New Year, New Game.

I have added another game to my schedule - Inscryption. It felt like I haven't played a card game in a long while, and I decided to try it out. It seems to have good reviews and so far I am enjoying it.

I have also made a tier rank for something in Guild Wars 2. It is only a portion of it, due to the time length, so hopefully I can put all parts out before the new expansion. If not, then I'll just post them whenever on my free day of the week.

Other than that, it's a new year and hopefully I will pass 1k subscribers soon! I have been uploading more shorts, and that has been getting views, so I hope that is helping.

Somewhat of a schedule

For the most part on my channel, I have series that I am actually planning on finishing on through. Not 100%, but story-wise from beginning to end, and there will be a video a week on each. I still have room to play random games for 2 days, but I'm trying to actually beat my games than test them out. I believe one of the two days will most likely be Forza Horizon 5, but it isn't really set in stone compared to the other 5 days.

Monday - Yakuza 0

Tuesday - Lost Ruins

Wednesday - Axiom Verge

Thursday - 1001 Games and More CD

Saturday - Threads of Fate

I have no idea how long these games will take me (especially the 1001 games cd), but they haven't frustrated me much and are quite fun so far.

Of course, everyday there will be a solution to Friday the 13th Killer Puzzle's Daily Death as well.

Halo Infinite's multiplayer is a bit better now

 Is it perfect? No. The weekly challenges still feel like it would take some time to get through. For this week, I have 1 more weekly left before the ultimate, and I only have a day to complete them - and I have been playing for about an hour a day at least. At least there are no ranked challenges.

The addition of the multiple game modes has been great. I don't know if BTB is still broken or not though since I haven't tried it yet. It is still annoying that a lot of the challenges still rely on the normal quick play RNG - oddball, area control, etc.

Out of the new modes, I think I like tactical slayer the best right now. Straightforward and no pickups. Everyone has the same weapon and the same health.

There are the occasional graphical bugs, but multiplayer is a little bit better for now.

Halo Infinite's multiplayer is currently frustrating.

 This all stems from the challenges.

The xp gain to level up the pass seems nice and all, but the weekly challenges hasn't improved. I have heard that the game lists will change, but I don't know when that will be implemented. BTB queues have been buggy ever since the single player launched - which I doubt they will give people free swaps if they have a BTB challenge in their weekly queue (like me).

It is bad enough that an entire mode has issues, but the weekly challenges need to change, or at least the ability to queue what you want. For the last 4 of 6 matches, I have been sent to the *only* One Flag CTF map out of 17 possible map choices. It doesn't help that I have a weekly to just play one Oddball match.

I feel like because of these challenges, people are dead set on not doing the objectives, unless it helps them to progress that. It could also explain the mass number of people leaving at the start, or just afking to get through the match.

Hopefully this will be resolved, both the BTB and how challenges are, because right now multiplayer feels more grindy than it needs to be.

Forza has been updated! (and other Halo/update stuffs)

 The main gripe about Forza Horizon 5 has been fixed (for me at least). The recent update had a ton of fixes, one of which is the scaling of Horizon Arcade! I was able to complete all 5 of the different types of arcade modes. Though there was a weird timer that says the time remaining for the mini challenges was many hours long.

I also finished the weekly challenges for Halo Infinite and wow what a grind it was. Luckily they are changing the playlists (I believe), so that would cut some time off with the weekend challenges. It took me many matches to get a specific one that I needed. It didn't help that some of the challenges required multiple wins in a specific type. It just felt like unnecessary bloat and grind. The ultimate challenge was fine I thought. Though it seemed to give me Stronghold and Oddball as the majority of the types when I had that challenge up.

I downloaded the Whiteboard app to keep track of what I recorded so far, since I do them on the weekends. Thanks to the recent holiday, I am a few days ahead, and hopefully I can keep it that way.

For today's upload, it seems like there was a claim on the video for some reason. I did the thing to trim it out, though I don't know if it'll finish processing by the time it is scheduled to release. Who knew that a mobile game would have an ost that could get claimed.

Thoughts on Halo Infinite and Forza

 Been playing a lot of Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 lately.

For the core part of Halo Infinite that is out right now, the game plays fine. Sure the event RNG might be sketchy at times, but that is RNG in that game mode. I have had no problems playing the game and am having fun in it.

The problem comes with the battle pass. It is such a grindfest to get levels, that it more or less makes you get the paid pass. The event going on right now has pretty short matches - about 10-20 minutes at most, and you get 50xp per match. To level, you need 1000, or 20 matches (not counting weekly challenges). That requires about 200-400 minutes of game time at most, not counting loading, to level up one level - and the pass has 100 levels. The weekly challenges do help - and the event specific ones seem to be really easy, but the event ones are limited, as you can't even max out the event pass in one go since it is divided up into 3 separate week events. The difficulty/RNG on the weekly stuff is varied. You can get one weekly to get 3 wins in a specific game mode in BTB (which is RNG since you can't select the specific game mode to queue). You can also get one weekly to just play 2 BTB matches... for the same xp. Just a small rant, but I feel like the pass needs more fine tuning. Obviously you want to push the paid experience, but it shouldn't negate the free version entirely.

On the Forza side, I have been seeing some posts about players getting banned due to some liveries. Some I can see, but others I hope they are just exaggerating. Other than that, haven't had issues aside from a crash or two. Horizon Arcade needs to be addressed though. It either needs to change how the groups are formed, or have challenges that scale down based on the number of people participating since it is almost impossible to get to and finish the third challenge in my experiences.

More Forza Stuff

 Been having a lot of fun with Forza Horizon 5, so a lot of my videos will be about that. I have also started streaming it, albeit in the wee hours and for not a long period. Hopefully I can change that.

I was going to stream pvp racing in that game, but it seems like there isn't a way in game to turn off the voices of other players. I think there is a setting for it on xbox's website, but that seems so odd. The setting is also grouped with text and invites, which is weird, since I just want to disable the voices, but I don't really mind getting invites. I guess I will just set it to just friends and hopefully that will mute the people in game.

Other than that, there is a ton of stuff that I unlocked and need to get through. That doesn't even count all the community made stuff. No idea how long this will keep me busy for, but hopefully it will be for a while.

On another note, I have been getting good feedback with my community posts on youtube. I just don't know if I should make more or keep it at around one a week because I want to do more but then again it might get too spammy. Hopefully I'll find a good balance.

Forza Horizon 5!

 I have been playing a bit of Forza Horizon 5 this past weekend, and it's been pretty fun. Surprised that there are already pretty good car liveries out there.

I had some issues starting the game, but I was able to fix them. For some reason it would crash on startup, but I found out that exiting Discord fixed it for whatever reason. Then I couldn't log into my Windows account, even though it said I was already logged in. I logged in by going through the use another account option and use the same email. Other than that, there was one more issue, but it seemed minor - that is the game saying I was disconnected, even though I was still connected to the internet. Might be launch issues or whatever. That being said, there seems to be a lot of causes for the startup crash on the forums, and there are a variety of fixes, from disabling antivirus / adding an exception, to exiting programs, to other stuff.

The game technically comes out on November 8, so hopefully there will be more people online, and that they will activate public lobbies, because right now I am just doing solo stuff. I have seen some people on the roads sometimes, but I wonder how much more 'lively' it will be when the game launches. I plan on recording more videos for that game, though I still have other games I want to try out as well.

I also wonder that the future has in store for content updates. I really liked the Lego update in Horizon 4, so hopefully one update will be something like that.

Branching out

 Over this weekend, I recorded my first unboxing video. Not only is this something that is completely different from what I have been doing on my channel, but it is also the first video that will be of 'real life' (compared to things from a video game). I really wanted to try it out in the past, but the things I ordered recently gave me an opportunity to try it out. It's not the best shot, since I recorded it using my phone, and I did what I could with space and stuff, but I think it was fine. I wanted to go for like an Ashens style, but I couldn't get the right angle to film it so I just went for a top-down angle. Hopefully people will like it! Maybe I will do more different things in the future, not just unboxing. Maybe more real-life things. At the core, my channel will still be about gaming and video games, but I feel like it's always nice to try something new.

On another note, I know that I haven't been posting as often as I would like. Hopefully I can get back to a rhythm of doing these weekly, instead of bi-weekly or longer.

I'm Able to do Community posts now!

 I can't believe it's only been about a month or so since I have been going back to the daily uploads. It feels like it has been longer. Anyways, Youtube changed the requirements on being able to make community posts, so now it requires 500 subscribers, where previously it was 1000. So far I have made 2, though I don't know how far the reach is. Hopefully I can get some engagement on there.

Work has been.... not as great. I messed up bad last week, and was given a warning about it, and then I messed up again this week, so I don't know what will happen. My supervisor said it will be ok, but I'll have to wait and see, and that is eating away at me. It was a moment of inattentiveness, and I own up to those mistakes, but I don't know why it has been happening lately. I know after the first time, it's been in the back of my head to not repeat it again, but here we are.

The stress from another source isn't helping as well. Funny enough, I never had an incident when I was working by myself previously. Was I busy? Without a doubt, but I feel like my stress levels shot up when 'help' was brought over.

Hopefully my supervisor is right, but I know I can't mess up again.

New hard drive and stuff

 Work has been really stressful lately, mostly due to the new 'help.' I keep having to fix the mistakes, when they shouldn't have been doing them in the first place. All it takes is paying attention but mistakes are still being made. I just wonder how long will it take for the person to get it together. I can go on a rant with all the mistakes that have been made, but maybe for another time. They also sent me another person recently, but I can't tell how well that person is yet, with only one and a half days working with him.

Gaming wise, I got a new M2 SSD! I added a few new games that I plan on recording. I'm at the final quest of FF14 ARR, and I wonder if I should record that or not. I want to finish it so I can get on to the FF15 event and get that one mount. Hopefully I can do that this coming weekend.

I am also planning on trying out Apex Legends and CoD Warzone. Will I be good? Probably not, but I wanted to try them but never had the space for it (especially Warzone).

The daily grind

 So far I am able to keep up with the daily uploads, which is a good thing. I feel like I can keep this going as a normal routine! I don't know how long Tales of Arise is, but I feel like it will be a really long journey. So far, I've been trying to get around an hour in per recording, and it seems to work for the most part. I am very early in the game, so I don't know if it will be neatly partitioned later on.

I think I am also getting better at Eternal Return? I feel like the players have been better in the Asia server though. It could be because I started out fresh on the NA server, that I was paired with similar experienced people, but now that I have a few games under my belt, it is pairing me against better people. I did find out that there are some characters that I am just not compatible with, like Bernice, though that could just be my luck.

Also starting to stream again on the weekends. Haven't been doing them for long, but hopefully that will change in the future. I want to stream more Guild Wars 2, since I want to finish the Ice Brood Saga before the new expansion hits. Also want to stream other games as well, but I think Guild Wars 2 will be my focus for now at least.

Tales of Arise!

 The game recently came out and I have been recording my playthrough of it. Because of this, I think I will try to go back to a daily upload schedule, rather than every other day (not counting the daily deaths from Friday the 13th Killer Puzzle). I have no idea how long Arise is, but it seems to be enjoyable so far. I might need to rebind some keys but it isn't too much of an issue so far - just different.

I also kind of want to play some Playstation 1 games. Probably some more DOS games as well, but there is a lot on my plate currently so we will see in the future.