Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
No bio...
User ID: 214
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Definitely a lot of Genshin in the DNA of the art. I’ll probably get used to it thought
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
That makes sense to me. Last year I saw a Skyrim modding tool that let modders synthesize new voice lines from an AI that listened to and mimicked the lines of the in-game voice actors. It was rough but surprisingly solid, especially if you put in the time to chop up the lines by hand to make them flow better. I figured that if modders could do it (for free) then the actual industry must have something like that cooking.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I've been playing Rimworld, which feels appropriate given the circumstances. I did a run last year with Royatly installed, which was nice but felt more like a well-polished mod. This time I have Ideology installed, which makes the game feel complete, to put it simply. Being able to modify how colonists think with a dynamic ideology you can convert others to is both fun and feels true to what the game is trying to be. It's worth playing again with it installed if you've done one run but haven't been back to it.
I'm also running more mods than I've done before, at least on Rimworld. I'm quite into modding Bethesda games and have made a few simple mods for myself in Skyrim, and while that process has gotten more user-friendly over time, if you really want to get into it you're going to have to do a lot of reading and be prepared to get hands on with it. Rimworld's mod support is... shockingly good. Compatibility is rarely an issue as long as the mod maker has updated to the latest version of the game. It remembers your mod order for each save and will automatically regenerate it for you if it detects a difference. It's so nice.
Some of the standout ones are the Rimworld of Magic, Vanilla Expanded, Outposts, and Rim War. I did a tribal start which kneecaps your tech growth and is much tougher overall than a drop run. Combined with ideology it really feels like you're some group of tribals that has broken off and is doing its own weird thing. Rimworld of Magic interacts with Ideology so my tribe venerates magic and has a priestess that can awaken the spark of magic in colonists to let them eventually become one of the (overpowered) magic classes the mod adds. Extremely cool. I've teched to electricity but I've kept the colony electricity-free, letting magic serve our needs as we move through the midgame.
Outposts and Rim War gives you a dynamic, warring world to play around in and raid. One of my pawns has a spell that lets him teleport in our attack squad of powerful gun-wielding mages to annihilate rival resource outposts and colonies, forgoing the need to caravan over there. The magic is definitely OP but it feels like our small group's unique advantage that lets us punch above our weight despite the low numbers and lack of electric tech.
Still not near the victory condition yet. I might eventually get electricity, but we'll have to see. I may try to wipe out my rival tribe instead. Rimworld is proving to be one of my favorite games of all time at this rate.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1mo ago
PF2e looks really fun. It seems like it was made by and for people tired of 5e's lack of crunch. What do you plan on playing?
We're all on Virtual Tabletop as well. I don't know if it'd be my first choice, but there are a lot of advantages to it over in person, like presentation, handling rolls, etc. If a campaign takes advantage of the online tools I think the switch is worthwhile, but when the GM doesn't do that it always feels worse than in person.
Haha, I fused Izanagi and Kaguya in the early game before I realized how busted all of the DLC personas were and dropped them. It's a shame, because they have cool designs, but it feels like cheating to use them for combat or itemization. If they were a bit weaker it'd feel better to use.
My main squad is Jack Frost, Pale Rider, Titania, Seth, Bugs, and Alice. I'll say that having the means to keep personas you like relevant past the dungeon you fuse them is a great mechanic. Theorycrafting their movesets to cover every situation and going through the steps to get the builds online scratches a certain itch. I'm thinking of adding Metatron or training up Kaguya now that her ability isn't gamebreaking, but they won't be necessary to finish.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1mo ago
I'll have to see how Royal handles the original endgame content post-Shido to compare. I don't remember the original endgame being that bad, but the ideas in it definitely grabbed me so I could have overlooked any pacing flaws it had.
It's all the stuff Royal added to the original game that makes the pacing suffer for me. Like those pointless followup phone calls every confidant has where they repeat the ideas you just saw two minutes ago. The extra scenes for Kasumi, Akechi, and Maruki feel a bit out of place, but I like those characters enough that I don't mind too much.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
7mo ago
Usually 6 classes a semester, in addition to AP credits and 1-2 summer classes. I graduated in three years, which was bittersweet since college was a ton of fun and it took a while to get over missing that last year. On the other hand... tuition is expensive, and I'm glad to not have that year's worth of debt hanging over me.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
8mo ago
It’s kind of sad yet hilarious that it was somewhat of a plot twist and subversion of the current zeitgeist that the handsome cocky blonde guy was actually a loyal, genre-savvy, and courageous ally to the protagonists all along.
That really stood out to me. I remember hoping he would show up to help at the end and was quite pleased at how it turned out. It was notable because that kind of character is usually made the villain.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Late response, but I didn't save the prompts for any of the monsters, since the prompts were usually just something like: "Generate me a statblock for variant of a kobold for dungeons and dragons 5th edition. It has an ability to place curse debuffs on enemies that debilitate them throughout combat. It should be extremely threatening and a high-priority target."
I wanted that particular enemy to feel occult and threatening. I wanted it to cast nasty debuffs that weren't any existing spell. They didn't need to be fancy, but I didn't want to just fill another monster statblock with existing spells. I had a general idea of what I wanted, but didn't have any ideas that stood out to me for what the debuffs should be.
It gave me a basic kobold that had a few daily use abilities, basically ray attacks that forced a save or the enemy would suffer some serious nastiness for the next few hours. One made them vulnerable to all damage, another gave them disadvantage on anything strength related. The AI even gave it the ability to cast one of them as a reaction to being targeted for an attack, which was very funny. I wound up reducing the effect from several hours to just the end of combat, since the effects were so powerful for such a low-level enemy.
There are the full-on brain upload robot body people, of course. And it’s hard to defend people like Yud who speak of immortality while ignoring their physical health.
But I always saw transhumanism as a broader thing; using medicine or tech to supplement/augment/replace/fix failings of the body. So glasses and walking canes are low-tech examples of it.
I have a high hereditary risk of developing macular degeneration. I do what I can with diet and supplements to minimize the chance of this, but if my eyes start dying in my 40s I’m just SOL. Right now it’s something I have to accept, but there’s no reason that has to always be the case.
Your body breaks down over time, regardless of how well you treat it. Would you accept going blind if you could not go blind? Would you accept a bald crown if you could have a full head of hair?
That’s the essence of it for me.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Link is broken for me. Did you archive the stream after you posted?
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
My favorite character designs overall are in Genealogy and Three Houses. Certain characters in Awakening and Fates, like Robin, Tiki, Selena, Oboro, Niles. The heroes art for most of the Genealogy characters modernized their designs really well, even if it took away from some of that sick 90s artstyle.
After a trailer featuring ghosts as equipment?
Heh. If this is what it takes to get Sigurd in an English release...
Regarding permadeath, if the games are going to put a lot of work into the supporting cast as 3H did, then they should allow for some ludonarrative dissonance and let all of them show up in cutscenes and have a role in the story even if they "died" in battle. It is... frustrating to have characters as important as Seteth, Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain barely do anything in the story. They should just write the story and let the supporting characters have actual roles and show up in cutscenes as if they hadn't died, even if losing them locks you out from using them. Basically, your second guess.
Some of the older games, mainly the Marth titles and Binding Blade, really make the mechanic work. More characters than you could ever use, so you tend to play past mistakes unless you lose someone really important. Few characters have any story to miss, so you don't feel like you're locking yourself out of important content by saving over their death. If the meat of the game is in its supports though, you're always going to be incentivized to reload on a character death, which just feels bad.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Thanks! I've heard the names of some before but often a mention on the motte is a good push to actually give something a read.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
6d ago
I don’t believe it’s been covered here, at least not recently. I’d certainly be interested in hearing about it.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
10mo ago
Everything since MAPPA took over making the show from WIT aka the “Final Season” which has pretty much been 3 seasons of content. Barring a few amazing scenes I really dislike what it did with the characters and themes of the story.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
10mo ago
I finished Divinity 2 this week and quite liked it, though I’m not sure I would rank it among my favorite RPGs yet. I loved the Red Prince though, he was a great companion.
My favorites include New Vegas, Three Houses, VTMB, Mass Effect (ME1>ME3>>>>>ME2).
The Elder Scrolls series is my favorite though, with Skyrim being my favorite game of all time. For all their faults, no RPG really offers what the TES games do. Witcher 3 has reactive storytelling, but in exchange for that you will always play Geralt with a preset story. In Skyrim, if you turn left out of Helgen you can have a whole play through without ever becoming the Dragonborn.
Granted, I mod Skyrim to its absolute limit to fix all my issues with it and revamp the mechanics. Oblivion also needs mods to fix the horrible leveling and item scaling situation. Morrowind ironically is the most playable unmodded, all you really need is a visual overhaul and bugfixes to dig into it.
Attack on Titan, though I wish it had ended at the end of season 3 instead of turning into what it is now. Whenever I show it to someone, I tell them to stop watching before season 4.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I don’t expect it to be easy, or for them to get it right until at least a few decades are out.
I agree with your concerns. Still, a lot can happen between now and then and I’d hate to reject an amazing breakthrough due to our current dysfunctional relationship with capital and our countrymen.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
By offering a legitimate, state-sponsored path we run the risk of turning euthanasia into a goal to be worked toward as described by this recent quality contribution by @VelveteenAmbush. He is talking about gender transitioning but uses this topic as a directly analogous example, and makes a good argument that providing a legitimate path will wind up doing more harm than good.
With women this could be a big problem, as they are more likely to attempt suicide but tend to do so with less lethal methods. If there was an accepted path to suicide that had a 100% success rate once approved, we'd probably see more deaths overall.
I agree that whatever changes we make to a system like this should be carefully tested in a small region. Then again, after seeing how easily studies are manipulated and misrepresented, part of me wants to just put a big "do not cross" line over this particular policy. Once it becomes accepted policy and people are used to it, it's a lot harder to turn back the clock than it is to just keep it taboo.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
I follow some ai artists on Twitter but I’m actually not into hardcore/hentai stuff so I don’t frequent those boards.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
There was a comment on the reveal trailer saying "this looks like it will be either an instant classic or feel like a mobile game" and I couldn't agree more. I'm trying to withhold judgement until I play it, but the character designs do leave something to be desired.
I actually got into the series with Three Houses as well! I downloaded it the day before release in anticipation of a 12-hour car ride and was not bored for a second on that trip. I've been working my way around the series over the last three years. You should give Echoes or Sacred Stones a shot if you liked Three Houses and are interested in playing another. Echoes is fully voiced and has some of the best art direction in the series. The story is simple but the presentation and details make it something special. Sacred Stones has really nice art and animations if you like the GBA pixel art. Great characters, solid map design, and good story.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Depends on the game. The shorter ones you can probably finish in 25 hours or so. Most probably clock in closer to 50-60, and Three Houses can take you 90 if you're being thorough. The newer ones have mechanics that let you rewind turns a limited number of times per map to make up for mistakes. If you're emulating, and you will be for most of the older entries, you can savestate scum to your heart's content.
If you're looking to play one, a safe bet would be emulating Sacred Stones, which is excellent. If you like RPGs, start with Three Houses. If you're big on strategy games and don't mind holding your nose during anything story related, play Fates Conquest.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
1yr ago
Tactile for me is the feeling of taking off wet socks or of sitting by a fire/bundling up in warm clothes and blankets when it's cold inside. Nothing like it.
I don't know if I'm relaxed by scents per se, but specific scents tend to act as memory triggers for me. The pomegranate Burt's Bees chap stick takes me mentally to early college, since that's what I would use a lot back then. I had bought this white tea and sage candle and had it going while I was playing Elden Ring a few months ago, so now that's the Elden Ring scent.
Persona 5 Royal. I played the original game in 2019 and liked it quite a lot. This time around I find the writing much more laughable. The extra scenes and dialogue added by Royal probably don't help, as they bloat the game to its breaking point. So many conversations simply repeat what was just talked about in the last scene, or add absolutely nothing.
The game is also much, much easier. A lot of it comes from quality of life improvements — the game doesn't arbitrarily take as much time from you as in vanilla, so you have more opportunities to max out your social stats. The fusion alarm is straight up broken, though, and makes it trivial to snap the combat over your knee. A few trips to the gallows and your persona is going to be far stronger than anything you ever might fight. I'm having a lot of fun using all the mechanics to craft my optimized team though, so it's not all bad.
I'm nearing the endgame of the vanilla game, which I remember being excellent, with everything in Mementos being particularly haunting. Hopefully it holds up. And I am still coping that the brand new semester will be good, as I've yet to play that before.
That one is brutal. Gig Economy is certainly fun but I'll agree with you that it's not the best word to describe God-Shaped Hole. I had to include it because I think it's his best work. I've seen the never-ending rabbit hole of schizo links and tangents it includes criticized before but I loved them. Some are from actual news articles, some are made up, and you wind up clicking on random links and reading until you don't know what's real, what's fake, or how you got here.
More options
Context Copy link