Gaming recently has sometimes felt like quite a chore, especially in the games I call my favorites and have played thousands of hours on. Getting into a funk like this is never fun but trying to find new games to play or get back into game I’ve played a thousand times just doesn’t work sometimes.

Starting first is the situation of League of Legends. My favorite game for over a year now, I haven’t been able to queue up a game solo for over two months now. If I don’t have a friend to play with, I just don’t even try. I used to play 5-10 games a day, and while I know I’ll get back into it at some points (I’ve spent so much money on it I can’t just leave), it is sad to not play like I had been. The events recently have been very disappointing, with the most recent battle pass being the first one I haven’t bought since I started the game (which, to be fair, I knew I wouldn’t complete it due to my lack of games played recently, but maybe having the pass would get me to play? Idk) All I know is that recently whenever I do play, it always feels like an uphill battle. I main support and my duo mains adc (who lane together), and we always get out to a huge lead over our lane opponents; but we still have been losing most of our games. I don’t want to be that guy who is always blaming his teammates for losses, but it seems like the elo I’ve been playing in, people just don’t have much of a brain to make coordinated plays with. It’s everyone for himself. I know I am normally playing people at a much lower skill level than myself, since my duo is also much lower elo, but it feels like there is never anyone who knows the standard plays I like to run. I feel like my extra game knowledge due to watching streamers and pro league has been a detriment at times, such as when I go for a play expecting my team to see what I see and be there too, but then being the only one around and quickly dying because of it. I need to remember that while league is a team game, other people you’re not in coms with won’t always understand what you’re trying to do, and therefore will likely fail the big plays you see the pros do.

In LOL’s place over the last two months+ has been Sea of Thieves, which I have a separate duo partner for. For most of my SOT career, I have stayed mostly PvE, maining the merchant alliance (which many players tend to think is the most boring of the main trading companies, but which I find enjoyable and relaxing). I recently reached Pirate Legend (which is kind of the main goal of the PvE and trading companies experience) and since then I have tried to dabble more into the PvP aspect of the game. Running the reaper flag (which shows your location to all other players on the server) is normally a great way to find PvP on the open seas, but most of the people we’ve found have either been friendly (whom I hate sinking) or really new to the game (whom I feel bad sinking or fight and win easily). Due to this, I have been trying out the new Hourglass PvP function, where there is matchmaking to fight another ship of your size in a circular arena. Spoiler: I’m horrible. Like, actually horrible. So is my duo. We do not win many matches, only 2 wins to our name out of 20 so battles. We kind of gave up on that, the people who play that game mode (which was only added about a month ago), are sweat lords who have played the game and mained PvP since release. I do not stand any chance against these people; the battles normally end within a minute. The times we get good matches against people of our skill level, they drag out for a very long time. These matches can go around 45 minutes to an hour, and normally don’t end until someone gets on the other person’s ship and kills the crew. That tends to be my crew getting killed. I man the cannons and my duo mans the wheel, which happens to be located directly next to the ladders onto the ship. He does not do a good job watching the ladder. The game mode has become increasingly frustrating to play to the point we may only play one match a week, on a night when we’ve done everything else and still have a ton of extra supplies. I still love the game and do PvE all the time, mainly to help get my friend to Pirate Legend status (he is so close!), but it has started to really feel like a grind I’m not always enjoying.

Then comes Paladins, probably my favorite PvP shooter game of all time, and I simply cannot play more than 2 or 3 matches per week. The same draw is just not there anymore. I used to play 60+ hours a week, grinding out ranked matches to get to my highest rank on any game (high Diamond), but now I may only play 60 minutes a week. It’s no secret the game is dying, with constant bugs and issues surrounding the game and little developer involvement, but I hate to see a game I once loved so much lose its player base. The ranked lobbies are dead, you’ll play against the same people over and over again, which is fine if the teams were balanced but, due to the low player count, there are people in much different skill groups matched up against each other. I’d give anything to see the lobbies full of people again, back up to the twenty thousand concurrent players on steam, and to play with my friends again, but I think it’s time to let the game go and move onto other things. I need to find another game that I am legitimately good at, my skills in league and CSGO are average, but my Paladins skills could have been semi pro (before Hi-Rez decided to nuke the pro league).
I’ve tried loading up old favorites I used to play, CSGO, DBD, even No Man’s Sky, but I just couldn’t find the charm to keep going on those. I still need to finish the Trails of Cold Steel Series (halfway through game 3) but I don’t have the time to sit down and play through those games in long sessions like I want to. I’ll make another blog post when I finally get around to finishing Trails 3 as I do have so many good things to say about that game series. I never was much of a JRPG fan before I played them, and now its been about 3 years since I first started the series, time really does go by fast.

As someone with 218 games in their steam library, you’d think I’d find something good to play, but I just can’t. I have so many games that I enjoyed for a little while but then uninstalled to make room and never got back to. I really want to go back and finish up Elden Ring, since I really did love it, but I’m not sure I have the patience to sit through the download or try and figure out where I was and what was going on in the story. I also have started Stray, a super fun cat game, but I also couldn’t play more than a few hours without putting it in the back of my mind and not opening it back up. I’m hoping that with Hogwart’s Legacy coming I can get over it and play the hell out of that game, assuming it is good. I’ve been hyped up for it since the initial teaser video a while ago, and if it’s a disappointment that’ll be, well, disappointing. I also still have Cyberpunk 2077 sitting in my library uninstalled, not touched since the mega update that supposedly fixed the game and made it top tier, like it was supposed to be at launch.

Sorry for the rambling, but since this is my first blog post I felt it was important to make it clear what games I like and will likely be talking about in my posts. I know that most of this was me ranting, but that’s kind of the mood with me and video games at the moment, I’m sure some later posts will be more lighthearted and involve more story telling of my adventures in the gaming world. But for now, thank you for reading and I hope to see you all next time.

I've recently seen myself become quit the vengeful Pirate in Sea of Thieves, and I'm not so against that. My friend has been finishing his grind to pirate legend, and he choose to go the reaper route instead of doing merchant (which is my favorite trading company), so we had to sail the seas with everyone knowing our location.

Obviously with that comes a lot of interested pirates who see us, a sloop, as an easy target. Now, I've admitted many times before that I am a really bad PvP player in the new 1v1 gamemode, however out on the open seas, I can sink just about anyone. I've had the fortune of just that. Recently, my crew was fighting a megalodon, when a Galleon crew of 4 decided to roll up to try and take our kill, which I was not okay with. Luckily, we had recently been to a Skeleton Fort, which are littered with Gunpowder Kegs (which deal massive amounts of damage to boats and 1-shot players). We had snuck some of these onto our ship. While the Galleon was busy harpooning and shooting our ship, I jumped out of the crows nest holding a gunpowder keg, lighting it up and putting it on their deck. As I jumped from my boat, I saw their boat explode and go up in flames. That gave us enough time to turn our boat and unleash an onslaught of cannonballs, sinking them in no time. People need to learn to not mess with reapers minding their own business.

Thanks to that fight, my friend reached pirate legend, which meant we could go back to our merchant voyages I love so much. The merchant voyages, while they don't involve any fighting, are clue based scavenger hunts or item deliveries, which I tend to enjoy since they are very peaceful and calm. That is currently my second highest trading company (after gold hoarders, which you level up simply by existing since treasure chests are everywhere). On the monthly ledger, which measures the top players for each company, I am always in the top 1% on merchant.

I've also finally gotten myself back to the league of legends grind, although I haven't started playing my ranked games for the season, I am still waiting for the ranked scene to calm down some. I did get one of my favorite champs, Orianna, to mastery 7 (the highest) recently with a few great games on support with her. I also got one more mastery 7 token (now I have 2 out of the 3) for Lulu, one of the other supports I play occasionally. Overall I've been carrying my games pretty well, I played a game of Karma support earlier that felt kind of like a 1v9 most of the time. I'll make sure to check back in once I begin my ranked climb.