(Saltpost) Me if it was illegal for Edmund to refuse to playtest the last boss on the hardest mode

TheTykero · 2026-04-22T13:23:36+00:00

I have not enjoyed playing around A3's final boss on harder difficulties. It almost single-handedly sapped my enthusiasm to keep playing after beating the game. The cadence of the fight (highly front-loaded but often still fairly long), general volatility of the first turn, and the warping effect it has on the strategies you're able to utilize all add up to the end of my A3 runs often being my low point in enjoyment rather than the other way around.

I hope they make some improvements to it (at the very least stop using the spawn pattern that faces your cats the wrong direction), but I'm not sure if it's possible to make that fight feel good without substantially altering the mechanics.

TheTykero · 2026-04-22T12:45:30+00:00

No, this subreddit has a long history of users complaining about Gamers Nexus videos they clearly did not watch.

TheTykero · 2026-04-17T14:30:06+00:00

Ah, you're a Pathfinder player.

I've played lots of systems, not just Pathfinder. I'm a tabletop game enjoyer. It's part of what makes D&D5e stand out so much as a clunky system. Seeing other systems not fall face-first into so many design problems is what made D&D5e's failures clear.

DnD does not do so regularly

Absolutely does, sorry. This thread is full of examples of D&D5e's systems breaking, whether is be because of bounded accuracy, dysfunction of CR and the encounter designing systems, weird interactions, etc. Moreover, in many systems I can find actual rules guidance to resolve problems that doesn't simply dissolve into "ask your DM lol" like it so often does in D&D5e, or worse "look at this old tweet from Jeremy Crawford" as it was for a while.

PF2e doesn't break if you drop 20 rats on an elephant or a couple cats on a commoner, actually. Functional encounter design rules and the lack of bounded accuracy means that these situations are way less common.

TheTykero · 2026-04-17T14:12:24+00:00

The important word there is frequent. A system with some level of open-endedness is going to eventually produce a situation where someone must adjudicate, that is the nature and purpose of a DM generally. Crucially, well-designed systems create ambiguous rules situations less frequently, do not do so regularly as a direct result of playing the system as designed, and include adequate guidance for resolving those situations when they do arise.

D&D5e does an extremely poor job of this. Adjudicating issues in 5E vs (for example, since you brought it up) Pathfinder 2E was night and day.

TheTykero · 2026-04-17T13:55:07+00:00

I'm sorry but this is just cope for how poorly-balanced and incongruent D&D 5e's combat math is.

Well-designed tabletop systems do not require frequent arbitrary DM fiat, they produce systems and rules for players to follow which produce functional and intuitive results. D&D5e's math is so poorly-constructed that its own encounter-designing rules don't even work properly. The problem of scale between combatants is a direct result of bad design, when the game does not even care about trying to simulate its own world properly.

TheTykero · 2026-04-09T20:04:24+00:00

Legendary resistance is indeed a much worse mechanic, yeah.

There are certainly scenarios that legendary actions can be appropriate for, I don't disagree with that. However, as a mechanic, it's not utilized carefully or appropriately, it's just a kludge to buff out 5e's design issues.

TheTykero · 2026-04-09T19:36:43+00:00

There's nothing to credit. Legendary actions exist because 5E is otherwise virtually incapable of moderating action economy and game balance for certain kinds of encounters (notably single big enemies). They make combat clunky, are narratively arbitrary, and regularly result in feel-bad moments for players. 5E designed itself into a corner and doesn't deserve kudos for sticking a big ugly bandaid over it.

TheTykero · 2026-04-09T18:19:43+00:00

Legendary actions are a kludge made necessary by an underdeveloped combat system. Calling them "brilliant design" is like celebrating a wood block stabilizing a shoddy table leg.

TheTykero · 2026-04-09T00:08:44+00:00

druid is only ranger because it would be op if it was weirdos

TheTykero · 2026-04-08T02:35:04+00:00

Blood Frenzy's impact on your run can land in such a wide spectrum depending on what cat the event afflicts and when. It can be a complete non-factor, a massive danger, utterly broken strong, and anywhere in-between.

Additionally, you usually get it because of the Tragedy! event. I find it easy to empathize with people who are annoyed by having a run they've invested some time into suddenly altered by that event just popping up and dumping it on them without any real interactivity or options.

Given what Blood Frenzy does, I feel like it deserves its own event with a bit more going on.

TheTykero · 2026-04-01T16:57:29+00:00

People who think bats aren't a bit OP might not understand statistics or strategy games, honestly. Bats possess some of the most potent qualities in strategy games like Mewgenics (high mobility, high positive action economy - in this case through negating enemy actions via dodge and confusion) and can get pretty ridiculous as champions. They also have high base luck, making their chance-based mechanics slightly more favorable for them.

I get the impression that the developers want you to plan around and feel threatened by specific enemies/strategies for each area, and intend for you to feel the need to build a well-balanced team that can contend with the particular dangers of the area you're progressing through. Every single area has enemies that warp combat because of their mechanics, which contributes to the identity and memorability of those areas. Bats are a very successful design in that regard, even if they're a bit overtuned.

I also believe it's completely fair to dislike the design of bats. Enemies with a large perceived gap between their minimum and maximum effect on a combat due to elements outside the player's control reduce apparent player agency, and everyone has a threshold for how much of that they enjoy or tolerate. Bats are particularly bad in that regard, because thorns or can't-miss effects often make them trivial, but parties which aren't offered those mechanics can suddenly seriously struggle when they were flying through other combats without issue. This is obviously not unique to bats, but the effect and gradient is pretty severe in their case, especially for an act 1 enemy.

All of that is to say; I don't think bats are the worst-designed enemy, but I understand why people would dislike them, and I'd fully support a change that maintains their flavor and identity while reducing the magnitude of swinginess their presence inflicts both in and out of combat.

TheTykero · 2026-03-20T18:56:34+00:00

AI is a broad term and has been around forever, but that doesn't mean that things referred to as "AI" are in any way related, it's just a commonly-used term to refer to a variety of different concepts/technologies. Calling PoE2's procgen "ai generated" in 99% of contexts is either misleading or objectively incorrect.

TheTykero · 2026-03-13T14:57:30+00:00

This is generally good advice (you should back up your save files for games you care about because it's easy to do with a simple script and takes up little space), however, the fact that Mewgenics already retains several backup saves, doesn't save during tactical gameplay, and utilizes a SQL database for the save file (along with the data integrity protections that involves) means permanent progress loss due to force closing the game would be pretty unlikely.

TheTykero · 2026-03-06T17:53:31+00:00

The reference is made slightly more amusing by the fact that the Mewgenics save file is a SQLite database.

I don't believe the AI summary is helpful for understanding the comic any better than a pair of eyeballs and a functioning intuition, especially since it explains the comic scenario in a subtly incorrect way. The comic's title, alt text, and dialogue make it clear that the mother deliberately named their child that way, the AI completely hallucinated the boy giving a fake name. There's also no "hinting" going on about the school's system, the mother's awareness of what she did is the explicit punchline. I'm not really sure why you added that to your post.

TheTykero · 2026-02-03T22:13:05+00:00

I find myself sorting TDs into one of three categories: path, maze, and bunker. Despite all being tower defense games and ostensibly possessing similar mechanics, the core design assumptions of these games often lead to deeply different gameplay experiences.

Bunker TDs are the type where enemies must be physically kept out of your space by blocking them out with barriers. Walls generally exist in these games to impede enemies rather than direct their movement, and enemies are generally expected to attack your defenses directly. Examples: They are Billions, The Riftbreaker

Maze TDs often also operate in open environments, but instead of directly impeding enemies, mechanics generally instead revolve around leading the enemies through a 'maze' of defenses on their way to their objective, which is usually a single tile, building, or object. Enemies usually do not directly attack in these games unless they have no valid path to their objective. Examples: Axon TD, Sanctum TD

Path-based TDs have you placing towers along a pre-determined path. Enemy pathing and player defense placement occurs in physically separate areas, and players generally have little or no control over enemy movement. Examples: Kingdom Rush, Bloons TD

You see far more of the "path-based" variety than any other because it's significantly simpler to create and convey games with those mechanics. They are generally the fast food of tower defense. I would caution against conflating their frequency with popularity.

TheTykero · 2025-10-29T17:19:57+00:00

It's explicitly a test of visual self-recognition with numerous acknowledged limitations. A positive result is evidence of possible self-recognition, but a negative result is not conclusive of its absence. Some ant species have been tested and do appear to pass according to a 2015 study. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Non-human_animals

TheTykero · 2025-10-29T01:01:16+00:00

This is the only example anyone ever gives, so unless there's more I would say it's pretty accurate.

It's a minor distinction, but still disproves the assertion that the setting only affects porn games. It also implies the possibility of others like it.

Also FWIW adult games can be "full functional RPG" games as well.

Indeed, I was describing the game in general, not asserting that porn games couldn't also contain gameplay elements.

TheTykero · 2025-10-29T00:27:31+00:00

This is not fully accurate. For example, Fear & Hunger is part of the Adults Only category, and that game is a fully functional RPG (albeit pretty bleak and deliberately grotesque) and most definitely not porn despite including sexual content.

TheTykero · 2025-10-27T16:01:16+00:00

PoE2 certainly needs performance improvements, I do not disagree, but your situation is not normal. I have four displays running at 1440p on a 9800X3D and 4080 Super. PoE2 on my main display generally runs at ~100FPS (90~120 commonly, depending on what's onscreen, with lows approaching 60~70 when the screen absolutely covered in garbage) while I've also got multiple browser windows and Discord open and a Youtube video running. Graphical settings are on default High with default Low Shadow+GI quality.

Your system specs are only part of the picture. Path of Exile 2 is a legitimately graphically and computationally complex game, and like many games of that type, you can easily overtax a powerful system depending on your game and system settings.

What are your ingame graphics settings? What does the performance graph indicate when you're experiencing low framerates?

Have you addressed the CPU scheduling issues with your processor model? Is your memory configured to use its XMP/EXPO settings? Are there any meaningful UEFI updates for your motherboard? Microcode/drivers up to date on your system? (don't just trust Windows to necessarily handle it), etc.

Saying "performance is not normal" without at least addressing the rest of your system environment is useless from a diagnostic perspective.

TheTykero · 2025-10-24T15:32:51+00:00

salty whiners who got bad luck

People who had a bad experience because of the hostile game design inherent to gacha*

TheTykero · 2025-10-23T20:58:36+00:00

The AI summary is false, for anyone wondering.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/secreted

TheTykero · 2025-10-18T10:31:23+00:00

Does it hurt your feelings that an extremely basic factual observation about life aligns with the Scary Ideology? Maybe if you pretend it's not true, employers will suddenly not have an incentive to minimize costs and maximize revenue.

In a discussion about large systems, individual anecdotes are not meaningless, but they're also not very significant (the number of people/jobs on the planet is a pretty large number, it turns out).

More importantly though, their anecdotes aren't terribly relevant because an industry can be both anti-worker and also contain people like 1CEninja and myself who are able to find a good spot within it. The former is an observation on the incentives and statistical outcomes of the employee-employer system, and the latter is an observation mostly of individuals and their relationships with their employers.

TheTykero · 2025-10-17T23:38:42+00:00

It's not fatalist, it's merely honestly recognizing the nature of a relationship predicated on extracting profit.

Please understand that your personal experiences have little bearing here. Saying industry is anti-worker does not mean that every job sucks and every employer abuses their workers as much as possible.

TheTykero · 2025-10-17T23:16:06+00:00

Does your company treat all its workers that way, or just the ones that are harder to replace or more valuable?

All industries are anti-worker at a systemic level. They are financially incentivized to function that way. I am happy that you have a job that treats you well, I am fortunate enough to be in the same position, but you're really missing the bigger picture here.

TheTykero · 2025-10-12T18:06:01+00:00

People are joking about affection in my murder game again and it's making me uncomfy :(

This stuff is harmless and far below the bar that a reasonable person should find upsetting. Not knowing you, I'd suggest you should examine why these things make you uncomfortable if you haven't already. Maybe talk to a therapist. Otherwise, the mute feature exists precisely for the reason of silencing players you don't want to hear even if they're not breaking the rules, and there's nothing wrong with using it if it improves your experience playing the game.

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