Before playing the game, players need to choose the right players to win the game. The selection of Designated Hitters is particularly important for MLB The Show 24. The role of Designated Hitters in baseball games is to replace the pitcher in the batting order with another player in the lineup.

Designated Hitters must focus mainly on offensive statistics, as their main area of ​​expertise should be swinging the bat and hearing the crack of the ball when it makes contact. Designated Hitters come on the field late in the game and play one of the defensive positions, including the pitching role, but must be designated before the game starts.

This article will show you the best players in this role who will play a key role in the bottom of the ninth inning and hit a wonderful walk-off home run to win the game.

10. Charlie Blackmon MLB The Show Rating: 73 Team: Colorado Rockies Batting Handiness: Left-Handed Main Strengths: Batting Clutch, Durability, and Arm Accuracy

Charlie Blackmon has a 96 contact rate against left-handed pitchers, and he has enough power to hit the ball deep enough to reach first base and put himself in a position to score, as his Arm Strength is 84. This makes the lack of defensive awareness not affect it too much.

9. Eloy Jimenez

MLB The Show Rating: 73 Team: Chicago White Sox Batting Handiness: Right-Handed Main Strengths: Batting Clutch, Contact L, and Contact R

Eloy Jimenez is able to withstand high pitch counts and make contact with pitches just outside the strike zone, as he scores 84 in batting clutch points.

He can swing hard against both left-handed and right-handed pitchers, and his contact is one of his best weapons, especially against right-handed pitchers. You can get it through $1.

8. Harold Ramirez MLB The Show Rating: 74 Team: Tampa Bay Rays Batting Handiness: Right-Handed Main Strengths: Contact L, Durability, and Batting Clutch

Harold Ramirez can play long games and get multiple at-bats in a game, and with his strong Batting Clutch and Durability ratings, Ramirez is also good at reading pitches and determining when to swing for the best hit.

Against left-handed pitchers, Harold Ramirez’s swing-to-strike rating is 99, but against right-handed pitchers, it’s only 80.

7. Joey Meneses MLB The Show Rating: 75 Team: Washington Nationals Batting Handiness: Right-Handed Main Strengths: Batting Clutch, Durability, and Contact L

Joey Meneses’ Contact Swing is powerful against both Left and Right-Handed pitchers, and Joey Meneses’ 87-level Power Swing is also a big threat to those Left-Handed pitchers.

Joey Meneses can play multiple positions, including second base, left field, and right field, but his defensive stats lack the depth to be a full-time player.

6. Giancarlo Stanton MLB The Show Rating: 77 Team: New York Yankees Batting Handiness: Right-Handed Main Strengths: Power L, Power R, and Contact L

Giancarlo Stanton has pure power, with a power rating of 96 against right-handed pitchers and 87 against lefties. Stanton doesn’t strike out often because of his 80 Batting Clutch. However, his Fielding and Reaction numbers are poor.

5. Andrew McCutchen MLB The Show Rating: 78 Team: Pittsburgh Pirates Batting Handiness: Right-Handed Main Strengths: Discipline, Durability, and Speed

McCutchen’s contact swing has a solid 71 rating, while his power swing is a whopping 93. Durability rating is 82, and Plate Discipline is 98. On defense, McCutchen is still capable of outfield.

4. Marcell Ozuna MLB The Show Rating: 80 Team: Atlanta Braves Batting Handiness: Right-Handed Main Strengths: Power L, Power R, and Durability

Marcell Ozuna is all about power, 85 against Right-Handed Pitchers and 98 against Left-Handed Pitchers. His batting key stats are 72. His only weakness is a lack of vision, which may affect the chances of more difficult pitches. And his lack of durability and defensive performance are also below par.

3. Byron Buxton MLB The Show Rating: 86 Team: Minnesota Twins Batting Handiness: Right-Handed Main Strengths: Power R, Speed, and Fielding

Byron Buxton can instinctively catch balls hit into the outfield faster and has the power to put the ball back in play and minimize the damage. This is related to his 89 Fielding data that perfectly matches his 80 Arm Strength.

2. Bryce Harper MLB The Show Rating: 91 Team: Philadelphia Phillies Batting Handiness: Left-Handed Main Strengths: Discipline, Contact R, and Batting Clutch

Bryce Harper is famous for his contact swing. The reason why Bryce Harper can keep hitting home runs despite high pitch counts is because of Plate Discipline 99 and Batting Clutch 90.

Bryce Harper performs well in the outfield defense and is a player that many people like to use during the season.

1. Shohei Ohtani MLB The Show Rating: 99 Team: Los Angeles Dodgers Batting Handiness: Left-Handed Main Strengths: Power R, Arm Strength, and Contact R

Shohei Ohtani’s strengths are Velocity, Break, Pitching Clutch and Arm Strength. Shohei Ohtani has excellent power for both right-handed and left-handed pitchers, and his Plate Discipline is 93 and Batting Clutch is 88, which gives him plenty of chances to hit the ball out of the park.

Shohei Ohtani has received a perfect score of 99 in MLB The Show series for two consecutive years. He is not only the best designated hitter but also the best pitcher in MLB The Show 24.

By understanding the characteristics and abilities of these players, I believe you have made a better choice to win the game. So choose your Designated Hitters and start the game!

Before players start playing, it’s important to know what’s in store and what’s new in the game. Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail brings new dungeons to explore, character classes to master, and weapons and gear to collect.

With the new level cap of 100, it can be a daunting task for players trying to reach the endgame as quickly as possible. So finding where to start quests and preparing items ahead of time is key to ensuring a smooth experience.

This guide will give you some tips on taking on the new Viper or Pictomancer classes and getting your character to level 100 as quickly as possible.

Stockpile Experience Buffs

Acquiring various experience buffs ahead of time can help you reach the new level 100 in Dawntrail as quickly as possible. There are three main types of experience buffs to look out for.

Well-fed buff granted by any food increases experience gained by 3% for 30 minutes. Food that grants the Well-fed buff can be easily obtained from various vendors, obtained from other players via the Market Board, or crafted by players who have upgraded Culinarian crafting job.

Rested experience, which increases experience gained by 50% during the event. Rested experience must be accumulated over time by logging out of the Sanctuary.

The maximum amount of Rested experience a character can accumulate after resting for seven days is one full level’s worth. If you don’t have the luxury of time to earn this experience, $1 can help.

Free Company buffs are available to Free Company Officers and Squadron Commanders, increasing experience gained by 5% to 15% during the event. Heat of Battle line of Free Company buffs can be got by Free Company members who have obtained permission to get company actions.

These company actions can be got from OIC Quatermaster located at each Grand Company headquarters. Heat of Battle I costs 3,010 company credits, and Heat of Battle II costs 6,020 company credits.

Heat of Battle III cannot be got and must be crafted in the company workshop in Free Company and then recharged in Aetherial Wheel Stand for 70 hours. Players who have unlocked and upgraded a company squadron can obtain a personalized version of Heat of Battle III buff that lasts two hours by completing quests that grant Squadron Battle Manual items.

Prepare Gear Sets For Viper and Pictomancer

You can prepare a full set of level 80 gear in advance before you can experience the two new classes, Viper and Pictomancer, which will start at level 80.

Augmented Cryptlurker set is the best armor set available for level 80 characters. Viper uses Scouting series of equipment, while Pictomancer uses Casting series of equipment. These can be purchased from Aymark in Eulmore (X:10, Y:12) or Mowen's Merchant in The Crystarium (X:10, Y:12) using Allagan Tomestones of Poetics. In order to purchase a full set of armor and accessories, 3455 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics are required, as well as an additional 600 poetic tomestones for weapons at the launch of Dawntrail.

Clean Up Your Inventory

Dawntrail’s new quests bring a ton of new rewards and items. You’ll want to clean up your inventory, including your chocobo saddlebag and retainer inventory, ahead of time, to prevent spending time thinking about how to make room when you get new weapons and gear, new consumables, and new crafting materials. You can pass on obsolete items to other players, which is also a great way to earn extra gold.

Some good examples of items that can be sold or thrown away are low-level materials that have become obsolete, excess food and potions that will receive new upgraded versions, or old crafting materials that are unlikely to be used in new recipes. Additionally, gear that players have upgraded and no longer use can be placed inside an ornate dresser to save inventory space while preserving the appearance of the gear for aesthetic purposes.

Prepare Weekly and Daily Turn-ins

Early Access begins on Friday, June 28, but weekly events won’t reset until the following Tuesday, so you can complete multiple daily and weekly quests to accumulate items and upgrade experience in advance.

Save Up Allagan Tomestones

With the release of Dawntrail, the current set of Allagan Tomestones used as end-game currency will become obsolete, but until then, it’s not unnecessary to have a sufficient supply.

After Dawntrail’s release, all Allagan Tomestones of Causality and Allagan Tomestones of Comedy can be redeemed for Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, the currency used to get previous chapter end-game rewards. While players can usually only hold up to 2,000 Allagan Tomestones of Poetics at a time, stockpiling Causality and Comedy tomestones allow players to redeem more Poetics tomestones as soon as a new chapter is released, effectively increasing the maximum capacity.

So that’s some of the things you can do to prepare for Dawntrail’s release. So collect as many items as you can for your game upgrades! Hopefully, these preparations will help you get a head start when the game starts.

Killing Blood Lord Mohg is essential if you want to play Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which releases on June 21st. This non-critical boss, who previously oversaw Miquellacocoon, is the main character of this expansion.

You have a chance to complete the dominant story without touching Mohg, but once you do, his blood curse attacks and haemorrhage build up can easily destroy you.

But if you follow this guide and do some careful preparation, you can kill him in the simplest way.

How To Touch Mohg?

To actually touch Mohg in Elden Ring, you need to complete Elden Ring Varre questline first. After defeating Godrick Grafted and activating Grand Lift of Dectus, you can start the quest at any time. If you haven’t touched these yet, you may need to do the above first.

After completing Varre quest, you will receive Pureblood Knight’s Medal, which will lead you to the location of Mohg. This location is also one of the most favorable places in the game to farm $1, so make an effort to get Pureblood Knight’s Medal.

When you start using Pureblood Knight’s Medal, it will lead you to an underground area called Mohgwyn Palace and a site of grace called Palace Approach Ledge-Road. North of the site of grace, you will see a road lined with Albinaurics, which are the major source of farming in this area.

If you only want to find Mohg, then jump on Torrent and go north, passing those Albinaurics and entering an open area full of blood. At this point, continue to go north, and the road ahead will slowly begin to turn left (west), and when a Giant Skeleton Spirits appears in front of you, you are on the right path.

Eventually you’ll come to a tall stone archway, and as you walk up the stairs Torrent will disappear, and you’ll eventually reach Mohgwyn Dynasty Mausoleum, and if you look to the side, you’ll see another site of grace.

From here, you can continue straight ahead until you reach a cliffside entrance. Most of Blistered Putrid Corpses you encounter here won’t do anything to you, so you can safely bypass them. But beware, not all of them, and beware of their blood loss effect.

At the entrance, things get a little tricky, as there are two Sanguine Nobles between you and the next site of grace. You can fight them, but they’ll also cause a lot of blood damage, so the best way to deal with them is to just bypass them, just like with Blistered Putrid Corpses.

Once you’re out of that door, you’ll see Dynasty Mausoleum Midpoint site of grace right in front of you, and if Sanguine Noble is still chasing you, you can activate this site of grace to get rid of the “tail”. All you have to do now is walk up the stairs and follow the path on the right to the elevator, and you’ll find Mohg.

At this time, there will be a group of Albinaurics fighting a Sanguine Noble. Please do not participate in this battle! But you will see a box in front of Sanguine Noble. Inside the box is Sombre Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone that you need. You need to take it quickly and escape when they are not paying attention.

Preparation For Lord Of Blood Mohg

Now that we have covered how to find Mohg, let’s look at what you need to do before you find him. You will need to prepare the following three items:

Mohg’s Shackles-Use this twice to pin Mohg to the ground during the first phase. Stunning Bolus Recipe-This allows you to create a stunning bolus that negates the buildup of blood loss. Cleansing Crystal Tears-Can be used in Flask of Wonderful Physique to negate Mohg's Blood Curse.

Besides these three items, you can also use Summon while fighting him and head to the stairs before the elevator to ask for help in front of Summoning Pool. Now let’s look at how to get these three items.

Mohg’s Shackle

You can get Mohg’s Shackle from Subterranean Shunning Grounds in Leyndell, Royal Capital, specifically at the site of grace on the Underground Roadside.

When you leave the room where the site of grace is, you will see a ladder in the alcove on the left. Climbing it will lead you to a large room filled with pipes. You need to be careful of the gargoyles on the pipes and Giant Crayfish on the ground. When you descend from the pipes to the ground and turn left, Mohg’s Shackle will be on a wall to the southeast.

Stanching Bolus Pecipes

Stanching Bolus Pecipes can stop blood loss from accumulating. Although you can find some in the game, it seems easier to make them. The recipe is in Nomadic Warrior’s CookBook, which can be found north of the Stormhill Shack site of grace in Stormhill, on a corpse at the end of the bridge behind Finger Crone. You will need the following materials to craft Stanching Bolus Pecipes:

Herba Cave Moss Land Octopus Ovary Purifying Crystal Tear

Purifying Crystal Tear is useful in combat as it creates a bottle of Rite of Blood that can counteract Rite of Blood that Mohg has accumulated and heal the damage you take in combat.

You will need to go to Second Church of Marika in Altus Plateau and defeat NPCs that invade there - Eleonora and Violet Bloody Finger.Besides Purifying Crystal Tear, you will also get Eleonora’s Poleblade, which causes blood loss and becomes stronger with Dexterity and Arcane. It will be a great helper in defeating Mohg.

How To Defeat Mohg?

To make your battle go more smoothly, you will need to make sure you have the three items mentioned above. (Make sure!) Since Mohg will not rush you when you enter, you have plenty of time to go to the arena to pick up the flask and summon any ashes. Note that you need to make sure there are players willing to help you.

This guide will cover the safest and most effective way to defeat Mohg, which is to use Comet Azur's magic build and attack Mohg from a distance while he is distracted by his summons.

However, this is not the only option. Since Mohg is weakest to blood damage, any build that stacks blood damage with weapons or abilities will quickly reduce his health. In addition, when you get Purifying Crystal Tear, you will also win Eleonora’s Poleblade, which will cause Mohg to lose more blood.

Mohg is also helpless against physical damage and other damage, so you can choose a build that you are familiar with to defeat him first. But it should be noted that you must not use a fire and scarlet rot-based build, which is almost useless to him.

If you want to fight him head-on. The first stage is to avoid Mohg’s slow and telegraphed trident sweeps. If you are agile, you can attack while dodging it. You also need to be careful of bloodflame attacks. Both slashing talon attacks and flaming pools will cause you to lose blood.

At the beginning, Mohg will also cast blood curses on you, but your Purifying Crystal Tear will negate these curses, and you can use Mohg’s Shackle here to immobilize him and attack more.

When its health drops to half, the second phase comes. This is when Mogh adds blood splashes to most of his attacks and grows wings to add some aerial attacks to his repertoire. This is where Stanching Bolus Pecipe comes in handy. You need to be alert at all times because its attacks have a wide range. Also, try not to dodge them all the time, but to dodge through them.

Isn’t it easier to defeat Mogh with this introduction? There is a saying that goes, don’t fight a battle you are not prepared for. So follow this guide and get started!

Knowing what's coming to the game and what's changing before embarking on the journey is essential for any game, and this is also true in Elder Scrolls Online.

Since 2017 Morrowind expansion, Elder Scrolls Online has been recognized as one of the most popular modern MMOs. Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road marks the eighth chapter of this fantasy MMO game, which has been launched for 10 years since 2014. Gold Road offers some exciting features that fans have been craving since Elder Scrolls Online was first released.

This article will show you what new content Gold Road has in store for us in 2024 to help you prepare for the start of the game in advance.

Set In Western Cyrodiil

Gold Road is one of the largest Chapters for Elder Scrolls Online to date, second only to Craglorn and Vvardenfell in size.

Gold Road retains some iconic locations from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, such as the city of Skingrad in the southwestern region of Cyrodiil. However, not only has the previous content been retained, but some new locations have been added as well.

The latest Chapter takes place in the West Weald, which is made up of three different sub-regions. The southeastern region makes up the Autumn Gold Road, whose capital is the city of Skingrad. The southwestern region is the newly emerged Dawnwood jungle, bordering the Valenwood province and some Wood Elf settlements. The northern region is home to the Colovian Highlands, which is dotted with Ayleid ruins and Imperial settlements. There is also the mysterious Wildburn region where brand new creatures and plants grow, influenced by the magical creations of the Dawnwood jungle.

Time Of Occurrence

Gold Road is a direct sequel to the last Chapter for Elder Scrolls Online, Necrom, and the second part of the seventh main story. Elder Scrolls Online generally takes place in Second Era, before the events of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim.

New Daedric Prince

Mirrormoore Incursion is a dynamic world event caused by the mysterious Daedric entity Valkynaz. These Daedric entities attempt to invade West Weald through Oblivion Portals created by Ritualists.

You will encounter waves of Daedric Occultists in West Weald to prevent further invasions. Six Valkynaz boss battles will bring rich rewards and lore details.

You can enhance your game strength through $1, increase the chance of winning battles against enemies, and make it easier to level up in the game.

The Story Of Gold Road

Through Mirrormoore Incursions that appear in the area and the dialogue between NPCs discussing new threats, we can feel the presence of the main villain, the forgotten Daedric Prince Ithelia. But Gold Road does not just deliver the classic Oblivion atmosphere, the mysterious Dawn Forest jungle also appears in the southwest. Unprecedented turmoil and mysterious subversion in the wilds of the West make the journey full of mystery and turmoil.

Spellcrafting

Scribe is the biggest game change in Gold Road Chapter. If you have the patience to complete the lengthy tutorial, Scribe will satisfy your desire to create your own spells in Elder Scrolls Online like in other Elder Scrolls games.

Scribe includes a Grimoire (skill type) and a Script that defines the skill parameters. There are 11 Grimoires to unlock in the game, as well as Focus Scripts that define the main function, Signature Scripts that add unique effects to skills, and Affix Scripts that add unique Buff/Debuff to skills.

Do The Scribe Questline First

You need to put in a lot of effort to unlock the various Scripts required in the 11 skill Grimoires. You can unlock Scribe through multiple multi-part quest chains involving Mages Guild. We strongly recommend that you complete Scribe multi-part quest chain in Gold Road Chapter first, as its components are only unlocked when the quest is active.

New Skill Styles

In Gold Road you can further customize your skills through Skill Styles. You can unlock most Skill Styles through level achievements and quests. In total, Gold Road includes 22 Skill Styles, which will allow you to customize the aesthetic characteristics of various Scribe and non-Scribe skills. More Skill Styles may appear in future updates. Aesthetic options range from colors to different animations, although customizing sound effects is not possible at this time.

New Item Sets

Gold Road finally implements a feature that veterans of the decade-old MMO have been asking for. The new feature is the ability to inject status effects into light and heavy attacks.

Gold Road actually includes 10 new item sets for you to find and craft, but Threads of War is the one that players should be most aware of, as it adds status effects directly to attacks.

12-Player Lucent Citadel Trial

Trials are essentially Elder Scrolls Online's ultimate raid dungeon content for teams of 12 players. Lucent Citadel is said to be the most difficult and complex 'trial' dungeon yet, and is located in Daedric vault on Fargrave Oblivion Plane.

This Trial dungeon follows the lost Daedric Prince Ithelia as she launches a frantic search for a mysterious relic called Arcane Knot, which causes untold trouble for your old ally Keshargo.

Elder Scrolls Online developers say Lucent Citadel is their most experimental dungeon yet, with obstacles that go far beyond combat, and even hints at levitation effects in promotional materials.

New Player-Friendly Gameplay

Elder Scrolls Online is one of the most welcoming MMOs to new players. As encouraged by Elder Scrolls Online's level scaling system, Elder Scrolls Online's entire library of Chapter content can be completed in any non-linear order you can imagine, regardless of player level, making revisiting previous areas engaging and fun. With the introduction of Scribing and the addition of the West Weald region, now is the best time to experience Elder Scrolls Online.

Not-So-Friendly Story For New Nlayers

Elder Scrolls Online itself lacks a comprehensive story summary of events. If a new player is not already aware of Necrom's ongoing storyline, it will not be able to understand the plot sequence of Gold Road and review events. After all, Gold Road follows the cliffhanger at the end of Necrom. Even though the game can read the lore book, we still recommend that you first understand the comprehensive timeline of events of all Chapters in Elder Scrolls Online.

Content Takes A Lot Of Time

Like the previous major Chapters of Elder Scrolls Online, the story of Gold Road takes about 15 hours to complete. However, there are also Mirrormoor Incursions, Lucent Citadel, Side Dungeon, Quest, 6 World/Delve bosses and 10 sets of items, as well as numerous other collectibles to discover. As mentioned earlier, the new Scribe system brings new grinding in the form of Grimoires and Scripts, and if you get them for multiple created characters, the time they take will increase.

After reading this article, you have some understanding of the new content of Gold Road. On this basis, you should also make a choice whether to experience the new game. I hope that our display of the new content of the game can help you get a head start in the game.

World of Warcraft Cataclysm expansion was a significant change for Azeroth and the people who live there, and the release of Cataclysm Classic gives players a chance to revisit the glory days of 14 years ago. While the most obvious changes to Cataclysm are the reimagined zones and new quests after Deathwing, the most significant is the overhaul of the player guilds system, which now has its own leveling system, perks, and guildwide achievements.

WoW Cataclysm Classic makes some changes to the guild perks and leveling system compared to the original version. Today we spoke to lead software engineer Nora Valletta and principal game designer Kris Zierhut to talk about why the team wanted to make the change.

They told us before the conversation that one of the main reasons was that the original guild system encouraged players to join super guilds, which actually went against the original spirit of the guild and needed to be urgently resolved.

From Leveling To Reputation

In the early days of World of Warcraft, players were advised to join a guild because the sense of community is a huge draw in MMORPG-style games. Recognizing this, Blizzard wanted to improve the game’s guilds system and introduced a leveling system for guilds to encourage players to join.

At first, it seemed like a good idea to allow players to level up a guild together to earn rewards, thereby strengthening the community. But this approach has led to the destruction of smaller guilds.

The leveling system for guilds encourages you to build a guild with numerous members, because the size of the guild does not change the experience rewards you can get. This means that a large guild will give you the same rewards as a small guild, but a small guild will be difficult to level up, and a large guild will be easy to fill up.

After the release, Nora said that she found that some players in small guilds would quit their guilds and join the large guilds to get more rewards. And those newly formed guilds could not find people to join. They were very sorry for the demise of these small guilds, which prompted them to want to change.

Nora sighed and told us that they knew very clearly that this was a problem for players and would bring some difficulties and unhappiness to players, so they couldn’t make the same mistake again.

With mounts, pets, and transmogrification appearances, World of Warcraft players go to great lengths to get them. But because some of these items are locked into a leveling system for guilds, it creates a lot of impersonal, large guilds. New players invite a lot of players to join for these rewards, which attracts more players with similar requirements.

So in WoW Cataclysm Classic, the leveling system for guilds was changed to a guild reputation system. Players can earn a reputation in a guild just like any faction in the game, and rewards are awarded based on reputation. This will not only allow smaller guilds to survive, but also prevent players from joining and leaving to retain their reputation.

Changes To Perks System

Guild perks are more valued by players than mounts, tabards, and pets. Likewise, guild perks are only available in large guilds. These perks can increase the speed of a player’s mounts, allow them to bank or send messages to members of their own guild as needed.

Zierhut told us that many perks are now granted to players immediately when they join any guild, and one of them is the removal of Cash Flow perk. In original Cataclysm, when you had Cash Flow, every time you defeated an enemy, you would receive an additional 10% of $1, which would be automatically deposited into your guild bank.

This idealistic view does sound good, but some opportunistic players will take these extra rewards directly from the guild leader. Zierhut explained that the original intention of creating guilds was to be a place for communication, not this. The change they are making is to make guilds a means for teams to move towards one or more common goals.

In addition to the removal of Cash Flow perk, “Have Group, Will Travel” was also changed. This perk was also very bad in terms of player response, as it made summoning stones completely useless and would teleport the entire group to the location you needed.

This caused some players to be interrupted immediately while doing their own quests, interrupting their game progress. The perk was eventually removed from the WoW Cataclysm Classic world after one expansion, which was good news for many players.

Although some players may not be used to these changes, they should not feel pressured. The creative team has been working hard to make the most appropriate changes to the guild since the release of World of Warcraft Cataclysm Classic, and they also hope to see more posts on social media from players praising this change. Finally, I wish you have a merry game with them!

Digital Theater is a growing field in online games, especially in FFXIV. From Curtain Call Theater to A Stage Reborn, the culture of Digital Theater is growing stronger and stronger. Of course, it is not just FFXIV that is doing it. Fallout 76 is also inviting Wasteland Theater Company and others to participate.

At this stage, FFXIV players have established a relatively complete community, which includes sports events, community festivals, museums, etc., and the most important thing is that there is a theater club covering many performing companies. This is what we call a Digital Theater.

Today, let’s talk to several experts in the FFXIV theater community: Stanzek Rosyasch and Soso, to learn how these virtual companies prepare and rehearse, and how to adapt real stories into the settings of Etheirys.

How To Rehearse In Digital Theater?

Recently, a Sherlock Holmes classic, A Scandal in Bohemia (localized in Etheirys as A Scandal in Aldenard), was performed at Firebird Theater in FFXIV. Stanzek Rosyasch plays an assistant named Watson in it. Coincidentally, we’re going to be discussing how they’re going to prepare for the role in a digital theater roundtable.

Interestingly, we entered the chat room in advance. Rosyash entered the chat room, and his first words were: “Sorry, I’m late!” The quiet chat room suddenly erupted in laughter and the atmosphere became lively. He explained that out of respect for everyone’s attention, the chat room is usually very quiet, but this does not mean that it is always so serious. So Rosyasch often acts as the one who makes jokes, and small mistakes will become inside jokes, which will be easier to accept.

When rehearsing, you may have a wire on your head at any time, which will be very stressful. Rosyasch also said that this kind of fun helps to relieve the pressure of rehearsal. For Rosyasch, rehearsals are done on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday afternoons and evenings. However, he also explained that the most important step in balancing the focus of the production and his own work is to group the scenes to be performed. In order to give the actors a place to rest for the night, they may not be performed in the order they will be performed on stage.

Rosyasch also gave an example of sometimes asking what rehearsals involve. Someone would jokingly tell him to wear a skirt, and then on the day of the performance, all the actors would show up wearing the same skirt. This is a bit ridiculous! Besides this vignette, performers can obtain more equipment by trading $1, making their outfit closer to the character.

As for the content of rehearsals, their nature is obviously different from that of real theater rehearsals. Although it is less nervous to face a large audience, it is still much more difficult in other aspects. One of the biggest challenges in FFXIV is cues and timing. In the real world, this kind of drama performance is usually logically understood by the actors and involves a certain element of natural movement in the timing. Performances in Etheirys require super densely choreographed time precision, and there is no logical or natural instruction that can be easily remembered. So let’s throw the next question: what is it based on?

What Are Macros?

Macros in games allow players to coordinate actions, lines, expressions, and other personalized performances. If performers in Etheirys were to work together like in the real world, the timing would become very tight. Without precise timing, the desynchronization of macros would become more and more serious until the next macro appeared. This is what Soso explained to us. From this, we can see that macros are one of the most important tools for performers in the game.

Ordinary players may use macros when they want to do two actions together, such as Swiftcast and Resurrection. But performers who use macros to achieve three synchronizations of lines, expressions, and actions, Digital Theater also takes the use of macros to a new level.

Each macro can only have 15 lines, and at least half of these 15 lines are used to control expressions. In addition, actors may use some macro instructions to start a countdown so that their actions can be performed correctly. Some echoes are also used to help actors remember their next step or remind them to perform an action outside of the macro.

This means that FFXIV often needs dozens of macros for a full performance. This is also a problem if people leave macros for HUD features or other conveniences for players. A player can use up to 200 macro slots, so this is very limited for performers in FFXIV. Soso emphasized that this is not just a problem for actors, but also for writers to adapt to the limitations of the macrosystem.

Ultimately, rehearsals are about preparing performers to be watched by an audience. Although there is no similarity between this and real-world performances, the rehearsals of FFXIV performers are also a full reflection of their own technical knowledge or skills.