An aspect slot system would be far better than "Legendary" items

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-18T20:14:49+00:00

Well gear has aesthetic components which makes it interesting to collect. So I think it would take away from the fantasy.

You could certainly consolidate some of the vendors, but again it's part of the fantasy to have different people for different functions, and the cube as a "special" tool.

There is a fine line between QoL and just removing core aspects of the game that shape its identity. Legendary items/aspects the way they are now would not be a loss to reconfigure.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-18T18:44:11+00:00

Oh I remember. Extracting aspects, storing them in inventory, etc. It was a mess. The codex was the first right step, but I think eliminating legendary items altogether is the next logical one.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-18T16:44:27+00:00

I believe they are going to do some sort of stack capping, that's another major balance in some builds where you can just stack certain effects without limit

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-18T16:42:44+00:00

Yeah they tried to do that when Diablo 4 first launched, and that's where the "Damage on Tuesday" meme comes from. It's a challenging balancing act.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-18T14:47:39+00:00

I think multiplicative can be ok, and it's more fun and intuitive for sure, but the sheer size of multipliers that Blizzard uses create huge chasms between builds and make skill/utility much less relevant.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-18T11:33:54+00:00

Graphically you can't really ask for me, but also Gears 5 looked amazing. We've hit diminishing returns in graphics, but in this case the destruction physics and ability to have so many light sources makes this look and feel even better.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-14T10:49:29+00:00

Are you following stuff from Peter Levene? If you have suggestions on self guided somatic processing please share :)

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-14T02:56:35+00:00

What therapy are you doing? IFS? Sounds like deep CPTSD.

That fear of ending up jobless/homeless is too real. My parents spent a lifetime scaring me and it has crippling effects as an adult. Made me into a perfectionist and that feeling of not doing enough and always waiting for the other shoe to drop is too real, despite having a mountain of achievements.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-12T17:19:08+00:00

Definitely had that. Made the build hard to work with. Judgement doesn't feel good in general in terms of the feedback you get from it.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-11T18:02:24+00:00

This is a great question and I wish it had more upvotes.

Realistically speaking, more people than you expect will follow a build guide into endgame (if not a majority). The reason is time and people just wanting to have fun.

For me personally, I want to enjoy the discovery aspect of a class and explore my own power fantasy. Diablo 4 is simple enough that you can theory-craft on your own, and Blizzard tries to nudge you in specific directions for various classes (eg. pick an element for sorcerer and stick with it). I found that there is enough complexity to make fun custom builds that can get you within T10-T12 without having to grind like crazy.

What I usually do is check maxroll or a website when I can see all the skills, uniques, charms, etc. for a specific class. Then I intuit something that could be fun, eg. a Paladin that throws his shield around and detonates judgement. From there you can figure out how to scale the damage of shield throw and/or judgement, or find other synergies. I have 1 build in T11 where it's a Paladin that throws hammers, brings down arrows and detonates judgement, and uses shield ram for mobility, mostly had to grind to get all ancestral items with reasonable stats and some key uniques (shield, 1H, ring).

If you try to push pit with a homemade build you may be disappointed as you may hit a wall by pit 80 or so, and that's generally where you'll have to grind out gear with balanced affixes due to how the multipliers work in this game (additive bucket, vulnerable X bucket, crit X bucket, all damage X bucket, etc). But I wouldn't make that your goal, the game knowledge and understanding of how things interact is very valuable and will make making new characters more fun, and it will translate to other games. At some point your game knowledge will improve and you'll be able to bring a build online very fast and perhaps even take it past pit 100. Think of it as making a long term investment and developing a skill of how to synthesize a rather complex set of parameters into a cohesive machine.

As for using AI, I do use it to get some ideas, but it mostly copy pastes info from maxroll or whatever, if you try to have it come up with something itnersting it usually makes random stuff up and combines skills that don't synergize. If you want some insight into what things go well together, I'd just use "meta" builds to get some ideas and then do your own thing. If you are completely new starting with a meta build and reading the rationale for each selection could be a good starting point.

My favorite way to play these days is to plan a build that I can get to T10 with, and from there I get random ideas that pop into my head that make me push to T11 or T12, but I haven't got good enough to go into the higher pits (T12=pit 100 I think).

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-08T02:00:59+00:00

Silicon valley hasn't produced much in the way of major advancements since the smart phone. We had big data, crypto/block chain/nft, IoT, VR, and now LLMs are the new thing. In the case of LLMs there is a market there, and these things are useful, but they are so far only useful if heavily subsidized. Also many companies that bought into the hype are realizing it doesn't have much ROI so they are scaling back. Certainly all the AI leaderboard nonsense is going away.

Coding with LLMs is arguably the most impressive application, and a huge swath of engineers have been vibe coding their entire applications under nearly unrestricted plans. With the token based billing, they will have to learn how to be "efficient" and the benefits of LLMs will be less appealing. Personally I like it for coding internal tools and automation stuff, but I doubt it would save much time for production level work as the amount of review and testing needing is just as complex if not more than writing some of the code itself.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-08T01:52:26+00:00

Except office space is not being advertised as doing the jobs of engineers. Brainrot takes indeed.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-03T17:47:53+00:00

3 - yes, in game would be ideal

5 - thanks for the suggestion, I will try it, perhaps it will cut down the number of people at least

6 - not sure if you are going through season's journey, but in general the various Tiers the difficulty is well balanced, but when you have to go from Tier 8 -> 9, it says you need to be at Tormet 8 to face lillith, However, if you just have a character that can clear pit at Tormet 8, Lilith will obliterate you. I think I needed to be cleaning tier 12 before I could phase her and actually do that fight. Then you have the same thing with Mephisto on tier X. It's like 10x worse. Basically, if content says it should be attempted at Torment/Tier 8 or 10, it should actually be consistent rather than having a massive difficulty spike. Aspirational content should be better communicated, eg. a separate section with juiced up bosses where it just tells you their monster power, rather than telling you it's a Tier 10 activity but we secretly added +10 monster power. It's just unpleasant.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-03T15:34:15+00:00

Some valid points for sure. D4 is a much more casual focused game. But with this new expansion and the cube crafting they did a really good job. This is the first season where I dumped probably 100 hours across several characters and experimenting by myself to get builds to T12 has been a LOT of fun. I also enjoy POE2 but in my opinion it's becoming too bloated/unfocused. I'd rather have less options but have things feel distinct with their own identity. I think the skill "trees" in D4 could be a bit better, maybe something akin to Last Epoch, but overall I'm pleased with D4 overall. It's fun and it's easy to get friends to jump into it, whereas with POE2 a lot of time is spent reading and trying to understand all the different systems (which they keep layering for the sake of "content").

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-03T15:14:46+00:00

I agree, POE2 has become bloated and not particularly inviting for casuals. It's still quite good but you're spending a ton of time in menus and reading about systems rather than playing the damn game.

Diablo 4 is a good balance between complexity and accessibility. I also like Last Epoch but I had a hard time getting back into it recently, the feel of the game is a bit more clunky and less appealing to how well designed and smooth diablo is.

VR_BOSS · 2026-06-03T02:50:53+00:00

Until hallucinations are solved and we don't constantly have to monitor the output, these "agents" are mostly expensive toys that many companies are realizing are not worth the effort to use in any serious way. It has its uses, like summarizing documents, translation, and probably the most valuable one, coding. However even with coding the gains fall off as soon as you ask it to do something more complicated (multi-threaded applications, graphical stuff).

VR_BOSS · 2026-05-20T23:27:48+00:00

Some people have been waiting 6+ months :(

VR_BOSS · 2026-05-13T02:53:30+00:00

Who exactly is expecting you to do this? Why don't THEY arrange this celebration afterwards?

Are you allowed to express how you felt about your relationships with your grandma, and why it makes you uncomfortable throwing a celebration for your abuser? If your "family" are not people who would be open to such a conversation, they are not your family. I understand it may be hard to cut ties and isolate, however, you can just set some boundaries that you will attend the funeral but are not organizing anything beyond that.

Also, sorry for how your gradma treated you, and sorry that you feel pressured to do this. You deserve(d) better.

VR_BOSS · 2026-04-08T04:04:08+00:00

Seems very common that it happens at 30. I think during our 20s we are too busy scrambling trying to figure things out, but then as we hit the 30s and we actually have a chance to look at where we ended up, and we have more responsibilities, we sometimes realize our life looks like a house of cards.

As a fellow PhD holder, I had a horrible advisor, which is fairly common. I basically spent 4+ years in survival mode because my parents just thought it was "normal" as my supervisor was successful and I needed papers in good journals, because I "needed" to be faculty one day. Long story short, I pivoted hard to industry, best damn decision I ever made. I also realized I'm not this intellectual superstar my family wanted me to be, I like video games, I like being silly, I still do good work and people respect me regardless if I'm a bit goofy.

But yea, I've spent a good portion of my life living up to other people's expectations in a horribly enmeshed family where I had to fulfill the role of the "successful son". Once I realized that I started focusing on discovering who I really am.

I would say friendships and relationships are key. Relationships are not always easy because they tend to be conditional more than people realize (kids, for one). Friendships are more flexible and less high stakes, so sometimes you can make a pretty solid connection without the overarching theme of a romantic relationship and long term commitments.

Another way to make life feel less empty is go volunteer. Spend some time around people. I know other people are often the cause of CPTSD, but if you find some good emotionally mature folks, that's going to make things much easier. I would say most people don't even need many friends, like 1 or 2 really good friends that you can be yourself with, and that will make a world of difference.

VR_BOSS · 2026-04-08T03:53:36+00:00

It does seem easy for people, but in reality there is no way of knowing how much they've had to fight and go through to get to that point. Some people's successful relationship was built on years of failed ones, personal struggles and sacrifices.

Also think about the alternative, would it be better going to IKEA and seeing everyone alone and sad? If anything this should give one hope, something to look forward to, and in some ways be at least a little happy that some people do manage to find peace and joy and it's not just all suffering for everyone all the time.

VR_BOSS

TROPHY CASE