demise. Could this be manipulation? If a hedge fund were to short a company out of spite, they could very possibly bankrupt a company. How did Gamestop survive for so long? Even though they weren't raking in e-commerce profit, they were still profitable. It was just that that profit stream was shrinking. The profits were also concentrated at a fraction of their stores. As they closed unprofitable stores, they were able to offset cost slightly. Investors were also holding on to the imminent release of the new console super cycle. Investors noted that the golden days were right after the new consoles were released and Dec 2020 couldn't come quicker. Gamestop was patience and managed their financials well with a strong balance sheet. Investors had underpriced the real estate of theirs. They were not valued for growth anymore so they weren't in a situation to raise capital risk free. They have several billions in short-term and long-term debt but they had 600 million cash in hand to cushion with. Lastly, the Nintendo switch had just came out and was the best selling gaming console ever. Gamestop rode the tailend of Nintendo success all through 2020 with Switch sales offsetting losses in the other gaming segments. https://www.evernote.com/shard/s406/res/8832d8fd-2fda-68ce-77ac-5ab3f362f936 The turnaround: A new management team had join in August 2019 that set to slim down the company. They were much more aggressive and sought to aggressively close stores. A comprehensive turnaround plan called GameStop ReBoot was announced with 4 elements:
Optimized the Core Business Reducing unprofitable stores and focusing on what works
Become the Social / Cultural Hub for Gaming Turning Gamestop into a experience center and not just a store
Build a Frictionless Digital Ecosystem Revamp the supply chain to be e-commerce focused
Transform Vendor Partnership Rekindle and make new partnerships
Like all new managements, this one needed time but unfortunately Covid complicated the plans. Investors became increasingly doubtful and even bearish. However, they had underestimated the future of gaming. The first significant move was bringing Reginald Fils-Aimé onto the board of directors. Reginald was known for his market prowess bring Nintendo to what it is today. Investors loved that. As Covid happened, working from home and home entertainment exploded. Logitech, Corsair, Bestbuy exploded. Online gaming was projected to be very ludicrous in the next decade and Covid had shorten this timeline. Online gaming took off. Activision, Electronic Arts, Zynga, Tencent all exploded. Apple app revenue from their gaming segment exploded. Investors had repriced these stocks higher taking advantage of the first player advantage. One notable company that changed in valuation was Logitech, they were a value company but relabeled to growth. What was missing from this list was Gamestop. The bullishness in gaming was there and everyone else profited. If there was hope of a GME turnaround, their valuation model would certainly flip to a growth model at higher PE multiples. It was only fair. The next big event that occurred was in October 2020. Gamestop announced a partnership with Microsoft which was the first real tangible milestone on the turnaround plan. Investors started to give the company a second look. Microsoft Partnership caused shares to rally 30% in a day. A bullish sign that the big players haven't given up. However this was short lived as shorts continue to drive the price down as there was no concrete details on the revenue sharing partnership, only that "for every Microsoft Xbox console that GameStop sells going forward, GameStop will get some percentage of the revenue from every digital full game download, DLC, microtransaction, and any subscriptions as well." To me this sounds very bullish that Microsoft still believes in Gamestop. Next came news that the well-respected businessmen Ryan Cohen released that he had bought up 13% of Gamestop shares, becoming a minority owner. Ryan Cohen was the founder of Chewy, a Petsmart online branch that outcompeted Amazon. Investors labeled him an e-commerce guru/genius. He had bought shares at $4.81 and slowly gobbled up more as the price increased. Rumors started speculating that Cohen would takeover and transform Gamestop and it was materialized when Cohen sent the management a very aggressive letter. "GameStop’s leadership should immediately conduct a strategic review of the business and share a credible plan for seizing the tremendous opportunities in the rapidly-growing gaming sector. GameStop needs to evolve into a technology company that delights gamers and delivers exceptional digital experiences – not remain a video game retailer that overprioritizes its brick-and-mortar footprint and stumbles around the online ecosystem." It was a do this or else there will be a hostile takeover. The letter was sent three weeks before Q3 Earnings and investors were now watching intensively for details of a roadmap or of a Cohen reference during the earning call. ER came around and management was mute beside the announcement of a shelf offering of 100mil. Company performance wise, they were negative on profit but had still beaten expectations. The expedited closure of unprofitable of the stores helped. The stock would have soared had not an offering been announce (offering dilutes shares) so instead GME dropped 17%. From the conference calls, many bull investors felt reluctantly weary of this turnaround while some even dismissed management consideration of Ryan and piled on to the shorts. A week later, a filing by Ryan Cohen showed that he had continued to believe that the stock was undervalued and bought even at $14.83. This news rekindled the speculation that Ryan Cohen was going to do a takeover. Stock bounced and soared to $22.35 dollars for the next few weeks before dropping to $17.35. Jan 2021 - The first squeeze: Shorts were still convinced that Gamestop would not be turn around and so they held steady with a short interest above 130%. Some short sellers had left while new ones piled on. Monday, Jan 11th, Gamestop decided to drop bombs to the short: - First with an announcement that there was 309% increase in e-commerce sales from 2019 holiday season, 4.8% increase in comparable store sales, 3.1% decrease in total sales. - The biggest takeaway was that their new e-commerce strategy was working. 309% increase is massive. Also this followed their original plan to concentrate on their core. Rise in sales of profitable store was also shown. The closure unprofitable stores hit their total sales but it was not much and implied that these stores were dead weight. They slimmed their bleeding cost segment and increased their profit. This was super bullish. - Secondly, a board of advisor switch up was announced. Ryan Cohen and two main Chewy guys were hopping on, replacing 3 other people. - Ryan essentially brought Chewy Management to Gamestop. They know have 1/3 of the company's vote. - GME Management knew that a takeover was happening, hostile or not and so they opened the doors. They also expanded Ryan Cohen's ability to buy up to 20% of the total shares - Permit And Hestia Capital also align more with his vision so that would put them at a 5/9 majority Result: Even with the news, the stock price stayed range bound at 20.5 and volume was extremely low for that Monday and Tuesday. Shorts were once again depressing the price. However, Wednesday came and the first of the shorts closed their position while bulls bought calls. The stock soared. This catalyzed into a gamma squeeze to kick off the huge rally. The analysis stopped dead of the gamma squeeze as these recent events have been a gray area of interpretation. Enjoy. Links: Board of Director annoucnement, https://news.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-announces-additional-board-refreshment-accelerate Partnership, https://news.gamestop.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-announces-multi-year-strategic-partnership-microsoft Ryan Cohen aggressive letter, https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/RC_Ventures_Letter_to_GameStop.pdf
GME formula cheatsheet aka Bingo board
Management: Ryan Cohen & Gang (5/9 vote), Reginald Fils-Aime, E-Commerce, Partnerships (Microsoft), Console Supercycle, Offering, Q4 ER, Roadmap, Takeover Letter, Acquisition Target +
3 Quick Tl;Dr Android Game Reviews / Recommendations (Episode 160)
Happy Friday, my fellow Android gamers, and welcome back to this weekly summary of the most interesting games I played this week :) This episode includes an interesting action RPG that plays a lot like Diablo, a very unique multiplayer strategy card game, and a PvP fighting game from a franchise that has been downloaded more than 500 million times! Disagree with my opinion? Let’s have a friendly discussion below. New to these posts? Check out the first one from 159 weeks ago here. The games are "ranked" somewhat subjectively from best to worst, so take the ranking for what it is.
Let's get to the games:
Creatures of Aether [Game Size: 189 MB] (free)
Genre: Card / Strategy / PvP / Indie - Requires Online Access Orientation: Portrait Required Attention: Full tl;dr review: Creatures of Aether is a unique strategy card game where our goal is to dominate the majority of a shared 4x4 gridded board by placing a creature card from our hand on each turn. Every card has a power number on each of its four sides. Placing a card next to an opponent’s card allows us to take it over and turn it into one of ours if the power number on our card’s side is higher than that on the opponent card’s adjacent side. Once the board is full, the player with the most cards on the board wins. To spice things up, board tiles can have elemental types that buff or debuff any card placed on them, and some cards even have strong special powers that trigger once played. While the mechanics are easy to understand, the game is incredibly difficult to master, and I often found I had made a mistake a few turns ago that now put me in a disadvantageous situation, just like in chess. Decks consist of eight cards, with a total deck-cost limit and a value on each card that increases the more powerful it is. This adds a nice forced prioritization that prevents us from placing all the strongest cards in the same hand. The high-quality modern pixel art style is well-executed, and the sound design is pleasing. The main PvP mode is supported by multiple arcade modes and single-player dungeon-crawls that provide new cards or extra copies so existing cards can be leveled up. Creatures of Aether monetizes through a $4.99 battle pass and iAPs for card packs, which create a pay-to-progress-faster advantage for paying players. However, the core gameplay is both deep and fun, and free players can still enjoy the many game-modes and simply grind for cards. Google Play: Here MiniReview link: Here
Raziel: Dungeon Arena [Total Game Size: 5.1 GB] (free)
Genre: RPG / Action / Co-op / Diablo-like - Requires Online Access Orientation: Landscape Required Attention: Full tl;dr review: Raziel: Dungeon Arena is a fun Diablo-like action RPG with solo and co-op dungeons, an insane amount of unique loot, neat 3D graphics, cute pets, and well-calibrated controls. The game features 3 classes; archer, melee knight, ice priest, and although there is no character customization, we can at least switch build later in the game. As we level up, we unlock more and more skills and can gradually customize our build through one of the largest talent trees I’ve ever seen in a mobile game. From the main city, we can meet and chat with other players, craft potions, team up for co-op dungeons, or jump into the single-player missions to slay hordes of enemies and find new loot with unique stats and set bonuses. Raziel is a modern mobile game, for better or worse, which means lots of daily and monthly login rewards, achievements, events etc. My biggest gripes with the game, however, are that finding a team at lower levels is almost impossible and that while combat is fun, everything is too easy in the beginning. Monetization happens through a $4.99 battle pass, a premium currency used primarily for cosmetics, and various “packs” of crafting materials and potions that go up to $19.99. There is no need to spend money on the game to enjoy it though, and while paying players definitely have an advantage in PvP, the game is primarily PvE-focused. Google Play: Here MiniReview link: Here
If anyone missed last league's edition, we've made this into an official (well, subreddit official) wiki page called 'Frequently Given Answers', link above. Formatting's a bit better there (you can link to individual sections!) but keeping in line with what we did with the infothread we know there's plenty of people who prefer a post due to local format setups (RES/CSS/darktheme/etc), so here you go! I'll also be using a linked comment as a changelog for anyone that's curious what's changed, if anything. NOTE: These answers are mostly collected from the questions threads and suggestions by the community so, inevitably, some will be opinions or advice. There are exceptions for everything, especially in PoE!
Things that will make your life easier
Best stash tabs to buy first are Currency and/or at least one Premium tab. Former for solo play, latter for the ability to sell items publicly easily. Both is even better.
There is customarily a Stash Tab Sale every third weekend. If on a launch weekend it will be delayed by a week.
Don't be afraid to look into an item filter asap. It will save you a lot of headaches.
You can buy skill gems from Nessa and similar vendors on page 2 of their shop (you may need to do a quest before that page shows up). So don’t fret about the gem choice from the quest reward!
Doing a Trial of Ascendency is league-wide. Meaning doing it once in a league means all other characters in that league don't need to do it again.
When highlighting a support gem you'll notice a popup with all of your current active skill gems. This details what skills the selected support works with.
If you're still unsure if a support is working with an active skill gem, the skill's icon on the toolbar will have small boxes denoting what supports are currently active on the skill.
The medicine chest quest gives you some specific gems (i.e. ancestral call) as well as a choice of flasks (most notably a quicksilver flask).
Completing the quest in The Library (connected to the gardens) in Act 3 will give you access to an early NPC that sells every skill gem available up to that point regardless of class. Completing the quest 'Fallen from Grace' in Act 6 will give you a vendor for every buyable skill gem.
You can move the minimap with the arrow keys
Skill gems in your alternate set of weapons will also gain exp. That's up to 6 (usually) more skill gems you can level!
If you are too far above or below the area's monster level you will have an experience penalty. Rule of thumb: try to stay within 6 levels of the area.
Any maps dropped in the campaign will be tier 1. Anything higher can only be received via Zana, inside maps, or inside map-like areas like the Temple of Atzoatl or the Eternal Labyrinth (specifically the chests).
End-game
Use common currency on maps when you have some extra. (e.g. An orb of scouring can get a map back to white for easy 20% quality!)
To use a divine vessel place it into the map device along with the appropriate map (there will be text on the atlas for it) and kill the boss. The filled divine vessel will then be inside the map device still. Don’t forget to pick it up and take it to Sin (Epilogue zone)!
Using a single sacrifice fragment instead of a map will generate a vaal side area from the map device. Using a sacrifice fragment with a map in the device will increase the map's quantity by 5% per piece, up to 20% for four unique pieces. (You can’t double up the same fragment)
Sacrifice of Midnight (top-right one) is the most rare of the four. Don’t burn those willy nilly.
A complete set of sacrifice fragments in the map device (arranged appropriately) will give you access to the Apex of Sacrifice. This same strategy is also used for Shaper, the Pale Council, Uber-Atziri, etc. (four different fragments of the same set into the map device)
Sextants are used on watchstones to apply the effect to the entire area the watchstone is slotted into! Unlike Map Mods many sextant mods are beneficial.
Watchstones can be ‘banked’ in the sidebar on the left of the atlas. They won’t do anything there but it saves you valuable inventory space.
Things that will help you craft
Beasts can be used in beastcrafting only after fully completing your first Einhar mission. A particularly useful beastcraft is adding a removal (bleed/freeze/curse/etc) affix to a magic flask.
Quality items (whetstone, scrap, bauble) will give 5% to a white item, 2% to magic and 1% to rare/unique items up to 20%. (GCP's always give 1% to gems) This applies to maps as well!
Item affixes are reliant on item level, a lower item level means less possible affixes. You cannot improve an item’s iLvl, so stop alteration spamming that iLvl 4 quicksilver flask you got from Act 1!
Dexterity (Evasion) pieces favor green sockets, Strength (Armor) pieces favor red and Intelligence (Energy Shield) pieces favor blue. Hybrid pieces follow this logic.
You can craft affixes on gear from the crafting bench in your hideout. This is very important for keeping your resistances capped.
A corrupted item (using a Vaal Orb) is not alterable. With the sole exception of their sockets. Those can be altered (re-colored/fused/etc) via the crafting bench, but any craft will cost an additional equal amount of vaal orbs.
A Divine Orb does not re-roll the numbers completely, they stay within the affix range that was already given. So a 6% Cold Res roll on some boots will re-roll between 6-11% and no higher. Be careful! (NOTE: most legacy gear will also be changed to the current non-legacy version if a Divine Orb is used)
High quality items have a sliiiiightly higher chance to 6-socket and 6-link. Every little bit helps!
Incubators in your weapon swap will not gain kills towards their completion.
End-game
If you corrupt a map and end up making it unidentified it has the same affixes as before. So make sure to actually read the affixes of a rare red map before corrupting it just in case!
Things that will help you plan
Just because it's unique does not mean it's good. Well-rolled rares can be and often are better options than uniques. Read the text.
'More/Less' are not the same as 'Increased/Reduced'. It's very important to know that. More specific info here
You will earn either 22 or 24 Passive Skill points through quests in all 10 Acts, depending on Bandit choices.
PoE is a game of extremes. Support a few (usually just one) skills as much as possible instead of supporting a lot of skills a little.
Life/ES > Damage when planning a tree. Rule of Thumb: 150% or more increased max life from tree if going a life build. 200% or more increased ES from tree if going ES.
You can only have 1 spell totem up at a time barring specific effects like Searing Bond or Multiple Totems Support. Up to 3 by default for Ballista totems
Mana reservation does not decrease max mana. This is relevant to effects like base mana regen or Arcane Surge.
If you kill all 3 bandits you get +2 passive skill points from Eramir (old dude sitting in Forest Encampment) as opposed to the specific effects from the bandits.
Large items (Chests, 2H weapons) cannot roll with 5 sockets until iLvl 35, and cant get 6 sockets until iLvl 50. Even with jeweler's orbs! You can 'force' 6 sockets with the crafting bench but it's usually not worth it.
You can only have 1 curse at a time on enemies barring specific effects. Note: You can still only have one mark at a time no matter what, additional curse limit simply allows you to slap a hex on top.
You can respec ascendancy nodes but they cost more refund points per node (5). If you want to change ascendancy completely you’ll need to unspec out of all ascendancy nodes and hit the ascendancy shrine in any version of the labyrinth (hint: Unspec the ascendency nodes in the treasure room, no need to do the entire lab run unascended).
Read 'Trigger' support gems carefully. Cast on Critical, for example, only works with an attack triggering a spell.
Trigger gems and effects can trigger multiple skills, but will do so (unless otherwise stated) one at a time and sequentially. More info here
Aqueducts and its later incarnation Blood Aqueducts in Act 9 contain the divination card 'Humility' which can give you a Tabula Rasa.
'Low Life' is defined as 35% max health or lower. Chaos Inoculation is not low life since it reduces your max health to 1 and you can’t be at 0.35 hp. This does, however, make CI eligible for full life effects like Damage at Full Life support.
Lily Roth will sell every buyable gem (similar to but more than Siosa) but all at level 1 after completing her quest. Vendors elsewhere in the campaign will sell gems at a higher level.
Make sure to look for corrupted 6-link chests (either via trade or vaal side areas) when you want to ditch your 4-link or Tabula. They're much cheaper than a normal 6-link and actually have rolls on them! Just make sure to search for the specific colors you need since you can't change them easily!
You can buy Glassblower Baubles from the weapons vendor on the last page in exchange for 8x whetstones
Leech has a cap! There are ways to increase it but by default you cannot gain more than 20% max life per sec or 10% max ES per sec from leech alone. There are lot more calulations involved in that though.
End-game
Running a map unidentified will give an additional 30% quantity bonus. This does not apply to Unique Maps since their affixes are for the most part fixed.
Things that can get you killed
Support gems increase the mana cost of an ability, more linked supports = more mana spent
You don’t have to do the Labyrinth right away. You can come back when you’re overleveled. Many people do this.
Hexes always have Less effect on Bosses (e.g. Dominus, Piety)
You can use Scrolls of Wisdom and other currency like Orb of Chance on Strongboxes. Identify them first!
Read a skill’s green text! For example: Withering Step shares a cooldown with Blink skills. So if you trigger Wither Step with CwDT you won’t be able to use Dash for a short period!
Barring specific effects, Life/Mana Flask effects will end once you hit full life/mana respectively. This includes effects from affixes like freeze immunity. By extension, utility flasks (like a quicksilver flask) have affix effects last for their full duration. Aka put your anti-freeze on a utility flask!
Cast when Damage Taken (CwDT) requires a linked skill’s required level to be under a certain level in order to trigger it. CwDT also requires more damage taken to trigger with higher levels. Many players leave CwDT at lvl 1 for this reason. So be careful leveling your skill gems!
Make sure you have + X to maximum life rolls on some of your gear by Act 5 (Alternatively, ES focused builds should always shoot for ‘% increased ES’ anytime they can). PoE’s per level scaling is negligible at best, the vast majority of your health/ES comes from gear! Rule of Thumb: you should have ~300 Life/400 ES total per Act you've completed.
Elemental resistance has a cap of 75% barring specific effects (e.g. Purity of [X] aura). The game is tuned to expect you to be at this cap past Act 4. Chaos resistance, on the other hand, doesn't need to be anywhere near 75%, most get 0% and can function fine (although more is never bad of course).
Multiple vaal skills will divide the soul count amongst themselves and as such each skill will charge slower per additional vaal skill equipped. Note: Once a vaal skill is fully charged it will stop taking in souls.
After progressing through each end-boss fight (Act5/Act10) your resistances will go down by 30% for a total of -60% to all resistances past Act 10, gear accordingly
Incoming chills, freeze duration and stun chance on you are based on your maximum life barring specific effects. In short, the less max life you have means longer you’ll be frozen / higher chance of being stunned.
Critical hits guarantee elemental ailments (shock, ignite, freeze) assuming you did enough of that element’s damage to reach the monster’s Ailment Threshold, as shown with Shock here.
Barring specific effects, Chaos Damage ignores Energy Shield and goes straight for your health.
Mind over Matter (MoM) and similar effects will only apply to damage hitting your health, so your Energy Shield will still take full damage (but your mana won't drain either).
Dying after Act 5 will make you lose experience (5% total to next level), but will not decrease your level or put you into a negative value. Higher penalty (10% total to next level) after Act 10
By Act 6 you should have an "of Staunching" (anti-bleed) and "of Heat" (anti-freeze) flask. They help avoid many of the more common 'one-shot' moments you may run into.
Flasks don't level up with you! Check in on your flask level every now and then while leveling, or else you might be short a few hundred life.
End-game
All mods on maps will make them more challenging, certain mods will be betteworse for certain builds.
Reflect damage is one of the deadliest map mods in the game, and has claimed the lives of many new and experienced players alike.
Hideouts
Hideouts will persist through leagues so feel free to put a decent amount of time getting your abode perfect. It’s not going anywhere.
The basic hideout locations are listed in the hideout selection when talking to Helena.
There are a lot of hideouts not listed in Helena’s default selection, most of these rare tilesets are in maps and will not appear everytime. Usually they require a large number of runs to find. (I still don’t have a Tower Hideout…..)
Hideout instances last much longer (30 min) than normal instances, so don’t worry about a normal disconnect, your map portals will still be there.
Lord's Labyrinth (Lab)
If you die you get tossed back to the beginning (Aspirant’s Plaza), unless you’re in a hardcore league, then you are still very very dead.
Look at the bronze tablet by every door, it will show you a map and reveal where the nearby door goes.
Izaro has different mechanics in his first two arenas. (Specific Info). The third arena will be a combo of the previous two (with traps included in uber lab).
Look for hidden rooms on the minimap! They can hold Darkshrines which can give permanent (for the lab run) buffs, a guaranteed unique, less trap damage and more. Hit tab and read the text at the top-right to see exactly what it did.
Uber (Eternal) Lab has trials that will only spawn in maps, randomly. If you need to get those last few go to Global chat 820 and watch for the trial you need and/or use ‘The Dream Trial’ Prophecy.
Map layouts and Izaro's mechanics will change day to day.
Decorative Chests (marked on the map nodes with a hollow circle) give an item to make the next Izaro fight easier (usually instantly destroying/removing one of the mechanics.)
Text Commands/Buttons
Typing “/passives” will let you see any passive points you have from quests. And after you finish the campaign it will tell you any you are missing.
[ctrl]+[enter] will let your type out to the person who most recently whispered you.
[ctrl]+[right-click] or [ctrl]+[left-click] on the doodoorway/gate/ into an area to give a list of all instances for that area as well, more importantly, giving the option to generate a new instance. Newer players: This means you can enter a new ‘copy’ of the area with everything reset. |PS4 Players: Highlight an instance and hit Triangle.| |Xbox Players: Highlight and hit Y|
Right click the level up icon on a skill gem level up notification to hide it without leveling the gem. If you would like to level it up afterwards the gem icon at the bottom of your inventory page. |Xbox Players: after socketing, hit Y to lock gem level|
To find the tiers and ranges of rolls you must first turn on advanced mod descriptions on options->interface->”Advanced Mod Descriptions”. You then must hit your advanced mod button while hovering over an item to get the pertinent info (default is left alt) |Xbox Players: Hit LS after activating the setting|
[shift]+[click] on a stack of items to have the option to take only a certain number of that item onto your cursor. This applies both to in your inventory and when removing from your stash. |Xbox players: Highlight item and hit B, hit Y to pick up that amount, X to send that amount to stash if it is open|
Open chat and hit [ctrl]+[alt]+[left-click] on an item in your inventory to link said item to chat. After hitting enter the person you’re talking to will be able to hover the link and see your exact item.
[ctrl]+[left-click] on a master to open their relevant window. (i.e. Do that on Niko to open the delve menu)
Click on a skill in your toolbar and look at the top of the popout. The button labeled “always attack without moving” is a great thing to use on movement skills and some specific primary skills. What it does is if you target a skill out of it’s range it will simply use the skill in the direction of the click as opposed to moving in range and then using it.
[shift]+[ctrl]+[left-click] a currency in a vendor to buy a whole stack at a time. Save your fingers some torment.
Holding shift while using a currency will keep the item on your cursor and allow you to spam the entire stack. If you're accessing your stash at the time you can spam your entire stock of said currency. |Xbox players: With currency picked up, hover an item and hit X|
Holding ctrl and using the mousewheel will quickly cycle through stash tabs
Teleport between areas with commands like "/hideout" or "/menagerie" or "/delve"
Entering "/reset_xp" will reset your xp/hour metric (mouseover your exp bar at the bottom). Very useful for comparing experience rates between maps/mechanics.
Hitting (by default) ‘v’ will open the relevant menu in each area. i.e. beastcrafting menu in menagerie, azurite upgrades menu in Delve, etc etc.
"/remaining" will give you a text prompt of how many monsters are left in the instance.
Entering "/dnd [message], /afk [message], /autoreply [message]" will give a notification of [message] to anyone whispering you until you shut it off. /dnd is just hitting /dnd again, /afk turns off if you move. Note that only /dnd will actually block messages.
ctrl+click on the passive tree will skip the confirmation step and save you a click.
F1 will give a stat breakdown of your computer, including connection metrics. If you're lagging or frameskipping this is how you check. Hit F1 again to cycle through different layouts.
Using '~' before a trade search in poe/trade will give an approximate search. In other words it will search for similar text not exact, like "~multi" will return affixes of "Global Critical Strike Multiplier, Critical Strike Multiplier, Melee Critical Strike Multiplier" etc etc
Blue Wand/Sceptre/RuneDagger + [X resistance] Ring + Orb of Alteration = added flat damage of [X element] (higher ring rarity=higher bonus) on weapon
Weapon + magic or higher Rustic Sash + Whetstone = Weapon with %Physical damage roll (higher belt rarity=higher bonus)
Boots + quicksilver flask + Augmentation Orb = Blue boots with 10% movespeed roll. This can be repeated for an additional +5% on the movespeed roll, up to 30% (note that repeats will increase req level to 0/10/12/24/32/44 respectively)
Orb of Transmutation/Orb of Alteration/Blacksmith’s Whetstone = 4 Wisdom Scrolls
Act 2
Life Flask + Mana Flask (of same tier) + Orb of Fusing = Hybrid flask
Act 3
Flasks with a sum quality of 40% or one normal rarity 20% flask= Glassblower Bauble
Gems with a sum quality of 40% or one 20% gem= Gemcutter's Prism
1 of each Two-Stone Ring = 1 Prismatic Ring
Act 4
Skill gem + Orb of Scouring = Skill gem with -1 level
POELab - Labyrinth daily tracker. Someone else runs the layout and maps it out for you! Also includes shrine locations and Izaro mechanics as soon as they're found.
poe.ninja - PoE Economy Tracker. Easy way to pricecheck specific items/currency/etc. Also a very robust method of browsing top-tier builds.
poe/trade - Official player-to-player trading site
NOTE Real money trading (RMT) is NOT supported or accepted by GGG you will get banned when you use IRL money to buy anything in poe that isn't from their own site/in-game store.
5 years of mixing and mastering experience: Top things I've learned that will save you time and energy to understand now if you're a beginner
Foreword / Background I'm writing this first and foremost because my journey of getting to the point where I am now, where I can go into a mix knowing pretty much exactly what I need to really bring my ideas to life, took way longer of a time to reach than I think it should have. I say that because much of the advice I'm going to give actually makes practical sense when explained in a certain way, and even after watching hours of YouTube mixing and mastering tutorials (sometimes giving conflicting advice) it took me good amount of time to piece a few basic mixing and mastering (m&m) concepts together that now provide me with a solid foundation of knowledge that I can use going into every mix. It should be kept in mind that I am not a professional m&m engineer, but m&m is a huge hobby of mine that I definitely wouldn't mind making into a career one day. In all honesty, I think a big reason it took me more time than it should have was because I was veryimpatient and didn't want to take the time to watch more tutorials and put in more hours learning. Early in my journey for about 2-3 years, before I got a 49-key midi keyboard, I used strictly samples downloaded from YouTube, had only stock plug-ins from Ableton Live Intro, and had very limited m&m knowledge...I would simply download a track I wanted to chop up or loop from YouTube, add some drums with my drums pad, add a stock EQ 3 to each track, boost the bassand call it a day. If you have at least some experience with m&m you might have chuckled inside a little at me putting that in bold because you understand how bad that is. I was simply too naive to understand that what I heard in my head...what I thought I heard in my mix...wasn't actually a reality in my track...mainly in terms of energy and clarity. I would get overexcited and start nodding my head as I "mixed" which I didn't realize until later gave me the false impression of actual movement and dynamics. For my hip-hop cats, or anyone else that works with music which places emphasis on the 1st and 3rd beats in a measure...this isn't to say that head nodding is bad. I still head nod...it's almost inevitable if you're really feeling a track...but I frequently try and consciously m&m without head nodding so that I can hear what my track sounds like from someone who isn't expecting to feel it or like it. This is important because if you can hear your mix from this perspective, you can add energy and adjust dynamics in places that are necessary in order to suggest, or even persuade one to head nod, or feel any type of emotion you want that person to feel. It's true that you can get conflicting advice by going the YouTube route (mostly because as you come to understand the m&m process you understand that there are actually a few different avenues and methods for achieving the sound you want), but that shouldn't deter you from being exposed to different concepts and ideas, trying them, and seeing what works for the sound you're trying to achieve. To clarify, I mainly work with samples and also original sounds to make "hip-hop" beats with interesting melodies, sometimes no drums, frequently accompanied by hip-hop acapellas I find online. But that doesn't mean there aren't common, universal principles that can be applied to all genres of music...so if you aren't into that vibe I think you can still get valuable information from what I explain here. I was inspired to get into the game by LA producer Knxwledge, who established his niche coupling old soul / R&B samples with acapellas from today's most well-known rappers. He, CoryaYo, Walterwarm, and Cookin' Soul I would say are all of my most influential producers in the game today.
Understanding the Basics
We can all agree for the most part that a good mix is one that has good dynamics (what I call "energy management"), clarity, and a full sound. I think every prospective producer at some point faces the unfortunate reality that achieving all three of these traits in a mix is a bit more complex than they realize. I know for me it was very frustrating once I realized how much I didn't know and how many different elements needed to come together to achieve the sound I wanted and the vision I had in my head. I think it's very easy to get overwhelmed by the library of sounds and effects that come with most DAWs...at least I know that was the case for me. It's good to remember that every single effect was created for a specific purpose, to solve a specific problem, so just because I don't mention a few in this post doesn't mean they aren't just as valuable as some of the other elements I mention here. I would suggest looking up either online video courses or YouTube videos/series of someone explaining to you the function of every element in your DAW. If they have sample audio they are using to show you what each effect does, or the effect that each knob has, that's a huge plus but ultimately unnecessary as you can (should) play around with your own sounds in your own DAW so you can get a better idea as to what each effect is actually doing to your sound. To me, explaining many of these m&m principles can be a lot like trying to explain to someone how to ollie on a skateboard. You can explain it to them all you want but they aren't going to get good at it until they practice enough and eventually most importantly come to an unequivocalunderstanding of what they need to do in order to ollie. Before getting to the meat of this post, I also want to say that like I mentioned earlier there are multiple ways and strategies to m&m and achieving a desirable outcome, so try not to take my words and suggestions here as code or law. There might be and most likely are other ways of achieving certain things and dealing with certain problems that I am not aware of. But even with that, I am sharing this because I believe that with the knowledge I've gained I can at least help a novice get their sound to a level that makes the production process much more enjoyable for them. Of course I am open to constructive criticism in the comments and am always willing to learn, or at least doing my best to be. EQ & Gain Staging I personally believe that EQ and gain staging are the single most important elements to master and pay attention to in order to get the basic shape and dynamics of the sound you want. Before you do anything else, I think it is pretty universal advice to simply adjust the gain knobs on the faders of all tracks in your mix until you get the "best" shape and clarity. I put 'best' in quotation marks in order to emphasize how subjective that is in the music world and the creative arts world in general. If you take the time to gain stage before anything else, I guarantee that in itself will help with the sound of your mixes pretty substantially. Especially in hip hop, generally the snare and the drum should be the the loudest sounds, respectively. In the last few weeks I have been paying special attention to these two elements, dedicating the majority of my focus to gain staging and EQing and my sound quality has increased pretty substantially. Especially when mixing multiple tracks, EQing and gain staging is even more important to make sure that every element of your mix has clarity and proper gain levels at certain frequency ranges, or else you will run into clipping and distortion issues. This article seems to provide a very solid, basic understanding of clipping and why it happens for anyone that might be interested. Here is a snippet from the article explaining why clipping happens in technical terms: "When a signal reaches 0 dBFS (full-scale) on a meter, we’ve run out of headroom and potentially into digital clipping issues. This is because our system has run out of 1s and 0s to accurately convert our signal into digital information. Any excess data is disregarded, which can result in digital clipping–a sine wave hitting its ceiling and becoming a square wave." When you import any track to your DAW, or play any midi sound, every frequency range in that track is playing at a certain decibel (dB) range, or gain level. A reading of the gain level for each frequency can most importantly be heard with a trained ear, but can should also be displayed by reading the live transient graph in your EQ interface (unless it's a super simple EQ like Ableton's EQ 3 that is very elementary in its capabilities...so in that case I would highly suggest at least downloading a free, 6- or 8-band EQ to start out and give you more control over your sound). Some, what many refer to as "problem frequencies", are easy to spot and remove, such as harsh vocals or a boomy bass. But some frequencies are problematic but less obvious, namely the 100-300 Hz range that can contribute to a lot of muddiness and loss of clarity in a track, but can also remove punch and thump if reduced by too many decibels. If you haven't already, you will learn how delicate of a process mixing actually is, especially EQing. While I mentioned that there are indeed multiple ways of creating the sound you want, each of those avenues requires the same amount of meticulous decision-making that eventually culminates in a mix with energy, breathability, high dynamic range, and clarity. Every 0.1 increase or decrease in gain has a subtle but also substantial effect on not just that one track or sound, but also the rest of the mix and how it fits in with everything. One thing I definitely wish I would have known a few years ago was to turn knobs / adjust gain levels slowly and really pay attention to what each incremental increase and decrease in gain was doing to my overall sound. I mean at first in order to get an idea of what an effect is doing it's definitely helpful to push certain knobs to extreme levels, but when it comes to getting a track to sit in with the rest of the mix in the way you want, it can be a delicate process. Especially with EQ, of course you want to get rid of problem frequencies, but you also don't want to kill the energy of a track. For example, in working with soul samples often coming from vinyl recordings, the mid-range can be harsh. Until I realized how important it is to adjust things like gain and Q (width of the frequency band you're boosting / cutting) slowly and deliberately, I would succeed in removing the harsh frequencies but I would also lose a lot of mid-range and energy because I would cut way more than I need to. Another tip I have for boosting / cutting is to use a "band shelf" shape for cutting frequencies and a "proportional q" shape for boosting frequencies. I don't always do this...again it's important to use your own ear and judgment. The primarily reason I prefer to use a shelf to cut is because a shelf enables you to reduce the gain of multiple frequencies that are close to one another in a way that doesn't also require you to reduce the gain of the frequencies around that frequency you're trying to cut more than you need to. It sounds more complicated than it actually is but I promise this is something you should look into and understand so that you can cut and boost with precision without compromising the fullness of your mix. In general, especially with the loudness war going on, louder can deceivingly sound better, but may not actually be better. I say this because usually, unless you have a limiter or a saturator as the last destination for your signal, any increase in gain, no matter how small, is going to change the shape and dynamics of both the track and of your mix. You don't want this, at least if you're trying to get people to feel a certain way at certain points in your track and create a final mix that is loud but also has a high dynamic range (HDR). Not to say that saturators and limiters are the answer to getting your tracks louder without clipping and losing dynamics...used in a mindful and strategic way they can definitely help to beef up a sound, but there is still a delicate balance of Dry/Wet to be struck if you want to achieve your desired sound without compromising dynamics or changing the very elements that make a sound unique. To go back to the issue of clipping, I would also suggest that clipping is not always bad just as they mention in that article. Since applying the knowledge I am sharing here pertaining to EQing and gain staging, I have been able to get to a point in my m&m process where I can either:
Have the elements of a song mixed, EQed, compressed, panned, and saturated so well that I can boost the gain and reach levels of loudness and clarity I never knew were possible without clipping, or
Have the elements of a song mixed, EQed, compressed, panned, and saturated so well that I can boost the gain and reach levels of loudness and clarity while clippingbut also keep the dynamics very much in tact. Like I mentioned, I believe proper saturation and limiting can contribute to this happening and can be powerful tools for adding / controlling energy in a specific area of a mix)
You may have noticed that I'm using similar terms..."adding" and "controlling energy" in a mix. EQ, compression, and saturation are the main elements that I know of that contribute to this in ways that can only be understood by playing around with the sounds yourself. Unfortunately this is one instance where the limit of the English language presents itself and is like trying to explain to someone that is blind what the color red looks like. To give an overall analogy of the EQ process, I will give the following example. Let's say you have water in a closed container filled just enough so that the water comes close to touching the cap (just below clipping) or filled to the point that the water is applying a gentle pressure to the cap (lightly clipping). Now let's say you want to mix that water with another substance, but you still are only limited to the amount of space you have in that container. If you were to simply add the other liquid to the water, the pressure of the water would increase, restricting movement (blocky-sounding mix) and the integrity of the container would be compromised (bad clipping/distortion). An obvious solution here is to reduce the water levels and add how ever much of the other liquid and stir until you get the consistency that you want, where you now have two substances coexisting in the same space without causing excess pressure on the container. A key piece of obvious advice that you can get from this analogy is that it is generally better to reduce gain first and then increase gain after you have removed and addressed all problem frequencies. Since clipping is caused by energy build up in a certain frequency range, it is usually ideal to clean up your sound in a way that makes the elements in a certain frequency range between two or more tracks clear and distinct but also so that there is more than enough headroom for boosting the gain in these areas further on down the line in the mastering process. Nowadays I mix with low gain levels so that I can really hear the dynamics before they're squashed by too much gain (this is before I compress). I used to be very eager to get my mix loud and would boost the gain levels whenever possible as much as possible, but in the end this leaves you no headroom for mastering and compression down the line that likely sets great m&m engineers apart from the rest. Last EQ tip: High- and low-pass filters can really, really do wonders for shaping your sound. I personally use low-pass filters on pretty much every track in my mix to avoid those frequencies building up later on, but also especially on bass lines I can really establish the shape I want with a low-pass. High-pass filters can also be useful, for instance on a kick to free up the high frequencies for the hi-hat or whatever you have playing up there. Compression \** I updated part of this section after a fellow redditor explained to me some principles about compression that I didn't quite understand. I have since put these principles into practice and my mixes sound even better now. The beauty of the internet, Reddit and open-mindedness :)**** To explain compression in respect to EQ I will give the following analogy. If EQing can be likened to preparing a meal that is functional (will provide you energy, has all three macronutrients), I think compression can be likened to adding a little sugar and spice in order to amplify the already desirable elements of that meal. When I initially wrote this post, I mentioned that compressing before EQing was generally discouraged as you're simply working with / amplifying problem frequencies that haven't been dealt with yet that are just muddying up the clarity of your mix, but thanks to a few people in the comments this has been debunked and it really just depends on what you're trying to achieve. This is why I really tried to stray away from making it seem like anything I said here is set in stone as general advice to always follow. Like I have said and like many people in the comments have said, there can be multiple ways of creating the same effect using different techniques. It's difficult for me to explain the effect of compression without using a lot of the same terminology I use for describing the EQ process because compression can also help to achieve clarity and dynamics, just in a different way that is hard to describe. When I first started working with compression I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and because of that I resorted to lowering the wet signal which 'worked' for getting what I wanted but all it did was give me a watered down version of what I actually could be hearing. I only resorted to doing that because I didn't fully understand what the attack, release, ratio and threshold knobs were really doing and noticed that my sound would always get 'messed up' when I had my compressor set to 100% wet. I'm not gonna go too much in-depth trying to explain what each knob does because this post is already long but I would suggest starting with a long attack and a long release, bringing the threshold down until it's at a point where it should be affecting your signal but it's not because your attack is so high, then shortening the attack and release slowly and individually in order to really hear what the attack and release are doing to your signal. A long attack means you're letting more of the signal through before the compressor clamps down, a long release means you're giving the compressor a good amount of time to let the signal "bounce back up". There is a delicate balance between these two that you want to strike if you want to achieve a certain loudness / fullness without compromising clarity or the dynamics you want. Generally you will want to keep the release short-medium so that the compressed signal can be heard but also "come up for air" before it's compressed again. Compression is definitely an art and something you get a better understanding of if you just practice. Too much compression or improper compression can result in a loss of clarity, musicality and breathability in a mix. When I say breathability, I mean HDR where the bass strikes at a solid volume, but then backs away for a few milliseconds as the mid-range takes front and center, or vice versa. EQ helps to achieve clarity, but compression can help breath life into those elements and make them compliment and work with each other to create a mix that is alive and engaging. A big mistake I made when I first started was simply not knowing how to use a compressor properly. Panning Ideally I would have covered this before compression because I generally address this in a mix before I compress, but I thought my segue from EQ to compression was helpful in order to connect the dots and see how they are connected. Panning can be used to bring clarity to a track and achieve pretty significant stereo separation, sometimes more so or just as much as EQing can. This is because stereo width is vast and can allow for multiple tracks in a mix with predominance in the same frequency range to happily coexist without drowning each other out or causing clipping. But even with that being said one shouldn't rely solely or mostly on panning to achieve clarity. I've found that the perfect balance of EQ, compression, and panning working in conjunction can enable some of the most professional-sounding separation and clarity. Just like with EQing and compressing, less can be more here. You can pan a track out wide, but keep in mind that panning can also subtly change a sound's transients (shape) and also how it sits in a mix. Saturation Unfortunately I do not have as good of an analogy to describe saturation in a way that is easy to understand as a novice, but what I can say is that saturation can very much help with beefing up a sound without losing too many dynamics, or even just adding some cool harmonics that weren't there before. This is because saturation is actually distortion, and light distortion of an audio signal can usually result in some pretty pleasing harmonics that weren't there before. Again, less is more here. Saturation can be pretty effective as a last or next-to-last destination for your signal or even entire master track in order to add some subtle but cool dynamic movements that give a sound character and warmth. Delays & Reverb I've primarily found delays and reverb to be useful in adding a life-like, right-in-front-of-you type sound and also for engineering / decorating what I like to call the "soundscape", which is the overall available stereo width outside of the general width that most of the rest of the sounds are occupying. One of my favorite, most used delays is Ableton's ping pong delay which I use to create some cool, dream-like harmonics and sounds. Probably my favorite thing about delays in general is how you can create almost an entirely different sound that isn't distorted in anyway since you're not messing with the gain of a track. At least for that delay I've found that increasing the Dry/Wet past 25% can result in a pretty noticeable reduction of track volume as the sound's signal gets dispersed into the soundscape, so to make up for that I usually increase the track gain by a few dBs. Some tricks you can use with delays is to use them to add stereo width, create an atmosphere, and make a track sit back in the mix, and sometimes even tame harsh frequencies (if your delay has a built-in high- or low-pass filter). Although I really wouldn't say that is a go-to solution for taming harsh frequencies, it's more so an effect that can happen if you have a high-pass filter enabled. Mastering \**I'm writing this a few hours after initially posting this because a few people mentioned in the comments that I didn't touch on mastering, which is an honest mistake on my part. I rushed this post a bit toward the end because I had to be somewhere**** For those who don't know, mastering [a single track] is basically the process of putting the finishing touches on a mix, generally by using some combination of compression, EQ, limiting, and stereo enhancement in the master buss. By doing this you're able to unify the elements of a mix even more so than they already are, better establish the overall dynamics, and most importantly increase loudness to "radio-ready" levels. The phrase 'mixing and mastering' is often used in conjunction with really just mixing, when mastering is said by many to be a completely separate art in and of itself. To be honest I think it was a bit misleading for me to say I have five years of mixing and mastering experience...what I definitely have is five years of mixing experience, with some what you could call 'mastering' experience. I say this because there is a difference between mastering a song and mastering an album. When you only have to master an individual song, all you have to do is bring the elements in that track into coherence and polish things off. But when you have to master an album (which I don't have experience doing) that's a lot different...I would imagine that achieving a uniform sound across all tracks in an album that may have been recorded with different equipment, mixed differently, etc. without losing the essence of those tracks is a pretty daunting task. With that said, I will offer some techniques that have worked really for me: - Once I'm happy with my mix and everything sounds pretty good together, I'll increase the gain in the master until it sounds close to 'loud enough'. Of course I know that 'loud enough' is very ambiguous and subjective and there are meters you can read to determine loudness, but I guess what I mean is increasing the gain until I fill up my headphones a bit more, but I'm not anywhere near close to clipping and my dynamics aren't compromised. If I find that I still have a lot of headroom after increasing the gain, but now my dynamics have fallen out of place, I will fix that by adjusting the compressor settings, mostly by lowering the ratio. I could see someone arguing here that you shouldn't use the master compressor to correct dynamics after increasing the gain but it's worked well for me thus far. If there is someone that knows of a different way, objects, would like to murder me in my sleep for suggesting this method, please let me know in the comments. - Finally after lightly compressing (long attack, longish release), I will add a little saturation. Again placing emphasis on light compression...you want to glue all the elements of the mix together without changing the dynamics...unless you are trying to change the dynamics, as I discussed in the last paragraph.
Last Words / A Few More Tips to Take With a Grain of Salt
Like I mentioned, with the bulk of the knowledge / approaches I've shared here, my sound quality has increased pretty substantially to the point that I have been creating now more so than ever. I know one thing that held me back from producing more in the past was the fact that I just didn't know my way around my DAW and it was incredibly frustrating trying to bring the vision I held in my mind into reality. But now that I have this knowledge, I can mix and master a track in as little as a few hours or a day, rather than either multiple days when I first started or where I would just move on from the song completely and leave it unfinished because the shape, muddiness, and lack of dynamics had gotten to a certain level and I didn't know how to correct it. - Another thing I would strongly recommend is to take breaks. I know it can be tempting to work on a mix for hours upon hours on end, but ear fatigue is real and can contribute to making poor decisions down the line as you can't hear certain things / problems as well as you can when you've given your ears time to rest. - In general, and to sum up of all my "secrets" to getting a decent sound, when I start working on a mix I will gather / record all elements I plan to have in the mix and establish gain levels before I start doing anything else so that I can set the dynamics and shape early on. If you wait until after you've applied a bunch of effects on other tracks in the mix before you add another layer, you may end up with clipping issues that arise because you didn't properly compensate for the added gain in certain frequency ranges. - At least in Ableton and with my iZotope Neutron 2 plug-in, I noticed that even if I have a compression plug-in applied to a track but with no threshold set, it would still affect my overall signal in a very subtle way. So if you want to minimize the probability that your mix will become overly distorted, thin, and anti-musical be sure to pay attention to how many compression plug-ins you have turned on and what their Dry/Wet levels are because I've found that they all actually can build on each other and produce an undesirable, thin "compressy" sound once everything is mixed. - I think it's generally good practice to be constantly turning devices / plug-ins on and off, especially if you're a beginner, to see if the work you're doing in that plug-in is actually making your sound better or worse. It can be easy to think for instance, that adding a compressor and making things a little louder is making the mix sound better, but once you turn it off you realize the shape / dynamics / clarity of your sound was compromised. It doesn't mean that you can't use that plug-in necessarily, in fact all if means in most cases is that you need to adjust some knobs or input / output gain levels in order to reap the benefits of that plug-in / effect without compromising the integrity of your mix. That's everything I can think of that I wanted to share. I hope this advice helps someone and can save someone some time trying to figure these things out. I know if someone explained things to me in these ways before I would have learned much more quickly.
3 Quick tl;dr iOS Game Reviews / Recommendations (Episode 73)
Happy Friday, my fellow mobile gamers, and welcome back to this weekly summary of the most interesting games I played this week :) This episode includes an interesting action RPG that plays a lot like Diablo, a very unique multiplayer strategy card game, and a PvP fighting game from a franchise that has been downloaded more than 500 million times! Disagree with my opinion? Let’s have a friendly discussion below. New to these posts? Check out the first one from 72 weeks ago here. The games are "ranked" somewhat subjectively from best to worst, so take the ranking for what it is.
Let's get to the games:
Creatures of Aether [Game Size: 189 MB] (free)
Genre: Card / Strategy / PvP / Indie - Requires Online Access Orientation: Portrait Required Attention: Full tl;dr review: Creatures of Aether is a unique strategy card game where our goal is to dominate the majority of a shared 4x4 gridded board by placing a creature card from our hand on each turn. Every card has a power number on each of its four sides. Placing a card next to an opponent’s card allows us to take it over and turn it into one of ours if the power number on our card’s side is higher than that on the opponent card’s adjacent side. Once the board is full, the player with the most cards on the board wins. To spice things up, board tiles can have elemental types that buff or debuff any card placed on them, and some cards even have strong special powers that trigger once played. While the mechanics are easy to understand, the game is incredibly difficult to master, and I often found I had made a mistake a few turns ago that now put me in a disadvantageous situation, just like in chess. Decks consist of eight cards, with a total deck-cost limit and a value on each card that increases the more powerful it is. This adds a nice forced prioritization that prevents us from placing all the strongest cards in the same hand. The high-quality modern pixel art style is well-executed, and the sound design is pleasing. The main PvP mode is supported by multiple arcade modes and single-player dungeon-crawls that provide new cards or extra copies so existing cards can be leveled up. Creatures of Aether monetizes through a $4.99 battle pass and iAPs for card packs, which create a pay-to-progress-faster advantage for paying players. However, the core gameplay is both deep and fun, and free players can still enjoy the many game-modes and simply grind for cards. App Store: Here
Raziel: Dungeon Arena [Total Game Size: 5.1 GB] (free)
Genre: RPG / Action / Co-op / Diablo-like - Requires Online Access Orientation: Landscape Required Attention: Full tl;dr review: Raziel: Dungeon Arena is a fun Diablo-like action RPG with solo and co-op dungeons, an insane amount of unique loot, neat 3D graphics, cute pets, and well-calibrated controls. The game features 3 classes; archer, melee knight, ice priest, and although there is no character customization, we can at least switch build later in the game. As we level up, we unlock more and more skills and can gradually customize our build through one of the largest talent trees I’ve ever seen in a mobile game. From the main city, we can meet and chat with other players, craft potions, team up for co-op dungeons, or jump into the single-player missions to slay hordes of enemies and find new loot with unique stats and set bonuses. Raziel is a modern mobile game, for better or worse, which means lots of daily and monthly login rewards, achievements, events etc. My biggest gripes with the game, however, are that finding a team at lower levels is almost impossible and that while combat is fun, everything is too easy in the beginning. Monetization happens through a $4.99 battle pass, a premium currency used primarily for cosmetics, and various “packs” of crafting materials and potions that go up to $19.99. There is no need to spend money on the game to enjoy it though, and while paying players definitely have an advantage in PvP, the game is primarily PvE-focused. App Store: Here
In-depth look At Mihoyo's History, misconception about Gacha gaming industry, and Genshin Impact's future
You Are The Real MVP - Why Genshin Impact Is The Real Game of the Year in 2020:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLxgyp0pnMQ Hi all, I see there is a lot of anger and anxiety toward Genshin Impact due to the wide audience it brought to the table, as well as a lot of misconceptions about the gacha gaming industry. I am 40 years old and have been gaming for over 30 years. I have 300+ DAYS /played in World of Warcraft and recently, over 1000 hours in Path of Exile with popular build guides with hundreds of replies. I also have played just about every major hit of every era on every platform. I really want to tell you who Mihoyo really is, how the gacha gaming industry works, and what Genshin Impact's future looks like. Mihoyo's History In 2011, three college students from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (comparable to Cornell in America) released their first game, FlyMe2TheMoon. When they graduated in 2013, they used their own money to make the first Honkai game (released as Zombiegal Kawaii overseas). This game allowed players to farm gold coins to buy all weapons and gear, only spend real money to speed up progress and came with glorious two players co-op way ahead of other mobile games at the time. At end of the day, players just didn't pay money for it. When they took it to investors, they were laughed at and ridiculed by everyone. Nobody is going to pay money for this silly anime stuff! You guys don't know how to monetize a game! Both of these games are still available on App Store, feel free to download them to check them out! In 2014, on the verge of bankruptcy, the team learned monetization model from Puzzles & Dragons, the first-ever mobile game to break a billion dollars, and released Honkai 2 with the same art style and gameplay. The biggest change was moving to the gacha model. The game became a top-10 grossing title in China, released to overseas market as Guns GirlZ - Mirage Cabin and Guns Girl - Honkai Gakuen. Mihoyo the company was born. Today, Mihoyo has over 1000 employees and pays them more money than titans like Tencent and Netease, and runs their office in the ultra-expensive heart of Shanghai business district. Despite Genshin Impact's smashing global success and player's thirst for more content, they gave many of their employees a full 8 days break, standard with the 10/01 Chinese national holiday, for the historic job they did with the global launch. They understand it is a marathon, not a sprint. For Mihoyo, the most important metric for their title will always be LIFETIME REVENUE, and they do not abandon their titles. All of them are still available. Honkai 2 is still getting content updates six years after release, even if the game itself is nothing more than a piece of history for them at this point. Honkai Impact 3 hit an all-time high revenue month this year, still makes a few hundred million dollars a year in China/Japan, three years after release, and Mihoyo took every dollar they made and spent an unprecedented 100 million dollars on a mobile game we know as Genshin Impact. You can count on Mihoyo to treat its most ambitious title ever with love and care, but you must remember they will always prioritize LIFETIME REVENUE over any other metric, which is what successful companies do because it is the only way to make the product best in class. Fate Grand Order - Genshin Impact's TRUE inspiration In 2015, Fate Grand Order was released as a turn-based mobile JRPG, the first six months it scored just $100 million dollars, and was on the verge of sinking into irrelevance. Five years later, the game grossed 4 billion dollars and became the most successful PVE game on any platform since GTA 5. How did it happen? Many say it is the fate IP, but the truth is fate's IP is nothing special in a sea of big IPs trying to make a splash in mobile and failed miserably, just ask Nintendo how their two Mario games performed, or Square about their countless Final Fantasy mobile games. 80% of the billion-dollar games on mobile are actually brand new IP's. The biggest challenge for every PVE game-as-a-service is monetization. PVP games like League of Legends and Fortnite do not need huge content updates to stay fresh and can maintain much higher daily active user counts to sell cosmetics, make $5 per player, and still hit a monster year. Monetizing PVE games is much harder. Players simply run out of things to do and quit the game, no matter how quickly you can produce content. Games like Path of Exile and Warframe struggle to break 100 million a year in revenue. PVP gacha games like Summoners War and AFK Arena can rely on whales dueling each other to force meta changes, and they grew into billion-dollar franchises in their own right. But Fate Grand Order had a different idea in mind, what if you design amazing characters that are truly desirable, and price them at a low gacha rate so it takes thousands of dollars for rich players to max out their box by pulling multiple copies? You are never going to have the player base of a Candy Crush, let's try to maximize our revenue ceiling from whales instead, and make players emotionally attach to their characters because they are so well designed. The rest was history. While there are indeed many generous gacha games like Granblue Fantasy, Azur Lane, Dragalia Lost, etc, none of them are in Fate Grand Order's tier if you look at their annual numbers, not even in the same ballpark. Other multi-billion dollar franchises like Puzzles and Dragons, Monster Strike also follow the same concept of greatly increasing the limit of what a whale can spend on a PVE game to max out a character. And yes, we are talking about providing strong benefits for getting multiple copies of the same character. The numbers have proved time and time again, that maximizing whale spending in a PVE game is far more revenue than maximizing the number of monthly card players. Genshin Impact's Target Audience Any product that tries to be everything for everyone is doomed to fail. Mihoyo has very clear audiences in mind:
Players who love anime graphic and ARPG, there is simply no AAA game out there in this genre. Tales series, Xenoblade, etc. are all low budget, low sales games. Granblue Relink is single platform and dead on arrival. There is no dominant franchise at all.
Players who love Zelda's open-world exploration and environment interaction, but hate the difficult puzzles and survival/weapon durability/ammo aspect, and want constant content updates. Hey, a co-op mode with a real RPG system sounds amazing!
Mobile players who want more than a simple game like Fate Grand Order. They want to do dailies during commute and don't mind doing harder content on PC/console. The game needs to look good on a big screen at home. They don't want to learn/maintain two different PVE games given how time-consuming these games are.
Players who retired from MMORPG/ARPG's due to real-life commitments. Many of us who played World of Warcraft have kids now, and the outdated graphics, 20 buttons skill bar, the social requirements for raids . . . it is just too much to keep up. We want a simpler game that looks good and takes far less time to learn and play.
And let's just say they hit it out of the park with the greatest launch in gaming history. Never before a game hit PC/PS4/iOS/Android with cross-play on day one in 100 countries, 13 text language and 4 fully voiced languages, never before a game hit top 5 grossing in China/Japan/US/Korea at the same time, I don't even recall a marketing campaign did so well across so many drastically different regions and cultures. The AAA graphics, sound, incredible polish, you don't need me to tell you why this game is amazing. But from the competition's standpoint, the launch itself was like watching a bronze player climb to grandmaster overnight, and the game's biggest strength. Far bigger companies, franchises, do not dare to even think about launching a game at this scale. Mihoyo released the failed Honkai 1 overseas when the company was on the verge of collapsing, they always punched way above their weight when it comes to global releases. Make no mistakes about it, this was never meant to be a single-player AAA game or a direct Diablo 3 / Path of Exile / Warframe competitor. It was meant to be a game that converts PC/console players to gacha gamers, by casting a wider net than any mobile game ever. They only need a small percentage of PC and console players to change their behaviors. The rest of them can play for free or leave and it won't hurt them at all. The monthly card is designed as a super good deal (look, WAY cheaper than World of Warcraft $15 per month) to get PC/console players to spend for the first time ever, breaks down their "why pay for a free game" defense. Once they pay once, the pity 5 star is always just a few dozen more pulls away, let me buy another pack! Before you know it, monthly cards are converted to dolphins, dolphins are converted to whales. It is by far the strongest business model for a PVE game today, and people who are new to the genre won't know what hit them. Genshin Impact has an excellent chance to end Fate Grand Order's reign as the #1 most successful PVE game on any platform since 2016, by the virtue of being on every platform, and the same version across all regions. LIFETIME REVENUE = Active Player Base * Spend Per Player * Longevity For every game as a service, balancing these three variables is an incredibly difficult task. Can Mihoyo increase the rate on an event (like Cy Games gala events), put up a Diluc banner, and greatly increase spend per player? Yes, but they will provide less reason for people to pull on other days and lose out on long term revenue. Likewise, the resin limitation is to prevent even whales from maxing out their characters and moving onto other games, that is why they have a hard limit on resin refill. Player progression is meticulously controlled to ensure content can keep up. A huge part of internal testing is to test how quickly a player of each spending level can go through content. Two-day, three-day, seven-day, and thirty-day player retention are critical metrics to F2P mobile games, you will always lose a huge number of players during these transitional phases. These are tried and true methods in gacha gaming to preserve the maximum number of players over the long haul. It is basically a much more advanced progression control than say, World of Warcraft's weekly raid lock outs. You have to FORCE your players to take breaks, or you will lose them way faster than you can churn out new content. All four dailies, spend resins, and open-world exploration for crafting/ascension materials, a couple of chests/quest you missed, that is a health 60 minutes of gameplay. Gacha games provide resources for the next pull on every daily, every quest, every event. Getting a five star is a better feeling than getting any item drop in MMORPG/ARPG. Gacha games have a much stronger hold on its players because of this addiction, you are always very close to the next pull! Genshin Impact takes it a step further to actually encourage you to do single pulls over ten pulls. Over time resources will inevitably be loosened up as more contents are released, and daily quests and slowed down progression is there to keep you playing. Behind the scenes, there is an ultra-complex data model that works tirelessly to balance all three variables. Looking at Mihoyo's track record with Honkai Impact 3, they know what they are doing to maximize LIFETIME REVENUE. With every gacha game like this, the developer has a price point they need to hit on a five star, then based on the competition they usually adjust the price significantly higher than what they consider to be acceptable. Whether it is gacha rate or stamina, once you reduce the price, you can never, ever increase it again. Start high and drop it when you need to is a much better strategy, and players think you listened to their feedback, win-win! If the daily active user doesn't drop while you keep the price high, why lower the price? The developer and player are always in a tug of war, with the developer testing player's limit on what is acceptable. It is just like how Apple kept iPhone with 2GB of memory and tiny screen size for a very long time because they are looking at the overall LIFETIME REVENUE, not because they didn't know their product needed these features. Genshin Impact is priced at a premium because it has no competition, just like how Apple iPhones were priced at an ultra-premium when it first came out. Over time, prices will drop, resources will come easier, but until there is a real competitor, they do not need to care what lesser gacha games do. Do you think KeQing should be priced the same as a gacha character with PS1 graphics? Genshin Impact's Future 100 million dollars estimate from Sensor Tower in two weeks does not include PC, PS4 and Chinese Android. Chinese Android revenue has been 1.8 times of China iOS for Honkai 3, many in the Chinese gaming industry speculate the true global revenue number of Genshin Impact is easily double of what Sensor Tower shows. Mihoyo is a private company and it fired one of the employees who bragged about the 09/15 China PC numbers, which was 10 million dollars, so we will never know the exact figures unless they go public. Don't expect Mihoyo to ever share revenue/player base numbers, that is just not how they operate. There is no way the game can continue the 100 million dollars a week pace, that is 5 billion dollars a year, so for haters out there, you will see a massive decline in the player base between content updates, you will see the game falling out of top 10 grossing, you will get your "I told you so" moments when the weekly revenue drops by 50-70%. It is perfectly normal for gacha games between banners, and what Gensin Impact is doing is completely unsustainable. This is called filtering out users and building a stable player base. However, even with the inevitable massive decline, this is a game destined to be a multi-billion dollar franchise. I personally give it a very conservative estimate of two billion dollars in three years. It will easily outperform the likes of BOTW, Cyberpunk 2077, etc. by the end of the first year in terms of the player base, hours played, and revenue. It will take money away from all other gacha games and force other developers to step up their game. It will take money away from long-standing multi-billion dollar PC PVE franchises like Dungeon Fighter Online, and to a lesser degree, MMORPG's like FF14. It will encourage companies to play with bigger budgets and provide PC/console releases for bigger mobile releases like Diablo Immortal, instead of relying on emulators. It will even change the monetization model for western F2P games. Iksar, lead designer of Hearthstone has been playing Genshin Impact since release. Imagine if Hearthstone didn't allow you to craft cards, and provided benefits to getting multiple copies of the same card. It is way too late for Hearthstone to change now, maybe there is still time to change Diablo Immortal's monetization model, I believe they will need either gacha or real-money auction house to be competitive. But will Genshin Impact shake up the AAA industry? My personal opinion is no. Japanese developers do not have the technology to make mobile games at this level, you just need to look at the top 20 grossing Japanse mobile games. Western developers do not have the artwork to make characters so attractive, I mean just look at Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 characters, will whales spend $1000 on them? Whales spend enough money in gacha to pick up girls in real life many times over, many of them are ultra-rich and live a lavish lifestyle, just showing anime assets is not enough to win them over. In all of my years playing Western games I have never been attached to a female character as I did with Artoria aka King Arthur of Fate Grand Order, I played the game for six months even if I don't really like turn-based JRPGs, and always enjoyed listening to her "Excalibur". Mihoyo is coming very close with some of Genshin Impact's character designs. I am not sure if Western culture is capable of creating the type of characters that can connect with players on an emotional level. Lara Croft is definitely not it. I believe Western gaming's general pursuit of realism and grittiness hurts them when it comes to creating an idealistic world and dreamy characters. Top western games tend to expose the harshness of real-world to players, instead of offering an escape. In many ways, Mihoyo's mastery of anime is closer to a Japanese company than Chinese company, it is not something you can just hire a couple of artists for. Likewise, the western market will always be 15-20% of the overall revenue for gacha games at best, it is difficult for western companies to justify making them with a AAA budget. It is also incredibly hard to make a cross-platform PVE game on PC, Console, and Mobile look this good. It is not something you get from just licensing Unity. There are maybe a handful of companies out there capable of dropping 100 million dollars on a game like this, but until their main cash cow die, which studio dares to take this kind of risk? The tier 2-3 companies are simply not capable of spending 100 million dollars even if they went all in. I don't see a real competitor in two years, not even from Tencent and Netease, the bar is that high. How You Should Approach It As A Player If you are not a fan of gacha games, no problem! The best way is to play it like a free AAA game with unlimited free DLC's. With the amount of money this game makes, in a few years it will have more content than any other open-world game, and the developer will also be more generous over time as end game contents become more abundant. As their tools mature, the amount of time it takes to release contents across all platforms at the same time will shrink significantly, there will also be more events they can queue up. Every F2P player can get at least one five star character without rerolling if they complete most of the quests and use up their gifted currencies. I expect 100% F2P players will get at least 4 five-stars per year, 3 from pity, 1 from luck. I believe F2P with limited resources is a lot more fun and only spend money to support the developer. I am still 100% F2P on Genshin Impact as of today, because getting 20 pulls from the monthly card is not that exciting. I will wait for a one-time-only deal later in the game's life cycle. For players who want to be a bit more involved, you can buy a monthly card, do your dailies, enjoy new content, enjoy the thrills of pulls, and pity 5 stars. Once Mihoyo gets a stable end game loop out there, they will definitely loosen up on resins. Just don't expect to play it like a Path of Exile season start. Save currencies and pity timer for a banner you want. Take it slow! Gacha games are designed to be played over many years, alongside other games. Take your Cyberpunk 2077 break, take your Call of Duty break, but in the end, there is simply no anime ARPG competition on any platform, and if you are into this kind of game, you will be back.
*Hi people. I always do a 'hidden gem' suggestion thread during the bigger sales, so here is the one for the Winter Sale. Since the list only grows, I decided to add a section specifically for new games, for those of you who read through the list each sale when it's posted. I figured it would save you some time. * NEW GAMES SINCE LAST THREAD Popup Dungeon - $18.74 (-25% off) - Very Positive | 412 reviews : A top down dungeon crawler roguelite with absolute freedom of creation tools. Create, or download, custom campaigns, enemies, heroes, skills, and more. DYSMANTLE - $15.99 (-20% off) - Overwhelmingly Positive | 954 reviews : A Zombie survival game that plays more like an ARPG, with a healthy dose of exploration and mystery. Incredibly early in EA, so may be worth waiting on if you want a full experience. Snakebird - $3.49 (-50% off) - Overwhelmingly Positive | 528 reviews : A deceptively cute puzzle game that will destroy your brain with its difficult puzzles. They released an easier take on the game with Snakebird Primer Super Cloudbuilt - $2.99 (-85% off) - Very Positive | 132 reviews : Fast paced parkour 3d platformer. Cogmind - $17.99 (-10% off) - Very Positive | 674 reviews : An incredibly polished roguelike all about creating weird builds and swapping out your machine's parts as you come across new ones, and your old ones degrade. Element TD 2 - Multiplayer Tower Defense - $8.99 (-10% off) - Very Positive | 265 reviews : A deep tower defense game straight out of Warcraft 3 from the original devs. Has Solo play and multiple ways to play online: Coop, Duels, and Free For All Survival Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 693 reviews : An RPGMaker JRPG with great art, memorable characters, and a good story. Metamorphosis - $9.99 (-60% off) - Very Positive | 159 reviews : A Kafka~esque adventure puzzle walking sim. Has a Demo Prodigal - $7.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 36 reviews : A masterfully done homage to the old Legend of Zelda games, harking back to Oracle of Ages/Seasons on the Game Boy Color Ikenfell - $15.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 210 reviews : A turn based rpg set in a magic school. Lots of charm and heart in the characters Under 1k Reviews Puzzle Recursed - $1.99 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 261 reviews : A puzzle game similar to Baba is You where the rooms themselves are items that you can move inbetween other rooms TRI: Of Friendship and Madness - $3.74 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 318 reviews : Puzzle Platformer like portal, but you use geometry instead. It rewards you for thinking outside the box too. I built a staircase to get outside the level, and get to the highest point, and found a collectible at the top. The devs know you will try to break it, and they reward you for doing so, instead of shaming you for thinking creatively. FRACT OSC - $3.74 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 379 reviews : A Musical exploration game where you solve puzzles with sound DROD: Gunthro and the Epic Blunder - $4.99 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 65 reviews : A turn based puzzle rpg game. The whole series is great, but this one (#4) is one of the best places to start. I Am Overburdened - $1.49 (-70% off) - Very Positive | 103 reviews : A great loot based dungeon crawler. Could probably fall under roguelites, but I find it is more similar to a puzzle game with the way you have to strategically attack monsters and level up like Desktop Dungeons did. Cypher - $1.49 (-70% off) - Very Positive | 361 reviews : A first person puzzle game all about cryptography. RPG Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe - $7.99 (-60% off) - Very Positive | 880 reviews : Oh my god, how does this have less than 1k reviews? Its like a ghibli movie, with the superb animations, mixed with a monster slaying version of chopped, and a bit of match 3 gameplay for the cooking. Its such a fun game to play, and the concept of it is incredible. There need to be more cooking games done as well as this, because HOLY CRAP its good. 3030 Deathwar Redux - A Space Odyssey - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 896 reviews : A Space Sim mixed with an old fashion Indiana Jones adventure game, with a sprinkling of cyberpunk atmosphere. Siralim 3 - $4.49 (-70% off) - Overwhelmingly Positive | 824 reviews : An indie Pokemon game, but actually innovative and good. Alvora Tactics - $7.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 73 reviews : The second of three games like Final Fantasy Tactics from a passionate developer Broken Reality - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 600 reviews : Ever wanted to explore the 80s vaporwave internet in first person? Nows your chance Platformer Knytt Underground - $1.39 (-80% off) - Very Positive | 139 reviews : A pure exploration based metroidvania platformer with a massive world. No combat to be found here. Slime-san: Superslime Edition - $5.99 (-60% off) - Positive | 36 reviews : Supermeatboy meets the old style graphics. So sad the community never took off, since the devs released a Level Creator for it as well 1001 Spikes - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 382 reviews : One of the first 'superhard platformers' I remember playing through back on the 3DS. Has a ton of postgame content if you can beat the main game. Walking Sim Heaven's Vault - $14.99 (-40% off) - Very Positive | 894 reviews : Man it saddens me that this never got big. Its got the same exploratory feeling that The Outer Wilds left me with. Its linear up until one point, and then you are free to explore wherever you want to go. The world is so fleshed out, and exploring the dead civilization and piecing together what happened while learning the language is a great experience. Sagebrush - $3.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 111 reviews : Trapped on a cult compound and you gotta figure out what happened here TIMEframe - $0.95 (-84% off) - Mostly Positive | 231 reviews : Kinda Outer Wildsy, where you are stuck in a time loop that consists of the last 10 seconds of a city's existence, but time is slowed so those ten seconds last for ten minutes. The Magic Circle - $4.99 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 847 reviews : Too perfectionist to finish any endeavor you start? Well now you can feel called out while avoiding that work too! Strategy Stellar Tactics - $12.99 (-35% off) - Very Positive | 823 reviews : A Space Sim RPG with xcom esque planetary exploration and combat. Lots of interlocking systems for people who like complex games. Tenderfoot Tactics - $19.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 83 reviews : Really surreal take combination of open world party RPG and RNG Free turn based tactical combat. Super trippy visuals where the distant landscape shifts around you. Fort Triumph - $12.49 (-50% off) - Mostly Positive | 465 reviews : Fantasy Xcom with a fully interactable and destructible environment, with a Heroes of Might and Magic overworld and base expansion system Impossible Creatures Steam Edition - $2.49 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 969 reviews : An old, old RTS where you build units by genetically smashing together creatures. Want to take the camouflage gene from a chameleon and mash it with a whale, so you have an invisible water behemoth? You better believe you can. The Dungeon Beneath - $11.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 66 reviews : Quick Autobattler with an awesome soundtrack and plenty of unlocks. Tycoon/Base Building Merchant of the Skies - $9.89 (-34% off) - Very Positive | 890 reviews : Ever wanted to be a trader in a steampunk world of islands floating in the sky, and play a magic flute for a giant carrot? Well you can here! Great trading game that has a main goal, lets you set up production chains by overtaking resource based islands, and start a fleet of traders to do your work for you. Odd Realm - $7.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 431 reviews : A 'cozy' feeling basebuilder like Rimworld. A bit light on content, but has great sound design and mechanically different factions worth playing. Reignfall - $0.49 (-90% off) - Very Positive | 232 reviews : An wave based RTS where you can drop down and control your 'hero' on the battlefield. No campaign, but earn relics throughout games you can bring into future games. Warsim: The Realm of Aslona - $4.79 (-40% off) - Very Positive | 426 reviews : ASCII kingdom management game with way too many race and characteristic combinations to count. Roguelites and Roguelikes Tangledeep - $5.09 (-66% off) - Very Positive | 650 reviews : An easily accessible rogueLIKE for those who want to try out the genre. Lots of systems, including a pet system that lets you capture any enemy as a pet, and a few dlc's that add to the game. Dungeonmans - $4.94 (-67% off) - Very Positive | 613 reviews : Another great rogueLIKE that works as a great intro, with some good writing and humor. Has a castle you build up and fill out as you continue dying over and over again, and has options to turn off the persistent map and progress, if you like a more faithful roguelike experience. Kingsway - $3.99 (-60% off) - Very Positive | 912 reviews : A Medieval game like ftl, where the 'OS' is your way to interact with the world. Monsters pop up as windows in the 'OS' and you have to fight and dodge through the interface itself. Nice retro feels, while having some fun gameplay and possibilities. Beat Blast - $11.19 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 115 reviews : You equip items you get onto a 'beat bar' which activates in sequence to the beat of the music where each row has a different attack. The dev has a web demo up on his site as well. Casual Geo - $2.24 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 88 reviews : A casual mining game that feels like a love letter to old flash games like Motherload. Lots of content, and perfect for second monitor gameplay while you watch or listen to something. Intergalactic Fishing - $9.74 (-35% off) - Very Positive | 112 reviews : No Man's Sky, but with actual depth, and a hell of a lot more fish. Hop to randomly generated planets and craft lures to catch randomly generated and simulated fish. Wilmot's Warehouse - $8.99 (-40% off) - Very Positive | 203 reviews : Let your inner OCD fly as you organize boxes for delivery inside of a warehouse. Over 1k Reviews - Generally I want to stick to games with less than 1k reviews, but occasionally I find a game so good that I think it deserves to be seen more Platformer Wuppo: Definitive Edition - $3.74 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 3,058 reviews : Move over Hollow Knight. You've been dethroned as one of the top modern metroidvanias. Just a pure fun, silly game. RPG Eastshade - $12.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 2,955 reviews : Bob Ross RPG anybody? Paint your way into the humanoid animal people's hearts Hypnospace Outlaw - $13.99 (-30% off) - Very Positive | 1,428 reviews : An insane nostalgia kick to the early days of the internet. Track down misdeeds on the Hypnospace Tycoon/Base Building Colony Survival - $14.99 (-25% off) - Very Positive | 4,154 reviews : A great first person game all about growing and protecting a colony. Use your sla... workers to automate a ton of tasks and start thriving.
My Year In Gaming: Pandemic Edition (34 Mini Reviews & Stats Because I'm A Nerd)
Over the course of 2020 I played 33 games. Not bad for a 27-year old who's married, with a house and 4 pets and is pursuing writing on the side. And I think we can all agree gaming provided a much-needed escape from the craziness of this year. If I picked it up once and never came back it didn't make the list because it didn't leave an impression on me. This will be LONG, as I'll talk at the end about my favorites and my disappointments. Also some stats because I'm an excel nerd. These are listed in the order they were played. Unless noted I finished/beat the game. Let's GO!
THE GAMES
Bioshock: Remastered (PS4) An enjoyable if dated shooter that drips atmosphere and prioritizes story and characters over gameplay. A very enjoyable experience even if the gameplay starts to wear thin towards the end and the final boss is a bit of the letdown. 4/5 Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic (PC) Dated combat mechanics hold this one back from being considered a great in 2020. Both Mass Effect and Dragon Age are better. That being said, Bioware's always had incredible writing and characters, and KOTOR is no different. The combat ranges from infuriating to fun depending on where you fall in the story. Anything beyond Dantooine is typically enjoyable. Play for the story and choices, not the combat. 3.5/5 Kingdom Under Fire II (PC) Note: This was played over a Steam free weekend, and as such, I didn't finish it. A nice little mix of RTS, MMO, and action. Was fun over a free Steam weekend - may pick it up when it becomes cheaper. The epic scale ties everything together, even the small bit of story I got from the two days was entirely forgetful. No Score Unreal Tournament III (PC) This is like Doom 2016 before Doom 2016. Fast-paced, frantic fun. Just stay away from the single player. I'm glad I was able to find a few guys still playing online, this is a hell of a lot of fun, but just like the Doom multiplayer, it didn't snag me for more than an hour or two. 2.5/5 Undertale (PC) Note: I did not finish this game. No, just no. I didn't like the gameplay (to be fair, I haven't played many bullet hell games and that's almost entirely the combat) and the story, while quirky, didn't grip me. I just couldn't get attached to the characters. Fun music though. 1/5 Hitman (2016) (PC) A return to form for Hitman. The levels are massive, and while this lends to the openness of the game, it can also get overwhelming at times. I'd have preferred the gigantic maps being broken up by smaller ones throughout the course of the six levels, and the one in Japan kinda-sorta achieves this. Still, this is Hitman at its best, and stands right alongside Blood Money for top contender. Welcome back, 47. 4/5 Risk Of Rain 2 (PC) Note: This was played over a free Steam weekend. Enjoyed it! Addicting little game. Will certainly purchase despite never playing Risk Of Rain 1. Just needs a price drop. $14.99 or so? I'm in. Fast-paced fun. No Score Sea Of Thieves (PC) Played this one with the wife. It's not bad, it just doesn't hold my attention. Sure, sailing the high seas as a pirate is neat. But there's virtually no depth and nothing to hold your attention. 2/5 Democracy 3 (PC) I'd been in the mood for a political sim with everything going on in the news, and Democracy 3 isn't a bad game - but I remember it being better than it was. It just didn't hold my attention long. I like how in-depth the different focus groups can be and it looks like there's a healthy mod scene, but it quickly got repetitive and bored me. 2.5/5 Doki Doki LIterature Club (PC) A game that isn't anything close to how it appears. I'm not one for most anime-styled games, nor am I a visual novel fan. But the psychological horror elements contrast so well against what the game presents itself to be and when the shit hits the fan it doesn't let up. This game does things I've never seen a game do, and it excels at them. 5/5 Alan Wake (PC) Revisiting this one. First played it around release. Engaging, with solid if unremarkable third-person shooting (the flashlight mechanic is neat.) The episodic format really works well. This was my first time through the DLC - The Signal DLC is super fun - I really enjoyed the twist on the world and how it played on the concept of shining your light on words to make items appear. I almost wish at certain points it made you choose between items. This DLC also seemed a bit more difficult. Short, sweet, and too the point though. The Writer was fun as well, the hamster wheel/ferris wheel was fantastic, and it continued a great story, but I feel The Signal was just stronger overall. 4/5 270: Two-Seventy US Election (PC) A fun little waste of a few hours but once you understand the mechanics and start winning it loses a lot of its appeal. 2.5/5 God Of War (PS4) The best game I've played of the year so far. A fantastic story, great combat (the Leviathan Axe is amazing), and plenty to keep you coming back. The real challenge, though, is the valkyrie boss battles you can complete. Did I do them all? Yes, I did. But Sigrun alone took me a week. I became a man when I played God Of War. 5/5 Civilization V (PC) My second pass at this game. It's fun at the start, but never manages to hold my attention. I had a similar issue with another 4X game a few years ago (Endless Space 2) and I've come to the realization I just don't think these games are for me. 2.5/5 The Last Of Us: Remastered (PS4) A replay of a masterpiece. It's always nice to revisit The Last Of Us. The characters and story are fantastic, but I also really love the gameplay. It's gritty, realistic, and there's a lot to think about when you play through on hard like I did. 5/5 Call Of Duty: WW2 (PS4) Note: I only played the multiplayer. The multiplayer was alright for a Call Of Duty game. As with most Call Of Duty games, I played it for a bit then moved on. I don't feel a strong desire to check out the campaign, and the zombies mode was shut down minutes after firing it up for me. It feels like WW2 held my attention far less than other Call Of Duty games, but it is a nice break from the jetpacks and wallrunning that seemed to define the series this gen. 2.5/5 Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2017) (PS4) Fun multiplayer. That being said, even with all the amazing progress that's been made, it feels unlikely Battlefront 2 will ever step out of the shadow of its launch state no matter how much free content EA poured into it. That being said, this feels like Star Wars - the battles, the sound effects, I love it. 3/5 Detroit: Become Human (PS4) Detroit: Become Human might just be the best Quantic Dream game. It has a lot going for it, I really enjoyed the many different paths the story can take. I was a little split on the flow chart at the end: on one hand, it kind of removes the mystery. But it also shows you, often times at mind-boggling length, just how far different paths can take you and how you can get locked out of entire sections. 3.5/5 The Last Of Us: Part 2 (PS4) A game that has an incredible first half, and a repetitious and uninteresting 2nd half. Though I think this game might just have my favorite combat of any game, the bland and overly-long sections where you're forced to play as Abby just didn't do it for me, and have killed any desire I have to replay the game. Ironically, I really wish now the game had shipped with multiplayer as I could dive into that amazing gameplay without feeling the slog of the back half of the game. Ellie's story, and parts of Abby's, are great. But the game should have been shorter. 2.5/5 Darkwood (Switch) Note: I did not beat this game. I only got an hour or two in. Interesting mechanics and imagery but couldn't hold my attention. Doubt I will return to it. Was hoping it would be more engrossing than it was. 2/5 Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered (PS4) It had an enjoyable campaign, with a few key moments. The missions that most hype up, ie "All Ghillied Up" didn't really do it for me. I vastly preferred the other missions. That being said, the gameplay doesn't hold up fantastically today. It's competent, but with a basic story. Nothing incredible. 3/5 Far Cry 3: Classic Edition (PS4) The open world is neat, the island definitely has personality. However the best part of the game is Vaas. With his death occurring just a little over 2/3 of the way through, it leaves the rest of the game with a considerable void. One I probably should've given up on sooner. Mechanics are good, but it feels dated and repetitive the more you play. 3/5 Pillars Of Eternity: Complete Edition (PS4) A good game that should've been great. Were it not for the bloated second act and lack of consequence, this game could've been a 5/5. Reminded me of Dragon Age: Origins in key points. Great worldbuilding and decent-to-good characters and companions. Lots of dialogue options, but they don't end up mattering much. 4/5 Doom (2016) (PS4) One of the best FPS games ever made. A return to the arena FPS games of yesteryear, Doom seamlessly blends fast-paced gunplay and tight mechanics with some serviceable leveling and a decent story. Make no mistake: the focus here is the gunplay, and it holds up incredibly well throughout the campaign. 5/5 Super Mario 64 (Switch) Note: I did not beat this game. A classic to be sure. But one I didn't end up sticking with past a few hours. This one does feel best left in my childhood. Playing it now, it doesn't grab my attention as much. The music is timeless though. 2.5/5 Resident Evil 2 (PS4) A wonderful return to survival horror, and my personal preferred Resident Evil game from this decade. 2 does so much right that it's so easy to look past its few shortcomings. Every encounter is tense, and the pace is kicked into overdrive once Mr. X shows up. Every enemy is a threat, the game drips atmosphere, and will leave you shook more than once. 4.5/5 Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) (PS4) Note: I only played the multiplayer. Got pretty addicted to the multiplayer for a bit. I had fun with the added realism, the weapons sound phenomenal and handle great. But, as with all Call Of Duty games, I got to level 30 or 40 and hung it up. One of the best Call Of Duty games in a long while. 4/5 Ratchet & Clank (PS4) A fun little platformer that retains the series' signature wonky (and amazingly fun) weapons. There's nothing quite like using your Groovitron to send hordes of enemies into a dance mid-battle. Aside from the weapons however, this is a pretty standard platformer and the story feels incredibly safe. The humor works most of the time with how self-aware it is. 3/5 Spider-Man (PS4) The best Spider-Man game ever? It's certainly up there. With an open world full of collectibles, tons of side-quests, a fun take on the Spider-Man lore, and great gameplay, Spider-Man is everything one could want in a Spider-Man game. Yes, the combat can feel a little too Arkham-style at times, but the game doesn't overstay its welcome and it works incredibly well. 4/5 Borderlands: Game Of The Year Edition (PS4) Note: I did not finish this game and I played it solo. I'm hot and cold on this one. On one hand, I literally could not care less about the story and that's good for pick-up-and-play sessions. But I don't feel compelled to return to it. This one will probably remain unfinished indefinitely. An okay looter-shooter. 2.5/5 Magicka 2 (PS4) Note: I did not finish this game and I played it solo. A fun little top-down action game, but I wish the levels allowed for the level of spell creativity that I thought it would. I ended up spamming familiar attacks instead of experimenting with new ones because I was playing solo. Definitely intended for co-op. However, the music and humor was pretty great and the game, while repetitious, didn't drag. 3/5 Halo 3 (Xbox One) Note: I only played the multiplayer. I always sucked at Halo multiplayer, but 3 takes me back to a more carefree time. I didn't stick with it, but the few hours I spent with it were fun. Remembering all of the old levels and times I used to play it was more fun than playing it now. The announcer's voice is still epic, though. 2.5/5 Gears Of War 4 (Xbox One) Note: I only played the multiplayer. The Gears Of War multiplayer is something you have to adapt to. As a Call Of Duty player, I tend to rush and you have to wallhug and be in cover 90% of the time to survive in this game. But there's a nice element of strategy to it and I love the executions and the lancer. 3/5
GAME OF THE YEAR
It's been a long, crazy, quarantine-filled year! But only one game can stand out amid all the others. And it is . . . God of War There's no argument. This game surpassed my high expectations and is now one of my top 5 games of all time. Let's go Ragnarok! Runner Up: Resident Evil 2 I honestly didn't know if I'd like Resident Evil 2. But after finishing it, I immediately played through the B scenario, and that is incredibly unusual behavior for me. Addicting and very well paced!
MOST SURPRISING
Sometimes a game hits you a way you didn't expect. This game got its hooks in me in a way I didn't think, or I wasn't expecting it to. Doki Doki Literature Club I will say no more on this other than you need to download and play it. It's free, it'll run on a potato, and it'll hook you hard. Runner Up: Pillars Of Eternity Look, I've played CRPG games before. But I've never finished one. I put over 90 hours into this game. That's the 3rd or 4th most played game ever for me, and it was one playthrough. This game did something right.
MOST DISAPPOINTING
And lastly, sometimes games you're amped/hyped for don't swing for you. And thus we have the most disappointing category. Undertale I literally sorted my Steam library by highest user rating. That's how I ended up playing this. I don't like anything about it besides the music. The humor didn't click for me, the characters felt off, it just wasn't for me and that left me with this "What am I missing?" feeling. Runner Up: Darkwood Man, this should've been right up my alley. An abstract horror game with graphic imagery and tense survival. But it wasn't. And you know what? I'm okay with that. I gave it fair spin. I might try it again in the future, but I doubt it.
STATS
For nerds like me who are interested in the numbers. I played 33 games this year. My average score was around 3.6 (which as an average is a little disappointing as I wanted to spend this year playing games I really loved but ended up being just "good".) My most played genre was FPS at 30.3%, followed by Action at 21.2%. Third-Person made up the majority of games' perspective I played at 41.4% (almost half!) followed by First Person at 31%. Not terribly surprising here - I enjoy both equally. I played most games this year on my PS4 at 48.5%, followed by PC at 36.4%. Overall, I favorited any type of Console at 63.6%. I was actually expecting this to be higher. I tend to bounce back and forth - I think it's because the bulk of the PC games were played in the first half of the year. I Beat 51.5% of the games I played this year. That might seem bad, but it's worth noting that 15.2% were games I only Played Multiplayer of, and and 6.1% were games that Had No End. Of games with an actual campaign, I Quit 15.2%, and I put 9.1% On Hold.
RECAP
Whew, that was a write-up! If you made it this far, thanks! I think I'll keep my excel sheet going into next year. I tracked a ton of stuff I didn't even mention like secondary genre of games, the year it came out (to try and average what generation I was playing the most in), whether I have a desire to return to a certain game, etc. It's been a hell of a year. I've no doubt thanks to the virus I've played more games than usual. But I've had some really fun times this year, and I've been more active on this sub which makes it even more enjoyable. Thanks for reading!
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