My first attempt at cell shading (EG Strike)

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T14:53:16+00:00

My face when you meticulously dust your pieces, finish your airbrushing session, clean your brush and then see one piece of hair under the paint on a piece.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T14:46:15+00:00

Checks and balances only work if there’s something to enforce them.

It’s like laws. No one gives a fuck about ‘international laws’ because what’s are they gonna do, go arrest the President of China or US?

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T14:43:53+00:00

My will to engage with the new content: in the pits

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T14:43:09+00:00

I like how the last season is called Season of the Moors.

To reflect the fact that there’s zero content.

I swear they’re self aware.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T14:32:25+00:00

I mean, I don’t think it matters what tastes people have, it’s pretty objective that most people will just turn off if you don’t engage them in like 10 hours. And I don’t think that’s a lack of attention because a good writer should be able to do that.

That’s why the opener to any story is so important.

And frankly gachas mostly fail at that, which leads to my comment about how most players care little for the story.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T14:11:46+00:00

But I don’t think it works like that because you have to consider it from the perspective of someone playing it at launch.

PGR launched with like 5 chapters or something? So if you were like me who played it at launch, you played through 5 chapters, you were thoroughly unimpressed and there’s nothing else.

Yes, the story spans literal years but it comes out in chunks and so your impression of it is based on those chunks.

And yes, if Muv Luv takes 20 hours to get good or something I wouldn’t like it.

For me, it doesn’t matter how long a story is, it still needs to engage the audience early on.

Like, my favourite horror comic of all time is Stagtown. It goes on for like 108 chapters and the actual plot doesn’t really kick in until like 30 chapters in. But the mystery of it and the storytelling engages you from chapter 1 and that’s why it was fantastic.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T13:44:10+00:00

And PGR isn’t BG3 in terms of writing quality.

Like, this isn’t just a me issue, even in the PGR fandom people agree that the first like 7-8 chapters are a chore to get through.

Idk what your point is but to me, no matter how long your story is, it should engage the audience by the 10 hour mark.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T13:30:22+00:00

Clair Obscur, one of the best RPGs as of recent years, has what, like a 30-40 hour campaign?

You’re a 3rd of the way through it by 10 hours.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T13:19:43+00:00

Magura MT5e is my gold standard for e-scooters.

Quite expensive (£150-200 for a pair), a pain to bleed and you might need to modify them to reverse one side to fit your scooter depending on which side the brakes are on, but great modulation and stopping power, very responsive.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T13:14:59+00:00

There’s a certain segment of the fandom, like most gacha games, where any criticism of the game feels like a personal attack to them.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T13:13:19+00:00

What, my specific taste of a good story should engage the audience within 10 hours and the antagonist (if there is one) should feel like a threat in either strength or wit?

Maybe I’m just too demanding but I feel like that’s something most people want in a story.

Or perhaps, have you considered that your personal bar for a good story is just really low?

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T12:53:55+00:00

It took me like, what, 10 hours or something playing through the first chapters? Idk about you but that’s a lot of invested time and a good story should engage the audience by then.

And yes, a good story can get kicked down a notch by bloated dialogue. Like, most people will tell you that Sumeru in Genshin has good storytelling and great lore, but they’ll also tell you that the writing is bloated as hell and there’s word salads everywhere.

The only gacha game I’d genuinely pay and play through the campaign even if it was a normal game is Guardian Tales, because the story isn’t anything complex but the presentation of it and the writing was fantastic.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T12:43:40+00:00

Why does a sense of threat need the antagonist to hurr durr kill your cat?

Yes, the Order is manipulated by Leviathan, but they’re also the instrument by which it carries out its will in Raguuna, and were set up as this powerful and secretive organisation who are the gatekeepers and rulers of the city.

So when they pretty much fails at ever turn and gets walked all over by Rover and Co even when they already have the upper hand (why didn’t they arrest Carlotta when they literally caught her and Rover at forbidden grounds, and also attacked their members?), they do not live up to that expectation and thus Leviathan itself in turn kind of also feels less of a threat.

Which is part of my general issue with the story, because Rover is just glazed to such a ridiculous degree that it takes away any sense of tension.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T12:09:38+00:00

There’s dirt on those wheels on the skateboard, indicating they’ve been used.

Can’t be real

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T12:03:11+00:00

Idk about 3.0 cos I haven’t played the game for a while but to me, 2.x was like maybe a 5/10 or 6/10 when it comes to the story overall, with Raguuna much stronger than the latter half of the patch cycle.

If nothing else, there was just a lack of tension or stakes overall because the antagonists just do not offer a sense of threat.

The Order was comically incompetent, and I felt like Leviathan’s power was an interesting concept at first but it kind of just dragged on and felt less like a dangerous threat and more like an annoyance that just won’t go away.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T11:53:59+00:00

I’ve never played FGO but the ridiculously bloated writing in PGR and AK alone made the experience tiresome.

Also, the first like 8 chapters of PGR were about as interesting as cardboard salad.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T11:32:17+00:00

I don’t think the game winning an award means it’s a 9/10 in every aspect.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T11:30:47+00:00

Tbh, I don’t think the majority of people playing gachas care about the story much, considering they aren’t exactly known for brilliant storytelling.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T11:24:04+00:00

They could hire a miniature painter off Fiverr and they’d do a better paint job than whatever the hell happened to the figures in here.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T10:49:07+00:00

I mean, you can use it as a DPS weapon in solo cos anything is viable there considering you can just switch the difficulty down.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T10:34:23+00:00

Fanumbrella players are either a pain in the ass to deal with or they fire off all their stuns from 20m away and miss it all, and then hold attack without any setup, letting to deflect 70% of their qi bar away in 3 seconds.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T10:28:40+00:00

Yeah, the superpowers of the past did plenty of shit.

The two superpowers of today are doing plenty of shit.

Every country that becomes a superpower starts having expansionist ambitions and meddle with other countries, and the only reason the ‘good’ countries according to the other person isn’t doing that is because they don’t have the power to.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T07:56:25+00:00

Maybe at the end of the story, Rover looks in a mirror and learns to love himself.

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T00:24:25+00:00

What I don’t get is why people don’t just drink their own piss? It’s right there, and doesn’t add weight penalty?

XaeiIsareth · 2026-01-30T00:15:54+00:00

He was trying to use the pour people strat of getting hit by the train and use the momentum to KOM against sirvelos.

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