Yesterday, I had to do whatever my little sister asked for.
Yeah… I HAD to. I didn’t have the leisure to choose. Otherwise, she would ensure I couldn’t sleep properly for the next few days, turning my dreams into nightmares… and I’m not talking about the game.
I complained, but she still forced me into it. I couldn’t refuse her because of the last match, where I died and she destroyed the enemy core alone. It’s not that I didn’t want to, after all, we won the game thanks to her.
But I still complained, because… where’s the fun otherwise? Also, when I don’t complain about this kind of stuff, the situation quickly escalates and her requirements turn kind of dangerous.
By the way, talking about dangerous stuff… it’s kind of sinister and nightmarish the scene where she keeps pushing through all those traps singlemindedly, staring at the dungeon core all the time and repeating the words ‘brother’, ‘destroy’, and ‘praise’.
I was scared shitless when watching it, imagining what would happen later to me. Luckily, the nightmares didn’t come this time… yet. Though I still tremble when I remember it…
Anyway! Now isn’t the time to think about that.
What I need to do now is recall everything that happened in our last match and try to find where the main problems lay, so that I can fix them.
Of course, I’m not going to do this alone… everyone in our team has something he or she should improve for the next match. For example, Ricard and Laura fighting each other inside the gigantic monster, Clara ignoring everything around her to reach the core, or them not wanting to retreat when they were in a bad situation and tried to force their way through with an extremely dangerous tactic…
As you can see, THEY have a lot to think about and improve for our next match! Hahaha!
Me? Nah, I did fine… the only thing I need to think about and improve is my avoidance skills. The skills needed so that I NEVER encounter those fanatics again. I don’t want to be in the same room as them in the future! Absolutely never! If have to put up with their antics one more time, I might as well kill myself!
Ok, ok… you got me… I too have things to improve about the match.
But I won’t give up on the other stuff, and I won’t tolerate anyone who says improving the dungeon is more important! After all, my own sanity is the most important!
“Aaaagh… If only I could blacklist them, to never encounter them again… Or banish them from my dungeon and the forums talking about me… Or ban them from DMA, not allowing them to play the game ever again… Or kill them all in real life… Hey, hey, Andreu! Let’s not go that far, should we? There’s no need to ruin your life for some crazy guys!”
Sometimes I lose myself in it and end up with weird and crazy ideas… Hahaha… I scratch my head awkwardly, trying to convince myself I was just joking.
I’m sure it’s because their craziness spread to me after so much time spent together… Yeah, it must be it.
Well, let’s try to forget about it, and let’s go…
I enter the room the DMA staff assigned to us for this tournament after calming myself down. We’re now going to talk about the past match and prepare for the next.
Of course, we could meet in real life, but it’s easier to talk and plan about the next match when you can actually touch and see what you’re talking about, as well as readily have any stats or descriptions you need, provided by the game.
“Hello, Laura.”
It looks like the only one in the room is Laura.
“Hey there, Andreu. Isn’t Clara with you?”
“She’ll enter the game soon. When we were about to connect, she said that she forgot to do something important and told me to come first.”
“I see…”
She signals me to sit in front of her before taking a seductive pose, pushing her breasts forward with her crossed arms. She licks her lips.
“Ricard will be late too, so it looks like we have some private time right now… Fufufu!”
I gulp. Oh, boy. Aren’t you a little bit too much into the roleplay right now, Laura?
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“So, guys… shall we talk about the next match?” Asks Ricard.
Ricard and Clara joined us in the DMA’s tournament room after some time of being alone.
We talked about some random stuff, but Ricard was getting anxious, his desire of wanting to explain some stuff about the game increasing as time passed. As expected, he’s the one to change the topic.
“Well, we’re here for it, so let’s do it!” I say. “This’ll be our third match. I know little about the enemy team because you offered to look at their playstyle and other stuff, Ricard. What I do know is that if we win this match, we’re going to face the Dragon Knights in the next one… assuming they win too, of course. But given they’re everyone’s favorites…”
“Come on, Andreu! Stop getting depressed every time you think about the team your sister trained! Thanks to this great me and everything I investigated for the next match, we should have an easy time! And then, we can… struggle as much as we can against the Dragon Knights team…”
You know, Ricard... What you say kind of sounds like encouragement, but at the same time it doesn’t. You said we can win if we try hard enough, just to continue saying that it’s a fruitless effort because we’ll lose anyway!
“Mmmmgh… if only Marta didn’t train them! I’m sure she did it after knowing we were participating in the tournament, just so that you don’t play with me as much as you’re doing now, Andreu! She’s jealous! Hmph!”
“Oh, come on Clara… I don’t think so...”
In fact, I don’t know. But I don’t want to think badly of her. Until it’s confirmed, I want to at least doubt why she did it.
“Please stop with this, I don’t want to talk about it again… Let’s focus on the match again, please.”
“But it’s true! She’s… she’s evil!”
Laura tries to stop Clara from talking about it again, but she only manages to make Clara angrier. It’s my turn to intervene now.
“Clara, stop with this.” She pouts at my words and turns her head away. That’s so cute. “So Ricard, what did you find? Please keep it to what’s relevant.”
Nobody wants a two-hour-long explanation. Though I don’t say this last part aloud.
*Khmm!* Ricard loudly clears his throat before starting. “First of all, I’m sure you all know a little about our next enemies, right?”
He looks at every one of us in succession. Both I and Laura nod when he looks at us, but Clara… She starts to fidget around and clearly avoids his gaze. When I too look at her, she starts to sweat as she continues to avert her eyes.
“Clara…”
I call to her, forcing her to look at me. After an intense staring contest - if you can call it because I’m sure her eyes are swimming around, though I can’t see it because her champion doesn’t have a face - she finally opens her mouth before admitting what I, and everybody else, already suspected.
“...no.”
“Well, don’t worry, I’ll just need to explain everything from the start, then.”
Oh, no! Please, Ricard! I beg you! I know we have time, but we also have lives! I don’t want to spend all day talking about it!
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Unaware of my internal complaints, Ricard starts his explanation.
If it shows on my face, he either doesn’t notice or completely ignores it. I suspect it’s the former because he’s too excited about this. But I can’t discard the latter either… he would do it even if he did notice.
“The next team we’re fighting against is called Battle Forgers. As you can imagine from their name, they are a group of players who like machines and weaponry a lot, and use it for most of what they do.”
“Like golems and machines, you mean?”
Clara listens to Ricard properly and even asks a question. Is my little sister finally growing up?
“Yes. In fact, they have two players from the Magic Engineers and two from the Stone Lords factions. So two play golems and machines and the other two play dwarfs and their inventions.”
As Ricard continues his explanation, Clara mutters to herself. I can clearly hear her, but it looks like Ricard is too focused on his explanation to notice.
“Uuugh… machines and golems aren’t cute… Well, most of them aren’t… maybe it’s possible to create tiny mice with trunks too…?”
I was wrong. It doesn’t look like she will grow any time soon…
Also… focus, Clara! You shouldn’t miss this explanation! If I have to listen to his rambling, you must listen too!
“In the previous matches, they used lots of different units, but about half of them were always dwarfs, and the other half were golems. If they don’t change tactics, and given both their factions, we should expect lots of sturdy units that have high defenses and/or high HP.”
He continues, ignoring everything else.
I’m sure he would only stop if somebody asked him a question. And not because somebody interrupted him, but because it would be the perfect chance to start with a new explanation before resuming the previous one.
I just hope nobody asks anything…
“Also regarding their dungeon, they like to use small and compact ones. This way they can use the dwarfs and golems without worrying too much about their lack of speed, and it also helps with the immobile or absurdly slow traps, contraptions, and other machines they like to use. In fact, in the two matches until now, they kept all dungeon portals within five minutes of the dungeon core at maximum. Though this doesn’t mean it’s easy to reach it…”
“What things do you think we need to look out for? What do you think is the most dangerous stuff for us?”
Laura, as our strategist, has to care about those things the most. That’s why she makes this question.
But I want to complain. WHY did you ask a QUESTION during Ricard’s ‘knowledge drilling’ session!? Don’t you know this is asking for a slow and torturous death!?
It looks like this is going to take quite a while... Well, nothing new here. It’s like this every, single, fucking, time…
“The most important is…”
As usual, I would ask somebody to kill me right now - in the game, not in real life - if not because… we’re in this special room the DMA staff created, and we can’t die! We’re invulnerable! Not even death can save my poor soul right now!
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I’m currently waiting for the match to start.
The dungeon portal isn’t working yet, as you would expect. It’s interesting that it looks so different when activated compared to now. The stone arch that forms it looks dull, and instead of being able to see inside the enemy dungeon through it, there’s a black rippling film that covers the whole area.
It’s… very sinister. So sinister I feel as if I were going to be sucked into a black hole or something of the like.
Out of curiosity, I tried to touch it and it doesn’t actually do anything. When you touch the rippling black surface, it feels the same as concrete… concrete that’s constantly changing shapes and rippling as if it were liquid.
Really weird, if you ask me. But this is a game, so the devs can do whatever they want.
This time we have a well-thought-out plan. Unlike the first time, when we had no plan at all; or the last match, when everything we planned was useless because the enemy was so crazy.
I turn to look behind me once again. There’s… quite a lot of monsters here.
This time we’re using a few traps and most of our forces consist of monsters. I know, I know… it goes against my own style. But there was no other way around this time! We had no other choice than to do it because most traps aren’t very useful against resilient enemies…
Of course, I’m talking about traps that deal damage. If this match was a normal PvP one, we could prepare other traps that worked against tank units, but those traps are mostly to stall for time, a useless tactic in the tournament.
…unless you don’t care about winning as the All Shall Despair team did.
Aahh, please… Let’s try to forget about them… I got a headache just remembering what happened in the last match…
Returning to the topic, please…
The useful traps in the tournament are the damaging ones and the ones that disrupt and disperse the enemy.
Dealing 30 damage to a unit that has 50 HP is quite a lot, and if they’re unlucky and activate a second one, they’re dead! Hahaha! In this way, you steadily reduce the number of invaders without risking your units, and then finish the work fighting directly against the few enemies remaining.
The problem is that, even if both dwarves and golems are resilient units, they play very differently.
Dwarves usually go in tightly-packed formations, so a trap that deals area damage can be devastating against them. But golems rely on stats and go generally alone, making high-damage traps very effective against them.
See where I’m going?
The traps that work against dwarves do almost nothing against the golems and vice-versa. Golems take negligible damage from area traps, and traps that deal damage to a single target might kill a dwarf, but… it’s like a drop in the ocean when there are a lot more right next to the one that died.
So yes, we decided to avoid traps because we were not sure what units the enemy players are going to bring to this match. Instead, we have a healthy mix of monsters that can fight against any kind of enemy and are capable of adapting to the situation.
They can adapt because we can give them orders, ok? Don’t go thinking a miracle happened and they’re now actually intelligent…
As I was saying before, there are a lot of monsters behind me: the plan is to attack the enemy dungeon with numbers. There are a lot of stitched, zombies and skeletons, imps and hellspawns… and a bunch of whatever-the-basic-abyss-unit-is-called too.
Those are the bulk of our forces, but our true power is in the elite units. There are a few from both Ricard’s and Laura’s factions, as well as my two Not A Rabbits.
Both Ricard and Laura agreed to exploit the common weakness both dwarves and golems have: speed. In short, all our elite units are speedsters that can abuse their lack of movement speed, giving us an advantage in combat.
That’s the plan we have. We’ll see if it actually works or not.
The only fast units I have are the Not A Rabbits, so I could only bring two strong units to this match. But they are the fastest of all our units! Though I also bring the slowest ones, the stitched…
I’m a man of extremes, hahaha!
“6, 5, 4…”
Ups! I was so distracted I lost track of time! The match almost starts without me noticing! Hahaha!
I look at Ricard, who’s right next to me. In this match, we’re in charge of attacking the enemy dungeon while Laura and Clara will defend.
“Are you ready? The match is going to start soon.”
“Ah? Oh, yes, I am!”
He asks me and I answer. Did he notice I was spaced out?
“Remember you’re in charge of the mobile units, Mad Rat. And don’t forget, I’ll hold the line with our slow and resilient units as you charge from the sides. I’m the anvil, and you’re the hammer.”
“Yes, yes. I already know…”
How many times does he have to repeat the same thing? Doesn’t he grow tired of it?
“3, 2, 1, Battle Start!”
The portal turns on as the dark film turns transparent. The match has started!
I take a quick look at the enemy dungeon and see… is that a giant machine? It looks like it’s charging something. There are giant coils and they grow brighter as the seconds pass…
“Oh, no! Fuck! RUN!”
From my side, Ricard shouts to the units behind us before looking at me. When he sees I’m stunned and don’t understand anything, he pulls me out of the way.
Our monsters scatter in all directions at his order, like cockroaches. The amazing formations I spent so much time on, completely destroyed in an instant.
Oh, what a shame!
As Ricard continues to drag me away, I see light coming through the dungeon portal. It’s so bright it looks like the sunlight coming through a window in a very dark room. From this angle, I can’t see what’s happening on the other side, but so much light is kind of ominous.
Sure enough, about five seconds after the match started, a light beam comes through the portal.
Everything, and let me be clear, EVERYTHING in the light’s path vanishes instantly. Not only the monsters but also the decorations, which are supposed to be indestructible, disintegrate as soon as the light touches them.
When the light beam finally disappears, only the monsters that managed to move aside on time survived. The elites are fine, because they were very fast from the start, but the rest, especially the stitched, didn’t fare so well.
Poor stitched… They survived for what, maybe five seconds? Not all of them died, but still…
What the heck was that!? Why can’t we have a normal start in any of our matches!?
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
“Every faction has lots of options when it comes to building their dungeons, but there are some that are more difficult to predict than the others because they have more freedom.
The thing is that, in PvP, it’s important to exploit what you know about your enemy and use that information to your advantage. Exploit your enemy’s weakness if you can, and protect yours. A difficult thing to do against the most versatile factions.
That’s why, in my opinion, the worst factions you can play against, when it comes to predicting what the enemy player will bring to the match, are the Flesh Monstrosities and the Magic Engineers. You’ll never know for sure what units will the former use, nor what machines will the latter one have.
Though, luckily, there are very few players in the high rankings that play the Flesh Monstrosities, so we don’t have to worry too much about them.”
- Excerpt of an interview with a high-ranking DMA player.