u/lawanddisorder

[Rant] I'm so tired of telling people this in the middle of Escalation and having them ignore me and continue to toss spit balls at enemies for the entire run!

There is a global modifier in Escalation called "Variety Pack." The modifier icon is a red jester that you can see in your HUD and your teammates can see over your head.

The modifier is that each time you kill an enemy with an equipped weapon after the first two kills, you gain a stacking -10% penalty to weapon damage up to a maximum of -50%. That means when the Variety Pack status bar is full, you are doing -50% total weapon damage.

You clear the modifier by equipping another weapon (weapon #2 or sidearm, or something else in your current inventory) and getting a kill. That resets the modifier and you are back to doing 100% damage with your first weapon but the cycle starts again--2 kills and then the penalty begins to stack.

Everyone needs to be switching weapons up in Escalations.

I didn't invent the modifier, I'm just the reporter so don't take this out on me.

Don't even get me started on the players in Escalation who ignore the Enemy Mutators and don't focus on the enemy with the "One For All" icon who is giving 40% damage resistance to all enemies within 20 meters.

The rules are right there at the Escalation station at the Base of Operations. Please read them.

Edited to clarify damage type modifier penalizes.

"The Trump administration’s findings that three Ivy League schools violated civil rights law by tolerating antisemitism were predetermined by political priorities that blew past the evidence and cast aside standard investigative procedures, according to a whistleblower account provided to Congress."

I'm running the NYC Dust Storm event. I'm not calling for backup and I'm not matchmaking. But suddenly, I'm automatically in a group. Then 30 seconds later, I'm promoted to group leader.

I'm not confirming anything, it's just happening. This is a brand new thing and I haven't changed any settings.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Update: Group Settings was somehow set to "open group." I didn't even know that tab existed, so I sure didn't set it myself. Weird. Anyway, thanks u/Zoreany. That fixed it.

Toddler was in her own home. Difficult to imagine how this could happen but all pool owners should take a moment to consider how they can further child-proof their pools.

If you have an alarm system, turning it on during the day and setting it to be triggered only when a window or door is opened is a good first step.

Please help! My office is experimenting with doing something called "Summer Friday Office Casual" (it's apparently a sop to all the Gen Z's who don't think they should be in the office at all, ever) starting this week.

I'm already wearing chinos or linen pants with polos or short sleeve button downs and sockless loafers or leather sneakers every day.

How am I supposed to dress further down? Flip flops and a wife-beater?

Seriously, I generally takes some pride in my appearance and want to preserve some measure of professionalism and I have no idea where to go with this. Help!

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville reached a $1.9 million settlement with a former professor who was fired after she criticized slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

I've got multiple great weapons that are already optimized to the maximum--ARs, Shotguns, LMGs, SMGs, exotics and named. But the most I've raised their expertise level is to 10--it's expensive and I've been focusing on getting to level 30 Proficiency by contributing mats.

But I'm realizing I just cannot kill fast enough soloing Retaliation on Heroic and the few times I've tried Legendary, I've gotten my ass kicked, repeatedly. I'd also like to try some Escalation, but I don't want to burden my team.

I've got max optimized sets of Striker, Tipping Scales, Heartbreaker, Ongoing Directive, Hotshot, and I know it's not worth it to add expertise to those, but even my expertise level 10 Lexington does not take down yellows and named enemies fast enough.

Obviously we all want to get to 30 Proficiency for prototype lab, but am I just setting myself up for failure by not maxing the expertise level on at least one meta weapon? Or should I just keep concentrating on contributing all my mats to get to Level 30 Proficiency?

Health officials in Nassau County have confirmed a case of measles in an unvaccinated child under the age of 5.

I've got 700 hours in this game, I'll be at 1500 SHD by the end of the weekend . . . and I'm still stuck at 23 Expertise.

And I'm only that high because I ground hard during the last expertise event--farming named items to get to proficiency on a bunch of gear and weapons that I'm unlikely to ever use again.

I'm proficient on all my exotics, ordinary weapons and gear and named gear sets. Now I'm left with mediocre rare named items and skills that absolutely suck as my only path forward. Combine that with getting wiped by Kitsunebi squads every third encounter because I'm wearing shitty gear that I'm never going to optimize solely to get proficient and the game is just getting super-frustrating.

I appreciate that the Proficiency mechanic forces us to step out of our comfort zones and try new gear and skills, but, at some point, it's enough. I want to go back to running the build I like and spent so much time optimizing and learning to use, even if the expertise on it is "only" 15.

None of this would matter if Massive had made the Prototype gear system requirements a lower Proficiency level (even 25 would have been more player-friendly).

Don't get me wrong, I really love this game and I appreciate the concept of a higher end-game level for everyone to strive for, but I already have a job and this game lately feels a lot like work.

Edit: Those of you who are posting here and telling me to "grind gear" or "grind materials" like you're letting me in on something that is simultaneously obvious and also not readily apparent are starting to annoy me more than the game. Everybody knows to farm gear for expertise. The problem is that, once you've got all the common items, matched gear sets and most common named items (Relic anyone?) proficient, you're probably not even at 20 Expertise--I know I wasn't. Now you're going to start the long slog that I'm describing above and, barring getting lucky 1 out of a 100 times with a duplicate named item, there's no shortcuts other than getting as much printer filament as you can.

"You should donate mats." Really, why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, I have and so has everyone else. I breakdown everything into junk unless it's an absolute god roll and those mats get contributed to proficiency. Do you have any idea how inefficient mat donations (other than printer filament) are for expertise? It barely moves the needle even with uncommon materials.

It would be nice if you could at least contribute gear materials to proficiency since I'm maxed on those and they have no use other than for optimization of gear (which I can't do because I'm contributing all the other required materials to proficiency), but, again, no from the developers.

The system is a joyless grind that was always intended to give slight bumps in stats to players who invest the time into the end game. Those players deserve those bumps. But adding an entirely new category of gear that requires a level of expertise that players with hundreds of hours in the game can't get close to achieving feels absolutely punitive.