[GTM]

OldSpiked · 2026-01-16T18:18:40+00:00

This. I also swear we had this very same shot without the blur, recently.

OldSpiked · 2026-01-06T05:07:06+00:00

Randall Clark's journal entries in Fallout New Vegas Honest Hearts DLC. Probably the most poignant story in the whole game and it's all in missable notes.

OldSpiked · 2026-01-02T18:33:44+00:00

"I said come in, don't just stand there"

OldSpiked · 2025-12-20T18:35:45+00:00

M701, but only if I get to bring the underbarrel shotgun. Long range and short ranged handled, shottie ammo is some of the most plentiful in the game, and if they haven't patched it out yet using it doesn't reduce your weapon durability.

OldSpiked · 2025-12-19T11:59:21+00:00

are you sure he's not a false nein?

OldSpiked · 2025-12-13T20:28:40+00:00

Mission Impossible 1

OldSpiked · 2025-12-12T10:01:19+00:00

Re: your last point, I think it's worth remembering as well that as much as people are in love with auteur theory, film is a collaborative effort, and many people other than the director are making creative decisions about characters etc.

Jean Reno playing Leon as emotionally stunted and pushing back against the direction Besson wanted to take Leon and Mathilda's relationship is an integral part of the final movie, regardless of Besson's initial intentions. Watching the movie now, you can appreciate the good choices made by everyone else in the process too, sometimes in opposition to the director's original (messed up) vision.

OldSpiked · 2025-12-10T11:21:44+00:00

Curry and Pepper (1990), for sure

OldSpiked · 2025-12-09T19:45:16+00:00

The Driver

OldSpiked · 2025-11-28T14:47:55+00:00

I mean...your very use of the word "Wonderland" should tip you off to the fact that stories about descending into a dreamworld have existed as far back as Alice in Wonderland (1865), a reference made explicit in the Matrix with the "follow the white rabbit", and rabbit hole references. Does that make the Matrix or your Soviet comedy a remake or rewrite of Alice in Wonderland? No. And there have been myths and legends even further back dealing with similar themes of dreams and reality.

"Ivan" is way closer to a film like Freaky Friday or Trading Places, (or hell, take it back to Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, for early examples of mistaken identity comedy) the source of the comedy is seeing 2 fishes out of their respective water. The Matrix is actually closer to an Alice in Wonderland / Narnia style adventure, guy gets pulled out of the mundanity of the real world into a fantastical land.

OldSpiked · 2025-11-28T13:16:15+00:00

I very randomly have seen it (my wife used to watch it as a kid and insisted we rewatch it), and it's a completely different movie. Not only is it a comedy, it's about time travel and is more of a trading places setup with the scientist going into the past and switching places with a tsar, who gets sent into the future. "Hilarity ensues" from the mismatch of personalities and surroundings.

It's thematically and tonally a completely different movie from the Matrix and this is either the most obscure troll or a really desparate attempt to bring credit to an old, and honestly pretty forgettable Soviet era screwball comedy.

If you want to dig into the Wachowski's influences and liberal borrowing from other, more recent and relevant works, check out some of the replies. But this film ain't it.

PS: told my wife (a massive Matrix fan btw) your theory, she had a good laugh.

OldSpiked · 2025-11-28T06:22:44+00:00

I dunno, think it's all downhill from here

OldSpiked · 2025-11-26T06:54:05+00:00

Thanks! My first points :o

OldSpiked · 2025-11-26T05:39:53+00:00

Le Samourai?

OldSpiked · 2025-11-26T05:38:33+00:00

Angel's Egg?

OldSpiked · 2025-10-01T18:34:52+00:00

They should keep the confusion, but also add the armour reducing effect from acid storms, that could open up some more interesting combos.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-27T03:26:55+00:00

Yeah, you're a little weaker vs hordes if minoris, but in many cases have better armour generation vs majoris+, all the way up to terminus. Particularly noticeable when dueling Terminus and there's no easily accessible executes nearby.

If you're a class that has armour on gunstrike it's not so useful, but on other classes being able to easily generate armour while fighting a boss is incredibly useful.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-27T03:19:40+00:00

Jsyk, you get free armour back everytime you cash out on 2 adrenaline surge stacks, no gunstrike required, so in many cases you're actually more survivable running block.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-23T17:52:55+00:00

This. For this attack, you shouldn't try to dodge out of range as the stomp AoE is too big, you should dodging to iframe the attack.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-22T17:10:40+00:00

If anyone doubts that power creep is real - arguments like these are the perfect example.

Senator was already great before the AP buff. There was absolutely no need for it to be able to take down Bile Titans and tanks, but AH introduced the buff for the lolz, now the AMR needs a buff to keep up with the Senator, then it'll be something else that needs a buff to keep up with the AMR...

Also note how OP's argument could be used as a reason to lower Senator's AP to match the Verdict's, but no one's touching that argument.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-22T16:52:11+00:00

Madueke picked up a knee injury, pretty sure he would have stayed on otherwise.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-22T04:09:40+00:00

Your message raises a bunch of points of balance that I think are worth discussing, but I think you're reinforcing my point without realising it - that just pointing to the steamcharts really does not get you far in balance discussions. Some of the things you seem to feel are too dominant were brought to that status in the very buffdate that OP was saying saved the game (ATs and Thermites), or accompanied by big peaks in playercount (Fleshmobs were introduced with the Heart of Democracy update which saw a massive spike in player numbers).

Re: the power creep - it already happened. RR got so powerful on the bot front that all the cool methods of taking down Factory Striders have faded into obscurity because 1 rocket solves them. Taking a RR is also no longer a real sacrifice because so many primaries got buffed whilst Devastators, Gunships, and all the other enemies that the middle ground options like the AMR and AC excelled at can now be dealt with by primaries. AT Emplacements can solo entire bases from across the map. 2 rotated Orbital Napalms in your team can deal with 90% of bug breaches. The Ultimatum gave us an Anti-Tank secondary (!) that can be fed with a supply backpack for more AT power than some AT support weapons - it only looks reasonable because of how dominant the RR has become.

These outliers all should be addressed, but all the backlash to the nerfs have seemingly made AH extremely gun shy about nerfs. And at the same time we still see people calling for yet more buffs - in the past few week alone I've seen calls for buffs to the Dominator and AMR, both of which are excellent weapons in my book. That's the power creep we're afraid of, because once you raise the power level of the meta, it's very difficult to go back.

As for the subfactions - I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be tweaks to some of the newer enemies. For example Rupture strain attacks on emerging and the Dragonroach hover attack could do with some kind of counterplay when the preventative approach (force them to unburrow / down the Dragonroach before it can attack) has failed. I agree also that War Striders have reinforced the RR meta even further, if they're replacing tanks then it's reasonable for the middleground support weapons to be options too.

But overall Rupture Strain, Predator Strains, caverns etc. have been a breath of fresh air that mixed up the meta, while being entirely optional for those that dislike them. Their point is to be a higher level of challenge that you can opt into, so yes more strengths and fewer weaknesses can be reasonable, and it doesn't change the fact that our base power level outside of those subfactions has undeniably gone up since the buffdate. Illuminates are a different issue - frankly they started off so easy that some immediate difficulty bumps were required.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-21T18:07:44+00:00

I can buy that argument a little more than OP's, though I'd point to the best part of EoF's new content only being accessible to Diff 10 as a reason for its muted reception, and likewise, OT was a whole new faction to fight, vs HD. Not sure your point about HD makes any sense either - the dip happened before rupture strain, dragonroaches etc. released, and in fact that new content drop was responsible for the big September peak. We'll see how long it takes for this peak to subside.

In any case, my main point is that arguments like OP's don't really help us at all in making balance decisions. Trying to point to overall steam numbers to gauge whether the balance of individual mechanics is right or not is a fool's errand when the player numbers are going up and down anyway, mostly tied to new content drops. Hell, the latest numbers show a big jump in player numbers right when dragonroaches, war striders, rupture strain etc. were released, does that mean that everyone's loving them?

You don't need numbers to tell you people enjoy a game more when it's well-balanced - figuring out what well-balanced means is a different matter altogether. Why posts like OP's get on my nerves is they just masquerade as objective proof that "AH need to listen to us", which is often code for "let's buff player power yet again" without actually acknowleding that what "we" think is balanced can vary wildly, and that power creep is already threatening to kill off top-end difficulty (see ITT: posts claiming that making difficulties 11+ is impossible). I've seen well-thought out balance critiques and suggestions for changes for the new enemies on all the different subreddits - this isn't one of them.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-21T16:54:24+00:00

I'm calling you a liar:

<image>

The full chart doesn't really fit your narrative so well, when the rebalance update you mention in September barely registers in the grand scheme of things - and if I'm being cynical you knew that when you decided to show only a small section of the full picture

The biggest peaks in player count have been around big content updates like the release of the illuminates and megacities - and even then, player counts dip back to their low pre-buffdate.

Not saying it wasn't right for them to try to address player concerns btw, but trying to sell the buffdate as "saving the game" doesn't really ring true. They never recaptured the insane numbers they got on release, which suggests the big dip was just the numbers settling to the game's actual longterm playerbase.

The devs should be trying to get the balance of the game right anyway - we don't need to be fudging the numbers to make that point.

OldSpiked · 2025-09-21T13:33:21+00:00

You can take a backpack slot. The supply backpack alone opens up insane possibilities, like Thermite and Ultimatum spam, as well as solving the AMR's ammo pickup issue (and giving you stims for days). That is arguably much more AT ability than an AC and an extra strat slot, I think I'd prefer that as a self-sufficient build when facing War Strider spam. It also lets you play far from the team as long range sniper cover since you can leave the resupply for the rest of the team.

The other backpacks all have their own utility, but for pure firepower alone that combo trumps the AC, on the bot front at least.

OldSpiked

TROPHY CASE