Techies been picked a LOT on the International, I like to think those matches as a needed sacrifice to the Frog Of Ice so his Nerf Stick is used after the event ends.

My guess is something will be made to make his laning weaker, perhaps something related to the mana cost of his skills so he every mount counts, or maybe reducing his armor / HP so he can be killed.

I installed Long War but haven't started it yet.. if I gonna replay XCom may as well try something a bit different.

On my 2nd playthru I realized the soldiers Aim on his profile is equal to his hit percentage. So 60 aim means 60% to hit assuming no other modifiers.

After realizing that you start to see how the game is tuned around your aim. +10 from SCOPE make you go from 60% to 70%, and versus an enemy under light cover you makes you go from 40% to 50%.

This also means any soldier with bad aim is really, REALLY bad, to a point I'd restart the game if my promoted Rookie has something like 55 aim.

The rare 80 aim Rookie will hit aliens under light cover 60% of the time, which is more than the 55 Rookie shooting a flanked enemy.

Basically, high aim soldiers are everything, and so is destroying cover to improve your chances to hit, which makes a Heavy (or a T2 Mech with grenade launcher) very welcome.

I recently played (and finished) Victor Vran.

Good production value and a nice take on the Diablo Action RPG formula, but it get a bit repetitive near the end when enemies start to get beefier and beefier and your options in builds get more and more limited.

Simple example – I had a cool crit build which would generate «mana» on crit which I would spend on a spell called Bumerangue, however, my epic rank Bumerangue by itself was a non scalling spell with no synergy with other stuff so it really fell out late game.

The only scaling options were weapon based builds which forced me into a boring, but effective, right click build to kill the last boss.

This aside, it was worth the money I spent on it and is definitely a solid game.

Angie rushes the comic to watch The International just to find the stream offline for unknown reasons.

Karma?

If a championship as big as the International can be DDOS'ed, what hopes small ones, and even single games, have of not being ruined?

This year International been full of upsets by the way, 2 wildcard teams (including one korean) survived all the way to the 3rd day of the main event, and most of the former champions already been eliminated.

While it seen a bigger pool of heroes are viable this year, I feel strategy wise the game is poorer because there is no more split push or quick push strategy and the game boils down to who can farm their 2 cores the fastest.

And yes, I was a fan of Deathball, the problem was not the strategy but pussy chinese teams calling GG 5 minutes into the game because they «knew the match was lost», aka no balls. Any game will be boring if the other side quit halfway thru the match, specially on a grand final.

When a game is delayed, it's commonplace to bring Miyamoto quote which says «A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.»

And while this is true, it doesn't change the fact the game is late and depending of who you are, your interest on it may have come and gone. Perhaps you now lack time, or have new interests.

Whatever the reasons, sometimes we build up our interest to match up a release date, like a hungry pavlovian dog, salivating to the release date and when this release date is busted, well..

Honestly, I lose interest on Mighty 9 when they showed the 3d graphics so for me delay or not changes little BUT if I was hyped by it I won't be happy in waiting for a polished version coming later.

Simply put, I want my game polished and on time, and if you can't do it don't put a damn release date. Getting a polished, working gameis better than a buggy ridden version but doesn't change delays sucks.

It's almost like receiving a working game those days is some kind of divine blessing and we should praise it like God's gift.

There is now a patch of mold on my bedroom.

My mouse got a bizarre glitch which affect my keyboard, making it unusable.

I am also sightly sick, trying to not get severily sick.

So, yeah…. not a very good day here. I'll cut my losses and go to be early.

Cya!

Lots of chores to do today so no time to rant much.

Given what I heard about the pachinko Silent Hill and Castlevania «Erotic Violence» thing Phanton Pain may be the last good Konami game.

This said, Phantom Pain looks awesome.

edit – I said Resident Evil (which is Capcom) when it's Silent Hill.

Been playing Endless Legend. It's plays a lot like Civilization but at the same time, has many different twists to make it a different, but enjoyable experience.

It's hard to say which one is better, and given the huge prestige Civ have, this is a huge compliment.

Oh, and The International was great, but I feel the most picked heroes were picked all the time. Every match has QoPs, Shadow Fiend, Lina, Tusk and Gyro and because there was no split push or deathball strategy, the matches had a similar flow and feel.

Honestly, no matter how great the team fights were, this meta feel a lot like League of Legends.

For those who don't play Hearthstone, Shaman hero power make him summon a totem. Different from all other heroes which have a fixed effect (heal, summon a soldier, etc), you don't know which of 4 totems you are going to get which makes his power very unpredicable and many times not worth spending mana.

Charged Hammer, while not a very impressive weapon may still be used for some desperate Shaman trying to avoid the default Shaman power.

I don't expect the weapon to be effective, it cost too much but again, it's this or totems. Isn't easy to be Shaman.

Diplomatic victory is sometimes much like domination victory where you wipe anyone who refuses to accept you as their gracious leader.

Alternatively, you may grow so big you alone hold most of Earth population, then you just vote in yourself and win.