kieuecaprie

[kieuecaprie]

...okay fine, I came back for 2.1 but only because it promised that the AI is not as cheaty as it once was. But was that true?

In some ways, sure, it certainly feels like I'm sweating slightly less than I did in 2.0. In other ways, nope, still bad, there's a lot of times where the AI magically gains speed and just zips past me in a way an actual player wouldn't.

In all, I give the new AI a rating of "Very Annoying", about two steps down from "Very Frustrating", which is definitely an improvement, however, I still feel like the game stops being fun at times due to the other issues still prevalent in the game itself.

Items are still a liability. I feel like most of this is just down to bad item box placement. Why would I want to use an item going uphill when I have to use rings to go uphill? But I can't because I have to use the item first to get at the rings. Yes, there's sneaker panels but they are awkwardly placed if the hill is a corkscrew.

Spinning Top still F-Tier. I tried and I tried but the item just feels awful to use and oftentimes, I end up careening into the abyss which costs me, you guessed it, time and rings.

I'm not gonna repeat myself on the special stage design, they just feel awful in general but SS2 gets a special shoutout due to 1) having tricks after a cup with no tricks and 2) generally being twisty and windy which makes actually hitting the catcher very, very difficult and 3) the catcher for having collision so when it smacks you, you tumble into the abyss and lose a life or you tumble and it gets a five second headstart on you. The payoff is beginning to feel not worth it.

Drifting continues to feel bad even with Lite Steering off by default. If I'm not supposed to drift as much as I did in SRB2K, the tutorial should at least mention how I'm not supposed to drift as much.

On the plus side, the changes has made the game in general feel a little bit better. The tutorial is now less mandatory, the tutorial skip race is much easier (yeah, unspoilered because patch notes mentioned it) with the reward of getting addons and online immediately once you beat it.

I still have mixed feelings about the game and I'm still gonna judge it harshly due to the fact that a good number of unlocks are behind a wall of AI in the Grand Prix but this is a decent start.

I think I'll just take the major unlock passwords because I don't have the spoons to unlock everything normally (AI still fucking sucks) and just have, y'know, fun in Match Race? I do wish it had something similar to Mario Kart where you could have a "Grand Prix" of your own that you could play with custom levels of AI. Should be treated as if you've played Easy GP so no Special Stages and hell, it could open up the door for an All Cup Tour.

TL;DR - Game's slightly more tolerable. Not to the levels that I'd like but it's no longer hitting my breaking point.

Officially giving up on Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers.

There's way too many small issues that add up overtime to the point where I'm just straight up not having a good time. Either it's too slow (Gear 1/Gear 2) or too fast (Gear 3) and let's not mention the AI cheating like crazy, even on easy. I've given this game as many chances as I could give but in the end, it's gotten too infuriating to play.

#dr. robotnik's ring racers #kieuecaprie gaming #i know these posts seem like i'm screaming into the void #but i'm not very keen on posting on their discord

[kieuecaprie]

Officially giving up on Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers.

There's way too many small issues that add up overtime to the point where I'm just straight up not having a good time. Either it's too slow (Gear 1/Gear 2) or too fast (Gear 3) and let's not mention the AI cheating like crazy, even on easy. I've given this game as many chances as I could give but in the end, it's gotten too infuriating to play.

#dr. robotnik's ring racers #kieuecaprie rants #i'm not kidding about the cheating ai btw #just spectate the rival ai in any gp replay and you'll see what i mean #i'm mad but i'm more disappointed than anything #i wanted it to be good

[kieuecaprie]

After reading the Neopets subreddit, I've been alerted to the fact that people are just now getting their Marafins and, uh...

From what I could read from the Trading Post History on Jellyneo, somewhere around page 10 and beyond at this time of writing, most offers before it was on the weekly quest rewards is somewhere in the ballpark of 1 to 2 billion neopoints. No, that's not a typo, that is literally billions we're talking here. There are a couple of 400-600 mill offers in-between but this was pre-weekly quest drop.

Post weekly quest drop, however? A quick glance at the first page of the very same trading post history tells that the price has dropped to 2 million. That's basically a drop of about 1,998,000,000 NP with the best possible estimate!

Although, did those trades worth billions back then even go through? I don't know, they've existed in the past and I dunno if they still exist now, if they even are. And it is kinda scary that Marafin, after all this time, did not have a price history on Jellyneo.

I'm willing to bet that it was worth billions before simply because it's funnier to think that way, plus big number make brain happy make me clap smile happy.

#neopets #i'm kinda hoping i get one in my next weekly tbh #the marafin would be a good companion to a few of my neopets #plus marafin is baby

[kieuecaprie]

So, got around to trying it in Gaming Mode and, uh, well, the performance is Not Great™, then again I'm playing in wine and not, y'know, native, so there's probably a performance issue there. MM8BDM also suffered from horrendous performance issues until I switched over to native. Will switch over to native as soon as the flatpak is up.

And now, my thoughts on the game as a whole, hidden behind the read more due to spoilers.

Let's start off with the bad first, we might as well rip off the band-aid. For this list, I'm listing from worst to least worst:

AI is very, VERY rubberbandy, hideously so. It honestly feels like I'm being punished for not utilizing a technique properly except I'm sure I'm doing all I can. The Rival AI is the worst since it randomly gains massive speed boosts for no reason and seems to have an infinite supply of rings at its disposal.

The new items suck. I'm sorry, but they do. The Bubble Shield is unintuitive, the bouncer is very frustrating to get hit by and amplifies the feeling of getting karted by 10 times, spinning top fucking sucks to get when behind, new hyuudoro is also not very good, the new bombs are not good either as they are now single-fire with five ammo. The only real good new item I can praise somewhat is the shrink ray. Also, where the fuck is the SPB? I've played three grand prixs so far and have not seen it once.

Tutorial throws everything at you at once and offers no way out of it. You're stuck in there until you actually finish it. Yes, there is a skip but it's Dissidia style where if you try to skip, the game decides to curbstomp you with high/max level AI and you only get ONE SHOT at it during the initial tutorial. It also doesn't help that the tutorial is LOOOOONG.

Locking online play behind grand prix doesn't feel very good and may hinder new players who just want to play with their friends in future. Sure, you only need to finish with bronze in the first cup but keep in mind this is on top of the tutorial beforehand that takes an hour or two to finish.

Speaking of questionable locking design, colors? Why? Addons? Why? I can get locking characters, followers, and cups behind unlockables but those two in particular? Why?

Special Stages seem fine at first but the second one feels like it has a massive difficulty spike. Doesn't help that you get one shot at doing it (with all the lives you've collected up to that point) so if you fail, you have to start all over again. If the second special stage has questionable design, I don't want to know about the others... Reminder that you have to do this 14 times and the unlock seems purely arbitrary.

Gameplay feels sluggish at times, compounded by times when you have 0 rings. Rings are significantly more impactful than items in most cases. Insta-whip sees no real use outside of the tutorial mostly due to its range and the fact that it puts you in a deficit when you hold it for too long. Drifting also feels slightly worse than it did and even slows you down considerably.

Spin-dashing feels slow and even when I use it deliberately to cross a body of water, I feel like I never make it, making that use case also very situational.

Okay... that's a lot of negativity there, surely there's some good points, right? Yeah, you're right actually, there is!

So here's what I liked about Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers so far. For this one, I'm listing this from good to best (so we're climbing up from least worst here):

Outside of a few questionable decisions (you could've at least given us base colors!), I like the idea of an unlock board. Getting Chao keys for playing the game to allow one to skip challenges is a good idea and while it's agonizing not knowing which box unlocks what, I feel like only being able to read what's just ahead of you kind of calms the choice paralysis down a bit.

Despite being long and tiresome, the tutorial has some good moments and while I'm not exactly thrilled at it being strictly mandatory, it having literally every main mechanic in there makes it exceedingly helpful with coming to grips with the game.

The option to include an input delay system to practice for online play is absolutely appreciated. Some people may not like it but in my experience of playing SRB2K online, there is absolutely some input lag. It's not Smash Ultimate online levels of bad (that one is like ten years per input) but you do notice it. Sure, it does make offline play a little frustrating but you can easily turn it off if it bothers you.

The profile system is great. Accessibility options are also somewhat decent with a few not-so-great options such as "kickstart accel" being clunky to use. The rest, however, is pretty good, even if they may feel like standard fare. Having controls be linked to profiles is also good too.

The starting line system is interesting and somewhat engaging even if it boils down to sitting close to the line and spin-dashing when the countdown hits 2. I also enjoy the fact that you could potentially knock your rival in the line and force them to sit out for a bit.

The new courses are definitely a step-up from SRB2K. (Yes, I'm comparing it to its older brother.) The designs are great and the ones that are effectively remakes of the SRB2K ones are pretty good in my opinion.

Despite my gripes with the AI, the fact that it even has a singleplayer component at all gives it an edge over SRB2K simply due to the fact that it makes it playable offline. I love SRB2 Kart to pieces but the fact that I don't play online very often makes the experience on there not so great, even if there are good singleplayer mods for it. You can only play Time Attack so much before you get sick of it.

Despite everything bad about the game so far, I can tell there's been a lot of effort put into it. The learning curve is awful, yes. The AI is horribly rubber-bandy, yes. But this still feels somewhat solid.

Well, that's my initial thoughts about the game so far. If you held a gun to my head and told me to give a number, I'd at least give it a 6 out of 10, 63* out of 100, a thumbs up recommendation with a caveat, that sort of thing.

Now, what do I think needs to be improved? Hmm, I can think of a few:

Speed levels when lacking/not using rings needs to be increased at least on flat/slightly uneven surfaces.

Separate ring use and item use. Although I'm not sure how badly it'd affect the game if you could do both, I do feel like it'd make items feel less punishing pick up over rings.

Change the first place item roulette somewhat. There's no reason for them to get bumpers even if it's a drop item, it just makes catching up to them even more frustrating than it needs to be.

Tweak the AI a little bit to be less rubberbandy and cheaty. Leave that kind of stuff to the max level bots and nerf the rest.

Special stages need a rework. Having to juggle chasing after the claw and firing weapons at it is very exhausting. Either change how it plays or change the stage layouts.

Alternatively, if one unlocks the special stage for that cup, they should be allowed to continue attempting it as long as they want instead of having to go through the cup again. This isn't SRB2 where you have to keep going even if you don't get the emerald.

Give the player an easier way out of the tutorial. Whether this could be a skip after the basics or a password that could be entered. Heck, with the latter, you could literally have a password that lets you bypass the tutorial during initial setup that you can learn about just after finishing it. Hell, if you need to justify entering a skip tutorial password, the dialogue could change to be all like "Oh, there's already racing data on here. Guess we could just fix up the video and audio inputs then."

At least give us the base colors after initial setup and give us the more exotic colors via unlocks, it'd probably feel at least a little better. For the empty spaces on the unlock board if that were implemented? I dunno... spraycan followers?

The funny SRB2K code (you know the one) needs to unlock something. Something blue and spherical, maybe.

Spindash needs a buff or it needs a general change to how it feels. Right now, it feels very anemic and its use-cases are very situational. Perhaps it can keep you at your top speed for a little bit longer or maybe, if you wanted to implement a skill mechanic, give a more powerful spindash for releasing at the right time.

I'll continue trying it (and maybe switch over to the flatpak as soon as I can for hopefully better performance) because I'm stubborn and the game has some good points. It's got very big shoes to fill, mind, so we'll see if the growing pains are worth it in the end.

Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers finally dropped. Flatpak wasn't out yet so I did a sneaky and used Lutris to run the windows executable instead (I could've used Steam with Proton probably but, eh, never think of these things.)

My initial hour one impression of it? I like it so far but there's quite a bit to take in. I'd say more but I'd rather not spoil too much right now.

Also haven't had a chance to test performance yet because I booted it up in desktop mode and then played for an hour, whoops.

#kieuecaprie gaming #dr. robotnik's ring racers

[kieuecaprie]

Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers finally dropped. Flatpak wasn't out yet so I did a sneaky and used Lutris to run the windows executable instead (I could've used Steam with Proton probably but, eh, never think of these things.)

My initial hour one impression of it? I like it so far but there's quite a bit to take in. I'd say more but I'd rather not spoil too much right now.

Also haven't had a chance to test performance yet because I booted it up in desktop mode and then played for an hour, whoops.

#kieuecaprie gaming

[kieuecaprie]

So I picked up Zoombinis (remake, not original) recently (the compelling reason was that I saw a vod of someone (of the 985 variety) having streamed it on Youtube and thought, "Hey, this looks fun, maybe I should give it a try."

I am now at 10 hours played total and I have completed ONE (1) very very hard (with 2nd leg being very hard) run and I feel like my brain has wrinkled beyond belief.

Also, I swear I can hear Arno calling for his pizza if I just sit and listen for a second.

[kieuecaprie]

NEW VIDEO OUT NOW!!!

the FORTNITE SOUNDBOARD ONLY CHALLENGE!!!

#hey guys! reblog here. #there appears to be some banger video occurring. #i'm gonna reblog its general location so that you guys can see where it is and we can address it together if you'd like. #(watching this live was an experience)

[kieuecaprie]

Alright, it's a little scuffed 'cause I don't know very much about basic editing but here's the video of effectively the whole thing, including the initial method of getting to the fight in the first place...

Okay! I did the thing in Toontown Corporate Clash and played a round of High Roller on my Deck while multi-tooning on my main PC. I have a video recorded, I just need to fix it up real nicely and maybe provide a small bit of text commentary for certain bits that happened in the video.

The result however... it's interesting actually, the framerate never really dropped below 30 in the worst cases. You'll see what I mean when I get around to uploading the video.

Also, be prepared to see the performance overlay take up 1/3rd of the screen (this is on purpose, it's not supposed to be a "kill video", it's supposed to be gauging performance for the more technically inclined folks out there) and a few blunders because, holy shit, it's been too long since I've played Toontown and I fucking suck again.

#kieuecaprie gaming #steam deck #toontown corporate clash

[kieuecaprie]

Do you have any advice for people making OCs/sonas? Yours are really well rounded and unique and I'd greatly appreciate the insight of someone who got a passion project off the ground!

So this is a very broad topic, and it varies a lot based on your own creative goals, what kind of characters you're creating, and where you want to use them. Creating an OC to be used in furry pinups is a little different than creating one for a dramatic story. But I'll try to give some general advice on how I do things for the types of characters and stories I tend to work with

Heads up: this will be kinda long lol

The germ of an idea

For me, I'll generally be inspired to create a character starting with a small number of core traits. These could be anything. A color scheme, a body type, a job, a hobby, a personality archetype, an outfit, a visual motif, a functional role in a story I'm working on, a noteworthy facial feature, a weapon, a relationship of some sort to an existing character, a single scene or joke I want to use them for. For furries and fantasy characters, species is usually one of the first things I'll have an idea for, which tends to get the ball rolling fairly easily since we have all sorts of cultural associations with different animals and fantasy creatures.

Any standout character trait like this that you find compelling can serve as that initial spark. The inspiration can come from anywhere, but it's often just a matter of knowing yourself and your own tastes. What do you like? What are the people in your life like? What really speaks to you in a character? What's an existing fictional character that you'd like to rewrite and take in a different direction? What's an aspect of yourself that you would like to see represented more often in fiction? It doesn't have to be something super deep or fleshed out right from the start, though. You can start with something as simple as "I want a black cat character" or "I want a character who dresses like an arcade carpet" or "I want a character who looks scary but is actually nice." Whatever it is, it's something that differentiates the new character from the ones I already have, because otherwise I'd just be using them.

Contrast

From there, you can start brainstorming other traits that might go with those core traits. Some of those may be traits that naturally complement each other. Continuing with the black cat example, maybe you wanna play into the common cultural perception of black cats and say that this character brings bad luck, or is associated with witchcraft. However, I often like to give characters contrasting or even seemingly contradictory traits, which can help elevate a character beyond a stock archetype. Real people tend to be a walking ball of contradictions, after all.

I've talked a lot about how I did this with the main cast of SLARPG. Melody is a fox, traditionally a crafty and untrustworthy predator, but she's extremely introverted and gentle. Allison is a bunny, but instead of being a meek and cuddly little prey animal she's an outgoing fighter who loves a challenge, and she has a muscular build. I think this kind of thing gives characters some fun flavor, and can be really effective for both comedy and drama. For an example from something I didn't write, take Senshi from Dungeon Meshi. He's a dwarf, and he embodies certain stereotypical aspects of dwarves - he's a short, buff man with a big bushy beard, he lives underground, he's stubborn and doesn't like elven magic - but he also goes against some of them. Instead of being an expert on mining and blacksmithing, Senshi is a culinary expert who has a deep appreciation for the natural ecosystem of the dungeon. He's a weirdo among dwarves for not caring about the wellbeing of his axe and for using his super awesome shield primarily as a giant wok. And that's what makes Senshi fun and interesting.

So going back to our example, instead of going with the stereotype, we could make a black cat character who has comically good luck, or who's superstitious and afraid of witchcraft, or who's an extremely rational person who always believes in science over superstition. Or maybe you roll with the bad luck angle, but instead make the black cat be the victim of their own bad luck in some interesting way. Maybe this black cat has terrible luck with love and can't hold down a relationship. Maybe this black cat is an aspiring speedrunner who consistently gets the absolute worst RNG possible in every video game due to their own bad luck. Maybe this black cat has accrued a horrendous gambling debt after a long losing streak and has loan sharks coming after them.

These are all just hypothetical examples, of course. I don't exclusively make characters with ironic contradictions like this. The idea is just to build on those core traits you started with in interesting ways, and that's one of my favorite ways to do so. But honestly, a lot of the time execution is more important than the sheer originality of an idea, and sometimes really putting your all into playing a trope you love straight is the right move.

Specificity

Regardless of what direction I take a character in past that initial seed of an idea, the key ingredient tends to be specificity. To give them specific details beyond the most stock possible version of that core idea you started with.

This is something I internalized from Tim Schafer, via a blog post in the behind-the-scenes backer material for Broken Age. Sadly I'm not sure if that stuff is still available, but I did save this particular post about creating characters since it really helped me, so I'll directly quote a chunk of that post here:

No two characters would approach a problem or react to events in the same way. At least, not if you’ve designed the characters well. If you’ve left them too vague or superficial, if they are merely functional elements in your story instead of individuals, then they might react in the same way. And that’s a problem. So to avoid that, I’m going to talk about one the most important parts of character development: specificity. Making sure your character is a specific individual, not a stereotype. A unique character, different from anyone else in the world. It doesn’t mean that they have to have wacky gimmicks, eyepatches and crazy accents. It just means they have to be specific. For example, let's create a new character. Let's say your story has a scene where your main character gets in trouble in school. So you’re probably going to need a school teacher. Imagine a school teacher for a bit. Do you see her in a little red schoolhouse? Maybe a bun in her hair? An apple on her desk? Thick black glasses? Let’s put a ruler in her hand for good measure. Done! We have our teacher character. She’s ready to be in the scene where our hero goes to school and the teacher sends her to the principal’s office for passing notes. Right? I mean, this character doesn’t have too many lines, so why develop her character any more? The problem is that this teacher is a very shallow stereotype of a teacher. She has no specific attributes that make her memorable. She’s the teacher you would get in a set of free clip art. She might not have many lines, but if all your supporting characters are this way, your story will be more bland than it should be. Even if this teacher is only onscreen for a minute, she should be unique and different from any other teacher in the world. Luckily, it's not actually that hard to make her so. You just have to ask some very basic, specific questions.

Tim goes on to explain how simple exercises like filling out character sheets with basic questions about your character (there are a million of these online) can help push a character beyond a stock archetype, even if it's a minor supporting character. Questions about where they're from, their likes and dislikes, their beliefs, their goals in life, that sort of thing. For minor characters especially, a lot of these details may never actually come up in a story, but just asking even a few of these questions and giving them specific answers helps you see them less like an archetype and more like a real person in your head. Maybe you never bring up your character's backstory or their favorite sport or what kind of music they listen to, but just having a specific answer for questions like that might help color the way you depict that character in subtle ways. It makes it feel like they aren't defined by just that one core trait you started with, and helps make the characters and world feel more alive, like there's stuff going on with them beyond the bounds of the story or the drawing.

It's a careful balancing act, though. It's easy for a character to feel like they're a collection of too many unrelated gimmicks and quirks. Again, like Tim said, these specifics don't have to make for the craziest, most original character ever, there just has to be something there.

Let's go back to SLARPG as an example, where I combined broad character archetypes I liked with more specific personal elements that I felt like I wasn't seeing enough in the fiction I liked. Melody is riffing on the common idea of the reserved healer character in the RPG or MMO party and the shy girl archetype, but she's the main hero instead of a supporting player in another person's story, and she's also a fat bisexual trans woman who draws a lot of little details from my own life. Her interests, her relationships, her opinions on things, her personal hangups and dreams, these all set Melody apart from other fantasy healer characters and define her as Melody Amaranth. Specificity!

But it doesn't always have to be super deep, especially if you just want some characters to draw for fun and aren't planning on writing a story with them. Take my fursona. I've always loved dogs, so I made my fursona a dog. I chose a Samoyed in particular because I think Samoyeds are the cutest, and I hadn't seen hardly any anthro Samoyed OCs at the time. I leaned into the breed's signature fluffiness to help my fursona stand out from other canine OCs. She has simple identifying traits like being fat like me, wearing glasses like mine, and having a hairstyle kinda like mine (when I tied my hair up in a bun, at least). And there you go. Fursona achieved. She's not a wildly high concept character, but she doesn't need to be

Anyway I realize that this is mostly about the writing aspect, so here's a few quick bullet points about designing a character's appearance:

Face and body type variety are good, but personally I would say lack of body type variety is worse than same face syndrome

Knowing some stuff about shape language is good, but you don't have to be completely beholden to the "circles are friendly, squares are sturdy, triangles are scary" shit. I'm generally more interested in using repeated shaping in different parts of a character's design as sort of a shape motif. Melody's body, hair, and tail are all made of round, swooping shapes, for example. (This is more applicable if you're designing cartoonier characters as opposed to realistic humans, obviously.)

Knowing some basics of color theory is also good. I like using complementary and contiguous color schemes on characters and generally try not to use too many distinct colors on one design. Black and white and grey and various browns are good as neutral colors to balance out the colors of the rainbow, and gold can be a nice accent color

A small handful of identifying accessories can be fun, but don't rely on those to make a design stand out. Ideally your character should still be identifiable even when not wearing their default outfit, or even in silhouette

Aaaaaand I'm gonna call it a wrap there! This is a huge topic, so hopefully this helps with at least some of the basics! At the end of the day, though, don't beat yourself up if you can't sit down and force yourself to come up with the most crazy awesome OC ever. Just have fun and be yourself!

#reblog #this will make a fine addition to my collection #creating OCs is an artform in a sense #it's also pretty fun #of course i say this when i only have - like - five OCs to my name

[kieuecaprie]

Okay! I did the thing in Toontown Corporate Clash and played a round of High Roller on my Deck while multi-tooning on my main PC. I have a video recorded, I just need to fix it up real nicely and maybe provide a small bit of text commentary for certain bits that happened in the video.

The result however... it's interesting actually, the framerate never really dropped below 30 in the worst cases. You'll see what I mean when I get around to uploading the video.

Also, be prepared to see the performance overlay take up 1/3rd of the screen (this is on purpose, it's not supposed to be a "kill video", it's supposed to be gauging performance for the more technically inclined folks out there) and a few blunders because, holy shit, it's been too long since I've played Toontown and I fucking suck again.

#kieuecaprie gaming #steam deck #toontown corporate clash

[kieuecaprie]

Also, for fun, I decided to test my desktop PC to see how badly it can demolish the benchmark and was not disappointed. This is all on the highest settings I can muster btw.

For those of you wondering if the Deck will be able to handle Dawntrail, I can report that we'll be meeting Valve's benchmark for playable FPS (which is 30, btw) for the expansion.

Worst spots were places with tons of entities coupled with a multitude of particle effects going off at once which, understandably, will hurt framerate a bit. I'd wager that turning off effects for people outside your party at the very least will give you some frames for free.

Lowest framerate I've seen is somewhere in the ballpark of 21-26, which is not great, it's bordering on Helldivers 2 levels of bad but, again, benchmark is benchmark, with a couple tweaks we'd probably be able to push minimum up.

In any case, it is still playable and will most likely stay that way for quite a while until they decide to drop the PS4 completely (or stop suggesting the GTX 1080, which is still kicking according to one post on the ffxiv subreddit).

For those wondering if I had done any alterations to my deck:

I have not undervolted or overclocked any part of my Deck

I am currently running OS 3.5.17 with the Steam Client set to Steam Deck Stable

Only major alterations I have made has been using Cryoutilities's default settings (It had been said that, at OLED launch, the OLED kind of makes it moot but Cryoutilities has been a habit for me).

I have not appled a "TDP Limit" or a "Manual GPU Clock" before the benchmark.

The benchmark was performed while the Deck was docked. However, the resolution is set to the Deck's default resolution, not 1080p.

[kieuecaprie]

For those of you wondering if the Deck will be able to handle Dawntrail, I can report that we'll be meeting Valve's benchmark for playable FPS (which is 30, btw) for the expansion.

Worst spots were places with tons of entities coupled with a multitude of particle effects going off at once which, understandably, will hurt framerate a bit. I'd wager that turning off effects for people outside your party at the very least will give you some frames for free.

Lowest framerate I've seen is somewhere in the ballpark of 21-26, which is not great, it's bordering on Helldivers 2 levels of bad but, again, benchmark is benchmark, with a couple tweaks we'd probably be able to push minimum up.

In any case, it is still playable and will most likely stay that way for quite a while until they decide to drop the PS4 completely (or stop suggesting the GTX 1080, which is still kicking according to one post on the ffxiv subreddit).

For those wondering if I had done any alterations to my deck:

I have not undervolted or overclocked any part of my Deck

I am currently running OS 3.5.17 with the Steam Client set to Steam Deck Stable

Only major alterations I have made has been using Cryoutilities's default settings (It had been said that, at OLED launch, the OLED kind of makes it moot but Cryoutilities has been a habit for me).

I have not appled a "TDP Limit" or a "Manual GPU Clock" before the benchmark.

The benchmark was performed while the Deck was docked. However, the resolution is set to the Deck's default resolution, not 1080p.

#kieuecaprie gaming #steam deck #ffxiv #dawntrail #dawntrail benchmark

[kieuecaprie]

happy homosfuck day

wait fuck i mean

happy homostuck day

err

happy homesfuck day

shit

happy homestuck day

[kieuecaprie]

Okay, I ranted and went for a tangent for a bit about Moray Towers, the worst Splatoon map in my eyes, and how everything about 1 felt absolutely terrible but honestly, it had something going for it. While the game fucking mocks you for losing (2 and 3 still do it but less subdued, although 3 rubs salt in the wound by showing the winners instead) and charger mains were somehow even less fun to play against, the rest of the game was pretty good, although yes, it does lack a bit in comparison to what 2 and 3 went to do later on.

I'm talking the vibes, the colors, the gameplay, the splatfests (there was a SPONGEBOB splatfest in the western regions at one point. SPONGEBOB!!!), the story mode, the fucking MINIGAMES ON THE WII U GAMEPAD WHEN YOU'RE WAITING. It was brilliant and I had slightly more fun in 2, although I still got mega mad over there (and I still do, which is why I tend to avoid playing PvP in general in Splatoon 3...), seeing 2 for the first time and how it expanded upon what 1 set as the foundation was pretty neat.

I'm still sad that Splatoon 1 will be officially dead but we do have... certain 3rd party servers that can fill the void.

Watching a Splatoon 1 stream at this time of writing and thinking about the early days of Splatoon where it was fun the first few days, then it just got really bad really quickly. And then the E-Liters with Damage Up came and decided you're not allowed to have fun anymore.

Not gonna lie, I will miss it a little bit, there's a bunch of stages we'll never see again unless they bring it back for any future iterations and a couple of weapons and clothes that'll never see the light of day (The Squid Girl tunic for one) ever again.

But what I won't miss is the hideous meta. Apparently it's turned into an invincibility fiesta where you spam kraken and bubbler the most and that sounds terrifying.

The only thing I do not like about Splatoon 1 going is the fact that Moray Towers is among the last four before the servers shut down. That map should die and stay in Splatoon 2 and Smash Ultimate forever please and thanks.

#kieuecaprie gaming

[kieuecaprie]

Watching a Splatoon 1 stream at this time of writing and thinking about the early days of Splatoon where it was fun the first few days, then it just got really bad really quickly. And then the E-Liters with Damage Up came and decided you're not allowed to have fun anymore.

Not gonna lie, I will miss it a little bit, there's a bunch of stages we'll never see again unless they bring it back for any future iterations and a couple of weapons and clothes that'll never see the light of day (The Squid Girl tunic for one) ever again.

But what I won't miss is the hideous meta. Apparently it's turned into an invincibility fiesta where you spam kraken and bubbler the most and that sounds terrifying.

The only thing I do not like about Splatoon 1 going is the fact that Moray Towers is among the last four before the servers shut down. That map should die and stay in Splatoon 2 and Smash Ultimate forever please and thanks.

#kieuecaprie gaming #no really i do not like moray towers #it's like if facing worlds removed the long rampy bit in the middle and stuck the towers next to each other #it's like if 2fort in tf2 was reverted back to its tfc counterpart without the mobility options #it's a sniper's paradise - which means i fucking hate it - yes i know how to counterplay - don't be in their sightlines - that's it #and playing it in 2 was even more miserable somehow - even with the spammable ink armor and brellas existing (and being useful!) #if anything if it were to be brought to 3 - we'd have two maps with verticality where squid surging would actually be a thing #or - you know - they'd make the walls to the sniper nest and some parts of mid uninkable given their track record

[kieuecaprie]

For two days in a row now, Toontown has cropped up in my dreams in some shape or form. Is my dreamworld urging me to get on with the thing (doing the worst-case scenario that is the High Roller fight in TTCC playing on Steam Deck) I had planned to do?

sigh fine. I'll get to it next week, just need to figure out what I wanna do first.

#kieuecaprie gaming #kieuecaprie rambles #i'm a little iffy on setting a group up and grabbing randos #not because i worry about it or anything but more because i'm worried about crashing #for the uninitiated - crashing in toontown makes your toon auto-flee which is bad #maybe i could do multi-toon - wouldn't be too hard to spin up three instances on my main pc and use the deck by itself #i'll figure something out i suppose

[kieuecaprie]

Played through the solo instance of the FF16 crossover event held in FF14 on my Deck.

John FFXVI's increased polygons didn't seem to have that much of an effect on the fight, which is very encouraging for the graphics upgrade we're due to get in Dawntrail.

However...

As soon as Ifrit starts spamming attacks in his pissy boss mode, the frames begin to drop tremendously with the lowest I've seen being around 28-30, which is less encouraging.

What did I glean out of this? Graphics upgrade probably won't hurt much in terms of characters but the increase in particle effects might, and I have a bad feeling that if it's struggling in Endwalker's content right now, imagine how bad it'll be in Dawntrail's.

Calling it now, first DT dungeon will have massive frame drops that force you to play at 30 due to the intense amount of particles from the first mini-boss. /hj

#kieuecaprie gaming #steam deck #ffxiv #30 FPS is still pretty acceptable #definitely better than SOME games #looking at you Helldivers 2...