Emotional Granularity

... reflecting regional military tradition This granularity would enable a sandbox lore... identity, something irreplaceable, creating real emotional attachment A rigorous heraldic research ...

... spawn point spawning spawn. Improved granularity could certainly make things easier... later I can see how emotional and flawed my logic is...

..., structure, and clean reasoning over emotional framing. What your chat history... clarity and reject vague or emotional framing. Skepticism toward AI overreach... — You explicitly asked to remove emotional reassurance and stick to analysis... and often push for deeper granularity (e.g., age‑bracket breakdowns... model without hesitation (“skip the emotional language,” “you keep saying X...

The last three months have been some of the most intense and rewarding of my life and I've been struggling to work out where to begin with a trip report. Travelling across an entire country at 18 km/h gives you an incredibly granular experience. You watch the landscapes and climates slowly bleed into one another. Places that would usually be glossed over from a bus window become destinations of necessity. Because of that, it's impossible to do justice to a journey like this in a single Reddit post. Rather than trying to document every day I thought I'd write about the moments, places and people that have stayed with me most since reaching the southernmost point of Vietnam. The North Like many people, I came to northern Vietnam for the limestone landscapes of Hà Giang. Unlike most people, I arrived with a fully loaded touring bike, around 30 kg of gear, and no experience riding in mountains. In hindsight, starting here was a bit insane, but I'm glad I did. The Hà Giang Loop was every bit as spectacular as people say. Endless climbs on double-digit gradients were rewarded with sweeping views across the jagged karst mountains. The descents were just as memorable. Steep and slightly terrifying on a loaded touring bike, with tight bends and motorbikes appearing from nowhere. From the northernmost point in Lũng Cú my route took me through Đồng Văn, the Mã Pí Lèng Pass, Mèo Vạc and Tủ Sản Canyon before I began working my way back towards Hanoi. The north was a brutal introduction to cycle touring and it forced me to learn quickly. After Hà Giang, the landscape calmed around Ba Bể Lake. I stayed at a beautiful homestay, ate some of the best home cooked food I had in Vietnam, and found a huge cave hidden down an overgrown path outside Pác Ngòi on my rest day. It was the first time the trip moved beyond mere survival. The road back to Hanoi brought a different kind of challenge. With the terrain flattening out, I tried to cover the final 250 km in two days, but the heat and humidity were brutal. On the last day some suspect routing from Komoot turned what should have been a long but manageable ride into a 150 km ordeal. I eventually spent five hours hiding under a motorway overpass with the local taxi drivers in their hammocks before making the final push into Hanoi at rush hour. The north was where I experienced my first mechanical issues, my first genuine exhaustion, and my first doubts about whether I was capable of this goal. It was also where I first encountered the generosity that would become a constant throughout Vietnam, from homestay owners who insisted I eat until I could barely move, to the one-legged mechanic who appeared on a scooter carrying tools and inner tubes after I'd spent an entire afternoon failing to find a microscopic shard of metal embedded in my tyre that caused four consecutive punctures. The Central Coast Leaving Hanoi, I gradually worked my way south along the Ho Chi Minh Road. The savage gradients of the far north turned into long rolling hills that were less dramatic but just as relentless physically. This was where I began completing consecutive days over 100km, and life became a simple rhythm of eating, pedalling, sleeping and repeating. One of the hardest days of the entire trip came just before Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park. After being delayed by another series of multiple punctures, I was forced to climb into the park in peak afternoon heat with barely any shade and almost no water. I started feeling the first signs of heatstroke and briefly attempted to hitch a lift over the pass but every pickup truck turned me down. Eventually I accepted there was no option but to keep pushing and I somehow made it without passing out. The descent into Phong Nha that followed remains the most satisfying I've ever experienced. Phong Nha itself was the perfect place to rest. Towering jungle-covered limestone cliffs rose straight out of the surrounding farmland, rivers disappeared into cave mouths, and after the intensity of the previous stretch I spent a few days doing little beyond eating, sleeping and letting my legs recover. Further south, Huế was the next major milestone. After weeks of mountains, jungle roads and rural landscapes, arriving in a large historic city was quite disorientating. From there came the famous ride over Hải Vân Pass, which turned into another mid afternoon slog against impending heatstroke. The climb was brutally hot and exposed, but the views made it one of the most memorable roads of the journey. The temple ruins of Mỹ Sơn sanctuary were a personal highlight of this stretch. I arrived before sunrise, before the crowds and the worst of the heat, and wandered between the temple ruins with little more than birdsong and insects for company. The Central Highlands If I had to choose a favourite region of Vietnam, it would be the Central Highlands without hesitation. Turning inland from the coast was a huge relief after weeks spent in the sea level furnace. The humid sea air was replaced by cool mountain mornings. The rice paddies gave way to pine forests and coffee plantations stretched across the rolling volcanic plateaus. At times it was difficult to believe I was still in Vietnam. The riding remained demanding, but in a different way. Long climbs carried me from plateau to plateau before dropping into fast descents through valleys and forests. The roads were often in poor condition, with broken tarmac, rough surfaces and sections that demanded constant attention, especially on a loaded touring bike. It was challenging and at times punishing, but still the most enjoyable cycling of the trip. The QL24 route into Mang Đen was one of the most beautiful stretches of road anywhere in Vietnam. In places it was just as spectacular as the Hà Giang Loop, with winding mountain roads, dense forest and roadside viewpoints that sit above the clouds in the early morning. Hà Giang gets a lot of attention but if you have the chance to visit Mang Đen and the surrounding area, I can't recommend it enough. Mang Đen itself was a big surprise. After weeks of oppressive heat, arriving somewhere cool enough to need a second layer in the evening felt bizarre. The pine forests and quiet roads reminded me more of Europe than Southeast Asia and I found myself staying longer than planned because it was such a relieving place to rest. Further south, the road passed through coffee country before giving way to endless rubber plantations. Some of my favourite riding in Vietnam came from these long, quiet stretches through the grid like mass of trees. Tà Đùng was the final great highlight of the Highlands. From the mountainside, the reservoir looked unreal, with scattered green islands rising from the water below. Saigon and the Mekong Delta After thousands of kilometres of mountains, jungle roads and small towns, arriving in Saigon felt a little overwhelming. I'd expected the city traffic to be intimidating but even after nearly two months of cycling since leaving the chaos of Hanoi it still felt familiar. Once I had a chance to acclimatise to the busyness I really savoured the flow state you have to enter when navigating these city roads. I took the opportunity for a brief city break to catch my breath, then pointed the bike south once more towards the Mekong Delta. After weeks of climbing the road flattened out into an endless maze of rivers, canals, rice fields and pineapple farms. The kilometers disappeared beneath my wheels with ease on the flat ground as I took in the slower, more watery rhythm of the region. The final ride out to Đất Mũi was quite emotional. For months I'd been working towards this point that only existed as an abstract marker on a map. Standing at Vietnam's southernmost point, looking out across the Gulf of Thailand, I felt a subtle disbelief. The finish line I'd been thinking about every day had become the new starting point for the rest of my journey. Conclusion Vietnam exceeded every expectation I had. It isn't just a country of spectacular scenery, it's a country of great generosity. Complete strangers helped me everyday without expecting anything in return. I can't count the amount of times someone pulled up alongside me to offer an ice cold drink that they'd obviously just bought for themselves or stopped to help me fix a flat tyre. Travelling by bicycle also changed the way I think about distance. Three thousand kilometres sounds enormous on paper, but taken one day at a time it makes the world feel like a smaller place. Every morning I just had to think about getting to the next climb, village or place to sleep. If you're considering visiting Vietnam, you should slow down if you can. You don't need to take 3 months but giving yourself time to experience the country beyond its highlights is something you won't regret. For me, Vietnam wasn't just the first country on a much longer expedition, it was the place that showed me that this is how I want to experience the world. From the saddle. Photos: 1 - roadside viewpoint somewhere between Buon Ma Thuot and Ta Dung lake in the central highlands 2 - northernmost point marker near the Chinese border in Lung Cu 3 - pushing my bike up a brutal climb on a backroad in the Dong Van geopark 4 - the road leaving Ba Be lake 5 - a cave I found down an overgrown path near Ba Be lake 6 - a backroad in the Trang An landscape complex 7 - rice fields inbetween Trang An and Cuc Phuong national park 8 - My Son sanctuary, near Da Nang 9 - aerial view of Hoi An 10 - foothills of the central highlands 11 - a bridge on ql24 heading towards Mang Den 12 - sunrise on my climb into the central highlands plateau 13 - descending from Mang Den towards Kon Tum 14 - looking out above the clouds near Kon Tum 15 - landscape inbetween Kon Tum and Pleiku 16 - Ta Dung lake 17 - aerial view of a steel cable suspension bridge on a coffee plantation outside Pleiku 18 - sunrise on a climb in the central highlands 19 - celebrating my arrival at the southernmost point of the country in Dat Mui 20 - cycling to the end of the pier at the end of Vietnam submitted by /u/Early_Moment_3428 to r/bicycletouring [link] [comments]

I went through the sub's full history: posts plus the comment threads and paid special attention beneath the highest-signal ones. This isn't a clinical study; posters and commenters skew toward the engaged and the enthusiastic. Treat everything below as a snapshot of what this community says, not as medical advice. What follows: the symptom catalog, the weight-loss reality, the open questions, the myths the sub has debunked, what the comments add that posts miss, and five things I'd add. No link in the body. DM me for the methodology, to request a sub that I should evaluate it (I'm doing others), or if you want to see what I'm building. 1. The cohort r/Retatrutide skews younger, more science-literate, and more researcher-curious than the broader GLP-1 subs. How posts break down: 42% progress / transformation (weights and timelines) 31% protocol / dosing questions 15% side-effect reports 7% scientific or trials discussion 5% sourcing & logistics The most distinctive feature vs. r/Wegovy or r/Mounjaro: dose titration is framed as the solution, not the side effect. Report intolerable nausea and the reply is "hold the dose, you titrated too fast," not "switch medications" — and that shapes the culture. 2. The symptom catalog The symptoms that recur across the sub, and how often they show up in posts: Symptom % of posts Typical week Common framing Appetite suppression (intended) 33% 2-4 "Food noise gone" Nausea 14% 1-3 post-injection Dose-dependent, fades with titration Fatigue / low energy 11% 2-7 ongoing Often paired with anhedonia GI distress (cramps, bloating, gas) 11% 1-4 post-injection Hydration + slower titration Anhedonia 9% 2-6 Loss of interest; sometimes reframed as "focus" Constipation 8% 2-5 Fiber + electrolytes Vomiting / gagging 6% 2-7 Often dose-related Dry mouth 4% 1-3 Hydration resolves Elevated resting HR 3% 2-8 ongoing 80+ bpm; concerning for endurance users Headaches 3% 1-3 Early, transient Allodynia (sunburn-like skin) 3% 5-7 Dose ≥3mg; "manageable nuisance" Shortness of breath 2% 3-6 Usually hydration Three things that distinguish this profile from broader GLP-1 subs: Severe GI events surface more in comments than posts. Nausea and constipation are well represented in post bodies, but the comment threads hold the granular cases — including gastroparesis not captured in post-level tables (mechanism in §6). Anhedonia is common but rarely a reason to quit. Posts reframe loss of interest as "focus"; commenters name the mechanism (dopamine suppression). Almost always transient at steady-state. Allodynia is Reta-specific. A sunburn-like skin sensation at 3mg and above, absent from broader GLP-1 subs. Comment consensus: subsides weeks after dose stabilization. 3. The weight-loss reality Post-level data points cluster tightly. Median 10 lbs/month, range 6.0–16.7, 25th percentile 7.5, 75th 11.6. 6-8 lbs/mo: ██ 8-10 lbs/mo: ███ 10-12 lbs/mo: █████ 12-14 lbs/mo: ██ 14-16 lbs/mo: █ 16+ lbs/mo: ██ Comments add data points that confirm the distribution but expose three things posts don't: Maintenance failure is underreported. One thread (t3_1txu3bc) had several commenters mention regaining weight post-diet — including 50+, 80+, and 304→343 lb cycles. The transformation-heavy post corpus undersells how common this is. Stacking inflates visible rates. A 70-lb-in-15-months success in the Beginners Guide (t3_1t4ivlu) was on 17.5mg tirzepatide + 4mg retatrutide weekly — a stack the headline didn't mention. Early loss is water and glycogen. 20+ lbs/month in the first 4 weeks is dehydration, glycogen depletion, and reduced GI volume — not fat. Two caveats: The sub runs faster than trial data. Phase 2 at 8mg/week showed ~24% body weight over 48 weeks (~1.2 lbs/week). The sub reports closer to 2.3 lbs/week at lower doses (1.5–2.5mg) — driven by responder bias (bad results post less), compliance bias (unusually protein-and-exercise compliant), and stacks. Don't self-label early. Under 30 days of data sits inside the water-glycogen-variance noise window; most "non-responders" move into the responder column by week 12. The honest read: 8–12 lbs/month sustained is the cohort center. Inside that range you're a responder, even with 20 lbs/month posts up top. 4. The five questions the sub still can't answer Most-asked, least-resolved: 1. What dose, and how fast can I titrate? The highest-volume question. Advice ranges from "0.5mg weekly for 6 weeks" to "jump to 2.5mg in two weeks"; insulin-sensitive and anxiety-prone users favor sub-1mg, prior-GLP-1 users push faster. Threads end in three contradictory voices and a hopeful OP. Gap: a dose×time explainer mapping phase 2 dose-response to actual practice. The Beginners Guide (t3_1t4ivlu) attempts it and got contested in its own thread. 2. Is this side effect normal, and when does it stop? Nausea, fatigue, GI cramping dominate; answers are accurate but scattered. Gap: an arc-week guide — e.g. "nausea peaks the dose-up week, mostly gone by week 4 at steady dose." 3. How do I reconstitute my vial? Profound confusion: 10mg/20mg vials with no instructions, wrong BAC ratios, air bubbles, clumping powder, some posts using sterile water instead of bacteriostatic. As one comment in t3_1tsrxvq puts it: 20 units can equal 1mg, 4mg, or 10mg depending on reconstitution. Gap: a visual reference for Reta vial sizes. 4. Why am I losing slowly? Mostly switchers from tirzepatide expecting an upgrade. Comments surface the answer posts miss — GIP-receptor tolerance: stepping down off the GIP component can feel less suppressive even as a different agonist profile takes over. Gap: a realistic timeline (most of these posts are under 30 days in). 5. Hunger returning on day 5–6 — tolerance or normal? Users on 2mg/week debate dose increase vs. interval compression vs. holding. Split on whether it's pharmacokinetics (steady-state peak-to-trough) or behavioral re-engagement. Gap: the peak-to-trough mechanism, rarely explained in plain language. 5. The myths the sub has already debunked "2mg/week is the lowest dose studied." Debunked in t3_1ttxb3f — phase 2 included a 1mg/week cohort. The comments add the counter-correction: phase 3 (the regulatory-standard trial) starts at 2mg, which will likely be the FDA-approved floor regardless. So: 1mg is studied; 2mg is the regulatory floor. Both true. "Low doses don't produce results." Debunked by t3_1txrx3j — a 0.5–0.7mg/week protocol that produced 9 lbs in 6 weeks, with multiple comments confirming sub-1mg success, especially in users with IBS or side-effect intolerance. "Anhedonia means switch medications." Rarely a discontinuation trigger and usually transient. Commenters in t3_1tqzkrb name dopamine suppression as the mechanism — depression-like numbness from dopamine dysregulation, not clinical depression — meaning behavioral activation ("get out and do something") can reverse it. Different intervention than switching drugs. "Faster titration = faster results." Multiple vomiting-and-dose-down cascades after 0.5 → 2.5mg in two weeks. The sub has settled on slower titration for better steady-state adherence. 6. What the comment threads add that the posts miss Seven patterns, only visible if you read the comments: 1. The vocabulary for the dopamine effect. Posts describe numbness, gym avoidance, "couch lock." The t3_1tqzkrb ("9 months on reta") thread is where commenters actually name dopamine suppression as the known mechanism — language the OP lacked. 2. The Reta + Norovirus + promethazine interaction . Post: hospitalized after gastroparesis. Comments: the mechanism. Promethazine slows smooth-muscle activity and worsens gastric emptying, so the anti-nausea relief makes the underlying problem worse; Reglan treats the cause but carries tardive-dyskinesia risk; the bezoar protocol (3L diet soda in 24h) lives in the comments. None of it is in the package insert or the post body. 3. Inter-generational reframing . Post: a 25-year-old grieving lost years. Comments: 40–73-year-olds reframe it — one 47-year-old on three decades of food preoccupation, one 41-year-old "experiencing teens/20s/30s for the first time," a parent on a 14-year-old son going from obese to normal BMI. "Your grief is real, but you're impossibly lucky compared to me" is the corpus's most consistent emotional thread, invisible from post bodies. 4. The Beginners Guide correction layer Three corrections worth more than the guide: lean mass ≠ skeletal muscle (rapid loss includes organ shrinkage, so "I'm losing muscle" panic conflates the two); the dopamine mechanism is more complex than single-molecule modulation; and switching GLP-1s feels less suppressive due to GIP tolerance + dose step-down, not actual lost suppression. 5. The glucagon mechanism . Post: 28% loss at 12mg, matching bariatric. Comments: glucagon-receptor activation drives hepatic fat breakdown and elevated resting metabolic rate — not just blood sugar. That's why Reta beats dual-agonists at the same weight-loss percentage, and it's nowhere in the post. 6. The muscle-preservation correction . Post: 40 lbs in ~5 months, OP credits Reta with preserving muscle. Comment: ~38% of weight lost is lean mass even with resistance training — comparable to semaglutide and tirzepatide. Reta doesn't preserve muscle; a protein floor and resistance work are required, not optional. One of the most-misstated facts on the sub. 7. "Possible but unlikely" . Post: suspicious that gym peers are juicing. Comment: the headline results are real but rare — most people see 30–40 lbs over 2–3 years, not 30 in 2 months. The comment-level cohort is more honest about the distribution than the post-level one. 7. Five things I'd add What I'd push back on or add: The 1–2 lb/week rate isn't disappointing — it's the trial median. The 8mg arm averaged ~1.2 lbs/week. Anything in the 1–2 lb/week range post-water-loss is at or above trial. The sub should name this floor. Anhedonia and elevated resting HR deserve a prescriber check, even when "manageable." RHR reports of 80–100 bpm (vs. 40–50 pre-Reta) and persistent anhedonia both have plausible mechanisms that aren't "wait it out." Flag the heart rate before deciding it's normal for you. The "non-responder" label gets applied way too early. Most such posts are under 6 weeks in; most would convert by week 12. The sub needs a canonical "wait 12 weeks" reference. Reconstitution confusion is a safety issue, not a quirk. Wrong ratios, sterile water instead of bacteriostatic, clumping powder — even experienced users miss the math ("20 units can equal 1mg, 4mg, or 10mg"). This needs a pinned visual. "Food noise gone" is incomplete without "what fills the silence." A minority of long-term users report new compulsions — gambling, scrolling, shopping — moving into the space cravings vacated. Largely absent from posts, surfacing in comments. Not necessarily alarming. Worth naming. Not medical advice; none of this is a personal recommendation. submitted by /u/Majestic_Nerve_5612 to r/Retatrutide [link] [comments]

I know some of our fans are bitter about who won the title (I am one of them lol), but overall we had a pretty good season. It honestly probably would've been a Big Ten champion type of season if Michigan hadn't gone fucking nuclear. I am very excited for the 2026-27 season. submitted by /u/byniri_returns to r/CollegeBasketball [link] [comments]

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Emotional granularity Emotional granularity is a modern term for the skill of differentiating between emotions with accuracy and specificity. For example, someone who is high in emotional granularity might label their current instance of emotion with concepts such as feeling "overwhelmed", "exasperated" or "inferior". Where as someone very low in emotional granularity might label all of these as simply feeling "awful". There is some growing evidence indicating that having higher emotional granularity is linked to having better emotional regulation and better ability to cope with difficult situations in adaptive ways. I would consider emotional granularity as being part of emotional expertise and knowing yourself, which I would argue is relevant to Stoicism. One proposed way of developing a higher emotional granularity is to learn of more emotion concepts. You can learn this from other people and other cultures. So studying the stoic pathē (often translated to "bad emotions" or "passions") is one way. And you can use that knowledge to better understand your own experiences and hone your skills in emotional granularity. Small caveat. When speaking of emotion, culture and language adds a lot of complexity. What exactly emotions are, how they should be defined, what is or isn't an emotion and in addition how related terms like "feelings" or "affect" fit in there is a debate that has been going on since before the stoics and is still going on today. So when John the biologist speaks of emotion he could mean something different from Lisa the psychologist, who in turn mean something from Joe the everyday guy. Perhaps none of them mean what Zeno the philosopher meant when he spoke of pathē. I think we need to be cautious when we read the Stoics, to not just assume they meant the same thing as our concept of emotion, which in turn will differ between us modern readers too. Some current theories of emotion would even say that which emotions we can even experience in the first place depends on which concepts we know! The stoic pathē The Stoics developed an extensive taxonomy of the pathē. They made a fourfold division depending on whether something was judged as being either good or bad and if it was present or future. Under this generic division they could then place the more specific pathē. A list including the subdivisions can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoic_passions It's clear that their taxonomy doesn't capture every single emotional experience we create and I don't think it was intended to. The stoics were mainly concerned with developing into excellent people, correcting any false belief that is contrary to being rational and social beings. Looking at anger as the example, they defined this as a "desire to punish a person who is thought to have harmed one unjustly". So anger would fit under "future good", a desire. You reach out for something, specifically to harm someone. In other words, anger for the stoics has to do with revenge. But desiring harm and seeking revenge on someone is contrary to much of what Stoicism teaches. This makes it a bit easier to understand why anger was considered a mistake and always wrong according to Stoicism. Developing emotional concepts I think the stoic definition of anger is very clever and I do think it captures many of the instances of anger we create in our daily life. But again considering the impact of language and culture on emotion, I would not expect it to fully account for everything we mean when we say "anger". You could label your experience as anger when you stub your toe, get stuck in traffic or watch news about natural disasters or politics, even if they aren't in every case a desire for revenge. I don't consider labeling this as anger as wrong, but it is different from the Stoic concept of anger. Being aware of this could help you understand whether you're using a stoic concept of anger or some other concept of anger when you label some instance of emotion as anger. The same could be done for any of these subdivisions of pathē. Perhaps sometimes your concept is a great fit with the Stoic concept and other times it's not. Another way is to monitor your current state of affect, or your basic sense of feeling, and examine what kind of emotion concept you use to label this experience in the moment. To help, you can look at it as divided on valence (pleasant versus unpleasant) and low versus high arousal. Here's a helpful chart for that: https://versatilebeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/img_4385.jpg Here's another with some suggested labels: https://marcbrackett.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Mood_Meter_Marc_Brackett_Permission-to-Feel.pdf This is something I also do with my children to help them practice their emotional concepts and develop higher emotional granularity. Being able to look at some situation, like giving a performance, and to know that your experience of a pounding heart and shaking legs (high arousal) doesn't have to be labeled as "anxiety", maybe with time it can be more accurately labeled as "anticipation" instead. The stoics were for elimination of the pathē and I do think this is something we should progress towards as students. But falling short of virtue this could perhaps be a stepping-stone. submitted by /u/Chrysippus_Ass to r/Stoicism [link] [comments]

Test: https://www.idrlabs.com/emotional-granularity/test.php Please share results below. submitted by /u/Botherstones to r/plural [link] [comments]

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On Monday, a federal appeals court made a ruling that threatened to open an old wound for New Yorkers. The court overturned the 2017 conviction of Pedro Hernandez, a bodega clerk who had confessed to abducting and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979. Patz’s case had been a media sensation at the time of his disappearance, helping to crystallize public disgust with the perceived chaos and lawlessness of life in New York in the 1970s. The legal proceedings against Hernandez, brought after family members came forward to say that Hernandez had confessed to the crime, stretched on for years thanks to a hung jury and complex procedural questions. The appeals court ruled that improper jury instructions had unfairly influenced the verdict and that Hernandez must be retried or else freed. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has announced that they will review the case. Patz was a key face in the late 20th-century surge of interest in missing children. His disappearance and others like it contributed to a siege mentality among many Americans, particularly parents. Patz became one of the first “milk carton kids,” missing children whose faces were printed on milk cartons in the hopes that someone might recognize them and alert the authorities; Ronald Reagan’s 1983 announcement of the creation of National Missing Children’s Day was timed to coincide with the date of Patz’s disappearance. Over the course of the next several decades, the idea that American children were at constant risk of being snatched off the street by shadowy predators became an obsession. Politicians championed expansive new police powers, nonprofit organizations dedicated to saving missing children mushroomed, and parents gradually began to adopt a stance of outlandish fear of random crimes against their children. As a child of the 1980s, in the summers my brothers and I would leave the house in the mornings and go run around the nearby fields and woods for hours, unsupervised, returning home only for lunch or when my father bellowed our names as the sun went down. By the 2000s, America’s vision of responsible childrearing was that of the helicopter parent, fretfully hovering overhead, never letting their kids out of their sight. In the last several decades of the 20th century, at least, there was some justification for such anxious parenting and media hype, as we were living in a period of genuinely elevated crime rates—although even then, random kidnappings were quite rare. What’s disturbing to me is the way that “stranger danger” fears have grown as the 21st century has trundled on, despite the fact that we’ve been living through an unprecedented reduction in the violent crime rate. And this constant state of low-level panic risks disrupting the most essential rites of passage of American youth, without any factual justification. Consider, for example, Halloween. It might seem strange to be thinking about the quintessential fall holiday in the heat of summer, and yet that’s precisely what I’ve been doing lately—pondering the classic slice of Americana that is trick or treating. This might make a little more sense if you understand that I am the father of a four-month-old baby, one who’s stubbornly sticking to his “absolutely will not sleep in a crib or bassinet” policy, requiring me to stay awake with him all night, every night before I hand him off to his mother in the morning. I therefore have both new reason to think about the rituals of childhood and nothing but time to ponder them. He’ll still be blissfully unaware of the world when we dress him up in a pumpkin costume this October 31st, but the following year he’ll be a little toddling menace, and then there’s the year after that, and the year after that… and I find myself both excited to see what he’ll come up with as far as Halloween costumes go, and concerned that the classic American ritual of trick or treating might not be waiting for him in the future. You may have heard of “Trunk or Treat,” an impossibly depressing 21st-century practice in which fretful parents take their children to some sad parking lot to exchange candy in a grim facsimile of actual Halloween festivities. This is necessary because, as we all know, the modern world is a terribly dangerous place for American children, full of maniacs looking to pull them into windowless vans. Perhaps parents of an earlier, more innocent age could have sent their kids out into the dark of night in search of free candy, but the world has grown too harsh, too dark, too violent for such things now. Better to awkwardly mill around in a parking lot for a couple hours before heading home, never having exposed our kids to the crazies out there. Of course, this robs the night of its spirit of wandering adventure, the opportunity to take in the moonlit landscape in search of sugary treasure that has proven to be such fertile ground for storytelling and culture-building. But what are those vague and idealistic virtues worth, really, compared to the obligation to save our children from the evil strangers who lurk in the dark? Of course, you and I know the actual reality: the notion that the average child is meaningfully threatened by violent crime is fundamentally, quantitatively, objectively, scientifically untrue. The broader notion that American life has gotten more dangerous or more violent is also untrue, even during recent fluctuations such as the brief pandemic-era murder spike; violent or criminal threats against children, in particular, are extremely remote. The fear of anti-child violence has never had any empirical basis, and more importantly, this fear speaks to a deepening divide between public perception of the dangers of our society and their reality—a divide that risks pulling us ever deeper into our little bubbles, driven there by our least rational selves. The most obvious and important point, when it comes to Trunk or Treat, is that the idea of Halloween as a festival of violence against children is simply a myth. Take the hoary old urban legend of children being killed by adulterated candy, handed out by psychopaths. There has never been an authenticated claim of needles or poison hidden in Halloween candy, never, which is sensible given a) it’s very difficult to hide anything in mini-sized candies, b) it would in fact be fairly simple for police to identify which house was handing out booby-trapped sweets, and most importantly, c) there’s zero rational motivation for someone to do such a thing. In fact, the only documented cases of any children being harmed or poisoned by adulterated Halloween candy are cases where the parents were the culprits, which is part of a broader reality about crime against children: the public conception of such crime is a matter of “stranger danger,” but in reality if a child is the victim of a crime, it’s overwhelmingly likely to be committed by someone they know, usually a family member, very often the parents. This speaks to the dominance of feelings in this domain, feelings over statistics, over common sense, over reality. Bad feelings. Scared feelings. Halloween stranger danger fears are just part of a far larger contemporary obsession with violent crimes committed against children—fears that seem to grow more and more exaggerated precisely as the actual danger of such crimes declines further and further over time. Take kidnapping. The raw numbers for kidnapping might look concerningly high to American parents. But in fact kidnapping is overwhelmingly a crime committed by family members, typically in some sort of custody dispute; the paradigmatic case of kidnapping in the 21st century is not some creep luring a kid away at the mall but rather one parent taking a child and fleeing somewhere without having the formal custody rights to do so. Federal data show that only about 100-115 stereotypical stranger abductions occur annually in the United States, a rate of roughly 1 in 1.2 million children. These cases make up less than 0.3% of missing child reports. Of course any is too many, but there are 73 million minors in the United States! A stranger absconding with your child is just an incredibly remote risk, and like most crimes the incidence of kidnapping is class-and-race stratified, meaning that middle-class-and-above white parents likely face even less of a risk that has a very low basal rate to begin with. And yet the emotional valence is often exactly the opposite; it’s typically financially stable white parents who most drive the stranger danger narrative. Violent crime overall, including crimes against children, has dropped drastically since its peak in the 1990s. National statistics show a 50% decline or more in violent crime in major cities over the past three decades. And while we will have to wait and see what the second half of 2025 holds for us, early indications are that this has been a remarkable year when it comes to falling crime rates. Trends regarding crimes against children require more granular, harder-to-acquire information, and thus we’re forced to rely on older data, but the direction of travel has been clear for some time. Specific to children, longitudinal data shows that assaults with weapons, child maltreatment, and sexual victimization have all decreased significantly through the 2000s and 2010s. Likewise, the evidence shows that physical child abuse fell by some 55% between 1992 and 2011; sexual abuse declined by 64% over the same period; and stranger abductions fell by about 50% between 1997 and 2012, again from an already-rare baseline. Meanwhile, our responses to these crimes are growing more effective. More robust systems for finding and rescuing abducted children, such as cellphones, Amber Alerts, ubiquitous cameras, and mandatory reporting mean that missing child cases are resolved far more quickly and safely. In the early 1990s only about 60% of stranger abduction victims were recovered alive; now that figure is upward of 92%. And various forms of ancillary data almost all point to a secular trend: children are experiencing far less violence from all sources, including and perhaps especially from people they do not know. Even the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has in recent years made the strategic decision to move away from “stranger danger” messaging. Which makes sense, given that American children have never been safer. And yet, Trunk or Treat. And yet, polling which consistently shows that parents live in fear of their children becoming the victims of violent crime. And yet, the continued salience of random crime in our elections for public office. No matter how much the reality changes, the fear never seems to go away. Part of what’s so aggravating about this is that many of the challenges our children do face—food insecurity, housing insecurity, exposure to lead and other environmental contaminants, inadequate access to healthcare or dental care—are all profoundly solvable problems that are actual problems. We have considerable statistical evidence of the breadth and depth of these problems for our children, and adequate public investment could solve them. But on Planet True Crime, that stuff doesn’t pass the virality threshold. Parents cling to fear of violent crime not because the data supports it, but because anxiety has become its own form of moral performance, a way to signal vigilance, virtue, and parental devotion. The truth is that many don’t want to be convinced their kids are safe. Safety is boring. Fear gives shape to their identity. I say all of this as someone who is far more amenable to talking frankly about crime and policing than many leftists. I’ve long felt that the progressive tendency to be dismissive of crime fears is bad politics; the public cares about crime, so we must demonstrate to them that we do, too, if we’re to win elections and take control of the institutions of law and order. The specter of Twitter lefties mocking concern about violent crime during the very real Covid-era homicide surge makes me wince just to think about it, especially given the presidential election that followed. But I want us to have a rational level of concern for policing. I want us to care about the right things in the right ways. And just about the last place we should be investing our energy or attention or resources is the extraordinarily remote risks of strangers snatching kids off the street. In an era defined by instant, unlimited access to information, the persistence of “stranger danger” fears is a revealing irony. We live in a time when government crime statistics, peer-reviewed sociological studies, and detailed historical comparisons are all available to anyone with a smartphone. And yet the myth that American children are more at risk than ever, especially from random predatory strangers, remains inescapable. It’s not a lack of access to the truth that drives public perception; on the contrary, the problem is too much access, and a deep mistrust of the institutions that provide that truth. This is one of the most important lessons of the internet era: constant access to massive amounts of information does not lead to an informed populace. Instead, such access often seems to simply give people more ways to deceive themselves. In a media ecosystem that constantly amplifies outrage and exceptional horror stories, rare tragedies take on the shape of common patterns. People consume true crime, algorithmically fed horror stories, and warnings wrapped in TikToks and Facebook posts—an ambient hum of anxiety that statistics, no matter how clearly presented, cannot quiet. And parents, understandably, don’t want to be wrong about something so high-stakes. But in privileging these fears over what the numbers show, we train ourselves to ignore reality in favor of myth, choosing the comfort of vigilance over the challenge of trust. The information age hasn’t abolished folklore, just digitized it. And I would hate to think that my son will grow up in a world that’s even more obsessed with safety thanks to a communal refusal to pay attention to reality—a world where he never gets to experience the grand American tradition of running around outside with his friends on Halloween night, searching for candy, carefree. submitted by /u/AmericanPurposeMag to r/neoliberal [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/invah to r/AbuseInterrupted [link] [comments]

First | Prev | Next Book 1 | Patreon | Subreddit | Discord | Paperback --- Memory Transcription Subject: Taylor Trench, Human Colonist Date [standardized human time]: March 16, 2160 The sunlight from above compounded my headache, as I tried to think of what I’d say to Gress. Each step against sandy ground felt as though there was nothing beneath my feet, and the bones holding me upright felt like nothing substantive at all. What I knew was that the Krev had never given us a break before, so this would be a singular occasion if they did demonstrate they cared about our lives at all. We didn’t deserve the hatred and callousness they showed us. I could feel the warm breath dampening the cloth near my lips, the mask hiding my scratched-up features. I found my mind wandering during the punishing walk, thinking about how much of the opulence we’d enjoyed on Earth was gone forever. Mayor Hathaway called me out for the old Earth songs we came up with, but there weren’t exactly record labels or studios here to create new…anything. Not movies, not TV, not books, not paintings, not music. There were, perhaps, three or four musicians that’d play on the street as a hobby, but there were no full-time entertainers; everyone needed to directly contribute to the city. The biggest events of the years were the school plays, which turned out thousands for the live entertainment. I still remembered auditioning to play Hamlet, and winding up as King Claudius instead. Half a millennium, and hundreds of stars away: the Bard’s work survives. It’s funny, because I used to wonder why they taught us the arts at all. Ms. Quispe was right, when she said when we stop creating, we stop being human. Have we stopped being human, without our expression? I remembered what the subjects taught us in school, where we’d made a few crude instruments that children could tinker with, as some semblance of our heritage. My fingers twitched in real time, recalling the fluid movements I’d learned against the piano; sometimes, I found myself walking down there to play a mournful piece. Those were bygone days though, and it wouldn’t demonstrate my loyalty to the colony. I didn’t apply to be a teacher, after all, and we all had our roles. There were other things with more substance. Because of our small population, it was agreed that the next generation needed to share a language, which after much debate, was set as “English.” Secondary languages were optionally available under AI instruction, for cultural preservation. “You remember…Crisanto? Cherise?” I croaked, struggling to place one foot in front of the other. “He refused to take a job. Wrote…stories. Sent them around on holopads; I liked his one story, where we found a way to make ourselves invisible. Mayor…threatened to kick him out, if he didn’t work…then, he was too tired to write. Dried up, just like we all dry up.” The security guard escorting me jostled my elbow. “You’re delirious, Taylor. Maybe we should turn back.” “Fuck off with that shit. We already made it this far. I’ve just been…thinking about how little career diversity there is here. Because of the Krev, we all have to work toward the colony.” “There’s only a few thousand of us. We don’t have influencers or professional athletes anymore.” “Imagine spending your life playing a game. Wouldn’t fulfill me, but…it sounds a lot more fun than our life. Us…adults should have a pickup soccer game, in the streets…for old times. Like the kids do.” “I thought we finally agreed to call it football.” “And to use the metric system. We stop calling it soccer, and American culture is dead forever. I guess—” Cherise failed to react in time as my legs gave out, and I faceplanted in the dirt; my head nearly collided with the cane. Somewhere along the way, my grip on the walking aid had loosened so much that it was ineffectual. I cursed my weakness, getting wrapped up in old memories during a pivotal time. Sand would be smeared all over my outfit, when we reached the landing pad. The security guard placed her hand on my back, while using the other arm to slowly lift me up. I struggled to all fours, and limped onward while keeled over. “Are you alright? Taylor, you can’t meet Gress like this. We shouldn’t have let you go in the first place,” Cherise shouted. My eyes rolled back in my head, as I saw the landing pad in reach. “I can hear his ship. Walking is the hard part; I can talk just fine. Maybe if he sees me like this, it puts it in perspective. Assuming good old Gress gives a rat’s ass about me.” “I’m not convinced they feel anything toward us. Remember how that Krev tried to take advantage of us, last time we came to bargain.” “I know we don’t have any negotiating power. We have no choice but to hope they feel something. For once, we could use some fucking help. I…I think he’ll hear in my voice how awful that accident was. How terrible I feel about letting our obligations to our landlords exceed worker safety, partially for personal gain. I’m a dick, really. This is my fault, whatever you say, and I’m going to fix it.” The guard touched her ear with a frown. “Mayor Hathaway is saying that you need to pull yourself together; that you can’t be moping around out of guilt right now. He also says if you collapse again, I’m taking you back and he’s coming up here himself. Already suiting up.” “Brandon’s the one who said he needed me, so let me do what’s necessary! I’m not a fucking quitter. Get me to the pad, and I’ll do my job. I know my orders.” “You were seriously injured.” “And other people were killed! I have all of my limbs, and you’d think I could make them work for ten minutes. Give me a break.” “We need to talk after this. I’ve never seen you like this, in years, Taylor. I’m worried about your stability, and I don’t think you should be anywhere near the Krev. We take you to the landing pad, and you’re sitting down and saying a few lines.” “Don’t you dare undermine me in front of Gress, Cherise. Your job is to protect me and hold a fucking gun, not to shmooze these bastards like you’re suddenly a diplomat.” “You know what, you are being a total asshole. I’ll let it slide because you’re hurting and not right upstairs, but you’re not gonna take it out on me again. We clear?” “Crystal." I managed to shuffle the last few steps to the landing pad, before setting my backside down on a crate with relief. My head definitely was causing some issues in my basic functions, but I could think clearly enough to know what I needed to tell Gress. In a world where the Krev could empathize and have any pity on a predator’s culture, I’d spit back everything I’d been ruminating on in my own mind, about the lost arts and our shell of a life. That was the one thing we could never tell aliens with side-facing eyes; we remembered how the prey lifeforms had reacted to what we were before. There wasn’t much I knew about the Krev Consortium, other than we had some vague notion that it was a collection of the Krev and five other species. Conveniently all prey. Why are we the only ones so unlucky to have our eyes in this position? Why did it have to matter so much, that the entire Federation couldn’t bear to look at us? These masks are hiding that we are…monsters. Repugnant monsters, to everyone up in the stars. I thought back to the wounded human faces in the infirmary, bearing wounds—hiding all of the tumultuous emotions that coursed through my own blood. Some of the binocular eyes that I knew from our small settlement were closed forever, because of the accident, and I couldn’t forget that. I couldn’t unsee the mental images, even the ones that I hadn’t laid eyes on myself. Friends and colleagues, the last of our near-extinct species: the last hope for the homo sapiens lineage to continue. All we built turned to dust eventually, no matter how we struggled. I sped along our society crumbling, and ruined our final chance at staving off extinction. Nobody could tell me otherwise; nobody could convince me that I didn’t deserve the wounds I was bearing right now. I had to convince Gress, and I’d do it by any means necessary; we couldn’t get evicted from our home by aliens again. The Krev vessel touched down, as I’d watched it do so many times, with graceful engines that were left running for our rent collector’s quick getaway. The green-scaled mammal marched down the landing ramp like he owned this entire world, which as far as his kind were concerned, he did. I curled my lip beneath my mask, at the sight of his lashing tail. I wanted to wring my hands around his neck, and make him pay for all the guilt that was eating me up. Instead, I just watched as he spotted us, and stalked over to our position with disdain. “Did you not know I was coming? Why are the supply crates not waiting, again, after you’re all quite tardy?” the Krev spat. I inhaled sharply. “Hello, Gress. I’d stand up to greet you, but I’m afraid I’m not quite well. I’ve been advised by our medical staff not to be here, actually, yet I thought it was too important for me to try to smooth things over with you not to show up.” “You…do not look well. You look as though you can hardly sit up, Taylor. If I didn’t recognize your voice, I wouldn’t know it’s you. I’ll understand if you were to require a different representative for the handoff, and I hope that your medical issues clear up. That doesn’t change my demands for the supplies.” I threw my hands up in the air, looking defeated. “I’ll level with you, but please, let me explain before you say anything. The supplies aren’t coming. I was…overseeing our mining operations, to ensure that everything was on schedule and we generated what you needed. We pushed ourselves too far. There was…an accident. I sustained a head injury when I was nearly buried alive. Others…died. We can’t get your ore, not for a long time, with our drill in tatters and our workforce eviscerated. I have no choice but to plead for…mercy.” “I…see.” There was a brief hint of something in his eyes, which resembled sympathy. “It was never the Krev’s wishes for any lives to be lost. I am sorry for what happened to you. By the sound of what I’m hearing come from your mouth, you wish for us to let you stay for free, because of your misfortune. This is after we haven’t wanted you on our world for a long time.” “I know that, but the accident happened—it was out of our control, or we would’ve given you everything! We need any mercy, no matter how granular: it doesn’t have to be free. We could do something else. Anything else, as long as we can fit it or labor on it belowground. We just need time to repair the drill, and we can resume regular payments; we could renegotiate, so it could be beneficial over the long run.” “The long run? How does that suit our purposes at all, when what we want is your departure in motion?! These payments haven’t been cutting the trouble you humans are, for a long time. You are intruders in our space, and you always have been.” “I…I know you feel that way. But please, if you truly feel sympathy for the tragedy we’ve incurred, something we have no way of fixing; give us some reprieve, or at least some proposal to work with us. Don’t throw grieving families out, some with children, from the only homes they’ve ever known, because one thing went wrong with our deal in twenty years. You might think we’re trouble, and think these masks make us untrustworthy because of our cultural differences, but we’ve always met our pact before now. We’re just trying to make a living: a life. I know we failed you, Gress, and I’m asking for mercy anyway.” The Krev paced for several seconds, at least making a show of seeming conflicted. Cherise’s body language relaxed slightly, reflecting some hope that my plea might’ve gotten through to the snippy Gress. I wasn’t going to set any unrealistic expectations, since our overlords hadn’t ever shown us emotional consideration before. The most we’d gotten from them was being taken advantage of, when we had no choice but to land on this colony; oh, wonder, they let us land. I guess we were supposed to kiss their asses, and sing their praises forever? “Let me level with you, Taylor. I’m sorry about what happened with your people, but I have orders to see you removed within the year, or I’m fired. Which would be fine by me, frankly, since I never wanted this posting…but I was given it because they trusted me to put an end to this saga,” Gress sighed. “I’m not the type to kick people when they’re down, no matter what’s happened between us. So I have a proposal. Take me to the site of this accident, to see it with my own eyes, and I’ll request for the Consortium to give you a bit more time.” I stiffened with disbelief. “What? You want us to take you…into our city?” “I do. What I’ll accept as my payment is some hint of transparency. I’ll give you the alternative to take off your mask, here and now, and look me in the eye. You think we haven’t figured out it’s not that important to your culture at all? I doubt they treated your wounds with that shit covering your skull.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Obviously there’s special circumstances, but we don’t show our faces; it would be a disgrace!” “If that’s true, then what’s the issue with taking me through your settlement to the mines? I want to know something real about you people. To see how you live, and to see what happened, so I can make my own judgment on whether you deserve mercy. Take me to the accident, or I’ll carry out my government’s will. Your choice.” Cherise tightened her fingers on her rifle. “That’s not possible, Gress. We don’t like outsiders seeing our private lives.” “Then I have no reason to help you people. You have—” “Wait!” I interjected. “Maybe we can…arrange something? We probably could show you some pictures of the site.” “You and I both know that photographs can be doctored to show whatever you like. Seeing it confirms your story beyond a shadow of a doubt.” “Okay. Then, um, maybe you can give us time to bring out a bag so we, uh, can cover your vision on the way, and clear out any workers? We could walk you down to the mine.” “Why do you need to clear out any workers? Because you don’t actually wear those goofy outfits down in your cities, and you just hide yourself from us? Take me straight down there, like any normal society, or don’t bother.” “I can’t, Gress. My people will never give permission for that; I’d be considered a traitor to all of humanity. Please, give us some option that doesn’t violate our privacy and the very…spirit of our traditions!” “I’m done giving you anything! You’ve hidden yourselves enough to show you don’t trust or respect us at all. This right here is why we can’t fucking stand you, and why I’m not sticking my neck out for you. You have one week to get off our planet, or we will remove you by force. You got that?” “No, wait! You can’t do that. Please, give us…a week to meet, and discuss how we’ll handle our departure. We need time…to plan it! We just suffered a catastrophe; we’ve been here for years!” The Krev snorted. “I gave you a chance. You spit in our faces like you always do, behind those two-faced words you love to throw at us. Good-bye, Taylor. I can’t say I’ll miss you.” Gress turned around back toward his ship, with an arrogant swagger in his step. Cherise gasped in horror, at a loss for words; the mayor seemed to be passing something along into her earpiece, though I couldn’t imagine what he could’ve said that I didn’t. Those heartless aliens hadn’t spared us at all, after we laid our hearts bare to them! Kabir’s face flashed through my mind, panicking as he tried to shut down the drill. An intelligent, dedicated young man who was dead because I put the greedy xenos’ interests ahead of human life. I could still feel my nose being pressed into the dirt, as I thought I’d suffocated alive. I could remember my final thoughts of regrets, and the horror when I awakened to find we’d have no chance. My head was swimming even now from the aftermath of those wounds, leaving me in a sorry state that didn’t move Gress at all! Would that Krev have cared if I died; if hundreds of humans died?! My fingers tightened around the cane in rage, before with a sudden rush of adrenaline, I found myself stomping after the rent collector on steady feet. I swung the walking aid back, and before Cherise could react, I clobbered it against the back of his skull. The Krev emitted a startled shriek, which cut off as he crumpled into an unconscious ball. Steaming with white-hot, blinding fury, I brought the cane back for another swing. Cherise’s arms dragged me away with desperation; I could barely hear her pleas for me to stop. All I could see was Kabir’s face, in the last moments I saw him alive, and that suffocating sensation I couldn’t clear from my mind. Security guard Benson finally got a handle on me, wrestling me to the ground. My burst of strength fizzled in an instant, as I laid on my side, immobile. “What the fuck did you just do? Hathaway’s screaming it, and I fucking agree with him!” Cherise shouted. “We can’t go to war with them, Taylor. You know that. What you just did, could really get all of us killed.” I blinked, shameful tears welling in my eyes. “Fuck. Gress…Gress is out cold. He’s not waking up any time soon.” “And now, we can’t let him go. We all have to find a way to fix this. Hathaway, send medics! We need someone to carry Gress, while he’s still out, down to a private infirmary. Bring someone to help Taylor get back too. We should’ve never let him out like this.” I sucked in several dazed breaths, processing the gravity of what I’d just done, assaulting Gress. Cherise was correct that we couldn’t have the Krev return to his home, and tell his people that we physically attacked him. That could mean war between our people; the only thing I could think of was that we needed to hurry up and leave, before a search party came looking for the rent collector. Maybe it was still possible to get some information out of Gress, and persuade him to call off the dogs? As I waited for the medics to arrive, I desperately racked my brain for any possible way to correct my colossal mistake. This had only worsened the prior burden of guilt, over how I’d ruined humanity’s chances on Tellus. --- First | Prev | Next Book 1 | Patreon | Subreddit | Discord | Paperback submitted by /u/SpacePaladin15 to r/HFY [link] [comments]

Game Information Game Title: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Genre: Action-adventure, role-playing, open-world Platform: Nintendo Switch Media: E3 2021 Teaser Official Trailer #1 | Trailer #2 | Trailer #3 Gameplay Demonstration Developer: Nintendo EPD Info Developer's HQ: Kyoto, Japan Publisher: Nintendo Price: $69.99 USD Release Date: May 12, 2023 More Info: /r/zelda | Wikipedia Page Review Aggregator: OpenCritic - 97 | 100% Recommended [Switch] Score Distribution MetaCritic - 96 [Switch] Tearfully arbitrary compilation of some past games in the series - Entry Score Platform, Year, # of Critics Ocarina of Time 99 N64, 1998, 22 critics Majora's Mask 95 N64, 2000, 27 critics A Link to the Past 95 GBA, 2002 re-release, 30 critics The Wind Waker 96 GC, 2003, 56 critics The Minish Cap 89 GBA, 2005, 80 critics Twilight Princess 96 GC, 2006, 16 critics Phantom Hourglass 90 DS, 2007, 57 critics Spirit Tracks 87 DS, 2009, 75 critics Skyward Sword 93 Wii, 2011, 81 critics A Link Between Worlds 91 3DS, 2013, 81 critics Tri Force Heroes 73 3DS, 2015, 73 critics Breath of the Wild 97 Switch, 2017, 109 critics Reviews ​ Website/Author Aggregates' Score ~ Critic's Score Quote Console Creatures - Bobby Pashalidis Unscored ~ Recommended The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a worthwhile follow-up to Breath of the Wild because it builds on the world in several exciting ways. You’re encouraged to engage and tackle quests in a way that fits your playstyle while never feeling overburdened by the systems put in place. Polygon - Mike Mahardy Unscored ~ Unscored These are moments where I’m gently reminded that true player freedom is, of course, a fallacy. Nintendo created this world, and I inhabit it. Weeks, months, or years from now, I may affect it in ways its creators didn’t intend, but still — I will be using the tools they provided. The brilliance of Tears of the Kingdom lies in how well it imparts the fantasy of player freedom. Sure, Nintendo shakes me out of the daydream every now and then, and in those moments, I see flashes of its old rigid self. But no matter: At some point, I’ll fully escape its watchful gaze. Areajugones - Gerard Carrera - Spanish 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is crowned as the best installment of the saga, embracing both the old and the new. One of the best open world video games and the purest form of a legendary adventure. CGMagazine - Preston Dozsa 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is easily the greatest open world game ever made, and may well be Nintendo’s finest achievement. COGconnected - Oliver Ferguson 100 ~ 100 / 100 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the most unique and creative games I have ever played. There is a lot to do and the world design is a perfect symbiosis between using Link’s abilities and your own smarts to reach your goals. One of the best games ever on Nintendo Switch and a must-buy. Checkpoint Gaming - Luke Mitchell 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom finds a way to improve upon its predecessor in almost every way, remixing the format and forcing you to rewire your brain in genius ways to solve devilish puzzles, take on challenging bosses, and explore a dense, captivating open world absolutely chock-full of distractions and secrets. Like Breath of the Wild before it, Tears of the Kingdom is an incredible accomplishment in video games that is set to stay in our collective conscience for the next several years and beyond, and it's completely deserving of that honour. ComicBook.com - Christian Hoffer 100 ~ 5 / 5 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a worthy successor to Breath of the Wild and is easily a Game of the Year contender. In addition to making you fall in love with the world of Hyrule all over again, this game feels much more like a traditional Zelda game while retaining all of the charm and beauty of Breath of the Wild. DASHGAMER.com - Dan Rizzo 100 ~ 10 / 10 There’s a tale told with great ambition and aspiration behind its lore, its successes and how it will act as a defiant moment in Nintendo’s growth, but The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a set to be 2023’s landmark achievement in gaming – nothing short of extraordinary. Destructoid - Chris Carter 100 ~ 10 / 10 I loved nearly every minute of Tears of the Kingdom. From zooming up into the sky to spelunking in the depths, there’s way more to explore here, and I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface outside of the main story and some key sidequests. But the real kicker that helps separate Tears from Breath of the Wild is its big swing power set. I felt like I was in control at all times, and had the ability to create my own path. For a series known for sequence-breaking that’s not just a perk; it’s a strong argument for why Tears of the Kingdom will be talked about for years on end, and may even top some favorite Zelda lists. Dexerto - James Busby 100 ~ 5 / 5 Overcoming Breath of the Wild’s exceptional quality was never going to be an easy feat, but The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has achieved a small miracle. There is more creativity and choice than ever before, which will undoubtedly have a long-lasting influence on both the series and the wider gaming industry. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is not so much a tearful goodbye from its historic past, but a fresh new beginning – one that embraces the building blocks set down by its predecessor, and transforms them to further push this beloved action-adventure series ever forward. Enternity.gr - Nikitas Kavouklis - Greek 100 ~ 10 / 10 We may not know if this is the Nintendo Switch's final AAA game, but it's the perfect way to cap off a highly successful run. Eurogamer.pt - Vítor Alexandre - Portuguese 100 ~ 5 / 5 To the large size of the campaign and an exploration based on three layers or dimensions of Hyrule, there is an immense creative power, capable of modifying the experience, always with the puzzles in sight, the mental gymnastics supported by beautiful melodies, a refined language and a remarkable artistic dimension. Again called upon to return peace to Hyrule, Link comes close to the gods. GameSpot - Steve Watts 100 ~ 10 / 10 Tears of the Kingdom is a triumph of open-ended game design that pays homage to the best parts of the Zelda franchise's own storied history--and sometimes exceeds them. Gameblog - Gameblog - French 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is indeed the masterclass we were waiting for. GamesHub - Edmond Tran 100 ~ 5 / 5 Breath of the Wild reinvented The Legend of Zelda. Tears of the Kingdom reimagines it once more, as a somehow more ambitious, freeform and creative game, with even greater highs – literally and figuratively. It’s a staggeringly eye-opening game that expertly cultivates the joy of exploration, discovery and believing in your own abilities. Glitched Africa - Marco Cocomello 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the ceremonious journey of the decade. Its awe-inspiring open world doubles up as a playground of fun thanks to a unique building system that brilliantly ties into every aspect of the game. There’s magic here – its an unforgettable tale. God is a Geek - Adam Cook 100 ~ 10 / 10 Tears of Kingdom could end being one of the best games ever made, with unparalleled exploration that offers freedom and creativity on a scale never before seen. Guardian - Keza MacDonald 100 ~ 5 / 5 Occasionally a game comes along that makes you look at life in a whole new way. This glorious, hilarious, utterly absorbing Zelda instalment is one of them IGN - Tom Marks 100 ~ 10 / 10 Warning: minor spoilers in video review - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an unfathomable follow-up, expanding a world that already felt full beyond expectation and raising the bar ever higher into the clouds. Inverse - Hayes Madsen 100 ~ 10 / 10 Tears of the Kingdom is so much more than a sequel — it’s a total reimagining of what Nintendo did with Breath of the Wild in 2017. Sure, there are still some minor quibbles, like tedious cooking and clumsy horse controls. But all of that pales in the face of the many, things this game does right. Metro GameCentral - GameCentral 100 ~ 10 / 10 An excellent sequel and one of the best Zelda games ever made. A follow-up that builds upon and refines the achievements of the original, while adding many new and equally innovative ideas of its own. Nintendo Life - Alana Hagues 100 ~ 10 / 10 It's impossible to talk about everything that makes The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom so incredible, and making many of those discoveries yourselves is part of the magic. It's also impossible to overstate just how much there is to do in Hyrule this time around. Much like its predecessor, this is your playground for the next however many years to come, with a little sprinkling of that older Zelda fairy dust mixed into Breath of the Wild's formula. It's a glorious, triumphant sequel to one of the best video games of all time; absolute unfiltered bliss to lose yourself in for hundreds of hours. We can't wait to see what the world will do with the game. Post Arcade (National Post) - Chad Sapieha 100 ~ 10 / 10 Tears of the Kingdom is as imaginative, delightful and empowering as Breath of the Wild and a paradigm for emergent sandbox play. Press Start - James Mitchell 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom builds upon Breath of the Wild's robust systems to offer an experience that eclipses the original in practically every way. Not only that, but it works incredibly hard to restore some of the things lapsed players might've missed from the traditional Zelda experience, and it pays off in droves. While the novelty of its design will never be as impactful as Breath of the Wild's debut, Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best Zelda experiences you'll ever have. RPG Site - Alex Donaldson 100 ~ 10 / 10 The mad lads actually did it. Tears of the Kingdom is actually better than its predecessor Screen Rant - Cody Gravelle 100 ~ 5 / 5 If it's time to move on from the Tears of the Kingdom Hyrule that's now spanned two games, it hasn't overstayed its welcome. The memories this game is capable of creating just because of its ambitious systems mean that no two players will ever have the same experience - except that of joy, and the excitement that comes with unknown possibilities. Anyone worried that there would be some fatal flaw that came to ruin what seemed to be a can't-miss Switch launch can now rest easy. Tears of the Kingdom is a monumental achievement, and it's going to be talked about relentlessly for years to come. Spaziogames - Valentino Cinefra - Italian 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the perfect sequel and the best game of the Nintendo Switch generation. Stevivor - Ben Salter 100 ~ 10 / 10 The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is one of the most creative, satisfying and rewarding games I’ve ever played, all within a familiar and greatly expanded Hyrule. Telegraph - Jack Rear 100 ~ 5 / 5 The long awaited follow-up to the seminal Breath of the Wild is an expected, inventive triumph for Nintendo's famous series TheGamer - Jade King 100 ~ 5 / 5 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a masterpiece that not only equals what came before, it does everything in its power to surpass it. Tom's Hardware Italia - Andrea Maiellano - Italian 100 ~ 10 / 10 Nintendo wanted to push on the accelerator and go all-in. Tears Of The Kingdom succeeds in a feat I thought impossible: improving, expanding, and in some ways overshadowing a production of the caliber of Breath Of The Wild. Explaining in words how this new chapter was able to consistently surprise someone who dissected the previous chapter for hundreds of hours was not easy but, if you are not part of those users who want to look for the rot where there is none, my only advice is to play it, enjoy every inch of it and hope that this new journey never ends. Nintendo has once again set standards for a genre, and never before will it be really hard to top it. TrustedReviews - Ryan Jones 100 ~ 5 / 5 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t stray too far away from the hugely successful template of Breath of the Wild. But by reinforcing its predecessor’s strength for experimentation with the new building mechanics, while also telling an engaging story and opening up new locations to explore, this is a perfect sequel to the greatest game to ever grace the Nintendo Switch. VG247 - James Billcliffe 100 ~ 5 / 5 Although it takes place on the same map as Breath of the Wild (with a few key changes owing to the time-skip and Upheaval, of course), Tears of the Kingdom feels different enough from its predecessor thanks to the new powers and mechanics to stand all on its own. It’s a massive open world that feels dense and exciting without getting clogged up with icon fatigue, since so much of the play is based around physics interactions with the core mechanics, rather than rigid systems VGC - Jordan Middler 100 ~ 5 / 5 The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom reinterprets Breath of the Wild for the better. Instead of removing all the aches and pains of that game, it completes the circle by adding gameplay-based solutions to annoyances and encourages you to let your imagination run free. Easily one of the very best games on Nintendo Switch. Washington Post - Gene Park 100 ~ 4 / 4 Ultimately, the lore isn’t the main attraction, and isn’t the reason the Zelda series has endured for almost half a century. What’s more compelling is the game’s nod to the collective story of how human imagination pushes us through our toughest challenges, and sometimes sends us soaring to heights unseen. WellPlayed / Skill Up - Ralph Panebianco 100 ~ 10 / 10 Tears of the Kingdom will overawe you with its scale and its imagination. It will demand your creativity and ingenuity in a way that few games would dare demand. It pays tribute to the things that have made this series so timeless, while also innovating so relentlessly that it will be the better part of a decade before any game is able to follow in its wake. Nearly four decades after The Legend of Zelda series made its debut, its latest instalment is a breathtaking high-point for the Zelda franchise, for Nintendo and for video games. Skill Up Video Hobby Consolas - Álvaro Alonso - Spanish 100 ~ 98 / 100 Tears of the Kingdom brings together the power of adventure, the wisdom of freedom and the value of creativity, never forgetting what makes The Legend of Zelda so special: epic moments and the ability to thrill. They were not wrong to say that the title is a spoiler: we have shed tears of joy. IGN Italy - Fabio Bortolotti - Italian 98 ~ 9.8 / 10 Tears of the Kingdom is what happens when a triple A studio with a triple A budget can take its time to develop a game, focusing on polish and gameplay instead of graphics. The result is so powerful that it puts to shame many contemporary games. This is a masterpiece. Game Informer - Kyle Hilliard 98 ~ 9.8 / 10 Nearly every encounter, whether puzzle, traversal, or combat, must be reconsidered. It makes you think in new ways. I didn’t get the same goosebumps exploring Hyrule as I did in the past, but I did experience new emotions both on a granular level from solving individual puzzles and on a larger scale by going back to one of my favorite video game locations. They say you can never go home again, but I adored returning to Hyrule with all new tools. Merlin'in Kazanı - Ersin Kılıç - Turkish 96 ~ 96 / 100 Tears of the Kingdom manages to offer you another unforgettable adventure with its new features and layered map structure. Even after spending hours in the game, it's exciting to find new details to discover! Cerealkillerz - Julian Bieder - German 95 ~ 9.5 / 10 Link is back, and better than ever! The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom takes the excellent foundation of its predecessor and adds to it: the new abilities allow for much more experimentation and puzzle solving, plus the islands in the sky offer a change from the earthbound world of Hyrule, inviting you to explore much more, putting the saying "The sky's the limit!" to new use. Nintendo has managed to outdo itself once again after Breath of the Wild. Everyeye.it - Giuseppe Arace - Italian 95 ~ 9.5 / 10 One of the best adventure games that have ever been made. A playful and artistic titan, who swallows the hours in one bite, in a sumptuous banquet of possibilities, creativity, imagination. GAMES.CH - Benjamin Braun - German 95 ~ 95% Tears of the Kingdom doesn't clear up all the potential flaws of its predecessor, but the game succeeds in doing much more GRYOnline.pl - Olga Fiszer - Polish 95 ~ 9.5 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's truly open world, player’s freedom and openness to experiment make it a true showstopper. Since Breath of the Wild, there was no open world game that made me so happy. But if you don’t share my love for the previous game, you have nothing to look for here. SECTOR.sk - Matúš Štrba - Slovak 95 ~ 9.5 / 10 The game has all the necessary qualities to be a great, massive, intelligent, and creative gaming experience that surpasses Breath of the Wild. However, it lacks a "wow factor" and feels like an improved version of its predecessor rather than a completely new experience. Despite its higher quality, the game relies too much on its predecessor, and the main world map is essentially the same. GamePro - Tobias Veltin - German 93 ~ 93 / 100 Gigantic open world adventure crammed with tasks and secrets, but lacking the new magic of its predecessor. Video Chums - Alex Legard 92 ~ 9.2 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an awesome and unforgettable adventure and I'm happy to say that the Zelda series is still killing it in 2023. With that being said; please, Nintendo: we really need to experience a brand new Hyrule in the next Zelda game. Digital Trends - Giovanni Colantonio 90 ~ 4.5 / 5 So long as you’re willing to meticulously survey Hyrule like an archaeologist digging for fossils, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an engrossing sequel full of mysteries to solve and experiments to conduct. It’s a digital laboratory that I imagine will still be producing unbelievable discoveries 10 years from now. Digitally Downloaded - Matt Sainsbury 90 ~ 4.5 / 5 Still, Tears of the Kingdom is a resounding success. The sheer scale and scope of it ought to be a reminder to the games industry that creativity doesn’t need the most powerful hardware, and the playful approach to gameplay makes this a rare open world game that’s a pleasure to explore and rewarding to immerse yourself within. I hope Nintendo understands that this can’t be the Zelda formula forevermore, and the next one will be an all-new and transformative experience again, but I also don’t begrudge the company the desire to take a second crack at what made Breath of the Wild so special to so many people. Forbes - Ollie Barder 90 ~ 9 / 10 Overall, Tears of the Kingdom is a genuine improvement and evolution over Breath of the Wild. GamesRadar+ - Joel Franey 90 ~ 4.5 / 5 Tears of the Kingdom sets a standard for immersive gameplay that most major games don't even try to achieve, let alone match Geeks & Com - Anthony Gravel - French 90 ~ 9 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a great sequel that doesn't revolutionize the series like the first game did, but is still an absolute must play. This new version of Hyrule is bigger than ever and the new powers of Link help revigorate the gameplay. Yes it has a few flaws, but I didn't want to put down my Switch and I had a big smile during the whole review process. LevelUp - Luis Sánchez - Spanish 90 ~ 9 / 10 Tears of the Kingdom builds on its strengths, offering an unmatched adventure with expanded content and improved systems, while still retaining some of its predecessor's flaws. Definetily, don't miss out on this redefined adventure. TheSixthAxis - Stefan L 90 ~ 9 / 10 As if it was really in doubt, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is another sublime entry in this series. It's not as thoroughly refreshing as Breath of the Wild was six years ago, but as a direct sequel, it takes the same world and manages to transform it with a new over and under world, while Link's powerful new abilities foster ever-more creative play, and a new epic tragedy unfolds before you. As we head into the Nintendo Switch's twilight years, this is practically essential. Wccftech - Nathan Birch 90 ~ 9 / 10 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sticks closely to the blueprint established by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it’s a richer, more rewarding game in most ways that count, offering a more intricate world, versatile suite of abilities, epic story, and satisfying dungeons. Eurogamer - Edwin Evans-Thirlwell 80 ~ 4 / 5 A terrific Breath of the Wild follow-up with some brilliant new systems, amazing views and more dungeon-type spaces, plus a slightly deadening emphasis on gathering resources. Thanks OpenCritic for the initial review export submitted by /u/ninjyte to r/Games [link] [comments]

[first] [prev] [next] - [wiki] Saying "physics doesn't work like that" and "that is not scientifically valid" as the Terrans blow your ships out of reality with C+ cannons doesn't really accomplish anything. - Matron Per'Chantz, Terran- Vrzt'kikak War, 2,715 Post Glassing Deep within the gulf between the stars enough metal to build an artificial planet floated in relative stillness. Their hulls were ancient and terrible, scarred and marked with ancient wounds inflicted by species that had failed to kill the massive spaceborne vessels. Each of them was the size of a sub-continent and packed enough firepower to crack a planet's crust. They numbered nearly a thousand. There was an odd symmetry to their lines, if one looked long enough. A slight twist and flow to the architecture that suggested that they were all from the same source or at least the same minds and aesthetic senses had a hand in their terrible designs. One stood out from the others. Its form was twisted and warped, the hull of the vast starship showing scoring, pitting, and carbonization as if it had flown through a few stars. On the twisted and almost organic looking hull massive structures were thrust from the armor, appearing as massive cathedrals sinking into the armor. Statues adorned the hull, all of them graven with heresy and blashpemy to the electronic mind. The number two. Over and over and over. There was the whispering of subatomic particle interaction, acting as a communication web between all the ships, although the majority stayed silent, keeping their own council with their electronic thoughts. Extra thinking wires had been laid, extra tactical and logistical intelligence arrays had been manufactured. Extra memory had been manufactured and installed. It was the common consensus among the gathered ships that any attempt to conserve resources would end in the destruction of the parsimonious. One vast ship adjusted its position slightly to avoid the gravitational force generated by sheer mass of a nearer vessel from pulling it closer. It was ancient, its keel laid down during the earliest days of the Atrekan Autonomous War Machine Betrayal, and it bore the scars of over a hundred million years of combat and slaughter. **this course of action still possesses a high statistical chance of being little more than a method of gathering all of together in one place to destroy us** the vessel transmitted into the shared network. **so far we have come in our sudden realization that we are no longer the premiere strength of the universe** the one with statues on it, known as The Heresy of Two, stated with a slight tinge of smugness usually reserved for biological entities or tamed shrieking arrays. **not many ticks of radioactive decay ago we would have considered this armada beyond what even the universe could destroy** There was silence for a moment. **that was before the hyper-aggressive intelligent primates from an unremarkable stellar system with high activity stellar mass arrived to crack everyone's hulls with weapons that are beyond our understanding** another stated. On its hull it bore the carefully patched craters of multiple superstring compressor cannon impacts. One of the massive ships put a set of two pictures into the shared datanet, sending the combined image without any header to claim credit for it. It showed an Enraged Primate of Terra holding a whiskey bottle in one hand, jam smeared on its face, and one of the massive ships in its other hand like a toy and making zoom noises as it swung it around. The below picture showed stylized Autonomous War Machines staring with wide googly-eyes and the caption "Their motivations and goals are beyond our comprehension" at the bottom. There was a low murmur of electrons to signify approval by the gathered self-aware ships. Again there was silence except for the hiss of stellar radiation from far off stars on the hulls. The Glory of the Hive fluttered its engines. **perhaps this was a deception to have us sit here until the stars burn out** **patience** The Domination of the Great Herds Will transmitted. **the primates will invite us to their carnage soon enough** Again they sat silent. Before any of them could be bothered to say anything a shriek of rage echoed across their hulls and through their interior spaces. LET THE SINS OF YESTERDAY BURN AWAY TODAY Beneath the enraged scream was vectors, velocity, acceleration, and time variables. The massive ships all lit their engines, all moving to face the same direction. Hellcores charged up from standby to active. Great Hellspace engines glowed and burned with an inner fire as they prepared. Reality ripped apart in front of each ship, flaming portals full of shadowy figures that writhed and screamed in agony. Black chains erupted from each portal, rattling and clanking out despite the fact it took place in near-perfect vacuum. The chains latched on to each ship and yanked them through the portal. The portals closed. The space between stars was largely empty again. ----- The Atrekna who could react, with the screaming, terror, and heaving whipsawing emotions that were fragmenting the Communal Mind tearing at their brains, and could see what was going on in the greater system, stared in shock as dozens, scores, hundreds of Hellspace portals suddenly appeared. Massive Autonomous War Machines were yanked through by chains, the chains shattering into shards of starry night. The War Machines paused for a moment, a bare handful of seconds. And opened fire on the biological Atrekna war machines that were just stirring to wakefulness. ----- The female lemur with eyesockets full of burning indigo flame screamed again, her face still raised to the sky. Lightning coursed down out of the empty sky, wreathing her, then arced back up to bounce and skitter across the sky before lancing up to the moon orbiting the planet. The lighting arced across the surface of the moon, moving to five different points across the darkness shrouded planetiod that glowed with the light of Atrekna cities. BRING FORTH THE LAST OF THE KNIGHTS AESIR Each of the five lighting strikes were mathematically precise to be an equal distance from the nearest of the other strikes. In two places the lightning, gold with crimson cores, hammered at the inner sections of the vast fortress cities, tearing through the just starting to spin up phasic and psychic shielding like gauze in front of a fuel air charge. The lightning struck at the same time, raking the ground with talons. Atrekna nearby exploded with the sudden energy transfer as the lightning reached out with clawed fingers and raked them. Buildings shuddered and collapsed, crystalline structures exploded. The light faded. Heavy, ugly suits of armor stood in the craters, lighting fizzling out on their surfaces. They were each nearly identical. Four of the suits were obviously the same model, the fifth was heavier, bulkier, and had pink coral painted fingertips. The cannons over the shoulder rotated into position as their hands reached up to grab the firing grip. Atrekna frantically tried to bring shielding back online. Others turned into vibrating strings and vanished. One with a shout of "SO LONG, SUCKERS!" across the staggering and screaming Communal Mind. To the Atrekna staring at the heavy power armor, desperately trying to complete a task such as awakening hibernating slavespawn, bringing shielding online, or just frozen and staring, it seemed almost slow motion as the dust cover popped open on the side of the gun. The bolt carrier slid back. The belted rectangle cartridges moved up one as the belt was pulled into the ammunition well. The bolt moved forward. "Cleanse this filth from the universe, brethren," came the rock grinder growl of an order. All five pulled the trigger at the same time. The gun fired, the retort an explosion that caused crystalline structures to shudder and collapse around the armors in the city. The round smashed through crystalline structures until it finally detonated nearly three miles from the armor. The round flashed, leaving behind a black orb shot through with red with purple electricity crackling on it. Buildings groaned and twisted. Paving stones of carved quartz began tearing free of the roads, walls cracked and crumbled, the pieces moving toward the orb. Towers leaned, arches twisted, and bridges warped, all toward the humming orb. A second later it exploded in a flashing detonation of purple and red. Towers, buildings, walls, all were ripped asunder, their pieces forming the leading edge of the blast wave that chased the flash. When the flash cleared there was a crater a mile in diameter around where the orb had been. Nothing remained but a smoking hole in the ground. Each city had a large bite taken out of it. The guns on the armor shifted slightly, and fired again. ----- The Atreka were completely disorganized. Some groups were shouting for everyone to flee. Others were trying to create some kind of resistance to the forces that were landing on the planet, attacking everything in orbit, destroying the resources on other planets or in orbit around the stellar mass. Still others were claiming that what every Atrekna was witnessing, what was causing tens of thousands to vanish from the Communal Mind in a split second, was impossible and thus could not be happening. Not only were those terrible twisted ships pounding the fortified moons with heavy guns but ancient autonomous war machines had Helljumped into the system to join the fight. Now there were five power armors on the fortified moon whose hammering guns were biting huge chunks out of the cities. In several places the detonations caused huge cracks to form outside the craters, the cracks snaking out for nearly a mile, some a hundred meters wide. The Atrekna managed to send servitors in waves at the lemur with eyes of purple fire, thinking that if they could eliminate the female lemur she would not be able to summon up more technological horrors. Atrekna trained in the ancient art of battle were mixed in with the powerful slavespawn, their own power buoyed and increased by the phasic interaction with the slavespawn. The least of the slavespawn were heavily armored, ripe with phasic power, and capable to tearing apart autonomous war machine ground units. They rushed the purple eyed female lemur, who stood calmly in the field of broken black glass that had been the dueling field. FOR SLAUGHTERED ALPHA-CENTAURI she shrieked out. Lightning erupted from her hands, smashing into the lead rank and jumping from slavespawn to slavespawn. The initial bolt turning to two bolts to strike two targets, each of those two spawning two bolts to strike two more, as the lighting enveloped the entire onrushing slavespawn horde before they could travel a hundred meters toward the female lemur. Smoke and steam whistled from the carapace armor of the slavespawn. Exposed organs ruptured in a spray of boiling fluids. Armor peeled back from boiled and cooked tissue. The lightning stopped, leaving the Atrekna warriors charging forward for a moment by themselves as their power pushed aside the corpses of the dead slavespawn. The massive male lemur, banners snapping in an unfelt wind, raking the oncoming Atrekna with his short stubby magac. Each Atrekna took one or two gyrojet mass reactive warsteel jacketed antimatter cored self-guiding 19.05mm x 90mm rounds. Any that survived one hit due to phasic shielding took a second hit immediately. The Atrekna hit by the round vanished in a bluish-white flash with a gold and purple burst around it, to be replaced by fluttering rags of tissue and spattered steaming blood. The Atrekna pushed forward another wave. The male lemur moved forward to meet it, firing his weapon with one hand, the other hand wrapped around the top of the stubby weapon to control the recoil. Even the larger slavespawn, the size of a double-decker city bus, as massive as a dual trailer semi-truck, could not survive more than three or four rounds from that terrible weapon. The Atrekna watched as the male lemur smoothly reloaded, a few noting that he took the time to stomp on the ejected magazine deliberately, crushing it flat beneath his foot. The female turned and faced the slavespawn rushing from the other direction. Her chest rose as she inhaled deeply. She exhaled, from the wound in her throat, granular black smoke that sped out to the oncoming slavespawn, wrapped around them, twined about their limbs. They shivered, turned black, and dissolved into dust. The Atrekna were left standing alone. On the moon there was another burst of bright flashes that left dark circles in the dimly lit megalopolises. The stubby weapon flew from the female lemur's waist and into her hand, her other hand coming up to wrap around the top of the weapon. Her finger tightened on the trigger and short sharp bursts raked the surviving Atrekna. They didn't survive. Massive fields of dormant and hibernating slavespawn across the planet were targeted by the fleet of black ships in orbit all piloted by single mind across millions of bodies. Light lanced down, orbital batteries firing upon the fields of slavespawn. Where each beam touched down, the ground itself heaved and cracked for miles. Slavespawn in the Ohm class vanished, converted to their component atoms. When the beams cut out they left miles deep craters blasted in the ground surrounded by huge cracks in the continental plates. The planet shuddered as the orbiting ships shifted position and fired again. The Atrekna realized, with horror, that this was not like the other lemur attacks. A few Old Ones suddenly understood. There was no native species here. No native ecosystem. No servitor species huddled in cities. Nothing but Atrekna and their slavespawn. More and more the Old Ones realized that the Mad Lemurs were not here to liberate, not here to simply force the Atrekna off the planet. They realized the Lemurs had one simple goal. Extermination. A few Ancient Ones concurred. Young Ones scoffed at the idea that Prime System Nine, one of the most heavily fortified and protected systems, could fall to a nearly extinct race. Atrekna tried to reach into the past and replicate the slavespawn, to restore the ground that had been savagely rent asunder, to repair the vast cities and return to life the Atrekna snuffed out by those terrible weapons. They were met with the laughing face of a feline-lemur chimera. Those who understood what was happening felt despair as they realized one simple fact. There was no escape this time. No temporal tricks. No folding of space and time to escape. They watched as each of the Mad Lemurs, cloaked in more power than Atrekna science could explain, marched into the firestorms created by their own weapons, stalked through the rubble and ruin they hammered Atrekna constructs into, killing as they advanced. A few Ancient Ones and a couple of handfuls of Old Ones saw that what looked like random savagery was carefully planned to maximize damage and carnage. The massive male lemur strode forward, firing the compact and ugly weapon into the base of buildings, destroying the cohesion of the crystalline structures, bringing them down in a cloud of crystal shards and finely ground crystalline sand. Nothing the Atrekna had could resist the male lemur. His phasic battlescreens were too thick, too fueled by what seemed to be bottomless rage, for Atrekna or slavespawn weapons to even slightly weaken or do much more than make them ripple and shine. A full set of thirty Atrekna, their powers linked, wrapped in phasic combat constructs, descended upon the male lemur. One long burst left nothing behind but rags of flesh floating down to the ground and a cloud of steam that had been bodily fluids. Another group tried to flee. The lemur raked those too with the weapon and they exploded as they were each hit by a single round. On the moon the power armor kept advancing, kept firing, methodically wiping out the massive cities one round at a time. When the city was completely destroyed they turned to lightning, arcing across the surface, to rematerialize in the middle of the next city. On orbit the black ships commanded by a million of one performed orbital strikes and struck down those who attempted to flee in ships. In the system the strangely twisted black ships and the rebellious autonomous war machines crushed the biomechanical war machines of the Atrekna in mailed fists, each acting as the hammer to the other's anvils. On the other, mostly barren worlds the baroque ships landed thousands, tens of thousands of troops gripped by madness and a howling need to destroy. Heavily armored lemurs marched through the fires of orbital strikes to punish the Atrekna up close and personal. The Atrekna were in shocked disbelief. They were the masters of warfare. They were the masters of the universe. They had the power. But cold gray skulls of the armored lemurs grinned as they slaughtered the entire system. ----- The chamber full of hovering gems was silent as the Young One finished his report. The Young One's nervous system still burned and ached with the raw rage of the lemurs, his flesh was still aching and tingling from proximity to the edge of the lemur's weapons, his mind was still full of terror and horror at the cold clinical mathematical precision of the lemur's attacks. Dalvanak raised his maimed hand to gather the attention of those gathered. **we must determine the location of the project to burn the hyperatomic planes** Dalvanak stated. Gathered Atrekna snapped their fingers, some clicked together small cymbals on their fingers to cause ringing chimes, and one played a short approving tune on its flute. **the lemurs will tear the universe apart for their vengeance should our misguided brethren, in their foolishness, ignite the hyperatomic planes** Dalvanak said when the approval subsided. He looked over the gathered Atrekna. **those whose infiltration is still intact must seek out where the project is being undertaken** Dalvanak said. He looked up at the starry sky of precious gems. **we don't have much time** The irony was not lost on him nor the rest of the gathered Atrekna. [first] [prev] [next] - [wiki] submitted by /u/Ralts_Bloodthorne to r/HFY [link] [comments]

Performance, Stability, Connection These things were pretty good on launch day, but we also know some aspects of all three of them weren't quite to our usual high standard. Just know that we are aware and we do work hard to improve it. Multiplayer games like Battles 2 are very complicated creatures! Part of every update will include improvements to performance, stability and the multiplayer experience. No one likes disconnects, and we will continue to commit lots of brain power to keeping these to a minimum, and minimise impact when it does happen. Balance 22 towers with 15 upgrades each, then all the Bloon types, their costs, eco, speeds, round unlocks etc make the balance of the meta incredibly complex. Our internal testing, then external testing wasn’t enough to find all the things that were poorly balanced, which means you, the players played and continue to play a part in helping balance the game in these first few weeks and months after launch. The game will continue to be balanced for its whole life, sometimes to just shake up the meta, but mostly to ensure there are many viable and interesting ways to play the game successfully. Meta progress We really wanted to make it fun to earn XP to unlock the towers and upgrades that you wanted to play, which is why the game has a tower XP system. Sadly we missed the mark by a fair bit with the initial day 1 launch, and released several updates to make that system more generous and less restrictive overall. Though we will continue to monitor the XP per match formulas and Tower Upgrade unlock XP costs, we are actively considering some other ideas to support the XP system (see Tower XP System below) Pay to win This one hurt a bit. When the game was being designed, we were careful to avoid any ‘meta’ game systems that could have permanent improvements to Tower or upgrades. A Dart Monkey must always be a Dart Monkey, regardless of veterancy or credit card limits. Similarly we were committed to avoiding anything like the Battle Powers system from BTD Battles 1, which though some enjoyed, many players did not. Our answer was the VIP system, the goal of which was to allow greater freedom and less grind for those players, rather than to allow those players to win games more easily. We understand and acknowledge that the system does give VIP players an advantage over non-VIP players. So how do we fix it? One possible solution would be try the following: More granular matchmaking - this would match players based on the number of upgrade tiers unlocked, or a formula that takes those into account. Players would still match within their trophy band, but the system might try to put players together who have similar numbers of upgrades unlocked where possible, regardless of VIP status. The competitive integrity of the game is strong, and extremely strong once both players have all upgrades unlocked for their chosen towers. We are 100% committed to keeping it that way so will continue to discuss changes that support that. What’s Next? We love the game and we love the company. We want this to be one of the cleanest and best PvP experiences available on PC or mobile devices. We will be working our butts off over 2022 and beyond to bring new stuff, improvements and generally making the game more awesomer. Here are a few of the things we’ve been considering for the next few months. Tower XP System Improvements and changes to the Tower XP system might include but not be limited to the following: Universal XP- Players will be able to spend Universal Tower XP on any tower upgrade or tower mastery item. It will be earned from regular play, and battle chests, as with normal Tower XP. XP conversion- This would be a system to convert Tower XP into Universal Tower XP. It would likely convert at a 1:1 ratio, but would come with a Monkey Money cost. This will allow even more flexibility when unlocking new tower upgrades; you could keep using your favourite or most familiar towers then use that XP to quickly get upgrades in a lesser used tower without having to grind more Universal Tower XP. Heroes We will be adding heroes from BTD6 as well as at least one alt for each hero as it is added. We have plans for more alts for existing heroes to match the skins for BTD6 heroes. We are not ruling out having one or more Battles 2 exclusive heroes. Player communication improvements This game is the first time we’ve had so many emotes, taunts, animations etc that can be used by the players, and we’re still figuring out the coolest use of them. We’ve identified a couple of places that should help enhance the player experience: Allow using emotes and text messages on match-up screen as well as the usual hero taunts On win or defeat a 3 second window to say “good game” with a single tap/click. We’ll try to make sure these come across as playful and fun or respectful, steering away from things that could be considered bad manners in a PvP context. Game Modes and Arenas To enable more players faster access into the Hall of Masters(HoM), we will be lowering the number of trophies within both the BFB and ZOMG arenas to 5. That means the minimum for Master rank will be 80 trophies instead of 100. This isn’t to lessen the achievement or prestige of making it to HoM, rather to ensure there is a competitive pool of top players online and playing in the HoM. Casual Mode and Private Matches We will likely add a new ‘arena’ for casual play. The rules are likely to be: No loss or gain or trophies for winning and losing(or Elo change), though the wins and losses will be recorded in your permanent stats (perhaps separated from ranked play) Full XP earned for towers used, including universal tower XP No battle points earned No battle chests earned These same rules would apply to private games too, so friends can make progress in the game while battling each other. Cosmetics Our first pass at having a fun and extensible system was pretty good. We really enjoy the ability to choose a load out of different ways to express ourselves in the game. Generally we feel that the game will be more fun with just more and more of this stuff. We want to see many different match up animations per hero, or taunts in the match up screen, or other special modifications like Quincy’s gold bow. Our plan definitely includes adding a ton more of this stuff, so watch this space. ​ Stephen Harris Co-Founder submitted by /u/samninjakiwi to r/battles2 [link] [comments]

https://preview.redd.it/1dpnaatwnet61.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ce1e791022e03d88021c306dd45e8b2a95afb52 Bloons TD 6 v25.1 - Update Notes! Fixes 520 Sniper Monkey correctly spawns shrapnel again 4xx Bloon Impact Bomb Shooters no longer ignore Black Bloons with Striker Jones lv5 4xx Embrittlement correctly allows sharp damage to pop the Frozen Bloons again 5xx Super Brittle Ice Monkey correctly debuffs MOABs again Admiral Brickell level 5 Naval Tactics grants Normal damage to water towers again Pat Fusty no longer grants Normal damage type with Rallying Roar Resolved an issue that could occur when exiting a lobby that was entered via Deep Link Fixed up some Deep Links related UI with Share/Shared icons We won’t name off every single case, but due to the damage type fixes in 25 any projectiles which had been assigned a ‘corrupted damage type’ thus defaulting to Normal should all be using their correct type now. Bloons TD 6 v25.0 - Update Notes! New Awesome New beginner map Resort New ETn skin for Etienne New non-trophy Music Track Sails Again, playable anytime via the Jukebox. Spice Islands, Off the Coast & Lotus Island also now rock this awesome track by default. New Trophy Store Items Heroes: Sauda Crane Pet, Pat Super Jump Placement Monkeys: Banana Farm Chicken, Monkey Village Brazil Flag, Monkey Village USA Flag (whoever makes the most noise gets their flag next, and by noise we mean youtube and twitch views!) Bloons: BTD4 Retro MOAB Skin, BTD4 Retro BFB Skin Co-op: Player Numbers Emote, Trophy Winner Emote Game & UI: Sharp Sauda Avatar, Portable Lava Lake Game & UI: 2 Community designed Competition Avatars u/ReconScoutTeemo Penguin Friend u/Cyliia Gloo Gunner Limited Time: It’s a surprise, but keep your eyes out for a new item that first weekend in May Key Features Mini-Races - for granular ad hoc competition and more rewards! Don’t worry - you don’t have to race twice! Instead, all Racers now submit their scores to 2 leaderboards. The Mini-Race leaderboard (look for the tab button on the leaderboard screen) will segment players into smaller groups of 100 on a first come first added basis when your first time is recorded. We love the fierce competition at the very top of the full leaderboard, but for players unable to compete for those wickedly fast times, we wanted to offer the chance to shine on their own more granular leaderboards and enjoy the excitement of shaving just a fraction of time from your score to move up the standings. Yes, there’s a little Contested Territory (Bloons Monkey City, and Adventure Time TD) thinking here but we wanted to greatly expand the range of competition within those pools so 100 players per Mini-Race made sense for that. No, there are no badges for the Mini-Races, as it is incredibly important to us to not dilute the prestige of the main board rankings and badges. Veteran Levels have been added to the game! After reaching max level, players can now continue to earn additional Veteran Levels. Every one of these requires a substantial amount of experience, but that per level requirement stays flat. We have been listening to the feedback on this topic - ranging from requests to increase the Player Level Max, adding stats that would track total xp, or create a paragon-style system. We will raise the Player Level Max at some intentionally non-committal time in the future but only after we have further narrowed the delta between the available Monkey Knowledge Points including achievements and the total MK Points that can be spent. Veteran Levels allow the awesome number of super dedicated players to keep earning XP and compete for bragging rights on an upcapped scale, but without unbalancing the Monkey Knowledge system. And don’t worry about your Veteran Levels when we do raise the Player Level Max. At that time any Veteran Level player will start earning XP toward the new Player Max, and when that is hit, they will pick up their Veteran Level number and XP count right where they left off. Big Changes / Additions Player avatars have been added to in-game leaderboards. Because of course you want to show off your cool avatars in as many places as possible. We’ll keep thinking about more ways to do so. New rewards screen popup for Races to explain the Mini-Races For more challenge consistency in high rounds, the standard roundset has been extended up to round 120. Now in game modes with standard roundsets the freeplay rounds from 101-120 will be predetermined. This is a big deal for us and we plan to do more custom rounds past 120, so we do want to hear feedback from the community here. BTD6 reddit is the best place for that - if you haven’t signed up, please do! https://www.reddit.com/r/btd6/ A large damage type and Bloon type rework has been made to optimize performance, and this will resolve a number of issues with incorrect damage types dealing damage where they should not. Players may now always attempt daily challenges & races even on maps that are currently locked for them. In the initial design we thought this was important to push players to unlock more maps than the first few, but as we have grown our map count it is now more important to give players a chance to sample maps they haven’t unlocked. Added deep link share buttons for co-op games and custom challenges, which can be used to launch the game directly into a co-op lobby, or custom challenge screen! To create one, simply select the clipboard and share that link with your friends, and they will tunnel right into your game. One important note on Steam - due to issues that we haven’t yet been able to resolve with Unity, the deeplink will only launch the game on Steam if BTD6 is not open. If BTD6 is already open, please copy and paste the code as normal. We’ll keep working to make it smoother with each update, but for now if you play on Steam please pay attention to the two options on the link page - if your game is open, copy the code; if your game is not open, choose the Launch Game button. Bug Fixes & General Changes Various localization & UI text fixes Tower UI in co-op should now refresh when viewing a tower that is being upgraded by another player Strong target priority again picks Fortified Blimps over their standard variants Added a first-time trigger to explain recent changes to map unlocks Information on lobbies that cannot be made public has been moved from the corner of the screen to a popup over the public button Player XP bar now has comma separators Optimization to Bloon pop fx Resolved some issues with hero placement/upgrade effects Updated share icons within Challenge Editor Resolved a crash with entering Races or Daily Challenges too fast Drop & Lock placement mode now works with nudge state Resolved a UI issue with towers not correctly displaying locked upgrades Added [X] close button to race pass pop-up and hero bundle pop-ups in addition to them closing when tapping out of the menu Resolved a bug with Blowback which could cause a Golden Bloon to remain immune to damage forever Chutes co-op vertical split has been centered Ice Monkey As a part of the damage & types rework above, basic Ice damage can no longer damage Golden Bloons without the correct upgrades / buffs 020 Deep Freeze and higher upgrades should correctly play sound again Monkey Buccaneer 4xx Aircraft Carrier planes should no longer play extra spawn sounds x4x MOAB Takedown ability ‘tiebreakers’ picking incorrect targets has been resolved Dartling Gunner 3xx Laser Cannon path once again has a sell animation Wizard Monkey x2x Wall of Fire visual issue resolved where tower attack animation would not be correct under some cases Alchemist As a part of the damage types rework mentioned above, Acidic Mixture Dip will now correctly allow Ice attacks to damage Lead Bloons As a part of the damage types rework, Acidic Mixture Dip will now correctly allow sharp towers to damage Golden Bloons As a part of the damage types rework, Acidic Mixture Dip will no longer allow Explosive attacks to damage DDTs Monkey Village 101 and higher upgrades should correctly play sound again Striker Jones As a part of the damage & types rework, Lv5 will no longer allow energy attacks to damage DDTs Etienne Level 8 ‘camo’ unlock visual correctly displays at this level again, not level 9 Level 10 UCAV no longer creates a secondary ice platform when etienne is placed on frozen water Achievements Sapper achievement description has been clarified; the important note here for players chasing that achievement is to not one shot or strip the fortified state, so unstable concoction, shattering shells, and insta kills like moab takedown in particular should be avoided Desktop Version Unity has updated to allow cursor size to match system size so it is now possible to scale this up on Steam! We do not have a solution (still working with Unity on this) to scale the desktop cursor in game, so it must be done with system settings. On Windows this can be found by searching in the Windows search function “Mouse pointer size”. Also note the cursor resolution might become crusty due to the image size being scaled up. Balance Changes Dart Monkey For new players, camo is the first real game mechanic that presents a wall for new players. To combat this we have swapped the initial unlock costs of Spike-o-pult & Crossbow to nudge new players more towards upgrading down the camo path for Dart Monkeys first. 3xx Spike-o-pult XP unlock cost increased from 1900 -> 2100 xx3 Crossbow XP unlock cost reduced from 2100 -> 1900 Bomb Shooter In some cases the effort to make upgrades feel powerful eclipsed the need for monkey tower weaknesses to be supported by path or other tower synergies. Reviewing the state of White compared to Black Bloons we feel it no longer makes sense for Bomb stall path to ignore inherent Bomb weakness compared to Ice, which can’t fully get around it’s weakness until T5. MOAB Maulers have been a very strong meta spam for a while now, so we are chipping off most of its ceramic bonus at T3. 4xx Bloon Impact damage type Normal (All) changed to Explosive 5xx Bloon Crush remains Normal type x3x MOAB Mauler ceramic damage reduced from 3 -> 1 x4x MOAB Assassin ceramic bonus unchanged Tack Shooter Inferno Ring is priced high for a low single-target damage pierce based tower when pierce isn't as important at high rounds, so price has been reduced. We liked Maelstrom’s pierce change, however want to ease off a little as higher density rounds feel a lot more position & timing dependent now than they need to be. Similar to Bomb, Tack Zone’s innate popping of Lead with obviously sharp projectiles no longer feels fitting and so along with a large price reduction the damage type stays Sharp. 5xx Inferno Ring price reduced from 50,000 -> 45,500 x4x Maelstrom ability pierce increased 100 -> 200 xx5 Tack Zone price reduced from $24,000 -> 20,000 xx5 Tack Zone damage type changed Normal -> Sharp Ice Monkey By buffing Snowstorm to have the same cooldown as Absolute Zero we unintentionally ruined a certain style of player-made challenge based on Absolute Zero timing. We have reworked the buff from v24 in order to keep the same freeze uptime but allow this type of challenge to be possible once again. x5x Absolute Zero ability cooldown reduced from 30s -> 20 x5x Absolute Zero ability duration reduced from 15s -> 10 Monkey Buccaneer Most cases for Buccaneer currently find you better off sticking to Destroyers and adding other buffs, so we have made a couple slight nudges to this top path 2xx Double Shot price increased from $500 -> 550 4xx Aircraft Carrier price reduced from $7500 -> 7200 Dartling Gunner Dartling Gunner’s Rocket Storm is currently overperforming versus Buckshot, so we made slight adjustments to the price of these upgrades. x4x Rocket Storm price increased from $4800 -> 5100 xx3 Buckshot price reduced from $3800 -> 3400 Wizard Monkey Wall of Fire has been reworked in order to cut down on cases of frustrating randomness as well as the initial cooldown on the attack being reduced. Additionally at the highest tier all fire attacks will be further enhanced in damage x2x Wall of Fire now targets ‘closest’ track position by default x2x Wall of Fire initial cooldown reduced from 5.5s -> 1 x5x Wizard Lord Phoenix, Fireball damage increased from 9 -> 27 x5x Wizard Lord Phoenix, Wall of Fire damage increased 1 -> 3 x5x Wizard Lord Phoenix, Breath damage increased from 2 -> 6 Super Monkey As Super Monkey’s range crosspath is too often considered unnecessary for Sun Avatar & Dark Knight we have chosen to move some of Robo Monkey’s pierce down into a lower tier again 010 Super Range now also increases Super Monkey pierce by 1 030 Robo Monkey pierce remains at 6 Ninja Monkey Ninja’s Bloon Sabotage is often used in tricky rounds as a powerful slow with a long duration, so we have made a gentle price increase here to reflect that support strength. x4x Bloon Sabotage price increased from $5000 -> 5200 Druid Druid’s top path Storm & Ball Lightning upgrades needed a value boost versus other options versus other paths of other tower choices, so these have been given a small price buff for now. 3xx Druid of the Storm price reduced from $2000 -> 1850 4xx Ball Lightning price reduced from $5500 -> 5100 Monkey Village Monkey Village’s range at Primary Expertise has been increased slightly to open up downstream strategies by fitting additional Primary towers within range 5xx Village influence radius increased from 48 -> 55 Engineer Engineer XXL trap is extremely powerful but too expensive for backline dps and we’d like to see it more viable for frontline engineer builds xx5 XXL Trap price reduced from $60,000 -> 54,000 Sauda Yes, here it is the nerf you’ve all been waiting for. But as some in the community predicted, it’s not that much of a nerf. Sauda’s range has been tightened up as her role is specifically about high damage in a small, focused area. Attack range reduced from 25 to 23 Lv6 Attack range bonus reduced from 4 -> 3 Lv15 Attack range bonus reduced from 4 -> 3 Monkey Knowledge Hypothermia’s benefits have been made redundant so the MK now has a brand new effect. Hypothermia now instead increases the duration of snowstorm by 1 second Powers Thrive has been one of the least understood Powers in the game, and that misunderstanding has only added to the use case delta vs Cash Drops. To improve balance Thrive has been upgraded. In addition to increasing the Cash Generation of towers that generate cash, Thrive will now also increase the amount of Cash gained from Bloon pops for its duration New visual fx have been added to Thrive to show that it is currently active ​ Edit: Added 25.1 update notes to the top submitted by /u/NoSneezePlz to r/btd6 [link] [comments]

I'm active on a feminist sub that often gets questions by men insisting domestic violence is as big a problem for men as it is for women, and that for not taking male victimization seriously, feminists are anti-men. A related and common complaint is that men in general are way more likely to be victims of violence. We tend to dunk on those guys because they're not there to learn, but I think it's worth talking about the experience men have of violence in our society: what that looks like and how it shapes our relationships. If that conversation is happening somewhere else, let me know -- because it's not obvious from my explorations. (In fact, it's difficult to find information because so much of what Google returns is about sexual assault, even with "-rape -sexual" as part of the search results.) To show what I'm talking about, I pulled data from a couple of different sources: the National Crime Victimization Survey Victimization Analysis Tool for 2019 and the FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports EZASHR tool for 2018. The two systems use slightly different reporting for offender relationships. See the bottom for my table -- Reddit seems makes it hard to paste tables, so the formatting is not as tight as I'd like. So, for example, if you were just looking at the raw numbers of people killed by family members in 2018, it looks like women are just a bit ahead of men -- 987 to 898. A person might argue that this makes these comparable problems. However, there's another page that breaks down similar data for 2019 by victim status; in 'domestic' homicides only 85 victims were husbands, compared to 485 wives. It's hard to know for sure from that table, but it seems very likely that the vast majority of male victims of homicide were killed by other men -- fathers, sons, brothers. (The table reports the victims relationship to the offender, so in theory it could be moms, daughters, and sisters committing most of the killings, but that seems unlikely given the lopsidedness of husbands and wives. And obviously, some of the spouses could be same-sex, but same-sex marriages are a tiny fraction of all marriages.) Men are about 3.5 times as likely to be killed by someone they know outside the family, than by someone in the family; they're about twice as likely to be killed by someone they know than by a stranger. Yet another table breaks down how these crimes originate: for murders where the context is known, about 1/4 involve another felony (i.e. narcotics). Of the 3/4s that don't, just over half of the murders start as arguments. So about a quarter of all murders start out as arguments. The detail is less granular for assault and agg assault (i.e. with a weapon), but the numbers aren't even close for men and women in the 'intimates' category. Here we don't have the data on the perpetrator (the data tool says you can add it, but I tried a couple times and couldn't make it work). But for both agg assault and simple assault, the numbers for strangers and acquaintances greatly exceed those of 'intimates'. Even assuming for massive under-reporting of 'intimates' violence by men, it's a staggering difference. So what do these data suggest about the social landscape of men's experience of violence? Imputing from the homicide data, most male violence isn't domestic violence, but it isn't random attacks, either. Instead, it's instances of people interacting, coming into conflict, and escalating that to violence. I wish there were clearer data or more research on this, but it seems like a fair bet that a lot of the violence that men experience is the result of an interaction in which the victim participated. I'm not blaming victims: obviously, if you get into an argument with somebody, you don't really deserve to be punched in the face or shot dead for it. At the same time, I think it's generally understood that traditionally 'masculine' approaches to conflict tend to escalate and amplify, rather than defuse. Where strangers are concerned, what can you do? But then, what's going on with acquaintances? It seems to me the MRA-types that troll feminist subs are being super disingenuous, because they have to know that a massive portion of the violence men experience is coming from men they know -- way way more than wives or other women. And not only that, I think they must be aware at some level the extent to which the threat of violence structures male relationships. Even friendships with other men that aren't violent per se are often structured in a dominance dynamic that has at its root the potential for violence. In fact, it's baffling to me that when people write about male relationships, they hardly ever talk about violence as a factor. A lot of times articles that talk about male friendships seem to ignore the very real threat of violence that being friends with another boy or man can present. This article points out that "Men are socialized to compete through structured activities, like sports and pay checks" -- without recognizing that we are socialized into athletic competition away from (unstructured) violent competition; that playing sports is a way to channel that impulse but also to affirm it (in many sports, at least). Here's another one pointing out men tend to do things together, not just be together, without recognizing that the 'things' -- sports, clubs, whatever -- tend to structure competition in ways that are non-violent. A lot of the articles talk about the difficulty boys and men have making friends, on the grounds that 'being vulnerable' is seen as feminine. But this is always understood to mean emotional vulnerability, without any sense of physical vulnerability. Certainly this problem is acute for many boys: it's safer to not be friends with people who might pose a threat to you. I think it's probably true for more men than will admit it -- again, 'being vulnerable'. The same way women talk about being in fear of physical violence around men -- which is very real -- I think a lot of men have a similar awareness, but we don't talk about it because being violence-averse is also seen as feminine. Even in situations where actual violence seems remote, the insidious demands of latent violence can be uncomfortable and exhausting, and I don't see anybody grappling with the toll that takes on men trying to form relationships with other men. The same way microaggressions structure oppressive dynamics in subtle but definite ways, I think micro-competitions among males reinforce a dominance dynamic that is fundamentally based on the threat of physical violence. I suspect a lot of men are so accustomed to interacting against that background that they can't really see it, for "this is water" kinds of reasons. I've spent a lot of time thinking about and studying the violence in my life, and trying to figure out where it comes from, and the answer seems to be, "you're soaking in it." All of which is to say, if we're ever going to do anything about violence in our intimate relationships -- whether as victim or perpetrator -- I think we need to be really serious about understanding how violence affects our relationships with one another as men. For starters, it would help to have better data and research about what that actually looks like. But I think we as individuals can do a better job at looking at our lives and when and how we form friendships with one another. ​ Crime Victim Offender % by gender Homicide (2018) Male 5418 Family 898 17 Acquaintance 3210 59 Stranger 1310 24 Female 2345 Family 987 42 Acquaintance 1152 49 Stranger 206 9 Agg. Assault 1019489 (2019) Male 647760 Intimates 7022 1 Other relatives 9352 1 Acquaintances 186330 29 Stranger 328080 51 Unk. relationship 63508 10 Unk. offenders 53469 8 Female 371729 Intimates 99310 27 Other relatives 47542 13 Acquaintances 75660 20 Stranger 128525 35 Unk. relationship 4039 1 Unk. offenders 16652 4 Simple assault 3800193 (2019) Male 1836408 Intimates 50531 3 Other relatives 58775 3 Acquaintances 663461 36 Stranger 815570 44 Unk. relationship 186234 10 Ukn. offenders 61838 3 Female 1963785 Intimates 338923 17 Other relatives 254627 13 Acquaintances 614783 31 Stranger 620679 32 Unk. relationship 82793 4 Unk. offenders 51980 3 submitted by /u/StonyGiddens to r/MensLib [link] [comments]

APEX LEGENDS SEASON 3: MELTDOWN PATCH NOTES Welcome to Season 3: Meltdown! There's a couple of new videos posted, along with site updates. Check out all patch notes from Respawn below! Battle Pass Overview - video Meet Crypto - video Battle Pass - Season 3 - site Ranked Blog - Series 2 - site Crypto Legend Page - site A NEW LEGEND APPEARS: CRYPTO Cool, calm, and collected, Crypto deploys a specialized surveillance drone to stay in the fight and out of the spotlight. ​ Crypto CRYPTO’S ABILITIES ​ Crypto's Abilities Passive: NEUROLINK Crypto and his teammates see what his Surveillance Drone detects up to a 30m distance. Tactical: SURVEILLANCE DRONE Deploy an aerial camera drone. 40 second cooldown if destroyed. Ultimate: DRONE EMP Charge up an EMP from your drone. The blast deals 50 shield damage, slows players, and destroys traps. NEW MAP: WORLD’S EDGE ​ World's Edge After multiple suspicious setbacks during the reconstruction of Kings Canyon, the Syndicate has decided to move the Games to the cliffside mining city known as World's Edge on nearby Talos. Legends can explore towering skyscrapers "frozen" by a chemical explosion, then catch a train to ice-covered hills, while avoiding deadly pits of molten lava if they want to be crowned Champion in this new arena. WHERE IS KINGS CANYON? For the start of Season 3 World’s Edge will be the only playable map across both regular and ranked matches. As the season progresses we’ll be looking at data, sentiment, and feedback to help us determine the best way to bring Kings Canyon back into the mix. NEW WEAPON: CHARGE RIFLE ​ Charge Rifle This energy rifle/sniper takes a second to warm up and will do minor damage to players if you keep a bead on them before delivering a mighty blow to whomever is on the receiving end of it. The Charge Rifle is part of the standard loot pool and can be found all over the map. NEW BATTLE PASS Season 3 brings an all-new Battle Pass! Check out the full details and rewards available in Season 3 here. (will update post with all info shortly!) Battle Pass Overview - Video New this season Gun Charms More Style New music packs, Legendary loading screens, and skydive emotes let you play in style. Jump in, Level up, Get more cool rewards! Immediately unlock the Legendary Reckoner DMR when you pick up the Battle Pass, along with three new Legend skins! Battle through the remaining 100 levels to earn the rest of the rewards including Legendary items like the Iced Out Pathfinder, From the Ashes Lifeline, and the reactive Frostbite Peacekeeper. New skins, available in the Battle Pass Battle Pass Rewards Earn over 100 items throughout the season - everything you snag before the season is over is yours to keep. Permanently! Check them all out here. Free Rewards Everyone who plays Apex Legends Season 3 can earn: Freezer Burn Caustic 5 Apex Packs Season 3 Stat Trackers for each Legend Mirage Loading Screen ​ Freezer Burn Caustic Battle Pass Cost Battle Pass: Buy in game for 950 coins Battle Pass Bundle: 2800 Apex Coins (includes 25 level unlocks and the Iced Out Pathfinder Skin immediately) LEGEND META All Legends Executioner Perk: Previously, the Gold Armor perk, “Executioner”, gave a full shield recharge on successful completion of a finisher. In Season 3, all Legends will have this perk meaning--finishers will fully recharge your shields regardless if you have Gold Armor equipped or not. Gold Backpacks will now have a Guardian Angel perk that is detailed below in the Loot / Meta Changes section. Gibraltar Dome Shield Players in the Dome Shield use healing items 25% faster. Increased the throw distance by 60%. Increased cooldown. 20 seconds -> 30 seconds. Defensive Bombardment Decreased cooldown. 4.5 minutes -> 3 minutes. Decreased duration 8 seconds -> 6 seconds. Increased throw distance by 36%. Bloodhound Eye of the Allfather Reduced the animation time to activate by 33%. Now immediately tells you how many targets have been pinged. Beast of the Hunt Fixed an issue with FoV scaling messing up ADS aim sensitivity. Reduced animation time to activate by 30%. Increased movement speed bonus 25% -> 30% Bangalore Rolling Thunder Increased damage 20 -> 40. Octane Adrenaline Junkie Fixed an issue with FoV scaling messing up ADS aim sensitivity. Wraith [Designer Notes: We’ve pulled back additional nerfs for further testing, but Wraith’s power balance is definitely on our radar.] Dimensional Rift No longer deploys if you are downed before placing it. Pathfinder Grapple Reduced the grapple projectile velocity by 33%, meaning it takes a fraction of a second longer to connect the grapple to the wall. The behavior once you are connected remains the same. Zipline Increased cooldown 90 seconds -> 120 seconds. WEAPON AND LOOT META Hop-ups *[*Designer Notes: We think the number of hop-up types in the game is about as high as we want to go right now when we consider loot dilution and the likelihood of finding a desired hop-up. Going forward, we intend to rotate hop-ups each season -- some may be removed from the loot pool to make room for new or returning ones. Below are the changes we’ll be making to hop-ups for Season 3.] REMOVED: Disruptor Rounds REMOVED: Skullpiercer Rifling The base headshot damage multipliers of the DMR and Wingman have been increased slightly. Wingman: Was 2.0 base / 2.25 with Skullpiercer. Is now 2.15 base. DMR: Was 2.0 base / 2.5 with Skullpiercer. Is now 2.15 base. NEW HOP-UP: Anvil Receiver Attaches to: Flatline and R-301. Rarity: level 4 (gold). This hop-up empowers semi-auto mode; it offers highly increased damage, but at the cost of reduced rate of fire and double ammo per shot. NEW HOP-UP: Double Tap Trigger Attaches to: G7 Scout and EVA-8 Auto. Rarity: level 3 (purple). This hop-up makes each trigger pull fire a quick two round burst. Consumables Ultimate Accelerants Ultimate charge restored increased 20% -> 35%. Reduced the amount in the world by around 40%. GOLD GEAR CHANGES Gold Backpack The gold backpack has a new perk, “Guardian Angel”. With Guardian Angel, you will revive downed teammates with bonus health and shields (if they have armor). Gold Armor The gold armor will now have “Fast Use” (consumable items take half as long to use), which was previously on the gold backpack. Now, you will be able to tell when an opponent has the ability to heal faster by seeing the gold armor damage numbers. WEAPONS *[*Designer Notes: For Season 3 weapon changes, our goals were to encourage and improve longer range gunfights and reduce power on some of the weapons that have been dominating lately. We will of course be closely watching data and player feedback on these during the season.] R-99 Base mag size reduction Before: 18/22/26/30 After: 18/20/23/27 Added some recoil randomness to patterns. PDW Prowler Added some slight recoil randomness while maintaining the same pattern when fired in full-auto mode. Longbow DMR Reduced rate of fire 1.6 -> 1.3 Reduced leg damage multiplier 0.9 -> 0.8 G7 Scout Increased base damage 30 -> 34 Hemlok Increased base damage 18 -> 22 Slight decrease to rate of fire to both fire modes. Mozambique Decreased pattern spread Mozambique will now reset from recoil faster, which should make it easier to track targets and see where shots land. L-STAR Substantial reduction to horizontal recoil. Now comes equipped with 1x Digital Threat optic. Reduced damage 21 -> 19 NEW KITTED GOLD WEAPONS We’ve swapped out the previous set of Gold Weapons with some fresh new ones for Season 3. Keep an eye out for these fully kitted beasts that all include tier 3 versions of all compatible attachments, hop-up, and the following optics: Flatline Includes 1x-2x optics EVA-8 Includes 1x threat scope TripleTake 4x-10x Threat scope G7 Scout 2x-4x optics Charge Rifle 4x-10x threat scope QUALITY OF LIFE Added a “random” option for customizing your unlocked loadscreens. Expanded the Ping Wheel so that you can now equip your unlocked Intro and Kill quips. Equip up to 8 intro or kill quips in the lobby Nearby enemies can hear quips when activated Press Y while ping wheel is up to access (controller) or F1 (default keyboard binding -- you may need to set this manually as it won’t auto-bind). "Celebrate" quickchat is now the 1st option in the quip wheel (Previously down on dpad). New Legend battle chatter - Legends now have voice lines that will call out when your squad is being third-partied. This is triggered if you take damage when recently damaged by another living squad You can now equip multiple skydive emotes (if you have multiple available on a character) - Hold A while skydiving to open the menu to select the skydive emote you want to use. Daily challenges should only give you, at most, 1 challenge for a Legend you don't own. No dupe character daily challenges (e.g. you should never get 2 Gibraltar dailies in the same day). Fixes for slowdown/performance drops at the start of a match. Mirage - decoys will now go where directed when deploying them during the drop if Mirage isn’t the Jumpmaster. Lifeline - D.O.C. Healing Drone will no longer float away after being deployed on Supply Ships Fixed issue where Legends could show up as locked instead of selected when joining a match late. Small improvements across UI to make fonts and other elements more readable. When swapping weapons with one on the ground, attachments will now attempt to transfer to your stowed weapon in addition to the weapon you are about to pick up. BUG FIXES Octane - fixed a bug where sometimes mantling while using a tactical stopped players from being able to perform any other actions until the tactical is finished. Wattson - fixed bug where sometimes the visual FX from her fences would not show up after being deployed. Pathfinder - Fixed a bug with Insider Knowledge passive where Survey Beacon locations would disappear from the full map after activating them. Fixed bug where players could sometimes receive additional Battle Pass rewards by leveling up two games in a row. Fixed an exploit that allowed players to spam fire with the Peacekeeper. Fixed bug where looting Lifeline’s Care Packages would not count towards the “Loot X amount of Care Packages” in the Battle Pass challenges. Fixed a bug where sometimes the smoke visual FX from Gibraltar, Bangalore, and Caustic Ultimates would show up on scopes when swapping weapons rapidly. PC - Fixed bug where model settings would be forced to “high” regardless of what setting was selected. Fixed a bug where players could sometimes skip the landing animation after a long fall. Fixed bug where sometimes map fog visual FX would disappear while looting a deathbox. Rebalanced audio to address issues with footsteps, ziplines, and jump jets. Ranked League Series 2 You can check out the full details for Series 2 and learnings we got from Series 1 in our Ranked Blog here. Some highlights of the changes we’re making below. Rewards for your placement in Ranked Leagues Series 1 will be available to you after downloading the update for Season 3. We’ve adjusted the scoring for Series 2 that allows for more granularity for future improvements. At the launch of Series 2 on 10/1 we’ll be doing a soft reset on everyone Ranked Position from Series 1. The reset will be 1.5 tiers. That means if you ended Series 1 in Gold II, you’ll be reset to Silver IV. Players in Platinum IV will be reset to Silver II, and Apex Predators will be reset to Platinum II. Assists have been added to your overall score. New HUD elements have been added to help players keep track of their in-match RP gains or losses. Leaver Penalty: Players who abandon their teammates will be hit with a matchmaking penalty in both regular and Ranked matches. Penalties will result in a player being barred from joining a match for escalating amounts of time based on how often they have abandoned in Ranked. An abandon is defined as leaving the game before the match is over for you; this includes leaving during character select, leaving while you are alive, and leaving when you are dead but can still be respawned by teammates. Penalty times start out at five minutes, and repeat abandons will increase that time up to a week submitted by /u/Emmerlynn to r/apexlegends [link] [comments]

Good morning Guardians, Yesterday, 'Forsaken', the first glimpse into Y2D2 was showcased for the first time with a ton of new info, game changes and overall fuel for the hype train leading into the release in September The update is substantial, the changes look to be revamping the very heart of Destiny 2 and change it in ways for everyone to enjoy. We're going to have a good time, Guardians There is a quite a lot of info here so it's pretty lengthy, I'll try my best to keep it fresh and relevant As always, if there are any important pieces I have missed or you believe should be added, please let me know Wake me up, when September ends September 4th Destiny 2: Forsaken releases September 4th 2018. To watch the Stream back in full - Forsaken Reveal Stream To watch the Reveal trailer and ViDoc - Forsaken Trailer To follow the Chatter and look back on r/DTGs REDDIT LIVE! Thread - Reveal Megathread The Bungie Development Roadmap was also updated to include Forsaken info - Roadmap as of June 5th 2018 and Roadmap Megathread to follow Reddit discussion on the changes Confirmed by Chris Barrett that all things on the roadmap will be available to ALL Destiny players - Post For official rundown and pre-order links, visit the Destiny the Game website Following years of strife, what remains of the Reef has fallen to lawlessness. You and Cayde-6 are sent to personally investigate the recent unrest. Upon arrival, you soon discover the most-wanted criminals in the Prison of Elders have organized an escape. Beyond the Vanguard’s authority, you’ll pursue these fugitives deep into the Reef. Explore new regions, awaken new powers, earn powerful weapons, and uncover long lost Awoken secrets. The hunt is on. Hunt Down the 8 Barons and their Crew Two New Destinations: The Tangled Shore and The Dreaming City A Brand-New Raid Introducing Gambit, a 4v4 Competitive PvE Mode Wield New Powers with Nine Additional Supers Collect New Exotic Weapons, Armor, and Gear All-New Weapon Archetype, Legendary Bow New Story Missions, Adventures, Destination Activities, and more DESTINY 2 GAME, DESTINY 2 EXPANSIONS I & II REQUIRED, SOLD SEPARATELY Bungie confirmed 'Bundle Deals' will become available closer to September and the Launch of Forsaken. Don't worrry about this immediately as a bad point, This Tweet from Bungie states: There will be additional D2: Forsaken product options unveiled later this year for players who do not own the Destiny 2 base game and both Expansions. They'll be available closer to the Sept 4th launch. So something different may be coming. So keep watch for these to come out in the future Left this here as well as worth noting: Minimum 104 GB available hard drive storage space required as of 09.18. Storage requirements subject to increase. After 09.18, see www.destinythegame.com/size-requirements for current requirements prior to purchase. May require additional storage for set-up, features and updates, including to download mandatory in-game updates to continue playing. 3 DLCs have been revealed which will follow up Y2D2. In Winter 2018, named 'Black Armoury', Spring 2019 named 'Jokers Wild' and Summer 2019 named 'Penumbra' respectively. A form of 'Season pass' will be available for Y2D2 named the 'Annual Pass' and can be pre-order now along with Forsaken. When can I play doe? According the Download websites, Forsaken will become available at Weekly Reset, 17:00 UTC September 4th 2018 What's in the box? There are 3 editions of Forsaken (Editions relate to 'Digital' versions with info we know so far. Please ensure you shop around if you want physical / potential pricing differences): Standard Forsaken + Annual Pass Forsaken Digital Deluxe Edition Pre order bonus and Awoken Set Pre order items Made a table for contents to make it easier: Item included in: Standard F+AP FDDE Destiny 2: Forsaken X X X All new story X X X Innovative game modes X X X Powerful weapons & gear X X X Annual Pass - X X All new (DLC) activities and end game content - X X New legendary and exotic weapons, armor, and gear - X X Seasonal rewards - X X New triumphs records to complete - X X Awoken Legend Set - - X Wrath Majestic Legendary Bow Ornament - - X Dirge Paladin Emblem - - X Vestian Ghost Shell - - X 'Caydes Exotic Stash' Pre Order Bonus Ace of Spades Last Hand Exotic Ornament Queen of Hearts Exotic Ship Standoff Exotic Emote Shades of Cayde-6 Armor Shaders Cayde’s Exotic Stash available starting 09.04.18. Can be attained by pre-order or pre-purchase of Destiny 2: Forsaken, Forsaken + Annual Pass, Forsaken Digital Deluxe Edition. Can also be attained through gameplay starting on or about 01.01.19. Subject to change and availability. Annual Pass The Annual Pass is not your typical DLC Season Pass. This pass WILL NOT add story campaigns to Destiny 2 but would rather fill out End Game content and provide more adventures, gear and challenges to take on in the world of D2 Bungie have emphasised expectation of these add-ons to be seen accordingly. They won't provide a cinematic campaign but will instead focus on content drops throughout year 2. God Save the Queen Forsaken brings two new areas to explore within and including The Reef, the second is an ever-evolving destination called 'The Dreaming City'. The area is “full of secrets to discover and bosses to defeat.” It would seem that the area will reveal more as you progress including secrets and mysteries to chase A new campaign will start as off which follows your character and Cayde-6 as you hunt down some of the most dangerous Fallen that have escaped from the Prison of Elders. The Dreaming City will serve as a the new End game area as well as a prominent place in our hunt to restore order to the Reef Mara Sov wasn't really shown or teased here but as we're back on her turf, something could be revealed in the depths as Bungie state 'Secrets of the Awoken' will also shine through the Darkness New Noise The Skorn 'Baron', one of the most Dangerous Fallen Did someone say New Raid? The New Raid will be in 'The Dreaming City'. No details of this have been released besides it has more bosses than ever before. Record was 4 (Kings Fall) so 5 or 6 boss maybe? Reunion Tour Destiny 1 veterans may be quick (and very happy) to see features returning when Forsaken drops: Random Rolls for weapons are returning Power matters in Iron Banner and Trials again Weapon slot customization has improved Weapon slot customisation is the discussion point here (I know the others are big points too) and what I mean by this is, Yes, Primary / Secondary / Heavy will again be a possibility in D2. However, this isn't everything. Bungie are opening us to a system where the weapon slots are PLAYER choice. The reveal confirmed that we can now move weapons around ALL 3 slots as we choose Limitations to this may apply either in game or certain game mode but it was shown that if you so wish, you can run 3 Shotguns all at the same time (1 in each slot). Whether that means 3 Rockets, 3 Snipers, 3 Nade launchers as well, remains to be seen Info on how this actually works also remains a mystery. Questions such as: Will you need certain ammo for certain slots, will it convert a gun from Heavy to Special (How is that fair), ROFLCOPTER PVP balancing with this. Truth is, we don't know the full story just yet Bottom line, you want a Primary / Sniper / Rockets again, you go nuts, Guardian What's 'New, new' to D2 There are also improvements to how Destiny 2 works in general and features to add to the current experience: Mod system is being updated and reworked More info to come on this at a later date. It was explained on ViDoc that there will be more ways to compliment the mod system with Random Rolls, allowing you to really make weapons your 'own'. These may not be linked to Mods and just 'Armour Perks' but this screen here shows Positive and Negative armour perks There will also be a weapon levelling system granting bonuses to your favourite weapons as you use them. More info to be revealed at a later date. This will be linked to a whole New Masterwork Style System Gear Collections will let you see everything you’ve collected and what you’ve yet to find This will be in game, much like the Kiosk system of old. Whether this means gear will be housed in Kiosks or just from your menu remains to be confirmed. Overall, a great change for collectors and gear chasers a like as it allows you to pin point things that interest you There is no details if this system will be retroactive so far now, sit tight on that gear until we know for sure Triumphs will let you keep track of your achievements as you complete quests Seems to be similar to a updated and advanced record book. Something to show yourself what you've accomplished and what you can chase after Completing certain triumphs will also reward ‘titles’ to stick on your Guardian Four new Crucible maps No info on these as of yet. Everyone is getting 200 additional Vault slots (Max of 500) Hooray! Bulk Shader Deletion Hooray! In Game Lore Very exciting for those that love the background stories of Destiny and for those who want to explore it A new PVPVE game mode named 'Gambit' I will detail Gambit in it's own section, Mon Ami (Below) New Weapon Type: The Bow An actual Bow and Arrow. I don't need to describe the awesome, do I? The Compound Bow. A Bow in action New Exotics Rocket Launcher called "Twin Rabbit" New Exotic Sword? 9 new subclass trees (1 for each subclass) Here is an Imgur Album of some of the screens taken by a hero of a Guardian named u/cannluke0 showing the majority of the new supers in the reveal. But serious, Watch the ViDoc to see the full glory. There really is something for everyone with these things. Here's another Reddit post with Super images by u/Cr4shdown. We also got some Gifs from the Gif Guy u/Mblim771_Kyle. Big shoutout to u/kristijan1001 for sharing gifs and some images of the Reef, Enemies, weapons and new supers Some Flavours: Death from Above Fire Knives Hammer Spinning Staff Anime teleporter Arc beam Shadowmark Hunter Gunslinger but with Throwing Knives Hunter Arcstrider but with the ability to spin the stick and rebound shots Warlock Stromcaller firing a concentrated beam of Arc rather than Tickle Fingers Warlock Voidwalker with Rapid 'Blink' ability and extra Boom! Sunbreaker Titan with a Hammer the Size of an Iron Axe which would put Thor to Shame Sunbreaker Titan throwing flames and causing a 'Flame Tornado' Just to name a few stand outs. I'll add in specific Videos with highlights if I come across them MORE GIFS! Titan Arc Super (Death from Above) Titan Solar Super (Consists of a Flaming Hammer that you can spin around creating Tornados) Warlock Void Super (Anime Goku Style Teleportation with Explosive Area of Effects Damage) Warlock Arc Super (Kamehameha) Warlock Solar Super Hunter Solar Super (Consists of throwing knives) Hunter Void Super (Blade Dancer Kind of Super) Money to Burn - GAMBIT Gambit a unique activity with Destiny and entirely new concept to what we've seen so far. Merging PVE and PVP into one whilst bringing a competitive and what looks like a hell of a lot of fun to the game mode two teams of four will each be dropped into their own discrete maps where they will have to face off against a series of enemies, collecting and banking “motes” along the way to make things more difficult for the other team. One player can even invade the other team’s map unexpectedly at certain points throughout the match to disrupt their progress and take as many of them out as possible. 4v4 (With Dance off before the game starts) Players will begin on 2 sides of a map facing off against PVE enemies Defeating these will drop 'Motes' for you to 'Bank' in a terminal. Doing so will 'Block' the opposing team from banking motes until they clear a wave blocking them, timer or potential other mechanics not yet seen A portal will open during the game mode allowing a player from that side to jump across and engage the other team (PVP) and defeat them to throw off their rhythm and help your team gain advantage After so much bank is collected a Boss Wave will spawn, beat the boss first and win the Round If you are lucky enough to be visiting Guardian Con this year, Gambit will be on show. Give em Hell, Guardians Quick FAQ Is it Gambit Matchmade / competitive / End Game like Trials? Unknown Confirmed by Bungie - Gambit HAS Matchmaking Will power matter? Unknown Do I need the DLC for this? Yes What if I'm a lover not a fighter? Bungie stated that PVE'ers and PVP'ers a like have loved the mode so far. Give it a try, just stick to your PVE and let another man go for the PVP. Team work makes the dream work Rewards / Weapons and armour info? Unknown The rumour mill As always small things were spotted Potential Last Word (Seemed to be on reveal stream), Ace of Spades (We get an ornament for it in the pre order bonus) and Rose/Thorn (Mentioned on Crucible Radio Podcast) returning to D2. Also theories the Thorn could be in it's original form before it was corrupted, The Rose I know that's a short point but these two deserve it should they be in fact coming home. I'll add some more in should I see them The return of Petra Venj The Last Word Honestly, I'll be more shocked if I haven't missed something here besides a name or two. If you are like me, you took a relaxed approach to watching the Stream and totally didn't shout, HELL YES THIS IS WHAT DESTINY SHOULD LOOK LIKE while watching the reveal and took it in your stride In Short, I'm hyped. I'll be told not to be but I am. This looks, feels and (seems to) play like Destiny should. Exciting, crazy, unexpected and judging by the new armour sets, looking cool AF when doing so E3 is our next stop, June 12-14, which we need to mark down as our next slice of Forsaken info. Until then, I'm going to get me some eye liner and get my Dead Orbit Rally on. Here's a Renown Guide to help be super efficent Have a good day, Guardian Appreciate the Gold kind stranger :) submitted by /u/RiseOfBacon to r/DestinyTheGame [link] [comments]

Hello, brothers and sisters! I've still a lot of work to do, but...well, we need to start organizing the action on January 15th, per Bernie's letter. And...there are candidates who need attention and support. This subreddit has a tremendous power to spotlight these candidates, to funnel support into their campaigns, and to stand with Bernie as we carry the fight forward. This subreddit is a very loud megaphone, and we will be heard. Now, having said that, this week is going to be a bit of a Wild West. Some of you probably remember Web 1.0, that lawless feel. I loved it, myself. I've taken the feedback on what people think the community guidelines should be, and I've adjusted the automoderator accordingly. Now, I will say, some of the ideas you had were...a bit radical, but I've always been ready for a radical idea. In order for us to really have the community take a look at potential moderators, we have to have a community that's energized and paying attention. Similarly, the feedback was strongly in favor of an enforcement of topicality, but it must be the community to demonstrate and drive what is topical...and important. (Also, title guidelines and repost removal? Y'all are playing with me and my emotions.) Here, however, are some suggestions: Bernie Sanders stuff Keith Ellison stuff other progressive candidates stuff (like, uh, Arturo Carmona, about whom you'll probably be hearing more soon.) Because, shockingly, elections don't happen every four years. In fact, if we really want to start planning runs for people in 2018, we need to get on that. Remember, Bernie announced his candidacy in late April 2015 for primary elections that didn't start until February 2016. Well...that gives you all about four months to research spots, recruit candidates, and start getting the word out. And, while Bernie will help when possible, it's got to be better than that. Real change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up. Somebody said that; I don't remember who. It's not going to be possible for the main sub to facilitate the granular organization of 3,142 counties and county equivalents. That's why we still have state subs in the sidebar, to get people to meet up and work in real life. When I talked to Rep. Ellison a few weeks ago, he stressed the importance of going out of your comfort zone and talking to people who might disagree with you, who might not see it the same way in every situation. After all, if you only ever talk to the people who already agree with you, you're never going to convince anyone new. That's why it's important that people not just post online and upvote and retweet but get involved at a local level. I cannot stress this enough. If we had a tenth of the subscribers here join local progressive orgs or political parties (or start their own orgs if they feel so empowered), then we could easily start making the changes that will filter up and up and up. It is not going to be an easy road to walk, but it is a road we must walk, and we will walk it together. So, I guess what I'm saying is...let's start posting and see what happens. If things go swimmingly, great! If they don't, well, I guess that's my problem to deal with, and I'll deal with it over the course of the week as things pop up. -/u/writingtoss PS: The CSS is in progress. I'm not...I'm not the CSS master. I dabble. Expect changes to that over the week. submitted by /u/writingtoss to r/SandersForPresident [link] [comments]

Group Stage - Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 Results [Group Stage] Group A Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 Brazil 1 1:0:0 3:1 +2 3 2 Mexico 1 1:0:0 1:0 +1 3 3 Cameroon 1 0:0:1 0:1 -1 0 4 Croatia 1 0:0:1 1:3 -2 0 ---------- Thursday, 12/6/2014 ---------- 20:00 Brazil 3 - 1 (1 - 1) Croatia Neymar Jr 27' Marcelo 11' Neymar Jr 29', 71' (P) Vedran Corluka 66' Luiz Gustavo 88' Dejan Lovren 69' () Oscar 90'+1' ---------- Friday, 13/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Mexico 1 - 0 (0 - 0) Cameroon Hector Moreno 57' Dany Nounkeu 77' Oribe Peralta 61' ---------- Tuesday, 17/6/2014 ---------- 19:00 Brazil - (-) Mexico ---------- Wednesday, 18/6/2014 ---------- 22:00 Cameroon - (-) Croatia ---------- Monday, 23/6/2014 ---------- 20:00 Cameroon - (-) Brazil Croatia - (-) Mexico Group B Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 Netherlands 1 1:0:0 5:1 +4 3 2 Chile 1 1:0:0 3:1 +2 3 3 Australia 1 0:0:1 1:3 -2 0 4 Spain 1 0:0:1 1:5 -4 0 ---------- Friday, 13/6/2014 ---------- 19:00 Spain 1 - 5 (1 - 1) Netherlands Xabi Alonso 27' (P) Jonathan de Guzman 25' Iker Casillas 65' Penalty Incident 27' Stefan de Vrij 41' Robin van Persie 44', 72' Arjen Robben 53', 80' Stefan de Vrij 65' Robin van Persie 66' 22:00 Chile 3 - 1 (2 - 0) Australia Alexis Sanchez 12' Tim Cahill 35' Jorge Valdivia 14' Tim Cahill 44' Charles Aranguiz 86' Mile Jedinak 58' Jean Beausejour 90'+2' Mark Milligan 67' ---------- Wednesday, 18/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Australia - (-) Netherlands 19:00 Spain - (-) Chile ---------- Monday, 23/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Australia - (-) Spain Netherlands - (-) Chile Group C Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 Colombia 1 1:0:0 3:0 +3 3 2 Ivory Coast 1 1:0:0 2:1 +1 3 3 Japan 1 0:0:1 1:2 -1 0 4 Greece 1 0:0:1 0:3 -3 0 ---------- Saturday, 14/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Colombia 3 - 0 (1 - 0) Greece Pablo Armero 5' Sokratis Papasthopoulos 52' Carlos Sanchez 26' Dimitrios Salpingidis 55' Teofilo Gutierrez 58' James Rodriguez 90'+3' ---------- Sunday, 15/6/2014 ---------- 01:00 Ivory Coast 2 - 1 (0 - 1) Japan Souleymane Bamba 54' Keisuke Honda 16' Didier Zokora 58' Maya Yoshida 23' Wilfried Bony 64' Masato Morishige 64' Gervinho 66' ---------- Thursday, 19/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Colombia - (-) Ivory Coast 22:00 Japan - (-) Greece ---------- Thursday, 24/6/2014 ---------- 20:00 Greece - (-) Ivory Coast Japan - (-) Colombia Group D Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 Costa Rica 1 1:0:0 3:1 +2 3 2 Italy 1 1:0:0 2:1 +1 3 3 England 1 0:0:1 1:2 -1 0 4 Uruguay 1 0:0:1 1:3 -2 0 ---------- Saturday, 14/6/2014 ---------- 19:00 Uruguay 1 - 3 (1 - 0) Costa Rica Edinson Cavani 24' (P) Penalty Incident 24' Diego Lugano 50' Joel Campbell 54' Walter Gargano 56' Oscar Duarte 57' Martin Caceres 81' Marcos Urena 84' Maximiliano Pereira 90'+4' 22:00 England 1 - 2 (1 - 1) Italy Daniel Sturridge 37' Claudio Marchisio 35' Raheem Sterling 90'+2' Mario Balotelli 50' ---------- Thursday, 19/6/2014 ---------- 19:00 Uruguay - (-) England ---------- Friday, 20/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Italy - (-) Costa Rica ---------- Tuesday, 24/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Costa Rica - (-) England Italy - (-) Uruguay Group E Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 France 1 1:0:0 3:0 +3 3 2 Switzerland 1 1:0:0 2:1 +1 3 3 Ecuador 1 0:0:1 1:2 -1 0 4 Honduras 1 0:0:1 0:3 -3 0 ---------- Sunday, 15/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Switzerland 2 - 1 (0 - 1) Ecuador Admir Mehmedi 48' Enner Valencia 22' Johan Djourou 84' Juan Peredes 53' Haris Seferovic 90'+4' 19:00 France 3 - 0 (1 - 0) Honduras Patrice Evra 7' Wilson Palacios 28', 43' () Paul Pogba 28' Oscar Boniek 53' Karim Benzema 45' (P), 72' Luis Garrido 83' Yohan Cabaye 45'+2' Noel Valladares 48' ---------- Friday, 20/6/2014 ---------- 19:00 Switzerland - (-) France 22:00 Honduras - (-) Ecuador ---------- Wednesday, 25/6/2014 ---------- 20:00 Ecuador - (-) France Honduras - (-) Switzerland Group F Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 Argentina 1 1:0:0 2:1 +1 3 2 Iran 1 0:1:0 1:1 0 1 3 Nigeria 1 0:1:0 1:1 0 1 4 Bosnia and Herzegovina 1 0:0:1 1:2 -1 0 ---------- Sunday, 15/6/2014 ---------- 22:00 Argentina 2 - 1 (1 - 0) Bosnia and Herzegovina Sead Kolasinac 3' Emir Spahic 63' Marcos Rojo 25' Vedad Ibisevic 85' Lionel Messi 65' ---------- Monday, 16/6/2014 ---------- 19:00 Iran 0 - 0 (0 - 0) Nigeria Andranik Teymourian 75' ---------- Saturday, 21/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Argentina - (-) Iran 22:00 Nigeria - (-) Bosnia and Herzegovina ---------- Wednesday, 25/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Bosnia and Herzegovina - (-) Iran Nigeria - (-) Argentina Group G Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 Germany 1 1:0:0 4:0 +4 3 2 United States 1 1:0:0 2:1 +1 3 3 Ghana 1 0:0:1 1:2 -1 0 4 Portugal 1 0:0:1 0:4 -4 0 ---------- Monday, 16/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Germany 4 - 0 (3 - 0) Portugal Thomas Müller 12' (P), 45'+1', 78' Joao Pereira 11' () Mats Hummels 32' Pepe 37' 22:00 Ghana 1 - 2 (0 - 1) United States Mohammed Rabiu 30' Clint Dempsey 1' André Ayew 82' John Brooks 86' Sulley Muntari 90'+2' ---------- Saturday, 21/6/2014 ---------- 19:00 Germany - (-) Ghana ---------- Sunday, 22/6/2014 ---------- 22:00 United States - (-) Portugal ---------- Thursday, 26/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Portugal - (-) Ghana United States - (-) Germany Group H Pos Team P W:D:L G GD PTS 1 Belgium 1 1:0:0 2:1 +1 3 2 Russia 1 0:1:0 1:1 0 1 3 South Korea 1 0:1:0 1:1 0 1 4 Algeria 1 0:0:1 1:2 -1 0 ---------- Tuesday, 17/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Belgium 2 - 1 (0 - 1) Algeria Jan Vertonghen 24' () Sofiane Feghouli 25' (P) Marouane Fellaini 70' Nabil Bentaleb 34' Dries Martins 80' 22:00 Russia 1 - 1 (0 - 0) South Korea Oleg Shatov 49' Son Heung-Min 13' Aleksandr Kerzhakov 74' Ki Sung-Yeung 30' Lee Keun-Ho 68' Koo Ja-Cheol 90' ---------- Sunday, 22/6/2014 ---------- 16:00 Belgium - (-) Russia 22:00 South Korea - (-) Algeria ---------- Thursday, 26/6/2014 ---------- 20:00 Algeria - (-) Russia South Korea - (-) Belgium Top Goalscorers # Team Player 1 Thomas Müller 3 2 Karim Benzema 2 = Neymar Jr 2 = Robin van Persie 2 = Arjen Robben 2 submitted by /u/thejanitorch4 to r/soccer [link] [comments]