Skill based games aren’t incremental. If you get your toolkit at the start and gameplay consists of learning how to use it effectively then

Examples would be platformers like Mario and old-school shooters before skill trees and gear unlocks became popular like the Halo trilogy. You’re just as strong with access to the same tools at the beginning of the game as you are at the end.

A lot of modern “action” games have polluted this by incorporating unlocks and skill trees and other popular lite RPG elements, but incremental progression isn’t “the basis of games”, as you put. It’s made an appearance in a lot of games because it’s easy to implement and it’s a consistent amd cheap dopamine hit to keep players playing, so it’s very attractive to AAA studios looking for player retention.

Also not the point of this sub, as others have mentioned. This is for numbers go up games.

Farming? Really? Man of your talents?

That makes a lot more sense now. Thank you. I know where to look for troubleshooting next time I play.

I was not counting mana cost, no. So it’ll just drop modifiers if it doesn’t have enough mana, and still cast the base spell? That does explain some of the behavior I was seeing. I figured it would fail to cast entirely if I didn’t have enough mana for the full block.

One theory I had, if you can confirm, is that shuffle doesn’t just shuffle spells, it shuffles all spell nodes.

So if I have a 4-slot shuffle wand with: PPMP (P = Projectile Spell, M = Modifier)

I was thinking the cast table could either be:

P1 - 33%

P2 - 33%

MP3 - 33%

Or

P1 - 25%

P2 - 25%

MP3 - 25%

P3 - 25%

Depending on whether the modifier block was a valid place for the shuffle to land.

I was planning to try to build some wand experiments to differentiate which of these scenarios is true. Good to know that mana can be a confounding variable.

Edit: Also, is shuffle fully random or does it draw without replacement like a deck of cards until all stored spells are cast and it can recharge? Just thought of this and realized I hadn’t tested for it.

The issue I’ve been trying to work out is getting modifiers to work consistently. My understanding is that modifiers are supposed to stack and affect the next projectile spell to the right, but they either don’t apply at all or will apply sporadically, and I haven’t figured out what rule I’m missing.

I assume some modifiers just don’t work with some projectiles, but the game doesn’t seem to communicate whether this is the case. I also suspect it has something to do with shuffle, as you warned against, but I haven’t been getting any non-shuffle wands for experimentation, and my starter wand doesn’t have much mana to work with.

It doesn’t help that I can only experiment with builds in the airlock chambers between levels.

The specific issue I remember having last night was that I couldn’t get the pentagon shot modifier to apply to any of my projectile spells no matter what I did.

I did get the flametrail modifier working consistently, so I’m doing something right, but I’m not sure what was different between that and the pentagon spread modifier I was trying.

I’ll back up that Civ 4 has been the best entry in the series so far.

Civ 5 is when they dropped unit stacking, which made combat much slower and more finicky since you couldn’t just build up a massive deathball and tear across the map, and Civ 6 doubled down on that design space by tying city upgrades to individual tiles as well. They’re not bad changes, and they do add more strategic depth to the combat and city-building, but they do make an already slow game substantially slower, since combats that used to be done in a turn or two now require several turns of rotating and repositioning units to get them in and out of the fight.

Civ 4 was the last “pure” civ experience, building off and adding to the previous games without sweeping mechanical changes to shake up the meta.

I’ve started and bounced off Noita a couple of times already. It’s been fun but I do need time to dig in and wrap my head around the mechanics.

I’m stuck on wand building at the moment. I’ve watched a couple video guides explaining how it works, but something still isn’t clicking. None of the wands I’m making have worked the way I expect them to, and I’m not sure what I’m not understanding.

I just finished both Borderlands 3 and God of War (2018) so I’m in gaming limbo again.

Leaning toward Stardew Valley, Noita, or finally buckling down to finish Far Cry 3.

You guessed correctly.

I was pulling an all-nighter reading fan fiction serials while drinking Kraken mixed with Orange Juice and had also eaten a whole frozen pizza around midnight. I was not ok. The incident happened around 3am.

First time I’d ever vomited while drunk. I know my limits better now.

My Laptop will be 15 years old this year.

It was running Vista when I bought it, then upgraded to Win 7, and now runs whatever flavor of Linux I feel like installing.

Battery is shot. Screen connection is iffy, but works if you wiggle it. Several keys stopped working after I accidentally threw up on it, but I can use an onscreen keyboard for those.

Still runs fine. She’s a trooper.

Nope. I can’t even tell the difference between 30Hz and 60Hz unless they’re actually running side by side.

My first time playing Bloodborne I completely missed the weapons on the ground and kept trying the werewolf fight until I beat that thing to death with my bare hands.

Void Stranger, Chip’s Challenge, and BABA IS YOU are all Sokoban style puzzle games with minimal performance requirements and no need for a mouse.

Siralim Ultimate is a creature collector RPG that will run on a potato and provide endless grinding, if you’re into that.

The Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters of the first six games are all excellent if you’re into JRPGs.

Dungeons of Dredmor if you like rogue-likes, or you could go old-school and pick up NetHack or ADOM.

“Come again?”

My phone only goes off silent on the rare occasions I’ve been asked to be on call for an emergency project at work.

So like three times in the last ten years.

IT WAS ALWAYS BURNING AS THE DICE KEEP TURNING

Yes.

I’ve got a similar story, but with a much more positive ending.

Was at a LARP event, camping in the woods, when a girl started having an asthma attack. She’d forgotten her inhaler, no one else had one on hand, and she was visibly turning blue as she suffocated. We called 911, but the nearest hospital was in a city several miles away and the 911 operator couldn’t locate our site to send the ambulance.

We agreed to meet the ambulance on the highway halfway, loaded up in my truck, and I booked it. Pushed my little 4-cylinder Frontier up to 115mph. Fastest I’ve ever driven. I had my hazards going and was flashing my brights like an asshole at every car I overtook. Thank fuck they all yielded to me.

We met the ambulance on the side of the road, transferred her over, and they were able to get her breathing again. She survived.

Ah, yes. Wagering hugs, kisses, and compliments are a fine way to spice up your poker game.

Bunch of games on my Steam wishlist I’m mildly interested in but not willing to pay more than about $10 for, since they’d just wind up sitting in my backlog until I have time to play them. Waiting for a steep sale.

Some of the highlights:

• Cassette Beasts
• Sonic Frontiers
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Dark Souls III

Edit: Didn’t see the “year ago or older” caveat in the title.