Ranting at the end of the world: The Last Of Us Episode 7 (Show + Podcast)

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  Original rant: LINK
• Episode 5 rant: LINK
• Episode 6 rant: LINK

Last of us? Or the last of flashbacks!?

 Spoilers... duh.

 Flashback episode! You know; because the show was over when we found Tommy last episode so we needed something to make more episodes out of.

 One of my main issues with the show is the representation of the world "20 years later" and this episode did nothing to quiet the screaming in my head.  These folks are awfully lucky that everything just keeps on working 20 years later.  Just throw the switch and every light, arcade cabinet, and whatever buzzes to life.  There is no chance over the 20 something years since the world collapsed that any of the items in a mall would have been scavenged.

 One major issue I have with the show is its lack of ability to build tension. Although I will admit that the mall was a pretty cool setting, we knew something related to the infected would happen since the show is too formulaic to let the infected not ruin the moment. However, the show fails to put the pieces together in any sort of dramatic way.

 Similar to Episode 5, the big showdown at the end of the episode gets minimal setup, and when a single infected interrupts, it feels like nothing more than a reason to ruin the moment. In the game, as I gathered from the podcast for this episode, there are multiple fighting sequences in the mall. These fighting scenes give weight between "scenes" and help build tension.

 In the show we get a quick cut of an infected coming to life (which is baffling; in prior episode these static mushroomed infected are NOT a concern at all) and a couple doom-y camera pans, but otherwise there is not much more going on here than a trip to the mall until a rustling is heard.

 In the show the more the infected show up the more it makes me as a viewer laugh at "what the heck is this infection?  People are really scared of this?".  Again, these mushroom sprouted dead bodies were of no concern just a couple episodes ago but now are coming back to life.  How hard was it to just have an infected stuck in a closet that they opened?  Give us a jump scare after making us feel safe all episode.  We didn't need a poorly "whats that noise" character moment when we knew what the noise was.

 What about Joel?  Sorry, almost forgot we left the last episode on a cliff hanger in the present timeline.  Glad the episode sorted that out and that he will be OK after a gnarly stitch job by Ellie.  I am sure Joel will be back to normal next week. This game, err show, really does love the cliche "video game solutions" whether a flashback scene or a magical cure all solution scavenged nearby.

Some Fun in 2042

Some fun in Battlefield 2042 Season 4

 Patch 4.0 is out and Season 4 is here.  A couple screenshots from last night's session.

LOOK MOM!!!! I'm in first place!

I'll pick you up when you are down (seriously it's what I love to do!)

Ok Maybe?

New World devs flip flop

 In my And Nope post the news broke that New World would not be introducing the ability to upgrade 590+ randomized epic (purple) gear and the patch note was struck from the record. The patch note has now been unstruck from the record with a few modifications (for now; we are still getting the whole thing it sounds like in the future).

 Yay? Maybe?

 Still some details to hammer out with the statement.  It says OPR gear already does this but last I checked that was only Rusher weapons and not just your random 590+ purple armor or weapons from OPR caches.  War is still a cool kids club; one that really honestly doesn't need any more of a reward than it already gives but I can let this slide.  Invasion reward upgrades are a good deal though; it is honestly getting hard to field invasion defenses.  Gear from gypsum casts is the real big one for this change and I am glad I have 100+ orbs saved up!

 As noted it sounds like they want to bring it to the rest of the pile of junk items in the game (at least the purples) so holding some outside optimism on where this is going.  I for one love the idea.

It's The Little Things That Matter in Battlefield 2042

Ah the little things...

 Battlefield 2042 Season 4 is here and the community is excited about the little things.  Mainly some improvements to minimap scaling.

• Increasing the size of the minimap will no longer also increase the size of the icons.
• Added an option to allow customization of the scale of the minimap icons.
• Added an option for the scale of the minimap icons to scale with the view distance of the minimap (Enabled by Default).
  

 I don't really care but the community is excited: It's finally here!

And Nope

 And just like that the New World development team is back to what I like to call "alternative winning".

This was actually a really exciting change that the developers had not talked about as part of this PTR so we were pleasantly surprised to see the patch note.  This would have given an entirely new spin to purple gear that was 590+ gear score and opened more ways to get best in slot gear.

 It was closest, at least in my mind, to the mystic toilet from Guild Wars 2.  Take some junk, toss it in the toilet (upgrading to 600 GS in New World context), and random chance to get something good out of the deal.  

 I am hoping New World is considering this change and it just needs more time to bake before it is brought to PTR.  This would open another path than crafting to gain best in slot gear.  There is a ton of good 2-perk epic (purple) gear that a player ends up with so it'd be great to be able to upgrade it to 600 at a chance for landing that best-in-slot perfect 3-perk combo.  

 Since the gear binds to you when you upgrade it this would marginally impact the market and for the most part leave crafters unaffected as they'd still be the single path for best-in-slot gear that can be sold/traded.

 With the plan to "shake up" balance every season it can't continue to take a year+ to get best in slot gear.  I have close to 2,000 hours played and I have yet to fill out  an entire set and with Season 1 on the way many of my builds are no longer worth investing in so I am starting over.

 So here's hoping the developers are listening!  Get back to winning already!