u/TowerOfSisyphus

What are your thoughts on decoy upgrades? That is -- roguelite pickups that seem like a good idea to newbies but are actually either neutral or even actively detrimental once you know what you're doing?

I'm playing through Hades 2 and realizing that I pick entirely different upgrades now that I'm no longer worried about taking too much damage. I realize the upgrades I'd take in the early game were nearly useless for anything but avoiding damage, and in the late game I'm maximizing the damage I output to an insane degree.

I went through a similar arc with Returnal - once my player progression got to a certain level I stopped trying to avoid death and started figuring out how to deal death more efficiently*.*

On the one hand I kinda like the feeling of realizing that decoy upgrades are decoys. Maybe they're there to show us clearly where we are in our "git gud" journey. It's fun to discover how useful a pickup is after not realizing its usefulness before.

On the other hand I wonder how many pickups in popular games are only there to punish noobs so you can learn the hard way not to use it. How many upgrades do you think are purely decoys as opposed to ones whose usefulness only becomes clear later?

I'd be especially interested to hear from devs about how you think about decoys?

I've been waiting for this one, and now that it's out on PS5 and XBox I have some questions:

- Is it fun solo or just co-op?

- how does it compare with other FPS roguelites?

- what's the buildcrafting like?

- I heard the controller experience is worse than KBM at launch, soon to fix. Anyone confirm or deny?

- other online co-op roguelites you prefer?

It's no secret that Wizard of Legend 2 has generated a lot of extremely bad word of mouth -- probably worse than the actual quality of the game from all I can tell. I am a player who (A) would be very interested in trying it, but (B) isn't motivated to pay $25 on a game that has so much online hate. This is the same price as highly regarded games like Hades 2 which has a much better (and certainly well deserved) reputation for impeccable quality. WoL2 is... not as sure of a bet, let's say.

I actually love the new art style and, from the several videos I've watched of it, I can't see what all the hate is about. I don't mind that it looks more like Hades or Ravenswatch -- that's actually a positive for me. My fear is that the deep gameplay mechanics will feel compromised relative to the original game, or that the gameplay feel will have some serious problems I can't see from online videos.

I've had it wishlisted on Playstation for over a year and it's never gone on sale. Please consider either adding it to PlayStation Plus Extra, offering a demo version, or occasionally making it $10-15 on sale so those of us curious about it will be motivated to give it a try.

From the videos I've seen, it compares favorably to other modern Hades-likes like Lost in Random: The Eternal Die, but still I haven't pulled the trigger because the overwhelming amount of negative reaction to it online has held me back. I think you'd do well by lowering the price and getting it in the hands of more players who can judge it on its own merits.

Unless it really sucks and you don't want anyone to know, of course. In which case keep doing what you're doing....

I just saw [this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/s/nOGlmREgw0) for the Grinch 2 game and had flashbacks to all the terrible movie tie-in games I've ever played. It's an immutable fact of nature that games based on popular children's IP characters and tie-ins to big movie releases almost never can actually stand up as legit games on their own... or can they?

Let's talk about PS5 games based on popular IP characters that are actually legit good games.

Some that come to mind:

- DC Injustice 2

- TMNT Shredder's Revenge

- Jedi Survivor

What else?

Hades 2 came out a couple weeks before Saros on PS5, and Saros was the single event I had been looking forward to most this year after getting platinum in Returnal last year. I impatiently rushed through Saros, got the true ending, and even though it's great, it just didn't have the emotional weight that compelled me to brave Returnal's unforgiving learning curve. Done with Saros, I could've kept going for the platinum but I found I just couldn't wait to get back to playing Hades 2! It's an improvement mechanically in every way over Hades 1, and the new story is compelling in its own way - hard to compare to Hades 1, but also better in some ways. Especially notable is how 2 keeps the unlocks and surprises coming steadily as you progress rather than the irregular rate of progress in 1. It really rewards you for having played 1 first - making some key reveals all the more emotionally powerful. I don't want to give away too much so I'll just say it's yet another 10/10 from Supergiant. Unforgettable.

I had never heard anybody discuss this one in here - learned about it in a post about great games available for Android via F-Droid (the FOSS alt app store). Downloaded and played it and it's a great addictive casual game with excellent roguelite mechanics. Looks like it's available web based as well:

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https://breakout.lecaro.me/#

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It's always fun to find a game with cool roguish fun that's not too demanding on my attention. I like that it stops when you take your finger off the screen - perfect for times when you might have to tune back into reality momentarily. (I'm a parent so this is very helpful).

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I'm not the dev, just a fan spreading the word.

I have so many feeds in my RSS reader that sometimes today's top stories get drowned out by everything else. If you could follow one feed to give you a good overview of the most important stories of the day, which would it be?

I've been interested in this upcoming game Armatus as a potential Returnal-like roguelite *not* from Housemarque. All year the release date they've given is "2026" but I just saw for the first time they're saying "Winter 2026". I'm sure we're all busy and satiated with Saros right now but I thought others would be interested to track this one too. Apologies that it's not strictly a Returnal post. And FWIW I am not affiliated with the dev in any way, just an interested Returnal junkie in search of another fix.

https://www.reddit.com/u/fictionsinc/s/ZEMDDirzxi

We all know that feeling when a roguelike finally clicks. When you go from short runs, frequent deaths, and a hazy understanding of the roguelike mechanics that affect your fortunes -- to where you are fully in control of a monster build that generates its own forward momentum and carries you on to glorious victory.

I had that last night playing co-op Brotato with my 9yo son and his friends and it turned into an ecstatic group event.

My son has shown zero interest in roguelikes despite my obsession, but his friends started playing Brotato at our house. They liked the loop even though they'd invariably die around wave 8. They'd pick whichever upgrades seemed fun but didn't think much about the buildcrafting side of the game.

They started asking me questions and I started coaching them through some of the strategies I've learned, their runs started getting a little longer, they got a little taste of success, maybe dying at wave 10 or 11. Still just mild interest though.

Then we started up a co-op run where the stars aligned, RNGsus blessed us, our character classes synergized, we talked about each upgrade we took and strategized about how it would affect our stats, and the thing just snowballed into this glorious build where we had an absurd number of pets, turrets, trees, fruit, and high level weapons all popping off at once. The hostiles never stood a chance.

The best part about it was that point around wave 8 to 10 when they (we all, really) expected to get overwhelmed and die, surrounded by ever stronger mobs, but instead everyone was amazed and elated to realize that actually WE'VE GOT THIS. Our builds are on point, we're getting the upgrades we need, the mobs that once were scary are melting with ease, our fragile health bars are actually pegged to full, and even the wave 20 boss is no match for our combined might. There was much rejoicing.

TL;DR: I think I made a new generation of roguelike fans last night, or at least some repeat customers for Brotato.

UPDATE: The GitHub page for ArpGun is live! Check it out! https://github.com/trueschool/ArpGun

ChordGun is one of my favorite Renoise plugins and is pretty core to my songwriting process. However, there’s some functionality that I’ve always wished it had, and today I finally took a crack at vibecoding the updates I want into it. I’m still testing it, and I’ve also contacted the author of this plugin pandabot to offer my thanks (again) and ask permission to release mine. Even though it’s released under the MIT license, I’ve never done this before and wanted to show proper respect for the project.

The new plugin, currently titled ArpGun, adds the ability to take the chord notes (usually input on one line in the pattern editor by default) and spread them out over multiple lines to create common arpeggiator patterns like:

• up
• down
• up/down
• down/up
• up/down/up
• down/up/down
• strum up
• strum down
• Dyads (two of the notes in the chord at a time)

You now can also choose the line increments to advance for different rhythms.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 6
• 8
• 12
• 16
• 32
• These make the output notes follow 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, triplets etc depending on your LPB settings. If you select a section of your pattern, it’ll fill that selection area only, otherwise it’ll fill the pattern.

https://preview.redd.it/h23giqfc3r2h1.png?width=690&format=png&auto=webp&s=1aaba1e6135cb65852c10b8394d1ae3471c1f33b

I’d love to hear if anyone would find this new functionality useful or has additional ideas for how to make it more useful. Already in its current state it’s improving my workflow for sketching out chord progressions and arping them quickly and efficiently.

"Power weapon" -- it's so formal, so clinical.

This thing needs a nickname for easier reference. Something with one word, 3 syllables or less, that describes the feeling of using it.

I like "strongarm" or "kablammer" even just "blaster".

Let's put our heads together and find an affectionate nickname for it.

I like the modern IFTTT style interface of Buzzkill but I'm wondering if there's a FOSS alternative with more customizable triggers.

Is anybody creating "corruption builds" where you maintain a level of corruption on purpose over a long period of the game? I understand that corrupted weapons can do multiplied damage if you carry some corruption. It's so easy to avoid taking corruption, to purge it when I get it, and to fill up my health bar with aether and still have high damage from other sources that I haven't needed or wanted to explore any advantages that would come from carrying a load of corruption long term. Even moderate use of the power weapon clears it out AND does devastating damage so it's just turned out not to be the big deal I thought it would be when I started playing.

Are there cool "corruption builds" I'm missing out on? Do you have to use your power weapon less to keep corruption in your system? Anyone using the mods to increase the corruption you take? Anyone get that trophy for taking maximum corruption and living? What are the upsides of doing so?

I am a long time daily "power user" of RSS with hundreds of feeds on a wide variety of topics. My RSS reader is my happy place and a key way I stay ahead in my field and up to date with my various interests. Having a solid and powerful RSS reader is a critical part of my personal and professional life and I'm willing to pay a reasonable fee for a good one.

I know there are LOTS of good RSS readers around (and even more coming every day now that we're all vibecoders 🤪) but I still think the big names - Feedly, Inoreader, Newsblur - are what I'd call "feature complete" readers. These have extensive quality of life features that make them stand out from the many open source, minimalist, and newer RSS readers.

I used Feedly Pro for years, then decided to switch to Inoreader Pro, and recently did a trial on Newsblur. The features I look for include:

- Mobile, Web, and cloud sync

- Algorithmic feed curation to improve reading experience (removing duplicates, prioritizing high interest stories, etc. )

- full article fetching live

- customizable reading modes and layouts

- creating custom outgoing RSS feeds of what I've been reading

- Monitoring different news sources (RSS, Reddit, YouTube, newsletters, custom Web search queries, monitoring changes in non RSS enabled pages, Google News and keyword searches, Fediverse, etc )

- Paid ad-free plans

- No enshittification or crippling of features to force me to pay more

- I could take or leave AI summaries

It's a long list of requirements, but that's kind of my point. These are all things that all three of these readers do really well. I'd really like to try out any other RSS readers that are in this top-tier class of feature completeness.

I just discovered Tessera News today and it seems to tick a lot of my boxes - still evaluating it but it shows a lot of promise. I had been trying SmartRSS but while it's a great young project, it's not yet ready to be my daily driver. Both of these are also very attractive because they are a one-time license fee rather than an ongoing subscription.

Which other full featured readers do you know of that would belong on this list?