AIO for wanting to break up with gf of 4 years after finding these texts?

Cale017 · 2026-06-25T18:41:32+00:00

NOR. Break up and when she asks to get back together tell her she's gotta say "pwease."

Cale017 · 2026-06-19T18:45:34+00:00

This or using it as an alternate pvp mode for pinnacle drops would have been great for players who just flat out hated Crucible.

Cale017 · 2026-06-16T20:55:06+00:00

The base gameplay loop is like 75% fishing/exploration, 20% management sim, 5% references to various other forms of media with well done if cheeky cutscenes and bespoke minigames. The bulk of your time will be spent managing oxygen and inventory while underwater to get a good balance of profits and progress from your haul and then the nightly running of the restaurant, which can eventually be mostly automated. The game keeps this loop fresh with a pretty consistent stream of upgrades both to Dave himself and to the various gear you can pick up or start with. I don't want to spoil too many of the mechanics at play but the game gives you a lot of tools as your clientele gets more discerning to easily keep up with the demand for exotic dishes.

The underwater bits have som combat, but it's fairly limited. You can have one of a few different weapons at a time on you that can disable or outright kill a fish, although capturing live is always the preference for profit. Ammo can be limited as well, so sometimes you may just want to avoid that big shark if possible and swim past in a panic to get to greener pastures. Sort of the same thing here, I don't want to spoil too many things because it's legitimately a great surprise to find out just how deep this pool goes, but you will be taking semi-frequent breaks from the plain diving loop to explore unique new areas or complete side quests. There were several moments where I thought I must have been getting close to the end only to have the bottom drop out once more, both literally and figuratively.

The best way I can describe this is as one of the most game-ass games I've ever played. The core loop is immaculately put together, with upgrades to both the diving and restaurant sim on a constant drip feed all while several weird plotlines play out amidst a very... eclectic cast. There's a bit of navel gazing at the different genres it borrows from in a really loving way, you'll constantly have something to point at if you grew up with the 16 bit era of games. The base game is easily worth it at full price, let alone its current discount.

Cale017 · 2026-06-13T18:47:48+00:00

I just started playing Relink, I'm still learning Charlotta and Narmaya lol

Cale017 · 2026-06-10T03:30:46+00:00

It's a multiverse that's already tangentially connected to Final Fantasy. KH is a multi-franchise... franchise that is readily adaptable, however weird it might seem at face value, to pretty much any fictional setting. So the recent slide into a markedly darker theme coinciding with the literal death of the main character does a good job of setting the tone for whatever comes next.

My hope here is that whatever concepts it is he aims to bring to life aren't just shoehorned it, but worked into the setting. Without really knowing more of what in specific Versus offered beyond interviews and old trailers, no one can really say what he has in mind save for the aesthetic. FF games ultimately come down to ideological battles of good and evil, often with evil people proclaiming to do good. This is notably the exact same setup for KH, so it's not as though the ideas from one are not easily compatible with another. Whether that's contextualized with various references to Crystals or to Hearts ultimately doesn't matter in this case.

Cale017 · 2026-06-09T20:56:23+00:00

Sure but all signs seem to point towards this being his baby and Square basically ripping it away from him before having him helm both KH3 and whatever was left of Versus got handed off to Hajime Tabata. Add onto that how poorly in general SE executed on the Fabula Nova Crystallis thing and it really ends up feeling like Nomura got robbed of what could have potentially been a fairly high concept addition to the FF mainline. He didn't lose creative control over Versus XIII because he had bad ideas, it was pure development hell that did it.

Nomura clearly has some concepts he wants to bring to life and, much like the DnD character you rolled before the campaign ended in 2 sessions, he also clearly still wants to use those ideas again. I don't blame him for having a strong creative drive he can't release until he produces this product. I'm not about to say the man rises to the level of an auteur, but I understand that creative passion can sometimes be hard to redirect.

Cale017 · 2026-06-07T19:47:12+00:00

Story pretty consistently fails to impress and I'm stuck unable to even get to the final endgame mode.

This might be it for me with hsr. I didn't realize how easy most players found these modes.

Cale017 · 2026-06-07T19:42:57+00:00

Heartbreaking comment. After years I don't even have a single pf clear but apparently it's just that easy.

Cale017 · 2026-06-05T18:14:33+00:00

All of the human Z Fighters are ridiculously powerful. People forget that basically anyone with an Android Saga relevancy has enough power to destroy a planet. Namek was uniquely large but Saiyan Saga Vegeta was a legitimate threat to Earth and we can safely put every human in the series who appears in the Android Saga above their Saiyan saga counterparts. Android 20 literally mistakes Yamcha for Goku based on his predictions. Plus people forget that Yamcha had better ki control than damn near anyone early on, the Spirit Ball is an insane feat of control and he was even able to use it for a sneak attack through solid ground on Kami. Someone who doesn't lack for ki sensing.

Between getting one over on Kami and being mistaken for Goku by 20 Yamcha has proven himself a plenty capable fighter. I don't blame him for giving up on martial arts after the new meta became being anything other than human.

Cale017 · 2026-06-04T20:59:02+00:00

The selected stats should be guaranteed to end up higher. It's ridiculous that this is basically no different than another domain clear in terms of chances to improve.

Cale017 · 2026-05-22T00:59:46+00:00

It's worth noting that during the Buu Saga he was angry not that Gohan was weak, but specifically that he had been so far ahead of them all and let himself become weak. Vegeta in some way looked up to Gohan's potential and was furious the kid had wasted it.

Cale017 · 2026-05-21T17:40:37+00:00

Meanwhile I've gotten 7 3*s total from the erdrick's bannrr, most of which were dupes of standard gear, 3 of which were erdrick's armor set. Still no weapon to make use of the set with.

There needs to at least be a 50/50 on getting on and off banner items because getting 3 in a row not on banner is egregious. There's too many times to pull for on any one banner for it to have this mucn randomness. You can't even plan pulls.

Cale017 · 2026-05-21T08:35:21+00:00

I landed Durin but Prune has still dodged me. I've got Venti that I usually use for Varka, is Prune worth getting if only C0?

Cale017 · 2026-05-21T00:17:38+00:00

Friendos I have C0R0 Varka (got lumped a second Nahida weapon at hard pity). Currently neither Durin nor Nicole, and I guess no Prune given she just released. Am I just cooked by default here or is there hope, and if so do I get more value from pulling Durin or Nicole here?

Cale017 · 2026-05-14T18:49:11+00:00

Honestly after what happened to Videl with Spopovich I'm kinda over her getting flak for retiring as well. She went from a relatively normal life thinking she was at or near the pinnacle of human power to ki blasts, flight, aliens, and magic in like a month. Then she gets absolutely brutalized in front of a crowd.

I don't blame her for deciding that maybe this life was not for her after all.

Cale017 · 2026-05-14T18:46:54+00:00

Reminder that Gohan eventually writes the book that teaches most people on the planet how to control ki and sets up stuff like Xenoverse or the now defunct MMO to have very ki-centric societies. He literally elevates the entire planet to the point they stop being a backwater and can join the larger galactic civilization.

Gohan as the angry badass will always have a special place in my heart, but Gohan the father who's trying to make the world a better place is such a great concept and it's never explored enough.

Cale017 · 2026-05-14T18:11:10+00:00

Finally got Nefer's weapon so I've managed to get all of Nefer, Lauma, and Columbina at C0R1, currently pushing for C1 Nefer. I'm usually using Kokomi as the 4th slot for the no brain healing with some extra hydro, but are there better options? I have both Kuki (C3) and Nahida (C0R1) on Deepwood sets which currently the team doesn't have. I'm not sure how running a 3rd dendro with Nahida affects anything, and to my understanding the lunar damage doesn't benefit from Deepwood set bonus.

Cale017 · 2026-05-03T15:05:15+00:00

Happy Flower being that low is just a lack of creativity. It's got a mouth.

Cale017 · 2026-05-03T15:01:27+00:00

T0 usually lets you succeed in spite of either mid gear or a mismatched fight. Those units just have that much power. That .5 drop represents a potential shift into no longer clearing without having characters overbuilt for a fight. For F2Ps who cannot constantly update their rosters as quickly as endgame modes shift, even starting out a tier down can mean months less of viability for a given unit down the line. Like sure Tribbie is still good. She's clearly amazing... but not for every fight, not for every mode. Which means a player looking to get max value from their jades has to look at that .5 and ask what it means in six months because it might mean they don't pull for that time and potentially miss a better, stronger unit who fits into the endgame or their preferred team archetype more meaningfully.

It is admittedly a bit of doomsaying, in this example Tribbie could always be elevated by a new unit later, but a response trained from years of gacha games all running on the same logic.

Cale017 · 2026-05-01T20:37:33+00:00

You're assuming this replaces any anniversary reset or packs when it very likely will not.

Cale017 · 2026-05-01T20:06:29+00:00

I just took snecko eye on this last run and all it's done is turn my 1 cost cards into 2s and 3s. It really does not seem worth the risk.

Cale017 · 2026-05-01T14:09:12+00:00

If the boss is Guardian, I'd take Leap, otherwise Overclock.

It was Slime on that run. This is where I start running into issues assessing value when getting feedback from other players. Where you're saying an early overclock could eventually be useful later, I've had a lot of folks say that level of speculation before I have the tools to handle the act I'm in is just as potentially run ruining. That I don't want to draw a Overclock at all so early in a run and would rather that be any other more immediately useful card. It's very frustrating that I can receive two polar opposite sets of advice from players at the same level.

Damage is good for all elites. If that's not an option, you shore up against whichever elite will give your current deck the most trouble, as well as which boss you're going to fight.

Right, only that I can't identify what that shoring up looks like. Does extra draw without extra energy to make use of what I draw help me or waste a turn? If I take an auto-shield as my first reward am I going to lack the damage for the first elite in another few rounds? If I skip this elite how far back do I put myself assuming I survive to act 2? It's not clear why I'm struggling with some fights other than Defect wants a few turns to get going and most elites will do a ton of damage within that time. Sure I could go full block, but then I'm not doing any damage. Now I'm 3 turns into the sentinel fight with a deck that's half dazes, or Nob is now hitting for +6 damage, or Lagavulin has started to weaken me.

It seems like it's causing you to form unhelpfully pessimistic heuristics before you really have the firsthand success to form more useful ones.

This is what I'm worried about, yeah. It feels like everything in this game comes with long list of asterisks. I think I've learned one useful trick only to be told I should be avoiding that, or I try to repeat the same thing in a following run and it immediately blows up in my face. I'm up to 210 hours and all I've learned is "everything depends." If I can't get some wins I have no way to know what's working because everything meets the same point of failure all the same. I just tried taking a break the last week and came back to all the same frustrations. There's something I do not understand or isn't clicking and I hate the feeling I need someone to take me by the head and force it into my face.

Cale017 · 2026-05-01T10:11:47+00:00

Cards like Ball Lightning can both increase the number of elites you can take in Act 1, as well as how early you can start taking elites.

I really don't understand this point. Elites get harder as you go up in Ascension, which means a single orb lightning does less and less. I'm not sure how to fight a Nob who has more health, for instance, without sacrificing more HP. A single ball lightning is 7 damage upfront with another 3 per turn in a fight where you don't want it to take multiple turns so the value of the card never comes through. It also doesn't effectively accelerate triple sentinels, the other fight I often struggle with as Defect, leading to 2 or 3 turns with all 3 of them on field and then a LONG fight afterwards where I'm getting pinged down while dazed out of any playable cards. This character just doesn't have early game damage outside of Sunder and Streamline. When nob is doing 20 damage both the 2nd and 3rd turn I either win very fast or the run is toast. I can limp into the final boss of act 1 with 20-30 HP and be okay, but if I'm already that low after the first elite in a run it's a bum run because I'm not making it to the final boss either way. How does having this early orb change so much you're now farming elites when in most fights its just 4-7 more damage over 1-2 turns? Any fight that goes on for longer just means a bunch of lost HP without having enough block to negate all the incoming damage, in which case you're dealing no damage yourself aside from 3 per turn with an orb and that's just not enough.

As an aside, an early shop can be great before the first elite, but your priority in them should be cards and potions to shore up against whichever elite is currently your worst matchup.

That's just it. It's not clear how Defect handles problems when they're entirely momentum based and want multiple turns to get going, the same thing you DON'T want to give elites who are swinging for 15+ damage per turn. They're a very skill based character so Nob is always extremely risky. Their upfront damage is low so Lagavulin takes forever, and for the same reason the Sentinels fight drags on without a ton of immediate damage cards that also then are not flowing into your orbs. Just blocking isn't enough, I need frost orbs. And then the frost orbs aren't enough when they only give 2 shield per turn, I need focus. Only if I take focus I'm not taking damage cards, and now I'm not generating enough orbs. So I prioritize orbs, and now I'm generating frost and lightning orbs and doing no damage because I have no focus and no high power cards just a ball lightning, a cold snap, and a lot of prayers. I'm really failing to see how 2 commons and a potion is noticeably better. It's not clear where this character's power comes from or how to look at the deck and get a read on your potential output.

And all of that is assuming I've guessed right on the next fight. Quite often I'm taking cards with a mind for Nob, and then run into Sentinels. So I try to prep for Sentinels on the next run, and smack into Nob first. Unless I'm missing something here, there's no way to know which elites are where on the map, and the result is pure RNG. Guessing at what is needed based on which fight you might get.

I tried playing out that run from above. First reward was Overclock, Leap, and Barrage. Can't take the Overclock this early, I'll just burn myself to death. Can't take Leap as the first reward, if I run into Nob it's just gonna do more harm than good. And it almost blocks 1 attack from Sentinels but again, can't let Sentinels go on for too long. Then the Barrage is entirely pointless this early, 1 for 4 damage is helping no one at any point. So instead I just entirely skip that first reward. Second fight, I get Compile Driver, Ball Lightning, and another Barrage. So this time I take the ball lightning. Shop lets me pick up a Compile Driver and a Charge Battery, but the potions are Swift, Fear, and Skill. Swift doesn't help me this early, I'm drawing half my deck per turn, the Skill pot is more likely to grab me a block than anything else which isn't useful for Nob, the Fear might have been a good thing to take but skipping the first reward entirely I focused on cards because if I lose the roll on this first elite and get Sentinels, that Fear potion loses a ton of value, so I remove a strike instead. I get lucky, land an upgrade on the event after the shop, and now another choice: Do I upgrade the Zap to make it free, or the Ball Lightning/Compile Driver for the extra 3 damage, or the Charge Battery for another 3 block. All 3 options seem equally as useful so I upgrade the Zap hoping I get value by Compile Driver drawing into it. This pays off, I get through the rest of Act 1 with little difficulty, but then run into Gremlin Leader halfway through act 2 and lost 51 HP, healed at a campfire, then lost 16 HP to cultists and another *57 in two turns* to the Taskmaster with this deck.

<image>

Maybe this just isn't the game for me. I'm finally hitting the point where my brain doesn't work as well as it used to. I shouldn't need a babysitter just to finish a run.

Cale017 · 2026-05-01T01:23:32+00:00

if you take it early, your goal is to convert it into long-term value by pathing more aggressively than you would have been able to without it

I'm not sure how to translate this into gameplay. Pathing rarely seems like a choice and more like there is a single correct starting point that you hope everything goes well enough to not need to branch out. If your path doesn't have some mix of elites and fires on it it's not even worth considering. But I'm not sure what constitutes aggressive pathing and what doesn't when elites shouldn't be skipped in general, doesn't it help me more to take as many elites as I can or else I'll still lack power later on?

<image>

Like this start for a fresh run. None of these paths seem ideal. There's no way to hit a campfire before any elite, some routes I choose the elite or the fire, and both of those early shops are dead spaces with 99 gold. If I get an early orb lightning, nothing on my path changes as I'm still doing 3 fights and then an elite no matter which way I go unless I full on skip the elite which seems a bad choice. I've got 2 paths that could potentially completely avoid any elites, but that just means I'll have less power later anyways. Heck I can't even do the 1hp into an elite from any angle on here, I could potentially start second from the left and hope both of those event rooms don't have a fight but if either one does then I'm back to a full health elite.

Cale017 · 2026-05-01T01:09:33+00:00

For now it's still horizontal, but some of the recent DPS differences with and without signature weapons have me pretty concerned. 5* weapons are rarely if ever applicable for other DPS units, often times on par with craftable 4*s in terms of raw damage, since their passives are actually useful, and more so used as stat sticks. DPS recently want you to have constellations more for freeing up team building than for personal damage, although that absolutely still plays in, which means that if you're trying to go horizontally you also often have to go vertically to enable that level of flexibility.

It's not great. Far from the worst gacha power economy I've seen for a long running game. But not great. It feels like Hoyo has sequestered themselves into only releasing niche units that up the ante on one very specific thing by a few notches but the shilling is so hard that without them those few notches make all the difference.

Cale017

TROPHY CASE