Not gonna lie, this is one of my favourite videos on the channel (the full one not the short)

but we're super even in this game and we just got wiped at fire, if I died here we would have likely lost 1-2 phoenixes and be put in a really bad situation, if not lose the game right there and then

BUT THE GOOBIS CANT BE STOPPED

aladdin is simply nuts lmfao

put on yo juke shoes, feelin funky fresh

I think I'd like to steal some inspiration from League of Legends here!

When you think about winter, what do you think of? Sleds! Snowball fights! Forts!

I'd like to propose an (unrealistic) gamemode of a snowball fight!

It'd take place in a modified arena setting, probably, but the map is covered in several feet of snow! Gods can auto attack to "shovel" wide paths in the snow, allowing the map to change over time (ranged auto attacks would take two hits to break a path!). By shoveling snow, you gain charges on your snowball active item! Tossing the snowball, if it hits an enemy, will "mark" them, allowing you to "slide" over to them through walls, like in League's ARAM map!

I really like the idea of shoveling snow to change the map's geometry throughout the match- being on the arena ruleset, minions would also auto attack a path (slowly) down the center of the map, which would make for a funny situation where like 30 minions clash in the center eventually.

Instead of the juggernauts, I think kills eventually "snowing in" one half of the map, collapsing some of their pathways, would be fun. This would also allow for the lategame to go later, as arenas often end just as I get full build, which is always disappointing.

You could have mountains replace the spectators in the arena, and maybe avelanches could happen periodically, creating a hazard for characters like Hercules to push you into!

Anyways, that's my silly, probably half-baked idea, but I think it would end up being some good fun if implemented properly!

Honestly, this Game Awards was one of the better ones.

Obviously, many of the nominations made no sense, the board of voters were filled with clueless games journalists - and even non-games journalists, but overall the winners made sense.

While I have some personal gripe with making Astro Bot GOTY over something like Black Myth Wukong, since Astro Bot is a walking Sony advertisement and I can't play it if I don't own a PS5, it's acceptable and Astro Bot looks like somewhat of a return to form for casual platformers, which is always great- Mario can't lead the charge forever, hopefully.

The performances this year was amazing. Flute guy was iconic as always. The orchestra is filled with talented people, and the celebrity cameos weren't obnoxious and cringe, but fun and interesting. Snoop Dogg's performance was great. The ending medley was amazing. It was so much fun to watch.

The trailers this year, like every year, were a bit of a mixed bag, but a huge improvement over last year's awards. Honestly, I thought the Intergalactic and Witcher 4 trailers were awesome, even if I probably won't be able to run either on my quickly aging laptop.

Ultimately, this year's game awards soared past my relatively low expectations and I think it restored a lot of goodwill that they didn't let some of the god awful nominations win their categories. I have little to argue over with the winners of each categories and that left me feeling rather satisfied by it all. It was good fun to watch with the homies and I will be tuning in next year!

It HAS to be Titan Quest 2!

TItan Quest 1 was one of the most entertaining ARPGs that I've played from that era- it was heavily inspired by Diablo 2, as all ARPGs of the time were, but put a unique mythological spin on it combined with brighter visuals and more fantastical settings, which really appealed to my Percy Jackson brainrot at the time.

Titan Quest 2 is such a massive jump in fidelity, quality, game feel, etc, that I think it will be a smashing success. It plans to release in early access early winter 2025, and I simply cannot wait to play. Also, the trailers are absolutely amazing.

Simply put, Diminishing Returns is a reduction on crowd control that is applied to a character in quick succession. It's a simple mechanic, but since it's hidden, it's hard to know exactly when it's being applied.

If you have a Ymir freeze you with his 3, you'll suffer the full duration of the CC. However, if said Ymir used Staff of Myrddin to use his 3 twice in a row, the second crowd control would be a certain percentage reduced- in this case, imagine the CC goes from 2.0 seconds to 1.4 seconds. If you're then hit by an additional CC, said duration could be reduced to say, 0.8 seconds instead.

I'm playing with loose numbers here, but you get the idea! After a few seconds of not being crowd controlled, you lose your DR stacks, allowing people to hit you with fresh CC again.

This system is in Smite 2 specifically to prevent people from infinitely ccing a target- Smite has a lot of crowd control, and has a lot of items and systems to lower the impact of it while not removing crowd control in its entirety. CC Buffering was added recently, which helps meter the impact of CC-Heavy teams. DR (diminishing returns) is simply just another system that allows the Smite devs to help you keep control of your character in the thick of it, especially if you're a tank and can survive through multiple crowd controls.

Hope this helps!

Honestly, the CA8 update launched really poorly. Medusa, Pele, and Aphrodite all felt relatively unfinished, Medusa the least so, but Aphrodite and Pele were almost non functional at times. You could really tell that the wear and tear of this incredibly fast paced patching cycle has done to them. That being said, in typical (new) HiRez fashion, the issues were patched out quickly and efficiently and the game returned to a relatively good feeling state. CA8 is in a weird spot, overall. It's the patch that "nobody wants", slotted in just before the amazing upcoming January Open Beta 1 patch, it's more or less just an excuse to add those three new gods to the game.

Medusa on PTS felt very clunky, but when she came to live her oddities were fixed and she played perfectly, and is overally pretty reasonably balanced.

Aphrodite came over and while hilariously bugged, felt rather modest and the +1s to her kit (kissing through enemies, stunning them and still connecting to an ally) (dash on her ult) (reset 3 on her ult) both gave her more opportunities for skill expression, which was sorely needed, on top of just more versatility in general.

Pele had a lot of clunk in the kit, but after patching it out, she overall didn't really get a relevant +1. Her 2 dash is more of a nothing burger than a +1, but she didn't really need a significant +1 anyways, and she fits right in with the rest of the roster.

Eyes are honestly ahead for the Open Beta 1 patch, and while the new additions to the roster are welcomed, I think I can speak for everyone that we all can't wait for Aladdin and co, Joust/Duel, and so on. So while CA8 does its job, I think it was always going to be a less interesting and lower impact patch.

Trying out the new Sun Beam Bow Amaterasu build I got from that Borscht vs T5M's game 3 :). It's real good.

I'm pretty happy with this result! I had to use the awesome metal rendition of the Smite theme by BERNTH! I know they used it for their 24/7 alpha trailer, but I think it's one of the coolest things they did and I'm a big fan of the rendition. Thank god I had several months of videos saved up for this one!

(Edit: I messed up and my footage got corrupted during the end so I had to re-edit the end of the video and re-post it! Oopsie!)