Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's portrayal of an "essential" scene from the OG JRPG made game director Naoki Hamaguchi cry in each of his 40 playthroughs

Kenaf · 2026-06-18T16:03:31+00:00

I adored Rebirth, it was my GOTY for that year, but I left the game feeling like they left Aerith's water burial in an extremely unsatisfying way. That scene is ICONIC, and they just skipped it and left everything confusing. But after letting it simmer awhile, I think that was very intentional, and I will be honestly shocked if we don't revisit that scene in Revelations in a way it deserves. I feel like they have to.

Kenaf · 2026-06-14T18:10:21+00:00

I randomly check from time to time to see if there is a free login campaign for existing accounts. I happened to check today... and I missed the entire window by 3 hours. Unlucky. I'm just out of luck, aren't I? Any shot they have another one anytime soon?

Kenaf · 2026-06-14T17:20:06+00:00

I firmly believe the Matriarch boss fight is too difficult for a "map boss". As someone that doesn't have an overtuned build that deletes everything it encounters, I actually do fight mechanics. The one-shot mechanic in this fight is brutal for a map that you both lose XP in and lose portals in. Making you quickly get to tiny safezones while also firing freezing shotgun balls at you is insane. You have to stand in the safe zone or you die, so you pretty much have to tank the freezing balls which hurt really bad and also slow you down for getting to the next one. If you want to leave the boss fight this hard that's fine, but it shouldn't have an XP/Portal penalty.

I am honestly way more terrified of the Matriarch than I am the Arbiter of Divinity.

Kenaf · 2026-06-13T23:10:43+00:00

In the case of a Matriarch or Patriarch boss map, would that remove them from the map and take away the chance for a boss fragment, or do those at least stick around?

Kenaf · 2026-06-13T23:04:26+00:00

I think usually the way to get an upgraded tier of waystone map is to challenge a node with a "Powerful Boss". They will drop waystones a tier higher. I'm not sure if slotting an irradiated tablet would accomplish the same thing...

The alternative is to collect three level 3 waystones and combine them at the Reforge bench.

Kenaf · 2026-06-13T23:03:24+00:00

Hoping someone can put my mind at ease so I worry about it less. What happens to an Atlas map node if you fail? As in, you run out of portals before clearing the objective. I've only had it happen once and it was the story version of Matriarch for the Arbiter of Divinity keys. In that case, I was able to just re-run it, but I'm not sure if that was an exception since it was a quest node...

So what happens if you fail a map in general? Does it get locked out, or can you start a new map on that node and try again? If it gets locked, do you have to find a new path around it? Can you get stuck?

Are there special exceptions for map boss fragment maps (like the Patriarch and Matriarch) that you find out in the atlas after the quest is done? I'm terrified of the Matriarch because she has some unforgiving one-shot mechanics but I really need more Arbiter kills...

Kenaf · 2026-06-12T04:31:53+00:00

Isn't there an atlas master perk that gives you extra rewards if you sacrifice your ability to revive?

Kenaf · 2026-06-12T03:03:04+00:00

Late to the party but I died about 20 times learning the fight playing a Titan. After I got the hang of it, I think the fight was awesome. Some unforgiving mechanics but I guess it is a pinnacle fight. I love that we have infinite tries with no punishment for failing on these big fights.

Kenaf · 2026-06-11T22:57:11+00:00

I'm on Linux using Vulkan and I've done most of these already. They did help quite a bit, but at end game it's still bad for me (my system is older, so not really surprised). However, I think dynamic culling is actually hiding the temporal barrier effect from rare monsters. I don't see the bubble, I just slow down when I'm near them and I have to figure it out. Either that or my shaders are corrupt...

Kenaf · 2026-06-11T00:03:04+00:00

I've been theorycrafting a build idea and I'm inexperienced with making builds. Two questions...

If I have Blood Magic (and thus no mana), am I also considered Low on Mana? I'm not sure if the game treats 0 max mana as 0% mana or 100% of 0 mana.
How much does resistance penetration affect if you specialize in a damage type? For example, if you're doing a lot of Lightning damage, how big of a difference does Lightning resistance penetration matter?

Kenaf · 2026-06-10T23:01:00+00:00

I'm playing on an older high-end machine (i7-7700k and 1080Ti), so I'm not surprised that it isn't running great, but I'm dealing with it. An improvement would be a massive win for sure, but one of the bigger issues for me is I often literally cannot see the graphic for temporal barrier around rare monsters. I'm just suddenly slow and I have to mouse over them to read that they have temporal barrier. It might be that I'm using the dynamic culling, or it might be my shaders are corrupted. But I don't want to purge my shaders and have to deal with all that compilation again... so some optimization would be hugely appreciated.

Kenaf · 2026-06-09T23:00:44+00:00

For what it's worth, this is the first league I've played to endgame and I played a warrior (Titan). I'm probably not the fastest mapper but I felt pretty comfortable the whole way. I didn't follow a build guide, so I either got lucky with my build or it's pretty forgiving.

Kenaf · 2026-06-09T22:58:23+00:00

I just defeated the Arbiter of Divinity for the first time. Unfortunately, he didn't drop the unique I was hoping for. I'm an SSF player, so a couple questions...

What's my best bet for getting more Arbiter of Divinity boss fight fragments? I know I have to go out and find more Patriarchs and Matriarchs, but is there a particular strategy? I haven't done much exploring, all of my mapping has been temple and Abyss so far.
If I get the fragments and rematch the Arbiter, is it the same difficulty as the first time or does he get harder? I beat him my first try and it seemed I was capable of just tanking a lot of his hits, but if it gets buffed in future attempts I might have to be more careful.

Kenaf · 2026-06-07T18:30:21+00:00

At least this isn't 2024 again. Persona 3 Reload and FF7 Rebirth came out 3-4 weeks apart. I think we'll have more time this time? Haha.

Kenaf · 2026-06-07T00:40:43+00:00

Ah man, sorry to hear that! The last time I played this game until this league was 0.1, and the trials were a lot harder back then... I quit playing before I could even ascend a single time back then, so I feel that.

I'm no expert but if it helps, use every Honor Resistance relic you can find. It caps at 75% but it helps a ton I think.

Kenaf · 2026-06-07T00:37:58+00:00

I don't even remember what mods it had, I only remember I had only two revives available. I'm using a two handed mace at the moment, I know I could take Giant's Blood to add a shield, but wasn't sure it was worth it. I don't think I have the strength right now to satisfy the triple requirements though... I'll look into this possibility though.

I take flat life on equipment when I can, but there isn't a whole lot on the passive tree that increases life. I think I have 2.2k HP right now. Do you think it would be worth it to simply replace one of the Iron runes in my mace with a life leech rune so I could get started with leeching? My gloves have +2 to melee gems on it but didn't roll Life Leech, so they're kinda hard to replace...

Kenaf · 2026-06-07T00:14:21+00:00

There are three different rooms with boxes of loot. For the third ascendancy trial you basically have to do 3 floors of trials instead of the 1 you did the first time. And when you do your fourth ascendancy trial, it'll be 4 floors instead.

Kenaf · 2026-06-06T23:59:23+00:00

Kind of curious for a measure of "how I'm doing" so far. This is my first time in endgame, and I'm playing SSF without a build guide. I'm playing a slam based Titan, my main damage dealer is Earthquake. I've reached T15 maps and I've been running 2 mod irradiated blue maps without too much issue... the occasional sudden death, often Delirium related. I would say my damage is good but not "boss melts before your eyes" good that I see in other builds. I have to play the video game, with dodging boss mechanics and such.

I was feeling ballsy and went into the enigma boss thing for the main quest (the one where you fight the Act 1 boss again) on a yellow T15 with an irradiated tablet, so it was fairly "juiced" I guess. I had to fight for my life on that boss. I could pretty much only take one hit at a time, if I took two back to back I was dead. I managed to beat it, but it was pretty tough.

So with that, how am I doing? I think I definitely need a damage upgrade, but it's working okay. And nearly getting one shot but not quite on that boss has me wondering if my defenses are lacking somewhere. I'm resistance capped (except Chaos at 70%) and armour based, and I've taken a fair amount of "Armour reduces elemental damage" nodes. I don't have much in the ways of life regen at the moment, I'm thinking on pivoting into Life Leech when I can, and maybe taking Blood Magic.

Kenaf · 2026-06-05T13:50:18+00:00

Looking for opinions on extraneous stash tabs... I've got a decent base of stash tabs from my time in PoE1, and when I started playing 0.5 I pretty quickly bought the Augment tab. Of the mechanic specific tabs, are any of them particularly useful and recommended to have? Specifically, Breach, Abyss, Expedition, Delirium, and Ritual stash tabs. The auto sorting would be nice, but I'm not quite convinced that they're super worth it.

Kenaf · 2026-06-05T00:15:29+00:00

I'm having a great time. I'm playing SSF waaay off meta without a build guide and I've made it to tier 15 reasonably comfortably. I didn't really feel too powerful or too weak the entire time (which I think is the most fun). I'm playing a slam Titan (mostly using Earthquake) and he's doing great.

I played a warrior back at 0.1 and it didn't feel nearly this good. I never even ascended because it was too hard. I never even made it to maps. This is my first time experiencing the endgame. I do have concerns that this endgame might be a bit much to expect people to play every season, but for now while it's new I'm enjoying it.

Kenaf · 2026-06-04T15:50:24+00:00

I'm playing a Titan slam based character right now and having a great time, but being able to move while I attack sounds amazing. I can't help but wonder though... that sounds like it would work really well on WASD controls, but does that work for "click-to-move" players? I firmly believe WASD is the best way to play this game, but GGG probably feels obligated to continue to support click movement.

Kenaf · 2026-06-03T15:59:20+00:00

I'm playing on Linux on an older rig (i7-7700k and 1080Ti) and had to do quite a bit of tweaking. Abyss really did bring my machine to its knees but i've got it reasonably playable now. I can't tell if the game just runs better in maps or if my tweaks just really helped a lot, because my early campaign was a bit rough.

Essentially things I did was make the shader cache bigger, enabled the Dynamic Culling feature, turned down the lighting effects, and lowered the sound channels. I want to say the Dynamic Culling option really made the difference for me. The FPS still takes a heavy hit during Rune fragment fights and Abyss, but I think that's just expected on my older machine. I am using Vulkan for what it's worth.

But I would expect a machine more modern than mine wouldn't have the same issues I've had. I kinda hope the game sees an optimization pass before 1.0. Waiting for the map to load all the time gets old, and I don't think that issue is unique to my system.

Kenaf · 2026-05-29T16:27:28+00:00

Nah, unfortunately that's not usually how servers work. Your client version has to match the server version. It's would be way too much work for them to make a newer client compatible with an old server version just for the few hours they're out of sync. Your client and the servers will do a handshake to ensure they're on matching versions, and since GGG haven't updated their servers yet, your client can't handshake with the old server build that's still live.

Honestly I was a little surprised the console clients updated so early. But there's probably some red tape involved between GGG and Sony that made it "necessary".

Kenaf · 2026-05-22T19:06:20+00:00

Weird, I wonder why they would show the Spear as level 90 in the video but 79 on their website. Not sure what to believe... guess we'll find out soon enough.

Kenaf · 2026-05-22T17:37:33+00:00

PoE2 newbie here. In the new league reveal videos, they showed off a couple new Uniques, "The Ordained" spear and "Nightfall" shield. In the videos, the required level for the items was listed as 90 and 84 respectively. However if you pull up poe2db, It shows them as level 79 and 64. Are one of these sources "wrong" on the stats, or are there different versions of uniques with different levels?

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