It's full of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNtkWgkjBUM
And now your brain is full of this too.

No escape.
Help.

How're people doing?
Haven't done a journal in a while, so felt oddly obligated...so here you go!

I've got a very long time friend of approx 20 years finally visiting mid-week next week and staying a few days. First IRL meeting kind of deal! Excited about that ^-^.
Other than that, just uh passing time, waiting, etc. Not much happening as per usual >.>;. Tried to instigate some stuff but uh...couldn't. So that's not fantastic, but..well, hopefully it changes "soon".

*stretchy ponder* Been going to the RSPCA shop in town ; a shop people donate their things to, and the money goes to lil animal help stuff! I got an adorable little statue of a mom (or dad) & baby ferret, a neat little train and some cute and extremely cheap pictures (Framed, 1 pound each). This feels nice <3. I overpay when I can, ie pay and drop donations.

Hmm. My life is not very interesting right now haha.

HELLOH.

So I'm primarily a gamer. I play games as my main hobby, which is to say *a lot*.
Nvidia burned everything with the 5XXX series' failures and deliberate bad choices so as the 9070 XT came out of nowhere to offer a viable alternative, I grabbed one from the initial available stock. It's coming in a few days!

I have questions for those who are hardware inclined (because I'm very much not!) regarding things I may need to also do \ get to prepare for this GPU.

So for starters, I have a Z690 gaming X (DDR 4) motherboard, which I know is marketed as being PCIE-5 compatible, so on that front, I should be fine.
But does the motherboard have the slots to take the (GIGABYTE) 9070 XT?

Additionally, I have a Corsair RMX850X PSU. Solid choice - I ran Cooler Master's power draw simulator thing and it said I should have 707~ W use with a *regular spec* 9070 XT (Mine is over-spec, OCd) so I'm guessing 750 or slightly lower usage. The advice I was given was to have 150-200 W headroom, which would suggest I need a potentially 1KW PSU. Any input on this?

ALSO ALSO; I don't actually know what power connectors my GPU will come with. I've legitimately tried to look on the official site 1 day ago, the Amazon listing I got it from & simply nobody would mention what damn connectors it has lol. Unhelpfully, I also don't know what I currently have on my PSU because...well I bought it pre-built, why would I care? (Hint : This is why!)

So yeah I think these are the main questions right now.
If more clarification is needed on what parts I have or something, do ask X_X. And uh thanks.

---

But yeah, 5XXX series still has melting cable issues, also some are a proper FIRE HAZARD. Fake performance, fake prices way way way above MSRP. Cards that simply aren't available, that black screen out the ass. I won't pay twice the recommended price of a card that has barely any gains over last generation, sold on lies, gets lit on fire, etc.
2 days ago , I would not have considered AMD after a bad experience with an awful "Bulldozer" CPU chip 12-13 years ago. But unfortunately, I don't really have any other option & honestly the 9070 XT seems like it will give me at least 3 years of modern and stable gaming. (Averaging that out to 1100~days VS 679 GBP price means somewhere between 50 and 60 P a day - if it only gives me 3 more years and not 5)
So yeah. Excited and hoping I don't have to make other alterations to my setup. But since the 4XXX was hard to get, badly priced and had similar melting power cable issues, I didn't consider it. For a year I was thinking "Well, wait for 5XXX. Hold out, that should be a good upgrade point" and...well, no.

I'm relieved the fucking 9070 XT came out of the blue, honestly.

Finally the day has come where Chrome killed real Adblock support and I'm going to have to switch to Firefox.
Waking up to "Well, that won't work any more" with regards to an ADBLOCKER is kind of unacceptable given the state of the un-blocked Internet.

Firefox is one of the few browsers that aren't Chromium based, so I'll park up there for the time being.
Brave is, of course, a dodgy scam - and I don't know enough about Librewolf to trust it.
WHEEEE.

Whaaaaaaaa~t?
My already abysmal interest rates that have been going down every 2-3 months like clockwork for 3+ years are going down agaaaaaaain?!
Yes that's *VERY* important.

Light rant\poke journal :-P.
At least they're not letting me know in real paper and wasting it lol.

*Ages*

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59877344/

Wheeee go have a loooook! O_O

If you celebrate it!
*waves*

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/29/why-electric-stoves-are-better-chefs#:~:text=Switching%20over%20to%20electric%20isn,and%20are%20loving%20the%20results.

No, really.
They're fantastically unhealthy, and induction stoves are just straight up better besides - nowadays, anyway.

Most people can't afford anything, but if you are thinking of making upgrades in a place you are comfortable at, highly consider tossing your old crap stove out for a more modern electric one because this shit is BADDDD.
It might explain symptoms I now possess where the last few years, after eating for 1-3 hours I just feel like my throat is clogged, stuck, dusty, etc. I wasn't like that. And while it could be other things too, this really makes sense...!

A lot of people seem to neglect this so [Slight TMI warning]

Remember if you're in the shower to shove your fingers around your ears (NOT INSIDE THOUGH. Not the canal, like) and clean them out. No better time to do it & safer than swabs.
WHEEEE!

Long story short, my ex's father is a stupid, stubborn dickhead who despite being nearly 80 both can't listen, and acts like a fucking kid.
The result of which is he *very nearly* told me to fuck off back to my own country, with those exact words.
Managed to stop himself at "to" , but it was very obvious what he was going to say.
And this over him being a dumbass who didn't want to listen to me explaining to him how and why his washing machine is broken - instead insisting it must be my fault because I "fucked around with it" (Changed the RPM settings with a BUTTON that exists, and lets me do it without warning), despite it being a 0E (can't drain water) error.
Happened twice. But it's my fault, somehow, because "It hasn't happened to him" (And he could not have used it more than 2 times so far either, but okay)

I can't wait to get away from this dead-ass country.
Good lord.
But yeah not since Brexit have I heard "Fuck off back home to your country!" like that.

Still had its issues, but I found surprisingly good armor against today's things by revisiting a sandwich shop I used to go to much more often a few years a go.
New ownership, hope the original owners are okay (One lady was older and I just realized I haven't seen her since...)

Well, the good stuff was, the baguette I had my sandwich in was soft and lovely! The onion was flavourful and tasted amazing.
But also I'm awful and I got a milkshake. And it was LEGENDARY. Nobody else in the area does it, which is a fucking shame.

BANANA
AND
BUTTERSCOTCH SYRUP

If you can try this, TRY THIS. I promise you it's fantastic!

Thank you for the hugs and well wishes, darlings <3.

I like helping people.
And I like being competent.
But I *hate* being the only competent one around and being actively relied on to do things while others do extremely little to nothing.
(IRL people only for this one).
Angry.
Sad.
Anxious as all fuck.

Nothing gets done.
Shit's disgusting.
I can't live like this much longer.

Send fucking hugs ;_;

Hey!

Just wanted to make a little journal to let people know that if they are habitually busy (Work, chiefly) then uh X_X
Due to my brain, I will think "I better not bother them" and talk less. Like maybe zero.
But I'm happy to receive chats all the same. I just can't - yet - get over this mental hurdle of like..I shouldn't bother people. Right?
I mean. Just makes sense.

Heard from a friend today after months of not hearing from them [*waves at fishy!*] and that was nice.
Made me think I should make this journal.
Love hearing from folks and will reply back if and when I can.

Better make use of that before I move and claw out a life for myself lol.

Every week I'm added by multiple fake people using the *exact same* script, the same mannerisms, the same keywords, red flags.
Today's one evolved into an even bigger scumbag by just.
After pretending to be friendly for *one* brief chat 2 weeks ago, suddenly saying hi, then can I ask you something and then *asking to see my real life picture*.
Uhhh, absolutely fucking not? What?

What in the fuck.
What's next? "UwU can I see your social security numbers pwiz?"

Like holy shit fall off a cliff and die. Gross gross gross people.

Friend : Hey I'm [doing things in public] !
Me : *Sexy and charming and deliberately arousing*
Friend : *Public boner*

You gotta love it lol.

Just a thought dump of stuff going through my head :

Nvidia's 5XXX series got revealed.
That whole thing about how you get 90 class performance in a new gen 70 class card is going to be wine-grade mustard and get torn apart, but it made me chortle.
REGARDLESS.
I have an aging 2080 TI in my pc making some times weird noises and making my fans go apeshit constantly at the slightest provocation [yes, for hours], so seeing the 5070 TI be "affordably" (ugh) priced at seven-hundred-something was a fucking relief. I honestly paid more for my current card at the time, but it's stuck on DLSS 2 - not even 3 - and now it will come with DLSS 4 which may or may not prove half as useful as Nvidia touts.

The "fun" part will be figuring out if I need a higher GPU , or any phantom problems the cards have like the 4XXX series had. Too big, too heavy, bends this, breaks that, melting power cables [not necessarily their fault] ugh.
Additionally, because these cards tend to run harder , they will generate more heat. Technically the 2080 TI has a 300W BIOS limit and a max of 360 and the 5070 TI also says 300W buuuuutttt, weelllllll >.>;.
Basically, I'm thinking of replacing my just. Fans. Air fans. With fucking liquid cooling. It's more complicated to maintain and really problematic if shit goes weird is the only issue - but it's a lot quieter, too.
Input on this would be appreciated because as currently mentioned, even a ten year old indie game will cause my fans to fire up, go WHIRRRRRRRRR for 3-7 seconds, then fade to normal speeds for 1-2 seconds and then WHIRRRRRRRRRR back up incessantly. And I hate it.

---

2025 is starting off with a lot of things, fuck x_X.
Horrible wrist pain is easing up finally so today or tomorrow, I need to do my taxes.
Today or tomorrow, I have to measure my ex's dad's parking space to know what size dump ["skip"] I can order to dispose of her dad's goods as he's moving to another apartment and wants\needs to downsize.
Said ex is *also* visiting the Netherlands as her legalities start finalizing and aligning, meaning that the phase where she & her gf will look for a rentable place is approaching fast.
What does that mean for me? Well, I'm moving with them to get myself set up paperwork wise [new bank account, social security # to even get that, phone contract, etc] and then looking for a place of my own to rent, and a job. Exciting! I don't know when that will be, but it's coming.

I'm also flying out to Texas to see my wolfo in a month and change for 2 weeks, so that's gonna be fun!
The only other "exciting" thing for January is FF7R2 coming to PC. Beat it on PS5 , started hard mode playing it but was slightly annoyed with the PS 5 run costs being high and - frankly - that I couldn't cheat in some of the badly designed minigames for true 100% minigame completion. (Chocobo flying and the 3D brawler come especially to mind, but the last 25% of Queen's Blood can happily eat shit too - although I did beat it legit)

In March I'm having a friend of a long time finally IRL visiting me, so that's exciting! A bit less awesome is the fact that said friend lives so far away that just *traveling down here* will eat up most of the fucking day. Thinking 7-11 hours >.< So that's basically a full day gone, but we should still have 2 full days to walk around, see places and hang out. I hope I won't be disappointing to meet after all the hot internet plaps :-P.

FAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
Hope it sucks less than the prior year(s) did <3 <3.

*Goes horizontal and fucking SLEEPS*

This is just a memory thing about a person who has since drifted away due to their behaviour and actions, but it made me giggle during bath time, so!

At some point within the last 9,5 to 12,5 years, a person who was internationally recognized for writing high quality pieces about high end technology \ evolving concepts and all that had computer issues.
Said person knows precious little, functionally zero, about computing, so of course I offered to help and fix it.
I can't remember what the issue itself was, but I do *vividly* remember that tiny room he hid away in becoming a lot brighter when I said "Ah okay, I'll test it by going to youtube.com" (Was it a sound issue? anyway..)

I start typing you...
..and autocomplete says PORN.com

UHHHH.
WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT HI?
His wife 3 feet behind me, mercifully not watching it happen.

I burst out laughing so extremely fucking hard, and I had to just act like an idiot so there would be no weird questions around *why* I burst out laughing ;_;.
For the record, at the time, this person was...you know, besides taken, uhhh..."mature".
So it didn't.
Register that like.
...you know.

People can surprise you in all the best ways.

Hey!

Not *quite* time yet, but I don't know when people sign in to see this, and some people celebrate on the 24th so eh!

Merry seXmas and a lovely time to peepholes. Let's hope 2025 sucks less than 2024 also!

Step 1 : Shower
Step 2 : Do nothing while showering (Except shower)
Step 3 : ANGRY PIECE OF SHIT SHOWER SHELVES DECIDE ENOUGH OPPRESSION! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOUR FAMILY! DETACH TUMBLE SLAM CRASH BANG, ALL THE SHIT ON IT FALLS AND THUDS ON THE FLOOR, TUMBLING AROUND FOR MANY SECONDS AFTER WHILE I CAN'T SEE SHIT .
Step 4 : ;_; hug plz.

Heyoh!

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59081411/

Thar we do.
Check it out <3.
Mataki is nice! Need more cuties taking slots =3

Fucking toilet TERF island bullshit.

To avoid *angry* ranting, here is the timeline, as short as I can keep it - and why the last hour of my day was wasted entirely.

1) Letter from far away hospital. "Get a blood test". There is a "label" enclosed you are supposed to take with you. We "expect" this within the next 2 days**.
2) Call for appointment as soon as they open, 8:30
3) Nah, we don't do phone appointments any more at all (?!!?), go e-beg for one on our website (that barely works)
4) Do that, told 2 *working days* and I'll be informed. Expect nothing.
5) )9:15 AM I get a call saying a spot opened up...in 15 mins. Can you get here? Oh shit oh fuck yeah okay. Clothes on, DASH.
6) Barely make it. Remember 25 meters from the door that I didn't get the fucking stupid "label" they wanted me to bring
7)They can't take a blood test without it & I can't run back in the worsening weather and with things to do today, and they're not open tomorrow.
8) Can't call the hospital to find out what "label" they need (for some reason), can't take blood and wait till monday for the label
9) Also, we are having a *severe* weather bomb on monday, so I wouldn't go anywhere at all anyway.
10) TOTAL WASTE OF TIME :-D


*WHY* Must they harass the fucking patient to get an appointment AND bring something along that they will forget, especially in a "You have 12 minutes to do a 15 minute walk" situation.
*WHY* when they KNOW who I am, WHAT they want, WHAT they need, WHAT my clinic is, do they not fucking put a note on my file (Which had no notes. Obviously) , or email the fucking clinic directly to say "hey, can you reach out to this patient and arrange an appointment? By the way here is the fucking blood test type we want!"

Useless. Inept. Time and money wasting garbage.
Really pissed off tbh. This *ancient* archaic way of doing things.
Oh and that **?
The clinic isn't open saturdays, like I said. So they wanted it today. BRILLIANT.

Well they can suck my asshole dry. The next earliest appointment I *could* get, for a literally no effort, simple fucking blood draw is the 16th. And not even that any more, I'm sure. FIVE MINUTES - wait a week plus.
I can't leave this fucking joke toilet ass shit country fast enough.

WARNING : It's long.
NOTE : Posted to Steam Store Page where word limits cut me off, so I've also *added* more >.>;.

---

So.
Stalker II is a massive, robust game that is plagued by quite a lot of issues, some of which are annoying, some of which are outright game breaking. It mixes with utterly *baffling* design decisions and an imbalance of gameplay elements that drag down the experience unnecessarily.

Would I recommend it? Only at 50% off right now, because while it isn't a bad game, it is an *annoying* one.

THE GOOD :

Graphics are sharp and crisp, UE 5 engine doing what it does best. It's nice to have improves weather, lighting, gun models, NPC models - that good stuff, after a decade plus.
Sound design is *legendary* wind blowing, rustle noises, abandoned place creaks that keep you clenching. Zero complaints here.
Controls are a bit strange but not bad, just need to get used to it.
Loading times aren't super egregious.

The EH

The story isn't much of anything. Perhaps it's told weird with all the factions and things? I mean it's fine but it mostly feels flat and uninteresting, aside from a few key points.
The inventory weight limit is not great. It's a restriction on a player who if correctly kitted out is automatically forfeiting 50% or more of his "acceptable" carrying capacity. Scavenging is not a super necessity, but is also not done super well - every person has fresh bread or sausage or canned food because unlike the original 3, now you *do* need to eat. A lot.

The BAD

Stamina system is total shit. Larger worlds but even under *optimal* conditions, our stamina goes down faster than previous games, recharges slower and the energy drink doesn't take us from 5% to 100% but closer to 80% while making you hungrier. Technically it gives you a "Lowered stamina cost" debuff, but it isn't a great deal, nor does it last long.
Speaking of which, if you find "endurance" (Stamina) increasing artifact - guess what. They only work if you are *standing still*. A sensible way they should work is they slow stam drain on dash use *and*recharge faster, but you don't get that.
Stamina AGAIN : Up to a certain amount, you walk "fast" and run fast, with slower stam drain and faster recharge. Trip it by even 0.1 ? Walk medium, run medium, etc. Scavenging is honestly a pain because of this. You can *and will* absolutely be slogging across long stretches of land to a vendor.

Mutants. The mutants that exist range from "fine" to "infuriating". You're likely to find bloodsuckers early on - apart from having a knockdown move that takes 30-70% hp no matter what, immobilizes you for 3-5 seconds...unless a specific attack hits you and RESETS Your knockdown animation. You are in serious danger of dying when you face 2 ore more bloodsuckers at once because they can and will stunlock you to unavoidable death. The main issue with most mutants is their health. One bloodsucker will take about 7 SPSA\Cracker buckshots to the chest and face to drop. ONE. That is a long time to fire and reload - all the while being pelted, slammed with bleeding to also eventually fix, chugging medkits like candy. If you see a chimera, just don't even. Pseudogiants are a chore too. (I had one bug out during a bandit camp optional objective. It took 14 shotgun blasts to the face and 5 full 30 clips from the Kharod to put one down. All the while it stuns you UNAVOIDABLY, rams you, hurts you, etc.)

Traversal. Traversal *sucks*. As mentioned before, you have LESS stamina for a BIGGER game world, so that is automatically stupid. But you also get slower the more you carry, and you need to bring stuff back to sell to vendors - who are very scarce in the world - to be able to repair, upgrade, or afford gear. It's especially nasty early on. But it's not just that. The game regularly tasks you with just running a straight line for 2-12 (Yes) minutes across the map from where the last objective was. As an example..

Instant death walls. I had an objective near the end of the game to go from one location to - without spoilers - "Duga". This was from Rostok, an approximately 1.4 KM run away (I can run 50M before my stamina depletes, and I need to wait several seconds for it standing still, or slowly walking) . Well, I approaches from the north of 2 entrances, because that's closest and the game doesn't warn you that if you go near that entrance, you simply die. You hear a gunshot, 1 second later full health damage. You're meant to go to the southern entrance without anyone telling you, which would be fine if you were warned about the north or had a chance to not immediately die because...

F5 abuse *REQUIRED* : The game has some issues and instabilities, bad design with things like mutants and enemy accuracy means you will be sucker punched into a death. I've had instances where I just died to nothing, in the middle of nowhere. No anomaly, no enemy, just dropped dead for no reason. If you haven't been pushing F5 every - I am serious - 30 to 60 seconds, you will be losing progress often. Which is a good tip, except...

Bugged save : During a certain mission to go underground to come up at a certain area in the game where you are marked as being near the "Chemical plant" , you will face a Burer - a telekinetic enemy. They now raise eight or so guns to shoot you at once, which is AMAZING damage, and if you are surprised by this like I was, you will die. If you die during this area\mission, your save is "corrupted" - a soft corruption. Load an earlier save, try again without dying, and afterwards it works fine. IF you load a save around that area, you will encounter a stuck loading bar around 75% and that's it.

Fast travel. It is available early on, but costs that hard earned money, and isn't super convenient because you can't go to all the locations you've found. I've tried to go from Skadovsk (Bottom right) to Yaniv (top left) and it simply wasn't an option, so I had to warp twice. Even if I am near where I need to go, I'm not near enough and often still have *minutes* to run. Fast travel could benefit from being more accessible.

Travel speed. In addition to punishing stamina drain, I'm finding the average speed to just be awful. Especially if you incur *any* stamina penalty, you will feel it. In green stamina, you will walk approx 3-4 meters\second, then 2, then...1. The zone has been expanded and the current traversal speed simply isn't good enough. Even worse when you bump into a large swamp you can't just run across (Most of them), that's extra stam and time to run around it. I would increase *all* travel speeds by a flat 25% so I could get between places faster. Either that or make MANY MORE fast travel locations.

Bugged questlines! I had a "Defend zalissya" mission I couldn't do because the enemy never showed up. Apparently they spawn in the town hall building. Which is locked. And you can't kill them, so autofail that quest. Much more annoyingly, a certain character tells you to defend a certain complex very late in the game. I do that but I must have hit a dude from my own faction (They were literally just standing around) and that NPC I'm supposed to talk to to advance the quest?
Permanently hostile. I went away and saw the "They no longer are hostile to me" notification in-game hours later, but that NPC is still hostile & I have no idea how to fix it, or if I even can.

Expectations with no signposting : A mid-late game quest tasks you with trekking across the swamp. About 180 meters from your objective, you will have a Chimera spawn on you, which you should not fight. Not that you are told this. Additionally, and you may not notice (I didn't), a blowout begins, giving you approximately 90 to 120 seconds to get to that house and into a safe spot or you will start rapidly dying. Except there are many hard to see, "slows you down a lot" swampy areas. It was trial and error through and through. Word limit so I have to stop here lol. I'm so far from done, too D=

((New additions below))

STEPS BACK VS the first 3 Stalker games :

- Flashlight is your only way of seeing stuff. And it sucks. You can't see anything at night even within your own grenade throw range.
- NO NIGHT VISION. Zero. You have no night vision option currently - fuck you. Unjustifiable.
- Bleeding. Bleeding just slowly drains your health, and you will bleed from - I am not joking - 80% of all attacks. Pistol nick you? Bleeding. Blunt looking mutant attack? Bleeding. It's kind of harmless in that it doesn't factor into anything but it forces you into a long bandage animation mid combat if you do want to fix it. It's pointless and badly done and gimmicky and overused. Bleeding should be removed - it adds nothing.
- Grenades : Do you want to throw hard, or just kind of tinkle it in front of you? Either way, expect to almost never actually hit anything that isn't a stationary enemy shooting you because anything else WILL move out of the way.
- Generally useless artifacts : Get radiation reduction artifacts and carry weight increasing ones, because almost none of the other ones are worth using. There are some "special" artifacts (A ball that reduces bullet dmg but increases your carried weight by becoming heavier for a few mins in response) but they're in their own category.
- LESS stamina for a BIGGER world with things FARTHER APART. Legendary fail for me here.
- Healing animations, especially in combat. It's just a 2-4 second penalty (medkit VS bandages) for playing the game. It adds nothing.
- Knockdown animations for enemies. Cool in theory, infuriating because they take at least 3 seconds if you are not re-knocked-down to get up, during which you just eat shit and STILL need to spend 2 seconds healing (probably) after. At certain points, you have to face enemies that can do this (Bloodsuckers, somewhat often, Pseudogiant : 1 required so far, 1 Chimera required for main quest so far). The game stops when you are randomly knocked down, you lose 30-70% of your health (Exoskeleton, late-game, high defense) and of course, made to bleed.
- Coupled with the above, mutant health. A pseudogiant will take UNGODLY amounts of bullets - all the while it rams you, melees you (20-50% hp bar, so best 2 sec heal each time), aoe UNAVOIDABLE knocks you down (Animation is of it jumping so you think YOU jumping would save you but no. I get knocked down MID AIR). I have had to put so many clips and shotgun shells into a *constantly* attacking enemy while stopping every 5 seconds to get knocked down, or heal, or *reload my weapons*, and I had to NON STOP DO THIS For 5 minutes to waste my heals and ammo to be able to do the rest of the story. There are no tricks, no tactics, and this is just bad. If you face 2 or more bloodsuckers, you have a very high chance of simply dying due to knockdown spam or getting ganged up on before you can heal.
- Enemy aimbots. When a 2-5 person squad spawns on you (A-life is broken and can only do this right now), they see you and you will be shot. Hide behind a large object to tactically shoot back? Doesn't matter, they will hit you very often. Even tiny bullet caliber smgs will tear through massive defense exoskeleton armor to damage\bleed you rapidly, from way too far away.
- Enemy shots causing camera knocking. So what happens is enemies designate between them 1-2 active shooters who will fire a 1.5 to 3 second volley of bullets, most of which will hit, knocking off your aim, and they can take turns doing this *very* closely, meaning you will not be able to aim right, or miss some\most of your shots. While you are mostly in cover. This is annoying and is another punishment for playing the game. "You take damage now. Wait your turn, try killing 1-2 dudes with headshots before nearly dying from low hp to heal".
- There is one new anomaly that is a giant electric ball. It spawns in set spots, patrols an area and *within that area*, it will unavoidably find you and hit you. You *can* outrun it if you go straight through the area but if you are within a certain set of coordinates, it will home in on you and find you and deal right around 50% of your health bar, forcing the use of a medkit. This discourages exploration, damages your armor and is just incredibly annoying.
- Speaking of which, repair fees. I gave myself 1M with cheat engine thinking that'll be enough because the game economy is fucked. Mid-late game, I had a SEVA-1 suit (high but not top tier) and I got into *one* main story quest. It took 63 THOUSAND to repair just the armor, before the 20+ K to repair my 2 guns. The toppest-tier artifacts which in your inventory say are worth 60K can only be sold for about 15K if you are lucky, and this is the best case find (high value, low weight). Serious problem and brutally unbalanced.


I'm sure there's more, but ....wow. Look at this fucking MOUNTAIN of issues.
I'm sure patches will fix and improve a very select few of these things, but I wouldn't recommend *anyone* pick the game up unless 50% off in its current state. It's playable, but legitimately just kind of barely.
Yesterday, after writing part 1 of the review for steam, I got an objective to run through an empty landscape for 1.4 KM.I timed it.
It took NINE MINUTES of *just running* and walking when low stam or stopping, to reach my destination. After which I had to go and run for another 6 to get to the new destination. 15 minutes of nothing but W and F5 spam.
Really really not great.

It's been a very trying 7 day period for a lot of reasons.
Repercussions from people voting categorically wrong will start to filter in and already threaten to affect me - who's nowhere near it - which isn't helping.
But you know what was *really* not helping?
My piece of shit mother inflicting herself on me in a deliberate, manipulation-first kind of manner.

*very* truncated context.

Some time around 18 years ago, we both needed emergency dental surgery, and so she took out a loan to get that done.
Except, as I didn't know at the time, she took out a much larger loan than what was necessary :-\.
A few years prior, before the divorce between them went through, my father tried&failed to create a business. Afraid the bank might come after him (it did not) - he wrote his 50% of the ownership of the property I lived at into my name, making me half-owner.
Her idiot decisions then lead her to blackmail me into taking out a loan to pay the loan - a "fantastic" idea. But she said if I didn't, I'd be thrown out & made homeless (KEEP.THIS.IN.MIND.)
I left Hungary at the end of 2011 and after briefly *actually* being homeless in 2012 and nearly not ending well, I got to the UK.


Fast forward until approximately 8 years ago.
At which point, her failures and bad decisions got her to say, we need to sell the place, or the bank will take it & waste a lot of its value.
I sigh. I go okay, I'm game - since she needs my signature.
Except her idea was, she wouldn't send me anything, because "how else is she supposed to find another place?" "Do I want her to become homeless?" (Renting? What's that?)
She emotionally blackmailed me with her fate, saying if I don't forfeit *every single penny* of what I am owed, she wouldn't sell and let the bank take it, and then everyone (My sister's damn kid lived with her, as did one of my grans who has since passed away). She was casually threatening this and other peoples' lives *without* giving EITHER a choice or an update to me. Another "homeless" threat.
Being a person of integrity and one of strong backbone, I gave in and lost money that I could have used for training, courses, bettering my future. I hate that I did this.
The contract had to be written with me getting nothing, but to include a stipulation that she WILL pay "my loan" off with the proceedings from the sale (Which to the best of my knowledge, she did).
She also promised to give me some honorary percentage on whatever place she gets , because clearly, she felt guilty about being this disgusting.

Fast forward to February of this year, 2024.
Same thing as before. Oh no bank, oh no loans, oh no have to sell. This is the reason I had to go up to London in February and caught a two week long hell flu. I signed stuff in front of a notary, but this time she *did* want me to have some money from it (30% IIRC?), and I *did* receive this, through having to dodge attempts in legalese for that to not be the case.
This shows you that she is still failing and wasting away the value of the initial property (Which has massively inflated today *anger* it's worth 5 times what she sold it for)


Fast forward a week ago.
I get an email from her, with just a "Wise" payment link. Nothing else, no text, nothing. I reply "???" , knowing what this will be. I get the excuse that she is "just checking things out" . Uh huh.
Well fucking *surprise*, 2 days later I get a sob story about how she ALLEGEDLY got her stupid ass scammed by some people telling her money on Revolut, that she needs my help, and if I could "just send her 700 pounds", she would , swear up and down the street, start paying me back next month, or - tada! - she will be homeless!
I decide to ghost her out of a mixture of anger, awkwardness and simply not being able to believe the fucking gall on this parasite.

So 2 days later comes an email largely saying she is "stupid for thinking I had any grace, love or care in [me]" As one reasonably might, getting emotionally blackmailed by your own fucking mother to be out MORE MONEY while at *best* she is uninterested and at worst she constantly guilt trips, emotionally manipulates people upset me that day.
I ghost that and block her because at this point, what the fuck, right?

Except, today, I get another email from another address - exactly as I expected - repeating the same shit but stronger. STARTS with an "I guess what you wanted", a "You've made sure I'm homeless" (??!!?) and other disgusting things said. I *woke up* to depressing, selfish, disgusting manipulation to get at my wallet, without true care or regard for me. I absolutely don't matter to this bitch, and I absolutely haven't, for a long time.
I have also spent literal dozens of hours and *tens of thousands of words* to explain to her all the times she fucked up, all the things that made me emotionally distance, the exact start of her failures and downfalls financially. Never acknowledged. Never taken note of. This person didn't care what I said or thought. Never had money, always had cigarette - you know the lying, dishonest, scumbag type of person.


So today, because I neither want *nor deserve* to be harassed and blackmailed with shit that was never my fault, I've gone nuclear with her.
It's a shame what I replied with because nobody should have to do this to be *left alone* by their horrible, selfish, uncaring mother. The only guilt that remains is that she still thinks *I* caused this, and I'm working on it, because fuck that. Disgusting woman.
I'm leaving out so much here. Nuance, additional verbal, emotional, mental abuse. Conditioning to depend on her so I could be manipulated easily. She deserves my complete hatred, and she has it. If this was IRL, there would be bellowing, screaming arguments, threats, spitting towards me. She would stomp into my room, burst down the door, stomp away to loudly yell accusations, then stomp back *at any time, multiple times*, with a complete disregard to me, my state, my wants, my privacy.

Because, yes, I was also threatened with being made homeless if I left on my *18th birthday* to go to a club to party with my neighbour (A then long-time friend).
Because, yes, I was also threatened with being made homeless when I got her the *wrong type of fucking flavoured water* because they didn't HAVE her requested exact one, including *screaming* in my face about it.
Because, yes, I was also threatened with being made homeless if I didn't *ruin* my then-flawless (local) credit rating by taking out a 2nd loan to pay for the first one.

Just more insight into what I was dealing with when I was younger.
It sucks that she is so broken and garbage-grade that I can't have even a fake-pleasant relationship with her.
But I'm done letting her abuse me. She chose this, repeatedly, by becoming greedy. I dug her out of the fucking put she put her into once, at great personal expense. I am not going to give her anything else.
Now? Now she can die rotten, miserable and lonely. I won't care. I won't go see her grave. I will do nothing. I warned her *such a long time ago* that if she didn't change, she'd die alone.
And now, I have no choice but to test that theory. And while it is absolutely what she deserves based on how she treats *everyone* around her, I'm still sad it has to be this way.
Treasure your fucking parents if they're even half-normal.