Rakqoi

I can’t help but feel like Valve has somewhat dropped the ball by not releasing it yet, at least for other handheld manufacturers to use in their own devices. As it is, the Steam Deck is the only handheld PC that I know of that uses linux, and all the companies jumping on the bandwagon with competition are all using windows. It feels to me like Valve’s attempt at making linux the de facto standard handheld OS for gaming devices has slipped away by now, which is really unfortunate.

Of course, the Steam Deck is still the most popular handheld gaming PC (in large part I’m sure due to low cost and the convenience of SteamOS) so it’s not like it has been a failure at getting more gamers on linux, but I’d guess that if they released SteamOS 3 alongside the Steam Deck it would have made a much bigger dent in the market.

I chose Garuda for this reason and I love it. the automatic snapshots have saved me several times, plus I like all the built-in tools for configuring a ton of things that I’d have no idea how to configure otherwise. The preinstalled software is also super useful. The only thing I didn’t like about it is the gaudy default theme but that’s easy to change.

There is/was a fan made version of this in development! I don’t know the status of it currently, and I heard that development was rocky for a while… and they haven’t posted on the blog since 2020. But take a look anyway!

https://seaofgreed.com/

From my understanding it’s uncommon but worth asking about! I started seeing a psychiatrist shortly after to manage it further, and still see one to this day for 3 month check ins (and to manage various other conditions). I doubt my GP would have been willing to raise my dosage as high as I needed it, but it was a good starting point then because I was already on the medications, it has been easy to transfer to other doctors and continue getting my prescriptions. I’ve never been screened for ADHD or anything like that.

it is absolutely worth it. It’s so life-changing that it’s worth the struggles to get on a medication. I’m on Adderall, and have tried Focalin and Ritalin but neither worked for me (caused anxiety among other issues), once you find the right medication for you it’ll change your life for the better.

Also for what it’s worth, it might not be as hard as it seems to get diagnosed and get a prescription. I originally went to my family doctor talking about my experience and research into ADHD, and she prescribed a low dose of Adderall that day. The real hassle, at least for me, has been having to remember to call every month to have the doctor refill my prescription, and scheduling and attending appointments every 3 months. There are no auto-refills for stimulants, at least in the US, because it’s so federally regulated. and it’s a medication you’ll be on for life most likely. even so, it’s definitely worth it in my opinion.

I have several hundred hours across the 3 souls games and ER, and I totally get that it’s a well designed mechanic, which is why I love it. and yeah, I know that valuing souls too much is a mental trap that prevents me from enjoying the game, but I just can’t shake it in Elden Ring for some reason, despite doing so more easily in souls games. (though, it especially sucks in DS2 because of soul memory but that’s a whole can of worms)

The souls series is one of my favorite game series of all time, and I would definitely not change the blood stain mechanic whatsoever because I think it’s about perfect. Especially with rings of sacrifice (or the weird twigs) and homeward bones to give you chances to mitigate the penalty when you really think you need to. It’s excellently designed and forces you to improve at the game.

Despite that, it still causes me hesitation and demotivates me from playing the games sometimes. I have to be in a specific mood to want to improve at a game, and I’m in that mood less often as I have more things I need to spend my time on, and usually play games just to relax and have an easier time nowadays. I still love Elden Ring to death and it’s genuinely one of the best games ever made (in my opinion), and yet I have a love/hate relationship with death mechanics in these games.

Here’s one I genuinely love and hate at the same time. In Dark Souls and Elden Ring, you drop your souls/runes (currency) on the spot where you last died, and if you die again before recovering them, they’re lost forever. You get souls and runes by killing enemies and generally progressing, so this leads to some interesting scenarios.

One one hand, it incentivizes you to spend your currency (to minimize risk of losing it) instead of just sitting on it, forcing you to make decisions on how you spend it, and whether to take the risk to save up to get more expensive items or level ups. It also forces you to play very deliberately, since there’s a penalty, but only if you die twice.

But… it makes me scared to progress, because I don’t know what to expect, and I don’t want to risk losing my souls/runes. Unless I have just recently lost everything and I have nothing to lose, I feel pressured to play overly carefully and never take risks and play the game in the most fun way possible, out of fear of loss. And even when I DO die and lose my currency, the freedom to play in risky ways only lasts for a short time, because as I kill enemies I start to build up my souls or runes again, and then I’m back in the same situation of not wanting to lose them.

I think that’s the main reason why I haven’t finished Elden Ring despite getting so close to the end. That overly careful playstyle is not very fun, but I can’t get over that fear of losing my runes in order to enjoy the game more.

Armored Core 3! I was interested in AC6 coming out in a month, so I decided to jump into the older games to get a taste of the series beforehand. AC1 was very clunky and difficult for a newcomer to the series, that’s for sure. After a bit I decided to skip to 3 since I heard it was a good entry point to the series.

I’ve been having so much fun! I spend way more time customizing and tweaking my mech and theory-crafting new builds than I actually spend doing missions. I’ve mostly done arena fights, since they’re less stressful (no ammo or repair costs), but the entire game is great so far.

Now having played this, I’m more excited for Armored Core 6 than I thought I would be, and I cannot WAIT for it to release.

In the same vein, Satisfactory and Dyson Sphere Program. I love planning and optimizing and it feels great to plan it on paper then build it in the game, only to run into countless problems, distractions, and rabbit holes of things to do to achieve my goals, requiring taking countless more notes to keep track of it all. Definitely one of my favorite genres of games.

Is it like that just by touching it, or do you get that sensation when the thumb stick is pushed all the way forward (so the stem is in contact with the shell)?

If the former, then I don’t have any advice since I haven’t felt it myself.

If the latter, and it feels almost “grainy” or rough when moving it side to side while pushed all the way forward, then mine had the same issue. I fixed it by buying some cheap joystick protectors on amazon. Now they feel totally smooth at all times, it was just a rough edge on the shell rubbing against the joystick stem.

When the Steam Deck was first announced, I was so excited for it that I figured it was as good a time as any to switch to linux on my desktop, to get familiar with in in advance of the Steam Deck release. I wanted more control over my PC, and I’ve been wanting to switch to linux for ages, but it was something I kept putting off just because I knew it would be quite a time sink to learn to use it.

I was surprised with how simple linux really was. I started with Kubuntu and hopped to Garuda, to be able to use the AUR, and I’ve been in love with linux to the point where I never even boot into windows despite still having it installed. I just have never felt the need, and windows now feels so clunky and not very personalized to my preferences.