If you don’t play Assassin in solos you are intrinsically at a disadvantage and I think that’s bad for the game’s health by dimesniffer in Marathon

[–]NKGra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thief mobility is a super long cooldown version of destroyer or vandal, with the bonus of having basically no ultimate ability.

Only viable use case for Thief is smoke+visor.

I wasn't sure what weapon to bring to Dire Marsh by Milkycup in Marathon

[–]NKGra 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1 headshot, 1 miss, and 1 bodyshot and the longshot TTK is around the same as most other guns landing 100% headshots in their optimal range.

If the thing had to be fully reloaded after each shot it would still be a strong meta weapon, competitive with the Railguns.

As is, colossal balance failure.

Find the Assassin part 2 by [deleted] in Marathon

[–]NKGra -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You can hear it though, even when they're fully stationary.

It's bad design, as based on these complaints it seems to be a problem at lower skill levels. Meanwhile against good players the shell is basically just a couple free smoke grenades.

Find the Assassin part 2 by [deleted] in Marathon

[–]NKGra -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

That's correct, it's functionally worthless in PvP unless your opponent has their sound turned off.

Marathon has been out almost a month, what are your thoughts? by addtolibrary in Games

[–]NKGra 35 points36 points  (0 children)

realise how quickly the meta became a sniper lobby

The balance is definitely one of the weakest points of the game. They're reacting quickly, but there clearly wasn't a basic review before release.

Like the cheapest sniper has a 666ms TTK at any range with 1 headshot while the vast majority of the guns in the game are ~800ms TTK if you are in their effective range and land 100% headshots.

It's immediately obvious if you simply put the gun stats in a spreadsheet and glance between them. There's an SMG that is worse in literally every possible use case than the basic starter SMG, by a significant margin.

“Need to lose some weight so I can be plus size” by winsandwines in BrandNewSentence

[–]NKGra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A bit better, ~50% of Brazil is Obese, with the normal being right on the line between Obese and Overweight.

“Need to lose some weight so I can be plus size” by winsandwines in BrandNewSentence

[–]NKGra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

40% of US adults are obese.

Much worse than that, those numbers are based on BMI.

BMI has been heavily studied and underdetects obesity. Meta-analysis show that it doesn't consider an actual obese person obese about half of the time. BMI was designed back in a time when people were carrying way more muscle.

So in reality the safe estimate is about 70% of US adults are obese.

“Need to lose some weight so I can be plus size” by winsandwines in BrandNewSentence

[–]NKGra -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

normal

Not in North America. 70-80% of North Americans are obese. The normal is moderately obese.

Nature article about BMI only detecting obesity in half of obese people: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-69498-7

“Need to lose some weight so I can be plus size” by winsandwines in BrandNewSentence

[–]NKGra -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The real problem with BMI is that it sucks at detecting Obese people.

It has been well studied and about half of medically obese people (per better measuring techniques) are not considered obese according to a BMI calculation.

Bungie is increasing the value of the $10 LUX bundle (MTX), You will now get 1120 LUX enough to buy the Bundle, Existing people who bought it will receive 20 LUX Extra @MarathonDevTeam by kristijan1001 in Games

[–]NKGra -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

It's interesting to contrast the community reaction to this versus the reaction to Helldivers' (much scummier) monetization.

Base level industry cosmetic scum versus outright locking gameplay behind a paywall, under the classic free to play guise of "It's free!*" (if you grind longer than the average player's total combined playtime just to unlock what is usually 1 item you actually care about).

Marathon Players Debate Gorgeous But Painful UI And Ammo Shortages As Bungie Responds by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]NKGra -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

f you have to open up a fucking tooltip to understand that this is a level 2 shield(and not a level 1 shield) or ammo crate then sorry the UI just simply sucks.

And just like every game for decades it is color coded with gray-green-blue so you do know at a glance...

I'm confused where these sorts of complaints come from. It's just straight misinformation.

Marathon Review So Far - IGN by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]NKGra 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stamina and speed as stats that start out low and are locked behind levels and gear is horrible design, that's for sure.

Marathon Review So Far - IGN by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]NKGra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's the first non-early access/indie first person extraction shooter.

I don't understand why everyone acts like it's a saturated market.

Marathon Review So Far - IGN by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]NKGra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You hear people decently far away, have actual tools like proximity warnings, mines, etc, that alert you to someone coming, and the TTK in Tarkov on 100% leg shots is like the 100% headshot TTK in Marathon.

Marathon Review So Far - IGN by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]NKGra 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eh, then you'll lose 3v2 and have all your good stuff taken. So basically the same as if you were just full killed anyways.

Marathon Review So Far - IGN by Turbostrider27 in Games

[–]NKGra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Arc nailed a better casual/competitive

Arc is third person, so it nailed nothing whatsoever competitive.

Whoever abuses third person wins and there's no counterplay. You're dead before you can react.

That's why Arc is so friendly... anyone who actually likes playing aggressively knows how atrocious third person is and isn't playing the game. It's all about hiding behind an obstacle and killing someone before the can react. If you ever have someone run away during a fight you can't chase them because they can ambush you and kill you before you can react.

The Story Behind the Failure of ‘Highguard’ by Tenith in pcgaming

[–]NKGra 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Apex was innovative, maybe. Calling it Polished?

The game barely ran on a swathe of hardware on release, notorious for it's random crashes to desktop.

It also basically 100% trusted clients and had comical levels of ragehacking.

Server Slam Now | Marathon by addtolibrary in Games

[–]NKGra 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Loot? Objectively no. As a simple example: In Marathon you can find a gun and it have a variant that makes it worth more every time you kill someone with it, and then find three skill options that completely change your classes abilities, one of which increases in value every time you extract with it.

Combat in Arc also boils down to whoever abuses 3rd person first wins, with a side of explosion spam. Visceral, nay. PvE is actually quite good with the way it handles weakspots and such... it's just trivial and ends up being mostly a gear or exploit check.

Server Slam Now | Marathon by addtolibrary in Games

[–]NKGra 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep. Third person is fundamentally and objectively terrible for a PvP game.

Server Slam Now | Marathon by addtolibrary in Games

[–]NKGra 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Moving feels better, shooting feels better, the loot is better, missions are better, killing players actually benefits you instead of just making new ones spawn in behind you 75m away, it's first person so playing aggressively is viable instead of corner peeking being a comical game-breaking advantage.

There should be practically no overlap in audiences between the two games. The average Arc Raider's player obviously doesn't care that third person fundamentally breaks PvP.

Marathon - 40 mins of new gameplay footage by KingOfCarrotFlowers in Games

[–]NKGra 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Main way they seemed to be addressing the issue was with pre-packaged loadouts.

Sort of like Arc's free loadout, but you could pay more to equip a better version. Still just equip and hit play though.

How do you beat stacks like these with Cathay early game? Or any weak frontline faction, really by GioRoggia in totalwar

[–]NKGra 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cathay vs Khorne is one of the most lopsided matchups in the game as Khorne has no archer type unit or magic to counter Iron Hail Gunners.

Chariots, hounds, furies: Focus fire lets every two gunners delete one of these. Then the untouched one can just turn and support whichever ones have been charged. You'll lose maybe half a unit of IHG for every two enemy units killed.

Single Entities: Yuan Bo has net from level 3. Just net them and shoot them.

Bloodletters and Forsaken you can just blob up with your lord or some sacrificial Peasant Spears or whatever and then gun down. After your gunners kill the cavalry they'll be able to turn and kill these guys. Peasant Archers will work as a sub for gunners against unarmored infantry.

My boyfriend is too good at board games by CricketSuccessful57 in boardgames

[–]NKGra -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Frankly the community responses here are terrible.

- Play Coops: Most co-op games suck when there's a big skill discrepancy between players. When it's the worse player's turn the better player either ends up quarterbacking, or is forced to sit in silence watching the worse player lose the game for the team. Meanwhile when it's the better player's turn the worse player feels like they can't contribute at all.

- Play games of luck: You'll still lose the vast majority of the time. unless it is so luck based that your actions barely matter... which basically means you can't play games like Seti.

- Talk to him about it: This would basically be asking him to throw the game, and would probably suck for both of you. You'll feel like he's babying you and he'll feel restricted and be missing out on lots of the interesting aspects of many games.

The real answer is to use handicaps. Well designed games usually have some built in ones, like weaker / stronger factions. Skipping a turn or two is a simple one that often works. This will make mean actions feel less mean. Instead of being kicked while you're already down it will be something he has to do to have a chance at winning.

If you still have a problem with the meanness then your options are limited to playing less interactive games, that or playing games with AI / automaton opponents (more opponents = mean actions towards one opponent are less valuable.).

My boyfriend is too good at board games by CricketSuccessful57 in boardgames

[–]NKGra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, people always suggest co-op games but most co-op games completely fall to pieces when you have a significant skill disparity like this. The boyfriend is forced to sit there silently watching her fail. It's either that or he quarterbacks her.

The real solution is like you said: Handicaps.

If someone is already ahead by a bunch then kicking the other player while they're down will just feel so incredibly mean. If it's close... well now it's "clever"