kal i had an interview with harvard and im fucking stressing because i feel like i sounded so contrived and worried the entire time. like my answers were fine but its just sometimes i felt that i was rambling on and on about something this woman couldnt bring herself to care about. is it wrong of me to feel a little bitter? here i am doing an interview with a person who will forever be financially better off than me because her and her hoity toity husband are both harvard law graduates. meanwhile, i was given an interview but in the same way meryl streep goes take a chance, hire the fat smart girl in the devil wears prada. unserious and ultimately a falsely kind gesture before eventual rejection. according to the harvard crimson there were about as many students here in the top 1 percent by income as the bottom 60 percent in 2017. like fuck your stupid interview and your billions in endowment and your colonial history and your silencing of students. whatever. and i still would matriculate if i got in and could afford it. i feel like a hypocrite.
welcome to higher education. this feeling does not go away but i find it’s better fueled into 1) combatting imposter syndrome 2) use your position to help boost other poor kids up too. like u said majority of them are rich hoity toity losers who quite frankly are not that smart so it’s hard to put much credence to their opinion of you. being poor at a rich PWI made me adopt a positive absurdist philosophy i think. everything is silly and all those legacies wish they could be as interesting and enduring and fantastically talented as not only the 1% of normal people who get in but also the 99% of normal people who don’t get in and still have more merit than they could ever dream of
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got the badges for gone fission evp 400 + evp 600 yesterday! .52 gal, l-3 nozzlenose, dread wringer, and squiffer make for quite the synergistic team!
my peak was EVP 810 (appx 300-310% HL). my high score of 151 eggs was obtained somewhere in evp 300...? i'm pretty satisfied with how it went, even if i didn't get HLM or 9s.
some thoughts/reflections on good freelancing teams/traits to develop when trying to rank up in evp under the cut:
i think grinding this rotation was pretty fun- all of the weapons have excellent mobility and i think they cover for each other really well! the l-3 was not my favorite weapon going into it but i think i really enjoyed the accuracy and mobility of it, so it's a bit more favorable for me now :)
i ended up reaching a skill wall in EVP 760-780 where i could not get past wave 2 or 3 (usually for quota related reasons, the quota is BRUTAL! we'd miss it by like 4-5 ish... ofc this partially relates to how well bosses are handled).
the grind for evp was a mix of freelance and grouping up (freelance for 230 -> 440s, grouping up for 440 - 750~, and then testing myself in freelance for that last bit).
i enjoyed the bits of freelance i did, and from my playtime i think these were some of the key traits/practices that indicate "good salmon run skills" to me:
players that know their weapons role(s) and target the appropriate salmonid (but also being willing to break that when priority targets haven't been taken care of)
knowing when a teammate needs help (with a boss or being revived) or when the teammate has a situation under control (e.g. someone's already on the fishstick, you can do something else)
proactive use of specials when problem targets appear, preferably with no overlap (e.g. tri-strike and inkjet activated on the same flyfishes is not the best)
using specials like booyah bomb, triple splashdown, and reefslider to clear basket area in the last 30 seconds to help eggs get in (especially important past evp 600)
teams that paint the walls first thing (especially whoever had the dread wringer). all interior walls for fission can be painted within the first 10 seconds imo
forwarding eggs closer to the basket after splatting static bosses (throwing one egg, and then swimming up with one)
players with good judgment; knowing when to lure (mostly for initial boss spawns), and knowing when to leave the big shot cannon
being able to figure out which directions snatchers come from and what eggs they can help you collect
i think these practices all stem from having good awareness and being able to collect information about the shift. it helps with making snappy quick-fire decisions, and it just gets more important the higher up in EVP you go. camera positioning/control is essential for this (you can't figure out where bosses/teammates are if your back is turned to them).
for me, every 7-10 seconds, i like to rotate my camera around to the opposite side of where i'm currently looking to make sure there isn't any bosses i'm missing. i'm hardly in one place longer than 5-10 seconds and i try to always be on the move. the spawn direction where salmonids come from are always changing, so it's essential to rotate around the map proactively rather than reactively. i think this also helps a lot with shotcalling in groups too (since you can be someone else's pair of eyes).
other than boss spawns/teammate locations (for revives), i think it's also important to notice when certain bosses haven't been taken care of for prolonged periods of time too, so that a special can be popped. to me it's usually a sign that someone whose ill equipped to deal with that boss has been forced to deal with them because the people with the "right" weapon are focused on something else... (no fault to them, of course, everyone has different priorities and you can't always communicate clearly in freelance)
in situations where squiffers were chased by a pack of scrappers, perhaps a booyah bomb or splashdown can be popped to help if you don't have the time to stun and splat them manually. maybe the fish sticks were left unattended by the shooters, so a triple inkstrike or a crab/inkjet shot can help clear them out.
awareness also extends to meeting quota, which imo involves paying attention to the timer + where eggs are located. i find that it's nice to check in with the timer/quota at 50s and 30s respectively so that you can start forwarding eggs closer to basket. and when everyone's going crazy about quota not being met i try to make sure i'm not overstepping anyone else's egg pile so that no one goes "wait no thats the egg that i wanted to pick up fuck i have to go back and get a different one."
i think this is why sometimes playing in groups is easier. if you have more sets of eyes that you can communicate with, it alleviates the need to have awareness of "everything" (provided that you can comms effectively). someone can be attuned to different things (e.g. my friend always tells us where snatchers come from and if they're good, i'm personally attuned to where people need to be revived, etc.). you also know what specials you have access to, unlike in freelance where you're not sure what others have until they use them.
the other part of completing shifts successfully (to me) is being mechanically sound with your movement, mostly in regards to how you use the terrain (walls) to get around the map and escape situations. the more you play a map the more you'll figure out how you can move around on it.
some examples, using the location callouts from salmonrun.ink: there were a few times i'd go on the harbor but i could escape any salmonids in the bridge area by climbing the walls there and squidrolling out as needed. sometimes on high tide i would swim from the perch to the left plat.
sub-strafing is also good to know too, especially when you want to rapidly collect the basket eggs at the end. i still need to integrate it into other parts of my gameplay, but it's helpful!
uh. this was way longer than intended because i have WAY too many thoughts about salmon run. TL;DR: The key to succeeding your shifts is having good awareness which comes from good information collecting practices, and having the mechanical skill to act on that awareness without hesitation.
there's definitely a lot that goes on in sensory overload the game™, so it will take time to build these muscles and reaction times. i think while at every rank of salmon run you may face a wall of "i'm overwhelmed by the bosses," the exact fix needed to get past it usually varies, so it's important to figure out what information you were missing or what actions you could've taken (more efficient movement or special usage, usually).
or if you're struggling with quota, try to practice forwarding eggs or take a look where snatchers come from (even if people splat them, it's still a good practice 2 develop for later evp. source: i don't fucking do it and it's biting me in the ass)
and most importantly, recognize when you're in the midst of a loss streak/skill wall, so that you can take a break and focus on other things that energize you! even if there's a certain goal you want to meet, grinding for higher levels of EVP and getting better at the game can be a very exhausting process. you can always come back to the grind later, whether if it's after a 30 minute break, or just a different rotation!
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Is there any non-spoilery way you could talk about how isat isn't just about timeloops? because like I do want to check the game out eventually for sure if only because indie fun times but I'm busy for a while before I get the time and tbh I'm just not as curious because I don't know how it's gonna break that formula (also ngl no colors makes me lose 50% interest because I like. looking at colors. lots.)
UHM OK WELL UM. hm. how DO i do this without spoiling anything. im very not good at describing things especially things i Really enjoy so how do i put this . hold on i might need to look at some reviews so i know how to words. ok
as a disclaimer i havent fully interacted with a lot of (if any??) media that has timeloops so i cant say for certain what it does differently from similar media that makes it stand out from others. at the same time ive never seen something that is so directly About Timeloops in this way even if i consider stuff ive heard about in passing but i could be wrong (madoka n utena come to mind ?). ill try to think abt the things that arent Just timeloop related plus the stuff u mentioned and hope that helps it feel more interesting and less generic?
i think one of the main things i can say is that it Really makes you feel what the protagonist is feeling. more than anything ive ever watched or played or whatever . and thats saying a LOT given how much i empathize with protags in games. and its not even just an empathy thing here. both the story progression and the gameplay work in such a way that you experience pretty much everything the same way they do, while still having their own personal stuff u can learn about of course
on that note tho. that is actually something to be careful of for a few reasons. i know ur generally pretty good with darker content so i doubt thatll be a problem for u here (its not that bad tbh but there is IS a warning when u open the game/look at the steam page and it aint lying) but. due to the nature of timeloops. it CAN get tiring and this is very much intended. and this helps a lot w the story and themes in a way that its. like. think how kh days does repetition on purpose. its a lot like that (although i had way easier of a time getting thru isat than days? i cant remember how u feel abt days' gameplay but i think it was positive ? either way getting thru isat was way more bearable than days imo). it does do a good job at balancing this with a couple mechanics that mean u dont have to repeat everything all the time (i had like. Very few actual full loops by the time i finished) and theres ALWAYS new things happening, even if ur super thorough with everything. its pretty easy to do things at whatever pace u feel like and if u wanna focus on the main story only to make it easier it wouldnt take too much away from the experience (tho i do encourage talking to the npcs at least a few times), and theres always a goal to work towards. also dialogue skipping and the banana peel are ur best friends
sort of adding onto that. it really, really helps that u are sharing the experience with the protagonist. not only does that help u relate to them (even if u dont share as many traits w them as i do akvdjsn) but theyre probably the most beloved character in the game and for good reason!! its really fun to see their interactions with the rest of the main cast and the npcs, and watch them all develop in different ways throughout the game. and my goodness all of the characters are beautifully written - at first ur kinda thinking ok its a ragtag group of sillies in an rpg whats new. but their personalities and relationships and hobbies and problems and everything about them is just so well done.. they feel so natural. human even. every conversation feels real to me. one of the main themes of the game is the concept of change, and each of them represent and approach it differently, both positively and negatively. its hard not to fall in love with them as individuals and as a group because they just have so much going on, even the ones i didnt expect to like at all!!
the worldbuilding is also a fun spin on fantasy rpg worlds. it mostly revolves around the area u play in bc well. of course it does. but its vv interesting to learn about all the different cultures within the world and how they interact with and build on the themes of the game. theres all sorts of queer stuff going on and its all handled like a love letter to people who relate, and i can feel it even with what i dont relate to at all!! the way "magic" works and the ways people use it in battle and everyday life is super cool too, makes the whole thing feel a lot more believable and realistic :3 i dont wanna talk abt any specifics bc its more fun to learn abt this stuff ingame
OH AND THE TEXT.. EFFECTS?.. idk what to call that but the way dialogue (both internal and external) is written and programmed is funky as hell (affectionate). it was weird at first bc oftentimes (mostly for humor) its like. almost the way i type actually?? which feels strange in a legit game but it Works. it works so well and adds tone and vibes and a Voice in a way u usually cant get in a game without any voice acting. deltarune is also good at that but this one does it differently enough for me to consider it unique
HAVE I MENTIONED THE ART STYLE i love the art style . its so charming and expressive especially all the talking sprites n battle portraits. simultaneously silly n adorable while fully capable of being serious. and creepy. anyway look at the sillies i love them n their designs dearly (especially Siffrin (1st on the left) and Mirabelle (2nd on the left))
also on that note, the lack of colors....... i both totally understand being put off by that (i also love looking at colors n this part made me feel weird abt it when i was thinking abt getting it at first) and personally enjoy it? without saying anything spoilery (bc its really not), its just another part of the worldbuilding and themes that i now find really fun :3 should be noted that i usually have an anti blue light filter so it mightve been easier to look at w the yellowish tint going on. maybe it even looks better that way ? kinda reminded me of old films now that i think abt it.. neat!!
as a last thing i couldnt quite insert somewhere else. it is equal parts a comedy and a tragedy, and it is so, so effective at accomplishing this. the humor is fantastic and adds to the games' and characters' personality, every tragic moment is . for lack of a better word or phrase. absolutely fucking delicious. and i adore how well it can shift from one to the other gradually or in an instant, or just be both at once!!!! yippee!!!!!!!
aaand thats all i can say. i have no idea if that cleared anything up BUT i encourage u to give it a try bc i do think youd like it in the end. u probably wouldnt finish it as fast as i did but that might be a good thing jfbskndj but yeah!!!! in stars and time!!!!!! its good and i love it!!!!!!!!
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