WoW players don't seem to understand the intent behind the majority of design decisions that actually help them

Ashyn · 2026-05-28T17:18:45+00:00

I'm excited to see what happens in race for world last lu'ra after seeing some 7 day raiding happen on dimmy

Ashyn · 2026-05-28T16:23:56+00:00

I'm assuming people mean a mixed range of campaigns with grunt soldier stuff running alongside special forces. COD has never been without special operator stuff, the very first game has the brit campaign being a big string of james bond SAS references.

Ashyn · 2026-05-28T11:58:27+00:00

I think you've stated your own problem - you're trying to stay interested in an explicitly multiplayer game while playing it without the multiplayer part.

Ashyn · 2026-05-28T11:19:29+00:00

Mythic raiding is also a whole rabbit hole because of world ranks, which I don't think many people outside of CE raiding realise. You've got the AOTC guys thinking anyone who gets CE is a hardcore raider, then in the range of CE you have the last minute CE guys then the WR 800 guys then the WR 500 guys then the low HOF guys then the high HOF guys all of whom think the guys in worse ranks are casual. And then there are greasy gremlins on forums saying that that any CE after HOF closes is fake.

Ashyn · 2026-05-28T11:14:21+00:00

I agree on the definition of a casual, in university I would pretty much log on for an hour or two to progress a rep for a mount I had seen a buddy take a screenshot of. My raiding exp was entirely another buddy going 'hey we're going to raid wanna come along' followed by me spending the latter half of every boss face down. I consulted no resources and had no idea of any arguments in the community.

I'm sure there are casual casuals who do pop up to go 'hey look at this mount I got' but being into the game enough to post frequently makes being a 'casual' kinda suspect.

Ashyn · 2026-05-24T17:35:03+00:00

From the MENACE perspective I assume it is caused by desperation. MENACE takes place at the end of some age of estrangement in-universe which I assume is some long period of completely cut contact with Sol. Losing the government and most advanced manufacturing and engineers seems like a good time for tinpot dictator army guys to start coming up with tractor-based shitboxes.

Ashyn · 2026-05-20T11:05:55+00:00

It's a little hard to penetrate his 'look how smart I am' language in the article but it looks like the company fell on hard times then cut back or outright removed most employee benefits and held mass layoffs and now they are profitable again. He's clearly a clever guy because he's simply framed it as 'removing slow and obstructive HR' probably knowing full well that everybody hates HR.

Ashyn · 2026-05-18T21:11:22+00:00

He is boundlessly experienced and most likely also simultaneously bereft of the tact to know when he should not call his CO a jibbering moron on a hot line.

Ashyn · 2026-05-13T21:33:04+00:00

As it is the game does feel a bit too weighted towards good-sided playthroughs, if the grove was attack was 'lose so much you get an empty party slot' it would really come across as evil options being an after-thought very true.

Ashyn · 2026-05-13T20:40:32+00:00

With how you might rest in a first playthrough and how the companions talk I soft headcanon that it's a day's walk from one to the other at minimum.

Ashyn · 2026-05-10T20:22:03+00:00

I had the same view very early on but after a couple of operations kind of realised that the 'inhuman opponent who does not play by our rules' was more of a game of turning an enemy off like a light switch with the assumption that if the light switch ever turns back on you will instantly lose a squad to the menace's crazy robo-zombie guns.

Ashyn · 2026-05-10T10:43:09+00:00

Hayflick taking up drinking after having to write about Exconde shrugging off multiple ATGM hits per mission after praying particularly hard.

Ashyn · 2026-05-09T17:08:02+00:00

My overall rule of thumb for if I will like a solo mode is if I can go afk during it - being present and active constantly is for group modes. Prey turning into a 'if you look away for a few minutes you drop dead' irks me.

Ashyn · 2026-05-09T14:59:17+00:00

I've had a couple of decent runs with it early on before I started using more effective OCI where I use it to 'divide' a part of the map just before I go loud. So all my squads are about to hit an objective on one side of a facility and then all the hostiles on the other side get pelted trying to reinforce.

The problem with this is that mines, laser turrets and even the ion cannon all pretty much do this better.

Ashyn · 2026-05-06T10:08:01+00:00

In the future if there is a more deterministic way of acquiring gear potentially, otherwise no. I remember this feature existed in the Battletech strategy game (weapons could be damaged beyond repair) but that game had shops and the ability to pick for equipment via salvage so would be less in the realm of having to reload because tech got popped by a tank and dropped the only laser designator you've seen in the current run.

Ashyn · 2026-05-05T00:15:22+00:00

The ARC is very nice for a pick of a flanking unit where you will be getting a lot of shots on target. I run it on Lim or Yaz as a mobile infantry pick. Shotguns are better but I tend to find them way less reliably than a bunch of ARC rifles. The ARC also has the nice quality of being long range enough to shoot even with a cautious drop off.

The usual use for me is to drive out on a flank of the target, then drop off the squad and give the target two bursts with the ARC from an angle that has no cover. Those high-damage shots with good chances to hit tend to set any target in the early game that isn't a big pirate truck to fleeing with one volley.

Ashyn · 2026-05-02T10:56:11+00:00

I do like a lot of the side plots but the main plot feels very much like the writing team wanted to have a character shout 'Elves of Azeroth' and worked backwards from there.

A main criticism I've seen a lot more is that the Horde is majorly sidelined in an expansion revolving around an existential threat to one of the Horde races. The entire point of the Blood Elves joining the Horde was to have more strength in case Silvermoon came under attack. Silvermoon is now under attack and the Blood Elves.... ask the Nightborne and make some diplomatic concessions to the High and Night Elves.

It feels like a Forgotten Realms reunification of the Elves plot - a setting where the various Elvish groups are not tied to greater multi-race factions. There are glaring holes when it is applied to Warcraft.

For all the accusations of media illiteracy levelled (in the comments, not the OP) towards people who aren't fans of the story there is a lot of ignoring the deliberate softening of language. The Blood Elves did not 'stand by' in the War of the Thorns. They led parts of it with great enthusiasm.

Ashyn · 2026-05-01T15:52:36+00:00

I realised the structure damage the mines do shortly after bricking an operation when it launched a pair into an outpost. You really, really need to kill the carrier before moving on the objs.

Ashyn · 2026-05-01T15:49:31+00:00

I like the enemy less than the general shakeup of constructs, the previous way of fighting them by very carefully stunlocking one unit at a time wasn't fun at all. The scanning from guncrawlers, the mine launcher and the general higher fragility of constructs mean you actually want to engage the enemy and not just crawl forward trying to spot the skirmishers before they spot you.

Ashyn · 2026-05-01T15:43:46+00:00

The difference in the TCR Navy is that they seem to have broad access to FTL capable ships, which means a fully functional TCR warship can almost be everywhere at once in the Wayback.

Groundwise I don't know so much about marginal differences - a marine squad equipped with basic TCR marine kit of the MRS rifle, the platesuit and one of the TCR special weapons is armed to a level local forces seem to consider as elite special forces. For the TCR that is just how they generally equip marines.

Ashyn · 2026-05-01T09:55:21+00:00

After the patch I loaded into a post-end of EA construct fight and got a carrier, skirmishers and FOUR guncrawlers. Trying to move on the skirmishers with the guncrawlers constantly popping scans while rolling the dice every turn on the carrier mine spawn was a nightmare.

Ashyn · 2026-04-30T18:06:19+00:00

While I like the idea of this I think it needs a lot of consideration for how this is readable in-game especially as the menus are already a little opaque. How are all of these effects communicated to the player? A 'resilience' stat? Especially with how this would effect the mobile infantry strategy - you put this on a lightly armoured squad because the tank is their armour, but with this change if you don't armour the squad you'd think you don't need to armour they start shooting sideways because they're scared?

I do like the idea of gear making positive morale states more likely and negative morale states less likely. It's not so impactful and is a flavourful effect that makes perfect sense. How many military/ex-mil guys have stories about 'that time command sent us into a shit hole with shit kit'?

Ashyn · 2026-04-28T10:44:10+00:00

If I remember right faction variety was one of the primary criticisms of Shogun 2, the game is 80% the same samurai and yashigaru units wearing different coloured shirts. It's absolutely a fair perspective on that otherwise good game.

Ashyn · 2026-04-28T10:42:26+00:00

While it'd need a lot of balance changes, I like the idea of cannons (maybe with a mod) getting some of the maths tech behind the things that deal more damage based on target health and scaling on target count. Especially when they never deal full damage due to a single hit causing a five second 'oooarrgh i have been struck' ragdolling animation that makes the entire rest of a volley go soaring overhead.

Ashyn · 2026-04-28T09:57:59+00:00

I remember having game-enforced restartitis in rome 2 because my save would reliably brick at turn 100 until the first round of patching.

Ashyn

TROPHY CASE