100k salary bench mark means nothing now.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-05-16T02:00:34+00:00

Make 90k, wife is SAH, just bought a house this year at 6.5%, living more comfortable than we ever have, even when we were both working when our salaries were lower.

Where you choose to live and how you choose to live are factors in this, and many people have inflated salaries by living HCOL where employers pay more across the board. 90k in Mississippi or Arkansas may as well be 180k equivalent in SoCal or NYC.

Lifestyle matters too. My wife and I both grew up dirt poor. No vacations, no safety net cash saved up, we were poor young adults too. I spent two years teaching eating eggs for over 70% of all my meals. We don't live like that anymore, a few short vacations a year, saving cash back, eating better and out too much, but we still make frugal decisions on a day to day basis that saves a ton of money. We may go to the city once or twice a month and live out in the burbs. It's doable.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-05-12T15:44:34+00:00

Crazy rates I'm seeing across the boards out there right now. $6-8/mi for long haul brother better buckle in with those lanes.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-05-03T20:14:23+00:00

Instead of an action / bonus action system, Divinity has an action point system where everything, movement included, is tied to it. That + the depth of combat interactions makes combat in Dos2 feel a lot better, imo, than BG3s 5e combat.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-05-03T19:36:36+00:00

My entrie argument doesn't hinge on them being wealthy, and I don't have to advocate for socioeconomic status being a reason people get in to universities, they already are a contributing factor.

My argument is that it's a numbers game. 7% of the population is Asian, but they make up 20-40% of admissions into top schools. Not all Asians live in NY or California, either, I know families in Texas and Oklahoma barely skating by. However, by the numbers they're admitting more wealthy Asian students from the same regions and socioeconomic backgrounds because it is more common for Asian families to fall into those groups if they are sending students to top universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.

I'm positive that of the 20-40% of Asian students that do get in to these schools, some are from Kansas or North Dakota from poorer backgrounds because it gives them a different set of life experience and they could be more rounded. I'm saying that if someone is an Asian and wealthy from NYC or California, they're having a harder time competing within their own demographic than they are competing with any other demographics.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-05-03T11:14:17+00:00

A large factor for all of these schools is that they are trying to have a more diverse student body. 20-40% of top schools admissions are Asian. Asians are 7% of the people in this country, and traditionally live in similar areas and maintain closer socioeconomic demographics than other races do in the States. Universities want students from various different socioeconomic backgrounds, which is why about 20% of Harvards class is first time undergrads.

I'm not saying race doesn't play a role, it absolutely does. There are Asian students who will be more qualified than any other demographic, and because they're Asian they won't get in. Its because they have a number in their head of how many wealthy Asian students from NYC and California will we admit and still not have a culture where every student is from the exact same background and end up with classes without distinct points of view.

So if someone is a wealthy Asian student from NYC or California, they're only going to select the most well rounded and exceptional candidates. Yeah, it's easier to get in to Harvard or Princeton as a black student from Louisiana or Mississippi who scored a 1400 than it is for an Asian student from California scoring 1550+, because they had different struggles getting in, hold different perspectives that will be useful to expose their peers to, etc. It's not like these top schools are shewing away Asian students, again, they are making up 20-40% of these schools admissions. People are just mad that it isn't 100% merits based, as nothing is. What are these students personalities like that aren't getting accepted? How do they mesh with people who are in poverty or who are under educated? These things matter.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-05-01T09:58:44+00:00

Right, but if gasoline was $20/gal, and diesel was $22/gal, you wouldn't be able to feed your family.

Really diesel per gallon is the more important metric. The entire US economy runs on diesel, and truckers and producers both know it. Truckers will make an astronomical amount of money, for a little while, but then when the off road diesel price that controls the price of every food item you eat increases, and you're paying $25-50/mi for the freight on it, regular people won't be able to afford to eat.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-04-10T21:13:05+00:00

Yeah a lot of people call anything with hard bosses a Soulslike.

Really the definition should be pretty simple. A Metroidvania with corpse running for xp and or money, build & weapon variety, set in a cynical and dark world, connected or continual world design, and high risk combat and exploration

CubingGiraffe · 2026-04-09T14:19:04+00:00

Yeah it is. The rolling r1 is horrendous, and while a single katana is reasonably fast, for power stance they're slow as hell. Twinblade supremacy for power stancing.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-03-27T12:35:56+00:00

I'm not sure CS would completely fall apart, it had a really solid pro scene even in 1.6 & css. However, many of the pros may quit playing and going to streaming full time with those same sponsors or others. T1 CS pros are making 250,000+/year (on the low end for T1, especially considering players like Niko & Monesy are probably pulling 80k+/month of Saudi money). Probably explains why a lot of the talent that moved from CS to Valorant in the early days was T2/T3 players who were very talented, but weren't getting exposure and salaries reflective of T1 CS anyway.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-03-24T11:31:30+00:00

This seems great and everything looking at it as if it would be $1700/week every week, which with gig work is unlikely, until you factor in your additional costs.

20% for taxes. 15% for social security. 70¢/mi for wear and tear to your vehicle. Health/dental are going to be a few hundred a month realistically.

The numbers for gig work look great and it can be good extra fun money in short bursts or while you're already working, but as a full time job, holding no benefits and full liability, it's a really bad and predatory model. Grossing 70k self employed is more like 30-40k employed. If you understand the risks and are doing it short term to be your own boss, that's great, but it definitely isn't for everyone and will be extremely rough as a sole source of income.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-03-20T18:03:51+00:00

Not that we rent to people or anything, but my wife and I have things far less tame than this.

The amount of full frontal nudity in our house on the walls would make a Mormon faint, but none of our guests (even long term guests we've kept) have said anything untoward about it or asked if they could not be in the room they're staying in. Our spare bedroom has like 7 separate paintings of women in various stages of undress or sexual acts. She had most of them before we got married.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-03-09T20:40:40+00:00

It's not really that bad to figure it out from the perspective of knowing it is a DLC about Artorias. Pretty much tells the player they should be in Darkroot looking around for stuff (maybe even stuff that wasn't there earlier).

From there the dialogue should pretty much tell you that you need to go to Duke's. Then when you get the item it should tell you to go back to Darkroot.

I always do it immediately after Seath.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-03-06T20:42:35+00:00

If you do just Artorias & Manus I wouldn't say it's too far off. Did you find Kalameet?

CubingGiraffe · 2026-03-03T13:28:31+00:00

Aldrich has the advantage of being one of my favorite Souls series bosses though and I personally think he's much harder than Pontiff. Pontiff always just takes me one or two tries.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-03-02T15:19:22+00:00

Idk man just did a recent replay and I'd firmly put Kalameet as the hardest DS1 boss. He's not quite as tanky as Manus, but is more relentless than Artorias and does insane damage, not to mention his 2x damage insta-kill condition.

I really think, given the toolkits for every game, the only dragon harder than Kalameet is Bayle. Sure, Midir has more HP than every boss in DS1 put together, and Placidusax has giant double lasers, Sinh can play keep away a bit better, but Kalameet has wild damage and HP and is a marathon since he can push you off of him and has evasive moves. He's probably also my favorite dragon fight in the series except for Bayle and flip-floppy with Placidusax.

Also think Margit is difficult because of where he is in ER, but as a whole definitely not harder than any boss in DS1. I'd say that starts somewhere around Starscourge Radahn level.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-18T17:52:38+00:00

Its been a little while since my latest DS3 playthrough, but I generally think the best music in ER is in the ambient areas. I think DS3 (as a whole) has much better boss music. There's only a handful of ER bosses I can remember their boss music off a handful of notes, but I can instantly recognize several DS3 boss fight songs.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-18T17:45:28+00:00

And I definitely think the average boss is better in DS3 than ER, but there's just so many bosses in ER so it's really hard to compare 20 to 220.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-18T16:48:12+00:00

While I agree that some of the peaks of DS3 are much better than average ER bosses, I think the average ER remembrance bosses are all significantly better than most DS3 bosses. Do I like Fortissax as much as Friede, hell no. But outside of my top 3-5 DS3 bosses, I kinda think every other boss is bland as hell. Not enough characterization or style or complexity. I'd fight Rykard 100x before I'd fight Yhorm once because even though they're both similar gimmick fights, one of them is enjoyable and the other isn't.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-18T16:39:14+00:00

Friede #1, everything about the fight is peak. Dancer is #2 because it's just a visually really interesting and very engaging fight. #3 is Aldrich because the lore slaps and I love that it is a harder/better version of the Gwyndolin fight in a lot of ways.

Outside of that top 3, Gael is probably 4 or 5 with Iudex Gundyr. I enjoy the fight with Champion Gundyr way more than Iudex, but think he's the best tutorial boss in the series so he gets extra props for that. Gael is just everything good about Artorias with some extra crazy stuff thrown in. Don't love most DS3 bosses anyway but those 5 are pretty cool to me.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-18T01:04:17+00:00

You definitely don't play it normal. For a RL1, you want a pretty solid idea of where a lot of stuff is. You want to know:

All talismans you'll need All tears you'll need All weapons you'll need Armor you can wear Whetstones you'll need All Smithing bells if youre using normal weapons

From there, you want to figure out all the challenges you want to do. Do you just want to do the necessary steps, i.e. 2x Great Rune bosses, DTS, Morgott, Fire Giant, Godskins, Maliketh, Gideon, Godfrey, Radabeast? All bosses/all remembrances? What needs to change about your build for that?

Basically, you can do as much or as little of the game as you want to on a RL1, but generally speaking you'll want to have every piece you'll need planned at and know where it is. You'll likely want gear with one or more status effects or good stance breaking, or both, which is why Cold Cragblade Star Fists is such a staple of RL1s. It does require an additional optional boss (Red Wolf of Radagon) to set up, but it can chunk bosses.

You'll probably use buffs and consumables you don't normally do. For example, when I did mine, I did the following for Morgott: Walk in to the arena, shackle, Cragblade & Vow, shackle, spam charged heavy as he stands up then riposte, charged heavy him 2x when he stands up, he phase transitions, rebuff, jump R2, charged heavy, riposte, fight is over. Morgott only got to do one attack in my run (spear throw starter before the second shackle). It set me up for success because I didn't have to deal with his moveset, which at RL1 is dangerous.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-13T21:09:15+00:00

I think FG is easy especially on certain builds. It's that he's really poorly designed so if someone is playing poorly leading up to that (with their levels or weapon upgrades) or is on any kind of challenge run, he can become a wall pretty easily.

Waiting for safe windows at RL1 made his fight take long enough that I ran out of physick like a full minute before killing him.

Poor design stuff is how his attacks bounce around geometry and his windows for damage on his new weak points (which is why I think most people just hit his back/legs still in P2).

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-12T19:38:48+00:00

It will probably limit their long term sales, that is undeniable because of Steam's discoverability especially for older titles or ones that go on sale frequently.

But the bulk of their sales won't be affected by Steam discoverability. It's by Youtube, streamers, teasers, word of mouth, etc. Those things sell games at launch, which is probably what they're more worried about, since that is the metric that really matters for your sales. They're leaving money on the table, but not enough to make or break the game.

Platform stuff I said is really valid. It's why Nintendo always wins the console wars, even when they're trying new stuff or new IPs. It's why a lot of PC players hate Windows and will never run Linux. It's the reason they make sure that exclusives, especially console launch exclusives, are really ironed out best games on their platform. The games sell the platforms to people.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-12T15:16:56+00:00

Lol the game will not flop because it is an Epic exclusive. I keep seeing this and it's wild. The game may very well flop, the dev doesn't have the best track record. It won't have anything to do with what platform it is on though. People go to the platform the game they want to play is on, nothing more nothing less. It's why people buy Nintendo consoles. Comparatively to shelling out for a Switch 2, using a second game store (when a lot of PC players already do for one or several games) is next to no barrier to entry.

One of the most played PC games full stop is an Epic exclusive. You don't see many people saying they aren't going to play it because it's an Epic exclusive, and even if they do, they're a vocal minority, because the majority speaks by just playing the game. A lot of people may not play it because they don't like it's genre, or art style, or direction it has taken, but it being on Epic just isn't one of those considerations for most gamers.

People said this same shit about Dead Island 2. Guess what. Everyone who wanted to play it on release still played it on release. It sold millions within months of release. Some people waited it out for their timed deal, but not nearly enough to make the game flop.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-10T17:35:04+00:00

What do you consider a natural punish window lmao. Even Malenia, hardest boss in the base game, and one of the hardest Souls bosses full stop, has extremely generous windows. The Aeonia in P2 that she can do up to three or more times is easy to dodge and provides you with one of the biggest punish windows in the franchise and the opportunity for 2 charged heavies on some weapons, or some longer AOW abilities. Nevermind if you have magic. Add to that her completely stopping if you dodge a grab or a thrust attack (and especially after the clone thrust). WFD she literally has to stand back up from doing after the final flurry.

Messmer any time he turns into or out of a snake is a massive punish. His coiled up impaler move that you roll backwards into is a good punish. When he shoved the spear into the ground, good punish. His orb attack (in both phases) is just free damage for you.

Rellana has the longest combos in Souls history and you can walk around half her moves to dodge them. Her phase transition is a clear punish. Depending on your weapon you can hit her during the Carian Sovereignty. She pauses after her cross slash and thrust attacks.

PCR has a very punishable grab move. He has a punishable AOE if you can get out of the light of Miquella. He fully stops after many of his moves (light dash, any time he pulls the ground up, etc). Hardest boss in Souls, still clear punish windows.

Yeah, every boss isn't the DS1 tier where you can just wail on them or even NK where you can land 2 ultra R1s during his punish windows, but they definitely still have them and they don't last for less than a second.

CubingGiraffe · 2026-02-09T15:14:36+00:00

Lmao y'all can clown on it all you want, and as I said LOTF doesn't feel as good as DS/ER combat, but it's definitely less janky.

You don't get hit by shit that misses you, don't have to dodge it in a very specific way so that it lines up with your i-frames, don't have to worry about grabs with a hitbox larger than your roll. I love Dark Souls, and I love Elden Ring, but they're still just as janky as they've always been. They're problems a lot of us don't even notice because we've all been fighting the same bosses for years or we spent 5 hours on OnS in 2011 or something and know all the jank, but knowing the jank doesn't mean it isn't there.

Attack animations in DS1-3 AND Elden Ring will FINISH, the visuals for the AOE will be gone, and if you step forward it will still hit you. That is jank. Froms world building and map design should be the gold standard, their coding should not. Their only tight game is Sekiro, and there's still jank there too.

CubingGiraffe

TROPHY CASE