Month: November 2016

Ball of Rage

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Ball of Rage

The last several weeks have been rough for me, because there is a significant amount of change going on in my life.  Generally speaking I can handle a single aspect of my life in chaos at once, so long as the rest of it seems to be working just fine.  That however is not really working as intended.  On the gaming front I am all over the place, torn between World of Warcraft, loyalty to friends still playing Final Fantasy XIV… and my desire to play games that no one else is really playing like Destiny.  On the work front, stress is the order of the day with everything in a seeming state of chaos with some reorganization and many different competing deadlines.  On the home front we have the chaos with the fact that Luna still does not fit into this family, and the fact that I am trying to juggle how socialize her but at the same time keep her away from the other two cats who she straight up attacks.  Then there is the fact that my wife is in just as much chaos as I am right now and having a pretty rough school year.  Sometimes…  things go horribly wrong and last night was one of those cases.  The above image is not directly related to this topic other than the fact that the game is “Rage” and I have been in a fairly ragey state lately.

I was a horrible boar to be around yesterday, and it seemed like everything set me off into a cursing and yelling fit.  There was a point at which my wife was like “I just don’t want to be around you right now, because I don’t know what is going to set you off”.  It was true, I had no clue what was going to set me off either.  I am just inexplicably angry, even when doing things that I normally like.  I am not sure how to get past the wall of stress and get back to normal… or honestly at this point what normal even would be like again.  Today I am taking the day off as part mental health day, and part I planned ahead and wanted to watch Blizzcon as it was happening.  I am hoping that a day alone with my cats gives me some time to get over what is making me angry.  This morning we can just add worry to the mix, because last night there was a massive tussle between Luna and Kenzie that came from out of nowhere.  At the time Kenzie seemed okayish, but now she is limping around and reacting harshly to pretty much everything.  So I am super worried about her and if she is okay.  The leg doesn’t appear to be swelling or has any visible wounds…  but it is obviously tender because she doesn’t really like it being messed with and is holding it and three legged walking.

To make things even worse I know tomorrow that I am going to have to go spend time at a family gathering.  This stresses me out beyond reason because I know that this branch of the family has some wildly differing political views at the moment.  I know that the election is going to come up… and I am just not sure if I can hold my shit together long enough to keep from spewing and string of expletives at this family that otherwise thinks I am a sane and respectful human being.  Everything makes me angry right now, and the election is I am sure a part of that general bubble of rage.  I just want things to calm down and return to a normal state so I can begin to function again.  The biggest problem is I am not sure when that normalcy will actually arrive.  At this point I am guessing it will be like this, a bundle of angry bits until after the holidays.  In the mean time though I am going to try and figure out a way to calm down and learn how to relax again.  Mostly I just need one or two of the fronts to calm down… I need a sanctuary from the stress and that doesn’t really exist right now.  Every single place I exist in… is full of madness and I just want something to stop being that way.

Ball of Rage

by

Ball of Rage

The last several weeks have been rough for me, because there is a significant amount of change going on in my life.  Generally speaking I can handle a single aspect of my life in chaos at once, so long as the rest of it seems to be working just fine.  That however is not really working as intended.  On the gaming front I am all over the place, torn between World of Warcraft, loyalty to friends still playing Final Fantasy XIV… and my desire to play games that no one else is really playing like Destiny.  On the work front, stress is the order of the day with everything in a seeming state of chaos with some reorganization and many different competing deadlines.  On the home front we have the chaos with the fact that Luna still does not fit into this family, and the fact that I am trying to juggle how socialize her but at the same time keep her away from the other two cats who she straight up attacks.  Then there is the fact that my wife is in just as much chaos as I am right now and having a pretty rough school year.  Sometimes…  things go horribly wrong and last night was one of those cases.  The above image is not directly related to this topic other than the fact that the game is “Rage” and I have been in a fairly ragey state lately.

I was a horrible boar to be around yesterday, and it seemed like everything set me off into a cursing and yelling fit.  There was a point at which my wife was like “I just don’t want to be around you right now, because I don’t know what is going to set you off”.  It was true, I had no clue what was going to set me off either.  I am just inexplicably angry, even when doing things that I normally like.  I am not sure how to get past the wall of stress and get back to normal… or honestly at this point what normal even would be like again.  Today I am taking the day off as part mental health day, and part I planned ahead and wanted to watch Blizzcon as it was happening.  I am hoping that a day alone with my cats gives me some time to get over what is making me angry.  This morning we can just add worry to the mix, because last night there was a massive tussle between Luna and Kenzie that came from out of nowhere.  At the time Kenzie seemed okayish, but now she is limping around and reacting harshly to pretty much everything.  So I am super worried about her and if she is okay.  The leg doesn’t appear to be swelling or has any visible wounds…  but it is obviously tender because she doesn’t really like it being messed with and is holding it and three legged walking.

To make things even worse I know tomorrow that I am going to have to go spend time at a family gathering.  This stresses me out beyond reason because I know that this branch of the family has some wildly differing political views at the moment.  I know that the election is going to come up… and I am just not sure if I can hold my shit together long enough to keep from spewing and string of expletives at this family that otherwise thinks I am a sane and respectful human being.  Everything makes me angry right now, and the election is I am sure a part of that general bubble of rage.  I just want things to calm down and return to a normal state so I can begin to function again.  The biggest problem is I am not sure when that normalcy will actually arrive.  At this point I am guessing it will be like this, a bundle of angry bits until after the holidays.  In the mean time though I am going to try and figure out a way to calm down and learn how to relax again.  Mostly I just need one or two of the fronts to calm down… I need a sanctuary from the stress and that doesn’t really exist right now.  Every single place I exist in… is full of madness and I just want something to stop being that way.

Entitlement, RNG, and Fun or Lack Thereof

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I’ve been one of the last folks in my raid group in WoW without a legendary item. We’ve been joking that of course I’ll get one of the worst possible ones for my spec if and when I ever get one, and the prophecy has been fulfilled. Last night, right before raid, I opened an emissary chest and got the worst possible legendary in the game. Not only is the effect mostly useless in raids, but it is a ring, which means no primary stat boost, and it doesn’t even have my best secondary stat on it either. I had been mentally preparing myself for this, because such is my luck, especially in a world where my pal Belghast steals all the good luck for himself. However I wasn’t prepared to have my shame broadcast to the whole guild at peak time when everyone was getting ready for raid. I tried to be good-natured about it, merely vowing eternal vengeance against and angrily shaking my fists at everyone who made fun of me for my bad luck.

I’m aware there are community members who think that everything is sunshine and roses, and that people who get a legendary item and then have the nerve to complain about it are entitled jerks. My honest opinion here is that those people can go eff right off. This particular item has multiple attributes that work against it, making it unattractive to almost everyone.

  1. It’s a ring. However you feel about most legendaries, anything that gives you a huge ilvl bonus to your primary stat is likely to be more exciting than a ring with secondary stats only.
  2. It drops for every class and spec. I’ve seen this item drop a lot, because it can drop for anyone. Even if it were more useful, this blandness makes it seem less fun than an item specially crafted to boost your chosen class.
  3. Its special ability procs from applying a loss-of-control effect, which is something that most raid mobs and dungeon bosses are immune to. So most fights you won’t even get any special benefit from it.

Even Blizz acknowledged that there’s a few legendaries that aren’t as exciting as intended, and as far as I know there may be some changes to those items in the works. I prefer a system where I can work towards big ticket, game changing items like the legendaries represent. Or at least have some protection from horrible RNG, like with Kanai’s Cube in Diablo 3. There, if you just can’t get the item you need to drop you can keep trying to craft it in the cube. It is still RNG based, but there’s some protection there for people with terrible luck. It would also be different if there was anyone outside of a PvP setting that really prized this particular legendary turd. Instead, I’ve seen it drop over and over again, and never has the lucky recipient been excited. Always it is met by complaint and murmurs of apology from the rest of the guild. That’s bad design.

Item drops in dungeons can be good or bad, but there’s always another chance to run things again tomorrow and get something better. Bad legendaries feel extra painful because you’ve been waiting for months to get one, and know you’ll have a long wait for another chance. Meanwhile your friends get shiny new toys that change their playstyle or give them cool buffs. I feel a bit similarly about some of the incredibly hard-to-get hidden artifact appearances, but at least there it is all cosmetic. Nobody feels like they are letting their raid team down because they can’t get their artifact skin to drop, but I feel like I’m not healing as well as I could because I am missing a vital piece of gear.

I honestly attempted to vendor the stupid thing in protest when I got it, but sadly the game won’t let me. It is hard to even justify using it as a “stat stick” since the stats on it are pretty poor for me. All I can do is complain and joke about it and try to defuse some of the frustration of the whole thing. And pray to RNGesus that maybe next time I’ll get something useful.


Entitlement, RNG, and Fun or Lack Thereof

Dream Cleansed

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Dream Cleansed

Last night was madness… but in a mostly good way.  Firstly it started on a bizarre note because I had not been reading the raid slack during the evening, and had not quite grasped that it was up to me to pull things together.  I was busying myself with trying to get shit ready for the raid, and was fishing up some mackerel to make the high end versatility food.  During this time folks kept asking me if I was running the show that night, and each time I answered “Sure if Ky doesn’t show up”, never fully grasping that in fact that was what was happening.  I remembered Ky saying something about not being there, but for whatever reason I had that linked in my head with the “people attending blizzcon” list, so that when he said he was not in fact at BlizzCon I just sorta deleted that tidbit of information from my brain.  As a result what ended up happening was me realizing five minutes before the start time of the raid that I probably should have sent out invites fifteen minutes before hand.  There was a last minute flurry of activity, getting people invited and summoned and this also caused me to feel like I really needed to pull faster than normal.  Apologies to the healer team for putting up with my shit.

In truth a huge thank you to the entire raid for dealing with my shit.  It has been years since I have attempted to lead anything larger than a five player group.  Even then I am not entirely certain I am completely qualified to be responsible for the lives of others.  The truth is I was a little concerned that we were down both Zea and Kylana who traditionally are locked in an eternal struggle for first and second place on the dps meters.  However in the past week it seems like that quite literally everyone has improved their gear a bit, and the result felt like we possibly cleared trash faster than we have ever done.  Similarly a lot of the boss fights felt really solid, namely Il’gynoth that felt like our smoothest kill yet with no last minute panic or the feeling of it being an extended wipe race to the finish line.  The only negative of the night was that we struggled a bit on Spiderbirb, but I think most of that was simply bad luck.  It was about then that our flasks were wearing off so we took a break and came back refocused, and wrecked it on the next pull.

The real highlight of the night however is that we finally downed Xavius.  Honestly the timing of this could not have been more perfect, because after we had made a few attempts and were regrouping we saw that Zea popped into game.  So we ninja invited him… and he opted to bring a friend of his along as well.  Then when we went out to summon that friend…  Kylana popped online, who we also ninja invited.  So when we managed to get the kill we had our entire raid team, which makes it feel all the more awesome as a result.  Sure I realize this is “only normal” but screw it I am happy as hell and I will fite you if you poop on this moment!  The fight felt like madness from a tanking perspective, but it is amazing how much confidence comes from having downed and encounter the first time.  I know without doubt that we will come back next week and wreck him all the harder.  At some point I am certain we will start dipping our toes into some of the heroic versions of these fights as well.  We essentially have one more Cenarius kill from being able to skip directly to Xavius, so at a minimum we can start working on heroic while still clearing the final boss.  It was a good night.