#and auto build should have been an upgrade

[my-status-single]

Ultrahand is objectively better than magnesis argue with a wall

But fuse and auto build should have been should have been just part of that and we should have been given bombs. Argue with another wall

[enosai]

I have been playing Fields of Mistria for about 100 hours so far, so here are some of my thoughts.

(no idea if any of my ideas are already going to be implemented or not)

CHARACTERS:

What I liked: every character feels and looks different. So far no romance-able option has given me the ick and are all pleasant. 

What I would add:

Have non-romance-able NPC’s have heart events at 2, 4,6,8 and 10 hearts. 

Celine should sell forageable seeds, but at a steep price and a limited stock. Unlocked by an event or enough hearts.

FARMING:

What I liked: Farming is simple and easy to understand. A good amount of crops with room for more.

What I would add:

Have more uses for the hoe, not really using it much.

Have Luc teach you how to make bug traps with honey and flowers. Unlocked with enough hearts with him. 

Luc can teach you how to make bee hives with Ryis’ help. You will have to catch bees to craft them. Will produce honey. 

Have the ax and pickax also cut weeds, so you can more precisely get rid of them. Without cutting the grass. 

Will we get a greenhouse or sheds? Would be fun to have.

ANIMALS:

What I liked: Animals are good so far, the breeding for colors is fun. 

What i would add:

Have Hayden sell grass starter and animal feed. Make it a friendship or story unlock. Don’t make it a skill unlock. 

Have animals have better path finding so they don't go through fences or barns/coops

Have grass spread a bit faster. Also have grass-starter spread grass at an accelerated pace for a few days. 

When milling animal feed you should at least get 2 bags per mix. Making the mill more viable. Make this default not a skill upgrade.

Have the grass starter make 2 starters when you mill it. Make this default not a skill upgrade.

Have a barn/coop upgrade that auto fills the feed troughs and a place to add in the feed.  

CRAFTING:

What I liked: From what I have seen, a good amount of decoration, but not enough practical use that brings me back to it other than chests. 

What I would add: 

Give the wood crafting skill a more practical use other than decoration. Give it crafts like sprinklers, animal product machines, making grass starter at home, ect. Give it a balance of technical and decorative functions. 

Give us an at home forge at some point. March and Olric could unlock the option once they both have enough hearts. 

The crafting table should allow players to craft kegs to make alcohol to be later used in cooking. 

Building barns or coops should reward exp to the crafting skill.

FISHING:

What I liked: Really easy to understand fishing mini game. No problems here.

What I would add:

Have Terithia teach you how to make crab pots, fish ponds/farms and fish bait once you have enough hearts with her. She can also sell them. 

Terithia could sell seaweed, Jade dulse, under seaweed, sea grapes, and tide lettuce. Maybe you can unlock a heart event/ rank upgrade event where she wants to build seaweed farms and you have to bring her the 5 seaweed types and stone to make them. 

Terithia could sell soy sauce. 

You should be able to eat fish raw for a small stamina boost/recovery. 

OTHER: 

If you already have a quest reward, have the old reward change to gold.

Make the days longer by 10 minutes. I feel like I'm scrambling for time. Likewise with the day being longer, make the stamina bar bigger or tools use less stamina. 

The ruins and the beach feel kinda empty. I want more to do and explore. 

Home upgrades that add separate rooms, an upstairs and a basement. 

An auto sorting button for chests that takes the items out of my inventory and auto sorts them into the chest.

More places to explore. The map feels smallish. 

Have notifications when things are happening. Like when Friday night at the inn starts, when the Saturday market is open, or when festivals start.

Getting all buffs in a skill level should award you with using less stamina when using the tool of that skill. Such as: crafting for axes. Mining for pickaxes. Fishing for fishing rods. Archeology for shoves. Farming for watering can/hoe.

When the game becomes 1.0 we should have proper save files so we can have multiple farms/save files at once.

Make coops/ barns, trees and large objects transparent when you walk behind them. 

Holding the SHIFT key makes you buy or collect 5 of an item.

Chests should be bigger at least 1.5 times the max inventory. 

Too many monsters in the mine make you wait and waste time.

Allow us to sell stuff at any store. 

Scrolling through your inventory should not go to the next tab, it should loop the tab. Only switching tabs when the TAB key is hit. 

As your town rank goes up, wandering traders, adventurers, and visitors appear. They can sell rare or unobtainable items or have world building dialog. 

Have new events happen  year 2 and 3. New people, new places, new crops and items. Will make the game more interesting in the long run.

There should be an indicator saying if i have crafted/cooked something or not and how many times it has been crafted. 

When buying an item(s), there should be a chest icon telling you how many of that item I have in a chest. This would be helpful for forgetful players that don't keep track of items well.

Maybe make the legendary bugs a bit easier to find. I’m only finding speedy snails.

Thanks for hearing my thoughts.

@fieldsofmistria

[mahou-furbies]

Animal crossing stuff

After taking a break for almost three years I'm now really into this game. The catalogue from the dlc is a major reason; I do very little online play because I find having to negotiate the item trades with strangers and then actually doing the visit and trade very exhausting, so until now I had been almost entirely reliant on the items you can get in single player. Which means the Nook shop daily inventory of measly five rotating items, and then they're in the wrong colour so you would also need to check online if it even can be customised to the desired colour. Which was super tedious and the reason why I quit playing originally, it felt there was nothing interesting to do with my current items so all that was left was the daily grind of checking what's in store today.

Now however the dlc catalogue auto-unlocks all non-special items available for the vacation homes you design for the animals, which basically renders the Nook shop redundant. And you can even see all the colour options and just order the one you like! It's fun that after you experiment with some new items that you like in the animal vacation homes, you can get them to your own island right away. I had never thought of building a farm on my island, but now I have multiple characters ordering the wheat item in preparation.

As for characters, I have the main player, Mew Ichigo for pink mahou, Cure Princess for the blue one, and Vanilla (Sugar Sugar Rune) for purple. Vanilla is a little unfortunate one since I had also named the whole island Vanilla, but she'll have to live with the confusion. Next one will be Mami for yellow, and she will get to be the farmer once I have enough wheat. The farm will also function as the source of money for the entire island since I plan to move all vegetable production there, and probably a more organised fruit orchard since currently the fruit trees are all haphazardly scattered everywhere. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to start properly terraforming though, since I first need to move Hime's house to the other corner of the island out of the way and destroy a bridge and an incline. Ichigo will also move to the "town" part of the island next to the newly (half) built pastel amusement park, currently she does have a nice pink flower field up in the mountains, but I want someone to live in the town and it seems like a good fit for a pink mahou.

After seeing the castle wall items in the dlc catalogue I now want to use them too, and I kinda want to give them to a Zelda character. I'd rather use Link since I already have so many girls on the island, but princess Zelda is of course a better pick for someone to live in a castle. Or the totk one doesn't really live in a castle any more but it doesn't really matter. And then I can also have Link as a separate character too if I really want. There is of course the issue that so far my additional characters have had a magical girl theme, but it's not like the entire island is properly themed anyway so it should be ok.

Princess Zelda, a potential Link and the as of yet unknown green mahou would hit the limit of 3 characters so I hope I won't get any new ideas. And I'm hoping that the switch 2 is backwards compatible so I could create a separate island, maybe that one could be Zelda themed from the start. But right now a more topical issue is that a fully upgraded house costs 3 million, so the main player who is financing this all will be busy for a while. At least Ichigo and Hime have already paid for their houses.

[xenodile]

@stasisarbiter This is definitely worth a full ask, because it's a bit of a mixed response. Nikke does a lot of things really good, and a lot of things really bad.

So. The gameplay IS fun. Like really fun. The PVE gameplay is like Time Crisis shooting, you have your team of up to 5 characters where you're directly controlling one at a time while the others are on auto target and tap/click to shoot, and automatically take cover and reload when not shooting. Enemies flash red before they attack and put markers on characters that are being targeted by particularly powerful attacks. Characters have different styles of guns, Assault Rifles, Machine Guns, SMGs, Shotguns, Rocket Launchers, and Sniper Rifles, that all handle differently, and some characters have uniquely functioning versions of those 6 archetypes. You can also order all characters to take cover and stop shooting until you give the order to attack again, and switch between which character you're controlling while doing so.

You also generate meter whenever your characters hit something, and when the meter fills you can use their Burst Skills. You can use up to 3 Burst Skills in sequence, as each character's skill is Phase 1, 2, or 3, and building a team involves getting characters whose skills compliment and chain together. When you do a full chain of 3 skills, you activate a Full Burst for 10 seconds, during which time you directly control all of your characters at once.

When your characters are strong enough, any stage becomes a cakewalk, but when you're playing at a power deficit is when things get really interesting, because the amount of precise manual control you have over each of your characters means you can overcome very high stat differences by prioritizing targets, using the right skills, and taking cover efficiently.

The boss fights are also really, really cool. Bosses have multiple parts that can be individually targeted and broken to alter their behavior and deal extra damage, they have special attacks where you have to do precision target shooting to interrupt them, and long multi phase fights. It's really fun stuff.

But as I said, Nikke does some really bad stuff too. For one, it has PVP, and there is no justice in a gacha based PVP game. PVP is an auto battler where certain teams are just invincible without an equally specific counter pick, all of which are locked behind SSR gacha rates, so that blows.

Leveling and upgrading characters is weird because there's a system that makes it so you only have to level up 5 characters and then every other character you have will be automatically synced to those 5, which is really nice. But that system has a hard cap that is not high enough to get through every part of the main story, and is only unlocked if you get FIVE SSR characters to max limit break, so depending on luck and spending habits, could be a very significant wall to progression for a lot of people.

Dailies are easy to complete and only take like 30 minutes tops, and there's no stamina or AP system so you can play as much as you want, but all experience and money games are time based. You CAN'T grind for experience or money or upgrade materials, you get them at a fixed rate per day. So it respects your time per day, but it WILL take months of playing to upgrade your characters, and even that is locked behind whether you get lucky on the gacha.

So like, the gameplay IS fun, but your ability to actually access that fun is locked behind really scummy monetization. It's a weird case where I've really been liking Nikke and having a ton of fun with it, but I would not ever recommend it to someone because the ability to make meaningful progress is luck based. It's why I started doing my story write ups because I think there's legitimately good stuff in Nikke that people should see and be able to enjoy without getting roped into its bad gacha shit.

Short answer, yes it's fun but it's not worth getting into, so enjoy it vicariously.

[hananoami]

[ Directional Orbit ] Fire - Stage 110 Clear VOD

I cleared Rafayel's Directional Orbit: Fire - Stage 110 yesterday, 05/15, in the most unorthodox way possible; more details about that below. For now I want to give an overview of this stage for those who have yet to reach this far. Stage 110 requires two teams. The Protofield Stellactrum for Team 01 is 6-Pearl memories and for Team 02 its 6-Violet memories. By having a perfect match with the colors for the Protofield Stellactrum your < Resonance Skill > can break 2 Protocore Shield Layers in a single strike and increase DMG to weakened by 100%. For every matched Stellactrum you'll receive an attribute bonus that increase DMG Boost by 5.0% and DMG Reduction by 5.0% (up to 30%). I want to reiterate that there is no right or wrong way to play the game. You should use whatever you have available to you. My game play will differ from yours, but I still wanted to share my experiences and offer tips for the trials. With that said, please feel free to contact me if you ever need advice~ I'm super shy, but I'm always happy to help others. ଘ(੭˃ᴗ˂)੭♡

Oh boy... how long was I stuck on this stage? The earliest post referenced was recorded on 04/24 so it's been three weeks. Within that time a LOT of resources were invested into my Violet and Pearl builds. This includes leveling up memories, farming protocores, and leveling up said protocores. I wrote a lot of entries about those upgrades, but you can find them all under my #directional orbit fire tag. I have countless hours of game play footage, showcasing my attempts to figure out what worked for me and how could I improve. Even in my clear video you can see where I had to cut my failed attempts out as I was constantly restarting the second half. It's a satisfying feeling to see how far I was able to progress. Unfortunately I don't have an updated screenshot of the final team set up in the overview page. However, the only difference would be switching the solar pairs. Team 01 will use the Violet solars [Deep Sea Riches] and [Deep Sea Promise] and Team 02 will use the Pearl solars [Temple's Promise] and [Temple's Sunset]. No other changes were made; all of the lunar memories remained the same. Team 01

After switching things up a bit I went into the first half of the fight with Abysswalker Companion using Phantasma Sands. Previously I was able to auto battle this part without any issues. Having a perfect match meant my resonance skill was able to break 2 protocore shields in a single strike, making it easier for me to bring those wanderers to a weakened state faster. However because I opted to go off colors it took me a while longer where I had to manually play. At first I was struggling clear the fight. There were many attempts with me timing out and the wanderers had around 1 and a half or less HP left. I didn't feel like leveling up [Myths] any higher than lv 40 cause I wanted to save leveling resources for Zayne lol... This is when I decided to use more core energy resources to build up my protocores. I used up 20000 core energy exp to level up a pearl delta (CRIT rate) to +12 and another 20000 core energy exp to level up a pearl beta (Expedited Energy Boost) to +12. I don't remember how much gold I spent on the top of my head, but it was still a decent amount invested. Yanno, even with the core upgrade I still died a lot and failed right after LOL. I don't remember which one of the two wanderer types that puts a ticking debuff on you to take damage, but they stack and your HP will DROP without realizing it. Pretty sure it's a reflective damage from the one that has a shield around it. So every time I was attacking it I was also kms... 🫠 Thanks InFold. So yeah, I would try to be a bit mindful about what you're attacking. If they have a shield up that's doing that you can usually dispel it with interrupts/charged attack or bringing them into a weakened state with resonance skill. I love Abysswalker's kit because it groups them up so nicely before Sharky comes and bites them.

Team 02

The suggestion to use God of the Tides companion for he second half and keeping his lunars the same came up in a conversation I had with a friend after a talking about my meme of a run for open orbit - stage 120 (you can read more about that here). After being stuck on this half for over 3 weeks you'll try anything with hopes that it'll actually work. I had zero expectations on how it was gonna turn out but fortunately for me it did well after a handful of failed attempts! Prior to my clear run I tapped a violet delta core (CRIT rate) from +9 to +12 that had HP bonus as one of it's substat. God of the Tides is an HP talent memory so I wanted to make the most of it by having that extra bit of stats to make up for missing 10% attribute bonuses. I was already focused on increasing my CRIT for this build, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to commit to upgrading this specific protocore. Upgrades are expensive y'all. The stats before weren't as ideal imo which is why I was hesitant before taking the gamble to roll HP bonus %. I know my clear vod made it look easy but what really happened is that I somehow managed to crit harder during this run compared to all my failed attempts earlier (╥ᆺ╥；) CRIT rate is king, especially if you plan on ignoring the Protofield Stellactrum by going off colors to try and brute force things.

The following are my final team set up and their stat attributes--

ADDITIONAL SCREENSHOTS

Companion: Rafayel’s Abysswalker Weapon: Phantasma Sands ♡ Affinity Bonus: 92 When you take a fatal blow, Rafayel teleports to you, blocks a hit, and counter attacks. Enemies will be knocked back. [ HP 3600 || DEF 90 || ATK 180 ] Pair Bonus [AB] - Starting Effect: increases team DMG by 8%, and reduces team DMG taken by 8%, and increases Crit DMG of Deepsea Persuit by 30%.

5☆ Deep Sea Riches (violet/solar) Lv 80/awakened rank 2 using +9 SSR protocores

5☆ Deep Sea Promise (violet/solar) Lv 80/awakened using +9 and +12 SSR protocores

5☆Tipsy Invitation (pearl/lunar) Lv 60 using +9 and +12 SSR protocores

5☆ Fireworks Vow (pearl/lunar)

Lv 60 using +9 and +12 SSR protocores

5☆ Before Sunrise (pearl/lunar)

Lv 60 rank 1 using +9 SSR protocores

4☆ Myths (pearl/lunar) Lv 40 rank 3 using +9 SSR protocores

Companion: Rafayel’s God of the Tides Weapon: Tidal Embrace ♡ Affinity Bonus: 92 When you take a fatal blow, Rafayel teleports to you, blocks a hit, and counter attacks. Enemies will be knocked back. [ HP 3600 || DEF 90 || ATK 180 ] Pair Bonus [TP] - Starting Effect: increases team DMG by 8%, reduces team DMG taken by 8%, and increases Crit DMG by 10% when fighting along side Sea Spirits. - Duo Rank 1: boosts Ardent Oath charge by 20%. The starting level of Sea Spirits rises to Lv. 2, and Sea Spirits will last for 5 more seconds. - Duo Rank 2: increases Energy Charge cap by 1. During Heavenly Rain, recovery rate of energy charge is increased by 30%.

5☆ Temple’s Promise (pearl/solar) Lv 80/awakened rank 2 using +9 SSR protocores

5☆ Temple’s Sunset (pearl/solar) Lv 80/awakened rank 2 using +9 and +12 SSR protocores

5☆ Your Fragrance (violet/lunar) Lv 80 rank 1 using +9 and +12 SSR protocores

5☆ Whispers (violet/lunar) Lv 80 rank 1 using +12 SSR protocores

4☆Ivory Nightfall (violet/lunar) Lv70 rank 3 using +12 SSR protocores

4☆ Hidden Shadow (violet/lunar) Lv 70 rank 3 using +9 SSR protocores

[radioradio]

Full Moon

So as @sirfrogsworth pointed out yesterday, My D600 had a case of SENSOR DUST.

You can see the spots here. Shooting at a very high aperture, like f/22 seen here, will make them stand out like a sore thumb. The D600 had a reputation for being particularly bad at this, throwing oil on the sensor to the point where Nikon offered a free shutter replacement, and eventually scrapping the 600 all together in favor of the D610, which was essentially just the D600 with an upgraded shutter.

Learning the history of the D600 after I'd already placed the order, I quickly added a full-frame sensor cleaning kit to my toolkit. It's a pack of single use swabs and a bottle of cleaning solution you can dole out by the drop. Why the main cleaning kit came with just a spray bottle, I cannot explain.

Anyway, two drops of solution, one pass in the same direction with each side of the swab later, and...

Much better! Both shot with the 50mm f/1.8D @ f/22, btw.

Fast forward to evening. I work nights, so it's just after breakfast, and I have the night off. It's about a 40 minute drive into the city and the West End Overlook. I go there a lot, because it's a good place to put any new knowledge into practice and compare it to previous visits. Plus, I spent good money on that Manfrotto tripod, and want to get use out of it.

Tonight was a full moon, which was both good and bad. You'll see in a moment.

For the most part, I'm shooting f/5.6 at ISO 200 aperture priority. Why? Because that's the combines result of assorted googling and photography book reading on night photography.

Once more with the moon in the shot.

Thanks to the full moon, Lightroom is a little bit confused. The sky is way brighter than it actually is...

Never mind the shaking, that was just a phone pic to tell friends what I was doing at the time. But it shows what it looked like in real life.

I started looking through my presets, but nothing really came close to rendering an accurate version of the scene.

I think that second one comes close maybe? I usually just stick with Auto, but Auto isn't doing it tonight.

I moved on to the Duquesne Incline Overlook. Not seen here, but I'm starting to run into a little bit of gear trouble.

And one in 16:9.

I moved on to Station Square, and here's where I ran into a problem. The 28-70mm lens did NOT want to autofocus on the buildings across the river. I fiddled with settings, turned the camera on and off, and even removed and reseated the lens. Could not get it to play nice.

So in order to salvage that stop, I broke out the 50mm f/1.8D that has mainly just been along for the ride when I go out. Tonight was it's chance to shine.

Oh, and that autofocus issue? Just out of shot here is a tall iron fence. Tall enough that I had to raise the center pole of the tripod a good foot to clear it. The camera STILL kept wanting to latch onto it for focusing. So it goes.

A few years ago I took a short course in Photoshop sponsored by WVU as part of Continuing Education. I should see if any of the local unis have anything similar for Lightroom.

[earthtomica]

meet mica

Mica is a 1994 Mitsubishi Delica L300 imported from Osaka, Japan. This year marks her 30th birthday, which in car years makes her a major grandma with six years of life experience on the both of us. As with any of our elders, we have learned an immense amount from her already - she is a little stubborn, tough as hell, and gives back even more to us than we unto her.

When we met Mica, she was imprisoned by the horrifying confines of a used car dealership. With no rust we could tell she had good bones, but she seemed neglected and we had to do something about it. Plus, considering we were running on a fresh-out-of-college budget, it didn’t hurt that she cost much less coin currency than her similarly imported siblings. We drove five hours to go pick her up and purchased her without hesitation (after spending four hours on the phone with insurance). We love insurance agents! They are so respectful of your time and so helpful in convincing you that you will cause $150k in damage to a local bridge. Finally we were on the road home as full of excitement and spirit as two young people could possible be driving their brand-new-super-old future home on wheels. Surely the only challenges would be steering from the wrong (right) side of the road and the 65mph top speed.

Halfway home, we took a mandatory Subway pitstop, ready to tackle the last couple of hours in the dark. Oh yea, we forgot to mention that the forecast leading into this weekend was a winter storm. But anyways, we forged on with hope in our hearts and Subway in our stomachs. At a certain point we noticed that the windshield wipers were slowing down a bit - “must just be the heavy wind and rain”, we said. Kept going. A little while later the headlights looked dim on the pitch black road- “our first upgrade should be new headlights”, we said. Kept going. After a few more minutes, the rapidly dropping fuel gauge needle caught our eyes - “FUCK”, we said, as the naivety finally started to fade. We had just filled up, so either we had a gaping hole in our fuel tank, or something worse… Surprise! It was something worse.

Internally full panic mode, externally calm. Neither of us would dare say a word.

Enter, Saugerties, NY. A small town off the highway which now holds a very specific spot in our hearts. We pulled into a gas station with relief and shut the car off. Mind you, this was still our first time taking this grandma out for a spin, and the first time this grandma had been out for a proper spin since we were born. After gathering ourselves and laughing at what might have been the scariest drive either of us had ever taken, we tried cranking her up again…

nothing.

The rest of the story isn’t underwhelming, but for the sake of the tumblr character limit, we'll just say it involves no ubers or AAA due to a state of emergency for the impending winter storm (which never came), a very kind gas station clerk who may have accidentally shorted our battery but also gave us food and water (guess we looked desperate), our first trip in a cop car (if you didn’t know you can’t let yourself out from the inside), a two night stay at a very comfortable Comfort Inn, and more auto shop phone calls than we have ever made in a 48 hour span (previous record: 0).

Eventually we were picked up by an extremely kind lady named “Mom” and she took us back home while Mica was towed to the only local shop which would dare take an old diesel van. The shop was great, but held onto Mica for over three months just to replace the alternator (the primary culprit) and change a few fluids. Despite being restless from our time apart and dented by a large bill, we were eager to dive into the abyss of building a mobile-home-studio-temple-spaceship. And thus commences over a year of dusk-till-dawn work, non-stop learning, unlearning, and a newfound friendship with Murphy’s Law…

TN KM

[the-fanfic-challange]

“Ya know me and you could work” “That will be 5.95”

Pairing-dean winchester x female presenting reader

fandom- supernatrual

authours note: this got hella de railed and cringey so you have been warned

not eddited

cw: cringe

written by: A

notes: Set pre season one 

It had be a long day on the road and i mean a long day it didn't help that he had just  had to drive through heavy rain so sam could go investigate something in some woods in the middle of nowhere off a highway like seriously man come on the whole ride  it sounded like the roof of the car was going to cave in and he didn't want that to happen to his beloved Chevrolet Impala also know as his baby as well as the roads begging to slippery to drive on couldn't have his baby crashing into a tree now he could he. Saying he loved his car was an understatement. Sam was making his way out o the car grabbing his gear and such as Dean was handing him something from the backseat bit before he could take his seat belt off to start getting his things read“I have t do this on my own”... bit fucking emo there sam but okay sam starts getting out of the car and shuts the door and through the open window he starts “just head to the motel…” as much as the two bickered dean did worry for his brother and sam clearly picked up on that and wanted to put his fears to rest “ill be back in the morning it but instead of waiting here can you get us booked into the motel i dont think this will be a one night thing…” sam continued as he almost forgot to tell him where he was going “the motel is on on the other side of town”its of redwood avenue basically the main road there's shops and there around it” sam starts making his way into the woods dean wanted to shout something like be careful because in times like these he really did care for his brother but he isn't open to get emotional that easy so instead he resorted to shouting at him “don't die bitch” dean started driving off one upside of sam begging gone? He could play good music finally as sam was gone as dean speed down the road ignoring the speed limit  and blasting “I'm am the tiger” he slowed down as he stopped into the small town and when i say slowed down i mean he was still going sixty in a school zone he pulled up into the motel and after getting checked into it he started unpacking things leaving bags on sams bed the motel room was not too shabby it had its own little coffee maker and a small fridge with nothing in it and a bathroom that surprisingly didn't look like you would need a tetanus shot after taking a shit so a real upgrade despite all the necessities begging in here and that he was running on two hours of sleep and should get some rest he decided no and to go hit up the local bar dean hopped in the car and started driving blasting “i'm on the highway to hell” and he drove past this coffee shop guaranteed it was very dark and he couldn't see much but from what he could make out the shop and a brick exterior with small wooden tables whith parasols lined up outside and windows decorated in the most beautiful flowers and ivy climbing up the walls and a chalk baord sign sitting out the front with menu items and such and a big sign hanging over the building ut was low visibility but he made an effort to read the sign “Bean There Drank That” he chuckled lightly at that oh god what had his humour came to sam had been warring him down little did he know walst he was taking in every detail of the coffee shop his brain went on auto pilot and he had parked outside the small shop why was he so invetsied in this shop? Well through the light up window he saw this girl standing there cleaning up and he was watching her very closely almost stalker like watching her 

You were packing up the store for the night eager to get home as yet again it was you stuck on shutdown shift yo were a bit of a night owl but still why was it always you you ah had two more people show up after closing time and you begging your humble self decided to let your fellow co-workers  leave early little did you know these customers were ordering a lot like what do they need fourteen cups of hot chocolate for and you swore if you heard that bell ring another time 

You heard the familiar chimes of the bell and as you were about to say you were closed “hey sorry for intruding can i get something to drink i promise it will be a quick order” you looked at the man in front of you and gods would you be a fool to say no to him he was a tall well built man with his hair styled slightly upwards wearing a leather jacket and a blue shirt underneath but on the other hand you really wanted to go home “please” he begged his voice had you melting who dose he think he is having you like this you made your way behind the counter and put on the best customer service voice could “hi what can i get for you today sir” you watched his eyes flick up to the menu god he was handsome but could he cant have you waiting here all night like this “eh ill have a large black coffee whith a double shot of espresso” you can here the smile in his voice hes smiling at you thai whole time you cant help but feel a light blush creep onto your face “emh” you clear your throat “that will be ready in about five minutes sir” you look around to see if you have left any seats out “ill just stand” “whats the name for the order” where you just asking that to find out his name so mabay fi he gave you his full name you could google him later? Mabay 

 he pauses“you do realise nobody else is in here.” wow he found that one funny hes laughing to himself “what if i made it and thought it was for me and drank it all?” wonder if he can handle the heat “you dont look like you could handle even a shot of espresso. That's personal “is that a challenge” dean did look frightened he laughs lightly “you have some fire to you dont you?” he likes this doesn't he  “mhm and whats the name mystery man” “dean”  “and how do you spell that” “do you not no basic spelling” laughing at his own jokes again now is he? “No i would spell it D-U-M-B-A-S-S wonder if you can even spell that” you snap back you really are enjoying this banter “D-E-A-N” “thank you” you said sarcastically you start making his order when he attempts to make some small talk with you 

“When do you usually close up at” 

“Around eight o'clock but since your here eleven”

“How long have you been working here” “A few years now” you laugh lightly “Just using it to pay of college” Then he He starts grilling you with most random questions 

“What's your favourite colour”

“Have you got any pets” 

“Is anyone else here” 

“Are you single”

“Why are you so pretty”

“Tell me why you would look amazing in my back seat” 

Some of those things are not like the others each question he asked you had a quick quip back for you really were not giving in and he was loving this he kept flirting with you since you were making his coffee you had your back to him he was driving you MAD when you finally turned back to face him and handed his coffee “that will be 5.95” he took a sip wlast rummaging around in his pockets for money “That tastes good but you know what will, taste better” you rent spying attention as you are fixing up his receipt  “You” “ that will be 5.95 please” “Ya know me and you could work”

“That will be 5.95” “wait hold on why is it more money then its says on that board” “because your annoying” he gave you a ten dollar bill “fine im letting you keep the change though” you handed him his receipt 

Dean felt a but discouraged he felt like he was getting something it wasn't until he looked down at the receipt 

Large black coffee 2x espresso 3.45 

Annoying fee 2.50

He had to blink a couple of times that was your phone number well mabay he was right 

[samprestonbigbadabruce]

John Wick...the Video Game?

With the upcoming fourth iteration of John Wick, which will likely be another awesome event, there has been recent discussions of a possible video game based on John Wick by the CEO of Lionsgate. While not a gamer myself, this would be a great decision, capitalizing on the popularity of the series and allowing fans the dream of representing Wick in action. In fact, there are some clips already on YouTube of John Wick in the Unreal Engine 5 world.

The question I have is what type of game could they incorporate? A simple adaptation of the movies seems a bit obvious and underwhelming, so what could they make instead? Unquestionably it has to be an open world style, possibly in the guise of Grand Theft Auto or more likely, Red Dead Redemption, allowing side quests to accomplish alongside the main gameplay.

You’d have to include three different types of gameplay, which would cover the three main parts of John Wick’s appeal:

Car chases

Gunplay

Hand-to-hand combat

The style could be akin to the most recent iterations of God of War and God of War:Ragnarok, a one-shot camera that follows the protagonist as they travel the world, mixing between distance attacks (gunplay) and hand-to-hand combat, while using the horse riding of Red Dead Redemption to replicate the car chases for Wick.

But what would the story be? Personally, I feel the perfect choice would be based on a scene from the first movie:

A masterclass scene that introduces the mythos of who John Wick is and why you should be terrified. I personally would have the opening of the game feature Wick undertaking a hit (which can count as a training sequence getting you used to the guns and combat system), with Wick afterwards meeting his girlfriend Helen and deciding he needs to leave the business.

Based in New York City, you could have Viggo Tarasov as the leader of the Russian Mafia based in Manhattan but the weakest of Five Families, and Wick is given the task of eliminating the other four families, to allow the Russian Mafia to take over New York City completely.  Each family could have their own borough, working through The Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens as you battle through each families mob and eventually kill the leader of each family.

As you kill enemies, you can earn new gold coins that you can use in a Continental Hotel (one based in each borough) to upgrade weapons, outfit and contacts, meeting a different Sommelier in each one, cameos from Winston, John Lequizamo’s Aurelio (when upgrading vehicles) and other assassins from the movies. As you take over different areas of the five boroughs, the reputation for the Russian Mafia builds up, with the aim to reach 100%.

The option of variety in antagonist you can have, the different guns and vehicles, but more than anything, the possible size of this world could be amazing. New York City has a square mile of 302.6 miles, There are only twelve games supposedly bigger as of 2022, which includes Just Cause 3, Final Fantasy XV, The Elder Scrolls II and No Man’s Sky. I for one would love to see this game.

What about you, any thoughts, things you’d like to see, ideas you’d incorporate?

[updatecrazy]

Satisfactory update 0.8.2.0 is available to download on PC players. According to the official Satisfactory patch notes, the latest update adds a lot of QOL, optimizations across the board, bug fixes, reworks of many features both big and small. In addition, Satisfactory patch 0.8.2.0 also includes an entire rework of our Online Integration, Epic Online Services (EOS) update for crossplay and even another Engine Upgrade to 5.2.1. Since the last Satisfactory patch, players are experiencing problems with the game. Today's Satisfactory patch 0.8.2.0 will fix a few of these issues. Check out more details below. Satisfactory Patch 0.8.2.0 Notes - October 16, 2023 NEW Unreal Engine Upgraded to 5.2.1 Online Integration has been reworked (Work In Progress) This is still WIP and we will be patching it up through the next few weeks Most of the UI for Multiplayer related menus has been redone (Some of it is still WIP and will be updated in the future) Epic Online Services have also been updated (Enables crossplay between Steam and Epic and friend list visibility) Account unlinking is WIP, so if you need to unlink your accounts and are running into issues doing so this can be done on the “Default” Early Access Branch (Not on Experimental) Auto Detect Settings (Experimental) When starting the game, your video settings should now be automatically detected and set up to recommended Video settings for your system If you’ve never changed a setting before, a new default will be applied to it If you manually change an option, it will not be overwritten automatically on startup, but you can still manually force ALL settings be autodetected by clicking on the “Auto Detect Settings” button in the options menu in the Video section QOL Blueprints You can now sample blueprints from dismantle mode Pillars can partially intersect the edges of the blueprint designer again Hotbar Hotbar system has been reworked Added a way to save the current hologram into the hotbar by pressing ALT+Shortcut key combination You can now swap the Hotbar scroll direction in the “Controls” menu in the Options menu (Clockwise and Counterclockwise) Conveyor Lifts Quick Switch is now supported when building them Can now be Nudged Nudging Holding CTRL when Nudging will now nudge in half steps Fixed so Wall Mounted Flood Light Nudging is Vertical Zipline Increased Zipline sprint acceleration. It should be easier to tell that sprint mode is turned on now due to the more direct change in speed Zipline path selection now works vertically too Additional improvements to try and mitigate cases where you get disconnected from ziplining when ziplining on an incline Power Tower/Power Poles Changed power poles and power towers to use gradual rotation (45 degrees on foundations) Holding CTRL when building a wire off another wire now aligns the new Pole to the original one Building a Power Tower off a wire from a Power Pole now correctly increases the build range for the Power Tower Hypertubes Implemented network correction and smoothing for remote players moving in Hypertubes, This should make the movement inside hypertubes much smoother and prevent any kind of desync, this is also enabled for Clients Fixed character getting too much acceleration when braking while going downhill Fixed hypertube attachments incorrectly building when attaching them in a section of a hypertube Hypertube Entrances can now be nudged Hypertube entrances now work correctly when they are built directly on top of a floor hole Input System Added an “Auto release sprint” option when Hold to sprint is off, this option is off by default. This makes it so whenever your movement stops, the sprint key is automatically released so you have to press it again to start sprinting Resource Miner Can now be Tap E to Mine (Toggle) or Hold E to Mine, depending on how long the button is held Fixed a couple of issues with mining lingering around when walking away from the node

Signs Improved snapping for signs, they can now snap to foundation sides and ceilings and can be rotated more freely. Changed signs to use the same snapping logic for walls and foundations Power Switch and Priority Power Switch Both should now have gradual 45 degree rotation on foundations Power Switches can now be upgraded to Priority Power Switches and vice versa Added buttons for turning entire priority groups on and off in the Priority Power Switch Build Gun / Dismantle Gun When trying to dismantle invalid buildables they will now redirect to the valid dismantlable (I.E. Like the Integrated train tracks or the Sub Buildings of the Hub, they will now dismantle the Train Station and the entire Hub respectively) Splitters/Mergers Can now be upgraded to Smart or Programmable versions Can also be upgraded to each other (Splitter to Merger and viceversa) as long as only the main input and output is connected OPTIMISATION Parallelized post processing blending. Chaos memory optimizations Texture memory optimizations Mesh memory optimizations Enabled virtual textures for HLODs Updated HLODs to use virtual textures. Enabled PSO caching Removed legacy assets BUG FIXES Fixed a bug where drones would sometimes consume batteries multiple times when starting a new trip, especially when the player is far away Refactored player mapping contexts, reordered player mapping context priorities, so we have a clear hierarchy. This should potentially fix issues where certain actions like detonating Nobelisks cannot be done. Fixed so quick switching a conveyor/pipe doesn’t reset the hologram anymore. Fixed bug where quick switching Pipeline and Conveyor holograms would reset pole rotation on the second build step Fixed a rare UI crash Fixed a bug where it was possible to accidentally delete items by splitting them Potential fix for bug where item stacks can not be split in the inventory for Client Refactored wire splitting so it works with power towers Fixed bug where build effects for wires never got cleaned up Fixed so wire build effect works again Fixed so poles created from wires copy the rotation of the pole you drag from Fixed issue where changing materials (Customizer) in the Quick Switch menu would stop working after the first time Potential crash fix for an Input System related crash Reworked Object Scanner, should now work correctly in Multiplayer, fixed multiple visual bugs Fixed Clients not continuing to have Flight Mode enabled after logging in and out of a session Fixed Bacon Agaric not displaying properly when using a FOV other than 90 Fixed Hoverpack not displaying properly when using a FOV when loading into a save where the Hoverpack was already equipped Fixed Gas Mask not displaying properly when using a FOV other than 90 Refactored the way vehicles are outlined Removed knockback when the player has Flight Mode enabled Flight mode is no longer turned off when you use Turbo Bass with the Boombox while it is enabled Fixed Hyper Tube Floor Holes appearing visually distorted Fixed railroad track signal visualization Fixed trajectory visualization for the jump pads Fixed outlines displaying incorrectly on Beams Fixed Ping indicator occasionally pinging the player Fixed Resource Miner having an incorrect animation in Multiplayer or when Holstering Fixed Chainsaw, Xeno Basher and Xeno Zapper displaying and behaving incorrectly in Multiplayer Refactored the Gas Mask, fixing a lot of bugs with it Refactored the Flying Crab Fixed a bug where the Blade Runners would not work until after you jumped once after equipping them Fixed bug where player can fall through world as a ragdoll when falling to far, It's still possible to clip through the world when traveling really fast as a ragdoll, but it's much more difficult and won't happen under normal circumstances. Pipes having incorrect visuals when built in certain scenarios should now be fixed

Camera should now rubber band as much when driving vehicles as it is now allowed to clip through various objects Vehicle engines will now shut down when the vehicle is submerged in water Fix head bobbing not working, and head bobbing scale option not affecting anything Fixed so players don't get registered as an "aggressor" when dealing damage to a creature in passive mode. (Creature won’t immediately attack when changing from passive to retaliate) Fixed being able to sample buildings when you shouldn’t (i.e. Inside a Hypertube) Fixed Full Screen setting being reversed when pressing apply after restarting the game Fixed players being unable to enter a vehicle if another player was interacting with the inventory of the vehicle Fixed sliding not ending when entering vehicles Fixed a specific Copper Node producing Limestone if the miner was placed prior to Update 8 Removed a duplicate coal node Improved visual quality of the Blue Palm billboards when looking at them from very far away Improved Beam Support to Pillar snapping Fixed Nobelisk smoke not displaying properly Fixed a specific case where aiming the Hypertube Floor Hole would flash the screen white Locomotives should now start to brake when self driving is disabled Fixed MAM nodes showing up as unlockable when the tree itself is not unlocked when No Cost Advanced Game Setting is enabled Fixed Tractor headlights breaking when opening its inventory Fixed Jumping off a zipline canceling the Zipline input if it's still held, now holding it will continue the input as it should UI Updated Map Render Fixed multiple Jetpack UI bugs Fixed Game Phase Numbers and Naming in the Advanced Game Settings menu Renamed “Rotate Hologram” Keybinds into “Rotate Hologram Right” and “Rotate Hologram Left” so they no longer share the same name Renamed “Nudge Up” and “Nudge Down” to “Nudge Forward” and “Nudge Backward” Fixed Object Scanner UI disappearing when hopping in and out of vehicles Fixed Object Scanner UI not showing the Object Name Updated Storage UI so that industrial storage boxes no longer use a scroll bar when using small inventory slots Fixed issue where keyboard input was lost after manually entering text when Overclocking Fixed a bug where you would have to click on the Gameplay sub-menu in the Options Menu twice Trains are now sorted in the Train Station UI Fixed an issue where drag and drop wouldn’t be cancelled when opening up a different menu Fixed issue where mouse would be lost if clicking the chat window by closing the window if the player clicks outside the text input box. If you close it by doing that you'll have to hit enter twice to open it again. News Feed in the main menu should now be easier to read Items in the Options Menu setting have been re-arranged in various menus, most noticeably in the Video menu AUDIO Fixed an Audio issue leading to performance hitches in factories with Blenders and Refineries, including audio optimizations for the Refinery Replaced some audio files for the Tractor and Truck Tweaks and adjustments for Tractor and Truck audio LOCALISATION Fixed hundreds of typos across English (US) and English (UK) Fixed Japanese and Traditional Han characters display, and added Devangari and Bengali support as well Updated all languages with the latest translations Updated language completion rates Updated community translators in the credits

[due4amiracle]

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?

You build up hope, but failure's all you've known Remember all the sadness and frustration And let it go Let it go

Well. That was an interesting swing about.

Tuesday - Appointment with my Psych. We started on a medicinal journey (or so he says). Dropped my Prozac and halved my Wellbutrin - and put me on Clomipramine. It's to help with my OCD, so hopefully. Hopefully it's good. Of course, of course, it's still in for a prior-auth with my insurance and, well. i was supposed to stop my Prozac. i started spiraling because of the next item on the list, and it only got worse. (i restarted the Prozac so things are looking back up. -_-)

The car - after my appointment, Sir went out to go do a little shopping and the car wouldn't start. It attempted to turn over, but it just didn't do anything. So we got into contact with the local auto shop and they said they'd come get it - Friday. Sigh. Which means they won't look at it until Monday.

Wednesday - TTRPG! We did Madoka things, it was lovely. Tbf it was only rolling dice for upgrades and whatnot, but still, it had been a month. So that was nice.

Thursday - i had a thing with my insurance (healthy home visit) that i did telehealth, so that was a thing. Granted, they called Two Hours Early but that's fine. That's fine. i just wasn't ready. >_< Had to scramble around for all my medicines so i could report them all (which is ridiculous considering they were attached to my insurance so they should just have a fucking list why am i repeating all of the things on your damn screen?????) Blargh.

Thursday was also my worst day, honestly. i was very deep in the muck and Sir and i had a misunderstanding but we figured things out. It was alright.

Friday nothing really happened, they came and got the car, that was about it.

Then today we did DnD and that was fun.

i read:

A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic #2) V.E. Schwab - 3/5⭐ i enjoyed it quite a bit, the ending was very good.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi - 4.5/5⭐ SCALZI DOES IT AGAIN i love this book so much, it hits all the right notes!

Fireborne (The Aurelian Cycle #1) by Rosaria Munda 4/5⭐ THIS is the book i wanted Fourth Wing to be. It did everything right, things made sense, and oh fuck i can't wait to continue reading!

and am currently reading:

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

[traceemerald]

It's been a while since I've played on my TCR world.

Not due to lack of interest, just because some things came up and I was unable to play for a while, but I'm back now.

Anyway...

-February 7th, Factory Tyrant's Journal, Entry 25-

If you've read my last mini journal entry (24.1), you'll have a basic understanding of how IC2 nuclear reactors work (or at least know that I have a basic understanding), but I'll summarize my findings below in case you haven't read it.

Nuclear reactors are complicated, but are very powerful if used right, I just don't know how to use them right and would rather just upgrade the geothermal power supply I already have.

The first thing I'll make for this is some gold cables, which can transfer 512 EU/t (copper can transfer 128 EU/t).

My generators are currently generating around 200 EU/t, but can only send 128 EU/t to machines because I'm still using copper cables (the cables aren't burning because that 200 EU/t is still tier 1 power).

Anyway, gold cables are installed everywhere except places I know I don't need them, which also gives me an excuse to take a picture of my entire base (to show that I've installed gold cables).

As you can see, there are still copper cables in a few places because the machines in those places don't use enough power to make gold cables worth it.

I'm still not getting enough lava to sustain my generators though, so I'm going to replace the Buildcraft pipes in my pumping setup with a simple AE2 computer setup, for this I'll need an ME controller, ME fluid import bus, 2 ME fluid export busses, an ME drive, an ME fluid storage cell, and an ME fluid terminal for diagnostic purposes.

Before I do any of that, I'd like to point out 1 downside to digital storage.

If you're running into power issues like I am, you can't easily access your storage system.

Anyway, the new pumping system is set up, but unfortunately I have to take it down now because I've run into a different problem, my pump has run out of lava that it can reach, and needs to be moved to a new location, here's the status of the old location.

Since my chunk loader loads a 3x3 chunk area, I'll just move my setup 3 chunks further into the ocean.

The new setup looks like this.

I'm now getting lava fast enough to run all my geothermal generators at full speed, but I'm still not producing enough power to run my ore processor at full speed, so I need more geothermal generators, and I need a better lava distribution setup, but I think I should figure out how to automate processor recipes first, since I'll need a lot of those for an AE2 lava distribution setup.

Since there's no in-game guide on how to make processing patterns (which you need for automating anything made outside a crafting table), I'm going to have to look it up on the AE2 wiki.

AE2 wiki (actually FTB wiki, I think FTB is another modpack that includes AE2) didn't help, but luckily there's a YouTube playlist by TKH that basically acts as a tutorial for everything related to AE2, though I've only watched the episode on auto-crafting and crafting networks.

The playlist can be found at the link below.

Anyway, I know how to make processing patterns now, thanks to this tutorial, and I've made patterns for silicon (put nether quartz dust in a furnace) and printed silicon (put silicon in an inscriber that also has a silicon press in it).

Silicon can be made with either type of quartz dust, I'm just using nether quartz because it's easier to find.

I think I'll wait until next time to do any more.

-End Journal Entry 25-

[kylieneko]

A short server tour

I said I might do this, so I did. I tried to cut down to the minimum number of shots that show off enough so the post wouldn't be too long.

That said, there's not a lot of exciting things to see, as everything is WIP and no one has been super active. And I'm currently working on a No Man's Sky hardcore play-through when I resume streaming, so I know I won't be finishing any outstanding projects in the soon-times.

Seed is 1357381573051830075 for the curious. Mapped areas, about 8k x 8k, were generated in 1.17. Outside that area was locked off with a world border until 1.18. If any further biome tweaks occur, that zone may get reset on upgrade. This is to keep the world data both reasonably sized and to keep people from running off 20 km away and thus effectively playing singleplayer.

Industry, Science, and Technology

Out in the far southeast, though, is kept my industrial projects, so the lag generators are far from the prime real estate.

And having 256 sheeps is certainly lagalicious, if only on the client's rendering capabilities. Performance mods like Sodium definitely recommended when visiting here. Also, turn down friendly sounds.

In-progress is wiring up an auto-shutoff system for when the storage silo is full; which due to some earlier planning failures means making the delivery pipes a bit taller to fit the logic in properly. So not an active farm right now, though ran it a few cycles before stopping so there's probably about half-capacity in each silo.

This is why I should plan builds out in creative instead of free-styling. Also pictured: Creeper farm on the left, bee breeding house in the back, and honey + honey comb farm that needs reworking on the right.

Fort Fox

@nicolebethkitsu built a fort and bridge not too farm from the spawn town.

Bridge

I also built a bridge as part of the roadway project.

Spawn Town

I feel like in 1.17 and 1.18, I got a lot of seeds with villages right next to or on top of the spawn point. So, instant-Spawn Town.

The actual spawn point is a little bit past the houses on the left-back in the screenshot. But this shot has a good angle at the bits we used to start off -- the docks and boathouse constructed by Nicole (and then, pillaged for parts for Fort Fox, hence the lack of walls), crude "we need things now" farms, and almost invisibly, the "forge" tunneled into the hill by the chests.

Nicole thought the village square could be made prettier, so she did.

My House

Past the village and the impromptu bee fields, a path along the coast leads to my house.

Interior could use some more decorating. On the other hand, I usually don't even finish the outer structure, so this is the most complete thing I've ever built to date.

It does come with a complete collection of cats. Some of them even have names! Besides the Jellie cat, which is of course Jellie. The voidneko perched on the dining table is Tomato, named by a stream viewer.

Also hiding in the bay window is Creamsicle.

Second floor is nothing but a platform leading to the slightly more interesting third floor.

This voidneko is Maya. She gets to sleep upstairs on the superbed because she is my voidneko.

And yes, I do love black cats. They're miniature black holes that nuzzle you.

Not Shown

Nether hub -- no one has made anything more interesting than a minor tunnel near the ceiling.

The Library -- it's just a hole in a hill right now, but where the Librarian villagers roam with less constraints than usual for a trading hall.

A third member of the server built a house but haven't heard from them in a bit, so not showing off their stuff in case they don't want to be.

[selenityshiroi]

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet thoughts after the first weekend of playing:

First some pros

Gameplay is super fun

Story is interesting so far (the gym challenge less so but the other two lines are great)

Mons are varied and plentiful

Encounters are good although it's a shame they still haven't consolidated battle text into one screen yet (multiple buffs should just be one prompt not several)

Pokemon models are amazing

Traversal, once you unlock a couple upgrades, is great

Deliberate encounter shiny hunting is the most fun it's ever been (I deliberately hunted Fidough and it took me a couple hours but doing Let's Go KOs to respawn the mons was so much better than random encounters)

The Sprigatito evolution line is one of my favourite starter lines ever. May even go to number one.

In fact a lot of the new mons are top tier

The music is fire

Seriously, get me that Tera Raid song please it's living rent free in my brain

Also Tera Raid battles are such a great improvement on the SwSh Raid Dens

Tera Forms are super interesting-not a competitive player but having fun with the mechanic

Miraidon is adorable and has cat like mannerisms like Toothless from HTTYD and I love my technodragon with my whole heart

Now for some cons

Performance is pretty yikes

It got a lot better after I followed some advice (moved the data from SD to console memory, forced the resolution to 720 instead of auto to prevent upscaling attempts) but it's still not fantastic

The mons are so small and get swallowed up in the grass which not only makes shiny hunting pretty headache inducing (especially without a shiny Sparkle or sound and with a lot of subtle shinies loosing even more distinction with lighting effects in play) but makes hunting in general pretty difficult

I had no crashes in the first two days but then it crashed three times on me within an hour last night

You don't get the school lessons...by going to the classrooms??? I didn't realise you had to ask at the front desk which means I didn't find them until I'd unlocked so many it took me an hour and a half to go through them. That being said...the lessons are actually not that bad-decent detailed information and presented well. I hear there are some things locked behind them, which is why I went after them, but even as a veteran I didn't get annoyed with them

Environment models are still bad but not distracting bad (like PLA tbh)

NPC models are both great (close up or in battle) or yikes (in passing when they have a slow framerate and look like PS2 polygons

Lack of outfit customisation is sad. I get it because of the school environment but I hope DLC gives us more freedom

Shops are super disappointing...a few basic model buildings would have been nice and also given the game a chance to dump all the loaded overworld data and start afresh on exiting (maybe? Not exactly a game developer here)

Things that aren't an issue to me but I know some people are probably taking issue with/benefit of the doubt stuff:

Quaxly's 3rd evo (haven't seen Fuecoco's line yet) is one where I took one look at it and thought 'Oh...I bet some people HATE that' but I think it's amazing and it redeemed Quaxly entirely for me lol

Limited dex: we know we're getting transfer only stuff later. We know we'll probably get DLC and more mons later. We do NOT need all 1000 mons in one game. I thing it's perfectly acceptable to have the entire National Dex available on one console (so hopefully between this, SwSh and BDSP/PLA all mons are available on Switch) without them being available in one game.

But they should have taken more time...we know why they don't. Pokemon is a franchise and the games are a cog in the wheel to generate new merchandise. That wheel needs to keep turning. If they can't turn out a polished product in the time given they should invest in more staff and developers rather than take longer.

I still...still wonder if Nintendo had intended to release a Switch Pro by now but were scuppered by the pandemic and the chip shortages. Was this game planned to be a next console release and that is why optimisation is so shoddy? Is that why Zelda TOTK has been delayed twice (since it doesn't have a merch schedule to prevent more time being spent on oprimisation)? Who knows.

[blossom-beast]

Oh I feel so petty as well with my conplaints about the house but as a lover of farming sims and things like minecraft were you can decorate things SO WELL with some really limited materials it just, it SUCKED SO MUCH! I was so excited for it. Like I'd have even be happy with how skyrim did it where it's a base house that you can chose what to add where and everything is nice and detailed. You don't get to pick the plot BUT that means the devs can make the area all pretty!

But then you just get the flat green square to build on, there isn't even anything around it to make it look nice! A cliff side home? They could have made that so cool! Imagine a basement that then has a balcony coming out of the mountain! Sure that's a lot and it's a zelda game not a farming game, but my point is that if they were going to include it they should have done it properly, not just like idk what felt like childs shaped building blocks. Even when you completely max out the build limit it's so empty. I feel there's a reason you see like no one pointing about their builds and stuff. You could have gotten a house in the seaside village you repair instead, that would have been perfect for it.

As for horses vs cars, the cars were too big, huge in the way and couldn't set up anything, where as the horses auto follow paths, can go pretty fast, get up NARROW paths and hills. Also you can name them, dress them up and feed them it makes you CARE about them, they even carried over your old horses from the last game! Oh course I'm going to use my horse named cookie who I braided flowers into their mane from my BOTW file that I played for 300 hours instead of the house sized wheel beast that I need a full battery belt to even be used for a good amount of time(And don't even start me on the stupid fucking grind to upgrade the belt to full. Yes I DID cheat to get it because it was so fucking annoying to get all that damn ore and the weapons to break it, IT WAS SO LONG! And out of place from everything else with the amount of grinding! "Oh I have to stop this, the days rolled over I need to get the next batch of bits from the robots!")

Too many things felt half finished, like all the carts for the horses, I loved them so much as they were real cute but like I only used them maybe 5 times for an actual in game thing? Like what was it even for? I did use them outside of that for just silly little "I'm gonna fill this with fruit and play around". A lot of my enjoyment of TOTK/BOTW was getting INTO the world and not just "ok lets kill monster and win the game." The whimsy and lore was so important to me and well idk it just didn't feel there as much. And I KNOW you feel the same as me about the guardian stuff.

But yeah um, I feel they should have cut a least half the stuff out and then polished the rest instead.

seeing all the crazy stuff people build in totk kinda ... it feels like that is also a factor in why it turned out like this, like the insane things people did in botw and the (i keep saying devs when i actually mean the directors .. producers?) directors saw it and build totk just around letting people do it all 100 times more

to be clear, i think its impressive as hell what some people build (i just saw like .. a movie scene with a functioning mech gozilla and tanks made with totks building stuff ... what the fuck) and those things go pretty viral (understandibly so) but i also gotta question

as creative, free, and impressive as it is ... should that have been the focus in a zelda game? like .. is building mechas and tanks like that something that should be in a zelda game? can it be in there without inevitably sacrificing so much else? theres building games just for that? and if you want to make it zelda themed you can make it a spin off?

like i get it, people did crazy things in botw, they saw what people had fun with and dialed it up to a 1000 in totk, which in itself is not bad, even pretty good if you consider gamedevs and feeback and all that bc in general you should embrace what people had fun with in your game even if it wasnt the intent, given that nintendy listens to feedback (perhaps even a bit too much at times) and creative solutions was a central point to botw design philosophy but

i feel like totk kinda .. missed the balance?

if its really a reason why totk is build around enabling that in a purely player centered toy box kind of way without it actually mattering in the story .. or even themes ... was it worth it? not to sound like an oldschool boomer tm but in a franchise that iconic, lore and story focused, should you really abandon nigh all lore/story cohesion just to give the player a big box of toys in a world where i feel that doesnt ,, really belong? in a direct sequel in the same world with the same characters no less? that point is perhaps the biggest issue with it, bc again lots of games even if somwhat a sequel, had strange new tech or things in the world but in all of those cases it was some alternative universe, millenia after the other game, or on an entire different continent; while totk is supposedly just a few years after botw in the very same hyrule

(still doesnt explain the erasing of all shiekah things and replacing it with sonau- tho suddendly revealing the shiekah had actual rockets, wheels with suspension and grenade-launchers, might have been confusing too- you could have enabled the player creativity with shiekah too imo, and personally i would have found it way more fun ... lil guardian leg crawlies ..)

having thought about it feels rather logical why they did it in alot of ways, but also ... totk is build around it, while its also not build around it at all- its build around the PLAYER, not the world, not the story, not the theme, not the character, but YOU (especialyl those that dont realyl care about anythign story or lore stuff and just want to have fun with the gameplay loop, which isnt wrong, but i question whether thats the right kind if player to center in a zelda game .... also not saying all of those that build these crazy things are like that but- ... i hope you know what i mean)

(i know games are always build around the player, or should be, but .. do you get what i mean????? playing in a world that doesnt make sense anymore bc its all a box of toys yeeted into my face isnt fun to me, bc im here not only for gameplay fun but for the world .. theme .. characters, its something that has to be harmonical as a whole for me and totk just .. isnt)

i say it alot but i do really mean it, its very difficult to get my thoughts and feelings written out and to have them come across correctly