The King's Avatar 《全职高手》- Episode 10: Emperor of Analysis & Data Faction
The King's Avatar 《全职高手》- Episode 10: Emperor of Analysis & Data Faction
Some people are just uncanny >_>. This is an episode heavy on analysis and information dumping. It will be long XD with lots of JoyceExplaining...
We understand why the correct literal translation of the title is "Master of All Classes".
I'm also going to make lots of little gifs XD
We understand why the correct literal translation of the title is "Master of All Classes".
I'm also going to make lots of little gifs XD
Realm of Gods PvP Arena, Chasing Haze and Poplar Beach are locked in heated battle. Come hither ;) Chasing Haze signals to the Blade Master as they stare each other down (JY: Chasing Haze is hot XD). Seeing this Poplar Beach unleashes the Shadow Step skill, creating three after images of himself and charges forward.
In Joyce Flourish Internet Cafe, Chen Guo, Tang Rou and a whole group of customers have gathered to watch the battle. Chen Guo nervously shouts for Ye Xiu to be careful but how could Ye Xiu be stumped by Poplar Beach? Smiling Chasing Haze easily shoots down all the after images and force Poplar Beach to be on the defense. Chen Guo could not believe that this was still her Chasing Haze.
Flipping backwards to gain some distance Chasing Haze lays down the artillery fire. With no time to dodge Poplar Beach splits apart a shell with his sword, suffering some damage but the resulting smokes screen allows him to close in! In terms of movement speed, a Launcher is not a match for a Blade Master. Chen Guo could barely sit still but Ye Xiu, cool as a cucumber, calmly has Chasing Haze toss her heavy cannon into the air. Chen Guo flips out, did the guy just unequipped and throw her cannon into the sky!?
In game Chasing Haze suddenly flashes dodging a sword strike and reappears unbelieving right behind Poplar Beach. Before there was time to react Chasing Haze knocks Poplar Beach into the air with a knee strike to the guts. Following with another kick mid air Poplar Beach is sent further into the sky. Just in time~ Chasing Haze catches her cannon as it falls back down and fires a series of shells at Poplar Beach. In a shower of sparks and fireworks Chasing Haze wins the battle in 39 seconds.
The game world and forums blow up! OMG! Lord Grim is Chasing Haze!!! (JY: Ooops LOL) Lord Grim is so strong! Important things must be said three times!!!!
~*~
Back in Blue Rain's office Yu Wenzhou studies the pvp fight recording between Chasing Haze and Poplar Beach and figures out what happened. Un-equipping the heavy cannon lowered Chasing Haze's encumbrance penalty which in turn raised her movement speed. This was why Chasing Haze was able to dodge Poplar Beach's attack and get behind him. Truly a seasoned player Yu Wenzhou concludes. Liang Yichun agrees and adds that this 'Lord Grim' had also completely taken control of the dungeon records in server 10. Off to the side Huang Shaotian, who was listening with half an ear makes a failed attempt to sneak out of the office.
Encumbrance Penalty - carrying more things means more weight which slows you down. You can get to a point where your can't move because of the amount of items you're carrying. To increase the amount of weight you can carry you need to increase the str stat. In GLORY str also affects movement speed. For a Gunner class like Chasing Haze to use heavy weapons like the 'heavy cannon', they would need lots of str stats. So when Chasing Haze threw away her heavy cannon, her carrying weight dropped which meant she could move faster.
Looking through the dungeon records more closely Yu Wenzhou concludes that new players would not have the skill achieve such record times so it's most likely that professional players are smurfing. Based on the time of the records, team compositions and official match performance Yu Wenzhou correctly deduces that Liu Hao was Hateful Sword and that he stole Lord Grim's new strategy for the Boneyard dungeon. Analyzing the motivation for this seemingly unreasonable action, Yu Wenzhou is able to further deduce that Lord Grim is in fact 'Ye Qiu'. It was not hard then to figure out that 'Flowing Tree' is Huang Shaotian. Yu Wenzhou is terrifyingly good at analysis.
So Huang Shaotian tells Yu Wenzhou about the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella - a weapon that can transform into weapons suitable for almost every single class. Even though it's level is low at the moment, "Ye Qiu" should be able to raise it. Yu Wenzhou ponders this for a bit and finally says that a weapon like this in the hands of "Ye Qiu", perhaps they'll finally see a 'true' Unspecialized...
Encumbrance Penalty - carrying more things means more weight which slows you down. You can get to a point where your can't move because of the amount of items you're carrying. To increase the amount of weight you can carry you need to increase the str stat. In GLORY str also affects movement speed. For a Gunner class like Chasing Haze to use heavy weapons like the 'heavy cannon', they would need lots of str stats. So when Chasing Haze threw away her heavy cannon, her carrying weight dropped which meant she could move faster.
JY: Hahaha I got such a good screen cap of Captain Yu - the "I see right through you" look
Looking through the dungeon records more closely Yu Wenzhou concludes that new players would not have the skill achieve such record times so it's most likely that professional players are smurfing. Based on the time of the records, team compositions and official match performance Yu Wenzhou correctly deduces that Liu Hao was Hateful Sword and that he stole Lord Grim's new strategy for the Boneyard dungeon. Analyzing the motivation for this seemingly unreasonable action, Yu Wenzhou is able to further deduce that Lord Grim is in fact 'Ye Qiu'. It was not hard then to figure out that 'Flowing Tree' is Huang Shaotian. Yu Wenzhou is terrifyingly good at analysis.
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| XD sounded so much like a jealous boyfriend |
So Huang Shaotian tells Yu Wenzhou about the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella - a weapon that can transform into weapons suitable for almost every single class. Even though it's level is low at the moment, "Ye Qiu" should be able to raise it. Yu Wenzhou ponders this for a bit and finally says that a weapon like this in the hands of "Ye Qiu", perhaps they'll finally see a 'true' Unspecialized...
Off to the side, Liang Yichun calls Xu Boyuan and informs him that Lord Grim is "Ye Qiu". Xu Boyuan could not believe it.
Game meta: To execute some attacks, a character must be holding the correct weapon. E.g. Blade Master uses swords, Sharpshooter uses guns. For Unspecialized characters, they can use attacks from multiple classes which means they need to carry multiple different weapons so that they can swap to the correct weapon then execute the attacks. This inevitably places a huge encumbrance and weapon switch* penalty on them. This was another reason early Unspecialized players eventually phased out. The Myriad Manifestation Umbrella over comes both of these disadvantages - there is no weapon switch involved, it just transforms and it's lighter than the combined weight of all the different weapons it can transform into.
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| Cinnamon bun |
Game meta: To execute some attacks, a character must be holding the correct weapon. E.g. Blade Master uses swords, Sharpshooter uses guns. For Unspecialized characters, they can use attacks from multiple classes which means they need to carry multiple different weapons so that they can swap to the correct weapon then execute the attacks. This inevitably places a huge encumbrance and weapon switch* penalty on them. This was another reason early Unspecialized players eventually phased out. The Myriad Manifestation Umbrella over comes both of these disadvantages - there is no weapon switch involved, it just transforms and it's lighter than the combined weight of all the different weapons it can transform into.
* Switching weapons results in a cool down before the weapon can be used.
Encumbrance and weapon switch penalties are very common in MMOs.
~*~
Later that night in Joyce Flourish Internet cafe, Tang Rou unexpectedly wasn't playing the game. Looking over her shoulder Ye Xiu sees that she reading a walkthrough on their record breaking Boneyard dungeon run. It is very detailed and the author, Concealed Light, had even correctly guessed that they had devised a new strategy. The large amount of information and analysis captures Ye Xiu's interest. He has Tang Rou send him the walkthrough's URL intending to study it in more detail. After doing so Tang Rou returns to the game and finds to her surprise that Soft Mist had been killed...
Logging back onto the game Ye Xiu immediately receives a message from Flowing Tree telling him that he had been exposed. Just as Huang Shaotian was typing Yu Wenzhou walks up behind, surprising him, at the same time Ye Xiu replies with a rather insulting message calling out Yu Wenzhou's ridiculously slow apm. Yu Wenzhou is unfazed and agrees that his hands are indeed slow. Stuck in the awkward middle Huang Shaotian quickly tells Ye Xiu that Yu Wenzhou is with them. Ye Xiu is shameless though, and still calls Yu Wenzhou's hands crippled. Ignoring the harmless taunts Yu Wenzhou asks Ye Xiu for a duel. Ye Xiu readily agrees.
~*~
And so Lord Grim materializes in a Fix Field arena, on the other side the Warlock Swoksaar appears amidst a surge of purple magical energy. Swoksaar is Yu Wenzhou's official competition account. Ye Xiu is not surprised and even a little pleased. Yu Wenzhou wishes 'Ye Qiu' good luck, but Ye Xiu blasé as ever replies he needs no luck to defeat him.
Changing the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella into a new shield form, Lord Grim deflects aside Swoksaar's Burning Arrows attack, the Warlock follows up immediately with a fireball (should be called Cursed Arrows). Lord Grim easily doges pass it with a z-step and strikes out, taking advantage of the long reach of the lance form of his Umbrella. Swoksaar parries and compliments Ye Qiu's new weapon - an attack speed of 5, even better than One Autumn Leaf's Evil Annihilation. Ye Xiu takes the compliment in stride and adds that in exchange for the speed, the weapons attributes are a bit bland i.e. it has none.
JY: Yu Wenzhou is a beast at analysis for figuring out a weapons speed stat just by looking at Ye Xiu attacking with it. It's very hard to figure out these type of statistics just from observation. "Attributes" is basically special abilities of a weapon like being able to poison someone, burn someone, freeze someone etc.
The fight continues with Lord Grim attacking from all around and Swoksaar barely moving and parrying. The two fighting style could not be more different - Warlocks excel at CC skills while the Unspecialized Lord Grim is built to excel at quickness, versatility and all range melee attacks. (JY: and omg XD I feel like even I had higher apm than Yu back when I played MMOs). The two players continue to chat and Yu Wenzhou confirms that 'Ye Qiu' is planning to return to the professional scene with an Unspecialized class character. Ye Qiu comments that he only hopes the game company does not 'mess' with the classes again. (JY: by this he's talking about the Unspecialized being level capped at 50 for 3 years).
Ye Xiu ups the ante and Lord Grim almost disappears from view with the speed of is movement. Yu Wenzhou laments that sometimes he envies those who have crazy apm. 'Ye Qiu' laughs and replies that if Yu Wenzhou had that kind of apm there'd be no game for the rest of the professional players. As if to prove this point a trap that Swoksaar had previously laid immobilizes Lord Grim. Ye Xiu manages to escape from the trap and calls Yu Wenzhou a "black hearted tactician", but Yu Wenzhou just returns the same to 'Ye Qiu'. They both know what kind of player the other is. Soon afterwards with little surprise, Ye Xiu easily wins the bout.
JY: It's not explicitly named in the donghua but there's four players given the title "Master Tacticians" in the professional scene atm. We've met three, Ye Xiu, Yu Wenzhou and Zhang Xinjie (yes, we've met Zhang Xinjie if you can still remember.) We'll meet the last one in the OVA next year hopefully :).
This battle was enough for Yu Wenzhou to gather much information on Ye Xiu's new avatar. The Unspecialized class in addition with the Myriad Manifestation umbrella does indeed have an edge over other classes at low levels due to it's fast, complex and adaptive combat style. However it's disadvantage is that it lacks decisive, high damaging skills. Hence as the character level rises this relative advantage will slowly diminish until the class becomes practically useless at level 95, even it it was played by someone as skilled as Ye Xiu. If only Ye Xiu had made Lord Grim earlier. In the age when Glory was level capped at 50, an Unspecialized like Lord Grim would have been game breaking. Ye Xiu agrees with all of Yu Wenzhou's analysis and thinks that it's a right shame.
After seeing Ye Xiu off Yu Wenzhou asks Huang Shaotian how many false-combo's 'Ye Qiu' did in the fight. 21 Huang Shaotian answers and Yu Wenzhou sighs, Ye Qiu knows very well that speed is his biggest disadvantage. Standing up to leave Yu Wenzhou tells Huang Shaotian to study the fight's recording because Ye Qiu's Lord Grim will become one of their biggest opponents in the future. Hearing this ominous prediction Huang Shaotian quickly pulls up the recording and realizes that had he been playing he would have only been able to dodge three of the false combos. Disconcerted by the low number Huang Shaotian immediately logs onto Flowing Tree and asks Ye Qiu for a duel. However Ye Qiu ignores the boy in favor of reading the walkthrough's Tang Rou sent him earlier and getting ready for work.
Back at Joyce Flourish Internet Cafe it's late and almost time for Ye Xiu to start his shift. Chen Guo is surprised that the man could spend all afternoon reading pages after pages of that boring dungeon walkthrough. Au contraire Ye Xiu explains, the walk through is actually quite interesting. The author, Concealed Light, is obviously a newbie, who has little practical experience. The walkthroughs were based off existing guides and video recordings making them extremely limited and impractical however the writer did not make any mistakes. Just based on the amount of data gathered and scenarios analysed this new comer is very impressive.
Uninterested in all the technical aspects of the game Chen Guo reminds Ye Xiu to kill a character name "Breaking Zero" who had killed Tang Rou's character earlier in the day. Ye Xiu accepts the tasks with no further thought. Logging onto the game he calls for everyone to gather at Line Canyon. One Inch Ash, Steamed Bun and Soft Mist all respond but strangely Cleansing Mist is not yet online.
Just then a strange girl walks up to the front desk Ye Xiu was manning and requests for internet access. The girl was wrapped tightly in a pink scarf and practically hidden inside a large hood. For a second Ye Xiu couldn't figure out who she was. Behind him Chen Guo thinks the girl looks like a zongzhi (JY: no it's not zhongzi à la Grave robbers). Ye Xiu quickly shoos Chen Guo off to bed. (JY: ooooh my god, you just denied Chen Guo her chance to meet her idol...).
Seeing they were alone, Su Mucheng happily pulls away her scarf. She's decided to come visit Ye Xiu at the cafe. Ye Xiu makes room for Su Mucheng at the front desk and the two return to the game.
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| Character ID: Swoksaar 索克萨尔 Class: Warlock Weapon: Curse of Destruction 灭神的诅咒 (staff) Pro Team: Blue Rain |
Fix Field Arena - adjusts opponents levels to be the
same while keeping their skills.
Changing the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella into a new shield form, Lord Grim deflects aside Swoksaar's Burning Arrows attack, the Warlock follows up immediately with a fireball (should be called Cursed Arrows). Lord Grim easily doges pass it with a z-step and strikes out, taking advantage of the long reach of the lance form of his Umbrella. Swoksaar parries and compliments Ye Qiu's new weapon - an attack speed of 5, even better than One Autumn Leaf's Evil Annihilation. Ye Xiu takes the compliment in stride and adds that in exchange for the speed, the weapons attributes are a bit bland i.e. it has none.
JY: Yu Wenzhou is a beast at analysis for figuring out a weapons speed stat just by looking at Ye Xiu attacking with it. It's very hard to figure out these type of statistics just from observation. "Attributes" is basically special abilities of a weapon like being able to poison someone, burn someone, freeze someone etc.
The fight continues with Lord Grim attacking from all around and Swoksaar barely moving and parrying. The two fighting style could not be more different - Warlocks excel at CC skills while the Unspecialized Lord Grim is built to excel at quickness, versatility and all range melee attacks. (JY: and omg XD I feel like even I had higher apm than Yu back when I played MMOs). The two players continue to chat and Yu Wenzhou confirms that 'Ye Qiu' is planning to return to the professional scene with an Unspecialized class character. Ye Qiu comments that he only hopes the game company does not 'mess' with the classes again. (JY: by this he's talking about the Unspecialized being level capped at 50 for 3 years).
Ye Xiu ups the ante and Lord Grim almost disappears from view with the speed of is movement. Yu Wenzhou laments that sometimes he envies those who have crazy apm. 'Ye Qiu' laughs and replies that if Yu Wenzhou had that kind of apm there'd be no game for the rest of the professional players. As if to prove this point a trap that Swoksaar had previously laid immobilizes Lord Grim. Ye Xiu manages to escape from the trap and calls Yu Wenzhou a "black hearted tactician", but Yu Wenzhou just returns the same to 'Ye Qiu'. They both know what kind of player the other is. Soon afterwards with little surprise, Ye Xiu easily wins the bout.
JY: It's not explicitly named in the donghua but there's four players given the title "Master Tacticians" in the professional scene atm. We've met three, Ye Xiu, Yu Wenzhou and Zhang Xinjie (yes, we've met Zhang Xinjie if you can still remember.) We'll meet the last one in the OVA next year hopefully :).
This battle was enough for Yu Wenzhou to gather much information on Ye Xiu's new avatar. The Unspecialized class in addition with the Myriad Manifestation umbrella does indeed have an edge over other classes at low levels due to it's fast, complex and adaptive combat style. However it's disadvantage is that it lacks decisive, high damaging skills. Hence as the character level rises this relative advantage will slowly diminish until the class becomes practically useless at level 95, even it it was played by someone as skilled as Ye Xiu. If only Ye Xiu had made Lord Grim earlier. In the age when Glory was level capped at 50, an Unspecialized like Lord Grim would have been game breaking. Ye Xiu agrees with all of Yu Wenzhou's analysis and thinks that it's a right shame.
After seeing Ye Xiu off Yu Wenzhou asks Huang Shaotian how many false-combo's 'Ye Qiu' did in the fight. 21 Huang Shaotian answers and Yu Wenzhou sighs, Ye Qiu knows very well that speed is his biggest disadvantage. Standing up to leave Yu Wenzhou tells Huang Shaotian to study the fight's recording because Ye Qiu's Lord Grim will become one of their biggest opponents in the future. Hearing this ominous prediction Huang Shaotian quickly pulls up the recording and realizes that had he been playing he would have only been able to dodge three of the false combos. Disconcerted by the low number Huang Shaotian immediately logs onto Flowing Tree and asks Ye Qiu for a duel. However Ye Qiu ignores the boy in favor of reading the walkthrough's Tang Rou sent him earlier and getting ready for work.
False combo - attacks that even when executed
in quick succession will not be counted as combo
attacks by the game system.
attacks by the game system.
~*~
Back at Joyce Flourish Internet Cafe it's late and almost time for Ye Xiu to start his shift. Chen Guo is surprised that the man could spend all afternoon reading pages after pages of that boring dungeon walkthrough. Au contraire Ye Xiu explains, the walk through is actually quite interesting. The author, Concealed Light, is obviously a newbie, who has little practical experience. The walkthroughs were based off existing guides and video recordings making them extremely limited and impractical however the writer did not make any mistakes. Just based on the amount of data gathered and scenarios analysed this new comer is very impressive.
Uninterested in all the technical aspects of the game Chen Guo reminds Ye Xiu to kill a character name "Breaking Zero" who had killed Tang Rou's character earlier in the day. Ye Xiu accepts the tasks with no further thought. Logging onto the game he calls for everyone to gather at Line Canyon. One Inch Ash, Steamed Bun and Soft Mist all respond but strangely Cleansing Mist is not yet online.
Ye Xiu's face! XD
Seeing they were alone, Su Mucheng happily pulls away her scarf. She's decided to come visit Ye Xiu at the cafe. Ye Xiu makes room for Su Mucheng at the front desk and the two return to the game.
~*~
In game a strange group of people are seen tracking the movements of all the people in Lord Grim's team. Noticing some people trailing him, Lord Grim dodges into a small alleyway and manages to escape. Su Mucheng looks over to Ye Xiu's screen in surprise, she and Yifan were being hunted as well. Could it be Liu Hao again? Quickly messaging everyone, Ye Xiu realizes that his whole team was being hunted and Tang Rou had died again. Steamed Bun was a bit more lucky, he had managed escape into a small town and hidden himself.
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| Who's this new guy? |
Out in the small town a large group of people is wandering round looking for Steam Bun. One of them, a character of the Summoner class stumbles around hoping to be the first to find Steamed Bun. Spotting a large well, the Summoner peaks inside to check and hears something from the gloomy depths. Leaning further inside to hear better, the Summoner looses his balance and tumbles in. The bottom of the well was dark except for the weak light of the Summoner's wand and from the gloom an eerie voice calls out, "I'm the demon of the well!". The Summoner screams and is whacked on the back of the head by a brick.
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| Demon in the Well |
Conclusion
What a random end to the episode XD, but so much things to love about this episode again!The initial fight at the start had me going "OOOOH Wow" again when Yu Wenzhou explained the encumberence lowering trick. Extra parts to the Unspecialized character puzzle are given this episode which I really enjoyed diving into. I hope I did an adequate job explaining for readers who are not gamers. These are some of those things that immediately clicks with gamers but might be a obscure for other people.
Regarding the comment 'true Unspecialized'. From this episode we got to know a bit more about the game mechanics and which further shows what a great design the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella is. I can't remember if the book originally mentioned weapon switch penalties but it most likely has it. Also for avid readers/watchers you may have also realized that to play an Unspecialized class you need to understand the skill sets of all classes. So this means only someone like Ye Xiu who knows all classes, is a "Master of all classes" along with the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella can expose the Unspecialized true power.
Novel Tracking: Chapter 198 - we're really chomping through the chapters here. XD