So today's post will be kind of like a continuation of what I was working on before. I'd like to share some of my experiences with Hearthstone Arena lately. Note that I've only played about 100~ games of Arena in total (ever), so take everything here with a grain of salt.

Arena

Ever since GvG came out, Arena has felt more and more like Constructed. The release of GvG, as whole, has tilted the game towards a more midrange direction. Cards like Shielded Minibot, Muster for Battle and the resurgence of Zombie Chow have all meant that early game board control has become increasingly important.

The same stands, I think, for Arena as well. Early game drops have become more and more valuable. Cards like Zombie Chow and Haunted Creeper have become extremely valuable picks, alongside old favourites like Chillwind Yeti, Boulderfist Ogre and Argent Commander. There are times when I regret picking 'value' big drops like Stormwind Champion, when a much less greedier pick would have done a lot more. In general, Arena post-GvG is a lot more about early-game board control.

In terms of power level, I would put Mage and Paladin as the strongest Arena classes, with Priest coming at third. The new cards Paladin got are obviously extremely strong. Mage received Flame cannon, a very powerful early game removal, as well as Unstable Portal and Snowchugger. Priest didn't really get any good early game cards, but it did get Velen's Chosen, which is extremely powerful if you can actually play it on turn 3.

To illustrate the power of Velen's Chosen, let's take a look at a Priest run I did a few days ago:

Missing: 2x Mind Control

Pretty decent draft, although for it to reach 12 wins, it needs a board clear (Holy Nova) and possibly a big Legendary. It was drafted with the help of HearthsArena, although quite a few of my picks were different from what was suggested. Lots of 2-3 drops, with decent late game as well. But really, it was the 4 Velen's Chosen that won most of my games (if I listened to HearthsArena entirely, there would've been 6!). 

Coining it out on a turn one Northshire Cleric, or even a Zombie Chow is extremely strong, because it allows you to dictate the trades, and force them to waste a bunch of removals on a 1 drop. The Priest heropower works well with this playstyle. Most of my opponents never managed to regain the board, because by the time they clear the buffed Zombie Chow, often wasting several removals in the process, I would've drawn into my big minions. My only losses with the deck were against 2 Paladins, who both drew into Shielded Minibots very early, and a Rogue who drew into all its board clears. 

Now let's talk a bit about Mage.

Missing: 1x War Golem, 1x Force-Tank MAX, 1x Ysera

This class has always been very strong in Arena. And this 12-2 run I did earlier today just goes to show that even with misplays, a strong deck can carry you through. My mulligans were similar to how any tempo deck would've been played: smooth curve, keep Frostbolt/Flamecannon, keep Water Elemental versus weapon-heavy classes. Besides doing a few cool plays like hero power + Explosive Sheep, this deck mostly plays itself.

Unstable Portal seems very strong right now. Maybe it's because I got really lucky with this run (I got Gazlowe, Iron Juggernaut, Vol'jin and Boulderfist Ogre in the 14 games I played). Maybe it's because it had always been in my opening hand. But at its worst, it replaces itself with a 2-3 drop. At its best, this card can single-handedly win you the early game with a turn-three Legendary drop. Pretty crazy.

If there's something I really learnt after 100 or so of Arena games, it's about learning how to deal with unfamiliar situations, situations that are otherwise unimaginable in Constructed. For example, in one game, I got Gazlowe from Unstable Portal. My opponent plays Mechanical Yeti, which gets destroyed and gives me a Spare Part. It took me a few seconds to realize that a Spare Part also counts as a one-mana Spell. While I would've instantly recognized this interaction if Gadgetzan Auctioneer was in play, Gazlowe's (a rare card to see in Constructed) was a lot more unfamiliar.

Here's another example. I had a Ysera on the board with one life left. My opponent had a full board, including a Harvest Golem and a Knife Juggler. I did the 'obvious' play and hits Harvest Golem before using Flamestrike. The Harvest Golem procs the Knife Juggler, which hits me in the face for one damage, ending the game. There had literally never been a scenario in Constructed, when killing a Harvest Golem is the same as doing 1 damage to the face. 

Here's a final example. In my last, I played against a Druid player. I play Iron Juggernaut. He already had an Amani Berserker on the board, along with a Wrath in hand. Instead of doing the 'obvious' play and Wrath'ing my 6/5, he Wrath'd his Amani Berserker for 1, draws a card, and trades evenly with my Iron Juggernaut. 

So that's the kind of things I've learned to appreciate in Arena. I'm a pretty late starter to Arena mode, but so far it's been a blast. Tomorrow, I'd like to talk a bit about Hearthstone's free-to-play status, as well as share a few decklists for the next season.

Today's post will be long one. I'll be talking about a few aspects of Hearthstone I found particularly interesting lately, which I feel like writing down. I think it's pretty appropriate to begin with Undertaker, since it's a card that just got nerfed (and a card that much of the playerbase hates with a passion).

Overlooked by most when it first came out with Naxx, Undertaker soon found its place in just about every aggro deck due to its potential to snowball out of control. After much complaining, Blizzard decided to nerf it into a 1/2 that only gains +1 attack with every Deathrattle summoned. But I feel that this nerf is not only excessive, but will give a false impression that it has cured the aggro problem on ladder.

First, GvG has already provided a lot of cards that deal with early-game aggression. Muster for Battle, Flamecannon and Darkbomb, to list a few. These cards have already greatly improved decks like Midrange Pally and Handlock against aggro. Not to mention that practically every control/midrange deck now runs Zombie Chow. Midrange Hunter is a good deck. And yet Ramp Druid, CW, and Midrange Pally are just as good, if not better.

To be sure, the prevalence of Undertaker-less decks does not, by itself, entirely justify my argument. My point is, however, is to highlight how the higher-tiers of the community are good at figuring out its solutions and tech cards. They don't need Blizzard to make awful hate cards like Lil' Exorcist to fight off Undertakers or aggro. Instead of nerfing cards outright, let the community think for itself. And seeing how the meta is, the community already has. 

Second, hitting Undertaker misses the point. Blizzard's true intention behind the nerf, I think, is to reduce the amount of aggro on ladder and promote more interactive gameplay (aka control). After all, 80% of Undertakers are played in two decks: Hunter and Zoo, both cheap, aggro decks that finishes their games quickly. The problem is that Hunter/Zoo are played extensively on ladder, not because Undertaker is the most broken card ever, but because they are fast. The current ladder system, at least above Rank 5, encourages fast games for fast climbs. The ladder system is the real culprit behind the popularity of aggro - Undertaker is really just the icing on the cake. 

Finally, let's look at the nerf itself. If they really wanted to nerf the card, yet make it a good aggro card, at least make Undertaker a 1/3 that only gains attack. That way, it will still die to things like Fiery War Axe and Frostbolt, but can still trade favourably with popular 2 drops like Loot Hoarder, Mad Scientist, Shielded Minibot and Chow. Undertaker will still be an excellent 1 drop that trades well, but can now be easily removed by just about any 2-mana removal (which everyone mulligans for anyway).

 

But nerfing cards to the ground has been Blizzard's strategy for a while. Despite Blizzard repeatedly promising that nerfed cards will remain playable, every nerfed card post the Starving Buzzard nerf has virtually disappeared from the meta game. Hunters no longer run Flare nor Buzzard, and Zoo no longer plays Soulfire. Now, Undertaker might not fare as bad. But I suspect that Blizzard (and the community, particularly Reddit) will be led into the false impression that via nerfs, the gameplay will magically become more 'interactive'. As long as the ladder system stays as is, the fastest decks will always be the most popular, especially in the lower ranks where most of the community -- and the complainers, are located.

tl;dr

1. Introduce more cards like Chow, Muster for Battle and Annoy-o-Tron to improve the early game of slower classes. Let the community figure out the tech cards and the solutions.

2. Nerfing Undertaker is not a good solution to reducing aggro on ladder. Make structural changes to the ladder system instead e.g. rewarding players based on the length of their games.

3. If Blizzard really wants to lower the Reddit pitchforks and nerf Undertaker, at least make it a 1/3. The 1 extra health actually makes a huge difference in making Undertaker powerful, yet removable.

Since I'm probably not going to watch any seasonal anime for a while, I'm going to spend most of my spare time catching up on the older shows I really wanted to watch. Gunslinger Girl was the first show I completed as a part of this little exercise, and as expected it had been an incredible ride. The only problem is that it usually takes me forever to complete a series. I started watching Katanagatari in May, and seven months later, I've only just completed episode three. Maybe random acts of killing and Cheerios really aren't my thing. Well, at least I got spoiled. Togame dies.

Gunslinger Girl

Murder and moral dilemmas are usually not the kind of topics anime tends to address. But some anime does it anyway. Some tend to be more successful at it than others. Now and Then, Here and There is the successful kind. Elfen Lied is the unsuccessful kind. But regardless of their execution, shows that deal with 'serious' topics like death and morality tend to be quite sentimental.

Gunslinger Girl deals with all those serious topics, but unlike the examples above, Gunslinger Girl did a remarkable job creating drama, without resorting to cheap tricks like sentimentality to lure out your tears. The story, set in Italy, centres on the lives of little girl cyborgs who work for the Italian government's secret intelligence agency. Designed to kill terrorists (or whoever they are told to, really), they are absolutely obedient towards their male handlers.

With this sort of premise, it'd be pretty tempting (and wrong, I think) for the show to slip into a 'murder is wrong!' outcry. In reality, Gunslinger Girl rarely tells you what to think - it's a story that solely focuses on the humanistic side of the un-human cyborgs. In one episode, a cyborg named Rico is forced to kill an innocent boy to preserve the secrecy of her mission. But instead of telling us about how 'wrong' it is, it ends with a shot of Rico lying on the bed, with a single tear in her eye. Constantly juxtaposing cruelty with the gentle, prosaic life behind the scenes, Gunslinger Girl's drama is completely natural, completely 'human'.

What made Gunslinger Girl really successful, I think, is the lack of a clear antagonist. There are few, if any 'bad' guys in this show. Perhaps it'd be tempting to think that the Social Welfare Agency is a sort of exploitative institution, bent on subjecting little girls to unspeakable cruelty. In reality, its staff are just as human as any other. The handlers are, at worst, indifferent to their cyborgs -- at best, they can be like fathers to their daughters. Angelica and Marco belong to the former category - Jose and Henrietta belong in the latter. Gunslinger Girl did an excellent job making its characters 3-dimensional and filled with human emotions, despite that the greater half of its cast are mere cyborgs.

Overall, this show was pretty amazing. Not many series attempt to address serious topics like murder to begin with, and very few series actually do a good job of it. But Gunslinger Girl is the exception, and as a result it deserves to be called a classic.

Infinite Ryvius

A pretty old school show, directed by the same guy who directed Planetes. Planetes is probably his better-known work, and definitely a lot of people hold it in high regard. Not me. For me, Planetes was at best boring, and at its very worst pointlessly sentimental. It was a boring trudge in a space slice-of-life, featuring characters that, at least for me, deserved little sympathy. So perhaps Infinite Ryvius would fare a little better.

So far, Infinite Ryvius had been pretty interesting. I think the pacing deserves particular attention because of how easily the pacing flows. So for example, episode one introduces the characters in a very leisurely pacing, which almost makes you think you are watching some outer space slice-of-life. Next thing you know, the ship is about to get crushed and everyone is panicking. And the best thing is: it all feels completely natural.

What Infinite Ryvius has succeeded in doing, so far, is that it does a seamless job combining drama with light-hearted comedy. Its continuous storyline would mean that, unlike Planetes, there would be ample time developing its drama without having to crush a story within a 22 minute block. And of course, there's that enigmatic girl in a pink dress. The hallmark of a good story is that it leaves you with a few elusive secrets to discover, and Infinite Ryvius has done that as well. Since there's twenty-something episodes in the series, I'm expecting lots and lots of drama. I think this might be a pretty wild ride.

Shirobako

I've always been a fan of P.A.Works. Shows like HanaIro and Tari Tari may not exactly qualify as masterpieces, but are almost always incredibly well animated, with beautiful backgrounds and great music. Ever since Angel Beats!, P.A.Works has consistently delivered visual quality, even when the storytelling tends be a bit sub-par. So obviously I was very excited when Shirobako, an anime about making anime, came out last season.

If I had to choose one word to describe this show, it'd be 'mundane'. From daily office antics to meeting deadlines, Shirobako's story is a bit slow, a bit ordinary and sometimes, even a bit boring, considering that it's subject matter is the (glamorous) anime industry itself. I think Shirobako captures that common mentality among those underpaid animators: "We might be underpaid, but we love our jobs". And some of them might even say: "I love drawing cute girls, too".

I think what makes Shirobako rather appealing is that it's a story solely about animators and animation. Usually when an anime about anime culture comes out, it tends to be over-saturated with references to its own culture, which can be pretty annoying. But most of those shows are less about animators and animation than they are about the otaku. Shirobako isn't about the fandom, it's about its creators. And so far, it's been a insightful watch.

(It took me a while to find a picture of Aoi where she isn't in a yukata, in a bikini, in an onsen, half-naked, or on the page of a doujin getting violated. So there you go: Aoi at work)

Auckland has been so hot for the past few days. So hot, in fact, that you don't really want to do anything except to sit there and let the fan cool you down. I have a fan in my room, which is literally on 24/7 and still my room feels stuffy as hell. Well, at least it wasn't as bad as Seattle, when it was so hot that for once in my life I actually preferred going outside!

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It turns out that one of my essays will soon be published in an undergraduate academic journal, sometime next month. I actually submitted it a while ago, and I though they must've forgotten about it until a few days ago, when they email'd me saying that they liked it and wanted to put it in print. So I was quite surprised that they liked it, and I feel quite proud of myself. It was an essay that I personally enjoyed writing, although it wasn't quite as brilliant as the research paper I did for my environmental science course.

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I went to a steakhouse with a couple of friends on Wednesday. I think the biggest irony of me going to a steakhouse is that I'm actually vegetarian. But the food there was very good, and they actually made me a meat-free burger which tasted super nice. I also ate a lot of potatoes. By the time summer finishes I think I'm going to be pretty fat.

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A friend came over today. He dropped off a present for me. That was when I realized that it will be my birthday in two days. I haven't celebrated my birthday for the past five years. And last year I practically forgot my birthday until the day after. I've actually celebrated other people's birthdays much, much more than mine. So it was very nice of him to remember my birthday better than the birthday boy. We had a nice chat.

So here's the present. A Mawaru Penguindrum clock, which looks very cute. He also got me a birthday card. From left to right: Kotonoha, Sekai, Haruka. Every time we talk about anime, it ends up about School Days. School Days is terrible. Then after we talk about School Days we talk about Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. Which is also terrible. I really like heart-wrenching drama, actually. I think I rewatched KGNE like three times. He also wrote me a hilarious message.

Dear Chloe, 

I wish you a happy birthday and may your fantasies never come true, as that would be too cruel for those innocent kawaii imoutos. I also wish you luck on your future endeavours, may it be as colourful as the panties they show in anime. And if life ever gets tough, just remember you survived two seasons of Rumbling Hearts.

Lately I've been trying to push for some real progress in my latest PS project. It's times like this when I wish my life had more deadlines. I think I'm the sort of person who works best when under pressure. When I'm given all the time in the world, I feel that my work ethic gets sloppy real fast. So I should definitely set myself some deadlines for this project, even though no one's urging me to finish it or anything.

So in total, I've finished about a dozen pages, although the page you see above is the one that took the most work. There must've been like a hundred layers in total, and even then it's probably going to get re-made because I don't like a lot of it. That said, I think most of the stuff is there - the girly cellphone, the stationery, the cellphone charms. I might also Photoshop in some cakes and tea for the other pages. I honestly think that the whole would look really nice when it's all done. But since it's me doing all the work, I don't think I'll live to see the day.

If there's one big problem I can point out with that page, I'd say that it's over-done. There's too much going on, it's too complex, and it doesn't know what it's doing. It looks more like a technical exercise than something you can put in a book. The background should be simplified further, I think.

Tonight I had a random conversation with a friend. Somehow we started talking about Japan, and it turns out we both went on Japan school trips. I kind of miss Japan, actually. It's been almost ten years since I was last there, and for some reason I feel like travelling again. Plane tickets seems to be on sale, too....so maybe my next adventure isn't as far off as I think.

So the new season of anime is coming up, and honestly none of the shows look that appealing. I think the anime industry has evolved to the point where if you are not familiar with the newest LN/manga/source material fad, then you'll find a lot of seasonal anime uninteresting. So this means that I'll probably miss a lot of what apparently makes, let's say, the KanColle anime 'so good' unless I go ahead and play the game. 

I guess this is, more or less inevitable because the anime industry has never really attempted to make itself 'accessible', to popularize itself amongst the general population. More recently, I think it has completely turned into a sort of self-sufficient market, where whatever it produces is produced solely to satisfy otaku demands (by otaku, no less). So it's hardly surprising that just about everything you watch nowadays has cute girls in it and are set in high schools. Maybe it's because otaku tend to be the least popular people during high school, and that to be the centre of a high school harem fulfils their subconscious fantasy or something like that. Well, that's just my speculations.

So first, let's talk about Strike Witches -Operation Victory Arrow-. It's a three-part OVA series set between season 2 and the movie. The subs only came out like a few days ago, so I was really eager to check it out because I've always been a pretty big Strike Witches fan. 

Strike Witches is best described as a guilty pleasure. It's got quite a bit of fanservice, most of the time it's really nicely animated, there's a lot of action, and there's plenty of cute girls (a whole squadron, in fact). So for me Strike Witches kind of hits all the right buttons, although I can understand that it's the sort of anime that's designed to appease a very specific crowd of people. I've watched both seasons and the movie, and I liked season one the best because it's got a nice balance of drama and comedy, while season two didn't feel as 'fresh', so to speak. 

So even though the writing of Strike Witches isn't anything too exceptional, I felt they did a really good job with character interactions. You could clearly feel the distance between the cliques of girls, so that even though they are all technically friends, there's still a bit of distance between, let's say, the Karlsland girls and Charlotte/Francesca. And you could sense that Perrine is kind of in that weird spot where no one really likes her, but for the sake of etiquette hangs out with her anyway. It's very subtle, but I thought they did a really good job of it.

So the first episode of the OVA series centres on the girls from Karlsland: Trude, Erica and Minna. Erica's sister, Ursula comes along and tries to get the girls to try out the new Me 262, aka the very first combat-ready jet fighter ever produced. Erica throws a tantrum, some Neuroi appears, everyone works together after some minor drama, Neuroi gets destroyed and somehow Trude got herself inside a dirndl. It's a pretty typical Strike Witches episode, honestly. But everything about it felt nice, probably because I haven't watched Strike Witches for such a long time, and I really really wanted my fix. Besides the lack of fanservice (for my standards), it was a good episode.

I'm really looking forward to the next episode, which will be about Charlotte and Francesca. Although honestly, the girls I'm most looking forward seeing are Lynette and Yoshika, since they're my favourite. Oh, and also Mio. I really miss her laugh. Now that I think of it, I really miss Strike Witches as a whole. It was such a wonderful ride while it lasted.

Oh, and also, check out the OP single for the OVA by Yoko Ishida. 'Shooting Star' is a really catchy track, at least for me.

This is going to be a short, update post on my Love Live project. To give this post a bit of context, I'd like to begin with an appropriate short quote from Gunslinger Girl. 

I'm still very, very, very far from where I want myself to be with Photoshop. Which, by the way, is an incredible tool. Every time I start a new session I always get something new out of it. But it is an incredibly complex tool, and how good the final product comes out depends entirely on how good the user is.

So far into the project, I've found that planning is incredibly important. You have to know what you are doing beforehand and still allow enough leeway to make changes. I didn't plan early enough or as far ahead as I would've liked. So definitely I'll have to improve on that.

Here's something I wished I did earlier: a mockup. It doesn't look like a masterpiece, and what I'm working on doesn't look too much like it either. But there's only so much you can hold in your head. To go ahead and actually sketch out those ideas is the best way to see if they are going to look crap or not. Sometimes, ideas that seem brilliant in the head end up being awfully impractical when you actually do it. Note to self: make sketches, make mockups.

Here's another thing I wish I did earlier: a colour guide. A lot of the really good projects I see use the same colours over and over again. I think this achieves two things. First, a consistent palette ties different elements of the project together. So in my project, I've tried making the orange parts correspond with the Honoka parts, and so forth. 

And second, a consistent palette stops one from putting too much colour in a project. Too much colour is confusing. For Love Live I think it's easy because the girls are 'colour-coded' to begin with. But eventually I'll have to learn how to put together complementary colours.

Finally, I've learnt that it's super important to keep things organized. A PSD file can get very messy very quickly. So it's important to label all the layers and keep things organized (I'm lazy, and that laziness can bite you in the ass more often than you think!) Keeping things organized also helps with your workflow. 

For those character profile/report cards, it's really convenient to start out with a template then just copy-paste. The on the top is about halfway to the real thing. I think it needs some more rendering. The general rule, I think, is that big elements should be 'mass produced' as much as possible. Small tweaks and rendering should be tackled on an individual basis.

That's about it. I spent half the day looking at idol pictures and now I feel like a creep.

P.S. despite what critics apparently think of it, I really like this song by Sayuri Sugawara. You can easily put it into something like Kimi ni Todoke and it won't sound weird.

So today, I started playing FF13. And so ends my 24 hour break from video games! I first watched my friend play it about 4 or so years ago, and as usual it takes about that long for me to actually get down and play it. I'm about two hours into the game, so I guess I'll talk a bit about my first impressions.

First, let's talk gameplay. So far the gameplay has been very linear, although since I'm barely into Chapter Two, things might improve. Contrary to what a lot of critics think, however, I'm not a particularly big fan of the free world. The more free a world is, the more diluted the story becomes. And Final Fantasy games are known primarily for their stories. Of course there's no fun in just walking from one end of the corridor to another and do nothing but grind on the way. Side-quests and mini-games are ways to spice up single-player RPGs and I expect to see both in FF13.

I wish this was a gif so you can see how Vanille runs

The graphics are, as usual, astounding. So far the world setting has looked very spectacular, and FF13 definitely has been a visual treat. The character designs are basically what you'd expect from every FF game since FF8 -- I call that the 'generic Final Fantasy face', a blend of Caucasian facial features and colourful hair that seems to never go messy. On this note, Lightning's character design is actually very good. I feel that her looks is feminine enough to look attractive, but also masculine enough to justify her being the main character.

Her personality, so far, has been very bland. I really hope that they would, somewhere down the line, make her less of a kuudere and giver her a bit more humanity. So far, my favourite character has been Vanille. I can't really say if it's her voice, the way she walks, or the way she acts around Hope. But she's really nice, and I hope this doesn't come off as creepy (I think it already does).

Some final words on voicing: I started out with the default English voice, but when I switched to Japanese I actually thought their body language and expressions felt much more natural. The Japanese voice actresses for the female characters also have a higher, more 'kawaii' pitch which sounds just that much more pleasant to my ears. 

So yea, I hope FF13 delivers a really good story. I'll be sure to enjoy it slowly, which is hardly an issue since I spent way, way, way too long looking at Vanille.

P.S. I was listening to the FF13-2 theme song earlier today. Tried doing a piano transcription which came out pretty good...until I realized I couldn't sing. I also think that Charice's version is a bit more exciting than the Japanese version.