bogdugg

I would definitely like to see more meta-discussions of gaming. Like, what in the absolute fuck even is ‘fun’, that’s something I ask myself any time I add a system to a game.

Yes, I agree! Personally, I think the line between entertainment and manipulation is far blurrier than anyone cares to admit or wants to talk about. You only really hear about them in regards to pay-to-win games, microtransactions, lootboxes, or gambling. But of course, those systems can exist without the obvious money incentive - does that change things enough? Is it possible for a completely free to play game to be "evil" in that way?

Oh, maybe they changed it. Haven't played ranked for a while, sorry if that's wrong.

You can generate more money by making a single last hit per minute than a leaver gives you passively

It's worth noting that a leaver has the biggest impact on the game when they leave, and that impact is larger the longer the game has gone on until that point, because that hero has also gained gold in other ways. When they abandon and all that accrued gold gets split among the team, that's a potentially very big power spike. Depending on when it happens and how useful the leaver was, it can easily tip the balance.

So, depending on your skill bracket (which as you are newer, probably skews lower) this may happen more or less frequently, but I can only speak to when it happens to me.

When somebody abandons a game, it becomes safe to leave. This means, you can go to to the menu, leave the game, and immediately queue into a new game without any penalty. For myself, this is a fine solution because people don't abandon very often, but I can imagine this being a poor solution if abandons happen too frequently and you just want to play the dang game.

I also prefer just leaving a game with an abandon-er because the effect you describe is definitely real. There is an advantage for teams with 4 players, especially earlier in the game. In an ideal world the gold redistribution would be scaled to give both teams equal odds, but even that isn't perfect because your team technically still has the advantage if they can survive.

At some point in the game, the hero disadvantage should(?) outweigh the gold advantage. So, if you're looking for a general strategy for winning a game with a leaver on the opposing side, the goal is survival. You have to play as if the enemy team is way ahead in gold, because, well, they are. It also requires a much heavier emphasis on team play. Any one of their heroes is likely stronger than any one of your heroes, so your team will need to work together. There is also a double-edged sword to having fewer stronger heroes: it is more punishing for them if a teammate dies. So if and when you manage to kill an enemy hero, there may be bigger than normal openings for taking objectives (towers).

There are moments of calm, but the show is very much about the chaos of the family and the kitchen.

I understand the sentiment, but there are things not worth knowing. I don't care who was drafted in 1987 by the San Diego NFL team. I don't care about the extras who appear in the 1957 film Witness for the Prosecution. I don't care what you had for breakfast. My point is, I think your issue is less about curiosity, but of values. People who don't value the things you care about, or worse, don't even value the things they purport to care about.

Some game-of-telephone misinformation originating from this article - though it has gone from Google killed it (which this article states), to it was a protocol that allowed Facebook and Google to communicate and then got killed, to Facebook killed it.

I'm curious, are there policies for usage of data on a service like this? If you federate Meta (or any instance, or this instance), is that granting them the right to use your data as they wish? Assuming the answer is yes, could the Fediverse at large implement a broad, let's call it "Terms & Conditions", that must be acknowledged upon federation, regarding how the data is used? Or, if the answer is no, what are the limitations to how data in the Fediverse is used?

Also, how useful is my data to them anyway, if they can't target me with ads? Certainly there are uses, but isn't the primary end-game just selling me something? If I'm on an independent instance, I'm not sure how much I care about them having access to my data.

Edit: Mastodon founder Eugen touches on some these questions here. This is specific to Mastodon, I have no idea how much of this carries over for Lemmy.

Will Meta get my data or be able to track me? A server you are not signed up with and logged into cannot get your private data or track you across the web. What it can get are your public profile and public posts, which are publicly accessible.

On average it represents a ~10% accuracy difference. It's a consequence of the core game being tuned to feel best on console, and crossplay being held up as a selling point.

Again, you can choose to queue for KB/M only, but because of the way things are set up, those queues are dead. Slower queue -> people decide to play mixed queue -> leads to slower queue -> and so on.

I actually like Halo Infinite, but I stopped playing on PC because the game is pretty hostile to M&K players on a competitive level. The long queue times for M&K-only compel you to crossplay, and controllers have a significant advantage due to the aggressive auto-aim. Makes the whole experience feel a little wonky if you're trying to rank up.

I wonder if people would be interested in a "lurker" instance that disables comments/posts/etc. entirely. A "read-only" instance for the people who really hate the idea of being defederated, lol.