u/Night_Thastus

I have a down comforter I use during the winter. While its great, its far too hot in the summer months.

But if I only use a top sheet (percale weave cotton), I cannot fall asleep! I need some physical weight on me or I toss and turn forever.

Years back I got a weighted blanket but it was too much and made it hard to turn when I needed to.

Whats a good alternative to the down comforter? Ideally machine washable. (The comforter kind of gets ruined every time I wash it, permanantally losing fluffiness)

Back in ye olden days, I played Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I've been keeping tabs on Battlefield since then, but haven't gotten back into playing any of the recent games until 6. This is for a variety of reasons - they were often in gaming-related news for being in a pretty poor state at launch - but also due to education and work taking up valuable time. And of course, other shooters like Planetside 2 ended up taking a good chunk of that period. (Though I did briefly play Battlefield 3)

Recently, after hearing BF6 was doing well (and a 50% sale), I thought I'd try it and have clocked up just over 30 hours.

I wanted to share my thoughts on the state of the game. What's working well, what isn't, and where I think some improvement could be made. My opinions are obviously going to be very different than someone with 1k hours in it, but hopefully it'll be interesting to read what someone returning was thinking.

What BF6 does well (to me):

• Performance and technical - While I have a decently beefy system, my GPU is a couple generations old now (3080) and can play on 1440p/high with no DLSS and get a very stable 100+ FPS. I don't think I ever saw serious stutters or frame drops. I never saw crashes, and only one case of server problems. (The one this week) I've also not seen any significant bugs, just one minor cosmetic one to do with gun stats.

• Visuals (at times) - Some visuals in this game are absolutely fantastic. I'm not sure what they're using for things like the trenches and mountain tunnels, but they look gorgeous. There's a lot of detail that makes them pop out in a great way. Maps are overall detailed and nice to look at, with a fairly distinct personality for each.

• Gun building and customization - While there are some pain points (accessories that are too expensive weight-wise, or require too high of a level to unlock, or shouldn't exist on that X gun), I overall like the system. Allowing some accessories to be straight up better than others, but at a higher weight cost, adds some extra math you need to crunch to figure out what you want to use. More customization is always good, to me.

• Progression - Overall I felt the pace was solid. I never felt pressured that I'd need some kind of booster to reach X rank for Y gun or tool, it felt quite fair. I'm somewhere around rank 38 I think (got P90 recently) and I feel it happened in a good amount of time. Challenges are doled out at a decent clip. (Go easy on me if that pace seems slow. I get poo-brain when doing challenges and play like an idiot to achieve them)

• The new drag+revive mechanic. It exposes the medic to risk and allows some fun mind-games between attacker and reviver. I do think it could use improvement - I'm tempted to say it should expand to letting you revive people outside your squad, but then limit it to X times per life. (You get a fixed number of syringes, no resupply)

What I'm personally not a fan of:

• Any class/any gun - I think this is partially to blame for an overabundance of snipers, as now snipers can easily resupply and heal themselves, or give themselves a respawn beacon in favorable spot. It also dilutes the class roles and their personality to me. When you're going up against an Engineer, you don't get a distinct feeling for what they're going to bring to the table. It could be a shotgun, it could be a sniper rifle. Who knows. I think this makes 1v1 matchups less interesting. (But admittedly, I think even more specialization in terms of classes would be needed for my ideal)

• Challenge design and requirements - To me, most of the challenges in BF6 are incredibly boring. They're as simple and straightforward as it gets. While I can complain at times about doing them, to be honest they're all quite short. I want challenges to show a real commitment to a specific playstyle, and then reward that playstyle with something that fits it. They should be genuinely difficult to achieve. As it stands they're kind of bland and mostly easy. (Unless you're impatient, which challenges often make me feel. Fuck the pistol challenges. Doing those before getting the revolver is a PITA. Might as well be using a foam dart gun.)

• Lack of build customization - While you can choose your weapon and a couple gadgets, this is a bit limited to me, coming from other titles. Some of the most fun I've ever had in FPS games has been min-maxing my kit for some stupid nonsense build synergy that's completely off-meta but is weird and tons of fun. This isn't a common Battlefield feature though, just me listing wishes and dreams.

• Match playercount - I think it's too high. There are some game-modes on huge maps where 32x32 is great, but I think it comes with too many downsides overall. Even Rush's 12v12 is a bit high for that mode. Coming from Planetside 2, I know the love and appeal of the big battle dynamics. But honestly, I don't think BF6 pulls it off well. It doesn't feel like a big organized battle, it feels like a dense, chaotic mess - and not in a good way. There's no room for tactics with so many players cramped in the map, with respawns this quick and easy to do near objectives.

• Pace - I think BF6 is a bit too fast-paced. Respawn timers are short, it's easy to respawn near where you died, TTK is fairly low, spotting is strong, etc. It leads to thinks feeling more frantic than thoughtful. I heard some time back they tried raising TTK and it was overall not taken well by the community, so I guess this may be an unpopular take. But overall, it doesn't feel like I can take in the current situation, make a thoughtful decision, and get rewarded. I can make short-term decisions (do I step out from this door? Do I go left or right?) and get rewarded, and those ARE important, but I also like longer-tailed decisions about where to go or what to do. BF6 match state changes way too rapidly to bother. (You could go up X route and try to flank the tank giving your side trouble, but by the time you get there it'll already be dead or suddenly there will be 2 more or whatever.)

What really needs significant work:

• Spotting - I realize this may be very controversial, but I think BF6 really screwed up spotting. It's too easy, there are too many ways to do it, and it lasts too long. Maybe this is just a consequence of having so many players - it isn't a big deal if you're doing 4v4s or even 8v8s - but in 32x32 there are simply too many people looking too many directions - you're constantly spotted. (Even crouching whenever possible and using silencers and subsonic ammo, it's just too easy to be seen). I would personally tighten up the cone for spotting when hitting Q, cut the duration down, and cut down the max range. This combines with the any class/any gun situation to lead to an overabundance and over-effectiveness of snipers, in my view. It's exhausting spawning, moving 10 feet, and then getting shot from yet another sniper. Stealth tactics are effectively impossible, when combined with the next issue.

• A lack of good flanking routes - I'm not sure if it's just me, it could be. But in my experience, every map on Breakthrough and even a good deal on Escalation feel a bit too chokey. There are alternate routes, but they're often broadly visible from the objective, making them significantly less useful. Breakthrough on the attacking side while losing can be especially soul-crushing when you realize there is simply no approach that 1/3 of the enemy team will not see you going down. If you try to move up, you die.

• Distinction of weapon brackets - This is something I think Planetside 2 pulls off effortlessly. While weapons do have ranges of effectiveness (Shotgun < Carbine < Assault < DMR < Sniper) there's too much slop in BF6. I think it adds a lot to feel like you brought the right weapon for the right situation (or, better yet, positioned yourself in the right spot for your weapon class). Shotguns shouldn't be reaching out with #00 buck. Snipers shouldn't be doming people from 10 meters away. This would require some significant reworks to weapon stats as well as attachments, but it could be fixed. Again, I think making matchups more distinct makes them more interesting and memorable.

Conclusion:

Overall, I've enjoyed BF6. I think I've gotten my money's worth at least. I'll likely keep up seasonally, and spend some time leveling up some fun guns. I haven't messed with REDSEC yet (not entirely clear what it is) - just mostly Breakthrough and Escalation.

(No AI was used in this post. Fuck 'AI'.)

It's dogshit. For a launcher where you're limited to lock-on only and AA-only, it sure its terrible at its job.

Locks are constantly broken by the slightest bit of terrain or shrubbery, aircraft and helis can easily dodge or just spam flares that last a LONG time, and even if you hit one it's never enough to kill. By the time you could get a second lock they've broken LOS or repaired.

I'm not saying it should be an I-win button against air, but damn it should be able to do SOMETHING.

Standing out in the open to lock one is also a great way to get sniped, which doesn't help.

I just completed the game with the first ending, Reboot.

But while looking at the achievements I notice there's a third one that looks like it would take an item I do not have.

However...I don't even have a clue how you'd get that ending. I don't see any path towards that. I could be something as simple as 'activate all the radio towers' or something as obscure as 'go to this ONE point on the map you'd have no reason to suspect'.

So I'm looking for a hint, if a hint could lead me to completing the game with the True Ending.

If it's totally impossible to figure out without a walkthrough, just let me know that's the case.

I watched Transformers One and it got me interested in Transformers again - so I just finished up BW and really enjoyed it! The first season was a bit slowgoing, but it got much more interesting in season 2.

I'm generally not a fan of 'the whole universe is at stake' plots, but I think BW did it fairly well - the time travel aspect was interesting.

I also appreciated that it let characters die. I know that sounds weird, but if they can't die then after awhile the fights have no stakes and the action feels hollow. Dinobot's sacrifice and the final bit at the end with his clone is exactly what I mean - a good death can reinforce everything a character was.

It did have some missteps IMO - I'm not sure why Megatron ever tried to get energon given that he had no way to get it off-planet. I also think Blackarachnia turning into a maximal was maybe a bit questionable thematically for her character, but w/e. And the whole 'war bad' plot with Tigertron feels...questionable(?) when one of the sides in the war is literally, objectively evil.

Favorite characters:

• Waspinator
• Rat-trap (though I think he could have had more of an arc, he was always entertaining)
• Dinobot

Not so favorites:

• Tigertron
• Airazor
• Silverbolt

So - all that to say I'm looking for some new stuff to watch. Movies or TV, but animated. Not really interested in live action.

Things I generally like:

• Well-defined characters, especially if they have an arc
• Changing status quo (every episode does not revert to a baseline - I make exceptions for things like ST:TNG which was amazing)
• Worldbuilding (if in a less character-heavy show. Obviously it's hard to do both with limited runtime.)

I've been playing through Crank Incremental. I've got ALL the research done, minus the infinitely repeatable stuff.

I've got all the autoboosts built.

Currently at 6k power, 1k scrap, 110 batteries, 50 crankbots, 20 solar panels, 6 antimatter, 1 Q-comp, only 12 unique scrap left after some upgrades.

I don't really get what I'm supposed to be doing. I can go to other systems but they all seem to play identically, except the solar power %.

There are a couple 'spooky' planets with 0% solar and are apparently totally dead (no hostiles, no traders, no beacons, etc). Am I supposed to be going to one of those?

One of the planets with 173% solar requires 'access codes'. Not sure how I'm supposed to get those.