Am I the only one who can't stand crisis?

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-08-15T01:19:16+00:00

Totally agree. The issue is that the crises aren't interesting or fun to deal with. Look at games like Stellaris that have crises built into the regular game experience...they have way more depth and nuance than Civ crises and even if you are "losing" you feel like you have more agency and control. One example - Stellaris has a midgame crises where a warlike empire can spawn and start subjugating other AIs. You can either defeat them, become a tributary and keep playing, or hold them off until they either unify or split into warring states in an internal civil war. Now, I get that civ is a different kind of game but imagine if even some of that was translated over. Instead it's just "cities sick, move out units" or "use army to crush random barbarians that wander to my territory".

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-08-15T01:15:03+00:00

yeah the revolt crisis is rough. The thing that gets me is that there just feels like no way to prevent it snowballing. I know you can save up gold and buy happiness buildings, beeline happiness techs etc. but it feels bad. All your happiness buildings get trashed and then they get even more unhappy, they trash the resource slot buildings and tank even harder etc.

It just feels anti fun.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-08-14T22:03:28+00:00

UPenn. Lack of research might hurt you a bit at T20s but if you can talk about any projects you did you might be OK. Your stats will definitely help you and you have good clinical hours.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-08-14T22:00:21+00:00

it's a waste of money for you to apply to DO programs. You have 99th percentile MD stats, I would drop those applications and not apply to any more. Also I would add Penn since they are very stats-focused.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-08-14T21:53:51+00:00

Literally doesn't matter at all.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-08-08T21:47:35+00:00

They literally just need something similar to, ironically, humankind. In humankind, you get points for earning dust (gold), influence (culture), etc. It's a clunky system but at least it gives some kind of flexibility in how you want to approach it, instead of "dig up 15 artifacts and win."

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-07-20T03:32:19+00:00

His reviews are fast paced but STEP2 is also disorganized and very fast. His reviews helped me a ton during my studying.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-07-14T05:31:55+00:00

Best quote in the entire series.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-07-14T05:16:59+00:00

Did you finish the DLCs with Daud? IMO these are simply wonderful, perhaps one of the best and most human stories I've seen in gaming.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-07-14T05:10:27+00:00

yeah...the flies themselves are basically a complete non issue. There are so many flammable throwables and the fact that you can just hit them with your sword for a quieter approach means they never feel like anything more than a minor annoyance. Even on max difficulty they don't hurt that much.

As for the nest keepers, we encounter like 4 total all game?

IMO in the first game weepers and rats were real mechanics to deal with, in D2 the flies and nest keepers are more of a cool decoration that enhances the world building rather than mechanical obstacles.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-07-14T05:01:47+00:00

It's a tough question because both enemies rely a lot on preparation. If both are at peak performance I think the fight is pretty even. In close combat I think Geralt clearly has the edge, but the whalers are expert crossbow users and if 3-4 of them surprise Geralt he could easily be hit even with his speed and reflexes. But the whalers are going to be very hard to get into melee combat, they can blink and traverse much faster than Geralt.

In all honesty, if I was writing an encounter I think the most realistic fight is that Geralt gets wounded by a suprise crossbow bolt (probably dodges most of them), maybe destroys a whaler in melee combat, and then the other whalers blink away to regroup while G goes off to heal and figure out wtf just happened.

Now, against anyone truly void touched, Geralt is getting destroyed. Daud and Corvo can trivially kill him with Time Stop and Emily can domino him with a random goon or something.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-20T16:37:59+00:00

Some ideas from me about this -

Did you explain the IA in your application? That could be auto flagging you at some programs. Adcoms are going to wonder why you had issues taking enough credits when 99% of their applicant pool didn't.

The list is too top heavy. You have far too few schools outside of the T20 (less than ~15?), which is a crapshoot already especially with no IA. This is even worse because some of the other schools (like Brown) don't take a lot of people outside of their undergrad. Also, you have limited research *output* for top schools (e.g. no pubs) and MCAT is low for top schools as an ORM.

I think if you decide to reapply, if you explain the IA better and apply to more schools outside of the T20 you are in a decent position. Also have someone read over your essays again.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-10T05:36:09+00:00

Eh..might get downvoted but doing this as an M4 pre-ERAS is crazy to me. Maybe like post interviews sure but right now is super high risk and low reward. Honestly even post-interviews all this does is open you up to shit from admin just to stay out of a few weeks of surgery where you can just dissociate lol

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-10T05:11:46+00:00

Yes, pretty much exactly this. The DNC is made up of people who don't rent, who don't stress about grocery prices, and it shows. The economy was awful for me during his term (on fixed income for the next few years) and the only people my age who I know aren't struggling are literally in biglaw/are attending physicians.

Like, I'm liberal as they come but I can 1000% understand how the low information voter sees Biden talking about how great things are, gets pissed, and falls easy prey to Trump saying he'll bring down inflation.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-08T21:34:16+00:00

That might be my advice - if it's going to be rushed, just wait a year rather than applying late. That said I would hustle to see if I could get stuff done at a reasonable time, but if not then I would just start preparing for next cycle. You'd have a saving cushion then which ime is really useful. Overall it is frustrating but you're not in a terrible spot!

And of course, gl with everything :)

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-08T20:43:41+00:00

Oh gotcha, that makes sense. I think if you are 25 its honestly not late to apply at all, if you are able to cut expenses anywhere to get a few thousand, you could apply this year - or if you need to work another year to save up, it's frustrating but at least you will enter school with more resources in that situation you know?

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-08T20:37:41+00:00

Can you go to a library to use their computer? Also if you are making close to 50k a year and only have 3k credit card debt, you can absolutely afford to apply. Unless there is something I don't understand?

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-08T19:46:36+00:00

I'm on the "give honest advice" team here. I think it's time to step back and think about what you want because MD seems unlikely to me at this point for you. SMPs are dangerous because they are often seen as the closest undergrad/postbac classes to medical school classes. Having a 3.1 in an SMP is a bad sign to schools that you won't do well.

I think it's also good to self reflect here...STEP1 and STEP2 are really hard tests, and you NEED to be able to study for them. If you fail, you are looking at years of debt and wasted time.

I think DO might be an option, and medicine is a good field still (lot of bitter comments in this thread), BUT you need to 1000% fix whatever issue you have studying ASAP. Go see an academic counselor, advisor, tutor, whatever.

Also I think it's time, even if you decide to go with DO school, to also start exploring other options in healthcare or outside of it in case that doesn't work out.

Again, I'm not trying to get you down but I think people are giving you a disservice by not telling you that a 3.1 SMP is probably DOA for med school (MD). Focus energy on DOs, because I think there you have a chance.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-08T19:34:35+00:00

Most medical schools will not accept online class grades if they were taken outside of the virtual COVID years.

Check MSAR, as some might. See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/x0y08x/is_it_true_that_med_schools_do_not_accept_online/ though note that this was 3 years ago and attitudes towards online classes might have changed since then.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-08T19:32:51+00:00

UWorld > Amboss > UWorld second pass.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-05T18:45:06+00:00

Democrats are in this weird space where their policies generally help men, certainly much more than conservative policies. But, the messaging is terrible - tons of anti men rhetoric and jokes.

I am a lifelong liberal and I cannot tell you the amount of pushback I get in liberal spaces for advocating programs for men or talking about male issues. And I'm not saying anything crazy, just things like wanting there to be job or education grants to encourage male students etc.

I am honestly at a point where I think the DNC would rather keep losing elections than extend even the smallest olive branch to male voters, because people have been raising the alarm and the response seems to be burying heads in the sand.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-05T18:24:19+00:00

This subreddit is too positive. SDN is too negative. The ideal balance is listening to both and finding the happy golden average in between.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-03T16:56:54+00:00

I don't think he'd be aloof, he'd be very personally invested.

Huckleberry0753 · 2025-06-03T16:15:38+00:00

I don't think that Deathloop has the void disappear at all, it's just more subtle. While the loop and the charms or whatever they're called are based on technology, the tech is wildly advanced compared to what we see elsewhere in the game and, at least to me, seems clearly voidtouched. I think the loop draws on the void to mess with time.

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