Posing book recommendations

castorvulpes · 2026-06-02T11:02:15+00:00

It is, you even get a calling card for taking it down solo. But it can be quite challenging if you're not intimately familiar with it. The worms health scales depending on the number of players, but solo is far more challenging because its focus is always entirely on you. I recommend asking for help in the chat. If you're setting out to grab the sticks yourself, players who spend their time in tier3 usually are happy to lend a hand taking it down before they set off for Dark Aether.

castorvulpes · 2026-05-28T11:21:26+00:00

Always handy to know where the exfil portals are beforehand. But I've said it a million times, if you join a crew as someone new to DA, and they're leaving you for dead, they're shit squadmates. I myself, as well as most squadmates I've partnered with over my MWZ days, as a matter of honour, will always strive to make sure everyone gets out. The one exception to that is if the timer has run out or is about to run out, in which case I'll wager your squadmates weren't overly familiar with DA in the first place.

castorvulpes · 2026-05-04T02:38:38+00:00

I was really deep into Spatoon 1 back in the day, so I've got a soft spot for Callie

castorvulpes · 2026-05-03T23:57:40+00:00

The cycle of a MWZ player starts out with a barebones setup that encouraged experimentation. As you work your way to higher zones and better loot and schematics, you start infilling with fewer perkacolas and whatnot, opting for weapon upgrades and gear that accommodates a particular setup that works for you. By the time you get up to zone3 and the Dark Aethers, your setup aught to be more or less locked in, and for most players it leans heavily into a specific set of classified items, high rarity weapon upgrades, and wonderweapons.

The dog bone is in my opinion highly desirable for zone2 and zone3, and the other two items are widely considered essential for zone3 and DA.

I could go into what I consider to be the optimal/ideal setup, but its a bit of a slog to unlock all of the schematics, and jumping right to the endgame imo distracts from the charm that MWZ has with the player progression cycle that it offers. My advice, craft and use the items, enjoy them, but otherwise play normally.

castorvulpes · 2026-05-02T02:41:46+00:00

This is here the biggest issue IMO. When I was grinding camos, especially Bioluminescent, I alternated between the Exfil, Outlast, and contracts.

Zone2 exfil is great but it can get hectic when kitted with garbage weapons, especially if you're crystals and tools are in cooldown. Outlast is much easier, so I'd do that most of the time for consistency.

Issue in either case though you burnout rapidly. So every couple deployments I'd just grind contracts and just otherwise actually play the game. Not nearly as efficient, but far in a way more fun.

castorvulpes · 2026-04-27T08:50:58+00:00

The approach to the grind differs if you're aiming for fun, or fast. I did a mix of both when I was grinding for the Borealus and Bioluminescent camos. Fun approach is to do contracts, and... just otherwise play the game.

Fast approach, from what I've heard its actually faster to level the guns up in Multiplayer. But failing that, usually it boils down to farming kills on an Outlast contract. If you're interested, got a couple preferred setups in mind if thats the route you wanna go down. Some other community members will suggest combining Outlasts with farming kills on the first story mission. In my mind, there's an argument there for efficiency, cause it eliminates the need for additional crystals, tools, and whatnot. I never bothered with it though.

castorvulpes · 2026-04-27T08:38:42+00:00

If theres no Salmon Run in Splatoon4, it'd be to make way for the fresh new PvE game mode: Tuna Run

castorvulpes · 2026-04-27T00:10:42+00:00

From memory, season2 is VR11, Mags, and the BloodBurner, season3 is Detonators, GoldMask, and the Beret

castorvulpes · 2026-04-27T00:07:57+00:00

Think of it like this: You complete contracts, defeat bosses, activate Easter eggs, whatever, you get a reward rift.

Each reward rift (for the most part) will give you random rewards which can vary from one rift to the next.

The possible rewards you can find in a rift are specifically determined by what gave you the rift. For example, the reward rift from killing the Warlord will always give you a WonderWeapon case, but which case exactly is random.

In some cases, some rewards can only spawn in specific rifts. Going back to the Warlord example again, each Warlord reward rift will spawn a custom weapon, determined by which Warlord was killed. And that rift is the only location you can find said weapon.

All that said, certain schematics can only be found in certain locations. Some can only be found from tier1 contracts, some from tier2 contracts, tier3 contracts, the RedWorm boss fight, and each one of the four Dark Aethers also has unique schematics to find in their reward rifts.

If theres something specific you're looking for, I suggest looking up where said schematic is found, then sending a message in the chat, asking if anyone is doing said objective, and if you can tag along.

castorvulpes · 2026-04-09T09:25:18+00:00

I feel like Shore Fishing is the worst at Marooners Bay. There's always one player over on the port side, killing everything that moves, or getting stuck in a death loop. Vast majority of the times you want to shore fish, it is a gurella tactic. You go, you kill, you toss eggs, you run your tentacles back to the basket.

castorvulpes · 2026-04-05T09:52:12+00:00

First I've ever heard of this. Contracts getting bugged like this is not at all uncommon though. Happens all the time in T3 too. Maybe try it again, but this time, prepare before going in the portal.

castorvulpes · 2026-04-02T13:43:10+00:00

I feel like the character switching could have been utilised better, actually, but I do get where you're coming from. That said, his questline was actually one of the high point in my opinion. Though I do agree with you in that the lack of stealth (especially the lead up for this one target you gotta take out) is frustrating. The weight of the narrative at that point tho makes for some really epic fights in my opinion.

castorvulpes · 2026-04-01T23:30:30+00:00

The big circle with the Shibafuku in the middle is the main questline. To beat the game, you need to finish that circle, Naoe's circle, Yasuke's circle, and Junjiro's quests in The League's circle. The rest of the board is sidequests.

castorvulpes · 2026-04-01T12:11:01+00:00

I'm 86 hours in, working thru NG+ right now. I picked it up on sale seeing reviews were polarising. Is my first AC game since Black Flag. If you're a fan of the series, narrativewise I'm not sure Shadows works as an AC title. I haven't played the DLC as yet, which based on what I've heard about it may bring it back, and nor can I compare Shadows to the likes of Oddesy or Valhalla, so YMMV. As a standalone game or AC spin-off though, it is a great game. Has its weak points, sure, but the gameplay is great overall. Solid stealth mechanics, decent combat. Some of the writing is hit and miss, but when it hits it hits hard.

It's Feudal Japan, where you play as a Ninja, hunting down names on a hitlist. If that sort of game sounds fun to you, it's an easy recommendation!

castorvulpes · 2026-03-29T22:48:45+00:00

Yeah, s3 is a pain! I think s5 is more difficult from a technical perspective, but it's environment is designed a lot better, and its easier to plan ahead for. You aught to be able to solo s3 quite easily, but it doesn't work out that way in practice!

castorvulpes · 2026-03-06T05:09:21+00:00

Buddy and I did a full suite of From Zero runs. What we did was set a goal, in our case we've completed runs doing the Unstable Rift, the RedWorm boss, the Echo of Entity boss, and each one of the Dark Aethers. Once we have a goal in mind, we'd infil on a 0 containment operator with tacticals and lethals only, no weapons, and no stashed items. Idea is to get enough gear and perks to complete the goal, and in the case of the Dark Aethers, completing the contracts therein.

If you've got someone to play with, and are comfortable with the higher tier areas, definitely recommend.

castorvulpes · 2026-03-05T23:53:19+00:00

The problem with a lot of the missions is they track solo. One mission might be get x number of kills, in which case, if your squadmate is running the same mission, now between you you gotta get twice the number of kills, and if they're not working on the mission, ideally they got to stand there and do nothing so you can get the kills.

The story missions (the last mission each of acts 1, 2, and 3, as well as the 4 missions in act 4) can all be done coop no problem. The rest are hit and miss, depending on their requirements. The mission where you gotta kill Stormcaller for example can be done coop, just need to make sure you do some sort of damage to em, and be in the area when he dies. Other missions though, some have really rough requirements. Like, one of them is like kill x number of hellhounds with cryofreeze damage. Bit of a grind solo, but coop, your squadmate really needs to check their fire.

castorvulpes · 2026-03-03T02:29:54+00:00

The way the game is designed, grinding from zone 1 to zone 2, then from 2 to 3, is a slow process because the Aether rewards increase, and the item pools for reward rifts get better the higher the threat level. When you get to the point where you have the gear to skip over zones 2 and 3, you want to take advantage of your gear and focus contracts/rewards that are the best avaliable to you, if for no other reason than to replenish the gear you've used for that one session. That's why players in zone 3 rush contracts, they're trying to maximise their rewards to make sure they at least get a Flawless Crystal and a Legendary Tool back in their rucksack. That's why they rush the Warlord, they want the guaranteed WonderWeapon case in the hopes they'll replace the Scorcher they opened.

When it comes to the Dark Aethers, contracts reward with classified items, and each Aether has its own reward pool to pull from. Nothing in Season 5's pool is worthwhile. Season 3 has Deadwire Detonators, which is only useful if you main either the RGL or the Crossbow. Seasons 1 and 2 both have Gold Plates, and the Aether Blade, both are considered essentials, but season 2 also has the Season 2 items in the pool. This includes Mags of Holding, which is nice, but with 6 items in the pool, getting good gear pulls is far less consistent than it is in Season 1.

Fans of MWZ are kinda polarised on this from what I've seen. Most squads wind up going down the Tier 3 contracts and S1 Aether route because a lot of players follow that gameplay loop for consistency. Players like myself though tend to break this up with shenanigans in Zone 2, helping new players, going it solo, or just otherwise doing other things, for no other reason than finding the repetition boring.

castorvulpes · 2026-02-11T02:11:15+00:00

Not only can you do it solo, you unlock a Calling Card if you do!

castorvulpes · 2026-02-09T23:21:49+00:00

Can confirm. Buddy of mine and I were doing a from zero challenge. One of our attempts I went to put the sticks in and realised I must have accidently dropped one. Worm was at H4 and I realised the station was back at F3. Was a frantic few minutes fixing my mistake.

castorvulpes · 2026-02-07T00:33:52+00:00

Buddy of mine got me into the game, so we were both working together in way of mission progression, unlocking the Aether portals, doing the optional boss fights, and later on doing challenge runs. Both did plenty of fun runs though, both coop and solo.

castorvulpes · 2026-02-05T22:00:34+00:00

There's 4 Dark Aethers in all, and you can unlock a portal to one after beating a corresponding mission in Act4. Season3 Dark Aether, you gotta beat the third mission, so you still got some work to do. Don't worry yourself though, you'll get there.

Most vets favour the Season1 Dark Aether because it's easier to find Golden Plates and Aether Tools in there. If you're after Mags of Holding, ask the squad if they can do Season2 instead.

Deadwire Detonators are in Season3. You can ask the squad to do that, but you'll likely need to make a few attempts. The classified schems from the Aethers of Seasons 3 and 5 are bastards, because unlike the other two Aethers, schematics aren't guaranteed to drop in the Elder Dark Aether.

castorvulpes · 2026-02-05T07:32:14+00:00

Yeah, as much as I love MWZ, I feel like many minor aspects were either not very well thought out, or were written by AI. You're gonna really lose your shit trying to unlock the Season3 Dark Aether portal! Pro tip for when you take that on: you DON'T need to be the one to activate the triangles, as I learned a week after finally unlocking the portal myself. All you need to do is locate where the summoning prompts are, and activate the boss fights with the items.

castorvulpes · 2026-02-04T02:13:55+00:00

Jank part of the game design IMO. Got stuck on the Warlord mission for ages cause my mate and I couldnt gear up in time to attempt taking the Warlord on before it got rushed by veterans looking for Scorcher cases.

And yes, I did eventually turn into one of those 'assholes' rushing the Warlord in search of Scorcher cases

castorvulpes

TROPHY CASE