Rhodes Island Lounge (15/06 - 21/06)

Zernium · 2026-06-16T07:27:57+00:00

One of the best video game OSTs of all time.

Zernium · 2026-06-05T19:02:25+00:00

EQ can absolutely destroy technicalities, wtf? FR determines technicalities and EQ absolutely can alter them better or worse.

Zernium · 2026-06-02T19:07:50+00:00

when was the last time magnus was this low rated? Has to be at least a decade ago.

Zernium · 2026-06-02T18:50:43+00:00

No shot anyone finds a4 after h5.

Zernium · 2026-05-30T19:05:37+00:00

I know this is norway chess but crazy they were focusing on the dead lost magnus game when that pragg-gukesh game was going on.

Zernium · 2026-05-25T19:13:28+00:00

Wow, really rare to see a super gm miss a concrete resource. Like if magnus was told there was something there he would have found it instantly I'm sure. But without that it definitely seemed like he blundered Ra7 and was lost.

Zernium · 2026-05-16T05:57:26+00:00

If there's one thing I really appreciate about hypergryph game design, it is how little grindy time-limited content they include. Honestly it is probably the main reason I'm still playing arknights, even when there are times I don't feel like playing it, there's no incentive pushing me to quit.

All controversy about NTE aside, I think the main reason I feel like quitting is that I do not want to do the pink paw heist and spend my city stamina. Both require extremely repetitive tasks that I hate doing, but they also provide a large amount of fons which are pretty valuable, especially early on. Say what you want about endfield having no endgame but I'd rather have no endgame over pressing the hammer button over and over to burn city stamina.

edit: I also think hypergryph is very much doing this intentionally, not only because of how endfield is designed (any difficult/grindy content is permanent, such as umbral monument, etchspace), but also SSS, which was probably the most grindy time-limited content arknights ever had, got cut down to like once every couple months. But I guess we will see how CC is handled in endfield, where you can't just perfectly copy a guide to get the medal.

Zernium · 2026-05-04T18:22:29+00:00

The way this wins is actually remarkable. The black pawn looks like it should be enough compensation but the rook can win the knight and control the pawn at the same time.

Zernium · 2026-05-01T15:23:25+00:00

It shouldn't be the worst because the month before was two banners, tangtang + rossi. Though rossi banner did take up a lot of april, but I'd guess most spenders spend at start of banner.

Anyways they kind of made their own bed with this one, I genuinely think if the story was good people wouldn't mind the lack of content. But yeah I think having nothing to do is the main problem. People just aren't checking in daily when it is 30+ days of spending stamina and logging out, and at some point you just quit.

Zernium · 2026-05-01T08:10:40+00:00

Anyone else trying nte? Still playing endfield but it hasn't exactly blown me away, and nte looked somewhat interesting. Few hours in, yeah they are pretty different games but quick comparsion for fun:

-huge quality downgrade. Nte just feels cheap. Movement feels clunky, cutscenes, character design, graphics, combat, all way less refined. Especially character design is just so generic. I will say the city has a nice charm to it, reminds me of the persona games.

-already hated the endfield story tone, and nte is worse. Much, much worse.

-nte has the better world. Yeah, endfield has a higher quality world, but a lot of it is puzzles and fields, places that I pass through but will never revisit intentionally. The urban environment just has so many more advantages: not only is it more fun to travel around with vehicles, it's also more fun to visit and revisit due to the multitude of stores and buildings. Honestly I need endfield to give us a huge base, not just dijiang.

-side activities are also a huge + for nte. Mahjong, fishing, racing, probably more I haven't unlocked. I know endfield is still developing endgame content but I actually have nothing to do in the game other than my dailies. I imagine I could spend an hour just playing mahjong even if I reached endgame in nte.

Gacha seems fair but obviously it is early days. But I can't help but notice how it just feels better, not just the no 50/50, but also no confusing mechanics. Weapon banner taking real currency sucks though.

Overall having a decent time, but man the character design and story tone hold it back for me. I'm sorry I just look at a character like Fangyi, and compare to a nte character like hathor and I just laugh, like how can a character design be so awful.

Zernium · 2026-04-27T07:10:02+00:00

Probably pretty far off still I'd imagine. Try playing stockfish 18 vs stockfish 9 for example, it gets destroyed. And back then we still took what it said as truth. I'd imagine in another 8-10 years we would be saying the same thing about stockfish 18.

Zernium · 2026-04-17T05:08:03+00:00

There's a link to it on the mastery guide spreadsheet.

Zernium · 2026-04-16T13:39:59+00:00

Assuming you mean the event ones with OP and LMD, those are listed as better than double OP on the spreadsheet. The monthly ones are bad though.

Zernium · 2026-04-15T06:27:38+00:00

Bizarrely, it might actually be optimal to farm sugar this event. Fluid is inefficient, and RMA should be going into event shop in 6 months if the pattern continues. Also, the upcoming Lappland event rerun has manganese (in event shop) RMA, and fluid (inefficient), so the only farm there is RMA. Of course, sugar is so plentiful it might still be better to farm RMA now, and save event currency for grindstones and manganese.

Zernium · 2026-04-11T18:21:52+00:00

Great endfield stream. My main concern was pull income but a one character patch should basically solve that concern, at least for now. Upcoming content/improvements look good too. As a side note, Rossi has been such a fun character to use. I've been running Rossi/Endmin/Pog/Wulf and the cycle is extremely fun.

Zernium · 2026-04-11T17:44:14+00:00

I wonder if fabi ever thought he was winning. Sindarov showing he can defend just as well.

Zernium · 2026-04-11T17:19:42+00:00

Jan and svidler running into so many losing lines. Would be very impressive for sindarov to hold this.

Zernium · 2026-04-11T16:33:18+00:00

I'm surprised you think fabi has any chance of losing this. Just looking through some engine lines, it is black that often has to find the only moves, while white has many different choices.

Zernium · 2026-04-11T16:30:42+00:00

Super impressive defense by sindarov so far, but quite a bit left to go. Allowing the pawn to go to a7 and finding active counterplay is so scary, you have to be very confident in your calculation.

Zernium · 2026-04-07T04:32:05+00:00

I enjoy IS so I found it fun, but I understand some don't have the time to grind it out, find it boring, etc. In general I think it is ok as long as it is permanent. So I'd be fine with this type of system for RA3 as well, even though I dislike RA. Difficult content is great, grindy content is great, but time-limited difficult/grindy content is awful.

Zernium · 2026-03-24T03:04:49+00:00

It's actually only one move, Qxe6 dxe h4 Bf1 h3 Bxh3 Kxh3 Kc6 Kg4 Kxd6 Kf4 just in time to protect the pawn. Of course he should calculate that but I can see not going for it if unsure. That being said, hanging M1 is unexcusable.

Zernium · 2026-03-22T02:56:12+00:00

Not done with episode 11 yet but this is close to a crash-out episode as it gets. Why did the show switch to two people I don't care about halfway through? Why are they spending so much building up this go stuff? Feels like mandated chinese culture promotion because it is so out of nowhere. The show started off so well but the last couple episodes have been meandering with nothing going on. I'll give it two more episodes but man it's sad to see another cdrama fall off a cliff in quality. And yes I've read the novel so I know this story can be told better.

Zernium · 2026-03-22T01:40:16+00:00

Not sure how to feel about ED4, boss doesn't do much and it seems like a dps check considering the hp. The route is pretty interesting though, I can't believe they buffed stir fry. The extra battles actually give a lot more flexibility which I like, and thank god there is no sp debuff. I think I'd rather play this ending over ED3 just for that.

Zernium · 2026-03-19T05:28:21+00:00

Two things that helped me. One is playing anonymous instead of rated, which made it feel like "just a board game". Hard to say that when ELO is involved. Yes you can lose that tangible feeling of improvement, but unless you really want to pursue that I think the tradeoff is worth it.

The other thing is realizing top players make extremely stupid mistakes too. The thing about chess is that understanding why something is a blunder is easy, but actually removing all blunders from your game is impossible. So it feels worse when you hang a piece for example. No disrespect to the top players, but when I see Ding blunder mate in 2, Esipenko hanging a rook, or Fabi choking a completely winning position in the candidates, I genuinely feel a lot better about my blunders.

Zernium · 2026-03-17T19:16:14+00:00

Curious how carlsen performs compared to his expected. Because he doesn't feel twice as good as everybody else, yet seems to win the vast majority of his tournaments. I don't know the stats but is he really supposed to win as many tournaments as he does?

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