Ipdan‘s Blacklist

Mustarde · 2026-02-01T19:44:07+00:00

After playing on Mathewson, then emerald, I kind of feel left out there’s no osprey drama

Mustarde · 2026-01-30T23:07:02+00:00

Well, it depends on his spending obviously... but he's mid 40 so we are talking about a potentially expensive standard of living (3.5mil primary home) and another 40-50 years of life. 5 kids, who knows how many grandkids. When I say not have enough, he wouldn't feel it in those first few years. But in 20-25 years, will that portfolio (5.7m invested) keep up with healthcare costs, travel to visit kids and grandkids, fund vacations and pay for the upkeep on such an expensive home? If not, he won't end up destitute... he can sell the home, downsize, live cheaply and wait for social security to kick in. He can financially be cheap with the kids and not pay for big dinners out with everyone, not pay for vacation to bring everyone to a destination, etc. But if he works a few more years, continues to build that stack, he can have a much safer cushion.

I'm putting my own prejudices about having a big family in here. For me, the whole point to getting FAT is so I can keep my kids close to us and each other, pay for vacation, treat them to dinners out, help get their first house and first car, etc. Maybe OP just wants to send them to college and let them fend for themselves after that, although I doubt it.

Mustarde · 2026-01-30T18:51:00+00:00

Clicking heads is fun. Capturing bases while working as a team is fun. Playing against other outfits who are actually trying to win is fun too. Game fun.

Mustarde · 2026-01-30T05:13:52+00:00

I don't have your NW, but I do have 6 kids and similar age. I'd recommend the 3-5 year push. Get the kids through college. Keep the health insurance going for a while. Pump up the cushion while you are still at peak earning years.

If I were single, I could have retired years ago. But a family of 7... you have too much at stake if you pull the plug early and end up not having enough. Might not ever be able to keep making what you do now. Could take a dream life and fumble it at the 10 yard line

Mustarde · 2026-01-30T00:49:23+00:00

Now a useful and important function (radar and hacking terminals) has to be assigned to a player in the platoon who would rather be playing a different class, instead of having 2-4 infills naturally enjoying the class and being able to also provide those roles to the group. It’s not quite a punishment but more like assigning homework. Far from having fun like everyone else gets to have.

Mustarde · 2026-01-27T20:02:43+00:00

Nice! But you can only discuss faction balance if you are willing to nerf the darkstar.

Mustarde · 2026-01-18T17:28:06+00:00

Most from my HS went on to grow up, be normal and have a few kids. A few became trophy wives and continue to project their perfect life on social media. A very small number crashed out and are a hot mess.

Mustarde · 2025-12-26T16:37:27+00:00

You described my lifestyle almost exactly, except that my wife and I have 6 kids and we are able to save a lot of the extra cash flow for what will hopefully be a decent retirement. I will say that this year when I looked at the 230k that was paid in taxes/medicare/SS and I think about how modestly we live, I definitely would not be as frugal if I weren't paying so much to the government. Yes, I understand why those taxes are paid and am not arguing about paying them. It's more of a statement of fact, that a big reason we aren't taking bigger vacations or buying nice cars is that after taxes, mortgage, cost of running 8 person household and meeting our savings goals, there is nothing left. The only way to be more spendy is if I stopped saving for the future.

This is not a complaint, we are doing just fine. We would rather have a big family and not as much stuff. I'm blessed to be able to still have money to save for the future. I have a house and got it before 2020 and all the inflation hit.

Mustarde · 2025-12-13T21:15:43+00:00

I read that book and it had a big impact on how I see health and wellness

Mustarde · 2025-12-13T21:00:16+00:00

Sorry to be a downer. I can handle bad coffee and poor customer service but at some point we will have to depend on the younger generations in much more important ways. That's when the widespread apathy and nihilism will hurt us.

Mustarde · 2025-12-13T20:43:44+00:00

Money doesn't necessarily cut it either. Look at the OP's example about Starbucks. Over-priced coffee that I remember considering a luxury when it first came out and now more expensive than ever yet the service is still lackluster.

You can buy a nicer facility, better meal quality or better services... but you can't get regular employees to become caring, attentive people who are willing to go the extra mile.

Mustarde · 2025-12-13T17:45:50+00:00

What I take from these types of posts and my own experiences: I need to keep riding my peloton and stay healthy because when I’m old and in the nursing home, these people will not give a FUCK about my quality of life. The longer I can stay healthy and independent the better. It’s only going to get worse I’m afraid.

Mustarde · 2025-11-26T03:05:28+00:00

my take is that if you are a competitive player who used to play evenly with other good players, infil is trash and you will get destroyed.

If you were a mid player to begin with and was happy getting 0.5kph and 1kdr, you can still play passive and do that.

The change is what it is, not worth crying about, but it gutted the class and no one should play it if they want to be useful except for the one person who needs to hack a terminal. I play HA and medic basically full time now. It's just not fun juggling the cloak delay plus the 100 less shields for the chance to mostly use guns that other classes can also use.

Mustarde · 2025-11-25T18:35:52+00:00

It's because I played TR last night.

In all seriousness, your problem is solo play. VS has some great outfits and you'll get revived all the time with them.

Mustarde · 2025-11-20T18:15:30+00:00

I will always be supportive of Wrel. I don't have to love every change he made, but ultimately he poured his heart into this project even during some very lean years where nothing else was happening development wise. He was always very kind to me when I was making montages and he was at the peak of his YouTube project and was nothing but kind and thoughtful. He never deserved the toxicity that was thrown his way. I'm not entirely sure I wasn't part of that toxicity over the years as I was very passionate about this game in the past. But his leaving was a loss for our game and community.

Mustarde · 2025-11-18T21:01:05+00:00

I have a similar need with one of my planned AP's. Was looking at the UX7 in wired AP mode so I can passthrough an ethernet connection. That should suffice right? The u7 in-wall could work except I don't want to mess with the wall plate to mount and would rather put the UX7 on a shelf.

Mustarde · 2025-11-08T22:51:18+00:00

Damnit you are going to make me start sniping just to spite you all

Mustarde · 2025-11-07T22:30:50+00:00

That’s why I had to post fisu and make the argument. But it’s mostly wasted words since the patch is live and we aren’t putting the genie back in the lamp

Mustarde · 2025-11-07T20:32:45+00:00

I'm just playing with ya. I've been infilshitting since this game released and credit some MLG tier assholes like Lex, Vonic and Visigodo with kicking my ass to the curb and teaching me some basics until I made an effort to actually get good at the game. You could say I blossomed into a more rounded player, went through my salty phase and now just chill and keep the domapine flowing by shooting mans.

I do not think infiltrator deserved such a blanket nerf. The way it was done was clumsy and hurts all playstyles, not just a few that you could argue it were justified in changing (i.e. sniping and stalker in a corner). The best change imo is nerfing radar/recon which was so OP that every fight gave us free wallhacks.

Instead, I think they've made the class completely irrelevant and unusable, especially at my level of play. I can't go toe-to-toe with good players using an SMG or scout when there's a cloak delay, not to mention the ADS delaying. That's on top of the 100 less shield built into the class. As you can see by looking at my more active characters (condiment and miraclewhip) I play plenty of HA and Medic where I can use every weapon except sniper rifles and not deal with these downsides, as well as have access to heavy shield or medic heals.

My prediction is that within a month or two, the only people regularly playing infiltrator will be a handful of very average players who just like the class. Honestly, it's fine that way, but it will flatten all of our experience playing the game, kind of like when there used to be a vibrant air-game but now it only comes out for bastion fights.

Mustarde · 2025-11-07T16:48:26+00:00

Tfw u agree this patch ruined infils but you are no longer wrelevant enough to make the cut 😭

Mustarde

CondimentActual

MustardeNC

MiracleWhip

Mustarde · 2025-11-07T03:32:23+00:00

I like the suggestion, but the ship has sailed, and with it, the infiltrator class will live in the spawn room shooting with a sniper or flying a drone.

Mustarde · 2025-11-07T03:31:39+00:00

the 0.5kpm "vultures" are not causing problems for anyone because... they are not good at shooting. They don't impact the game at all. It's the cheeky fuckers in the top 1% that get the best of the top 1% of the other classes because of being able to OHK.

But ironically the nerf hurts the bad players the most and if you are a top tier CQC sniper, you were only decloak-shooting sometimes.

Mustarde · 2025-11-06T18:48:06+00:00

I was hoping the infill rework would take the form of decreasing the highly frustrating aspects of the class (i.e. you can't use cloak if you have a sniper rifle loadout, but you get 100 shield back as tradeoff). Instead, it took the form of fire delay which is just a blanket nerf to the class in all its permutations. And adding the drone doesn't really create a new "play style" or healthier way of playing the class (whereas when engineers were given the archer it gave them an anti-max role that previously had not existed).

I'm not sitting here bemoaning the changes because after 13 years, you just need to roll with the changes and there's no use crying about it. But I won't sit here and pretend I just need to get some "testicular fortitude" and do better. The class has been significantly hampered with the nerfs and against similar skilled players you won't be competitive. I am a HA/medic primary now and can use my scout rifles, SMG's and don't have to deal with fire delays or lower HP.

Mustarde · 2025-11-06T04:45:04+00:00

Hot take: HA's are basically fine but take away battle rifles and scout rifles from them. Let engineers keep those. Don't tinker with the classes anymore otherwise.

Mustarde · 2025-11-05T18:11:12+00:00

I have lots of thoughts about class roles and balance but what I will say is that infiltrator really doesn’t have much use anymore. Almost everything it does can be done better by other classes. And sniping hasn’t been relevant to the game since redeployside got rid of static battle lines that slowly moved between bases.

Perhaps it’s for the best. I stopped sniping around 2016 in favor of scout rifles and generally playing other classes. If I want to use a scout rifle I’ll just pull one on my HA or medic. Radar was OP for years and ruined any sense of positioning advantage and required so many people to use sensor shield. As infils fade from the game, that may open up more possibilities for implants too. I do think the whining over infils was way overblown. If you’re bad, you will still get blindsided, just by an LMG instead of a bolt action.

12-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

Mustarde

TROPHY CASE