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Messages - Cuzz

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1
Dominion General Discussion / What's the deal with TGG?
« on: March 05, 2024, 01:28:23 pm »
I haven't seen much discussion here (though I haven't dug too deeply), so I'm curious about the whole deal with TGG. Some of these questions may have objective answers, and some are just about the opinions of the community. I haven't played much recently on dominion.games and I haven't tried TGG at all, but was thinking of getting back into it a bit. Fwiw I do appreciate that TGG seems to have given me credit for having spent some money on Goko roughly 11 years ago.

  • Is the plan for TGG and ShuffleIT to both continue to exist as independent products indefinitely?
  • How do the interfaces compare? What are the pros and cons of each?
  • Are there general trends for who tends to play on each platform? What is the quality of competition? Are people migrating to TGG for the most part or staying on dominion.games or some of both?
  • Is it worth continuing to pay for a ShuffleIT subscription, and also paying for sets on TGG?
  • Will TGG ever use a subscription model or can I expect to play indefinitely if I shell out for each set?
  • Will TGG ever run in a browser or on MacOS?
  • Other thoughts?

2
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: September 18, 2023, 12:24:04 pm »
Ah ok that makes sense. I had no memory of that dialog since I did all that ages ago, plus it’s weird to even treat the location of Gannondorf like a mystery if he’s gonna end up in the first place anyone would guess.

3
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: September 18, 2023, 07:02:43 am »
I'm toward the end of the main story, and am just really confused about something, based on having done some things out of order. I got Mineru's mask and did the construct factory before going to the castle, and so after doing the castle they try to prompt me on my big quest to find the fifth sage and then are just like "oh wow you already found her, ok I guess you can just go try to find Gannondorf now."

The weird thing then was I immediately go to talk to Purah again and she says again (paraphrasing) "Ok, now you need to go find Gannondorf." But it then showed the Link talking animation, and Purah says "Oh you found him already? He's in the Depths? Go tell Josha." I talk to Josha, and she's like "Oh wow, you found him! My work paid off, yay!"

What's confusing is that I have no idea what I did to trigger that interaction. I had never had any opportunity to talk to Josha about Gannondorf, and as far as I know I have not actually found him yet (in the game at least--it's no real surprise where he is). I have not been into the chasm under the castle, nor into the part of the Depths anywhere near there.

There's either something I did ages ago that I don't remember, or it triggered just based on getting close enough to the chasm for it to mark on the map, or it's a logic error in the game, but it's very bizarre.


4
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: July 19, 2023, 08:34:33 pm »
(major story spoilers around 3/4 of the way through).


Do these spoilers include the ending? Or just stuff I should know by having found all tears/memories?

I think it does include the ending---I cut actually it off myself when that part began.

5
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: July 16, 2023, 03:08:08 pm »
I just found this video. The title is clickbaity and the video is twice as long as it needs to be but I agree with a lot of the critiques (major story spoilers around 3/4 of the way through).

https://youtu.be/Vxy_Wi7bIcQ

I do love the game overall and it's a really impressive feat. I'll certainly put in a few dozen more hours finishing the main story, the rest of the shrines, and major sidequests/adventures (though I have no real desire to 100% the koroks and hudson signs and such).

But I don't think it's in my very top tier of Zelda games (which I think for me is just OoT and BotW). And I am pretty disappointed by the reports that Nintendo claims they are never going back to making a classic-style Zelda game with classic-style dungeons.

6
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: July 11, 2023, 12:11:51 pm »
Overall, I think the temples are disappointing. They all have the same basic premise, the looks are one-note, and they're still way less intricately laid out and complex to navigate than the dungeons in OoT, e.g., which came out 25 years ago (and which had twice as many of them). I don't even think they're really any improvement on the Divine Beasts, which was a pretty low bar to clear, but which at least had the interesting puzzle box mechanic.

I agree with this. I've recently replayed Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, which both featured significantly more compelling dungeons in terms of layout, puzzle design, theme, fights, etc. I was really hoping Tears of the Kingdom would improve upon Breath of the Wild by reviving those sorts of dungeons, but no.

I'd say I like the Thunder Temple and the Fire Temple a little better than any of the Divine Beasts, the Wind Temple is about equal, and the Water Temple is worse. Overall, not great.

The Construct Factory hints at what a proper dungeon could have been like...

I think the problem is that Zelda games have always been based on the two pillars of exploration and puzzle solving, and there's inherent tension between these. To emphasize exploration you want freedom, openness, nonlinearity. Then with puzzle solving, there are two ways to do this: method one involves restriction and rigidity, where the player needs to find "the" solution to a problem (or maybe one of a discrete set of possible solutions). Then there are "squishier" puzzle games where there are a continuum of possible solutions--using the tools at your disposal, get through the stage any way you can.*

Classically, Zelda games gave you freedom and exploration in the overworld, and then mostly the first kind of puzzle within dungeons--you're trying to find the right path through the dungeon by collecting keys and items and flipping switches in the correct sequence (speedrunning shenanigans notwithstanding).

But with Breath of the Wild, the degree of freedom and exploration in the overworld was turned up so, so high, and was so clearly the primary theme of the game, that I think the developers must have thought it would be too jarring and incongruous to have such rigid-style navigation puzzles within all of the dungeons and shrines. For players who liked those kinds of puzzles, they were missed, but the game just wasn't about that--it was about having a stupefyingly massive world to explore, figuring out how to get where you wanted to go within it, and using your own creativity to get there.

I think with Tears of the Kingdom, they just kept that overall same philosophy, wanting the game to be about players exploring and having as much freedom as possible to meet objectives in different ways, except now it's less about exploring the overworld (since we've already done that in BotW) and more about exploring the possibilities afforded by Ultrahand and Fuse. Again, though, it seems like more rigid and intricately designed puzzles didn't mesh with what they were trying to do. I can understand this approach, but for me it's a bit of a bummer. I really like rigid and intricately-designed puzzles, and for me they had been a big part of what really constitutes a Zelda game.





*As I'm writing this, it feels a lot like the general division in mathematics between algebra and analysis--roughly speaking, algebra is rigid, blocky, and discrete, and analysis is flowy, squishy, and continuous. 



7
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: July 05, 2023, 07:53:47 am »
Finished our third temple, Gerudo. Take that all those comments about doing Gerudo last. Anyway, it was excellent. A fun and unique quest leading up to it, and then the temple itself was closer to classic Zelda dungeons than the others. A great mix of puzzle and combat.

There was one puzzle in there that was frustrating due to an alternate solution being possible. The real solution is neat and seemed like it would have been fun, but we found the other “cheese” solution instead. And it worked, but was super finicky and annoying to do.


The 6th floor has 4 mirrors that you can slide on tracks, to ultimately aim at activating separate light switches on floors 2 and 6. We didn’t find out until after we’d competed the puzzle that floor 6 has a small room with its own light source that’s clearly intended to be used for this.

Instead, we went to the light we already had on floor 1; the light that pulses on and off due to the rotating doors. We spent way too long carefully aiming a mirror up at an angle from there so that it hit the mirrors on 6. It has to be a weird less-than-45 degree tilt. And because the light is pulsing, it takes several seconds between adjustments to find out if it works. Then multiple trips back up to 6 to slightly adjust the target mirror, then back to 1 to adjust that one. Super annoying. That light from floor 1 should have been done so that it could not reach 6 at all, so we’d have spent a little time finding the light on 6 instead.


That aside, great dungeon.

Just finished the Lightning Temple also, which I think is the best one but there’s a bonkers design flaw in which you can easily just ascend into the boss chamber from the fire room by just dragging a couple of the wall stones in and standing on them. This theoretically negates the entire premise of the dungeon but then the boss fight just doesn’t trigger until you go back and activate all four batteries and ride the elevator.

Edit: I guess this makes some amount of sense given that you need Riju to activate the fight and she can’t ascend with you. But it was still a little confusing since the companions usually are able to immediately join you wherever you are and then there’s no way to get out of that room other than just warping back to the entrance.

8
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: June 27, 2023, 06:25:06 am »
Well second (Zora) temple done, and man was I disappointed, compared to the Rito one. It felt extremely short and easy. Never had to stop and think about where to go next, or to figure out the layout of the rooms and whatnot. The boss was good, or at least ok.

Just did this one and I totally agree on the temple, but hated the boss fight. Also I still do not really understand the power that Sidon gives you. You get a bubble of water around you, and I get that it can protect you from fire and heat, but it really doesn't make sense to me why you need to use it to activate the faucets in the temple, or why you need to use it to touch the boss, especially because it has no effect on the sludge that's on the ground...? In contrast to the powers from Tulin (useful occasionally) and Yunobo (extremely useful all the time) I don't really know what I'd ever use it for outside the temple. 

Overall, I think the temples are disappointing. They all have the same basic premise, the looks are one-note, and they're still way less intricately laid out and complex to navigate than the dungeons in OoT, e.g., which came out 25 years ago (and which had twice as many of them). I don't even think they're really any improvement on the Divine Beasts, which was a pretty low bar to clear, but which at least had the interesting puzzle box mechanic.

9
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: June 15, 2023, 09:19:51 pm »
The one major spoiler I had failed to avoid was the existence of Autobuild and I was stumbling around all over the place really thinking it would come in handy and wondering when it was gonna show up, but I just finally got it! Really seems like it's gonna change the feel of the gameplay from now on and differentiate it more from BotW.

10
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: June 15, 2023, 09:17:12 pm »
I like how Ocarina of Time really solidified the idea that Gerudo dungeons always come last even when it's not mandatory. 

11
Other Games / Re: Tears of the Kingdom
« on: June 10, 2023, 07:54:24 am »
My playing of this game so far has been heavily influenced by my four-year-old, who gets to watch for 15 minutes before bed if she gets ready quickly enough. So I've done all of the towers and Dragon's tears since she loves those, but only the Wind Temple and not much of the Depths since it's too scary for her.

Overall I think it's great and a lot of fun, but I don't think it's touching BotW in terms of sheer awe-factor. I'm sure there are some people out there who are playing TotK without having played BotW and it would be really interesting to know how differently the game plays for them. But like, for the most part, I've been here before. It's just about seeing what's different this time around, so I feel motivated to check out the places where I expect a lot of new stuff happening (towns, stables, the sky islands, the depths), but I'm not feeling a real drive to scour every corner of the map to see what's there any more. I think the criticisms from before release that the game was going to be nothing more than $70 DLC are unfair, since there really is a ton going on in terms of story, side quests, etc., but it feels maybe more like BotW 1.5.

I don't play many video games outside the Zelda series--are there other examples of a sequel that's structured as a new story taking place in literally the same map as a previous entry in the series like this?

12
I was bored at looking through some of the older mafia games, which took place 10 years ago! Doesn't seem like it's been that long.

Good times

13
Forum Games / Re: Apparently this is where people talk when it's night
« on: February 04, 2023, 12:50:54 pm »
Is this forum dead now? I was just thinking I might actually have time to sign up for a game in a few months, but it seems, uh, there may not be any.

14
I'm wondering why Dark Ages needs a second edition. That feels like a solid set with almost no duds. I'm struggling to think of a single card in the set that feels like it needs replacing actually, despite it being a very large set.
I agree that the set is very solid but there are two outliers: Rebuild and Cultist are ridiculously overpowered.

Urchin is also OP - a very stupid and unfun card, if you ask me. And does anyone actually like the Knights?

knights are great!

re: cornucopia i think tournament could use a nerfing

Re: Knights, I think this discussion is devolving into a kind of self-parody in which practically every card is deemed obviously problematic and worthy of removal.

15
General Discussion / Re: Maths thread.
« on: June 08, 2022, 09:03:59 am »
Interesting post possibly addressing some of the year-old discussion from above. Puts some of the ubiquitous informal notation from analysis/complexity theory on more rigorous footing via "partially specified objects."

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2022/05/10/partially-specified-mathematical-objects-ambient-parameters-and-asymptotic-notation/

16
What on earth is the argument for getting rid of Develop?

17
Nothing is stopping you from using those cards in your own games, whether that's paper/irl, the TGG client, or the ShuffleIT client.

Coppersmith is on ShuffleIT?

18
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« on: June 01, 2022, 11:05:51 am »
All the new while in play and when gain changes are good, especially for Quarry and Mint, though I don't totally get the Hoard one--is there a reason this can't just be on-gain?

Utterly OP with Hunting Grounds and Sprawling Castle.
Isn’t it generally a bad idea to throw 8 stop cards into your deck all at once?

Well keep in mind when you trash the Hunting Grounds you free up a terminal slot.

19
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« on: June 01, 2022, 10:57:01 am »
All the new while in play and when gain changes are good, especially for Quarry and Mint, though I don't totally get the Hoard one--is there a reason this can't just be on-gain?

Utterly OP with Hunting Grounds and Sprawling Castle.

20
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 2
« on: May 31, 2022, 12:06:53 pm »
I'm a bit disappointed that the card that secretly has Junk Dealer's stats is now at the same price point as Junk Dealer.

Crystal Ball can’t trash any junk that’s in your hand already though.

It's different in all the ways that it's different.

21
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E Preview 3
« on: May 18, 2022, 10:47:34 am »
Gotta say, getting rid of Ambassador is a real bummer, especially since the replacement doesn't preserve any remnants of its effect. If people really hate attacks they don't have to play with them.

22
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E
« on: May 05, 2022, 12:17:50 am »
nine new types of Kingdom cards

seems like a lot of new types

23
Introductions / 10 years
« on: March 11, 2022, 10:05:45 am »
Just realized I forgot to do one of these when I joined. Sup.



24
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Allies is online
« on: March 09, 2022, 11:22:58 am »
For some reason I really like the "Repeat as desired" wording on Desert Guides. Trying to imagine when else that phrase could possibly be used.

25
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Allies Preview 5: More Cards
« on: March 04, 2022, 09:46:11 am »
The artwork for Gang of Pickpockets is…interesting.

Our Gang of Pickpockets

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