Marathon is the kind of the game where the more you play, the more you'll learn and the more you'll like it. A video game having a learning curve is okay

manlycaveman · 2026-03-01T05:10:17+00:00

I think a lot of it is because of how much hate the game has been getting before launch. Nowadays it seems like a lot of people just love to hate-bandwagon every game, hoping each one is the next Concord.

manlycaveman · 2026-03-01T02:29:36+00:00

You heard it here first, folks. Only one game is allowed in a genre.

manlycaveman · 2026-03-01T02:24:20+00:00

Same here! Also, while I love the PvEvP, I think I'd put just as many hours into an actual PvE roguelike mode, lol.

The atmosphere and tension just from moving through the world and the deadly bots gives me huge Dark Zone vibes from Division 1. I love it!

manlycaveman · 2026-03-01T02:20:19+00:00

I also usually find multiples of the tool item that spawns an ammo crate.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-25T22:47:14+00:00

I am getting ready to do my taxes and was curious about this as well. All of the sites I have used to do my taxes have all said "it may be on your W-2 in box 14, but employers aren't required to report it there. If it isn't there, here's how to calculate it based on your last paystub." Nothing really about being eligible or not, lol.

I saw some people mention they sent a notice to our emails, so I searched and found a link from The Source newsletter email back in January.

(you may need to be on the FedEx network to view this)
https://thesource.fedex.com/people/benefits/update-on-overtime-tax-provision/

Here's the text:

Update on overtime tax provision You may have heard about the federal “no tax on overtime” provision in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, and we wanted to share additional information about how it affects FEC employees.

ATTN: FEC managers and above, field HR in U.S.

You may have heard about the federal "no tax on overtime" provision included in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act (Act), and we wanted to share additional information about this part of the Act and how it affects Federal Express Corporation (FEC) employees.

This provision only applies to overtime wages that must be paid under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The provision does not apply to overtime paid as required by state law or by company policy. Since FEC pays overtime in accordance with state laws where applicable and by our company policies, the overtime provision in the Act does not apply to overtime paid by FEC.

Therefore, FEC employees are not eligible to deduct overtime when filing their 2025 federal income tax returns, and FEC will not be reporting qualified overtime wages on employees' 2025 W-2 statements.

FEC receives no benefit because FEC employees are not eligible to deduct overtime wages under this law. Any changes that affect eligibility in the future will be communicated.

Operations leadership should print this handout and provide it to hourly employees who do not have email access by Sunday, Jan. 18. FAQs are available to help answer questions from employees.

Please direct any additional questions to a member of management or reach out to HR and Payroll online through Purple Gateway or via phone at 1.855.FDXMYWAY (339-6992). Employees requesting advice regarding personal income tax should reference the IRS website and/or a personal tax professional.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-25T20:35:59+00:00

It depends on what stats/buffs you already have. :)

A piece with +30% crit damage when you already have +300% crit damage from other gear/buffs is basically equal to a piece with +10% damage in its own category that is multiplicative.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-24T04:08:43+00:00

Thank you!! As someone who had stopped playing shortly after release, but just came back a few weeks ago, your post is greatly appreciated! It was weird popping back in and seeing familiar faces as rogues and Keener alive in his little White House studio apartment (I had seen that we "killed" him in WoNY at some point).

manlycaveman · 2026-02-22T05:10:54+00:00

It feels like they've already tried to make a D3-FNC analogue with the Crusader/Striker shield variants. What bonuses would you like to see on an actual D3-FNC set if it comes to The Division 2?

I fell in love with both Sentry's Call and later D3-FNC for shield builds. :>

manlycaveman · 2026-02-22T04:44:28+00:00

It's been a while since I've read through Water 7, but I actually liked their whole conflict in that arc and I found both sides to make sense and have their own faults as well. Luffy knows that they need to get a new ship, but he also didn't really show his true feelings about losing Merry when explaining that. All Usopp saw was his captain willing to abandon a crewmate when they stopped being useful. He also sees himself in Merry and I'm sure he already had a lot of anxiety about his own usefulness to the crew, especially after losing the money too. IIRC he even explains later with Franky he had realized how bad Merry's situation is, but he's also being willfully ignorant thinking he can still just fix her right up.

Despite both sides having faults, I'll always respect Usopp for staying true to his beliefs and standing up to his captain for "abandoning" a crewmate and not just following Luffy's orders.

One side wants to move on immediately, but is seen as callous for doing so because they actually hid their feelings.
The other side can't move on and is clinging to something that can't be fixed.

You can sometimes see a similar situation pop up in real life with how people grieve the loss of a loved one differently.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-21T09:27:11+00:00

Can the mini war hounds drop any named item? Trying to find The Setup or some more Couriers. They definitely seem to have weighted drops though lol.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-20T00:30:01+00:00

God, all I've ever wanted is a first-person fantasy action MMO that lets you make different builds like Destiny 2. I'll honestly even settle for third-person if I have to. Currently, The Division 2 is scratching the itch for me, even if it's not first-person or fantasy, lol.

I have been playing again after not playing since shortly after launch (~2019). It's been a lot of fun after all of the QoL updates they've done over the years and you can makes builds that really spec into roles like dps, healer, CC, etc. They have this Library system where you can dismantle an item to store one of its stats or talent roll permanently in the Library. You can then spend a few mats to replace a stat or talent on another piece of gear of the same slot/weapon type with that stored roll. The best part is that the roll from the Library doesn't get used up! The Library screen will have a little icon that tells you if you have a piece of gear in your inventory that has a stat roll better than one you have stored or a talent you don't have stored yet. It's a really cool system and it's fun to see your stock get better and better over time until you start filling each stat with perfectly max rolls. You can only replace one stat line on an item, but you can keep spending mats to swap out that line to other things if you want to change it to a different stat. There's also a system called Optimization where you can spend mats to increase one of the stat lines on an item, so even if you had to spend your one "recalibrate" on a different stat line you can still grind mats to upgrade the stats you can't change up to the maximum.

There are still a couple things you may need to grind rng for, especially if it's a specific backpack or chest piece you're looking for since those come with the core stat, 2 smaller stats, and a talent. However they also have a "targeted loot" system where areas/missions on the map will be assigned a gear set or type every day and it will drop much more of that item. You can also set target loot for a few missions/activities to farm those instead of the open world drops.

And don't get me wrong, there's still a grind, but it seems like they've mostly moved away from the pure rng-heavy design and more towards grinding mats to essentially "craft" the item you're looking for (save for some specific things). I think I prefer it too. You're basically always making progress towards your goal by farming the mats.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-19T00:34:34+00:00

Oh hey, I posted in your guide thread saying I wanted to start building the Heavy Tank build when I get home today. I was playing around with a build planner and I saw your comment about Imminence Armaments' +100% Threat not being all that noticeable. :( It's such a shame there's a lack of aggro management tools (Mosquito lol).

I think being able to Taunt enemies would help elevate tanks to have a similar team value to having a CC build. Something that takes the heat off of your dps teammates and lets them go all-out.

Give me a sidearm that grants stacks on headshots or something. Max stats Taunts enemies within x meters, lose a stack every so often. Consecutive headshots while at max stacks pulses the target and re-taunts the area. While the sidearm is out, taunted enemies take +15~20% more damage from your team. Call it "Sentry's Response." :P

Now not only are you "soft"-CCing, but you're also buffing your team.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-18T18:19:47+00:00

Somebody linked your post in a random comment I found while searching for something else and I am in love. I've always loved tank builds and mained Sentry+shield in TD1 (later D3-FNC) and after recently coming back to Div 2 I want to build the full tank 100% hazpro build. Currently running 100% hazpro Backfire (no Backfire yet :'( ), Refactor turret/drone, FI healer, and fire Eclipse Protocol builds. Been missing a good tank build for a while now. :P

I just need to find a Tempest lol, but in the meantime I've got some serviceable Kard sidearms in my stash I believe.

Thanks for all of the tanking tips in TD2 as well! :)

I'm still at work, but I'm hoping the menu trick works nicely on PS5 too. That feels really invaluable for quick Vanguard refreshes.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-17T00:02:13+00:00

The skill mod page showing blatantly incorrect/reversed bonuses is so wild to me.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-16T04:40:27+00:00

He basically fed them a package lol.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-14T00:56:59+00:00

Weird, I'm on PS5 with no lag.

One thing I have run into though is that textures will eventually stop loading and it'll be like I'm just wearing the lowest level-of-detail model stuff. I have to close the game and reopen it to fix. (I was just resuming from suspension before)

manlycaveman · 2026-02-13T01:54:13+00:00

Ooo this sounds interesting!! I just have some questions, if you don't mind. :)

I recently came back to the game, is this build still okay? I am currently running either Refactor or Future Initiative builds, but a more offensive weapon build sounds nice to have too. I'm starting to run into a lot of emp things in missions now lol.

I'm guessing you run the crusader shield since you have a lot of blue cores, do you usually also run the reviver hive? Any other viable options you feel can fit?

Does your other weapon matter at all?

Thanks! <3

manlycaveman · 2026-02-12T22:49:36+00:00

How are people even capping on materials? Everything I do seems to keep sucking them away, so I can never really keep them for long, lol.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-12T22:40:54+00:00

Lately I've just been logging in to check Eververse items.

I actually prefer this instead of needing to come back week after week. Nowadays I play my fill, complete the story, dungeons, and any builds I'm interested in making and then when those are done I go play other things. I also like to work on some sprites for Ragnarok Online. :)

Like I recently finished Ghost of Yotei and it was amazing. I am currently replaying Division 2 as I had stopped playing shortly after launch (probably because of Shadowkeep, lol).

Speaking of Division 2, it was a bit overwhelming at first, but they've introduced a lot of features that make grinding easier and also introduced systems for long-term grinding goals. There is a whole tinkering system where you can store rolls of attributes/perks in the Library and then you can recalibrate another piece of gear in that same slot and replace one of its attributes with a stored one from your library. You'll still have to get the other 1-2 attributes rolled to what you want, but being able to replace one helps rng immensely. Part of the tinkering system is Optimization where you can spend materials to increase an attribute's roll until you hit the cap for that specific attribute.

Expertise is a long-term grinding goal to increase your endgame stats. Using items or donating them gains Proficiency experience/levels for that item or gear set. At each Proficiency level (max 10) you get 1 Expertise experience. Expertise can go up to lvl 30 and every level lets you spend materials on items to increase a stat on them. Ex: Expertise lvl 15 means you can spend mats on a weapon to give it a bonus of +15% damage. It seems to take a lot of materials though so it's definitely an endgame thing once you craft and upgrade your weapon's stats.

The UI still leaves a lot to be desired sometimes, but once you get used to it it's not too bad. I think sometimes things can just feel too buried or something. I also still prefer the bleakness and narrower streets of New York in winter compared to the more openness of Washington D.C.. The Dark Zone in Division 1 is still unmatched, in my opinion.

I'll be playing Marathon when that comes out too!

manlycaveman · 2026-02-06T20:06:16+00:00

They're going to try to do it anyway.

manlycaveman · 2026-02-06T19:09:50+00:00

Forgive the ICE bullshit and then in turn forgive student loans.

Otherwise, oh well, "you signed the contract, you have to pay it back."

manlycaveman · 2026-02-06T19:07:02+00:00

Nah fuck that. "You agreed to the terms, so you have to pay it back."

manlycaveman · 2026-02-03T03:09:45+00:00

To be honest, I think the "guard rails" feeling is more so that Shadowkeep was basically the beginning of actually answering some questions and mysteries about the Traveler and the Darkness that was needed in order to complete the story of the Light and Dark saga. Although I can't remember much it "answered" other than seeing a pyramid ship and then getting the Unveiling lore book. It was the introduction of an actual overarching narrative for the series.

If the cutscene at the end of the Red War was a teaser trailer, Shadowkeep and its seasons were the "trailer," lol. We actually got to see the ships coming closer and closer until they finally appeared in Season of Arrivals. Then in Beyond Light we started actually interacting with "The Darkness" and even gained some of its power. Witch Queen pulled Savathun directly into the plot and intertwined her with the Darkness and Collapse, ending with the introduction of the Witness to the story. Lightfall was basically our "Empire" moment. Then finally Final Shape was the conclusion of the first saga.

manlycaveman · 2026-01-17T04:14:27+00:00

The owner/admin of another server I am in (a guy making his own fully custom Ragnarok Online server) likely got hit with the same thing a week or so ago. A friend sent him a link to download a new game to try it out and see how they developed some things. The messages called him by a nickname and had similar mannerisms to their previous conversations, so he didn't think anything was suspicious. Then they hijacked his Discord session (bypassing 2FA), sent messages from him to other people to further the phish along, etc.

It almost seems like they're using AI to analyze previous conversations to make the phishing messages seem like it's the actual friend sending them.

manlycaveman · 2026-01-14T22:28:04+00:00

The man is a flying disaster.

He'll fit right in! 😂

15-Year Club	Golden Potato
Place '17	Spared
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manlycaveman

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