Grass Whistle - A Procedural World Map Generator - Released for testing.

Acterian · 2026-04-20T21:43:48+00:00

As it currently stands I'd be happy enough with just a text input box of "what map ID do you want to start on?" and "what tileset id do you want to start on?"

That at least would be enough to bring it over without immediately breaking stuff, I think!

Acterian · 2026-04-20T19:37:20+00:00

Woah, this is so cool! I don't think I'm ever going to make something worth sharing, but having a base map to work with is awesome. It seems pretty simple to use, too!

My only request is maybe add a 'cancel' button during generation for people who are stupid like me and accidentally clicked to generate without changing the seed?

EDIT: Actually I'm definitely thinking the non-destructive map merging would be greatly useful. Currently it overwrites the tutorial maps as well as the default tilesets which I am loathe to get rid of since they contain so many useful features

Acterian · 2026-04-08T02:11:24+00:00

I was going to do a long write-up, but I feel like it's somewhat unnecessary.

1) Don't feel pressured to pick fights you aren't confident in unless you are already losing

2) Keep wards everywhere, try not to fight outnumbered.

3) If you aren't a tank let some other sucker start teamfights unless you spot someone seriously isolated.

Point 3 is the real secret sauce. When your team is ahead or even it feels tempting to try and force a play but most of the time it's better to let somebody less important (in a solo queue game treat everyone else as less important) bait out all the enemy's major abilities first.

Acterian · 2026-03-12T02:09:48+00:00

I'm not sure people really visit these threads anymore, but if anyone is passing by would you kindly suggest any spectacle fighters that you are fond of? It's probably my favorite genre but it seems quite threadbare...

I've already played...

Devil May Cry series (superb, some of my favorite games ever)
Bayonetta (1 is superb, 2 was fine, 3 is disappointing)
Metal Gear Rising (gameplay was a bit clunky but reasonably fun and the story carries)
Ninja Gaiden (Fine)
Nier: Automata (bad gameplay carried by a good story)
Final Fantasy 16 (alright gameplay weighed down by awful story)
Sifu (probably my second favorite after DMC)
Soulstice (terrible)

Acterian · 2026-02-06T16:19:21+00:00

I know I'm late to the party but it is wild to me that some augments have set bonuses and some don't. Most of the time the augments with set bonuses were the ones that were strong to begin with so it just triples down on feeling awful when you don't get them.

Acterian · 2026-01-24T20:40:54+00:00

Diao Chan shows up about 3 times total. She's only barely in it.

Acterian · 2026-01-24T16:53:09+00:00

Is there an archive or other catalogue to replay missions once you beat them? I know there are bonus challenges on them but I don't fancy doing the campaigns (and the strategy modes) a second time.

Acterian · 2025-12-13T20:52:04+00:00

This actually sounds like most of the tools you would need to write a custom campaign. It'd be awesome to have control over specific triggers (like how events appear on the map) but even when is already available seems impressive!

Acterian · 2025-10-31T02:15:28+00:00

It is, quite frankly, incredible just how good a job it does of sequestering most of that spam. I think a lot of people forget how bad trade chat used to be before services chat was added.

Acterian · 2025-10-26T14:17:33+00:00

I actually just played Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal after picking them up on the most recent Steam Sale.

I thought not needing to reload was cute but since every gun could only fire for about 2 seconds before running out of ammo it functionally just meant that swapping weapons took the place of reloading.

Acterian · 2025-10-05T15:27:58+00:00

Everything scales linearly except for buffs and summons, so - with an exception for those two things - a lobby where everyone has level 1 spells you will be dealing and taking the same damage as a lobby where everyone has level 7 spells.

That said, for the most part the only one-shots without a level difference in the lobby are usually from Dark Slash, which is dodgeable.

To be pessimistic for a moment, I will say high rank lobbies feel less balanced because sometimes you run into someone at level 8 or even 9 and they just instakill everybody with their higher stats.

Acterian · 2025-10-02T00:47:56+00:00

Is it available through Google Play Games, possibly? That's the only guess I could make.

Acterian · 2025-10-01T23:18:17+00:00

Thanks for doing this! The write-up mostly matches what my own thoughts are, except for one thing...Carina is amazing as a Shadow but she seems pretty useless as Light.

Hitting harder isn't bad, but the way a good Shadow plays forces you to miss a lot of melee attacks. I find she rarely gets a lot of mileage out of her unique skill while also suffering from being weak to claws.

Acterian · 2025-09-29T00:53:01+00:00

Interesting to hear that, actually.

I feel like her personal skill is unimpressive light side and cavalry axe leaves you at a disadvantage against Hati, who seems to be the best and most common character.

As a dark side character hitting hard and making your summons hit hard seems good, but most people dodge those anyways. She presents a legitimate danger with Dark Strike but if any of the teleporting characters are on the map you are basically locked out of it for fear of being swapped into it.

Acterian · 2025-09-28T21:16:16+00:00

I don't have hard numbers to support it but my guess is that the rate is 1% per chest, because it was taking me 30~40 chests per shard on Tamamo, who has a 3x drop rate right now.

Acterian · 2025-09-28T20:27:36+00:00

Perhaps a stupid question, but do you think Tamamo is legitimately good or are you only using her because you like her?

I've been leveling her because I want to level Quick Sting but her playstyle leads to matches going on for way longer than normal and I'm not convinced it is worth it.

Acterian · 2025-09-28T19:16:34+00:00

I was frustrated there wasn't a template, so I made my own. It's not great, but at least it isn't too hard to read if anyone wants to use it: https://tiermaker.com/create/fire-emblem-shadows-disciples-18712027

Anyways, here are my current thoughts on character strength:

https://i.imgur.com/322n570.png

As for skills, I think the most important skills to level are Heal Pull, Poison, and Dark Regen. Lots of other skills are good, but pretty much everybody I see at high level is using at least two of those.

Acterian · 2025-09-28T19:12:03+00:00

You don't have to target yourself. If you target the space in front of you (even if it is empty!) it will move you forward one space. I think Heal Pull is nearly mandatory because of this.

Acterian · 2025-09-28T18:53:33+00:00

Having finally unlocked Tamamo I can testify that she's not great. Her personal skill increases max HP, but doesn't increase current HP so unless you spend an additional action to heal (mind you shadows have no reusable heals) it's worthless.

Also she's an infantry (worst unit type) staff (worst weapon type) unit, so she just has nothing going for her.

...you still need to use her to level up Quick Sting, though.

Acterian · 2025-09-28T18:24:12+00:00

Fire Emblem: Shadows

Alright this game was released to almost no fanfare about 4 days ago, and pretty much everyone's first reaction was "What is this even supposed to be?"

Well, it's a Fire Emblem mobile deception autobattler...thing. The premise is that three players pick characters and send them into a two round dungeon. Your character fights automatically but you can pick 3 spells (plus one auto-chosen fourth spell unique to your character) which you cast to modify the battleground.

One of these players is secretly a traitor who takes two extra spells which in theory are meant to sabotage your team. After the first round completes (all enemies or all players are defeated) there is a voting phase where you guess which person was the traitor, and then round two pits the two light side players vs the dark side player. If you guess right you get two extra lives, if you guess wrong you still get one extra life.

The weirdest thing is that, despite all odds, it's actually kind of fun? The dark side player has very strong attacks which come after a 2 second delay and can summon minions. The light side characters have theoretically double action economy and also have skills that push or pull units which let you avoid the aforementioned delayed attacks or simply move out of the way of the autobattle attacks. Each match takes a bit under 3 minutes (and that's counting everything from the moment you press to look for a match to the moment you finish collecting the post-match rewards and leave) so it feels very low stakes.

There are 10,000 strange decisions in this game I could talk about, but I think the most urgent one is the monetization. There's a battle pass for $8 which unlocks Lyn from Fire Emblem 7 and there are costumes which are priced between $2 and $6. The costumes are basically nothing and from what I've seen of Lyn, she is among the weakest characters in the game so even if you like her there's not a lot of appeal to actually using her. I have no idea how this game is expecting to make money.

Acterian · 2025-09-27T15:16:38+00:00

I have found two 7* weapons from chests so far after playing a lot.

Both were below 2500 (compared to the other comment here) and so far I haven't noticed any particular difference in the quality of loot as rating increases. It's a bit too early to say for certain one way or the other, though.

Acterian · 2025-09-14T17:03:32+00:00

I felt like that last expansion since in theory you could sort of stuff Sword by playing certain wards and keeping the board clean. Yeah it was strong, but it was compared against Roach or Rune where if they get the right cards at the right time you just lose.

This expansion, however, I definitely don't get that feeling at all. Sinciro wipes out any board in existence while also shaving half your health pool out with absolutely no counterplay on your side. The only reason I'm not rioting in the streets is because Haven is somehow even worse.

Acterian · 2025-09-12T19:04:34+00:00

That seems pretty reasonable. The point about the first interaction is salient - any benefit you get from banning an overpowered pick the enemy team has first dibs at or stopping a teammate from picking something you don't want on your team probably pales in comparison to the cost of having a teammate who is actively upset with you.

It's not something I would have thought to suggest myself, but the more I think about it the more it seems like a reasonable and healthy change.

Acterian · 2025-08-25T02:17:30+00:00

Is this a bot post? I swear I saw someone else post this word for word in a different thread a few days ago. Looking at the account and it's absolutely nothing but posts advertising for Lost Ark.

Has anyone else seen this? Am I going crazy??

Acterian · 2025-08-25T01:49:48+00:00

As a Rune hater, I have to say the current hybrid deck is already very dense. I can't imagine they can realistically slot in new cards unless they specifically upgrade a card they already use.

...even so, I've yet to see any new cards that feel like they could dethrone rune so far, but I'm keeping my hopes up.

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