Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Randumb Effects and Hearthstone


So I play this game called, Hearthstone. Think of it as an online card-playing game. If you're familiar with Magic: The Gathering, it's like that in concept. You have a deck of cards filled with creatures and spells and you fight other player's decks to see who can reduce his opponent's life points to zero first. It's not about who has the biggest deck but about who uses his deck the most effectively.
Hearthstone is fun but only for a while. Fatigue starts setting in when you realize you're fighting the same decks over and over again. You see, back in the old days of collectible card games, the "pros" would do all the complex math and calculations to come up with the best combinations of cards. The pros would eventually find the best deck that can win tournaments. As a result, other pros would create decks specifically made to counter the tournament decks. This layer of trendsetting and trend-countering is what is called a "meta". It's this high level of play that separates the tournament pro and the scrub.

Of course, back then card games weren't online. Tournaments weren't fought and won day after day. Things took time and the meta-game took long to develop.  In Hearthstone however, everything moves so fast. Thousands of card games are played everyday and thanks to social media, players can easily watch the  high-ranked pros play live on their stream. The meta-game is realized quickly as players can see which deck leads to the most victories.

I find this annoying.

Fatigue sets in. You start to get tired once you've fought the same old decks again and again. If you fight a warlock, you know he's either going to be a "zoolock" or a "handlock". It used to be that when you fought a rogue, she was always going to be a "miracle rogue" who was always gonna end the game with the Leeroy card. If it was a hunter, you could expect hounds to be played always and forever. 

It got repetitive but Blizzard has attempted to remedy this by releasing a new expansion called Goblins and Gnomes. GnG added plenty of new cards to the game. This is good but the noticeable gimmick with a lot of the new cards is that they have random effects or can summon random creatures.
 Before you think I'm some killjoy who doesn't enjoy random effects, then let me explain why I find this to be a lazy but inevitable solution to the repetitiveness problem.

Eventually, the best decks will emerge. As always, people will look it up online and copy-paste it and use it to climb up the competitive ladder etc. However, the randomness ensures that we won't feel that we've seen the same match twice. Let's say, hypothetically, that "bomber warrior" and "mecha mage" became the new hotness (I made these up but part of me wishes they were real). Everyone will run these decks and we'll fall into repetitiveness. BUT since random effects happen, it would ensure that no two matches are completely the same. In one match, a random crappy minion could randomly appear from a shredder or unstable portal. However, in another match, a legendary card or the perfect situational minion could come out and win the entire game! 

It's these games that we remember the most; the games with the random game-winning bullshit that gives players hilariously undeserved victories. We find it so funny, that we forget the fact that everyone is playing the same thing and nothing interesting is happening otherwise. Randomness may be good or bad but randomness is necessary if we're gonna play the same damn thing over and over again. It prevents the game from becoming too stale too fast.

Personally, I used to have a problem with randomness until I thought about it and understood its necessity and inevitability. If you don't like randomness, then it's perfectly fine to craft a deck without cards with random effects; then you'll have only the luck of the draws to complain about.

It's still annoying though.

Monday, December 22, 2014

I'll Be Home For Christmas - Jillian Hall

Finally... Christmas vacation! It's time to procrastinate and wait till the last minute to do the stuff I've been planning to do.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Hit The Road

Typhoon Ruby came and went. Like a Hollywood blockbuster, it was mostly hype. Some areas were devastated sure, but it was nowhere near the initial scare-mongering reports of it being "Yolanda-like". While damaged properties can be repaired and rebuilt, damaged personalities cannot and no personality suffered as much as Secretary Mar Roxas pictured below.
According to the news reports, Mar Roxas fell of his motorcycle while on his way to campaign inspect the areas affected by the typhoon. Let me be clear though. I'm not getting any perverted jollies from seeing him figure in an accident. As much as I dislike politicians, I don't go so far as to wish harm or death upon them. They are still human beans after all. Besides, there's no shortage of idiots on Facebook to do that for me.

Most of the comments remark about the fact that Mar wasn't wearing a helmet. But of course he wasn't wearing a helmet! How else would the people have seen the face of their lord and savior who personally took care of them during a calamity and who they must remember to vote for in the upcoming elections? Helmet requirements are for little people anyway. While Juan de la Cruz is stuck in line to go through ridiculous regulations regarding headgear and getting the appropriate stickers of approval for them and other asinine bullcrap, the government overlords need no such thing. Besides, I doubt there are any helmets big enough to accommodate the average politician's over-sized head.

But seriously, is Mar still trying? He hasn't gained any significant ground against his political opponents throughout the entire year. Binay is still the top name in the polls and yet, just when Binay's star begins to fall, another quickly rose to take its place. Grace Poe is now a serious contender apparently. So it's gonna be Binay against Poe, huh? She says she's not going to run but who believes that? Mar is out of the picture completely. He can't beat one enemy and now he has two to deal with (three if you count Mar himself).

I think Mar taking a spill on the bike is the worst thing ever for him. It's really very bad optics. Even the administration is making an enormous effort to bury what ought to be a minor incident because they know it's the kind of thing that ends dreams. The reason is that the accident is so symbolic. Just look at the picture. It's sobering. It's a picture of failure. It's one of those things that make a person say, "He's done. It's over. He's finished". It doesn't inspire any confidence and makes him look like a joke.

Maybe I'm wrong. Stranger things have happened. If a convicted plunder can still be elected as Mayor of Manila then maybe there's hope for a simple stooge like Mar. Oh well, sometimes its good to be a laughingstock; Filipinos often vote them for office. Keep at it Mar. Never change.

Many yet may make merry from Mar's motorized misadventures.