macblur2's recent activity
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Comment on Megathread: April Fools' Day 2025 on the internet in ~talk
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 (edited )LinkAs mentioned in the daily game thread, I picked up Inertial Drift last week, it's a racing game where steering and drifting are decoupled, both having their own stick. So on top of having to...As mentioned in the daily game thread, I picked up Inertial Drift last week, it's a racing game where steering and drifting are decoupled, both having their own stick.
So on top of having to handle using both sticks at once (just treat the Drift Stick as the main stick for turning, and use the Steering Stick for fine adjustments), you also have to handle the cars drifting differently.
There's an in-universe reason for the control scheme (the Drift Gyro) which is also gonna change when the DS can work its magic, for some it's always an options (if stronger when not accelerating and/or braking); while others may need you to do something first, not to mention recentering once you're done drifting may not be that easy for some cars...For some examples:
The Terra Dart and Coda Gecko can drift on demand, just push the DS, but how much it alone can do differs: the Dart goes to about 50% while the Gecko stops at about 20-30%, the Dart also recenters pretty much as you let go of the stick, while the Gecko takes a second or so.
The HPE Dragon barely can drift while you accelerate, you have to release first to start drifting.
It also recenters slowly, but can be forced to by braking, even by a light tap will do.Then you have the Coda Chrono, you can do some surprisingly steep drifts without releasing the accelerator in this one., but the big drifts need you to release first...
And then feel what your angle will be once you're back on the pedal, since you're "charging" the drift while not accelerating unlike the first 3 cars. But much like the Dragon, it recenters slowly if you don't brake.While you can expect to spend most of your time racing (with no contact ever) and setting times, you do have some other modes to bring some variety, Duels (basically Tokyo Xtreme Racer), Endurence (reach Checkpoints on a timer to get a progressively lower amount of time back, aim to go as far as possible), and Style (Drift as close to corners and as fast as possible to gain as many points as possible) are the ones I tested.
While the game has a great handling model and style, and even a good variety of gamemodes, it does have some issues.
Arcade mode is the only mode to not show you car stats for some reason, Story Mode have some difficulty spikes in the 2nd story (only an issue for 100%) and the 3rd (mostly completion again, albeit some can slow progression), and then the last storyline gives you 2 fairly easy events followed by a challenge that spikes hard (get the gold time medal, just straight up beat Arcade gold in that car. In the first area of Story Mode. Yeah.Correction, Arcade gold is 50 seconds, Story Mode clear is 47 seconds.), due to the SM spikes I wouldn't be surprised if the Challenges also get way harder for the last 3 cars I gotta unlock, most of the gamemodes are basically Time Trial in a trenchcoat, and then there's the content.16 cars in the base game, 4 variants from free DLC (existing cars up/down-tiered), and 4 new cars in Twilight Rivals (a paid DLC), and 10 tracks across 5 regions with reverse variants, paid DLC adding 4 more tracks, for a final total of 20 cars and 20 tracks in the base game, and 24 cars and 28 tacks with the DLC.
This is a double-edged sword, there is little content, but both the cars and tracks feels significantly more different from each-other as a result.
It's also explained by having like, 90% of the game made by a 3-man team.
I've also been playing Rallyman GT and DIRT on the side.
It's a boardgame about racing, track racing and rally to be precise.
While they share so many of their mechanics that they can be crossed over (there even was an actual crossover expansion), they still have some differences.While I play solo there's still a lot of stuff for me thanks to things like the ISGOYTRA Cups (which is quite the acronym) and the historic solo challenges someone made on bgg, it does need a couple other homebrews but gives you a good 40/50 scenarios to try. There's also rallymoon for a weirder homebrew.Really fast rules.
The basic rules are fairly simple: here's a track made of spaces, and a bunch of dice.
Use the black and white dice to move down the track one space at a time, use the red dice with a black die to slow down and pass trough speed limits safely.
Each die can only be used once per turn.
For rolling, either make a path and roll all dice for the path at once to gain Focus Tokens, or roll one die at a time with the option to secure a roll by paying Focus Tokens.They differ in a few key points, from track features (sharp corners in GT vs shortcuts in DIRT for example) to turn order and how the game starts, passing by what's on the dashboard, or even the goal (finish 1st in GT vs having the lowest time in DIRT).
There's a bit more to the rules (Loss of Control, rows and movement, overtakes and contacts, etc) but that was just a basic idea of what they are.
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Comment on Do you have games that you play (almost) exclusively? in ~games
macblur2 (edited )LinkI played Warframe for 1162 hours so far. This is according to the in-game stats, so it only includes time in missions. It's probably double that in time I left the game open. I play both pubs and...I played Warframe for 1162 hours so far.
This is according to the in-game stats, so it only includes time in missions. It's probably double that in time I left the game open.I play both pubs and solo, I lfg for relics if I really wanna get a rare part fast.
As for why I keep coming back...
The variety, in terms of equipment (there's like 60-ish warframes, and far too many weapons, 4 vehicules), locations (3/4 types of spaceships, overgrown forest, whatever the Cambion Drift counts as, Eastern Europe circa 1999 among many others), side stuff to do (fishing, mining, conservation, Duviri).They also treat us well, pretty much everything gameplay changing can be farmed (there's a few exception but they're mostly seen as status symbols imo).
It's also pretty good to F2P, since you can trade Platinum (premium currency) so if you want more slots/cosmetics you can just farm tradeable items.Mind, even with all this I still play other stuff since it's fine to drop WF for months/years and come back with no issue since there's no big FOMO even for cosmetics (they actually will rework paid systems if they feel it gets too predatory), and there's always 1 or 2 more games I play alongside it (I picked up Inertial Drift and got back into EA WRC last week for example.
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Comment on Steam Next Fest 2025 - February 24 to March 3 in ~games
macblur2 LinkDEMON DUST Found out about it in the underground GARDEN discord because a friend of the dev posted about it. That post also drew me to look at this Next Fest a little more. It's a survival...DEMON DUST
Found out about it in the underground GARDEN discord because a friend of the dev posted about it. That post also drew me to look at this Next Fest a little more.
It's a survival horror/dungeon crawler with a weird FPS/point-and-click interface: you move yourself and the camera with wasd (plus qe for strafing), while the mouse is exclusively for interacting with whatever's currently in sight.
Enemies are built with this in mind, they're... vaguely humanoid unconnected slabs of flesh, some of it's static instead. Shoot all of those bits off to kill them, AFAIK hitting them anywhere else does nothing.
You also can't just have your gun out at all times since you're slowed to a crawl whenever you're using an item.Between the control scheme and the atmosphere (it's very low-res, and dark. you do have a flashlight. it's not big, and strictly around your cursor), it's a great game, but probably one I won't buy (mainly 'cause I just don't handle horror well, and by that I mean collecting currency that was hidden basically jumpscared me).
Neongarten
The first game I played of this Fest, it's a basic district builder with a minimalist-ish Cyberpunk aesthetic. Also very cubic.
Place a block during the day, collect cash from your buildings each night, try to make to cash than the taxes you've gotta pay each week (that's all the cash is used for).
Things get interesting when effects and perks get involved, some things want to be connected in one way or another, others don't want to be near each other, some stuff wants to be above a certain layer, etc.
It's in the same vein as Dorfrokantik, basically. Just, y'know, cubes.TMNT Tactical Takedown
A Tabletop-styled tactics game, and by tabletop I mean it genuinely could be made as a boardgame, they already made it look like one, and the rules could be bought over with minimal change: gameplay alternates between you and the enemy, you get 6 AP to spend between 5 main actions (+ an action built up by defeating enemies), those actions can build off each-other (or the environment), for example:
- The second level has cars as an hazard, and a couple of your actions stops enemies from moving, this coupled with the basic enemy "AI" can lead to some funny (and awesome feeling) moments.
- An action moves you 3 spaces, dealing 2 damage to enemies in the way, but gives 1 AP back on KO, so if you have 2 enemies with 2 HP lined up, you get a free move, meanwhile enemies with 3/4 HP get dealt with for 2 AP instead of 4.
Meanwhile, the enemy AI seems to be simple (move as close as possible, if adjacent hit), not an issue for 1-on-1, but you'll often be outnumbered 5/10(/15) to... 1, so, y'know, get ready to fight in tight spaces if only because you're being swarmed.
Now, the twist: it's an autoscroller! I promise it's better than I make it sound: once about every 2 turns part of the stage will be marked (and a part that's out of bound will be marked green), after the enemy's turn the level "mutates" (their words) instantly knocking out anyone left behind on the red part of the stage (and making you lose if you were on it) and adding whatever section was colored green. Keep in mind, enemies will spawn wherever there's space, including that new bit of stage.
Now remember: you have 6 AP, and are very mobile (I think even the biggest the map's gotten can be crossed with 3 AP worth of movement), so it's more akin to a GM revealing the battlemap bit by bit while slowly (but steadily) forcing you to move forward.Audio is fine, music is good if kinda generic (I admitedly don't know much about TMNT so it could fit with what the franchise does), sound effects are good, the "thock" of pieces landing and moving, repeated "twacks" for attacks, special mentions to the KO sound, extremely satisfying to hear trigger a lot in a few seconds.
So far I've only done 2/5 level in the demo, so there's probably more interesting stuff to use/deal with in there still.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentWhile I play basically only on redsun, I did a couple casual matches to test things out and saw no bots. Still, I think it's over since other communities aren't full of posts about casual being...While I play basically only on redsun, I did a couple casual matches to test things out and saw no bots.
Still, I think it's over since other communities aren't full of posts about casual being full of bots.
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Comment on What video game mods do you play, or have played in the past? in ~games
macblur2 LinkI dunno how much it fits into this thread since I don't really have to install anything (you will have to download a metric shit-ton of stuff, though...), but I've been playing on redsun on tf2...I dunno how much it fits into this thread since I don't really have to install anything (you will have to download a metric shit-ton of stuff, though...), but I've been playing on redsun on tf2 since... 2018, technically (fairly sure it was the last server I was on before I left, and after I came back I played like 2 casual matches to check things then jumped right back in).
The servers have Gamemode Madness in their titles due to, well, changing which game you're playing every 20/30 minutes.
And by change game, I don't mean Capture the Flag to King of the Hill.
I mean Left 4 Dead into Versus Saxton Hale into SCP: Secret Laboratory into Warioware.
While there are more regular gamemodes (Stock Classic kinda, Mystery Map, Team Battles, Combat Surf), there's nearly 30 gamemodes so don't expect to play the same thing twice in one session.This is on top of having it's own inventory system and even events.
Again, I'm not sure how much it counts, but considering that community servers are almost entirely gone (and ones with large enough API to basically do completely different things or making their own item servers are just gone) in modern games I'd say it counts.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 Link ParentThe closest to a roadmap we got is that they intend to be out of early access in about 4 months going off the Steam page. Mind, the game's been out for not even a full week, if they wanna tell us...The closest to a roadmap we got is that they intend to be out of early access in about 4 months going off the Steam page.
Mind, the game's been out for not even a full week, if they wanna tell us what's to come it might be closer to a month since release, assuming they don't just drop updates out of the blue. -
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
macblur2 LinkTokyo Xtreme Racer released into early access last Thursday. I already have nearly 23 hours on it. Gameplay has you go into the Shuto Expressway and challenge every rival to SP Battles (racing...Tokyo Xtreme Racer released into early access last Thursday. I already have nearly 23 hours on it.
Gameplay has you go into the Shuto Expressway and challenge every rival to SP Battles (racing game façon fighting game: you both have a SP bar as your HP, get ahead of your opponent to drain their SP while avoiding contact to keep your SP) to gain credits and BP; then you get back to your garage to unlock and buy new cars and upgrades, and you keep repeating those 2 steps.
It runs very well on Steam Deck, even with TSR which makes it look real good.
Fair warning, it has a wall that's literally stronger than the boss it's hiding (going from others' posts, I haven't beaten Melancholic Angel) and basically anything you can make at the time, but she can be beaten apparently.I've also got DOOM, the ones with more sourceports than franchises got entries.
Not much to say that wasn't said countless times before (it's Doom and Doom 2), but I basically started with Time Tripper (only thing I did before that was check if I set up zdl and steam input right on Doom 2's MAP01), which goes from beautiful (a good example is C1M3's second room) to trippy (both liminal spaces), it's also harder than the base game (going off it's site, Normal is equal to Ultra-Violence), which when combined with me still getting used to controlling this on the deck made for a difficult, but memorable experience. -
Comment on Moving wikis away from Fandom in ~tech
macblur2 Link ParentThey 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...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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
Loads machine gun
Sufficient Velocity appears to have insufficient acceleration to break the planet in it's logo.
Meanwhile, SpaceBattle is gonna hold an IPO and hosting a shareholder meeting. Needless to say, people are taking the theme and running with it.
Redsun kept things simple for april fools, they just UwUified the main site (the april fools maps are also available but that's automated apparently).
A couple discord servers are also playing around: Stop Killing Games has a notification icon built-in (took me marking it as read to figure it out...) and decky-loader's making homebrews for the Acer Nitro now.
AO3 interviewed orphan_account, while it is funny (because it's, y'know, automated) it was still informative (namely who to contact for what issue in an orphaned work).
Arknights makes some minigames for April Fools, I don't thing they're up yet, even if we know them.
Global will have the Terra Investment Masterclass, where Prof. Can (better known as Cannot Goodenough) will guide you on maximising profits by... participating in Salty Bets?!
Well, get those bets in!
Spoilers from China on the new AF event.
ARK no NIGHTS, where Reunion awakens the Doctor and we fight a version of Rhodes Island that might be controlled by PRTS (this is taken from a reddit post so might).Lastly, I wouldn't normally add them here, but the pranks are clean (even if the websites are very much adult-oriented/only) so I think it's fine?
I'm still throwing them behind a spoilerbox.
On one hand FurAffinity gave itself a makeover replacing the banner with only the highest quality mspaint drawing.
They're also using Comic Sans everywhere now.
On the other paw E6 is following some new regulations by requiring user to submit to a fursona check.
It, of course does nothing, but a lot of users did download their drawings to post them (it even has a tag), and despite E6 being, well, E6, of the 3k+ posts under the tag, only about 100-200 aren't rated safe somehow?
Well, safe by E6 standard, I'm sure at least some could be considered suggestive elsewhere.
Also, despite the tools given being worse than mspaint there's still a lot of good drawing outta this, couple I found are 5473083 (a chibi soulseer mizutsune) and 5473527 (a small dragon perched on a branch).