Personally, I find “5% of the time the outcome is astoundingly good, and 5% of the time it’s shockingly bad” kind of unsatisfying. Jarring, even. Picture playing darts and every 20 throws, missed the dart board completely, no matter how good you are at darts.

I haven’t played pf2e but I think degree of success is a much more reasonable system.

I also prefer games that aren’t flat probability. When you only roll one die, every outcome (on the die) is equally likely.

But I think a lot of people playing DND don’t really care about rules, consistency, verisimilitude, or much anything beyond “lololol and then Kevin crit his stealth check so we said the goblin king didn’t see him at all as he stole the throne the goblin was sitting on!!!”. Which is fine, I guess.

I’ve always refused to pay a subscription, so I relate to that. I’m a big fan of Guild Wars (1 and 2) for not having one, and not having a power treadmill. It’s nice to hop in after a while away and still be competitive.

I did get an old partner to play Path of Exile for a while. We still laugh about how that was kind of an anomaly - they don’t normally like that sort of game at all, but somehow we spent like 2 months hammering on it together.

Always looking for good couch co-op. My current person isn’t much of a video games person, but Cat Quest II has been good fun so far. The Binding of Isaac was a little too much for them.

Anti-american sentiment is largely justified. There’s concentration camps and masked men kidnapping people off the street. People are proudly wearing the maga-hat symbols of trumpism.

(Unless she also likes MMOs, then you’re meant for each other)

My friend’s brother and brother’s wife play WoW together. They have their living room set up so they can play side by side. It’s nice they have a fun hobby they do together. (They also engage with real life, but they live far away so I rarely personally see them)

It bothers me when christians are like “god sent a plague because you’re gay” but not “oh wow there was a global pandemic after we elected one of the worst humans on earth”

Who has money to spend on a subscription?

Also even when I had money, I don’t want to keep buying the game every month. It’s stressful, and sometimes I like playing other things.

I think when you entered a channel you didn’t get any of its history.

My ‘needs’ include what makes me want to continue living, regardless of what it looks like from your perspective

My parents would fight about this sometimes. They would blur “need” and “want” together, and that caused difficulties. It’s imprecise and, in my opinion, immature, to conflate the two categories. If you’re looking at a budget and you smush everything into “needs”, how are you going to know what to cut? The electric bill by any reasonable metric is more important than another lego death star, assuming you plan to continue living in society.

Furthermore, “I can’t quit my job at [evil megacorp], because then I might not be able to do luxury dining experiences as often” is laughable. Like, sure, there’s no way to live pure in our capitalist hellscape. We all have bills to pay. But highlighting “I like broadway” as the justification for “I help build AI used by ICE to deport people”? Come on. I’d respect it more if they just said out right that they don’t give a shit about other people. At least that’d be honest.

I don’t think most people could live on 65% of their current income. Many people are poor and can’t handle a surprise $500 expense.

I could live happily on the median income of my area (NYC) - $113,400. Even if I got a more expensive apartment, I could make that work.

I do wonder about people’s budgets sometimes. One of my friends has crushing medical, student, and credit card debt so they’re always struggling. But another friend was like “I can’t leave my job at [evil megacorp]! I need the money!” But when pressed slightly, their “needs” included broadway plays, fine dining, and every hot new game on steam (that they don’t even play). Most people are probably between those two extremes.

Many men are emotionally unable to accept things like this. I think the reasoning goes like

• i’m a good person
• i like my hobby
• someone is saying bad things about my hobby
• this makes me feel bad, so it must be false
• furthermore, the person bringing it up is attacking me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance

Facts don’t matter. There’s really nothing you can do if you’re not someone they like.

I also think about this comic a lot: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1151.html - Some people are too cowardly to grow.

Suozzi should eat shit and die. Guess we can’t all get what we want

Inspiring

Have you tried explaining something to someone lately? A lot of people don’t care and don’t understand. About anything

How many of the bosses can you walk in and just wipe the floor with on the first try

A pretty good amount, though that’s confounded by playing lots of similar games over the years. But, like, I see the boss lift his weapon way up and I go “I bet he’s going to swing. I should get out of the way.” Sure, there is an element to “I’ve seen this before - I know if I run behind him after the big butt stomp I can hit him easily”, but that’s hardly unique to fromsoft.

What sort of games don’t have enemies that you learn their moves? Like, you play Baldur’s Gate 3 and you learn “ok, that wizard has Sleep prepared, I should keep my HP up.” Or you play Hades and learn “ok, these guys like to charge but then take a second to recover”. This complaint is not unique to souls-likes but I don’t know if I’ve heard it brought against any other game.

“Souls-like” games - memorise attack patterns, the game. Not hard, just tedious.

Are people memorizing attack patterns? This one comes up a lot and I don’t really get it. The boss does a thing and I react, which is how most real time combat games are, I think?

I guess something like Skyrim you mostly just stand there and trade blows.

I know I’m biting bait but I rarely got jumped by the “guy around the corner” traps because I looked before walking in. Counter intuitively, running in will also often avoid the worst of it.

I remember people complaining about the floor traps in the first game and I was like “you mean the raised tiles that are a different color? Yeah I was careful around those”. Player messages also help.

It’s okay the game isn’t for you - but “literally can’t win on the first try” is hyperbole.

How does Joseph Ladapo sleep at night? Probably soundly on a mattress full of money.

I assume he’ll be spending a lot on security

RFK should be removed from office

I also don’t recommend bringing all that technology. The best of road trips I’ve done were from interacting with the other people. You can play elden ring at home. It shouldn’t be a priority.

I had a game boy on several road trips I did with my parents, and I barely remember the trips. I had nothing but a flip phone with one I did with friends, and had a lot more fun with them. Maybe because I was older and they were my friends, though.

Bring some low tech entertainment. Cards. Small board games. Dice. There are light weight pen and paper rpgs and word games you could do on the go (eg: Fate).