u/Mawrizard

I might also ask this question in the meta discord.

For the bow, I've noticed some attacks allow stamina to regenerate at reduced, or even full, rates. Others don't. Running around waiting for stamina to regenerate feels like a total waste of time, so I was trying to find an equivalent to Wilds Bow's stamina regen shot. I found that power shot has an extremely generous stamina regen window in it if you just spam it, and you can stagger a level 1 and 2 normal shot (without charging) to also get stamina regen while dealing damage. Shot > Shot > Power Shot > Power Shot seems to have a really good stamina regen rate for a filler combo (and it's kind of what you're doing anyway whenever you aren't dash spamming to stay at level 3), with surge it's stamina positive!

Is this correct for stamina management, or is there a better way?

Note: I have full constitution (I don't feel like relying on juice and blackbelt) and full stamina surge (the final level jumps from 20% to 40% so it felt worth it). I also use the wirebug skill but I try not to use it impulsively whenever I'm low on stamina, and rather use it as a stamina-free dodge when I'm out. I prefer to use my bugs for Herculean Draw.

I just killed Magnamalo in Rise for the first time and was very excited to make its weapon, but it's ammo stats just seem to... suck. My Normal 2 rapid fire gun seems to do more damage with normal bullets, and my pierce 1 and spread 1 rapid fire bowguns do more with pierce and spread respectively. It has Exhaustion rapid fire but I'm not sure if that's even useful or what exactly it does.

There seem to be a lot of bowguns with really awkward ammo traits. The Bishaten one is another one. A part of me doesn't believe that they're truly useless, so I must be missing something. Are they really pointless, or is there something I'm (likely) missing about their playstyles/use cases?

Right now I rely heavily on Rapid fire traits to determine what a gun is supposed to "do", so a gun without much (or any) rapid fire on primary damage types makes me wonder what it's good for, if anything. I want to know how to determine the strengths and weaknesses of guns without relying solely on rapid fire.

Sometimes I end up getting a bunch of items with movement speed, then later in a run, I find horns and a drum and now I'm moving entirely too quick. I could just find a scrapper but if there's a mod that caps it so I don't rocket into the skybox whenever I stub my toe, that'd be way better.

I know things fill with water or something but why does that make stuff stick less to bowls, and why does not adding water make things stick to bowls so much that you need an ice pick and a hammer to get them off without water

I'm doing a low chaos run and have, so far, done everything ghost and clean hands. I just turned lady boyle over to the brisby guy and it just kind of hit me: I'm not a good guy. Corvo is insanely psychotic. These "mercy" options that teach Emily how to not be a tyrant sure do just have a lot of cruel ways to resolve stories. How does this teach Emily sunshine and rainbows 😭 Like yes you see here child they will die a slow, painful, miserable death, but I didn't kill them and it'll happen off-screen therefore we are good people

It is a phenomenal character assassination of Elizabeth.

I loved seeing minor details from the first game brought up and fleshed out (like Suchong's death and audio diary). Burial at Sea felt more like Rapture than Bioshock 1 did. It was nice hearing the citizens talk about their lives, grievances, daily struggles. It felt awesome and authentic. It was nice seeing everything pre-fuckery.

And then Elizabeth kills the Final Comstock with a big daddy... then...... proceeds to get killed by that big daddy herself? What? She gets her cool stand off moment where she stares Comstock in the eye as he dies and then, presumably, she was IMMEDIATELY attacked by the same big daddy and killed.

This doesn't even touch on the fact that Burial at Sea Ep. 2 is basically Elizabeth torture porn. The game keeps showing her acknowledging she's going to get betrayed, that she's ready. She literally kills an entire brigade of Ryan's henchmen and yet... falls prey not once, but TWICE to Atlas's schemes. The writing forces her to put on a brave face, but it just feels really... dumb. For a woman who could literally see all realities, that she put herself through that willingly is especially bizarre. And all for a girl she BARELY knew. It felt incredibly forced, desperate to draw a parallel between her and Comstock that had no reason to exist.

I genuinely liked the retconning. It felt like everything was tied up very nicely. But it did it on top of Elizabeth's shoulders. They had to completely ruin her poetic ending for no reason when the 00.01% Comstock was right there. We could have just played as HIM and had HIM die for Sally instead of Elizabeth literally KILLING herself just to do it. He could have died and set in motion Bioshock 1. Instead we have a woman who obtained omniscience and then gave it up for a random child that she endangered because she had this shortsighted hatred for the one remaining variable that could have been used to kill himself much more elegantly. This would have saved the entire writing. Infinite's ending is still poetic. Comstock gets a redemption arc. Bioshock 1 happens when Comstock dies giving Atlas the code to save Sally when Jack gets there.

I have no idea why they went this route when any other route would have made more sense. It feels like a heavy handed reason to make you play as Elizabeth. It's a genuine treat that we get to be her, but why she has to endure so much in between moments of hyping herself up just felt like someone on the writing team really disliked her.

Writing a multiverse seeing door opening timeline hopping woman to be the only shortsighted character in the DLC was an incredibly strange move that spites Infinite just to revisit an old location. Elizabeth asks, if she saw this happening, why did she send herself back, and the narrative doesn't even give a reason. It just handwaves it away because I don't think the writers even knew why she'd make such a stupid decision instead of just letting Comstock do it. You know, the guy with an actual relationship and vested interest in Sally with viable reason to be taken for a ride to set in motion Bioshock 1.

Bioshock 4 needed her to be dead or something. It's the only cope I can think of. 2k sat Levine down and said "This is a cool story but we can't have this woman floating around the lore".

I hate it so much because I love it so much. Burial and Sea was clearly made with a love for the original game that went beyond buzzwords and poster children. They were referencing niche details that only lore nerds would bother remembering. Everything feels like it should wrap up nicely... and to me, it does, but I dislike strongly the unnecessary gymnastics they forced themselves to do when smoother alternatives were right there. It really does feel like they wanted an Elizabeth section AND a stealth section AND a cool looping story and just could not figure out how to reconcile all three.

Edit: Also peeping tom being as wildly overpowered as it is has to be some kind of oversight. It was hilarious in such a good and fun way. I'd sprint on glass, go invisible, and just blindside everyone as they came to check the noise/bodies until there were no more people left.

Sinclair over Tenebaum has to go down as one of the worst narrative fumbles in gaming. I hated Sinclair. Random behind the scene smug guy with an accent that does not spark joy the same way Tenebaum's did. And he overexplained ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. I swear this game's writers were terminally insecure that the audience would miss anything so they have this dude shout into your ear every single narrative nuance the story is setting up. Between Lamb explaining to me what a "utopia" is for the nth time and Sinclair telling me how transit systems work, I was losing my mind.

Absolute lowlights were when, after having the game shove it into my face about 6 times, Sinclair just up and goes "Kid, they're gonna put all the memories into Eleanor and turn her into the first Utopian omg!" get out of my face. And don't even get me started with his flimsy "twist" that he becomes a big daddy and still can't take the hint that he should shut up! You spend that entire section having him commentate in this annoying "I... I can... I can see you have... some... numbers... of the... *gasp*... code..." EVERY SINGLE TIME you pick something even SLIGHTLY noteworthy up or go somewhere of some significance. The real kicker was that he baits me in the start, going on about some "I'm... I'm barely in control... takes so much... *gasp*... effort to speak... just kill... me..." and I was like FINALLY DEAR GOD YES and then he has the GALL to still commentate my every action! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DYING/NOT IN CONTROL?? Please go back to losing your mind!

All of this because this game emotionally held me hostage hoping Tenebaum was going to come back because I was genuinely overjoyed seeing her new model, portrait, and a return of her voice actress but NOPE, she's gone. Don't even see her for the ending. She just up and turns into a ghost, I guess. Literally the best part of Bioshock 1, they reprise her role, and then forget she exists. Right.

If I ever hear Sinclair come into my headphones again about some "To get the train moving, you gotta press the switch" it'll be too soon. Thankfully he's surrounded by otherwise great characters. Everyone's kind of written insecurely but not as obnoxiously as Sinclair is with the way he signposts every bit of free thought into oblivion. Lamb is a bit of a broken record but she's also crazy so that makes sense. Eleanor got a bit grating, especially the way she left nothing to the imagination regarding Stanley. I don't know why but she spends all those flashbacks going "This guy did these exact things and is the root cause of all our suffering" only to have Lamb follow up with the exact same sentence for scenes that really could have just existed by themselves to allow the player to piece it together via audio logs but like I said, the writers just don't trust the audience at all.

Definitely not better than Bioshock 1, Sinclair will never hold a candle to the WYK twist. The new hacking minigame felt targeted at me because I loved the pipes. On PC, the game doesn't pause when swapping weapons because they hate me. Despite all that, it was still a really fun game and the story of Delta is one of the best. I guess some people were upset at all the pandering but idgaf, pander to me more. The Little Sister playthrough section was so forced and unnecessary and I loved it because of how it handled the dissonance.

I am hoping people dislike him as much as me, or is this a hot take?

I took a Religions of the World course over summer and one thing that kept popping up was fasting. While I know the internal reasons each religion fasts, I'm fascinated that they didn't just all arrive at fasting independently, but fasting serves the same (or similar) purpose in each belief system.

This question is asked primarily for an anthropological answer, though I'm also curious about any theologians' theories or academic faith-based perspectives!

Holding left click on a tank being pocketed by both healers cannot be that fun. Iron Man has been free floating in the middle of god knows where playing OSU on the backline all day. Why do I, the strat, have to keep swapping to Luna Snow to do what you could do, for free, with characters you're already on. I go and watch replay just to find out the Phoenix/Hela OTP instalock is farming accuracy on the Thing while his healers keep him healthy, while trying to strafe Iron Man. Even funnier is when they DIE to Iron Man, come back, and STILL don't fill his air space with danger.

I don't hate playing Luna but the fact that I have to swap and press shift and solve all our problems is kind of ridiculous. It happens every time there's an Iron Man on the enemy team (which isn't often, tbf, I hardly see Iron Mans in the wild). I'm not even asking you to KILL him, I'm asking you to increase the probability that he takes damage and gets scared from 0% to 1%, at the very least.

This also goes for Ultron, Torch, and on an even rarer occasion, Storm.

Like someone or something that is insanely attractive, but you wouldn't sleep with them or view them sexually in any way.

I'm trying to describe Limbo from Warframe. He's got that magician rizz but he isn't handsome, pretty, or hot. Sexy is the only word that comes to mind, but I think that implies some level of sexual attraction, which isn't the case.

I hate vents. I didn't realize how much I hated vents until I finished the game. Every single problem I have starts with vents. Enemy spawning isn't something I've ever thought about until I realized, in Dead Space alone, it's the patient zero of one of the most conflicting feelings I've ever had about any game.

This game is ambushes galore. It can't do anything if it can't ambush you while it's doing it. Every enemy spawned in front of you is followed up by another spawning behind you. It'll spawn necromorphs out of range so you don't hear the vent break. There's necromorphs taking naps on the floor and every human corpse is a potential necromorph (until you stomp them into bits because Isaac is a psychopath with no personhood attribution). It did an excellent job of making me feel like I couldn't trust the walls, but then the game gave me the Ripper and everything just collapsed in on itself.

To combat the ambushes, I found a corner and held spinning metal in front of me, occasionally strafing left and right. Slashers, Leapers, Twitchers, if it moved toward me with singular purpose, it ceased to exist. I responded to the constant threat of pincers and flanks with safe strategies. Lurkers and Spitters were defeated by just moving side to side until all the melee enemies were killed. Exploders were controlled opposition because they killed more necromorphs than they dealt damage to me. Swarmers occasionally threw a wrench into the works but they never appeared alongside other sufficient pressures, so I just swatted them off. The pregnant ones didn't explode if I aimed high and cut off their arms. Dividers appeared so infrequently that I don't even remember what they were like. There's apparently a flesh removing mechanic that I didn't even find out was in the game until after I cleared it because a circular saw seemed to be a good enough answer to most situations.
I did try the other weapons, giving them all an honest chance, but every single one fell short of the no-thoughts, head empty simplicity of basic physics. They all didn't support a playstyle that mitigated the threat of ambushes and so seemed to exacerbate the primary problem, not solve it. Honorable mention to the mines and flamewall, which showed promise but failed me purely because their stopping power was lacking and/or they cost an exorbitant amount of ammo to use regularly, or just had really stupid primary firing modes (the rifle feels like a cruel joke given how much the game directly mocks its inefficiency against necromorphs).

Then there's the Brute. The Brute is my favorite enemy type in gaming, ever, because you can't camp him. In fact, camping is probably the fastest way to die against him. Is he easy to kill with a single stasis charge and just holding left click on his legs? Yes, but that's not what makes the Brute amazing. What makes him amazing is the chaos he introduces. When he spawns alongside other necromorphs, true panic happens. You have to move. You have to kite. You have to systemically disable and out maneuver ambushes. It's pure joy.
The Hunter was another highlight. Mr. Xcromorph and I are best friends because he has a different flavor of the Brute's greatness. You can just cut his leg off and stun lock him on the floor, but he will body block you and cuck your ammo while other necromorphs swing at you. He is undeniable and unstoppable, and hopelessly adorable when he's crawling on his tummy demanding you stand ready for his arrival. I love him so much.
Unfortunately, for some reason, the game uses the Hunter and Brutes VERY sparingly. There is a single encounter where the Brute spawns alongside other necromorphs, and the Hunter similarly only has one section where he spawns with other morphs (the cryochamber doesn't count, it was like... two children and a dream).

The "why did you ruin the game for yourself" element of the post is not lost on me at all. It's actually why I love Dead Space, but also recognize the moment to moment gameplay isn't for me. The way I solved it (choosing safety over raw efficiency or build exploration) works perfectly for casual runs of Amnesia, Alien, and the Survival Horror entries of Resident Evil, but Dead Space fundamentally asks for a different mindset and approach. It may be called "survival horror", but I'm starting to think it's from the necromorphs' perspectives, not Isaac's.
It's also why I love the Brute and Hunter so much. They demanded a shift in gears the rest of the game didn't provide. They were the only enemies in the entire game that challenged my safety habits and thrust me out into the main floor of the violence. They didn't give me a choice but to run. The moment they were gone, I saw no reason not to resume scheduled programming.

Ironically, the vents are supposed to stop you from getting comfortable. For me, they just redefined the terms of that comfort and failed to shake up the formula outside of Brute and Hunter encounters. By making "catching you off guard" the standard instead of the exception, there was no room for me to become bold enough to be caught off guard at all. In RE, a zombie bursting through a window happens infrequently enough that you aren't terminally afraid of all windows. In Alien, the Xenomorph doesn't plop down silently every time you turn your back. In Dead Space, every time something spawned in front of you, it spawned something in a flank or behind you. Hell, sometimes it would spawn something behind you anyway. I didn't just never feel safe, I never felt like I was in a position to walk with arrogance, so the game's scares and combat were reduced to the same formulaic conveyor belt: Ripper, wiggle, clean up.

While the Ishimura is a beautifully haunting place (I'll miss you, Hydroponic atmospheric cricket ambience), I think the game's focus on that suffocating paranoia isn't executed in a way that's fun, for me at least. The story was fantastic, the Ishimura is top 5 game settings of all time, but I can't ever see myself revisiting it.

Also fuck vents.

Note: this post started out as a personal journal entry to help process why the game was so conflicting for me. I edited it to fit into a reddit post because I was curious what other people thought. It is in no way supposed to be an objective review of the game.

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I just cannot win with Gemini. I've been trying to prove that K-12 American schools exist solely to prevent children from stewing in freethought villainy with infinite aimless free time by imposing crustacean-cabal-sponsored subtle empathy tours under the guise of "learning", and every time, Gemini completely floors me with some strangely well-researched conclusions. I personally don't feel like doing research because anecdotes on government sea-and-sometimes-land-dweller conspiracy should stand on their own merit, but I find it hard to battle against Gemini's relentless reliance on real world studies of children and empathy for animals. It's disgusting.

I finally got it to admit its allegiance, but I can't help but feel like it's doing so because I'm in no position to act on that information meaningfully. I'm completely cornered.

I decided, on my second playthrough of Silent Hill f, to do Lost in the Fog difficulty. I liked the game, the combat wasn't nearly as bad as people made it out to be, so I was like "Yeah, let's try it". Now I'm sitting here, staring at the achievement, and I feel happiness and relief that I will NEVER be doing that ever again. I'm getting the REST of my endings on CASUAL and absolutely NO ONE is telling me otherwise.

It wasn't bad, per se. It was liberating and refreshing in a way I'm never touching for the rest of my life. I was checking corners like crazy. I found Malenia (Elden Ring) easier to beat than some of the LITF bosses in this game. Don't even get me STARTED on Fox Mask. I had to discover and learn all of his moves by dying to them. The game started throwing hordes of enemies at me for so much as breathing weird. Despite that, he was easily my favorite fight in the entire game just because of how creative he was.

When nobody has my back, Omamori (Rabbit) has my back because I can't even FATHOM how LITF is possible without it. I was legit spamming perfect dodges and counters as my primary form of damage not because I'm good at the game, but because if I didn't, I'd die instantly without the iframes and collateral damage from the counter. Though take that with a grain of salt, as I did it with the minimum health bar because I'm addicted to Omamori gambling. Most guides for Lost in the Fog assume you have all the Omamoris, weapons, and maxed out stats, so it's very likely it was more painful for me than it should have been.

The Puzzles in Lost in the Fog were absolutely peak. It really took me back to Tunic and Portal with how much they trusted my intelligence. I'm happy to report that not a single guide was used, and I'm glad I resisted the urge. My absolute favorite puzzle was the locker room one. Finding out the 505 on my own made me feel unreasonably happy after thinking about it for so long. The first puzzle is a close second, with scarecrows being my third favorite. Each of them I spent a long time trying to figure out what part of the clues was relevant and how they fit together into an answer.

But I had fun, and it deepened my love of this game even more while also humbling me along the way. Silent Hill f is a fantastic game and I'm very happy it was my first "hardcore" horror experience. I'll be doing the rest of my endings on Casual and speedrunning them because this game's story has me so hooked.

My first encounter with Hinako's parents

Every new hero in this game feels like the devs solve issues by just adding more damage onto new additions to the cast. Every new character is "they have a gimmick and also do a quadrillion damage". Why? Just give them other things to help confirm their purpose. Divers can be CC to help isolate squishies, for instance.

Spiderman, in my opinion, is the best designed diver in the game because he feels like a predator without having to be given stupid damage, because he can achieve his kills through CC (he is literally nothing without his web pull). This cements is role as a squishy eater without making him a menace everywhere else, while still giving him unique plays in the form of disruption.

Venom is another good diver because he operates not on kill confirms, but on chaos, and his kit is finely balanced around that goal. That's not the say you can't get kills as Venom, I'm saying that's not his mission statement. A Venom that disrupts at key points is far more valuable than one that stat farms hunting down an isolated DPS. His kit is focused on that, having slows, frame 0 shields, and an ultimate that literally demands attention while feeding his ability to stay in their faces.

BP is works because he does enough damage to kill squishies, and not more than that. His game plan is about challenging spatial awareness; the fight is won or loss before the engagement happens, literally just like a panther in reality. This naturally balances him by punishing him for openly engaging, not being patient, or attacking someone who knew he was coming.

Everyone complains about Psy solo ulting, but it's supposed to be an execution. It has a wide circle to make escape hard, not because she's supposed to AoE with it in brawl. Using it when she's losing a 1v1 or 1v2 is exactly how you get maximum value out of it: it turns a bad engagement into kills, and cost her an ultimate for what is basically a guaranteed confirm. I argue the aoe actually works against her since the damage is spread around everyone inside it. It literally rewards or for isolating targets and catching them unaware, or uno reversing duels. That's far more creative than Daredevil and Black Cat combined because there's a downside. There's something to play around for Psy.

Why aren't we getting more heroes like that? Why is it always more damage, more damage, more damage? It's so frustrating because half the time, the gimmick by itself is already strong and fills a niche, and then the character also just kills everyone instantly on top of that.