Mamoulian War

Goal nr. 8/2024 achieved October 1, 19:15 – After I spent way to much time fighting in Towers of Time to unlock Klassic MKII Skarlet skin (successfully, ranked in top 2.9% of PvE Tower of Time players last "week" ), I have took today a more chilling approach to my PS4 version of Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate and replayed last three chapters needed for completing the Story Mode on 100%.

Are you by any chance one of the 20 people who bought Concord?

4 more bosses DS2 NG+ down since my last post. First was Lost Sinner. And again to my surprise, the fight was much easier with melee than with sorcerer in my previous playthrough. I needed few attempts to adjust to the two red phantoms joining the fight, but it took not to long. The worst part was the gauntlet again... FromSoft really drop the ball here, and put everything to make your corpserunning as complicated as possible. Cost me almost 100k souls Next one was Scorpioness Najka. Again, fine with melee build. Only 1 attempt needed. And again, the issue was to get to her, through the "ghosts", although not as big as to Lost Sinner. Thankfully the mask from the DLC helped a lot to counter Curse. I had to play a little bit backup and reload, due to the Golden Lion, which drops two unique items not respawning. After 15 minutes or so, I got his helmet. Will still need to do the same in NG+2 for his red cloak Third one was Prowling Magus with the Congregation. As always, whenever I underestimate something due to not wiping for a long time, the cheapest mob finishes me off That's why it took me two tries to get this one. Nothing special. Just need to watch out for his AoE attack, which finished me off at first attempt And the last one was The Duke's Dear Freja. So far the longest fight in NG+. It challenged my patience a lot as a melee, now that I am attempting all bosses without summons. Thankfully few Great Lightning Bolts helped a little bit with the fight. But i had to save all the smaller ones for the spider spawns. After that, I got completely engulfed with the Mortal Kombat 11 and Towers of Time. I have found out, that I can get two super rare Classic MKII skins for Skarlet and Johnny Cage as the battle announcer, if I gather enough points to rank in top 5% PvE Tower players. I am now in top 3.5% after 36 towers cleared, but there is still one day until the end of the challenge. So, I have to be prepared to run few towers tomorrow after work again.

Goal nr. 7/2024 achieved. September 28, 22:30 – I took a small break from DS2 NG+ and played through the original story of Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate Edition on PS4. This unlock Frost and two arenas. It took me about 4 and half hours and if I remember it correctly, I enjoyed the story mode more than in Mortal Kombat X and 2011. I will need to replay three chapters where you had to pick the fighter, and the last fight to see all the content and finish it on 100%. I took a small break from DS2 NG+ and

Two more days of Dark Souls II behind me. During the first one, I had decided to go to Earthen Peak. It started fine, the DLC Poisonbite Ring+1 helped a lot to make this area more bearable. The fun thing was, the Artificial Undead ambush in a small one way room, where now even red phantom variant was present I am still wondering how I was able to survive that But the room design is pretty favourable to kiting the mobs. Soon afterwards, I have joined the Heirs of the Sun Covenant again, and without much hesitation, I went directly to Covetous Demon, which was defeated promptly on first try. The way deeper into the Peak went smooth as well. But then after one stupid hickup, I have lost a little bit of concentration and the Manikins with claws started to tear me apart pretty frequently. Their damage output in NG+ is pretty high, when using my item grinding set. I was still missing few items from them, so I had pretty low AC. Sigh . After few more ****-ups, when I missed a jump now and there, I went finally for Mytha. The first attempt was almost perfect for my clumsy standards, but then, when she was under a 1% of HP, she has thrown her explosive head, and me, thinking that I was at safe distance from the blast, went for the final hit. Well, her final hit went off sooner The next try, I was still angry, so it went downhill pretty fast, but the third one, despite some stupid moves by me, was successful and I got new shiny Silver Covetous Ring+2 as a reward. Unfortunately, I became so exhausted because of the Manikin quickness, that I have decided to quit DS2 for the day. During DS2 play, I have noticed, that Sony is running free Multiplayer Weekend, so I dusted off my Mortal Kombat 11 and went for 3 out of 5 online only trophies, for which I still had enough time before midnight. In the end, I have ended up almost three hours watching AI matches of my toons, and reading some news This gave me two Trophies. And then, I went watching while reading King of the Hill battles for one more hour to get one more online exclusive trophy

A story behind it. not really, just corruption during the procurement of the materials used to build the site. “Unexpectedly”

Oh, and I have completely forgotten the first Sunday boss, the Pursuer Now I definitely can say, that it is much much easier to fight him as melee compared to caster. As a caster I had a lot of trouble to be able to fight him and all other Pursuer mobs most of the time. Now I can defeat them, unless I missclick something on hot bar, on first try. So now I have also unlocked the McDuff infusing services

Played little bit today again. Well more than little bit. I had a lot of time today, due to my wife being at work Unfortunately most of this time was eaten up with the stupid gauntlet towards Executioner’s Chariot Anyway. The way to Skeletal Lords has been fine today. I have cleaned up most of the mobs with no wipes, and I was even lucky with some rare drops, which I was still missing. Then I jumped off the cliff by mistake Then the fight with Skeletal Lords went awesome as well. A lot of help was Yearn sorcery, which attracted all spawned skeletons, which I have been slowly defeating. Few minutes later, soul and new ring have been in my possession. Then, I have decided to go grind for the Lizard Staff… My oh my, From Soft has made this one pretty annoying to get. They definitely hate the completionists To make it short, I made a lot of silly and stupid thing in the arena, so I have been gangbanged few times by the skeletons there, while trying to get the drop out of necromancers. Then I had to run through the stupid gauntlet again. And on the end of the gauntlet, there was red phantom as a bonus encounter. Worst encounter of NG+ so far. His sword has some homing “magic” programmed to it, so whenever I have rolled next to it, he changed his trajectory mid-swing and hit me hard when I was standing up out of that roll Probably 100k lost souls due to this clown… Bleh… Anyway after I have found a pretty good strategy against the skeletons, and purchased one more Yearn Sorcery, I did not needed to run so many times through that gauntlet as before. Still the redphantom clownshoe ended few of them anyway… In the end, I got from the Necromancers the Lizard Staff and their armor pieces so I could finally attempt the boss. Unfortunatelly all this running around through the gauntlet and grind for the loot has made me pretty tired, so I have wiped few times on the boss as well So one of the easiest bosses in the game made me the most trouble in NG+ so far

Back to DS2:SotFS. Two more bosses down. The no phantom attempts work so far. I have started out with Belfry Gargoyles. The interesting thing, I have found out, that summoned phantoms boost up elemental resistances more, than I have expected. In NG, the lightning bolt did almost insignificant damage to them, so I have tried to go full melee on them in my first failed attempt. Unfortunately the only non-infused weapon, which I had was Grand Lance+10, which was not the best choice for the encounter, so in the second one, I have tried lightning spells again. And to my surprise, two casts of great one and one cast of basic one were enough to defeat single Gargoyle. I have used that to my advantage and won the second attempt. Now that I got Covetous Gold Serpent Ring+2 from them, I went to Forest of the Fallen Giants, so I tried my luck again with a rare Hollow Soldier Shield drop. Aaand I got two of them In the meanwhile, I have visited the Last Giant as well. The next goal is to get to Mytha as soon as possible, to get the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring+2 from her. So I will have to get through Skeletal Lords and one Red Phantom with rare drop, which I would love to have as well. Probably, I will have to grind a little bit for the rare Lizard Staff in Chariot arena as well.

Hmm, strange, I like DS2 controls more than DS1 and Demon’s Souls PS3 The only thing I “hate” about DS2 is trashmob placement and aggro range in some areas. Insee everything else as an improvement over the previous games

Currently on business trip again, but before departing I had a little bit of time to wander around NG+ Lost Bastille. I have defeated all of the local Pursuers, and then I have went for the Ruin Sentinels. I have used Lightning Mace+10 with Sunlight Blade buff. It has dealt massive damage against them. The funny thing is, that due to that, I became to reckless and triggerhappy, which almost cost me the attempt, but after jumping down, I have normalized a little bit and started to be more cautious, becuase I needed to find an opening to chug an Estus Luckily, I have found one, and hit by hit defeated the remaining two Sentinels and harvested their soul

Minor investor from Slovakia is challenging CEO of Ubisoft and Tencent after the latest underperformance of their games, preparing to file a lawsuit as well, due to the lowest share prices in the last 10 years. https://nichegamer.com/ubisoft-investor-demands-ceo-change-amidst-underperforming-star-wars-outlaws-launch/

I had a little bit of time today again before the sleep, so I have run inside No-Man’s Wharf and cleared the area, including the Flexile Sentry boss. I needed 3 attempts, as the NG+ adds joined the fight almost imediately, so my first attempt ended after 5 seconds (In PS3 vanilla, there as enough time to shoot one Shadow Assassin down with a spell after entering the fog gate). Almost got him on 2nd try, but I started to be to greedy, when the water level started to rise up to my hips, so I have run out of stamina in moddle of his combo.

After few grinding sessions, I have started NG+ in DS2:SotFS. I went right away into the Heide's Tower and defeated Old Dragonslayer and later Dragonrider as well. Both on first try. This time, without phantoms. The plans is to not use them if possible. We'll see how far I will be able to get before I get into first trouble. For now, I am again enjoying the game, as I have mostly forgotten the placing of Red Phantoms, which pretty much kick my ass now and then It makes the experience fresh, and make me do hilarious things as soon, as I get surprised by few of them Anyway, sooner or later, I will have to go back to grind again, at the Falconers for their medals. The plan is to clear the Lost Bastille for Gold Covetous Ring+2 and then go back to them, to see, if they can drop anything for me.

I have defeated Ancient Dragon and Vendrick today. Ancient dragon was interesting. I have postponed to go and fight against him for a very long time, as he was definitely the hardest boss for me in Vanilla game. I spent more than 150 attempts in total in all encounters with him O.o To my surprise, I have defeated him today on my first try O.o I still can't believe it. TBH I have to say, the Fire Resistance items from DLCs definitely helped me to survive his dragon breath. Vendrick on the other had, I have thought, would be easier form these two. But of course I got few time completely destroyed, before I have relearned his moves and attacks. Then, on my 4th or 5th try, I have defeated him without being hit The funniest thing about it was, that the previous attempt, I was not able even to touch him, as he destroyed me in less than 5 seconds after entering the fog gate, as I have forgotten, that his attacks drain like whole stamina when blocking, and I was stunned with his first attack, and then promptly finished with two more swings Next in line, before entering the NG+, just a little bit of grinding for missing items.

Harebrained Schemes are working on Survival Horror RPG. On their FB Page few days ago, they have also mentioned, that they were not able to secure Shadowrun, nor Battletech licences for the foreseeable future.

According to US, they ruled out UA air defense as a culprit. They are saying it was either a pilot error or plane malfunction.

Yeah, I know about the Bonfire Ascetic solution to the problem. I still have to go through NG+ and NG+2 to get all the spells required for trophies, so there is no Issue with Aldia not spawning for now. I am just angry, that my memory failed

Goal 6/2024 achieved. August 29, 19:00 – I have finished my first Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin playthrough on my PS4. This time, including all DLCs. In contrast to vanilla version of the game, you need also to clear the DLCs, to fulfill all criteria for Platinum Trophy. Unfortunately I have messed up the ending, as I have forgotten, that I need to defeat Vendrick before defeating Nashandra, and I have forgotten to backup my save . It took me almost 100 hours and 294 deaths. Almost the same as Dark Souls Remastered . The DLCs have been as much challenging, as I have anticipated, with few terrible areas like Iron Passage, which won my personal Worst Area Design Contest in all of the games, I have ever finished . The day before, I have also defeated the Darklurker. So far, the most challenging fight for my melee build. I died probably around 20 times or so while fighting him, with at least 5-6 attempts leaving him less than 5% HP. I have noticed to late, how much damage I can make to him, with my Great Lightning Bolt, so until then I have been asskicked pretty badly few times, as I tried to go all out melee on the Boss, but as soon, as he split, I was to slow to land enough damage on him, before they obliterated me with spells. Then as soon as I have started to use Miracles, almost every attempt was under 10% HP, but before landing the last hit, I have always made some silly move, like jumping into his spells or started to cast my spells almost at his melee range. Which of course meant a very quick demise of my character Anyway, I am angry at myself, about that mess up with Aldia, so I will not have perfect walkthrough on my videos with all quests completed. I will have to wait for NG+. Where I will probably skip most of the quests, as I have all of the rewards from them anyway, and I will probably try to get through the game without phantoms. We'll see how many bosses this will last But before that, I still need to defeat the Ancient Dragon and Vendrick. And one cheating "cleric" NPC as well.

And Suikoden I and II Remasters will be comming in March 2025.

I have finished the last DS2 DLC yesterday. And I think I have enjoyed it most of the three packs. With the exception of some frozen mobs, which were impossible to backstab Anyway. The level design of Frozen Eleum Loyce was as gorgeous as the Brume Tower. First I have went to the right not knowing, that the boss is on the left, so I have managed to avoid myself a big surprise, which I have found later on internet I was slowly clearing the area of the mobs, picked up the Eye of the Priestess, and then I have found one invader phantom, which has been transformed into barrel. To bad, that I have found him only after he made a backstab on me as soon as I have touched the nearby chest. At that time, I have thought, that he somehow hidden on the staircase above, and I did not noticed him. So as soon, as I have run again to this place, I went for the staircase, and I have found out his camouflage, and I literally burst into laughter, as I've seen that some barrel is running after me. I have almost died due to that for the second time It turned into pretty lengthy fight afterwards, which I was lucky enough to survive After that, I was ready to explore the left side of the fortress behind the entrance, where the first boss was hiding. I summoned two phantoms, and started the fight. Compared to the fights in Old Iron King DLC, this was pretty easy, so I have lost my focus again, and closer to the end of the fight, I was asskicked while trying to put lance up his rear end The second try was much better executed, and prepared for his attacks, do I celebrated my first victory in this area. Next was small talk with lady on a balcony, which has unfrozen for me the rest of the level, so I could go and try to find three missing Loyce Knights. This unlocked pretty big areas, which have been inaccessible before that. Of course, that meant few silly wipes again. The most precious one was, when I have decided to slide down the slope after big rolling snowball, which I have kicked down few seconds before Anyway, after few hours of slowly searching the rest of the fortress, I have found out all three knights, and unlocked all of the shortcuts. It was time to fight against Burnt Ivory King. I have again summoned two phantoms for help and went through the fog gate. The fight was interesting, and the charred mobs has been dropping few items during the fight, which I was promptly picking up. With all that help of 4 Loyce Knights and two summons, the fight was not difficult at all, but again, my impatience ruined nice attempt, as the King made a large swing which ended up my misery once again Again, being smarter after seeing most of his moves against me and the summons, I entered for the second attempt. This time, I was much more cautious, which rewarded me with another victory, so I have picked up last crown, and went for another talk with the lady. Unfortunately this time no drops from adds. Later I have found out, that I would need 50 Loyce Souls. I got 1 from the first attempt. So silly me, wet to Old Chaos all by himself. Somehow, I have managed to defeat two of the knights, but then another three spawned, and I started to run around like a headless chicken trying to use the exit light to not lose a hefty sum of souls again I've survived, but I had a laugh again, with what stupidity I have come up this time Before going to the next area, I have tried to grind for the Frozen Armour set from Rampart Golems, which were close to the last bonfire. Unfortunately, I am still missing bracers Next in line was the frozen blizzardy area, which name I have forgotten already (Frozen Outskirts maybe?), which I have tried to avoid for as long as possible, as everyone I have ever listen to, has been bitching about, as the worst area ever created for any Soulslike game. To my surprise, it was a far far away from the torture, which I have expected. It was not the best design again, but from my experience, out of all "gauntlets" in the DS2 DLCs, this was the least ****ty one. All I needed to do, was stop for few seconds whenever the blizzard was active, and move only during the short calm period. Thanks to this, I have found without ease almost all items on my first try, which I have messed up at the end, when I have pulled by mistake two stallions On the next try, I got the last item as well, and got to fog gate with no issues. As always, I have used phantoms again. This time it was possible to summon three of them. So I have used them all The fight was similar to the first bossfight in this DLC. Difference being second cat. As Hawke mentioned before (I have not read it up until now, to not spoil the first experience ), the second cat joined the fight very very soon. Even with the raised resistances to bosses with three phantoms around, the fight was not that hard for me, mostly due to me already knowing all the cat moves. My DPS was pretty decent to overcome the buff on the second cat as well. Unfortunately, close to the end of the fight, I messed up again and facerolled into the snow. Second attempt was again victorious. I was little bit afraid of messing up again during the buffed phase, so I have approached that phase of the fight with maximum caution. Despite that, I was still able to do more damage to it, as she was able to heal up, although by a small margin. So it took a while. Then, to my surprise the buff was gone, me and all of the summons still standing, so I run fast, but cautiously towards her, and finished the fight. Two more souls in the inventory, and time to get back to the base game. I will probably take one day of break, and then will decide, if I finish the main boss or go for the Darklurker first. I will be going to visit Ancient Dragon and Vendrick definitely in the post-game, before moving to NG+. All I have to do now, is to decide, if I will try to get some missing drops in the meanwhile, or leave it for NG+, when the droprate is a little bit higher than in NG. Deathcounter: 268

Tales of Graces f Remastered has been announced for January 17, 2025. Hopefully Bamco will still offer physical PS4 version.

Will it be reset into the time, when they released HoMaM without the need to be always online logged into their malware client?

Yesterday, I have finally finished the Crown of the Iron King DLC. And it is a mixed bag for me. The majority of Brume Tower, is good and interesting design from my PoV. They made some areas filled with to much mobs, but, after few try and error attempts, they have become manageable. Only few Ashen Idols gave me some troubles. So after approx 5 and half hours after entering the DLC, I was able to defeat Fume Knight. All attempts have been made with two summons. This fight was pure DPS race. I had to make more damage to him before he wiped out my summons, and few of the attempts ended up with him with less than 5%. All in all I had 10 attempts IIRC, before being victorious. And even in that last attempt, he defeated both my summons, before I was able to land a finishing blow on him. So far so good only 15 wipes during this whole time. But this was the last part of the DLC which I have enjoyed. I have used the Tower Key and unlocked the way to Iron Passage... I should not have done this... **** it... The worst ever area in all of From Soft games, I have ever played. Multilevel areas, which were not completely accessible, filled with enemies, which sniped your ass into the otherworld in few seconds, if you were to slow to get into hiding spot or stayed to long out of it, fighting the melee waves jumping at you... **** it once again... And in the last room, just before the fog gate as a bonus oversized like-a-truck hitting mob, which destroyed half of HP of your summons... If by any miracle, I have survived up until the boss room, I became so pissed of at the whole gauntlet, that I was losing my concentration and made mistake after a mistake, so the boss has kicked my ass... Rinse and Repeat... For 3 and half ****ing hour... Until I was able to have enough concentration, to not mess up the boss fight... I hate you Myiazaki... 40 wipes in that session alone with hundred thousand plus souls lost, due getting gangbanged all the time... This area has completely discouraged me from playing the game further. I had so bad mood after that session, that I wanted to uninstall the game... Well, on the next day, I have tried to log into the game again, to check the latest area, which I still needed to finish, but the mood was still very very low... To my "surprise" another gauntlet... Thankfully, this time not as ridiculous as the Iron Passage, but it definitely did not make my mood for DS2 better... Anyway, I have done few tries on Sir Alonne and tried to learn his moves, when to heal, and when to avoid his moves at all costs. Due to me being down in the mood, my reflexes have been lousy as well, so I was not able to outroll or block all of his attacks, whenever he aggroed on me, so all the time, the fight ended up few seconds, after he got buffed after piercing me with his Katana... So I have quit the Brume Tower, and went to completely clear my head to grind 100 Mad Warrior kills, new Human Effigies, which I have lost in high numbers during my Iron Passage ball torture, and enough souls to fully upgrade Grand Lance to +10 (as I have noticed, that my Lightning Heide Lance is doing not as much damage, as I would expected on the boss - later I have found out, that he has a pretty high resistance against all of magic)... Stopped at 91 Mad Warriors, and went to sleep, pissed as much as the day before The only good part of the day was the interesting encounter with the 5 Prowler black phantoms, which have spawned on my way to the Bonfire before the Memory of the Old Iron King. After this, I went on a scheduled business trip, so I had no time to be pissed on the game anymore, so when I got back 3 days later, I had like two hours window, in my schedule, so I decided to boot the game again, with much clearer head. First I have finished the Mad Warrior grind, to acquire the Bell Keepers set, and from the new souls, I have put 1 more point into ADP Then I went back for the memory, and cleared the area up until the fog gate. There I've noticed, that I have enough souls to fully upgrade the Engraved Bracers, which increase the chance of critical hits, so I feathered back to a blacksmith. Cleared it one more time, fully healed my two summons, and readied my newly upgraded physical Grand Lance +10. Even though I was hit few times by the boss, which almost wiped me out, this time, I was able to avoid his buffing attacks, so the fight was a little bit easier, and my summons have taken much less damage. This helped tremendously with the DPS race, and made the fight much more manageable. To my surprise, I was able to defeat Sir Alonne on my first try. Which was absolutely unexpected, because I still had 50 minutes of my free time window, and I did not have any plans to move in the game at that moment Then I have remembered, that I still have to extinguish 1 Ashen Idol, and to pick up 1 Item, which was not accessible, when I have entered the Brume Tower. And one Crystal Lizard, but I was to lazy to try and run to it again The story, which almost turned into tragedy, has been finished. All three bosses down. This probably cost me few new gray hairs, but in the end, I was satisfied, that I have not given up on the game, although, I will probably never forget about that idiotic Iron Passge... Next stop, the last DLC, which I heard has some stupid design decisions as well. Hopefully not in the vein of Iron Passage. We'll see... Deathcounter: 250