Savage is definitely a lot harder than normal raids, but it's a lot of fun to work together to learn the mechanics, and slowly learn how to play your job well throughout the fight!

If you're interested in doing savage raids by finding groups in party finder, there's a few things you probably will want to do before you jump in.

First, you'll want to look up a guide to the first fight (search "m1s guide" on youtube and take your pick), and watch the video a few times through (or several different videos for more perspectives and strategies) to get an idea of the difficulty of the raid, and try to memorize how to resolve at least the first few mechanics of the fight.

Second, savage raids have enrage, which is a DPS check; if you don't clear by the time the last mechanic is over, then you wipe. This means DPS is important (though, in this tier, it's relatively forgiving). As such, make sure you know how to play your job fairly well! You aren't expected to play perfectly by any means, and can definitely clear even if you stumble often, but doing more DPS (even as healer and tank) makes a big difference on how likely your party is to clear the fight. The Balance is a great resource for learning optimized strategies!

And finally, when you're ready to jump into a party finder group, look for one with the [Practice] tag, and read the description to find out how far into the fight the group expects you to be (usually, they mention a specific boss attack). As long as you stick to groups that are roughly at the same point in the fight that you are, just jump in, and try to relax ^^

You're all there to have fun and learn together, and if someone gives you a hard time for messing up (which is unlikely), then you are free to leave at any time and find a nicer group. Most groups, especially ones that are at an early prog point, are super easygoing in my experience, and they'll be happy to have you fill up their party and learn with them!

If you want to give it a try and want more info, I'd be happy to give more specific tips/lingo/strategies to help you gain some confidence and jump into it! It's a super fun and rewarding aspect of the game, and nothing is quite as satisfying as clearing a fight for the first time!

They're mostly known for their officially licensed Switch controllers and accessories, which from my experience, are made extremely cheaply, with lackluster features, and terrible build quality. I absolutely wouldn't spend a whopping $60 on a controller from them, personally...

Hey I made that ^^ I didn't expect to see my own game featured in an article on my lemmy feed, haha

The only people who post there are those who had bad relationships with individuals with BPD, the ones who have healthy and happy relationships will not post there, obviously. Just because some people have bad experiences with others who have untreated BPD doesn't mean everyone with BPD is guaranteed to behave in the same ways.

If there was a subreddit called r/lefthandedlovedones full of people complaining about bad experiences with left handed people, that doesn't mean that all left handed people are abusive.

Just because you know one person who has a particular disorder does not mean that every person with the disorder is the same as them. That's harmful and reductive, if not downright dehumanizing.

I just replied 2 minutes late saying similar, thank you for sticking up for marginalized and wrongly stigmatized individuals <3

Though an important distinction; BPD stands for Borderline Personality Disorder (a personality disorder often caused by early childhood trauma), whereas Bipolar Disorder is a very different diagnosis (a mood disorder usually caused by genetic inheritance). It's shortened to just "bipolar" or BD

(though they're not mutually exclusive, and plenty of unlucky individuals have both, like me)

You can't really assume that just based on the fact that the person was manipulative. BPD doesn't deserve the hatred and stigma that it has, because not all individuals with BPD are manipulative or toxic, and individuals without the disorder can be terrible and abusive just the same.

Please don't further spread negative stigma about people who struggle with a very difficult disorder which does not inherently make us awful, manipulative people.

(Signed, someone with BPD who is very aware of how she treats others and has a very healthy and fulfilling relationship with another individual with BPD)

Although I agree with the author of this article that the terms are somewhat muddied, even in their more generally accepted definitions, by the fact that it's hard to draw the line for when unlockables can be considered "permanent progression".

Although I have many gripes with the terms in general and how they're used, I'm of the opinion that it is clear enough for there to be a distinction; if all of the unlockables in a roguelike game are sidegrades, or merely more options without inherent strength over other options that are unlocked from the start, then it still counts as a roguelike.

Though admittedly, this can be a bit blurry too.. it would be pretty easy to argue that some unlockables in games like these are more powerful than other options, especially because it's very hard to put an objective "power level" on an item in a roguelike. Also, one could argue that merely having more options makes the game easier, thus it counts as permanent upward progression.

Yet regardless, the article's attempt to coin the term "rogues" as the all-encompassing sub-genre/game mechanic name absolutely won't catch on, and the differentiation between the terms does have a lot of value for people trying to determine whether or not they will enjoy a particular game, even if the line can be a little blurry.

Here's a relevant video that I enjoyed by Game Maker's Toolkit that focuses on the main mechanical differences between the two designs, from a very broad and practical overview, definitely recommend watching it if you're interested in this sort of thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9FB5R4wVno

Here's another tangentially related video by Chariot Rider about roguelike progression in particular, which I also found interesting, although less relevant to this discussion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOfgUFx9RkU

Even more tangentially, here's a fun video by Lextorias about confusing or controversial game genres (well.. game genres in general) and it has a big section about the distinction between roguelikes and roguelites

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zrxN3_JHy0

I'm torn about this. Although I agree that the admin of that instance is being pretty transphobic and abrasive, I don't know if it's bad enough to defederate. In addition, I really like some of the communities there (especially the Godot community) and this might be the thing to push me off blahaj.zone...

It's a hard balance to strike, protecting vulnerable people from potentially harmful instances with bad policies, while at the same time, providing a valuable instance that people will want to use. Unfortunately, this will probably push me and some other individuals onto other instances that may have worse moderation and will likely expose us to a lot more bigotry. It's a tough situation, and I honestly don't know what the best option is.

I disagree with almost all of this blog post.

Another important point that I wish to make in this article is that the people who are labelled “mentally unwell” have the exact same ability to reason and rationalise as they did before they were given this label. The whole idea that someone can suddenly become “mentally unwell” is an absolute fallacy.

This isn't true. I cannot function properly when I am unwell (in my case, that would be a bipolar hypomania or depressive episode, or dissociation/derealization, or many other conditions I find myself in from various other disorders). I can't take care of myself properly, I can sometimes cause stress for others, and I absolutely do NOT have the same ability to reason or rationalize as I do when I am well. My mental health condition fluctuates wildly even over the course of a single day because of all of my overlapping disorders, and your claim that it's impossible to "suddenly become mentally unwell" is simply false.

my argument is that hiding bad mental health is not the correct thing to do and that you should overcome this fear or worry that you shouldn’t express your bad mental health to people.

Although I agree with some of the sentiment, it's also important to take other people's capabilities into account. Not everyone knows their boundaries when it comes to giving emotional support. It's very easily to put too much emotional labor onto another person and harm their own mental health by doing so. It's a very hard line to draw, and it's very difficult to know when it is good to share heavy struggles with another person. No, we shouldn't always suppress our struggles and feelings, but we also should not just trauma dump on everyone we meet without knowing what they are capable of handling.

Everyone has their own response to traumatic and distressing things and how they respond to such events in no way means that they are “mentally unwell”.

What’s more I would go as far as to say that being “mentally unwell” doesn’t actually exist - everyone has their own reason and rationale for doing the actions that they do

I find this to be a very harmful viewpoint. I need care. I need medications. I cannot live a happy and fulfilling life without it. The ways I sometimes respond to my past trauma are NOT always healthy. My "reason and rationale" does not exist when I am having a dissociative episode for example. Panic attacks by definition are not rational.

I feel like this entire post is very minimizing of people's actual, real life struggles. Stop villainizing a useful term that many people, like myself, find very helpful to ground ourselves and cope with harmful or intrusive thoughts or emotions. I am mentally unwell, much of the time. I'd even say in general. And because I understand that, it leads me to seeking the care I need to live a better life.

a point I wish to make on medication is that the medication used to treat whatever mental health illness they believe you have does a lot more that simply “fix” your mental health symptoms

Psychiatry is, essentially, a very educated guess. But it's the best we have. And for many people, myself included, it works after enough trial and error. It's not perfect, there will always be a lot of side effects. It's up to the individual and their doctors to decide which tradeoffs are worth it in pursuit of a better life.

What really gets me as well is that some nurses and consultants will see you wanting to stop medication as a sign that you are becoming “mentally unwell”, when the case is usually that you wish to stop medication because of the side effects of taking it.

I'm sorry if you've experienced this. But this is not a universal thing. I've never had a single doctor turn down my request to stop taking a medication, or label me negatively in any way. Anecdotally, most professionals are understanding and will listen to your concerns and are happy to make adjustments or try different medications if one doesn't feel right, or isn't worth the side effects.

it just so happens that these specific chemical compounds used in medications were found to help mental health illnesses in the trials and studies that were done on them.

Yes. This is how it works. There's nothing wrong with that. We can't really decide how people's bodies react to substances, we can only give substances then see how a person will react.

As well an important point to note is that nobody actually knows why the medications used in mental health actually work, they know the how’s and what they are supposed to do, but there is very little detail on why they actually work.

Yet it's the best we have, and it has real, tangible, impactful results for many, many people who take these medications. I want them to KEEP trying to find medications that work even if they don't understand why. The human brain is incredibly complicated and we will likely never fully understand why things happen how they do when it comes to mental health. All we can do is trial and error and refine theories and make a very good educated guess on what may help an individual life better. This is literally the best we can do, and it is, in my opinion, the right approach as long as it continues to help people.

Mental health isn’t something to be fixed by way of taking any kind of chemical compound because it isn’t the brain, which is the cause of mental illness, more so I feel the brain simply reflects the mental health traits that the person experiences – not the cause.

This is just straight up nonsensical.

But in fact, people voluntarily choose to incarnate on earth with those mental illness traits to experience what it is like to live with those issues and generally such people are very advanced.

This is getting ridiculous. I did not choose to be born with my mental illnesses. They harm me and my quality of life to a great extent. This is just turning into spiritual theology while trying to masquerade as a somewhat informed scientific opinion.

The people that define mental health as either “mentally well” and “mentally unwell” know nothing about mental health.

Speak for yourself. I know myself, I know when I am well or unwell. But sometimes when I'm unwell I'm not aware of it until it is pointed out to me, then I can take actions to mitigate the results of that unwellness. I trust those around me to know when I am unwell. Including my mental health professionals.

This article is straight up harmful and dismissive.

Edit: It comes as no surprise to me that this person also wrote an extremely blatantly transphobic article as well, with a huge "I'm not a transphobe, honest" disclaimer at the top.

As I understand it this is not true private servers and the article is somewhat misleading. This is a game mode that lets you play in a solo or friends-only lobby without other players, still hosted on the official servers though. Unfortunately the "private" game mode will be severely limited and will slow down your progression and lock you out of many activities in the game, in their effort to force people into the open PvP mode.