Lucky number 13. We're in Period 13, but week 14; so if you're triskaidekaphobic, you can think of it like counting floors in a hotel, thanks to that extended period earlier on... we almost had another one this time around thanks to that impressive LIVE outtage last night. There were flickers all through the week, at least for me, but from Friday night through Saturday morning, things got messy.
Period 13 was a bonus period too, so it's not all unlucky--unless you are like me and Bean Dove all of your unstarted titles last year. I have so many arcade games sitting at 1 achievement that would've been perfect!
To recap, the bonuses in play were for having each teammate on the team side start and complete three games where each game was at least 200 GS; and to score exactly 2020 GS on the individual side. They work somewhat synergistically as scoring 2020 is much easier when you've already nailed at least 600 individually for the team bonus. But the "exactly" means you have to be cautious to not go over and, of course, ensure that enough of them are high enough ratio to survive. Oh, wait, no... that's the caveat if this were a couple of months later. If you score 2020 GS in a week right now, you're surviving, even if it's all at 1.0. Unless you have some really massive decay... like from being one of the first people to kill 1000 dragons in
Neverwinter. That decay is hitting hard now, and it's going to continue to hit hard for a few more periods. Is the only solution to double-down and burn through more new games and then suffer even more decay? How long can one person keep that up?
Last year I was continually impressed when one contestant I was watching closely played--and absolutely destroyed in terms of completion time--new title after new title. Not only was this an awesome display of gaming prowess (and bank account residuals), but it kept the decay monster at bay for himself and his team for quite a long time. That strategy kept his team in the contest longer than mine was, so it's certainly possible for an extended period of time.
This week: 5
Last week: 13
It was an interesting week as we had higher scoring at the top end because of bonuses and lower scoring at the low end because of extensive decay keeping the pressure at the bottom lower than normal. Overall that pushed the team cutoff down and kept the individual cut-off manageable. That let a reasonable number of people squeak through without achieving again. On a related note, we had the start of the 2015 Leap Frog event this week. 2021 individuals entered. 268 (13.26%) got eliminated on the first day for failing to earn a single achievement.
Wow, what a week. The team overscored a bit, but it was for a good cause. As much as it was nice to stretch my scoring capacity a bit, having to have the game be started this period meant I couldn't really unload. But even then, when I had the opportunity to go for 2020, I ended up not doing it anyway. Part of that was some LIVE connection issues--I didn't want to risk playing when I knew an achievement could show up offline and ruin everything--but I just didn't have the time to sink into it that I thought I would. Still, it was a high scoring week for us and it felt good as we coasted to safety once more and got a bonus for our "troubles".
Either the ending to the first episode of
Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series or my completion of
Motocross Madness which was more annoying than I anticipated. Either is a good choice, for different reasons.
Random connection problems and timing issues that kept me from going for the "I Can See Clearly" bonus. Meh, I guess those points are better stored for later on anyway.
So remember last week when I said, "New starts are going to remain rare for a while, but occasionally something comes up that requires a start at a particular time. That's why I've got flexibility built into my plans." Yeah... so this week's bonus was one of those occasions that required flexibility. And my plans are still on schedule.
Motocross MadnessGame of Thrones: A Telltale Games SeriesTales from the Borderlands
Once again the bonus changed things up, and while I get completions to add to my total, they won't stick entirely as I need to get more episodes for the episodics, and they did nothing for my dived titles completion process.
Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games SeriesTales from the BorderlandsMotocross Madness