i can arrange for two killer clowns guaranteed
1 Like
I’m always torn between feeling like if I played it with buddies and lost at least I’m having a say in the matter instead of purely rolling a dice but also not wanting to inflict my poor skills on them. really hard to even gauge how terrible I actually am at the game after playing trials long enough. I think the first time I played it I ended up playing all night, was absolutely miserable etc. then in the morning it switched over to iron banner and suddenly I was the Hot Handed God of Killers again
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fwiw there are matchmaking changes happening in the 'labs' rotator this season to be rolled out next season
How does the new matchmaking work?
- We will now have two always active “soft” pools (soft means that matchmaking initially prefers not to blend the pools but will, if necessary to find a good game quickly, so the distinction is not as dramatic as the one between Flawless and non-Flawless in the current system):
- Challenger Pool - This is where most players who currently play Trials on a week-to-week basis and who want to go Flawless will play. It represents an experience more like the original iteration of Trials in D1, without the focus on making games more difficult as the card progresses or after you have been Flawless.
- This pool matches based solely on connection. There is no matchmaking based on tickets (wins on ticket), wins (weekly wins), or skill.
- Players who have any card with no losses (including a card after reset), or those playing with someone in their fireteam that has a card with no losses, will be placed in this pool.
- Practice Pool - This pool is targeted at new or less experienced players (players who are not yet ready to give going Flawless a shot) and represents a place for them to dip their toes into Trials, without being thrown straight into the deep end.
- This pool matches based on connection and weekly performance (how well you have done in Trials this week, resets every week).
- Only players with a Flawed card or those on their first game of the week can play in this pool (everyone in your fireteam must have a Flawed card or be on their first game of the week).
- This pool has:
- Stomp protection - If you are consistently struggling, it will reduce your weekly performance rating to give you slightly easier matches until you recover.
- Farming protection - If the system detects that you or a fireteam member are likely attempting to farm the Practice pool, it will slow down your matchmaking times initially, and if you continue it will lock you into the Challenger pool for the remainder of the weekend, regardless of your card state.
- Challenger Pool - This is where most players who currently play Trials on a week-to-week basis and who want to go Flawless will play. It represents an experience more like the original iteration of Trials in D1, without the focus on making games more difficult as the card progresses or after you have been Flawless.
as for teammates, i only play grouped up with the most patient boy alive (you know the one) who would be happy to play with you
i definitely feel like it’s easy to choke in 1 life elimination and hard to get in a flow for it. i prefer comp but the extrinsic rewards there are deliberately limited
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Shadow of Memories/Destiny is a short game, but it’s also maybe the only game with branching paths and multiple endings ever made that makes it worth exploring those different paths and endings. There’s a lot more to the story than you see in one playthrough, and the writing is great.
I lent the game to a coworker once in the PS2 era and he got the run over by a car ending where you don’t really learn anything. I couldn’t convince him to try again.
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Finishing Silent Line fans the fires (of rubicon) of Froth Depletion as all these games have to go through the vanilla entry before they get to the semi decent level design of For Answer and Verdict Day. I heard things get better in Nexus+ but the controls for this are really aggravating in their pre twin stick incarnations and even mech buildings feels like a chore that isn’t interested in experimenting. Glad they solved it later on but here it’s very tiresome and gating plot text to a series of emails isn’t exactly as creative as VD going into minute detail of all the pilots after you murder them.
Does AC6 being the first first entry with the subtitle mean they’ve solved this problem now? That’d be nice.
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Trials is a real humbling experience, but it’s definitely better in a team where you can develop a rapport with your friends that carries you through. If I can carry two people through trials one weekend, I’m sure you can get a flawless too.
Adrift (my clan) always has nice folk running trials every weekend if you ever need a flawless. And some weekends (Jav4) are gonna be better than others (dead cliffs) simply because the maps are good.
That said I really don’t like how trials is so laser focused on going flawless and i think it contributes to pvp toxicity a lot.
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I got to lighthouse once in destiny 1 but only because someone saw my stream, noticed how little guns I had in my vault and how much I used the susanoo and were like using me as a point that they can carry anyone to lighthouse.
I really loved trials when they turned the mini map off, that was the furthest I got in trials without being carried, just LISTENING was so fun
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a lot of games are designed for console aim assist. halo guys have been complaining about MCC since they added crossplay because they keep getting owned by console players like they want forced input based matchmaking because having a mouse wasn’t as great as they hoped for being able to clown on people
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playing metal gear rising… i think this is a very good idiot game in a lot of ways. like yeah it kind of plays itself you parry when something glows on screen and press buttons when they appear on screen (which always makes whatever happens occur instantly) and the skill ceiling is just low enough to keep the game engaging (and feeling like an actual videogame) without being esp challenging and even most of getting s ranks is just never taking damage. the game is pretty easy on hard mode even and ng+ difficulties just as much so bc you already have all your equipment and features unlocked and then everything dies immediately to perfect parries on revengeance mode
obvs i like how much like shonen comic swag everything has, like i feel like this is the last time ppl remember doing a bunch of qtes being actually entertaining and a lot of how the game just seamlessly moves between qtes and the normal game is still really well done (just like re4…)
i think one of the things that strikes me about it is how it feels like kind of a rushed game but one that is designed to work under those conditions. like the camera can be pretty annoying but has never seriously impeded progress, the cutting / dismembering system just works really well, it introduces some like very cool and memorable characters which makes it kind of unique for a kojimaless metal gear franchise thing. a lot of times raiden will miss the automatic perfect parry followup attack he does that actually like stuns enemies but it all follows the internal logics of hitboxes etc. ummm i guess they could have made parrying and / or dodging their own buttons considering those are both literally more important than like doing secondary weapon attacks but i guess there are probably reasons why they didnt do that i’m sure bc the game as is is like… very playable!! like everything basically just feels like it functions correctly more or less, which is something platinum games feels like they specialize in
anyways my actual current Gaming Project is to beat ornstein and smough which is something i feel like i basically just need to attempt another 20 times before it clicks
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basically i think the thing that fascinates me about qtes is they often give the player an opportunity to instantly create a cut like in the movie editing sense which is not actually something you get to do that often in games!!
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I like how QTEs also give you a way of intentionally injecting failure in cases where the QTE doesn’t constitute a game over. Like Heavy Rain is the ur-example but the way Ninja Blade immediately rewinds any failed QTEs was bizarre in such an interesting way temporally.
Also that new profile pic is fantastic
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Found a hidden turbo mode in RandomPac RandomPac by LC-Games (and Lady Pac Lady Pac by LC-Games ) : Press G to toggle high speed for your Pac.
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Tchia (PS5) - a mixed bag. i did everything in the game, got 100% completion and the platinum trophy.
i do like the game quite a bit (especially by the end, my enjoyment-over-time can be graphed like a U shape), but i probably played in the worst possible way. you could have a much better time with it than i did (see below)
the water and skybox are just absolutely gorgeous in this, among the most stunning i’ve seen in any game. incredible colors. sailing is fabulous. you can do flips and rolls anywhere, anytime. some of the music is amazing. my screenshot folder is bursting at the seams
so, yeah. if you want to play this game, there are some extremely important bits of information you’ll want to know to save yourself a lot of tedium. no spoilers, just helpful advice
your priorities should be to upgrade your traversal abilities as soon as possible. ignore collectibles and continue the main quest up until you get to a totem-carving mini-game. this unlocks the ability to do shrine challenges - each shrine is unlocked by a matching totem that you need to carve and bring with you. these shrine challenges each unlock an additional level to your soul meter - absolutely essential stuff. i failed to go for these until the endgame, which was a major, major mistake. do these ASAP.
general priorities:
- points of view (these unlock the icons on your map so you’ll want to get them done first in each area)
- totem shrine doors (one-shot challenges that grant soul fruit when completed. increase your soul meter and allow you to soul-jump for longer periods. extremely important if you value your time)
- the rock-balancing mini-game just southwest of Puru Do (this unlocks the ukulele melody to invoke a bird - absolutely vital). the other rock-balancing stuff is good to get early too, but this one is essential
- unlock docks for fast travel
- stamina fruit
ignore: braided trinkets, clam pearls, maano camps, cosmetics boxes, valuables chests, etc. until you are beefed up from the above. trying to play this game with meager soul meter and without the ability to invoke a bird every minute or so is pretty painful and i cannot recommend it
your inventory should generally be full of explosives and a few birds. don’t arbitrarily lug trophies or totems around, inventory space is too valuable
i enjoyed the game a lot more after i realized how badly i fucked myself lol
one other vital tip: you can “park” birds underneath geometry. unpossess the bird while it is wedged up under something, and it’ll get stuck there. reach down and pick up the bird and pocket it for later. extremely helpful when you are hoovering up map icons
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i did it… i used the souls i got from them (and some of the proud knight etc. souls) to make my pyro flame a +3 ascended flame… this is the official furthest ive ever gotten in dark souls… what a cool game
initially i was just abusing solaire to beat the first phase but i was using all my humanities (not exactly in steady supply on the ps3 servers rn) so i just did it Normal… smough just loves to get stuck on level geometry which really was his downfall. i’m still lvl 8
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congrats. when i finally beat o&s i was shaking so bad I had to just stop and sit for a while
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yeah… souls games are still some of the only pve games besides like bullet hells that make me feel like im tilting on the brink of going 0-2
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In trading card games, I like making bad decks.
One of my favorite Hearthstone decks is this awful warlock list. I’ve been tinkering with it for the last year and a half; it mixes a combination of life restoration and card recursion effects to prolong the game until I can hopefully bring about this series of events:
- Play Fel Lord Betrug, which will summon temporary copies of every minion I draw, assuming there’s space.
- Play Plot Twist, shuffling my hand into my deck and drawing that many cards. Hopefully I’ve got plenty of cards, because I want to draw…
- Hakkar, the Soulflayer, who shuffles Corrupted Blood into each player’s deck when he dies. If I can draw him while Betrug is in play, the temporary copy will automatically die at the end of the turn, skipping his 10 mana cost to instead start the Corrupted Blood incident immediately. (Since I’ve been shuffling so many other cards into my deck all game, I’m much less bothered by this than my opponent is.)
Tonight, I didn’t get to pull this combo off, but I did have a game in which a druid player thought they’d locked me out of the game with immune copies of The Jailer and Sire Denathrius while shuffling an endless string of Jade Idols into their deck. They couldn’t stand up to my pressure, though, and I was pretty happy with this win.
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By “your pressure” you mean “your Steamcleaner” 
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It gets the stains out, yeah!
1 Like