Lurker > Calwings

I'd say "I don't know if the Phillies can recover from a momentum killer like getting no-hit" but the Astros blowing a 5-run lead at home in game 1 was also a similarly powerful (and similarly unlikely) momentum killer and they somehow recovered from that. So I really don't know what to think about this.

People were literally getting banned during the campaign-only early access period before the MP servers were even online.

pain

Revue Starlight

The series (and especially its sequel/finale movie) is an absolute masterpiece and I can't recommend it enough. Great characters that develop a lot as the show goes on, awesome action scenes, plenty of beautiful music, a deep story with twists and symbolism, and a talking giraffe!

https://streamable.com/b85cu

Funcoot posted...

Which fossil did you pick?

It doesn't really matter because I'm not going to use it in the run, but... Praise Helix, of course!

Anyways, I didnt expect either of the last two gyms gave me and Porygon much trouble, but they were, like Sabrina, easier than I expected. Both battles were just set up 3 Agility and then KO everything with Tri Attack or Psybeam when its needed. Blaines Arcanine survived a Tri Attack and did a ton of damage with Fire Blast, but it didnt KO, and aside from that, Porygon was never in any real danger. Now I have all of the badges and the last gyms went by so quickly, I got a little cocky and decided to go to Route 22 and fight the sixth Rival battle in this play session too. His Pidgeot finally, FINALLY forgot Sand Attack, so I was able to set up 3 Agility boosts on it without needing to worry about Accuracy drops. Pidgeot and Gyarados both went down to 1 Tri Attack and then 1 Psybeam (thankfully Gyarados didnt use Hydro Pump this time) and then his Alakazam, Rhyhorn, and Growlithe all went down easily. But then something unlucky happened Porygon leveled up. Why is this unlucky? You see, when your Pokemon levels up mid-battle, the game re-calculates your stats to their correct values, which reverses the effects of the Badge Boost Glitch. The Speed boosts from using Agility itself and the initial 12.5% boost that the normal Badge Boosts are still in play, but the extra 50% in Badge Boosts from the 3 uses of Agility and Gyarados lowering Porygon's Defense with Leer once are now gone. Thankfully, my rivals shitty gen 1 AI decided to never have his Venusaur use Razor Leaf, only using Poison Powder and a Potion while I 3-shotted it with Psybeam. Why is a trainer with Pokemon in the 40s still using normal Potions and not better ones? God, gen 1 is so scuffed.

Anyways, that rival battle is done. But next comes the hardest part of the game, the final gauntlet, the place where many gen 1 solo runs become very difficult: the Elite Four. Not only will I have to micromanage Porygons limited move slots with the variety of TMs that Ive saved up by only using Normal-type attacks and Psybeam so far, Ill have to micromanage Porygons experience points to not level up in the middle of battle and lose its badge boosts at an inopportune time. On top of that, due to the restrictions I put on myself during this playthrough (partly for more difficulty but also so I dont accidentally save after deleting a one-time TM move that I need) I need to beat the Elite Four and the Champion in a row without saving between any of them. Time to start thinking of a strategy.

Aitz posted...

I just want Linkage already. Sky Strikers just keep on getting weak.

H.A.M.P. and Linkage would be such a huge help at this point.

Tennousu posted...

The Sky Striker player threw Lava Golem as Droplet's cost.

I guess they had to choose between Lava Golem or summoning Raye.

Lava Golem costing your normal summon is why I wouldn't use it in Sky Strikers. Kaijus don't cost your normal summon so they're fair game.

Dat_Cracka_Jax posted...

Altuve wasn't?

Altuve, Bregman, and Gurriel are the others. I said that Verlander and McCullers were among the last few, not that they were the only ones.

GeneralKenobi85 posted...

Verlander and McCullers are never really grouped with the others though since they were pitchers and didn't directly benefit from the cheating.

They only indirectly benefited from the run support the offense was providing. Plus they also had to have known what was going on in the organization and could have spoken out against it, but chose not to. I don't begrudge the pitchers from that team as much as the hitters who directly benefited from the cheating, but they're not 100% innocent.

Verlander and McCullers are among the last few Astros who were actually on that 2017 cheating team and are still with the team today, so seeing those two specifically get bombed in this series puts a smile on my face.

Great start for the Phils!

Tennousu posted...

Looks like we're going to have another Duelist Cup next month.

The dates for it said it was coming in December, so theoretically we should have a different event in November. Hopefully a more casual one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernWarfareII/comments/yhbpz6/megathread_list_of_bugs_issues_missing_content/

You couldn't pay me to play this pile of shit. Tons of bugs and glitches, tons of basic features missing that were in at launch for almost every other CoD game, maps and features that were in the game at launch being removed due to bugs/crashes and in some cases even legal issues, terrible game design choices made solely for the sake of saying "we did something", people getting randomly flagged and banned by the anti-cheat without doing anything wrong while actual cheaters make it in and cheat... and all of this is with 3,000 devs and a full uninterrupted 3 years of dev time. It's a sick joke.

The only reasons that Modern Warfare Roman Numeral Two 2022 Electric Boogaloo: It's Doorbin' Time sold so well are mindless nostalgia for the Modern Warfare name and people wanting to use it to level up weapons for Warzone 2 before that launches next month. Treyarch's next CoD game in 2024 is the only hope I have left for this franchise to actually be good again, and I'll be hanging back on Black Ops Cold War until then.

I thought about going to Cinnabar Island to fight Blaine first before Sabrina (his badge is what gives the Badge Boost for the Special stat, which would in turn make Sabrina easier along with a couple of extra levels) but I decided to see if Porygon could beat Sabrina at its current level of 51 first. As it turns out, she was easier than I thought. I had Porygon set up 1 Agility against her lead Kadabra, 1-shot it with Tri Attack, and then set up the remaining 2 boosts from Agility against her much less threatening Mr. Mime. After that, both her Mr. Mime and her big bad Alakazam were 1-shotted by Tri Attack as well.

After beating Sabrina, I grabbed the TM for Mimic from the copycat girl in Saffron in case I need it later, then I flew to Pallet Town and surfed down to Cinnabar Island. I got lost in the Pokemon Mansion and grabbed a few items while I was in there, including the TM for Blizzard, but eventually I found the Secret Key to unlock Blaines gym. Next time I play, Ill probably take on the last two gyms in one sitting if neither of them gives me and Porygon too much trouble.

One is more physically demanding, one is more mentally demanding. I would guess that it depends on the person which one would be more difficult. Of course, one of them also brings you more "joy" than the other.

Ivynn posted...

Is there a noncropped version of this art

Asking for a friend

pls respond

Yes, but they're too lewd for me to link here.

Good, join the superior NNN faction.

https://i.imgur.com/3vr5XL2.png

LeCh0nk posted...

Imagine beating Fival and Giovanni, then going back to surge to body him with a lvl 40-something.

Gen 1 is so scuffed and sequence-breakable (even without glitches) that you can beat Blaine before you beat Surge. The only restrictions in the order are that Brock has to be first, Misty has to be second, Giovanni and the E4/Champion come last, you need to get the Pokeflute from partway into the Rocket subplot to reach Fuschia to face Koga and to do the remainder of the Rocket subplot, and you need to beat Koga to be able to use Surf and reach Cinnabar to fight Blaine. Aside from that, you can essentially acquire badges 3-7 and deal with the Rocket subplot in any order you want. Jrose has used this to his advantage quite a few times in his solo runs, though he's also messed up and tried to enter Giovanni's gym only to realize that he completely forgot a gym (usually Erika's) that he skipped earlier.

Then if you include the multitude of glitches in Red/Blue (many of which were fixed in Yellow), that opens up a whole other can of worms. The glitches are so useful and so bullshit that you can actually save Brock, normally the first gym leader, to be the last gym you defeat before the E4/Champion. I won't go into detail on that stuff here because if I decide to do that "gen 1 but I play the game completely out of order" playthrough, I might use glitches to make it even crazier. I'm still thinking about it.

I'm feeling fine and the baseball game was postponed to tomorrow, so I did get the chance to play some more tonight. I went around Silph Company and its teleporters, searching for items and fighting enough random grunts to get Porygon to level 48 before the two big battles in this area.

On the way to Giovanni, there was also the fifth rival battle, or as Jrose affectionately calls him, Rival Fivel. His Pidgeotto is now a Pidgeot, but this thing still knows Sand Attack and I dont have Swift anymore. I only had Porygon use Agility once before 2-shotting Pidgeot with Tri Attack, but it did land a Sand Attack before it went down. His Gyarados did massive damage with Hydro Pump (it would have KOd if it got a crit) but it was also 2-shotted by Tri Attack, then Porygon thankfully outsped his Alakazam after a single Agility and 1-shotted it with Tri Attack. If Porygon missed any Tri Attacks against Gyarados or Alakazam, I probably would have lost. After recovering off the damage that Gyarados did, the rivals Growlithe and Venusaur were trivial to beat, even with a couple of misses due to Sand Attack. After that battle, a random guy gave me a free Lapras, who is now my HM mule for Surf and Strength, then I healed up and went to the top to kick Giovannis ass. He was super easy compared to Rival Fivel. All I did was just set up 3 Agility on his Nidorino, everything went down in a couple of hits from either Tri Attack or Psybeam, and none of them could do much damage back to Porygon.

And with that, the Team Rocket subplot is officially dealt with! The fact that the "evil team" subplot ends so early in the Kanto games compared to other Pokemon games (most people normally have 4-5 gym badges when they complete it, where it usually extends beyond the 7th badge in other games) is sort of refreshing after playing other gens for so long. I believe it's actually possible to complete the Team Rocket subplot with only 2 badges earned in normal gameplay, since you only need Cut (for the one bush that blocks the route to Rock Tunnel) to access this part of Kanto and you can use that as soon as you beat Misty.

Actually, that gives me an idea for a future playthrough: a gen 1 run, but I play the game completely out of order. What do you guys think?

Let's go Battlehawks!

I'll try to play some more later today, but it depends on how I'm feeling after getting my COVID booster and flu shot in a couple of hours. It may have to wait until tomorrow or Wednesday. We'll see.

pegusus123456 posted...

Is it worth using X Accuracy to offset that? Bulbapedia says that in the first two gens, it just makes the game skip accuracy checks instead of raising it by one stage. Googling also indicates that this even works on OHKO moves, so I feel like it would work against someone spamming Sand Attack/Smokescreen.

As mentioned, I'm not using items during battle for this playthrough. If I wasn't following that restriction, then you would be right that X Accuracy would be a great idea to offset Accuracy drops in gen 1 solo runs.

KainWind posted...

So when you have all the badges, you can spam double team for example until you are a maxed stat God? No idea that happened.

After 6 Double Teams, all four of the other stats would be 87.5% above their normal value in the stat screen (12.5% for the initial Badge Boost and 12.5% for each of 6 re-applications from the glitch) which is a pretty good boost. That being said, I don't want to use Double Team. Sometimes having favorable RNG can help to win a battle depending on the situation, but I don't want to turn my entire strategy for victory into relying on the RNG of Double Team boosting my Pokemon's Evasion. Jrose never uses it, and I don't want to use it either. It feels cheap.

I still wonder what life is like in the alternate universe where Tentaquil made it out of the beta instead of Politoed

https://i.imgur.com/S7rPzuL.png

I second the other people mentioning Explorers of Sky. The PMD games are great and that one is the best of them all.

https://twitter.com/YuGiOh_OCG_INFO/status/1586689376871804929

In non-MD news, holy shit the OCG is getting an alternate artwork of Engage featuring Roze. This looks so badass, and it reminded me that I need to get back to reading the OCG Stories manga. Hopefully it's translated somewhere.

Yes, but not on day one (gonna wait for reviews and more information) and not sure which one I'll get yet. Leaning towards Violet but I'm not sure.

I'm maxed out at 10,000 gems on my side account again. If the next selection pack doesn't have anything that interests me enough to pull from it when it gets announced, I'm pulling for Branded stuff before that pack expires to make Branded Eldlich and Branded Dragonmaids.

PC gaming is objectively a good thing for the industry and I'm glad a lot of people enjoy it, but it's just not for me. I prefer the simplicity of consoles.

Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

For just the main series, it's really close between Platinum, HG/SS, and B2/W2, but I'd give the slight edge to HG/SS.

If this port is actually good, I might get it because I loved this game back on the N64. But that seems to be a big if based on what others have said in this topic.

I took some time this morning to beat that last random trainer in the Fuschia gym (he had a Hypno, but it was easier this time with Tri Attack) and then beat Koga. The first time I tried, I took a risk setting up 3 Agility (for the Defense badge boosts in case his Weezing used Self-Destruct) against his first Koffing, but it hit me with Smokescreen multiple times and I knew the battle wasnt going to go well so I reset. On the second attempt, I just knocked out the Koffing with Psybeam right away and set up my boosts on Muk. It used Minimize a couple of times, but at least that chance of missing would only apply against Muk and not for the rest of the battle. His second Koffing did land one Smokescreen before going down, but it luckily didnt affect my ability to take down his Weezing. It never used Self-Destruct, Porygon was able to Recover off any damage it took, and 3 hits from Psybeam (with 1 miss thanks to Smokescreen) took down Weezing and earned me the fifth gym badge.

Next up is dealing with Team Rocket in Silph Company. Theres a bunch of trainers there that I could face to level up a bit, and theyll go away for good once I beat Giovanni at the top. Looking back on it, I probably should have trained on those mooks before I went to Fuschia to take on Kogas gym, because that might have saved me a lot of time and frustration. Oh well, whats done is done.

ApherosyLove posted...

I guess enemy debuff attacks are way stronger in a Solo Run because you can't just switch out your dude to remove them. Literally every debuff persists until you offset it with a buff

Yeah, that's definitely a problem with solo runs. Attack drops, Accuracy drops, Sleep, Confusion... I just have to sit there and deal with that annoying stuff because I can't switch out. This is what makes Agatha of the Elite Four one of the most frustrating parts of most Kanto solo runs. Jrose calls it the "Agatha Lottery" because it's such a luck-based battle for most Pokemon.

ApherosyLove posted...

(or the badgeboost glitch, I guess, but that doesn't affect accuracy I don't think? Still tryna wrap my head around it).

The glitch isn't really helpful for that. Each trigger of the badge boost glitch raises the affected stats by 12.5%, but a stat being lowered by one stage by an opponent's move lowers it by 33%. So it would take 3 badge boosts to offset 1 stage worth of lowered stats. Plus, accuracy and evasion aren't affected by the glitch at all, so once my Pokemon is hit with a Sand Attack or Smokescreen, there's nothing I can do about it.

Meh, at least the Phillies got one in Houston. Could be a lot worse.

I experienced the dull and boring gameplay of the beta and saw how many basic features that were in past CoD games are missing from this game at launch. This game is an abomination and I'm glad I didn't waste money on it. Two more years on BOCW will be way more fun.

Zikten posted...

This game better not end in a situation where the Phillies would have won if the homerun had stood

That would suck, but it was clearly a foul ball. When they showed the camera angle looking at the foul pole from fair territory, you could clearly see the ball vanish behind it to show that it was in foul territory. The right call was made that time.

And of course when we finally see the ump "check" Valdez as he's leaving the game, the ump only lazily checks the palm of his pitching hand and not the glove hand with obvious discoloration that we've seen him going to all game

Zikten posted...

Everyone is watching to see the Astros fall.

If the Cheaters win another WS this year, then I'm definitely not going to be watching next season. I'm done with this sport.

https://twitter.com/MarkBermanFox26/status/1586521030868275200
https://twitter.com/HardRockSB/status/1586514513666637824

skepticalthinkinganimegirl.jpg

Bigbot84 posted...

The league has moved on.

Well, the fans haven't. The fans want justice and accountability, which Manfred and the league failed to deliver.

Zikten posted...

Hoping for repeat of last night

I could do without falling behind 5-0 to start the game. Aside from that, yeah.

spikethedevil posted...

A shame we got good remakes?

They were "passable" remakes, but not "good" remakes. Compared to how much extra content was added in HG/SS and OR/AS compared to the originals and how those remakes also took elements from Crystal and Emerald as well, BD/SP got the short end of the stick by comparison.

I don'tplay this franchise, but I was so happy for the fans and this Twitter account when the reveal happened and they could finally say "there is news"

https://twitter.com/DailyBayonetta/status/1441170459551174660
https://twitter.com/Googleygareth/status/1441175101874053120

https://i.imgur.com/araadJc.jpg

DeathVelvien posted...

go Phils

Jeff_AKA_Snoopy posted...

Fuck the Astros

Flockaveli posted...

I don't go for the Phillies but <u>FUCK</u> the Astros.

All of this.

Renne posted...

Robertson.. I'm gonna fucking puke

Robertson was actually on the 2017 Yankees team that got screwed out of a WS appearance by the Houston Cheaters, so I'm glad he got the save and got at least a small measure of revenge for 2017.

First game goes to the good guys!

J.T. REALMUTO DOES IT AGAIN!!!! FISH REPRESENT!!!!

(cap)

NICK CASTELLANOS WHAT A CATCH!!!!

(caps)

Ouch, I hope Realmuto is okay

Miami Marlins legend J.T. Realmuto comes in clutch!

slightly less pain

pain

Let's go Phillies!

Zikten posted...

Time to banish the Astros to the moon

I'd rather send them to the Shadow Realm. It's what they deserve.