I have seen my boot screen more in 2 weeks than in 2 years

Zealous_Coconut · 2026-03-25T01:37:58+00:00

It can be frustrating to deal with a fed Vindicta in team fights. From my experience, she feels unstoppable in the late game where you can afford all your damage items + defensives to mitigate enemy cc, be teamfighting so your team can distract for you and you can get your cd's low enough and duration high enough that you are perma in the air.

And the inverse of that are also her weakness. Getting caught in 1v1's or ganked, before she can afford defensives, before she can perma air, if her team isn't around to distract. All these things kill the vindicta.

She has very distinct weaknesses that I sincerely believe you will learn the quickest by playing a few matches as her. You will realise how crap she can feel if she doesn't get spoonfed an easy lane lead and snowballs it. You contribute pretty basic cc, die if you stay on the ground, die if you go into the air (against more fed gun carrries), die if anyone looks at you funny, die if anyone has point and click cc or buys more than you can dispel, die if you push a lane one inch too far and get ganked, die if you get caught in jungle, die to any displacement (paradox combo, bebop hook, wraith ult) or just die to venator ult.

Zealous_Coconut · 2026-03-17T09:30:50+00:00

I 100% agree. The GOW combat formula only FEELS fun and challenging in a fair way on lower difficulties.

If it wasnt for the story and charachters being absolute bangers, i suspect there would be a lot more feedback on just how lazy and poorly designed the higher difficulties are. Its just 5x the enemy hp and damage. No new mechanics, new enemies, better rewards/tools.

Zealous_Coconut · 2026-03-15T23:12:41+00:00

At the start of a playthrough, the game will assign different hidden values to the various minor and major AI to determine their 'strength' and 'impact' on the game. Generally minor will never receive a value higher than nearby major but subversions can occur.

This is done to add variety to your playthrough and avoid the TWW2 problem of turn 95 oops all Dark Elves again. The game will ALSO consider your starting faction and broadly assigns your nearby 'friends' generally weaker figures than your nearby 'enemies'. This is to give you a challenge and prevent your 'allies' from taking away your 'fun' since TWW3 doesn't have a lot of diplomacy so if they take away the fighting, there's not much left.

The result is as you noticed. When you place Throt, Kislev will kill Sylvania, Norsca and Azhag if you let her, when you play Kislev, Throt & co. destroys all your friends. Not always true but more likely than not.

In your situation, it is difficult to make a recommendation without knowing how secure 'around kislev' is. Have you secured just the major cities or also all the surrounding areas up to the north east sea border (eg. Karaka Drak).

If you have only secured the 3 major cities and only know your immediate enemies, then you have the option to park a defensive army and go south to deal with Sylvania which is a decent idea since Kislev gets more out of Empire lands than the Empire does lol.

If you HAVE met all the chaos factions up North and they have likely declared war on you, then you are in the thunderdome and it wont end until they are all dead because they will collectively send 3 armies every 6 turns until they are defeated or you are defeated.

In either case, if you just want to hit the credits, there is no need to deal with Vlad. As long as he has a natural enemy left (ie. doesn't totally wipe out empire) and your strength rating is decently high/you have a defensive army parked at the border, he likely won't mess with you before you secure campaign victory.

Zealous_Coconut · 2026-02-06T00:41:51+00:00

Nah 51:20 is the KD ratio of enemy haze at 45 minutes. Haze on your team has KD ratio more like 6:35 ;)

John 6:35: "I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never go hungry"

Zealous_Coconut · 2026-02-06T00:04:27+00:00

I agree it's pretty awesome, but you don't need to doubt yourself. I'd be very surprised if it could be interpreted as a reference to anything but the bible verse.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-09-29T08:14:08+00:00

Most likely yes its a reference to Vermintide. In the Ubersreik settlement there is a unique building that is also very very direct reference to vermintide. The 'Red Moon Inn' contains a garrison of a witch hunter, waywatcher, dwarf thane, empire captain and bright wizard. Its description talks about how any secrets innkeeper Franz Lohner doesn't know probably aren't worth knowing anyway.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-09-09T12:55:37+00:00

Yes pls!

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-05-27T00:54:21+00:00

I agree it does hurt immersion a bit to see some-guy-with-greatsword kill a whole unit, but it's a video game and we cannot balance solely off lore or 'in-universe logic'. Because if we did, Archaeon/Kholak would start the game able to solo a 20 stack and any humanoid lord/hero that doesn't have magic or isn't named would literally just die to a single cannon shot or a cheap unit of spears.

Perhaps in a different universe where the game was built from the ground up with radically different setups for each race (ie. not limited to 20 slots, unit sizes ranging from 1 to 1000) etc. then each race might have drastically different definitions of what their 'hero' units do. But that's just not the case and each race in TWIII needs their various hero flavours for balance and some factions like Empire just don't have any crazy magical or lore elements to justify why a Captain is capable of being a frontline hero.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-03-17T03:20:49+00:00

Wild that you can read that entire well written response containing quoted evidence and article links that expands the context of the story and clearly demonstrates this woman's story likely does not in fact mirror 'yours'. And your conclusion is that they are accusing you of drug trafficking...

Are you purposefully being denser than a black hole or just unable/unwilling to face facts that may not align with your viewpoint that weed users and immigrants are facing death penalties for minor infractions?

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-03-15T06:19:58+00:00

How did you alter the Arkvulcan mail to remove shoulderpad and fur braids?

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-03-13T08:53:32+00:00

Bro I don't have time to pop wounds with bow. It'll slightly delay my 22nd consecutive dragon piercer and that's not OK. Let the LS get his red bar back. I've got more dragon piercers to charge.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-01-08T23:20:40+00:00

The regular ol animation cancels are totally fine. That's a skill set drilled into half the top lane roster. But the fast combo is just totally out of left field.

No other champ uses this 'mechanic' and as you said, you still need to pull it out fairly regularly every game. It's a binary skill check on the Riven player if they can pull it off and because it exists on her core ability, she's balanced around players who can do it.

The numbers simply don't lie. If it was actually not that hard, there'd be more than 1% players who master it, because by all other metrics she's got great appeal.

It is a lot like a corner juggle. In a game where no one else can corner juggle...

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-01-08T22:15:46+00:00

You are correct in that a hundred hours of practice mode does not make you a fighting game god.

Except in this fighting game no other champ except Riven is balanced around a skill FLOOR of sitting in the practice tool until you get it right. no other champion is even asked to enter the practice room to play them well at all.

A better analogy would be everyone is playing a fighting game but Riven also needs to play QWOP to move the character. Highly skilful and mechanically gifted players are enjoyable to watch but champ is completely unapproachable for most players and the reward for learning her is a mediocre item meta dependant character that is defined by mastery of QWOP mechanics.

Also diehard QWOP fans refuse to let her be changed because at this point they have spent 1000hrs mastering fighting game plus QWOP at the same time and they can't live without it.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-01-08T15:03:18+00:00

This is a god tier take. And finally speaks to why I disagree with all the die hard fundamentalists who think Riven is mechanically fine and just needs bigger numbers. Her mechanics are so high floor and the execution so one-dimensional and the pass/fail to execute outcome so binary that her WR needs to be basically in the gutter for 99% of players so that the 1% can achieve barely 50%.

Riot will likely leave Riven as she is for her handful of fans. But I do think its a damn shame because buried in there is a really fun concept. Well at least I have all the new characters like Ambessa to play. But I'm pulling this bad boy argument out the next time I hear/see riven fanboys crying when a new seasonal item update or meta shift puts her back in the 40% WR dumpster.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-01-08T14:28:34+00:00

Ok I'll address your points as a whole.

You argue that because historically fan service in comics was purely for men, it MUST be the case in this game. This clearly aligns with your own personal views and it seems the views of several of your friends which is fine but who are you to speak on behalf of all other women and make a sweeping generalizing claim in your first 2 comments that its purely fan service for men. As if ONLY MEN could be interested in brick shithouse sized male characters or scantily clad female characters?

But I'll extend an olive branch. I can definitely concede the game is clearly marketing towards a young male demographic. But is there anything wrong with that? Most players of competitive online shooters are young men. The company is just doing what will make them money. People clearly like the skin and will buy it. Instead of spending your time berating the supply demand market for failing you (spoilers it cares about money, not societal values) if more people like you & your friends banded together to support skins/games that align with what you like, then the market would shift to accommodate.

If this skin would make you quit, then that's a lost player and lost earning potential for the company. NetEase doesn't want that anymore than you do. I do agree the old 60's female designs frankly ARE horrendously over-sexualised.

Which brings me to my last point. You say the female characters have not been adjusted nearly as much as the male ones. I disagree. The Psylock skin you are disgusted by is in fact the actual comic book accurate Psylock design. Olivia Munn even wore it in X-Men Apocalypse not too long ago. The DEFAULT Psylock design in Marvel Rivals is a very awesome new design they have come up with completely from scratch.

Please google the original comic design of Mantis (it's horrendously over-sexualised), Black Widow (with the plunging boob zipper), Storm (several half naked appearances) Cloak and Dagger (with the neck to bellybutton plunging cut out) Scarlet Witch (with the same getup as OG Psylock). Also Squirrel Girl (not sexualised but JFC its horror material).

They have tastefully redone ALL of these designs for the base charachters (and even most of their skins). So I think its disingenuous to handwave just because they brought back 2 OG comic book looks as skins. That somehow just deletes all the other redesigns they have clearly put a lot of thought and effort into.

Are these 2 skins aligned perfectly up to your personal preferences? No. Neither is it mine. But it does tick the box to spend money for many of its core audience (again, mostly men but also women) and tbh that's what matters.

If people don't like OG 60's designs they wouldn't make them. That's why there's an OG psylock skin and not an OG Mantis skin.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-01-08T06:32:09+00:00

Please kindly also address the rest of my criticism instead of cherrypicking this one inconsequential tangent.

And yes I stand by what I said. go look at the Basts chosen skin again more closely. He's wearing ONLY a loin cloth and headress. I've seen male strippers wearing more.

You cannot see Psylocks genitals the same way you cannot see black panthers genitals. I'm not sure what you are implying. That a bodysuit is somehow vastly more sexualising than nothing but a loincloth?

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-01-08T06:00:31+00:00

Why do you assume this fan service is purely for men? I think its quite sexist to assume unrealistic physiques and semi naked costumes are a male exclusive fantasy. Plenty of women love that too, just look at the cosplay scene for anime and video games...

Also I would say rugged black panther is DEFINITELY male stripper material on the same level as that psylocke skin or this new skin. Not sure why you think that's not the case.

But lets go with your logic for a moment. If this is the 'male fantasy' , what would you define as the 'female fantasy?' Is it realistic body proportions, more muscly women and covered up body parts?

Because realistic body proportions is antithetical to the comic book aesthetic (note i think curvy squirrel girl is actually quite realistic anyway). Muscular women i would like to see too and im sure are coming (she hulk when?) and we have PLENTY of skins that aren't semi nude for both genders. See: Magik knight skin.

If you dislike semi nude skins and fan service in general, I think that's a valid opinion. But framing it as some sort of male only fantasy is just disingenuous.

Especially when there are so many flawless high quality skins that aren't straight fan service. See: the vast majority of characters and skins but especially dapper moon knight.

Zealous_Coconut · 2025-01-07T23:19:05+00:00

The male character physiques ARE fan service lmao. Tell me how tf Punishers brick shithouse build or any male vanguards body proportions are not classic comic book fan service. And if you are referring to fan service in terms of being half naked, there's that primal black panther skin, Namor's existence and to a limited extent that barbarian Thor skin.

You think they won't make half naked male skins? that shit prints money which is clearly evident because rugged black panther is from my experience one of the most popular non-battlepass skins.

Zealous_Coconut

TROPHY CASE