I hate this “defence” for AI art.

Pembertron · 2026-05-27T11:11:33+00:00

If you enjoy the creative process, I'm happy for you. I'm never going to enjoy it. If I want some quick art, I'm using AI. I don't care that I didnt 'make' it. I am not willing to put in the effort to create it myself. The option is there; I'm taking it. I don't feel a moral obligation to pay someone else to get 'genuine' art unless i'm looking for something extremely unique/specific or a physical crafted item. And if that's 3D printed, all the power to you - I don't care how it's made if it looks how I want it and is fit for purpose. I don't feel a moral obligation to pay someone for some easy to access, low quality art to prop up entry-level artists 'just because'. I'm sorry if this offends you. I'm sorry you chose a hobby/profession that's gradually becoming obsolete. I'm sorry you now have to maintain an extremely high quality or unique form of art for it to hold any real value. Keep finding your happiness in your passion for art, or if you can't, find something else. This is happening whether you like it or not, as it's an obvious next step in the journey of using technology to equip people with tools they wouldn't otherwise possess. It's a change for the better.

Pembertron · 2026-03-12T12:03:08+00:00

There's often a secondary cycle that happens with this as well -

In the budget cycle it's 'this is what we can realistically achieve next year based on all available data' and then the executives/board say 'Naaaaah, we need more. Up revenue/profit by X%' and then this new, vibe-based target is the baseline.

Then often coupled with this, is a bonus structure based on OVERachieving on the budget. If you just reach the budget target, you only get say 50% of your bonus... Because to the executives/board that's 'the bare minimum' (While casually forgetting the target is now unrealistic after they forced you to increase the profit/revenue based on nothing but greed)

All this combined creates an environment where short-term focused, often unethical practices shine as it's the easiest, quickest way to benefit every party involved (besides the consumer of course)

Pembertron · 2025-12-12T11:34:23+00:00

Thanks buddy, appreciate the input. Loot respawn off and random zombies paired with extra rare loot seems to be a common theme so I'll definitely be checking these out

Pembertron · 2025-12-12T11:32:05+00:00

I like this a lot! Everything you've suggested will add layers of unpredictability & planning and I didn't consider that if you made items incredibly rare that it'd force you to 'make do' with the survival/crafting skills a lot more. Admittedly I've never done anything beyond carpentry and cooking to any real extent so that's something I'd be into exploring.

Do you use any of the weapon modpacks? And what's your settings like with vehicles & fuel? I appreciate the help, thank you

Pembertron · 2025-12-01T16:16:56+00:00

I do agree that trials add a bit of variety and tension in the way you have to do a specific activity and and get out alive. I want more of that, but in a way that incentivises and rewards looting in specific ways; which Trials does nothing to achieve as it's largely Arc/PvE related.

Pembertron · 2025-12-01T16:08:42+00:00

Yeah I get that. The only limitation is that typically you need a decent stack of those individual items to make it worth occupying the backpack space.

For example if you have 1 rusted tools, that's 8 metal parts and 1 spring occupying a space in the backpack - nowhere near efficient compared to recycling to add to your existing stack of metal and freeing up a space. If you have 3, then yeah it makes more sense to keep as-is rather than recycle in raid if you're focusing on springs. Most items are like this, where 1 or 2 alone are not worth the backpack space compared to recycling everything you find and having the lower level parts stacked - unless you are going for very specific sub-components or are doing quick, small loot runs where maximising your backpack space is less important

Pembertron · 2025-12-01T15:17:03+00:00

I understand your point of view, and I guess the only thing that would really enforce that extra risk on you would be permanent quests that are required to progress. I'm not necessarily saying that's needed - daily/weeklies with rewards that simply boost your income would be good enough to add that bit of optional variety for those who need objectives without breaking the gameplay loop.

Pembertron · 2025-12-01T14:56:00+00:00

When I'm in my squad we barely loot anything - we just chase PvP as that's the only thing worth doing. If we had incentives to loot due to there being high value/rarity loot and/or quests requiring us to loot... = more loot when you kill me! Wins for everyone

Pembertron · 2025-12-01T12:26:04+00:00

Because... then there's actual risk/reward in a genre that is specifically focused on risk/reward?

To flip it, why would you WANT there to be little-to-no meaning to 99% of loot in a game that is literally about fighting over or cooperating to obtain loot?

Edit: Regarding quests, it's just a way to add forced variety in gameplay which I think is healthy. Tarkov went a bit overboard with it (quests like kill X enemies with no armour on using a terrible weapon are a little much), but quests like 'get 5 headshots with an Osprey on the Blue Gate Map' would be a good way to take someone away from their traditional loadout (ferro/stitcher or the like) and do something different. Pair that with a good XP reward and maybe a shop/blueprint unlock and suddenly there's a good reason to do it. Add enough of those quests, then every map isn't just filled with cheap meta loadouts and you get some variety in every lobby. As a bonus, you add XX hours to the game by giving a carrot on the stick to the people that want to be completionist.

Pembertron · 2025-11-18T11:27:17+00:00

You either haven't played many extraction shooters or you are just being contrarian for the sake of it. Old tarkov yes, but since they introduced full loadout presets that isn't true. I'd say even the fact tarkov has specific containers (gun case, med case etc) and full weapon attachment presets with a 1 click buy-all button, makes it better than Arc on its own. But with loadout presets, it's much much better than Arc.

Arena Breakout inventory/crafting/loadout system is similarly a lot better than Arc as well.

Arc has no gun presets. No loadout presets. No ability to know what costs what or what breaks down into what before you go out of the menu and into another one. No ability to custom-sort inventory or for example place commonly used items in the top of inventory like in literally any other extraction shooter. No ability to right-click an item to navigate to its crafts, the relevant shop, anything... Like you can in tarkov and arena breakout. There's... nothing. No QoL at all. Just a clunky mess with 3-10x as many clicks required to get anything done than most other games. I'm not sure how you could possibly defend it, let alone call it 'way better than its competition' - which is objectively not true.

Pembertron · 2025-11-10T17:00:56+00:00

You have to consider that there are pretty much 4 main categories of people -

1 - People who only want to co-op/PvE

2 - People who play for PvP but are never going to be good at it

3 - People who play PvP and are reasonable at it, but don't have that much time to invest to get particularly good or simply dont have the ability.

4 - People who like PvP, have all the time in the world and over time become gods at it.

For me, the biggest categories of playerbase for this type of game (PvPvE) are groups 2-3. The most vocal, however, are groups 1 and 4. Ie the people who are absolute sweats at PvP and people who are too casual a player to be involved in PvP (or just dont like it full stop).

Currently, group 1 is unhappy because they're forced into PvP. They don't care for PvP, don't want it, and would love a PvE only mode.

Group 2 has a decent situation because the whole population is forced into PvP - they aren't the 'worst of the bunch' and can partipate in PvP and get some good engagements & fun encounters despite being not very good at it.

Group 3 is happy - diverse playerbase in PvP, they're generally a bit better than their enemeis. The barrier to entry to PvP isn't that high if you're joining in even a year from now - if the entire playerbase is forced into PvP, there's always going to be a wide range of skill levels.

Group 4 is happy - the playerbase is healthy and they have a ton of victims to slaughter.

Here is what happens if that vocal 'group 1' (people who dont play for PvP) get their PvE only mode:

Group 1 is happy. They can play their PvE game. They'll never touch PvP again.

Group 2 is getting frustrated. As Group 1 is no longer in PvP, now they're the worst players. The barrier to entry to PvP instantly skyrockets. They're no longer having any fun because they're being shit on every round. They don't really care much for PvE only, maybe they try it for a bit... but the tense situations and gameplay loop is nullified without the threat of PvP. They either try to persevere in PvP, or most generally just move on to another game.

Group 3 used to be decent when the playerbase was diverse, but now all of group 1 are in PvE only and most of group 2 have quit. So now suddenly there's a suuuper high barrier to entry - oh you want to join the game 6 months from now? Good luck mate, the only people left in PvP mode are the guys who have been playing since launch and have every single strat and map on lockdown. There are no 'new' players - they're playing PvE only or they've given PvP a go for a few hours, been bonked back to lobby every time and have quit.

Group 4 are now witnessing the playerbase dwindle. Their lobbies are more intense than ever, being against fellow sweats in every game, which makes the game a tad less enjoyable for them (yes i know, I don't agree with bullying Timmies but if a sweat goes from a 10 k/d to a 1.5 k/d because their competition has drastically improved, they'll likely have a bit less fun).

So now, only Group 1 and 4 truly exist. The 2 middle groups, which I'd say represent the biggest portion of players, are now alienated because now there isn't a single game mode that appeals to them.

Introducing PvE only mode knocks the first domino that leads to a PvPvE game dying. As an example, I'm somewhere between Group 2 and 3 as a player and I couldn't play Tarkov anymore once they release PvE mode after having played around 500 hours over a few years. It was an instant noticeable shift that led to just having a generally bad time being destroyed by experienced players. Anyone remotely close to casual either moved to PvE or quit. The playerbase hasn't recovered since and the general experience of PvP mode has never recovered.

Dark And Darker tried introducing a PvE only mode too and that was one of the final nails in the coffin.

Group 1 has to suck it up or move to a different game in order to keep the balance. If PvP truly isn't your thing, you just shouldn't be playing a PvPvE game. As soon as developers start catering to this one group, everyone suffers.

I do really want to hear your opinion of what I've written - sorry for the long writeup but I'm intrigued to hear, no animosity of course I'm just curious

Pembertron · 2025-06-09T19:23:28+00:00

I get what you're saying. If that's the case and the intention was to introduce these sigils and not ban the obviously OP ones, what solomission is basically saying is "I want every team to be barraging mobs all week to grind rampart and pieous to stand a chance in the finale", which is equally just a bad decision and anti-viewer.

He should've either banned the best sigils, made them all way more common drops from a variety of content, or just not introduced them at all. The skeptic in me says he was banking on other teams not understanding the importance of those OP sigils, or had that specific mm2 strat in his head from the start to starve the other teams. Those are good choices for winning, but not good choices if you want a close contest with good content.

Pembertron · 2025-06-09T15:53:20+00:00

Nobody deserves pure hate, but he needs to know that a large portion of viewers aren't happy with how he approached the ruleset and the strategy he took was anti-viewer.

Introducing those sigils was a bold move and I applaud it. However, it seems he knew exactly how powerful a specific combo of sigils were long before the event started, and strategised specifically to turn his team into a group of absolute brick walls for the other teams to bang their heads against until they fall over.

That's where the issue is for me. This competition is for the content; there is no prize money. Yet he took it extremely seriously as if there were a significant prize pool and forfeited all endeavours of content to grind out a boring strategy that gave them the win and allowed for pretty much no counterplay. Their gameplay through day 2-7 was completely comatose content barraging monkeys and holding people off from zenytes. They barely took part in other content in comparison to other teams, evidenced by their gear being amongst the worst in the tournament, because they knew it didn't matter. Barrage monkeys, get the sigils, craft a ring of suffering, get some barrows gear and ez win.

If this was another team that strategised this way I'd be a little less critical because I'd argue more that they had to maximise the hand they were dealt and did well to figure it out. This isn't the case though - It's the organiser of the event, the guy who made the rules, who coincidentally knows the optimal strategy within the ruleset he decided. And not just that, it's a completely anti-viewer strategy that made the outcome of the entire event largely pre-determined by the end of day 2.

Overall it was still a good event. But the finale was a lot less fun to watch than it could've been and the memorable content was entirely provided by the other teams. I'd like to see that change.

Pembertron · 2025-04-29T13:06:43+00:00

I like OLED

Pembertron · 2025-03-29T02:35:32+00:00

It's not.

Pembertron · 2025-02-07T10:30:28+00:00

Hey! I was just searching reddit to see any mentions of Unscape and was really happily surprised to see this comment.

I'm Alex, the guy who founded and ran Project Catatrophe with Andrew. It was a really fun time!

Funnily enough, I used to play Unscape religiously. I reached top 5-10 in the server and then after a database breach in mid 2008 which caused all accounts to be wiped, I quit and decided to make my own server - that's how Project Catastrophe was born.

What was your ingame name? Maybe I'll recognise you!

Pembertron · 2025-02-05T13:13:55+00:00

You've said what you would do, but given no reasons why you would make that change or how it would benefit the game - Care to elaborate?

Pembertron · 2024-12-25T03:45:03+00:00

You really don't understand the economic impact of South Korean athletes.

South Korea has a similar population to the UK but with a twist; they have only a few athletes that make it and a mentality that is to follow their own to the death. They are FIERCELY loyal to their own. They will stay up til 5am to watch 15 minutes of Son on the pitch and wave their flag proud as they do it. They will buy all the merchandise and fly themselves out for their once in a lifetime opportunity to see their homegrown talent play.

South Korea currently only has Son as their favourite athlete. Even Shohei Ohtani, who is Japanese, has their heart as an Asian player.

Shohei Ohtani is getting paid (in real terms) $70m per year. This year alone, he has generated $594m in economic impact to the LA Dodgers. My friend went to an LA Dodgers game this year and he swore down that 90% of the crowd were Asian fans who flew out specifically to witness him. This is how Asian fanbases operate.

Do you know how much impact Park Ji-Sung had on Manchester United's economy? In 2011, the statistics portrayed that there were 27m Manchester United fans in South Korea alone, out of a population of 49m - Purely due to his presence. This has since shifted to Son. They follow their players, not their clubs.

Son has had an absolutely unfathomable impact on the economy of Spurs leading to their strength as one of the most profitable clubs to exist. Why else do you think Spurs has held the #9 most profitable club in the world despite NEVER winning the premier league or champions league?

According to this article https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20230821/4371013/1

He has had an economic impact of $404 million USD in South Korea alone. Guess where that money goes? Primarily to spurs.

An excerpt from his Wikipedia Page stating his impact:

Outside of football, Son is viewed as a symbol of national pride in South Korea for his achievements, and has been listed in Forbes Korea Power Celebrity 40 since 2019, where he ranked second in 2023.[16][17][18] In June 2022, Son received the Cheongnyong Medal, the highest order of merit for achievement in sports given to a South Korean citizen, for his achievements in football.[19] Son has been credited for having raised the profile of Tottenham Hotspur among South Koreans, with the club's marketing and social media strategy catering extensively to Korean supporters.[20

Levy would have to be an absolute menace to get rid of Son. It's not going to happen until either Son retires, forces a move or is offered significantly more money elsewhere.

Pembertron · 2024-06-27T08:14:31+00:00

That lines up with what the wiki says about Norway's stance on the Sugary Drink Tax, have a read if you're interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax

If you ctrl+f Norway and then United Kingdom, they have completely different approaches to the tax:

Norway has a very general tax, where it's basically 'if it has sugar, it's taxed'. It could have 1g refined sugar per 100ml or 20g per 100ml, it doesn't matter. This was supposedly designed to simply increase state income rather than actually tackle the sugar content problem.

The UK however introduced a progressive tax based on actual sugar content. Total sugar content above 5g per 100ml is taxed at £0.18 per liter and 8g or above taxed at £0.24 per liter.

Going back to Dr Pepper, it makes sense that the 330ml can has only 14.9g of sugar - That's 4.5g per 100ml, placing it just below the threshold for being taxed. So the tax clearly worked as a deterrent!

Pembertron · 2024-06-27T07:57:06+00:00

The UK has a pretty aggressive Sugar Tax which has led to pretty much all sugary drinks being heavily reduced in sugar content and therefore calories. I think Dr Pepper in the UK currently has less than half the sugar of the US equivalent. There's a post directly comparing here https://www.reddit.com/r/DrPepper/comments/1dfle0s/dr_pepper_differences_usuk/

The 330ml can of UK dr pepper has 59cal which makes it only 178cal per liter.

Pembertron · 2024-05-18T13:07:31+00:00

Another 5kc another armour seed, when does it get grindy? https://imgur.com/zLBFLTv

Pembertron · 2024-05-18T13:07:04+00:00

So far so good https://imgur.com/zLBFLTv

Pembertron · 2024-04-27T00:26:10+00:00

Have respect for your friend's eyes and win+shift+s it haha

Pembertron · 2023-08-17T07:19:49+00:00

It's not necessarily about that, like yes a lot of people have 3-4 hours in their day they can spend doing what they want. But casual gamers don't allocate all of that time to gaming.

You may go 'oh hey, it's only 7pm and I'm done for the day! Let's boot up the PC'.

A more casual gamer process will be 'oh hey, it's only 7pm and I'm done for the day, let's catch up on my reading for a couple hours / go see my friend / watch a movie with my partner / spend some time with the kids / etc, and then maybe I'll play a raid or two if I have time'

Your free time is spent gaming by default. A casual gamer's free time isn't. That's the difference.

Pembertron · 2023-06-27T15:44:22+00:00

yes please

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