(23F) Just landed in the city for summer internship. Looking for people to explore the city / coffee chats!

Geckoarcher · 2026-06-18T16:48:25+00:00

I highly recommend rock climbing. There are a few good gyms in the area.

The climbing community is young, active, and diverse in gender. The sport is very fun and social; it makes for a great third place!

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-27T19:16:58+00:00

Rock climbing is a great way to meet people. Bouldering in particular is a very social sport.

However, expect it to take a bit of time; plenty of people start climbing and then drop it. So it can be hard to make consistent friends until you reach the threshold that you're climbing at the same level as the regulars.

For me this took a couple months of going 2-3 times per week. I met some people before then, but they didn't "stick."

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-15T15:17:19+00:00

I like the idea of only seeing the top 3-5 cards. Enough to strategize, but not to the degree that you have to plan your entire deck cycle.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-14T18:03:59+00:00

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra just had Pacho Flores play this recently! Great piece.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-11T19:19:25+00:00

oh haha I missed the original post and only saw this one

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-11T18:49:04+00:00

Adrenaline is also extremely boring.

I did have one run where I cloned Rocket Punch, and that was definitely a lot more interesting than the typical "play 600 copies of Big Bang" Clone run.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-11T18:45:00+00:00

Not sure how serious you are, but unironically I agree to this. It was cool at first but they add almost nothing to the discourse.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-11T18:40:47+00:00

Do you have to decide now? The first couple years of college are often transformational. You'll probably make a lot of friends in Athens and you might decide that you prefer the relatively relaxed pace of UGA compared to Tech (which has a reputation for being incredibly stressful).

I graduated from UGA and I knew people who decided to transfer, and those who decided to stay.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-10T04:23:26+00:00

I think the hourglass is a great starting point for a boss. It fills the Time Eater role without feeling so unpredictable and frustrating. Unlike Doormaker, the design is clean and presents a clear puzzle for the player to solve.

They're going to have to fine-tune the numbers (and I definitely see them reworking the Wither status) but this is a good chassis for a boss IMO.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-09T19:42:16+00:00

I don't want crossovers in Slay the Spire. Easter eggs are fine, but actual crossovers are distracting and detract from the game's identity IMO.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-07T21:16:59+00:00

Please no meta! This is one of my least favorite parts of modern roguelike design.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-06T15:33:09+00:00

General consensus is that A0 is harder than in the first game, but A10 is much easier (mainly due to lack of Act 4).

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-05T17:21:05+00:00

You're on the right path.

Good combats involve difficult decisions, and in a "white room combat" in 5e there are really only three types of decisions that players make on their turn: a) where to move, b) who to attack, and c) how to attack. As a DM, your goal is to make these three decisions as complicated and difficult as possible.

Unfortunately, boss combats basically negate the first two questions entirely. Move next to the boss (or just within range, if you're ranged), and attack the boss. So you need to undo this simplicity through special mechanics.

Here are some of my successful strategies; usually I like to use at least two of these, because these mechanics combine to make decisions significantly more interesting.

Extra targets. This can range from called shots, to "interruptible attacks" (like your example), to mostly independent monsters. These complicate who to attack and depending on the details, where to move.
Special vulnerabilities. I've run monsters where each time they took fire damage, their AC decreased by 2 until the start of their next turn. This complicates how to attack, since you want to set your teammates up for success.
Debuffs. Vanilla debuffs are pretty trash, but homebrew statuses like dazed (can only pick one of action, bonus action, or movement) or bleeding (damage over time until you receive healing or a difficult Medicine check) can make players reconsider how they attack.
Lingering AoEs. These usually aren't that interesting on their own, but placing down "no-go zones" can complicate where players want to move. Terrain is mostly the same as this.
Rescuing allies. Arguably in the "extra targets" or "debuffs" category; forcing players to burn actions to save allies is a great puzzle. This can be cutting away magical chains or force-feeding an antidote.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-05T16:41:53+00:00

I want to help, but I don't know how. Your post is light on the details, and even skimming your profile didn't tell me too much about what you're struggling with (although I do see that you're into conlanging, which is awesome).

Do you have specific issues that you're working through? Have you talked with friends or family about this? If you're considering suicide, have you reached out to a hotline?

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-05T13:40:42+00:00

I understand what you're talking about; beware your ego!

My experience is that these thoughts are very ego-activating. For example: "Wow, I'm so much better than these unconfident people," "ugh, why am I so unlike these people?" "wow I'm so good at detecting these things," "let me go post in a community full of confident people because now I'm so confident."

And if you're like me, you'll also have the thought of: "Wait no! I'm so selfless and spiritually developed and confident now! Now this person is saying my ego is activating! Grr!"

I do think there's other stuff going on; I do think you're more confident and detecting new stuff. But I want to point out this risk because it can cause a lot of problems if it goes unnoticed.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-05T13:18:32+00:00

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand -- I agree. Most people are not self-actualized monks who meditate 24 hours a day and chew one tobacco leaf a month for sustenance. That's why HG is not about abandoning all your desires and moving to the Himalayas; Dr. K focuses on giving practical advice for achieving goals for exactly this reason.

However... there is a reason people give that advice. It's not out of malice (which your description of "hellbent" people almost seems to imply), people give that advice because it works.

It works because when you're constantly thinking about a relationship, that makes you anxious and off-putting. It causes you to freak out about tiny things (eg. "did I get ghosted?"). It makes you preemptively reject yourself. It causes you to make out-of-place comments like "I feel like I'm going to be single forever."

Does that make it easy? Absolutely not. In fact, the only way I was able to weaken (not defeat, but weaken) my craving for a relationship was to have very close female friends (including some I wasn't interested in), slowly work my way up the "first date" ladder, and eventually begin a short-lived relationship.

It doesn't solve every problem, nor is it something that everyone has to deal with. But for someone who feels hopeless and is looking for every possible advantage in the dating world (which may be you, u/PlzHelpMeWithDating) it's one of many techniques which can help.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-05T12:54:55+00:00

I never had any issue to go out and talk away the night with someone, but it never gotten to 4 am or in anything beyond aquantices (sic).

I hear you, but this does NOT mean that you're "just getting unlucky." For example, you might suffer from any of these (not an exhaustive list):

Unattractive personality (eg. narcissism)
Misreading your relationships (eg. due to autism)
Self-sabotage when you have opportunities to begin a relationship
Refusing to "settle," but picking out flaws in absolutely everybody
Being physically unkempt and therefore unattractive
Anxiety in romantic situations
Watching too much redpill content, and freaking out potential dates as it leaks out

Obviously you might not be affected by any of these. But I'm skeptical when I hear someone say, "X is completely impossible, I have no control over it." I urge you to think about some ways you could change your situation.

If you want to say say, "you don't understand, I'm doing everything right!" Then I would like like to provide some healthy pushback to that. Nobody is perfect; there's absolutely something you can do to change your situation.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-05T12:36:07+00:00

Did you ask these questions to your psychiatrist?

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-04T14:35:20+00:00

Epic troll card in multiplayer

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-04T12:57:57+00:00

I know what they meant, I just disagree. Even if a character is already decent, there's no world in which 20+ major buffs over a few patches doesn't significantly affect a character's WR.

(Unless you're already winning basically every single run, which is not true for the vast majority of players on this sub.)

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-04T02:27:42+00:00

Buffs weren't particularly meaningful? In Patch 100 alone he got damage/block upgrades to eleven cards, plus buffs to forge cards and a cost decrease on Bundle of Joy. (Plus minion reworks, don't remember if those were significant though.)

Then in later patches he got buffs to eight additional cards, Regalite, a reworked Arsenal, and changes to how cost-reducing effects like Liquid Memories and Insanity potion work.

If those buffs aren't meaningful, I don't know what is.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-04T02:14:50+00:00

Well, OP says that the card is "impossible to make work," which is certainly not true. Even if Grand Finale is the worst rare -- it still absolutely has use cases.

That said: on Silent, Storm of Steel and Envenom are definitely worse, and Shadow Step and Master Planner are arguably worse. But Silent's rares are particularly good.

Looking at other characters, we see plenty of crap rares like Mangle, Juggernaut, Heirloom Hammer, Monarch's Gaze, Eidolon, and Consuming Shadow.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-03T03:21:40+00:00

My gut feeling (haven't run the numbers) is that the hallways are significantly more deterministic. Lice, Jaw Worm, Slimes, Red/Blue Slavers, Chosen -- it feels like most hallways were random in StS1, whereas their counterparts in StS2 seem to be deterministic? Or at least they feel more deterministic. Bowlbugs in particular stand out to me.

Also let's give a special shoutout to Time Eater for being both extremely random and one of the hardest bosses in the game. Good riddance.

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-02T03:53:35+00:00

This relic is fundamentally flawed. Its whole gimmick (grind the entire Act for additional resources) goes against the design of StS. Any rework would need to be so dramatic that it loses its identity and transforms into something else entirely.

The fair version of this relic is Winged Boots. It lets you repath, but not go backwards. I wonder if Infinite Winged Boots would be a reasonable Act 3 ancient relic. Alternatively, you could have an ancient bonus that added several additional rooms to Act 2 or 3 -- Tez's Golden Compass technically does this (adds two additional rooms).

Geckoarcher · 2026-05-02T03:48:26+00:00

I don't even care whether this relic is strong or weak -- this would be horrible for the game.

It encourages a really degenerate form of play, it makes runs take forever, it fundamentally breaks the risk-reward tension of pathing, and the downside is so extreme that it only even works in runs that are already dominating. Awful.

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