I'll be honest here. It actually felt good euthanising the social media bird like an Oda Nobunaga. Do you know what's the best thing about having less than 5 hits/views on the first day? It's the sense of liberation caused by the phrase "I don't care" and the fact you really mean what you say. I'm not the most well-liked person. In fact, I'm an incel and I'm not ashamed of admitting something which wasn't caused by me. One thing I've learnt was that no crook has the right to decide the morality of a fellow crook if you get what I mean. And no, I'm not a morally good person. Seriously, I'm not.
With the ranting done, there's something about the hits/views that might suggest I'm in trouble. When it came to hits/views, there's definitely some semblance of consistency. A nation with a pluralistic name is clearly not one of them. I can list out for you the list of consistent offenders when it comes to viewing my horrible stuff: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Russia. Singapore isn't one of them but I expected this.
As you can see, there are two nations with pluralistic names, but one wasn't on my list of consistent offenders. Namely, the Netherlands. So why was this a big deal?
Someone I know is currently studying at the top-ranked university in the Netherlands. PhD, to be exact. Not in Amsterdam even though it's the capital city of the Netherlands. Rather, it's Wageningen. If you never heard of this place, I suspect it's a good thing. One globally famous legal red-light district is enough, that's all I can say.
Clearly, I have no concrete evidence of trouble nearing my doorstep (and don't ask me why I interpret this as trouble. I suspect Mr Lee will slaughter me for telling the truth). But the consistency didn't make sense. At least not to me. This was weirder than getting a hit/view from Turkmenistan (and it does happen on the very rare occasion with China joining in the fun on an equally rare probability). Japan and South Korea? Happened before but were too sporadic to be called a consistency.
If a person can post something about Afghanistan within 24 hours of me analysing the situation, it's either that person has a habit of posting international stuff or someone may have gone terribly un-Singaporean and character-breaking.
Speaking of trouble...
I believe I need to take a break from following news involving Asmongold. Eventually, at least. The reason why is that I'm just a neutral guy who is as bored as those responsible for Deepfake. Thankfully, I'm not as bored as those responsible for QAnon. One is boredom, the other is malicious boredom.
Anyway, I did watch a video involving him and a fellow FF14 player called Void Bunny. For those who think Final Fantasy 14 is really rated T, let me inform you that freedom of expression can change things very fast. ERP in gaming speak does NOT stand for the Singaporean road tax system. ERP in this context is... well, Erotic Role Play. I now believe someone in the Netherlands is going to send me straight into the Netherworld. For the uninformed (including but not exclusively including Ryan, Frontline Bro, Ah-Hean, and Date Masamune), this is a prevalent underground culture in MMO gaming. However, it wasn't the experience from which I gained knowledge of this. Rather, I'm blessed with the curiosity of a genius without being blessed with the IQ of one. The internet is a dark place, so please make sure you have the mental fortitude of Emiya Kiritsugu instead of the mental resilience of a Singaporean student if you desire knowledge in the name of curiosity. Let it be said that the god of the internet is none other than Hermaeus Mora.
Long story short, I came across a Reddit post involving a FF14 gamer receiving some kind of vitriol over an interview with Asmongold. I can't give you the details for two reasons:
1. I didn't watch the interview vid although curiosity managed to unearth such a video. If you're intelligent enough to graduate from secondary school, you should understand how. It's not rocket science even to a tech Amish like yours truly.
2. I don't want to make things worse. Yes, I do have my angry moments. I have angry moments against the political left and I also have angry moments towards the political right. My attitude towards the Western brand of socio-political religion is the wariness of Tokugawa Ieyasu although my attitude toward evangelicals refusing to play the same game reflected that of Oda Nobunaga towards the Christians during his time (i.e. Roman Catholics).
So how do I see this issue? I'm not a conventional person. Either that or I'm abnormal. I don't have issues with appreciating characters in dark fiction. When it comes to dark tales, I know what I'm dealing with: Effectively a world where God does not exist. If you think that's impossible, chances are that you never came into contact with what the Japanese could do. I can live with works like Berserk, Hellsing, Vinland Saga, Tokyo Ghoul, etc better than other people in the same room every Sunday. Why? Because I know what the logic of 404 God Not Found looks like. If you think it's a Japanese thing, you'd be surprised to know the Witcherverse is also another case of 404 God Not Found. I'm not saying do what I do. Don't emulate a broken person when it comes to seeking a role model. Ask me and I'd say Kaneki Ken isn't a role model.
Again, long story short: I don't expect video games to be paragons of moral virtue. If you need them to be so, it says something very depressing about your society from education to parenting. When I play video games, I ensure myself not to be indoctrinated. Why? Because there's a line between the virtual and real-life. This is not to say you don't need to make moral choices behind closed doors. I'm not a good person, but I don't do three things in ESO:
1. Stealing. That's legal in-game but not for me.
2. Murder. Refer to the above statement.
3. Grabbing Thieves' Throve. I used to do that for a while. Then I quitted for the most obvious reason.
This is not roleplaying. In the past, I tried it with plenty of gusto. Then I realised one thing: I'm not a roleplayer, I'm a storyteller. Even though I'm not Kevin "I'm sure he's not Guan Yu's descendant" Kwan or Kyla "I'm sure she's not Zhao Yun's descendant" Zhao, I'm still a storyteller. Fame does not and should not define my identity as one. Maybe I should have rolled a Warden main instead in the first place.
At the end of the day, parenting is a burden. But this burden is a must because what's the point of having one generation of saints if the next generation becomes a population of sinners? Whenever I saw news of university students breaking the law, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, their actions mocked me as one condemned by the educational system even though I didn't break the law. On the other hand, I knew my decisions mocked them like Liu Bang mocking Xiang Yu.
Video gaming is a tricky issue for parents. If someone says video games are getting increasingly explicit, I'd agree. However, I also know this is the result of a global moral culture shifting to the boundaries of the Netherworld instead of the Netherlands. Living in this world would be much simpler if one doesn't take into account the word leisure. I'm not talking about decisions involving hard boundaries like watching porn and enacting One Night In Amsterdam instead of singing One Night In Beijing. A lot of things involve lines seemingly blurred. It'd be much harder on my conscience to play video games if I do not have a mind of steel. Therefore, I believe it's very important for every individual to ask this question when it comes to gaming: Do I have the mental fortitude to draw the correct line?
Yet, this is not to say we're never in the need to learn. I started gaming in 2014 or so. I made decisions which I shouldn't have made in the first place. If I should have left this title or that title earlier, it means I didn't do so and there's a reason why I should have done so. If I accidentally did what is good because I didn't know a debit card can be used as a credit card, it means being stupid is not always a curse. Actually, being intelligent can be more of a curse at times and I'm not referring to depression.
Progress so far...
The new changes to the armour skill lines have chucked in some very interesting decisions for ranged DPS players in case you've yet to discover it (albeit I doubt so). If you're running a melee Stamina DPS (not sure about Magicka melee DPS because I've to test this out and have no plans to try it), it's not going to be a vital issue since the changes affect only light and medium armour. In short, I believe you'll still need the meta (?) combination of 5 medium and 2 heavy.
Right now, I believe a lot of ranged DPS players are going 5 light and 2 medium. As someone running a Magicka ranged DPS as my main, that's what I do. I got my Dunmer's spell penetration to 6800+ thanks to the one-piece Valkyn Skoria bonus and some good information online (believe it or not, the internet is not just known for memes, porn, and mocking evangelicals). Add to that the Thief critical chance bonus plus 7 legendary Divines traits and the damage go much better than before. Even soloing with a full False God's Devotion on the Spellscar world event ended up yielding a 5 figure DPS consistently (although it's due to Diamond's Victory, nerf or no nerf). It's actually quite fun running this with a volatile Gollum and an angry Birdwoman complete with Blockade of Storm, Hardened Ward, and Inner Light plus Ice Comet as ultimate on the front bar. And yes, Hircine's wolf ring. That one is very important if you're to ask me.
For my Orsimer Nightblade, the dude clearly is a Stamina DPS. But because he's a melee build, this means my options are knackered. The reason being that I can't use sets like Relequen and Vicious Serpent without breaking either end of the gameplay. Either I had to nuke the defensive side with 1 piece heavy and 6 pieces medium or the critical DPS efficiency via the typical 5 medium+2 heavy. The reason why my Orc Nightblade can reach post-50% on the critical chance was because of Leviathan. Without the final tier bonus, the critical chance would go below 50%. In short, I'm stuck with Leviathan, Hunding's Rage, one-piece Kra'gh, and Ring of Wild Hunt. Interestingly, I'm quite comfortable with this arrangement. More specifically, it's having learnt to be comfortable with it. It's like appreciating your girlfriend. If having the likes of Emilia "not to be confused with her fellow Emilia from Re:Zero" Clarke, Yeonwoo, Suzuki "very sure her dad isn't Masayuki" Airi, and Bonnie "no Clyde jokes please" Loo as your girlfriend is the only way for you to do so, then maybe you shouldn't be entering a relationship in the first place.
Lastly is my Altmer Templar. Yes, I know people are going to ask whether I'm anti-humanity due to an all-Mer roster. Yes, I have problems with human nature. But no, I don't desire the extinction of the human race. Anyway, the Altmer is the trickiest character to manage so far and it has got nothing to do with the fact she's a female toon rolled by a male gamer (Note: Please don't ask me about male gamers using female toons to ERP because I'd just laugh like an amused John "he really sang this song" Cleese). The equation is this: How can I make a spear-spamming DPS build work? Using Explosive Charge is a terrible 50-50 in running as a group. There's something about the lag much more than whether there's something about Mary. I don't like it. Seriously, it's a bit like in a toxic relationship. Even in solo PvE, the clunkiness was more painfully evident than using Elemental Weapon. At least I learnt the virtue of sneaking in Elemental Weapon during persistent light attack spamming. This comes to mind the question of what kind of gamer I'm meant to be? I'm not just referring to my strength, it's also about my weakness. I'm not a technical gamer. This means I'm better off planning different builds for solo and group play while at the same time maximising the front bar more than bar-switching. What I planned for solo PvE shouldn't be used for group PvE and vice-versa. In this sense, I function more like a strategist than a warrior or mage. Another thing is the Soulshine set. Now, this one is very interesting for Templars using Puncturing Sweep and/or either morph of the Judgement Mazinger. The former option I use for solo, the latter is for either group running or soloing world bosses (that is unless I'm wrong in assuming algorithms at work if you're soloing group instances). I won't call this BiS for Templars relying on channelling their inner judge, but I'd call this an interesting option. For spear-spamming, it's not an issue. It's when we come to the Judgement Mazinger that things become trickier. One morph is lower damage but additional self-heal while the other is pure damage. Because my playing style is more of a survivor than a glass cannon (actually, I don't do glass cannon builds because I know I'm not good enough for that), I opted for Glory over Oppression. At the same time, lower damage but additional self-heal means I'd be forced to use it more often to maximise the usage efficiency. This plays in nicely when it comes to constantly proc'ing the Soulshine effect. So how this front bar works would look like Blazing Spear, Radiant Glory, Purifying Light, Radiant Aura, Inner Light, and Fiery Rage as ultimate. Instead of attempting a rotation involving Purifying Light and Radiant Glory (seriously, I tried that and it felt painfully clunky), my decision is to alternate between the two when it comes to light attack spamming. I'd need some prolonged practice to make this work, though. Even then, I can't be sure whether it works unless I can actually make it work. After all, every theory is all about proving something unless it's disproven. When that time comes, just make sure you don't put yourself into denial. I'm sure every PhD student should understand what I'm talking about even though I'm not a PhD student.
A/N: Wow, this ended longer than I expected. Must have been my unrighteous anger. Guess it's time for some Witcher 3 instead of Coldplay or Jason "not Momoa" Mraz.
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