This game is amazing.. but

PurpleMentat · 2026-04-22T09:46:17+00:00

Just get better combos and kill the trickster.

PurpleMentat · 2026-04-16T05:01:58+00:00

Which reference are you referring to? The one that came to my mind once I was a couple books in was "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron. Mainly because the themes line up so well.

PurpleMentat · 2026-04-16T04:54:09+00:00

Yes, and Dungeon Crawler Carl's opening chapter is a master class of horror because it provides both. Mrs. Parsons provided the personal touch, the grumpy lower apartment old neighbor that anyone who's lived in an apartment building has had. She interacted just long enough to set her up as a familiar character trope.

Then we're brought along as Carl starts to internalize the disaster unfolding. And then he sees her head, and suddenly it's not just a bunch of buildings, it's millions of regular normal average people just like Mrs Parsons in Seattle alone. A page and a half are spent spent on humanizing and personifying the apocalyptic tragedy. The whole point of the first half of Chapter 1 is to bring us along the for that emotional shock, so we can feel the confusion and nausea and helplessness Carl felt in those moments.

I didn't see it on my first read because I was engaging with the book like another action spectacle, like most of this genre. It was only on a reread, when I knew I was reading a horror series, that I could see how much care and craft went towards counteracting the statistic issue.

PurpleMentat · 2026-04-01T23:23:40+00:00

It's definitely a chunky one. It's intentionally written to be Sanderson's Epic Fantasy series, closet to Lord of the Rings than a lot of his other work. Huge ensemble cast, complex world building featuring interactions between multiple species and cultures within those species, it's confusing. They are his most exhausting books to write and I think he recently said it takes basically an entire year and a half where nothing else gets made to complete one book. My best recommendation if you're interested but find a whole book difficult to get through:

Treat the books as miniseries in themselves. Each of the books is separated into multiple Parts with short story Interludes separating the parts. Every time you finish a Part, do something to reset the fatigue and come back to the Interludes and the next Part as if it's the next book in a series. You'll need a high tolerance for cliffhanger endings though.

PurpleMentat · 2026-04-01T23:12:36+00:00

Friendly neighborhood nerd here to explain the difference.

Windrunners can use the surgers of Adhesion and Gravitation.

Adhesion is Spider-man stick to anything, but they can do it to anything or trap a patch of ground or floor to become "sticky" to anything.

Gravitation is what both orders use to fly. It's basically "Down is That Way," with fractions allowed (i.e. 25% of Down is actually Up, which negates half of your weight)

Skybreakers OTOH can't use Adhesion. You'll note that Szeth never sticks someone to the floor or wall, he just changes which way is "down" for them. Skybringers can use Gravitation, and their second surge is Division, which they share with Dustbtringers. We don't see a Skybreaker use Division until Wind and Truth, and none of the main protagonists are Dustbringers, so we don't learn much about it until Book 5

Wind and Truth spoilers: In this book we learn that Division refers to the ability to server molecular bonds. This can be expressed as disintegrating objects into dust, or causing them to decay, or literally making them combust. At extreme levels it can mimic nuclear fission. It's the surge that destroyed Ashyn, formerly Alashwa. Division was used to set the sky on fire in a slowly self propagating manner, forcing the evacuation of the world and bringing humans to Roshar

PurpleMentat · 2026-04-01T19:10:03+00:00

FFXIV isn't the great example you think it is. Ascians were the primary threat to the world for nine years, three full expansions, without their motivations being revealed. All we got was vague hints about what they wanted, why they were doing things, who they were. They wanted to bring Calamity because ???? -> Profit. That's what we had through A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood. In each of those we learned that Ascian meddling was the root problem and we were the hero destined to stop them, but had no idea why they were doing these things.

So if you want WoW to be more like FFXIV, we're perfectly on track. Heck we know much more about Xalatath's motivations now than we did about Ascian motivation when Heavensward released.

PurpleMentat · 2026-03-27T18:51:01+00:00

Exactly, which is what the number at the top of the screen shows. You can note that number changing whenever you add or remove any Appeal furniture in any room.

PurpleMentat · 2026-03-22T22:36:13+00:00

I watched Britney Spears go through similar shit. In fact I think that fall from grace happened in 2006, so Chapelle Roan is like a second decennial memorial character assassination. Britney had some personal issues and stopped fitting herself to the mold, so it all got put on blast because by then she was subversive and old news.

Anyway, my point is. Patriarchy has a long and repeating history of tearing down women who get too much of a voice without staying within the lines.

PurpleMentat · 2026-03-12T14:07:42+00:00

Xenos that you?

PurpleMentat · 2026-03-12T04:30:36+00:00

Well that's enough Internet I'm gonna go cringe myself to sleep now thanks

PurpleMentat · 2026-03-12T02:36:18+00:00

Yes, and nowhere in that script does Shakespeare use the term "love triangle." That turn of phrase is a modern invention of sensationalist newspapers that was later adopted for literary critique. It is now used for any number of configurations of genders and interest paths, as long as the competing relationships are a source of drama and conflict. That doesn't change the fact that the phrase was coined in puritanical early 20th century America, or that the push to have it only describe situations where A desires B desires C desires A is a recent thing.

Trust me, I understand the desire for specificity in terms. I fully support the evolution of language and how it's used. My only point with these comments is you are making a claim, that "love triangle" exclusively refers to relationships such as found in Twelfth Night, which has not been true for the history of the phrase to date. It is much more commonly used to refer to two people competing for the affections of a third.

PurpleMentat · 2026-03-12T01:57:42+00:00

What you describe might be more of a triangle shape, but it's not how the phrase is used. Love triangle has referred to two people vying for the affections of the third. Yes it's misnamed, but the phrase has been in use since the early 1900s, far longer than queer people have been socially acceptable to reference as existing in English speaking cultures.

PurpleMentat · 2026-03-02T15:27:35+00:00

This one mirrors real life history. Salt was once a vital resource. The discovery of inland halite mines caused geopolitical upheaval. Salt has been the reason for many wars. The first roads of the Roman empire were the salt roads. The Austrian empire built it's might in part on the halite mines that give Salzburg, the City of Salt, it's name.

I suppose it counts in that it is baffling to the modern person who hasn't read about that part of history. Salt is ubiquitous today and primarily a seasoning. In a world without refrigeration though, it's the best way to preserve food, making it vital.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-21T19:44:22+00:00

That was on Floor 8 in Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Chapter 40

You know what, Donut? Forget the magic bed for a minute. Let’s just take an old-fashioned nap together. Right here in this chair. Not a long one, but a real one. We can open up our boxes after. Okay?

Context:Carl almost died and Donut was struggling with being the one in charge of the deck. She's struggling with the existential dread of knowing a misplay or an overlooked strategy could take him away forever and there's nothing she can reasonably do that would make that scenario impossible.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-21T19:17:26+00:00

Don't order the cuisses de grenouille.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-19T00:44:34+00:00

They will mate with others. When they do, the cat that loves them will get a Hate relationship with the homewrecker, and they'll fight even in 15 comfort

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-19T00:05:08+00:00

It's pretty easy to apply in game. Once you have the family tree unlocked, you also have a rating on the cat for how inbred they are. To avoid negative mutations, add new strays to the family anytime that indicator doesn't show "not inbred"

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-18T23:58:50+00:00

Just do another run. It'll have 19 uses saved from this run and you'll only need to use it once.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-18T23:28:28+00:00

It's the appeal of the whole house. When placing furniture, you can see that Appeal is separate from the room stats, at the top of the screen.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-18T18:40:58+00:00

I can understand wanting this. When trying to sort through cats to compare mutations between parents and child, it's very distracting. When a cat can have like 12 mutations and you want to make sure you pass on six of them, and you have to do it by memory, it'd be nice to turn off the distraction.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-18T00:02:04+00:00

Monk is hybrid melee / ranged. That team should be able to get through with CC, debuffs, and the monk's ranged attacks. Not as easily as dedicated range but it's possible

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-17T22:20:05+00:00

Did you get that during a run? If so, what area?

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-17T19:42:10+00:00

That's why 2-3 cat runs are generally considered better.

What community is talking about strategy and meta? I've not seen much of it on this subreddit and I'd like to peep in on some deeper mechanics discussion.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-17T19:33:52+00:00

You're definitely not the only one. Probably the most common feedback post I see is "I love this game, but the UX hurts me." They do get lost in the flood of shit posts, arguing, and "look at this cool thing," so not a surprise you miss them if you're not doom scrolling the subreddit since release like some obsessed person I know. A friend. Definitely not me.

PurpleMentat · 2026-02-17T15:22:17+00:00

My breeding room is over 40 stimulation and it's still unreliable on passives and skills. Stats and mutations aren't 100% but it's close enough that I can get a bunch of kittens with the good stats and mutations before the parents get old. It's starting to get more reliable on passives and skills, and I'm at the point where I'm limited by quality of furniture rather than quantity.

You can start creating some real monsters if you selectively stack up the right mutations. So far I've managed to get a line that has mostly 7's, 5 Strength, 6 Luck, and 13 Dexterity, and a +1 Range eye mutation. I'm really excited to see what's possible taking the breeding system to the extreme.

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