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I know @Guard Dog doesn't come around very often anymore and @ManifestedISO hasn't been around in forever but happy birthday nonetheless.

I'd have thought Alan Wake 2 would have been bigger. I guess being stuck on Epic cut out the legs. I guess this is more fuel for the eternal PoE sales debates. I think more important to me than how Deadfire did is that Sawyer wants to do a hogwild PoE3. Microsoft, let him cook. This man will make a game where you need to have a PhD in math to understand half of it and an expert knowledge of the occult to understand the other half. It will be glorious.

Hilarious. I hope it was a good bonus. It must have been frustrating and confusing to watch indifference upon PoE2 release. Please, please do PoE3. I am more than ready to spend years complaining about another RPG.

1.3 is out and this includes Bobby Ray's! I'm currently deep into The Talos Principle 2 and nothing is tearing me away from that until 100%, but I'll be returning to Grand Chien soon.

The Fall of the House of Usher - Netflix I only caught the last 30 minutes of the last episode, but dang, it was a good 30 minutes! Then I peppered my wife with 50 questions about what happened in the first 7.5 episodes and now I want to go watch the entire season. EDIT: Whoops wrong thread.

The Moon's Light and Nature's Balm, much like all other healing over time abilities, scale very powerfully as you gain power levels, as you get both additional ticks and additional heal per tick with power level scaling. A high level Lifegiver can heal someone back to full HP, sometimes several times over, with a single cast of The Moon's Light.

@ShadySands and @Guard Dog should be obliged to do 248 pushups today.

I guess the game had legs

Not without buying me dinner first

Last episode of Loki was a nice sendoff. Wonder when they will reboot the whole marvel universe.

You can get quite far into each faction's quests before you start breaking them, though doing certain quests ahead of others makes a big difference. But the problem is that it is not always clear when you are about to get to that point of breaking another faction's questline. It is even possible to cross the no turning back point in a questline without knowing it beforehand. I think they have done this intentionally to force players to not try doing everything in one playthrough, so that they can claim the game has good replayability.

I think I will go back to it. I might want to recreate my main character. Plus I think I'll need alex, and he's forever trapped in the scorpion cave currently. I went small guns, and low strength (4) which in retrospect seems like a dumb decision. I think I might have even boosted charisma over strength... and so far charisma seems pointless. And I can't imagine I'm taking down super mutants with a pistol. On the second DLC for wasteland. It's a lot goofier, but it's made me laugh out loud quite a few times. It also made me feel super guilty for I appreciate that they are switching up the combat, but I am getting a little annoyed by it. Both DLCs have very drawn out combat. It has kept my attention but it's also a time waster. It's kind of funny how DLCs tend to destroy any difficulty in the base game. You get all these advanced weapons and perks from the DLC that by the time you return to the base game you're very OP.

16 Yeah, just expressing my personal lack of concern over Yahtzee loosing rights to ZP.

I am not finished with Solasta Lost Valley but I feel I should be relatively far along. I am progressing all factions at the same pace, though I guess I will be forced to choose who to side with eventually. There are far harder encounters than in the base game, I feel. Or it is a bit less linear and you run into encounters you aren't supposed to be able to beat at the time you can first find them. It isn't necessarily bad, but some encounters definitely could have used some tweaking. The campaign likes giving you NPC's to tag along until you complete their quest. So I beat one encounter by having double the party size, with a higher level wizard and barbarian than my own characters tagging along. The problem with NPCs in your party is that they gain no xp. But right at the start of the campaign you get the option to hire one of three NPCs to help you, and they never level up and you can't dismiss them. So I have a rogue with 10hp following me around - every combat I try to run her away so she doesn't die... If I were to restart, I would not take an NPC along.

I mean... I did. It's positive, while acknowledging game's shortcomings (story problems, neven companions, lack of difficulty, Quality of Life features, apparently ongoing technical problems in act3). Mostly interesting, as he did beat the game multiple times, with each origin etc. so it's nice to see feedback on individual characters as well.

Wonder if he gave him back his sanity for forcing ship battles and VO.

I wasn't clear, sorry. I meant that one of the things I like about Insect Swarm in general is that it's not tagged with poison - compared to some other DoT spells that have this drawback, like Plague of Insects (not Autumn's Decay). Another thing I forgot when comparing Insect Swarm vs. Autum's Decay directly is that Insect Swarm is foe-only - while Autumn's Decay might also hit your allies.

am having appreciation for you son's kool moe dee trend. more than once on this board am having linked a kool moe dee tune. however... am sensing possible danger if he memorizes lyrics and then shares with mom, step-mom, or practically any woman with a pulse. 'course it's been almost five days since you posted, so is likely he has already found something new. perhaps a slow transition to funk? HA! Good Fun!

I absolutely love Tasting History, and I've been looking forward to see him make true garum after he did quick garum a long time ago.

I haven't checked the code, but I guess that the duration for the wounding DoT wasn't actually set. So the DoT ability may inherit its duration from the parent ability - which is Boar Spiritshift of the Shifter subclass (it's a different ability than the "normal" Boar Spiritshift which is shared among the other subclasses - except Fury of course). But again: I'm just taking a guess here. The hint is that the base duration of the DoT is the same as the base duration of the Spiritshift. Anyway - it's brutal, especially with a Helwalker (+MIG, +INT) who boosts the already huge damage-over-time like nothing else. Also prolongs the Spiritshift duration of course - as another bonus. What I like about Insect Swarm (besides the raw damage and that it's not tagged as poison) is the complete removal of Concentration on the targets. What I like about Autumn's Decay is that its AoE scales better and that it does target Reflex instead of Fortitude. Most Druid DoTs target Fortitude and it's great to have some alternative.

B-21 Raider takes first flight - Breaking Defense

Happy Birthday USMC! (248)

I am happy to see this. So hopefully we might see PoE3 before my retirement (or at least before Star Citizen release).

"Animist" is the no-subclass option. It gets bonus spells like other subclasses, but has no special class features. If you like shapeshifting, Shifter is stupid-good. You can't cast spells while shifted, but it's a pretty minor drawback for the sheer boost in power you get (and the free healing). Shifter boar form is insanely good because it's bugged where the damage-over-time effect it has lasts a really long time compared to other druids' spiritshift. Do you play Path of the Damned? If so, I highly recommend Hold Beasts and/or Charm Beasts, will make the digsite fight waaaaay easier. (don't pick it as your character creation spell so you can respec out of it later if you don't need it... though they are still handy against some dangerous beasts) I second Sunbeam. Super-solid all-around performer. Damage is low, but the Penetration is high (very useful on path of the damned), and blind is really really a good debuff. It ain't hard CC so it might seem less obviously powerful compared to other tier3 afflictions, but it so terribly punishes recovery, accuracy, deflection (on top of the normal reflex defense debuff) that it is a huge survivability buff. other spells i like tier 1-3: the moons's light (solid heal over time spell) firebrand (couple with ring of focused flame from the dark cupboard [steal or buy]) to be a powerful melee-er woodskin - basically instant cast, if you cast it from stealth it's basically instant cast and instant recovery. bonus piercing armor can be a life saver (basically makes you harder to punish with ranged damage), and burn and shock are pretty common enemy damage types esp early on (especially early drakes). as a bonus, it's a plant effect that activates the +2 PL bonus for lord of the forest upgrade on lance of the midwood spreading plague - i'm very bullish on this. lasts a super long time, bounces a lot (if slowly), and making the entire enemy battlefield hobbled and weakened is very effective, both in terms of making it easier for your various spells to land, but also making it easier for your squishies to escape danger and to make life a nightmare for enemy healers for doing damage, do not sleep on Touch of Rot and Autumn's Decay. They do insane damage, just over time. But compared to other classes, pound for pound you get way more damage efficiency from these little guys. Unlike same-rank Insect Swarm, Autumn's Decay does instantaneous damage as well, has a huge area, and casts faster; it also targets reflex instead of fort, which tends to be a lot easier for the typical druid-inclusive party to debuff, especially early on (on PotD fortitude is a really tough enemy defense in the early-mid game). Insect Swarm is still a good spell, too, just that I think Autumn's Decay might get slept because no subclass gets it for free, and it doesn't do raw damage or remove concentration.

Are you going to go back to FO1&2 or just stick with Wasteland?

Ive settled on playing Wasteland 3 over everything else. I love how the choices are I that game... I enjoy thinking I made the wrong decision everytime I make a decision. There either isn't an outright "good" choice to make... that or I always make bad decisions... either way I wish more games would follow the "road to hell is paved in good intentions" saying. New Vegas did this very well, wasteland 3 might even do it weller. More well... better

At OBS ending the first day of this annual visit. Got to see some of the new digs (aka renos) and hearing about some of those geeky things that make OBS such an amazing set of storytellers ... In the meantime, a few collages of some of the wall art for your geeky goodness ...

Washington Post is openly saying Ukraine bombed Nord Stream. Supposedly Zelensky was not consulted, might be because his administration is thought to be soft and compromised by the Russians. Interestingly even US objections were ignored. Timing on this news is a little suspicions as well. Winter bombing of Ukrainian energy infrastructure is expected to start soon and they threaten retaliation on Russia’s oil and gas.

https://www.gamesradar.com/golden-joystick-awards-2023-winners/ Best Storytelling - Baldur's Gate 3 Still Playing Award - No Man's Sky Best Visual Design - Baldur's Gate 3 Studio of the Year - Larian Studios Best Game Expansion - Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Best Indie Game - Sea of Stars Best VR Game - Horizon Call of the Mountain Best Multiplayer Game - Mortal Kombat 1 Best Audio - Final Fantasy XVI Best Game Trailer - Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Best Streaming Game - Valorant Best Game Community - Baldur's Gate 3 Best Gaming Hardware - PSVR 2 Breakthrough Award - Coccoon / Geometric Interactive Critics' Choice Award - Alan Wake II Best Lead Performer - Ben Starr, Final Fantasy XVI Best Supporting Performer - Neil Newborn, Astarion, Baldur's Gate 3 Nintendo Game of the Year - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom PC Game of the Year - Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Game of the Year - Starfield PlayStation Game of the Year - Resident Evil 4 Most Wanted Game - Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth UGOTY - Baldur's Gate 3

And I contracted Lyme disease. F†ck ticks, I hate those bastards so, so much, wish they'd just drop dead, all of them