The Unlucky

When looking for games, I like looking for games that utilize the player's prowess, a game that would make a frequent and more competent player shine more when playing compared to a person that has just started playing the game. Unfortunately now, most games have some sort of luck system integrated into them like looking for loot and items or landing critical hits and other skill effects. While those additions do make for a better and more diverse game experience, it does also effect that person based on how much luck a person has. Whether you like it or not, different people do have levels of luck that differ from one another, its not something you can count or put into numbers but is just something you realize and notice in people. Some have excellent luck while others are just unlucky.

And in my case, I, unfortunately, fall into the latter category. And before I give you the evidence to support such a vague statement, this is pretty much why I prefer games that use the least amount of systems based on luck. And I repeat, although luck isn't something one can quantify, it doesn't mean you can't feel or just know that a person can have bad luck and good luck. Now, the moment you've all been waiting for, I shall now provide the evidence to support my statement from before.

One of the first games I've ever played in my life was Pokemon, and it is one of those games I continue to play and enjoy playing. Although at that time, I think I was 6 or 7, I didn't even realise I had such bad game luck, I did notice that it was relatively harder for me to catch pokemon and it did take me twice as long to find a pikachu in viridian forest. My first Abra was caught after wasting a ton of pokeballs, including that one great ball you get before you can buy them. Now I don't know about you guys but when compared in contrast to my brother, Pikachu was the first pokemon he met in viridian forest, and he did catch Abra on his first try with that great ball, not to mention different pokemon seemed to jump at him every chance they could get, while I was stuck with Zubats greeting me every time I entered a cave. Yes, when compared to my brother, it did seem as though I was that guy smiling at you in the upper right of this post. But this also shows that luck is something one can't calculate directly, but can be estimated comparatively.

The perfect portrayal of my brother, if I say so myself

Unfortunately, there are more pokemon stories that correctly show this, and this story is one I like to tell simply because it is the very best at showing this and proving it to you, if you still don't believe me that is.

My brother and I loved to battle one another so we would build our team of pokemon and then have a battle to see who had the better team, wasn't that why most battles were made for in the first place? So for this one team, I wanted to abuse the power of Honchkrow, being a pokemon with the ability Super Luck which increased the chance of him landing a critical hit. Honchkrow could learn Night Slash, a move that had a relatively high chance of generating critical hits as well. You can see where this is going right? I even had him hold on to a Scope Lens, which, ALSO, raised the probability of performing criticals. I was SO ready for the battle, he would land those criticals like rain drops falling from the sky during a rainy day.

How wrong I was... The battle turned out to be my Honchkrow using Night Slash after Night Slash, not landing a SINGLE critical in any one of those Night Slashes and the worst part was my own Honchkrow getting knocked out by an Ice Beam which was.... CRITICAL. I'll just leave it at that, anymore and I might just cry again. So I did lose the battle and my Honchkrow turned out to be useless. If I remember clearly I used a Clefable with attract as well. But you probably know by now how useless attract was for me.

You had ONE job

Other stories include my pokemon training sessions in viridian, being hit by a poison sting meant getting poisoned, a thundershock would leave my pokemon paralyzed...

AND any oddish I battled just happened to want to inflict all those plus sleeping powder.

Look at them faces

But enough about pokemon, other games gave me similar treatment. Like Maplestory.

Yea, this Maplestory

If you've played maplestory before you'll know that the game relies heavily on luck when it comes to drops from monsters. The skills you use also implement chance but it doesn't really matter as much because you continuously cast them to attack monsters, so chance does not affect you that much, like how a  machine gun works, you shoot so much that one bullet will eventually find its mark. BUT getting a  monster to drop the quest item you're looking for or getting good drops was such a pain. I remember grinding for one specific equipment that this monster was supposed to carry, no matter how many monsters I brutally killed, not a single one dropped the item I was looking for.... that is until I wanted to drink water and so I asked my brother to take over for me. AS SOON AS I LEFT THE ROOM, he called out "Faruq the monster dropped like a clothes or something!", it was that very item I was grinding for. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

Seriously, it does not end there, I'm a casual Dota player, and one of my favorite heroes was Phantom Assasin. (Yes, Faruq, what a wonderful idea, choosing a hero that is so reliant on chance to play with instead of those sure hit heroes) So you might have guessed that I almost never trigger a Coup De Grace? No, its not quite like that, since it has a clearly stated chance under the skill description, I do trigger that wonderful, blood-splattering of a blow to enemies, the game would be broken if it didn't. The thing you have to understand is that my luck is not simply bad, no, my luck is much much worse, its EVIL or psychotic even. You see, I can trigger Coup De Grace on normal units, but when I engage enemy heroes, it would almost never go off. I would throw a dagger, and blink strike them and I would slash away at them, their health slowly depleting, and my slow would wear off, and they would retreat to safety as I try to chase them but fail miserably. Then when I farm jungle creeps,  I would get a mind-blowing amount of criticals, one landing after the other. So, no my luck is not bad, its evil to the point it selects when my important attacks should go off. IT SELECTS WHEN MY IMPORTANT ATTACKS SHOULD GO OFF!!!

IT IS EVIL BECAUSE THOSE CRITICALS THAT LAND ONE AFTER THE OTHER GIVE YOU HOPE, HOPE I TELL YOU! HOPE THAT ONE DAY, YOU'LL AMBUSH A HERO AND YOU'LL LAND TWO DEADLY CRITICALS, TWO DEADLY CRITICALS THAT DISINTIGRATE THE ENEMY IN HALF A SECOND BUT WHEN YOU TRY TO DO SO, IT JUST HEARTLESSLY TAKES THAT HOPE AWAY AND GIVES IT BACK TO YOU... and that vicious cycle goes on, and on, and on and ON!

Despite ALL that, I've still managed to achieve this *audience applauds*

Although it WAS bots on easy

Now I do want to emphasize that the point of this video was not to go on about how bad my luck is (its evil, not bad, bad's an understatement) but its to show that I can have this level of bad luck, I know there are others like me as well, and I can still enjoy playing games. And because of how hard it was to land hits when I needed them too, I had to work harder, I played around with my item build as well. Following that machinegun theory, I bought items that would increase my attack speed, because when you attack too much, one of them has to be a critical hit. I also used heroes that didn't use chance in their abilities, making my game more enjoyable. I bought more pokeballs and always had a lot around for those impromptu moments (I gave up chasing the legendary dogs and just waited for them to come to me). I would spend more time grinding for equipment. And somehow, I never quit playing any of these games. =) So to those unluckies out there, be PROUD because you had to work harder than anyone else and you still managed to complete the pokedex and still managed to get that Ralts even though you almost made Zigzagoons extinct and just know, there are others out there like you!

And what a different post this had turned out to be =)