The grind towards Mass Effect Achievements

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday ended up being a day where I felt drained mentality just thinking about stuff  and ended up sleeping during the majority of it. Did apply for various jobs, and got one call back... from a staffing agency, for something I didn't apply for. 

Anyway, last night's stream of Mass Effect did see a big focus on the side quests, leveling and grinding towards certain achievement goals related to being a straight engineer. We managed to get two knocked out tonight, leaving three to get, with the hardest one being the one for Neural Shock, since it has such as long cool. I am tempted to tackle Pinnacle Station to grind it out, since there is also an achievement related to using medi-gel.

In terms of story specific stuff done, the mission regarding the rouge VI on the moon, plus the series of Geth encounters in the Amrstrong cluster were dealt with, we gave Tali the Geth data. Also not sure if we're romancing Kaiden or Liara on this play through because both are simply awful. And while this is a paragon run, taking shots at Williams is always appropriate.

Mass Effect Achievements

• Overload Specialist: Use Shield Overload 75 times
• Sabotage Specialist: Use Sabotage 75 times

For the raid we dropped in on sweetlindir during their table top / board game stream over at twitch.tv/sweetlindir

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Marvel's Spider-Man and to finish the City That Never Sleeps DLC. Now if I can get all the trophies for it, that means down the line, I would be tempted to do a New Game Plus run of the base game on the hardest difficulty. But I heard the Screwball Challenges in the 3rd chapter of the DLC are a major pain in the ass. So we'll see. 

Did picked up two achievements in NHL 21, and seeing as how NHL 23 has the same achievement list, it just shows how fucking lazy EA is with the sports game year after year, if the goals cannot be changed. Yeah you're really not going to see me play any sports game on stream unless the achievement list is worth doing

NHL 21 Achievements

• Someone get that kid the puck!: Play and score your 1st NHL goal in a regular season game in Be a Pro.
• Auctioneer: Buy or Sell an item in the auction house in Hockey Ultimate Team.

Did some writing on the Mass Effect short story commission, and with luck it'll be finished today, unless I have another mental block and feel like doing nothing at all.

Also watched the back half of the Night Court revival series, and seeing Roz back and encountering Dan with him being a judge was just perfect. Wonder if that means there will be some more reoccurring characters from the original series showing up... at least from those who are still alive. 

Twitch changed down clips are downloaded, meaning the usual best of videos I do every week can no longer be done. Damn it.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

More Wins In Fall Guys

Good morning everyone,

Finally took care of the long tall grass, and the mower I got was not as ideal as I thought, and it's E-snap on pieces broke off. Still used the lawn trimmer and it got things done. That took up a good chunk of the afternoon.

Last night's stream opened with Fall Guys, and the new shorter Fame Pass is a fine gimmick and a change of pace consider how long the last season pass was left hanging around.The new skins are rather cute being themed around Hello Kitty. We picked up two surprise wins in Squads, and came close to winning in both Solo and Duo shows. The new build feature certainly presented new challenges from the demented mind of the players.

We also played the Stanley Parable Deluxe Edition last night, and the comical nature of it certainly, as going off the beaten path quickly reminded me and introduced viewers to all the nuttiness that can occur. We got half of the achievements I believe, of course there are the original infamous ones that involves playing the game for the entirety of a day and the other for not playing the game for 10 years. The new content certainly up to the par, and the fact that you can get the game to launch as The Stanley Parable 2 is a cute twist.

Plus any game that calls me a heartless bastard is awesome.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe Achievements

• You Can't Jump: No seriously, we disabled it.
• Get Your First Achievement: Awarded for getting any of the other achievements as your first.
• Beat The Game: Complete The Stanley Parable.
• 8888888888888888: 888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
• Click on door 430 five times: Click on door 430 five times.
• Welcome Back!: Quit the game and then start it again. 
• Settings World Champion Set all settings sliders in the menu to all the available numbers.
  

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing Resident Evil 2 Remake over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x

Now the plan for tonight's stream is more Mass Effect, with a focus on finding side missions and avoiding the big story stuff. The reason for this is because I am grinding towards various achievements.

Overwatch's new event is clearly inspired by Star Wars with it being a 4 v 4 Empire vs Rebels theme encounter. I personally think it would've been better as PvE content. In fact, weren't we promised PvE content?!

After the stream I did do some work on the Mass Effect story commission, as I do want to finish it before the weekend.

Had some trouble sleeping, so did a video giving some thoughts on My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure's length in regards to when it was relased. It will be on my YouTube channel this afternoon

So on that note we'll see you later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Social Link Grinding Is A Thing

Good morning everyone,

Finally got some feedback about work, and apparently things really went FUBAR in ways that no one was anticipating, so we're just holding steady... and yeah, finally hearing something made me feel a little better, but it does affect me mentally with a lot of things that have gone wrong this year. Hell I did do some writing yesterday, but then I just slept just to avoid thinking.

Which leads to the job search and seeing jobs that I applied months ago for being posted on job boards again. Like what the fuck?! I know I talked about this yesterday, but it really makes me upset. I know crying doesn't do anything, but it's frustrating as all hell. Then there is the blatant hiding of requirements of needing a car to even consider being hired...

However, last night's stream of Persona 3 Portable was very positive, as we rescued Fuuka and covered a ton of the slice of life content that leads up into the evening of July 5, which will be our next extended trip into Tartarus. We got a number of social links up to Rank 5, with at least one at Rank 8, that being Chihiro who seems to be the obvious best girl of the Persona 3 cast of characters.

One thing I do appreciate was the whole Full Moon cycle, which does allow for getting so many things done in a short amount of time, but the whore sick/tired gimmick is certainly annoying to manage, but I got the Courage attributed maxed out so I can pretty much ignore it going forward.

Persona 3 Portable Achievements

• That Special Someone: Enter a special relationship with someone.
• A New Persona-User: Defeat the Emperor and Empress.
• Granter of Your Desires: Buy 5 things from Tanaka's Amazing Commodities.

For the raid we dropped in on PowerThumbz during their stream of Outbreak over on twitch.tv/powerthumbz

The plan for tonight's stream will included Fall Guys, however, Iceman won't be able to join us this week for Resident Evil 5, so we'll either dedicate the whole night to Fall Guys are include something else on the agenda, and I'm leaning towards The Stanley Parable

So Donald Truml's verdict regarding of of his many crimes is finally what is getting some of the psychos who voted for him to question his validity as a candidate? Fuck these people...

To be honest not much is really on my mind at the time I'm writing this to pad this out.

So we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Well We Went Longer Than Intended

Good morning everyone, 

Well I got a new mower yesterday because dealing with a lot of the lawn trimmer is going to be a hassle on two fronts in terms of dealing with the extension cord. Of course the mower I got had to be assembled, and that took way longer than it should have because of the vague instructions.

Last night's stream of Persona 3 Portable saw us cover a lot of ground getting quite a few Social Links up to 3-5, but it's clear I messed up the pacing as it relates to the Social Links for Hermit and Chariot, On the other hand we certainly had a lot of surreal moments regarding the names of various items. 

Now we did spend a lot of time in Tartarus last night, in fact way more than I was expecting to as the stream ended nearly 1 AM, because I was trying to get various side quests done. You see the Velvet Room Attendant (Elizabeth in this case) has a series of requests, and some involve a lot of good luck in hoping things pop up in order to get various rewards, including some of the best gear in the game. I'm debating on if I should do them are not, because it was hoping for gold enemies to spawn that me doing laps last night.

Now you see, since I'm trying to make sure we have a complete play through, it means sticking to a guide and grinding out as much as I can when we're popping into Tartarus. And the item I was looking for was the Steel Meda. I might just forego that and try to do as many of the other side quests as they appear.

Anyway, tonight's stream will see us make our way to the next big boss fight and the addition of Fuuka to the party!

Persona 3 Portable Achievements

• Persona Memory Bank: Summon a Persona from the Compendium.
• Grasping at Greed: Defeat a Golden Hand.
• Skilled Commander: Perform 50 All-Out Attacks.

For the raid we dropped in on zdleague who was also playing Persona 3 Portable over at twitch.tv/zdleague

Messed around a bit with NHL 21, and boy did EA go all in on achievements to ensure very few people who complete it. None of the achievements are even worth doing under normal circumstances, so I'll casually knock them out when I have free time.

NHL 21 Achievements

• Sure thing Skip: Make a coach or media objective in Be a Pro.

The job hunt is rather frustrating when I see companies (Cooper Health, Comcast) advertising the same positions after I applied for them wen I saw them posted months ago. Like what the fuck?!

Did some light writing on the Mass Effect commission story yesterday, I shall try to finish that before the weekend so that I can focus on the WWE commission story.  

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

More Achievements In Overwatch

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday ended up being a weird day, as I ended up feeling down the majority of it. Did record the second of a series of Playlist making videos based around my massive CD collection, but I didn't get done anything I was hoping to on the writing front.

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a bright spot, we were joined by PandaSweet as always, which means a lot of fun was had. We had our fair share of wins and losses, but it ended up being a big night for me as Bastion, I ended up getting both of his achievements in the same match. Granted I started that match as Tracer and was away from my desk at the start, but I cam up big. Also picked up four Plays of the Game, two as Reinhardt and two as Bastion!

Other characters used were Junker Queen, Mei, Ana, D.va, Reaper and a handful of others.

Overwatch 2 Achievements

• Incoming!: Kill 3 enemies with a single use of Bastion's Configuration: Artillery in Quick or Competitive Play.
• Triple Threat: Kill 2 enemies in each of Bastion's configurations without dying in Quick or Competitive Play.

For the raid we randomly went to katiekaliber over at twitch.tv/katiekaliber who was also playing Overwatch 2

Plan for tonight's stream is to continue Persona 3 Portable, last time we played we just finished the Monorail boss encounter, so we should have a few days of character progression before our next trip into Tartarus 

Do you know what's annoying? Someone calling me, leaving me a message as if I should have answered and then rambling on instead of  telling me why they were calling in the first place.

People are already complaining about Mass Effect 5 (aka Mass Effect 4) in that it will officially invalidate the end-game choice for many players in Mass Effect 3.

Look to all the people who love Final Fantasy VII... let me ask you something... if the story of that game is so good, why is that Square Enix has to make three whole games trying to make the plot of it make sense?

Certainly looking into getting a mower of some kind, because the lawn trimmer is not something I really want to deal with.

So on thate note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Back to Mass Effect... With A Twist

Good morning everyone,

Got some writing done yesterday on one of the two commission requests I have on deck, focusing on events of Mass Effect 3. I do plan to continue working on this story today, mostly because the client who commissioned it often is very quick on making the payment... as opposed to the one who commissioned the WWE story often making me wait upwards of a week.

Of course last night's stream saw us start up the original Mass Effect, but this time there is a challenge, with it being a forced Paragon run, and an engineer run in order to get achievements associated with both those settings, combine that with also only using Alenko and Williams as the squad mates. Needless to say it's going to be difficult considering I prefer and are very familiar with the build I go with when using soldier, and a lot of the best choices for Shepard to say are when going Renegade.

That said, we covered everything possible to do on Citadel during the first visit, which meant a lot of the side quests were tackled, and we made sure to go get Liara first... even though for this run it would make sense because we're not going to even consider using her on the ground squad. Mostly because it would've made things funny to rescue her last to get her delusional reaction for being trapped for so long.

Still, Mass Effect will be placed into the Thursday night slot, for two reasons, one when work picks back up (or if I get a new job), it'll keep me from doing more playing 4.5 hours, because I love to take my time with Mass Effect and do every dialog option. The other reason is, if I don't have work slated for Friday, I can do a longer stream. So it works both ways.

For the raid we dropped in on TracyDoll over at twitch.tv/tracydoll as they were playing Dead by Daylight 

Of course for tonight's stream we're playing Overwatch 2, with the goal being to level up the battle pass as much as possible, see if we can pick up a title.

There was another mass shooting... and to which I say, when are the elected officials who are Republicans and Conservatives are going to wake up? The answer will be when they start being the ones being the victims of these horrible incidents.

Messed around a bit with The Adventures of Elena Temple, a game that does claim to be the earliest video game with a female protagonist... but in reality it's a pretty modern game released with the gimmick being that it looks like a game made in the early 1980s. It certainly has a charm to it, but not really something I would consider playing on a stream unless I need to fill in some time.

The Adventures of Elena Temple: Definitive Edition Achievements

• High five!: [Chalice of the Gods] Collected your first 5 gold coins.
• Oooh, shiny!: [Chalice of the Gods] Collected your first gem.
• Flying shooter: [Chalice of the Gods] Shot a certain button while in the air to avoid falling to your death.
• That's where you were!: [Chalice of the Gods] Collected the Scroll of Treasures.

There is a chance my Aunt Hillary and her family will be coming down next Sunday afternoon, which means I'll have to make sure I get any writing or side projects I want to do on that day done by Saturdays.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

100% On Spider-Man, Nearly Done The DLC

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was a bit positive, as the fridge is fully full to the point I have to dispose of some leftovers earlier than I intended, since I'm trying to control my eating, meaning some things are lasting longer than normal.

Last night's stream of Spider-Man saw us completing the 2nd installment of the City That Never Sleeps story, which saw Yuri starting to snap and Hammerhead being presented as a major villain. During the course of this, we got enough base and challenge tokens to get the final costumes to get the last trophy of the base game to get the Platinum, making Spider-Man only the 10th game I've ever completed on PlayStation consoles (and yes I do count the DLC trophies as being separate).

So things set up rather nicely for next Friday's stream, with luck we can get every trophy for the final installment of the City That Never Sleeps to 100% it as well, which would level the two trophies associated with New Game+ and playing the game on the hardest difficulty. Since both of those are considered DLC, I'll consider doing a New Game+ on Ultimate difficulty... next year... assuming my life is not upended due to various fears and concerns I have.

Marvel's Spider-Man Trophies

• A Suit For All Seasons: Purchase all Suits
• Be Greater: Collect all Trophies
• Pulling the Trigger: Complete the "Blindsided" mission
• Prohibition: Take down each Hammerhead Front
• The Gang War: Complete all Crimes in a district
• Turning the Screw: Get Spectacular or better in all Screwball Challenges
• Crossing the Thin Blue Line: Complete the "Lockup" mission
• Steel Skull, Glass Jaw: Complete the "Bring the Hammer Down" mission
• The City is My Family: 100% complete CTNS: Turf Wars

For the raid we dropped in on Felkimchi over at twitch.tv/felkimchi as they were playing World of Warcraft 

Striker won't be joining us this week, so instead of Elder Scrolls Online we'll be doing something random, in fact I've talked about it recently, we're going to start up second play through of Mass Effect, namely the Xbox 360 version. The goal is to be paragon and an engineer, while focusing on having Ashley and Alenko as the companions throughout. Also of note, this will be the first play through of the original Mass Effect since 2020.

Which actually sets up the next seven streams quite nicely...

Tonight: Mass Effect
Sunday: Overwatch 2
Monday: Persona 3 Portable
Tuesday: Persona 3 Portable
Wednesday: Fall Guys & Resident Evil 5
Thursday: Mass Effect
Friday: Marvel's Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps

Did do some achievement hunting in Rock Band 4, trying out its Tour Campaign, which is quite a lot of fun, and allows a bit of customization.

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Legend of Stage and Screen: Earned "Legendary" stage presence in a show.
• Duly Impressed: Earned "Impressive" stage presence in a show.
• Breaking Out: Left your hometown to go on tour in Career mode.
• Local Favorite: Earned enough fans in a city to unlock a Fan Showcase in Career mode.
• Gifted and Talented: Earned a custom guitar or clothing asset via Career mode.
• Thank You, Good Night: Nailed an encore in Career mode.
• Yeah, We Know That One: Nailed a request in Career mode.
  

Got started writing on one of the two commission requests yesterday, namely the WWE one, but more than likely the Mass Effect one will be finished before it, since the person who commissioned the WWE wants a super long story with a premise so thin it could be Casper.

My cousin Frances got ill recently, and I hope she has a speedy recovery! Once she's back at 100% we're doing some gaming together!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden