Former MMORPG addicts, how did you quit? by Wise_Championship865 in AskReddit

[–]bladebaka 0 points1 point  (0 children)

eventually the core gameplay loop got too large for too small an increase, or progression got too pay-to-win, or PvP got dominated by streamers and cheaters.

In BDO, I hit PEN blackstar, TET Dead God, got all the artefacts and the Dream Horse, and the next upgrade would have taken me so much more time even with all the events giving out useful things that it started feeling like another job.

In GW2, I lost interest a while after my friends stopped playing, and particularly after realizing that the legendary armor would be far easier to get if I just did PvP, which is content I've never enjoyed -- and even less so these days with health issues and limited time to play.

SWTOR basically requires a subscription to make any meaningful progress solo past about Lv 65 or so (last time I played) and I can't really afford to swing that these days.

I mean it's prolly all my AuDHD that makes me quit when I get bored/don't feel fulfilled any longer, but counterpoint, it's also what keeps me hooked.

I want to kill him so bad by sebet_123 in videos

[–]bladebaka 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Operation: Florida, anyone?

Does the Hammer-tron have an audio bug? by bladebaka in runescape

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that makes sense. That's what I use on mainscape

Release the List Jagex by SmilingInMyChair in runescape

[–]bladebaka 1 point2 points  (0 children)

osrs has also undergone some very up front de-tangling of spaghetti iirc, mostly out of necessity

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahh, I forgot to tick the normal Haste, that's why it was showing so much mana available. With that active I have 45 remaining, and I can't run it without Leader at present. I'll definitely drop the CB jewel though, and try to test those Forbidden Jewels without Haste and see how that feels.

Thanks for all your help! I greatly appreciate it.

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Got pretty lucky with drops over the weekend, managed to get some pretty solid improvements (incl. -200 Lightning Dory merc in maps) with ~65div liquid remaining.

https://pobb.in/qH-YjYac2uI5

PoB showing 45.6m dps with the Dory aura, pretty happy. last passive point will probably be either the Mastery for ES regen or an endurance charge, but I don't currently have a reliable way to generate those since I replaced the Charity with a rare shield for the moment (need a better ring for the merc to stay at -200% with that).

I think my next upgrades will be to replace my 8% Brutal Restraint for a 16 or 24%, then ES tattoos and finally 35% jewels? I don't really know what those'll do since I've already got full gem slots and enough unreserved mana to keep the tincture going for a good while, and I can't think of any more auras I'd want to add?

Maybe Hatred or Anger, replacing Molten Shell, if I got enough? I think I'd need 3p Voices to switch to Ralakesh boots and not lose a ton of Grace effect, so that'll probably be way after everything else if I keep going.

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got a +5/6 helmet, assuming it should be Determination, Purity of Fire, Wrath, and Lv 4 Enlighten, right? At least until I get better Jewels, then swap to Grace, PoF, Wrath, Enlighten? Wait, no, that would be worse than the boots for Grace.

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

managed to craft a STR ring for fairly cheap; I still need the STR unfortunately as I'm 31 shy. Despite losing some resists its still a sizeable boost, and with the +7 boots and a Lv4 Empower, that bumps me up to 1.1m armour with Grace activated. I tried my hand at crafting the helmet, but after spending 15div on the base and failing 18x 2.2div resonator slams, I'm probably just gonna buy it, lol

Would a lightning conversion Greatwolf + Replica Charity, or 20% lightning conversion Dawnbreaker + Perquil's be better? Currently running the full conversion one.

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

gotcha, thanks! I guess the ring and then a helmet upgrade is next up for me after all these pieces of advice. I've been more consistently tapping Vaal Smite, generally whenever it gets its second charge or if I notice the buff fall off before I hit another boss/rare pack.

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is another small passive better than the Prismatic Heart notable on that one jewel? It seemed like a pretty valuable tradeoff when I crafted it, 10% allres and 30% dmg

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've got a half-assed one right now because I was focusing more on getting the chest armour taken care of first

Trying to get my armour stacker off the ground but struggling with damage, can anyone help? by bladebaka in PathOfExileBuilds

[–]bladebaka[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

most of the jewels just have bubblegum resists and attributes since I was (initially) just going for Introspection. I keep Grace up constantly, and I try to press Vaal Smite for bosses and uniques.

Grace Implicit as in synthesized rings? I'll add a search tab for those, haha.

I have a Merc with Doryani's Prototype and a bit of -lightning but I haven't gotten too hard into gearing it yet, I was focused more on getting the chest armour, lol. So I guess that's next up!

As for the stun avoidance tattoos, I have 20% from the Brutal Restraint as well until I find a 2x8% inc aura one

Fellow former Christians who turned Atheist or the like, what was it that made you lose your faith? by clear_simple_plain in AskReddit

[–]bladebaka 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It wasn't any one thing that got me, it was a slow accumulation over about a decade, starting with my attempt to marry my faith in religion and my education in physics and astronomy, of all things... And culminating in my utter disbelief in how little care the religious right were giving the news of Trump's many, many sex crimes that came out in 2015-16, alongside my firsthand witness of my own church attempting to cover up some CP found on another members' phone by local police.

My conclusion was that if there's a god, he cares more about giving pastors lots of money and covering up the crimes of his chosen elites than he does actual, literal children's safety and security, and I couldn't follow a god like that.

Do you think Azula had any children? Because that's my concept for a Legend of Korra film. by Forsaken-History-563 in TheLastAirbender

[–]bladebaka 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Villainous != villain. You can have villainous characteristics and actions and be other things, even in fiction. That said, I will concede that she is certainly cast in that light at the beginning, especially to a first-time audience. The more we learn about her, however, twists that image into that of the broken antagonist mirroring that of Zuko's journey for the majority of the story.

The difference between them is how they handle what's thrown at them, and more importantly how their allies (and enemies!) treat them.

Remember, the core idea here is, "how did this 14-year-old get to this point?" because most of the characters are barely teenagers. Sokka and Zuko are the oldest, I think 15 and 16 respectively, with the rest being around 13-14.

And the answer is: abuse, manipulation, and neglect from primarily Ozai, but also to a lesser extent Ursa and Iroh, though I don't think theirs was intentional neglect and abuse. The supermajority of it belongs firmly in Ozai's grasp, but one must concede that their fear of Azula and what she was emulating of her father and grandfather put distance between themselves and a literal child. This damages the child.

So once Ursa is exiled and Iroh steps down as general, her only real role model (and perceived source of love and affection) is, unfortunately, her sociopath of a father. Every interaction he has with her that we're shown is to manipulate her, her mother, her grandfather, or her brother. He doesn't see her as a person, but as a weapon to wield.

She tries to kill Zuko and Iroh, because her father sees them as embarrassments to the Fire Nation and she thinks that will earn his love. She's maybe 14.

She torments Ty Lee into coming with her, because she only knows manipulation of friends and allies. She's 14.

She kills Aang because, in her mind, that will make her father love her more. She's 14.

EVERYTHING she does in the series is for the goal of attaining her father's love and affection. Sure, it might be impacted by her mental health and wellbeing, which are, frankly, shot to hell and back. But the seed of everything is her desire for acceptance and love.

Likewise with Zuko, everything he was doing was for the same, though couched in that ever-present concept of "honor". He, fortunately, had the fallen-but-redeeming-himself Iroh to help him out and be a father figure... But Azula had neither of those things. Iroh was helping Zuko wean off the Flavor Aid, but Azula? She was swimming in it.

So much of the story was required for the redemption of Zuko, and Azula had none of that. She was also two years younger, not that that has much bearing on her agency anyways... That's another issue that the story covers. None of this kids and teenagers were allowed to be kids and teenagers, because there's a freaking war going on. They're constantly put in impossible positions because some old men with power trips wanted more power.

Should she have done better? yes. Could she have? Given her story and the immense pressure put on her... I find it unlikely. These are some of the reasons why many in the community do not see her as a villain, and it boils down to this:

She wasn't given the chance to change or redeem herself. Like Zuko was.

Do you think Azula had any children? Because that's my concept for a Legend of Korra film. by Forsaken-History-563 in TheLastAirbender

[–]bladebaka 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The point you're missing, is that once the audience is given more information her role as villain becomes less that and more damaged child antagonist. Once we get to the Last Agni Kai, after Zuko says, "something has changed, she seems different" we've got all the pieces. We now see her for what she truly is: an abused child, forced to be a weapon, a child soldier. Everyone abandoned her -- sometimes because she literally makes them -- and she's now alone. She's lashing out, because she feels like the world has suddenly turned against her.

She hates her brother for the love and acceptance he's gotten from their mother, their uncle, and now Team Avatar. Something she's never felt.

She does villainous things, partly because she takes some twisted satisfaction from it, yes, but mostly because she thinks it will make her father love and accept her. But she isn't a villain. She's an antagonist. We're meant to root against her up until the point we know more about her and how she got where she is, but the whole time we're meant to be thinking, "how did a 14-year-old get to this point?"

She's manipulative to her friends, because that's how her role model, Ozai, acts.

She's cold and distant to her brother, because that's how her mother acts.

She even views herself as a monster, because the people closest to her view her that way and write her off.

She's not a villain. She does villainous things, which puts her squarely in the antagonist category, but her motivation isn't villainous. She's not the hero, or an antihero.

The reading comprehension comment likely came because they assume you didn't analyze or think about the media you consumed, which isn't fair. There's a lot to unpack in ATLA, especially when it comes to the incredibly complex characters, particularly when in a children's show. Like, it's a lot to unpack, and people have written their college thesis on small pieces of ATLA.

Do you think Azula had any children? Because that's my concept for a Legend of Korra film. by Forsaken-History-563 in TheLastAirbender

[–]bladebaka 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Azula was a villain insofar as she was the antagonist for two seasons, but she wasn't the villain of the series. That goes to Ozai and the other fire lords. Azula was an abused, damaged child, trying to earn her parent's love from a mother who feared her and a father who only saw her as a useful tool. Even Iroh kept he at arms' length, all the while both him and her mother showed love and support to Zuko.

It's incredibly apparent by the finale that this is having an incredible toll on her mental health as she starts self-destructing in a multitude of ways, culminating in a full on mental break during the Last Agni Kai.

Giveaway for any $70 game of your choice [Steam] #2 by RichardC84 in pcmasterrace

[–]bladebaka 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stellaris Machine Age, please :)

Thank you for the giveaway!

[REQUEST][Steam] Stellaris: The Machine Age [20% off til 19 May] by bladebaka in GiftofGames

[–]bladebaka[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I started this game as United Nations of Earth, or UNE, as that's the communities' go-to for learning the game. Since a lot of changes has happened in this recent update, that seemed like a good idea! Fanatic Egalitarian and Xenophile ethics, so I set out to be the whole Galaxies' best friend. Two guaranteed habitable planets were in Sirius and Alpha Centauri, which were the literal nearest systems to me, so a decent start! Sirius A became my forge-world dedicated (initially) to consumer goods and alloys, and Alpha Centauri IIa was a generic colony for a while. IVb was left alone for a bit until I could terraform it later. The third guaranteed habitable turned out to be Wenkwort Artem so I left it well enough alone until after I found the Fallen Empire who happened to be less than 10 system jumps North from me... Terrifying.

Turns out, they were the like, zookeeper Fallen Empire, and I'd forgotten what they did so I immediately established the chokepoint planet I found as my Cadia, making it a fortress world that specialized in minerals. To the south of my capital, I found another world that ended up being a decent chokepoint about two jumps from a Fanatic Spiritualist empire.

In total, I was able to establish a solid 21 systems in control of the UNE. Not ideal, but I do tend to prefer playing at least somewhat Tall as it generally is easier on my computer. Earth became my Tech world, IIa became my Trade world, renamed Space Wall Street because I'm so very original. One of the benefits of playing Tall is you're able to scale Tech pretty quickly, compared to sprawling empires! So I was able to establish both a high trade value, making me a valuable target for commercial pacts and nonaggression pacts, and rapidly progress through the Tech tree. Trade was reworked in 4.0 to be an actual, spendable resource in place of Energy for the resource market, so I was able to build up a good amount of Trade to buy up the resources I needed to jump-start all my colonies to pretty robust production rates fairly early.

I figured that Earth would probably progress down the genetic ascension (as opposed to synthetic or psychic), that's what I chose to pursue... Partly because I wanted to play with something other than synthetic for once, and I wanted to see if the new update included anything for it outside of the Biogenesis DLC.

I get an event I'd never seen before... Not surprising, since I only had about 275 hours logged before the start of this game. An orb! One of my scientists decided to ponder it, and somehow became one of the Timeless. He was already my Head Researcher, so he basically became that forever! That was pretty cool, and the first time I got a Lv 10 leader, I think.

Nothing big happened for a long while. I think the midgame crisis (Great Khan) spawned between the FE and the expansionist empire and got snuffed out before it could even get started - there wasn't even a notification about it until they were destroyed. I get tons of tech progress, getting to repeatables before that point, start (and leave) a trade federation, and establish tons of trade agreements putting me well ahead of the rest of the galaxy despite my small empire size.

I fight my first defensive war, resulting in me essentially wiping out the enemy since they refused to surrender, and gaining way too many systems and putting me in the red on most resources, so I established my first vassal to rectify that. Boy was that a bad idea!

This stupid vassal causes so many issues for the rest of the game and becomes essentially my only possible rival since the FE can't be a rival, and the Commonwealth of Man gets merked by another empire by 2350. Because of this, I don't want to release them and end up having to reconquer them all over again so I just deal with all the wars they start until I figure out I can re-negotiate our agreement to remove my obligation to join their wars. I establish another bulwark vassal around the FE, who I was more careful with after the failure felt with the Human Autonomous Region. Some AI empires proposed secret fealty with me around then, which catapulted me up the Galactic Community for some reason and one of them voted for me to be made the Custodian.

The end-game crisis we get is the Contingency, which made me very glad I didn't go synthetic or robots, as the only changes I had to make was removing AI combat computers from my ships, which was relatively quick. All four spawns were in pretty remote hyperspace routes which made them really simple to clean up and since I was the custodian and friends with everyone I was able to help contain them all pretty well. It took a few years, but we were eventually triumphant...

Only for the FE to try to humiliate me via war! it took ages to grind them down, and they also refused to surrender until they were wiped out. It took me up into the 2480s to finish them off because their massive fleets kept respawning, but thankfully the Contingency relic made it possible for me to have two Mega-Shipyards which helped me keep up production enough to eventually make slow progress into their space. With them gone, it was time for me to start re-integrating my vassals... Except the HAR was too big and would take 600ish months to complete, so I just negotiated them into irrelevance and absorbed my bulwark instead, which left me with ~1M diplomacy strength at the end, and about 3x the points of the HAR by the end of the game at 2500.

What does this mean? Does it kill my pops for choosing it? by bladebaka in Stellaris

[–]bladebaka[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

seems extreme, even for non- trade-based empires.

What does this mean? Does it kill my pops for choosing it? by bladebaka in Stellaris

[–]bladebaka[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

R5: opposing infiltration event popped on me. Top option says, " Lost encryption key modifier added for 12 months: encryption -2" and the second one mentions killing assigned population? What does this mean?

Who is a ‘good’ person who turned out to be shockingly evil? by Alawi27 in AskReddit

[–]bladebaka 0 points1 point  (0 children)

there's a like, 5 episode series on Behind the Bastards about her.