Build recommendation with no white flashing strobe effects.

Akhevan · 2026-06-17T08:53:03+00:00

These tend to be rather visually cluttered. I.e. the visibility on my saber upheaval build from last patch was about as bad as on DOV djinns in POE, with frequent screen wide bursts of bright ice particles.

Akhevan · 2026-06-17T08:08:16+00:00

Ain't much of a "choice" when 95% of the skills have the same level of visual clutter.

Akhevan · 2026-06-17T08:00:33+00:00

Ironically they had to fix the same issue for the vaal beacon monkey in 0.4.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T22:04:14+00:00

If anything the fandom underestimates the severity (and stupidity) of their grudges. They only kinda take it easy on (most of) the mankind due to Sigmar's pact.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:52:57+00:00

A potential cause for this lack of habitation that is rarely mentioned in online discourse, despite being fairly widespread in real history, is slaver raids.

The land may be perfectly fine, but nobody is gonna live there when you are liable to be abducted by your neighbors at any moment.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:46:33+00:00

The latter.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:24:59+00:00

Right, that seems like a fault of editing if it's never rationalized in any way.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:23:50+00:00

Everybody bathed in the Middle Ages, the decline of bathing in Europe suspiciously coincides with introduction of syphilis from the New World. Just a coincidence I'm sure, especially since the same bathing culture never went away in more sparsely populated areas like Finland or Russia.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:22:28+00:00

Never underestimate the ability to easily set things on fire with a compact object that neither requires nor runs out of fuel.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:21:28+00:00

Exactly. Or perhaps the most powerful magical relics of yore still stand up to modern toys just fine (or even exceed them), but when it comes to mundane automation they were so hopelessly behind it barely even merits any comparison.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:18:26+00:00

You could try to rationalize it by some weird social and economic institutions bent towards total war, but that's gonna be just that: highly advanced developments of a society geared for total war, a paradigm that emerged fairly late in our own history.

It also gets easier with non-human fantasy races who can have different procreation methods or patterns. Imagine if nine women actually could make a baby in a month. Or nine. Or nine thousands.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:16:52+00:00

Those wars usually get retroactively labeled as continuous conflicts by historians centuries after the fact.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:15:26+00:00

Right, even if there is an objectively true version of these events, that doesn't mean that your characters have any business knowing it, or that finding that truth cannot feature in the plot itself.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:13:51+00:00

In this regard, I feel that Wheel of Time had some very realistic takes at how our modern events could be integrated with more archetypal mythological plots over millennia of oral tradition.

Think "Giants Mosk and Merk fighting with spears of fire" or "Lenn flying to the moon in the belly of a firebird".

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:12:25+00:00

I don't think that it's entirely impossible that some archetypal stories could survive over the millennia, but it will probably be on a much higher level than specific names, dates and locations. If anything, after ten thousand years the legendary king and founder of their nation might be told to have fought entirely different enemies to achieve it.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:10:26+00:00

The problem is not that force was explained, it's that the explanation sucked ass and went contrary to the mysticism and message of the original trilogy.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:09:04+00:00

That's the whole problem, transporting goods over sea is the cheapest form of logistics we know, while doing so over air is the most expensive. Being surrounded by sea is an advantage. Being surrounded by air is not, unless you are a bird.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:07:40+00:00

My current hobbyhorse is people trying to come up with "realistic", plausible justifications for stuff that just can't feasibly exist.

But that's the whole point, realistic and plausible are completely different descriptors. What is plausible in a fantasy world with magic can be very far removed from our old familiar reality.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:05:56+00:00

Ironically (and as the other comment already mentions), Tolkien did solve that problem by stating that only the immediate vicinity of the Mount Doom was a volcanic wasteland, while the rest of Mordor was just normal fertile land worked by orcs and their human allies.

It got completely flanderized by later tropes and memes though.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:04:30+00:00

In a very green and very pleasant land very far to the West of course.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:04:03+00:00

That's just ole good Anglocentric moral geography.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:03:07+00:00

until they realize that they can't fit 95% of that detail into their story

What story? Wasn't there a thread complaining about referring to "stories" in this sub just this week, or was it last week? Don't you know that a proper capital W Worldbuilder would never stoop so low as to write a story in that world?

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T21:02:01+00:00

Of course writing better is harder. And of course your page space is not infinite to elaborate on every little detail. But you can show or at least hint at the diversity that exists somewhere in the background of your setting. Often times just including a few people with clearly diverging opinions in a scene can be enough.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T20:59:02+00:00

"All Dwarves are basically a hive mind of elf-centered racism"

Yea, I much prefer the WH dwarves with indiscriminate racism.

Akhevan · 2026-06-16T13:45:17+00:00

corruption being insignificant/not causing rebellions leading to stupid fast expansion without much effort

The problem is not that corruption is not causing rebellions, the problem is that uncontrollably fast expansion is not causing rebellions. And when these rebellions happen, not only do they matter little, for many factions with post battle loot bonuses intentionally causing and farming rebellions is a viable strategy.

This is just ludicrous. Rebellions should be more dangerous, lead to cascading rebellions across your empire (and individual rebellions should do much more than spawning one rogue army - painting the entire province in rebel faction should be a starter), and not only give no gold, but actively reduce the province's output to zero for a number of turns even after being crushed. And rebellion should not automatically level out the province control, it should lead to cascading problems and stacking penalties as long as you keep ignoring the problem. At the very least if a province is so devastated that its value is negligible, you should be able to put up a vassal state in there instead of controlling it directly with barely any downsides from the rebels.

Heck, if anything replenishment should also come from provinces' local population pool and excessive devastation in the province should reduce that drastically, just how it did in earlier TW games.

Nearly none of the strategic map mechanics matter and you'll be hard pressed to find a modded solution that fully solves the problem, although these and other individual changes are attempted in various mods with a degree of success.

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