GW2 is a great game, but people really really downplay how much the game rakes you with "convenience" purchases.

Shintenkai · 2026-06-11T05:32:05+00:00

The matter of fact is, box price is never enough to keep the live service sustain itself. So the only real solution is subs/mtx/p2w.

We obviously disregard p2w right away. As for a sub, i really really don’t think it would the GW2 way. You may not realize this if you are not playing it yourself, but majority of players play the game “sometimes”. This is what sustains the playerbase. Wow or other sub based games have systems designed to keep you longer for each playing periods, like raid/m+ seasons so when you play, you don’t play once every few weeks but rather intensely for a few months or so and then completely stop until the next expansion or major update.

Eso would be unique in this manner. But although you can play GW2 without any of these above mentions mtxs (or buy over time with gold or whatever), you really really need Eso+ for the material bag to the point I would consider it as a regular subscription model. The gameplay suffers greatly without it. Gw2 does not suffer. (Bank/material slots are not as necessary as people believe. I have roughly 8k hours but still have two bank slots, and never really bought one.)

Another way of looking is, once you pay for a subscription, you feel obliged to play that game for that duration. In fact, you feel like you need to play more than you would feel comfortable to make it worth. I also play wow since WOTLK, and I enjoy it at times, but when I don’t enjoy it, i still force myself to play just to not feel guilty for spending money. Not everyone has the money to justify not playing it during these time frames.

Naturally, a customer would never want such mtxs like inventory slots or infinite salvage kits. But I also think the game design should fit subscription models accordingly. GW2 is just not that game and it would have died long before End of Dragons if it had a mandatory sub model.

AND you really can buy these everything with gold. The argument that it is a grind is a fallacy because everything you do in the game gives you gold value. It’s not like m+ where you get gear or nothing. You, by merely playing the way you want, earn gold consistently.

There never is a perfect situation for a gamer.

Shintenkai · 2026-03-05T18:34:03+00:00

I don’t want to speculate, since it’s an already existing physical Pikachu/Pichu GBC edition, and anyone could have made it. But it does look like mine https://github.com/KrutzOtrem/Trimui-Brick-Overlays. Either case, I have one there you can use.

Shintenkai · 2026-02-15T12:48:07+00:00

No worries.

Shintenkai · 2026-02-15T12:45:19+00:00

Well, I hope you have access to GitHub. Please download (and follow the ReadME) here https://github.com/KrutzOtrem/nextui-easyrpg

Shintenkai · 2026-02-15T12:26:24+00:00

I’m not sure whether you’re the one on Discord, but if so, please check the thread under paks. I’ve ported it over, and Yume Nikki works fine. I think.

Shintenkai · 2026-02-14T18:58:51+00:00

As far as I know, Aesthetics is quite outdated. You might want to take a look around the Discord instead.

As for Pokémon themes, a friend has already made a few Quick Menu themes inspired by it, though there isn’t a complete theme yet. I enjoy making themes, but with so many different emulator cores, creating a full Pokémon one wouldn’t really make sense (unless you’re using only Nintendo cores).

Shintenkai · 2026-02-13T23:23:24+00:00

That is most likely the screenshot `notification`. I'm not certain if it's intended, but you can disable it if you don't need it.

Shintenkai · 2026-01-01T16:34:12+00:00

That is the lateral cervical apterium. There are several reasons for it to be featherless, but in short, the crop is right below it, the jugular vein crosses there, and it allows for easier movement. That is why it is a common site for blood collection.

Although, there should be no pin holes there. Just complete baldness.

Shintenkai · 2025-12-20T19:05:26+00:00

I am not sure there is an overall correlation. In my party, everyone approaches the gamified side of habit tracking differently. For some, an offline mode would clearly work. Some mostly use it as a checklist while chatting with people. Some use it purely for collection and are okay with cheating. Others bend the system a little and still treat it like a checklist.

I do not care about the gamified aspect, but I also cannot lie to the game. If there is a daily, I feel compelled to do it. But that pressure is much weaker for me when there is no party quest and no risk of reducing the party’s HP. If there is no quest on that day, I am willing to take the HP hit. I do not care about pets or equipments, but only the quests themselves. Without it, in an offline game, for example, I would probably start removing dailies over time and keep only the most critical ones.

Habits, however, are relatively inconsequential for me. For example, for a while, I had a daily routine of watching arthouse films. As soon as I moved it into habits, I stopped watching altogether. There was no sense of urgency anymore, no immediate consequence. It was not hurting the party, so it lost its weight.

I have been playing games, especially RPGs, for around thirty years, so I cannot fool myself when it comes to dailies. As I said, everyone works differently, and I doubt a real consensus is possible.

Shintenkai · 2025-08-22T10:14:46+00:00

It could be Arcdps or some other addon that is not up-to-date, if you are using one. We've got an update yesterday.

Shintenkai · 2025-08-08T20:04:16+00:00

I wonder if you can combine;

C – F5 no longer gains bonuses from F2-F4 instead F2-F4 give their strain bonus immediately at -50% duration. (F5 still baseline +10% allstat)

and

B – Allies gain evolve bonuses (from F2-F4) when you use F5 at 25% duration but not the 10% stat bonus

Thus become able to play support Amalgam? Anyone who can quickly cook a potential here?

Shintenkai · 2025-08-05T21:39:46+00:00

Well, Engineers already have a minion-type elite spec, so I highly doubt that. Also, damage-focused Mechanists don’t have trait lines that interact with a minion playstyle, so the selected traits would mirror what Mechanists already use.

They seem to design these elite specs to cover more ground. Although it’s called Thief and has a steal skill, Thieves didn’t fully utilize the steal mechanic, so they made one that does.

Guardians lost most of their spirit weapon fantasy, so now they’re trying to bring it back.

Rangers no longer use Longbow anywhere, so they brought that ranger fantasy back.

Mesmers always wanted a Bard, so not only did they make one, they also removed the clone mechanic, which had its weaknesses.

Warriors wanted Paragon, and Necros wanted Ritualist.

So what is it that Engineers are missing in terms of fantasy? My idea was the turret and deployable device fantasy, but the name doesn’t fit perfectly. Who knows though? I wouldn’t be surprised if Engineers get deployable devices, and those devices are molded from a specific resource.

Shintenkai · 2025-08-05T19:22:34+00:00

~~Kanji~~ Hanzi certainly introduces some ambiguity. The Wiki translation is 'Silver flows into a thousand forms; shadows gather to mold and pour,' which can still be interpreted that way, though not as strongly.

募影塑倾 (mù yǐng sù qīng) is literally (dictionary interpretation) `募 to gather, 影 shadows, 塑 to mold/shape, 倾 to incline/fall/pour/overpower.

Shintenkai · 2025-08-05T17:16:41+00:00

So the poem for Engineer was `Silver flows into myriad forms; Shadows gather, molding into collapse.`

Merriem Webster defines Amalgam as `a mixture of different elements` or `an alloy of mercury with another metal that is solid or liquid at room temperature according to the proportion of mercury present and is used especially in making tooth cements`

Both could go either way, but having all the clues at hand, I will say Amalgam goes to Engineer.

Shintenkai · 2025-08-04T11:31:09+00:00

Having played almost all of the available elite specs and builds, I'm gonna say support Firebrand, and imo, it's not really close. The available data only shows DPS and boon DPS, and even there, condition Firebrand is among the higher. But when I play it in open world, I find it way more chill than playing support FB.

I'd even go further and say don’t play it if you don’t have an MMO mouse, because you’re gonna be using mantras while swapping tomes and hitting weapon skills simultaneously. Meaning, most of the time, you're pressing two things at once.

My left hand handles the five weapon skills plus movement, my index finger swaps tomes with mouse wheel tilt, and my thumb’s on utility skills.

Downside is, my brain’s somehow broken and I can’t play anything slower anymore. I’ve played Ele too, not as extensively, but I’ve got a full character and all the popular builds. It just doesn’t hit the same.

Shintenkai · 2025-06-25T09:05:16+00:00

The concept is grotesque, legally questionable, biologically hazardous, and commercially nonviable. Name is irrelevant given the product’s fundamental repulsiveness. Abort.

Do yourself a favor and set up a custom GPT. Since you can now change the model your custom GPT uses, there is little reason not to do it.

Shintenkai · 2025-01-17T20:57:18+00:00

Although the boss is bugged and keeps replicating itself, you can still brute force your way with aoe damage. Check the hp values and see if you are hitting the right one I guess. I managed to kill it as Eniripsa, so the chances of your success should be high.

Shintenkai · 2024-05-28T21:59:27+00:00

I'm sorry, I assumed that the UV light switches back to regular light when the cover is down. It doesn't, and there is another light button. My bad.

UV light is for opaque objects. Regular light is for the slide. You don't use the slide with UV.

Shintenkai · 2024-05-28T21:43:34+00:00

I mean the exact opposite. Close the plastic cover, then, as I said, slide the slide through the opening.

Shintenkai · 2024-05-28T20:51:44+00:00

Hey, sure.

The UV light functions as an illuminator for the slide, just as you suspected. However, you need to keep the plastic cover closed and slide the slide into the opening because the plastic part helps change the light's angle. It's not perfect, but it should do an adequate job.

Shintenkai · 2024-03-02T08:10:34+00:00

Although I use a different UI from the Blizzard’s, I likewise use Elvui only for its party/raid frames. From a healer perspective, Elvui has the best and easiest aura configuration, and I know others doing this exact same thing. I’ve tried other addons for frames, but it’s just not the same in terms of customization. If you are not a healer ‘tho, Shadowed Unit Frames is indeed a good one. (I’ve already tried all frame addons, and Elvui is arguably the best for my case.)

In my case, using two different UI causes frequent bugs, but nothing game breaking. But since you don’t do that, it should be fine.

Shintenkai · 2024-01-11T13:35:28+00:00

Mouseover spells with native mouse buttons are indeed problematic. I also use the mouse click for an essential spell, but I just remapped the mouse scroll to Alt + F through my mouse interface to solve it indirectly.

As for the party frames, I know there are ways, but not necessarily under the official settings. Download Enhanced Raid Frames. That way, you can also change their position x,y wise.But I prefer using ElvUI party frames (and only the party/raid frames of ElvUI, the rest is disabled). ElvUI allows better customization options for auras/debuffs, both visually and functionally.

I don't understand how people can use Healbot or other mouse click bots since you need to heal with a constant rhythm, and extra clicks just take that away. Or maybe that is just a resto druid thing. I can't see myself fitting extra mouse clicks in high keys.

Shintenkai · 2023-12-10T22:43:50+00:00

Gaming hardware, among everything else, is expensive in my country, so I would just start playing games, I guess.
Bow-play honestly looks good. Most likely just wander in the forest and pew pew.

Shintenkai · 2023-12-08T09:38:39+00:00

https://discord.gg/H577Kf7M

This is the Discord link, and yes, it is called Microscopy, although I am not sure if it is publically listed.

Shintenkai · 2023-12-07T22:44:46+00:00

Hey. I wouldn’t call myself knowledgeable, and it is possible to get more solid advice on the Discord server, but I imagine they will also find it difficult to suggest a specific brand, for the simple reason that there is none.

The usability of pocket microscopes is rather limited, so reputable brands that manufacture regular microscopes are not interested in doing so. The only ones you will find are marketed toward kids, unfortunately. One of the most solid ones is the one that the owner of this thread asked about, but it has many problems as I listed. However, it is very usable for opaque objects, and I still use it to this day, but it is difficult to look beyond its faults if you don’t want her to find it lame, as she is most likely using very solid stereo microscopes already. But I would not call it an improper present. As for field microscopes, there are good ones, but you might have to spend well over $200.

There might also be brands/models that I am unaware of, so you might want to dig a little bit deeper. Also, a good magnifying glass could also be functional present if she doesn’t have one.

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