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  1. My new stuff got announced. https://arma3.com/news/arma-3-creator-dlc-reaction-forces-is-coming-soon
    7 points
  2. Finally completed my Solasta: Palace of Ice run. Overall I liked the game very much. The only issue was that because I was using the big UB mod for the game in which I had set allowing the XP cap to go above the game's 16 levels, I ended up being rather over-leveled at the end (level 18), which made the final battles a bit too easy. But that's my bad. The DLC had a very interesting story all the way through to the end, and I actually ended up caring about at least some of the NPCs I interacted with in the game. Now I have to figure out what to play next. I'm still waiting on a good sale price to buy my new gaming computer (with a 14th-gen i9 processor and the RTX 4090 GPU), so I cannot yet buy the "big" games like CP2077 or Starfield.
    7 points
  3. So during an official Apex Legends tournament, players got hacked and remote installed cheating cheating software on their PCs. To make matters funny some got an account ban. What makes this story interesting is that apex runs a kernel level anti-cheat software and the suspicion is that the hack happened through it. This is the screen that flashed for every player when the hack happened. See if you can spot it.
    5 points
  4. Im breaking my rule about not posting videos longer than 20 minutes but @Wormerine you and others will appreciate this. Its 2 hours long but very relevant and interesting
    5 points
  5. I'm on the last of the Legacy missions for Xcom 2. They do a good job of tying the narrative together, and it is fun playing with both Bradford and Shen. I've also been getting my strategy swagger back and enjoying a few flawless missions. They don't let you save scum in these legacy missions. You can restart but you lose points, so it's a good challenge. I did have a sniper bleed out on the last mission. I felt bad, but there was no healer on the squad. It haunts me a little.
    5 points
  6. I've been praying for a video game industry crash for like the past ten years, but haven't ever seen much evidence of it materializing. It'd hurt like hell in the short term, but it seems to be the only way forward to really shake things up and get another decade or two of good games instead of just...products only made for extracting money out of us. And if it kills off a few companies like Ubisoft in the process, how can you be upset about that? I'd drop a nuke on their headquarters myself if I could. ...Uh, maybe my rhetoric got a little extreme there, but you know what I mean.
    5 points
  7. Following the first topic about "Fast Switching shield" and from the discovery @tackthumb find (in the comments of the second link, below) There is two weapons you can switch between them to create a "breaking loop", the first as buff for your party, and the second as most powerful CC effect for enemies with shield or meidum/heavy armor. Of course, some other weapons could be great for fast switching character, but these ones are certainly the most impressives. For AI script: Have weapon set 1 and weapon set 2 with the weapons or schield you want to switch between. Then, if you set up a script with whatever trigger (e.g.you have a Constitution affliction, set to NO) that simply switches between weapon sets all the time (gets executed per game loop - so several times per second). (from @Boeroer explanation in the first topic, below) * The first weapon is restricted to Chanter, it is Sasha'S Singing Scimitar with the enchantment Companion's Prelude. According to the Wiki description, Aura: 2% stacking Action Speed bonus for each held Chanter Phrase). The Action Speed bonus is working on current action for them in the aura. That mean, for each Scimitar switch, the bonus is applied and cut the action time for the party (the weapon animation like the reload move for Arbalest is not skipped however). So with a chanter who constantly switch between these weapon sets the party will benefit from chant + scimitar buff. Multiclassed with a rogue to riposte when attacked, with some armor like Blackened Plate Armor or Kāhako Nihi, etc, used to link an Ectopsychic Echo or Dimensional Shift, summoning many lives skellies, etc, this character locked is not unactive of course. * The second weapon can be used by anyone, and he dont need to be locked for the whole fight : Thundercrack Pistol with the enchantment Charged Field (Aura (excludes self): -10% Action Speed, -5 Melee Accuracy (if a shield, medium armor, or heavy armor is equipped). So however have one of these items is instantly "stunned" by an indefinitely extended recovery time (like for Strand of Favor, +10% recovery time each time the AI switche to the pistol give quickly some absurd numbers). It is also doable in solo run because once you have "charged" enemies for some IRL minutes, you are free to stop the AI script and take a regular weapon : enemies will stay charged for a long time. This is a nice way to try some stuffs on some bosses. To illustrate my point, Dorudugan was locked down after his first hit against my lvl13 party, for the test. Too bad none of my characters could hit him because their too low level, and after some minutes IRL of Fast Switching Weapon, my character with the Thundercrack Pistol did stop the AI script : Dorudugan was stopped for at less one hour IRL at this point. Of course, not everyone are concerned by the conditions, but be careful to not have a character in your party with one of them, or you should wait - with no way to know how many time. Berath and Eothas have an armor by the way, so technically a level 1 watcher with any Miss-to-graze item can kill them... Link mentionned on top of the topic :
    5 points
  8. And you can't eat them with your corpse eater either. There was something so dumb about a Corpse Eater / Ranger eating their own pet that I had to try.
    5 points
  9. People who use instead of the far superior fall on the very far end of the unstable part of the spectrum.
    5 points
  10. Archmage: a mage arching his back. It's all about posture.
    5 points
  11. I’ve had this build in draft for years now, but just completed a full playthrough to test it exhaustively. I love the companion and sidekick builds @Ascaloth and others have posted, especially the way they mix mechanical fun with narrative details for each character. This build works great in most parties, but is designed to be paired with a Fassina Sorcerer build that I’m posting as well. This build is a riff on @Boeroer’s Konstanten Build (post) set up to offtank and pair well with Fassina. The lightbulb clicked when I saw Konstanten has the highest base Fortitude of any companion or sidekick. Maybe he had a wizard cousin who liked wearing diving helmets? I’m posting this build so that it’s available for folks who want to bring Konstanten along and are looking for a quick, fool-proof build. I tested this on PotD Upscaled with a typical party (Swash Eder, Herald Pallegina, Priest Xoti, Sorcerer Fassina). I used the Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod, but the build does not depend on them to work. I’ll do my best to highlight if something is a CP or BPM feature only. (Borrowing @thelee's formatting here, slightly edited) The Pitch: This build drops enemy Fortitude through the floor while dropping Will and AR to boot. It stands in the middle of melee and shrugs off attacks that target Fortitude or deal Corrode damage. Howler - Chanter (Skald), Barbarian (no sub) Mountain Dwarf, The Dyrwood - Drifter (+1 RES, +1 Sleight of Hand, Bluff, Streetwise) Attributes: MIG 15 CON 17 DEX 12 PER 11 INT 10 RES 13 Note: If you are playing this build with a hired adventurer or watcher, you could make these choices to further optimize. Choose any non-godlike race. You could do worse than Mountain Dwarf, as CON Resistance is nice to have out of the box. Choose any Barbarian Subclasses that you fancy, though you need an answer for Berserker’s Confused status. Corpse Eater would fit well with the BPM upgrades, giving you even more survivability in most fights. Make CON, PER and INT your highest scores, followed by MIG and DEX. You could dump RES a little. Skills: Athletics and/or Alchemy and Survival. More explanation below. Abilities: AT1 Come, Come Soft Death (a), The Thunder Rolled (a) // Barbaric Yell (a) And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon the Shield Frenzy AT2 Thick Grew Their Tongues // Thick Skinned One Dozen Stood, Two-Handed Style, One-Handed Style [BPM] or Accurate Carnage [BPM] AT3 Reny Daret’s Ghost Spake // One Stands Alone The Shield Cracks Bloody Slaughter AT4 The Long Night’s Drink // Spirit Frenzy Savage Defiance Barbaric Shout AT5 Ben Fidel’s Neck Was Exposed // Bear's Fortitude (AT2) Leap, Tough, or Uncanny Luck AT6 Old Siec Would Not Rest // Brute Force Spell Resistance Oh, But Knock Not (AT4), What Ruo Naka Found, Threatening Presence [BPM], or Interrupting Blows (AT6) AT7 Called to His Bidding or Accurate Empower [BPM] // Spirit Tornado Stalwart Defiance [BPM], or choice of previous Weapon Proficiencies: Battle axe (a), Mace (a) Morning star Club Weapon slots: I: The Willbreaker (Unavoidable Demise, Make Them Flinch) II: Shattered Vengeance or Kapana Taga Essential gear: Helm of the Void Aloth’s Leather Armor Voidward Undying Burden Playstyle: This build focuses on synergistic debuffs to reduce enemy Fortitude, Will, and AR, setting up your party for faster kills, while soaking up enemy attacks. - The real work horse here is the synergy between the chant The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning and the Barbarian abilities Spirit Frenzy/Spirit Tornado. While frenzied, every attack you make, with any ability, will cause Staggered (-5 MIG, Cannot engage enemies). Because The Long Night’s Drink is an attack, enemies affected by it are not only Weakened, but also Staggered. These two conditions together lower their Fortitude by 20!. For enemies who are resistant or immune to MIG afflictions, The Long Night’s Drink also lowers MIG independent of any affliction, resulting in an only slightly less impactful -14 Fortitude. This would be powerful even if it was a one time use ability, but the attack repeats every 6 or 12 seconds, and synergizes with itself, because it targets Fortitude. Once it hits, it has a much easier time of reapplying again, making it last the entire encounter in most situations. *Note: there is a bug in the vanilla game where Spirit Tornado only applies staggered on weapon attacks. If you’re playing vanilla, do not upgrade to Spirit Tornado. - In addition to Long Night’s Drink and Spirit Frenzy, we can lower an enemy's Fortitude by an additional 25 points with the Morning star modal Body Blows, which targets Deflection. This is often the first wedge to pry open high Fortitude enemies, as it makes The Long Night’s Drink much easier to land. On top of those, we have the upgraded version of Reny Daret’s Ghost Spake (Ben Fidel’s Neck Was Exposed), which targets Will and lowers all defenses by 10 and applies Frightened (-5 Deflection, -10 Will, -3 power levels). Lastly, the invocation And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon The Shield lowers AR by 2. With the upgrade, this can be kept up for the entire battle without much effort (especially on any target being focused). The net effect on all of this on enemies who are not affliction resistant or immune is: -2 AR -15 Deflection -55 Fortitude -10 Reflex -20 Will - Spirit Tornado is worth a quick mention here. With BPM, it is very worth snagging, and honestly great for end game even in Vanilla, as many late game enemies have Might affliction resistance anyway. Terrified for 1 Rage in an AoE is very fun. - Choosing higher level invocations increases your max phrases. Your goal is to have at least 5 max so that you can cast Ben Fidel’s Neck and Hel-Hyraf back to back at the start of combat. Non-offensive invocations cost +1, and choosing a high level one will give you the highest possible max phrase count. - Keep your weapon modals on all the time. The damage penalties eat up all of your bonus damage from MIG, but in light or medium armor with frenzy, you still put out some decent damage. I didn’t do any math on this, but my gut is that the modal deals more total damage across the party if at least 1 other party member is attacking Fortitude. Once you have The Willbreaker, it makes more sense to use that 100% of the time and have another character use a club to keep Bewildering Blows up, even when trying to lower enemy Will, because Relentless stacks with those and adds an additional -3 to -15 Will. - With Kosntanten’s health pool being so large (~500 hp with a few points of bonus constitution and frenzy), you don’t have to babysit him. Instead, when you notice he’s getting close to bloodied, or is being focused by a few high damage enemies, you can toss a heal over time on him and/or use Stalwart Defiance. In BPM, Defiance stacks with Robust, in addition to getting extra base healing, but even without those changes, it’s a pretty great fit for K. - Surviving fights also requires having enough armor for the enemies you’re fighting. At a minimum, enough means that when he’s critically hit, he has enough AR to avoid overpenetration. You can figure out what that target is by using this formula (AR needed to avoid overpen=1+((Enemy PEN * 1.5)/2). With Thick Skinned, he should be fine in most fights with upgraded Light or Medium armor even on PotD. When in doubt, Potions of Spirit Shield last a decently long time and are cheap. Aloth’s Leather Armor is a phenomenal choice, because it has no weaknesses if you upgrade to Structurally Stable (and actually gains extra Corrode AR). The bonus defense against Transmutation and the Overseeing enchantments are also wonderful. Other great choices are Magnera’s Chain, Iridescent Scale, or Saint’s War Armor. The latter two really depend on Woodskin/Delemgan and some +corrode AR to work, but they have great enchantments). If you are facing particularly challenging enemies (e.g. rogues with ranged weapons that prioritize low HP allies), Heavy armor works great, too. Blackened Plate with the damage aura and -AR aura are a natural fit here. Both autohit, so won’t apply Staggered from Spirit Frenzy, but they do stack with everything else in your toolbox. - One very powerful trick that I like using Konstanten for on challenging bosses is putting him into the Kahako Nihi armor from SSS with the Hardened Plates upgrade. With heavy armor, K can take crits easily, and the debuff that it causes lasts the entire encounter. This is especially nice on Megabosses like Dorudugan and Hauani O Whe, where you’re stuck grinding them down. - The biggest downside of K in this build is low accuracy and low Intellect. These aren’t as damning as you might think, though. Gloves of Reliability and Helm of the Void, are a big help early (as of course priest/paladin buffs). Since your biggest single debuff targets deflection, flanking, etc also helps. The other reason it’s not completely damning, is that your main abilities are very cheap (1 Rage, 2 and 3 Phrases). If you whiff one, you can try again at little cost. Similarly, lower duration is not much of an issue. Lastly, as a melee chanter, your chants and invocations easily hit multiple enemies. - Pretty much as soon as you can get K, you can snag Saru-sichr from Arkemyr’s mansion with no violence. If you planned ahead and started with some extra gold from Berath’s Blessings, you should also have Shattered Vengeance. These will keep K in business for most of the game. I’d also recommend doing Beast of Winter as soon as you can (14 is great). Helm of the Void is huge. If you have a wizard with Combusting Wounds, Neriscyrlas is a breeze. K can make sure it lands, and Thick Grew Their Tongues helps you keep that pesky Llengrath’s Safeguard. Sidenote: if you’re running Fassina here, all of her poison spells work on top of Combusting Wounds shenanigans. Very easy once K gets N’s Fortitude under control. - This build works exceptionally well with Fassina and other characters with abilities that target Fortitude and Will. Big K has no problem standing in the hostile AoE spells that Fassina uses. If you use an Antidote, Khapa Tea, or get Purge Toxins from Fassina, you can safely ignore Venombloom, Malignant Cloud, and Noxious Burst. But if you don’t have immunity to poison, your high Fortitude and Voidward will make them completely survivable. Konstanten has the highest base Fortitude of any companion or sidekick.** We take Bear’s Fortitude to increase that even further, and with Frenzy up, he gains an additional +20 Fortitude. If you have an active source of +All Defenses (Circle of Protection, etc.), that’s helpful, but not necessary. I also usually give Konstanten a Cloak of Greater Protection for an additional +10. **For fun, here’s a breakdown of the top 5. Konstanten (Barbarian): 54 (30 class, 10 MIG, 14 CON) Konstanten (Howler): 49 (25 class, 10 MIG, 14 CON) Pallegina (Paladin): 45 (25 class, 4 MIG, 6 CON, 10 Faith & Conviction (+Deep Faith)) Eder (Fighter): 44 (20 class, 12 MIG, 12 CON) Serafen (Barbarian): 42 (30 class, 10 MIG, 2 CON) - I think Alchemy is by far the most useful active skill, especially for the late game where fights can go very long and keeping buffs up is worth quite a bit. That said, there is great synergy with Athletics and Undying Burden, and if your party needs someone with high Athletics, that’s a great fit, also. - As mentioned above, Konstanten works great with a source of consistent Healing over time. A Herald with Ancient Memory and Exalted Endurance is usually plenty to keep him happy (also a great choice to work with Fassina, due to Righteous Soul). Some things that worked for me on Megabosses: Dorudugan: I had K face tank Doru to start the fight until he caught Hardened Plates, then had him wail away with Willbreaker, standing far enough away from the other 2 melee so that a Brutal slash would only ever hit 2 of the 3. BPM savage defiance and some back up heals along with stacked AR meant no overpen with crits, and underpen on regular hits. You have to do some work with a few characters to make a debuff strategy work here, but K is a key piece of the puzzle. BPM Threatening Presence helps quite a bit (immune to engagement when above 75% HP), but you can eat a disengagement crit with this setup with a similar amount of health. I respec to Blood Frenzy/Bloodstorm for this b/c he is resistant to Body Afflictions, and w/ BPM I had basically infinite frenzy (I think BPM Salvation of Time or something else has an odd interaction here, but I couldn’t figure it out). The extra dmg from the dot is not huge, but there’s not much else to spend points on. Hauani O Whe: Similar to Doru, stack AR, stay alive through the crits. I used Disintegrate to shorten the fight tremendously, and K helped that land. If you weren’t doing that, I’d pick up the accuracy boost for The Thunder Rolled and keep oozes stunned (5s base, vs Reflex w/ one attack roll for 2 Phrases) Sigilmaster Auranic: The biggest contribution K makes is the use of his old massage room back the the Wild Mare, but he does fine here smashing on sigils and making Auranic easier to land damage on. Spirit Tornado is fun on Auranic, who can be terrified. Belranga: Pretty happy here with Khapa Tea smashing away. Carnage is nice to speed up spiderling kills. Once you switch over to Belranga, the lowered defenses help speed everything up a bit. BPM Notes: - The Improved Empowered Abilities are great with this build. Accurate is a must, Lasting is great as a second. With Lasting, Ben Fidel’s Neck is probably your best choice to empower at the start of a fight.
    4 points
  12. RIP. I remember first reading about Toriyama in Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. He was then mostly known in 1983 when it was published for "Dr. Slump" and was just starting out. I think the entry might have mentioned him launching Dragonball in passing as it would have launched the same year Manga! Manga! did. So imagine my surprise years later to see the popularity of DragonBall and his character designs in video games when they started hitting here not knowing what a phenom he'd become.
    4 points
  13. Today I got a website! forkcat.com I am really happy with it. Very happy I got the domain name. Then again who else would have wanted that? The internet is full of all kinds of weirdos...
    4 points
  14. Tax records reveal the lucrative world of covid misinformation Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., received $23.5 million in contributions, grants and other revenue in 2022 alone — eight times what it collected the year before the pandemic began — allowing it to expand its state-based lobbying operations to cover half the country. Another influential anti-vaccine group, Informed Consent Action Network, nearly quadrupled its revenue during that time to about $13.4 million in 2022, giving it the resources to finance lawsuits seeking to roll back vaccine requirements as Americans’ faith in vaccines drops. edit(for paywall material we keep the copy/paste minimal, but the following provides necessary context): As the groups’ coffers grew, so did the salaries of some top executives. Children’s Health Defense paid Kennedy, then chairman and chief legal counsel and now an independent candidate for president, more than $510,000 in 2022, double his 2019 salary, tax records show. Informed Consent Action Network paid Executive Director Del Bigtree $284,000 in 2022, a 22 percent increase from 2019. Bigtree now works as communications director for Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Some of the individuals behind the family foundations or trusts that fund the four groups also contributed the legal maximum in personal donations to Kennedy’s presidential bid, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks political donations. not unrelated Six cases of measles confirmed in outbreak at a Florida elementary school Florida surgeon general doesn't urge vaccinations amid measles outbreak for those unaware, measles ain't a childhood disease deserving a shrug and a reflexive qq response. measles is one o' the most readily communicable disease and there is a relative high rate o' hospitalization which accompanies infections. conspiracy theories have real human costs and people getting rich off o' the human cost makes it all the more contemptable. HA! Good Fun!
    4 points
  15. I hope they make more Shadowrun. Seattle has so much more to offer as a setting.
    4 points
  16. I think the success of BG3 might be the more important determining factor, in the sense that Deadfire was released in 2018 and would therefore represent an "old world" (in computer-gaming terms) despite its long tail. But BG3 would now suggest that there is still a market for games like this. I am almost in complete agreement with you, the only notable exception being that I think PoE began better, storywise: the sense of foreboding in the early moments of the game was superb and not surpassed by anything that came after in either PoE or Deadfire. I also remember my first serious disappointment in PoE: when you get to the castle of that one guy, Lord Raedric I think he was, and enter the final fight, one of his guards is an "archmage". I remember being at lvl 4/5/6 at that point and thinking, how on earth am I going to survive this. Well, easily, that's how. And so my next thought was: well, "archmage" doesn't mean anything in this game. Boy was I disappointed.
    4 points
  17. 14 RU jets downed in 13 days. And the reasons behind it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/03/02/13-sukhois-in-13-days-the-ukrainians-are-shooting-down-more-russian-jets-because-the-russians-are-flying-and-bombing-more-often/
    3 points
  18. I liked the intro in Saints Row. I like the player character trying to keep an honest job as a Merc and get a paycheck. Yeah, it aims at a different audience, but I realised I am this audience as well I found the jailbreak intro of SR2 the most powerful, but the reimagined SR's the most enjoyable. The bank robbery in SR3 I found annoying and nearly quit playing because of it.
    3 points
  19. Personally, as a german, I really couldn't care less about this. In fact, I want us to send more weapons and ammunition. /Edit: Saw someone else on reddit summing it up quite well.
    3 points
  20. Im still busy with the Shadowrun franchise, I installed about 4-5 new campaign mods and I was very impressed with the overall quality They not long about 5-10 hours but fun. Then I have just finished Dragonfall which was excellent and my best part so far of the narrative and now Im going to play Hong Kong
    3 points
  21. DLC to a free Nomads of Driftland is now on giveaway. You have to own both, to be able to play The Forgotten Passage. Base Game: https://www.gog.com/game/nomads_of_driftland Giveaway: https://www.gog.com/en/game/nomads_of_driftland_the_forgotten_passage There is also a cheap predecessor of this game currently on sale: https://www.gog.com/en/game/driftland_the_magic_revival
    3 points
  22. Did another play through of Disco Elysium. Will probably do the last part again with the other partner just to experience it.
    3 points
  23. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) I think I saw this for the first time with an ex back in my early 20s and I was too distracted to really appreciate it. Coming back to it as an older and marginally wiser man I want to go back and slap my younger self for yet another reason. This film is great, no qualifications. It beautifully does magical realism in a way that Sorry to Bother You (2018) did, but on a much more personal level to illustrate the breakup of a couple. For starters, the world feels lived in. The apartments look like what I wake up in, the doctor's office feels like what I deal with when I go for a yearly physical, etc. Obviously it has the advantage of being set in the real world, but it's the small things you wouldn't notice unless they weren't there that really make it. While some hacks may hate it, the film feels driven by dialogue and that works here perfectly. Joel and Clementine fight a lot during the film and if you've ever been in a relationship or known those who have you will absolutely recognize at least some of it. It's got a stellar cast and virtually all of them kill it in parts big or small, everyone flawed in the same ways that you or I or others that we know are. It's also visually incredible. The dream/memory erasing scenes are simple but work to much better effect than big budget stuff that looks like an old videogame within 5 years. The frozen landscape (and the temperature drop around Houston) made me shiver. All in all this is a hard reccomend for anyone and everyone who hasn't seen it already.
    3 points
  24. Working on something fun for the 20th Anni for the community with the Squad - excited for the reveal
    3 points
  25. I've been playing these legacy missions in Xcom 2, and they are pretty solid. It's basically a 7-mission mini-campaign and it tells Bradford's story after the aliens take over. It's a great way to scratch that tactical combat itch without committing to a full campaign.
    3 points
  26. I finished Shadowrun Returns after 12 hours, it really was fun and I like the ruleset and how the combat mechanics work I am going to play the DLC and some extra quest mods
    3 points
  27. It is hard to do it proper justice in words, and it is only a short scene (also, the linked video is time coded to the relevant part): A perfect showcase for why it is generally accepted to not weaponize faster than light travel, or at least come up with some countermeasures, in soft science fiction. It renders everything meaningless, and you can tell from the look on Leia's face as it dawns on her just how many lives the Rebellion wasted in attacking two Death Stars conventionally. Or, to follow the train of thought, one has to wonder why the Empire built the Death Star in the first place, if all you need is to strap a hyperdrive to an asteroid to destroy planets. Rise of Skywalker features a scene where Merriadoc Brandybuck (okay, it just is a cameo by Dominic Monaghan, but it could be Merriadoc, and it would not be the silliest thing to happen in Rise of Skywalker) shows up to ask why they are even bothering to prepare an attack if they just could execute another Holdo maneuver (Holdo is Laura Dern's character in The Last Jedi). It is glossed over by stating that it was a one in a million chance to land the hit. It was worth a laugh at least. Disney's Star Wars is very big on breaking established rules in order to have "cool" scenes in their movies and series. This one is just the most egregious one, followed right up by making Vader's change of heart at the end of Return of the Jedi meaningless because Palpatine is still alive and well, but it does not stop there - there is a scene in Rogue One, for instance, where a hyperspace jump is done directly through an oncoming blast wave, while still in the atmosphere of the planet. Made me immediately think back to our heroes' escape from Tatooine in the first Star Wars film, and what a loser Han Solo must be for first clearing the planet, and talking about how hyperspace jumps need to be precisely calculated lest something bad happens. The most damning thing about these? Basic writing 101 that should set professional writers apart from creators of fan fiction, and as far as these films go, we are not even talking about the terrible acting and the flat, boring characters yet, the cringeworthy dialogue or the lack of any proper setup and pay off in the trilogy, except for one scene at the end of The Rise of Skywalker where Rey and Kylo Ren teleport a lightsaber between them.
    3 points
  28. I loved both Dragonfall and Hong Kong and it was Returns that was hard for me to get through. I'm curious if HBS has tried/is trying to make a 4th Shadowrun game now that they are independent again since I doubt Microsoft would let them keep making their licensed games under Paradox. But what do I know*? *A lot but not that
    3 points
  29. The Last Jedi, the middle part of the new trilogy, is an interesting comparison to The Empire Strikes back. They are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, one is easily the best Star Wars movie made to date, and a really good film too, while The Last Jedi makes a good case for being the worst Star Wars movie, and it is a terrible film: it has a collection of writing gaffes so jarring that they are breaking suspension of disbelief even in sci-fi as soft as Star Wars, and one scene in particular that was such a bad idea that it retroactively all but ruins the preceeding movies.
    3 points
  30. I’ve had this build in draft for years now, but just completed a full playthrough to test it exhaustively. I love the companion and sidekick builds @Ascaloth and others have posted, especially the way they mix mechanical fun with narrative details for each character. This build works great in most parties, but is designed to be paired with a Konstanten Howler build that I’m posting as well. This is in no way unique insight or creativity on my part, but mostly a very basic build that focuses on fun synergies. I’m posting so that it’s available for folks who want to bring Fassina along and are looking for a quick, fool-proof build. I tested this on PotD Upscaled with a typical party (Swash Eder, Herald Pallegina, Priest Xoti, Howler Konstanten). I used the Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod, but the build does not depend on them to work. I’ll do my best to highlight if something is a CP or BPM feature only. (Borrowing @thelee's format here w/ some slight edits) The Pitch: Stack gross amounts of +PL and clear the battlefield with layers of AoE DoT, Pulse, and direct corrode and raw damage. Sorcerer - Wizard (Conjurer), Druid (Animist) Human (Ocean Folk), Vailian Republics - Arcane Apprentice (+1 INT, +2 Arcana) Attributes: MIG 13 CON 11 DEX 12 PER 12 INT 16 RES 14 Note: If you are playing this build with a hired adventurer or watcher you could make these choices to further optimize. Choose Nature Godlike (trade +1 Poison PL and +2 INT for +1 universal PL) Choose Ancient Druid instead of Animist (additional stacking +1 PL for plant and beast spells). Make PER and INT your highest scores, followed by MIG and DEX. You could dump RES and CON as much as you are comfortable. Skills: Alchemy (or Arcana) and Metaphysics. More explanation below. Abilities: AT1 Concelhaut’s Parasitic Staff (a), Conjure Familiar (a) // Talon’s Reach (a), Sunbeam (a), Spiritshift Wolf (a) Slicken Choice of: Touch of Rot, Tanglefoot, Vile Thorns, Nature’s Mark AT2 Infuse with Vital Essence // Insect Swarm, The Moon’s Light (a) Necrotic Lance Autumn’s Decay or Binding Web AT3 Deleterious Alacrity of Motion // Infestation of Maggots, Returning Storm (a) Combat Focus Purge of Toxins [BPM] AT4 Spirit of Decay // Form of the Delemgan, Conjure Blight (a) Wicked Briars or Wall of Flame Spell Shaping AT5 Rapid Casting // Wall of Thorns, Plague of Insects (a) Farcasting Embrace of the Earth Talon or (Uncanny Luck, Heart of the Storm, or Scion of Flame) AT6 Arkemyr’s Capricious Hex or Ninaguath’s Freezing Pillar // Venombloom, Sunlance (a) Choice of: Quick Summoning, Garden of Life, Spell Resistance [BPM], or an optoin from a previous tier AT7 Tayn’s Chaotic Orb or Wall of Draining // Accurate Empower [BPM] or Call to the Primordials, Lashing Vine (a) Potent Empower [BPM] or an option from a previous tier Weapon Proficiencies: Dagger (a), Rod (a) Staff or/and Pike Hunting Bow Arquebus Scepter Weapon slots: I: The Spine of Thicket Green (Empowering Instinct, Grove’s Respite) or Lance of the Midwood Stag (Lord of the Forest) II: Essence Interrupter or Blightheart or Amaliorra Note: Spine vs. Lance. Both are available immediately for “free”; I used the Spine for my playthrough, but on reflection, Lance is likely better in every case except vs Vessels. Both work great, though. You could always juggle them to maximize PL for plant/beast spells, but that is more micro than it’s worth for me, plus I prefer to have my second weapon set for an alternative ranged option. Essential gear: Spider Silk Robe (Spider Blooded, Poison Master) Mask of the Grotto Deep Serpentskin Grimoire Fassina’s Grimoire Battle-worn Grimoire Playstyle: This build focuses on maximizing a few strong spells with synergistic keywords (Poison, Plant, Beast, Acid, Decay, Conjuration) to stack up staggering amounts of damage, but stays flexible with tried and true utility spells for every situation. Universal +1/+3: (Summon Familiar/Lance of the Midwood Stag) Poison +3 (Mask of Grotto Deep & Spider Silk Robe) Conjuration +2 (Conjurer subclass) Plant +3 (Spine of Thicket Green) Beast +3 (Spine of Thicket Green) +PL by Spell: +8 Malignant Cloud (Conjuration, Poison) +6 (+7 w/ Spine) Plague of Insects (Beast, Poison [BPM]) Venombloom (Plant, Poison) Wall of Thorns (Plant, Poison [BPM]) Vile Thorns (Plant, Poison) +6 Noxious Burst (Poison) +5 Necrotic Lance (Conjuration) Binding Web (Conjuration) Death Ring (Conjuration) All Wizard Wall spells (Conjuration) +3 (+4 w/ Spine) Insect Swarm Talon’s Reach Tanglefoot Wicked Briars Form of the Delemgan Lashing Vine Call to the Primordials The basic flow is standard stuff: buff > DoT spells > direct damage spells w/ debuffs and utility spells as needed. Buffs: Infuse w/ Vital Essence Deleterious Alacrity of Motion Summon Familiar Form of the Delemgan Core DoTs: Plague of Insects Infestation of Maggots Venombloom Malignant Cloud Insect Swarm - Keep the staff modal on most of the time. Pike modal is a great debuff if you aren’t using Nature’s Mark or similar active effects that reduce Deflection. You should be able to stay in robes the whole game, but if you are concerned about getting focused fired, Cabalist Gambeson is great b/c Woodskin and Delemgan cover the AR gaps perfectly (always a fan of flaunting the haul from Arkemyr’s Vault, too). Ironskin is also great and is in the Snakeskin Grimoire. - Form of the Delemgan is easily the strongest spell in your entire repertoire. It single-handedly makes many encounters go from deadly to average with the Dexterity Affliction immunity and bonus AR. For your tankier party members, it makes Scale armor and Brigandine amazing by shoring up their pierce AR gap. Note that bonus AR is one place where specific does not stack with general. If you have both Spirit Shield and Form of the Delemgan, it will choose the higher of the two values for each damage type, rather than stacking. - Early/mid game you’re going to want to pay attention to enemy defenses and armor and cast the best spell you have for those defenses/AR, regardless of bonus PL. Sunbeam, Returning Storm, Slicken, Chill Fog, and Combusting Wounds are almost always useful. When all else fails, switch over to your ranged weapon and plug away (or bonk w staff or pike). - Poison immune enemies are not that scary or troublesome. Just lean on your non-poison options. Unless you wait till very late, you won’t have many poison spells for Hanging Sepulchers. The rest of your early game kit works great. Same for Poko Kohara Ruins/Engwithan Waystation. Splintered Reef is an interesting case, as the Fampyrs are not immune to poison and many have lowish Fortitude. It’s worth blasting them with everything you’ve got and not worrying about the immune skeletons and guls. Speaking of, Guls and Alguls are weak to fire, so blast away. The fights in SSS with constructs, skeletons, and naga are all manageable, as well. Essence interrupter w/ Essential Phantom works great for the constructs. For the Naga you have less options, but Chill Fog, Slicken, Wicked Briars, Tayn’s Chaotic Orb, Lashing Vine are all helpful. - I recommend rushing the Kraken (lvl 10/11) and Splintered Reef (lvl 15/16) to maximize the time you have with your full equipment set. The Kraken has high Fortitude, but is not immune to Poison, and is weak to freeze and corrode. See above for Splintered Reef. When I did Splintered Reef Menzaggo died from AoE DoTs before I ever targeted him with anything else. While it doesn’t have much we really need for Fassina, rushing Beast of Winter is quite easy, too. Fassina eats Neriscyrlas up (Combusting Wounds, Wall of Flame, Insects to strip Concentration, Wall of Thorns - RIP). - This build works exceptionally well with a Howler like Konstanten built to lower enemy Fortitude and take the occasional hit from hostile AoEs. See my companion build, The Bodyworker for a version of this kind of build. It’s particularly helpful to crack open big enemies with high Fortitude via Morningstar Modal and -all Defense debuffs. Anything that lowers Fortitude in an AoE is awesome. Especially awesome are debuffs for Fortitude that target a different defense. For example, vs. Will:. Devotions of the Faithful, Secret Horrors, Interdiction, Mind Plague, Reny Daret's Ghost Spake w/ Upgrade, and Shining Beacon. - Other fun combinations include: watch a big boss’s HP bar fall through the floor by stacking up all of your DoTs and have a priest cast Cleansing Flame (this might depend on BPM fixes). watch all of your DoT and debuff durations fly through the roof when a boss is hit with Enfeebled from a Forbidden Fist monk - Paladins with Righteous Soul and melee characters with Khapa Tea make your life much simpler once you have Malignant Cloud and Venombloom. You can gather up all of the melee enemies and then plop your spells right on top without worry. - I like the idea of stacking Alchemy all the way and using poisons to take advantage of the +PL. This sort of works with Blightheart and the Arquebus modal (which gives a much needed +20 accuracy to the poison). The fact is, though, it adds significant micro and not much versatility. Arcana is the clear best choice, not the least of which, because Fassina gets a special background with +2. Being able to cast all those evocation spells, along with some of the best from Priest, is so valuable at the end of the game. - Accuracy is not Fassina’s strength, so look for all the ways you can improve that. Aware from Priests or Ciphers, +Accuracy from Priests or Paladins or Deadeye. Potion of Perfect Aim is wonderful and should be used for every difficult fight. Some things that worked for me on Megabosses: Dorudugan: Equip Essence Interrupter and keep an Essential Phantom up. Keep Form of the Delemgan up on anyone in melee. Respec to grab heals - Moonwell counters a few spells, which can really help survivability. Embrace of the Earth Talon is great if you use Amaliorra and every possible debuff / accuracy boost. Hauani O Whe: Not poison immune, but the highest Fortitude defense of any enemy in the whole game. For simplicity sake, I used Disintegrate to cut the fight in half, but her DoTs would shred through some smaller oozes. For big HOW, I landed a combusting wounds and then dropped every wall spell I had on ‘em. Wall of Thorns, Flames, Force from Fassina. Watch his health plummet. Venombloom is great, too. Sigilmaster Auranic: Nice addition with Arcane Reflection self-cast. Essence Interrupter and Phantom for the Sigils. Form of Delemgan is a life saver vs. all the Petrify and Paralyze. Venombloom and all the rest aren’t too hard to land here, once you clear the sigils. Probably some other tricks you could do, but this one is relatively easy. Belranga: Form of the Delemgan majorly trivializes a key mechanic by eliminating all of the paralyze/petrify. DoTs clear up the spiders with ease. Once you get Belranga into territory where you can land spells, any of your tricks work great. Stack up the DoTs and watch her fall. BPM Notes: - Wildstrike Corrode seems like an easy fit in this build, but it’s actually not as useful for us, because when you are Spiritshifted, your carried weapons are replaced by the Spiritshift ones. This means you are always trading away more applicable +PL for the narrower Wildstrike bonus. That said, there are other reasons to spiritshift, and if you want to have more to do while shifted, by all means. - The Improved Empowered Abilities are great with this build. Accurate is a must, Potent & Lasting are great as a second/third. Venombloom is probably your best choice to empower, so kick things off with a bang and then toss out the rest of your spells.
    3 points
  31. This content cannot be displayed until agreeing to our use of Social Media cookies. Learn more. Manage cookies elden ring dlc come out at june
    3 points
  32. It looks like freshly rotated 3rd Storm Brigade and Azov Brigade are raiding ruins of Avdiivka during night time. It is said, that they have inflicted 1400 casualties on drunken Russian soldiers in last 24 hours. Should be taken with a hefty load of salt, but there are so many videos popping out lately, that the russian casualties will be not minuscule.
    3 points
  33. I got you fam. It's worth noting that that quite a few political prisoners in the US were not politicians at the time of their incarceration and the reduction of "jailing/murdering political opposition" to mean only politicians is really flattening things. Eh, I think that those in power (bizness owners and the gubbermint) were more than happy to gliss it over even if they didn't do it personally. Real talk it's all of us. We're grown men who spend an inordinate amount of time on a niche gaming forum arguing about balance, that's not a sample size of people who are going to be particularly stable.
    3 points
  34. I really hope Obsidian looks at the significance of post release sales numbers and decides to make PoE3, I can understand choices made on initial revenue sales because thats just how future decisions on all products work But if post release sales numbers are consistent and worthwhile then an investment in PoE3 makes financial sense I know Avowed is set in the PoE world and I will definitely play it but its FP and not party based so it doesnt have the same interest as PoE3
    3 points
  35. There was some talk a few weeks back of PoE2 having a very long tail sales wise, and PoE 3 being a possibility again because of it- and because of BG3's success. (PoE2 was far superior to 1 in every respect, imo)
    3 points
  36. At the time I had a sense that the game suffered a lot of criticism on release and didn't sell as well as expected. That may be why we didn't see a sequel. However, the responses seem better these days so perhaps there will be growing nostalgia?
    3 points
  37. Im 76 hours into Deadfire and loving it I decided to change my approach to completing the game, when I got near the end with the journey to Ukaizo and who should I align with around factions for the journey I was only level 15-16. So I decided to complete all the DLC and get my party to level 20 before heading for Ukaizo Great idea and it allowed me some epic end boss battles that demonstrate for me the best part of the game, the strategic nature of tough battles And for most of the DLC I couldn't defeat the end boss but then I came back later on level 20 and I have been successful on every end boss so far I loved all the DLC with my favorite probably being the Crucible arena fights and I really enjoyed the Beast of Winter. Neriscyrlas was my hardest fight and particularly because of Llengrath's Safeguard but once I had access to Arcane Cleanser the battle became much more manageable But my favorite spell is Concelhaut's Crushing Doom, nothing better that seeing enemies getting smashed by the hammer I also have Concelhaut and Nemnok as pets, Nemnoks comments are some of the funniest I have ever heard in any game Now I still need to complete the final battle with Porokoa who I haven't been able to defeat but now Im level 20 I should be victorious and I need some new crocodile skin shoes and a handbag And then I will complete the main quest and the journey to Ukaizo But overall, fantastic and enthralling party based RPG. Obsidian created a gem with this one
    3 points
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