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Zenos Boba

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i think a lot of the game design elements that are often called "quality of life features" are in practice more like "thing that stops you from having to think and/or pay attention" or "thing that makes it so you dont have to play the game as much"

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I hope this vampire bat running on a treadmill will make your day better

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I don't want playable Monch if they'll make Ryuuzaki Iichi take away her eyebags like they did Leizi's eyebrows

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I feel like a lot of people don't know that Osaka Azumangadaioh has an actual name, but that's okay because she gets to be called that a single time and from then on she's Osaka.

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SitjooR's story was good. (I only read the parts with Leizi.)

I can't say the same about the stage mechanics.

Every enemy is annoying. The ovens are annoying. There is constant junk littered about the stages distracting ranged operators, because Vapidities have very high targeting priority in almost all situations since their path to the bad oven isn't very long. Actually making an effort to flip the Vapidities to charge your own oven is only ever worth it when Bloated's or their non-red versions are on the field, because these have 4k Def and 90 Res to make reasonable attempts at destroying them pointless. ModX Core Casters are probably the most general, easy way of doing it manually, but Necrosis damage Arturia is also a good option and thanks to their taunt, she will actually use her S1 on them instead of the Vapidities flooding every stage. At one point I used Lee with S2 to tank the boss just so I could force my ranged operators to hit it. I just can't stand how cluttered the stages are, it's so annoying. Stick-eating enemies that aren't Forethought/Sureness not caring about which type of stick they eat also just feels bad, even if it's probably reasonable but if I had ever actually made an effort to flip the sticks to red only for a Wealth/Prosperity or Reminiscence/Remembrance to snatch it up to become irritating I'd be annoyed. Not that I wasn't annoyed already. Speaking of which: Reminiscence/Remembrance is an incredibly annoying enemy, because it feels so cheap. It starts dormant, but during this time it will still kill most operators you deploy in the eight surrounding tiles. It claims to leave its dormant state upon absorbing a red stick/Vapidity, but in truth it just does it anyway after a while. If I manage to keep the sticks away from the enemy that absorbs them to become a threat, I should be rewarded by that enemy not becoming a threat just because all of a sudden. Wealth/Prosperity doesn't have these foibles, it's just a plainly annoying enemy. I was sourer on it a while ago, but I just stopped caring and brought Lessing, Skadi, Hellagur and Zuo Le to every stage and they deal with them as well as Boiling Pot/Drifting Aroma. It seems like a lot of people are annoyed by this enemy, but I actually really don't care because I just throw big beefy duelists (descriptoral, not literal) at them. Even Cantabile handles them fairly well, since in almost all stages they're either predeployed or come out at some point to post up in one spot and constrict your deployment options. Diet/Fasting is also annoying, because it constantly spawning junk makes a lot of ranged operators useless against them. They love to sit in spaces where ranged tiles are in bad spots and you can't get a melee operator on them either. They have enough Def to not care much about Marksman Snipers, Deadeyes are useless because of their junk when I would've loved to use two specific ones several times. There are enough ways of dealing with them, but they're so annoying. Vanity/Humility are annoying because the implication of them is that they start dragging a red stick and if they drag it too far, it flips. The truth is that they tag it and it flips, no matter from where and how far they drag it. The red stick can be right up against a wall and the V/H on the other side of the wall when it does its move and it'll flip the stick anyway.

I wanted to say more about the oven, but forgot. I think I bothered to flip the sticks on a single stage - S-2. Reason is that I'd rather just eat a 1500 true damage hit, which all of my operators can just survive, some have to be in range of Salter but whatever, than waste resources on inflicting 15 hits on the Vapitidies to flip them. There are so many of them at all times and I have so many other enemies to deal with. There are operators who are good at dealing with them, like 40% of the Ambusher Specialists that exist and they're also part of the 60% of Ambushers I didn't raise. I tried flipping the sticks a few times, it felt annoying, I stopped doing it. I'd like these stages more if the ovens and sticks were replaced with the Londinium Secondary Defense Artillery. I'd rather deal with that. Because as is, I'm already just eating bursts of true damage every minute.

The boss is ultimately pretty whatever. I thought it was annoying, but it isn't. Everything around it is. I've figured out how to parry its Gunk Shot, it's reasonably tankeable and I can certainly spare 12 minutes to clear its phase 2 through its 90% damage reduction. Whatever. They made it not immune to Freeze because Gnosis will never actually attack it on account of fifty Vapidities streaming in at all times.

The aesthetics are fine, the music's alright.

I hope this stage theme never comes back. It will, but I can dream. They'll probably bring it back in a later IS for no reason and be real shitters about it.

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Slightly less bad than my EX-8 clear. It was a satisfying stage to play with fun execution on my end. A while after the phase change I messed up by not only letting the gunk zone land, but also letting it land on Mr. Nothing and Zuo Le So I had to abandon the initial position and fall back to the second spot. That one's more comfortable to be in, since I don't have to parry the gunk zone cause there's enough space to just let it land but being in the initial position lets Arturia perform double duty in clearing the 'Bloated's as well as Necrosising the boss for damage and survivability. On top of being more comfortable, the second position also lets Zuo Le generate a lot more barrier, since the Vapidities approach the boss from above inside the range of his slashes. Compared to normal mode I only switched in Mr. Nothing to counteract the boss' increased stats and thus damage by cutting its ASPD.

Three minutes faster than my EX-8 clear! Thanks to bringing some operators who can bypass the boss' 90% damage reduction.

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Proper colored refs for the lizard family, with aunt addition from before.

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Got inspired to update my old arknights oc, so here's Ringabell

The jingle-maxing entertainer vesperti(bat she's a bat), she uses her bell dress to find her way around, since the sunlight bothers her eyes during the day, and artificial light during the night.

being a bat is suffering

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Happy 15th anniversary of Monster Hunter Tri!

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Megalopyge opercularis

“Southern flannel moth, Megalopyge opercularis, male. Location: Durham County, North Carolina, United States.” - via Wikimedia Commons

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Another one.

Doll that insults you.

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big fan of this image