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WARNING: Unnecessarily edgy metal trashing

Anthem says hello

Good question, and I don't think I know the answer to it. I was about to write how damning I found Schreier's report - mainly that Bioware had no idea what they were setting out to do. Then again, it is not new, and seems to be common in game development. Mass Effect didn't end up as it was initially envisioned. That said, reading about ME1, it seems that they had too big ideas to realize, not lack of them. I generally am all for sequels - games are better suited for reuse of gameplay loops and gradual improvements, then most other mediums. Narrative nature of most Bioware games, I think goes against it. Stories tend to not get better with more installements. Worlds become duller the more they are explored, wonder and mistery becomes mundane. I loved Mass Effects (at least first two games), but I don't feel a need to return to this universe. Give me another adventure. Another world to explore. Surprise me. What I found appealing about Andromeda pitch wasn't familiar Mass Effect trappings but new positibilies that a new galaxy would allow for. I have heard once, that culture that stops innovating, and starts being interesting in its history is reaching its end. I don't know how true it is, but it rings true to me. If Bioware doesn't know what is the next cool thing that they want to do, then who will? EDIT. I am getting very philosophiocal here, and to be frank, nothing of it matters. If the next Bioware games look cool, and are received well, I will probably give them a chance. Hell, if DA4 looks good, I will probably finally buy and play Inquisition, just to be up to date. But I can't shake a feeling that Bioware as a studio was fundamentally broken with the massive expansion that happened before ME3.

Yesterday I managed to sneak through the Temple of Eothas, but was stumped at the last bit with the slimes around the pool. I couldn't get past them and I sure as hell couldn't defeat them (Solo PotD), so I devised a plan: Lure the nearby Skuldr family to the pool, run like hell (had the Fast Runner talent) and watch the carnage. I quickly discovered that this was nearly impossible, because they shoot corrosive gunk at you. Well, then I'll just craft a potion of Bulwark against the Elements and drink that before I run! What. Long story short, someone thought it made sense to have potions undrinkable outside of combat. You can chug all the beer you want, but drink from a vial, nope. Well, I've had enough of that. I refuse to jump through their hoops. I will bend the game to my will, using the power of applied computer science. Here's how you do that. Step 1: The file. Download a program called UABE, short for Unity Asset Bundle Extractor. You need that to edit .unity3d files (well, not edit directly, but look through them). You can also use Disunity version 4, if you find that easier, but for this guide I will assume you are using UABE. Go to the PillarsOfEternity_Data\assetbundles\prefabs\objectbundle folder. Boy, that's a lot of files. This is where most of the game's items, spells, abilities and such are stored. We need to edit one of these files, specifically the one for the Bulwark potion. Find the "potion_of_bulwark_against_the_elements_l2.unity3d" file, start UABE and open that file with it. It should say "CAB" followed by a lot of gobbledygook in the text field. Click the "Info" button. Step 2: The value we want to change. In the window that just popped up you'll see a bunch of different assets, representing all the various info the game uses for that potion. We're not interested in the Textures and particle effects and such, what we want to do is modify the potion variable that designates it as unusable outside of combat. That means we need to look at the MonoBehaviour types, scroll all the way down to see those. Well, that's not very helpful. They all look identical, apart from the byte size. But intuitively enough, the biggest one is the one that handles the potion ability itself, and that's where our value hides. Click on that MonoBehaviour, and then "View Data" Doubleclick the Monobehaviour Base thing to expand it. Hurray, variables! See an interesting one? That's right, "CombatOnly", and it's set to 1. Now we know what variable to change... but how do we do that? Read on. Step 3: The hex editor Download a program called XVI32. Copy the potion .unity3d file to a new location, and open it there with XVI32. You may think you just stepped into the Matrix, but what you're seeing is really just the bits and bytes of the file, and you now have full access to those, which makes you very 1337 indeed. Each block in the grid represents a byte. A number is stored as four bytes in hexadecimal format, for example the number 9 is stored as 09 00 00 00, the number 10 is stored as 0A 00 00 00, 12 is stored as 0C 00 00 00 and 20 is stored as 14 00 00 00. Easy! Now, you may be tempted to search for "CombatOnly" and edit the value next to it, but unfortunately it's a little more complicated than that. The variable names are stored at a completely different location than the values that they represent, so if you want to change the values you need to find out where they are stored. That's not an easy task, but one thing that's helpful to know is that they are stored contiguously, i.e. the values appear in the file in the same order that they appear in UABE. Speaking of which, go back to the UABE and look at the variables surrounding CombatOnly. You should see a Duration of 60.0, then a bunch of variables set to 0, then the CombatOnly at 1, another bunch of zeroes, a 7, a 1, a 0 and then another 60.0. If we can find this pattern in the file, we will know where CombatOnly hides, and then we can change it! But if we just search for 7, 1 or 0 we will end up with thousands of results. We need to search for the number 60.0, as it stands out a bit more. Specifically, the floating point representation of it. Step 4: Finding the value 60.0 is a floating point value, which means it can have decimals (integers cannot), But, where integers in the file are stored as 01 00 00 00, 02 00 00 00 and so on, floating point values are stored in a completely different way that is not intuitive at all. We need to find the hexadecimal representation of 60.0, and luckily this website will do just that: http://www.h-schmidt.net/FloatConverter/IEEE754.html If you input 60.0 in the decimal box there, it outputs 42 70 00 00. However, this is what is known as "big-endian" format. In the .unity3d file integers are stored big-endian, but floating point values are little-endian! So what we need to do is to swap the bytes, resulting in 00 00 70 42. This is the number we're looking for. Step 5: The magic moment Go back in XVI32 and open the Search -> Find dialog. Select "Hex string" and enable Case Sensitive. Remember that the MonoBehaviours in UABE were all the way at the bottom in the list? That means you should start your search a fair bit down, by putting the cursor somewhere roughly at 25% from the bottom of the scrollbar. Input 00 00 70 42 in the hex field, and press Search. It should take you to the next occurrence of that value in the file, down from where you started. Look at the hex values where you ended up, going from left to right and then to the next line. Does it look like the 60.0-zeroes-1-zeroes-7-1-0-60.0 pattern we found earlier? If not, press F3 on your keyboard to search again. If it does - congratulations. You are a master hacker. Put your cursor at the 01 that represents CombatOnly, and type 00. Do not use backspace, this will delete bytes and you do not want that. Just type 00. Then save the file, put it back in the folder where you found it (maybe backup the original one first), and launch Pillars of Eternity. You can load a saved game or start a new one, but the important thing is that you can now do this: http://i.imgur.com/rYfBZhH.jpg And that's something to be proud of.

I thought you were serious at first until your edit. Although they're not the end of the world, I really do hate rounded edges. Windows 11 has been cancelled.

Yes No

Oi! Looks like HoM&M knockoff. And I could really use a good one.

Funny thing is I stopped the video to link it and immediately when I started it up again the music started blasting, so I had to edit the warning in. Thank you, thank you. I could not even dream of achieving this award without my trusty clickety-clack keyboard and mouse buddies.

I think it would be interesting to have non corporate owned groups that come with their own issues. Outer worlds was a little one note with "capitalism bad" so some nuance and exploration of other things that are also bad could elevate the story. Also some non earth humanoids would be cool

The thing is, Trump didn't create this complaint. It has been around for a long time. Obama and Bush did the same thing. Trump was just more undiplomatic about it (diplomatic language for a lying jerk).

Is this my fault? I just moved to win 10 like half a year ago.

Originally a Wii U game now remastered for all modern hardware. AFAIK this will be the first Fatal Frame game to make it to PC.

If the rumored Switch Pro comes out around the same time I probably won't be able to resist. A bundle would be amazing.

These are some suggestions I've come up with for the game. I've played it for a while now and came up with plenty of basic ideas for the future. If any seem overpowered, please tell me and give feedback on how to make it better. I'd appreciate it! Tweaks -Spider Dagger is overwhelmingly weak for the material requirement. Change Poison on it to activate more often to compete with Larva Dagger. -Crow Feathers are both rare and only seem to give one piece each, while also despawning randomly. Up to 6 would be more fair and would allow more Feather Arrows to be crafted. Maybe don't let them despawn until they're collected. -Health/Energy in digits for better understanding. -Smoothie timers visible, and a boost to 3 minutes of effect time for standard, 6 minutes for beefy. Health restored remains unchanged. -Change smoothies to only accept known smoothie ingredients, to make it more logical. Lower health of Smoothie? to encourage making known recipes. Personal wishlist Just some ideas I had for the game's future. I believe they could be fun for niche uses. -Bombardier armor. Slightly lower defense than Ladybug armor, set effect gives poison and acid immunity. -Stinkbug armor, same stats as Bombardier armor, set effect gives hazmat effect from the haze. -Firefly armor that makes the players shine at night, same stats as acorn armor. -Sawmill for processing extra grass blades into plant fiber. Or just let us chop them further. Skips the structure. -Boss drops that upgrade the set effects of their respective armors. Boss Wishlist These are just base boss ideas. They spawn every 7 days up to 4 bosses max and drop one special component alongside their species' drops. -Ant Queen (Confirmed, mechanic ideas here), continuously spawns worker ants and occasionally soldier ants. Can't move much, but will slam her abdomen to attack with a quake if you try to get behind her. Drops Ant Pheromones. -Praying Mantis, hard to damage in the front, wait until it gets its blades stuck in the ground and strike from behind. Attacks cause bleeding. Drops Mantis Forearms. -Hercules Beetle, with a lot of raw strength and knockback. May grab and squeeze you for great damage. Free yourself by whacking it enough, or have a friend whack its abdomen. Drops Beetle Mandibles. -Golden Ladybug, rams cause extreme knockback, may rear up and attempt to trample players. Drops a Reinforced Shell. -Engorged Mosquito, large lunge attack that pierces armor, unblocked attacks leech health and make her stronger. Drops a Congealed Blood. -Hedge Broodmother, has venom and phases where she retreats and other spiders drop down to defend her. Slowly increases to 2 wolf spiders. Drops Toxic Fangs. EDIT: Confirmed for the 30th! Mechanics unknown, drop idea still stands. -Cordisceps Stinkbug, gas mask/stinkbug armor required or will instakill player with standard gas. Standard gas corrodes weapons and armor in the cloud, gas mask and stinkbug armor being the exceptions. May spray infesting fungus that causes your O2 meter to slowly deplete, unless you exit the cloud. Drops a Smelly Fungal Gland -Bombastic Beetle, acid stays where it landed until it dies, self-destructs into a large acid pool when it dies. Drops a Bombshell Chitin. -Shining Firefly, shines bright to blind players who looked at the flash, pelts with goo that burns players through blocking. Drops a Shining Goop. -Queen Bee, calls upon her servents and she can sting you repeatedly for armor piercing damage. Drops a Queen Bee Stinger. What the drops do Armor upgraded goes up to T3. But why stop at T3? Armor retains previous set effects alongside these. -Ant Pheromones: Upgrades Ant Armor. 2 more plank/stem carrying capacity, non-aphid meat drops occasionally doubled. -Mantis Forearms: Makes a fast T3 striking saber reinforced with Sunken Bones. -Beetle Mandibles: Makes a T3 axe/saw. Also makes a fancy T3 recurve bow. -Reinforced Shell: Upgrades ladybug armor, much more defense and can block forever, sprint speed goes down by 25%. Become the tank. -Congealed Blood: Upgrades Mosquito Blade. Killed enemies release a healing spray that restores 15% max health to the user, lowering by 3% when teammates are close. Each teammate gets 3% max health back. -Toxic Fangs: Upgrades Spider Armor. Wearer attacks faster the lower their health is. Passive enemies get webbed when attacked. -Smelly Fungal Gland: Upgrades Stinkbug Armor. Melee attacks recieved release slowing gas against enemies. Smaller enemies are more susceptible to stuns. -Bombshell Chitin: Upgrades Bombardier Armor. Higher defense, self-destruct on death. Have the last laugh. Or make into fancy T3 arrows in sets of 15 with crow feather bits. -Shining Goop: Upgrades Firefly Armor. Shines even brighter at night, smaller hostile mobs fear you. Spiders will be stunned for 3 seconds when they first attempt an attack at night. -Queen Bee Stinger: Upgrades bee armor. Causes damage to melee attackers, chance to split an arrow in two to deal 2 strikes. Can also be made into a Bee Dagger, a T3 dagger that inflicts a faster acting poison. That's all for now. Thanks for reading until the end!

Apparently they do. The breakers on the bottom of the panel appear to be tripped and that’s where the bees are touching the contacts

When shopping for vidya games remember to shop smart. Shop S-Mart.

I was just about to post this. Darn you. I will have my revenge in this life or the next or my name isn't Sir William Wallace.

Exactly why it was a mistake to back out of the agreement with Iran. Yes it was a bad deal and yes they were still developing fissile material for weapons. But an agreement made with the United States should have been honored by the United States.

That only took an earthquake and a tidal wave to create. This one, if true, is shoddy construction and incompetent management

If Caja leads the berserkers, where is Nasty leading the outlaws? Or is she mad you killed her dumbass brother at the end.

Should be enough to have the save files, but I would just install Deadfire, make a character (with the PoE1 savegame stuff) and uninstall PoE1 after that - just to be sure. Should you lose your savegames: you can also always manually recreate the decisions you made in your PoE1 run when starting PoE2. There's an option where you walk through several questions regarding your PoE1 playthrough and how you decided. So even if savegames/import doesn't work you can still play the character you did in PoE1 (sort of) by recreating the decisions you made.

I have fond memories of old Bioware games, but as it's been over 10 years since they did something decent (Didn't play Inquisition, from what I had heard this one has at least some merit to it), so I will need more then pretty words. I wouldn't count on myself getting interested in DA4, as I strongly disliked even DA:O, but ME4 has a chance to bring me back. I was already getting dangerously interested in Andromeda as the premise showed a lot of promise, but from what I heard they wiffed it. Over the years, I have grown more critical even of their old formula, so I am not sure how well I would respond to "classic Bioware" these days even if they returned to basics. But I must say, I don't think Bioware doing another DA and ME are good signs. Bioware peaked doing new things. Baldur's Gates, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, DA:Origins were all revolutionary and original in their times. To be good again, Bioware needs to be creative again. Doing old things, even if well, will at the most be nostalgia comfort food.

Y'all already know that I'm all about Eurojank RPGs so I'm obviously excited about this, questionable music choice notwithstanding. I mean, if you are going with nu metal at least get Sevendust.

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/biowares-new-general-manager-promises-to-rebuild-its-reputation/ Some good news around Bioware, it now has a new permanent GM who has over 20 years in the gaming industry and has said its " all about rebuilding that reputation, and delivering on that promise of quality " Personally I dont think Bioware needs to rebuild its reputation as I like and support their games but I can appreciate his statement. Hopefully that should convince many forum members to give Bioware another chance with upcoming games like DA4 Because " the more the merrier " when it comes to generating revenue for any sales orientated company

The vast majority of Republicans support Trump, so the idea that there's a mystical GOP that's more like the Democratic Party is Lost Cause style of thinking. Also, HoonDing has a point, you wouldn't think it by reading posts by old fossils on the dark web, but there are tons of people around the world who are starting to see representative democracy as an abject failure and are finding the predictability of an authoritarian government more attractive. That's a card in China's favor right now, and Biden's goal is to try to prove them wrong. Time will tell whether this strategy will work, but he certainy gets an A for effort!

Ah yes, the Mandarin classes. I've been a bad student. Too old and too lazy to learn new languages these days. If anything, I would probably start practicing my neglected French skills. Reciting a French menu card just sounds sexier than reading out loud from a Mandarin menu card

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/31632458/nba-competition-committee-exploring-rule-changes-restrict-unnatural-jump-shot-motions-sources-say Yes, please.

Russia and China. The two are cooperating militarily, which, yes, makes them a potential threat. NATO would be foolish to ignore this completely.

NATO, suffering from a decades long existential crisis seems to have found a new enemy they can agree to disagree with… Nope, not Russia, but China https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57466210

Thinking of rewatching some old shows to see if I still like them. On my liked list I have Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy, and Darker than Black even though I never saw the second season. Maybe I'll start with the last one since it has a season I haven't seen.

Yes, I agree. But it seems that in the unmodded game one of the primary weaknesses of the rogue is the inability to renew any resources. But there's always the SoF cheese to make up for this! You might want to check out the Balancing Polishing mod, however. It tweaks Wall of Flashing Steel to give you a chance to restore guile, which seems like a nice boost for SC rogues.

Right. Your "real" weapons don't transfer anything to your FF attacks. FF is still the same attack ability. Community patch just gave it the "tag" that it's not only a melee attack but a melee weapon attack now. By the way: it doesn't matter what weapon you are wearing, ranged or melee: if FF procs Swift Flurry and/or Heartbeat Drumming your main hand weapon will execute the additional attack. In case of ranged weapons there will be no further procs then (because SF/HBD only work on melee weapon attacks) - but you could in theory hold a Rod + Blast (= very slow recovery) but mainly use Forbidden Fist. When SF/HBD proc you would do a rod-shot + blast once (with 0 recovery).

Maybe True Love's Kiss ticks do also trigger the Frenzy enchantment? You'd get +5 MIG which could explain the increased dmg per tick maybe.

Probably Astra Zeneca, which is the one people are getting right now. The situation is definitely better than it was recently, but the number of deaths/million is still pretty high.

Bethesda going into space is good. Post-apocalyptic is boring at any rate.

Hope it's not a second fall out deja vu all over again.

And in a transitional phase, no less, comes with being old enough to vote and buy cigarettes.

See you 3 years from now, when we get something more concrete.

Reminds me of Bulletstorm.

Curious, everyone else who I know watched Attack on Titan pretty much raved about it. I guess that puts it in a bit of a backburner now. Not that I wouldn't have enough else to watch. Speaking of watching something else. On a whim I started Violet Evergarden, and ended up binging the 13 episodes. There's a special and one of two movies on Netflix too, which I plan on watching soon. Netflix recommended that when it came out, I just kind of avoided it. For... reasons (for those who have followed this thread for a while, that should become clear when I talk about it, for everyone else... well, sucks to be you ). I'd link the trailer, but it is terrible. It's on Netflix anyway for everyone who wants to watch it. The English dub also seems to be a bit on the bad side, but that might just be my first impression. Say hello to the titular character, Violet: I'm a shot from the closing credits, which were never - not ever, not ONCE - skipped by this viewer. This is a first, he does add. Well... Violet is a low functioning autist incapable of expressing, dealing with or understanding any sort of emotion. One of these things is a joke that obviously refers to @Bartimaeus' reaction to Puella Magi Madoka Magica, the others are pretty much what the show is about. The anime is set in a world with the technological development level of our late 19th to early 20th century, with the primary exception being Violet's anachronistic mechanical replacement limbs*, having lost both her arms in the final battle of a conflict similar to WW1. They're a metaphor more than a plot point, or rather, when they do become a plot point they're directly related to Violet's development as a character and human. As such, it's okay to accept that she has fully working replacement limbs for some reason while others limp about or need crutches to deal with their injuries. Found as an almost feral orphan, with a penchant for violence, Violet was raised and trained as a child solider by the army and assigned to Major Gilbert Bougainvillea, the first person to treat her as human, not a weapon to be unleashed on the enemy. Years later, both being severely wounded in the battle that ended the war, Major Bougainvillea tells her to live and be free, that she's more than a tool for him, and that he loves her. Words that are completely meaningless for Violet, who not only doesn't understand what love is, but also has known nothing but following the orders of others. Violet wakes up in a hospital. The war is over, and Major Bougainvillea reported as missing in action. Lt. Colonel Hodgins arrives and offers her a job at his newly founded postal company in an effort to help with his friend's final wish for Violet. He does not tell her about the Major being missing in action. Being both physically and emotionally marred by years of war, she now struggles with being integrated into society. Honest to the point of being hurtfully blunt, incapable of reading or expressing emotions and lacking any subtlety, she eventually takes up a job as Auto Memory Doll (which in the Japanese original is called Automatic Note Doll, which sounds slightly less ridiculous, the German translation is AKORA, which translates as autonomous correspondence assistant, which is the best of the bunch, in my opinion), a sort of ghost- or copywriter people most often, but not exclusively, commission to write letters, either because they are illiterate or lack the eloquence to truly express what they feel. Little by little, Violet, through having to express emotions of and for others in letters, learns to reconnect with her lost humanity and come to terms with the horrors of war and the scars they have left. For the most part, even though Violet is the main character, what makes this unique is that her story is told mostly through the lens of her clients, their reactions to her, their observations and interactions and the way she's trying to fulfill their wishes. More often than not, people truly liken her to the doll in her job description. In her most hapless of moments, Violet sometimes pulls on her cheecks to simulate a smile that she otherwise can't do. It ends up being what this thread was called for the longest of whiles, an emotional roller coster. Her first commission is a disaster where she completely misunderstands what her client wants from her (a client who wants a loveletter written in which she's playing hard to get, and Violent ends up writing "I have no true feelings for you, and you're not sincere enough in your efforts." to him - a very literal interpretation of what the client told Violet to write). The absolute highlight of the anime is an episode where Violet visits a family where she's been booked for a week to write several letters for... Her mechanical arms mirror her character growth. They're cumbersome and need ajustment at first. They're a visual metaphor for the wounds she sustained, and eventually culminate in being used to well and truly put the war behind her (and, by extension, the nations involved). The soundtrack is fantastic, especially the song of the closing credits. I guess the copyright holders are going hard after clips from the show, because the closing credits aren't available on YouTube to show them. This is the song: The animation is really good for the most part. There are some parts that look a bit, well, uncanny, especially when the camera pans over landscapes, and some of the movements feel wrong. There's a bit of what I mean in the opening credits: Still, for anime made in 2018, this is positively gorgeous. What else can I say? It very quickly earned the distinction of getting a thumbs up on Netflix too. Well done (for the record, Madoka did not get one - really)! Also, don't expect much action or fast pacing. There is some action, of course, particularily in the flashbacks to the war and the show's finale, but most of the time the pacing is on the slower side. It gives itself and the watcher enough time to breathe in and process what's happening. *Contrary to what you might think from the trailer, or other people might think, Violet is not a robot. She's a human with mechanical limbs, even if her character arc is really similar to robots or androids learning what emotions are.

I am suggesting that when a player has multiple types of arrows in their inventory and they deplete one type during combat, another type of arrow is automatically equipped without having to manually select the new type. As for example: If I have 5 crow feather arrows and 16 basic arrows, I could equip the crow feather arrows first and enter combat. Once those 5 arrows are depleted I should be able to automatically continuing firing the remaining basic arrows. As the game currently stands, if I run out of one type of arrow, my bow is useless until manually selecting a new arrow type to fire, which is difficult/impossible to do during combat.

If it bleed you can kill it. I remember it was a tough fight, even on a veteran. I don't think there was any particular trick to it.

I mean it. Some conditions to up the soul bound items just break immersion. I have to deliberately stop the combat's normal flow, micro the item wielder, fulfill a very specific condition w/o other party members interfering. While mechanically it's ok, the suspension of disbelief is tried severely breaking you out of the immersion. It's like the enemy would suddenly question me: - Why are you poking me with your knife and the rest or your teammates are standing behind doing nothing? - Nothing personal, pal. You just happen to match the exact condition my capricious knife needs to level up.