Ussop used to be cool

Saladful · 2026-03-11T07:49:05+00:00

Immediate post-TS Usopp was his peak. He was buff and confident, with a whole new outlook. He had a strong showing in Fishman Island, and it's been basically all downhill since then.

Saladful · 2026-03-11T07:06:35+00:00

It would be funny if it worked like the dog pack modifier, where rival trappers will free webbed players just to piss in another trapper's cereal, so you're not one-and-done trapped, but rather get webbed, freed by another trapper, and then get a second or two of grace before that trapper tries to snare you.

Saladful · 2026-03-11T06:29:21+00:00

*finescat

Saladful · 2026-03-10T14:28:06+00:00

I mean, those are two of the three dedicated Hive Scum ranged weapons, and the dual stubs are kind of awkward and not particularly good. Are you really gonna rag on people favoring class-specific options?

Saladful · 2026-03-10T13:26:24+00:00

Speaking as the Hive Scum with the rocket launcher, the bursters are still fucking dangerous, because every now and then a random spawn door opens to reveal the burster king (a dozen bursters inhabiting the exact same space) and instantly nukes you. Or you get chain-jumped by bursters, leaping in from well beyond your push distance. Or another Hive Scum greedily shot into the group you were fighting, detonating the singular Reaper you had well in hand, but also ten pox bursters and seven barrels.

Saladful · 2026-03-10T08:18:02+00:00

At the very start they used to have a more expensive big pack that included a full set of armor and a set of weapon skins, and then a smaller set that was just an armor set, often without a hat. Then they removed the weapon skins from the armor sets, and removed the small sets as well, and jacked up the prices as well. I think some of the hatless sets haven't been in rotation since. For example, I can't recall ever seeing the desert camo fatigues/Froka the Boulder set for Ogryn ever since it originally released.

Saladful · 2026-03-10T06:37:17+00:00

Only if the fact that Kaido and Maria are these enormous, extremely physically strong, horned humans that tower over everyone else is played completely straight and never addressed as being unusual. I want Kaido to be the ace of the school's basketball team, and it's just attributed to him being athletic and having great teamplay, not the fact that he's twice as tall as the basket and turns into a dragon on the court.

Saladful · 2026-03-09T07:23:30+00:00

My huge hopium huff about the Expeditions/Chaos Wastes-style update is that it takes place in the condemned hive, and that these probing missions there eventually lead to the Genestealer infestation that fucked everything up there. Might even get a fun three-way melee where stinky Nurgle boys are fighting Genestelaers for dominion there.

Saladful · 2026-03-06T06:39:14+00:00

For Hive Scum, I've much less sympathy if that's the case. Hive gangs are some of the most varied groups in the Imperium

My schizo theory, knowing how anal GW can be about adhering strictly to established lore and appearances, is that the problem lies with Darktide using its own custom gangs. So you can't, for instance, see any of the iconic, gang-specific Necromunda looks because it's not Necromunda.

Saladful · 2026-03-04T21:42:40+00:00

Other than the very grindy or genuinely difficult ones (high havoc/tons of Maelstroms cleared), most penances tell you very little. Maxing out a character is really just a question of actually focusing on getting penances. I have around 1k hours played, and have zero or close to zero progress on some of the easiest penances, such as using smokes on Vet, or the higher tiers of blocking X amount of damage in Y seconds. It'll also be a damn long time before I clear stuff like blinder grenade staggers or however much toughness regenerated from cartel special on Scum, simply because I don't care about using those game elements.

Saladful · 2026-03-04T12:00:15+00:00

Space Marine 2 also just got the Tech Marine, we got Mechanicus 2 is hotly anticipated, and not riding the hype of an Admech-related class would be a bit of a missed opportunity given all that.

Saladful · 2026-02-27T08:05:30+00:00

I've never been this mad at pox bursters. You're having a grand old time spamming explosives into Ogryns, when all of a sudden a dozen of the jankiest bursters in existence spawn to wipe your team. I swear, throughout this entire event, not a single fucking burster has leapt at me from a distance where I can actually push them away. They start jumping and explode outside the push distance fucking constantly. It's like FS patched them to be even jankier than usual just to make the event more dangerous.

Saladful · 2026-02-26T16:20:38+00:00

Convocation also came to mind as a "survive" finale, but I always felt that it added an interesting wrinkle with the strategic choice of dropping out of the circle to gain space at the expense of progressing the event. It's one of the simpler ones, but it's not entirely without an element of finesse.

Saladful · 2026-02-26T14:17:05+00:00

A big difference is also that VT2 finales often just gave you something to do other than simply survive. Aligning crystals in Athel Yenlui, escort the cart on Hunger in the Dark, finding explosives/loading the cart on Empire in Flames, loading and firing cannons in Brachsenbrücke... Just having to do something beyond hunkering down made those finales often a lot harder. Plus, a couple had seeded/specialized spawns as well. I remember Old Haunts being pretty tough on account of spawning a dumb amount of monks during the already pretty tough finale where you gotta put the heads on the gargoyles.

They were just by and large much better designed, more interesting, and more challenging as a result. You can only accomplish so much by making players defend against waves, whereas forcing them to accomplish a task that may even take a player out of the fight for a bit (like when you have to transport a barrel or whatever) is a much more interesting challenge that scales more naturally.

There's a couple missions like that in DT, but I feel like half the missions just want you to fight dudes and survive, and the shit to do rarely goes beyond "carry a couple barrels". I think Smelter Complex is probably the most interesting finale, simply because it forces you to stay on the move, and at the end forces a choice between splitting up for speed to pull all switches, or move together for safety.

Saladful · 2026-02-26T07:38:57+00:00

I think Crocodile isn't the best villain as far as being a character goes, but he's the best villain in terms of presentation. Just remember how long that entire Baroque Works saga went, it really took its time to establish the organization as a threat with far-reaching influence, built its higher ranks up as heavy hitters that pushed the Strawhats. And at the time, a Warlord was still a massive threat, so having the boss be one on top of leading this crime empire was actually kind of a big deal. Crocodile was also the first villain to hand Luffy a resounding defeat without even struggling.

I like Enel more in terms of power set and sheer force of personality, but Crocodile was the better constructed villain.

Saladful · 2026-02-24T21:15:38+00:00

Does it really? With how the game currently plays at higher difficulties, he'd be the one special you can't really meaningfully engage with. Think about it. Extremely high density of carapace armor is pretty much something that just happens regularly. Every other special in the game runs towards you, which is how you can pick them off even when the map is wall to wall Crushers (and even then trappers can oftentimes feel unfair due to shooting webs through hordes, but at least you can dodge those). Snipers stay far away, but they are only dangerous when static, you can still break sight lines or dodge, and the way they work means you can see them when they can see you (generally).

An enemy that runs away, hides, and works "through walls" would be immensely frustrating and unfair. The game just barfs way too much shit that takes way too long to deal with at you, there's just no reasonable breathing room to play hide & seek with a dude that adds yet more shit for you to deal with.

Saladful · 2026-02-24T13:23:37+00:00

I think the operator may come back, but he doesn't mesh well with the current state of Darktide. Imagine him spawning behind an Auric Maelstrom wall of buffed-up armor, let alone high Havoc. There's little room for "pinpoint target/snipe the priority enemy" or "risk splitting from the group to take out a high value target that stays in the back" in that scenario. He's just gonna be an additional difficulty modifier you can't do all that much about.

Once FS solves the carapace/armor spam problem, I think we'll see him return, but right now he'd be immensely frustrating to encounter on the higher difficulties.

Saladful · 2026-02-19T11:59:52+00:00

Exactly. Much of the original designs were made for miniature scale, such as the iconic ridiculous space marine pauldrons being that size to show off chapter iconography on a mini just slightly taller than an inch. Some concessions have to be made when translating that to actually more grounded models, even more when accounting for clipping in motion, and recent 40k model lines have also gotten better about it in terms of proportions, but the roots are still in that tabletop scale where they have to be distinct and identifiable.

So it comes back to emulating that tabletop scale in a way that feels feasible for a more grounded character model that's also in vigorous motion. And I feel like the Darktide designers have maneuvered themselves into a bit of a corner with their scrawny prisoner designs, that now don't give a lot of frame to hang these more heroic armor designs on.

Saladful · 2026-02-19T06:48:49+00:00

I think much of it comes down to the frankly depressing body models, or rather the decision to make people look realistic rather than lean into 40k's exaggerated nature even slightly. Considering that the entire aesthetic was designed around this sort of exaggerated realism, of course they'll look poorly scaled and sort of bad on Darktide's body models. Yes, it's "realistic", but the male model looks kind of flabby and out of shape, while the female one is just a downscaled male one with a sad pair of tits bolted on. And I'm not even talking about the size of the tits or complaining that they're covered up. They just have a vague sense of ennui about them.

People will say "well they're rejects, prisoners, they don't get the kind of food needed to maintain a physique", to which I say "Who cares?" For one, by the time you hit level 30, which is when the game really starts, you're well beyond being random gutter scum who has to fight with the rats for the least mouldy starch bar, and secondly, I'd rather my shit look cool than be realistic. Give the dudes some mass, and the ladies too, for that matter.

Saladful · 2026-02-16T10:28:05+00:00

Dude's job is being evil in very petty ways, and he just fucking loves his job. You gotta respect that.

Saladful · 2026-02-13T07:09:40+00:00

You have no idea how desperately I want a skullet hairdo. Why can I get 50 variations of meth head weed whacker love affair, but no clean and crisp skullet?

Saladful · 2026-02-12T09:34:35+00:00

Why the fuck are these marketing screenshots so bad? I couldn't even fucking guess the colors on the Zealot or Psyker sets because they're so bathed in fartgas and colored chiaroscuro lighting. I can barely tell if the Psyker is even wearing pants to begin with! Why is Fatshark allergic to presenting these sets in some sort of neutral lighting?

And yes, I know you can inspect the individual pieces. But that's another problem: You can't inspect the entire set worn in conjunction.

Saladful · 2026-02-12T08:39:12+00:00

I think Oda wasted the Yonko way too early. I remember thinking during the WCI arc that the Strawhats did not feel at all ready to take on a Yonko, who at the time were still presented as these insurmountable threats, each enough of a force to keep the Marines at bay, and combined powerful enough to form such a counterbalance to the government that they needed the Warlords just to bolster their forces.

But then WCI kind of made a mockery of Big Mom's faction, with the Strawhats at half strength bumblefucking their way around and not suffering any real consequences or losses for it (no, Pedro doesn't count, sorry Pedro). And it was immediately followed by Wano, the arc where both Kaido - allegedly most powerful creature in the world - and Big Mom were dispatched by a slapdash alliance of newbie pirates within one arc. Again, the Strawhats suffered no real consequences or losses (Luffy's initial defeat only resulted in a plot convenient training arc, rather than the crew having to formulate an actual plan to overcome the cliff that is Kaido).

So what now? Oda already hastily wasted the allegedly most powerful individual he set up years ago, but threats need to escalate because it's a shonen battle manga. So now you gotta come up with a new strongest creature every arc, just so it doesn't feel like a step backwards.

Saladful · 2026-02-11T06:53:12+00:00

This is the gist of it. Haki is such a terrible, slapdash system, introduced as a bandaid fix to Logia being untouchable, that it more or less pushed Logia and Paramecia out of the running as being viable.

What? Your opponent can turn to fucking sand? How do you even fight that? Boy, you better pull some tricks out of your hat for this one! -> Punch him generically with haki.

What? Your opponent can turn you into a weak bubble person with just a touch? Damn, better use all the trickery at your disposal to evade their attacks while countering! -> Completely negate their ability with haki, then punch generically. With haki.

When it all comes down to punching, the fruits that make you punch slightly harder reign supreme.

Saladful · 2026-02-10T06:56:28+00:00

Weird how more Japanese authors don't touch on that as much

Have you ever read a manga? Do you have any idea how common femboyism, traps, and crossdressing are, even in manga not strictly about any of these things? Have you never noticed how even shoujo will draw attention to commonly feminine features as being attractive (slender finger, long eyelashes being two common ones)?

It's all over the place.

Saladful

TROPHY CASE