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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3163 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 20, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Gaming subthread.

Playing a ton of Island Defense on Warcraft 3, a custom game. Having a blast playing custom games on there, the community is still surprisingly active. Been revisiting wintermaul, hero siege, Gem TD, Jungle Troll Tribes, trolls vs elves, tree tag, kodo tag, etc etc. Direct strike is a new game that's fun too. Overall a great experience, totally worth the $30 that I was very skeptical about paying for a game I had already bought 20 years ago.

I arrived at the end of the first batch of main quest content of Arknights Endfield and while I didn't quite reach max level/endgame content yet, I think I can say that the game has been generous enough that I could make the team I wanted without having to pay anything and I'm pretty certain I'll be able to reach endgame content with that team. I did put in a lot of hours. The monetization seems well balanced in that, if I really really want to get a specific 6 star, I probably will be able to accumulate enough banner pulls to do so, but not often. However, it's less balanced in that from what I understand, one wouldn't be able to guarantee one without spending way more money than I can ever imagine spending on a virtual waifu for a game. I think it comes to about 2$ per pull, 80 pulls for a guarantee to get a 6 star that will in 50% of times be the banner one, 120 pulls for guarantee to get the banner 6 star. Maybe it'd work if you only need a bit of a boost to get your guarantee for a specific banner, but I can't imagine paying that much ever.

Not that I'd need to, the game gives you 2 pretty good 6 stars for free (Endmin and Ardelia) and playing the content over the first month I ended up with 4 extra 6 stars on top of the two they give you, and that's not counting that I got at least two duplicates in those. And even then, I could have built a team of 4 and 5 stars, they're not necessarily inferior to 6 stars, they just tend to have less dramatic designs.

The factory gameplay is addictive and creates reasons to log in every day, but I'm looking forward for more stuff to be unlocked in the 2nd region, as the game is hinting at more content for the factory that isn't quite there yet. There's factory-related concepts I've barely started interacting with. Some of the side content is less fun, though thankfully can mostly be ignored for now. The tower defense stuff isn't very well implemented to my taste.

The main gameplay itself is fine, it's a like a more action oriented, simplified MMORPG. What is really next level for this game though are the production values. I don't know how much other games in this genre (single player, action RPG gacha games, like Genshin Impact) made but the company behind Endfield clearly believes they can make a lot of money because this is not a cheap cash grab. Almost everything is voiced, and that's a lot of voiced lines... Like, a LOT. Over I think 4 languages? And it's pretty good voice acting too, I was surprised to hear the people in the 2nd region, which is "china themed" have the very distinctive accent that native chinese speakers who speak good english end up having. Animation are lush and high quality. Graphics are as good as they could be while maintaining the ability to be played on either computer or mobile.

Arknights Endfield

..looks like.. anime Factorio with simplifed MMORPG layer?

More like the other way around, the bulk of the gameplay is the action RPG, so it's simplified anime MMORPG with a Factorio layer. It tries to be an "everything" game with some of the side activities. You get puzzle gameplay (nonogram/picross inspired), market trading, tower defense, relationship management/courting (giving gifts to your waifus)...

If anybody has recommendations for multiplayer cooperative games that can be played in 20 - 40 minute chunks, I'd like to hear them.

Examples include:

  • Helldivers 2
  • Darktide
  • Vermintide
  • Jump space (getting a little long)
  • Phasmaphobia

Bonus points if you can tell me why it's fun.

Space Marine 2?

It's fun, because on the surface it's a power fantasy romp. But underneath it's got excellent mechanics.

This is me and my friend's main go-to.

Some stuff my group has done recently that roughly fits your criteria:

  • PlateUp: Swap back and forth between a light automation/progression game and a flow state. Pretty vulnerable to quarterbacking if that is a problem for your group.
  • Risk of Rain 2: Roguelike shooter, where you are reacting to the relics you get and trying to keep your team members builds in mind for sharing items. Quite a variety of characters with vastly different playstyles and some achievement based unlocks (do a hard weird thing to get a variant of this ability which is roughly balanced). Difficult to get win, so shared sense of accomplishment.
  • Tabletop Simulator: One of our members is really into board games so recently we've played Spirit Island, Sentinels of the Multiverse and Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship. All probably longer than you want.
  • Hammerwatch: Kill monsters, get gold/exp, get cooler abilities, repeat. Class based which encourages cooperation.
  • Divinity Original Sin 2: Play D&D but you don't need a DM. Less reactive than a real DM can be but more competent than many and will put up with more bullshit.

Most of the games my kids like fit your definition but don't really fit your examples. Listing them all anyway, in roughly increasing order of how much I like playing multiplayer games of them:

  • Stardew Valley
  • Minecraft
  • Core Keeper
  • Don't Starve Together
  • Team Fortress 2, Mann vs Machine
  • Project Zomboid
  • Wildermyth

Of course the all-time great is one I haven't introduced my kids to, because it really needs closure and if you play it in 40 minute chunks you'll need like a hundred of them: Baldur's Gate 1+2.

If you're curious about any of those let me know and I'll elaborate.

One of my kids likes playing Peak with her friends, but the rest of us haven't tried it yet.

Deep Rock Galactic. You are a team of dwarves, going on mining missions in procedurally generated caves while fighting off waves of bugs. The missions are reasonable length, the dwarf classes complement each other nicely, and the tone of the game is fun, dark comedy stuff. Definitely worth your time. Rock and stone!

I'm a huge fan. Looking forward to the new one coming out this year.

Action RPG Nioh 3 has just been released at a price of 110 dollars (including future DLC). As a result, its decade-old predecessor Nioh 1 has been discounted to literally 7.5 dollars (including DLC). Buy it!

  • The central mechanic is melee combat with careful stamina management—like Dark Souls 1 and 2, but faster-paced and with a Gears of War–style timed button press to recover stamina more quickly. There are seven melee-weapon types: sword, pair of swords, odachi, spear (actually wielded more like a polearm, with lots of swings), axe, kusarigama, and pair of tonfa. These weapons must be used in conjunction with three different stances: medium (default), high (powerful but bad at blocking and dodging), and low (good at dodging but weak).
  • Ranged weapons (bow, rifle, and hand cannon), ninja skills, and yin-yang magic also are available.
  • There are several sequential difficulty levels (samurai, strong, demon, wise, and nioh). At higher difficulty levels, enemies are stronger and get new moves, and more are included in levels.
  • Enemies include both normal humans (can be staggered with attacks, but can block) and big yokai (cannot be staggered but cannot block), plus small fodder yokai (can be staggered and cannot block).

Even after 700 hours in this game, I'm only okay at it (any boss fight with multiple big yokai always takes me a while to beat; the one with a raven tengu and a flying bolt deserves special mention), but it's great fun. I personally use the odachi most of the time, with some consideration given to the spear.

I played Nioh back in the day when it first came out, the 2nd Soulslike I've played after Bloodborne. Definitely a steal at that price, though I didn't get 700 or even 70 hours out of it. I only beat it once, probably because I hated the RNG loot system (which I hate in every game). The 3-stance combat system felt really complicated at first, especially coming from Bloodborne, but it took very little time for it to feel intuitive for me. I think it reflects Team Ninja's experience in making intuitive fluid combat in Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden games.

Also, like Assassin's Creed Shadows, it features a gaijin samurai protagonist, but it caused no controversy back then, partly because of the times, partly because Tecmo is a Japanese company, and partly because the character wasn't obviously a pawn for waging the culture war.

Isn't Sekiro the closer match? In any case, thanks for the rec, I considered getting Nioh anyway, though it's unlikely I'll find much time playing it soon.

Isn't Sekiro the closer match?

Sekiro is focused on timed parries. Nioh 1 has some parry skills (and IIRC Nioh 2 adds more such skills), but is much more focused on dodging and blocking. I don't use parry skills at all, but it's my understanding that they don't work on big yokai.

I think I got about 20 hours out of MENACE before burning out. It's a good game, but I'm going to wait till more substantial updates or large mods come out before trying a new run.

Right now:

  • The AI collapses when you get effective scouting units with high damage weapons: the AI always knows your sightlines, even for units in stealth, and are desperate to not get shot even when the sensible thing to do would be to bumrush the most likely origin of suppressed fire

  • The actual Menace enemies are remarkably unfun. Super-tanky and hit super hard. I had to cheese a mission by deploying smoke (which is OP) on all my units to survive till the countdown ended, otherwise we'd have been slaughtered with no recourse.

  • I discovered that the medium mech with two linked autocannons trivializes engagements with anything smaller than a heavy tank (except for the Menace)

  • Many weapons, particularly deployable weapons, are poorly tuned or not as effective as they should be.

  • The map gen needs work. If you've seen 5 maps, you've seen them all. The world needs more terrain diversity, choke point battles, rivers, cliffs, any kind of elevation really.

  • The ship upgrade/OCI system is half-baked. We need a lot more slots to play with and we also need more of the options we have to be buffed, alongside the addition of new ones.

Still a good game and I enjoyed a good helping of it both in demo and EA, but I'm going to need those mods or a lot more content to keep me going.

Applying modern tabletop wargaming to an xcomlike is such a good concept that it outruns its supply lines. There’s just not enough content to explore the whole idea. I want air support and field engineers and Foxhole levels of bespoke armor variants. I want faction cooperation that goes beyond the stuff you bolt on your ship. I want the Menace not to show their whole hand in their first mission, and I want their campaign presence to add the kind of decision-making you get from leaving countries to burn in XCOM. It’s not there yet, and that’s a shame, but I still had a lot of fun with my one campaign.

I found Menace underwhelming. Yes it can maul you but it lacks real heavy hitters.

Best, most fun battle I had was a meeting engagement over a strongpoint against Rogue Army. Had the guys had 2 scouts instead of one I'd have lost that one. Won it on like 7th reload I think. Very Rorke's drift, very fun!

Rogue Army was by far my favorite faction to fight. The bugs drop lots of resources but no actual gear (and need work), the pirates are fun but their loot is trash barring maybe the laser lance and commando armor.

RA though? When our favorite African Warlord Who Definitely Isn't Sseth tells you to that upside to fighting them is getting gear to replace the embarrassment we call our armory: he's goddamn right. They were fun to fight, until I outranged, out-scouted and outgunned them.

Right now, I'm going to grab a bunch of rebalance mods as well as a mod that fixes AI sight lines and cowardice, plus one that adds the TCR as an enemy faction.

Wait, there are mods already?

Indeed. Mostly on the Nexus.

I completed XCOM 2: War of the Chosen on Commander difficulty, and almost immediately began trying to beat the base game on Commander difficulty with Ironman enabled. Much like playing the first game with these settings, it takes awhile to get out of the "one of my soldiers was killed, I'll just reload and try again" headspace. Generally the first few missions will be fairly smooth sailing, then I'll hit a wall and all my soldiers will get killed; rinse and repeat. Wish me luck.

So.. Menace.

Very enjoyable and fun neat little game with a great gaming loop. EA. People seem to hate the idea of it getting a multiplayer and I can't understand why.

Given the bite-sized nature of the battles, it could make for a very fun MMO strategy/tactics game where each player per side fights several battles per evening, meaning the game cannot be, by design, hogged by the 16x7 no-lifer types.

Well, I won't be discussing the delightful little game here anymore as I got permabanned over thoughtlessly using a metaphor too spicy.

:-(

I hate it. Goodbye, I guess, and I hope Amadan gets a particularly insecticide resistant bedbug infestation.

I thought I'd wait until 1.0 but I've now started on it anyway.

I went straight for an ironman run despite understanding nothing about the game. I finished my first mission on a desert planet where I was supposed to protect civilians against extortion from pirates or something. I lost an entire squad of sassy black men to a sudden flamethrower attack that wiped them out in one action. I couldn't figure out how to stabilize or revive them. :( At least I saved 80+ % of the civvies.

Oh, yeah. My first run I skipped the tutorial and didn’t realize that SLs were either vehicle or infantry, no overlap. I picked 4 inf. Got butchered in the first mission, and thought “this is tough but it’ll be worth it when I find an APC or two.” Oof.

I went for challengin/ironman for my second playthrough and my squaddie pool dropped to 12 before I figured out the correct way to play the game is to use boarding commando suits or equiv protection and special weapons only, the bigger the better.

Armor is very situational in Menace. It's dramatically overpriced, a squad decked up in armor you can rely on to tank bullets will:

  • Be as expensive as fully armed vehicle

  • Often get pinned under suppression even if the bullets do no damage

It's not impossible to make it work, but it's a noob trap by default. You're better off investing in never getting spotted or hit in the first place. Get the scouting perk on a few SLs (Darby or Kody are great for this), give them camo and optionally suppressed guns, and they can wipe the floor with most enemies or at least give you advance warning.

The one other place where armor can make some sense is in a tiny support squad. I usually have Pike with 2 men and a heavy gun (usually redundant), the armor is cheap enough when you don't use it on a full squad, and it protects against fuck ups. Pike hugs the backline to buff the heavy hitters with AP.

Well, I had 12 guys plus my SLs so you can see why I went for the whole 'heavy armor only' thing.

What's the idea with smaller or bigger squads? I had extra supply so I just made the infantry squads all 8.

I restarted my campaign and finished two missions with no losses this time. My vehicle is getting like 80% of the kills.

Bigger is better, in general. But you're constrained by supply costs. The price of equipping a squad with weapons and armor is multiplied by the number of members. If you don't have fancy gear, then a full squad can be very cheap.

You need to keep in mind that if you equip a squad with a special weapon (MG, sniper, rocket launchers etc), then you have to choose between firing their primary weapons and using the special weapon. In addition, the SL will always carry that special weapon, which means one less rifleman.

If the purpose of a squad is to mostly fire an MG or shoot rockets, then all the extra weapons, armor and even the extra squad members is redundant. A squad with 3 dudes and an MG, using said MG, has the same firepower as a full squad of 9 that's also relying on the MG.

It sounds like you're in the early game, and probably playing on the normal difficulty level. You probably don't have the fun toys that cost $$ to equip. Later in the campaign, or on the higher difficulties, you'll have tough choices. Early on, the APC will carry you, since your infantry has dogshit carbines. Especially against the more heavily armored foes. However, when you encounter enemy AT, you'll need to be more conservative and rely on infantry to a greater extent.

What I usually run early game:

  • APC with an MMG or HMG
  • 3 squads of infantry. One of them the max size, the others usually cut down to 5 or 6 men.

Middle game:

  • APC with an autocannon/laser lance
  • 2 decked out infantry squads that mainly shoot their rifles. Note that they don't have very good armor, because that's cost ineffective. Just enough to get by.
  • 2 partial squads that have a special weapon. 3-4 guys, decent armor for survivability.

Late game:

  • A mech
  • An APC/IFV
  • As many infantry squads as points allow. Could be 3-5.

You will absolutely want a dedicated scout like Darby. She's worth every penny, and one you unlock the Crocodile AMR, she's a murder machine. You'll probably want a dedicated pushing infantry squad that relies primarily on rifles to fight other infantry. But beyond that, combined arms is the name of the game and there is plenty of scope for build diversity.

Don't worry too much, you can make a lot of tactics work. One of the reasons I'm bullish on the game, especially with more content and a few balance tweaks.

Thanks for the info!

Yup I'm playing on normal and without ironman this time, and I'm still struggling with part 3 of the xenophobic mission. I need to contaminate the breeding pools, and my vehicle can't do it. Shooting them was not the solution, I found out. The damn driver can't even spend a full turn or something on getting out and doing the action. Kinda bs. The 12 turn time limit seems pretty brutal given the number of enemies close to the pools. I've tried the mission twice and given up, although I could probably have finished with a partial success.

I'm considering bringing a small squad with the rocket launcher as that seems to be effective against the big, dark heavily armored alien, assuming the rocket hits. Maybe a flamethrower to deal with the groups of small soft aliens. I had ~265 credits to spend.

Btw will the scout ability function while the SL whos' got it is inside a vehicle?

I need to contaminate the breeding pools, and my vehicle can't do it. Shooting them was not the solution, I found out.

Heh. I did the exact same thing, turns out that lead poisoning isn't quite the right kind of contamination.

The 12 turn time limit seems pretty brutal given the number of enemies close to the pools. I've tried the mission twice and given up, although I could probably have finished with a partial success.

I strongly advise giving up on perfectionism. Even with perfectly optimal, meta play, getting a full 5 stars is a crapshoot on any difficulty. I reliably get 4 stars 85% of the time, and that's entirely fine.

The 12 turn timer is, as far as I recall, a secondary objective. You can take your time. There are less finicky missions out there.

I'm considering bringing a small squad with the rocket launcher as that seems to be effective against the big, dark heavily armored alien, assuming the rocket hits. Maybe a flamethrower to deal with the groups of small soft aliens. I had ~265 credits to spend.

If you strictly need them only for the special weapon, then you can get away with the bare minimum squad size.

Do you intend for them to hoof it on foot? Which RPG are you using?

I ask because if you have them riding inside the APC, it's expensive in terms of AP to have them disembark and shoot. Most rockets need the squad to deploy first, which unfortunately ends up with not quite enough AP to fire after disembarking.

Except: Lim.

His Mobile Infantry perk is goated. He can jump out of an battle taxi and shoot twice with normal weapons, at least once with most specials. You don't even need to give him any armor, because if you play things right, he'll never end a turn outside the vic. Highly highly recommend you try that.

If I had to choose, I'd say use any AT over the flamethrower. The bugs will hard counter you, especially the Alien Warriors or the Queen, if you lack it. I never used the flamethrower, I got by just fine shooting the smaller bugs with rifles or the MMG/HMG on the APC.

265 credits will work just fine, especially for a minimal AT squad. If you don't have Lim, get them to dismount early and shadow the vic.

Btw will the scout ability function while the SL whos' got it is inside a vehicle?

I don't believe so. But you can still have the squad jump out, gain vision, and jump back in. This works best with Lim, but literally all the infantry SLs can do it.

Until very late in the game, scouting is invaluable, especially if you rely on vehicles. An unexpected RPG or other AT weapon can fuck up the APC beyond repair, or destroy it outright.

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