I think you can make an argument for both, but it's probably ceiling being lowered first.

Floor MIGHT be lowered because of what you said -- the average APAC teams underperforming, especially with current meta. The thing is we can't really check... they may have improved relative to other regions but the same teams qualify to intl's every time so we can't know for sure.

Ceiling is definitely lowered because the most consistently good teams (namely DRX and PRX) have gone from being considered a favorite every tournament to being more dark-horse picks. And while GenG has improved drastically they aren't as dominant as they probably should be (and also they have really bad showings sometimes... GenG was a Champs favorite that got grouped, that's never a good look)

GX believers in shambles

We love ChickenJoe all my homies love ChickenJoe

I doubt it, fantasy has never been monetary on the actual dev side (unless it's a gambling site I suppose). In every sports fantasy league I've done any bets are done between the players (such as an entry pool, last place doing a punishment at the end of the season, etc)

Unless the plan is to have an "entry fee" where the funds go to the top X players at the end of the season, which is just the entry pool I described earlier but with extra steps

addiction is very powerful.

why do people smoke cigarettes knowing it's severely bad for their health?

why do people play valorant knowing it's severely bad for their health?

It's a fun game, but it gets stale VERY quick once you reach the current end-game. With the amount of content that's out there now a new player would be occupied for months. The worldbuilding and music are fantastic (I unironically listen to the OST pretty often). It's really just the combat (and the English VAs if you play on English) that can get repetitive really quick unless you actively seek a challenge or a new team comp.

A lot of my enjoyment came from competing with my friends to see who could deal the most damage to an enemy in a single attack. I would farm the best artifacts and level up entire teamcomps to level 90 to get that damage up. But, I farmed so hard that I was cruising through the story and eventually I was done doing nothing but Abyss and wait for the next patch.

I would recommend since there's a lot of content. Just, take care not to spend much (or even better, don't spend at all). I played Genshin for a long time but I never spent a penny.

Arsenal

Current favorite: Myles Lewis-Skelly
All-time favorite: Santi Cazorla

this might be the worst website to ask for their opinion on women

Yeah the only times you'd be seeing your own skin in Valorant are in the agent select screen, the one Champs 2024 Phantom emote (if you don't have it, you're SOL), and your corpse if you have corpses on. You'd only be seeing the hands holding the gun while you're alive. Maaaybe some voice lines are changed or sound different.

In Overwatch skins are very visible -- hero select, the in-game weapon, voicelines and sounds, and the million emotes and POTG highlight intros each character has.

what no derke does to a mf

real talk BBL did great, hope they go far this season

Poland is an FPS powerhouse. A lot of good Polish players in CS past and present. Thinking of the old Virtus Pro days as an example

There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and SEN vs 100T in every regional tournament

bro is internet explorer

sorry this is VLR, logical thinking is something that isn't used here often

ascent shouldn't come back for at least 6 months.

you're telling me pearl and fracture were sent to the shadow realm for over a year but ascent only gets a couple of months? cringe

it's only been two weeks and this is already a frontrunner for The Worst Fucking Post On This Website In 2025.

i'm impressed

2G

though i know later down the line i will switch so it may also be a Colombian challenger team (likely EXL if they keep their core, which i like), or Flyquest RED since they're my favorite GC team

Will likely not be anything else

i have not touched valorant or overwatch since december

and it'll probably take another month of hela dominance (if the health nerf doesn't change her at all) before i consider playing another game lol

I hope you're finding peace with what happened. Losing a pet sucks.

I will say it's more common than you think. Pets obviously can't communicate explicitly what they're feeling, and so something they've been fighting might come as a surprise. Furthermore, the older the pet, the more likely they'll develop health conditions. Hell, even humans sometimes don't realize they have cancer until it's too late to treat. What I do hope is that your dog lived a happy and fulfilling life and that they passed peacefully.

As for moving on -- like the others have said, everyone moves on at their own pace, but no one moves on completely -- we just grow as people. My dad is nearing 60 and still talks about his childhood dog and how much he misses him, and I imagine I'll be the same when my 12 year-old schnauzer passes too. What helps people ease their pain is the memories they've had, and that always includes pets too. Grief helps us remember who and what it is that we love.

favorite player seems a little much, but two flairs i could definitely get behind. i'm usually switching between the teams i'm supporting on VCT or GC or Challengers so being able to rep 2 at once would be great

This isn't to say that Tejo won't actually be broken on release, because you never really know.

It's just very annoying to see people immediately jump on the hate train for an agent that hasn't been released yet just because their kit looks OP. I thought we'd learn by now that kit reveals don't mean shit until the character's actually out.

When Deadlock was revealed everyone thought she'd be busted because the wall looked strong and the ult looked busted. When Vyse was revealed everyone thought she'd be busted because the wall looked strong and the ult looked busted. Turns out they were both relatively underwhelming. And, very few thought Chamber was going to be busted and he ended up being the most busted of all.

I thought it was kind of clear that Rito prefers to release agents in slightly weaker states, so they don't break the meta, and later buff them (if needed). Neither Neon or Iso were considered gamebreaking on release, but imagine if they had been released in their gigabuffed states from last year. Gigabuffed Neon was what got me closest from genuinely quitting the game forever.

What I'm trying to say is, stop using 30 seconds of video and streamers' day 1 opinions as the indicator of how good a character is going to be. You have to give it a week or two or three. You need to let people find the bugs and exploits and techs to see if they are actually good, because a strong-looking character could be underwhelming and a weak-looking character could be gamebreaking.

You forgot:

Vyse release -- what?!?!??!!? her ult makes your primary weapon useless???? actually gamebreaking??? rito wtf

Ngl I think you're correct. It would fall in line with existing trail abilities like Skye/Fade dog and Skye ult

My question is whether you can destroy the missiles like you would a Skye ult or old Skye bird. If not then I agree that the ability with the common opinion that it might be busted. Otherwise it might be ok.

I swear I've played in the exact place he played in! It looks super familiar. Great video I agree

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet -- been off VLR for a while and searching the forum doesn't show anything.

Tejo's name is also the name of a sport that is very popular in Colombia!

Tejo is a sport that uses a metal or stone puck (called a tejo) that you chuck at a small board full of clay and some small targets made with gunpowder (called mechas). It's an old sport with links to the aboriginal people of the region. Points are scored based on where the tejo lands in the clay, with extra points depending on if a mecha is popped. For the Americans, think of it as cornhole but with more kaboom. It's a lot of fun to play and it's the second most played sport in Colombia after football. In my family it's quite common for a group of us to go play tejo and drink beer just for funsies on any given afternoon.

I think the name fits the agent quite well considering that three of his abilities are explosive related (two grenades and one explosive airstrike). And of course, bringing a little attention to a sport I love is more than welcome.

Wikipedia
A random youtube showcase of the sport

I dislike HenBabyH

Iirc in Korea you don't have to officially enlist for your military service until you're 27 (you have to enlist before you're 28). so assuming they haven't completed their service yet, they still have a couple more years

cloudberry being a constant positive presence makes this website bearable

yeah just don't start failing courses. do enough that keeps your grades and GPA respectable but you don't have to be perfect anymore. big congrats and welcome to the MechE world!

It's going to sound weird but I argue it's due to the difference in the pressure you feel.

I played a few collegiate games but my team was nothing serious. Our highest-ranked player was immo1 at the time (imm2 now i think) and we were facing teams that had multiple radiants, so we obviously weren't expected to play well and just tried to have fun. My diamond ass would sometimes go crazy against these immortals though, which I know wouldn't happen in ranked. We'd obviously never win, but I'd have my moments. I have a clip somewhere in a Discord server with me 1v4 clutching post-plant against one of the top-ranked teams (we lost the map 13-2)

In customs with friends (10mans) I usually instalock a character I really want to play and try to play them in a silly way. I never touch Yoru in ranked but I always play Yoru in customs because I want to cheese and annoy my friends.

if you play ranked (soloq, stacking, whatever), there's something you can lose -- your RR. in customs or tournament play, assuming it's not a SERIOUS serious tournament with big money on the line and you having an actual shot of winning, you don't have anything to lose, really. so, you don't feel that same amount of pressure IMO.

sen city invitational...

seriously?

Harbor's in a tough spot because if you buff him he'll just become a staple in double wall meta which everyone collectively thought was boring and annoying. But none of his abilities function that well as solo smokes. I thought Abyss would be an okay solo smokes map for him but I ended up just playing Astra again (biased because Astra's been my main since 2022).

I fully see (maybe even expect) a potential rework to remove his waterfall ability and replace it with some different thing. Maybe something like a stim beacon/damage amp. A flash wouldn't make sense and neither would a molly, and the stim beacon effect is only seen in two characters (brim and reyna empress giving the faster firing and reload). We also already have enough "space-creating" offensive walls (pheonix, neon, iso)

Harbor just needs something that makes him even appetizing to play as solo smokes and when all of your abilities are smoke abilities you feel kinda useless. That's why I think the waterfall is the most expendable. The orb is a good concept and the wall is fine even if it's just so Viper isn't the only one.

-xeppaa

complete the cycle

one by one they are all replaced by runi and vanity

C9 dropped moose, and you know what that means

time to call him back from retirement

+vanity incoming

an actual outrageous take! i don't agree with it one bit, but you understood the assignment

NRG is definitely a Top 10 Americas team this year

i just like LATAM/BR ascension teams and want them to succeed

not an outrageous take because this is true for any new esport.

if Marvel Rivals ever goes that way and tries to become an esport I bet you half of the rosters will be ex-Overwatch pros

there are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and NRG vs BLG in the lower bracket

he's in a coma after NRG lost to Rapid Lofi -- he'll be back 2025

This is a take that I have for both Valorant and Overwatch:

Some agents/heroes should just be bad/niche forever for the health of the game -- not every character has to be meta, and in fact having certain characters be meta is actively unhealthy for the game

A good Valorant example is recent Neon. Like yeah she was bad prior to that, but those that knew how she worked could still cause some real damage with her (even as like a surprise trick pick). But gigabuffed Neon recently just felt really stupid and unfun and I'm glad she got nerfed recently. The more agents that are added to Valorant, the more this issue will pop up. Similarly, Chamber is in a weaker spot right now but I much prefer that over the cancer that was his prime.

A good Overwatch example is Roadhog. When Roadhog is meta literally no one outside of the Roadhog player is having ANY fun. Not to mention that whenever there's a Roadhog meta there's usually an Orisa meta close behind it and that's equally as unfun

the prophecy must be fulfilled

I play a lot of OW2. Rivals is a lot of fun. As a OW player it's a breath of fresh air. It's been easy for me to pick up but that might be my existing familiarity with TPS (Fortnite, Deadlock) and crazy fast shooters (OW/OW2, TF2).

There's been a handful of optimization problems. I run a pretty high end machine and sometimes the game crashes on startup. No real clue why. For the friends with lower-end computers they have a lot more issues, but I imagine it'll get better with time.

In terms of balance, it's fun because no one knows what the meta is yet. Everyone's just trying out heroes for funsies. The moment a meta develops is when all the balance problems will start rearing their ugly heads. I personally think Hawkeye and Mantis will be among the first ones to be labeled as "broken." That'll be the time I decide whether the game is actually enjoyable because that's when the dev team will actually do balance stuff (if they do).

My one major complaint is the amount of clutter on the screen. I have friends tell me they don't play OW2 because the sensory overload from all the colors and noises is a lot for them, but I feel like it's even more so in Rivals. There's never been a moment where a character isn't speaking so that's just constaint noise going off. There's also the destructible environments creating even more clutter sometimes. Idk, it might just be that I became desensitized to the OW2 clutter, but I doubt it's just that.

Recon lineups, as many as you're willing to learn. Aayan's comment is a good start but there's a caveat -- people adapt lol.

I've learned that a lot of people that try to learn lineups for attack side just end up using the same one or two every single time so it gets predictable. And often (at least when I solo q) the Sova player just kinda short-circuits because their precious lineup was solved and proceeds to do nothing the rest of the round. So, I personally didn't bother to learn many recon lineups. I like to wing it often, and that randomness usually catches someone off guard because they expect the recon to land in the same spot every time.

For defense, there's a lot of power to anti-rush darts. Like right when they're executing a site, just hucking a recon at the back wall as they push out usually gets me or a teammate a free kill through a smoke because they either have to run back to main or turn around and try to break it, and again having some randomness and chaos to it makes it easier

There's a big lack of context that is just making any discussion a whole lot harder.

You're allowed to full-buy any gun you want. It's not in the "rules" of Valorant that you HAVE to buy phantom/vandal/op/odin every buy round. What actually matters is your skill with said gun. I'm sure you've seen those "sheriff-to-immortal" videos. Do you only use the judge but still perform well relative to your team and still contribute a lot? Great! Do you only use the judge but you bait your team and are useless 80% of the time? Not great!

That's why I think context is important. Like yeah, she has more kills than her ally Neon, but how did she get those kills? Were those from actual team fights or were most of those kills exit frags or the result of baiting her team? Has she been picking up rifles to drop for her team or is she keeping the bulldog from round to round? Like sure that montage at the end is great and all but how did the rest of the game go?

Either way, based on the little context provided, I think that argument was more the result of general team tilt, because their whole team wasn't performing that well even with the comeback. I don't think she did anything particularly wrong. If anything, I agree with her that I'd be more tilted at the Iso for ulting with a ghost than the Clove for buying bulldog all the time LMAO

Well yeah, if you don't use Twitter much then obviously there isn't much incentive for you to switch. I'm the same with Snapchat -- it's why I never got into stuff like BeReal. I never liked the Snapchat streak system and BeReal is literally just that but on its own.

I will note that a lot of my friends that switched from Twitter to BlueSky have said that BlueSky feels a lot like OG Twitter, so BlueSky has that going for it. That's another reason why BlueSky actually has a shot at succeeding -- meanwhile Threads just saw that Twittter was weak for a second and released a half-baked clone with no distinctive qualities.

Threads was rushed, unpolished, and permanently tied to the Meta IP in a bad way. I knew from the moment it was released and I downloaded it that it was going to flop INSTANTLY. Just the fact that your Threads account is permanently tied to your IG account is enough to turn 80% of users off. Not to mention that Instagram constantly advertising Threads is annoying enough to probably turn the remaining 20% off too.

IMO Bluesky has a MUCH better shot at succeeding right now than Threads ever did.

I feel like Reels has been pretty successful though. At least a million times more successful compared to Threads. Threads sucks balls.

Considering I've used Twitter for over 10 years I can safely say it's at its worst state right now and getting even worse. But Bluesky needs more time to settle, since it's a coinflip on whether any social media platform sticks.

Bluesky does have some hope in that it's taking advantage of Twitter's failures (better than Threads did, anyway) to grow, and obviously the popularity and role of politics is influencing that a lot too. Usually, when one social media platform falls, another takes its place. Discord wouldn't exist if Skype stayed relevant and if Mumble or Teamspeak didn't flop.

edit for spelling because i'm dyslexic

The mashed potato + gravy combo is very difficult to beat

Honorary mention pumpkin pie and apple pie because those are goated too

never forget