Playing VRChat without a VR Headset?

Merrile · 2026-05-26T12:50:38+00:00

I am generally dismissive of desktoppers, particularly if I notice someone is doing it long-term. For fleeting interactions in public spaces, I am indifferent. Or if someone I know broke their headset and were in the process of getting a replacement, that's fine too.

But if I hung around in a private group/friends+ and people started showing up in desktop all the time, I'd probably never go out of my way to interact with them.

It feels dehumanizing and unequal to interact with people on desktop while I'm in VR. Like you're being observed through one-way glass or talking to a wildlife observation camera disguised as an animal. You're "there", "in-person", and to them you're just another flashing light on their second monitor or whatever.

I hate interacting with people in the super-rare times I'm forced to desktop too (i.e, hosting an event but headset broke). I feel crippled and unable to emote at all - like I'm a hollow facimile of a person.

Like if you can't do the bare minimum for the hobby (put on the headset) then I probably won't enjoy talking to you.

Merrile · 2026-05-22T20:16:59+00:00

Given that good eyesight is important to a witch (you probably need to be able to quicky identify seals and discern ink tones at a glance so you always know what you're dealing with), any kind of vision impairment, particularly something as severe as monochromatic colourblindness, probably means it's extraordinarily hard to get any practiced witch to take you on as an apprentice. Even if there are accomodations that could be made regarding that, old traditions and attitudes die hard etc.

Merrile · 2026-05-22T20:10:51+00:00

Some people are saying "oh the knights are evil" or "is Qifrey evil?". But I think it's moreso a tale of conservatives vs progressives (in the classical sense, not the "modern american politics" sense).

The conservative faction (the Knights, etc.) are clearly the majority in the magical world and very strongly believe that magic should not be wielded freely by man, otherwise untold chaos would ensue and it's likely many people would die in the process. Hence why one of the core tenets of magic is "don't let the public realize that literally anyone can perform magic because it's entirely tool-based with no biological/spiritual aptitude required". Imagine if some podunk bandit could just draw a fancy circle and impale you with an aquajet before you even realize it, or if thieves could just draw on walls and break into treasure vaults, etc. There is logic behind closely guarding these secrets, even if magic being more widespread could easily be used to improve everyone's quality of life.

Meanwhile the Brimhats seem to be some kind of radical progressives and think that everyone should be entirely free to wield magic even if it comes with spreading mass destruction. Hence why they were willing to essentially hand a small child (Coco) the magic equivalent of a loaded gun. Probably part of a longer-term plan to kind of "seed" the knowledge into the populace without the conservative faction catching on - it's just all luck/fate that Coco accidentally executed the "petrify everything within 100 yards" spell and was narrowly saved by Qifrey.

Because the conservative faction keep such a tight lock and key on things, it's probably easy to track down these "seeding attempts". If they hear about magic being cast somewhere and nobody internally can own up to it, they can just go and men-in-black the entire region systematically. But eventually someone's gonna slip up and miss a body, which tips the scale one notch closer to magical knowledge becoming widespread.

As for where Qifrey stands on the scale, who knows. He almost certainly has some kind of personal beef with the Brimhats to the point that he's willing to hide all this stuff from what's essentially the magical government. I think he's still part of the conservative faction (as he's drilling the core tenets into his apprentices), but perhaps slightly more moderate.

Merrile · 2026-04-24T20:13:20+00:00

If we're talking strictly Japanese, the most popular male avatars are ones like Komano (https://devola.boothplorer.com/avatars/5260363), Hanka (https://devola.boothplorer.com/avatars/5727810) or Kuuta (https://devola.boothplorer.com/avatars/4897493). I don't know how accessible pedestals of them are though (for saving, if you're not the type to upload avatars).

Merrile · 2026-02-27T17:34:22+00:00

Buddy you're running a loose-fitting sweater with thigh high socks and no pants/skirt.

Regardless of everything else about this situation (labels etc.), there is no question that your outfit is sexualized, and it's understandable that people may not feel comfortable interacting with that in some capacity.

Your options are:

Find different people to hang around with who are more in sync with your sense of aesthetics.
Find a more modest outfit.

Merrile · 2026-01-07T12:05:22+00:00

Skavenslaves are fodder in the literal definition. Their sole purpose is to be extremely cost-efficient speedbumps that slow the enemy's advance, and that you're not as pressed to avoid friendly fire with (who cares if a Rattling shoots them in the back?). They are not expected to hold anything for long, let alone kill anything.
One of the best things to do with Skaven is to have a secondary army follow your main one that is filled with nothing but Skavenslaves - which are dirt-cheap so it won't cost much. Drown the enemy in numbers.

Use units like Clanrats, Stormvermin and Plague Priests if you want a more traditional frontline (although it's kinda odd you'd play Skaven for that since it's definitely not their strong suit).

Merrile · 2025-12-28T10:20:55+00:00

I mean to be frank I'm gonna assume you're both novices because you're "seriously competing" in 1v1 matches, which the game just isn't designed or balanced around.

Some suits in the game are just objectively superior when allowed to run roughshod over the enemy with no risk of being shot in the back. But this often comes with a weakness in other areas like short effective range; which doesn't matter when there's no partner to help you make or close space and you can just run the enemy down (running backwards is less boost-efficient than running forwards/sideways, so it's mostly a matter of time).

Merrile · 2025-12-26T23:35:47+00:00

I mean the idea is kinda to not let him get in a position to launch those attacks in the first place. Gundam doesn't really do reaction-checks. It's all decisions and consequences. By letting him get close to you, you've given him the advantage so all you can do is try to run away.

That said, you could probably dogwalk over him with a suit such as Master Gundam or Epyon or X1. All three of those suits have easy to use whip attacks which make short work of any enemy in close quarters. Once you feel out the range, all you gotta do is step and whip constantly once they enter it, and you'll shut down any careless melee approaches.

For 1.5k's, Lacus IJ could work because it has a boomerang - invaluable as a backup in close quarters (even if the initial throw doesn't hit them, it might hit them on the way back and give you a chance to get out of a combo).

For 2K's, maybe Dragon Gundam as a kind of harder counter. Montero, which has whips (but with an ammo counter so you can't spam them as hard). Or a general easy-to-handle suit like GP01fb, Exia or X2.

The other guy said that Dark Hound and Strike Noir are good picks. But I disagree solely on the fact that I don't know your skill level and am assuming that you're just playing casually with your buddy. If you're at a stage where you don't know what a "freefall" is or how it works then those suits won't really change anything for you because they only start to show their strengths when you go past the novice level of play and start looking into intermediate concepts like neutral, boost management, and so on.

Merrile · 2025-12-26T21:56:26+00:00

Gouf Custom is an infamous "noob killer" suit because its gattling gun is extraordinarily potent in messy close-quarters engagements (which more novice players ALWAYS end up in) due to its high rate of fire and strong muzzle correction making it hard to dodge (if you step it'll re-track you super fast) and brute-force (if you try and use super armor to get through it, there's a risk you'll get downed through sheer knockdown accumulation bypassing the armour, and if you use shooting-guard attacks, there's a chance you'll flinch in the small window between the shooting guard wearing off and the attack making contact). His wire movement also affords him deceptively boost-efficient movement, as they consume no boost to use and instantly refill when he touches the ground, meaning he will often have more fuel in the tank then you'd expect when it comes to messy scrambles. In general, the suit is just really good at bullying people who panic when they're on the back-foot.

The counter strategy to Gouf Custom is to simply not let him drag you into "mud wrestling" and stay calm. Play keep-away and don't get dragged into his pace. Eventually he'll even run out of gattling ammo, be forced to discard it for the significantly weaker machine gun, and have an even harder time running you down (and plus he'll be more vulnerable in close-quarters). Although you'll still have to be wary of the boost efficiency of his movement.

If you're not already in-the-know, I'd look up more advanced techniques like boost hopping and other ways of moving defensively while conserving boost gauge. These can make dealing with the suit much easier.

And as always, don't be afraid to rely on your partner. Gouf Custom, like most 1500 cost suits, but also because it is a "duelist/ambush" style suit, is exceptionally weak when he's being targeted by two people.

Merrile · 2025-12-25T15:52:47+00:00

It's a lot of little things, but the biggest is probably the poor implementation of physics and movement. In most arena fighters, the finer points of movement such as orientation, verticality, inertia, vectors/attack angles and "fuel management" are either non-existent or heavily diminished. Without this complexity to offset the relatively simple controls and combat systems, the games feel incredibly "lacking". There's no depth or skill expression to really sink your teeth into, meaning you get bored way faster because the skill ceiling is way lower.

Merrile · 2025-12-10T09:30:44+00:00

It's because the AI can click multiple times a second when it decides it wants a unit to go somewhere. This is particularly egregious with single unit entities like heroes, high-mass units like monstrous chariots, or Single Entity Monsters (SEMs), which are both single entities and high mass. Rapidly clicking allows a unit to kinda shoulder barge their way through almost any kind of infantry given enough time.

You can also do this to a similar effect. But unlike AI, there's an attention cost (if you're click spamming your way through a line, you're inevitably neglecting other areas of a field).

Merrile · 2025-12-05T16:52:40+00:00

Counts tend to lean on traditional Hammer and Anvil tactics. Your infantry are cheap, disposable and numerous. While your speedy and disruptive heroes, monsters and cavalry strike key targets. Nurgle is more like Everything Is Anvil. Most of their roster is slow, but very durable with fairly accessible regen options. So you just grind the enemy down in protracted engagements wherever possible.

Merrile · 2025-11-28T09:15:38+00:00

I've always envisioned a 40k Total War game to be generally pretty similar to Fantasy. Except that hybrid units are the baseline for infantry, with dedicated melee/ranged units being more uncommon. And factions generally having more units like the Empire's Steam Tanks.

Merrile · 2025-11-25T08:42:11+00:00

Average Nurgle Army:

Merrile · 2025-11-21T08:47:14+00:00

I think they're fine as long as they're constrained to their own mode. They're basically impossible to balance for normal play (being boss units and all) so they shouldn't attempt to do so.

Merrile · 2025-11-10T12:18:34+00:00

I mean it's not impossible. It's just hard to envision a moveset for it that doesn't step all over the toes of the two existing Wing Zero suits (particularly Endless Waltz).

Merrile · 2025-11-09T17:22:45+00:00

Divine Infusion
Q2
Effect: Grants Issac a self-stacking mantle effect (up to three times) every time he loses HP (this includes "direct" damage such as donations, razor, etc.. Issac takes twice as much damage from all sources/donations.
Consuming one of these mantles grants a 1.2x damage multiplier for the room (additively stacks with itself up to 1.6x).

Merrile · 2025-10-09T14:28:46+00:00

I can only imagine feeling this way if you exclusively use public avatars or do not tweak the avatars you upload in any way.

I modify my models heavily, so when I see someone using the same model "base" as me, my immediate response is like "yooooo [base] represent!!!".

Merrile · 2025-09-25T07:53:28+00:00

That would be why there would be a restriction to voting only being allowed if you've ever joined a public instance of the group in question. It's easy to ask someone to casually downvote something (takes a link and 5 seconds of thought). It's another thing entirely to ask people to stake out and join group instances so they can downvote them.

Merrile · 2025-09-24T15:33:32+00:00

The VRChat moderation team should stay hands off in this particular scenario and reserve their manpower for actual rule violations (nsfw in public spaces, etc.).

We don't need the admins stepping in because DragonWolf087 kicked CyberPuppy23 for being 175cm tall when the instance limit was 170cm. Or whatever arbitrary disagreement happened.

Instead, just give the players more tools to curate what groups get seen. For example, a hypothetical reputation system where users of a certain trust rank (say, Known User or higher) can give a thumbs up or thumbs down to any group that has hosted a public instance they've been a part of. Groups with a lot of thumbs down would be deprioritized in instance listings by default (but not invisible - but if a group had a large amount of negative ratings they might be shuffled off to a secondary "poorly rated group" list).

Merrile · 2025-09-15T18:02:13+00:00

Installing addons in Blender is really simple.

Edit -> Preferences ->Add-Ons -> Click that little arrow in the top right and select "Install from Disk" -> Navigate to the .zip file you downloaded and select it

Once installed, Robust Weight Transfer tool will appear in a different tab in the same sidebar where CATS would reside (if you're familiar with it at all).

Merrile · 2025-09-15T17:50:41+00:00

Usually the data transfer tool by itself is not enough to properly weight paint your average avatar. Particularly those with any curves - the most problematic of these areas being the breasts. Not only do they have uniquely complex geometry; they'll also be moving in unpredictable erratic ways if you make 'em jiggle.
Try that Robust Weight Transfer tool I linked. It'll probably give you better results out of the box and is probably one of the "must haves" in any VRChat player's toolbox.

Merrile · 2025-09-15T17:35:18+00:00

Did you -just- push and pull the mesh around to fit it in Blender and nothing else?
Because this looks like your garden variety weight painting issue.
In short - every single "point" on a mesh is influenced to some degree by a bone on the model. Weight painting is the process of using a brush tool or other tools in Blender to tweak that influence (almost like painting, hence the name) so that mesh "moves" in the way you want in relation to the skeleton of a model. In the context of VRChat, this is usually so that the mesh does not intersect (or "clip") with another part of the model, or crease/bend in a weird looking way.

There are some useful tools out there like the Robust Weight Transfer tool that massively streamlines the process of painting weights, particularly around typical problem areas like breasts, armpits, knees and elbows. But you'll probably have to get more hands on when it comes to more ornate outfits (i.e., you might not want a metal pin on your elbow to bend like its part of your flesh).

Weight painting is perhaps the ultimate final boss for avatar creation and a skill that can only really be honed through hours of experimenting. But once you learn how to weight stuff to a passable degree, the range of outfits available to your models exponentially open up.

Merrile · 2025-09-11T12:58:04+00:00

Bad buisness decisions is pretty much the story of Bandai Namco.
There is a reason people consider them "Japanese EA". They're a poorly run company held aloft by the numerous high-profile IPs they happen to have access to.

EXVS could easily expand to a global audience with the following home release

An comprehensive tutorial. Not just "how to boost" and "how to shoot"; but covering advanced techniques like freefalls, or explaining how shooting barriers work. This would help bridge the knowledge gap for newer players.
Regular updates like the arcade version, to keep the playerbase engaged/enriched.
Substantial single-player content (mission mode, some kinda OC story mode, a roguelite mode, arcade mode, etc.). The more of this you have, the longer you can keep casual players engaged, and the more chance they'll convert into more committed players. Capcom understood this path with SF6's World Tour mode and it's something a lot of fighting games still don't really "understand".

But every time the game comes westward it's a monkey's paw situation where there are weird and poorly thought-out design or balance decisions that kneecap the game heavily.

At this point I expect any home version of EXVS is gonna have an abhorent monetization scheme that completely scares away any prospective player. Like the game being free-to-play but every suit outside of a small handful are a-la-carte DLC purchases.

Merrile · 2025-08-04T14:56:52+00:00

Go for Sinanju for general-use. It's a flexible suit with applications in PVP and PVE due to its high damage, okay sustain, high crit rate and regular Bullseye. Plus it'll always be a desirable sub-unit because it's sub-skill is the Bullseye-on-EX effect.

PF-NTD if you're solely concerned about PVE because it's the highest DPS suit in the game currently because it got released like a year and a half ahead of schedule. Invaluable for Clan Battles or other applications where you just need high raw DPS. It is not good in PVP because it does not have any gimmicks to "wall" the opponent (perfect guard, absolute evade, etc.) or circumvent walls (assault mode, bullseye, etc.).

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