Karma on reddit tracks the accumulated likes and dislikes a user has gotten on all of their posts. Lemmy does not have a number like that.

Edit: What this means in practice is that on Reddit there are some users who make a lot of low-effort posts to get that karma number to go up and get a sense of accomplishment from that (even when they get a negative reputation among the other users), whereas on Lemmy that’s not really a thing. Lemmy has power-users that become well-known, but they’re more well-liked because they aim to gain actual reputation instead of just farming a karma number.

I disagree with both of those takes.

That is totally fair. That’s your preference.

Gacha games are indeed gambling. If you consider all gambling to be irredeemable, then calling them trash as a whole is reasonable I guess.

However, it is inaccurate to say that gacha games as a whole are just gambling. They have other qualities as well, with varying levels of investment and care put into them. Sometimes the effort they put into everything else is minimal and they are basically just gambling with a thin veneer of game on top. Other times, they put an absurd amount of investment into the game, story, and music.

MiHoYo, the developer of HSR (along with Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero) are the later type. MiHoYo has more money than God, and it shows in their investment into their games. Their games are absurdly high-effort productions with more polish than any AAA game studio. They also have very good LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent rep, especially considering they’re based in China.

Personally, I am very averse to risk and uncertainty. I dislike the gambling aspect of gacha games (not just on principle, but also in my enjoyment). However, I still play some gacha games because I enjoy other aspects of them. So they’re not just gambling. But they are gambling, and it’s fair if people avoid them for that reason (especially people prone to problem gambling).

Heh, I know what Star Rail is. Specifically, Honkai Star Rail, one of the biggest gacha games. It’s a turn based RPG, like Raid: Shadow Legends but anime and with way more production value.

IMO they should have put their money into making it good before pushing it on users so aggressively, instead of apparently never since it’s been years and they still haven’t made the user experience good.

I didn’t watch The Game Awards myself, I mostly just know what I’ve heard about it being more of an industry advertising event rather than a real awards ceremony. And from what I’ve seen of this year’s they aired an obvious AI art trailer and they snubbed ZZZ for the music category, so they’re just reinforcing my lack of respect for them.

If the democrats lose the election, I fully expect them to roll over and let Trump take power. In that case, Trump would have the institutions on his side, even as he seeks to dismantle those same institutions going forward. Democrats constantly show themselves to be willing to play by the rules, even as Republicans show themselves to be willing to bend those rules.

If he loses the election, I expect there will be an attempt to take power anyways (again), but I think that attempt is likely to fail (again) when he doesn’t have the institutions on his side.

The degree of difference between the two potential outcomes is quite pronounced. You can say “Both sides bad” and you’d be right, but bad vs good is not a binary, it’s a spectrum, and there’s a huge degree of difference in how bad the two sides are.

We don’t live in those “generally” times, currently. One of our candidates is running on a fascist platform, tried to do a fascist coup (and got away with no consequences for it), and has both promised and planned to overthrow democracy if he’s elected.

Maybe he would be prevented from doing all that stuff even if he won, but I’m definitely not counting on that. I’m gonna be fleeing like a jew from Nazi Germany because quite frankly that’s what I see it potentially becoming, and they’ve definitely painted a target on the backs of trans people in particular.

I am under no illusions that the democrats will be fully on our side, but when the other side is specifically trying to wipe out people like my partner, they’re a very clear choice. I’d much rather live under a government that’s not actively trying to wipe us out.

We’re absolutely planning to live in a blue state. But the ability to be safe even in blue states is in question if Trump gets elected again. If he does, then we’re probably gonna try to get out of the country as quickly as possible rather than waiting around to find out.

I wrote in “Gaza” on the primary, but come november I am 100% sure that I’m gonna be voting D as hard as I can because my partner is trans and I’d rather not be driven from the country by transphobia, thanks.

Criticising the democrats for when they’re not good is absolutely valid, but at the same time, get out and vote for them and mobilize as many voters for them as you can, because the difference in outcome between the two parties with legitimate chances of winning is too great to throw away your votes protesting the lesser of two evils. By all means, keep protesting (In other ways, besides the ballot box), but also do your part to make sure that we get the lesser of two evils, not the greater.