Yep, that is indeed what I was thinking of (though I don’t have a link handy either).

Didn’t mean to imply that’s where experience levels were invented. The clarification is appreciated though.

And even thought I was alluding to that DQ comment, I’m sure it wasn’t the first game to adapt experience levels, and across the board making things easier wasn’t always the impetus.

Don’t know about CRPGs in particular, one way or the other. But in general I agree with you op.

If you level up, and it means your stats go up and all your enemies level up and stay at the same balance with you, it’s pointless. It still affords a moment of happiness ‘cool I levelled up’, but in a much less satisfying way.

The point of level up early in RPG video games was, to my knowledge, so that any one with time and patience could beat a game regardless of skill. The idea of level scaling is almost the exact opposite, to remove the advantage of levelling. They cancel out and both player level and enemy level should be removed if that’s happening.

That’s assuming a 1:1 unversal scaling though, which is rarely the case. In the details it can be tuned to something worthwhile - which enemies scale, how much they scale, etc.

Still, my thought is when games want level scaling, they should consider why. If you want players not to overpower enemies via stats, maybe get rid of the stats (or don’t change them on lvl up). Levels can still augment your player with new spells, unique abilities, or more options. Or maybe more carefully consider the placement of enemies and what their default level and stats are set at. Or maybe consider a lower level cap, or a lower range of stat values.

The possibilities are wide open, but level scaling done poorly can make level ups feel like a punishment.

Yep. Not even always ads exactly, but just dummy notifications to make your dumb brain keep opening the app or website (which is kind of a self ad).

Most apps I have to disable or heavily tone down notifications in some way to get them to stop yapping about nothing. Even then, sometimes you can’t get notifications you do want without junk.

Yes. Having centralized ownership (to whatever extent) is a concern for sure, but it’s a hypothetical concern in and of itself: “what if the leadership does bad things?” Is different from “the leadership is currently doing bad things.”

Decentralization helps. But if the networks effects aren’t behind it, jumping from platform to platform when things DO get bad is also viable.

Understandable, I’m really looking forward to FF getting tab groups too. I don’t know why such a nice feature was left unimplemented for so long. 🫤

And I mean, there’s still time now. Switching browsers isn’t that bad. Export+import some bookmarks and adjust some settings, good to go.

I think FF has been a good option for a while. But the second best time is now. I can totally get it if people didn’t want to switch until they had more of a concrete problem.

That’s a big undertaking, good luck! I’ll definitely be trying it out once it’s playable.

Having a nice list of characters you want is cool, but for now I’d say really pick two (or even 1) and try to get them prototyped and make them feel good to play.

Just like Reddit’s changes last year, seems like a clear and reasonaly expected consequence of the ‘our text is so valuable because AI’ idea.

The web will probably continue to become more gated and more fragmented as a result of that, plus trying to get more control to force ads.

I hadn’t heard the rumor yet, but the timing sure does feel right for one of those!

Metroid is the big question. My guess is that it’s a no-show again, but wouldn’t mind being wrong.

I’ve heard Fire Emblem remake rumors, so I’m hoping for that.

Well said. Within the existing framework of copyright law, the emergency open library thing that got them sued seems obviously illegal, despite it being a good thing. What’s good and what’s legal don’t always line up.

The Internet Archive’s work is too important. The library portion (that does controlled digital lending of published books) is nice, but I wouldn’t be too hurt if it goes down. Regular public libraries can fill a lot of that role. But the archive itself is incredible, and losing that would be a huge shame.

Legally, I don’t know that admitting fault and saying sorry does much good, but it certainly isn’t surprising that they got into hot water here.

Definitely reminds me of NES Remix too. I really like the the little mini time attack challenges here, so I’ll probably check it out eventually.

The small print on the page does clarify for sure that the full NES games aren’t included though, which is a huge shame. Would be a really solid package if they were.

And I meant to say, most helpful resource for me was the website rtings. Most review and best of lists I can find by searching are so spammy, it’s hard to get any signal. But at least that one let’s me filter a table of printers by features. I just don’t know how many they’re missing.

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Had to get a new one recently too. I’ve had good experiences w/ Brother in the past too, but couldn’t find one that quite fit the bill. Needed color and for it to be able to handle cardstock.

Ended up getting an Epson, one that’s in the eco tank line. Has been great so far. Works just fine out of the box on Linux (LTS Ubuntu, anyway)

I had similar happen to me. Put all of it together, turned it on, then panicked a little when it wouldn’t boot up.

Turns out one stick of RAM was not fully slotted in, so obviously that’s not OK. Was easy to spot once I double checked components. Popped it back out and in, then it was good to go.

No. Though I think he said his YouTube channel will be stopping soon as he’ll be starting a new project.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised though if he decides to oversee an inevitable Ultimate port/expansion for Switch 2.

Not really federated so far, right? They talk a lot about being open, but (when) will they be really? Can I sign up for an account that intereacts with Bluesky through any other provider?

I mean, I signed up, it seems interesting enough. If nothing else it has some recognizable accounts to follow, better network effect than Mastodon.