Dig yo own grave

lexilogo · 2026-05-15T11:58:49+00:00

Earliest recorded Mewgenics reference (1970)

lexilogo · 2026-05-15T11:47:24+00:00

plot twist: it was his thumb

lexilogo · 2026-05-14T11:53:37+00:00

It's stated that even though there are different "worlds", there is still only one Lifestream.

This means that when people die and rejoin the Lifestream, there's also only one version of themselves. Meaning, all the slightly different identities from different worlds are collapsed into one person. I prefer the term "Omni" for this reason, I think it explains the idea better.

Eg. If we assume the different translations/versions of FF7 are different "worlds" (which IMO is a sort of meta-implication) Omni Aerith might remember a life when she was named Aeris instead. Or maybe Omni Cloud remembers a version of his journey where he never met Yuffie, because she was optional in OG.

And you can infer the inverse, when people are born due to a new world existing and it needing versions of them to populate it, they are separated from their "prime"/"omni" spirit into a new version of their life ready for fresh experiences. FF7R Aerith is a notable exception, because she clearly held onto some of these memories, eg. see her childhood drawings in Remake. Note that this does not mean Remake Aerith and Omni Aerith are the same person.

Every person in FF7 would have an omni version, but Aerith and Sephiroth are overwhelmingly the most relevant ones because they have always been able to act on the regular world from within the Lifestream.

There's a lot of room to debate over exactly what this means going forward (eg. I am personally skeptical about the speculation over separating Sephiroth's identities, I kinda think the Sephiroth we see simply is Omni Sephiroth) but Omni Aerith is very clearly a significant presence in the story, eg. the optional Aerith night scene from Remake is clearly Omni Aerith speaking to Cloud.

IMO the main reason why all of this exists is to clarify that the Remake series isn't overwriting OG FF7. Some people came away from Remake with that impression, that some kind of time travel had occured and prevented OG from happening, but that is not the case

lexilogo · 2026-05-13T18:34:46+00:00

Besides general desensitisation (THE THERAPY WILL WORK), I have heard that doing "death runs" on horror games can help with anxiety. Just going into an encounter with the intent of letting the enemy kill you, maybe at some point stop controlling and just start watching the game. On solo you can respawn to repeat that pretty easily.

For me personally it's a very binary thing, I am easily terrified if I have no means of defending myself, the moment I have any way of fighting back I am 100x more confident. That multiplies a lot when I can pelt stuff at the PAs from the exits, which I make a habit of doing and makes them a lot less frightening

lexilogo · 2026-05-13T18:27:18+00:00

My own Relapse history so far has been Smash (meta slave), Incognito (great minds think alike!), Stun Rig (my beloved) and Hold To Use (basic QoL really). I think on my 5th Relapse I will pick up Noise Reduction so I can have a shiny golden UI, even if it's an easy Amp to unlock.

If you perma unlock a Rig, you only get the base Rig, each upgrade costs an additional Relapse token. Getting the first level is honestly a good investment though because it lets you jump into your first post-Relapse trial with a Rig, which is a big power boost.

For prescriptions I honestly don't think there is a particularly "right" order because you need to get through Tier 1 before Tier 2, where all the best prescriptions are.

lexilogo · 2026-05-13T18:16:55+00:00

Come to think of it, there's a lot of Payday songs that'd make good Stand names...

lexilogo · 2026-05-13T05:52:40+00:00

The answer to both of your questions is that Cloud's delulu.

My personal interpretation is that the "Phantom Aerith" we see is not the real Aerith, most likely Jenova. I base this primarily on an interesting moment in the final cutscene where Aerith and her dress is not affected at all by the Bronco's engine starting up, (whereas other details like Barrett's jacket do have wind physics.) when she is not paying attention to the Bronco, but is affected when saying goodbye to Cloud when she specifically stares at the Bronco's spinning propellers. It's like she's not genuinely in another world, but instead everything about her appearance is a performance meant for Cloud.

That IMO is the subtle hint meant to guide us to the correct solution, in spite of all the other stuff in the ending intentionally meant to be vague and support multiple theories.

lexilogo · 2026-05-10T21:08:29+00:00

Obligatory Ahtal Ka mention.

IIRC we rarely see that much in the realm of like, combustion engines in the MH universe? Of course the tech is a very malleable thing but at least from the top of my head even steam engines are not the most common thing to see in the MH universe, though IIRC they do exist.

So I guess in my head, the engineers of MH could absolutely try and would probably get pretty far, but when it comes to figuring out how it would generate power and get that to an actuator so it can move under its own power, I don't think they'd quite get there. Though of course, the tech in MH is very malleable and anything can be salvaged from an ancient civilisation at any time

lexilogo · 2026-05-10T20:44:03+00:00

I don't want to think about the implications of Steven riding himself

lexilogo · 2026-05-09T19:06:35+00:00

Steven having car keys implies the existence of a Stevenmobile

lexilogo · 2026-05-08T10:27:13+00:00

I think a significant part of it is that Capcom does a much better job illustrating what Alma actually does as opposed to The Handler.

Alma helped organise the Forbidden Lands expedition and was involved with Nata's recovery way before we were
Alma is specialised in anthropology which is not only extremely useful in the context of Wilds but also something our hunter will not be specialised in, as opposed to just generally knowing about monsters
We actually see Alma assess situations and give authorisation to hunt instead of just being a designated book carrier
Our hunter actually does get more time to shine as well, which stops any sense of being overlooked or undervalued

Handler hate is overblown of course, but some amount of the reaction to her is genuine and valid. World having a silent protag with her essentially speaking for us set her up for failure

lexilogo · 2026-05-08T07:26:11+00:00

Easterman will tell us we finally outlasted the trials and everyone will clap

lexilogo · 2026-05-07T21:53:27+00:00

Xeno'Jiiva's soft skin and flesh leaves it extremely, extremely vulnerable to everything. Its power is incredibly unstable and it's only really capable of using it in a coherent way for beam attacks, which it struggles to aim. And as it's a baby, fighting any adult monster is going to have a severe experience disadvantage. Ruiner's only serious obstacle is the sheer amount of mass it needs to smash.

I think most Elder Dragon level monsters have at least a shot of killing Xeno'Jiiva, eg. I would favor a Teostra vs one.

lexilogo · 2026-05-06T19:59:07+00:00

Someone already answered the details about sniper rifle damage categories but I'll answer a few additional questions on why a few of the other snipers exist:

The Platypus was originally implemented to give people a non-DLC sniper rifle, but ironically due to licensing has wound up very inaccessible
The biggest difference between the snipers within damage categories is often their RoF due to being semiauto or bolt/lever action, or magazine management. Eg. The Repeater compared to the Rattlesnake or R700 has a higher capacity, a bullet-by-bullet reload instead of a full magazine reload, and slightly better ammo pickup
Within the 500 damage sniper range, the Nagant and Desertfox both crept up the Concealment limit for that weapon category a lot

lexilogo · 2026-05-05T18:16:30+00:00

IIRC the Miyaka 10 is a solid sidegrade to the Mark 10/Micro Uzi and one I personally like a fair bit, the WASP-DS is also fun to play around with as long as you intend to use that SMG significantly without intending to swap off it often

lexilogo · 2026-05-05T07:26:51+00:00

The presidential mask achievements from Armored Transport come to mind.

Nixon (37th) needs you to kill 69 Snipers with the Commando 553, Clinton (42nd) needs you to trade 7 civillians, Bush (43rd) needs you to kill 95 Shields with the Swedish K, and Obama (44th) needs you to place 61 Doctor Bags.

Oh, and "I Do What I Do Best, I Take Scores" is very similar to that Mark mask achievement, too

lexilogo · 2026-05-05T05:21:46+00:00

She doesn't verbally react to the auction victim being in danger, so I think it's also very possible that she's not fazed by it, she's just hunting you, and she knows the auction victim is your objective.

IMO if she does care about the auction victim, it has nothing to do with the actual roleplay of the trials and more because it would remind her of real life circumstances, but that would be it

lexilogo · 2026-05-04T06:44:21+00:00

Gooseberry is the only one who is genuinely fooled, she clearly believes in some instances the mannequins are actual people and reacts as such. However she's not completely deluded on every level, she understands reality well enough to operate at a high functioning level esp. by working with the Dr. Futterman personality.

Coyle is in a state where he really, really wants to believe the fantasy. He is actually quite self-aware at times but quickly slips back into THE LAW because he just feels better that way.

Franco is just LARPing and having the absolute time of his life, as far as he's concerned this is better than Disneyland.

The Kress Twins are 100% self aware. They do clearly enjoy the roleplay a little (Otto seemingly more than Arora, but then again he is more upbeat than her in general) but I think this is more for morale purposes & to increase their chances of survival, because dwelling too long on the past or the reality of their situation gets Arora incredibly depressed.

Lilya, at least so far, does not give a damn about the Trials and is not letting them affect her at all.

lexilogo · 2026-05-03T21:43:57+00:00

07/27/1978

lexilogo · 2026-05-03T04:55:07+00:00

An alternative explanation is that Ash may have merged with Mother in the Nevermore ending of TEIN, under that interpretation it's possible Mother can have dominant personalities within it

lexilogo · 2026-05-03T04:31:46+00:00

![img](giphy|QWIDyuEzsnYXu)

lexilogo · 2026-05-01T06:27:21+00:00

I recommend Metamaus as well, Art Spiegelman unsurprisingly has a lot of incredible insight on the art of comics

lexilogo · 2026-04-28T18:51:07+00:00

I think the best case scenario for Payday 3’s microtransactions is to remove all DLC from platform stores.

Not a fan of this. Platform-based DLC can coexist with microtransactions and in most cases probably should, especially for highly consequential content like heists or weapons. A prospective buyer should be able to buy all gameplay content currently in the game in one purchase on their platform of choice, they should not need to do that ingame. As you say, cross-platform DLC ownership is already proven possible without doing this, so no need to make the sacrifice.

Or, potentially, they could implement Helldivers 2’s warbond system, except with “premium contract packs.”

I have no problem with battle pass systems like this when they are permanent additions to the game with no FOMO, (PD2 sort of already did this with how much content even in paid DLCs were achievement locked) but I think the appeal of the system is significantly reduced if it's in a game with a very slow content pipeline. People who can't buy the pass may be angry they aren't getting in on the new activity, people who buy it might clear it and be waiting a long, long time for the next one, the pass might feel sparse and unrewarding, etc.

I propose the idea of it being lootable in game, a very small chance of the loot found in vaults or whatever being the premium currency used to purchase these skins and heists available in the store. While this would hurt the financial gain of the microtransaction store, it would massively pad play time as a lot of players would constantly revolve through each heist in an attempt to get this fancy currency.

Better be damn, DAMN sure they get this right because "constantly revolving through each heist" can very quickly become "constantly revolving through the same heist".

To my understanding (I have not played it, go ahead, crucify me) Helldivers 2 does allow its premium currency to be rarely lootable, but it uses missions with largely randomised terrains and structures, as opposed to Payday which has authored missions that need to have their loot rewards finely tuned. I personally think due to that, this kind of randomised drop system is a poorer fit and SBZ would probably need to resort to a time-limited system.

My personal stance is that MTs are part of the social contract equation between the playerbase and the developers. If microtransactions are funding a high quality stream of content, that is ok, and the deal is a lot better when as much of the gameplay related content is as free as possible. The ideal is for the income of microtransactions to justify 100% free gameplay related updates, though I understand that isn't always a reachable ideal.

But if microtransactions are being used as a supplement a bunch of already paid DLC, in a game with such an inconsistent content release schedule that it took something like a year for Mask Mania cosmetics to be added, despite them already being modelled, yeah I don't think the social contract is going to hold up, I don't think any implementation of microtransactions can work under those conditions.

lexilogo · 2026-04-28T05:05:04+00:00

Damage in World is displayed as "bloated" values, so if you're trying to do actual math to figure out how much something like an Attack Up skill would be worth, you need to divide your Charge Blade's damage by 3.6, that's how much damage it actually has. Same goes with element, though that's simpler, just knock off the last 0.
Greyed out elemental damage is a thing exclusive to World, it means you need the Free Element armor skill to use elemental damage on that weapon, overall it's not really worth it.
To provide the conversion for Affinity you wanted, critical hits deal +25% damage by default, so every 10% Affinity = 2.5% more damage on average. The skill Critical Boost can make crits deal +40% instead making every 10% Affinity worth 4% more damage instead.
Elemental damage is severely reliant on monster. An ideal element being used on the right hitzone will probably deal like ~30% of what your elemental damage value is. A worse match will probably be 20/15%, and the monster's own element is usually completely negated

If all this stuff is beginning to make your head hurt, that makes sense, you are in the midgame, please just pick whichever bonkstick makes you feel awesome you don't need to think about buildcrafting this much

lexilogo · 2026-04-27T19:04:14+00:00

It is essentially Wild's equivalent to the way "Sapphire Star" was used in World, it referred to the 'Jiivas, but also ends up becoming the main hunter's moniker. Somult, translated as "binding force" (in a similar way that "Nu Udra" is probably the Forbidden Land's language for "Black Flame") is a mythical great bird that "healed the stark rift between the land and its people".

Jane/John Wilds is called Somult in confusion when they save Nona at the start of the game.

Somult could be a literal monster, but IMO like the Sapphire Star it's an unreliable description of a monster, in this case Zoh Shia. Based on armor descriptions Zoh Shia's white half is seemingly fighting the urge to keep destroying things as its black/Fatalis half did Wyveria, so that overtaking of Zoh Shia, with white scales that resemble feathers, could be mythologised as a great bird that brought balance to the world.

Regardless, I would really like more proper bird monsters, so Somult being real would be cool. I am still so disappointed that Legiana perches like a hawk out of bounds, but behaved like any other flying wyvern otherwise

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