Nelots

I don't think I would call HD2 an extraction shooter. I mean sure, you shoot things and try to extract, but for the same reason HD2 isn't a RPG just because you can roleplay or an RTS just because you need to make strategic decisions in real time, there's a lot more to these genres that HD2 doesn't include. Hell, technically you don't even need to extract, as the only thing successfully extracting gives you is any samples you find... completing the mission counts as a win regardless.

200 pawns? Oof, your frames must be crisp when playing at full speed.

Oh no that's not a screenshot of Terraria, that's actually a photo of me standing next to my computer after I tried running Helldivers.

For The Worthy and Get Fixed Boi (which is just all the vanilla seeds including FTW combined) are both difficult in a different way from something like Infernum. While Infernum completely reworks boss fights, often feeling like a completely different fight all together, FTW is more like Vanilla+. Like, many of the bosses just attack faster and more often, summoning more minions and doing more damage. At most a boss might get a new attack or two, like skeletron summoning dark casters to shoot at you throughout the fight and the brain of cthulhu flipping you upside-down during its second phase. I should stress though, it's not easy by any means. Dark casters interrupting your flow during an already sped-up and beefed-up skeletron fight is surprisingly difficult. It's kinda similar to Infernum mode King Slime, where you need to dodge the slime, crystal, and ninja simultaneously by the third phase (though maybe not quite as hard).

Get Fixed Boi especially is a pretty interesting experience. Unlike most mods, it's got a kinda anti-QoL vibe, making your life more difficult throughout the entire game rather than just during boss fights. Darkness kills you, bunnies explode, you spawn in the underworld, the entire surface is corrupted with spawn rates cranked up, the dungeon is underground, among other things. I'd recommend giving it a shot at some point.

I know Calamity has support for both seeds. It actually has support for FTW + Rev/Death Mode, and additional content for Legendary mode (i.e. Master + FTW) + Rev/Death. I don't know if Infernum supports them, but I'd be willing to bet Legendary Death mode would be pretty similar in difficulty to Infernum, though I haven't tried it myself just yet.

But dying just 30 times to a boss? Took me about 170 attempts to kill King Slime in Infernum, after reworking my arena multiple times. I’m very bad at the game.

I get that completely lol. I've definitely fought bosses before that put me in the hundreds. Hell, I remember when Terraria 1.4 first came out with the "for the worthy" secret seed and I tried that out on master mode. I must have died well over 100 times to the brain of cthulhu in that seed, which is crazy because it's usually one of the easiest bosses imo. For the first time in my life I had to set up a damn vicious mushroom farm because I was shredding through those spawners. And I was playing vanilla! The wall of flesh was equally challenging and annoying to get spawners for. I was using melee, and this was before the huge melee buff that came in 1.4.4.

Funny enough, my current playthrough is a bit easier than it should be thanks to the lag I mentioned. My options are either turn frame skip to subtle, and have my game move at like 66% of it's normal speed (allowing me to react easier), or set it to on and watch as bosses use insane attacks without warning because the telegraph frames got skipped. Bit unfortunate, but I can't really experience some bosses fully, and I can't really do anything about it. That's the main reason I'd recommend using Infernal Eclipse of Ragnarok over Homeward Ragnarok.

I prefer to use mods that make the game far more difficult, like Fargo's Masochist mode or the Infernum mode mod. Sometimes I'll just use vanilla's Legendary mode if a mod has support for that. I'll usually pick one of those three and then I'll sprinkle in a larger compatible mod like The Stars Above along with a ton of QoL mods. I rarely mix more than one or two large mods, as they don't really tend to play well together generally.

Currently though, I'm playing through an ultra-modded modpack I found recently called "Infernal Eclipse of Ragnarok", which is very different from what I normally do. It's a mod made to allow Calamity (plus add-ons like Wrath of the Gods and Catalyst), Thorium, Secrets of the Shadows, & Consolaria to all work work together with Infernum mode. It rebalances bosses and items, adds in new content, and just about anything else you would need to play the mods together without Calamity greatly overshadowing the others in difficulty. Several of these mods add their own version of the thrower class, so they're all merged into one unified class. And Thorium's bard & healer classes have new content added for post-thorium content so they can stay relevant too.

Technically I'm playing an add-on to the modpack called "Homeward Ragnarok", which additionally adds support for Fargo's Souls and Homeward Journey, but I wouldn't recommend it over the base modpack. Homeward Journey isn't really balanced well yet and doesn't have any Infernum mode boss AI, so they all end up being very easy to kill compared to the rest of the bosses. And the sheer amount of content has made the game lag a ton, where my frames drop to below 40 any time I fight a boss anywhere but space (which I have to do a lot of the time).

Still, it's been a lot of fun so far. I beat my first superboss, Astrageldon, yesterday after getting my butt handed to me like 30 times in a row. It's a very well designed boss, and learning its patterns were a lot of fun. I've also been making a bit of a trophy platform, where I'm collecting all the relics and trophies and such for each boss.

Good ol' modded Terraria with a side of Helldivers 2.

Fire makes me happy.

I quite liked Legends: Arceus (pirated ofc) and will likely enjoy the new Legends game too. As much as it sucks to ever defend Nintendo, those two games in particular are exactly what I've been wanting: a Pokemon game that isn't the exact same game for the 17th year in a row.

I haven't actually tried Z-A yet, but L:A was really good imo.

There are three ways to move in Zomboid: walking, running, and sprinting, each faster but more exhausting than the last. You will be tempted to run away from the horde of 65 zombies you just picked up walking through a commercial zone. But you walk faster than zombies, so do not run unless absolutely necessary; you will become exhausted and tire quicker, slowing you and weakening you. The lowest level of exhaustion (out of four) will halve your melee damage and make you move 20% slower, and it quickly gets much worse from there, especially if you're running or fighting. And never sprint. It will get you killed. The other comment mentioned a far better way to lose zombies than running away full speed.

When creating a character, you pick from a list of negative and positive traits. Positive traits cost points which you get through picking negative traits, so you need to balance them. But when first starting out, I think you're better off not touching too many negative traits; you don't want to start the game obese if you don't know how to lose weight or in what ways it will affect you! That said, there are a few smaller negatives worth picking up. I would recommend Short Sighted, which is completely counteracted by wearing glasses (which you can choose to spawn with), Prone to Illness, which is countered entirely by Outdoorsy (a cheap positive trait), and Weak Stomach, which only affects eating rotting foods (which you really shouldn't be doing anyway!). That'll start you off with an extra +8 points to spend on things you want without really affecting you.

I would also like to reinforce an idea the other comment mentioned, it is a sandbox and you can change settings however you like. I highly encourage you to look through them if you get annoyed by something. My friends like to start with starter backpacks and an extra free +8 points to spend on character creation, so I do that when I play with them. And I personally like to change the infection to be transmitted through bites only. There's loads of options to fit any playstyle.

TIL it's okay for kids to die if they're privileged.

And none of that makes it P2W, which is the original claim that I was commenting on. I'm not interested in defending this game whatsoever beyond that.

I feel like that was bound to happen eventually. They're already at over 1,000 pokemon and this is a cash cow they're never putting down. It's still super lame though.