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I've hit level 35 in Dune. That seems like a lot, but I still feel like I suck a bit. I soloed a research station today and died about 5 times. But now I have a shield generator and I think that might help. Or it might make me worm food. Who knows? Anyways, my base is gorgeous and I have a nice little terrarium with Muad'ib in it.

Tainted Grail - after trying to "clean up side quests" for a bit, got impatient/bored (100-ish hrs) and just did the plot end thing. ---I found and got to have another convo with that chicken, in another Act. Game does stuff like this - find or go back and chat with npc's later, they may have something to say. Which is cool. ---I'm pretty sure there was a Hellraiser and Aliens reference/homage re: a couple mini-quests. ---I was level 75. I wiped the floor (bosses included) by level 50. I was not purposely grinding. The only way not to be 50+ by endgame is to not do a lot of sidequests or a lot of exploring. And there are TONS of sidequests, although many could easily be missed. This probably adds to replayability for many tho. ---Act3 is definitely the smallest. I still liked exploring it, but its main focus is to sorta barrel you to the Final Bit. That said, you could still spend a fair bit of time doing all the back and forth for factions. Or you could take the "bah humbug" way like I did and after exploring, ignore all that for another straightforward choice. Again, thanks, devs. ---Act3's multiple small faction areas were even worse in design than Act2's main town. I mean they make sense/are cool looking, but constantly going and returning to NPC's was a PITA chr. pathing/running wise. ---that first big patch added a "continue" option, so you could go back and try to grind the other 825,000 chr. levels if you wish. Why anyone would want to, I don't know. Act1 -- grade A Act2 - slower to get going but a solid grade B all told Act3 - grade C+, mostly for size and feeling a bit rushed/less dense/fullfilling A lot more RPG than Diablo, not as RPG as the best Baldur Gates (whichever one you think is that).

Tainted Grail: oh, forgot to mention, the dev's said they have plans for mod capability/tools in a few weeks/a month or something. How useful/extensive or what form this will take is unknown. But it peaked my interest a bit. they're also looking into a NG+, and extra content updating with a focus on Act3 maybe in August. So if they hold to this roadmap of updates, it's likely to improve the game a fair bit. I might replay it then to see. EDIT: to be clear, I still enjoyed the game quite a lot. It just kind of runs out of steam/started to feel too repetitive by Act3. And far too easy (over-leveling content).

Did you cast summon?!

Simon & Garfunkle classic

What about shooting at enemies from stealth first? Then it shouldn't be too bad if the first reload doesn't profit from Heating Up - because stealth has it's own -85% recovery/reload bonus. Completely different approach: the most painless way for me to make my Streetfighter Swashbuckler work very reliably was to turn him into a tank with a large shield (like I did Edér many times before) and "escape" into the middle of an enemy mob in order to get flanked - for real. And then I just let him hack away, always heated up until only a few enemies are left and there was no flanking anymore. But at that point the fight is usually won anyway. That way I could make good use of: Escape and Charge (mobility is useful in order to get the best position for tanking and getting flanked - especially useful since you can move while the large shield modal is up) Coordinated Positioning (never used this before - but in this case it can be great to place yourself between crowded enemies perfectly so you actually get flanked properly - sometimes there's no free space to Escape to... and then Escape doesn't work reliably and your character might get ramdomly placed in some stupid spot) Mob Stance (even faster attacks and cleaves on kill - with the help of some engagement slots, see Hold the Line, shield and some other gear) Armored Grace (obviously) heal-on-kill pet (the damage output is good, that leads to kills which leads to cleaves which lead to more damage and kills which leads to a lot of healing procs for you) Entonia Signet Ring (getting engaged by enemies raises your defenses, perfect) Riposte (lots of missed melee attacks against you due to high deflection even when flanked - can trigger cleaves, too) Deep Wounds (nice in combo with Riposte and Cleave imo) Persistent Distraction (unlocking Deathblows on every engaged enemy automatically, also reducing their accuracy) Adept Evasion (in combo with a large shield modal AoE spells don't bother me anymore) Refreshing Defense (of course this works very well with such a setup) Unbending (if he punishment is too much you can still keep going easily) Fighting Spirit + On the Edge (increase dmg output even more before eventually getting healed) Slippery Mind (won't remove real flanking but will take away all PER/INT/RES afflictions once you are On the Edge - it's super useful imo) Pernicious Cloud (it's friendly fire so normally I wouldn't ever use it - but since you're surrounded by foes anyway...) Into the Fray (nice to pull some enemies near so they can flank you instead of bothering your allies) and so on. It worked out really well - while the tankyness was good enough to be the main tank of the party, the damage output was still very impressive. No comparison to the Edér Swashbuckling tankyness I'm more used to - in terms of the offense I mean. The increased Sneak Attack damage (+50%) combined with the short recovery, Ripostes and Cleaves leads to great dps while occupying a lot of enemies - even though it's "only" weapon & large shield and no dual wielding or two handed stuff. There wasn't even the need for the Rogue's strikes abilities. All in all I think this was much easier to play and less fuss than what is usually done with Streetfighters to make them unlock their passive "easily". I find all that blunderbuss firing and switching in order to milk that Heating Up passive turns into tedium quickly. But maybe that's just me. I used a Streetfighter/Devoted with the Galdiator Sword + Bronlar's Phalanx by the way for some Roman Gladiator vibes (also I wanted to stack the +1 PEN of the sword with the +2 from the Devoted and never bother to switch weapon sets - Iazy ;)). But I think the Fighter subclass doesn't matter that much. With a Black Jacket you can be more versatile (and even switch from weapon & shield to a more offensive setup if the situation is right or directly turn off the large shield modal), with an Unbroken you get more AR (but worse Reflex - but that's already very high due to the large shield) and better disengagment attacks, the Devoted grants more dmg with your one chosen weapon because of the PEN and slightly incrased crit dmg... but that's all not really crucial for this direct "getting flanked" approach I think.

I'm guessing I'll spend the end game building the perfect base, rather than anything PvP. There seems to be a tremendous amount of content to stay busy outside of the deep desert, where PvP takes place. But the online thing is a concern. I would also prefer solo/private servers where I could just do my own thing. I'm holding out hope that they will get there eventually. They did that for Conan Exiles, after all. They know they can make a lot of money just by selling new skins and art assets to us folks who just want to build in the desert. I've has very little interaction with other players other than seeing all of their bases scattered around. It is kind of neat seeing all of this stuff pop up, then watching it erode as people move on to different areas.

Dune seems like a game I would have liked - if it wasn't a MMO/online. I know you can largely play it solo if you wish, and turn off public chat or something, but after spending a long time, once, thinking that WoW would be the perfect casual game if I could just play it Offline - nah, don't want to do that again. I've also heard the "end-game" focuses largely on MP and maybe guild PvP or some such, making solo play less viable or enjoyable. I know you're not that far along but do you know anything about that?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-reportedly-striking-irans-fordo-underground-nuclear-site/ Seems pretty easy for Israel.

Watched The Phoenician Scheme in a crappy movie theater, with my parents. Suffice it to say, they did not like it. I don't even know why they picked it. Probably because it was between Jurassic World and some other stupid movie. As for me, I liked it. There is not much new to this Wes Anderson movie, expect for the new actors he cast, but as of yet I am still not bored by the formula.

@Gromnir I must shamefully admit I remember very little about the Camp David sessions What had lodged somewhere back in my head was memories of the Oslo Accords in the 90s where Rabin and Arafat committed their respective factions to mutual recognition, peace and a two state solution. Something that was a hard sell for the two leaders

If someone shoots your shield with a laser and the game doesn't fry your HD as a result, request a refund.

the thing to keep in mind is that almost half the country don't see anything wrong with what happened to mr. padilla. in fact, am suspecting 1/3 o' the country woulda' been more pleased if the senator were visibly injured during the altercation. am serious. tell us with confidence that Gromnir is wrong. doesn't matter that what the senator were doing was legal. doesn't matter that alex padilla had been escorted into the presser by both fbi and national guard; no "busting in," nonsense. doesn't matter that the senator did in fact announce his identity as a senator, though again, as he were in the fed building at the time of the presser, he had an escort that knew his identity. etc. facts don't matter. the reality don't matter. even if you do the impossible and convince somebody that alex padilla didn't do anything illegal, then chances are you will hear whataboutism or some kinda deflection. alex padilla is one of them, so when bad things happen to him, the initial reaction is gonna be that not only did the senator deserve the treatment he received, but that he shoulda' gotten more it... and by now, trump politicians know what trump voters want. when nixon were convinced by republican Congressmen to resign, those republicans, almost to a man, were primaried during the next election. trump is ignorant of history, but am gonna suggest near all senators and most representatives serving in 2025know history... and am certain those political creatures is aware that their constituents don't care about what is right and just unless it is they/them who is doing wrong. perhaps worse, the independents and democrats who either voted for trump or didn't vote for harris, are somehow ok with what is happening to social security, the va, pepfar, free speech, legal immigrants from afghanastan and venezuela losing their protected staus (another one am disappointed @Guard Dog can remain quiet regarding 'cause he knows what it means to be sending translators and those who helped US troops back to afghanistan,) and due process. they is ok with trump's corruption with market manipulation and his meme coin. they is ok with cecot. they is seeming ok with just about anything save whatever may personal be important to them. for gd? second amendment rights? for a farmer in north carolina? perhaps if the ice raids start happening on north carolina hog farms or... unless it affects 'em personal, trump voters or those who couldn't be bothered to vote against him, cares little that trump is gutting norms and freedoms. heck, even when people is personal impacted, chances are they still can't admit they were wrong, 'cause we don't do that anymore. again, when we saw the reaction to trump's muslim ban promise, we finally got it-- an increasing % of americans want them/they to suffer. First Amendment? due process? basic christian values? none o' that minor stuff matters 'cause trump is a fighter who is finally going after the real bad guys: illegals; libs; smart-arsed college professors; etc. "A poor Russian peasant’s neighbor has a cow, but the peasant himself has none. Every day the peasant has to walk by his neighbor’s field, where he sees that cow. He admires the cow, even adores it, envying the animal to the point of obsession. He even dreams about the cow at night. One day, the peasant goes into the forest to cut wood–and he finds a sprite bound to a tree with bonds that only a mortal can undo. The sprite promises the peasant that, if he frees her, she will grant him any one wish. So he unties her…and says, “Kill my neighbor’s cow.”" globalism is working. here in the US we are all becoming more russian, eh? HA! Good Fun! ps try and imagine how the alex padilla situation woulda' played out in 2015. if the dhs secretary's security detail had done the same thing to a sitting US Senator, the dhs woulda' likely apologized, right? maybe jeh johnson explains that security reacted with perhaps an overabundance of caution to the presence o' a large man with no visible press ID at the presser. woulda' been described as a truly unfortunate and regrettable mistake, right? in 2025, mike johnson is suggesting his colleagues in the senate should be calling for padilla's censure. never admit fault. double-down. gaslight with the help of fox news and turn this seeming loss into a win. too many republican voters like seeing a democrat US senator getting man handled, so go with a victim blaming effort, right? but, if harris was President, nothing would change, so...

Soooooooooooo pretty much Rambo?

I hope you also plan to play it. It is my favourite PoE content.

Alex Padilla, US senator getting cuffed for speaking over Kristi Noem. Just perfectly normal, as bad as any other administration. It would be great if people in positions of power started pushing back against the Trump administration . Edit: And here's the Noem quote that should be getting alarm bells. "We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city."

I didn't realise The Onion just did news posts now.

LOL

Finally put some ca$h into purchasing The White March, my final piece of the puzzle. (Bought both PoE 1+2 immediately upon release each.) A choice made for capitalism by capitalism.

I don't post about politics very often, but I will say I love my state of California. The Trump administration has been lashing out at my state for the better part of a decade. It doesn't bother me, because I'm very comfortable in what California is. It's the 4th largest economy in the world. We have amazing cities, national parks, beaches, and mountains. We have incredible diversity. I can find a good restaurant/food truck for every imaginable cuisine. We have all the schools. I mean, just incredible universities that cover every possible field of study. So watching a sitting President attempt to wage war against my state is sickening. This is the same President that had no problem pardoning the people who stormed the Capitol building. He is actively working against the Governor. I'm at a loss. On Saturday Trump is staging a birthday parade that is going to look like North Korea.

(no, I don't actually think using that long term is a good idea, but it's neat )

(This was posted on another forum for Deadfire but thought I would share it here as well) Alvesa was born to minor Vailian nobility who've spent generations wandering Eora in hopes of restoring the prestige and wealth lost in the fall of Grand Vailia. A genteel disdain for any labor or trade seen as beneath their former station, however, has made it difficult for the family to improve their lot in life. While other expatriates from Old Vailia found success in profitable business ventures with the Republics or blighting the trade lanes with the Príncipi sen Patrena, Alvesa's family continued to drift from port to port, clinging to their faded pedigree and dwindling family fortune. Young Alvesa did not inherit her family's delusions for a bygone past and instead took this lesson to heart: “Accept no truth but your own.” Eschewing materialistic concerns, Alvesa turned towards the spiritual and became initiated in the mysteries of Wael whose domain of revelation appealed to a poor, itinerant child unmoored by the earthly attachments of her family. Not content to scour only libraries or temples for knowledge, Alvesa would also explore the back alleys and slum of the cities where her quick wit granted her access to the kind of illicit and disreputable dealings that her family never would've deigned to dirty their hands with. Undeterred by even the revelation of her patron god's true origins, Alvesa continues to seek out truth by uncovering the many mysteries of Eora. As someone who loves making a lot of crit-focused builds, I really appreciate Priests as an invaluable source of accuracy with their party-wide buffing spells. Because of that particular emphasis, I also tend to not want to multiclass them too often as I don't want to delay their access to these crucial spells. By a similar token, I also find action economy an issue with Priest multiclasses as they need to devote a lot of their time getting out their buffing spells before they can perform any other function. One of my personal white whales for a Priest multiclass has been finding a combination that not only justifies their slower ability progression from multiclassing but also overcomes the possible dilution of effectiveness by tacking on an ill-suited role to the Priest's kit. I believe this rather unorthodox Priest of Wael/Trickster build solves these issues by using several techniques and pieces of gear that allows them to not only get out their buffing spells in a timely manner but also lets them serve as a capable frontline fighter, profiting directly from their own buffs, and a disabler par excellence who can become a veritable gorgon able to turn their enemies to stone and keep them locked down for much of the encounter. Character Creation Class: Zealot (Priest of Wael + Rogue Trickster) Race: Ocean Folk | Culture: Old Vailia | Background: Dissident Other than the multiclass selection, these elements can change depending on your roleplaying preferences. Besides the thematic considerations, the Intellect and Stealth bonuses from my character creation choices also happen to suit the build mechanically. Attributes 10 Might | 3 Constitution | 18 Dexterity | 18 Perception | 19 Intellect | 10 Resolve This attribute distribution is fairly unusual and will probably seem controversial for a build that will also function as a frontline melee striker. The low Might is slightly counteracted by spells and supplementary damage buffs, though it should be accepted that this build won't be much of a healer unfortunately. The low Resolve score is similarly mitigated by the plethora of defensive spells available to this build. However, there is simply no getting around the liability of the low Constitution score, and some care and compromises must be taken with this build due to their low health. (If you play with the Berath's Blessings attributes bonus, I would definitely sink the extra points into repairing the Constitution score and slightly raising Might or Resolve for an overall smoother experience). The high Dexterity, Perception, and Intellect is in service of efficiently getting out spells and maximizing action economy and the efficacy of their crowd control ability. Skills Active: Stealth Passive: Bluff Stealth should be pumped exclusively because it will help action economy, which I will get into later, and also increase melee damage. You have more leeway with the passive skill choice. Keep in mind that Priests of Wael have Shady as one of their favored dispositions, and Bluff often acts as a corresponding skillcheck for a lot of Shady dialogue options in the game. However, you don't necessarily need a high Bluff in order to max out the Shady disposition, and disposition bonuses for Priests in Deadfire only affects the healing potency of Holy Radiance spell (and this build won't be doing a lot of healing) and the damage potency of your summoned spirit weapon, which this build won't be using at all. In short, feel free to let roleplay dictate your passive skill choice – I actually chose a mix of Streetwise and Bluff for this playthrough because it matched my character's background. Weapon Sets 1. Stalker's Patience + The Eye of Wael 2. Variable Equipment Devil of Caroc Breastplate, Whitewitch Mask, Charm of Bones, Cloak of the Theocrat, Gauntlets of Accuracy, Ring of Overseeing, Ring of Prosperity's Fortune, Girdle of Eoten Constitution, Footprints of Ahu Taka Abilities – (bolded are auto-learned abilities) 1: Arcane Veil, Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights | Suppress Affliction, Interdiction, Escape, Defensive Roll, Fast Runner 2: Ionic Projection, Mirrored Image | Two Weapon Style, Weapon and Shield Style, Dirty Fighting 3: Mirrored Image, Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage | Dire Blessing, Combat Focus, Riposte, Bear's Fortitude, Snake's Reflex, Bull's Will 4: Llengrath's Displaced Image | Devotions for the Faithful, Adept Evasion, Persistent Distraction 5: Confusion | Champion's Boon, Tough, Farcasting, Rapid Casting, Uncanny Luck, Deep Wounds 6: Arkemyr's Wonderous Torment | Salvation of Time, Improved Critical, Spell Resistance 7: Gaze of the Adragan | Deathblows Strategy You may be wondering why this multiclass chooses Priest of Wael and Trickster as their subclasses, given that they offer seemingly redundant access to automatically learned Illusion-keyworded abilities at every ability tier. This is a deliberate choice as it enables the build to A) not have to invest in active abilities as much and instead put those ability points into passives that amplify their strengths and fortify their weaknesses and B) have two resource pools to draw from to use these powerful, cross-class abilities. The endgame, centerpiece ability is Gaze of the Adragan which this build will be able to cast multiple times as both a spell and as a Rogue ability that costs 2 Guile per use. With bonuses that give additional points to the Rogue resource pool such as The Devil of Caroc Breastplate and the Adratic Glow bonus you get from paying for a dip into the Luminous Bathhouse's pool, this build is able to cast Gaze of the Adragan a whopping total of SEVEN times every encounter when using up all its Guile and AT7 Priest spellcast. This build also maximizes the duration of every cast of Gaze of the Adragan by every means possible, including A) power level bonus from the Illusion-keyworded gear Whitewitch Mask and the The Eye of Wael, B) high accuracy enabling crits which gives a bonus to duration on debuff spells, and C) high native Intellect further boosted by items such as the Charm of Bones and Cloak of the Theocrat. Furthermore, Gaze of the Adragan when used as a Rogue ability is technically an AT6 ability (though Tricksters still only get access to it at AT7) which means that it gets additional, native PL scaling for a slightly longer duration compared to the Priest version – this is actually very beneficial as the bulk of this build's Gaze of the Adragan usage will be from its Rogue side (though this does mean that they don't benefit from Rapid Casting, which is a small downside). Before going any further, I should explain why Gaze of the Adragan is such a good ability/spell that's worth specializing a build around. It's most noteworthy feature is that it applies Petrified, a Dexterity Affliction that is functionally identical to Paralyzed but technically counts as a tier higher than Paralyzed which is already at the highest Tier 3. This means that even enemies who have Dexterity Resistance (such as the common Wood Elf among kith enemies) will only be able to downgrade Petrified to Paralyzed, thereby still suffering the identical effects of being completely locked down. This doesn't make Gaze of the Adragan's Petrified effect the be-all and end-all of all crowd control abilities because there are still enemies with outright Dexterity Immunity or Body Immunity who can nullify it, but it does make it just a little more effective among the other hard crowd control Afflictions. Petrified/Paralyzed also grants a hefty hit-to-crit conversion against afflicted enemies, a feature that this build will also exploit to maximum effect. The way this build manages action economy issues as a spellcaster hybrid that needs to get out several lengthy buffs before moving onto any other action is mainly through Stealth. While in Stealth mode, actions get a -85% recovery reduction bonus which allows for a speedy follow up action. What might be unclear is that non-hostile abilities do not break stealth mode, meaning classes such as Priests with multiple non-hostile, party buffing spells can cast several in a row while benefiting from the drastically reduced recovery time. By investing heavily into Stealth and placing them further back into the formation so that enemies don't inadvertently bump into them, this build will be able to cast the requisite Devotions for the Faithful and Dire Blessing spells at the start of combat to boost their overall accuracy without being slowed down too much (do note that Devotions for the Faithful has a hostile, enemy debuffing component to it so you should be careful not to also hit any enemies with it lest it break you out of Stealth mode). After casting these spells, this build still has an AT3 and AT4 spellcast to use on Mirrored Image or Llengrath's Displaced Image, which should be used separately as the other wears off since their deflection bonus won't stack concurrently; this is both an action and resource economy save as it uses Priest spellcasts to activate defenses, saving Guile to be used for Gaze of the Adragan, and they are instant cast spells. The build also has double castings of Salvation of Time to further extend any of its buffs as needed. While it's not an Illusion-keyworded spell, the PL1 Arcane Veil eventually gets up to a decent duration with power level scaling, giving the build yet another fallback defensive spell to have in a pinch. Once accuracy has been pumped up, defenses boosted, and enemies locked down, this build is able to join the fray to great effect thanks to their dual-wielded Stalker's Patience and The Eye of Wael loadout. While a dual-wielded ranged and melee configuration may be suboptimal on a class like Rogue with Full Attack abilities in normal circumstances, this is less of a concern on this build where all Guile is being spent on Gaze of the Adragan anyway. In fact, the split weapon types is actually ideal in this situation as it means only the spear will attack when in melee distance and the scepter will only attack while at range. Dual-wielding a melee and ranged weapon at the same time like this is a useful technique when you want to profit from the Two Weapon Style passive and have a weapon with an effect that you want to maximize the chance of proccing, and this is true with both weapons. In the case of Stalker's Patience, it has an incredible enchantment that gives it a chance to instantly recover on crits, which means this build's high accuracy and crit conversion turns into a high volume of potentially chainable, instant-recovered attacks. With Rogue bonus damage modifiers like Sneak Attack, Deep Wounds, Deathblows, and the spear's enchantment that grants a damage bonus that scales to the build's synergistically high Stealth score, this weapon is optimized to dish out a lot punishment in a small window of time, delivering devastating coup de graces against their helpless foes before Gaze of the Adragan wears off, whereupon they will cast it again and continue preying on their enemies. The same principle applies to The Eye of Wael, which isn't just an inert statstick that amplifies spells for this build but a decent ranged weapon in its own right. If the Priest of Wael/Trickster is out of spells, or their defensive and accuracy buffs wear off, or they're facing pierce-immune enemies, or it's just too dangerous to go toe-to-toe with a boss, they can fade back to range and blast things with their scepter. The Eye of Wael delivers slash/blunt damage to diversify the spear's pierce damage and will benefit from the increased action speed of Two Weapon Style while attacking solely with the scepter at range. Like Stalker's Patience, The Eye of Wael has a chance to proc effects including debuffing Illusion spells and random Afflictions, making it so that build can still profit from Deathblows/Sneak Attack and debuff enemies even after they've run out of spells. It even has a chance to make you semi-invisible – though it's not a true invisibility that works with effects like Assassinate or Backstab, it does prevent enemies from attacking you and serves as a nice defensive effect. In tandem, I think this weapon set is a neat package that fits the craftiness and ingenuity of a Priest of Wael/Trickster character. This build so far has focused mainly on the endgame with a setup that doesn't come online until AT7/Level 19 for a multiclass, which may seem shortsighted. The cool thing about this build though is that its access to free spells and abilities at different ability tiers and via different resource pools allows it to continually take on different iterations and change up its configuration as it levels up. So for the early game at AT1, you will notice that I place a lot of stock in abilities that apply Dazed or allows you to break free of engagement; this build was played on POTD difficulty with all upscaling, and I developed a healthy respect for being able to displace and get out of danger in the early game when this build is at its weakest. However, as soon as AT2 is reached, this build can start to more comfortably stand on the frontlines as it will be able to use its Guile to cast Mirrored Image for a hefty, repeatable deflection bonus. I also take Weapon and Shield Style and opt to wear a small shield like the Outworn Buckler which doesn't come with an accuracy penalty. You can wear a medium or large shield if you find you need even more deflection, however I wouldn't take any bashing shield as it will take away attacks from Stalker's Patience and be an overall reduction in DPS (and you can of course respec out of Weapon and Shield Style later in the final form of this build). AT3 is where it gets interesting because you then get access to Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, an aura that Terrifies foes. This gives you a short-range hard CC effect where your high accuracy now becomes part of your defense, disabling enemies all around you and making it a very decent stand-in Rogue ability to spend your Guile on until you unlock Gaze of the Adragan later. The spear's modal ability and shield setup actually remains a relevant loadout with Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage as it provides additional engagement to help you farm disengagement attacks when enemies try to flee from your aura. You can supplement this later on with Persistent Distraction and Champion's Boon (though do note that the later's Might Inspiration doesn't stack with the Might coming from Devotions for the Faithful) for even more engagement slots. Another school of thought is to equip a morning star for its modal effect that drops enemies Fortitude by -25 since the Terrify aura targets Fortitude. This is more if you want to go all-in on with using Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage as your main form of defense, but I think it makes your more vulnerable against ranged/backline enemies since the Terrify aura will only reach immediately surrounding enemies and I actually think Stalker's Patience and its instant-recover will end up out DPSing even the two-handed morning star, especially when it has its negative damage modal active. Another setup that you can use before the endgame is going ranged with a rod weapon; I really like Rod of the Deep Hunter on a Rogue multiclass, especially one with high Intellect, because the AoE effect added by the Blast modal and its stacking deflection debuff can lead to some juicy hits. With a more dedicated ranged setup, you can wear lighter armor, respec into Two-Handed Style, and use your Guile more for active Rogue attack abilities rather than frontline defenses. Yet another option available to this build is going with the previous suggestion but using the Spiritual Weapon spell to summon Priests of Wael's unique scaling Rod weapon, which also has Blast and a scaling Shock lash – if you've maxed out your Shady and Clever dispositions at that point, it could be a very effective delivery system for AoE damage. As you can see, you have a lot of interesting ways of transforming yourself to tackle challenges at different stages of the game, sort of mimicking the shifting visage of this build's patron god, which I think is very thematically fitting for a Priest of Wael/Trickster.

Using a motorised vehicle on Arrakis... They call that natural selection.

It finally happened. I got eaten ny a sandworm. I was moving a bunch of stuff to a new base, and I was motorbiking across a big swath of desert. I had to swerve wide to avoid quicksand, and it put me on a bad path with a worm. He ate me whole. I woke up naked and back at my new base. Now I'm running around trying to rebuild me life. 10/10 - would become worm food again

I really hate to play any FPS with gamepad on console. I have tried to play Dishonored, finished the game, but then, I have rather repurchased the games again on GOG, so I would not need to play with gamepad only for all eternity... That being said, Playing any Unreal game with Gamepad feels like worst kind of heresy

Tried Fallout London mod. Londoners turned out to be excellent looters because the city was barren, or at least those very few places I could access were, because majority of everything seemed to be just for decor and whole city looked kinda like those photodrapes cities hang on historical buildings that are being renovated. Water gives you gazillion rads, I think this is game's equivalent of deathclaw conga line in Vegas, something to prevent you from going somewhere too early, but this + narrow walkways over said water everywhere + companion dog's propensity for pushing you from those walkways + looooong loading time = The last straw before scrubbing the mod from HD were invincible enemies who run at you and self-destruct very early on main quest, but that left me wanting to play Fallout 4. Turns out it's fun if you ignore main quest and just be a garbage collector who, along with his trusty dog, travels the place endlessly searching for more glue. I mean, it's easy to imagine my guy checks the logs of freeze-refreeze-unfreeze before leaving, sighs "RIP Shaun" and gives wide berth to Sanctuary because of bad memories. Concord too, because of proximity.

It is a game in the category "Good idea for a game - no experience how to make a good game". I can see how one would not enjoy the gameplay. I played through it and enjoyed the different book settings similar to how I enjoyed the concept of entering different games in Gamedec. And I thought the moral aspect of messing up the lives of fictional characters for personal gain was nice. Obviously I played a do-gooder. I am used to not liking the protagonist

I finally played the dlc for Saints Row. The Heist has a very fun intro mission. And then you get two more missions and the dlc is over and wtf where is the content? The dumb fly through rings event that already wasn't enjoyable in saints row 4? Murder Circus is basically Moxxys dlc from the original Borderlands, just that you play NPCs instead of your own character. The dlc with the larp content is really good though.

Good idea, actually, hm..... currently replaying Torment for the first time in years, so thereafter, who knows. Thing is, I actually like combat. So it's not strictly that. It's that Owlcat's copypaste encounter design makes Icewind Dale II look like grandmaster chess. And they're so proud of it that it's EVERYWHERE. It's literally like: "Ok, here's two gargoyles. Now move two feet. Here's the same two gargoyles. Keep moving! Oh, hello you two again." Then comes the super mobs, and they only ever differ in armor class and buffs, like: "Cool, they switched that super mob with AC 50 for one with an AC of 80, now I'm gonna need to really buff up or else..." Kingmaker at least had the advantage of switching threats every chapter or so. But WOTR is naturally a crusade against demons... so horned beasts is all you're gonna get, start to finish, hour 1 to hour 250 or so. It's Demon Burnout Incarnate. It's not like they're receiving no feedback on that.... people start BEGGING on their Reddit knees.

My nephew has badgered me into playing Satisfactory. At least he's the one having fun building the factory while I'm mostly off killing stuff, doing research and crafting equipment. The factory's a jumbled mess of conveyor belts and pipelines and storage containers. Pretty much what you'd expect from a 12 year old.

Been putting some hours into Soulmask recently. It has very similar vibes to Conan Exiles, a game I sunk a fair few hours into (and that I still occasionally play, but more as a building game ), so I'll mostly be comparing against that. At a high level they are very similar, end up in some weird place due to weird reasons and have to build/craft your way out of things, you bonk natives on the head to add them to your tribe, etc. From where I stand there's two major differences: The first one being that your main character is weaker than everyone else (stats are hard-capped below those of other NPCs), and you are, in fact, not expected to use it most of the time. This is where the titular "soulmask" comes in, you can use it to "Control" other tribesmen that you recruit, taking over their skills, inventory, gear, etc. The one downside tribesmen have is that they can die permanently (at least initially), while your PC will just respawn. The second one is that Tribe management is much more involved than in Conan. Tribesmen are much more active, and in fact much more along the lines of what I wished Conan Exiles had when I started playing it: you can assign them various tasks and they'll go out and do them. If you assign them to logging they'll go out to the area you assigned them to chop wood, grabbing an axe from storage if they don't have one, for crafting they'll run around collecting materials from chests to then craft the things you queued up. The downside of this situation is that you have to rely on AI pathing, so being creative with base placement/interior may not be the best of ideas. I had the great idea to build up on a cliff, with the result that my tribesmen often get stuck at the base of said cliff instead of pathing around. There's still some limitations I wish there weren't, for example they won't repair their gear when it breaks, instead they'll toss it and grab new stuff from chests if they can, otherwise they'll just start idling. Overall having a good time and probably worth checking out if you enjoy(ed) Conan Exiles.

Yup. This is my main criticism of the Pathfinder games as well. It's why I have to play them on the Easy setting so I can just breeze through the tedious filler fights.

Played some indie stuff lately. The Roottrees are Dead. Good, but gets a bit too convoluted by the end. Needs American knowledge to figure out without googling. No Sase Should Remain Unsolved. Great. Had to google what type of day inputs it accepts, but otherwise managed it by myself. Sea of Stars. Gave up after I realized I'd have to dodge enemy attacks. Just make a real turn-based game.

I liked the pirate/sysdef questline but that mission on the ice planet is really tedious. And Delgado is an annoying imbecile. But I'm so far on NG+ I don't care about factions anymore. I don't even want to see Constellation again. I go for a "weird universe" every time, only do the "Mantis" sidequest, gather enough cash to buy "Reflection" particle beam and then go planet hopping on my own until I get bored and move on. "Shattered Space" was decent but has no replay value. It was cool how the enemies were literally the Aldrain from "Land fit for heroes" but no way I'm ever dealing with those Va'ruun morons ever again.

Yeah, I love the setting of Starfield. I like the ship designer. There is some good exploration moments. But no argument for me on the majority of the quests. Bethesda has always struggled with story and characterization. I thought the corp storyline was fun. It was the only one where you didnt end up just killing a bunch of people.

The engine is totally fine. In fact, I really like it - always did. It's amazing to work with and the gameplay is not as bad as people make it out to be. They improved a lot in most areas, except maybe ai pathfinding and such. But that's not really the fault of the engine either. Starfield even has acutal ladders now! The only thing I always have issues with, is the quest design in their games. It is just terrible. You have all those cool ideas but then you dive into it and... yeah... why expect anything else than a linear corridor. Some quests have multiple ways of doing them in the way that you can be an ass or an ass kisser. The end result is - at best - just different loot rewards. There is one quest where you have to find a dude and collect money from him. You can shoot him and loot his weapon and stuff, or you pay the bill for him and he will gift you his weapon. Amazing. Yeah, sure, you will get negative reputation or whatever, but why would I care if literally nobody else in the game world does. Really, it's just sad. Funny thing is.. I was just thinking that a Starfield made by Obsidian probably wouldn't be that great either. They are so formulaic in their quest design by now, that it gets lame as well, just in the other direction. Guess the tl;dr is ... everything is so predictable. /Edit: Oh boy, I have more to complain about Generally I like how the settlements and outposts look, but... why is everything so small again? You have whole planets to work with!! Can you not make something like.. I don't know.. a farming planet, where everything you can see is just fields of crops? Unlike Fo3, there's actual farming and plantations now at least, but still.. why not scale it up? Work with what you have!!111

God damnit, Starfield is such a typical Bethesda product, it's not even funny. You look at the world and stuff and it really feels like this could be something. I really like the visual design and even the way the gameplay feels, with exception of annoying bullet sponge enemies. But then at the end of the day it's still just a Bethesda game -- wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle. There was a quest with some collector dude that started out really interesting. You had to get an artifact from him in whatever way you want... yeah, right. Either you shoot him dead or you shoot him until he gives up and let him live. Great choices. If this quest were in an Obsidian game, you just know you had at least 3 or 4 ways to deal with the situation. Now I had a quest where you have to get some super dangerous top secret data from an archive. All the time on the way to that point people kept telling me how I have to be on my best behavior, how I can only access the data I need, how I am NOT supposed to look at anything else... Well, guess what... Once I was in the archive, I had to press 3 buttons to open a door, walk down a corridor and basically press another button. THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE. You couldn't do anything else, even if you wanted to. There is no way not "to behave", there is no way to look up any other data. Nothing. It's a linear corridor. I swear, the writers must have a word budget of less than 250 words per NPC, otherwise I can't explain this crap. In the main story I had to talk to one person from each big religious faction about some mythical mumbo jumbo. How does that interaction look like? Player can ask 3 questions and the NPC replies with maybe 2 or 4 lines. End of it is you saying "Hm yes, now I understand everything" - meanwhile I'm sitting here like wtf did just happen. EVERYTHING in this game is like that. What's the point of a gazillion quests if all of them are like this. Please just scrap 50% of them and instead make everything else 50% bigger... At this point, the only good quests in the game are the ones that are (almost) unmarked and entirely localized in small areas. Where you don't constantly fast travel from one planet to the next to a point where you lose the sense of scale in the world, because everything is a black loading screen away anyways. Man, it's such a shame. This could be so good, but it's... Bethesda. It's the same crap every time with all of their games. This is why I stopped bothering with Fo4 and why I would have never even tried Starfield if it weren't included in Game Pass. Deep inside, I knew this is exactly what the game would be like, and I can already tell you now that TES6 will be exactly the same. /Edit: My companion just told me she is part of House Va'ruun. NO ****. Please, man, don't insult my intelligence. That was obvious from the very first moment. She even wears clothes that are like whatever the Va'ruun guys are wearing and now I was forced to act all surprised and what not. If at least my character could be like "yeah, I kinda expected that" ... but nope... "wow, you lied to me, this is so disrespectful." ... bruh, just stop.

The normal bonfire can be used for general resting/point distribution, cooking. And with cobweb-fuel, recharge Arthur ability (with cobwebs) If you fuel bonfire itself with 10 cobwebs, it also lets you FT from the bonfire, do alchemy with it, ID items. I think a skill/perk tree lets you do even more, like blacksmith in it. And I think fueling is how you can rest in the Wyrd protected/shielded (a barrier like around towns) but I can't recall offhand. the "wild" campfires will definitely wake you up if you try to rest at night. Cobwebs drop from enemies ... at night. Although there are some day enemies that can drop a little. The special night enemies drop more at once. Un-id'd items only drop at night. I currently have 1300 cobwebs stored up.

Not familiar w/Skyrim but - ---there's a mild bell sound when he spawns. He spawns some distance away and there's a brief moment/period before he starts "hunting" you giving you time to bonfire or escape other ways. ---there's no specific event/timing re: his spawning that I can tell. You go beyond safety zones/warded bonefire at night and maybe you'll get to explore a fair time, or maybe you'll hear that bell/see him spawn in really quick. ---you'll see him/hear the bell in Act1, but he just appears on the edge of visual ranges then fades away - he doesn't start hunting you until you've reached Act 2 ---he scales I think, but skills/gear + the slow time Arthur skill as a leadup would eventually make him manageable. BUT he's immune to a lot of magic (frost, fire I think). Or maybe you could get him stuck on terrain and cheese him. ---if you manage to kill him before dawn, it's maybe a few game days before he starts up again. Edit: his purpose is to prevent players from excessively "farming" things that only drop at night, plus (I assume) just to annoy and present a skill challenge.

Tainted Grail - Act2 ---the quests and longwinded npc's are starting to wear on me. It's not bad quality, it's just the usual me reaction. ---definitely front-loaded. Also, the night-mega guy shows up too frequently imo, hindering free night-exploration. Technically some could beat him but it's not worth the time so most just run/FT away (preemptive bonfire use becomes more needed) *2ndEdit: I'm sure at some point it's dealable, but not for a long while ---starting to encounter a few more bugs (not just fun jank) re: certain features and quests. They've been patching but I'd say after 1st act game is not quite "finished". ---the MQ in Act1 had a method to get to act2 without having to do the MQ quest/faction. I appreciated that. ---There are more skill trees then what you initially see ---still love the item/finding stuff and exploration feels rewarding aspect ---Direct magic is good, summons however kinda suck. Wouldn't bother until their AI is better. Haven't bothered with melee, parry window looks really tight EDIT: also, re: parry, tap the button, don't hold it ---there are respec potions - you get a small number from exploring, saw one npc selling them but expensive ---3rdEDIT: there is no level cap - or rather, technically there is, but no one is ever going to reach it legit Still liking it/finding it fun. The Wyrd-night-boss mechanic is the only thing I really dislike.

Tried that tainted grail demo thing. It really is not bad.

I would play with an 8-person party. And I always have at least two animal companions. I've never cared about "balance." Party interactions, and having as many of my companions along for the ride have always been among the most important characteristics of the games I love to play. It's why I find it really difficult to truly enjoy solo-play games like Witcher or Elder Scrolls.

It took me a moment to realize you weren't talking about XCOM.

LoversLab adult alien mods is the only way to play games. No. I just like the aesthetics. It feels very NASA. Also I like that robot companion from the beginning of the game. A lot of the writing is really cringe and bad, but occasionally you find a little gem that is interesting and you'll start to actually like that character. Also I like those big town locations that I have seen so far. They look really nice and do feel somewhat alive. Not as alive as Cyberpunk 2077, but still.. a lot better than in older Bethsoft games. I've installed a bunch of mods already that fix issues and change things I don't like. There are bugs that Bethsoft still didn't fix yet.. and they are in the game since release a couple years ago. This is just so typical Bethsoft. They release something and then move on, not bothering about it anymore, because "the community will fix it" ... just terrible practice all around.

I haven't played this game so know nothing specific, but in general terms, I'd say since extra party members are not the intended party size the game encounters "expect" and were designed around, I would put it in the unbalanced modded category - whether you want to call it a "cheat" or not is up to you. And in SP, who cares. Do what is fun for you, imo. I mean, it's fun to alter rules sometimes, whether a little or a lot. Having all companions in FO:NV was pretty much a "win" thing for that game, but it was hilarious. Also, made for a better dance-mod line.

No, but you could use Toybox to make the level cap 40. You'd probably want to cheat for the Legend path if you did that though, as everyone now gets the most of its gimmick. Hitting 20 way before the end of the game wasn't a deal breaker for me. I think for me what killed WotR was BG3 tbh. The Owlfinder games were easily 90%+ combat and most of it isn't very interesting, you figure out the buff spreadsheet and hope you win initiative before archers machine gun the back line. Kinda lost interest after doing the harpy fight and doing the dice rolls to solve conflicts in BG3.

Well, you're never "cheating," because it's a single-player game. It's your game. You can play it however *you* want.

Tainted Grail: ---I had a long and intriguing conversation with a chicken who had a long backstory. ---some side quests (dunno about MQ) can have choice consequences too, which can alter rewards or access/who survives, or just offer different conclusion to a "tragic tale." More than MMO/Diablo questing, but not as in depth as some. -- VA's are hit and miss, sometimes they're great (who voices Arthur? what a great voice) sometimes they're very mediocre. ---there is no level scaling within an Act area, so difficulty re: each one will be front-loaded. That is, could be super hard/die all the time in the beginning, then you're 1-shotting everything by the end of Act depending on how much you've explored and build/items/upgrades etc. ---loot appears non-random, at least the good loot. I suppose a deranged peasant randomly drops "fancy underpants" instead of "underpants" at times. ---I am told when the story ends, there is no "continue", but you can travel between Acts to finish things before that ---town stash box is infinite. Player inventory is weight based but there's ways to up it and it hasn't been a real issue even for a picker upper like me. If one *wants* it to be an issue, just don't increase weight limit. (EDIT) items with 0.0 weight do appear to weigh something. You won't notice with a stack of 10 such, but having 1000 arrows and 1000 various picked herbs in your backpack will still weigh you down a fair bit. Dunno if intentional/bug. Just saying. ---Beyond jank, have run into minor glitches but nothing terrible (yet). Still just simple, old fashioned, tightly/fast paced crpg fun. My current "concern" is the entire game may be "front loaded." eg, Act1 may have had the most time devoted to it, it feels full, planned out, interesting. I've played games like that where after that, it becomes less interesting, shorter, etc. That said, there's 25-35 hours to be had from Act1 alone - more if you're the type to seriously linger.

Fantastic! One thing I suggest would be swapping the "DebugName" ("Pro-Humor", "Pro-Duty", ) for the name of each topic as it appears in the game ("Lighthearted", "Dutiful"). Anti-Gods = Antireligious Anti-Tradition = Progressive Kind to Animals = Animal Kindness Pro-Autonomy = Autonomy Pro-Deceit = Skulduggery Pro-Duty = Dutiful Pro-Gods = Piety Pro-Humor = Lighthearted Pro-Immodesty = Pride Pro-Passion = Impassioned Pro-Provincial = Provincial Pro-Resourcefulness = Resourcefulness Pro-Stewardship = Stewardship Pro-Tradition = Traditional Pro-Worldly = Worldly