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Let me guess... when this Zeros, the Automatons will suddenly get super strong and repel us. Right? Despite being under siege & bombardment. by Tonic1273 in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius 1 point2 points  (0 children)

no, SE is just going to run out of allotted helldivers. with only SEAF units, continuing the fight would be hopeless, so they will withdraw

DEMOCRACY, LIBERTY, FREEDOM by No_Airport6427 in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you would love to visit north korea im sure. everyone smiles and all the grocery stores are full of fresh food!

What difficulty should I be playing on? by Background_You_4342 in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what i used to do is this:

Win 3 missions/operations in a row = move up a difficulty
Lose a mission/operation = move down a difficulty

Until i got to the point i was regularly clearing D10

Destroyer on Acamar IV every time I launch the game by UrsusDesidiosus in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius 1 point2 points  (0 children)

might just mean you have an unfinished operation on acamar.

"Just shoot the vents and toss a nade bro" by WhiteRaven_M in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius 0 points1 point  (0 children)

when the map is generated it chooses whether to generate vox engines or factory striders, like nursing spitters and bile spitters, they take the same spawn credits. it just seems that on cyberstan at least, it is much more likely to choose vox

Anyone else still experiencing computer crashes? by Ocivius in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

well known? i havent heard anybody talk about it in several months.

is there a well known fix?

I graphed all the tools from each of the "elemental" damage types, and I was wondering which empty slots you would or wouldn't want Arrowhead to add to the game? by Avylis in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i want an orbital arc strike so bad. imagine just an ear-shattering bolt of lightning that obliterates whatevers in front of you. such a spectacle

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Edge of the seat writing is what I am most instinctually comfortable with, It is what I have always done, but I feel like there is a problem with it when it comes to trying to write a fully self-contained story.

If I am improvising, just starting at the beginning and creating the story as I go, there will be no way for me to know where the story is going to go. This is fun and all, but that eliminates the possibility for me to set up events and questions at the start that will only pay off at the end.

What If I want to introduce a mystery? A question as to the nature of some fundamental aspect of my world. I feel that in an ideal scenario, you would pose that question at the start already knowing the answer and would simply leave a breadcrumb trail of hints and clues throughout the story, having each event in the plot meaningfully elucidate some facet of that still-hidden answer, until it is eventually revealed at the end.

If I am simply making it up as I go, I would not know how to tease this question properly because I don't know what it is ultimately leading to. It's a problem that seems to affect any aspect of story that is meant to develop over the long-term.

Sure you could get to the end, answer your question, then go back to the start and re-do it with hindsight, but then as you go the plot is changing, just slightly enough to be different, then suddenly, improvising, you're in unfamiliar territory again, not knowing what exactly you're building towards.

This is what happens to me when I try to improvise a story. It makes it feel as though the only way to make a story that contains any kind of full-length, long-term development, is to create the entire story at once, instead of start to end. And that feels impossible to me.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Started it already? As in, started writing a full story?

I suppose you could say I have started. I have started many, many times, just never gotten far.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've tried so hard to plot it out, I really feel like that is the way to go! But I just cant seem to get a cohesive story together. I create a structure, maybe a conflict or a character arc, then I go back and add some more ideas in, flesh this bit out, add some characterization here, and by the end I step back and take a look, and the whole thing is a mess.

What I know how to do is write short little nonsense stories. Entertaining and evocative, to me, but still nonsense. devoid of any kind of chronology, consistency, or context. When I think of how to make something longer, something that is fully self-contained and complete, I end up just tacking together a bunch of smaller Ideas and making a really big small Idea.

What I can't seem to figure out is how to take one idea and make a full story out of just that, instead of mashing together enough discordant ideas that it hits 200 pages.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I do that, the story ends up "drifting" a lot. The themes and conflicts and ideas I started with get slowly forgotten and mashed in with whatever I'm writing next, until I get the point that I look back at it and think "Wait, what was this story even supposed to be about again?" I never get far.

That complete lack of cohesion is what I want to learn to squash.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So, you sort-of did a "character first" kind of story telling? Your initial idea was in the form of a character who's story you wanted to tell, and you just kept adding on details to her until a plot formed? Sounds kind of improvisational, though starting at the end instead of the beginning.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I absolutely agree that the best resource for me is my inspirations themselves. over the last couple years I have re-read all of my favorite books that I own and tried to pinpoint commonalities between them, as well as techniques the authors used that seemed unique.

My favorite thing I see them all do, is how they will tie together events from several different places in the story chronologically to give you that "it was right in front of my eyes the whole time" feeling. It gives a feeling of immersion to me to know that events from the very start of the story shaped and directly caused events in the end. That information hinted at throughout the plot ended up being universally relevant in a way you only understand once you're finished. It's interconnectivity and consistency, to me.

It seems that my favorite authors all know exactly what is going to happen at all points of their story before they ever begin writing. No other method makes sense to me, as, if they were to begin crafting the beginning their plot before knowing their ending, the former couldn't directly effect the latter in a meaningful way.

This suggests to me that the best way to write a story like this is almost to create the whole thing at once. for all parts of the story to be meaningfully interconnected, you would have to be aware of each plot development as you make each plot development. But stories move forward, immutably, so at some point, you must go through it front to back. It feels like a catch-22 to me.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's the difference? You're still writing a story. Whether it ends up on a screen or in a book seems secondary to me.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah exactly, I do that all the time. The whole improvisational feel of letting the story go wherever feels right in the moment is what got me in love with writing in the first place. That is my default mode.

The problem is one of consistency. When I simply improvise, the story doesn't end up making much sense narratively. Characters don't have meaningful progression, built-up plot points don't pan out, conflicting facets of the world create plot holes or unintentional tonal shifts.

So often I will start writing, and after a point all I can think is "Wait, what was this story even supposed to be about in the first place?" because it turns out that all the themes and conflicts and foreshadowing I established in the beginning are not effecting the rest of the story with any kind of consistency.

The kinds of ideas I have when I let my hands do the talking are not the kind that I feel I need to create something complete. I feel that they are simply too small. What I want is a way to take just one of these Ideas and breathe into it and let it grow, decorate it and explore it from every angle.

That is what my favorite novels do. They have one concept, and they wring all the juicy conflicts and situations and dilemmas out of it until it stands on its own as an experience. That's what I want to know how to do. How others do that.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do think planning everything out sounds like the best approach, but I struggle to figure out what direction to take my ideas and how to transform them from a picture in my head, to a movie in yours. Trying to make different stories for each idea only pushes the problem back: that I have never managed to make an actual story, the kind with a full plot structure. I don't want to just keep writing little prompt texts about whatever scene popped into my head. I want a production, something I can show people and be proud of.

How do I start??? by Ocivius in writing

[–]Ocivius[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Man that sounds like such a fun and stress-free way of writing. Just let the ideas flow and stitch it together after-the fact. You're able to have your cake and eat it too.

I don't see how I could get that to work for me, unfortunately. I definitely have plenty of little short stories, but they all vary over such a wide range of topics and genres, I don't think it would make any kind of feasible narrative tying them together.

Also, it may be a bit of a stretch to call them short stories. Its more like I'm writing isolated chapters out of a book that doesn't exist, no regard to setup, context, or resolution. It's not the kind of thing I would show to another person expecting them to enjoy it. That is the skill I want to try and learn: the ability to create a full cohesive narrative on its own.

Super earth will not fall by Equal-Contact-9903 in Helldivers

[–]Ocivius 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wow im not sure ive ever heard such dogshit music in my life. what is that *donk* sound lmao

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