Player’s Handbook

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

It’s been a while since I’ve used this Blog, but hey, I’ve got some spare time so why not use it? Next game up: Uncharted 2, fuck yeah!

Anyone who owns a PS3 has probably played the first Uncharted and most likely loved it. I know I did. It had great graphics, awesome characters, and a good combination of platforming/shooting. So what happens when Naughty Dog releases Uncharted 2? You get everything previously stated, only on a WHOLE NOTHA LEVAL.

Ok, lets get started. If you haven’t played the first Uncharted, don’t worry about story continuation or anything. Uncharted 2 has it’s own standalone story and the only thing “story wise” taken from Uncharted 1 are the main 3 characters. So really, if you haven’t played the first Uncharted, just start off with Uncharted 2, seriously.

Warning! This may contain some small “spoilers”, so be wary!

Story: You’ve probably seen the commercials. Action. Betrayal. Vengeance. All this and more makes up Uncharted 2’s story. First off, the story for Uncharted 2 isn’t unique by any means. It has your typical power hungry military man seeking immortality while you drudge through each level fighting against the “man”. Your main goal (at the beginning of the game) is to find Marco Polo’s lost fleet and his mad loots. Eventually, you find out there are much larger things at stake (like the immortality thing I mentioned) and your goal changes to saving the world! Yay!

Graphics: Awesome. Superb. Most Excellent. This game has the best graphics of any console game out there, hands down. All the textures, landscapes, lighting, shadows, ev-everything is perfect.

Gameplay: This is where Uncharted 2 really shines. In the first game, you basically moved from shooting guys to doing platforming stuff. They changed that up this game. You’ll be trying to jump from rooftop to rooftop avoiding bullets and rockets from a helicopter, while trying to KILL the helicopter at the same time. Action sequences blend in with cut-scenes perfectly, and action-scenes are the most exciting things to do in the game.

They did some minor tweaks with controls. One great thing they changed was the grenade throwing. No more bullshit six axis targeting, its just point and throw now… a greatly appreciated change. The cover system didn’t really change, but it still works well. Melee attacks and sneak/kills are fluid when you do it right (if you start punching at air, you’re pretty vulnerable for a few seconds), and stealth kills are fun throughout the entire game.

The platforming this time is much more exciting, that’s for sure. For the most part it’s “easy”, but there are LOTS of times where you misjudge a ledge or jump distance and fall to your death. There’s no penalty for deaths though, so it’s not that bad. Simply put, you’ll have a blast playing each and every level, you’ll constantly be yelling “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!!!”, and you’ll have a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside you whenever you kill a tank or helicopter.

Multiplayer: I only played multiplayer a little bit (CoD4:2 stole me away from U2’s multiplayer), but I did enjoy it also. It is much like CoD where you level up from getting ‘money’ (experience), and can unlock new perks, guns, costumes and more. The three player co-op modes are fun, but can be VERY hard, sometimes to the point where you need three people. There are many different modes like any multiplayer shooter… capture the idol, deathmatch, team deathmatch, horde mode, etc. All in all, it’s fun to play multiplayer on U2, but there are more entertaining games for online multiplayer.

Overall: If you own a PS3, you MUST buy/play this game. Uncharted 2 is game of the year for me, and many others because it is that good. This game isn’t a pure shooter, or pure platformer, it is a near perfect blend of the two and due to this, can cater to a much greater crowd of gamers. If you have any doubts whatsoever about this game, dispel them immediately. I might go as far to say you should buy a PS3, just for this game.

Star Ocean 4

I guess I should start with a minor update. I quit FFXI a little over a month ago. The game just started feeling like too much of a chore that you do everyday, repeating the same things over and over again. Anyways, I guess I still have “knowledge” of the game (unless SE decides to revamp any tech. aspects of the game) and could help people with fSTR, pDIF, level difference and other stuff that deals with math and that sort.

On to the new Blorg! I’ve decided to just make this a video games in general blog instead of dedicating it to FFXI. Every once in a while I’ll write up something about a game I enjoyed, and think others would enjoy. What I’d like to get out of this blog is to have people try out new games, and also possibly suggest new games for me to try out!

The first game I’m going to talk about is Star Ocean: The Last Hope (also known as Star Ocean 4). The Star Ocean franchise is generally known to many by the second and third releases, Star Ocean: The Second Story and Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. The Star Ocean games are close to that of the ‘Tales’ games in terms of battle. So, if you like the ‘Tales’ games, there’s a high chance you’ll like the Star Ocean games.

Now lets get into Star Ocean 4. This game has your normal JRPG story, good guy vs some type of evil. At least one plot “twist”. Very lightly clothed females, and the token annoying character(s). Don’t get the wrong idea, I know it sounds like I’m looking down upon the game but just hear me out. I’ll get into each part of the game in detail now.

Warning! This may contain some small “spoilers”, so be wary!

Story: Personally, I enjoyed the story a lot. Since this is supposed to be a “prequel” to the first Star Ocean game, you see a lot of the story driven towards ideas in the first Star Ocean game. There will be a lot of “A-ha” moments during the game if you’ve played the first Star Ocean game. Anyways, the actual story is a general good guy vs bad guy one. It’s easy enough to follow and you won’t be left completely lost. There’s only one point where I thought “but wait….how did this happen if this just did…”. Beating the game was very satisfying, and with multiple endings/secret endings, you’ll want to do all you can during the game to progress the story the “right” way.

Graphics: Not much to say. The game looks fantastic. Scenery is bright and vibrant when it should be, and lighting/shadows are awesome.

Gameplay: The battle system is very easy to get used too. At first you do need to be “careful” with how you attack, as you only start with 2 characters and battles are “long”. As you progress through the game, you get more characters and skills. The weapon skills and magic make the fights fun. If you like fighting up front, there’s tons of skills to tailor to your liking. Staying back and attacking is still just as fun with other characters. Personally, I used the Archer and Mage the most of the time. Near the end of the game, battles can become somewhat of a “button mashing” session. However, in some of the extra dungeons, you do need to be more careful and mindful of your party status instead of just mashing the A/Trigger buttons.

Overall: This is one of the few RPG’s actually worth getting. You may get annoyed with a character or two sometimes, but you should enjoy this game if you like real time combat games. I’ve got 80hours on my file so far and still have not beat the last real “boss” of the game. I also still have loads of achievements to unlock and only have gone through the game once on the “normal” difficulty. This is one of the few RPG’s I’ll go through again.

Star Ocean 4 is a nice game to take up some time. I don’t suggest you trying to do a dungeon in 10 minutes, as save points are sometimes sparse. If you have a day off work or something, you can get through a good chunk of the game. I’ve been waiting forever to get another good RPG for my 360. It’s been a while since I played through Lost Odyssey and Mass Effect, and I was pretty dissapointed in The Last Remnant. After playing through Star Ocean though, I think I can say my RPG hunger has been satisfied… for the moment.

FFXI: Eagle Eye Shot

It was confirmed that Eagle Eye Shot can score a Critical Hit like normal Ranged Attacks a while ago. All that happens is the EES pDIF is multiplied by 1.25 as would a normal Ranged Attack would. However, I haven’t seen any other type of “special” information regarding EES. I spent a long time looking, and all I could find was information on Flashy Shot in regards to ignoring level difference, so then I went and started testing. (Information on Critical Hit EES can be found here: http://www.staronion.com/ashiya/?p=75)

Hypothesis: Does Eagle Eye Shot Ignore Level Difference Penalties?

I first came upon this idea during my tests of Dynamis Lords’ Defense. Those tests are still inconclusive, but what I did get from it were some interesting Sidewinder Numbers. I didn’t have any outside buffs or anything for that fight, and only used WS’s/Barrage/EES with what gear I had on and used Sushi. What was interesting was that my Flashy Shot Sidewinder did 836 damage, while my non-FS Sidewinder did 691 and my EES did 793. While the numbers weren’t exact, I did find some oddly close numbers between my FS SW and EES’s pDIF.

After looking through the interwebs and not finding anything in regards to my hypothesis, I decided to go out and EES some Greater Colibri as a simple test. My STR/R.ATT/Distance were exactly the same for each EES. Here’s what I got:

Without Flashy Shot

With Flashy Shot

I don’t have a screenshot of it, but I hit a 1243 (Critical Hit) EES without Flashy Shot, which would equate to a 995 EES when crunching the numbers.

Using Yoichinoyumi and Kabura Arrows, my base damage would be 119. My Ranged Attack was 366~ total, so taking into account level difference in regards to defense, my Ratio for Lvl 81 would be 1.136 and my Ratio for Lvl 82 would be 1.119. Using these ratios, my base damage is around 151, which gives me an fSTR of about 32 (127 STR Total).

Now using level correction, I would subtract 0.15 from my Lvl 81 Ratio, and 0.175 from my Lvl 82 Ratio. Doing that would give me 0.986/0.944 ratios. As all Rangers (should) know, a cRatio of 0.9~1.1 is the “stable zone” which means your pDIF is always the same. Considering I had varying numbers for every EES, my pDIF was not constant.

So there are multiple possibilities. Either the Ability Flashy Shot does not stack with EES (even though it wears off when using EES), and EES has some other unknown variable in its equation. Another possibility is that Yoichinoyumi itself has some hidden trait that lets EES ignore level difference penalties, which I kind of doubt. Then last, EES just flat out ignores level difference penalties.

Conclusion: Eagle Eye Shot must ignore level difference penalties!

To me, this makes a good amount of sense. Considering EES damage can outdo your sidewinders on HNM’s, and how EES can get such high damage on stuff like Dynamis Lord and Kirin. Combining this with the fact that EES can score a critical hit, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise to see your EES out damage your normal non-FS sidewinders on HNM’s. The damage difference between EES and SW would probably be more significant (SW>EES) on normal mobs like Exp Mobs taking into account fSTR and WSC numbers. So really, there is never a time you would want to use Flashy Shot with Eagle Eye Shot.

FFXI: What is your STR cap?

Let me warn you right now, this post is going to have a lot of numbers and math. No pretty pictures or anything this time, so don’t be dissapointed!

First of all, this is sort of a prelude to another post I will write up in the future. I’m doing some tests on RNG vs DL and Ixion that I’ll hopefully have results with soon. This post will serve as a guide you could say, so you know what I’m talking about in the next post.

Much of this post is based on Ashiya’s/Mikichan’s research about DL’s VIT. Credit for DL’s VIT should be given, and if you want to check out that post you can find it out here: http://www.staronion.com/ashiya/?p=72

Now lets start with the WS Damage Calculation.

Damage = WD * PDIF = (( D + fSTR + WSC) * fTP) * PDIF

This is for Physical Weaponskills, I won’t get into Magical Weaponskills in this post. Most people assume STR is the best thing for WS’s, while some people swear by modifiers of a weaponskill. These kinds of people most likely have never seen the WS Damage Formula. Let me explain some of these abbreviations.

WD: Your total weapon damage

PDIF: Fuction of your attack versus a mobs defense

D: Your base damage (or Ranged damage + Ammo)

fSTR: Funciton of your STR versus a mobs VIT

fTP: Fucntion of TP (EX: Sidewinder has 5.00 fTP at 100/200/300TP)

WSC: Your weaponskills secondary modifiers

When I start plugging in numbers, you will see the front of some equations look like this:

WSC = floor(floor[(.16*100)+(.25*100)])*.83

The term “floor” means you take the whole number value, and ignore the decimal values. So you usually don’t round up on anything, but round down. I’ll go through each of these abbreviations in more detail when I come up to them in the formula. For now, lets start of with an example of capping STR. How about finding out how much STR we need on our favorite Mob, Greater Colibri’s?

According to FFXIclopedia, Greater Colibri’s have 67 VIT. So, lets figure out how much STR we need to cap STR. Now, you can’t “cap” STR in the sense that it won’t do anymore damage, but you can cap how much Damage STR provides you in your Base Damage calculation. That is, you can cap fSTR, but you can’t cap STR that is included in the WSC calculation.

To calculate fSTR, the equation is as follows (for physical weapons):

fSTR = fSTR2/2

The fSTR of ranged weapons is as follows (ranged weapons are given the abbreviation fSTR2):

fSTR2 = (Your STR - Mob’s VIT+4)/2

Now like I said, fSTR(2) can cap. That cap is based on your weapons base damage (not including ammo). This is called your weapon rank.

Weapon Rank = floor(Weapon Damage/9)

H2H = floor(Weapon Damage+3/9)

I will use my RNG and Yoichinoyumi as an example. Yoichinoyumi has a base damage of 81.

WR = floor(81/9)

WR = 9

Now to determine fSTR(2) cap. There are lower and upper bound caps for fSTR and fSTR2.

fSTR lower = WR, fSTR upper = WR+8

fSTR2 lower = WR*2, fSTR2 upper = (WR+8)*2

So lets use my upper cap. For me, my fSTR2 cap would be:

fSTR2 = (9+8)*2 = 34

This means no matter how high my STR may be, I can only get a cap of 34 damage added to my Base Damage from fSTR2. So to cap my fSTR2 on a Greater Colibri, here’s the formula:

34 = (STR-(67+4))/2

68 = (STR-71)

STR =139

I can’t get 139 STR at the moment, but maybe I can in the future haha. Right now my Base Damage (with Kabura Arrows) is at [81+38+34] = 153. Now I need to calculate my WSC number. The WSC formula is as follows:

WSC = floor[floor[(primary modifier x modifier amount)+(secondary modifier x modifier amount)]x.83]

The (.83) up there is the level correction modifier. At level 74-75 the correciton would be .83. There are different levels of correction for your varying levels. You can find the complete list at FFXIclopedia if you like. Sidewinder has a 16% STR Mod and 25% AGI Mod. So using Sidewinder, and 139 STR with lets say 100 AGI, my WSC would be the following:

WSC = floor[floor[(.16*139)+(.25*100)]x.83

= floor[floor[(22.24)+(25)].83

= floor[floor(47.24)].83

= floor[47*.83]

= 39

So now my total Weapon Damage is [153+39]

= 192

The calculation for my damage would be the following right now:

DMG = floor[floor[(192)*5.00]*pDIF]

= floor(960*pDIF)

Now lets talk about pDIF. This is the easiest thing to cap on almost any mob. The actual calculation is a little more complicated than Your Att/Mobs Def. There are level correction ratios and varying levels of Ratios that output different numbers. Here are the base formulas:

Ratio = Your Att/Mobs Defense

Melee corrected ratio (cRatio) = Ratio - 0.050*level difference

Ranged cRatio = Ratio - 0.025*level difference

The level difference is exactly what it sounds like, the difference between the Mobs level and your level. I’ll continue using Ranged Damage as my example. Ranged cRatio caps at 3.0 (you can find the different caps for normal and crit hits at FFXIclopedia), so if you know a Mob’s Defense, you can easily cap your pDIF. Usually all it takes is some SV Minuets, and Dia/Angon to cap pDIF on the highest level mobs. So lets say i get SV Min 4+3, Dia 3 and Angon on a Greater Colibri. I’d easily cap pDIF at a value of 3.0, so my damage formula is as follows:

Damage = floor[floor(192*5.00)*3.0]

= 2880, now we can’t forget the piercing bonus of Greater Colibri, which is 25% bonus, so:

Damage = 2880*1.25

= 3,600

With all that said, if I cap my fSTR2 (139 STR) and have capped pDIF (3.0), I could in theory do 3,600 Damage to a Greater Colibri. Knowing how much STR is needed to cap fSTR(2), you could gear differently during WS if you have non-STR mods. It’s hard to cap fSTR2 on Rng, but other jobs like SAM and possibly DRK or WAR could cap fSTR easier and possibly put different gear in for varying WS mods. Also, everyone should know now what exactly STR does, as well as Mods for your WS. Some WS’s my have an AGI, DEX, VIT or whatever Mod, and while sometimes it says 30% DEX or 50% VIT, that doesn’t mean DEX or VIT will do better than STR. Take the time to look at your WS Mods and gear during WS, you may be surprised at what you could change.

FFXI: Brave Grip

Recently, a new BCNM was discovered that is linked to campaign and nation control of certain areas. In order to access these BCNM’s, your nation must have control of every area surrounding it. That is, San d’Oria must have control of La Vaule, Vunkerl Inlet, The Eldieme Necropolis, Junger Forest, and Batallia Downs. The same is with the other nations, just with the respective areas. Once these areas are under the control of one nation, a new BCNM appears in the Campaign OPs menu. The BCNM is fairly easy, and I won’t get into that due to that fact.

Anyways, as I said, new items have emerged from said BCNM. Including the sought after Brave Grip. Every melee including myself basically couldn’t wait to get our hands on this Grip when it was discovered. So, Titan eventually was able to access the San d’Orian BCNM, and several Grips appeared on the AH. I quickly bought one for myself and immediately started testing.

Here are my results. Although there is a relatively small sample size, I felt it was easy enough to determine the % increase of Brave Grip.

These numbers are with me using WS at 300% TP, no DA gear, Hasso, and the normal hits are me swinging with my WS gear on:

Now here are my numbers with Brave Grip on. Everything is under the exact conditions as the previous WS’s/Crits:

It’s pretty obvious there’s an increase in damage, but lets determine the exact amount. I took the MAX damage of WS and Crits from each sample, and found out the difference. Between the Crits, the difference was 10 points of DMG. This equates to about a 3.2% increase in damage. Next, I found the difference for the WS DMG. The difference here was 43 points of DMG. That factored to about a 2.9% increase in DMG. Taking these two values, it can be determind that Brave Grip increases your Crit DMG by approximately 3%.

After that’s all said and done, you still have the decision to make. Brave Grip, Pole Strap, Axe Grip, which is the best to use? It’s not exactly that cut and dry, especially for Samurai, but let’s take a look at what possible numbers we can get.

Say your average Gekko on Tiamat is 1,200DMG. Also, you get in 2 WS per landing. Normal Tiamats take 30-60 minutes, so lets use 60 minutes as our time. Every 4 minutes, you get 2 WS in. That is, you get 2 WS when on ground (2minutes), and have to wait for it to land again when in flight (2minutes). So over the course of the fight, you will get around 15 WS’s in. With Brave Grip, your Gekkos will do 1236 DMG in theory. Over 15 WS’s, that’s an additional 540 DMG.

Now lets compare this to using Pole Strap. The average Samurai has Brutal Earring, Askar Korazin, and Pole Strap in WS for a total of 9% DA in WS. Over 15 WS’s, you should get at least one DA. Usually, DA’s don’t increase your DMG dramatically, it’s about a 200~ DMG increase. If this holds true, on paper Brave Grip will outparse Pole Strap.

So really, it depends on your playstyle and how long you fight a mob. Over time, Brave Grip DMG will add up. However, if you’re lucky… you can get many DA’s during a fight (unlike me). It’s a tough choice for Samurai, but both Pole Strap and Brave Grip are top notch pieces of gear for SA WS. As for other Jobs and WS’s, Brave Grip might be the best choice for WS’s like Raging Rush, Skewer and Drakesbane. That is something I am hoping to find out by our resident Warriors and Dragoons.