Eh, as one of those FFT superfans, the problem is we want a battle system with the depth it has, and it’s not that nothing else measures up. It’s that nothing else comes even remotely close. Disgaea, Tactics Ogre, all of them. They’re playing checkers and Tactics is chess. Sure, the storyline was also amazing, but that is less unique. Vandal Hearts, for example, had a pretty good and suitably epic plot, if nowhere near as captivating. It’s the insane customization of units that gives it such longevity. I tried the second Merc saga for a bit on my phone, and may give it another go eventually. But it didn’t feel like it would do more than just scratch the surface of the itch. We never can get a true deep scratching in anymore except from endless replays of the true standard-bearer itself.
Just out of curiosity, did you ever try Fell Seal?
It’s hitting a lot of the same buttons for me (on Switch), interesting classes, abilities are pretty interesting, leveling is different. Story is somewhat mediocre. Good solid tactics.
I have not heard of that, no. Might have to check it out. Trying not to buy many more games until I get back in a writing groove, though. And I am on a hard ban on Into the Breach until I hit a couple more milestones on my next story. It is that rare game where I can sit down at 11 to play it for ten minutes and then it’s 2:20 in the morning and I am stiff because I have barely even moved a muscle. Absolutely addicting, even after getting all the achievements and unlocking every mech team.
Really, without exaggeration, if I have my fitness tracker on when I start getting deep into ItB it thinks I am in a light sleep.
Here’s a link to the main site.
There’s some DLC in the works.
I’m slowly working my way through my first playthrough. The differences are interesting: e.g the items are X uses per battle, and everyone can use them (not bound by class). So if you have 2 potions, 1 antidote, you can use that amount per battle, no need to spend money on buying more. Instead they’re crafted, and getting those can be mildly irritating (it uses a Poach like skill to get them from enemies). There’s so much more too. The changes were pretty smart in my opinion.
Overall, worth my money.
I’ll admit, part of my rabid fandom for FFT is simply because it is Final Fantasy. For the most part, the jobs, items, abilities, summons, monsters, etc. are all Final Fantasy staples.
It is also one of those games that is both deep and simple at the same time. I’m sorry if I sound like I’m always knocking Disgaea, because I really don’t dislike the series - I just don’t prefer it; there are just too many systems in that series. FFT allows you to customize your job/ability builds but the system is rather straightforward with the JP system.
I also much prefer a FFT item system where two of the same item always have the same stats and there is no item leveling - that makes it more exciting for me to find new items. If I could potentially buy 10 basic swords in a shop, find the one that has the best stats, then level it nearly infinitely, the quest for better items becomes less exciting.
As for why FFT is better than other games/series like Jeanne D’Arc, Luminaia, Suikoden Tactics, Tactics Ogre, etc. it is more indescribably subjective, but again, it may just boil down to my first point - Final Fantasy things will always be my favorite.
Happy Friday the 13th, the start of Diablo III Season 20, and Path of Exile’s Delirium League! 
The countdown timer on the Path of Exile website shows less than four hours to the start, I plan to roll up a summoner this evening and see if I can safely wash ashore and see how I do making my way as a new exile. 
I finished the three act story/campaign of Wolcen this week, where I taught some demons that I was not to be trifled with:
I then dusted off my joystick to fire up the latest edition of IL-2 Sturmovik, where they take the flight simulation from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in the later war years, with IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Bodenplatte.
I was pleased to see that the Tactical Air War multiplayer server admins put up a shorter two-map “trial” 1944-45 dynamic campaign on the Western Front this week, up until now they’ve previously run their dynamic campaign with an Eastern Front plane set, and maps, from the IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Moscow, and Battle of Kuban editions. (You only need one edition/game to participate in any multiplayer server, you can fly any of the maps, but you can only pilot aircraft that you own.)
Tactical Air War (TAW) is a simulation of the World War II conflict from the military pilot’s perspective. It’s an online 24/7 campaign with a dynamic front-line and a limited semi-historical, balanced plane set.
Pandemic.
And Plague, Inc.
Isn’t everyone doing that?
Any thoughts on a decent summoner build?
I love summoner style game play!
We are! I’m not a huge fan of Plague, Inc., so I only ran through it once, but I’ve introduced my 7-year-old to Pandemic and he likes it quite a bit. We will be playing every variation of the game over the next few weeks.
@Baelnor , I’m a PoE novice who, with a friend, was going to use this Delirium challenge league to finally figure out PoE. I’ve only dabbled with PoE in the past, but my friend was interested in learning PoE this round, too.
I was leaning towards working with this build to see how things go, I appreciate the discussion in the “3.10 Updates” section of the recent patch notes for the Delirium league, and how it affects the build: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2642810
I’m hoping for something tanky, and forgiving. I’m not in a hurry to clear content. 
I have been wanting to try GeForce Now, and see how cloud gaming PC games on a Mac goes. So will probably test it with PoE this weekend.
I’ve never played a summoner, but if you want a tanky, unconventional summoner (unconventional in that it only has one summon), my friend played this build in the last league. It seemed to have similar dps and better survivability than my vortex build that probably had 10x as much invested in gear.
what is like the easiest noob, aoe, starter build?
I play one league a year now, so I’m a bit out of the loop on what is good at the moment. I’d just check out a couple videos on Delirium starter builds from any of the big PoE streamers (Mathil, ZiggyD, LiftingNerdBro) And see if any of them catch your eye.
I think this is the most popular summoner build https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2642810
I am going to try this.
I fired the game up a little on GeForce Now last night and it was really good. They are a customer of ours though (I work for Akamai) so it’s probably my company’s technology that makes it good! 
@kennfusion Oh, cool, that’s the one I linked earlier that I’m trying, glad to see you also independently arrived at the same build.
I saw ds_lily was running a necro build so put her twitch stream up on the second monitor. She’s doing a SSFHC (Solo Self-Found Hardcore) race type of deal. She’s been up for 19 hours now, is in third place, I’m not young enough to even consider something like that! 
She’s running a “slave driver specter necro” build, which must be forgiving since it’s a hardcore so permadeath (well, moved out of the Hardcore league, anyway, upon death) and with SSF can only use items that she finds herself. She has a PoB pastebin of her build, https://pastebin.com/GQGynqTv
I did plug it into https://poe.technology/poebuddy/GQGynqTv and gave it a look
In other news to keep my mind occupied, Stellaris Federations DLC launched today which I will start playing now.
But damn, those Stellaris Trailers keep getting better and better. I REALLY like what they are going for there. Especially the 1-2-Combo below
1:
2:
But in overall impact the Stellaris: Apocalypse Story trailer is still the best imo:
I also really dig the the Stellaris OST. While it didn’t surpass the overall playtime of the Mass Effect Series playtime, it eclipsed the Borderlands OST and XCOM/Deus Ex OST recently and will probably even eclipse the Mass Effect OST. Given the countless hours I had that OST playing it seemed impossible 2 years ago, but well…honestly its that good!
Rocking the summoner build, I’m the world’s slowest ARPG player, I play a summoner like it’s a turn-based party RPG, heh!
Trying to stop myself from breaking all the urns down in the Crypt, it’s a compulsion, but they don’t drop anything worth the time it takes to click them. I do like that with PoE you can reskin your summons. The default zombie skin is kinda gross, can get a mummy skin or the “celestial” skin that I’m using out of the store. They are more specters than zombies, now, and it’s easier for me to pick them out of the crowd. I figure it makes as much sense as a humanoid zombie being “resurrected” from some non-humanoid mob that I killed, I figure it’s more of a spirit summons from their corpse … 
I tried PoE a little on PS4 and just couldn’t get in to it. I don’t know why, because I love ARPGs. It may be that I had just come off of a lot of Diablo season play. There were two things about it that struck me, though:
First, there didn’t seem to be any weight to your attacks. I don’t know how else to describe it, but I felt like I was swinging and their health was going down without and solid impact.
Second, cosmetic shops and skins really, really hurt these games, in my opinion. Half the reason I play ARPGs is to find sweet loot and make my character look cooler. In a way, it is like playing with paper dolls. Being in a world where this guy over here paid $10 to look the way he did and this guy over there is a whale who looks cool because of money not time/luck just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The fact that the towns are instanced makes this even worse because I’m always surrounded by pets, auras, skins, etc. that people are simply paying for.