Mantle isn’t gone, I was mentioning it in that sentence because it was one of the new features people complained about at the time (yes, really).

The problem is people conflated the anger about Halo 5's genuinely crappy story, and initial knee-jerk reactions to the changes (myself included to an extent), with the ultimate state of the sandbox after people played more. Most people I know generally liked the sandbox once they got used to it. Boosters were fun.…

fps gaming on consoles is a subculture with a certain feel that’s very disrupted these days, and I’m not sure how much longer it can reasonably exist.

Halo was the game in college (I’m old now :P ) that convinced me and many friends that FPSs on console could be fun. It was revolutionary for consoles in general in that respect - opening them to one of the largest genres over the following years.

The biggest surprise to me here is that it applies when you are standing still. In Destiny aim drag only kicks in fully when you’re moving (added incentive to not stand still like a nitwit). Even with this though, having played a handful of rounds, Halo still requires significantly better aim than Destiny. Honestly I…

Walmart is one of the worst places to look honestly - they are too popular to hold on to any stock. Try urban (in less populated commercial districts in particular) or otherwise small/convenience Targets, and sometimes Best Buy. They tend to get overlooked. In my area the suburban Targets run out of stock immediately,…

Yup, the Series S is in stock for a good 24 hours at Target every time it comes in. And especially if you aren’t on a huge 4K TV or have a family who can benefit from the second console long term, it’s well worth snagging one. It performs admirably well for its size. Load times alone are fantastic.

It’s the same argument, at it’s core - it’s the same emotional logic.

Is the current population of Trials affected purely by the new SBMM?

Just no. You need to go on a long walk in the woods and realize that no, not everything in the world is political. Or if you don’t understand that maybe you can ask that black bear to go easy on you because you didn’t bring proper survival gear.

It’s not subjective, and it’s not based on the loudest voices. Populations dip lower over time when SBMM is on. Period. Yes, a significant portion of the population has an easier time of it but the playlists are unable to maintain healthy populations over the long run. In D1 bungie tried to tune this over, and over,…

And I realize it’s easy to read politics into everything these days

‘the game is only fun for me if I can tell myself I’m making it not fun for someone else’

SBMM in destiny has always failed, but players conveniently forget that at least once a year. We’ve had this tug of war ever since D1, and for the vast majority of players, sweaty or otherwise SBMM just doesn’t play well because it doesn’t play to the power fantasy and the connections go to crap because of the P2P…

Also, you know, there’s actual matchmaking, taking progression into account, rather than just throwing you up against the first player (or set of players) with a good ping.

In the broader computing world we’re being told outright there will NOT be relief on shortages until at least 2023 now. So if anything it’s a pretty sure bet that a year from now we’ll still be struggling unless they’ve moved enough units so far to be near saturation.

There are far more new players in the game than you might realize. And as with the discussion above about Warframe, the story is only tangentially related as to whether people stay - it’s more about do they enjoy the game loop of combat, abilities, farming, and most importantly to many - playing with friends. Neither…

For sure, My PC has a 1080 in it, so I’ve been using the Series X and Geforce Now when I want a little raytracing action. I don’t expect to be able to get a new PC for at least a year due to the shortages, so this will do for now.

Much as I wish it weren’t the case, if you think this behavior makes them truly unemployable, you haven’t been watching the recent years of US and European politics an corporate behavior. There are plenty of niche companies happy to hire these assholes and wipe their history under the rug. The entire existence of that…

I think for a lot of people the Xbox is now more about having a gaming PC replacement for gamepass games, especially with the lower up front cost, GPU shortages and so many people living most of their lives on laptops. If the hints at proper Discord integration on Xbox (and PS5) ever come true so that cross-play chat…