#time’s crucible

[gotyouanyway]

was skimming through time’s crucible last night and man shonnzi is a brat but i can’t say he doesn’t have an excuse

[r-aindr0p]

Another cooking event, yippee !!

I love Jamil just outright refusing to eat the food and then you have Kalim suffering in silence and eating because he's too nice

[nervouspearl]

[malignedaffairs]

The anchor ring that houses the base

[twstfanblog]

*Set during the Culinary Crucible*

*Sebek sets a 1 star dish out*

🐲: Ugh

🔪: Shut the fuck.

🐲:

🐲: Excuse me?

🔪: Look at Sebek. Look at him right this second.

🐊: 🥺

🔪: Shut the fuck up and eat the shitty pasta.

🐲:

🐲 *Eats the shitty pasta*

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Elden could have been actually good if it had like 50 bosses that were unique instead repeating the same ones again and again

[ladyoftheburn]

Simon: im not gay

Also Simon, in a fight, looking at Baz: That’s an attractive way to die

[st4rshiptr00per]

GUH

[intuitive-revelations]

Rewatched Heaven Sent a couple weeks ago (I was flying back from a research conference in San Francisco, and British Airways had it available to watch, which was a pleasant surprise) and man, I've got to ramble a bit...

Something-something about how the Confession Dial is clearly pulling elements from the Doctor's childhood. This has been said before of course, but when you really pull everything together, it sure does paint a picture.

It's unclear whether this was the original intent for the soul-catching ritual (which is presumably what the dials are used for, making them a sort of Matrix data slice like Nethersphere), or something added by the Time Lords in corrupting it into a torture chamber, but it's there.

From the teleportation chamber loom...

...to the night sky being a 'burnt orange'...

...to the lilies flowers of remembrance for the lost dead...

...to sentient buildings...

...to that internal soup parallel, both alone in the dial and surrounded by their cousins at the barn...

...to the jars of dust.

And speaking of that "tall woman" in a "grey shawl", who is also oddly oversized, as if putting the Doctor in the perspective of a child,

and is explicitly a nightmare from the Doctor's childhood:

a woman who died, but seemingly passed away far quicker than anyone around her expected (and all the implications relating to that and connecting to the identity of the Hybrid)...

Finally, and this is definitely a stretch, but think back to the room numbers. The Doctor has to find room 12.

Fittingly. But if 12 corresponds to the Twelfth Doctor, then what about those other rooms...?

They must also correspond to incarnations, right? It's not like the God Complex - there was only ever one prisoner in the confession dial, after all.

Incarnations, numbering "a bit confused", in a fascimile of the Doctor's childhood home? Huh...

"Illogical house, a construction that makes no sense..."

[gotyouanyway]

reading time’s crucible before lungbarrow actually bc i remembered to. and um. it’s scary 😐

[r-aindr0p]

✨Bon appétit ✨

[heimeldat]

[corallapis]

[...]

@firstofficerkittycat re: rassilon and onions.

[thefirstknife]

rip gambit you will be missed 😔

Don't even know what to say tbh.

For those that don't know, the big State of the Game article came out detailing incoming changes and adjustments and all the big stuff. Gambit was mentioned! But at what cost. Basically, they are ceasing any kind of support for Gambit. What we have now is what it is. We will get the Dreaming City map back in TFS and they will add Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive as enemy factions in TFS. That's all.

Full text:

As many of you have noticed, we’ve been quiet on Gambit since last year’s overhaul that launched alongside The Witch Queen. In that revamp, the team made significant changes across five categories in Gambit: core activity fundamentals, Primeval tuning, invasions, ammo economy, and rewards. Unfortunately, these updates didn’t move the needle for player engagement. Although we know our Gambit fans mostly care about new or returning maps, this is an area of the game with lower engagement that would take resources away from more popular parts of the game to shore up.   While we don’t have plans to dedicate more resources to significantly transform Gambit, we do have a few updates planned for the year of The Final Shape. These include porting the Cathedral of Scars map and its beautiful Dreaming City setting into the latest version of Destiny 2, as well as adding the Shadow Legion and Lucent Hive enemy types. 

I don't know how to tell you this Bungie, but the reason "engagement is low" in Gambit is because Gambit sucks. Ever since half of it was removed with DCV, it just sucked. It has no variety, the gameplay is largely busted, it's not sufficiently updated, ammo changes suck, invasion cycle sucks (why is the enemy even getting a portal when their Primeval is at 5% health and the other team is still in mote collecting phase is beyond me), there are no cool armour sets to chase (just look at Iron Banner and Trials stuff, imagine dedicated cosmetics) and finally there are simply no weapons that are worth anything. Both Vanguard and Crucible have more weapons and also adept versions. There is zero reason to go into Gambit without major changes to Gambit. And now with the further changes to how playlists and challenges will work, there will be even less reason to go into Gambit. Observe:

Before then, we’re making Gambit entirely optional to maximize your rewards unless you’re looking for a piece of gear that’s specific to the mode. Gambit will continue to serve as a source of Exotic engrams via weekly challenges, though as we mentioned above, you’ll be able to complete all your weekly challenges in any ritual you’d like starting in Season 22. If you want to stick to Vanguard or Crucible challenges without touching Gambit, now you can.  We’re also reducing the number of Gambit-specific Seasonal Challenges starting in Season 22, so players won’t need to bank motes to be able to earn that big purse of Bright Dust for completing nearly every challenge in the Season. Finally, we’re adding Fireteam Matchmaking to Gambit next Season, which will replace the Freelance node and should result in faster, better matchmaking by combining both Gambit playlists. We’ll keep an eye on reception and player engagement after these additions take place, and we hope you’ll visit ‘ol Drifter next Season to get your hands on his new Void Machine Gun. 

Ngl, but I don't think anyone besides like a total of 6 people will play Gambit next season. The incentive to go in there is completely removed. You won't even have to go in there for pinnacles or for challenges. The Void Machine Gun will not be enough of an incentive because the chance of that gun being better than two recently available craftable Void Machine Guns (Commemoration and Retrofit Escapade) is very low. And besides, once you get it at the end of your first match, you can leave Gambit forever.

This is the feedback loop that just reinforces the idea that people don't like Gambit. And I mean. Who would at this point. I'm pretty sure that if Crucible had stayed the same as it was at the start of Beyond Light, engagement would be low there too. But you know. Crucible has received major updates pretty much every season since with multiple new modes, several Trials overhauls, Iron Banner overhaul, competitive overhaul, new armours and weapons added and YES, even new maps. God forbid even 5% of these resources went into Gambit.

Anyway, this is the whole section about Gambit in 6500 words. It's basically a "you guys aren't playing this so we're doing the bare minimum of keeping it in the game as is, no new work will be done on it ever." Thanks I guess.

And for the record, something I also added while having a rant in my discord, I want to make it clear that I don't want anyone to spiral into a Bungie hate train. Even for this. I understand perfectly well what's the community attitude towards Gambit and what it's been for years now. People just don't like it and they're not incentivised to like it and they're actively encouraged to hate it. Spending resources into a game mode on the hope that maybe you can change people's minds would be insanity. Like, the amount of change Gambit would need to MAYBE start appealing to gamers would be beyond any reasonable time and resources Bungie can put in. And if you could guarantee that people would love and play Gambit then, fine. But you can't. Most likely, even if major changes happened, people would still just do their weekly stuff and bail. It's simply not worth it. In order for people to like it, it needs to be completely and thoroughly overhauled in a way that would need more time and effort than the entire Light subclass overhaul and it's just not a reasonable expectation, nor is it guaranteed to work. So I get it.

I'm still disappointed and annoyed about it because I believe it wasn't given a fair chance at all. I also know how good it can be and how Gambit Prime could've been improved upon over the years if they tried. Instead, it got removed and that was honestly the death sentence for Gambit. It's unfortunate. It's my favourite game mode that could've been so much better was it given even a fraction of attention of Crucible.

I'll still be playing it. You will find me in the Gambit queue waiting for 2 hours to find 7 other lunatics to play with, don't worry about it. But I'm absolutely incredibly sad about them being basically forced to axe the potential of the whole game mode that is incredibly creative and fits with the type of game Destiny is perfectly.

There's other interesting stuff in the article and some upcoming really cool improvements and changes to the game. But if you're a fan of Gambit in any capacity, this is a death certificate for the mode. I suggest coming to terms with it quickly because Bungie changing their minds about this is highly unlikely.

[wildtornado-o]

The sopping wet meow meow ever. God this poor man. He must've been absolutely freezing </3

Anyways. Forthing in an actually almost bottle green coat jumpscare

Og Image for the first one under cut

[silverskye13]

Played Elden Ring for way too long tonight, but after beating about 6 bosses, I think I've finally proven to myself that I can play the game---