I think the removal of the soul sharing on the ult is a nerf to Vindicta overall, but we’ll see. It’s easier to counter one hero with big net worth than having it evenly spread across her whole team. At least in theory.

Lots of huge changes, not sure how I feel about some. I love the Urn adjustments toward being a better comeback mechanism, it was definitely more of a snowball mechanism before.

The changes to backdooring and to Walkers and Guardians I’m very on the fence about. It’s very clear they want game speed to go down (and at least in my Emissary games they have definitely often been going 40+ minutes). Will be very interesting how it plays out, from the looks of it all your buildings will just fall apart after 14 minutes now. Also really encourages rat gameplay, splitpushing and suiciding objectives which I don’t really enjoy.

Not surprised Shiv got the nerf bat, he was out of hand. Very surprised Infernus and McGinnis weren’t nerfed harder, especially Infernus. For me personally I’m happy about the Mirage buffs as I spam him, I think the Spirit build will be actually good now.

Kinda sad to see Leap gutted even though it was clearly overpowered. There is something to be said for allowing items that are that fun to be a little broken.

Yeah I really like it for the retro-futuristic theme of Bioshock, not sure about it meshing as well with an outright futuristic setting as in this game.

That’s a BioShock looking logo and font, for sure. Has anyone played this? Is it any good?

Ray tracing seems more like a technology that is being pushed to sell hardware, rather than actually improving graphics efficiently.

If efficiently is the key word then I agree with you. Ray Tracing is definitely still extremely expensive as far as performance goes. But I do think we’ve also seen it actually add marked improvements to the graphical impact of games.

Definitely. Diminishing returns applies to everything to such an extent I almost consider it a law of nature, and we’re definitely hitting that zone with both polygons and pixel density in my opinion.

I only played the seven games necessary for a placement as I’ve been busy and also often lack the energy to properly focus on Deadlock. Given the quick play lobbies matchmaking has put me in (I was in a ~1100 neko score lobby the other week) I was bracing for a garbage rank as I also know my aim isn’t good and I’m getting older - though I don’t know if stuff like accuracy and movement is considered by the algorithm.

Ended up as Emissary which overall is a rank I’m quite happy with. I’ve mostly had a positive experience with ranked so far, so I just hope I’m not put in a skill bracket that’s too high for me to keep up with.

It will most likely be a bell curve distribution as usual, with Eternus 6 and Initiate 1 being the by several magnitudes most rare ranks.

I don’t believe this to be the case at all. I thought the jump scares were almost perfectly timed and measured in order to build tension, and were a vital part of the excellent tension/release flow of the game.

+1 recommendation from me, both are absolute classics with some wonderfully memorable level designs.

These are good additions and all, but not sure they merit a specifically titled “Anniversary Update” patch.

Nice work! Really looking forward to seeing your reactions to Alan Wake 2 in the near future.

So it does. I couldn’t bother reading the logos when there was an amazing picture to look at. Good thing I’m not a police detective I suppose!

Same, fucking hell. When did this become a socially acceptable norm?

That was my first thought too, “man this must be colorised right? Or…?”

Stunning picture, looks like a movie poster.

The days of guaranteed chaos are over in F1, at least within these regulations. The drivers are higher quality than ever and the cars are more reliable than ever. This was what, the first safety car in 9 races or something like that? I remember a few years ago when a big deal was made of the first incident free F1 race ever (no red or yellow flags and all starting cars finishing the race) and now that is pretty much standard procedure.

I too will attempt to pretend the title race is still on, but I’m not exactly holding my breath.

Yes, this is exactly why it’s so important to not leave things unchallenged! Human brains are so susceptible to absorbing ideas through osmosis by just reading statements while scrolling.

Still fairly early for color photography, no? Looks incredible.

I’m not sure I agree with that assessment, but I hope you’re right. The Red Bull has looked more hooked up this weekend than it has in months (at least in Max’s hands) and to me the sprint victory looked fairly comfortable and assured. Part of it will have been enjoying clean air but Lando was far from the fastest car yesterday - would have been overtaken by both Ferraris would it not have been for his excellent start I think.

To me it looks like the Red Bull upgrade package finally put them back on top (or at least even) and Max will win most of the races from here on out - he is the best driver after all so you need clearly superior machinery to have a chance against him, which it looks like is no longer the case.

Not thrilled to see Max back in the effortless winning ways as I had hoped to be delusionally hanging on to the title fight the rest of the season for personal enjoyment.

That notwithstanding, what a great sprint. COTA is just a top, top track. So much thrilling wheel-to-wheel action, this was the perfect return after the long break. Hoping for an even more action packed race tomorrow with strategy coming into play too. Even with the new tarmac the track should be fairly demanding on the tires so could be some interesting strategies tomorrow (I hope).