(no subject)

Another Elden Ring complaint, because I’m still not over this game:

Weapons and shields have special moves attached to them. A big part of what distinguishes unique weapons is their inventive special moves.

There’s only one special move button, and if you have equipment in both hands, it will always use the left-hand equipment.

There’s only one block button, and it also uses the left-hand equipment.

The most protective shield in the game has a built-in flamethrower for its special move. It’s slow to activate, has poor range, and can’t be replaced.

In my playthrough, I kept picking up new weapons with cool new moves, and I kept going “whatever. I can’t even use this unless I ditch this shield.”

Edit: post canceled. It turns out a shield I never got at the bottom of an annoying jumping puzzle is even more protective and can have its skill removed.

(no subject)

I’d like to revise my earlier “cultural Christianity” hot take. Americans, Christian and otherwise, are culturally capitalist.

(no subject)

I get why people are sick of tropes like the blind swordsman or the autistic detective, but I think it’s a mistake to frame it as just an “inspirational” thing abled people write. Disabled people can also fantasize “what if my disability made me awesome?”

(no subject)

You know those multiplayer games where one really strong character fights four or five weaker ones? Every time I read about one, I see a complaint that in low tiers, the strong character wins way too much, while in high tiers, the team wins way too much. I’m starting to think this is just a thing that happens with asymmetric multiplayer. Cooperation is powerful, and it’s hard to balance around the presence or lack of it.

Now that I think about it, this probably explains why Vicious Circle sucks. In that game, the strong character is AI and the weak characters are players. Only one player can win, so they’re encouraged to backstab each other, but all of them can lose to the AI if they backstab too much. In practice, nobody cooperates, everyone gets stomped, and everyone gets frustrated and quits playing.

(no subject)

You know how when Christians say God will punish you if you do X, they really mean Christians will punish you in God’s name if you do X? I’ve just realized that might be only a Christian thing. Pagan bloggers talk a lot about how if you do this, the gods will punish you, or if you do that, the spirits will punish you, or if you do the other, the fae will punish you. I always assumed that meant Pagans were going to punish me if I did this or that or the other. But it’s starting to sound like they really do think they have no need (or motivation) to hand out punishments that will get flung down regardless of what they do.

On the one hand, this means I should be a lot less suspicious of Pagan bloggers. On the other hand, what does this imply about Christians? Why don’t they wait and have faith God will smite me for offending them?

P.S. What are Buddhists like? I’ve gotten the occasional Buddhist lecture about how karma will punish me for X, but I haven’t interacted with them all that much. Do Buddhists punish you, or do they leave it to karma?