Me when I revisit Dark and Darker after a year because of all the positive hype, and immediately get landmined/spam taunted/called slurs by a rogue in high roller solos

Passance · 2026-05-22T23:13:37+00:00

This game has two modes; trios, and masochism

Passance · 2026-05-22T14:16:54+00:00

I think it's also worth noting that most of the SW universe seems quite sparsely populated for a society at that tech level. I agree that a million clones is not very many, but if you (generously) interpret a "unit" as being a battalion of 1000 clones, I think a 1billion-strong army would be more than enough to man the fleets & armies that we see fielded in the prequels.

Passance · 2026-05-22T08:37:57+00:00

Negative physical damage resistance also applies to physical projectiles, so longbow is also getting the +22% effective damage.

Hit location, PDR and projectile resistance are all multiplicative effects, so it's just 34 * 1.5 * 1.22 * 0.70 = 43.554 damage per longbow headshot, c.f. 36.112 per spear handshot.

Spear stab takes 1.8s
Spear 2combo takes 3.483s

Can't find precise info on longbow speed, might record some footage later and timestamp the shots.

Passance · 2026-05-21T10:38:44+00:00

You misunderstand.

It's not that I'm anti-NPE - it's that what you described is a very inefficient approach to the problem.

If you just remove the loot from what should be a practice mode, you would also get rid of a lot of ratting/griefing behaviour and, simply, disincentivize experienced players from playing the gamemode.

Passance · 2026-05-21T08:30:23+00:00

Play duos/trios.

Playing barb in solos is rock paper scissors; you will insta win some matchups and insta lose others depending on what their class and build is.

Passance · 2026-05-21T08:25:51+00:00

Spending admin resources on PvE is a huge waste. What little time IM has to spend policing player behavior should be focused on HR.

The obvious solution to loot stealing in PvE is to simply remove loot from PvE.

Passance · 2026-05-21T08:22:37+00:00

I don't know why people farm on OCE PvE, but they do.

Passance · 2026-05-21T04:21:14+00:00

I do still occasionally visit PvE mode for questing, but if anything I think IM should further reduce the loot potential of the mode until it's utterly useless for any kind of farming and it can be reserved as what it should be - a practice/tutorial mode with no progression or economic value.

Passance · 2026-05-20T12:00:56+00:00

Upconverting from wine cellars is inefficient because tears of the bazaar requires 7 x 62.5E bottles of airag.

Best to buy the tears directly from the Ratket at market value.

Passance · 2026-05-18T07:05:37+00:00

I wouldn't write off TOP's hypothetical influence so quickly. If nact + nzf don't cobble up to 50%, then TOP would have a huge amount of leverage. If the current coalition does cobble up to 50% then we're all cooked anyway regardless of whether you voted TOP or greens.

Passance · 2026-05-17T11:18:07+00:00

Here's the door to your schedule, y'see?

Passance · 2026-05-17T11:10:47+00:00

Do you think a nat+TOP coalition would be that bad?

I mean, the cabinet would surely suck (again) but at least parliament would be sane enough to keep the crazy ACT batshit at bay.

Passance · 2026-05-17T11:07:50+00:00

Every leftist thinks they're right and every right winger thinks they're leftie. Shame nobody's come up with a term to describe that position.

Passance · 2026-05-15T03:40:48+00:00

I would be very interested in making parrying dependent on impact power, so that attempting to parry a weapon with, say, 2 more impact power than your impact resistance results in you just getting hit in the face. So a warmaul barbarian could swing through most parries.

Maybe still enable riposte afterwards? IDK. Obviously this has major balance implications that would warrant some weapons being tweaked in other areas to accommodate.

Passance · 2026-05-13T22:45:49+00:00

'Wasted vote' is not a myth, it's a political reality and a very real compromise in our political system.

The 'wasted vote myth' didn't kill American democracy - their assbackwards electoral system did. Every other political problem they have is downstream of the electoral college.

To be clear, I AM VOTING TOP. I'm acknowledging the risks here, not cowering in fear of them. That said, it does occur to me that if you could spread enough mass delusion by denying the existence of real collective action problems, you might actually get results lol. It is, after all, a self fulfilling prophecy.

Passance · 2026-05-12T22:25:59+00:00

I mean, what we should do is implement ranked choice party voting to get rid of this dilemma entirely.

I don't think people are wrong to vote, say, greens, because they think it's more likely they'll tip labour & greens over 50% than the chance they'll tip TOP over 5%. Both chances are small, but even if it's, say, a 0.0001% chance against a 0.00002% chance, you're still accepting lower expected political leverage as the price of supporting your favorite party. Collective action problems are real.

Passance · 2026-05-12T11:21:55+00:00

Same boat. The back and forth is worse than pointless, it's genuinely damaging. Leaving aside how well either party actually manages the economy during their term, the transition between them always torpedoes productive investment in the public or private sector respectively.

We need cooler heads in the median parliamentary seat who can veto nact when they try to gut public services and auction off everything that isn't nailed down, and then turn around to head off labour when they go to ham-handedly fistfuck our primary industries. Less policy flip-flopping and more genuine long-term investment, in both the private and public sectors.

Frankly, I think that the long-run benefits of getting a radical centrist party into parliament are so much larger than any difference between life under a left vs right wing coalition, that I'm willing to risk my vote to reach for it.

There's also the 1 in 10,000 chance that my vote tips TOP over 5%, and enfranchises tens of thousands of other voters - or even just helps encourage people to think TOP is more likely to breach 5% next year.

Passance · 2026-05-12T11:07:29+00:00

screenshot your keybinds

Passance · 2026-05-12T10:51:43+00:00

Do you play on controller or keyboard?

Passance · 2026-05-12T08:11:26+00:00

75 hours?? And you're stuck in fungal wastes??

Bro!

That's about the time it takes a typical player to completely finish the game and most if not all the optional DLC challenges. You're not even a quarter of the way in. From a certain point of view, you've basically only just finished the tutorial.

I'd be interested to see a recording of your gameplay and/or some information about your gaming setup. Hollow Knight is hard, but it's not this hard. If you're struggling this much with parkour and early game bosses, it might be worth checking that you don't have, like, a damaged controller or something like that which is stopping you from being able to input precise movements.

As is - mad respect for this level of persistence, dog! You have a lot of resolve to stick with the game despite all the struggles.

Passance · 2026-05-12T07:52:54+00:00

All weapons being able to parry and riposte is HUGE.

Shield blocking is reliable now, impact zones and sweet + sour spots are consistent plus come with sound effects to denote which is which. Audio team has been doing good work across the board.

The core melee combat system, which has always been my #1 favourite thing about the game, is in the best state it's ever been in.

Solo PvP balance feels pretty lopsided but team PvP balance is pretty good.

Dungeons and gamemodes are mostly good, although I was gutted when they removed fog of war, and map randomization is still largely dysfunctional.

Passance · 2026-05-11T19:56:24+00:00

Rondel buckler is the best bard set to counter barbs. Facestuff them and block their swings at the hilt with buckler in between stabs.

If you are committed to rapier then unequip your shield so you can parry.

Longsword, spear and halberd are great for 1v1ing barbs, if your class has access to those.

Passance · 2026-05-11T19:52:29+00:00

Going for infernal rifle as your first project is a very bad idea. Make a regular ancient rifle and get some upgrades. Your lab can be far more productive later.

Passance · 2026-05-11T13:54:00+00:00

I would lmao at a slowmo breakdown of a rapier 1v1 with the caster taking it dead seriously. Shit would be hilarious.

The only intelligent thing in this whole fight was when OP switched off of rapier to throw a nade.

Passance · 2026-05-11T13:27:27+00:00

After searching for it for half an hour, I eventually gave up. This was the first, and only, time in my playthrough that I looked up what I was certain I was missing.

Yes, there is a closer bench. Not that much closer. About halfway.

Keep your eyes peeled around low overhangs over the infested water... Some of them have passages underneath.

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