#because this game is... so fucking ugly and poorly optimized

[mokeonn]

Hey quick question, why the fuck was everyone angry at sword and shield for being ugly, rushed pokemon games but was pretty much completely fine with Scarlett and Violet being worse?

[through-fire-and-flame]

[ also i’m a bit bored so i’m going to pen out some thoughts on Elden Ring after 150 or so hours in the game across multiple platforms

opinions™ under the readmore ]

[ the further i get from Elden Ring the more i realized i spent a not insignificant portion of the game either irritated or confused. 

the game’s gorgeous and huge and has a lot to offer, and i haven’t seen nearly all of it yet, i’m sure - but there’s a few things that grate on my nerves and have slowed down a second full playthrough or any real time on NG+:

- exploration for exploration’s sake is fine, but way too many of these dungeons ended in getting spirit ashes i was never going to use - not because i don’t like spirit ashes, but because many of them do *nothing* compared to the four or five really good ones. they dropped the ball on making many of these of any real use besides tanking for you, and the mimic tear is going to eat more damage than any of them + get bonuses from what you have equipped, so even that becomes a case of “do i want to use the suboptimal tank or the optimal tank.”

now, having things you don’t use in a Souls game is not the problem; the problem is that having these as rewards for dungeons, in conjunction with incredibly small rune payouts and often no boss soul, means the sensation of exploration often gets stifled by the receipt of a poor reward you can’t make any use of, and not even enough runes for a level at the relative point you may be in the game. 

- speaking of not being able to use things, BOY HOWDY WHAT ARE SOME OF THESE STAT INVESTMENTS? there’s a ton of items that demand both Faith and Intelligence to use on top of DEX/STR investment, and then have shitty scaling on all of ‘em! on your first playthrough you’re not likely to use these without significant leveling investment + pain in the ass weapon upgrading, on your second you’re not likely to use them because what build are they going to fit? what version of these weapons were meant to be viable?

- some of the lore feels a bit muddy even for a Souls game. what the hell is a black knifeprint as a tangible object - the cursemark cut into some skin? is it on a tablet of some kind? what the hell am i carrying in my pocket? 

- this one’s subjective, but most of these armor sets are either outright ugly or have misshapen parts all over them, which drives my neurodivergent ass crazy; i want a lightly decorated, generally symmetrical plate armor set with a closed helmet that doesn’t have six horns and a plume on it, and while i’m glad more “weird” options are in the game that still means i get stuck with two sets i like out of A Lot Of Them 

don’t get me wrong, Elden Ring is still my game of the year so far and i did put 150 hours into it; i think the overall experience is a really good one, and revelatory for the open world genre as a whole

but the progress doesn’t feel great, some of the back half of the game is just really poorly balanced or unfun, the lore gets up to some shenanigans that even I can’t really parse, and a lot of the gear is either ugly or poorly mechanically designed (imo, of course.) 

also the PC version stutters like crazy sometimes and i hate that the best way to play this game is by downloading the PS4 version onto my PS5 >:( 

edit: also fuck the valiant gargoyles and the duo crucible knights boss fight]

[melleonis]

new maritime d&d game, first session play report: in an attempt to get an ancient drow artifact that allows the DM to handwave minimum crew requirements for sailing vessels so that the players can actually go where they want in the setting, the party explores a sea cave in an atoll where an old drow shipwreck is rumored to be located.

the party consists of a genasi bartending ranger, a storm-infused halfling sorcerer and his blue dragonborn STR-rogue boyfriend, and a human monk & tiefling wizard from the sino-egyptian nerd society (they’re the ones with the drow artifact key and the lead on the shipwreck). you may notice that none of these classes, at first level, have access to healing magic. also, none of them are front-line fighters. the ranger has a d10 hit die, but her only melee weapons are an ice pick and a corkscrew, so like.

“it’s not a game about optimization,” i tell people when they’re creating their d&d characters. what i haven’t been saying that i probably should have been saying is that first-level characters are squishy as hell, and if you don’t have anyone with healing magic, someone’s gonna fucking die. i threw the party a healing potion as a concession to their weak hit dice and no clerics, but...

first encounter: a rocky pool with a rickety wooden structure in the middle, from which is hanging a beat-up shield and a fish-covered mallet. party inspects the poorly-spelled writing on the shield, gets ambushed by a giant enemy crab. crab’s carapace shrugs off most of the party’s attacks, crab crits the wizard into unconsciousness and back-hands the ranger for 75% of her health. sorcerer casts sleep, manages to roll the exact number of hit points necessary. crab slumps over, starts blowing bubbles. they use their healing potion to revive the wizard, gather round the unconscious crab, and whale on it with a full round of attacks, again damaging it for exactly the number of hit points it had left. ranger takes the shield, because lord knows some of them should have AC. sorcerer takes the fish-covered mallet. onward they go.

second encounter: seven kuo-toa (ugly, insane fishmen) huddled round a campfire. the sorcerer rolls a 2 on his stealth check, catches one of them with his sleep spell before three of them net him & club him into unconsciousness. mayhem ensues. one of the kuo-toa takes off past the party, one of them starts dragging the sorcerer off, and the rest slug it out, with the party, who are winning until the kuo-toa who swam past them comes back in a grief-stricken damage-resistant berserker rage, swinging the severed claw of the giant crab they killed earlier. ranger gets hit by the crab claw for the second time that day and is just flattened. wizard finally hits the berserker enough times with his stick that he dies, stabilizes the ranger with a little help from Thoth, god of medicine. the rest of the kuo-toa go down. rogue takes off after the one who kidnapped the sorcerer, who drops the net and runs when he sees a burly dragonborn charging down the corridor at him. monk gets his dagger stuck to one of the kuo-toa’s sticky shields and just leaves it there, grabs one of the fishmen spears and ganks the one still sleeping by the fire.

everyone takes a short rest and is back to mostly-full HP, except the ranger, who rolled shit on their hit die. they keep exploring the cave and find the wrecked drow submarine, broken in half, shoot a grappling arrow into a hole in the upper deck, climb in and start looking around. they find loot and some pretty good potions - although, in retrospect, some of them should have been healing potions.

also in retrospect, the laser turret might have been slightly unfair.

by which i specifically mean: save-for-half-damage traps are fucking brutal when any amount of damage is a substantial percentage of your total HP. everyone is in its area of effect, and the two attacks the party gets off on it before it starts shooting fail to even scratch its high AC. so everyone takes five damage from incidental laser burn, except the ranger, who blows her DEX save even with advantage, takes a laser straight to the chest, and is knocked unconscious. the dragonborn manages to fry the turret with his lightning breath, but the wizard and the rogue are at all of 4 HP, and the monk and sorcerer are each sitting at 1. then the floor gives way beneath them (and the wizard was very glad he’d prepared feather fall) and they all enter the final boss fight in pretty fucking bad shape.

final boss fight is a kuo-toa cleric and the one regular kuo-toa who got away earlier. and at this point i’m looking at the 65 HP the enemy cleric has and comparing it to the 10 total HP (and one remaining first-level spell slot) the party has and thinking, hm. maybe i’ve miscalculated here. but, okay. the cleric doesn’t know how beat up y’all are. he’s gonna spend the first couple rounds casting buffs & debuffs, so you just have to handle the one mook and then you can start chipping away at the cleric. you’ve got that one remaining magic missile in the tank, you’ve got those potions, the action economy is in your favor. this is doable.

then in the first round the mook crits against the monk, killing him outright with a spear straight through the heart. the rogue takes the mook down but it’s kind of all bad news from there. wizard gets sacred flamed into unconsciousness. rogue tries to cross the water to engage the cleric in melee, flubs his athletics check, gets sacred flamed into unconsciousness and falls in the water. so the sorcerer, huddled behind a bit of twisted wreckage, at 1 HP, dodging sacred flames & trying to firebolt the cleric to little effect, starts trying to figure out how to resolve this without everyone dying, which is a problem i’ve also been working on for several minutes at this point. eventually he pulls out the fish-covered mallet from the first room, and starts waving it around while trying to parley.

it’s a desperation move, of course, but kuo-toa are insane, and this seems like something with maybe some deep semiotic shadows in the crazed mind of a fishman, so i have him make a straight charisma check. he rolls a 16. the enemy cleric - still with forty-something hit points - backs away slowly, turns, and flees into the dark waters. sorcerer fishes his rogue boyfriend out of the water and stabilizes him. wizard fails his third death save and dies. but they won, technically. the drow artifact they came for - basically just an AI that can cast a bunch of copies of Unseen Servant simultaneously - carries the four unconscious or dead bodies of the sorcerer’s compatriots out of the cave.

the wizard and the monk players roll up new characters. one of them is a fighter in full chain. one of them is a druid who specializes in healing magic. the nice thing about deeply suboptimal party builds is that they tend to be a self-correcting problem.

[this-is-getting-silly]

If anyone is interested in reading some of my shitty ‘writing,’ here you are.

Part Four.

"Mister Winters, I have a proposition to make you."

The sentence shakes Conrad out of his reverie. His hands have been bound behind his back, his weapons taken, his mask removed. His cell is deep beneath a facility that doesn't legally exist, and the Director of the Bureau is standing in front of him, face neutral. In other words, he's exactly where he wants to be.

Like a multifaceted gem, turning so that the light catches it in a new, different way, Conrad's mind moves from his introspection to the social manipulator that was trained by his father to bend any person to his will.

Show weakness. His image of you is a misguided, brilliant young man who could be an asset to him. Play it up.

"What would you want with me?"

The emphasis on specific words, subtly stroking his ego, making him think that I think of him as some untouchable paragon of spycraft. Not to mention implying that I think less of myself specifically because of the mission's failure. Hardly.

"Mister Winters, your attempt at engaging in a game with me was ham-fisted and poorly planned, if I may be blunt."

Levels and levels, idiot. Don't think less of your opponent only because they're younger than you.

"However," the Director continues, "I believe you have potential in this line of work. Specifically, working for us."

Excellent. Seem surprised, flattered. Use profanity.

"Me? Why? I attacked you! And I fucked that up, too. How would I be of any use to you?"

The Director smiles. Slightly.

"Mister Winters, your plan would have gone off without a hitch had your team not proved to be incompetent. You would have taken what you came for and left with us none the wiser. Simply put, your talents are wasted with whatever organization you've signed on with. If your father's resources were enough to keep you afloat as an independent, you would not have aligned yourself with them, so you need resources. Let us make use of your services and we will provide them."

A tempting offer. But he makes a few too many assumptions. To him, it seems that I failed in my mission, when I, in reality, am just where i want to be. He assumes he's in control of the situation, when I contrived to have him offer me a job from the beginning. To simply take it would be to betray my purpose. Still, I must at least appear to want to join to further this part of the plan. Not to mention, having all of the Americans' fun toys to play with could be interesting.

"I... yes."

The Director's face betrays some surprise, and Conrad wonders for a moment if he agreed too quickly.

"Normally, Mister Winters, when I try to turn an enemy agent, it takes a little longer for them to acquiesce."

Show him that you're worth hiring. Sound smart.

"Frankly, Director, most people you'er trying to turn have some measure of loyalty to their previous employer. Not so, in this case."

"Ah, yes. Speaking of that employer, who were they?"

"The Tower, actually. And while we're on the subject... I have an idea as to my first assignment. "

Pause, indicating deference.

"Oh?"

"If I return to them within the next four days, they may well assume that I escaped, and if I manage to make that story seem believable, I can work as a double-agent. My employment with them was on a freelance basis, so I'll be able to leave and return without arousing suspicion, and take as much information from them as is offered to me. I understand if my trustworthiness is in doubt, as I may seem eager to return to the people you have just turned my against, but I will happily agree to any countermeasure that your wish to employ to ensure my loyalty."

Conrad paused fo a moment, hoping that he hadn't overdone it, but when the Director spoke, his tone seemed understanding.

"Normally, I'd like to test your capabilities, do some test, the like. But this is an irreplaceable opportunity. We can squeeze the most important procedures into two days, and prep you for undercover work on the third, if that's amenable."

Oh, absolutely.

"Yeah, but just one question?"

"Of course."

"Can I have an office?"

Part Two.

"Gentlemen, the plan is thus."

The trick here is to sell this properly. If they suspect that it's designed to fail. they'll insist on 'helping' me design it, and the whole plan will be finished.

The Tower is a sovereign nation. As the name indicates, it is a single tower, but it is indisputably the tallest in toe world, at 3,500 feet. It is also quite wide, about the width of the Pentagon, both to house it's rather large population, and to keep the massive structure stable. It rises out of the Indian Ocean, and is the only nation in the world run by a superhuman. It's original creator designed the structure with his power, but it is now run by another person entirely. Not that it's residents know that.

A superhuman who operates under the name of Revolution toppled the previous Tower's government, with the help of a man named Winters, and replaced the leader in secret. That, of course, was years ago. A week ago, Winters' son came to the Tower and requested the assistance of the Tower's leader. Today, the team that Winters put together has gathered to plan a heist. Or so they think. In reality, Conrad Winters is playing the angles. His plan is built so that the team he's working with will be tripped up by a security system that Conrad knows exists, but the team doesn't.

"Transfer will make his way into the security control room by ambushing a low-level employee outside the building whose schedule I've internalized. Once inside the security control room, he'll manually activate the security systems while an employee is checking in, giving the system a false positive."

Transfer. His consciousness has no body, and he can transfer it into hosts by touch. Once hosts are changed, the host has no memory of being possessed.

"Buckshot and I will enter while the majority of security is distracted by that, and take the package."

Buckshot. Has a very small range, but a powerful telekinetic blast that can rip through just about anything. Calls it 'shotgun telekinesis."

"Once that happens, Transfer will kill the power, and we leave under cover of darkness."

Of course, they don't know about the security systems detailed in Father's files. I told Revolution that Father's notes say that the only reason no-one'e ever pulled this off is because their plans are too complicated. This is obviously false. The real reason is that the Bureau has a telepath.

Part Six.

Equinox/Solstice... Olympian... Arboretum... no. I can look this over another day. This day is for experimenting.

Conrad Winters is in his lab, in his home. On the screen to his left are the US Governments collected files on the world's superhumans. On the right is the same collection of files, but taken from the Tower. The information may not be everything that they have, but it's a place to start. After all, why would they allow their newest recruit to have full access to their files?

Behind Conrad is a large amount of salvage.

Outside of the Winters Castle is a war zone. When Conrad's father was attacked, his enemies used an army of machines, and the elder Winters wiped them out. He was wounded in the attempt, and died, so the ground is littered with destroyed machines.

His son intends to use them.

The Interfacer is a device that Conrad's father had built before he died. It is designed to interface, as the name suggests, with machines. Even destroyed ones.

Closing the files on his screens with a sigh, Conrad opens his lab application, and selects the Interfacer. Behind him, he hears the machines move, and attach the device to the hulk of scrap. It's wires snake into the husk and search for undamaged circuits, replacing essential systems that no longer exist. In a moment, the machine is online. It's shell is immobile, wrecked, but it can function.

Mechanical arms move to saw parts of the armor open, leaving only useful parts. The lab has a good deal of spare machine parts, and Conrad selects a few to attach. In the end, he's cerated a gestalt of the original creation, which resembled a blocky humanoid with arms that fired cutting lasers, and a medieval knight. It's arms remain the same, and the head has been mostly repaired. The shoulders are spiked pads, and the body has been replaced wholesale. The legs are now treads, as well, but the paint job somehow makes it look like it was designed this way. When Conrad try to actually activate it, is immediately begins moving forward, swinging it's arms in an attempt to crush the young schemer's body. He spins, reaching for his weapon, and fires a burst of electromagnetic energy from it. The machine freezes. Damn. Forgot to change it's primary function. Ah well, the design was rather ugly. On to the next one.

Part One.

Winters' Journal, Entry Four.

I have a plan.

It's taken some time, looking through Father's notes, to find a suitable faction. But the Tower owes him, and if I call in that favor they won't be able to refuse. I'll tell them that I want to launch a raid on the Unite States, and they'll give me a team.

Of course, I don't intend to be successful. The plan will be just good enough to both convince the Tower's team, and impress the Director of the Bureau. And then fail. I'll be taken captive, which will assure the Tower that it wasn't a set-up intended for them, and convince the Bureau that I'm not as talented as I am.

They'll offer me a job, and I'll accept. I'll suggest I be sent undercover to the Tower, and they'll have no choice but to agree. Once I return to the Tower, I'll inform them that the Bureau thinks I work for them, and offer the Tower the opportunity to hire me as a double-agent. Effectively, I'll be an agent of both sides. They'll both eventually trust me, if I'm patient enough to play the long game, and I'll get both sides' shiny toys. The computer's estimated that the optimal timeline for this project is at least a year. Maybe more. At first, I was worried that it would mean putting off all my other projects, but that seems a silly worry. With the resources of either the Tower or Bureau at my fingertips, my other ideas will be far easier to do.

Now, this is all in pursuit of an end goal. If Father had come up with this plan, he would surely go with the obvious idea. Push both sides toward war by distributing information selectively so that a fight seems inevitable, and then betray both sides and end up in a position where you control both groups.

Of course, that isn't my goal. No, I intend to do something different.

I'll work my way into the confidences of the group's respective leaders. And we'll see if the Bureau and the Tower can't do some good in the world for once.

Part Five.

Conrad's helicopter touched down on one of the Tower's many landing pads. The man who comes to greet them is known to the world simply as Architect, but a select few people know that he is really Revolution, a man indebted to the Winters family in many ways.

"Conrad! You're alive! When the raid went wrong, we thought-"

"Yes, Architect, you thought I was dead. To be honest, so did I. However, this si not a discussion meant for the outside. Let us to your office."

That may have come off too strong. We'll see, I suppose.

"Yes, yes, of course."

When the two men reach Revolution's office, they both seem different people. A pretense is abandoned, and they address each other frankly. Or so Revolution thinks. He doesn't waste time with formalities, simply speaking.

"Conrad, there is no way that you escaped the Bureau's highest-security prison. Therefore, you either cut a deal, or I am working with incomplete information. The team I sent with you was not there for your capture, so it's possible you weren't captured at all. Explain."

Hm. He's perceptive. I suppose he would have to be, for someone who worked with Father.

"I cut a deal, yes. The Bureau offered me a job, and I took it. They now believe I am here working for them. As you have no doubt gathered, I am not. Instead, I wish to become a counter-agent relaying them only information that you wish for them to know, either misinformation or harmless secrets. In return, I will take what information they offer me and bring it to you." Hm. Definitely came on too strong. Hopefully it isn't a problem.

"A dangerous prospect, trying to fool the Bureau. Besides, how do we know you aren't trying to fool us?" Good. Now, bait the trap...

"Because you power doesn't work on me. You can see lies, and your power doesn't work on me. Don't you want to know if you can play the game without having a handicap?"

And close it.

Part Three. Transfer's body collapsed, his consciousness leaving it as he transferred into the Bureau employee. Buckshot grabbed Transfer's preferred host before they hit the ground, and carried them to the car. Conrad followed. They laid the unconscious man in the backseat and got into the driver's and passenger's seat respectively. All three, of course, were cloaked, but it never hurt to have that extra measure of secrecy.

Watching on a video feed, they saw Transfer enter the building, retinal and DNA sensors confirming their identity, and brush the hand of another employee, this one with a security badge. The first woman looked around confusedly before her mind filled in the gaps in her memory and she turned towards her office. The security guard, however, began to move towards the security control room. Before he could actually enter, he was stopped by another guard, presumably higher-ranking. As the latter guard began to speak, Transfer reached out and brushed his exposed forearm. The first guard turned to go, and the second one entered the control room. There was no camera inside, but Conrad heard the sound of a door locking, and a few very muffled thumps, which he took as an indication that Transfer had knocked out the two other guards inside.

Just then, in the sightline of the two men in the car, an employee approached the gate. They took this as a signal to exit the car again and move towards the back entrance. Once they heard the alarm, and the footsteps that marked that door's guard moving towards the disturbance, they entered.

However, the building's resident telepath had alerted the guards to their presence. When the doors opened, they found their cloaking tech disabled, and a power-armored guard, flanked by two mundanes, waiting for them. Buckshot spat an epithet and ran towards the power-armored one, using his power once he was in range, to rip through the outer layers of the armor. Conrad drew his gun, firing an energy pulse at the same one, but he seemed unfazed.

"We're made," Conrad spat into the comm system. "Go!"

Buckshot turned to flee obediently, and Conrad assumed that Transfer had done the same, likely transferring into one of the guards sent to capture him. He surreptitiously flicked a setting on his weapon and pulled the trigger again, but a sound was instead emitted that suggested he had expended it's charge. He threw it at the wall and braced himself for the strike that was to follow.

Once he had judged that the beating had been painful enough to justify his stopping resisting, Conrad went limp, and feigned unconsciousness.

They're reporting to their superior, likely. Getting orders on where to take me. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the Director is overriding their orders and having me brought to their high-security prison.

Just as planned.