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[Great Order]

I'm not so sure on the "Climbing three meters of sheer, smooth rock wall" though.

[Telgin]

So many 14mm pistols, assault rifles and SMGs with AP ammo in Vault 15.

I didn't really pay the restoration patch option to rebalance AP ammo much heed, but I understand now that it was not something to be taken lightly and vastly changes the balance of the game in some places.  Vault 15 is one of them.  I know this wasn't exactly a cake walk without the patch, but I'm pretty sure most of the guards would burst for <10 damage against combat armor without the patch, where I'm routinely taking 40+ damage from bursts and occasionally 150 damage critical hits.  The latter may not be much different from before, but those other hits are just too much to handle on my own.

It took quite a few tries and getting a lot of lucky shots to the head to knock guards unconscious so I could handle them just 1-2 at a time.

And to think I thought the wanamingos were bad enough, but at least they still only do about 5 damage per hit.

[Iduno]

So many 14mm pistols, assault rifles and SMGs with AP ammo in Vault 15.

I didn't really pay the restoration patch option to rebalance AP ammo much heed, but I understand now that it was not something to be taken lightly and vastly changes the balance of the game in some places.  Vault 15 is one of them.  I know this wasn't exactly a cake walk without the patch, but I'm pretty sure most of the guards would burst for <10 damage against combat armor without the patch, where I'm routinely taking 40+ damage from bursts and occasionally 150 damage critical hits.  The latter may not be much different from before, but those other hits are just too much to handle on my own.

It took quite a few tries and getting a lot of lucky shots to the head to knock guards unconscious so I could handle them just 1-2 at a time.

And to think I thought the wanamingos were bad enough, but at least they still only do about 5 damage per hit.

Wanamingos? Fallout 2?

[Telgin]

Whoops, forgot to mention it was Fallout 2, yes.  Not sure if the wanamingo thing was just not knowing what they are since they're easy to miss, but they're the freaky alien things you also encounter in the tanker in San Francisco.  You can find a mine in Redding with a quest to clear out 20 or so of them, and it sucks.  Good thing I had the better criticals perk, which gives a chance to just flat kill them with head shots regardless of damage.  I'd have never finished them with the amount of ammo I had otherwise.

Man, I remember this game being harder than Fallout 1, but not this hard.  Wanamingos seem unchanged and were always mini-deathclaws.  Otherwise, I'm not sure if it's stuff from the restoration patch, which I mostly installed to fix bugs, or if my build is just that bad.  Admittedly, I'm asking for a lot of trouble by going without companions and a low ST build that makes rifle accuracy terrible, but I've done it before many times without this much trouble.  Vault 15 was never this hard.

I mostly suspect that the patch is making this harder because it also does things like add a lock on Trader Vic's door in Klamath with a high lockpick requirement to bypass, which doesn't exist in the vanilla game.  I know the AP ammo balance changes are having some impact as well, but I don't know if it rebalanced any other stats.

The new content that it "restores" is generally way overtuned as well, it feels.  There's a slaver area you can visit to rescue Sulik's sister, and I couldn't beat the slavers there until after I'd reached the NCR, despite it being available as soon as you meet Metzger in the Den.  I haven't seen it yet, but it also "restores" a sub in San Francisco that you have to do several tasks on to launch the tanker, and the guide mentions that several of these tasks have a 50% failure rate at 100% skill...

Not sure I recommend it, and may stick to the base game next time.

[heydude6]

When the Labour of Love update for terraria arrived, I decided to start an expert mode playthrough of mediumcore. For those who don't know, mediumcore is the mode where you drop all items when you die. Sounds crazy, I know but I heard a few people passionately and convincingly argue that mediumcore is an underrated way to play the game.

Anyway, so in today's session I decided to try to fight the Brain of Cuthulu boss. It killed me very quickly. After tediously running all the way across the map to pick up my stuff (cause this is mediumcore), I decided to go to the dungeon to try my luck at grabbing a free Waterbolt spellbook since the piercing projectile might help against that boss.

There wasn't one on the surface, so I tried to go deeper. I figured that if a dungeon guardian does show up, then I'll just quickly drink a recall potion and teleport out before it gets me.

Unfortunately my trigger finger was not fast enough and the guardian one-shot me. Now began the frightening task of running all the way to the dungeon to pick up my stuff. Terraria was a troll though and decided to make the night where I head out a Blood moon which is an event that increases spawn rates and adds more dangerous enemies. I try my best to fight my way through the blood moon, but I die a third of the way along the road and drop my backup loadout (it is essential to have backup loadouts when you play on mediumcore).

Eventually the blood moon ends, I head out again, and I manage to make some progress this time. I recover the loadout I dropped during the blood moon and I complete the long treck to the dungeon and grab a full inventory worth of stuff before teleporting out. There are still a few important left-overs that I didn't have room for but I can easily grab that on a second trip.

Except from then on, RNG would screw me and make the dungeon guardian spawn instantly as soon as I crossed the threshold and kill me before I could react. I lost loadout after loadout, and backup loadouts too. Every time I threw away an inventory at this thing, my character became weaker and even surviving the treck to the dungeon became a crapshoot.

Eventually I decided to do the smart thing and bring some wood and a bed to build a house right in front of the dungeon. That way I could make all the attempts I needed to without wasting so much time on the tedious treck back each time I died. Unfortunately, during this final teck I died in the Crimson (an evil biome) at nightfall when it was too dark to see.

When I respawned, I realized the horrible mistake I had made. I decided to deconstruct my old bed to bring it to the dungeon entrance, but doing so deleted my old spawn point and reset it to the default one. I had respawned in the middle of the woods, at night, with only a copper shortsword to defend myself from the onslaught of nocturnal zombies.

With all of my stuff down in the dungeon and having lost my home, I decided fuck it. I had been going at this rescue mission for 5 hours, and I had to wake up early tomorrow. I quit the game, which despawned the dropped items and any hope of their recovery. And then I deleted the world and that character.

Fuck mediumcore.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Terraria

[pisskop]

Mediumcore do be a lot of fun, you never feel more alive than when you do something stupid, suicidal, or in the dark.  The amount of times I've died in a spider nest, or by getting knocked off a cliff into the dark.

Kinda makes me want to play a new start with it.

[hops]

I was driving around when there was a guy in front of me, and for some reasons I instinctively drifted away but then batmobile rolled and began rolling down into a ravine on the map.I tried breaking the windows with my elbows but it didn't work, so I had to use headbutt on the window and I went unconscious. Presumably I fell into the ravine and died in the dark screen because I respawned.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Batman Simulator 2055

[Robsoie]

Genesis Alpha One, things can go from easy to crazy hard if you don't pay attention, but it's a lot of fun with so much stuff to discover in your explorations.

Spoiler: How the Genesis Project failed (click to show/hide)

On a distant planet the site i discovered there contained some data about a potential candidate for the Genesis project.
After we came back to the ship i thought about roaming around a bit more to try to discover new ressources, new blueprints/artifacts and overall better technology to improve my vessel. 

But i decided to not postpone our goal and travelled right toward the promising planet, crossing many systems and avoiding some ridicoulously dangerous situations like some roaming pirates and solar extreme eruptions , and finally we arrived to destination.

On the bridge i started to analyse the various planets and debris of this solar system to see what content could be expected from this very dangerous location, and during that time spent on my bridge computer an alarm started.
A pirate ship !

Took them no time to breach our defense and teleport more pirate onboard.
It was a large battle in the various rooms and corridor of my ship, the crew resisted nicely and helped with my recently discovered grenade launcher tech after getting killed once and resurrected into one of my crew mates i could finally turn the tides and the pirates recieved an order to retreat from their boss.

Victory was at hand, and only 4 of my crew members died, fortunately i had enough biomass to use the clone facility and replace them.
They were very resistant , showing that i was really lacking in various ship equipment and crew improvement, maybe i should have explored more instead of rushing to the candidate planet for the project.

While repairing the energy connection around i checked my ship system and noticed i didn't had enough people onboard to launch the Genesis project on the designated planet, hmm will have to get more stuff to expand the ship with more biotanks, greenhouse and crew quarters.
And maybe some shielding so enemy assault wouldn't happen so fast after alarm too.
Hopefully i could find some module plans to be able to build my own assaut over those various ships , derelicts or pirate i encountered .

But i didn't had time for that, as while exploring the whole ship to gather more of the biomass , dna and items parts left behind by the pirate i got another alarm.
Not sure it was pirates again as those guys were different and much more resilient (proving i was way over my head in coming there before improving my overall tech levels).
This time things got worse, as they killed a bunch of my crew before retreating.
I thought  them retreating was because i somehow won, but oh no, it's because the whole ship energy connections and reactor were all badly damaged.
 Wasn't sure what to repair first as most of everything was offline and unresponding, making it so  each rooms/corridors were degrading fast (those poor greenhouses, they were a huge loss) and the bridge exploded.
I took refuge in the hangar but unfortunately everything was also offline, with my not yet exploded ressources (as i lost a couple of deposits and storage rooms already) i tried to build a reator and connect it to the hangar, it was successful, but on my way to try to repair then all energy connection in between my character died (well, no more o2 from the lack of greenhouse was probably not good).

I'm sure i could have saved the ship if i had tried the repairs in the good order instead of losing myself somewhere in the under sections of my ship but once the bridge was destroyed i think it was the end.

At least unlocked a bunch of stuff for the next time

[Iduno]

I was driving around when there was a guy in front of me, and for some reasons I instinctively drifted away but then batmobile rolled and began rolling down into a ravine on the map.I tried breaking the windows with my elbows but it didn't work, so I had to use headbutt on the window and I went unconscious. Presumably I fell into the ravine and died in the dark screen because I respawned.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Batman Simulator 2055

That sounds great. You have a link to the game or anything?

[Robsoie]

It's from Team17 and is free on gog currently :
https://www.gog.com/
43 hours left to claim it.

[Akura]

After the nightmarish Hard difficulty, I decided to try Very Hard. This might as well be called "CBT difficulty". The almost every win I've had so far seems to have been the result of the AI derping and letting one column build up to the top and losing in less than a minute. Every other attempt has been a frantic fight that's suddenly ended by the opponent pulling off a massive, instant-win combo.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pokemon Puzzle League, on the Switch's N64 emulator. It's pretty much exactly the same as Panel de Pon, though I've never played that one. In both, moves such as clearing 4 or more blocks at once(either with 4-5 of one color, or multiple colors making a match) or a combo caused by blocks falling into matching after the previous move's blocks clear, cause a "garbage" block to drop on the opponent's side. Making a match next to it converts it into random, movable blocks. A larger combo makes a garbage block of multiple layers, and you can only convert one layer at a time. On Hard and Very Hard, not only does the AI move faster than a human, it can predict combos that drop enough garbage blocks that it would more than fill the entire play area on its own. There's no defense against that.

Also, this game has given me an appreciation of just how awful the English dub of the Pokemon anime was early on. It's probably still terrible, but I stopped watching the anime about halfway through Gen II.

EDIT: Beamed into space. Twice.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Genesis Alpha One. Apparently, because there's nothing in game for it, the game picks a random spot on a ship to beam you into. If that spot happens to be hard vacuum, well, you die. You have to jump out and back into the sector to re-roll it.

[Eric Blank]

I was driving around when there was a guy in front of me, and for some reasons I instinctively drifted away but then batmobile rolled and began rolling down into a ravine on the map.I tried breaking the windows with my elbows but it didn't work, so I had to use headbutt on the window and I went unconscious. Presumably I fell into the ravine and died in the dark screen because I respawned.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Batman Simulator 2055

Imagine the gotham news headlines;

"Batman Found Dead in a Ravine in Apparent Traffic Accident, Joker Furious!"

[Rolan7]

I decided to become a ghost skeleton! 
It was trickier than I expected.  First I had to roll a character prepared to die.  An ex-sovereign banned from shops and armed only with a katana and some single-use gadget?  Perfect.  I cut a bloody reign of terror true slasher-movie style.  Along the way I guess I avenged my character's lover but that didn't slow me down.  I also upgraded to a crashblade I won in gadget-less combat from a predator.

So, the ghost part is easy:  When on a ghost mission (do not harm anyone or be identified) you are a gh-gh-gh-ghost!!  The main effect of this is rather ironic: bullets pass harmlessly through you.  It sounds great, except that being shot at usually (with one exception!) means you've failed your ghost objective.  You remain a ghost, though, and it's amusing to wander through gunfire.

But how to become a skeleton?  Simple, just die.  Like, get shot- oh.  Hm.
There's a strange glitch though, you become corporeal when the game is paused??  So I was able to manifest on top of a bullet and successfully be wounded.  They spaced me and- ghosts don't bleed out or need to breathe.  Dangit!

Okay, so skeleton has to be done first.  I cleared the mission and, now a slasher "normal" human, I boarded some unlucky patrol ship.  I bounced my crashblade off a wall directly into my face and... nothing?  I tried a few more times but could not stab myself (experiments on the crew were quite lethal).  Shrugging, I picked up one of their primitive ballistic devices and shot at the sole survivor- only to swap position with him.  Talk about a final act twist, huh?  He spaced my body and I let myself suffocate.

Now considerably lighter, I finished him off (double fakeout!!) and did some ghost missions as a skeletal wraith... this time keeping to the ghost objectives, which meant no more killing.  Just spooky hijinks and stealth.

In addition to the skeleton mechanic basically meaning immortality until Nov 4th, I noticed that crew heat sensors don't detect ghost skeletons.  I don't know if that's the ghost part or the skeleton part or both, but it's a tangible benefit.

That crashblade I took as a trophy is available to my steam friends now.  I noticed that it sparks on every hit, as if it's still trying to apply its anti-shield effect.  I didn't use it against a shielded enemy so perhaps it hasn't depleted!  Also, I wonder if it recharges between missions.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Heat Signature

[Akura]

Spoiler: There is a reason the Very Hard difficulty is locked behind  code input (click to show/hide)

It took most of that time for the AI to simply set up that combo before it dropped. That's not even all that atypical for this stage. The AI moves faster than controller inputs can be read, and clearly knows what blocks are coming up ahead of time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pokemon Puzzle League.

[LuuBluum]

Spoiler: There is a reason the Very Hard difficulty is locked behind  code input (click to show/hide)

It took most of that time for the AI to simply set up that combo before it dropped. That's not even all that atypical for this stage. The AI moves faster than controller inputs can be read, and clearly knows what blocks are coming up ahead of time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pokemon Puzzle League.

I remember seeing a few speedruns for this game at that difficulty (and in case you're wondering, there's one more difficulty past that, S-hard). The strategy, as far as I can tell, is to just do specific combo patterns that send garbage in such a way that the AI frequently (but not always) breaks as a result.