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At this point I'm going through enemies that oneshot me by parrying. Still pumping luck.

The current system for weapons/armour and their upgrades is very restricted. Low tier gear often has useful unique abilities, but doesn't fit into higher tier gameplay very well. There is also virtually no ability to customise appearance, which is a widely sought-after feature. I propose a few changes to the underlying system to give players more options without having to keep adding more and more new content. Allow a way to apply a different appearance to any piece of armour (Spend bug parts/resources to make X piece look like Y, but retain all stats and effects). This could apply to weapons too, but only for weapons of the same type (can't reskin a 2H hammer as a 2H sword, to avoid confusion). Allow a permanent one-way "Link" upgrade to make a piece of armour from Set X count as being from Set Y for activating the set bonus. It shouldn't be cheap, but doesn't need to be crazy expensive either. By being a one-way upgrade, if you want Item X to work with Set Y and Set Z, you would need to make two copies of Item X and link them separately. Make shields upgradeable, like weapons. Allow certain armour bonus effects to be swapped at a Smithing Station, like swapping the Gas Guard effect of the Mantis helmet for the same buff the Chest/Boots give. Add a handful of other buffs that are available to all armour of that archetype. That way, if you don't like a certain bonus effect, you could swap it for something else. Sleek effects could be swapped out in the same way, if desired. Make the Tier of an item be a separate upgrade path (1), or be part of the normal upgrade path (2). For a separate upgrade path, each tier would require resources specific to each weapon category or armour archetype, based on the tier (Like, all T1 Ranger armour takes the same materials to upgrade to T2). This would just bring the base stats of the item in line with being a higher tier. But, it runs the risk of being confusing since it would be a bit ambiguous. For the normal upgrade path, lower Tier items would need extra levels to upgrade, but every 3 levels would upgrade the Tier of the item as a general rule. This means a T1 helmet might need Brittle Marble to upgrade from levels 1-3, then it would use Brittle Plating to upgrade, but be T2 from levels 4-6. Then when you get to Sturdy Plating it becomes T3 from levels 7-9. However, this means that items that are already Tier 3 start off needing Sturdy Plating (or the weapon equivalents). The stat improvements would need to be shifted accordingly, since there would only be 3 levels per tier rather than 5.

'Cowardly' usually means you don't like the person/ group involved, and nothing more. Sitting in the Nevada desert or the Negev with a PS5 controller blowing up people thousands of km away on a video screen knowing you'll never face any consequences is hardly the height of bravery in any conventional sense yet people tend to label that as 'sensible tactics' and 'not giving a sucker an even break' instead. At this point I'm just assuming anything positive that comes out of Trump's mouth means he's doing market manipulation again. Whether the markets are really really dumb or just want him to be telling the truth so much that they still believe him who knows. (I wouldn't be overly surprised if someone is telling Trump they're talking as a way to at least delay him doing something monumentally stupid until his allies have some time to prepare)

Yeah, I usually don't like jRPGs and I really liked this one. From what I remember stats are most relevant to weapon scaling - as to effectiveness of individual stats - meh, the harder the game gets the more dominant player's ability to dodge and parry becomes.

I'm curious to know what you define as a cowardly response? Do they need to physically invade their neighbors for it not to be considered "cowardly"? How does that differ from the US/Israeli aerial bombardment that has killed many civilians?

Craniopagus parasiticus

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-threatens-retaliate-against-gulf-energy-water-after-trump-ultimatum-2026-03-23/ I still haven't learnt my lesson about Trump, stop believing certain things he says But its hard to distinguish between him saying something for impact and the truth especially in the middle of attacking Iran in the first place "TEL AVIV/JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he had given orders to postpone any military strikes against Iranian power plants for five days, hours ahead of a deadline that threatened further escalation in the conflict now in its fourth week. Trump added in a post on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and Iran had had "VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE" conversations over the past two ‌days about a "COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST".

I gave in and bought Death Stranding 2. Was sick the week and couldn't do much else, so there was no distraction for me. Oh well. Anyways. Game feels like a straight continuation after the first game. Even gameplay-wise, a lot of the old features are unlocked quite fast, and then the new combat stuff added on top of that. There's a lot more shooting going on now / feels a lot more like MGS5 than before, and it kinda felt like that already before. Ambience and music and all of that is very nice again, no surprise here, I guess. Visuals are good too, though my PC is blowing steam quite a lot more than in the first game.

slay the spire 2 are indeed very addictive avoid most card game seem like the right choice

Hi! I like to have a character that has a thematic and also a class consistency throughout both games. For example in PoE1 I would pick a Nature Godlike Monk with druidic vibes, give him the cross class talent Aspirant's Mark, pick up (and level up) the Greenstone Staff and use several items with Druid spells (spell binding items) such as Rotfinger Gloves for example. And maybe some fitting scrolls, too. In Deadfire I then build a Nature Godlike Helwalker/Ancient and continued the journey with the Spine of Thicket Green (quarterstaff) and so on. Or I would use a Chanter in PoE 1 with Sure Handed Ila and Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr, pick up One-Eyed Molina's Spike Flinger (soulbound arbalest) and Runner's Wounding Shot as cross class talent - and then in Deadfire I build a Troubadour/Arcane Archer with Spearcaster (also arbalest). I wrote a build description for that one because it turned out to be very effective and fun to play: Chanter with focus on invocations, using short phrases to get phrase points quickly and using the cross class talent Enigma's Charm and several charm/dominate items (Munacra Arret, Spirit Spiral, Ring of Changing Heart) in PoE -> turn into a Troubadour/Psion in Deadfire: Also playing as a plain Priest of Eothas over both games was enjoyable. In PoE there's quite some fitting unique gear for a Priest (of generally a follower) of Eothas: unique flail, unique helmet, unique mail armor and so on - which is kind of rewarding. Priest of Eothas also fits both games' themes and storylines well. Sometimes it's a bit weird that the game doesn't react/recognize this class choice more though. Priest of Berath with Tidefall in PoE -> Priest of Berath/Helwalker with the summoned Spiritual Great Sword. My most beloved Monk build from PoE (Witch Doctor) who used the Long Pain primary (so a ranged Monk) turned into the Mortar Monk in Desdfire. But some builds that I have enjoyed playing very much in one of the games don't work well (or were not much fun to play for me) in the other. For example the combo Helwaker/Berserker with a Morning Star is one of my favorite builds in Deadfire, but when I went back to PoE and wanted to do a whole playthrough from PoE to Deadfire with this build in mind I couldn't make it work in PoE. I mean a PoE Monk with a Morning Star and Outlander's Frenzy would work for sure, but there's not too much synergy, some stuff just suppresses each other (like Swift Strikes and Outlander's Frenzy) and it wasn't much fun to play. The other way round - Barbarian with Monk features - doesn't really work because the cross class talent Novice's Suffering is kind of useless of you plan to use a Morning Star. Sometimes it needs a bit of playtesting to be sure it holds up in both games. Cheers to you, too. :)

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/06/media/israel-iran-war-media-censor-journalism Here is an official link from CNN explaining how censorship in Israel works. Its not quite the level of censorship you suggesting but it exists on certain levels which is common in most countries that are at war Here is a relevant quote from parts of it "There’s no doubt that the Israeli public has posted videos of missile intercepts and more during this war. A quick search of social media and Telegram channels reveals plenty of these videos. But the censor focuses more on the international media, and it has tightened the restrictions since the war began. After the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israel, there was no problem showing intercepts in the skies over southern and central Israel. Now the censor has prohibited live broadcasts showing the interception of Iranian ballistic missiles, even as the vast majority have been stopped. To be clear, international news networks don’t submit every piece of video to the military censor for review. Far from it. CNN has not submitted any video to the censor for review since the war started on Saturday morning. But the censor does prohibit us from putting out live broadcasts of intercepts that could reveal the accuracy of Iranian ballistic missiles or the location of interceptor missile arrays. "

Yes, that is the possible response Iran's overall response has been a cowardly but predictable one They cant target the US or Israel effectively so they go after the Gulf States which have less defenses and hopefully the economic chaos will end the US attacks which will end the Israeli campaign as well It must be unique in the way countries fight wars and it sets a terrible precedent. But the hardliners in Iran will justify it because they will argue they facing an existential crisis But as I said its not surprising and Iran threatened to do this, if any state is prepared to kill thousands of its own citizens who protest what lengths would they go to in a war where they have an obvious military and resource disadvantage?

isn't the major worry for oli that oil well have to be shut down when storage are full one of the reason iran are attacked now is they look weak due to the protest caused by water crisis no one have a quick magical solution to that even if usa somehow successfully make iran their proxy and it will certainly get worse due to global warming

Mages being limited to 2H staves and gaining no class bonus beyond staff attacks makes them very niche, and punishes diversity. Compare that to Rogue armour which boosts any weapon with 3-hit combos, or Ranger armour which boosts all weakpoint damage. Mages need options that allow more diversity in gameplay, with room to mix and match styles more. Change Mage armour bonus to something more broadly useful, like increased elemental damage or reduced stamina cost for all weapons (Imagine a Sword-Mage with a Spicy Coaltana) Add 1H options (like a wand), so Mages can use shields/torches if they want. Add 1-2 Mage-themed off hand item categories, like lanterns and scepters. This lets other classes add a bit of magic too. Off-hand lanterns could consume candy/resources as fuel, give off moderate light, but empower elemental effects in its radius (or grant other bonuses) Off-hand scepters could give special parry effects (but without as much damage reduction as a shield) and grant AoE buffs under certain conditions. Maybe add gloves for a dual-wield weapon option to add in other styles of magic attack (channel beams or cones of energy etc) Consider adding more "elements" in mage weapons, like Pollen for AoE stun and airborne targeting, Water for clearing enemy AoE effects (and maybe minor healing?), sap for slowing etc. This would add more tactical choices for other class builds to use

The issue with making them Tier 1 is that all Candy resources need Tier 2-3 tools to harvest. They would need to change the theme a little so that it's not just "Candy Staves", to allow other things to work. But the tier of equipment is only a very minor issue. What we need is more diversity, and more interchangeable content like 1H candy wands/scepters or magic off-hand items

Strange as it may seem oil may not actually be the biggest potential target or threat. Most of its infrastructure is fixable in weeks to months, some of it quicker. Qatari gas with a years long estimate is an outlier. OTOH, some of the Gulf countries have 90%+ drinking water from desalinisation. It's high for Israel as well. You simply don't have weeks or months to fix that, and having 7 million people in Riyadh without water would collapse Confidence almost instantly because there would be no chance of things going back to how they were. Absolutely a war crime to target it, but it's not like either side cares about that- given destroying power plants without a good military reason to do so would also be a war crime.

I think the biggest threat to the world economy, and thus to the US, would be for Iran to attack the major oil production and storage facilities in the Persian Gulf. Doing so could potentially disrupt the flow of oil for several years; redacted will be in office for (at least) three more years, so the timing matches. Does Iran still have the capability to do that? They may see it as an appropriate response for damaging their own economy.

Comic artist Sam Keith (The Maxx)

It isn't, that's the purpose of the military censor in the first place, and always has been everywhere it's been implemented. The state controls the flow of information to stop its own people and the enemy know what damage has been done. When that is not applied they either think it's in their best interests not to, or it's too big to suppress. What do you think they were censoring in those 2000+ articles, Bibi's receding hairline? 131 journalists killed in Gaza since 2024 out of a total of 204, so a shade off 2/3s. That is excluding those killed outside Israel and Palestine by Israel though; add those in and it's over 2/3. To put it in perspective, the number of journalists killed in Ukraine over that time was 4 (four).

There is going to be a big development in 36 hours or so with Trump threatening to blow up Irans power plants if the Straits arent open Iran wont open the Straits and Trump is now committed. I wonder what the Iranian response will be? NBC NewsIran unswayed by Trump's 48-hour deadline and threats to...President Donald Trump threatened a major strike if Iran ignores his 48-hour ultimatum, but experts say it's unlikely to change Tehran's resolve.

Trump: "Mission accomplished. Nobody talks about the Epstein files right now" Netanyahu: "Mission accomplished. Nobody is talking about my corruption charges and looming prison sentence" Russia: "Mission accomplished. Oil and gas prices are sky rocketing" ... Feel free to add to the list. Sad fact is, none of the two main instigators have neither motivation nor ideas how to end the war now. Putin just laughing at the sideline, counting the Petroyuans he is getting

Speaking of Madhouse... picture spam time again Out intrepid heroes have passed the checkpoint to the Northern Plateau and experience level scaling in real time. Starting with little lizards over mountain sized demons they thought were in hills in the forest The risk of being the party's tank (a role referred to as a "front liner" in the setting. For all his fast reflexes, Stark still keeps a close eye on his opponent. Fern decides she needs her boyfriend to pout at for a bit longer No place is safe anymore and getting rest turns into a real problem, leading to days without breaks or sleep "Grab the elf" (slightly paraphrased from an old movie) They eventually find an inhabited house, where they can spend the night. The owner asks a favour of them, as a monster has set up camp nearby and now kills everyone and everything, disrupting trade and travel. The party agrees as they are heading that direction anyway. They run into the fellow as it's busy eating a merchant (with appropriate slobbering noises as it licks the rest of the merchant up) This one is on a different from what they have encountered so far. Using physical weapons instead of magic, supernatural speed and strength, it dodges spells as well as Starks axe Frieren, thinking sniping it from a flying position might be a good idea, stood corrected. Barely managing to put up a protective barrier a fraction of a second before that mantis shrimp blow hits her ...and sends her flying like a tennis ball that just got served by Agassi Fern fares no better, as she now shares the emotional stress of a cricket ball hit by a very large bat swung by a very strong batter Stark, for all his failures when it comes to dating, is still gentleman enough to absorb some of Ferns kinetic energy, before she smashes into a tree. Any cricket catcher would be proud of that catch While the monster was busy playing with the kids, the old lady herself decides to shoot off the monsters right arm which just seems to agitate it even more. Stark jumps the guy and tries to strangle it. Ever the optimist. But, it leaves it exposed in a position where it can no longer dodge incoming shots... death star laser is fully charged Fern seems to already having made her mind up about Stark. He's not going to get away from her... and puts a protective bubble around him, so he doesn't get incinerated by Frieren's attack Stark is reconsidering his life choices 😃 Next up are legendary level liquors and legendary level trolling by bored elves

Hello community, So I'm looking to start up a new playthrough that will hopefully take me through the entirety of Pillars of Eternity, White March I & II, and then after all of that, push me through to Pillars of Eternity Deadfire. I've easily clocked in countless hours into the game goofing around with a variety of different builds but I haven't really committed to a "marathon" build to do EVERYTHING with. I know this is fairly subjective but was curious what the rest of the community, you all, did to decide on a character concept to carry through such a play through. Typically for myself I like to focus on Lore-heavy builds, and for this I don't plan on doing anything heavy handed as far as difficulty. What has worked for you all when making up a character for such playthroughs for those who have done it? Cheers!

I completed RDR1 after about 50 hours and it was good fun Its unfair to compare it to RDR2 which is more complex and better than RDR1 on almost every single level and mechanic and its understandable because RDR1 is an older game and Rockstar would have had a much smaller budget with less developers I looked this up just to confirm the budget and development differences RDR1 : Development Team: Primarily developed by Rockstar San Diego, with a core team size estimated around 150 people at times, though the total effort involved more over its multi-year development. Budget: Estimated at roughly $80–$100 million for development, with total costs (including marketing) estimated around $130–$150 million. Development Time: Approximately 5–6 years. RDR2 development Team: Involved roughly 1,600 to 2,000+ people total across all of Rockstar’s worldwide studios collaborating as one team. Budget: Estimated development costs of $170–$200 million, with combined development and marketing expenditures reaching $370–$540 million. Development Time: Approximately 7–8 years. RDR1 is still well worth playing and it has several unique features that RDR2 doesn't have like going to Mexico and specific cowboy activities like hearding cattle and horses I enjoyed the main narrative, I didnt realize it was set after RDR2 and it explained a few things I wasn't aware of Overall it gets a solid 65\100 on the globally followed "BruceVC game rating system " I then had an unexpected positive gaming experience. I decided to play the DLC Undead Nightmare because its included. I thought this would just be a silly but fun, quick shooting sojourn but it ended up being an excellent integration of a Zombie apocalypse into the RDR1 world and Im enjoying it as much as the main narrative You dont just fight zombies but you meet other supernatural creatures and its an enthralling alternative reality for RDR1 Im still busy with it, its a full game with side quests and new mechanics and weapons 🧟‍♂️