How to hack stick arena without plunder

The Dark Souls of subreddits

2013.06.23 01:17 MadeANewAccount The Dark Souls of subreddits

Shitty Dark Souls is a community that celebrates the awesomeness, and often shittiness of the game Dark Souls. Whereas /DarkSouls is a community around Dark Souls that is more discussion oriented in nature, /ShittyDarkSouls is about playful, and charming comics that mock and/or poke fun at Dark Souls.
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2008.08.12 03:12 /r/phish

Phish news, discussion and more
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2011.07.15 05:27 discrepancy09 The reddit home for competitive Pokémon

Stunfisk is your reddit source for news, analyses, and competitive discussion for Pokémon VGC, Smogon, and all other battle formats. Want to contribute? Drop it here on Stunfisk!
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2024.05.21 22:34 RangerHikes Manual G70 Ownership Experience

Two summers ago, I drove 7 hours one way to buy a 2019 Manual Genesis G70. It was used, not certified preowned, with just under 12K miles. The OEM tires were approaching the end of their useful life. It had one scratch on the rear passenger door and an annoying dealership permanent sticker on the trunk. It also only had one key. The head unit infotainment screen also had a small delamination crack - visible if you looked close but not perceptible if you ran your fingers across it. I bought it as is, though Genesis has a stellar warranty that transfers to the second owner so I still had 2 years warranty remaining. It was too far away for me to get it to a trusted mechanic to PPI, so the warranty was a huge factor.
On a long drive to the beach, the screens began to flicker. The car still ran mechanically fine, but it was alarming. I also noticed I couldn't get the Genesis Connected Services to work. A few weeks later, the screens were flickering again in my driveway. I shut the car off thinking if I just shut it off and turned it back on it would fix itself - for about 5 minutes I couldn't restart the car. It was as though it had a completely dead battery. I took it to my local dealer which unfortunately is an hour away but fortunately is reached through a combination of great back roads and highways. They were unable to replicate the issue but decided to attribute it to the head unit and replaced the entire thing on the basis of the delamination crack being covered by warranty. A week after I got the car back, the screens flickered again. I tried doing an over the air software update with Genesis Corporate over the phone and it kept failing, so we went back to the dealership. They manually did the update. After a few more weeks, the screens flickered again. I took it back down and they decided to go nuclear, completely uninstalling all software and updates from the car and then reinstalling the latest software as a clean slate. When I got it back - my genesis connected services were working and the screens never flickered again. BUT. My backup camera would now randomly stop working. I took it back and they tried a patch update to the backup camera software as well as replacing a crush washer that's apparently a known failure point for the backup camera. The problem persisted. They informed me there is a sensor in the transmission that tells the backup camera when the car is in reverse and when to turn on. That sensor apparently failed, and the solution is apparently to replace the entire transmission. I personally found that insane, but a new clutch and transmission covered fully under warranty? Sure, I'll enjoy your courtesy car a little longer. Yeah, on that note. Having the car in and out of the shop so often was annoying, but it was all covered under Genesis phenomenal warranty, the dealership was surprisingly patient, understanding and communicative, and since they're an hour away I had an opportunity to enjoy some courtesy cars on a good mix of backroads and highways. The courtesy cars I had in no particular order...
I got my car back and I haven't had any issues with screens or backup cameras or anything else since the transmission replacement. So what's to love? Small, sporty, rear wheel drive car that has the power to break traction but isn't so powerful that you can't use all your gears. To me this car is straddling the line of slow car fast. It's incredibly comfortable, has a great stereo, looks cool, and it's got enough room for me, my spouse, my dog and a child seat. Also so glad I got the manual when I did - manual G70s are not easy to find. This was one of four for sale within 500 miles of my zip when I bought it. The rear seat is actually usable, but the foot room is tight. I'm 5'11 with a 32 inch inseam. If I take my shoes off, I can sit behind my driving position. I have the knee and hip room - but the foot room is very tight for an adult male. Decent gas mileage if you're not driving it like a hooligan. Feels light and eager to turn, even at speed.
What's not so good? The trunk has a high load floor so even though you have a good opening and footprint, it's shallow. It's not unusable, it's just not as deep as you'd expect it to be. I was still able to fit everything my spouse, my dog and I needed for a week at the beach. Speaking of long trips - no spare tire. That pissed me off. Not even a space saver? Come on. I think it should be a legal requirement that all cars have at least a space saver. In any case, this car can accept the same space saver spare kit the 3.3 model comes with or the Kia Stinger comes with. I ordered the parts online and installed a space saver spare myself. The backup camera shuts off as soon as you're out of reverse, even if you're rolling backwards in neutral. This is a nitpick, but I do wish the backup camera would stay on until I was rolling forward. Speaking of reverse, the pedal box is tight and I usually wear an 11 or 12 shoe depending on the brand. With certain shoes, I have to modify my left foot motion because my toe will catch the arm of the clutch pedal. Not impossible, but it can be annoying in certain pairs of shoes or if you have big feet.
Clutch and Transmission :: I'm gonna give this it's own section because I feel like this is a very case sensitive matter. Manuals I drove before this - a 2011 Subaru Outback. First manual car I bought and I drove it for 120K miles before an old dude in a Yukon totaled it. Some people have said they don't enjoy the feeling of this transmission, I don't have much to compare it to. I think the stick feel is fine. The actual clutch is a toss up for me. It's hydraulic, so on one hand it's buttery smooth and easy and very forgiving if you're doing a drive through or in stop and go traffic - things I took pains to avoid in my outback. The flip side is, the pedal gives you very little feedback. The bite point is harder to feel and it definitely numbs the experience a bit. If you're looking for a very raw, analog feeling transmission this is not it. This feels much more like an entry level luxury sport sedan that was given a manual just because it would be cool to have a manual, but also trying to do one in such a way that it wouldn't alienate luxury car buyers who generally find manuals to be a nuisance.
Would I go through it all again? Absolutely. The dealer trips were annoying but it let me test drive some cool stuff and I never paid a dime. The only thing I paid for was an oil change, a new set of tires (not from the dealer) and a new key cause I wanted to have two. The key was $700 which is offensive but unfortunately not unheard of with modern cars. The car is a blast. If you want a smallish, luxuryish, sportscarish vehicle that gives you a lot of nice stuff without being too expensive or too harsh, check out a G70. If you're a manual purist, you may love it or hate it - the clutch is definitely a sticking point for many people. Genesis Dealer? Mine is great, thank god. But I have heard plenty of horror stories from other owners who went to more Hyundai focused dealers. Maintenance? No mechanical issues at all, just weird software related glitches that were all covered under warranty. Mods? Not really planning anything big. I added a sun strip to the windshield, a dash cam and wiring for my radar detector. Also the spare tire. And I put PS4s on it. I plan to keep it stock - at least until it's paid off and the warranty is out.
Questions for reddit :: Catch cans! Should I have one on this car? Is there a recommended brand? Do your mechanics charge you more to empty them or do you empty them yourselves? What does a catch can do that the OEM air oil separator doesnt?
TL;DR :: I like my manual G70. It isn't very fast, but I like it.
submitted by RangerHikes to cars [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 22:20 SleepingAndy SOCOM II - This could not pass by today's standards

I've been waiting to play this one for a while now, originally I had SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo on the PSP, which I got rid of because it was just a borderline unplayable experience trying to move around and aim with the little circular PSP analog stick thing. I wanted to re-visit the series, but this time decided to swap it out with the most popular SOCOM game instead, hoping to have a less sour experience.
After about 4 hours, I put it back down again, having lost all interest in the series.
SOCOM II is very much a game from the before times, being a third person tactical shooter in the years before anyone had any idea how to do controller aiming well. To make a long story short, trying to raw-aim with an analog stick on PS2 is an awful experience, the crosshair will just swing around the screen on you. There's built in auto-aim you can toggle off and on, which has a comical implementation. Sometimes, you will see a red box on the screen, miss the target by 1/4 of the screen, then they just drop dead anyway, probably due to an act of God. Sometimes, you will be pointing right next to their head with auto-aim on, and all of your bullets completely miss, leading you to being killed in one or two hits. That's so fun...
The ai companions are sometimes so strong that you can play out entire missions by sending them in to "clear area" where they just instakill all the enemies without taking any damage (this is on the highest difficulty available to new players.) Other times, you will be on the second floor of a house, they are in the basement, you send them in to clear area or breech a door...And they just never show up. They get stuck on the stairs or something, and just never fucking come. I shudder to think of all the times I've died because my AI companions just refused to follow very simple orders. Sometimes they will die in the absolute dumbest of ways too. On the first brazil mission I had Jester die to falling off of a building literally.
Oh, and on the subject of dying, don't forget that there is *no checkpoints*. If you die you reset to the very beginning of the mission. This means that if you're doing a slow stealth playthrough, 20 minutes deep on a level, and you get instant killed by some guy with a shotgun because the room was too dark for you to see him, you have to do the whole thing over again. How exciting! Eventually, after a few resets on the same mission, the only sensible way to proceed is to run and gun every single enemy, already having their positions memorized, and just accept that the game is going to chastise you for not being stealthy enough.
I could see SOCOM II being a very good game if the controls were about twice as good, the AI were about twice as responsive, and checkpoints were added to key sections of various missions. Without them, the game feels unpleasant to play for me, and I feel no qualms about retiring it from my backlog without even finishing half the single-player campaign.
submitted by SleepingAndy to patientgamers [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 22:14 paulluap25 [46][Speculation] Kenzie, Maria, Charlie F3

After going through it I actually think a Final 3 of Kenzie, Charlie, and Maria is a plausible for outcome of what we assume to be true which is that Kenzie beats Charlie in the F3.
For this to make sense Liz would have to go at F5 and there are two scenarios where I think that could easily happen
F5 Scenario 1:
Maria wins immunity
In the last episode we saw a quick mention of a Kenzie, Charlie, and Ben F3 alliance. I think if Maria is immune this alliance sticks together and votes out Liz
Kenzie doesn’t see Charlie as a threat to her winning from what we’ve heard from her and Ben is Ben and is fine with voting with his two best friends + they see Liz as a potential jury threat considering how many Nami’s are on the jury
F5 Scenario 2:
Maria wins immunity
Charlie finds an idol
In this scenario Kenzie and Ben do realize Charlie is a big threat to win and everyone votes for Charlie but he plays the idol and puts his vote on Liz
I think he’d put his vote on Liz because he has an alliance with Kenzie and Ben and presumably has a much better relationship with them than Liz.
This scenario could further hurt Charlie’s chances bc I think the jury would be like what the fuck why would you use an idol to get Liz out.
One of Liz’s most important confessionals was when she said she wanted to play a game her daughter would be proud of and both scenarios whether she’s taken out as a jury threat or with an idol satisfy that arc.
F4:
Charlie wins immunity
Charlie decides to take Maria with him to Final 3 so that she’s not able to have a big moment in front of the jury. This is what loses the game for Charlie. Nobody respects him taking her and a huge theme of the season has been taking out your number one in order to win and neither Maria or Charlie are able to do that.
Kenzie beats Ben in fire wrapping up their story and it’s a huge emotional moment for both of them in front of the jury a lot like Tony and Sarah in WAW.
F3:
Without Maria on the jury Charlie has no one to advocate for his game and everyone sees him as a nice guy who played second fiddle to Maria
Maria only has Q advocating for her, who everyone hates
Kenzie has Hunter, Tiffany, Venus, Liz, and Ben all go out of the game considering Kenzie their number one (a testament to the PHENOMENAL social game Kenzie played). She has a lot of people advocating for her and rooting for her on the jury.
Maria implodes at FTC, maybe Venus berates her, and she’s comes off very poorly to the jury. Kenzie further buries Charlie and he isn’t able to articulate his game.
Kenzie wins unanimously or in a 7-1 with Q voting for Maria, maybe even a 5-2-1 with Tevin and Soda voting for Charlie, Q voting for Maria, and everyone else (all of Kenzie’s number ones) voting for her
submitted by paulluap25 to SpoiledSurvivor [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:56 DreamandLife 27 [M4F] NYC - Chubby Introvert wants to grow with someone

The truth is, I’ve never experienced a relationship. I’ve never kissed someone, I’ve never been with someone sensually and I never had a deep conversation with someone. I never had that chance to have a connection with someone and I feel like there aren’t people out there who truly understand what I’m dealing with. I’m not perfect and unfortunately people strive for perfection. I've pretty confidence when it comes to looks face wise but I'm not confident when it comes to my body. I’ve always put in the effort and truly want to experience loving someone. I’ve always wanted to experience silly moments. I’ve always wanted to enjoy company with someone where I can put overthinking aside. I've always wanted someone that I can grow with sensually. I’m someone who enjoys moments of quiet without expecting someone to talk to me. I believe being comfortable is key to having good communication. I know saying all of this is meaningless for some because preferences are key but that’s just how I’ve been thinking lately. I don’t mind any culture or race and I wish people judged based on personality.
My life a years ago while suffering through depression and anxiety affected me greatly. I’ve been dealing with negative energy which caused me to be unestablished with life with no type of motivational goals. I was extremely overweight lying in bed all day doing nothing but playing games. My family had put a lot of their problems on me, and I was usually the scapegoat for their narcissistic traits. Regardless, I am still grateful because my life could have been worse. While my parent’s gave me a hard time, I am still able to pursue life goals and bettering myself with a roof over my head, which is why I will always be grateful for them. While my life now has changed a lot. I am still in the process of self improvement. Currently I’m finishing up my first year in college studying for a technology degree. I’ve always wanted to experience college and I also wanted to have a good future with a degree that can open multiple opportunities for me. I’ve also lost a significant amount of weight. I don’t have the “ideal” body that most look for, but I’ve been feeling better for myself recently which is all I need. Self care plays a major role in changing my wellbeing. I picked up some new hobbies along the way. I’ve been fascinated with aquariums and aqua scaping. I’ve been in love with nature and everything to do with it. I’ve also started watching more shows and movies.
If you’ve reached the end, I appreciate you giving me the time to even read this. I don’t like sharing my name randomly, but you can call me Ken for now. I’m willing to show my picture so don’t be afraid to ask. My height is 5’9, I’m a black American with a light skin complexion. I wear glasses, I don’t have any tattoos, I don’t have any piercings, I don’t smoke or do drugs, I drink on special occasions but would be nice to finally have someone to casually drink with, I normally dress presentable, I smile a lot and tend to be silly, I don’t mind any humor. I lean more to be extremely introverted which gave me my shy and awkward traits, I am respectful and treat people how I want to be treated. I love to game, especially on PC. I’m always down to trying a variety but my favorites so far have been anything from Tom Clancy or a game to vibe to whether it’s Mine Craft or some old 2d games like maple story. I love watching streams especially GTA RP, I love watching YouTube, I love watching anime and reading manga. When I’m not too focused on college I tend to do them more. I don’t mind going out, which is something I would love to get more comfortable with. I’m always willing to try new hobbies.
All that I can ask from you is to be patient with me. Most importantly, JUST BE YOU. Besides interest being the most important thing when it comes to connecting, I would appreciate someone closer to me in NYC or train distance. I will consider another distance if the connection is right. My personality and hobbies are very important when it comes to connecting so I would appreciate it if you’re similar in thar regards. I tend to stick to one person than multiple people at one time. I want to be able to understand you how you would understand me. Before you talk to me, understand that I’m in the process of improving my life. That means, don’t expect a 27 year old to be established with everything. I’m working on it. So please, to avoid certain spams, can you tell me about yourself just like how I did in this post of mine. Thank you.
submitted by DreamandLife to r4r [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:54 Certain_Grab_4420 The Ultimate Biohack

Hello everyone!
This Ultimate Bio-hack is more aimed at those who aren’t min/maxing their current lifestyle, but for those starting on their journey from Unhealthy to more healthy. Before I say what In my opinion - is the most important thing to incorporate into our collective regimen - I will say that for a long time, my unhealthy lifestyle was mainly perpetrated by two bad habits.
  1. Overload of stimulus - Video Games, Porn, junk food, drugs, alcohol. All of these can be classified as a supernormal stimulus - they create an unnatural rise in dopamine. Which creates a drop - we all know the science here - (if you don’t please do some research on what supernormal stimulus’s can do to your mind/body)
  2. Conditioned negativity towards failures - this can look like many different things: maybe it’s a thought, a feeling, a sensation, an act you perform in response. Whenever we take a step backwards; a lot of us can fall prey to negativity self talk. This can lead to a whole host of problems, but mainly shame/guilt which can catapult you backwards.
The solution to both of these problems - in my opinion - is meditation. At first I didn’t realize how powerful a tool meditation was until I embarked on my journey. Now I view it as a slow-burn ketamine treatment. We can pick, and choose how we react to urges, feelings, temptations, etc. This realization alone, can help you make whatever changes you need. It is the bedrock of any actual change, the general blissful awareness we have to our thoughts, emotions, and feelings can shape our world so radically that it seems like magic at first. Feeling everything without judgment, and accepting whatever thoughts you’re having in the moment, whatever feeling - has allowed me to change myself into whatever person I wanted to be. Not saying it’s a cure all, but I would highly suggest you implement regular meditations into your daily life. It helped me unlike anything ever before.
submitted by Certain_Grab_4420 to Biohackers [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:53 DreamandLife 27 [M4F] NYC - Chubby Introvert wants to grow with someone

The truth is, I’ve never experienced a relationship. I’ve never kissed someone; I’ve never been with someone sexually and I never had a deep conversation with someone. I never had that chance to have a connection with someone and I feel like there aren’t people out there who truly understand what I’m dealing with. I’m not perfect and unfortunately people strive for perfection. I've pretty confidence when it comes to looks face wise but I'm not confident when it comes to my body. I’ve always put in the effort and truly want to experience loving someone. I’ve always wanted to experience silly moments. I’ve always wanted to enjoy company with someone where I can put overthinking aside. I've always wanted someone that I can grow with sexually. I’m someone who enjoys moments of quiet without expecting someone to talk to me. I believe being comfortable is key to having good communication. I know saying all of this is meaningless for some because preferences are key but that’s just how I’ve been thinking lately. I don’t mind any culture or race and I wish people judged based on personality.
My life a years ago while suffering through depression and anxiety affected me greatly. I’ve been dealing with negative energy which caused me to be unestablished with life with no type of motivational goals. I was extremely overweight lying in bed all day doing nothing but playing games. My family had put a lot of their problems on me, and I was usually the scapegoat for their narcissistic traits. Regardless, I am still grateful because my life could have been worse. While my parent’s gave me a hard time, I am still able to pursue life goals and bettering myself with a roof over my head, which is why I will always be grateful for them. While my life now has changed a lot. I am still in the process of self improvement. Currently I’m finishing up my first year in college studying for a technology degree. I’ve always wanted to experience college and I also wanted to have a good future with a degree that can open multiple opportunities for me. I’ve also lost a significant amount of weight. I don’t have the “ideal” body that most look for, but I’ve been feeling better for myself recently which is all I need. Self care plays a major role in changing my wellbeing. I picked up some new hobbies along the way. I’ve been fascinated with aquariums and aqua scaping. I’ve been in love with nature and everything to do with it. I’ve also started watching more shows and movies.
If you’ve reached the end, I appreciate you giving me the time to even read this. I don’t like sharing my name randomly, but you can call me Ken for now. I’m willing to show my picture so don’t be afraid to ask. My height is 5’9, I’m a black American with a light skin complexion. I wear glasses, I don’t have any tattoos, I don’t have any piercings, I don’t smoke or do drugs, I drink on special occasions but would be nice to finally have someone to casually drink with, I normally dress presentable, I smile a lot and tend to be silly, I don’t mind any humor. I lean more to be extremely introverted which gave me my shy and awkward traits, I am respectful and treat people how I want to be treated. I love to game, especially on PC. I’m always down to trying a variety but my favorites so far have been anything from Tom Clancy or a game to vibe to whether it’s Mine Craft or some old 2d games like maple story. I love watching streams especially GTA RP, I love watching YouTube, I love watching anime and reading manga. When I’m not too focused on college I tend to do them more. I don’t mind going out, which is something I would love to get more comfortable with. I’m always willing to try new hobbies.
All that I can ask from you is to be patient with me. Most importantly, JUST BE YOU. Besides interest being the most important thing when it comes to connecting, I would appreciate someone closer to me in NYC or train distance. I will consider another distance if the connection is right. My personality and hobbies are very important when it comes to connecting so I would appreciate it if you’re similar in thar regards. I tend to stick to one person than multiple people at one time. I want to be able to understand you how you would understand me. Before you talk to me, understand that I’m in the process of improving my life. That means, don’t expect a 27 year old to be established with everything. I’m working on it. So please, to avoid certain spams, can you tell me about yourself just like how I did in this post of mine. Thank you.
submitted by DreamandLife to ForeverAloneDating [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:52 thatsmrfatasstoyou God sending prophets was a pretty bad idea.

The Abrahamic God sending his emissaries as random men of dubious repute and suspect motivations is entirely counter–intuitive to people’s acceptance of him. Worse yet, not directly telling his current followers that he is radically changing his covenant with them serves only to confuse and lead them astray. It makes little sense that someone as wise as God would allow for so much ambiguity in his new message that a significant portion of his followers don’t even convert to the ‘new’ religion that he supposedly sends.
God has essentially given tremendous legitimacy to the idea that a paradigm shifting prophet can be any man off the street; which seems a noble idea, until many men off the street are suddenly prophets. Now it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish between a real and a fake messiah.
For instance, Jesus was a carpenter that claimed he was born of a virgin. This claim is as audacious as it is unverifiable. Beyond the scientific impossibility of such conception. What objective source could attest to such a fact. God? He has not spoken to men in any uniform and indisputable manner. There are only an assortment of priests and prophets claiming to speak for God; often contradicting each other in their claims.
God had long established with the Jews that the Messiah would be a warrior king who came to restore the kingdom of David, among other prophecies. The lord then completely changes this without giving any word to any reputable rabbi. His supposed son is killed by the Jew’s enemies; leaving little more than promises of salvation and a grand return.
If all it takes to be a prophet is to make grand claims of being god’s messenger, spouting a message entirely contradictory to what God previously stated; then being killed and making promises of salvation in the afterlife, then Joseph Smith and Hong Xiuquan are valid prophets as well.
And what of Jesus’ miracles. These are only attested to by Paul, who wrote of them decades after the fact; and never even met Jesus. There is no consensus among independent sources that these miracles actually happened, or that the biblical account of Jesus is accurate in its portrayal of him.
There are many other contradictions between the claims of the biblical Jesus and the Jews of the time. When faced with choosing between the words of known prophets and priests of God, or newcomers with claims antithetical to God’s original message. Basic logic dictates that most will stick with the teachings most originally known to them.
Muhammad’s claims are as well outlandish. The man didn’t even know enough about Christianity to get some of its core tenets right. He claims that Jesus was a prophet and not the son of God. Yet this flies in the face of Christian doctrine. If Jesus isn’t the son of God then him dying for mankind’s sins was useless and we’re all supposedly going to hell.
This whole sending new prophets every time you want to change the covenant and telling none of the current followers thing; is clearly one of the most ineffective ways of conveying that message. How are people to tell between real prophets and the false ones that they have been warned of. You’ve essentially just damned most people to hell by way of bad messaging.
submitted by thatsmrfatasstoyou to DebateReligion [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:47 FreqRL [Build Guide] Buff-barian Earthquake

[Build Guide] Buff-barian Earthquake
I did some research on how the order of buff synergies, because I couldn't find anything about them online. After doing 2-3 short runs to figure out their connecting paths, I figured I'd make a build that uses all buffs (except Haste, because I hate moving too fast).
The result was pretty intense! I managed to get to OL12 without any issue, and was able to facetank it while being AFK (the gif is OL11 but I got to OL12 later on). The run is literally still on-going in the background as I'm typing this guide, so I'm pretty convinced it works.

The Build

Skill selection
Runes
Have an exact selection of skills, combined with the Prowess rune to ensure you have every buff, or a way to synergize into them, made stronger by the Synergetic rune. Combine with Earth skills because Earthquake is easy damage and Earth Shield provides immense healing.

Core mechanics

Contrary to my other builds, the core of this build isn't a particular skill, but rather scaling buffs to such a degree that your stats essentially don't matter anymore. In order to get all buffs, we need to use synergies to get them. The only alternative is to take skill that grant us the buff directly, but that would require an insane amount of Skill Mastery runes.
If we want to get the synergy passives, we must have 2 sources for the "start" buff. For example, if we want the synergy passive that grants Bulwark when we get Finesse, we must have 2 sources of Finesse already. Once you get a synergy passive, that passive now also counts as a source for that buff, so you can daisy-chain them to get more synergies. Additionally, we can get Prowess from a Rune, which also counts as a source for the synergies.
Combining all buffs (except Haste), we can get damage, crit chance, crit damage, multicast, armor and block. We can get those stats to such a high degree, that choosing any of these as an actual reward becomes borderline useless. If you've already got 2000% increased damage, getting +15% as a rare reward doesn't do much anymore.
What remains is cast frequency, (some) multicast, health and experience. We also need a bit of movespeed to make it a bit more comfortable during the earlier levels, but as we'll completely stop moving around OL8, we don't need too much of it either. Even though we also get multicast from the Finesse buff, it's the one buff that we don't have any synergies towards so it doesn't get quite as high as the others.

Breakdown

This skill uses the Unexpected Arsenal rune to allow all weapon-specific skills to be selected freely.
Skill Selection
For the Bulwark (block) and Finesse (multicast) buffs, we use Whirlwind and Double Slash. Double Slash has the added benefit of also applying the Debilitated debuff on enemies, reducing their damage dealt. Since both skills grant both buffs, we immediately apply for both synergies. However, Finesse synergizes into Bulwark, which we already have 2 sources for. Still, more block is never bad, and it provides an extra chance to trigger Bulwark's synergy, which goes into Aptitude (crit damage). This is our only source for Aptitude, so the extra chance to trigger it isn't unwelcome.
Whirlwind is almost exactly the same as Double Slash, just without the Debilitated debuff.
For Prowess (damage) and Resilience (armor), we primarily use Heavy Strike and the Prowess rune. Like previously mentioned, the rune counts as a source of Prowess and allows us to synergize into Resilience. That synergy passive then becomes the second source, allowing us to synergize Resilience into Form (crit chance).
Heavy Strike also applies Bleed, but we don't actually scale it so it doesn't do much in the bigger picture.
To make the build actually deal damage, we include Earthquake, which is one of the highest damaging abilities in the game, due to the Brittle stacks it applies and the Colossal buff.
Brittle stacks on enemies increases the damage of future hits by a flat value. This means that you're better off using a skill that does a ton of small hits, instead of using slow but heavy-hitting skills. Earthquake itself is a skill that does a ton of small hits, which means it both applies a lot of Brittle, and take great advantage of those stacks. Further more, as you get higher level and start casting Earthquake more often, you'll both apply more Brittle and hit more often, which makes Earthquake particularly powerful.
The Colossal stacks provided by Earthquake also make Earthquake itself hit a much bigger area. With enough multicast and skill-chaining, we can get Earthquake to cover pretty much the entire arena. This is another way in which casting Earthquake faster make Earthquake more powerful in general.
https://preview.redd.it/nacvbt2cyt1d1.png?width=689&format=png&auto=webp&s=c830d93242cc00dd7ab3cf8fb1cb194f8c9bb53f
An easy second choice for an Earth skill is Earth Shield. Not only does it also provide another source of Resilience to allow us to synergize Form from, it also provides massive amount of healing. With the amount of block and armor this build is already stacking, this healing can make us borderline immune to anything but one-shots if we get enough multicast and skillchaining.
https://preview.redd.it/avc1bdtpyt1d1.png?width=395&format=png&auto=webp&s=b7891025b7e59fe2ffeaeaa764a82c5ca2c900ed
For our 6th and final skill, we use Scent of Blood. We've got a pretty big stack of Finesse building and Scent of Blood is just an easy stack of Cast Frequency. It also creates a feedback loop where we get Finesse stacks from attacking, but Scent of Blood makes us attack faster, resulting in more Finesse stacks, make Scent of Blood stronger, and so on. This makes scaling Scent of Blood slow at first, but once it picks up, it is easily maxxed out.
Do be aware that the Cast Frequency provided by Scent of Blood doesn't apply to Scent of Blood itself. You'll need to scale some skill-specific cast frequency for Scent of Blood, and keep an eye out for any Duration passives as well to get 100% uptime.
https://preview.redd.it/akimp052zt1d1.png?width=397&format=png&auto=webp&s=51109cb4fadbdd8099315a8788795c64b451f546
Mechanics
Skill-chains
As always, skillchaining is the main way to scale the build, as it allows you to bypass the long cooldowns. The most important one is Swing-to-Earth, since we really need a ton of Earthquake and Earth Shield casts to get end-game damage and healing. Swing-to-Slam is also fine for getting more Prowess and Resilience stacks.
Synergies
Synergies are really what makes this build work. It's the best way of scaling our buffs into the ridiculous amounts. There's not much to be said about them, since they're just passive rewards, but they are on par with some legendary rewards for this build.
Skill Choice
The Earth kills I chose are largely because Earthquake is mega-OP and Earth Shield honestly is as well. You could probably swap them out for Holy skills without losing too much, since they also provide some healing, but I don't think you'll be able to deal as much damage. If you don't mind losing the healing, I doubt there's a skill you couldn't make work with this setup.

Rune choice

https://preview.redd.it/7n2ha8be0u1d1.png?width=368&format=png&auto=webp&s=d4e4c319b8d3f794cd7a214c5b6d6cc30769c593
Versatility Runes:
It's the usual combo of Endless Refill and Reroll Mastery to get easy skills selection, and we need Unexpected Arsenal to get acces to Heavy Strike. I wanted Heavy Strike since it's fast, but it's not a requirement for the build specifically.
You could swap out Unexpected Arsenal for anything you want, but then you need to change Heavy Strike for any other skill that at least grants Prowess. I'd recommend Armor Shatter. It's a bit slower, but it does provide the Shattered debuff, which might be nice.
Tenacity Runes:
The most important one by far is the Divine Legacy rune, which is (in my opinion) easily the best rune in the game. By cleverly saving and using your locks only at every 25th level, you can get 3 legendary passives every 25 levels, which is just crazy. This is probably true for almost every build, so you'll see this section in a lot of my builds.
Synergetic is super important for really getting the most out of the buffs you get from your skills, as is the case for any build that focuses heavily on buff or damaging debuffs.
You need the Battle Proficiency rune for triggering the Prowess into Resilience synergy, but that synergy isn't mandatory for the build to work since Earth Shield already grants Resilience. It's probably the best choice, but you can swap it out as needed.
Critical Mastery is super effective for our build since we can reach around 1000% crit chance at our highest point through Aptitude stacks. That's an easy extra 250% extra crit damage, which is pretty significant.

Stat priorities

These are the priorities for "basic" stats. Skill chain, type-synergies ( like "more damage per ice skill for non-ice skills", and legendary rewards are almost always better.
Prioritize in order:
Buff Synergies
Any buff synergy is good, even those that provide armor or block. Buff Synergies are so good, I personally consider them on-par with several Legendary passives don't do as much for our build (like Physical Damage for example).
Health
It's a bit weird to have Health listed this high, but in reality, we really don't need much else. Our buff provide such insane base stats, that we really don't need to worry about our damage output.
Rest
You might want to get some Cast Frequency or other stats at first to get the build going, but it's really not necesary to overinvest. It might not make your start the quickest, but this is a marathon-build, not a sprinter. Likewise, you'll probably want some movespeed to make dodging easier, but you won't be need to do much dodging in the end-game, so don't go overboard. Increased Experience is honestly pretty good for this build, since most of your power will come from the Legendary skill-chain and multicast passives and boosting Scent of Blood to get your cooldowns lower.

That's the build!

It's not very suprising that stacking a ton of buffs would result in a killing machine, but I didn't quite expect to be so unkillable. This was definitely one of the more fun builds to do, since I had to figure out which buffs synergize to what and which skills to take to get the daisy-chain started effectively.
In the GIF that I linked at the start of this post, I actually did the build semi-wrong, since I didn't take the Prowess rune (even though I intended to at the start). I only later noticed that it was missing, and only then found out that Earth Shield also provided Resilience, so that was pretty lucky for me. Fortunately, you guys have this build so you don't need to make the same mistake I did :)
If you haven't seen it, please have a look at my previous build, the Conflagrate Barbarian.
submitted by FreqRL to SoulstoneSurvivors [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:45 elitedlarss Best way to buy these tools and batteries?

Doing some projects this summer and I need a caulk gun, impact driver, multi-tool, and batteries.
Currently in my cart I have:
Caulk gun with 1.5ah battery and charger - $89 1/4 brushless Impact driver tool only - $90 4ah battery, 2ah battery, oscillating tool (Ryobi days) - $99 4ah battery, 4ah battery, 2ah battery + stick vac - $199 (planning to hack this and return the vac, that's $100 back, getting the batteries for $100)
Retail subtotal - $948 Savings - $470 Item total - $476 Hack refund - $100
Total cost - $376
Any better ideas on how to bundle or acquire these tools in a smarter way? The three 4ah batteries are nice, probably don't need the extra 2ah batteries.
Anyone used to these deals - gimme advice!
submitted by elitedlarss to ryobi [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:35 rumreisen Connection issues

Yeah title says it all and honestly probably only one more dump of many on this game right now. My connection is like perfect - I can play every game without issues - but DBTB - no. And honestly - I know enough people rage quit because this game just sucks ass so much sometimes with all the balance issues there are - but connection issues on YOUR end dear devs and Bandai Shitshow shouldn’t lead to me losing Ranking over and over again. I had EVERYTHING perfect in this match but SUDDENLY the connection caves. And yeah OF COURSE I WOULD DO IT MYSELF WHILE WINNING RIGHT - general idea here is that there’s NO WAY I WOULD DO IT WHILE WINNING. Put some fucking SENSE in your game that this shouldn’t lead to me losing you goofus devs.
Also, another suggestion - pre made groups shouldn’t be included in the Ranking either. How the fuck should someone win against 6 lvl 300 Z fighters. So much to say about this game and honestly it far outweighs the positive already. I really, REALLY question myself why I even do this to myself anymore. Wouldn’t I have sunk so much time in this and honestly liking the basic idea about it I would’ve already left some time ago. Whatever you’re on about, casuals surely have no fun here whatsoever.
The basic idea about either losing or winning itself is probably a dealbreaker too already with ranking. Another thing is literally sacrificing yourself so the match can be won but YOU lost. There should definitely be a grey area in this game where it can’t be either lost or won.
Stick your skill issues into your own butt anon before even trying it. Over and out.
submitted by rumreisen to DragonBallBreakers [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:22 Additional_Fee_6703 Classic Skyblock (New)

CLASSIC-STYLE HARDCORE SKYBLOCK
IP Address: 135.148.124.185
Many years ago, skyblock was the number one gamemode in minecraft. Now, it’s a wasteland. The few servers left are overly complex, have pointless features, have a /shop where everything can be bought for pennies, and only donors or the admin's friends can get ahead.
Bountycraft fixes this. This is a classic-style skyblock server. Based largely on my experience playing Skyblock as a little kid a decade ago.
This server is authentic, simple and fair. Offering the skyblock plugin, the iconic original island, and chestshop for a player-run economy. That's it.
There's no pay-to-win, no endless spam, GUIs or tutorials, no ranks, no admin shops that kill the economy, no kits, no crates, no spawned-in items, and so on. It's not easy, everything has to done by the players themselves
Built by players who experienced skyblock at it's best, for a new generation of islanders.
Bountycraft is a tribute and a successor to the golden-era of Skyblock servers. Skyblock as it's meant to be.
It's rustic and rough around the edges, that's on purpose and how it should be. I’m hoping to create a chilled out, friendly environment, where you can be as competitive or casual as you want.
RULES -> No hacking, cheating, exploits, hateful language, bullying, toxicity... basically don't be a dick. That pretty much covers it but more detailed rules can be found ingame. Fairness is going to be paramount on here, so you can be assured that players caught cheating will just be banned immediately.
NOTES ->
You cannot buy ANYTHING at spawn or an adminshop. If you want something, you have to get it yourself or find a player who will sell it to you. The economy is setup to be built and handled by the players themselves, you can make your own shops and there's a place at the spawn for players to advertize their own private shops or businesses.
PvP is off by default, but each player can toggle it on/off if they want to PvP on an island or make their own arenas
It started a week ago today, a few people have started playing, but it would be nice to get a small community. If you want to play proper skyblock in a fair, equal, friendly environment, come check it out =)
submitted by Additional_Fee_6703 to MinecraftServerFinder [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:21 Additional_Fee_6703 Hardcore Skyblock (New)

CLASSIC-STYLE HARDCORE SKYBLOCK
IP Address: 135.148.124.185
Many years ago, skyblock was the number one gamemode in minecraft. Now, it’s a wasteland. The few servers left are overly complex, have pointless features, have a /shop where everything can be bought for pennies, and only donors or the admin's friends can get ahead.
Bountycraft fixes this. This is a classic-style skyblock server. Based largely on my experience playing Skyblock as a little kid a decade ago.
This server is authentic, simple and fair. Offering the skyblock plugin, the iconic original island, and chestshop for a player-run economy. That's it.
There's no pay-to-win, no endless spam, GUIs or tutorials, no ranks, no admin shops that kill the economy, no kits, no crates, no spawned-in items, and so on. It's not easy, everything has to done by the players themselves
Built by players who experienced skyblock at it's best, for a new generation of islanders.
Bountycraft is a tribute and a successor to the golden-era of Skyblock servers. Skyblock as it's meant to be.
It's rustic and rough around the edges, that's on purpose and how it should be. I’m hoping to create a chilled out, friendly environment, where you can be as competitive or casual as you want.
RULES -> No hacking, cheating, exploits, hateful language, bullying, toxicity... basically don't be a dick. That pretty much covers it but more detailed rules can be found ingame. Fairness is going to be paramount on here, so you can be assured that players caught cheating will just be banned immediately.
NOTES ->
You cannot buy ANYTHING at spawn or an adminshop. If you want something, you have to get it yourself or find a player who will sell it to you. The economy is setup to be built and handled by the players themselves, you can make your own shops and there's a place at the spawn for players to advertize their own private shops or businesses.
PvP is off by default, but each player can toggle it on/off if they want to PvP on an island or make their own arenas
It started a week ago today, a few people have started playing, but it would be nice to get a small community. If you want to play proper skyblock in a fair, equal, friendly environment, come check it out =)
submitted by Additional_Fee_6703 to MinecraftJavaServers [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:14 fortnitedude43590 Build / Team Building / Kit Questions - FAQ Megathread V3

Build / Team Building / Kit Questions - FAQ Megathread V3
You may also check this guide at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wt1e7uSzrrNgprYYTbobxdyk4zVnK3p761WbjnbhinU/edit?usp=sharing

Kit Explanation

Firefly is a 5-star Fire Destruction character. Her kit focuses around two phases:
The basic state, with a skill that costs 40% of her max HP to gain 60% of her max Energy; and the Complete Combustion state she can enter for a limited time by using Ultimate.
In Complete Combustion state, Firefly gains an enhanced Basic Attack and Skill, a good amount of SPD, Weakness Break Efficiency which lets her break enemies faster, and Super Break DMG against broken enemies.
The enhanced attacks in Complete Combustion state (enhanced state for short here on out) also heal herself. The Enhanced Skill implants a Fire weakness on all targets. In both forms, Firefly also takes reduced damage the lower her HP is, and gains bonus Break Effect based on her ATK.
In short, she cycles between a form that sacrifices HP to get energy, and a stronger form that gets huge benefits from Break.
Firefly has a kit with powerful dual stat scaling, no innate supportive capabilities and high SP consumption, which means her best role is that of a Hypercarry supported by multiple amplifiers.

Sample Setups

These are merely samples! You can choose your teams freely, there’s good freedom for the sustain in particular. For replacements, check the sections further down the guide. For different supports, use their regular builds.
Standard Team: Firefly, Harmony Trailblazer, Ruan Mei, Gallagher
This is the default Break team, highly synergistic and what most people will be running. It requires a single extra limited character in Ruan Mei, and has very high payoff. Gallagher, Break Firefly’s best sustain from a damage standpoint, is a free event reward in Firefly’s patch.
Budget Team: Firefly, Harmony Trailblazer, Asta, Gallagher
A team featuring 3 free characters and Firefly, for anyone who doesn’t have Ruan Mei. Has very high performance for the cost.
Firefly
LC: Whereabouts Should Dreams Rest > On the Fall of an Aeon > Indelible Promise
Relic Sets: 4-Pc [Iron Cavalry Against Scourge], or [2-Pc Break Effect set bonus + 2-Pc Break Effect set bonus] + 2-Pc [Forge of the Kalpagni Lantern], or [Talia]
Main Stats: ATK% Body / SPD Boots / ATK% Sphere / Break Effect Rope
Substats: Enough SPD to get to 210 in enhanced state, then as much Break Effect as possible (ATK% also good, not as good as BE)
Harmony Trailblazer
LC: Past Self in Mirror > Memories of the Past > Meshing Cogs
Relic Sets: 4-Pc [Watchmaker], or [2-Pc Break Effect set bonus + 2-Pc Break Effect or SPD set bonus] + 2-Pc [Talia], or [Forge of the Kalpagni Lantern], or [Fleet]
Main Stats: HP% or DEF% Body / SPD Boots / HP% or DEF% Sphere / Break Effect Rope
If you only have one Past Self in Mirror or Memories of the Past, HTB has priority on using the better one, as it uses both better than Ruan Mei. HTB has priority on using Watchmaker as well.
Substats: Enough SPD to be faster than Firefly and/or meet Talia’s requirement, then all-in on Break Effect (middle priority to improve)
Ruan Mei
LC: Past Self in Mirror > Memories of the Past > Meshing Cogs
Relic Sets: 4-Pc [Watchmaker], or [2-Pc Break Effect set bonus + 2-Pc Break Effect or SPD set bonus] + 2-Pc [Vonwacq], or [Penacony], or [Fleet]
Main Stats: HP% or DEF% Body / SPD Boots / HP% or DEF% Sphere / Energy Regen Rope
Substats: Break Effect (minimum 100%, can stop at 160%) + SPD (middle priority to improve)
Asta
LC: Meshing Cogs
Relic Sets: [2-Pc Break Effect set bonus + 2-Pc Break Effect or SPD set bonus] + 2-Pc [Penacony], or [Fleet]
Main Stats: HP% or DEF% Body / SPD Boots / HP% or DEF% Sphere / Energy Regen Rope
Substats: Enough SPD to be faster than Firefly, then all-in on Break Effect, more SPD is good too (low priority to improve)
Gallagher
LC: Multiplication / What is Real? (Multiplication is priority if it feels safe enough)
Relic Sets: [2-Pc Break Effect set bonus + 2-Pc Break Effect or SPD set bonus] + 2-Pc [Talia], or [Forge of the Kalpagni Lantern], or [Fleet]
Main Stats: Outgoing Healing Body / SPD Boots / HP% or DEF% Sphere / Energy Regen Rope
Substats: As much SPD as possible, Break Effect is good as well (low priority to improve)
Note: The Planar set bonuses are the least important part of the builds for anyone but Firefly. If you get the main stats on other sets, or even incomplete sets, it’ll only result in a minor decrease in team performance.

Stat Building

Speed
210 SPD while transformed is not detailed in a trace, but is the requirement for Firefly to get a 4th action within her Ultimate without external sources of action advance, and also 3 actions on a wave change while the countdown is currently on the action bar. Because of that, it’s extremely important to attain this breakpoint.
Reaching it will generally require SPD boots, together with another source of speed, like the Forge set bonus, substats or smaller buffs such as Ruan Mei’s talent.
A stable 165 SPD while untransformed, equaling 225 SPD while transformed, is the breakpoint for getting 3 Enhanced Actions in the first cycle without any external Action Advances. This speed will require a decent amount of substats, but is worth considering if and only if 0-cycling is one of your goals
Break Effect/Attack
Firefly’s main scaling stat is Break Effect, as most of her damage is Break DMG. She also converts ATK into BE, which makes ATK% very close to BE for her scaling per percentage. Since BE sources often give out more than ATK% sources, BE is still the higher priority.
There is a breakpoint of 360% BE for her personal Super Break DMG, and that should be attained by all means, which should not be difficult with proper support and heavy BE investment. Attaining more BE by all means is how Firefly does her damage.
Critical
No.
Her multipliers and several other benefits towards building Crit have been completely destroyed with Beta v3. Crit stats are completely wasted on Firefly.

Light Cones

Whereabouts Should Dreams Rest, her signature LC, is the best option as with every DPS in the game. Break Effect is uncommon in Destruction LCs, and this gives a big chunk of it together with a debuff that helps Firefly deal Super Break DMG.
Its importance for her seems to be about average when compared to other DPSes’ signature options for themselves - she is not as signature-reliant as Blade or Acheron. Aeon, mentioned below, is a great F2P replacement.
On the Fall of an Aeon, the Herta Store LC, gives Firefly a huge chunk of ATK%, which gets converted into more BE. It also has very high base ATK to increase the value of other sources of ATK%. This should be your default F2P choice.
Indelible Promise is her best 4* option, giving a good amount of Break Effect, the stat she wants the most. It does need a high Superimposition to be great, which is something inaccessible to most players.
Flames Afar, mentioned here due to the frequent talk about it pre-beta, is not a good option for Firefly despite Sam being in it. Firefly needs BE or ATK% for her damage scaling, and Flames Afar offers neither of them, so its effect is useless on her.
Other Light Cones are inferior and not recommended.

Relics and Planars

Iron Cavalry Against Scourge, a set being introduced together with Firefly’s release in 2.3, is her undisputed best option. Break/Super Break DMG is the majority of Firefly’s damage profile, and the significant DEF ignore is one of the biggest sources of damage increase you can have.
2-Pc/2-Pc Set combos are a great option for Firefly. With 3 sets that give BE to mix and match between, you can pick the combinations with the best BE substats you can find. Iron Cavalry’s improvement is sizable, but the performance of 2-Pc/2-Pc sets is still high enough for re-farming to not be necessary.
Genius of Brilliant Stars, aka Quantum set, is also a solid option. It also features DEF ignore stacking that works on Break DMG, but will provide less of it in most situations and also has a worse 2-Pc effect. Just as above, if you’ve saved up Quantum pieces with high Break Effect, they’ll serve you well.
Longevous Disciple, mentioned here due to the frequent talk about it pre-beta, has several issues with uptime and not giving Firefly one of her two scaling stats, so its effect is useless on her.
Other set options are not recommended, as they’ll be outdone by 2-Pc/2-Pc builds.
Planar Sets:
Forge of the Kalpagni Lantern and Talia: Kingdom of Banditry both give massives amount of Break Effect to contribute to your main damage and are almost identical in benefit. Both of their conditions are automatically met in enhanced state.
All other options are worse. Typically, the gap between Planar sets for characters is quite small, but the Break sets offer a lot of that stat, and since it’s unlikely to have good BE pieces saved up in other sets, it’s recommended to farm either Forge or Talia.

Team Building - Amplifiers

Harmony Trailblazer - Firefly and Harmony Trailblazer’s kits seem to have been practically made for each other. HTB’s biggest fault of only buffing Break Effect is fixed by Firefly’s kit converting it directly into damage scaling, while Firefly’s high innate BE and incredible break value on Enhanced Skill will help her deal extremely high Super Break DMG. These two should be together in teams at basically all times.
Differently from Boothill, who doesn’t use HTB in his most optimal teams, Firefly has more upfront break to access Super Break DMG quicker, especially with the help of Gallagher or Bronya, and can’t trigger default Break DMG by herself. In general, Break characters are highly recommended to stick together, both to amplify each other and to get Super Break DMG, so the other two currently in the game, Ruan Mei and Gallagher, go very well here.
Ruan Mei - A fantastic fit, almost every part of Ruan Mei’s kit greatly benefits Firefly. Weakness Break Efficiency helps her break enemies faster and improves Super Break DMG, RES PEN is a modifier that also works on Break damage, and the passive SPD and BE help Firefly get to her thresholds. An easy choice to put into any team.
Ruan Mei’s E1 will be a good improvement to these teams, with its DEF ignore stacking with Iron Cavalry’s set bonus for exponential growth.
Asta - Asta is a good budget option for Break teams when lacking 5* Harmony units. Her ATK buff is directly converted into more BE for Firefly, and the high break value on her skill means she can deal significant Super Break DMG and help Firefly break enemies faster.
Asta’s speed buff can give Firefly’s enhanced state a fourth turn with no speed investment, but it can only be ready for the first one in specific conditions - an E6 Asta with Meshing Cogs, an ERR rope and using technique instead of Firefly’s. Because of that, it’s recommended to still run Speed boots on Firefly.
Asta is recommended to build towards Break Effect in her substats as she doesn’t have high stat requirements elsewhere.
Hanya - Hanya’s benefits are very similar to Asta’s, but Asta is a free character with upsides to Hanya. Use Hanya as a budget option if you just don’t like Asta.
Bronya - Bronya works incredibly well with Firefly. More actions in Enhanced State have very high value, and Bronya gives more than any other support. With E0 Firefly’s SP consumption, though, those teams need to finish fights incredibly quickly before they run dry of SP. When Firefly is E1, Bronya becomes a better option.
The required speed tuning for optimization is pending with v3 changes, but is likely to be very demanding on Bronya’s side.
Silver Wolf/Pela - Both of these characters help stack DEF reduction, which affects Super Break DMG. The damage increase from this is solid, and they can be considered budget options.
Robin - Almost none of Robin’s benefits work with Firefly, as her ATK buff does not contribute to Firefly’s ATK > BE conversion. With that in mind, Robin ends up being close in performance to Asta as a teammate. Even if she’s E1, just use her on your other team.
Tingyun - Tingyun’s main appeal, the energy battery, is of low benefit to Firefly. Since Firefly’s Enhanced Skill generates no energy, Tingyun needs Huohuo to cut a turn of downtime. Her ATK buff is beaten out by Asta, and most other benefits are wasted.
Sparkle - Sparkle’s DMG% and crit buffing is entirely wasted on Firefly. Her Action Advance is extremely difficult to make use of with Firefly’s changing speed and will not give many enhanced actions.
Yukong - Yukong’s skill’s value is practically tossed out the window with Firefly’s self-action advance and speed buff. With her ATK% buff being unreliable and Yukong providing nothing else towards Firefly’s breakpoints, she’s not a good option at all.

Team Building - Sustains

Firefly is not very picky with sustains. Even still, there are some preferences. Her high SP consumption favors sustains that can generate high amounts of SP.
Gallagher - Gallagher is a perfect fit for Firefly. Generating insane amounts of SP due to his ultimate’s action advance and Multiplication, coupled with helping break Fire weak enemies which Firefly creates and increasing their Break DMG received, Gallagher can be considered the optimal sustain from a damage standpoint despite his 4* status.
E1 is an important breakpoint for Gallagher, letting him contribute massive amounts of Break before Firefly’s first action to let her break enemies quicker. Gallagher does this by using Skill to get to full energy on his first turn > Ultimate > Enhanced Basic.
Other Fast Abundances - This includes Natasha, Lynx, Bailu and Luocha. Having high speed on these helps make up for Firefly’s SP consumption to give your support units more freedom, and since the DPS is typically the weak link of the team survivability-wise, Firefly’s innate tankiness helps mitigate the weaker healing provided by Natasha, Lynx and Bailu. Multiplication is recommended, but if it feels too unsafe, feel free to use a more healing-oriented LC.
Aventurine - Firefly does not have any reservations against being played with a shielder. Her self-action advance happens infrequently enough that it shouldn’t lead to Aventurine’s shields falling off, and with Firefly being tankier than most DPS, Aventurine’s need to use skill decreases even more, making him a very safe sustain option that also provides good SP.
Huohuo - Huohuo’s SP consumption is a poor fit for Firefly, the ATK buff from her ultimate lasts too little to be worth much, and the energy battery is useless for Firefly herself unless you waste another slot on Tingyun. Huohuo is still a strong character against any CC-heavy fights and smooths out most supports’ rotations, though.
Fu Xuan - Fu Xuan’s low SP generation is an issue when being ran with Firefly, but if that’s accounted for with your other support choices, Fu Xuan functions moderately well - she’ll still be as safe as she is with anyone, but her Crit buff will not benefit Firefly at all.

# Eidolons

As with most other characters, E3 and E5 are minor numerical upgrades that don’t change the kit’s workings. Their pictures are linked for your appreciation, though.
E1 - In Reddened Chrysalis, I Once Rest): DEF ignore is the rare modifier to apply to Break DMG, making it a solid damage increase. The Enhanced Skill not consuming SP moves Firefly’s average SP consumption from around -1.4 SP/t to -0.55 SP/t, which is quite significant in giving more team options as well.
E2 - From Shattered Sky, I Free Fall: The newest busted, whale-bait eidolon. Adding functionally two turns to ultimate state is a hilariously powerful effect, and it’s very easy to make use of it - your Blast attacks will often break main targets and kill adds quickly.
This eidolon is undoubtedly broken, but same as with Acheron’s and Imbibitor Lunae’s, it is not required for Firefly to be a strong character by any stretch of the imagination. Do not feel forced to go for it if you can’t afford it.
E4 - Upon Lighted Firefly, I Soon Gaze: A token effect that is typically covered by your sustain unit. Never worth stopping at.
E6 - In Finalized Morrow, I Full Bloom: RES PEN and Weakness Break Efficiency will both greatly help with your Super Break DMG.
A strong eidolon by itself, but considering its cost is functionally quadrupled due to the minor benefits of E3-E5, the benefit-cost ratio is very low, and if your goal is to increase Firefly’s performance the most you can, early upgrades to supports will be of bigger benefit to her than aiming for E6.
https://preview.redd.it/eankui4swt1d1.png?width=685&format=png&auto=webp&s=3e28efdf1fa9f2543f8d1994949f017297613c24
Q: Don’t Ruan Mei and Harmony Trailblazer have anti-synergy with Firefly, since they delay their Break recovery, so you can’t Break them again?
A: With a well-built team, not at all. Even without these delays, enemies will die before being broken twice almost unconditionally. In that case, it’s better to extend the benefits you get from attacking broken enemies, so these delays are a strict upside.
Q: E1, Signature LC, literally anything else OR Ruan Mei?
A: Ruan Mei, and it’s not close. The benefit she provides to Firefly’s damage is unmatched, and she can be considered an essential teammate to maximize Firefly’s damage.
Q: Signature LC or E1?
A: Both are decently close in performance. I’d give the edge to Signature for most players, freeing up your Aeon for use with other Destruction characters.
Q: Does Crit or DMG% affect Break damage?
A: No. The only Relic stat that increases Break damage is Break Effect. The only buffs/debuffs that do are Break Effect increases, DEF reduction/ignore, RES PEN, and Damage Taken increases.
submitted by fortnitedude43590 to FireflyMains [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:08 nu--minosity A book you should have loved, but didn’t! And why???

Okay okay, so I’ve been thinking about this really hard for a few days now, and I want to know what books you thought you would love because it seemed like they checked all the boxes for you, and why you didn’t love them or what perhaps even DNFed them! I’ll start.
Agnarr’s Teacher by Jenifer Wood.
After reading the description I thought to myself “Gee myself, this seems a lot like Ice Planet Barbarians but even better! Let’s read this!” And dove in. Here is a list of what reminded me of IPB.
Here is a list of additions that made me very interested and excited!
You see, my problems lies in characters making decisions (or really only one) that seemed wildly out of pocket. (Take this with a grain of salt, I DNFed because I had a really hard time believing this)
The FMC has Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD henceforth). She is medicated for GAD. Medication is not magic and does not fix everything, and she has been without it for an unclear amount of time, but at least three days. It’s very likely out of her system. Anyway, she wakes up in an admittedly cozy room, but with an orc child staring at her. Instant panic for me (someone with GAD). Okay, it’s a child, she’s a teacher, she loves children and manages to keep it together and speak to the child. Gets kiddo to go get his mom. Great, fantastic. In my head I’d rationalized that the bad aliens did the language thing already, coolio, but she still hadn’t come to the conclusion she wasn’t on earth. Skip past some mild anxiety about possibility being captive or maybe this was some fucked up team building thing for work? Apparently her boss is weird. Comes to the realization she’s not on earth. (I would have fucking passed out, how THE FUCK is this woman still standing. A stronger woman than me.) Proceeds to hear sword fighting, gets spooked but checks out the window and ogles one of the orcs doing the sparring and listens in on their conversation. The whole thing is pretty rationalized through all this, very “I’ve been in therapy for years and know how to organize my thoughts in scary situations” of her. We love it! Kiddo comes back with his mom and she is a very kind woman who explains things to the FMC, who has been a champ up til she is told there’s no way home. She finally passes out from panic. When she wakes up she’s back in bed and the kind woman is still there, worried about her. She helps the FMC and explains some more things, the FMC tackles the “do yall have mental health care here” convo like a champ, and the orcs are pro mental health! Great! Again, we love to see it! I’m seeing myself in this fmc so much, and I’m really starting to like her, I’m feeling very represented! The FMC asks to go for a walk alone to clear her mind, and kind orc lady says “yeah! There’s a safe path surrounding the village, stick to it and you should be fine, the sentries keep the village safe and there are no predators lurking in the woods so take your time!” FMC gets dressed in new clothes, goes walking. Cut to MMC, the orc she was ogling and coincidentally the one who put her back in bed when Kind Orc Lady called for help. He felt something when he looked at her! GASP fated mates?! Yes but no, but like yes. Technically unclear, but we know how these things go. ANYWAY! He’s chopping down a tree to clear his mind because the village elders were all “mmm, let’s let these women wake up first, then we can explain things to them, introduce them to the world and let them decide what to do.” (Low female population and declining female birth rates have made the men excited at the possibility of new potential mates) (mmc agrees with them despite being desperate for a mate) so anyway he’s a warrior and not good and cutting down trees safely. Fmc is walking on the path and the tree falls ON HER!!! I repeat THE TREE FALLS ON HER!!! This guy runs to check on her after hearing her scream, starts hacking at branches with an axe to get to her, and then slows down when he realizes she’s okay! Yay! She is upset and yells at him, I would too if I just had a tree felled on me. Then they kiss? And in her head she thinks about how her “good Christian upbringing” wouldn’t condone this? I guess? Let’s fucking go? I guess??? I’m all for sexual liberation, but in her situation, not being awake for more then ten hours MAX, having just been abducted, finding out aliens are real, finding out you are “undesirable” to said aliens, being dropped off on a strange planet, then being told you can never go home because they don’t possess the technology to do that (she loved her job and I assume her students, so it’s not like she has nothing to go back to), all on top of having GAD? I’m so sorry but no amount of time spent collecting coping strategies in therapy and no amount of medicine could keep me lucid. I’d be in a spiral, if not passed out. And you’re telling me she’s down to fuck? Like they don’t actually, she gives a very enthusiastic blowjob, then gets shy when he wants to reciprocate (I get it sis, me too) so he just fingers her. BUT STILL!!!! Idk it was too fast. I like fast burn and I can very often suspend my disbelief but that really bothered me? I’m down to examine why and see if I need to re-evaluate some things about my own beliefs. I don’t think I hold it against the characters or the author, I think I just saw myself in the character so much that I basically just inserted myself, and when she did something that perhaps did suit her character but definitely was not something I’d do, I checked out.
So! Have you ever had an experience like this? What books did they involve? Let me know!
submitted by nu--minosity to RomanceBooks [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:04 UndeadRedditing Not excusing their mistakes with the Sega Saturn but Sega of Japan's boneheaded approach of Japan-Fist and misunderstanding foreign markets isn't unique to them and is actually a wider problem of the Japanese Business World (as seen with Sunrise and Gundam)

Sega of Japan deserves all the criticisms for their idiocy of overtaking the dictatorship of the wider Sega company and running the company down because they tried to manage the global markets without understanding the cultures behind them and basing their actions upon the tastes of the Japanese market. On top of putting their eggs in one baskets and obsessively trying to make the Saturn king of Japan's console industry................
However there's a gigantic misconception on the internet by understandably P$!%ed off Western gamers that Sega of Japan's boneheaded run of the company is some unique kind of stupidity unmatched in history.........
Actually there's bad news and its that this is actually a big problem in the Japanese business world especially among companies that are domestic giants such as Konami.
And I'll start with one of my favorite franchises. Mobile Suite Gundam.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s the most recent iteration of the franchise Mobile Suit Gundam Wing aired on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. And to say it was a massive success. It was easily Toonami's most watched program after Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon and there would be profitable sales of Gundam Wing figures in American major retailers like K-Mart and kB Toys during the show's run. There was more demand for further Gundam content. Easy pathway to creating a juggernaut in the anime industry in America right?
Well the immediate followup to Gundam Wing was....... The original Gundam. Form the 1970s. I'm not kidding. The studios that makes Gundam Sunrise made this choice.
Massive gigantic bomb in America. Even Toonami's less popular programs like Ronin Warriors hard much higher viewerships.
The show's reason for flopping was that the original Gundam looked just so outdated with its animation being 70s flair. The original Gundam is actually superior to Wing in almost every other way especially the overall plot...... But the animation looked so old nobody wanted to watch it.
Why did Sunrise choose to follow up Wing which was their latest installment just before Turn A which was actually running in Japan during the same time Toonami was airing Wing in America?
In Japan the specific continuity the first original Gundam series follows, the UC timeline, is the handsdown most popular canon. The first two sequels Zeta (the Gundam series with the highest ratings ever in the history of the franchise within Japan) and ZZ formed a trilogy with the original Gundam of interlinking stories that culminates and concluded most the unresolved arcs in the original Gundam along with a slew of entwined movies and OVAs (think miniseries in Western terms). Basically the UC timeline is so big in Japan that we still get new stories every couple of years focused on specific characters, incidents, and so much more as well. Ask the general populace about Gundam and its the robot suits and characters of the UC timeline such as Amuro Rey and the Zaku robots and the that they immediately picture in their heads when they think Gundam similar to how the vast bulk of Star Wars fans below 16 always associates the franchise with Luke, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Obi Wan, and Anakin/Darth Vader and the iconic scenes are teh Death Star onscreen and lightsaber fights.
So in Sunrise's head, not only was the first Gundam a guaranteed success in America but that they had to follow it up with it because the UC is the heart and soul of the entire franchise. The studios sincerely believed that with the original Gundam's even better and more complicated storyline that crowds will flock to watch it every weekday on Toonami...........
Failing to realize that a prime part of what made Wing so impressionable on Western audiences was the visuals of space battles and the awareness of the mobile suits in action. The complicated story of Gundam Wing (for the standards of Western animation on TV was definitely a component that made kids stick to the end but what attracted them in the first place was awesome onscreen actions like Heero escaping capture and knocking out a bunch of men on the way with kicks and piloting the Gundam for the first time to demolish tanks and humvees and a division of soldiers within seconds.
Sunrise did not get this point. They mistakenly assumed that teens and children in the West would have understood the original Gundam's anti war storyline entwined with lots of politics and drama was something that was darn complicated for an American 12 year old to get. They failed to get that the West's TV animation scene was extremely tame hell mainstream afternoon Network Television overall even live action was pretty much PG in content and something like Gundam was definitely pushing it for timeslots for minors including teens. That issues like killing children in a mass bombardment with permanent arm crippling even decapitation was only started to be accepted on afternoon teen soap opera and Saturday morning cartoon timeslots.
That it was pretty tame (by modern standards) live action shows with lots of cool visual action that was bloodless and usually PG like Hercules The Legendary Journeys and its sister spinoff Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the teen range was watching in addition to laughably corny stuff (but still having cool colorful onscreen effects) like GI Joe making the center of children's animation.
When the original Gundam flopped Sunrise took around 2 years to realize their mistake and released G Gundam. An incarnation of the series around the premise of Robots dueling each other in a tournament of gladiatorial fights. Thats an understatement G Gundam takes the whole premise to another level by making the Gundam robots fight with the speed, fluidity, and magical abilities of Dragon Ball Z. Kung Fu with giant Robots.
But the damage was done. While G Gundam did a hell lot better than the original Gundam, interest in the franchise has waned by then and in turn merchandise sales which Sunrise makes its bulk profits from were nowhere as profitable in America as Wing was. When Sunrise attempted to bring over their newer series such as Seed (which was massively popular in Japan even far more than Gundam Wing and G Gundam which already were considered hits by the studios) it was canceled from the maintime slot shortly afterwards and the ret of the series was put on death slots. The momentum had ceased. And not helping was that by that point other mech anime such as FLCL also aired on Toonami and fellow rival franchises like Zoids were begin imported.
Basically by now Gundam had looked generic to the Western audience esp Americans. The next wave of new anime fans in the 2000s was a disadvantaged market because the novelty of Gundam Wing being the first mech anime was not there for future Gundam installments. Gundam has fallen so out of the anime Zeitgeist that whatever we got in the future aired on lesser known channels like Color TVs or came in DVD releases if not even localised at all only being available on fansubs.
The worst part? When Gundam Wing ended its run on Toonami, Turn A Gundam, their newest incarnation with even better animation and just as much awesome moments of one giant mech destroying a an army of other mechs in addition to divisions of tanks and infantry, had just finished airing in Japan. By all logic it should have been a no brainer to snatch this as the followup to Wing right?
But not to Sunrise because Turn A was one of the lesser popular incarnations at that point. Because the UC was so the face of the franchise in Japan so it must succeed in America and the rest of the world no?
Does this sound familiar? Simply to put Japanese companies have a gigantic issues of failing to realize that what succeeds in Japan is not applicable elsewhere. And that given the chance to they'll even try to micro manage even something as loose in concept as franchise licensing in other countries.
OK thats an exaggeration I just said but my point ist he horrible mishandling of the Sega Saturn outside of Japan isn't really some 1 in a billion lottery ticket level of stupidity. Sega of Japan's screwups is actually quite typical of companies that succeeded domestically but never did anything in other markets that then decide to expand to outside markets beyond Japan. The Gundam example was so already long that I don't feel like typing anymore but boy oh boy there are a gazillion examples you can find if you do your googling from Konami's early mishandling of the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG as well as their shift to focusing on Pachinko and Pachislot much to the dismay of Western gamers esp fans of MGS and Silent Hill. And so much more.
Simply Sega of Japan isn't uniquely stupid. Its a perfect symptom many issues of the business world in Japan.
submitted by UndeadRedditing to ludology [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:04 UndeadRedditing Not excusing their mistakes with the Sega Saturn but Sega of Japan's boneheaded approach of Japan-Fist and misunderstanding foreign markets isn't unique to them and is actually a wider problem of the Japanese Business World (as seen with Sunrise and Gundam)

Sega of Japan deserves all the criticisms for their idiocy of overtaking the dictatorship of the wider Sega company and running the company down because they tried to manage the global markets without understanding the cultures behind them and basing their actions upon the tastes of the Japanese market. On top of putting their eggs in one baskets and obsessively trying to make the Saturn king of Japan's console industry................
However there's a gigantic misconception on the internet by understandably P$!%ed off Western gamers that Sega of Japan's boneheaded run of the company is some unique kind of stupidity unmatched in history.........
Actually there's bad news and its that this is actually a big problem in the Japanese business world especially among companies that are domestic giants such as Konami.
And I'll start with one of my favorite franchises. Mobile Suite Gundam.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s the most recent iteration of the franchise Mobile Suit Gundam Wing aired on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. And to say it was a massive success. It was easily Toonami's most watched program after Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon and there would be profitable sales of Gundam Wing figures in American major retailers like K-Mart and kB Toys during the show's run. There was more demand for further Gundam content. Easy pathway to creating a juggernaut in the anime industry in America right?
Well the immediate followup to Gundam Wing was....... The original Gundam. Form the 1970s. I'm not kidding. The studios that makes Gundam Sunrise made this choice.
Massive gigantic bomb in America. Even Toonami's less popular programs like Ronin Warriors hard much higher viewerships.
The show's reason for flopping was that the original Gundam looked just so outdated with its animation being 70s flair. The original Gundam is actually superior to Wing in almost every other way especially the overall plot...... But the animation looked so old nobody wanted to watch it.
Why did Sunrise choose to follow up Wing which was their latest installment just before Turn A which was actually running in Japan during the same time Toonami was airing Wing in America?
In Japan the specific continuity the first original Gundam series follows, the UC timeline, is the handsdown most popular canon. The first two sequels Zeta (the Gundam series with the highest ratings ever in the history of the franchise within Japan) and ZZ formed a trilogy with the original Gundam of interlinking stories that culminates and concluded most the unresolved arcs in the original Gundam along with a slew of entwined movies and OVAs (think miniseries in Western terms). Basically the UC timeline is so big in Japan that we still get new stories every couple of years focused on specific characters, incidents, and so much more as well. Ask the general populace about Gundam and its the robot suits and characters of the UC timeline such as Amuro Rey and the Zaku robots and the that they immediately picture in their heads when they think Gundam similar to how the vast bulk of Star Wars fans below 16 always associates the franchise with Luke, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Obi Wan, and Anakin/Darth Vader and the iconic scenes are teh Death Star onscreen and lightsaber fights.
So in Sunrise's head, not only was the first Gundam a guaranteed success in America but that they had to follow it up with it because the UC is the heart and soul of the entire franchise. The studios sincerely believed that with the original Gundam's even better and more complicated storyline that crowds will flock to watch it every weekday on Toonami...........
Failing to realize that a prime part of what made Wing so impressionable on Western audiences was the visuals of space battles and the awareness of the mobile suits in action. The complicated story of Gundam Wing (for the standards of Western animation on TV was definitely a component that made kids stick to the end but what attracted them in the first place was awesome onscreen actions like Heero escaping capture and knocking out a bunch of men on the way with kicks and piloting the Gundam for the first time to demolish tanks and humvees and a division of soldiers within seconds.
Sunrise did not get this point. They mistakenly assumed that teens and children in the West would have understood the original Gundam's anti war storyline entwined with lots of politics and drama was something that was darn complicated for an American 12 year old to get. They failed to get that the West's TV animation scene was extremely tame hell mainstream afternoon Network Television overall even live action was pretty much PG in content and something like Gundam was definitely pushing it for timeslots for minors including teens. That issues like killing children in a mass bombardment with permanent arm crippling even decapitation was only started to be accepted on afternoon teen soap opera and Saturday morning cartoon timeslots.
That it was pretty tame (by modern standards) live action shows with lots of cool visual action that was bloodless and usually PG like Hercules The Legendary Journeys and its sister spinoff Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the teen range was watching in addition to laughably corny stuff (but still having cool colorful onscreen effects) like GI Joe making the center of children's animation.
When the original Gundam flopped Sunrise took around 2 years to realize their mistake and released G Gundam. An incarnation of the series around the premise of Robots dueling each other in a tournament of gladiatorial fights. Thats an understatement G Gundam takes the whole premise to another level by making the Gundam robots fight with the speed, fluidity, and magical abilities of Dragon Ball Z. Kung Fu with giant Robots.
But the damage was done. While G Gundam did a hell lot better than the original Gundam, interest in the franchise has waned by then and in turn merchandise sales which Sunrise makes its bulk profits from were nowhere as profitable in America as Wing was. When Sunrise attempted to bring over their newer series such as Seed (which was massively popular in Japan even far more than Gundam Wing and G Gundam which already were considered hits by the studios) it was canceled from the maintime slot shortly afterwards and the ret of the series was put on death slots. The momentum had ceased. And not helping was that by that point other mech anime such as FLCL also aired on Toonami and fellow rival franchises like Zoids were begin imported.
Basically by now Gundam had looked generic to the Western audience esp Americans. The next wave of new anime fans in the 2000s was a disadvantaged market because the novelty of Gundam Wing being the first mech anime was not there for future Gundam installments. Gundam has fallen so out of the anime Zeitgeist that whatever we got in the future aired on lesser known channels like Color TVs or came in DVD releases if not even localised at all only being available on fansubs.
The worst part? When Gundam Wing ended its run on Toonami, Turn A Gundam, their newest incarnation with even better animation and just as much awesome moments of one giant mech destroying a an army of other mechs in addition to divisions of tanks and infantry, had just finished airing in Japan. By all logic it should have been a no brainer to snatch this as the followup to Wing right?
But not to Sunrise because Turn A was one of the lesser popular incarnations at that point. Because the UC was so the face of the franchise in Japan so it must succeed in America and the rest of the world no?
Does this sound familiar? Simply to put Japanese companies have a gigantic issues of failing to realize that what succeeds in Japan is not applicable elsewhere. And that given the chance to they'll even try to micro manage even something as loose in concept as franchise licensing in other countries.
OK thats an exaggeration I just said but my point ist he horrible mishandling of the Sega Saturn outside of Japan isn't really some 1 in a billion lottery ticket level of stupidity. Sega of Japan's screwups is actually quite typical of companies that succeeded domestically but never did anything in other markets that then decide to expand to outside markets beyond Japan. The Gundam example was so already long that I don't feel like typing anymore but boy oh boy there are a gazillion examples you can find if you do your googling from Konami's early mishandling of the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG as well as their shift to focusing on Pachinko and Pachislot much to the dismay of Western gamers esp fans of MGS and Silent Hill. And so much more.
Simply Sega of Japan isn't uniquely stupid. Its a perfect symptom many issues of the business world in Japan.
submitted by UndeadRedditing to consoles [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:03 UndeadRedditing Not excusing their mistakes with the Sega Saturn but Sega of Japan's boneheaded approach of Japan-Fist and misunderstanding foreign markets isn't unique to them and is actually a wider problem of the Japanese Business World (as seen with Sunrise and Gundam)

Sega of Japan deserves all the criticisms for their idiocy of overtaking the dictatorship of the wider Sega company and running the company down because they tried to manage the global markets without understanding the cultures behind them and basing their actions upon the tastes of the Japanese market. On top of putting their eggs in one baskets and obsessively trying to make the Saturn king of Japan's console industry................
However there's a gigantic misconception on the internet by understandably P$!%ed off Western gamers that Sega of Japan's boneheaded run of the company is some unique kind of stupidity unmatched in history.........
Actually there's bad news and its that this is actually a big problem in the Japanese business world especially among companies that are domestic giants such as Konami.
And I'll start with one of my favorite franchises. Mobile Suite Gundam.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s the most recent iteration of the franchise Mobile Suit Gundam Wing aired on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. And to say it was a massive success. It was easily Toonami's most watched program after Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon and there would be profitable sales of Gundam Wing figures in American major retailers like K-Mart and kB Toys during the show's run. There was more demand for further Gundam content. Easy pathway to creating a juggernaut in the anime industry in America right?
Well the immediate followup to Gundam Wing was....... The original Gundam. Form the 1970s. I'm not kidding. The studios that makes Gundam Sunrise made this choice.
Massive gigantic bomb in America. Even Toonami's less popular programs like Ronin Warriors hard much higher viewerships.
The show's reason for flopping was that the original Gundam looked just so outdated with its animation being 70s flair. The original Gundam is actually superior to Wing in almost every other way especially the overall plot...... But the animation looked so old nobody wanted to watch it.
Why did Sunrise choose to follow up Wing which was their latest installment just before Turn A which was actually running in Japan during the same time Toonami was airing Wing in America?
In Japan the specific continuity the first original Gundam series follows, the UC timeline, is the handsdown most popular canon. The first two sequels Zeta (the Gundam series with the highest ratings ever in the history of the franchise within Japan) and ZZ formed a trilogy with the original Gundam of interlinking stories that culminates and concluded most the unresolved arcs in the original Gundam along with a slew of entwined movies and OVAs (think miniseries in Western terms). Basically the UC timeline is so big in Japan that we still get new stories every couple of years focused on specific characters, incidents, and so much more as well. Ask the general populace about Gundam and its the robot suits and characters of the UC timeline such as Amuro Rey and the Zaku robots and the that they immediately picture in their heads when they think Gundam similar to how the vast bulk of Star Wars fans below 16 always associates the franchise with Luke, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Obi Wan, and Anakin/Darth Vader and the iconic scenes are teh Death Star onscreen and lightsaber fights.
So in Sunrise's head, not only was the first Gundam a guaranteed success in America but that they had to follow it up with it because the UC is the heart and soul of the entire franchise. The studios sincerely believed that with the original Gundam's even better and more complicated storyline that crowds will flock to watch it every weekday on Toonami...........
Failing to realize that a prime part of what made Wing so impressionable on Western audiences was the visuals of space battles and the awareness of the mobile suits in action. The complicated story of Gundam Wing (for the standards of Western animation on TV was definitely a component that made kids stick to the end but what attracted them in the first place was awesome onscreen actions like Heero escaping capture and knocking out a bunch of men on the way with kicks and piloting the Gundam for the first time to demolish tanks and humvees and a division of soldiers within seconds.
Sunrise did not get this point. They mistakenly assumed that teens and children in the West would have understood the original Gundam's anti war storyline entwined with lots of politics and drama was something that was darn complicated for an American 12 year old to get. They failed to get that the West's TV animation scene was extremely tame hell mainstream afternoon Network Television overall even live action was pretty much PG in content and something like Gundam was definitely pushing it for timeslots for minors including teens. That issues like killing children in a mass bombardment with permanent arm crippling even decapitation was only started to be accepted on afternoon teen soap opera and Saturday morning cartoon timeslots.
That it was pretty tame (by modern standards) live action shows with lots of cool visual action that was bloodless and usually PG like Hercules The Legendary Journeys and its sister spinoff Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the teen range was watching in addition to laughably corny stuff (but still having cool colorful onscreen effects) like GI Joe making the center of children's animation.
When the original Gundam flopped Sunrise took around 2 years to realize their mistake and released G Gundam. An incarnation of the series around the premise of Robots dueling each other in a tournament of gladiatorial fights. Thats an understatement G Gundam takes the whole premise to another level by making the Gundam robots fight with the speed, fluidity, and magical abilities of Dragon Ball Z. Kung Fu with giant Robots.
But the damage was done. While G Gundam did a hell lot better than the original Gundam, interest in the franchise has waned by then and in turn merchandise sales which Sunrise makes its bulk profits from were nowhere as profitable in America as Wing was. When Sunrise attempted to bring over their newer series such as Seed (which was massively popular in Japan even far more than Gundam Wing and G Gundam which already were considered hits by the studios) it was canceled from the maintime slot shortly afterwards and the ret of the series was put on death slots. The momentum had ceased. And not helping was that by that point other mech anime such as FLCL also aired on Toonami and fellow rival franchises like Zoids were begin imported.
Basically by now Gundam had looked generic to the Western audience esp Americans. The next wave of new anime fans in the 2000s was a disadvantaged market because the novelty of Gundam Wing being the first mech anime was not there for future Gundam installments. Gundam has fallen so out of the anime Zeitgeist that whatever we got in the future aired on lesser known channels like Color TVs or came in DVD releases if not even localised at all only being available on fansubs.
The worst part? When Gundam Wing ended its run on Toonami, Turn A Gundam, their newest incarnation with even better animation and just as much awesome moments of one giant mech destroying a an army of other mechs in addition to divisions of tanks and infantry, had just finished airing in Japan. By all logic it should have been a no brainer to snatch this as the followup to Wing right?
But not to Sunrise because Turn A was one of the lesser popular incarnations at that point. Because the UC was so the face of the franchise in Japan so it must succeed in America and the rest of the world no?
Does this sound familiar? Simply to put Japanese companies have a gigantic issues of failing to realize that what succeeds in Japan is not applicable elsewhere. And that given the chance to they'll even try to micro manage even something as loose in concept as franchise licensing in other countries.
OK thats an exaggeration I just said but my point ist he horrible mishandling of the Sega Saturn outside of Japan isn't really some 1 in a billion lottery ticket level of stupidity. Sega of Japan's screwups is actually quite typical of companies that succeeded domestically but never did anything in other markets that then decide to expand to outside markets beyond Japan. The Gundam example was so already long that I don't feel like typing anymore but boy oh boy there are a gazillion examples you can find if you do your googling from Konami's early mishandling of the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG as well as their shift to focusing on Pachinko and Pachislot much to the dismay of Western gamers esp fans of MGS and Silent Hill. And so much more.
Simply Sega of Japan isn't uniquely stupid. Its a perfect symptom many issues of the business world in Japan.
submitted by UndeadRedditing to videogamehistory [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:03 Lesserred Brute forcing and datamining

Were not how any of the puzzles were solved. I know there’s a few of you on here(and a few who have popped in to the datamining part of the discord) who are under this misconception. The >! Wingdings map !< wasn’t solved via bruteforcing, the legitimate puzzle solving community had enough pieces of the puzzle that they could figure it out without the last one. That’s not bruteforcing. On the subject of datamining: Billy didn’t make it so his code was easily readable to an outside observer(commenting was only used sparsely and for messages directed at dataminers), so it took people just as long to figure out what each byte meant as it did for people to figure out what the puzzle answers were(dataminers are STILL trying to label everything in the code so they can figure everything out.) To my knowledge the only things that came from datamining ahead of schedule are >! Things relating to the collectors edition !< and in fact they found >! Potential anti-cheat measures AFTER the puzzles they would prevent you from solving, had been solved !< .
I’m not trying to white knight for data miners/ cheaters/ leakers but I’d really like accuracy in the narrative here. People solved the puzzles without cheating really quick. That’s it. We had a lot of people in the community who were born and raised on ARG’s and cryptic puzzle games, and they tore through it at record pace. No cheats were used. Trying to say the game was hacked for completion really demeans the work the community actually put in to solve stuff.
submitted by Lesserred to animalWell [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:01 versremote Look to Puzzle Pirates

I was thinking about the old discussion about large ships and how we'll crew them. There seems to be two entrenched camps. There's the people who intend to wait until blades (AI) are implemented so they can crew them solo, and then there's the orgs who will buy and crew ships.
I randomly remembered a game I used to play as a 13 year old called Puzzle Pirates (PP from here on out). That game was my first proper exposure to capitalism. I owned shops, a fleet of ships, and lost it all at poker.
The point here is that PP had a system whereby your large ships could be sailed with an AI crew. However there was also a job board that you could post on and find human members for your crew who would replace your AI crew once they accepted the job.
In PP The newly hired human crew would generally receive a percentage of any plunder dependent on their skill level and time served. This was however something that the captain decided, so it's not all on autopilot.
I think this crew needed / job board / auto-payment system would also be a good use for crew quarters. Newly hired crew would take a job and spawn in the crew quarters of the ship they signed onto to avoid having to wait an hour for everyone to gather in one place.
This:
Thoughts? Is this something that's already been discussed and I've missed it? Think it's a bad idea? I'm interested in all responses.
submitted by versremote to starcitizen [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 21:00 UndeadRedditing Not excusing their mistakes with the Sega Saturn but Sega of Japan's boneheaded approach of Japan-Fist and misunderstanding foreign markets isn't unique to them and is actually a wider problem of the Japanese Business World (as seen with Sunrise and Gundam)

Sega of Japan deserves all the criticisms for their idiocy of overtaking the dictatorship of the wider Sega company and running the company down because they tried to manage the global markets without understanding the cultures behind them and basing their actions upon the tastes of the Japanese market. On top of putting their eggs in one baskets and obsessively trying to make the Saturn king of Japan's console industry................
However there's a gigantic misconception on the internet by understandably P$!%ed off Western gamers that Sega of Japan's boneheaded run of the company is some unique kind of stupidity unmatched in history.........
Actually there's bad news and its that this is actually a big problem in the Japanese business world especially among companies that are domestic giants such as Konami.
And I'll start with one of my favorite franchises. Mobile Suite Gundam.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s the most recent iteration of the franchise Mobile Suit Gundam Wing aired on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. And to say it was a massive success. It was easily Toonami's most watched program after Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon and there would be profitable sales of Gundam Wing figures in American major retailers like K-Mart and kB Toys during the show's run. There was more demand for further Gundam content. Easy pathway to creating a juggernaut in the anime industry in America right?
Well the immediate followup to Gundam Wing was....... The original Gundam. Form the 1970s. I'm not kidding. The studios that makes Gundam Sunrise made this choice.
Massive gigantic bomb in America. Even Toonami's less popular programs like Ronin Warriors hard much higher viewerships.
The show's reason for flopping was that the original Gundam looked just so outdated with its animation being 70s flair. The original Gundam is actually superior to Wing in almost every other way especially the overall plot...... But the animation looked so old nobody wanted to watch it.
Why did Sunrise choose to follow up Wing which was their latest installment just before Turn A which was actually running in Japan during the same time Toonami was airing Wing in America?
In Japan the specific continuity the first original Gundam series follows, the UC timeline, is the handsdown most popular canon. The first two sequels Zeta (the Gundam series with the highest ratings ever in the history of the franchise within Japan) and ZZ formed a trilogy with the original Gundam of interlinking stories that culminates and concluded most the unresolved arcs in the original Gundam along with a slew of entwined movies and OVAs (think miniseries in Western terms). Basically the UC timeline is so big in Japan that we still get new stories every couple of years focused on specific characters, incidents, and so much more as well. Ask the general populace about Gundam and its the robot suits and characters of the UC timeline such as Amuro Rey and the Zaku robots and the that they immediately picture in their heads when they think Gundam similar to how the vast bulk of Star Wars fans below 16 always associates the franchise with Luke, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Obi Wan, and Anakin/Darth Vader and the iconic scenes are teh Death Star onscreen and lightsaber fights.
So in Sunrise's head, not only was the first Gundam a guaranteed success in America but that they had to follow it up with it because the UC is the heart and soul of the entire franchise. The studios sincerely believed that with the original Gundam's even better and more complicated storyline that crowds will flock to watch it every weekday on Toonami...........
Failing to realize that a prime part of what made Wing so impressionable on Western audiences was the visuals of space battles and the awareness of the mobile suits in action. The complicated story of Gundam Wing (for the standards of Western animation on TV was definitely a component that made kids stick to the end but what attracted them in the first place was awesome onscreen actions like Heero escaping capture and knocking out a bunch of men on the way with kicks and piloting the Gundam for the first time to demolish tanks and humvees and a division of soldiers within seconds.
Sunrise did not get this point. They mistakenly assumed that teens and children in the West would have understood the original Gundam's anti war storyline entwined with lots of politics and drama was something that was darn complicated for an American 12 year old to get. They failed to get that the West's TV animation scene was extremely tame hell mainstream afternoon Network Television overall even live action was pretty much PG in content and something like Gundam was definitely pushing it for timeslots for minors including teens. That issues like killing children in a mass bombardment with permanent arm crippling even decapitation was only started to be accepted on afternoon teen soap opera and Saturday morning cartoon timeslots.
That it was pretty tame (by modern standards) live action shows with lots of cool visual action that was bloodless and usually PG like Hercules The Legendary Journeys and its sister spinoff Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the teen range was watching in addition to laughably corny stuff (but still having cool colorful onscreen effects) like GI Joe making the center of children's animation.
When the original Gundam flopped Sunrise took around 2 years to realize their mistake and released G Gundam. An incarnation of the series around the premise of Robots dueling each other in a tournament of gladiatorial fights. Thats an understatement G Gundam takes the whole premise to another level by making the Gundam robots fight with the speed, fluidity, and magical abilities of Dragon Ball Z. Kung Fu with giant Robots.
But the damage was done. While G Gundam did a hell lot better than the original Gundam, interest in the franchise has waned by then and in turn merchandise sales which Sunrise makes its bulk profits from were nowhere as profitable in America as Wing was. When Sunrise attempted to bring over their newer series such as Seed (which was massively popular in Japan even far more than Gundam Wing and G Gundam which already were considered hits by the studios) it was canceled from the maintime slot shortly afterwards and the ret of the series was put on death slots. The momentum had ceased. And not helping was that by that point other mech anime such as FLCL also aired on Toonami and fellow rival franchises like Zoids were begin imported.
Basically by now Gundam had looked generic to the Western audience esp Americans. The next wave of new anime fans in the 2000s was a disadvantaged market because the novelty of Gundam Wing being the first mech anime was not there for future Gundam installments. Gundam has fallen so out of the anime Zeitgeist that whatever we got in the future aired on lesser known channels like Color TVs or came in DVD releases if not even localised at all only being available on fansubs.
The worst part? When Gundam Wing ended its run on Toonami, Turn A Gundam, their newest incarnation with even better animation and just as much awesome moments of one giant mech destroying a an army of other mechs in addition to divisions of tanks and infantry, had just finished airing in Japan. By all logic it should have been a no brainer to snatch this as the followup to Wing right?
But not to Sunrise because Turn A was one of the lesser popular incarnations at that point. Because the UC was so the face of the franchise in Japan so it must succeed in America and the rest of the world no?
Does this sound familiar? Simply to put Japanese companies have a gigantic issues of failing to realize that what succeeds in Japan is not applicable elsewhere. And that given the chance to they'll even try to micro manage even something as loose in concept as franchise licensing in other countries.
OK thats an exaggeration I just said but my point ist he horrible mishandling of the Sega Saturn outside of Japan isn't really some 1 in a billion lottery ticket level of stupidity. Sega of Japan's screwups is actually quite typical of companies that succeeded domestically but never did anything in other markets that then decide to expand to outside markets beyond Japan. The Gundam example was so already long that I don't feel like typing anymore but boy oh boy there are a gazillion examples you can find if you do your googling from Konami's early mishandling of the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG as well as their shift to focusing on Pachinko and Pachislot much to the dismay of Western gamers esp fans of MGS and Silent Hill. And so much more.
Simply Sega of Japan isn't uniquely stupid. Its a perfect symptom many issues of the business world in Japan.
submitted by UndeadRedditing to retrogaming [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 20:59 UndeadRedditing Not excusing their mistakes with the Sega Saturn but Sega of Japan's boneheaded approach of Japan-Fist and misunderstanding foreign markets isn't unique to them and is actually a wider problem of the Japanese Business World (as seen with Sunrise and Gundam)

Sega of Japan deserves all the criticisms for their idiocy of overtaking the dictatorship of the wider Sega company and running the company down because they tried to manage the global markets without understanding the cultures behind them and basing their actions upon the tastes of the Japanese market. On top of putting their eggs in one baskets and obsessively trying to make the Saturn king of Japan's console industry................
However there's a gigantic misconception on the internet by understandably P$!%ed off Western gamers that Sega of Japan's boneheaded run of the company is some unique kind of stupidity unmatched in history.........
Actually there's bad news and its that this is actually a big problem in the Japanese business world especially among companies that are domestic giants such as Konami.
And I'll start with one of my favorite franchises. Mobile Suite Gundam.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s the most recent iteration of the franchise Mobile Suit Gundam Wing aired on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. And to say it was a massive success. It was easily Toonami's most watched program after Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon and there would be profitable sales of Gundam Wing figures in American major retailers like K-Mart and kB Toys during the show's run. There was more demand for further Gundam content. Easy pathway to creating a juggernaut in the anime industry in America right?
Well the immediate followup to Gundam Wing was....... The original Gundam. Form the 1970s. I'm not kidding. The studios that makes Gundam Sunrise made this choice.
Massive gigantic bomb in America. Even Toonami's less popular programs like Ronin Warriors hard much higher viewerships.
The show's reason for flopping was that the original Gundam looked just so outdated with its animation being 70s flair. The original Gundam is actually superior to Wing in almost every other way especially the overall plot...... But the animation looked so old nobody wanted to watch it.
Why did Sunrise choose to follow up Wing which was their latest installment just before Turn A which was actually running in Japan during the same time Toonami was airing Wing in America?
In Japan the specific continuity the first original Gundam series follows, the UC timeline, is the handsdown most popular canon. The first two sequels Zeta (the Gundam series with the highest ratings ever in the history of the franchise within Japan) and ZZ formed a trilogy with the original Gundam of interlinking stories that culminates and concluded most the unresolved arcs in the original Gundam along with a slew of entwined movies and OVAs (think miniseries in Western terms). Basically the UC timeline is so big in Japan that we still get new stories every couple of years focused on specific characters, incidents, and so much more as well. Ask the general populace about Gundam and its the robot suits and characters of the UC timeline such as Amuro Rey and the Zaku robots and the that they immediately picture in their heads when they think Gundam similar to how the vast bulk of Star Wars fans below 16 always associates the franchise with Luke, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Obi Wan, and Anakin/Darth Vader and the iconic scenes are teh Death Star onscreen and lightsaber fights.
So in Sunrise's head, not only was the first Gundam a guaranteed success in America but that they had to follow it up with it because the UC is the heart and soul of the entire franchise. The studios sincerely believed that with the original Gundam's even better and more complicated storyline that crowds will flock to watch it every weekday on Toonami...........
Failing to realize that a prime part of what made Wing so impressionable on Western audiences was the visuals of space battles and the awareness of the mobile suits in action. The complicated story of Gundam Wing (for the standards of Western animation on TV was definitely a component that made kids stick to the end but what attracted them in the first place was awesome onscreen actions like Heero escaping capture and knocking out a bunch of men on the way with kicks and piloting the Gundam for the first time to demolish tanks and humvees and a division of soldiers within seconds.
Sunrise did not get this point. They mistakenly assumed that teens and children in the West would have understood the original Gundam's anti war storyline entwined with lots of politics and drama was something that was darn complicated for an American 12 year old to get. They failed to get that the West's TV animation scene was extremely tame hell mainstream afternoon Network Television overall even live action was pretty much PG in content and something like Gundam was definitely pushing it for timeslots for minors including teens. That issues like killing children in a mass bombardment with permanent arm crippling even decapitation was only started to be accepted on afternoon teen soap opera and Saturday morning cartoon timeslots.
That it was pretty tame (by modern standards) live action shows with lots of cool visual action that was bloodless and usually PG like Hercules The Legendary Journeys and its sister spinoff Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the teen range was watching in addition to laughably corny stuff (but still having cool colorful onscreen effects) like GI Joe making the center of children's animation.
When the original Gundam flopped Sunrise took around 2 years to realize their mistake and released G Gundam. An incarnation of the series around the premise of Robots dueling each other in a tournament of gladiatorial fights. Thats an understatement G Gundam takes the whole premise to another level by making the Gundam robots fight with the speed, fluidity, and magical abilities of Dragon Ball Z. Kung Fu with giant Robots.
But the damage was done. While G Gundam did a hell lot better than the original Gundam, interest in the franchise has waned by then and in turn merchandise sales which Sunrise makes its bulk profits from were nowhere as profitable in America as Wing was. When Sunrise attempted to bring over their newer series such as Seed (which was massively popular in Japan even far more than Gundam Wing and G Gundam which already were considered hits by the studios) it was canceled from the maintime slot shortly afterwards and the ret of the series was put on death slots. The momentum had ceased. And not helping was that by that point other mech anime such as FLCL also aired on Toonami and fellow rival franchises like Zoids were begin imported.
Basically by now Gundam had looked generic to the Western audience esp Americans. The next wave of new anime fans in the 2000s was a disadvantaged market because the novelty of Gundam Wing being the first mech anime was not there for future Gundam installments. Gundam has fallen so out of the anime Zeitgeist that whatever we got in the future aired on lesser known channels like Color TVs or came in DVD releases if not even localised at all only being available on fansubs.
The worst part? When Gundam Wing ended its run on Toonami, Turn A Gundam, their newest incarnation with even better animation and just as much awesome moments of one giant mech destroying a an army of other mechs in addition to divisions of tanks and infantry, had just finished airing in Japan. By all logic it should have been a no brainer to snatch this as the followup to Wing right?
But not to Sunrise because Turn A was one of the lesser popular incarnations at that point. Because the UC was so the face of the franchise in Japan so it must succeed in America and the rest of the world no?
Does this sound familiar? Simply to put Japanese companies have a gigantic issues of failing to realize that what succeeds in Japan is not applicable elsewhere. And that given the chance to they'll even try to micro manage even something as loose in concept as franchise licensing in other countries.
OK thats an exaggeration I just said but my point ist he horrible mishandling of the Sega Saturn outside of Japan isn't really some 1 in a billion lottery ticket level of stupidity. Sega of Japan's screwups is actually quite typical of companies that succeeded domestically but never did anything in other markets that then decide to expand to outside markets beyond Japan. The Gundam example was so already long that I don't feel like typing anymore but boy oh boy there are a gazillion examples you can find if you do your googling from Konami's early mishandling of the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG as well as their shift to focusing on Pachinko and Pachislot much to the dismay of Western gamers esp fans of MGS and Silent Hill. And so much more.
Simply Sega of Japan isn't uniquely stupid. Its a perfect symptom many issues of the business world in Japan.
submitted by UndeadRedditing to SEGA [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 20:57 UndeadRedditing Not excusing their mistakes with the Sega Saturn but Sega of Japan's boneheaded approach of Japan-Fist and misunderstanding foreign markets isn't unique to them and is actually a wider problem of the Japanese Business World (as seen with Sunrise and Gundam)

Sega of Japan deserves all the criticisms for their idiocy of overtaking the dictatorship of the wider Sega company and running the company down because they tried to manage the global markets without understanding the cultures behind them and basing their actions upon the tastes of the Japanese market. On top of putting their eggs in one baskets and obsessively trying to make the Saturn king of Japan's console industry................
However there's a gigantic misconception on the internet by understandably P$!%ed off Western gamers that Sega of Japan's boneheaded run of the company is some unique kind of stupidity unmatched in history.........
Actually there's bad news and its that this is actually a big problem in the Japanese business world especially among companies that are domestic giants such as Konami.
And I'll start with one of my favorite franchises. Mobile Suite Gundam.
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s the most recent iteration of the franchise Mobile Suit Gundam Wing aired on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. And to say it was a massive success. It was easily Toonami's most watched program after Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon and there would be profitable sales of Gundam Wing figures in American major retailers like K-Mart and kB Toys during the show's run. There was more demand for further Gundam content. Easy pathway to creating a juggernaut in the anime industry in America right?
Well the immediate followup to Gundam Wing was....... The original Gundam. Form the 1970s. I'm not kidding. The studios that makes Gundam Sunrise made this choice.
Massive gigantic bomb in America. Even Toonami's less popular programs like Ronin Warriors hard much higher viewerships.
The show's reason for flopping was that the original Gundam looked just so outdated with its animation being 70s flair. The original Gundam is actually superior to Wing in almost every other way especially the overall plot...... But the animation looked so old nobody wanted to watch it.
Why did Sunrise choose to follow up Wing which was their latest installment just before Turn A which was actually running in Japan during the same time Toonami was airing Wing in America?
In Japan the specific continuity the first original Gundam series follows, the UC timeline, is the handsdown most popular canon. The first two sequels Zeta (the Gundam series with the highest ratings ever in the history of the franchise within Japan) and ZZ formed a trilogy with the original Gundam of interlinking stories that culminates and concluded most the unresolved arcs in the original Gundam along with a slew of entwined movies and OVAs (think miniseries in Western terms). Basically the UC timeline is so big in Japan that we still get new stories every couple of years focused on specific characters, incidents, and so much more as well. Ask the general populace about Gundam and its the robot suits and characters of the UC timeline such as Amuro Rey and the Zaku robots and the that they immediately picture in their heads when they think Gundam similar to how the vast bulk of Star Wars fans below 16 always associates the franchise with Luke, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Obi Wan, and Anakin/Darth Vader and the iconic scenes are teh Death Star onscreen and lightsaber fights.
So in Sunrise's head, not only was the first Gundam a guaranteed success in America but that they had to follow it up with it because the UC is the heart and soul of the entire franchise. The studios sincerely believed that with the original Gundam's even better and more complicated storyline that crowds will flock to watch it every weekday on Toonami...........
Failing to realize that a prime part of what made Wing so impressionable on Western audiences was the visuals of space battles and the awareness of the mobile suits in action. The complicated story of Gundam Wing (for the standards of Western animation on TV was definitely a component that made kids stick to the end but what attracted them in the first place was awesome onscreen actions like Heero escaping capture and knocking out a bunch of men on the way with kicks and piloting the Gundam for the first time to demolish tanks and humvees and a division of soldiers within seconds.
Sunrise did not get this point. They mistakenly assumed that teens and children in the West would have understood the original Gundam's anti war storyline entwined with lots of politics and drama was something that was darn complicated for an American 12 year old to get. They failed to get that the West's TV animation scene was extremely tame hell mainstream afternoon Network Television overall even live action was pretty much PG in content and something like Gundam was definitely pushing it for timeslots for minors including teens. That issues like killing children in a mass bombardment with permanent arm crippling even decapitation was only started to be accepted on afternoon teen soap opera and Saturday morning cartoon timeslots.
That it was pretty tame (by modern standards) live action shows with lots of cool visual action that was bloodless and usually PG like Hercules The Legendary Journeys and its sister spinoff Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer that the teen range was watching in addition to laughably corny stuff (but still having cool colorful onscreen effects) like GI Joe making the center of children's animation.
When the original Gundam flopped Sunrise took around 2 years to realize their mistake and released G Gundam. An incarnation of the series around the premise of Robots dueling each other in a tournament of gladiatorial fights. Thats an understatement G Gundam takes the whole premise to another level by making the Gundam robots fight with the speed, fluidity, and magical abilities of Dragon Ball Z. Kung Fu with giant Robots.
But the damage was done. While G Gundam did a hell lot better than the original Gundam, interest in the franchise has waned by then and in turn merchandise sales which Sunrise makes its bulk profits from were nowhere as profitable in America as Wing was. When Sunrise attempted to bring over their newer series such as Seed (which was massively popular in Japan even far more than Gundam Wing and G Gundam which already were considered hits by the studios) it was canceled from the maintime slot shortly afterwards and the ret of the series was put on death slots. The momentum had ceased. And not helping was that by that point other mech anime such as FLCL also aired on Toonami and fellow rival franchises like Zoids were begin imported.
Basically by now Gundam had looked generic to the Western audience esp Americans. The next wave of new anime fans in the 2000s was a disadvantaged market because the novelty of Gundam Wing being the first mech anime was not there for future Gundam installments. Gundam has fallen so out of the anime Zeitgeist that whatever we got in the future aired on lesser known channels like Color TVs or came in DVD releases if not even localised at all only being available on fansubs.
The worst part? When Gundam Wing ended its run on Toonami, Turn A Gundam, their newest incarnation with even better animation and just as much awesome moments of one giant mech destroying a an army of other mechs in addition to divisions of tanks and infantry, had just finished airing in Japan. By all logic it should have been a no brainer to snatch this as the followup to Wing right?
But not to Sunrise because Turn A was one of the lesser popular incarnations at that point. Because the UC was so the face of the franchise in Japan so it must succeed in America and the rest of the world no?
Does this sound familiar? Simply to put Japanese companies have a gigantic issues of failing to realize that what succeeds in Japan is not applicable elsewhere. And that given the chance to they'll even try to micro manage even something as loose in concept as franchise licensing in other countries.
OK thats an exaggeration I just said but my point ist he horrible mishandling of the Sega Saturn outside of Japan isn't really some 1 in a billion lottery ticket level of stupidity. Sega of Japan's screwups is actually quite typical of companies that succeeded domestically but never did anything in other markets that then decide to expand to outside markets beyond Japan. The Gundam example was so already long that I don't feel like typing anymore but boy oh boy there are a gazillion examples you can find if you do your googling from Konami's early mishandling of the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG as well as their shift to focusing on Pachinko and Pachislot much to the dismay of Western gamers esp fans of MGS and Silent Hill. And so much more.
Simply Sega of Japan isn't uniquely stupid. Its a perfect symptom many issues of the business world in Japan.
submitted by UndeadRedditing to SegaSaturn [link] [comments]


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