Posted by from MMO Champion
Season of Discovery Hunter Adjustments - April 23, 2024

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

This morning with scheduled weekly maintenance, in addition to previously-planned adjustments to other classes, we deployed several changes to Hunters in Season of Discovery.

Hunter

Rapid Killing now reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire by 80% (was a reduction of 2 minutes).

Chimera Shot weapon damage percent increased to 135% (was 120%).

Explosive Shot base damage before attack power increased by 50%.

Sniper Training has an additional new effect: while Sniper Training is at 5 stacks, Aimed Shot is instant.

Serpent Spread now causes Multi-shot to apply Serpent Sting to its targets for 12 seconds (was 6 seconds).

Steady Shot now deals 100% weapon damage (was 75%).

As we previously noted, there are more adjustments coming for Hunters and other classes. In general, we intend to improve the ranged playstyle and diminish the melee playstyle so that the two become more equivalent.

We apologize for the confusion caused by the changes above going live earlier than intended, and we intend to post more about further adjustments soon.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: A lawsuit is alleging Amazon was so desperate to keep up with the competition in generative AI it was willing to breach its own copyright rules. From a report: The allegation emerges from a complaint accusing the tech and retail mega-corp of demoting, and then dismissing, a former high-flying AI scientist after it discovered she was pregnant. The lawsuit was filed last week in a Los Angeles state court by Dr Viviane Ghaderi, an AI researcher who says she worked successfully in Amazon's Alexa and LLM teams, and achieved a string of promotions, but claims she was later suddenly demoted and fired following her return to work after giving birth. She is alleging discrimination, retaliation, harassment and wrongful termination, among other claims.

Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
When I started playing Fallout 76 in 2018 there were no backpacks. So I never thought about it. But when I learned from a random comment that backpacks had been added after that point and had been in the game for years, I felt stupid for never crafting one. And then I went to collect the recipe for a pack and felt…

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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the first-of-its-kind department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There's a new Linux distro on the scene today, and it's a bit specialized. Its development was led by the automotive electronics supplier Elektrobit, and it's the first open source OS that complies with the automotive industry's functional safety requirements. [...] With Elektrobit's EB corbos Linux for Safety Applications (that sure is a long name), there's an open source Linux distro that finally fits the bill, having just been given the thumbs up by the German organization TUV Nord. (It also complies with the IEC 61508 standard for safety applications.) "The beauty of our concept is that you don't even need to safety-qualify Linux itself," said Moritz Neukirchner, a senior director at Elektrobit overseeing SDVs. Instead, an external safety monitor runs in a hypervisor, intercepting and validating kernel actions.

"When you look at how safety is typically being done, look at communication -- you don't safety-certify the communication specs or Ethernet stack, but you do a checker library on top, and you have a hardware anchor for checking down below, and you insure it end to end but take everything in between out of the certification path. And we have now created a concept that allows us to do exactly that for an operating system," Neukirchner told me. "So in the end, since we take Linux out of the certification path and make it usable in a safety-related context, we don't have any problems in keeping up to speed with the developer community," he explained. "Because if you start it off and say, 'Well, we're going to do Linux as a one-shot for safety,' you're going to have the next five patches and you're off [schedule] again, especially with the security regulation that's now getting toward effect now, starting in July with the UNECE R155 that requires continuous cybersecurity management vulnerability scanning for all software that ends up in the vehicle."

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Posted by Moises Taveras from Kotaku
Helldivers 2 players have strong feelings about the planets they’re fighting to defend in the game’s ongoing galactic war. First there was Malevelon Creek, which became a notorious hotspot for players, after it was dubbed “Robot Vietnam” due to its flame-spewing robots, jungle setting, and significant difficulty.…

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Posted by Eric Schulkin from Kotaku
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Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
Metaphor: ReFantazio, the upcoming RPG from developer Atlus’ Persona team, will bring in a lot of elements from its predecessor when it launches in October. This includes turn-based combat, social elements called “Bonds,” and a time management mechanic as you live out individual days. But one thing that won’t be…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the loosening-group department: Apple's iPhone sales dropped sharply in China in the first quarter of this year as the company saw strong competition from domestic brand Huawei, according to a new report from market research firm Counterpoint Research. CNBC: Apple saw sales of its iPhones fall 19.1% in the first three months of the year, Counterpoint's data showed, as Chinese telecommunications and consumer electronics giant Huawei saw a resurgence in its smartphone business. The Shenzhen, China-based firm saw sales of its smartphones surge a whopping 69.7% in the first quarter, Counterpoint said.

Posted by Jesse Vitelli from Kotaku
Everyone’s favorite Destiny 2 dog, Archie, is back in the tower with the new Into The Light update. However, he’s not in his usual spot, and we’re going to have to go on a hunt to find out what he’s up to. After all, there’s a triumph titled “Where in the System is Archie?” that rewards players with the Blue Steel…

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Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
Microsoft and Marvel have teamed up to create a new X-Men-themed Xbox console that looks awesome and comes with a Wolverine-inspired controller, too. Sadly, this new console isn’t for sale and can only be won via a limited-time sweepstakes.

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the no-shortage-of-scamsters department: An anonymous reader shares a report: For years, people who have found Google search frustrating have been adding "Reddit" to the end of their search queries. This practice is so common that Google even acknowledged the phenomenon in a post announcing that it will be scraping Reddit posts to train its AI. And so, naturally, there are now services that will poison Reddit threads with AI-generated posts designed to promote products.

A service called ReplyGuy advertises itself as "the AI that plugs your product on Reddit" and which automatically "mentions your product in conversations naturally." Examples on the site show two different Redditors being controlled by AI posting plugs for a text-to-voice product called "AnySpeech" and a bot writing a long comment about a debt consolidation program called Debt Freedom Now. A video demo shows a dashboard where a user adds the name of their company and URL they want to direct users to. It then auto-suggests keywords that "help the bot know what types of subreddits and tweets to look for and when to respond."

Moments later, the dashboard shows how Reply Guy is "already in the responses" of the comments section of different Reddit posts. "Many of our responses will get lots of upvotes and will be well-liked." The creator of the company, Alexander Belogubov, has also posted screenshots of other bot-controlled accounts responding all over Reddit. Begolubov has another startup called "Stealth Marketing" that also seeks to manipulate the platform by promising to "turn Reddit into a steady stream of customers for your startup."

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: General Motors (GM) has been selling data about the driving behavior of millions of people to insurance companies, leading to higher premiums for some drivers, according to a recent investigation. The affected drivers were not informed about the tracking, which was carried out through GM's OnStar connected services plan and the Smart Driver program. The New York Times reporter who broke the story discovered that her own driving data had been shared with data brokers working with the insurance industry, despite not being enrolled in the program. GM has since discontinued the Smart Driver product and stopped sharing data with LexisNexis and Verisk, following customer feedback and federal lawsuits filed by drivers across the country.

Posted by Joe Moore from The Toyark


Starting on April 23, a new series of action figures based on the Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa will become available to pre-order. The figures are being produced by the Nacelle Company, who have shared the first photos and ...

The post Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa by The Nacelle Company – Pre-Orders Now Open appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by from MMO Champion
Get Up to 33% off Select Game Services

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

It’s a great time to dive into daring adventures in World of Warcraft® when you make the most of 33% off select game services through May 7.

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Posted by from MMO Champion
Mirrorwatch Begins Today - Overwatch 2 Limited-Time Event

Season of Discovery - Testing Adding Damage Reduction to PvP

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hello, Classic PvPers!

This coming weekend, we will test an adjustment to Player versus Player combat in Season of Discovery. We will implement a global damage reduction aura on PvP combat between players (and player controlled pets and other units).

When we started Season of Discovery, we knew that PvP would become significantly more fast paced and bursty, with each class being capable of significantly more damage output, and this quickly proved to be true. We experimented with a damage reduction aura in battlegrounds during Phase 1, but it didn’t work as well as we hoped, mostly because healing was scaling more aggressively than damage at that point, causing healing classes to become significantly more oppressive in battlegrounds than they normally would be. Now that we’re in Phase 3, we’ve made many changes and added more runes, and burst damage has significantly outpaced healing output, so we feel that it’s a good time to try this again.

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations."

As a result, Apple is expected to take a "conservative view" of headset demand when the Vision Pro launches in additional countries. Kuo previously said that Apple will introduce the Vision Pro in new markets before the June Worldwide Developers Conference, which suggests that we could see it available in additional areas in the next month or so.

Posted by Willa Rowe from Kotaku
The latest bundle on indie game storefront itch.io, known for donating some of its proceeds to a good cause, is the Palestinian Relief Bundle. With Palestinians suffering unspeakable loss, along with starvation, a massive shortage of healthcare resources, and other humanitarian issues, the bundle is raising funds for…

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Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
On April 23, Fortnite Festival Season 3 launched, adding new music, skins, features, and tweaks to the popular rhythm game mode that lives inside Epic’s popular online battle royale. The big news is that players can now use plastic guitars while playing Fortnite Festival, making the mode just a bit more like Rock…

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Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
Metaphor: Refantazio is the next game from the Persona leads at Atlus, and while it has some similarities to the franchise (it’s a turn-based, social sim-driven RPG), it’s adapting a lot of those concepts into a medieval fantasy setting rather than a modern-day high school. On April 22, Atlus held a 25-minute…

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Posted by Claire Jackson from Kotaku
As an RPG, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has a number of character stats that influence various aspects of a battle. Luck is perhaps one of the less understood ones. Not only is it an attribute worth raising, but certain characters, like Cait Sith in particular, can benefit from a high Luck stat in some dramatic ways.

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