xhieron

@xhieron@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jon Stewart's Debate Analysis: Trump's Blatant Lies and Biden's Senior Moments | The Daily Show⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It was a disaster. Trump lied for 90 minutes straight, but he did it confidently, with a straight face, and without rambling. It was a vast improvement over his stump speeches. Biden mostly told the truth, but he meandered, stammered, got mixed up, and was obviously ill. That’s just what happened.

  I’m going to vote for Biden anyway, because the old man stands for policies that actually benefit me personally. But the debate was bad for him, possibly catastrophic. His campaign desperately needs an October surprise, and at this point it’s hard to guess what it might be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why isn't jerking off more valorized as an easy dopamine hit that's also literally good for you?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, my bad. I forgot how cool it is to just spout whatever bullshit you want. Hurray for ignorance.

  No wonder humanity is doomed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why isn't jerking off more valorized as an easy dopamine hit that's also literally good for you?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That an opinion lacks evidence does not alleviate the requirement that its factual allegations be supported by evidence. “I don’t think the surface of the earth is curved” may be an opinion, but it’s a provably wrong assertion, and adding a disclamitory phrase to it doesn’t excuse the statement from evaluation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why isn't jerking off more valorized as an easy dopamine hit that's also literally good for you?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Citation needed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds - Expansion Announcement⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem with a punishment mesmer, defensive juggernaut anything, and turret engie is that they result in degenerate gameplay. Turrets can’t be allowed to succeed in PVE (see: Lake Doric), and none of these class fantasies can be allowed at all in PVP.

  Turrets and juggernauts turn into turtling bunkers that either grind play to a halt or turn into raid bosses, and the only way to balance them is to essentially make the style of play unfun for the person who wants it. “Being unkillable” or “controlling this space” can’t be supported in a competitive game mode. Now, you can balance this by just splitting everything and making the specs unplayable or wildly different in competitive modes, but that means you’re now devoting the dev resources to build the thing twice (for both modes), yet players can only really enjoy it in PVE. From a design perspective, that’s a really poor return on investment for an elite spec.

  Punishment mesmer worked in GW1 because you had much better defined roles in all game modes with less overlap, and there was ability parity between players and NPCs, so you could interact with an enemy mob essentially the same way you’d interact with an enemy player. In GW2, you can’t punish a playstyle because playstyles aren’t that well defined, and you can’t create a niche for hex gameplay because they gave everybody else the mesmer toys (see: Torment and Confusion). If you try to make a spec that depends on them even more than certain mesmer specs already do, the byproduct will be turning revs into gods (again). There’s also no energy denial in GW2, and you can’t give a player a bar full of interrupts because everybody already has as many interrupts as the game can support without being catastrophically unfun. GW2 is just the wrong kind of game for GW1’s mesmer–like a lot of things that were better in GW1.

  If you ask me, we don’t need more elite specs. We need more non-elite specs–stuff we can combine more freely with what we already have–and we need the elites to be “de-elited” so that the power level of the vanilla specs have better parity with their elite counterparts. I know they’ve taken a pass at this before (or two or three), but it has clearly not panned out. The presence of multiple options for ranged elementalists, for example, is definitely something that needs to be supported.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Glad I was too dumb to finish college...⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No, sorry. I try to be deferential when talking about this stuff, but this is pretty cut and dry, and I’m afraid you’re just wrong here. This is Greek–not theology. πίστις is the word we’re talking about. It shares the common root with πείθω–“to persuade” (i.e., that evidence is compelling or trustworthy). πίστις is the same word you would use in describing the veracity of a tribunal’s judgment (for example, “I have πίστις that the jurors in NY got the verdict right/wrong”). The Greeks used the word to personify honesty, trust, and persuasiveness prior to the existence of Christianity (although someone who knows Attic or is better versed in Greek mythology feel free to correct me). The word is inherently tied up with persuasion, confidence, and trust since long before the New Testament. The original audience of the New Testament would have understood the meaning of the word without depending on any prior relation to religion.

  Is trust always a better translation? Of course not–and that’s why, you’ll notice, I didn’t say that (and if it were, one would hope that many of the very well educated translators of Bibles would have used it). But I think you can agree that the concept is also difficult for English to handle (since trust in a person, trust in a deity, and trust in a statement are similar but not quite the same thing, and the same goes for belief in a proposition, belief in a person, and belief in an ideal or value).

  The point is that πίστις–faith–absolutely does not mean belief without evidence, and Christianity since its inception has never taught that. English also doesn’t use the word “faith” to mean the absence of evidence, and we don’t need to appeal to another language to understand that. It’s why the phrase “blind faith” exists (and the phrase is generally pejorative in religious circles as well as secular ones).

  Now, if you think the evidence that convinces Christians to think Jesus’ followers saw Him after His death is inadequate, that’s perfectly valid and a reasonable criticism of Christianity–and if you want to talk about that, that would be apologetics.

  In any event, if you’re going to call something bullshit, you better have a lot of faith in the conclusion you’re drawing. ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Glad I was too dumb to finish college...⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The way faith is treated in the First Century doesn’t translate well to modern audiences. Having faith of a child isn’t an analogy to a child being gullible. It’s an analogy to the way a child trusts in and depends on his parents. Trust, arguably, would be a better translation than faith in many instances.

  Faith for ancient religious peoples wasn’t about believing without proof. That would be as ridiculous for a Firsr Century jew as it is for us. Faith is being persuaded to a conclusion by the evidence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mathematicians⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Say more about this? Why is it a worse profession? Anywhere I can get a layperson-friendly deep dive on this (that doesn’t require a graduate degree in mathematics)? I’m fascinated by the nuance between niche academic disciplines and the “politics” of academia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unexpected Red Guest⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It floats.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A Midnight Visitor⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re cold, they’re cold. B̶͍̂̎͐̑̈́̏̅͆͌͒͑̚r̸̙̅̅́͊͛ͅi̷̡̛̜̠̼̰͉̺͙͖̪̠̓͛̊̓̓̓̌̚̚͝n̶̹͚͍̈́́͒́̚ǧ̶̛͉͖͇̰͖͍̘̪̋̈̔̾͐̆̌̃͜͝ ̷̩̈̆̑ţ̶͓̺̙̫͕̜̬̱̪͚̲͂̋͂͐̽͗ḩ̶͈̟̼͚͍̓̒̿͌̑̃͝ȩ̷̭͈̟͙̯͎̜̭̜̭̥̤̻̈̈́͒̄̀̄̒̓̌̽̑̈͑͊͘ͅm̶̻̪̙̝͎̩̟̪̈͌̔́̒̿̕͜͠ ̵̬͇̙̿̈́͆͂i̷̛̳̼͈̬̇͑̒̍̈̚͠ṅ̶̡̯̮̫̰̬̙͒͌s̶̞̹͓̖̟̿̃ị̵͔̤́͑̕͜ḓ̷͎̼̥̞͖̙̑̉͛̈́̏e̶̖͇̻̜͎͕̻͎͈̭̔͊̒̄͒͗̐͂̍̚͜͝.̶̩̳̈́̓̽

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨enjoy⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s something wrong with mine. It’s not spinning. Does that mean I still get the death, or do I have to do something special? I don’t want to miss out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Early opinion⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Disclaimer: I haven’t played it. So speaking strictly as a prospective purchaser, the feedback from the community so far has not inspired confidence. I was hoping this expansion would bring me back to the game, but by most accounts it’s hard not to get the feeling that the new devs have lost the thread. They don’t seem to understand what was good about the previous systems–namely, that they gave players choices. Sure, people could funnel to the path of least resistance with the old dailies, but at least that meant you could get them done if you didn’t have a lot of time. As someone who burned out hard on PVP, I liked the idea of being able to play a match or two, and then if I got frustrated I could switch to PVE and still finish dailies. I could make the decision on the fly instead of being committed to something that didn’t incorporate how my actual gameplay experience might go. My understanding of the new system leads me to conclude that if I were to decide I want PVP, the choice is then to either finish all of the PVP dailies or bail for the day, no matter how the matches went. Also, some of the old dailies were clunkers. Having the option to do the easier ones meant that no one was stuck doing content they despised. Finally, jumping puzzle portal conga was a defining feature of the community. I hope it’s still around.

  Sure, there were optimal rune sets, but it sounds like those options have basically been removed altogether. Yeah, you’d have been a fool not to take Torment on your Renegade, but at least you could. Trapper sucked for the guy on the receiving end, but it enabled a whole new style of play. I feel like everyone predicted the rune/relic change would be garbage. Are there any relics anyone is actually excited by?

  I also read this morning that armor weights are basically gone for the new expansion-defining sets. For people who might not have been around at the time: In Guild Wars 1, every class had its own armor styles. They switched to the weight system in the sequel to cut down on the design overhead, and now we’re abandoning even that. Looking at the quarterlies I didn’t get the impression that things were quite that dire, but doing away with basic content like class fantasy expression is not a good look.

  The only good feedback I’ve read seems to be that the rewards themselves are better, at least on a reward-by-reward basis (if not in aggregate over time–mathematically it seems like just playing ordinary content is economically less valuable than it used to be). And apparently the maps and stories are pretty good?

  The thing is, I liked Dragonfall. By which I mean: a new meta to run isn’t necessarily a selling point aside from just more variety. The systems are the thing that make the game fun to play moment to moment. If the systems feel shitty, then the game feels shitty, and it doesn’t matter whether the thing I’m swinging at is a spiky purple blob with red circles on the ground or a crooked green blob with red circles on the ground instead. I’d still kind of rather be playing my ritualist.

  All of that said, to reiterate: this isn’t speaking from experience. It’s just my expectations based on what I’ve read and watched so far. I’m currently holding off on pulling the trigger in the hopes that someone will convince me it’s a good investment of time and money. As it stands, I’m not convinced that it isn’t really a step backwards with a view towards better monetization and cut development costs.