macblur2's recent activity
-
Comment on Moving wikis away from Fandom in ~tech
-
Comment on Monster Hunter Wilds | Release date reveal trailer [Feb 28, 2025] in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentI expected the CPU to be the big bottleneck, but if that's what is needed then yeah it won't work too well even taking in the smaller resolution of the Deck.I expected the CPU to be the big bottleneck, but if that's what is needed then yeah it won't work too well even taking in the smaller resolution of the Deck.
-
Comment on Monster Hunter Wilds | Release date reveal trailer [Feb 28, 2025] in ~games
macblur2 LinkReally hoping there's a demo on Steam. Don't really like having to pay extra to play with other on ps5, but I'm not sure how well the Deck's gonna take it.Really hoping there's a demo on Steam.
Don't really like having to pay extra to play with other on ps5, but I'm not sure how well the Deck's gonna take it. -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 (edited )LinkContinuing from last time, Operation Originum Dust launched basically right after Lucent Arrowhead on Arknights and- okay, lemme try to explain without going too deep... So, since this is a rerun,...Continuing from last time, Operation Originum Dust launched basically right after Lucent Arrowhead on Arknights and- okay, lemme try to explain without going too deep...
So, since this is a rerun, the only thing they touch is the shop, stage difficulty is kept as is.
Meaning those stages were made 3 years ago, and in their original forms still manages to be a big challenge.
In other words, they are resistant to 3 years of powercreep. OD-8 is damn near ignoring power-creep.In short, OD-8 consists of
- 34 enemies coming from 5 spawns going down 4 lanes to hold (and all of them drops at least 2 more enemies on death);
- And a static boss (so you have 5 minutes to kill it) spawning adds every 5 seconds,
- Keep in mind the regular enemies tend to spawn in groups rather than trickle in, so it's entirely possible to repeatedly have more than 35 enemies on screen at once via adds! Meanwhile, even a full team of 4-blocks (the highest regular block count you can reach afaik, I only have 2 ops who reach it, one via a skill so it's time limited!) caps out at 32 blocks across 8 operators. You need to be able to kill lots of things, and fast.
I'm also skipping over some mechanics of the boss (which has 3 phases, I think there's only one other boss with more than 2 phases across the entire game), but even then I think you can see how this thing's an headache even now?
I ultimately 3-starred it by modifying Eckogen's guide a bit (Lappland pointing up as AoE Guard, Ela as a sniper to support Lappland via her mines, Siege right on the boss, and replacing an healing defender with Kirin R Yato for emergency nuking, but that leave a mine-shaped hole on the left side). Mind, it's not stable at all, I get about 2-3 auto-runs before something messes up.
Keep in mind, Lapp was already here and seen as one of the only 5* worth investing to max her out, while Shu and Ela are both new units noted for being extremely powerful (Shu in particular is seen as the new BiS for her Class, or at worst sharing this position with the previous unit).
Apparently you can also use Reed Alter's S3 here to great effect, but at risk of her and the adds tag teaming your phone into joining the fires.MVP's this op are Lappland (silenced enemies don't spawn adds), Shu (S3 lets her just tank swarms of infinite sizes, which is good since damn near every enemy is 2 slugs in a trenchcoat and it loves throwing hordes at you), and Siege (during OD-8 I'm sure she was triggering her S2 every 5 seconds or so, and since it also clears adds all around her regardless of how low her attack speed gets, very useful).
Edit:Just got to EX-8 and uh, what.
They don't do much, really. Just remove the limits on the adds spawning starting on phase 2 (so you know, constant line. Fun.) and phase 3 removes the cooldown on the boss' nuke. 1200 fixed damage, every 7 seconds.
You know it's bad when the CM modifier is neutered that badly (locks 5 tiles, only 1 of which is useful, not important, just useful). -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 (edited )LinkArknights' in the middle of Operation Lucent Arrowhead, the second Rainbow 6 collab. Event-wise, it's great, the event mechanic (enemies get the ability to hit targets in any cardinal direction...Arknights' in the middle of Operation Lucent Arrowhead, the second Rainbow 6 collab.
Event-wise, it's great, the event mechanic (enemies get the ability to hit targets in any cardinal direction regardless of range, you can counter that using Barricades which block Line of Sight, but those can be destroyed if they take enough damage) feels like a good way to bring in a mechanic from R6 (destructible cover) in a tower defense game.
The story is a (mostly) self contained one that's funny, makes it's conflict clear, has some good plot twist (if with fairly obvious foreshadowing, one piece of it in particular is pretty cool for how many uses it has), and is... pretty short? Not that long? I mean, Arknights' story is infamous for characters monologuing (and convos going on forever), and this one doesn't do that.Then there's the gacha side and, well, it's weird.
For reference, we're in something of a hell rush since in about 2-3 months we got 4 banners of importance (3 have broken characters, 2 are FOMO via collab; this one is both btw).
So, on one hand, I got everyone for cheap (two free 10-pull, one paid), which is good (and nowhere the best luck I've seen from the game), but on the other I kinda think that's my luck here.
It's pure desire sensor/RNGesus but, those are a thing for a reason still...
I also started playing Monster Hunter Now since I needed a reason to get out and I don't think Niantic has gone all out on their greediness there yet.
Overworld gameplay is the Niantic classic: walk around in real life, get to map nodes for resources, and fight monsters. No PvP elements anywhere like mainline titles.
Something I do find cool is the presence of "dimensional link" monsters, which let's you matchmake with anyone across the world hunting that monster. Useful since I'd be surprised if there's more than 5 people playing where I live.Hunting is a simplified version of those titles, just one fight (no area change), not as much upkeep (sharpness isn't a thing, for example), the weapons' moveset is a simplified "best of" version of the full thing (for example: Heavy Bowgun has only 2-3 ammo types, reloading moves you down the list of ammo, and that can only be done from empty), and considering how much had to be cut/simplified to fit this game-loop I'm surprised at how much is still... there (charge blade is still too complex for it's own good amusingly enough).
Edit: I'll note that the (very strict) timer is in real time while the game has performance issues, so it's entirely possible to lose because everything takes 2-3 times longer to be done than the game expected (I legit had the game freeze on me for 2 seconds with no change in the hunt outside of losing said 2 seconds from the timer, I'll add that you have 75 seconds to hunt a monster and at around 5* they take at least half the timer to go down without slowdowns).
I'll also note that HP is effectively your stamina in this game, you can't fight large monster is you have less than 30% HP to start and it recovers while out of combat, so being good at hunting (or at least dodging) actively lets you keep hunting.
It's still a time waster (and excuse to get out), but one with a surprising amount of complexity compared to, say, PoGO.
Oh, and Rajang is still an absolute menace.And not just because I'm still using 2-3* armor against a 5* Monster.
Last one is Warframe, specifically the Circuit (take on an endless series of challenges with a limited selection of gear to make your loadout), which reminds of how broken a lot of stuff I never use is.
Take Trinity for example, the support 'frame. Doesn't mean she's squishy or unable to deal damage directly.For tankiness, Blessing gives everyone in range HP, shields, and Damage Reduction. She can max out the top ups, and the DR goes up to 75%, combine that with Link for another up to 75% damage redirected. In total, we go from 270 HP to 4320 EHP according to wolfram. Except I'm skipping over armor calc or the fact that there isn't a cooldown on Blessing (and any other sources of healing), so it's even worse!
Damage-wise, besides the fact that everyone can use any weapon, Trin has another ability that can be used for pick: Energy Vampire. It creates 4 pulses that both gives energy to nearby allies and damage the enemy for a part of their current health (under 25%, it takes after their Max HP instead).
Now, because you want high duration it usually takes a while to deal it's damage in full, but with a low duration it can be used as a pick nuker. At the cost of basically every other ability.
Meanwhile, your guns can do some impressive numbers pretty easily depending on your mod collection, so while it's impressive, it's not actually viable.
Just don't underestimate the power of "You. Halve your health. NOW.", it can help kill bullet sponges a lot, even if in regular gameplay it's mostly used on fodder to quickly max out everyone's energy by killing said fodder to release all remaining pulses at once.Now remember: this is the White Mage of Warframe.
Meanwhile, I learned thanks to a decree that Mesa (a cowgirl 'frame) only does headshot when using her Regulators during Peacemaker, so that's one aimbot even stronger than I thought.
Also, kinda unrelated, but it's kinda funny seeing the community twisting their logic into pretzel trying to make Koumei (the next 'frame) into the elusive spiderframe.
-
Comment on DOOM and DOOM II have been combined, re-mastered, and re-released in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentThat's odd, since it's reported as working perfectly on protondb. Maybe it's because it doesn't support the SD aspect ratio out-of-the-box? I mean, at worst you should still be able to use its...That's odd, since it's reported as working perfectly on protondb.
Maybe it's because it doesn't support the SD aspect ratio out-of-the-box?I mean, at worst you should still be able to use its iwads with a sourceport.
-
Comment on Activision and Call of Duty have published a paper detailing skill based matchmaking and how its presence or absence affects enjoyment of games in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentThe graph helps, assuming most games use an elo-adjacent system. The skill set gaps I was thinking more of things like tech vs ice in Trackmania, where even something as simple as doing a turn is...The graph helps, assuming most games use an elo-adjacent system.
The skill set gaps I was thinking more of things like tech vs ice in Trackmania, where even something as simple as doing a turn is so radically different it can't be counted as the same thing (even to a lesser degree tech vs fullspeed share the same bases, but their "advanced" skills don't overlap).
In that case the solution is to have multiple rankings per player. Works well enough, even if it can lead to some weirdness for a little time when you go from a high-level playlist to a low-level one (but as your graph shows, this is self correcting).And the inconsistent skills is for in-match skills, where in the span of 10 seconds you go can't hit shit > headshots across the map > can't hit shit again (yes it's an exaggeration, but having a big personal best only to completely screw up next round is common enough in Trackmania to be called a curse).
The thing is, as far as I know (which isn't much tbh), no ranking systems handles that and basically hope that it (alongside across match inconsistency) gets smoothed out over time. -
Comment on Activision and Call of Duty have published a paper detailing skill based matchmaking and how its presence or absence affects enjoyment of games in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentI find it funny how star players are a terrifying presence for you in cs, meanwhile back when I played tf2 the Dominating! symbol acted more as a magnet that progressively attracted more of the...I find it funny how star players are a terrifying presence for you in cs, meanwhile back when I played tf2 the Dominating! symbol acted more as a magnet that progressively attracted more of the team's firepower as said star kept dominating more players.
Dunno how much is on permadeath for each round or on the giant "KILL THIS GUY" sign floating above whoever's dominating you. -
Comment on Activision and Call of Duty have published a paper detailing skill based matchmaking and how its presence or absence affects enjoyment of games in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentI mean, it sounds like the problem is the elo increasing in too high a step to be fun (think going from 500 to 1200, when you're around 750). I also don't remember many games which shows you your...I mean, it sounds like the problem is the elo increasing in too high a step to be fun (think going from 500 to 1200, when you're around 750). I also don't remember many games which shows you your elo straight up, usually the closest is your rank which can map out pretty well to certain ranges... to being completely meaningless.
Another thing not usually taken into account is that low skill players often are very inconsistent and/or have huge gaps in skill sets. Which makes balancing even more fun I'm sure. -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 LinkSo Warframe's had an update... about 20 days ago, a smaller one, one frame, 3 weapons, a new gamemode, and one new eximus unit. And an operation, same deal as the last one: do missions, get event...So Warframe's had an update... about 20 days ago, a smaller one, one frame, 3 weapons, a new gamemode, and one new eximus unit.
And an operation, same deal as the last one: do missions, get event currency, turn those in for rewards.
The big difference is the limits so even the most tryhard have a hard cap, and alert missions giving some variety instead of having to do one mission over and over.
Don't get me wrong, it's good and different from usual, but when it's all you do it gets boring fast.I also picked up Crime Boss: Rockay City after a video from TheKknowley and it being 20 bucks, with all DLCs free.
It's an heisting game so Payday 2 has it beat on content, but RC has a couple aces up it's sleeve: a lot of QoL/steamlining, and a singleplayer mode (that gets a multiplayer adaptation eventually I hope).
QoL/SL is things like being on a modern engine. Or showing your 3 strikes in stealth, how many revives you have, carrying multiple bags (and loot not always taking a whole bag each). The big one is really important, what with SP being one of the main focus of the game: improved bot AI, they'll bag up loot, carry it back to the van on their own, and can be commanded (2 pings on stuff) so you can try to double KO guards for example. And you also can just take control of 'em anyway in most cases if someone is having trouble.
This is very important in the singleplayer campaign since they're all you get.
The plot is simple: you are Travis "The Candyman" Baker, the King of Rockay's underworld has died, and you want his throne. Get it before Sherrif Chuck Norris gets you.
Gameplay is basically you picking which heists, turf wars, and attacks to do each day, using your team of heisters and army of soldiers to do that. Being a roguelite, anyone who dies, stays dead for the run. Baker dies, and it's game over.
It absolutely doesn't stack up to Payday 2, but for a game that was widely seen as a ripoff of it, I'd say it's a worthy competitor, and a better successor that what I've seen of Payday 3 so far.Lastly, I've been "playing" Panic at the Dojo. It's a TTRPG that pretty much turns fighting games/beat 'em ups/ martial arts flick into a pretty snappy system.
Seriously, building characters and NPCs is simple enough that you could spam out 40 characters in as many minutes (with an automated character sheet/cards for everything, admittedly), while being flexible enough that you can recreate any character fairly faithfully or make one that fits your playstyle well.
Gameplay's as snappy: I originally has a whole essay, multiple paragraphs, the works, but then I realized I was skipping over important stuff, and trying to add that in would need me to redo the whole thing, so instead here's a video on it. It's the one that I (and most people, judging from the discord) found the game through.
This leads into why I'm "playing" rather than, well, playing: it's a TTRPG so you usually need a few other people to, you know, play with (not too much of an issue, I'm already playing board games without a solo mode alone pretty often); and I have too much fun making characters.
I wonder how often the latter's an issue in TTRPG circles... -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 LinkWhole bunch of stuff since my last post, lesse: World of Warships had/has 2 campaigns both with their own mini event, April's event was an Operation (PvE) where you technically could get the...Whole bunch of stuff since my last post, lesse:
World of Warships had/has 2 campaigns both with their own mini event, April's event was an Operation (PvE) where you technically could get the ultimate reward (a premium ship) for free (just need to complete harder and harder missions, by level 5 it gets unfair), it overall was fun (again, endgame got unfair); meanwhile May's campaign came with a Roman event, which is a series of generic mission (like, at least force Italian ships), and you're only getting a guise (basically a new VA) for free, needing to pay about 40 bucks for the main prize (basically the cost of a tier's premiums).
Like I said, gameplay is good, monetization is... not the absolute worst, but still bad.I remembered that I picked up Maneater on psplus when it was the free ps5 title for a month, so I played it.
You're a newborn shark (as in, right as the tutorial ends newborn) who has to kill and eat her way to adult/elder/mega-hood and evolve in... very odd ways to get revenge o the human who killed your mother.
The game itself is good but rough: the narrator is good but some lines repeat way too often; the difficulty starts off pretty hard since you're a pup while there are 'gators around, only to basically disappear after becoming an adult; the controls can be kinda broken into underwater and above water which the game doesn't handle too well; evolutions looks good, have their own identity (shadow is poison and speed, bone is durability², bio-electric is stun with a touch of damage) but quickly boils down to one explore loadout and one combat loadout (why stun when you can face tank everything?); it does have way too many collectibles, but the upgraded sonar highlights everything from so far away it doesn't become a needle in a haystack.
Thruth Quest is more of the same, doesn't really fix anything but the adds are fun (just grab a map for the Questers), but I don't think it on it's own is worth quite the base price (15$), but is good if you got the base game for free.
While I did critizise it a lot, I still did 100% both it and TQ in the end.
Yeah, the game's a lot of "good, but...", if you can get it for 15-20 bucks, go for it.I also started Murdle, a daily deduction browser game.
Each day comes with a murder, here are your suspects, weapons, and locations (and motive on some days), you have exactly one murderer and everyone was isolated and can't share a weapon or motive.
Like wordle, you get one shot at solving the murder.
It's fun and quick, and trying to get a streak going is way harder than it looks...Last game I just started is Dr.Robotnik's Ring Racer, a Sonic fangame, it looks to have a lot of stuff to unlock going off the challenge screen, but already I can tell it's both pretty complex and that it has Alien Resurrection'd (- Player Expendable) itself.
-
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 LinkI recently found Century: Age of Ashes, a dragon dogfighting game (as in, you could make a fantasy spinoff of Ace Combat from this). Controls are very close to AC's arcade style (Joystick handles...I recently found Century: Age of Ashes, a dragon dogfighting game (as in, you could make a fantasy spinoff of Ace Combat from this).
Controls are very close to AC's arcade style (Joystick handles pitch and turns, triggers speed up and slows down, face buttons are attacks, no target lock as far as I know, flares are spread among abilities).
In action, well, it is very close to AC, again:- Your basic attack are
Standard MissilesFireballs, max of 2 charges, homes into your opponents (does reload faster, but then you don't have any other ranged options), small change is they'll speed up as you do. - You of course have a
MinigunFlamebreath, dragons can't hold it for long but will aim for you, also reloads (in general there isn't limited ammo unlike AC). - You don't have a Special Weapon (which themselves often were bombs/unguided rockets/missile but _/a railgun), instead you have a class-specific Power and a less class-specific Ability, for the most part even the damaging abilities/power either rely on Fireballs or do something else which is why you use them mainly.
- And now diverging from AC, you have a stamina gauge, used for boosting and dodging; shields (just more HP); and no way to switch target lock manually.
Handling-wise, again AC but you are slower but overall more maneuverable to suit the game itself taking place in smaller and more crowded spaces (there are a lot of caverns, ruins and other tight spaces under the open air to go back and forth between complete stop and divebombing someone).
They also use energy and pickups to try and keep you from just staying in the open (the main source of energy is energy rifts in the ground or flowing by terrain, pickups themselves are placed close to bits of terrain like spires or on top of gates).It is a F2P game, but the monetization is... maybe fair? I mean, 20 bucks for a dragon skin isn't nothing (and that's the most expensive ones), but you only have to pay for skins, the classes and abilities are overpriced but available for free currency, and none of them are overpowered it feels like.
Meanwhile World of Warships Legends asks 40 bucks for one ship (a bit more actually), and while they try to balance premiums the best they can, there's a reason why there's a bunch of premium CE ships (and one who got uptiered, hi Weimar).Really, the game's big problems are the lack of content (7 regular maps, 1 racing map, 1 training/small map; 6 classes) so expect to do the same thing over and over, and against the same people often since it has less players than Ace Combat 7 has (AC7 has around 800 players on a 24-hour peak, Century only 170, hell, it loses to payday 3 on all fronts and that's considered a failure), while it does have crossplay that doesn't make up even just the 700 missing players AC7 has on average on steam alone.
Hell, World of Warships Legends only has PS/XBOX, spreads players across tiers and classes (and modes too often enough), is a 9v9 game instead of 4v4, and I don't think it has taken me more than 30 seconds to find a match there, meanwhile here it's 1 minute minimum and half the time 2 (not desperate lack of players but still a good amount of time).
Also, Season 3 started late July, was supposed to go for 12 weeks, and is still ongoing.It is a fun game, but it feels like its on life support...
- Your basic attack are
-
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 (edited )LinkI've gone back to Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel after... more than a year I believe? I dunno, been a long time (around tax dragon time, far as big things go). It reminded me in record time why I love and...I've gone back to Yu-Gi-Oh: Master Duel after... more than a year I believe? I dunno, been a long time (around tax dragon time, far as big things go). It reminded me in record time why I love and hate YGO: there's a lot of ways to play, many decks you can make... and the power differential is at least on par with Warframe. Think the only seriously close fight I had was the first Plunder Patroll duel in solo mode with my sub-optimal even back then, fairly sure they had support added but I didn't bother with anything, P.U.N.K. deck. Everything else was pretty one sided.
Glad to see my main had some support added (just 2 cards, but still useful ones), and that they finally added some quality of life to the effect texts (Effects are highlighted in relevant context, single-use effects shows if they have been activated this turn).Meanwhile, Arknights' main story (+ CV-8, why does he gets teleportation in the second phase?) is reminding me that I am an idiot and that Eckogen and Kyo are mandatory watching.
And World of Warships: Legends, just two things:
- My team did a lemming rush, technically I was part of it but when you're in a cruiser with no recon and at least one enemy battleship, "holding a flank solo" really is just a complicated way to say "suicide".
In the end, our destroyers had no help when detected, leading to them dying real fast, after which the battleships kept cowering behind what little cover we had (and us cruisers would have a lifespan when detected measured in seconds), and pretty much everyone was caught in a crossfire as the match ended 2-9. - I got a Kraken unleashed (kill 5 enemies, PC has 12 players a team, Legends only 9) by secondary battery on a battleship in a cruiser.
Secondary battery does chip damage at best, with the only ones dedicated to it being the German battleships (and a singular USN battleship, nothing in the ussr lineup iirc). It was about as expected as that implies so my own main battery did shoot at it too, either way I had that last kill.
I nearly got a 6th kill too! Too bad we hit the point limit before we could kill the Izmail...
Also, both were done in the same ship, either back-to-back or with just one game in between them. You lose some, you win some.
- My team did a lemming rush, technically I was part of it but when you're in a cruiser with no recon and at least one enemy battleship, "holding a flank solo" really is just a complicated way to say "suicide".
-
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 LinkAnother week of Challenges in World of Warships, the secondary battery one was very fun. I want to hit them with my sword! ...Which is longer than their primary battery. Big problem was that I'm...Another week of Challenges in World of Warships, the secondary battery one was very fun.
I want to hit them with my sword! ...Which is longer than their primary battery.
Big problem was that I'm sure they didn't touch secondaries (so they still don't hit the 32mm threshold) so hybrid is still better.I also had a game in which about half of my team had noting close to a good showing:
- A couple of IJN destroyers (aka big torpedo damage, poor results with the guns) bum-rushed the enemy team... to shoot them. As you'd expect they sunk quickly with basically nothing to show for it.
- I was in a control point, hidden away from enemies who were around 5km or less away ,so I'd be detected if they made line of sight to me, but with an island in the way they can't blindfire at me, so I can safely cap the point so long as nobo- why did a battleship just show up right next to me?
- As the battleship was finding the enemy team does not do fair fights, I was reminded that I was detected a few times through all of this as I saw an enemy destroyer. I also saw a torpedo aimed right at my middle too late to get out of the way. I went down without doing much of note due to this.
Can you believe we lost? If you can't take a joke...
Otherwise, Arknights just released their latest permanent event: Expeditioner's Joklumarkar.
It's the rogue-like mode, so I think I've already spoken about the basic loop: Go through fights and encounters to get and upgrade Operators and Relics to get a team with broken synergies before reaching the boss on floor 5.'Course, with new theme comes new stuff, including aesthetic (snow, inhospitable level of cold, and demons), new systems both to help you (you can now target nodes with modifiers or outright change them, potentially getting you out of a tight spot, or outright trivializing whatever you're facing, even the bosses!) and hinder you (run-wide debuffs that makes fights but also interactions in the rest of the mode harder), and even some refinements (the shop upgrade system now appears at all shops instead of randomly appearing in some runs; keys are replaced by an index that actually starts above 0 and can be obtained more easily, but is also needed to see what's ahead or even getting into if you let it drop to 0).
All in all a good followup on the last theme once you're used to having everything locked again. Except for one thing: you start on the lowest difficulty, with a -40% score modifier, which means your progress through the battlepass is nearly halved (in my experience, more quartered). Oh, and the score-neutral difficulty is Braving Nature 2, so you'll have to win twice.
There's also the fact that 3 skills are locked to higher difficulty levels, but since it's just 3 skills and the rest is usable everywhere I don't have any issue with that.Bunch of tips if you wanna try and quickly get to BN2
First up, starting squad is "Overcoming Your Weakness" with Popukar, Orchid, and Reed the Flame Shadow (use support recruiting if you don't have her, do note she's a 6 star medic, so don't expect to have any hope left normally).Reed's S2 is usually the best at killing the hordes of enemies most Ops have, S3 is best for the 1st boss.
Since you have lots of enemies coming in at all times, CC is a must: Splash Casters, Artilleryman Snipers, multi-hit skills, high block counts.In the skill tree, unlock Scout (upgrades Operator for free, +1 Index) and Bosky Passage (Secret Floor) as fast as possible, in this one Secret Floor don't end in bosses, and can not involve fight at all!
Also, this skill tree lets you unlock nodes so long as any previous node is unlocked, so you can rush to a specific higher tier perk if you must.The first boss is a raid boss, 10 minutes to kill, each wave has it's own set of enemies.
It can drop spikes on an entire column, or more rarely stun an operator while dealing lots of damage, and targets the last operator deployed.
In the second phase, it gets a damage reduction to both Physical and Arts damage by 60%, and targets 2 operators at once. -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 (edited )LinkGot 2 games for this week, first up is Pacific Drive, which is basically part extraction game (like escape from tarkov), driving game, and car mechanic simulator. I often see it called a roguelike...Got 2 games for this week, first up is Pacific Drive, which is basically part extraction game (like escape from tarkov), driving game, and car mechanic simulator.
I often see it called a roguelike and... I don't it's quite one? That or extraction games have grown enough to be considered their own genre. Granted, RL is a messy genre to define...So the loop is going out from junction to junction, stopping wherever you see something you could scavenge, deal with anomalies as needed (in most case, dodge, but some can be useful at times, and others are outright helpful), can fix up your car as needed (at minimum, that means keeping an eye on the fuel gauge and maybe the battery, but depending on the situation you might have to heal, repair a malfunction, or outright swap parts as needed).
Once you're done scavenging, pick a Gateway far enough away from you to trigger and DRIVE as a radiation storm comes in to try and cook you.
That's the basic version, but put them together with some of the other stuff both in that list and out (like quirks, or that you're on a timer most of the time) can quickly make things become chaotic just often enough to warrant your full attention at all times on runs.
I'll note that I only got most of the Outer Zone unlocked (haven't gone into the Mid Zone at all yet) and haven't done a high instability junction either, but judging from it's most common modifier's name, just add a rapidly closing in storm of doom.The other game is World of Warships: Legends, which is... well, an arcade naval battle game, and isn't new to me, since I played it a lot a few years back.
The game itself is fun (when sky cancer isn't around, and we only have to deal with one, PC isn't that lucky), if you can take a joke (as an example, a staple of Wargaming titles is the Lemming Rush: a bunch of players follow another player until they find even just one enemy and just... stop, completely unwilling to fight an enemy they usually outnumber. They usually also lose to said enemy. The most notable part of this is, it can still happen here, even though the spawns are very clearly cut into center and 2 flanks).
Just... man is it monetized hard (premiums often go for 40-60 bucks when converted from monopoly money, premium time gives added credits and XP letting you progress faster, and might be needed to draw a profit from higher tier battles, dear god the lootboxes, and of course there's a battlepass and time limited events and you can't progress both at the same time). But then it's just how Wargaming does it. Works well enough for them I suppose.
I would be willing to pay for a game like it, just full premium (and ideally with a good AI).Update: This week's pass had 20 Detected in the challenges... *Picks sole valid Aircraft Carrier in the lineup* I'm doing this unwillingly.
And sure enough, 6/7 detects per game, among the last one to die, with 2 drops per squadrons. Least that was T5 ACs, the T7/Legends are worse to fight off.On better news, Trackmania recently (re)added the Rally car from TMO, the new "environment" is a castle (no new surface, it's just a new look for the existing ones), and the car is exactly what you'd expect from a rally car: high acceleration, grippy and twitchy (I think it has the lowest grip roll speed atm), which makes playing it on keyboard Fun. In the dwarven way.
At the same time, Action Keys (meant to limit turning input so kb can have some the the granularity to gamepads) were updated... for gamepads, turning from a steering lock (full range as usual, anything above X% is ignored) to a re-range (range goes from neutral to X% at max). This came after they reduced AK cause it was too much too keyboard. It very much is controversial (and don't like it even though it actually helps me since I'm on Steam Deck). -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentClosest we currently got is an autosave when entering a new area, found that out by crashing when going from a highway stop to the actual junction, it put me directly at the highway's junction....Closest we currently got is an autosave when entering a new area, found that out by crashing when going from a highway stop to the actual junction, it put me directly at the highway's junction.
Still shit we can't save and stop mid-run, but that'll have to do for now.
-
Comment on Steam Next Fest: what have you been playing? in ~games
macblur2 (edited )LinkBalatro was more of the same - new Jokers, Bosses, a new booster deck - which isn't an issue since the base it's on is just that good. #DRIVE Rally... is a arcade rally game which completely...Balatro was more of the same - new Jokers, Bosses, a new booster deck - which isn't an issue since the base it's on is just that good.
#DRIVE Rally... is a arcade rally game which completely failed to grab me both due to the lack of a damage model (or system) and the do-driver just... not really doing his job? I swear he spent more time whining about me hitting stuff than calling corners.
Extreme Formula is a cool game, seems pretty difficult, UI is kind of dispersed and small so I can't tell if my boost stopped for no reason or because I'd run out and when I look I had some back, but I'm fairly sure from this point on everything I'm playing is gonna feel worse just because it's too much for the Deck. Low preset does give a fairly stable 60 FPS. I'll have to try more later.
Edit: yeah, seems like it's one tap = one part of the boost, also while lowest usually gives a stable 40 FPS, one of the tracks has a off-road segment with dust kicking all over the place, drops FPS down to 12, so it bought back that playing BL2 at near single-digit framerate playstyle. Actually unrelated to the framerate issue is that difficulty seems... random? Now, I did like 4/5 races so sample size of lol, but Normal had me at abouth 20th, while Extreme had a 1st, and a 12th. that doesn't seems like how it should be.William and Sly is fairly close to what I'd expect of bringing the flash game into 3D, big issue being the controls basically being Racing Tank Controls if it makes sense?
Like, left stick is forward/backwards, going slightly to the sides act as you expect- FW/BW a little to the left/right- but going I'd say about 45° away from up/down stops you and turn in that direction. But then right stick is free camera control.
It works here if you're in the zone, using Sly's sheer speed and jump (you straight up can scale mountains by jumping up them like 5 times in the demo area, I think the full game area has a BIG mountain in it if it's not actually out of bounds) you can rush through the world incredibly quickly and if you need a sharper turn you can always turn the camera and it does work I swear it does, it's just hard to explain well.
Also like I said above, it does poorly on Deck, only two performance levels, on Low at 30 FPS it holds a fairly stable framerate, more than good enough for what it is.
With all this said I'm still getting on Deck, but if it comes to PS5 I might buy it there too...Synthalgia seems to be a Outrun clone with boost and slowmo, and a one hit wonder, looks nice, doesn't run that well on Deck it seems, but not my style so take all of that with a grain of salt.
Last game in this initial lineup is Pacific Drive. The game is fun (having to care for a car instead of a bunch of gauges is definitively a great twist on survival crafting on its own, nevermind adding extraction mechanic) and even the horribly mangled Steam Deck experience was fun.
And I mean mangled, this is an atmospheric game, so things like rain not actually getting on the windshield and tree spawning in right in front of you are an issue.
With everything on low (including some options which didn't move with the gamepad, had to use touchscreen), it goes back and forth between 20 and 30 while driving, and 30 in the auto shop (from what I've seen in the trailers- and my first gateway escape- it can get hectic, and it's been a while since I played BL2 at a strictly sub 30 framerate). Do note that since some of the important things to read and understand are affected by Texture Quality, it's hard to read both the roadmap and the minimap, car status, the research station screen, etc.
On top of all this, it went through 70% of the battery in nearly the whole drive.
I do like what I've seen, so I'm getting it on PS5. -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 LinkI bought myself a PS5 a few months back because I was getting tired of how slow my PS4 was (and loud, even if I mostly avoided that issue via headphones), to the point I'm fairly sure part of the...I bought myself a PS5 a few months back because I was getting tired of how slow my PS4 was (and loud, even if I mostly avoided that issue via headphones), to the point I'm fairly sure part of the reason I kept losing connection in Warframe was because my game just didn't load in time.
Speaking of which, pre-Whispers in the Wall the PS5 version would hard crash the slim (I don't think any og console reported having the issue), it's been fixed since then (my 100+ hours in the PS5 version is testament to that) but still, I wonder what caused it to outright shut down only on the slim...I also got some new game from Xmas, starting with Like A Dragon: Ishin!, a historical drama à la Yakuza (so not the most historically accurate thing, even putting aside the troopers).
If you like the franchise (or would like to test the waters) it is a good standalone entry, even if you can tell the original was made in between Yakuza 5 and 0 and lacks a number of QoL improvements (most notably for me is the lack of pause when switching styles and difficulties backing out of the ability menu, that and battles aren't part of the open world unlike the Dragon Engine games).
I kinda wish the Wild Dance style was available in the newer games, it's very fun to use.Not quite a new game, but one I actually started playing with the PS5, Cyberpunk 2077, I'm grateful most/all PS4 discs let you get the PS5 version for free since I'm doing this for all 3 games. Gameplay-wise, it does a good job showing how powerful augments are (with how I use cyberware and quickhacks one pushes things heavily in my advantage while the other keeps pushing it hard enough it arguably stops counting as a fight very quickly, didn't experiment with Berzerk or Sandy), but is not really anything special otherwise. Except driving, but not in a good way (feels like it wants you to do big drifts at all time and all, but the streets are often narrow and filled with cars and pedestrians, and hitting anything/one will make you wanted pretty much on the spot).
Story-wise well, it's far less hopeful than most other stories (least the one I follow), while those other stories absolutely have hardships in them, they often end on a hopeful note which basically never happens here. I suppose there is a reason most people in NC aspire to be remembered as a drink.The last game is Sniper Elite 5. Take a look at the other games I've written about here, in all cases a straight up fight is basically where you want to be (or at least how I play 'em), being in the middle of everyone is NOT an issue.
For Karl it is, stealth and distance are your biggest advantage, with direct confrontation being very deadly both ways, with is a problem when the enemy will swarm you when given the chance. It only has 8 levels but they're long and look to be a game you replay (especially with Axis Invasion, I don't think there's any other other game that's basically PvP+E). -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentLooking at the order of things, we'd first need the Sunrise cars in, probably also in the order you played them in (and it'd be over 3 seasons like we're doing). It would be incredibly cool,...Looking at the order of things, we'd first need the Sunrise cars in, probably also in the order you played them in (and it'd be over 3 seasons like we're doing).
It would be incredibly cool, especially once people import all the old blocks (if they haven't already!), but imo even Sunrise is a longshot. -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 LinkTrackmania's given us the first of 3 mini-remakes (their words), bringing the Snow car in and revamping Wood's handling to be Funny on the Stadium car. Overall I really like the adds, the Snow...Trackmania's given us the first of 3 mini-remakes (their words), bringing the
AlpineSnow car in and revamping Wood's handling to be Funny on the Stadium car.
Overall I really like the adds, the Snow car's very different, being slower but with a tight turning radius, and with a very binary-feeling grip (basically no sliding to constant sliding to Ice's "we're going that way and no other way), and Wood playing very differently at different speed on top of being the surface with the most grip.
Update does have some noticeable bugs (or "bug" for the last, more a Nadeo moment™): Track of the Day doesn't seem to handle changing cars too well (it breaks CP tracking), exiting (TotD's) knockout servers bring your to an old select local server menu (it may be usable too, and you can go back without issue), and Wood being an already existing surface broke any tracks already using it (it can be funny to watch the results).
Strike Force Heroes was released a while back and I've been playing since it launched. It's been rough, the game itself is fun but things have been pushing pretty hard against it (mostly design wise for me), I actually have some trouble putting those issues into words but the big ones are (or were) the frankly shit XP gains solo (fixed in the latest update), melee being way stronger for the bots (maybe fixed?), plus some maps and missions being unfair (for example last mission was a battle of attrition between your and the boss until last patch). Since all of those (bar maybe one) have been fixed it's a lot better.
Last game's Backpack Hero which is a roguelike akin to Slay the Spire in combat except the deck's a backpack so you're trying to fit your entire build in a (usually weirdly shaped) inventory while taking into account any of their oddities (some needs to be at certain edges, other buffs and debuffs nearby gear, a good chunk of them are just weirdly shaped in ways that would be fine if you shaped your inventory differently, etc), personally I like that more than deckbuilding (and maybe it doesn't build up as hard, at least not yet).
I'm still early in the game feels like, so we'll see how things are later on.
They actively hinder closing their own wikis afaik, which leads to some funny stuff at times when the staff has migrated and people start vandalizing, but I got no links on me on that.
What I do have, is on plagiarism, and from the look of it they are fairly slow and fairly light handed towards plagiarists (original video and follow up, I'll note that I had to skim the latter due to lack of time atm).