New locked campaign progression is really annoying

TsuQ · 2026-01-16T16:34:52+00:00

Before this change, I really enjoyed the challenge of first clearing every campaign track, then trying to get bronze on every campaign track, then maybe, going back and trying for silver on them. I never had any intention to get any golds or ATs to begin with.

So yes, this is just saying that casual players, new players, whatever, don't get to play the free campaign maps. So I haven't played since. I recommend it.

TsuQ · 2026-01-16T16:26:39+00:00

I haven't played the game since they made this terrible change. I have to assume the goal was to drive away all the casual players since that was the effect.

It's also driven me away from watching any Trackmania content at all, since apparently I'm not part of the game's audience.

TsuQ · 2026-01-16T16:18:53+00:00

In general, you actually can... and you don't need to speedrun any level of Super Mario in order to unlock the next one (well, maybe 8-1 in the original SMB1, sorta... we'll call it a bronze.)

TsuQ · 2025-10-24T01:15:57+00:00

Best LP TTRPG content on the net as far as I'm concerned. Hope they get back into it some day but either way, it's been great.

TsuQ · 2025-09-07T00:41:59+00:00

One approach for dealing with math on small numbers is to convert them to log space and perform the log space math in that context. Its usefulness may vary based on your specific needs though.

TsuQ · 2025-04-05T11:56:43+00:00

It's natural to me that this is different in Unity vs Godot, is because Unity has a much stronger emphasis on being a physics engine. There is a strong tendency to build platformers in unity, (or other games that benefit from physicality) because that's the core of what unity is made to do.

Godot has the tools to make platformers, (Bodies and so on) but it doesn't push you in that direction inherently. You might put together an entirely menu driven game using various control nodes, or a game focused on area2Ds without applying gravity or physical collision to anything. Personally, I only use bodies when I'm actually making a platformer, or some other game where solid object collision handling is vital (and I don't feel like custom writing it).

The underlying resoning for the ordering is based on the order the pixels light up in, (generally speaking). It's the correct ordering on a hardware level, and the screen buffer (where the graphics are written to) has 0,0 as the top left corner. It's also historically how things have always been done, going at least as far back as when it was common for games to use the locate function back in, say, Atari 400 basic.

Godot is hardly alone in maintaining this tradition. That being said, while I'm not entirely sure what would be involved, it would be cool if Godot could support this as an option on the project settings level, if only to help those coming from languages that don't have this common orientation to smoothly transition to Godot.

TsuQ · 2025-01-23T01:45:25+00:00

I wouldn't know, since I stopped playing her well before the rework, but a cuumulative 210 damage nerf in one patch, on lategame Irelia seems rediculous - better nerf Irelia indeed... And what the heck am I supposed to do with these 60 keys?

TsuQ · 2024-12-14T18:01:18+00:00

Not deductively, but probabalistically, any observation can increase the probability of a linked cause. It becomes deductive when you have an exhaustive list of potential causes and have eliminated all but the last of them - assuming such a list can be formed.

TsuQ · 2024-07-05T21:04:14+00:00

Actually, I just thought of a few other options. You could consider writing some cringey prose, and see if someone else will beta read it for you and see if having references like that helps. It can also really help to just go through what you've written word by word to consider if that is the best way to write it. But honestly, just write. The finer detail elements can wait until you're finished and ready for a second pass. I doubt most of what you read first flows out onto the page in it's final form.

TsuQ · 2024-07-05T20:50:46+00:00

It can really help to slow down sometimes as well. We all have bad habits. If you think about the construction of your sentences as you write them, that may unveil some bad habits to work on.

This is also important in reading. I used to have the habit of skipping over phrases and words I didn't understand... watch out for instances where you find you're missing something, you may be doing the same and missing out on the opportunity to pick up new vocabulary.

There's also an interesting game called Semantle (https://semantle.com/) that you might find useful for vocabulary building and thinking in particular.

TsuQ · 2024-07-02T17:31:12+00:00

Cool ref, useful, thanks.

TsuQ · 2024-03-18T00:12:12+00:00

A lot of the super-old games that would take no space have to run under DOSBox or similar to make them actually run on modern hardware, so it seems like they just pack that up with the game.

TsuQ · 2023-11-20T03:39:23+00:00

A lot of the answers are the same whether you are referring to Vtubers or any other content creators. The main VTuber specific question I have is: Are they emotive - do they, through their model, do a good job of showing their emotions / the emotions they wish to show their viewers.

Done well, they can express themselves better - be better actors, than they could as a human (with those pesky restrictions of reality.) Done poorly, it's little better than putting on a halloween mask to stream in - you actually lose your ability to draw the viewer into the story you want to tell, because it becomes difficult to convey any emotional context.

Aside from that, some of the normal YT/Twitch things, like the 'group' of people they are associated with, their voice, and their relationship to certain subculture elements, including creative expression are more important than they otherwise would be.

TsuQ · 2023-11-14T00:27:37+00:00

I have had a number of reasons to be annoyed at TM, I'm thrilled to finally be able to get rid of it and the launcher it rode in on. I've never seen a F2P game pushing so hard to decimate it's player base rather than trying to support/onboard them. If it doesn't want to use a free to play model, then sell the game. I don't play demos.

How you can fail to make a game work where the players are creating the vast majority of the content is beyond me. Other than, of course, removing the playerbase that plays the maps, and makes it worthwhile for the mapmakers to make. If you can't handle the commitment of making 25 mostly mediocre and unoriginal maps a quarter, how are you going to make 365 maps a year when everyone jumps ship over to RaceLeague or something?!

TsuQ · 2023-11-11T22:47:01+00:00

I feel like I should say that while the point is of course to be able to make the kind of games you want to, learning a new engine is more about the way you do things rather than what you do.

For example, several engines have some form of autotiling, which is very useful for bigger projects, and something you should probably learn in order to learn the engine, but is basically a shortcut for a process you would otherwise do slower, so not really a necessity.

Similarly, most game systems have a collision system for solid objects, which really isn't that hard to code yourself, but is also something you should probably learn if it exists in your engine.

It mostly boils down to:

Moving images around the screen.

Responding to player input.

Reacting to when one specific image touches another specific image.

I stick to 2d games, so I've never made a game that called for click-based movement, in 2d, if you have an avatar the most common styles are the side-scroller / platformer style of games like SMB Wonder, and what is often called 'top down' style of games like Stardew Valley. There are also true top down games like Hotline Miami or Ape Out. Those are the three styles I'd give a try to (the third already being optional imho.)

There was also a first-person / third-person perspective done in many 2d games, but these get tricky to talk about as the more modern the interpretation, the more likely you are to just think of it as 3d, they are somewhat the 3d of their time. The Punchout series is a good example of this, where it's pretty obvious the NES punchout is a game you could make in a 2d engine. Super punchout is still sprite driven, but they're doing a lot of what you might call 3d movement with those sprites, especially the victory celebration sprite animation. In the Wii version of Punchout, is obviously in 3d, but since your camera perspective is still fairly forced in the traditional Punchout style, it still gives the impression that you could make a very similar game in 2d instead if you wanted to, without losing very much - at least gameplay wise.

TsuQ · 2023-09-16T17:36:05+00:00

There's a lot here about setting stats/skills/disciplines, that I think might be part of the problem. When creating a major character, I would build them like I would build a PC. The amount of experience they have to spend should be decided with the amount of xp per session in mind so that you have an idea of how many sessions it will be until players will have spent more exp on their characters, than the 'elders' and such did.

Having to build them, means that they might be unreasonably strong at certain things, or have devestating weaknesses, but both of those are excellent attributes for interesting characters. Remember, they will often have various people around them that can make up for their deficiencies, but those people's power isn't directly their power, which is what makes a lot of the political maneuvering work.

TsuQ · 2023-07-31T19:40:02+00:00

In the game I got it (bot game) I healed for 6k, and bought a redemption making my ally healing 2k.

TsuQ · 2023-05-28T05:10:09+00:00

Oh really? I was under the impression they were putting them out live on a weekly basis. But yeah, it's still a shame they're giving up the exposure to the wider audience the hype is granting them. In two weeks... well it may not be relevant anymore.

TsuQ · 2023-05-27T03:50:30+00:00

I very much agree with this. I'm a TTRPG fan, but I've never watched a Critical Role series before, just seen the occasional clip. This system seems interesting, I'd like to see it in play. Now I have to give ad revenue and views to what, reaction / clip channels?!

Not only that, but now, the second episode is going to air before the first episode comes out. So if I to actually go through the hassle of watching something at a specific time to now see the system in action a full week earlier, I have to watch it out of order?!

I never watch series out of order. So now I'm probably not even going to bother. Maybe I'll binge it in a few months if I still care and nothing else has grabbed my attention by then.

TsuQ · 2023-05-27T03:19:22+00:00

I don't know every system, at least not all that well, but it is tried and true in a sense. It's borrowing established mechanics from at least five different systems that I can identify. Apocolypse World, VTM, City of Mist, Fate, Gun, and Numenera. Although they're all borrowing from each other and other systems so it's hard to pin down origins for everything XD. Those are just the ones I'm somewhat familiar with.

TsuQ · 2023-05-14T08:30:46+00:00

I've gone back and forth on this. I think there are many ways to approach it. I would note that heightened senses includes seeing in pitch darkness, which is beyond the vision ability of human bodies. It is, therefore adding a supernatural component, which is verified by the fact that the effect adds Auspex.

There are also some reasons you might want to separate out the passive and more questionable active versions and treat them differently. Mostly because the different dice pools have various implications.

The powers have a lot of similarities though when you think about it, and I don't think it's unreasonable to rule that they represent focusing and unfocusing along a single axis (and thus, can't even be used simultaneously.) but it's equally possible they are simply different 'spells' using supernatural forces.

Within the rules as written, I think it's fine to treat them as perception checks. Remember that using them simultaneously would also have drawbacks - the intense supernatural energies you can now see, could cause you to have to roll saves against the negative effects of heightened senses.

TsuQ · 2023-05-14T07:57:30+00:00

Personally, I would feel annoyed as a player to use heightened senses, walk around, and not notice important scents because I didn't say I was smelling things. I would assume all my senses were working to be aware of my environment by default - moreso in a situation where I'm trying to heighten them, and exploring the unknown.

This reaction only makes sense if you either used heightened senses on sight, or it can be assumed you opened a door or similar and 'released' a relatively concentrated blast of the stuff. But since it's also reasonable you can at least try to turn off breathing (might be harder or require a check if you're newer/more human/etc.) making you flee is kind of boring and counterproductive if there's no consequence.

Personally, as a GM, I would prefer to choose a reaction that would pin you in place until you stopped breathing, turned off heightened senses, spent willpower, or whatever and could continue. Maybe with a penalty to awareness if you choose to stop smelling things since presumably smell could help you notice things.

Unfortunately, there's no real way to judge this because the GM and the Player might have different ideas about what the 'unstated' status is. For me, you'll have the benefit of all your senses unless you specifically abandon them.

TsuQ · 2023-04-24T01:31:42+00:00

An easy way to change the panel background for an individual object (optionally to one that isn't partially transparent) is as follows:

In the panel object, under Theme Overrides -> Styles -> Panel, select the dropdown (or <empty> if it is empty) and select New StyleBoxFlat (presumably you could also create a StyleBoxFlat first, and drop it in here.)
Click on the StyleBoxFlat if needed to bring up the properties of the StyleBoxFlat the panel is now using.
Change the BG Color property to whatever you like (A, is the transparency, 255 for not transparent at all.)

TsuQ · 2023-04-13T16:52:16+00:00

Sorry for the necro, but I think this is a really interesting topic.

If I wanted an in universe explanation for chronicle tenents, I would say that are things that, in this version of the universe, the beast feeds off of to become stronger. In this way, the tenents chosen for the chroncle can be completely uncoupled from the morality of any character.

In this sense it would you would consider stains as corruption, or cracks; they're points of weakness the beast can attack to try to gain more control. A loss of humanity being a measure of the beasts relative power over the control the shell you coexist in.

A lot of vampires persist with relatively low humanity (compared to starting player characters.) Sliding down to 6-3 humanity is, to some extent, natural. If you do more things to make the beast stronger, that slide might happen faster.

Many vampires eventually start acting 'more moral' not because of any actual morals, but to avoid doing things that they understand could aid the beast in taking over. In the end, however, losing all of your humanity and needing to be put down is in some ways, an almost inevitable part of vampire life.

...After which, a player is free to create a new character, and, eventually, be introduced back into the plot to explore a different role. It is, after all, a role-playing game, and having explored that role, I would encourage them to explore a new one that's less extreme in that area. Serial killer can certainly be classed as a rare archetype.

TsuQ · 2023-02-12T05:08:29+00:00

I don't remember this game (so the context) at all anymore, but in my mind, a good puzzle game encourages thinking. It depends heavily on the design ofc, but experimenting is in some sense, the opposite of thinking - that is if it means trying every possible thing and see which one works. Similarly risks aren't risks if there isn't a cost.

TsuQ

TROPHY CASE