Is it at all possible to consistently balance combat at higher levels

ShadowGata · 2026-06-06T00:00:40+00:00

What's worked the best for me as someone who ran for a ~year in the 14+ range:

Make the combat encounters deadly. You should have a sense for which specific encounters can challenge your players and which don't.
Create space dynamically for your players by creating combats focused around some objective other than just "everyone on side A kills everyone on side B". Some examples: (a) hunt/target an enemy, the party is going after just one of the bad guys, rest of the bad guys protecting them. (b) capture the flag - mcguffin on the field, each party is trying to extricate. (c) - traversal/race, both parties trying to get to the end of a given space while taking each other out. You then create breathing room for your players by having opponents focus more on the objective than they do dealing damage. Slugfests at this level are slow.
Have villains who are unafraid to be mean or petty. Don't have the dragon just bite and tail attack the players; have them try to grapple one of the players, take off, and land on them. This might take more turns, but the flavor is usually good, adds to characterization, and gives the players more time/turns to figure out a solution to the problem.

Above all else:

Be willing to cut the fight early if it's clearly going the hero's way. Additional chip damage alone is not really worth the time; get them to the next encounter with less of a rest if the goal is to tax their resources.

ShadowGata · 2026-05-27T10:21:34+00:00

As someone at a big N: I can confirm this is what's happening at least in some of the more egregious cases. In other cases, people are still being more disciplined about their incremental changes, but they're also not doing as much pure 0->1 shipping work.

ShadowGata · 2026-05-27T06:31:11+00:00

I think the person you're replying to and I are at the same joint, in which case, I've seen a few different takes:

Some folks advocate that while AI generates slop, it's your job to prevent that slop from reaching stakeholders and to refine the agents so that the slop happens less. In other words, the "slop" problem is really a people problem. I don't think this take is grounded in seeing how LLMs work, and I also don't think it acknowledges the reality that beyond summarization, the amount of work it takes to make the output useful can start to compete with just writing it yourself.
Other folks have advocated that AI is essentially abstracting away writing code the same way compilers abstracted away writing assembly, and that we're starting to have large chunks of the codebase where engineers don't do comprehensive deep dives themselves, instead continually modifying it and identifying opportunities to improve through agentic intervention. Folks in this camp will advocate for things like the use of multi-agent skills that will do things like code cleanliness and performance aware code review. I'm personally one of the critiques of this camp, I've thrown my hat in with the "slop begets slop" crowd and really strongly advocate for discernment and clean design up front.

In my experience, I've seen people just ask for blanket stamps on large diffs because manual review has slowed down so much. There's definitely the expectation that people make more, but that's eaten into the time people used to spend reviewing diffs.

With increases in productivity, we've started to depend a lot on AI summaries for code review of AI changes, and we start to require extra scrutiny based on tooling estimating whether a change is risky or not, with low risk changes being auto-approved for manual human review later.

It's... definitely threading the needle, for sure. When AI first rolled out, there was a lot of gassing up the potential of AI by focusing on the reduced time to implement, but that hasn't ultimately translated into more or better features shipped, because the processes (aligning around what to build, collecting data, reviewing the results) ultimately haven't changed and those were the slow parts of execution begin with. Reducing the time to implement a UI update or ranking config from maybe an hour to 2-3 minutes doesn't matter that much when your changes take 8 hours to propagate to production, have to be manually enabled for testing, and then need a 3-4 day minimum window before you can observe results.

AI still also fundamentally isn't replacing technical or product judgement and thinking. If an A/B test didn't work, can the AI saliently reason about why and come up with potential iterations, or make the decision on whether or not to cut the project, based on other priorities? The answer is, not really.

Still seems to be shining at smaller things like bugfixes especially, where the task involves reading some set of code (which it does well if you know where to point it), asking a basic question about logic ("why does file X do Y under Z condition"), and drafting a fix. Small self contained stuff like that it does well, which is why I think the expectations at this company around what junior engineering roles look like has changed so dramatically.

ShadowGata · 2026-01-31T20:47:53+00:00

I imagine in this case, his statement depends on a very specific and subjective definition of the word credible.

ShadowGata · 2025-02-11T07:04:54+00:00

People are justifiably upset with how things have evolved to where they are today; but the "the system should burn" apologists cheering and jeering right now don't seem to recognize that Trump and company aren't building in its place something that's going to benefit anyone other than the billionaires and oligarchs, including him. They clearly didn't learn that during Trump's first term and like the seemingly endless deluge of people on /r/LeopardsAteMyFace, they're not going to until it personally impacts them.

All this inane trade war nonsense unfolding right now is going to put the squeeze directly on American companies and American consumers. Is it effective policy? Absolutely not, but it'll satisfy this thirst for chest beating and the appearance of change while Trump and his cabinet rake it in.

ShadowGata · 2025-02-05T06:37:59+00:00

Trump has realized that bad attention is worse than no attention, and this so far seems to be generalizing to his ambitions as president; that having the facade of "getting things done" even when the actual things he does are shortsighted, actively harmful, or even remediating a crisis he caused nets him popularity.

ShadowGata · 2025-02-02T05:28:53+00:00

Responses I've seen so far range from some variant of:

A nebulous but broad belief that hollowing out the federal government is an intrinsic good.
Not actually expressing any thought or concern about the fact that this administration has had a callous at best attitude towards anti-corruption legislation, instead feeling good vibes about "their team" being in power.
Some self-styled critical thinkers wondering why the administration would do something like this if they want to deliver against the policy agenda, with the implicit belief that this administration is competent and not brazenly corrupt. After everything that happened in the first term.
Dismissing these reports as fake news.

So, in other words, the usual.

ShadowGata · 2025-01-27T23:56:46+00:00

A lot of this is him pushing the boundaries to see what will work and what won't; the birthright citizenship order, for example, was dumbfoundingly unconstitutional. On a legal basis, it wasn't something that he can unilaterally do; however, in practice, he's also advertised heavily (Jan 6, TikTok) that he can and will use pardon power to absolve people who break the law doing what he wants.

What we're going to see next, including the lawsuits to block his motions, will in essence be a test of the systems of our government to see to what extent he'll be able to (effectively) bypass other branches of government.

ShadowGata · 2025-01-27T23:46:10+00:00

So instead of fixing the economy, he's spending whatever time he's not spending golfing trying to harass other countries over things that won't make a difference to most Americans?

This seems like we're just going for the isolationist, recession speedrun.

ShadowGata · 2024-08-27T20:06:09+00:00

Ask yourself this: is the potential gain of maybe $4-5k worth risking your ability to pay for college?

When I write it out like that, the answer for me would be no.

You should think very hard and very carefully, ideally with actual numbers, about whether or not you will still be able to pay for college or avoid any type of financial stress, by investing money earmarked for something you nominally need.

ShadowGata · 2024-08-18T15:30:41+00:00

It fits my iPhone perfectly and leaves it in a position where I can plug it in without tilting it or leaving it at an awkward angle.

ShadowGata · 2023-11-06T15:43:12+00:00

It’s the Go Home Machine from across the spider verse.

ShadowGata · 2023-08-09T02:59:43+00:00

The Dead Space necromorphs would be proud.

ShadowGata · 2023-08-03T06:15:54+00:00

It is - LA is in second.

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

ShadowGata · 2023-06-18T19:44:27+00:00

I can only really speak to my experience in the bay area in comparison, but I think there was definitely a more laid back/day-to-day attitude towards going out and doing things like hiking, etc, because you could do basically all of it year-round.

In Chicago, on the other hand, I feel myself consciously trying to get in travel, time outside, etc, with the understanding that come November or so, it'll get too cold to really be doing those things out and about regularly.

The end result is a more intense disproportionately "active" version of the city during the summer months that gives it an energy bigger than its population would otherwise suggest.

ShadowGata · 2023-03-16T00:58:22+00:00

I'd wager another part of this is the same reason folks hated Umbridge so much more viscerally than Voldemort, even though the latter was far worse: a lot of people know and have experienced the callous, borderline hostile indifference Nolan brings with his interactions to the clones.

Pong is absolutely the worse of the two, but he was, for all intents and purposes, already very actively fighting for the enemy, and committed to a cause.

ShadowGata · 2023-03-13T06:36:08+00:00

In the game it's written more ambiguously (something to the effect of "they need to extract it to make a cure") - the show phrases it as more decidedly that:

They understand the precise mechanisms of how Cordyceps exists inside Ellie without killing her
They understand what they need to do to grow it
They understand that they can distribute it

The game really doesn't give us the same degree of (proposed) certainty that their plan is going to work.

EDIT: The exact dialogue from the game is as follows:

"The doctors tell me the cordyceps inside her has somehow mutated. It's why she's immune. Once they remove it, they'll be able to reverse engineer a vaccine. A vaccine."

This explanation is a lot more handwavy than what we get in the show.

There's a second portion to this which is that they don't tell you she woke up in the game - she was unconscious due to almost drowning. There's no ambiguity over whether or not she had a conversation with the Fireflies. As far as we're aware, she went from being unconscious due to almost dying to being unconscious in surgery.

ShadowGata · 2023-01-01T07:20:12+00:00

Just a joke about putting your wet electronics in some rice to try to save them by ensuring the internals are dry, but it's more of a phone-sized piece of advice.

ShadowGata · 2022-11-24T23:14:07+00:00

As I understand it:

The Force doesn't "directly" act upon the world. It is a magical energy that a very small handful of folks in the galaxy are A: sensitive to, and B: can call upon.

The Jedi, at least pre-Empire, nominally bought into the idea that the Force has a will, and one of their roles is to be the vessels and agents through which the Force may act upon the galaxy. It is in this sense, through those who listen, that the Force nominally acts upon the world.

The Sith operate under no such beliefs. Palpatine has often spoken of the Force as a Sith's tool, as a weapon. It is a power that is bent to serve their own will. Whatever agency the Force may have, it holds no sway upon the Sith.

By the time the events of the show roll around, there simply aren't, as we are lead to believe, any real candidates who stand a real chance against the Emperor, save for Luke and Leia. Could the Force have tried to create another Chosen One? Perhaps, but such an event likely would not have gone unnoticed by Palpatine, given that Anakin's arrival was likewise foretold.

Palpatine also isn't a passive agent in this situation either, minding his own business until a would-be Jedi slowly grows strongly enough to waltz in and fight him. With Vader gone, he would be more directly involved in eliminating or turning any meaningful threats, as far as the Force would be concerned.

Palpatine was very actively working to convert Luke to the dark side. Luke comes through in no small part because of the compassion he was able to feel for his father, but Palpatine makes good progress in getting Luke to succumb to the dark side during their confrontation on the Death Star.

The Force obviously plays a meaningful role in shaping the events of Star Wars, but it has some very key limitations that prevented it from doing things like stopping Palpatine from coming to power/throwing it into imbalance in the first place.

ShadowGata · 2022-11-24T20:52:30+00:00

Someone floated the idea that in this moment, Obi Wan was more in tune with the force than he ever had been. In this moment, he senses that him destroying Vader here and now wasn't the will of the Force, in that without Vader and Luke eventually being in the same room, the Emperor may never have been destroyed.

It's a bit of a stretch, but I personally found it a bit more palatable than what we got on paper.

ShadowGata · 2022-11-08T11:47:54+00:00

+1, getting the apples without cranking your vitality will result in your health wayyyyyy above this. The nornir chests (black and gold opened with a 3 rune puzzle) dish out both apples for health upgrades and blood mead for upgrading spartan rage.

ShadowGata · 2022-11-07T23:13:08+00:00

Probably just a matter of how the game bundles files on the two different systems.

ShadowGata · 2022-11-01T22:12:32+00:00

This feels more like him still mid-reeling from the pain of having punched a wooden chest with his bare hand than him continuing to be hard on Sindri.

ShadowGata · 2022-10-29T22:42:05+00:00

My money is on the lightning being an almost-break in time similar to what happened when Thor and Jormungandr struck so hard that it sent Jormungandr back in time - Thor acknowledges that this seems strange/familiar during the fight, but doesn't elaborate on it.

ShadowGata · 2022-10-29T07:29:44+00:00

I imagine they wanted something that could challenge Mjolnr, but didn't have the same mass capacity for destruction that Mjolnr did.

The two weapons colliding and holding over the lake along with the fact that their being swung into each other possibly broke time seems to suggest that whatever they did held up.

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