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https://i.imgur.com/DD7hNkG.mp4

https://apnews.com/article/sagaftra-video-game-performers-ai-strike-4f4c7d846040c24553dbc2604e5b6034

Maybe they could get together and form some sort of gathering of developers. 🤔

Hi, while I was trying to do something different with Xoti this time (SC Priest all the time becomes boring at some point as does Whispers of the Wind for the umpteenth time) I experimented with Inner Death some more, combined with Empowered Strikes of course. Main reason was initially that Xoti's Lantern gives +1 Mortification (and +1 Wound) per kill. That's the only way besides Brilliant to regain Mortification - and it also means that Inner Death is kind of cheap (-3+1 =2 ) if it kills (which it often does with Empowered Strikes to ensure a crit). Now I tried to max the damage per empored crit with abilities and items so that the impact of one Inner Death punch is really, really impactful - so at first I went with Lightning Strikes instead of Swift Flurry because a +15% lash is a multiplicative damage bonus and is a great thing to have for such a high-dmg/single use combo. With the help of Lightning Strikes, Turning Wheel, Thunderous Blows and some items that add dmg bonuses and lashes I could often crit for ~500-700 dmg - which is pretty dope. If you have to take out an annoying enemy NOW I'd say that this is a very useful tool. But then, since I would will crit almost always with that combo anyway, I thought I'd give Swift Flurry and HBD a short try. I knew that Empowered Strikes (+100 ACC and +100 PEN on empowered attacks) does NOT influence the additional attacks of SF/HBD, but I thought I'd try how it feels anyway. I used Mohora Tanga to maximize the chance for procs and then I also put on Boltcatchers - because they work very well with Mohora Tanga*. It is not guaranteed that Inner Death will trigger SF/HBD! It is a melee attack and it can trigger them, but it doesn't use your weapon - so any special sauce the weapon has that could help you with SF/HBD procs will only trigger as soon as Inner Death did trigger SF/HBD which then executed a weapon (in this canse spear-) attack**. After a few tries I managed to trigger a crit cascade (for testing purposes it's helpful that the additonal attacks wil get executed and displayed BEFORE Inner Death impacts the target) - and I saw that the +300% crit damage bonus of Inner Death does apply TO ALL attacks that are done in the scope of the attack. So all damage rolls from SF/HBD and Boltcatchers got that sweet dmg bonus. Whoopsi! Boltcatcher proc: Heartbeat Drumming proc: I mean this is still a gamble. It's much more reliable to just pick Lightning Strikes of course - especially if you want to kill the tough foes with an empowered Inner Death asap. Tough foes with high defenses usually make crit chains a lot less likely. But with Swift Furry it's pretty awesome nontheless when it happens. 😄 I one-shot Concelhaut and Menzago instantly - but with other bosses I tested I didn't have as much luck. But of course Inner Death - even without a juiced up SF/HBD crit chain - is still a very hard punch. Anyway: thought I should share this info. Maybe somebody has better or just more fun ideas what to do with this. Cheers! --- )* Mohora Tanga's enchantment Red Flag Flying counts as melee weapon attack and can thus proc itself for and endless cycle as long as it crits. It can proc melee-related special attacks from other items such as Boltchatchers. It also procs Swift Flurry/HBD attacks that are then executed with the normal spear attack again - wich itself can proc Red Falg Flying again on crit and so on. This increases tha chance for crit chains happening a whole lot. )** Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming are always executed with the main hand weapon, no matter how they got triggered in the first place.

I liked it from the start, but that I think is mostly down to me treating it like a Looking Glass type sneaky game. For that approach, the massive 2.0 mechanical overhaul really had minimal impact. The random generic loot? Doesn't matter. The unbalanced combat? No impact. Indeed the biggest change probably came in an earlier patch, when they made throwing knives non-consumable. So yeah, it's very good at that. In terms of its other qualities, I rate it as a mediocre RPG, and as a spectacle shooter ...I don't care because I hate that kind of gameplay, as evidenced by my recent rant about Phantom Liberty. The game is at its worst when it funnels you into their grandiose set pieces.

Dark Matter Solves The Mystery of How Supermassive Black Holes Exist An intriguing clue as to the nature of dark matter.

elden ring does have a lot of classic jrpg problem weird so few player even notice maybe because few player play older jrpg cyberpunk can be visually too busy sometime atmosphere of the city is amazing

It seems people warmed up a lot to Cyberpunk. In my personal opinion the 2.0 update made it a much, much better game. I think it makes for a fine narrative shooter. Though, it wouldn't made into my list of favourite anything, and definitely not as an RPG.

There is no good reason to go to the White March. The game tries to create a false sense of urgency - "if you don't deal with your soul, you'll go mad!" A reasonable person would try to get the problem over with as quickly as possible. Few people would go to the White March, and even fewer would get involved in the scuffles between the archmages. The White March is in a sense "Pillars of Eternity 1.5", a kind of game that never was. It's great in terms of mechanics, game balance, but it doesn't fit in with the rest.

Edlen Ring finally got around to playing it ... very great game but very much typical of a JRPG: grinding, oversized weird looking weapons ... and the side quests omg please save me from them lol. If they threw a flying ship in there we would close the loop. And very much suffers from what I hate most about action games and why I don't really play them anymore, having to do that jump from one ledge to the other that takes way to long to perfect. Otherwise fantastic and fun, beautiful too, great lore, great exploration, great combat, and damn if it doesn't have me sitting on the edge of my seat ... Also, just gonna mentioned played Cyberpunk 2077 ... around Xmas of 2023 - it might be my favorite crpg of all time, not sure if that is controversial or not, but the story and quests, rpg elements, graphics, combat, progression ... that game really surprised me with how good it was considering all the controversy. EDIT: Cyberpunk2 is definitely my most anticipated sequel that I am waiting for right now.

Huntsman Copse has shown again, why I hate that area. 🤷‍♂️ The way to Skeleton Lords was not that bad, but I have made some stupid and ridiculous mistakes as well. Moving slowly helped out though. What I liked the most, was that they moved the key for the locked bonfire closer to it, which IMHO saved me from more wipes. So after a hour of slow grind, I have finally entered the Lords arena, with a help of single summon. They also changed this fight. The first Lord spawned 8 small skeletons, and while I was slowly fighting them and trying not to die, my summon finished off the second Lord. Thankfully after that he joined the clearing of adds, but still I had my hands full with trying to stay alive, especially due to Armored Skeleton adds, which have been jumping out of reach of my mace, when I have swung with it. I somehow survived, and started to fight the last Lord. This one spawned only two Bonewheel Skeletons, which made the last seconds of fight much more manageable than trying to outrun 4 of them in vanilla DS2. After that I had to decide where to go. As the way to Executioner’s Chariot is for me as awful part of game as Shrine of Amana, I went towards Covetous Demon. They changed this area little bit as well, but it was still manageable, although trying to outrun and defeat the ambush of fat Artificial Undeads with melee only, would be worthy addition to Benny Hill Show iconic chase scenes 😂 I ended up alive to my surprise 😁 After that I had again few comedy wipes, but all in all, getting to Covetous Demon seemed to me little bit easier with melee guy, than with caster. He was defeated on first try with no summon at hand. Then, there came the most painful experience in my current run, the gauntlet before the bridge to Executioner’s Chariot. Even the shade I have summoned few time’s did not helped me. The guys up there have some stupid aggro mechanic or something, as there have been attempts, when I had no problem to pull them one by one, by entering into their aggro range and then there were the attempts, when they have attacked me all at once 🤷‍♂️ I was not able to find any pattern, why was that happening, and how to be 100% sure, that it will not happen. All in all, the sum of the wipes on these guys, before I have made my final attempt at Chariot, was more than 50k souls, which is pretty serious amount of souls at my current stage of game. The Chariot itself, was not that bad, the only issue was, that I had a lack of sleep due to my arm injury, and I was getting extremely tired at the end of my gaming session, but my stubbornness outplayed me, and “forced” me to stay behind my PS4, until I defeated the boss. Of course, that cost me few more wipes, due to my reflexes being even worse than usually. Not to mention, that I had a “brilliant” idea to attempt the bossfight, until the trash mobs drop me the Lizard Staff. And yes, in my state of tiredness it was really as stupid idea as it sounds 🤣 Thankfully I was so tired in the end, that even my stubbornness gave up, and I have defeated him after few tries, when I was able to survive the previous gauntlet. Summary of today: 3 more bosses down, with deathcounter stopping at 41. (16 for today)

TGIF 😵‍💫

That's a fair consideration, since the heavy focus on Paladin fire damages feel meh with so many fire immune foes (that's why I changed the damages from Light of Pure Zeal). It would require changing shared/persisting flame to corrode effect (same values) but I think I can do it. Also I will grant Bleak Walker the possibility to pick Spirit of Decay without multiclassing (still Scion of Flames for Brand ennemy/Sacred Immolation). It's not a pure buff, so I would put it in the "nerf package". Also I will set the lash to +40% by default, without the scaling which makes things more complicated (also a mitigation for unsatisfaction for loosing the fire keyword 🙂 ) BPM is for kind of expert players, I guess they would get the intent. I think flame shield would be okay with this buff. Wizard ARE a decent punchbag and there's always multiclass anyway. BPM Flame shield also provide Ice keyword immunity which has its perk. That might not solves Dacozzi case. Maybe I should buff Flame Shield and the likes BUT NOT Darcozzi one and instead grant them some extra passive. EDIT : the passive I'm thinking about for Darcozzi would be an aura similiar to "Love of Life" (10% bonus healing received) from Furrante's Breastplate. Thematically it would fit since Furrante IS a Darcozzi and Darcozzi are litterally renowned for their love of life. Not sure about the value since it is only meant to be a little extra, but even a 5% bonus healing (including self) could be enough. It works mechanically for a subclass that grants a bonus for Lay on Hand. Darcozzi benefit more from Outworn Buckler, but that should remain a nice extra, not a core feature. Problem is Llengrath Safeguard is what I would call a "core ability" of wizard. Changing it too much would go too far from original design. I wanted to keep the +5AR and +20 all defenses for long time, because I want this effect to stay in wizard portfolio. I thought about adding a recovery because it emphasizes the current difference with Ironskin without changing both spells too much. One shall also keep in mind that Ironskin has an Infinite duration when getting only graze. Increasing AR could make it degenerate.

Prey is available for £2.50. I will probably (re)purchase it on 1 August. Knowing that Arkane works are preserved is good. https://www.gog.com/en/game/prey

I strongly suspect flanked is not based on engagements but on being threatened by 2 enemies forming some 120° angle or worse. I tested being between 2 opposite enemies who have no engagement slots and indeed I became flanked. I also tested using Grog (giving me immunity to engagement) and again I became flanked. Something intriguing I found out is, if you are flanked due to being between 2 opposite enemies, and for example the 1st one has no engagement but the 2nd one does, and you stagger the 2nd one (making him unable to engage and thus also to threaten I suspect), you stop being Flanked. I should probably also test it with the 1st one. However, if you are in the same situation but this time are immune to engagement, e.g. Grog, and you stagger that 2nd enemy, you remain flanked 😮. I can't explain why. I'd like to test having a few enemies between 2 allies (with Grog as pet) and making my allies threaten all of them to see if they can simultaneously flank all of them. Then check if they remain flanked even after switching to some other enemy. If so, it would align with my previous observations about the threaten mechanic. Also, flanked being based on threatened could explain how inconsistent flanked is. Any ideas to decipher it further would be welcomed! Edit: another test could be dazing myself and checking if I stop being able to threaten enemies (by checking Mob Stance recovery). I suspect so.

Good thinking, unfortunately I just tested it and it didn't work. Being surrounded I tested attacking the 2nd line of enemies with a pike and it didn't increase the Mob Stance recovery, but moving next to them and attacking did. I have also realised that moving ever so slightly also empties the list of threatened enemies (back to -0% Mob Stance recovery).

Scientists discover ‘dark’ oxygen being produced more than 13,000 feet below the ocean surface | CNN

Trump has openly promised that we won't have to ever vote again if he wins, as he'll fix subsequent elections. I must confess, not having to care and be anxious about politics every two and especially every four years is certainly appealing...

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/final-update-to-morrowind-like-rpg-dread-delusion-adds-a-big-nautilus-with-a-town-built-inside-its-shell --- I hope that they will succeed and the VA and mo-cap will remain contained to the AAA games. As is, they offer only higher system requirements (thus, decreasing the availability and making the preservation more challenging), while increasing the development costs and time (PoEII), which in turn limit the player's agency (it harder to make more choices or implement changes to the story, when the VA needs to be re-recorded). So, the less of it, the better. --- https://steamcommunity.com/games/2302080/announcements/detail/4252042698999312624 The previous update included a randomiser mode.

Gave up on work when I found out the dev tested for SFTP servers by checking if "sftp" is in the address.. And then it uses WinSCP via dll and what appears to be a hardcoded path....and needs a version of WinSCP from 2014.