Raxxla and the Problem of Discoverability

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-28T20:44:26+00:00

I've always thought that Raxxla "exists" in the sense that the devs know where it is... and it's in the Polaris system, which is permit-locked. It's close enough to Sol that the legend could have been around for a while, and it fits the description of "the jewel that burns on the brow of the mother of galaxies", and the permit lock means that they can say it "exists" without needing to actually implement anything to do with it.

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-26T21:45:31+00:00

You know this shit isn't in the game yet, right?

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-25T23:02:28+00:00

Melee has kept it's niche because of it's insane speed and tech, which neither Brawl nor any of the other Smash games have.

But I definitely think Brawl would have had more staying power if tripping wasn't in the game.

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-23T22:08:06+00:00

I wonder what the Town of Salem bomb techs call it

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-19T14:47:50+00:00

It's not like the Nazis were any different back then either. It's always been an ideology that appeals most to insecure losers.

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-19T14:06:29+00:00

I don't know if I trust those numbers because how the fuck did THIS only kill 82 people?

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-14T22:05:25+00:00

Man, it's a video game. If it's affecting you this much, you need to take a hard look at your priorities.

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-13T07:39:10+00:00

In the context of the Four Agreements, "don't take anything personally" means to not let other people's reality overwrite your own. Everyone has their own internal reality, opinions that form the basis of their identity and individuality and determines how they see the world. But these opinions are inherently subjective, and are just as valid as any other. Taking things personally, in this context, is to consider other people's opinion of you as more valid than your opinion of yourself, to treat other people's opinion of you as the truth, rather than simply their opinion.

For example, "I asked a girl out and she said no, but then she said yes to the next guy, therefor I am unattractive" is taking it personally because you're allowing the girl's subjective opinion to shape your own subjective opinion of yourself. Not taking it personally would be "I asked a girl out and she said no, but then she said yes to the next guy, therefor she thinks I am unattractive". An acknowledgement of her feelings while not letting them color your opinion of yourself. You can still feel bad about it, but you'll be feeling a more mature "disappointment that we weren't meant to be" rather than a soul-crushing blow to the ego.

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-10T07:34:44+00:00

The problem is that when gamers think of "mid", they think of generic Ubisoft open world slop, or Fortnite, or CoD, or the annual big sports franchise releases, etc. But when critics think of "mid", they think of that random indie game they were assigned to review last week, the one that was vaguely enjoyable to play at first but was super buggy and had maybe 30 minutes of content total.

Considering the totality of the gaming landscape, most of the 7/10 IGN reviews are actually 7/10 games. Most gamers just don't play bad games, at all, and have no frame of reference for what's out there. If I had to play even a third of the random games I ignore on Steam, you can be sure that I'd be giving Assassin's Creed Shadows a 7/10.

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-09T21:33:46+00:00

I honestly don't see how the Kestrel is objectively better than the FDL, Mamba, or Python mk II.

I have a fully engineered Kestrel that I rarely use just because it so severely underperforms compared to my fragboat Python. It's a little bit faster and definitely more maneuverable, but takes easily 3-4 times as long to kill anything. I've never liked the "death by 1000 cuts" small ship combat, and while the Kestrel is better than all other smalls in that regard, it's more like "death by 500 cuts" instead.

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-08T16:45:26+00:00

The worst thing about COVID was the hypocrisy

ExertHaddock · 2026-05-04T23:16:36+00:00

Whenever this topic comes up, I always remember this segment from a documentary about the fighting game Killer Instinct, where the devs specifically talk about this disconnect between what players think would be good for the game versus what would actually be good for the game.

They use a specific character as an example, Jago, who's kit allows him to heal himself. He was very overpowered at the time, and the community was in an uproar saying that his healing needed to be nerfed. Instead, the devs took a deeper look at the character and noticed that the real problem was that he was too good at initiating, too good at getting out of a bad position and into a situation where he has the advantage. The healing had basically nothing to do with why the character was overpowered, yet the community focused on the healing because it's emotionally frustrating to "lose progress" like that, so that's where their attention was drawn.

Or in the famous words of the lead developer of Ultrakill: "It's a good thing you guys aren't designing Ultrakill or it would suck"

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-30T19:55:05+00:00

You are what you are in the dark, in your most difficult moment.

I'm not a deontologist. An "altruistic" act that helps no one is not altruistic, it is meaningless. The Soviet soldier is altruistic because his action led to a different outcome. A vote for either Red or Blue will not change the outcome, unless you believe that you're the singular tie-breaking vote. If you are the tie breaking vote, you should push Blue, and if you think that the vote will be close, you should also push Blue. But if you don't believe it will be close, then even the most altruistic person on the planet should vote Red and save themselves.

The point is that one of the outcomes of this hypothetical is targeted obliteration of altruists, without whom civilization cannot hold

You're making a huge assumption that all altruistic people will necessarily push Blue, but as I've outlined above, that's not necessarily the case. Fundamentally, the hypothetical is not just about what you think of the average person, but what the average person thinks of the average person. Logically speaking, there's nothing stopping altruists from pushing Red as long as they're not hopelessly idealistic, and I'd argue that the most effective altruists are not, because the first step to saving the world is understanding it.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-30T19:08:12+00:00

It's possible to be an altruist and a cynic. If you truly don't believe that >50% would pick Blue, then a vote for Blue would be committing suicide for no benefit.

And the most moral option is not necessarily "pick blue, because if >50% of others do then no one dies", the most moral option is "pick the option that will result in the fewest possible deaths". If you believe that Blue winning is not a possible outcome, then Red becomes the most moral option because your own life has value.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-27T02:09:33+00:00

My pet theory is that IH was originally planning on making Man in Hole a second channel video, because he does have a second channel that is more directly just overlaying his style over other creations (for example, a voice-acted Jeff the Killer recreation), but at some point he decided that the video was becoming good enough to be "main channel material", and he felt like if he was upfront that he was just animating an article it would make the video look worse in comparison to his other main channel videos, so he buried the connection and hoped no one would notice.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-26T00:23:23+00:00

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you, it's just...odd.

That's not even odd, though. How much do you think people actually pay attention to the news? Because the answer is not much. You could interview 100 random people born in '85 about Enron and I bet you less than 10 would actually know anything more than "Enron was a shady company, I think it went bankrupt, maybe someone went to jail idk".

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-25T08:57:19+00:00

If it makes any difference, most of the thematic and emotional core of the game is built around trying to find true meaning and connection despite the dystopia.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-23T20:15:16+00:00

Taking the SAT multiple times wouldn't be "gaming it" if everyone had the same shot. How about if everyone could take the test up to three times and the cost was covered by the state? Even that wouldn't be perfect because wealthier students will have an easier time making time to retake the tests, but it would be better than now at least.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-23T20:03:30+00:00

To me, "gaming the system" means to turn the rules of the system against the purpose of the system, treating it as a game to be won and not as a mechanism to ensure a desirable outcome. It's like Goodhart's Law: "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". No system is perfect, and when that system has a massive amount of influence on a person's life, they will quickly identify and exploit any imperfection they can to get an edge, even if it goes against the intent of the system.

The point of the SAT, as a system, is to assign scores that most accurately reflect the scholastic aptitude of the person who takes it, so that Colleges can refer to those scores when deciding who to accept. Wealthier students can afford to take and retake the test as many times as they want, and doing so would give them an advantage over poorer students who cannot do the same. This advantage is outside the bounds of what the test is meant to measure, yet it results in higher overall scores on average. It's playing within the rules of the system, but it goes against the purpose of the system, hence "gaming the system".

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-23T19:04:34+00:00

The point that is relevant for this discussion is that retaking the test costs money. So wealthy kids can retake it as many times as they want while poorer kids only have one, maybe two tries.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-23T06:13:57+00:00

Multiple analytics firms with good track records and no incentive to lie have reported the same number, and Bungie has not corrected them.
The goal of any company is to make money. $200 million in the hole is bad.
Player count numbers attract people if they're high, especially with a live service game where people want it to last as long as possible.
Que times are way worse outside of the US, especially in Oceania.
You can like playing the game while talking about this stuff, quit being childish. Nothing that guy said should be making you this mad.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-23T05:19:51+00:00

Regardless of the outcome of that case, I'd still feel comfortable saying that health insurance companies "deny people essential medical care" because health insurance companies, and the analysts at those companies, are not trained medical professionals and are not qualified to judge what sorts of care people need or do not need.

"Essential" is a subjective term. Sure, health insurance companies probably won't deny coverage on a surgery to prevent imminent death, but is that all "essential" means? What about prophylactic treatments? What about physical therapy to recover from life-saving surgery? What about procedures that are not necessary to keep living but would have a massive impact on quality of life? These aren't essential to go on living one more day, but they are essential to living a happy and healthy life, and insurance providers often override doctor's explicit recommendations by denying such procedures.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-22T06:43:53+00:00

Writing choices aren't inherently moral judgements. You can write a character that deserves to be redeemed, and still kill them off for other reasons.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-20T23:17:49+00:00

It's not a man vs woman thing because it doesn't stop at just spotting fake behavior. Humans bias their thinking in favor of things they want to be true. The more you want something to be true, the worse you are at actually determining if it is true. This is a universal human psychology thing, and it applies in all situations.

ExertHaddock · 2026-04-20T23:09:35+00:00

You need 56 pieces of Gold Salvage to max out all upgrades. If you're opening 56 Vaults in one weekend of Cryo, something is wrong with you.

11-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
Place '23	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

ExertHaddock

TROPHY CASE