This was our first time using the app to book anything for our dog. We had done a meet and greet a couple weeks before the boarding date. Our dog responded incredibly well to them and vice versa. We chatted a long time a long time about other stuff too and seemed to hit it off really well. A couple weeks pass after that initial meetup, and we messaged the sitter a couple days before to verify that the booking was still good. No response. That’s okay, things happen and people are busy. We messaged again the next day. Radio silence. A bit concerned now. We messaged again two days later and still, nothing….
Then, we had to scramble to find a boarder for our dog and my partner and I were mildly financially unprepared for the last minute change up. I know we should’ve had a backup plan, but it went so well that I didn’t think at the time we’d need one.
I’m just kind of… disappointed? Transparency in regards to a life event would have been totally fine, if the sitter would have let us know. We would’ve accommodated and changed our booking if something personal happened. But to ghost us really sucked.
It’s all worked out now but I wish it didn’t happen like this.

Hi,
Does my employer have to accommodate me to work 1 day of week at office instead of 3 days because I cannot be seated for more than 30-45 min at a time due to my medical disability?
(I Have hip arthritis and causes me pain if I stay seated too long)
Basically I have gone through my employers insurance (Manulife) for an accommodation to work from home and Manulife have stated below to my employer.
“”Thank you for taking the time to speak with me last week. As discussed in our call, this is the information relayed to your employer:
I have spoken with (Employee name) regarding their accommodation claim.
After review of the file, the following restrictions and limitations have been confirmed:
Limit seated duration to 30-45min
Nader has indicated that the commute to work is 1.5/2hrs and experiences difficulties as the seated duration for the commute is outside of their current seated restrictions. The treatment provider has recommended work from home accommodation 4 days/week and 1 day/week in office.
We are unable to provide comment on the medical requirement for a Work from Home accommodation, as the commute is not a part of Nader’s essential job duties, and therefore outside of the scope of our program.””

So I (20 FTM he/him) recently posted about some abnormal bleeding after Nexplanon on here. I got my Nexplanon implant May 8th. My period was supposed to happen the 14th but skipped. Around the 22nd I started spotting/bleeding less than my periods (I used to have consistent 5-6 day periods each month). I'm still bleeding and tonight I had unprotected sex with my boyfriend. There was a lot of bright red blood after and I'm still bleeding. This is more than I've been bleeding the past over two weeks and the blood then was more oxidized. If anyone knows what's happening please let me know. I plan on calling the Planned Parenthood I went to to ask what's up as well.

All this talk about tips, there is so much rhetoric out there. Let's clear up a few things.
I work in a prominent Sydney restaurant and have been working in these types of venues for 15+ years. I am a full time employee. For the most part, people who attend my venue leave tips. We do not force anyone to do so. You are welcome to make a choice. Historically, people who do not tip, often will not, regardless of their situation. Historically, people who do tip, will do so, unless their experience is horrible.
Tips are shared with chefs and other back of house staff. All employees get the same share of the tips from the services they work (after initial probationary period - in my venue, 2-4 weeks).
Why do people tip? It is true, that the whole concept of tipping is derived from the American system where employees had to work for their wage and they were essentially paid pittance otherwise. The hangover from this system remains. Some people tip because they feel as though they should. Some people tip because their dining experience was outstanding. Some people tip because they are afraid of looking bad. Some people tip to impress. Some people simply have a lot of money and don't care.
When you come to our venue, you are with us for 2+ hours. We have to have knowledge about our food, our wines, our spirits, our beers. We have to know providence. We have to manage your expectations. We have to deal with your emotions, your family drama, your intoxication, your inability to read terms and conditions. We have to field complaints and waste time and food when you do not tell us about an allergy until you take a bite. We have to be polite and friendly despite some people being downright horrible to us. We have to field your demands, however ridiculous. Some of you require constant attention. We have to entertain you. Tell you about ourselves, our story - regardless of whether we would like to do so.
We all want to eat food at the same time, right? Lunchtime is the middle of the day, dinner is the middle of the evening, give or take. But we have to set up for service at the beginning, and tidy up at the end. We have to stand and shove food in our mouths at an opportune time. We cannot simply stop serving in the middle of your service, to eat. Businesses cannot simply hire more staff to cover these periods. Otherwise there would not be enough hours for current employees, or the cost to the business is exorbitant. Balancing wage spend in a small business is a tightrope. It always seems like there's just not enough, or just too much.
In this day and age, if we do not have a game face for the duration of your experience, you may write a bad review. You may damage our future profitability by getting revenge. Often it is clear when these reviews are exaggerated, but the cost to a business could be immense, simply because you didn't check the menu before arriving, or failed to read the condition that you have a time limit.
In Australia, we have award wages, yet like many other industries wage growth is stagnant. The costs of running hospitality venues are increasingly high, and the margins are tight. Many venues struggle to profit proficiently. Some employers cannot afford to just pay more. My full time wage has been roughly the same across several different companies for 6+ years.
Let's not turn this into a debate about large business, there are certainly larger companies who can afford to do some of these things. As there are in any industry, not all businesses are created equal. Not all businesses treat their employees and guests as equals. Sometimes, the ability of the staff to provide the service you would like is damaged by an employers desire to spend less on wages. To offer shitty conditions. Sometimes, they have no choice but to have less staff on the books. Sometimes, there are no people willing to become staff.
It is rewarding, when a guest learns something from our knowledge. When they genuinely love the food. Or they discover a new wine. It is rewarding when they are amazed that everything they desired for their special occasion is reached, or surpassed. We want you to be happy. We want to be happy. We want you to tell your friends that you had a great experience. Sometimes, your usual dining experiences pale so significantly in comparison, you want to tip. We like that because it shows that what we do has value. Sometimes, the cost of making you happy is our own physical health or mental health.
I tip when I go out to venues. Partially because I understand what the industry is like. However, if food or service is bad, I may not. If food or service is outstanding, I am likely to tip more. Because you can go to a venue and get fed, have a drink, be satiated, and feel nothing. The service and experience doesn't have to be special, but when it is, the staff in that venue worked hard for your experience. But they didn't have to, you would have been fed either way.
Companies who rort staff over wages are going to do so anyway, regardless of tips. I tip delivery drivers. They drive in the rain on a bike. They wait patiently out the front of your house cos you're not looking at your phone or don't hear your front door.
Whether or not you tip is your own choice. Don't feel obligated. You may be ideologically opposed to it. Generally, people who tip in good restaurants have experienced good vs bad service and know the difference, or they have walked the walk before.
Tips make up a large percentage of our wage. We work hard to ensure you are happy. A genuine thank you is always well received.

Many men bounce back fine after a period of mourning, some weeks, months, maybe a year or two. A few years down the road they may find a new partner, or just be enjoying the benefits of freedom in being single, but generally speaking, they’ve found some good sources of happiness to facilitate a sense of overall well being. To you men, I say good for you! Keep going.
Then, there are those of us who Divorce continues to impact in a negative way. Perhaps it involved the kids, finances, maladapting to the notion of being alone with unhealthy “pick me ups,” battling with circumstantial depression, other mental illnesses, loss of confidence or desire to get into another relationship even when to door is hanging wide open for one. It seems life has turned on us and we’re never going to right the ship. We lose the desire to keep trying to rebuild, because we get so far only to have our dreams and expectations for life go unmet despite our efforts, and, quite frankly, there seems like nothing else to live for. We’re broken and cannot put ourselves back together, and for some of us, we no longer care to try. We die while yet living.
I’m the second one. 8 years after divorce, I’ve been alienated from my son, make shit money(pay support), have given up on dating completely, and traded an addiction to alcohol for three years after the event for an addiction to Meth(35 when I tried it the first time). Well, at least I don’t drink anymore. So, I was thinking about all those quips tersely ensuring us, “it gets better, you’ll see.” No. Not always. I see no signs of it getting better. I used to feel optimistic, but I’m afraid that ship has sailed. Perhaps there is time to change yet. Maybe things can improve, but with each passing day I’m getting more disillusioned with life. I can’t seem to get a win and I’m losing the fight to even keep trying.
Oh well. AI is probably going to wipe us all out in the next decade anyways. (My passive aggressive cry for help). Cheers!

So for context, you can read some of my other posts about my shitty and horrible childhood but I’m gonna touch on it a little more things to make sense. My mom was the baby sitter for my dad’s children (my now siblings) and their one night stand led to my mom getting pregnant. My aunt had just gotten her an apartment but when she asked about the pregnancy, my mom lied. So my aunt took her to the doctor and boom, 7 months. So my dad after finding out moved his family across town bc things became a liability for his lie. My grandparents didn’t think my mom could be a single mother so they moved her 10 hours away to stay with them and honestly that made my dad’s life easier. Anyway, when my mom got us a house, things were horrible. The house from hell ruined a good part of my life. I would always ask about my dad and my mom would scream IDK WHY YOU CARE!! HE HATES YOU EVEN MORE THAN I DO, IM JUST THE ONE THAT GOT STUCK WITH YOU! You know, normal mom shit. She also said if I ever contacted my dad, I would go to jail (????) I was literally like 6 but okay. So life goes on, and it felt like my dad finding me would be my golden ticket. I fucked myself up thinking he would come back for me, but he never did. I was kept out of the loop about everything. So in 7th grade, a little before school started, I never remembered the exact date bc I just blew this event off, it was super early in the morning, like as the sun was rising but like fully up above the horizon, I was sleeping and someone patted my legs to get me to scoot them over so it could sit on the side of my bed next to me. I remember not being scared. I just listened and moved my legs to the side. When it sat on my bed, I remember feeling the weight shift in the bed. I don’t remember what all was said but I remember at one point saying yeah and like scoffing a little in response to what it said. I wish for the life of me I could remember but you know how it is being half asleep. When I woke up later, I thought it was weird. I asked my mom if she came in my room early in the morning. She said why the fuck would I be in your room. Okay. I asked my stepdad (he worked night shifts) and he said he didn’t get home until 10am… Okay so was it a dream?? I ended up blowing shit off and surviving the life I was living. Now I didn’t have a phone until I was 15 so if I wanted to text my friends, I had to use my moms phone. This was sometime in October and I saw that she had texted my aunt that “[dad’s name] is dead.” I showed her and asked if she was talking about my dad. I got screamed at for even asking but she did confirm she was talking about my dad. She said he died in early august “or some shit.” Well I did some digging later in life and found out it was august 9th. Which would be around the same time that I had that encounter with that apparition. And if what they say is true about unfinished business, I can’t imagine any more unfinished business than a child you abandoned. Amends maybe? Maybe he saw my situation and home life and felt bad? The only other weird thing I had happen around that time was waking up with a red handprint on my chest… it was sideways, like the bottom of the palm was on my right breast, and the fingers straying over to my left breast. The pinky was closest to my neck and no matter how much I tried to recreate it, I couldn’t twist my hand up like that long enough to make an impression. Plus it was bigger than my hand… anyway, I’d love to hear what others think bc I’m 25 now and still can’t make sense of it.

FOR BEGINNERS!
Imma make this quick, very quick.
There are 2 MASSIVE misconceptions that new people (including myself) made just by lacking very basic logic with a little different thinking.
There’s always 2 questions I always see, and one of them are ALWAYS answered incorrectly. Well.. 95% of the time at least.
Point 1: “what’s the best way to learn how to use FL Studio”
Answered with “Watch lots of YouTube”
Logic says, you can watch videos and read books for a decade about preparing to sky drive. BUT NOTHING can prepare you for the adrenaline jumping 11,000 feet out of the air with the likely possibility of not making it.. none. YOU MUST APPLY YOURSELF.
How are you gonna be successful in the most competitive industry there is by NOT EVEN BEING INVOLVED IN IT, nobody does this… except Rick Ruben. Dudes a pharaoh.
Point 2: “how does my arrangement look?”
My typical response is as follows… “when people are listening to your music, I’m willing to bet money they aren’t thinking… I wonder how his arrangement was in Fl”
Nobody gives a -beep- about your arrangement that actually matters.. seriously just zoom in maximum length in playlist and just move every single pattern cm by cm AFTER adjusting snap to grid.
Which brings me to the actual proper answer to all this stuff
Spend 2-3 weeks focusing on shortcuts and navigation.. if you don’t know most after 2 weeks. Purchase a larryoh shortcuts mousepad. Re attempt.
If there is ANY videos worth watching it’s for hidden features.. cause wow.. does FL have TONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNSSSSS of hidden features.
I’m 1099 self employed and can say I’m not married and have no kids.
I spent the last year watching videos for nothing.
What about the people working 9-5 with a spouse??
You ain’t ever gonna make it if you just sit and watch YouTube.
And if you tried, you’ll be single Very fast!
Anyhow, you are welcome and I wish you luck!
If anyone did indeed become successful by being lazy and watching TV PLEASE do tell me with proper evidence and I will proudly stand corrected!

Kallistus Kal had been patient.
He had bided his time— he had learned, and he had grown. He did everything right. But in return, he had only been tormented even further. He was never rewarded for his actions.
So now, he set out to seize his dreams. To take hold of his destiny. He was no longer going to remain idle. His plan had been set in motion, and now he waited. But he didn’t wait for everything to fall into place by chance.
Instead, he was going to ensure all the cascading pieces fell into place by force. If they weren’t going to fit together, he was going to make them fit together. He waited. And he plotted.
The [Hero King] raised his head as a smile spread across his lips.
“Soon, I shall see them again…” he whispered as he heard the clamoring coming from before him.
He swept his gaze over the bustling hall, and he saw the twisted figures moving. Creatures of the dark. Shadowed beings conjured from his will.
Voidlings.
And there were hundreds of them— no, thousands.
They waited with Kallistus Kal as he settled back into his seat.
“Soon, I shall return home.”
—--
But even as the [Hero King] made his plans, the world continued to move.
The Archmage King of Scholus called for a secret conference, and the Merfolk Empress began her final siege of Drazyl. A cowardly dragon hid beneath the earth, while the successor of the Grand Sage of Imbel Forest was forced to flee her home.
In the Frozar Mountains, an angel and a dragon sat down in a cold cavern and spoke for the first time in ten thousand years. They discussed things which had transpired since they had last seen each other— they talked grimly of the problems plaguing the planet, and they agreed that action had to be taken.
In Wolfwater, a blonde girl and a burly man sparred with each other on a farm as a chicken looked on. But unbeknownst to them, the blonde girl was being hunted down due to a case of mistaken identity.
And at the edge of Briar Glenn, a prisoner of war was freed from his captivity. After surviving weeks and weeks of torture, he could finally see the light of day again. All thanks to the help of a brown-haired woman. A… hero.
But, of course, she wasn’t actually a hero despite her heroics. Her name was Amelia, and she was just an ordinary restaurant owner.
Or at least, that was what she told herself.
End of Book 2

Author's Notes: End of Book 2 of Amelia the Level Zero Hero! This book focused more on the slice of life aspect of the story which I feel like was lacking in Book 1. But... in retrospect, I think I leaned too hard into the slice of life this time around. I'll try to find a better balance in the next book which I am really looking forward to. Oh also, there will be about a ten day break until the next chapter drops for public. However, Patreon will continue to be updating chapters. And since it is the start of the month, it means now is currently the best time to subscribe to catch up to the start of Book 3 :) Check it out here I don't really have much else to say other than that. I'll have another popularity poll for the end of book 2 soon. As always, thank you all for reading <3

​
Also, Tremere1974 who wrote the cool Bucky fanfic snippets in my comments here on HFY has been posting a pretty cool fanfiction in my subreddit. I think it's awesome and y'all should check it out. It's even got three chapters so far.

We knew the [Hero King] was coming, and others may say the Island Fortress of Last Anchorage was unprepared for his arrival, but against the [Hero King] what can anyone do? When our nation joined the coalition against him, we sent our patreon, the great Sea Dragoness Carana, not expecting to lose her within moments of the start of the battle. We also sent the majority of our military strength to fight on the mainland, who were slaughtered to the last soldier. So, to say we were unprepared is to say we failed to act. When the [Hero King] decided to take our island, the outcome was preordained, and our position at the end of a Island Archipelago meant evacuation was largely impossible, even if the [Hero King] was not using our own ships we had used to move our Army to the mainland to invade us. I found out though, that when hope seems lost, sometimes a final roll of the dice can alter the fate of the world. I Am Talia, and this is my story.

Check it out! A Scale of Vengance : AmeliaTLZHNovel (reddit.com)
Previous Next Read Ahead on my Patreon

So obviously, there's a lot that's different in the show, but after episode 6 I'm pretty torn. There are changes that I think are really clever: Introducing important elements early on in terms of the digging machines, Walker's radio, a large reservoir that Juliette is afraid of, stuff with the Silo 18 stamp, a camcorder with a high-resolution screen, the inexplicable existence of Swedish people, etc, all set up a series of pins that are quite ready to be knocked down in a big, satisfying blow.
The pace is somewhat slowed by flashbacks, but the added focus on George gets us the kids' tourism book and some more intense emotional stakes for Juliette, plus her "fuck you, I'm a genius" moment of fixing his watch. But, the addition of sequences like the generator repair and Marnes' fun little vigilante excursion insert some excitement. I'm not crazy about shifting Juliette's motivation from intrinsic curiosity and need-to-fix-the-problem-itis to being sad about her dead, illicit boyfriend, but what can you do?
On the other hand, there's a lot that I feel is missing. There's no sense of normal life in the Silo - we only see people during times of duress, during festivals, doing crimes, acting insane, being attacked, or being in mechanical which is always a zoo anyway. This makes it hard to get the sense that this is a society teetering on the edge of violence. It all seems pretty normal, as far as anyone can tell.
It takes such a short amount of time to travel the silo, and they even have a special holiday where people are encouraged to mingle floor to floor, so there's no sense of that heads-down task-focus that keeps everyone with their nose to the grindstone, ignorant of the silo at large. This being the case, people should be putting together the weird idiosyncrasies of the silo all the time.
And I'm still not sure what Judicial actually does! Are they a court system? Are they secret police? Why is there a group of obviously evil murder-spies that everyone is afraid of and has nicer shoes than anyone else written into the pact? When you have a group of people going around doing the job of forcibly and openly suppressing dissent rather than having it be something that the citizens do themselves for the love and protection of their own society, doesn't that become an obvious trigger for naturally curious types to start looking around? And it's so much easier to poke around when it only takes an hour to get from the top level to the mids and you can stop for cake along the way. Seriously, unless the actual point of judicial in the pact is to serve as a big, irresistible red herring for potential revolutionaries, I have no idea what they're even there for.
It kind of makes things weird for Juliette too - it is unbelievably obvious that the shadowy organization whose members keep trying to intimidate her and throw her off a railing is troublesome. However, she's hot on the trail and the series needs to hit its episode count, so she has to kind of forget about them for a little bit and kick off a weird relic hunt whose purpose I can't really understand.
Basically, I think a lot of the changes work to beef up the story for TV, but undercut the integrity of the silo itself, and Juliette to a lesser extent. However, I do believe that there is a simple fix for this which hopefully can be implemented in a remaster or re-release of the series:
Give everyone color-coded jumpsuits!

I have been with my bf for a couple of years now. We are two adults in a quite serious and long-term relationship. We currently attend college together, and we have already talked about the future in terms of housing, marriage, kids, etc.
I will start by pointing out my own personal problem- the fact that I can’t seem to let go of the cliche “honey moon phase.” You know, the phase where you’re both falling in love, trying new things, learning new things, etc.
I still remember my bf and I’s honey moon phase. It was like something out of the movies. We would text/talk pretty much all day every day. Replies to one another were instant and detailed. We were so engaged in every conversation and so engaged in learning more about one another. We wanted to see each other as often as we could, and we both constantly planned dates or even just simple meet-ups- basically anything we could do just to see each other and spend time together. Every date was so exciting, and I’m talking about the kind of exciting where we both forgot we had phones. All of our dates were also so romantic and memorable no matter what we were doing. We made every moment together special, and he did so many little things for me just to make me smile, from surprising me with flowers for no reason to writing me cute little love notes to sending me the sweetest messages to wake up to in the morning. Everything was so perfect.
The honey moon phase obviously slowly ended as time went on. We were carefree teens with no responsibilities when we first started dating, and now we’re both busy adults with loads of responsibilities on top of college. I try to consider the fact that we’ve both changed over the years. However, my main issue is that despite the honey moon phase being over and both of us changing, I never stopped trying to put as much effort into our relationship as possible whereas my bf seems to struggle to do so.
As mentioned before, my bf used to do all kinds of little things to make me happy. To this day, I personally still do those little things for him when I have the opportunity. I’ll leave him little love notes, surprise him with his favorite snacks, send him messages to wake up to, etc. I also always try to plan dates when I know we’re both free. We are both busy people, but I still find it very important for us to make time for one another when we can and make one another feel special as often as possible.
Meanwhile, my bf has stopped doing all those little things. He no longer does the little sweet romantic gestures that he used to. His text messages are so much more dry and short, and he often takes quite a while to respond even when he isn’t busy. He barely really even compliments me anymore. He used to compliment me all the time, and now it’s just kind of an every once in a while thing. Not saying I need him to bombard me with compliments every minute of every day, but sometimes I just like a simple “you look beautiful today” after I’ve clearly put effort into myself before going out.
Not only has my bf stopped doing the little things, but he’s also stopped making an effort to make plans with me. I’m always the one wanting to plan dates, and he always just seems to go with it. He’s also on his phone more when we’re hanging out, and that always bothers me. There’s even times when we make plans and he cancels last minute, and then there’s been a few times where he’s unintentionally stood me up. To top it all off, he’s become more short tempered with me. He gets annoyed with me more often, and if he’s tired or simply not in the mood, he seems to not be in the mood for me at all.
It hurts to compare the way my bf was in the beginning to how he is now. I have even communicated this to him several times, and every single time I do, he apologizes, reassures me that he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me, and promises to do better and make it up to me. Then, things get better for maybe about a few weeks at the longest before he falls back into those old habits. I’ve reminded him several times, and he’s been able to reel me back in every time with his sweet talk and promises, yet he still doesn’t quite seem to get it.
My bf has even told me before that he doesn’t make much of an effort to spend time together because we have the rest of our lives together anyways so “why stress it.” He usually uses that as an excuse when I express how it hurts that sometimes it’s easy for him to cancel plans on me but never on his friends. He seems to enjoy making plans with his friends more than he enjoys making plans with me, and he always claims it’s cause he knows he has forever to spend with me and is unsure of how much longer he’ll have with them. Don’t get me wrong, I get where he’s coming from, but that doesn’t mean I want him to not even try to put time aside for us.
I just miss the little things, and I miss the equal effort. I want him to understand that he still needs to put effort in even though we plan on forever together, but I feel like simply telling him that just isn’t doing the trick. I know that the honey moon phase can’t last forever, but I don’t think that means 50/50 effort can’t last. Maybe I’m just overthinking, but I don’t know.
I love this man with my whole heart, and I don’t want to just give up on us. We do still have great moments together, and he’s not a bad guy by any means. However, I just want him to truly hear me and fix these things for our relationship, and not just temporarily. Actions speak louder than words, and I want him to realize that without constantly needing me to remind him. Any advice on this situation would be much appreciated.

Want players back?
Simple, just do this and people will surely come back to give the game another chance.
Big problems require drastic solutions..
Lost ark Season 3:
-Hard reset on gear straight up, Tier IV blues out of the story 2000ilvl for example and make the game feel fresh again. This is called an Expansion in other games and it creates an ease of access for new players so they can hop in and play together with their friends at the current content.
-Reset Card System with an easier system to complete or even better get done with it (TOTAL REMOVAL) because its garbage paytowin crap that doesn't bring anything good to the game. It's just a pay to win system to snipe the whales that only creates problems.
-Reset Gems tier as it went with T2, make the gems effectively worthless by reducing their effects by half so it would incentivize people using the newer ones.
-Make the daily grind not to feel horrendous. Basically the game economy and how to progress got min-maxed to death so changing the formula a little bit here and there might actually help. Having a game where to be serious about your main character you have to farm 40x chaos dungeons 40x guardian raids to swap them to your main so you can progress is kinda sad tbh (yes, you don't have to do this, but if other people are hardcore enough and do it yet you don't, guess what, you are left behind, that doesn't sound good now right?), and that's on top of 6+sets of legion raids per week..
Possible solution for daily grind being shit would be to have more rewards per character doing the boring chore stuff but having the materials bound on character, that would make altocholics still play their alts and make everyone else not feeling that they are getting behind because they don't do it on all their characters.
What would be the problem if the guardian raids wasn't a right(2x per character) but a freedom? Want to play guardians all day with your main character? go do it.. there would be no limit.. surely the numbers it drops, the expected marketplace price or the numbers needed to hone would change but that can be used as actual content that people can spam (blade & soul, WoW and a bunch of other mmo's have it so it can be done). How its done is not really something I care. Making something endlessly farmable would remove the fomo of having to do them and make them a free for all.
-Remove Pheons, everybody knows that pheons are a problem.
People would have way more freedom to play other specs / builds , try more stuff with alt characters, send their drops to their alts for FREE (something that can't be done freely now which is low and scummy). There is literally no positive for having pheons. Bunch of idiot ideas about it protecting against people that would do huge buyouts and scalp up the price are so dumb that don't even need a reason existing.
If someone for example buys all of an item for example a "specific" stone, they run the risk of losing gold in the long term because they would have to compete with people pumping them out on the daily, scalping specific "accessories" they also run the same risks. Wake up, scalpers exist either way and its always a gamble, they just have to amount for the fee to pay to the company to do their job, its not being stopped.
This is just a reason to have another revenue stream in the back of the players and making their interaction with trading with other people and even with themselves harder.
-Remove Raid wipes. Raid wipes are a poor method of KR mmo's trying to handle the integrity of the game with Swipers (p2w people) and make the work of bussers harder to impossible. Who wins from all of this? basically nobody, this is not really a game but at this point alcatraz Island simulator.
1-hit-KO moves can still exist but on each player depending on their play.
-Introduce a cap to Geagems/cards at certain raids / dungeons to decrease gatekeeping
For example when you join Valtan you are capped at 1490 item level even if your gear is 1570 you don't get stat benefits, this could go to gems and cards having a cap. Doing Valtan doesn't need that much gear and this can alleviate the problems of gatekeeping to a certain degree.
Also another positive from this would be the increase of difficulty of bussing that Smilegate is desperately trying to fight against, or at least is pretending to.
Players gatekeeping to this extreme isn't their fault, they just want to min-max their effort and get the reward, they want bosses to die faster and pick the biggest number since time is money in this game, and lost time is a problem. Tinkering with caps would open the door to less gigachad players to join the groups easier and not getting gatekept.
-Scale down the difficulty of encounters in general and promote all that hardcore stuff to Hell mode where you can flex your skills. Like tough bosses? Like a challenge? burn yourself in that pit for all we care and flex about it later.
Progressing through the game via upgrades is fun and all (instead of upgrading via drops of bosses you kill that other mmo games have), but having these encounters difficulty so high up there when they are just a farm content bosses multiple times every week is too tiring.
-Free Consumables for Hell mode would be a great change, that would make more people try joining in and testing it out (at least i guess so)
​
There is a ton of stuff that can be done to save the game from doom at least in the WEST.
Game is doing fine and it will do fine in KR regardless.
These are some options that could create problems for the economy, how the game works and functions or how it interacts with players but that's all because balancing a pay2win freetoplay and stopping it from bleeding more and more players daily needs drastic actions. This is an ever ending cycle, you can not have a f2p p2w game that everyone loves because that's how it is.
To be Honest the game is designed from the ground up to be a kr grinder mmo where you either waste your life away or drop down cash to keep up. Drastically changing something will probably create other problems since its how its designed. ( you don't go to said dungeon and get the loot to get better, you have to farm farm farm to upgrade to get better so you can see the dungeon) so having the game running for years without a BIG RESET is a no go if you want it to last so that it can replace old blood (people that quit or people that take a break) with new players.
Hyper express is a patch to a problem that's definitely too weak to work and in the end it doesn't get rid of the problem, it just moves it to a later date and that date is coming as we see with concurrent player numbers.
New people when they start an mmo they don't want to be a year behind the current endgame (because even after a year of farming they would still be like 3-6months behind at the next year's endgame.
Who in their right mind starts a game knowing this? Actually they don't since they get to experience the wall pretty fast and leave.
Remember people were raising hell for Argos being about a month early give or take.
Games that don't fix this issue of replenishing people quitting with new blood end up dead or with a hardcore community that over time bleeds to an inevitable death.
Game went from 80 to 70 to 60 to 50 to 40 in a month and we still have tons of bots in punika abusing the Hyper Express on mass.
Call it Diablo , call it content drought, call it whatever
Losing half player base in a month that's not on release month (since games on release lose quite a sizeable amount of people after first month) needs action.
Sure the game can sustain with 10k concurrent hardcore player base, even with less but also keep in mind that they are divided to the whole world except china and kr. Meaning sooner or later people leaving that don't get replenished will make the game for certain regions at least unplayable and that's where the never ending downward spiral of game losing people will begin.
Finally, the game needs to feel fresh again and sacrifices probably have to be made, either by smilegate toning down their choices of greedy monetization that do more harm than the worth of the money they get or players accepting a new tier / expansion blanket reset, or both
Most Likely the Thread will go invisible or get much hate since I'm a nobody and probably nobody cares to read walls of texts of their favorite mmo being bashed when they spend their time playing it, out of those that are left.
​
Feel free to cope on how wrong I am
That I am a rice eater
That I don't really care about the game and simply want things for free that others had to work for
That I just need to GETGOOD to play the alcatraz bosses
Ask me to quit the game or go on a break since I am not having fun
I'll check the thread maybe a couple people might turn up after that huge wall of text and give their honest thoughts, being positive or negative, adding solutions or explaining why those i gave are garbage.

I’m not sure if this counts but I have to share this story. I’ll be using fake names.
A few years ago I was given the opportunity to direct a play that I’ve also written at a local theatre which specializes in original works. I was excited. I have a degree in theatre with an emphasis in acting and directing, and I wanted to try my hand at directing outside of school. I had a cast and everything was set in stone that is until the one male actor had to drop out and had to search for a new actor.
Enter “Kevin”, an actor who seemed like they knew what they were doing. He was a couple of years older than me and he talked about being in a ton of shows and being in actor’s equity. Then the red flags started to appear. I communicate to all my actors about important rehearsal dates though Facebook messenger and in person. However when it came time for those dates (like promo photos and fight choreography) he never showed up. He’d show up the next day and when asked he’d have an excuse, “my mom is sick,” “my car broke down,” etc. At the time I had chalked it up to him having bad luck. Boy was I wrong.
Tech week comes around and due to lack of volunteers I had to run the tech booth as well. First day of tech week, Kevin never shows up. I texted him asking where he is, he responds, “I thought we didn’t have rehearsal.” The other actors (whom I’ll always be grateful to have) noticed my stress and helped me calm down as I told Kevin that attendance for tech week is mandatory. When he did show up he called for line (which is a big no no during tech week). Again I chalked it up to stress and kept going.
Opening night happened and everything went off without a hitch. At the after party one of my actors “Claudia” asked me whether someone in equity could do a show at this theater. At the time I couldn’t remember the rules and answered that I’m not sure. Spoiler alert, if you’re in equity you can’t do community theater. Claudia also told me that Kevin is giving everyone else notes (another big no no). However the worst was yet to come.
Second night. Kevin never shows up. No call. No text. Nothing. I was on the verge of a panic attack, but my other actors being the awesome people I know saved the day and the show went on. Afterwards I had a chat with my actors as well as one of the board members of the theater. It turns out that another actor, “Erin” had asked Kevin for a ride home the night before; Erin told me that as they talked he was basically shit talking about me, my ideas as a director, and even saying that he might not show up. We all agreed that Kevin is no longer welcome. I sent him a message telling him that he’s more or less fired. He had the nerve to claim that he had a “seizure” and was unable to call for help. I’m not sure if that was true or not, but this grown ass man has told me so many lies I’m not sure what to believe.
Anyway we found a better actor to take his place and the show was a hit No thanks to Kevin. Also because I have such a good reputation with all the theaters in town, and gossip spreads really fast, Kevin is basically banned for life. In other words don’t talk shit about anyone in theatre. You may not find work again.

Hi,
Around April 20th I found a Sienna on Toyota's Inventory site that said it was "In Transit". I didn't know at that time how in-demand Siennas are right now and how impossible they are to get.
This is my first big, new, car purchase.
I call the dealer the Sienna is associated with (it was already assigned a VIN) and they basically say "Yes, it'll be here in 2 days, you can put down a deposit for that car". So we do.
But now, it's been 6 weeks of them saying "it's been delayed, it's still in port" and that they don't have any more information.
What is going on here? Is it actually just a shipping delay, or is this too good to be true and this dealership doing something funky?

I am currently unable to get out of level 1 in Faceit. It took me under a week to get to DMG in regular CSGO matchmaking when I got back into it a month ago. I solo qued 95% of those games according to leetify.
I drop 30 bomb after 30 bomb in faceit level 1 matches. Occasionally I don’t. I win every match I don’t have a troll or a griefer. The problem is every level 1 lobby has someone trolling, being toxic, or griefing.
Today I had a match where 2 people had 1 kill by halftime then quit. Today I had a lobby where 2 teammates had about 50 games played and a 7% win rate. I dodged and took a que ban. Today I had a match where a teammate just threw a molly at my team as soon as the round started every round then quit. Those are only the 3 I remember from today.
Now how am I supposed to get from 350 elo to like 800 to get to level 2? Level 1 lobbies are just trolls and griefers. I am being forced to make a new account and play 10 placement matches again if I want to get anywhere ever.
My other issue with Faceit is it’s holding onto stats from back when I was pipsqueak many many years ago. When I came back to Faceit after many years it put me right where I left off like 6 years ago.
My friends who haven’t played Faceit in like 5-6 years or CSGO for that matter are where they left off at level 6. They just get destroyed every match. Why the hell are they still that level? Why the hell are me and my friends only given 3 placement games instead of a reset and 10 placements?
The funny thing is I am way better then my friends and they’re 5 levels higher then me.
Make it make sense. Anyways I canceled my premium subscription and will stick to mythic where I actually can at least get competitive matches with people who aren’t just level 1 trolls.

So basically my map decided to stop existing overnight. By that I mean extacly this. When I press M game will freeze for split second then UI elements that are present with open map (Menu, zoom etc) start overlapping HUD but the map itself doesn't show. All I get is extacly same thing that camera see's before opening map. I can open menu (and use it fully no problem) and press ESC to close map nothing more, it doesn't show anything that should be shown, not players nor camp's nothing. I'll try to add screenshots but later when I launch PC
Things I tried to fix problem 1:Removing all mods (duh) - removed them from game dir not only disabling them 2:Deleting config files 3:Verifying game files - did 3 times 2 normally and 3rd with deleting few small files from game dir to make sure it's verified correctly by forcing MS store to redownload some files (didn't work downloaded only files I removed so I guess no corruption or anything) 4:Checked if there wasn't update to game/windows/drivers overnight which could justify such problem but nope 0 updates 5:Tried praying to Todd Howard for blessing me with fix 6:Didn't tried sacrificing goats because I live in city, it's not exactly stuff you can get at corner store 7:looked for help at discord (one from this community links) 8:Writed to Bethesda support (tho I don't expect them to be helpful)
While game is still playable, lack of map is quite detrimental to overall experience and ability to do so. I would rather avoid reinstalling the game as I have metered connection (100GB/month after that I need to pay 15 euro for another 100GB which is bit of strain on my budget [around 100euro/month for everything] as I'm unemployed due to fighting with depression. Which is another reason I would like to fix this problem ASAP)

Hey folks, after weeks of obsessing about an Aer Travel Pack 3, I impulsively purchased what I thought was a great one on eBay for $180 + $33 shipping (!) + $16 tax from a new seller who claimed it was barely used, like new, blablabla...
Big mistake! It turned out to be an Aer Travel Pack 2 in X-Pac, complete with obnoxious compression straps and sans load lifters, but in relatively decent shape (if not "barely used").
I filed for a return, left negative feedback and the seller is now offering a $75 discount for his "mistake" (originally offered $50 which I rejected, I said $70 was the minimum I'd even start to consider). I'm not sure I'm in love with the pack (I also have a CPP in X-Pac, my default computer bag -- I WFH still) but I do like it and am wondering if I should accept this offer, which effectively brings the price down to $150 plus change. A new Travel Pack 3 X-Pac would cost $300 at Aer!
Should I send it back or accept the partial refund? Help me, fellow bag-lovers!

/LonghornNation Daily Off Topic Free Talk Thread

Today: 6/6/2023

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1. This dumpling presser
2. A trans man in Ohio was beat up and arrested for using the bathroom associated with his sex assigned at birth
3. Got let go from my job, now they want a resignation notice.
4. Kanye and his new wife out for a stroll
5. TIL King Henry II of France participated in a jousting tournament in 1559 to celebrate the marriage of his daughter. A lance splintered on his helmet and pushed wood into his eye and brain. He died ten days later. His death led to the decline of jousting in France.

/CFB

1. University of Colorado Board of Regents' Tuesday meeting agenda features agenda item: "Legal advice on a specific matter - athletics matter at CU Boulder"
2. 2024 5* LB Sammy Brown commits to Clemson
3. [Jim Williams] Here are a list of the schools that have been vetted by the @bigten for possible future members. This is not in order of value just they are just they way I wrote them down. Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Georgia Tech, Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, Utah, and Miami. It should be
4. [On3NIL] Collectives from Clemson, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Washington are set to lobby Congress for uniform NIL laws this week. “We are confident the perspective from our group of collectives can help add value and direction."
5. 2024 4* RB Kedren Young commits to Notre Dame

/LonghornNation

1. [6/5/2023] Monday's Sports Talk Thread
2. [6/5/2023] Monday's Off Topic Free Talk Thread
3. Michael Huff is on the 2024 ballot for the College Football Hall of Fame! 🤘
4. [Post Regional Thread] Texas ⚾ wins the Coral Gables Regional and advances to the Super Regional
5. My Longhorn Brothers & Sisters, dish me a little advice
6. Streaming Texas Sports on Amazon Echo
7. Traveling to UT for the Rice game.

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For context, I (19M) have been friends with my best friend, we'll call them Lee (19X), for 6 years since high school freshman year. When a movie came out that we both wanted to see we would make plans to go. We would enjoy talking about either movie theories or the latest book in ELA. They helped me socially transition when I was coming out as trans. They even helped me set up a harmless senior prank on one of our favorite teachers. After our graduation, we just drifted apart and I got a job and went to community college just for my associate's and they got a job as well as started their new online shop on Insta. They got new partners and new friends and I'm... trying. I was and still am introverted, I will talk to someone if they talk to me first, but other than that I'm pretty quiet. Due to this, I have little to no friends besides the guys at work and I don't go out to do something unless that thing has a purpose. We tried to play Minecraft with each other when we could but I guess Lee got too busy with other things. Usually, when we text I'm the one that initiates the conversation, and when I don't I won't hear from them for weeks unless they send me videos on TikTok but even then I send one first and they reciprocate maybe with one or two but then that would be it. At some point in high school, I even had a crush on Lee but then that went away when they told me they were polyamorous. I love Lee like a sibling and now it's like they're that cousin that you don't know at a family reunion. Once their mother had threatened to kick them out and they reached out to me for help and I offered for them to stay with me until they could find a place, luckily nothing ever came of that. Over the past weeks, I've been depressed and every time I would try to arrange for us to hang out or play Minecraft there would almost always be an excuse either with their mother or work or nothing at all. When I brought up my concerns about our friendship they said they've just been so busy and we could hang out whenever, but when things seemed like they were looking up, things started to go down fast. These two weeks in particular I was feeling really depressed because of the way my manager treats me and about the fact that I have no friends and the person who I thought was my friend didn't care enough to say "How are things?". So as an experiment, I've stopped reaching out to Lee to see if they will notice that something is off and do something. I'm waiting until next week to cut them off and I have drawn up a paragraph of a text that I will send them when their time is up. I want to believe that they'll reach out because they're a wonderful person, but at the same time, I can't hold on to them forever and still act like everything is okay.
Here's the text: Listen I don't think this friendship is working out, we barely hang out and on the rare occasion we have a conversation, I'm always the one who initiates it. Over the past few days, I have resisted the urge to text you or send you videos on TikTok to see if you would notice that something was off or if you would do anything, but you have proven that I'm the last thing on your mind. I understand that you have your own life and your own problems, but it wouldn't kill you to check in every once in a while instead of me checking in on you because I care so much. I will be blocking your number until further notice, if you have anything to say you can say it to my face. It's sad because you were my best friend and I loved you and you made me happy even if it was for a split second, but I guess nothing lasts forever, right? And I know you won't do anything to prove me wrong because either you don't care or you won't even read this message. Goodbye, Lee.
So would I be the bad apple?

For the last few days, my PC has been very slow to boot up. Checking task manager, my disk usage is at 100% for a few minutes after startup. From there, programs are very disk usage intensive, and it may rise back to 100% by itself, even without opening a program. This makes my computer rather slow. Starting Steam causes it to immediately shoot up to 100 for a while. I can start running a less intensive video game, but something like Street Fighter 6 will not start at all, and the task manager won't say it's running, despite being able to run it fine a few days ago and despite Steam saying it's running. I've tried:
• Disabling Superfetch • Disabling Windows Search • Disabling MSI mode • Changing energy options to high performance • Resetting virtual memory • Checking my drive health with ADATA SSD Toolbox (It says drive health is "good" and remaining life is "100%") • Checking the drive with chkdsk • Scanning for viruses • Making sure my antivirus isn't causing it
I've been doing so much stuff that there's probably more stuff I forgot I did!
SPECS: CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor 3.59 GHz GPU - NVIDEA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER RAM - 16 GB SSD - 446 GB (ADATA SU630, 160GB remaining) Motherboard - B450M-IBW