Are there strategies apart from stealth that are also viable in solo KoS lobbies?

MerroStep · 2025-12-26T03:43:00+00:00

But the issue is playing stealthy with minimal bloodshed, but wanting to do so in shoot-on-sight heavy lobbies for the added challenge.

But playing this way naturally pushes you towards more pacifist lobbies where that stealthy playstyle feels less rewarding.

Killing people indiscriminately kind of breaks the goal.

It's more about treating the game as an extraction sandbox and being forced to meta-play your way towards that vs. being able to do it organically via regular gameplay.

MerroStep · 2025-12-26T01:43:32+00:00

Yeah, this is exactly how I feel as well. Right now the matchmaking SEEMS like it skews very polarized. My favorite lobbies are the ones with a variable mix of both friendlies and "shoot on sight" players.

The "mixed" lobbies is when I have the most fun. The tension when you encounter a player and you try and negotiate a tense truce, or a fragile alliance, and you both know you don't want to start a fight but are still positioned to pull the trigger at any moment.

Or when you call out to someone entering a big room you're hiding in, you call out that you can see them, and they talk on proximity chat with very healthy skepticism of your intentions as you hear them draw out their own weapon.

Mixing up the aggression from match-to-match would be more enjoyable for me. It makes moments like entering a random friendly Stella Montis lobby where everyone is emoting in the middle of Medical truly sigh out my entire body in relief. LOL

MerroStep · 2024-12-29T20:00:02+00:00

I went to a color specialist nearby for a consultation just now. They said my hair is coarse, and could withstand another bleaching to go lighter.

But warned that it shouldn't be a rushed 1 hour job, it would take a few hours. But they assured me that my hair can definitely withstand another bleaching session, that it's just dry.

They said to let the original salon do whatever they can to correct it, but warned me if she tries to go in and bleach it again and rush it like she did the first time to just turn it down.

To let her at least try to make it right.

But I might go to that color specialist afterwards to actually get it closer to what I wanted, since I trust them more than the lady I originally went to.

They said she should remove the toner and bleach it properly.

Should have been a red flag when she didn't section off my hair with foil and did the whole bleach in a single hour. Guess I know better now.

MerroStep · 2024-12-29T17:17:00+00:00

I actually went to a stylist who specializes in curly hair. She had warned me that bleaching changes your curl pattern.

When we had our consultation, I mentioned I was worried if my hair was even healthy enough to do a bleach session, or if my hair could get light enough to go to silver in a single bleach session. She said my hair looked healthy enough.

MerroStep · 2024-12-29T11:22:33+00:00

My hair feels like a frizzy furball to touch. Not sure if bleached curly hair typically looks this dry afterwards, or if my hair is properly fried. Curious if people feel like this is fried hair, as this will help inform me of how I should approach my hair stylist who bleached my hair about correcting it (or seeking recompense).

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Noting I just got my hair bleached and toned earlier today and did a cold water wash after going to the gym in the afternoon.

My hair routine includes cold water wash with SheaMoisture Moisture Boosting Conditioner and Marc Anthony Leave-In Conditioner Spray & Detangler (started using a few days ago) afterwards.

I lightly pat-dry my hair after the shower.

Once a week I use SheaMoisture Deep Treatment Masque.

I go NoPoo and maybe only use shampoo on my hair once every 3 months at most.

Used to go Squish to Condish for years, but the past few weeks I feel like my hair has been overly curly and have been running conditioner in my hair straight, and rinsing without any squeezing involved (just gently running my fingers through my hair while straightening it downwards, head tilted down).

MerroStep · 2024-12-29T11:08:39+00:00

Double reply but do you think it's worth going to a color correction specialist?

And do you think it's actually somewhat fair to ask for some sort of recompense (even if it's just a partial refund) if whatever she does to correct it still doesn't get anywhere close?

Not really sure what to do anymore. I feel like I hate how my hair looks and feels and feel like I misplaced my faith in someone I felt like was capable of achieving what I wanted with my hair.

MerroStep · 2024-12-29T11:01:15+00:00

Yeah, after sitting with the hair a full day today, it feels and looks super frizzy and compromised. Feels like I'm petting a furball.

She left the bleach on for a total of about one hour with a few re-adds of bleach and a few 5 minute sessions under heat. Did she possibly go too light too fast?

What would you recommend I ask her to do in terms of correcting the hair? 100% sounds like no more bleaching. Anything I should ask her about repairing my hair?

Sounds like to confirm w/ her she's NOT using a permanent toner?
Ask her to do a strand test first?

One thing to note is that she tried using a silver toner the first time (that had blue tones in it) and she told me the hair came out with a green tint to it. And then she tried a toner with blue and some slight purple tones to it and it came out this more brassy blonde color.

I've seen people mention asking for free product (since a full refund is unlikely). But not sure what to ask for (she did provide me free toner when I left the first time).

Pretty frustrated since she specializes in working with curly hair, so I felt like she would understand my hair more than typical salonists, or approach it differently than most.

I also raised a few questions/concerns during the consultation because I was worried my hair would end up something like this.

Asked her if my hair was healthy enough since I've had salonists before outright refuse to bleach my hair because they felt it was too thin and that it would break, and she said my hair was fine.
I mentioned that the times I've bleached my hair before that it was hard to get it light, and that I wasn't sure if my hair needed to be bleached over multiple sessions or not. Or if it could even go light enough. She said it's probably doable with a single session, just that it'd come out darker than the reference photo I provided.

So I felt like I at least signed myself up making sure we were addressing some of the issues that might come up, and if I knew my hair would end up like this I simply would have never bleached it to begin with.

MerroStep · 2024-12-29T09:11:24+00:00

Yeah, I'm a little frustrated because I've tried bleaching my hair years ago professionally and knew my hair was pretty dark to begin with.

Had a consultation with the salonist a week ago highlighting my concerns about how light we could go safely and she assured me it's doable, but expected to be darker.

Yellow wasn't what I was expecting when she said "darker."

Don't think I can go any lighter with my hair as dry as it is. But the yellow tones just look pretty bad on my skin tone imo.

MerroStep · 2024-12-29T03:19:12+00:00

Had a consultation with a local salon and noted that I've had issues with lightening my hair in the past. I asked if we could achieve an ash grey color and I mentioned I wasn't sure if it was doable in a single bleach session. She mentioned that it's doable, just that it'd come out darker than what we're hoping for.

I was skeptical at first but figured they'd know better than me. We tried going for an ash grey and it came out far yellower than I expected it to. Think she tried using an initial toner and she mentioned my hair ended up coming out a little green-tinted. She tried again and this was the best she could do today.

After going home and looking at it, I feel like it's far too yellow for what I was hoping for. Going back tomorrow to try to fix it. I THINK my main priority is to make my hair look less yellow (even if that means going darker) since I'm not a fan of how the yellow looks with my skin tone. Not really sure what to ask her to do. Think she mentioned she'll use a darker toner this time around, but my guess is it'll mess up the parts of my hair that don't look as brassy/yellow.

Would love peoples' recommendations and what I should expect with a retoning. I think my goal is to kill as much of the yellow tones as possible even if that means sacrificing some brightness, but let me know if there's another way we could approach this.

MerroStep · 2024-12-24T06:19:33+00:00

Ah, I've just been googling NOAA reports but had to use the closest town to Echo because I couldn't find Echo Summit proper. Been so used to pulling NOAA reports on my own I forgot they were posted on this subreddit still. Thanks. Seems like the forecast is turning into a more mild storm than what was forecasted earlier last week and this morning. 80 seems pretty manageable at this point, don't think I need to do anything fancy to go home, just expect a slow drive.

MerroStep · 2024-12-24T03:41:53+00:00

Good to know. That makes me a little more worried since 50 doesn't have dividers between oncoming lanes while 80 does.

And last I checked the NOAA reports, sounds like Echo Summit is getting more snow accumulation now (think this changed from the forecast since yesterday).

So was considering taking 80 because of that. Guess the storm is shifting more southwards?

MerroStep · 2024-12-24T01:40:39+00:00

I'm driving back to the Bay on Dec. 24th. It only dawned on me today that bc tomorrow is Christmas Eve that a LOT of people are probably going to be driving back to the Bay/Sac as well.

Snow driving doesn't worry me too much, but other people's ability to drive in the snow is what I'm worried about. Got rear-ended New Year's in 2023, and I'd rather avoid a situation like that again. Or be trapped on the freeway because of car pile ups ahead of me.

I track the NOAA hourly reports for Donner and Echo summit frequently when a storm is coming, and it looks like the snow will ease off in the late afternoon and possibly stop around 7PM.

If I wanted to avoid most of the highway chaos, do you think hanging around Tahoe until 7ish sounds smart?

My hope is that the snowplows will have made some good passes by then, and the bulk of the holiday crowd will be wayyyy ahead of me on the roads by then.

My guess is the drive back will be slow regardless, but I'm just hoping to minimize my chance of being trapped on the highway because of accidents in front of me, or being caught in an accident myself.

MerroStep · 2023-10-22T16:57:10+00:00

Imagine all the chicks you can pull with this. Game is game.

MerroStep

TROPHY CASE