#but in 2 my strat never really changed

[anthophobicowl]

Payed for the deluxe edition of frostpunk 2 so I could play it early(never do that normally) and it's good but pretty different from the first one. Also if you've played the first def crank the difficulty up. I was playing on the second lv and didn't have any trouble until the very very end. And that was more just cause I didn't understand the voting mechanic cause I didn't really need it till the end.

[coffeegnomee]

Minecraft pvp is so freaking interesting. I was thinking back to watching the Jumper pov of the Minute and Pentar ban and it was so good. Like I was on the edge of my seat and I knew how it ended. We need more group battles in Lifesteal, I beg.

1v1 pvp is just like who can get the most hits in, or just who can quick drop the other person faster. 

But group fights are sooooo different. The actual personality and experience of each member matters so much. And it doesn't show until there's at least 5 people on the battlefield. Preferably 7.

Minute, Pentar, and Jumper came with basically identical kits, very solo-minded towards their approach to pvp. They got overconfident with their secretly-netherite armor durability and 15 stacks of xp (each.)

And they, as far as I know, have very very little experience in large group battles and long pvp battles. They all fought drain season 5, but 4v3 group drain is much different than a 2v2. 

And the fight was LONG. Minute didn’t realize the change in tides until really late, not initiating the run to the trap, their ONLY trap my goodness why didn’t they set up more it’s the final days, so when the trap was already blown up they had zero backup plan. 

They didn’t start calling in people until Minute had like 2-3 stacks of xp left, that’s something you do the second you realize the tides are turning, especially when it’s an uneven 3v4.

And just listening to his coms vs Clown’s coms was just night and day. Minute doesn’t have the experience yet to know how to manage a team in a fight, how to allocate assets, choose targets, and keep the team’s morale up and on target while they’re dying. He’s said it himself that he likes the quicker fights kits with netherite sword and diamond armor.

But Clown is naturally skilled at managing his soldiers. He knows exactly who to target and how, reassigning pvp skill so it’s him, the most skilled, with the least skilled player to do maximum durability damage on Minute. Like every phrase out of his mouth is in service of optimizing the team. 

And then they came with a minor kit adjustments. Clown and Mapicc came with harming arrows because of their net strength 1 from the blessings/curses, but Minute didn’t know that strat. So it was both an: “they’re trolling” moment, but when Clown came with the same kit it was like: “wait did I miss something?” Psychological warfare right there. 

And then Mapicc had his knockback sword and Zam was on water drain duty. Those two small changes to their kit, on just two members, really sealed their victory. Mapicc was such a menace.

Which is so fascinating. Minute had been ruling the server simply through being amazing at getting out of fights and never getting into a slightly outnumbered fight. Same with Jumper. 2v2’s for them were a guaranteed win. 

But once you get 7 people on the battlefield it turns into a completely different mindset on how to turn the tides back in your favor and it’s all about targeting specific players. As Clown was targeting the strongest player on their team, pb&j needed to get drain-drop Ro so it would be a 3v2.5 (with Zam/Spep) 

And Jumper, just because of her skill level and background, doesn’t know the dynamics of who to target and when, when to be aggressive and when to back off, when to call for help and when it’s better to stay in the fight. She did absolutely her best but it was so interesting to see he true smp pvp skill after months of just being like why is she so good in every fight and undefeated against Mapicc and Zam while she says she never practices.

Lifesteal fights, and yes I’ve only ever really watched Lifesteal fights and I am fascinated in theory for how Levels fights used to go, feel so much more dirty than a normal server. It feels like other servers just get a trap off or fight completely even and it’s just skill vs skill. (And I’m feeling that even more now just observing how Flame talks about other smp pvp) 

And Clown coming into the fight with an advantage was so much stronger than Minute deciding an advantage halfway though the fight. Clown does this all the time, not taking a fight until he’s properly prepped for the specific situation. Like bringing the crystals to the finale fight to even out the playing field: he prepares to get the advantage. 

Vs Minute is too good-hearted to think that cutthroat from the start (well, except for changing the durability of their armor) He absolutely thinks cut-throat when he realizes he’s doomed, but off the bat he’s too much a superhero. He thought the fight would just be Mapicc and Ro while Zam would sit out, like what??? It’s Lifesteal, if they’re on they’re all fighting. And then they were surprised when Clown came back on to fight. They were confident, but they should have been thinking defensively and like they were doomed the second it was a 4v3. Maybe not doomed, but not like it was even. 

Much like all the lore of the server, the specific players matter so much in each scenario. Without someone, or with someone, a whole arc is different. Clown changed the tides in that fight simply from being the better team manager. Had someone else been the 4th player it would have gone completely differently. 

-----

jumper pov here

zam here fight starts 2:47:00

[maryse127]

List of changes I hope to see in Xenoblade X Definitive Edition :)

I am hopeful because last time we got a definitive edition Monolith adressed basically all my issues with the original

LARGER TEXT. For fuck's sake please. I love this game, I would love it even more if I could fucking read!

Better online servers. I have no experience with Nintendo Switch Online but please let the online be more stable. The constant disconnects were so annoying. Especially because the only way to reconnect was going back to the title screen and loading back in. Which took forever with the loading times.

I never got to experience the game during the Miiverse days so I hope they bring the Miiverse features back to some degree just like they did with Splatoon

Change it so that the flight music only kicks in after flying for about 10 seconds instead of the instant you jump. And also the option to turn it off completely. I love the flight theme but it sucks you basically never get to hear the area themes again while travelling once you unlock flying.

Considering they didn't listen to the complaints about the vision reacts music in DE I am Very Skeptical about a flight music toggle tho :(

Hot take but I actually like talking to characters in NLA to put them in your party. However I HATE it when I cannot find them because they are not in their usual spot. Please mark their current locations on the map!!

Rebalance the audio and/or add audio options to the settings because I would love to hear the characters talk over the music

Wild card that won't happen but that I have always wanted: add a fashion boutique to the commercial district where you can buy fashion gear. And add more of it. I love the casual clothes in this game. I just wish it was easier to get specific things than randomly getting it from the basic mission board

Improve follow ball. That thing gets lost and confused when you fly

Better quest tracking for collectibles. Would love to be able to find my quest items without having to consult the wiki where they spawn.

Honestly, add better quest tracking for enemies as well. I have spend way too much time searching for tyrants despite having their basic mission active. Just anything that makes me use the wiki less while playing.

Offline option to gain reward tickets. I love the online but it would be so much better and more fair to all players if you could get the reward tickets offline as well. Being stuck in collection quests or grinding all materials for creating skells amd augments is just so bad without the tickets.

I feel like the map could use a bit more location names and would also really appreciate it if it would show exactly where the landmark/probe is in the sector. Because I have had moments where I warped and ended up being a lot farther away from where I wanted to go than I thought.

Option to change time from the menu instead if having to find a base camp or bench!!!

Better tutorials. Like they have to because the manual is gone. But even with the manual I felt like explanations were lacking at times. Especially when it comes to overdrive.

Not a change rather a very heartfelt request to NOT change how stupidly broken overdrive is. Infinite overdrive strats my beloved.

Option to quit out of a story or affinity mission. I never did get stuck in one. And I know there's an option to lower boss difficulty if you die a few times. But I just never liked the restricted feeling of not being able to give up and retry it later. Especially ones where you need items which can be a Pain without reward tickets.

Game is probably gonna get an easy mode anyway but I would really appreciate the option to quit a mission.

Make the skells easier to control in vehicle mode?? I don't know how this could be achieved. Maybe it's just a skill issue on my part (rather than a skell issue)

Unlikely but please: multiple save files per user. The whole reason I have a second profile on my Switch is Xenoblade 2 (and BotW) not allowing multiple savefiles per profile.

Maybe have inactive party members gain some exp? Like after you unlock overdrive you can basically solo the game anyway but it would be nice to not have a character stuck at level 20 when you are in late game grinding affinity for affinity missions

Somehow make it so that the Prospectors aren't constantly dominating the leaderboards. I too want salvage tickets for my skell :(

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

If you dont mind the ask, what are some of your favorite pokemon cards by moveset, design, and/or art?

Ooh, I like this ask, I think I'm going to dig in and make this my post for the day and put some work into this.

Electrode was the coolest Pokemon in the first generation because blowing up to what would become 2 of any Energy let some cool strats with otherwise slow Pokemon work. It's a shame that it was so weak to Energy Removal, but at least Lass existed to help.

Kabuto from Neo Discovery goes in the art category. Was the first of the clay Pokemon by Yuka Morii that I ever got, and those cards are adorable. I'm glad there was a series of these throughout the years.

Town Volunteers was one of the first Supporters, which was a very positive change to the game, but was also used for art in the Lumiose Museum in XY. I love that they used old cards in that.

This was probably the first deck I used that was really, really good, as I actually got all the cards together for a functional version of it. I couldn't go to many events for various reasons but I'm fond of it anyway.

Flygon here had a lot going for it. It was one of the Delta Species, which was a very cool concept and one I wish they'd go fully back to someday. Tera does some of that but misses out on the Weakness diversity within a type thing, which I know they're actively trying to avoid now. It also let you play with a variety of Delta Species at once with that Poke-Power, so it was fun to mess around with.

My favorite Pokemon may have never been good in the games (does ADV ZU count as good? Probably not) but got one of the best cards of all time. Any deck could use this as 2 of any color of Energy, though you had to return an Energy back to your hand so it worked best alongside things like Blastoise ex or Meganium ex. Those decks could just work with any Pokemon that needed 2 or fewer off-type Energy, so that translated to the vast majority of Pokemon in the game. It was still useful in decks without that to an extent. Oh, and it was also a starter Pokemon for basically any deck running a lot of Delta Species Pokemon, even if it was just the Basic versions to evolve into something else. Incredible card.

Crystal Beach isn't here for design or what it does, it's for story reasons. One person that could possibly read this will know what I'm talking about here.

I didn't get to play a ton in the DP era but I do remember this being silly. 90 for no Energy was such a fun concept, and it was actually pretty good at the time.

The attack is called Everyone Explode Now. What's not to like?

---

I think I should stop here for now, got out of hand a bit. I think I'll put out a second edition of this tomorrow evening with later cards since I rarely write anything after therapy anyway and that'll be a fun easy thing. Can go back to normal posts Wednesday. Thanks for the ask here, that was fun to do!

[we-are-houseguest]

"did you grow up lonesome and one of a kind? were your records all you had to pass the time?" ~ the queen of lower chelsea, the gaslight anthem

welcome back, y'all.

first off, i'm stoked to tell you (if you haven't already heard) that you can actually hear what we recorded with all of this instead of just reading about it when our debut ep,

cry about it

is released on january 31st!

(and if you're in/near vancouver, you can come see us at our release show the night before! rumor has it there'll be merch and new songs 👀 (there'll be merch and new songs, it's not a rumor))

now. let's talk about mj's guitars, shall we? he used a LOT more guitars than i did this time around, so let's dive in.

this is mj's fender noventa stratocaster, one of his two main guitars, and hot damn. this thing is unbelievable. i'm not usually a strat girl but changing the standard design is a good way to pull me in and this thing sounds incredible. the p90s are a fender custom design and they really are fantastic - i'd love to see fender making more guitars with these pickups. the thing weighs nothing and has such tonal variety that mj plays it on big aggressive tunes and the quietest, softest parts (this is the only rhythm guitar on pink power ranger, for example). if you find one of these, i really cannot recommend it enough. mj keeps this guitar in his half open c tuning, CGDGBe; something you may notice is that mj, rach and i often play in wildly different tunings. does my baritone sit more neatly with this weird tuning because of a natural eq curve? is this completely psychosomatic and it just sounds good and i'm overthinking it massively?

... moving on! he uses .10-.52 ernie ball skinny top/heavy bottom strings on it!

this is mj's other main guitar, the fender vintera 70's telecaster deluxe. what is there to say about a telecaster in 2025? hopefully lots. this thing is surprisingly light, given that it's just a big beefy slab of wood, and the wide range pickups sound fantastic. still very versatile, but when he goes absolutely nuts on taurus, for example, that's where these humbuckers shine. this thing is fantastic and comfy as hell (tummy cut forever!). he's got one of those d'addario auto locking straps on this thing and WOW is it ever comfortable. hell of a guitar, truly. he keeps this in e standard (for now; i see d standard in the future, though) and uses the same string set.

(fun fact I - this was my DREAM guitar when i was like 14-18 years old. I always wanted to like sg's but they never seemed like they suited me but then i saw THIS and that was that. it was my absolute dream to own one of these because justin pierre from motion city soundtrack played one and i was (and still am) just such a huge fan. maybe one day i'll use one, too.)

mj lives in the land of actual pedals as opposed to my digital utopia, but i digress. his pedal board includes:

source audio soundblox 2 dimension reverb

southampton pedals fifth gear (nasty, NASTY little motherfucker, so good)

boss cs-3 compression sustainer

source audio nemesis delay (an incredible delay, this thing is so versatile and powerful. it's like a time machine)

boss ph-3 phase shifter (i actually don't think he's ever used this but i'll check)

mxr analog chorus

ehx linear power booster

dunlop crybaby wah (there's definitely something funky with the switch on this one, hence the AM I ON? reminder tape)

boss tu-2 chromatic tuner (tu-2 forever!!!!)

and the fulltone ocd autism pedal (for the record fuck this guy and fuck his company; as of the time of writing, we've got it (tentatively) replaced with a boss ms-3 multi effects switcher (this thing is very cool. surprised there aren't more multi fx/switcher combos out there))

mj is one of the most creative guitar players i've ever heard and he can coax ANYTHING out of this board (which you'll see when our next songs come around). Big weird spacey things, heavy, nasty distorted things, beautiful math-y things... he gets it. he's got The Pedal Touch.

mj plays all of this through a fender tone master deluxe reverb. you might be wondering, why the tone master model? well.

a) you would never know that this is not a tube amp listening to it. never never never.

b) it weighs HALF and that's honestly a big swing right there

c) digitally recording it is not a compromise the way it was way back when with digital amps

d) built in attenuator??? hell yeah. it's not 1985 anymore, baby. the days of diming an amp to get "the best tube breakup" are dead!

as expected, given that it's emulating one of the most legendary amps of all time, it sounds fantastic, takes pedals incredibly well and can do... essentially anything.

now for the studio only guitars! (all three of which belong to rachael, incidentally - out of all of us, she's the guitar collector for SURE.)

mj played this epiphone sheraton ii on a couple tracks just for some tonal variety - different scale length, different strings, different pickups, semi-hollow... really brought a lot to the table for some tracks. these things are ENORMOUS - mj was less than pleased haha.

(fun fact II - i used to own one of these in black with gold hardware and i LOVED it and i miss it all the time)

we currently have this fender strat in half step down to facilitate some of our new stuff, but mj used this on the ep for some really chime-y cleans on re-run. we used it hyper specifically, but it really did the trick.

i used this prs se soapbar II for some kind of like. extra guitarwork, weird noise stuff, guitar pad-style sounds. not super frequent, but a good jack of all trades instrument that served us well! (plus it's a prs without those fuck-ugly bird inlays so that's a big point in its favour haha)

THERE YOU HAVE IT. all instruments have been revealed. in the next week or two i'll do a quick breakdown of what we used mic wise and in the box to record, as we did this whole thing ourselves, but 'til next time:

au revior/arrivederci/auf wiedersehen/adiós/etc

~ elizabeth

[divineerdrick]

Warhammer 40,000 Balance Changes for December 11, 2024: Genestealer Cults

Yeah . . . I was afraid of this. This is one of my factions, and even I thought they got too much last time. While they can be swingy, they're still really good. And when you consider how skilled and dedicated their player base is, the results speak for themselves. Even their detachments are all doing well, with Host of Ascension probably the best one and Biosantic Broodsurge taking home the most trophies. The only detachment no one is taking is Brood Brothers.

Most of their Datasheets are seeing play too, though that's not really saying much considering the size of their Codex. Genestealers, Ridgerunners, and flamer Acolytes seem to be the most seen units.

And, um, yeah . . . There's a lot here. But before we get to it, let's check our detachments. Tunnel Crawlers is probably going to need a rewrite. We'll see if they do anything here. But now let's get to the big one.

Cult Ambush now grants you points you can use to bring back your units. You start with 6 at Incursion, and get 4 more for each further 1000 pts. So that's 10 in a 2000 point game.

Any unit you want to bring back costs a certain amount of these points. Going off the old MFM for now, this averages out to around 30 pts per token. We can check back on this when we get to the MFM and get more specific, but I am live blogging my thoughts and reactions here. So right now, that's 300 points of models you get to bring back.

This is an absolute gutting of Cult Ambush. The GSC armies I looked at run about 1500 points of these units. Even ignoring the +1 to Cult Ambush in the first two turns, and the fact you can bring back a unit multiple times, that's 500 points coming back on average. Now if you're running MSU, that's still quite a few units you get to bring back. It's up to 5 if you only use this on MSU Hybrids. Endless Swarm would kill for this. Though Endless Swarm will kill for any biomass, so that's not saying much. The good news is that it should be much easier to balance GSC around this. And these numbers can also be changed if players are constantly spamming a unit or something is never being used. For now, let's keep going.

They spell out how you add the unit to your army now, including that One Shot weapons haven't been fired. And they now also specify that Cult Ambush is a type of Strategic Reserves. So rules that apply specifically to Strat Reserves, and not just Reserves, affect Cult Ambush. Further, although you can't target Cult Ambush with Rapid Ingress, you can now use normal Strat Reserve rules to setup the unit, which would include using Deep Strike. It also specifies how big a Cult Ambush marker should be.

Tunnel Crawlers no longer cares about Battleline units. It's just a flat 6” Deep Strike. We then get some Detachment specific changes.

Ah! We're getting more changes to rules that provide bonuses to OC. GW is strengthening Battle-shock. I'm surprised they didn't just make a flat statement at the beginning of the Dataslate. Outlander Claw now only gets +1 OC instead of double. We also see that new wording again for sticky objectives.

Xenocreed's Deeds That Speak to the Masses enhancement has been updated for the new rules, and now just grants a flat 2 additional Resurgence points. Demo charges have had their range buffed to 8”. Finally the Kelermorph has had the range of its reactive move brought in line to 9”.

Despite all these changes, GSC hasn't received any Codex errata or FAQ updates. I'm guessing these are massive enough they'll have to wait and see what happens. And the MFM just hits two of the most taken units. The Abominant goes up 20 pts, which definitely hurts, while Ridgerunners go up 10 pts each. Both of these are relevant units. So this is a triple nerf, but possibly not as bad as Sisters got.

It's still going to hurt a lot! You'll have to be very careful with your trades and positioning now. Remember, GSC units are balanced around Cult Ambush. They don't really take damage or deal damage. So while you now know when you'll get your units back, you'll still need to be careful. Still, GSC players are extremely skilled and resourceful. It's possible they could make it work.

[valyrfia]

unhinged lestappen take:

you mentioned rbr 2024 lestappen lineup and I ABSOLUTELY AGREE

like i got called delusional for even suggesting this but hear me out:

so while max said he personally thinks that there cant be 2 number one drivers in a team because obviously there can be favourism, i think he would change his perspective if the question is: could him and charles be in the same team?

he recently said in austia that he would have preferred if they had equal cars and opportunities so

i say he would love to be in the same team as charles period. like my man is starving for actual competition and charles in redbull can give him exactly that

the problem would be charles' undying adoration and denotation for ferrari (ew)

my man went through war with them (2020) and he still didnt even thought about leaving in those terrible terrible times so

but even if the chances are fucking tiny, they are never zero sooo

🙏lestappen rbr 2024🙏

my hot take on this is that red bull would sign two n1 drivers just because they're less traditional and it maximises their chances of winning. i also think that charles is frankly one of the only people that max would yield to if instructed, so if rbr want to go for the strat of having two n1s on their team charles is the only obvious choice really (not even mentioning that checo and charles's contracts are up at the same time)

max is the one who would have to be convinced, but i think after winning this wdc pretty much without trying he wants some competition back at the top and charles in an equal car as him gives him that

my hot delusional take is that i don't think ferrari wants to extend charles's contract. i think to try and do damage control they're going to try to push all the blame on the drivers and off the cars and the strats and charles the pathological people pleaser is just gonna lie there and take it unfortunately. i think if it's a choice between rbr or no racing, charles will take it, and max wants to keep charles on the track with him no matter what. so yes i am delusional and fully believe in lestappen rbr 2024

[nerice]

ask meme all of the hearts for reina!!!

(shakes the 2023 dust off this one but posts it as it was written)

im riding my wrist stamina as far as it will take me wahooo!! since i do poorly with character trait lists so im just gonna throw the first few answers into one>>>

❤️🤍💔 what are three of your oc's positive, neutral/questionable, and negative traits?

1) attachment issues (number one problem always) it's par for course after being the first being in existence and screwing it up so badly that your entire world fucking despises you and then ends in fiery apocalypse. as a result reina is a huge bleeding heart and deathly loyal/attached to all that comes after it for fear of losing it, while simultaneously keeping everyone and everything at arm's length to preempt another heartbreak but also,

2) god complex <3 fundamentally believes herself to be incompatible with mortals due to true ruler status. humans could never understand her (or what she went through in her world) nd for a long time is insufferable and coldly domineering abt it, violently resisting any attempt to break through that demeanor :3 + lastly

3) the biggest fucking softie in the world, actually. in suuuuch a huge part thanks to jumie continuously vibe checking her. at the other end of trauma you're just left with the ache of the smallest things breaking your heart </3

💘 what and/or who do(es) your oc consider the most important to them?

her world (the pain that never leaves. that she would lay everything down to have back in a heartbeat, however impossible) but over a long arduous road slowly shifting to. jumie ofc <3

🧡 does your oc tend to prioritize family or friends?

found family over everything!!!!!! i think nobody involved in palace times (rabbit raising group project) ever recovers from the quasi family they became in that time. though nothing hurts reina more than growing apart from garvith, the literal other half of her soul, but by the time either of them realizes it they're too divided to reconcile </3

💛 how many languages does your oc speak? what language(s) are they learning, if any?

true ruler perk of Acquiring Any Skill You Like which is extremely unfair. not really all that relevant for locally confined canon/conlang laziness but definitely aggravating to anyone around her in hsau's where she is a natural talent in whatever she tries including languages. god-advantage sorry <3

💚 does your oc prefer being inside or outside?

outside!!!! but in secret. leader of the war can't get caught running around in the woods barefoot but back on nerice she was a feral child for all intents and purposes & that affinity never left her. she just pretends to be more dignified than that most of the time u_u

💙 does your oc have any cool/special powers and/or abilities? how are they with magic, if it exists in their world?

ya!!!! true ruler strats. back on nerice before The Great Moon Breakage, she was 100% immortal unable to perceive pain, skin unbreakable, nd for a long time after has flawless healing. the other two ingredients are wishes (aforementioned instant acquiring of whatever powers/attributes she wants) and melody (the conduit for wishes. a lot of recklessly strolling thru woods humming, changing foliage and vegetation at her whims. wading out into a lake, climbing up onto the water's surface as it changes to foam to oil to molten rock and snow and marsh) the world at her fingertips truly <3333

💜 what is your oc's ancestry/genetic background?

eternal city dna <333 any true ruler (until her breaking of the engine) is born from the touch of the eternal cities/the two halves of the eternal moon, which are filled with an infinite melody. whichever tune plays at the time of the touch is the melody the ruler inherits and is their version of a soul.

if we are talking world equation tho, reina is pinoy ethnicity-wise :3

🖤 has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

BEST FOR LAST. rubbing my hands at mach speed.

on the killing maiming permanent dmg front, nighthearts showdown vs gray my beloved (second thing in first pic) many hour flaying session she did him so good <3

otoh,..... there was a breaking point w/ jumie early on where reina tried to erase her memories so they could both forget abt fumbling in an alleyway/their kiss & move on as if nothing happened (intimacy scary!) but she course corrects last second which is good bc jumie would have never forgiven her otherwise. ofc she does end up breaking jumie's heart in the end when she fucking dies but yknow :') #girlproblems

[abyssaldyke]

Appearance “12” and Objects “2” for PK for the character ask post!

Ahh Bri thank you!!

12. Has your character gone through major stylistic or physical changes?

In her design? Not at all. She was the first character I mapped out for this story and everything from my first little doodle (the high black ponytail, the all white everything) has functionally stayed the same. But in the story? Absolutely! While her sense of style (if you can call it that) remains throughout, she does occasionally explode into gore and also tries her hand at wearing combat boots! Baby steps.

2. What gift would your character give to someone they didn't like but felt obligated to?

Oh this is a really good question. I imagine PK's gift giving strats are kinda like tom succession's, where she basically picks like the most expensive version of something from the space "gifts for him" catalogue for people she feels obligated to gift things to (though these are few and far between). Almost all of her relationships are extremely transactional, and she's never had to share, so I do think she puts very little thought into gifts for people she doesn't like. When she does like them, though, she puts a lot of thought in (she buys Sal an entire new wardrobe in the second book and Sal is like oh great here comes the lace but instead it's an exact copy of everything Sal's worn up until that point but very high quality and perfectly fitting, which is like the best gift Sal could receive at that moment)

These were great, thanks so much!

[dreamhot]

I think something that’s really important to note about funneling is that Dream didn’t even come up with it 😭 I started but didn’t finish a shot-by-shot database of all the dodgebolts, and I can vouch it was a technique invented by Techno and used in MCC7 against the Green Guardians, before Dream EVER made it to dodgebolt. Yeah people didn’t like it, but I know for a fact that there’s only that much grief because Dream realized its utility and perfected it with his teams. Plus, it’s not like Dream was some evil monster who forced his teams to funnel, if you look back at MCC13, Dream is fully ready to use Scott’s strat because he didn’t agree to funneling. First and foremost, he’s cognizant of his team and wants THEM to have fun too! And like one of the anons said, other teams have tried funneling before re:MCC14 blue, but the important part of funneling is also knowing when to back off. It’s less funneling the ‘best player’ and moreso ‘feeding the hot hand’, something we saw in practice in MCC8 with Burren and MCC15 with Sapnap. At the end of the day the argument against funneling is stupid because the entire technique rests on the fact that if it comes down to it, everyone on the team trusts everyone else on the team to hit the shots if they need to. If the top shooter gets picked off, then there’s an unsaid trust towards the next in line to do what they need to do!

Also regarding the buildmart arguments I think people have also slowly come to hate the game—it’s incredibly stagnant with very little change since its introduction other than the method of collecting materials. He’s already suggested game changes and as someone who was on the mcc subreddit since MCC8, there’s been a lot of good community suggestions too! Also the buildmart rants have not been perceptibly unsportsmanlike for a LONG time. I’ll give people that he was annoying in the beginning sometimes, but season 2 introduced a way more mellow and team-oriented Dream, one who was arguably one of the best leaders of the S-tiers. Whenever he rants now he makes sure to follow it up with solutions that make sense, and it’s never malicious the way some people twist it to be. It just sucks sometimes bc he has genuinely good ideas :(

sorry for ranting in your inbox LOL I haven’t talked about mcc in a hot minute and the discussion brought out the mcc dream essays again -dodgebolts

mcc commentary from lyss dodgebolts née sandsofdteam ... i'm honoured to have your ranting in my inbox 🙏

[hunterofthehunters]

okay no vlr spoilers since i've just gotten past the first escape room (and voting segment) but

i genuinely cannot really think of a reason why anyone, under any circumstances, would ever vote betray in a game like this. friends and i spoke abt this last night and i can't get it out of my head.

it's not just "oh that's horrible, how could someone do that". it's "oh that's stupid. why would you ever make that mistake.

lemme elaborate:

first point. by itself, the usage of the prisoner's dilemma in this game works fine. it was designed to create a difficult choice wherein trust is hard and betrayal maximizes gains while minimizing losses. that's a sensible thing in a void.

but this nonary game isn't in a void. it's not an isolated situation. when you vote, everyone sees it.

meaning, when you vote betray, every person in the game is now aware you are willing to vote betray. this dramatically changes the voting dynamic. now that you've established you are willing to betray others, you're now stuck in a deadlock. your game ends. because why would anyone ever risk voting 'ally' with you? it's safer to vote 'betray'.

and with how BP works here, you're screwed. you forfeit the ability to gain points from then on. and if you're stupid enough to vote 'ally', you lose most of the points you gained by hitting betray prior. is it still net positive? sure, numerically. in terms of trust? why should anyone take that at face value after the first incident?

secondly. zero iii fucked up a bit in the intro with just one little implication:

the ambidex nonary games are not a zero sum game.

any number of players can exit the 9 door, as long as they have 9 BP.

this means there is no downside to other players gaining BP alongside you. therefore, ally has no effective downside. you don't need to worry about players trying to escape before you, and hell, if everyone hits all-ally at the start? you'll all hit 9 BP by round 3 (3 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 9).

in addition, voting ally doesn't really antagonize anyone or make them feel threatened, either. why would it? both parties benefit. both parties get closer to leaving. it's a sincere win-win.

"but what if... someone betrays me later? they could escape early if-"

math time.

say we start in round 1. as established, all players begin with 3 BP. betraying in this round would be idiotic, because

3+3 = 6

you're still short 3 points. "ah, but you see, i can betray someone in round 2 next, and--" if you think anyone will be stupid enough to ally so you can betray them at this point, you're literally huffing your own farts. i tore this point down already.

so, assuming you did the smart thing and built trust in round 1. 3+2 = 5, and you enter round 2 with 5 points. what next?

if we betray here...

5 + 3 = 8.

oof. owie. so close, but not quite! 1 point short, and it'd take 1 more round minimum to escape. the same as it'd take for you to escape if your stupid ass had just voted ally all 3 times.

and now you have a new problem.

"Oh i voted betray by mistake! We can ally again! mb! :)))"

you dumb asshole. you stupid dick. do you really think people will buy that? even if we assume everyone else is sitting at 7 except for your victim, do you seriously think they'd trust that? no. none of them would. not a one.

this also ignores the idea they could even like your victim. with them sitting at 3 points again, the game is extended another round if they want them to escape. you are intentionally dragging everyone's stay out for that.

i'm not even gonna discuss that zero never specified that players couldn't assault one another. i doubt the bunny would even outline that. they'd prob pull up a chair.

so, your betrayal strat moves to round 3. at which point... why? why bother? the only reason you would is because you'd actively want to leave a player(s) behind. and you'd need everyone else at 9 (assuming they all did the ally strat) to agree. are you confident you're gonna sneak by 8 other players for that?

all of this is just discussing the game itself, not the story around it. i trust uchikoshi enough to imagine he's got a plan for this that'll blast my enby dick right off.

but so far my read on VLR is that we have some fuckin idiots in this game that seem thoroughly convinced they are the smartest people in the room.

just vote ally. i promise you, pretending to be edgy and 'logical' isn't impressing anyone, phi.

[adelle-ein]

lace's oc2path review

Disclaimer: I am deeply critical of this game and of Octopath 1, and I very much loathe COTC's overly edgy grimdark plot, so there will be a lot of negativity in this post. Don't like don't read!!!111 Also explicit spoilers for everything duh, and game typical content warnings.

Octopath and I have a…complicated relationship. It was my first Switch game. I had fond memories of it, even if it was never my favorite, I found it very hard, I really only cared about Primrose and Cyrus as characters, and I never even got all the secret jobs, let alone beat Galdera. Then the mobile game COTC came along, bringing with it a clusterfuck of horrific misogyny, racism, and frankly terrible grimdark story writing, severely souring my relationship with the franchise. I tried to replay it in 2022 and couldn’t even get to a chapter 2 — the grind was awful, the world was bland, the stories were just insufferably boring at best and misogynistic at worst. The lack of relationships or even acknowledgement between the characters made the whole thing feel stilted. Therion works alone, don’t mind the seven other people walking behind him! Now let’s explain the ways all the stories connect in a diary info dump locked behind a boss rush! 

Octopath 1 has staggering design flaws and, as more and more JRPGS come to the Switch, those flaws become strikingly pronounced. Party dynamics are important to me, and without them, most of 1’s cast remained stubbornly boring. The game was hard, but not fun enough for me to want to grind OR learn advanced strats. Every chapter of every story follows the same basic plot beats and the layout of the world is boring and predictable, with even the scenery getting old eventually.

So I had mixed feelings when Octopath 2 was announced, especially when I saw they hadn't changed a single one of the main 8 classes and that the Crossed Paths would only be between four duos of characters. Still, the game went on sale for $40 in mid-April. Split the price with a sibling and here we are.

For starters: The graphics in this game are fantastic. I’m still not in love with HD-2D, mostly because of the lack of expressiveness in the tiny character pixels. Watching them flop over dead in a pile of blood in Triangle Strategy was only ever hilarious, and most emotional scenes fall flat. Strangely, Asano continues insisting on using this style for really drama-heavy, emotional games. Luckily, they’ve made some strides forward with OT2. The bigger human sprites are drastically more dynamic and expressive, move more fluidly than ever before, and have ample opportunity to demonstrate both emotion and personality. Everyone’s unique walk cycles and Bewildering Grace dances really bring character to the game. We can get a clearer look at job outfits and have animations for all kinds of things like dancing and character interactions. And HD-2D, as always, continues to shine in the backgrounds, special effects, and enemy sprites. The game is very pretty, and while I still don’t think HD-2D is the best choice for any character-driven game, the sprites don’t feel nearly as rough and awkward as they do in their predecessors. I hope Team Asano retains this style in future HD-2D installments, especially interpersonal ones.

The world is huge, sprawling, and genuinely FUN to explore this time, with various nooks and crannies to dig into. The day/night cycle and added path actions really add a lot of fun and variety to gameplay. The world not being a perfect circle moving outwards really makes things more exciting and less tedious, and the towns, cities, and dungeons had so much variety. I genuinely had fun on the journey this time, while in 1 i was just dragging myself from town to town. The bonus bosses, latent powers, hidden classes, sidequests, and various new game mechanics all felt like upgrades from the first game to me.

The music is banging, no criticisms here. I’ve gotten the impression before that Revo and Nishiki have been influenced by and learning from each other and I think this really shows it. Super fun, loved that we have more theme variants now. VA work was solid, with some very fun moments but nothing I was super amazed by. That's not a problem, though, it's really all I ask for in a game. Loved the added voice lines, the unique voice lines for certain bosses (I don't wanna fight no doggy-dog…), and how the characters interact with each other in battle as the game proceeds.

I’ll continue with my thoughts on the eight characters/stories one by one and then give some overall opinions on the “main plot” and game itself.

Ochette:

The constant food talk gets old fast. Seriously, every conversation this girl has ends up being about food or similar. I also think her voice acting may have been mixed oddly, sometimes it's quiet and sometimes at too high a volume, she ends up sounding REALLY loud and grating a lot of the time. Overall, she really doesn't feel as fleshed out as every other character, and it's a shame. That being said, she does have some very fun travel banters and brings a fun "kid of the group" energy, it's just…she's twenty goddamn years old.

Story-wise, had a lot of potential but constant food talk and the weird fantasy racism (why do they all speak broken English) were huge drags. I thought the stuff with the unchosen starter was a really good idea, but there just wasn't enough time lent to it, and overall the first and last chapters felt completely disconnected from the middle ones. Oh well.

Castti:

No mercy, only pain. She's just a great character who ended up with so much depth and felt like a twist on the kindly, maternal healer. "Do harm when necessary to save lives" is a great archetype for doctor characters and Castti plays the role fantastically. She has been through so much and still chooses to be gentle when she can, but if she has to she'll bring the axe down. She has a talent for making do. She has so many fantastic scenes and lines and flips the "mom friend" character around on its head. I really love her, she's great, she's up there with Primrose for me forever.

Her story was also my favorite, and her boss the toughest to beat by a comfortable margin (what worked in the end was no strategy just hikari, throne, and their knives). Sure, some beats are always predictable in Octopathland, but chapter 3 was beautifully done, and the use of game mechanics and the interface to play with the effects of Castti's amnesia were really enjoyable. Nothing groundbreaking, but a strong and solid story that felt emotional and meaningful as well as unique and independent from the stuff all three games have done and rehashed. Castti herself is of course a huge part of that, but this is one of the rare Octopath stories that didn't feel like it was being fully carried by the strength of the MC.

Throne:

Throne herself, I adore. She's fun, she's determined, she's witty, she's like Primrose in some ways but firmly different in others. She doesn't want to kill, but it's all she knows. She has some fantastic travel banters. I laughed out loud at her first "Bravo, Temenos." And the little "tada…" when she uses Disguise. She's great, she has endless potential, and boy does she have fun path actions.

Warning for discussion of incest, abuse, and rape in the following paragraph :(

Unfortunately, her story is the classic edgy Octopath misogyny fest. What was with that random sex slave and what the hell happened to her??? We don't care, she only exists to show that Bad Guys Evil and that Throne Can't Be A Hero Because She Is Tainted. Everyone wants to rape Throne and that is made way too clear. Some of those people are her fucking brothers, because why the fuck not. And the ending with the "but was it worth it?" tone was phenomenally stupid. Octopath asking the quintessential question: is it okay to escape slavery even if you have to kill your slavers? What if your slavers love you (even though they keep you in a collar and whip you and offer you up as a rape victim and force you to kill people?) What if your slavers are your parents or siblings? Also not loving any of the Marietta story, anything that involves "she killed our baby" is going to set my hair on end in this day and age and I just did not like the way any of that was portrayed and handled. Even if Claude didn't rape Marietta, it's clear he raped several of the other mothers including a few of the ones we meet, and they're all forcibly separated from their babies and left to die — it's just too much. It's too disgusting. The huge conspiracy itself fell flat due to the general creep factor and tried way too hard to be edgy. Throne cannot be happy within her story for even a second and it's way overdone. I'm sick, absolutely sick, of this type of story and COTC trying to play with "but she loves her abuser" stuff and doing a frankly disgusting and often fetishizing job. Overall, it felt like a COTC plotline, and that is very much a bad thing for me! I'm glad that the postgame sidequest cleared up the Mira plotline and actually had some "breaking the cycle" themes, but the fact that we've just apparently left the residents of Lostseed to suffer and die instead of even attempting to bring them to the Garden or somewhere they can get help is pretty gross.

But again, I adore Throne herself. Get her out of this game. Put her in Animal Crossing or something.

Osvald:

And now we flip around! Talk about pleasant surprises! I was not expecting to like him or his story at all, it felt so Octopath edgy and woman-in-fridges-y. And to an extent, it is, but the game is actually self-aware of this and gently pokes fun at it to a degree that makes it more bearable. Osvald is an Edgy Man and the other travelers can and will be confused by it. That's really fun. Being able to save Elena flips everything about the story on its head in a good way, and The Answer being The Power Of Love is both so funny and so sweet and fitting. Just a genuinely heartfelt and optimistic story in the end despite where it begins, I really liked it despite another dead wife on the pile. The antithesis to Throne's story.

My main complaint is that the story pacing ends up really off due to two out of five chapters being at the very start and about the prison escape. I really think he could have benefited from another chapter between his 3 and 4. I wish the ending was more emotionally satisfying, but it does feel in character and leave on a hopeful note. Would have enjoyed, if not a reunion scene between him and Elena, something more significant about them and their relationship than the tiny nod we got at the end. All that being said, liked both him and his story a lot!

Partitio:

He really is very funny. Those voice lines are a hoot, every Scent of Commerce is just ridiculous, and his determination to stop That Devil Called Poverty by having a polite meeting with the CEO of capitalism and giving him some $$$ is just absurd. As a character, I can’t say I find him as interesting as Castti, Throne, or Osvald, but he’s entertaining if nothing else, and his first chapter pacing is creative. He was my MC and spent tons of time running Arcanist Sidestepper or Latent Power Catapult Inventor, so of course I got pretty attached. Yeehaw let's do it catapult go-go-go

But let’s be real here. Any story about a merchant “helping the poor” by doing more capitalism is going to be kind of a mess. It wasn’t a harmful mess, but it felt like the story was deliberately skirting around making any meaningful commentary. None of this is surprising, but I spent a lot of chapter 4 rolling my eyes. Roque illegally modifying a contract after signature on multiple occasions is just completely brushed aside, and Partitio happily SIGNS a contract with him KNOWING Roque has a habit of violating and editing them. It’s all just very…dumb. Seize the means of production Partitio! Don’t just give The Man eighty billion leaves! Also, Roque apparently KEEPS all that money in the postgame even though he’s allegedly reformed, soooooo (I know he's using it on the railroads but like….Yeah)

But yeah, while it was a silly story, it wasn’t much else. He's a fun guy though. I wonder if octopath 3 will bring us our first edgy merchant MC.

Agnea:

She’s sweet and fun. I don’t really feel like I have a lot to say about her, which isn’t a negative? I enjoy her theme, I love all her dance animations, I think her constantly-slipping accent is pretty funny (I’m genuinely not sure if the premise is that Agnea hides her accent and occasionally slips into it by mistake, or if the VA keeps forgetting that Agnea is supposed to sound Southern and only remembers when Agnea says “oh my stars” or something lol. It’s funny though.) But like I said, I enjoy her, she’s not as grating as some of the other “goodhearted, happy go lucky” characters from 1. 

Similarly, while I don’t have much to say about her story, that’s not to say I disliked it. I thought it was sweet. Dolcinea and her gf are some of my favorite NPCs in the game, the final battle kicked my ass in a fun way, and most of all I love how ¾ of Agnea’s bosses are just her going “I want to speak to the manager!!” and it actually working. I liked it a LOT better than tressa’s, which it’s constantly compared to, since it felt like an actual coherent story. She’s a star!

Temenos:

Fandom made me dislike Temenos before I set foot in the Crestlands. In those early days especially, every woman in this game was ignored in favor of an AVALANCHE of fanart of him and crick. People say weird shit about Temenos being a twink, some of which is frankly homophobic and/or creepy. I pretty strongly disliked his predecessor Fandom Favorite Man, Therion. Man had a lot riding against him. All that being said, once I got to know him I liked Temenos just fine! He's a priest who can't remember the Lord's Prayer and calls the scripture boring at every given opportunity. Also enjoys beating the shit out of people for information and can barely be contained by those around him. It's a fun character type.

His story, though, is honestly just blah. I guessed the big murderer about as soon as they appeared on screen, and by the time I finished the story I was pretty confident I knew who was manipulating them too…and I was right. As funny as it is that Temenos can use his "special powers" to just, like, see something lying on the floor, the investigation/mystery is really lacking and dull, which is disappointing. Particularly since his story is the "main" one that reveals the ultimate final boss, and the only one that gets a full follow-up cutscene in the extra chapters — it ended up just being a big pile of text dumping, which is not a fun way to do a mystery/whodunit!

Also Crick is boring. 

Hikari:

Hikari is Just Fine. He's sometimes fun, largely unremarkable, just another member of the crowd. The same is pretty much true of his story as well — it's just Fine. Has a pretty hilarious mom-fridging as horses whinny loudly in the background, which I think was iconic. Dunban levels of "bad at making friends" (and while it's not "Therion works alone" levels of stupid by any means, does feel a little awkward that he keeps talking about needing his Allies and True Friends while seven people he camps with are standing right there…) I really just don't have a lot to say about him or his story, which isn't a bad thing! It was fine, he's fine. My only real complaint is that I don't love that his overcoming his Evil Blood was tied to him also having Good Blood on his mother's side — that detail seems irrelevant to everything, and I would have preferred his overcoming the Shadow and taking back his Hidden Power just be framed as him having willpower and a good, kind heart. But I am nitpicking here, since I think that was the intention — just wish blood hadn't been brought into it, y'know? Anyway yeah Hikari's fine.

Together Now:

The Crossed Paths are SO short (other than waiting for that insanely long lute performance to be over) and that's a shame. I wish there were more of them, between more characters, that they were longer…I hope any future Octopath games play with these concepts. Overall, I mean, it's a huge meaty game and it's not that I wanted to be playing it longer, I was satisfied by the length. I just really would have appreciated more character interaction. I'm glad that you can view the travel banters freely and easily from the menus now, and that there are more of them. But I do wish that the characters emoted during them instead of just standing there staring blankly at each other. Huge improvement over one, just not quite there yet!

I will say the Extra Chapters/final boss were also huge improvement over 1's, with actual cutscenes, some character interaction, more consistent foreshadowing, and finally, a boss with no boss rush leadup whose level of challenge is more "difficult but doable" than "haha fuck you." My hopes for this game had been that they would lower the final boss difficulty and make a bigger, harder bonus boss for hardcore players to enjoy, and I'm really happy that they did so! I beat Vide :)

That being said, most of the Extra Chapter reveals were entirely contained in heaps of diary entries again. You guys expect me to remember who Tanzy was or care?? Other than the Arcanette cutscene/battle, things never got that emotional or exciting. A few travel banters tried to fill in the blanks, but there just wasn't enough emotion or stakes put into the scenes. That being said, I enjoyed the Vide battle and it was the perfect difficulty level for me, and I enjoyed the ending and epilogue a lot! It just didn't quite do everything I want from a JRPG ending (which…has been my tune with almost every newly released JRPG I've played in the last couple years :( we need better endings in these things.)

Will also say that the Osterra nods don't really make sense, but I'm personally subscribing to Osterra and Solistia straight up being parallel worlds (I suspect COTC will be confirming this one way or another in the JP version shortly, but like, eh).

Overall, it was a good game, I liked it, it's hands down my favorite Octopath and probably my second favorite Asano game after BD2. Despite my complaints, wishes things had diverged further from the original game, and generally feeling like this series is a bit overrated in JRPG circles, Oct2path is solid, fun, and a big upgrade from its predecessors. Stan Castti

[macgyvertape]

D2 Lightfall campaign thoughts

gameplay discussion above, campaign and post campaign story below cut:

New UI looks good, just wish they made the element mods color coded.

Immediately went to go craft a bunch of weapons before starting the campaign, I’m glad they made the change to crafting materials

Thinking back to when you used to have to spend ascendant shards to change the armor affinity of a masterwork piece, I’m so glad the game has progressed to no elemental armor since that will save me a lot of vault space.

Once again 9 or 10 resilience is incredibly noticeable in survivability vs lower resilience

The redo of the mod system from a dev standpoint probably makes designing the challenge level a lot easier since the elemental well mods had a lot of extremely powerful outlier combos. However, doing fun and varied buildcrafting was a big engagement point for me for the last 6 months so I hope there’s more creative options than at first glance.

huh Bungie is introducing destroyable cover, that showed up in the mars battleground last season. Very curious about the design process for that

Fighting tormenters feels like Dark Souls where you position around telegraphed wind up attack and a lot of dodging. Especially when you damage them enough and they “go full sicko mode” and charge you for the kill grab. Blinding grenades or chill clip to stun, or Arc Speedboost with witherhoard/anarchy for damage over time and kiting them around seem to be the winning strats. 

Checkpoint system in the campaign right before the rally flag is great for when something isn’t working in your loadout. I really appreciate the ability to change loadouts mid mission for a different final boss loadout

Basically every fight involves something that will force you to keep repositioning and a lot involve infinite ads. I've found witherhoard to be the most effective gun. Honestly most of my deaths are when the game forces me to run around with no cover then the ads shoot me. 

Overall I really liked the difficulty and challenge of legendary and enjoyed playing it mostly solo. Replaying missions helping a friend and its interesting how even though enemy health and damage is increased some parts are easier with enemy targeting AI.

The game was a lot more generous with giving me increased power level gear so I was never underleveled for any mission. Really appreciated it as both BL and WQ I had to take a break from the story to go farm blue gear

I used Necrotic grips and Osteo Striga for a lot of the campaign and it goes really well with Strand

Strand grapple vs a damage grenade, there’s not a lot of times where I want to grapple into a bunch of enemies, and there are times where it just swings me off a platform because of momentum. I’ve only unlocked Warlock so far but the cooldown on the Strand Grenade is so slow vs campaign that it takes some of the enjoyment out of it. I’m sure like stasis which was also underwhelming at first, that I’ll like it after some patches.

New updates to the Tower are cool but more importantly menu times seem to have improved. 

Glad the Terminal Overload public event will matchmake you with others directly, considering you need to finish the event to complete bounties to get an item if you want a pinnacle from the Partition missions.

Campaign:

New intro is great actually for explaining the story so far to new and returning players

Then the space battle cutscene was fucking great. The witness looks cool and less of a meme smoke-Megamind lookalike

If I had a nickel for every time an unknowable alien force sliced a bunch of things apart and gave me chills I’d have 2 nickels. (The Expanse protomolecule rising scene). That poor ghost where it had that moment of eye contact before falling apart just like the samurai sword slash trope 

I wiped 3 times against Mr Grabby hands, the fact that it's such an enclosed area didn’t help. Icarus Dash and Witherhoard and kiting the boss around were my winning strategy

When I first saw the cloudstrider armor design from the trailers I thought the metal bits looked really awkward but it looks so much better in game

Glad the cabal have moved beyond the need of pressure suits so Calus can have all this drip

Osiris’ criticisms feel a lot bitchier than I hope the writers intended because he makes so many of them. “Stop wasting time” as we go literally as fast as we can and I get my ass handed to me by tormentors. I get what they’re trying to do with his character arc but I wish the writing would trust I remember what he said 5 minutes or the last mission ago vs have him keep repeating the same thing. 

Second mission boss was a pushover

Oh no ghost but yay we get to talk

When ghost says “they have it locked down tight” lmao yeah that like 6 gunships and 4 tanks

Caiatl shows up to rescue us, I love her so much. Then we get a vehicle escape segment which is a lot of fun with Always On Time

The fresco style cutscene is beautiful, not new info to repeat players but a good exposition to new/returning 

Awww its Saint calling Osiris. Like Osiris’ terse commentary is clearly coming from a place of grief and frustration because he’s so used to doing stuff himself with Sagira as a moderating force and now he literally can’t. Him forgetting Sagira was dead for a brief moment was really touching. 

The need to use Strand to get around the suppression fields is a much better setup of why you have to use this darkness power vs needing stasis to open a few locked doors

“Information wants to be free” as Nimbus gives us a tank, I’m pretty fond of them

RIP Rohan, it was pretty obvious from foreshadowing he was going to die defending Neomuna and Nimbus the rookie would have to step up, he didn’t get enough screentime for me to get attached 

I like how the game clearly tells you when there are interlude dialogue

The tormented called “imprint of Nazerac”, Neomunda citizens having nightmares that feature Nezarec i hope this plays out somehow

Lmao immediately after listening to the radio messages I did the strike where Nezarec is on coms. Got to say he has the sexy monster voice, and I’m glad that a lore character who was built up so much gets to play a bigger role than Nezcafe drink. I can’t wait to see his physical design when we eventually fight him and very interesting since his corpse was dismembered for the reliquaries. I thought Rhulk was cool as fuck and hope Nezarec is equally as hype

I really I liked the speed racer section of the strike but wow that section will feel very different in GM

Nimbus is very cheerful and upbeat referencing Rohan’s death, they’ve been characterized as a jokester throughout but I figured there would have a more serious moment here and it would be a break from comedic relief to let the story breathe. The campaign story so far has really been pingponging from dark and serious vs cheesy quips, but it's landing too much on the side of cheesy that it makes me wonder why I should take the threat seriously.

The training montage with Osiris’ voice over about letting go of grief and persevering handled that line of comedy/seriousness with the tone a lot better 

The music that played during the Headstrong mission right after the training montage made me go “wow this is a lot of 80s action movie vibes” which apparently there are interviews where they said they were looking at blockbuster action movies to set the tone. 

It also made me realize in the style of a blockbuster action movie there’s been no explanation of the mcguffin of “The Veil”  and the other mcguffin of the “Mast” and how it plays into the Witness’ lager goal just that The Witness getting it would be bad, but no specific of how exactly. 

In the final mission it took me way longer than it should have to realize I was supposed to fight all those cabal strand empowered. Caiatl’s speech was badass and I loved the moment of fighting alongside her

Final fight was the one part I didn’t do solo just because of how many times I died from falling off the platforms. 3 people made the second phase easy because Calus could only chase 1 person at a time. I did like the final fight being in an ancient Istar lab that was the founding of the city.

Good on the Witness for the Xanatos gambit, it got what it wanted either way things played out. 

Once again another cliffhanger teaser where it throws something new at us that we have no context for. Big The Expanse ring gate vibes.

I don’t understand why Zalavala and everyone were just standing there the entire time, since it seems like the campaign takes days but the way they’re standing there implies they haven’t moved and it's been hours. 

Zavala has a really somber and well done speech after the campaign, and once again it's that tonal whiplash from the cheesiness of the campaign

I thought there would be a lot more exploration of the themes of mortality: Calus’ fear of death lead him to ally with the Witness, Guardians are brought back to life and basically immortal until they die in combat, Cloudstriders sacrifice a long lifespan for 10 years, and Osiris sort of in the middle with only the rest of his lifespan to live out. But there's not really any of that in the story

I thought the soundtrack was really mid except for the track that plays during the first tank scene and the track when you’re exploring the veil. Its not just that I expected it to be more synthwave to match the 80s tone but there wasn’t anything really stand out. 

Post Campaign:

Disappointed how there was no dialogue about how Neomuna has known about the Last City for all these years and any explanation of why they didn’t help out during the Dark Ages or The Red War even if only in a humanitarian way. I assume it was a resources issue, but I hope there’s at least some written lore for this

I think its cool how a lot of the bounties are Neomuna citizens, and that you can see them standing around as virtual avatars. Funnily enough I’ve seen more named Neomuna citizens than Awoken citizens (it’s all troops in the Dreaming City) and the Last City (there’s Eva and Hawthorne)

Neomuna has a LOT of bars around it, seems like citizens had a pretty fun time with all the art, arcades, and party setups

Really like how the Unfinished Business exotic quest reused the Garden Raid, a raid I think is beautiful but hate to run. The writing with Nimbus where they make jokes but have heartfelt moments with the players was what I wanted from them in the campaign. Also great closure for Osiris

Lmao at the reporter trying to interview Ghost, “Mr. Ghost can you hear me?”

Between Asher alive in the Vex network (he’s viewable in Partition) and Nezarec being in the Vex network I’m looking forward to how this plays out in the next Vex storyline. I was hearing ominous whispers just playing randomly at times around Neomuna, but with Nezarec’s sin the message is audible

[crystalelemental]

I can talk about favorite sync pairs all day, but that list rarely changes.  But you know what does change?  Compositions.  That's right, team comps change constantly as I adapt playstyles or learn about stupid shit I can get away with. So today, I'm going to talk about some team comps I've thrown together that have been fun for me to work out, what they do, and why I like them so much.  I'll try to limit it to just a few.

H!Caitlin, Colress, Lodge Rosa/any physical damage dealer H!Caitlin is a metric ton of fun to use in like a billion comps (I don't know if there's a single more improved sync pair in the game, frankly), but one that I really enjoy is Lodge Rosa.  Rosa caps crit in one turn with trainer move, and only needs attack.  Well, also speed for gauge control.  And she's a Tech with Vigilance so ideally some bulk would be nice?  Caitlin grants her everything. Colress also serves as a fantastic third, by offering Screech utility for debuffing, and Mirror Shot to debuff accuracy.  Caitlin's slight accuracy buff on trainer move also means Colress can hit reliably, so the whole team works perfectly despite him being 1/5.  The general structure is to have Caitlin take first sync, Rosa take second and third, but use her attacks to wear down sides.  With no Strikers, that's a free 50 points, while no field effects means taking off Offenses +5, making the team really sturdy.   I'll acknowledge, this team comp only works off-type because my Rosa is EX.  And often, you'll take the opponent's sync, which means you really need to get Rosa into the red for full sync benefits.  But the comp does really well when accuracy checks can be used against the opponent.  Piercing Gaze just blanks the comp.

Other really fun solutions to this include base Iris, Elesa, and pretty much anyone that caps their own crit.  Seriously the comp works really well.  It’s kind of my favorite right now.

V!Lorelei, C!Iris, C!Elesa Variety Lorelei may be a cheap alt from a production side, but for me I love her. And I really like how well she can complement specific sync pairs who need her exact buffing.  Pairs like Champion Iris.  No I will not stop calling her that.  C!Iris is such a fun pair to use.  I love debuff strats, I love that she's just an absurd sync nuke, and she gets everything she needs from Lorelei.  Who I'm considering giving Head Start to once she's 3/5.  Give this team full fast-ramping capabilities.  "But her Gauntlet utility-" I cleared every stage with 1/5, she's got it. Classic Elesa is the final point in its favor, offering the paralysis and spectrum debuff that kicks Iris up to insane levels.  The team just...works.  It has everything it realistically needs to function.  Except gauge.  Elesa costs little, but Lorelei's 2-bar move requires some activation of Recharging Strike to get what you need to keep going, and even then sometimes the rotation just isn't pleasant.  Iris lacking Aggravation also puts a massive damper on the team's capabilities, as you don't really have the same potential denial to perform on sides in CS.  Oh well, on the expansion, eh?

NC Calem, SC Zinnia, SS Cyrus/any physical Dark-type You want to never take damage?  This is how you never take damage.  SC Zinnia is obscenely good.  70% flinch, absolute beast under Five Stats +3 condition, perfectly complements Calem's buffs for max offense on literally turn 1 for any physical Dark-type ally, with Rebuff benefits.  Her Buddy move being AoE also counts toward Calem's buddy move cooldown, which means any Brutal Swing users get access to Zone by first sync.  SS Cyrus is the one I use most often.  Truth be told, Zinnia's my favorite damage dealer in any comp regardless, so the added sleep lockdown is just kicking someone while they're down.  But I've tried this kind of comp using Nanu as primary sync and he still clears off-type just fine.  They're absurd.  I know I listed limitations for the last two, but barring Calem being kinda frail, which is worked around with the Endurance on entry and 70% flinch rate, the team doesn't actually have one.

Anabel, Emma, Looker Looker Fam, finally assembled.  I admit, I'm a big fan of the Interpol group. Looker's great, Anabel's great, Emma doesn't get nearly enough play, I'm super glad they're all in.  This team functions around Emma.   Everything is centered squarely on Emma, whose Buddy move deals roughly infinity billion damage even off-type.  Anabel has dual screens, among other defensive benefits, and Aggravation on Headbutt.  Looker realistically just hits Poison on his 1-bar move at the outset, thanks to the high potential rate he carries.  Emma then just shreds.  Just obliterates.  Looker can actually contribute more meaningfully to Emma than H!Iris can, I've found out, thanks to the CS conditions.  Iris needs 100 points to be allocated elsewhere to avoid damage reduction shenanigans, and Looker can get rid of the Offenses +5 in favor of No Weather/Terrain/Zone Changes.  I will say though, the team isn't perfect.  Emma misses capped speed, Looker doesn't contribute a ton off-type, and Anabel, while good, can still get run over even through her shields.  AoE attacks also severely threaten Emma, who is relatively frail, and really can't let up on the DPS when fighting off-type.   Also, gauges.  Emma is wonderful on them, her DPS can involve Toxic Freebie, but you can't rely on it, and even with +4 speed to the team, Anabel being so slow really drags the gauge consideration down when field effects aren't in play.

Glacia, Irida, BP Candice/Pryce/Lorelei Ice is finally good!  Miracle of miracles, Ice is finally good.  Irida saved the type. Single-handedly.  Yeah, this is my favorite comp, because it runs so contrary to what seems to be popular opinion.  That opinion being "But Adaman's better because he's stronger, and Irida can't support the actually good Ice-types."  Bro, she does not need to. Irida will carry the crappiest, most godawful Ice-types to a clean off-type clear, I promise bro.  BP Candice is good now.  Pryce is good now. Lorelei...I mean it's not as good as Pryce, but she can still win.  All of this is backed by Glacia, who found a savior in Irida.  Ice Shell and Healing Hail is now viable, meaning Glacia gets a ton of extra defense and recovery pretty much all the time.  And with her Endure effect, backed by Sinnoh Spirit cutting special damage...honestly the expected flaw of "Glacia gets run over" has yet to be a problem.   I'm looking back on my use of this team, and Glacia's never actually fallen.  She always survives, and we always make it just before foe's sync.  To be clear, I am talking off-type here.  Ice is good and consistent now.  And this is before mentioning that hey, some of these have a 30% freeze rate when single-target.  It's so good.

Lodge Dawn, Caitlin, [insert Gauntlet gimmick check here] I love Caitlin, and would do anything for her to succeed.  Thankfully, there is an answer already, in the form of Lodge Dawn, who is like the perfect being.  This is, admittedly, much more of a Gauntlet-focused favorite than the others. Caitlin's upgrade was...stressful.  At first.  I think it ultimately played out well for her, but gauge generation on such a slow pair was legitimately horrifying.  I still think it could've been better.  But, Lodge Dawn perfectly complements Caitlin's needs. It's spectacular.  They need for very little overall, and can truck any Gauntlet fight.  Yes, including Cresselia.  Not an exaggeration.  They are that good.  That said, this team does not work at all off-type in CS.  Dawn cannot take hits well enough to survive.  I think I managed it in like one, maybe two fights, by the grace of a lucky dodge.  It's just not consistent or smart to do.

SC Jasmine, Lucian, Lisia Okay, now we're talking nonsense!  SC Jasmine is one of my favorite sync pairs. It's mostly by design, but frankly by utility too.  She was the first in a now much longer line of Special Attack/Crit buffers, and has some of the fastest special defense/crit buffing in the game.  Safety Net on sync, special defense debuffing, one bar spam with MGR9, Jasmine offers a good deal.  Lucian is a beautiful complement to her, thanks to attack debuffs and speed boosting.  These two traits fix every conceivable problem Jasmine ever had.  Add in any specially offensive unit, and suddenly you're set to go.  Lisia is a particularly nice choice, because she needs all the help she can get.  But also, this team is hilariously good on point conservation in CS.  There's no field effect, so take off Offenses +5 for that.  Lisia can Defog, so add in Crit Shield by taking off Offenses +1 and +3.  Now you're dealing with minimal offense opponents, who can't fully threaten you back.  The only hiccup, the only thing that kinda sucks, is Lisia's sync.  It's so bad. Like, if that were better, we would have a much different conversation. But it's incredibly hard to get Lisia to work correctly, So the team can take more resetting than you might like.

Roxanne, Lodge Steven, Classic Blue Never expected a favorite team composition to feature a Blue alt, but here we are!  Roxanne is a favorite, and I do like Steven a lot too.  As Rock pals, I am desperate to make a team with the two of them work.  And thank god, Lodge Steven works.  Roxanne gives literally everything he wants, and Classic Blue provides Dire Hit All+, which in one move can cap Steven’s crit rate for off-type clears thanks to his own Sharp Entry.  What really sells this is the combination of Blue’s Hyper Beam being fantastic single-target DPS, and Steven’s own fantastic sync nuke for a lodge pair.  Their damage output is quite respectable.  Add in that the new CS conditions allow Roxanne to endure a lot longer thanks to the team having no multiplicative field effects, and we’re in a position where Roxanne lasts a whole match even off-type.  Steven’s Staggering is really the main event.  He can stall out the entire enemy team if it procs, and on the way, debuff special defense at random.  It’s an odd and eclectic sort of team that came together beautifully, and it’s...legitimately my favorite Rock-type team.  I like it more than Double Diancie at this point, and that’s saying a lot.  I mean sure, there are times I wish I had an alternate Rock-type with Dire Hit All+, but I like Aerodactyl well enough and it gets the job done.  You know.  When you’re successfully getting a stagger.  And the foe doesn’t have Wise Entry x2.  And Roxanne gets her MPRs.  You know there are a lot of flaws but what fun is a flawless super team anyway?

[the-takosader]

Anyway, on the list of Things In The Making...

What, you thought one electric would be good enough for me?

Yep, I'm doing another one. This one won't be fretless, because of two reasons:

The Fretless (hereafter referred to as Sunset Fade) was an experiment to see what I could actually do with a kit.

A 12 string fretless, though cool, would be even more hell to play than the Sunset Fade already is.

Yep! It's a 12 string! As some guitarists might say, I've caught the 12 string bug. But, y'see, I think I've had it for a good long while now.

The first time I actually encountered a 12 string in a song was, if I can correctly recall, Wish You Were Here. I don't actually properly remember my reaction to it, but I know what my reaction is to it now: play along to the rhythm on my acoustic 6.

The more recent and powerful one, however, is much, much later than that. I never really did a Beatles Back-Catalogue dive until when I made a full Studio Discography playlist on Spotify, and encountered a little gem called If I Needed Someone.

For those completely unaware of the history of this song, it was written in the latter half of 1965 by one George Harrison. I don't think I need to explain the ins and outs of what the song's about, but the long and short of it is that he's telling the women of the world that, although he's gonna be married, he might need someone if the thing goes sour.

But again, this is rambling. My reaction wasn't to the lyrics, but the guitar. The jangle and chime specifically. Two toaster single coils in a bevelled-top Rickenbacker 360/12, ringing out like Rhymney. Oh, and it's got a capo on the 7th. Chime a-plenty on this one.

So yeah, this one's a doozy of a build. A 12 string electric with 2 single coils... which just now occurred to me that it sounds a lot like a Fender Telecaster XII. Oh yeah, Fender made a Tele XII. It was a limited edition thing from 1995-99, but it still counts.

So my build is going to be a Tele XII, mainly because I didn't fancy a Strat again, but it's going to be special for 2 reasons (that's the second time it's been two reasons specifically):

It's going to be a semi-hollow 12 string, because you can never have too much jangle on a 12 string like this.

It's going to be strung Rickenbacker-style.

What's Rickenbacker-style stringing? That requires an explanation of 12 strings in general.

The above is a tuning guide for a normal 12 string guitar. Yes, it actually is 12 strings. Anyway, note how it's the higher octave string first, then the standard string after, leading to a kind of sawtooth as you strum down.

Rickenbacker 12 strings reverse that order, placing the normal string first, then the octave string, and repeating that process until the upper four strings, which don't change due to being unison pairs.

In effect, this is going to result in a Ric 12 string for a fraction of the cost. For reference, Ric 360/12s? A nice, clean £3,400. Meanwhile this project has only costed a total of £167, though it remains to see if it'll cost anymore in the future or not.

I'll try to remember to update you all on this mad shit, but if I don't, I've proably gotten too invested in the thing.

[commandtower-solring-go]

TIPS FOR ELDEN RING

I wanted to make a quick start guide to cover details in Elden Ring that aren’t covered by the game itself. These are all general and broad and are largely inspired by my play through of it so this absolutely won’t be inclusive of everything. This game is huge anyway, so that should be a surprise.

1) This is by far the most broadly accommodating Souls Game. Where every other game pushed high dexterity builds and low equip loads, this game is far FAR more versatile. Heavy armour builds and magic builds are not only useable, but they’re also good. Hell, even middle range strength builds are good.

2) Don’t feel the need to min-max a single strategy. This game is long and you can afford to play around, find what weapons you like, play with them, and then try something else if you don’t like it

3) Every weapon has a unique series of attacks. Some are shared by similar weapons, but for the most part they’re all unique. These are also unique to two-handed stances, one-handed stances, and dual wielding stances.

4) Ashes of War are never consumed when used and can be reapplied whenever you want. Moreover, they add additional damage buffs beyond changing a weapon/shields special ability.

a. This is deceptive because the ability to duplicate Ashes of War implies that they’re consumable. However, each instant of an Ash of War can only be applied to a single weapon/shield. Having multiple let’s you apply it to multiple weapons so you can, for example, dual weird two weapons which both deal Poison damage

5) Weapon damage on the damage screen is not DPS. Its just raw damage regardless of a weapon’s attack speed. Just because the damage is low doesn’t mean it won’t be effective.

a. The first number is the base damage of the weapon. This can only be changed by improving the weapon itself or applying an Ash of War.

b. The second number, the one following the ‘+’, is additional damage you deal based on your stats. Every weapon gives you a letter Rank associated with a number of your stats. These are its ‘scaling scores’. What this means is that you will receive greater additional damage from a weapon depending on how many points you’ve put into its scalable stats. High scale scores mean those stats increase the additional a weapon’s damage more.

c. If a weapon has multiple damage types these scale independently of one another

d. None of these values account for any conditional damage such as poison build up or blood loss.

6) TBH, armour stats are negligible unless you invest heavily. Don’t feel the need to fully understand it unless you really want to. Also, some armour pieces grant unique effects. Cycle to the armour’s description to read what else it can do.

7) This game is hard. Abuse anything you can. Use the rune farm strats. Cheese boss fights. Use summons. Ask friends in NG+ for help. Go grind for hours, explore the world. Move past the boss and come back hours later. Look up boss guides. It doesn’t matter. If you truly want the glory of defeating a boss all on your own, you can always attempt NG+ or restart your game later. Its legit a lot of fun to replay.

a. I want to reiterate this. Whatever bar someone else sets for themselves is irrelevant to you. There are people who play these games without taking hits. If you want to play like that, cool. But I think the existence of these folk ought to humble the people who draw their ‘difficulty line in the sand’ at summoning during boss fights. Cheese away.

8) If you are stuck on a fight, you can ignore it. This game more than any is extremely accommodating to moving past a fight. Margit was the second Lord I defeated.

9) You can block way more attacks than you think you can.

10) I liked setting my own goals removed from the actual goals of the game. For example, through some googling I found I could reallocate my levels, but in order to do that I needed to go about this whole process which was out of the way of my previous goal. I found so many more landmarks once I shifted my focus and ended up felling an intended boss far ahead of time simply because it ended up being easier than my previous goal. The game is just like that.

11) There is no story in game. The story is only really implied through environments, characters who assume you’re already familiar with the world and item descriptions. It’s a vague mess and its part of what draws a specific kind of person to it. The countless video essays on the lore of these games don’t recount the lore told in game but extrapolate what it might be based on the barest evidence. To this end, don’t play the game for the plot. You will only disappoint yourself. Most hardcore players learn most anything to do with the plot from those same video essays.

12) Take breaks. It took me 100+ hours to beat Bloodborne for the first time and this game is way larger. It’ll take a while. Enjoy the ride. And you might be like ‘but June, the speed run is less than an hour long and I’ve been playing for 20 something hours and I feel like I’m reaching the end of the gam- wrong. You’re nowhere close. This game just keeps happening.

13) EXPLORE OFTEN AND REVISIT AREAS REPEATEDLY. This game is broad but its also very very deep. There are neat things around every corner and tucked in every corner. And there are pretty much always worth getting.

14) Legit, I love playing online because of the messages. They make the game 1000% more enjoyable.

15) Use the map’s marking features liberally. When you find yourself coming and going and being stopped and moving on, you’ll absolutely forget where you have been and what you found but didn’t complete. I also mark all the merchants because I like them.

16) Praise the dog

17) Despite how hard the game is, it is also extremely fair and respects its own rules.

a. You will never be invaded unless you are playing with a friend.

b. If an area is clear of hostiles, and there are no roaming enemies who would organically wander towards you, it’ll remain safe if you step away from the game for a bit.

18) Your equip load will determine the quality of your dodge roll. This, however, is very different to previous games. Here there are only 4 weights. Low, Mid, High and Over. Low and Mid have the same number of invulnerability frames. However, Low will let you cover more distance per roll. High is an extremely sloppy roll and Over prevents you from rolling at all. There is no change in roll quality within these equip loads. For example, a low Mid equip weight will give you the same roll as a high Mid equip weight.

19) You will be surprised with the kinds of fight you’d think you’d lose but actually stand a chance in. You’ll also be surprised by the kinds of fights you think you can win but will inevitably lose to. So try it out. You might as well.

20) Most weapons have a stat requirement for use. These can’t really be circumvented, with the exception of Strength. If you two-hand a weapon its strength requirement is halved.

a. This may also be true for weapons that deal magic damage wherein you can use them but you don’t get any of its magic-based benefits. Not sure though

21) Horde items. You have an equip load but not a carry load.

22) ALWAYS PRAISE THE DOG