the following years they started using the "New Feature!" and "Announcement!" banners for teams/careers ads

Hm

come to think of it, i haven't seen either used for anything recently. Maybe i got tired of them and blocked it

Nah they stopped doing that after feedback

Yeah people told them it sucked so they stopped

I don't begrudge SO's commercial offerings. Only that at some point they blinkered folks from the community that made it possible

It just felt like my contributions to the network were being abused, essentially

@Rubiksmoose are you a professional gamer?

(did you mean another word there beside "on"?)

And i'm not sure if i can get back into the mindspace from before where i didn't feel that way

@doppelgreener using a phone now, hard to type

And autocorrect

that makes sense

i think rubiksmoose is a professional who is also a gamer, and also very good at it???

a professional gamer, asin someone who makes $$ as a gamer?

@doppelgreener professional in?

I spend money to game XD and am also not terribly good at it lol

^

@user400654 i had some similar shifts in perspective after some issues with network moderation but also after they revealed they had completely discounted moderators and people active on meta as totally unimportant

@Rubiksmoose first you gotta earn t ;-)

What do you do for that?

If you want to tell ofc

then their data showed them oops, actually all these users are kind of important? and then they turned around and started caring again

but... that's sortof the problem imo

but it felt like crap that the company had for years just kicked us to the curb and decided we didn't matter

and were absolutely willing to change just because "data says they're important" and not because "actually we care"

that they care again now seems disingenuous and self-serving, like they're nice to us because they're being told to, not because they actually care at all

they went and torched so much goodwill

They're acting like they care about that userbase, presenting that as something they do care about, marking feature requests with tags more frequently now... but i don't feel any more listened to. i'm not seeing these magical surveys they mention, is it because i'm not performing the actions that trigger them? or just unlucky.

and it had severe ramifications on how invested users saw their relationship to the company

sorry, not acting as in it's false

not sure how else to put that

Jon and Shog's interaction on meta so were a big contributor to that sense of the company understanding/caring imo, and it extended past meta and into chat as well.

when there was a blow up in js chat over some unruly person that resulted in a freeze, him and tim were there to help clean it up and keep it from being shut down... now... it's basically dead due to inactivity, caused by the enforcement of the CoC change.

I'm only here because i do genuinely still care about the success of SO, about it's original vision

@user400654 so

They messed up hugely

i'm here still because I care about the RPG.SE community, but the company itself has to put in some work on a few fronts before I can feel invested in it again.

Then what? I'm waiting on the promised additional CMs ( and might throw in my hat)

I am seeing more interaction with staff - and they're kinda starting from zero

But constant negativity grates on anyone

There are a few individuals in the company I still trust. That's about it.

And tbh. Shog and Jon are still active here and actually are a pretty amazing voice for the community. I'd rather still have them as CMs but...

It was not a complete loss

it feels like shog is still doing CM work just now for free, which... is kinda messed up IMO

@Mithical well a little...

And I sometimes hear mentions of his stash of scripts 😁

@JourneymanGeek Thanks, search on comments would be handy.

and i'm in tavern because it's actually active with people who i enjoy chatting with, ;)

well, the ones i don't have ignored anyway

@BabaYaga Just to be clear I'm completely a casual gamer, not professional or trying to be professional at all.

@user400654 [everybody starts sweating and glancing sideways at their companions]

@JourneymanGeek oh yeah, oof, those ;_;

The Tavern is an interactive diary for me.

@Mithical It's a side of Shog I hadn't seen before. Now that there are no strings attached, he can criticize the company's actions more freely. And it's . . . I dunno how to feel about it, but a shade of awesome is unmistakable

@M.A.R. yup

@JourneymanGeek yep

I frankly think it's time to impersonalize our interaction with the company. It's just not the same anymore. It should be just another company that has an impact on our life somewhat, some of whose actions we would criticize and some applaud.

@doppelgreener currently listening to the video, I get where he comes from in his view but I don't fully agree on some points so far. Will have to see until the end.

Because that's what it is now: Just another company. Cryptic core self-interests, will do some good things and some bad things, try to maintain good PR

"Oh, did they really do that? Typical EA." "Oh, they did that for the players? I'm surprised, EA!"

Ditto SE

Anyway, since he mentioned it - it is possible to beat both the Asylum Demon in Dark Soul and the monsters you meet at the start of Bloodbhorne while you are unequipped and there are even some Easter eggs / actual reward this time compared to what you got from beating the Vanguard.

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе oh yeah, it's absolutely possible, it's just expected and normal that you'll die

(Speaking of which I wonder if in the remake the secret sequence with the Dragon God will be moved to the ledge you can see on the opposite side of Stonefang boss cave? I always though that it was intended to be that ledge, but the architecture doesn't match)

and there's nothing wrong with that, ostensibly

(for reference , talking about this, wonder if the Remake will change that)

Dark Souls's remake for the PC and Switch didn't change anything at all, so I wouldn't expect them to change anything in Demon's Souls

everyone was expecting them to revise Lost Izalith or release a DLC to revise it, but they just kept it as-is :'(

but really, when Dark Soul came out the general consensus was that the Estus was a way to limit the number of time you could heal, not an incentive to make you heal more frequently. Grasses in Demon Soul, they where everywhere.

I didn't arrive until after Dark Souls had released, but I interpret it as being both.

It's like how Bloodborne limits you to 20 blood vials at a time, but I have a whole 200+ in my storage.

Point is, I think he and myself have quite a different view on some points because contrarily to popular belief there are games before Demons Soul that play quite similar, so I didn't went into that game and got immediately burned out because I expected to play God of War or Devil My Cry. But again, I get what he mean.

It is quite easy to get a player in the "turtle" mindset

And Bloodborne does better in that regards on some aspects.

the sense of, the game seeming to reward/cater one particular style moreso than another, pushing new players into those styles even if they don't particular enjoy them?

yet for example he blames the shield.

Yep, right, go try. Parry everything. I want to see you try.

I played dark souls a little bit on PC, maybe 8 hours or so... there were bits of it that i enjoyed, but ultimately I just didn't enjoy how punishing it felt.

Either you over level to have the stamina to handle that - and try to skip on some point to get a shield that has 100% damage reduction or using the shield is death sentence on many enemies.

i didn't feel like the reward for getting past a particularly difficult (to me) section was worth the effort, and then... a player pops in and deletes a ton of progress

@user400654 that I can agree on. The games are best to be played offline unless you enjoy the chance of PVP at any time.

i had no idea that was even a thing at the time

i liked seeing the messages left behind by other players

There are a few instances where you want to try online even if you don't like PVP normally, but are tied to some boss fight where if online another player could get to actually play as the boss

I don't think i was very far into the game, i was crossing through a ruined village, there was a bridge on the right, and through a large door on the left there was some kind of giant tree, i was working my way toward the tree

Might pick it up again some time

Will have to check, but... does that shield in the tutorial really manage to 100% block a Black Phantom attack? Either the tutorial was patched after I played the game or my memory is playing tricks and Phantoms were nerfed in the tutorial

@user400654 He draws attention to the relationship between a bunch of interacting factors, between the challenges Demons Souls pits a new user against, the equipment it gives them, and the effectiveness of non-turtley options. Unless you have people showing you other ways to play, it's going to be pretty easy to fall into one of the anti-pattern ways to play.

That also and the ineffectiveness of the healing items you're given

what would be the anti-pattern way to play?

And the consequences of death being quite severe in Demons' Souls

curious, being someone who likely was doing so

I think i was avoiding using shields, because i felt they weren't effective enough to be worth blocking considering i'd still take damage. but it's been years, so i can't remember really

@user400654 He alleges that there's a fun way to play Souls games, and an unfun way. The unfun way is to turtle up, take no risks at all, pick up the heaviest armor and shield and defensive spells. He even shows an outtake of someone fighting the last boss—they stay far away from the boss, get in just one hit only when it's absolutely guaranteed to be safe, then get away again, etc.

@doppelgreener there is a problem with Demon soul death management, but it isn't precisely what he says IMHO. I don't know if you know how the Human/Soul thing works in that way but if they where alone they would work better than many players acknowledge. The problem is their relation to World Tendency

yeah, i can see that

The fun way is engage in riskier mechanisms: dodge rolls, parries, and fast-paced play taking a lot more opportunities than only the completely risk-free ones.

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе He doesn't mention that but that's also a thing, but the cost of death is quite severe even without world tendency

the downside to that playstyle is if you mess up once, you're dead. and you're gonna mess up when learning a new enemy's moves

that, and tight spaces

@user400654 so, shields are fine, the problem is hiding behind the heaviest ones available and never parrying at all.

or being willing to take risks generally

and using spears to hit from behind shields, still not taking any risks whatsoever

It's super boring

@user400654 I play in much more risky ways and I don't die from messing up just once.

I have been hit right in the face by black knights trying to parry them, and survived to take them down.

I get completely knocked about by bosses, get up, heal, and kick their ass.

Dark Souls is very accepting of messing up, Bloodborne doubly so because it has the rally system.

@doppelgreener I think that I mentioned it, maybe even in the Not A Bar room. The Soul get less hp, but has an actual advantage on damage. The human form has full hp but the damage is lower. If you play offline (it get even worse online because then you are stuck with an uncontrollable Tendency) your World Tendency shift to black every time you die but only if you die in Body Form

It didn't feel that way to me

The problem with the risky way is when you've started out with the game

Black Tendency means harder game. So if you die while in Body Form, the game becomes harder.

The progress would be dauntingly slow. Once you've played safe and learnt a few tricks though

i think if i do try it again i'll do a bit more research into stats/gear etc

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе I remember my friend telling me about this. I saw her play Demon's Souls, and whenever she was in the hub world in human mode, the first thing she'd do is run to the top and fall off to die from fall damage so she could return to spirit form.

last time was completely blind

It does indeed punish you for dying more. So most players play in Soul Form, which then unbalances another mechanic. If you play in Soul Form, you will use the Cling Ring 90% of time, and the Thief Ring is the other option. The mechanics actually teaches you to not use rings.

But the tendency ssytem is real bad. So if you die, the game becomes harder. Human mode makes it easier (because full health), but then if you die in that, it becomes harder still. So the players who are having the most trouble and who are trying to use the mechanisms to make it easier, die and see an even harder level still. It's messed up.

now yall are making me watn to reinstall it

@doppelgreener To be fair, the game was balanced for online, and the online removes that mechanic. By making it basically random to the player

I think dark souls 3 is the one i have

@user400654 that's the one in the series i enjoy most

dark souls 1 is fun, but dark souls 3 is great

While online you got the Tendency that the online world current had. Which is an average of the tendency of every player. Basically making it impossible to get pure tendency outside some events

dark souls 2 is dead to me

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе oh, that's interesting! i never knew that

@doppelgreener basically, online meant you constantly randomly jumped, and some specific days had fixed tendency. I seem to remember that Halloween had Pure Black fixed tendency for example.

As for the Body/Soul form thing, the problem is that the average player will think that Body is actually better, while if you use the cling ring the difference isn't that great and you probably are better staying in Soul to be able to actually control the tendency.

@doppelgreener What you describe here is an example. This wasn't used just to avoid pure black, this was also a way to be able to turn an Archstone to pure white, do all the pure-white only events in that area, die enough to turn it pure black and do all the pure black events in a single playthru.

Also, just a little trivia if you actually don't know Demon's Soul. The final boss mentioned in the video @doppelgreener is indeed a "turtle mentality instillation" offender.... but the author forgot to mention a thing that is even worse that everything he mentions for that specific encounter.

That boss is the only one in the game capable of casting the Soulsucker spell on you

A spell that can not only kill you, but will also drain a soul level in the process

(with little to no chance to get those levels back)

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе holy cow what

that is messed up

Basically, for that specific fight you don't only risk death and wasting your health items. You risk to lose actual levels.

@doppelgreener if you play it aren't you? A lot?

@JourneymanGeek ha ha ha ha ha ;D

dark souls 2 had a completely different director from 1 and 3. it has totally different world and level design (which has some infamous parts) but it also made decisions that are just frankly anti-fun

dark souls 1 and 3 have integrated labyrinthine worlds where it feels like you're actually traversing through a real spacek, and you every now and then get surprised by finding a shortcut door or elevator, opening it, and finding yourself in a place you'd been previously.

dark souls 2's world layout is basically nonsense—few areas connect and the ways they do kind of don't make sense—and basically it turns out to be something like a dream world so of course it doesn't make sense, but that seems less plausible and more like an excuse for lackluster world layout and level design

so that's not as great

but it meant that when i was going through this very hard area with a bunch of golems to get through, as i was mastering the challenge, it was also saying "oh, oops! you've already fought this guy ten times. here, let me remove the challenge for you"

that was not a welcome change

part of the experience is working out how to make your way through each area and each challenge in it until i'm beating every single damn enemy in the zone between bonfire and boss without missing a beat

dark souls 2 decided the best thing to do would just be to take the enemies away so you wouldn't have to deal with them

like WHY

Yep, def 3 is the one I have

@doppelgreener trying to find a video of someone actually getting hit by it on youtube, not very easy since all you find are "how to beat false king" videos and no "how to die in the worst way possible" ones

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе lmao

makes sense

I remember being annoyed by the first area, where seemingly random zombiedudes would turn into the big thing, and it was never the same zombie so in some cases it was a crap shoot as far as whether or not you could avoid it

Either you hit the right one or you deal with a much harder enemy

@user400654 it was always the same zombie, promise

it's just hard to spot which one it was sometimes

I distinctly remember a group of 3 that didn’t feel that way

I was a noob though, so I don’t doubt you’re right

@user400654 there are a couple that shuffle around, but there is definitely no mechanism of "pick a random zombie in this zone, it shall become that thing"

actually, i think there is only one that shuffles around

all the ones on the High Wall stay in one place until you disturb them, but it can be hard to spot which one it was before it gets up and turns into a beastie

@doppelgreener FOUND ONE!

so when you go into that space where you encountered one before, you can approach them slowly and keep an eye on them and see which one freaks out and transforms

and then next time you can just run up and kill it before it does that :D

unless you want the challenge

See the "soul levels I got drained of" overlay the author puts in the above video

demons souls has some really messed up feedback loops

^ Just quicker version if someone doesn't have the time for the video.

I wasn't joking

That guy will teach player to stay distant, but for different reasons the rest of the game does.

I believed you

That said, it also opened up interesting options. He is quite fast and has a dash attack that also has minimal homing effects

Can be funny to actually try to fight him with a bow while actually not abusing range to stay completely out of its agro area like most do

I like the idea of taking a more fast paced gameplay

Kinda how I approached hellblade

@doppelgreener Did I also mention that while some boss have convenient shortcuts that you can use after the first time you reach them and/or are placed just right after the archstone, he obviously had an annoying stage before him with no shortcut?

Choose how you want to suffer: kill the blue dragon which is almost impossible from the front and a chore if you kill him from the back, removing the hard part from the level and make the path even more repetitive the 10th time you die to the boss or have to risk to die to dragon fire every time :P

@user400654 it's a lot more fun, and bloodborne makes it basically the only option, which is why (as hbomberguy says) bloodborne teaches you the fun way to play dark souls

but dodge timing and parry timing can be tricky to work out. i might only know them because i saw others doing it right.

What I’ll need to figure out is how to gear/allocate levels to benefit thet style

heck, in dark souls 2, the parry timing changed to be quite different from that of dark souls 1 or 3. i couldn't get the hang of it at all. then a friend said "here, i'll show you", started up the game, streamed it on twitch, and let me watch as she parried a bunch of enemies. then i was able to parry perfectly

But I don’t want to just follow a guide

I want to understand it and allocate to fit me

@DanMullin oh wow, nice! And what's your "Currently Playing"? For me it's Final Fantasy VII Remake.

@user400654 in dark souls 3, i just went sword and board the whole way using the knight class, mainly focused on strength-based weapons.

i put enough stats into strength and dexterity that i could wield the weapons i wanted, and most of the rest went into endurance

at least until my endurance was around 30

@Daniil what do you mean? What is weird in the text?

Hover to show spoiler shouldn’t be a thing anymore

hmm

Well, surely reported already, check the new formatting post.

Son going to play FlyOrDie, cya!

@doppelgreener still watching the video, just curious now. Does he mention a boss called Flamelurker?

It isn't perfect, but if you don't play ranged with magic it is probably the Demon Soul boss that pushes you more into the kind of gameplay he speaks of.

PS: yep, you will notice that the player is still using the shield, but that is because that shield isn't a generic shield. It is the flame damage reduction shield, very useful to minimize damage from the constant explosions that boss love to make.

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе i don't remember.

i don't think he shouts out flamelurker specifically

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе just for the record i don't think he's advocating for never, ever use a shield. imo no-shield runs don't make much sense in dark souls: they trivially deal with a lot of obstacles like arrows or throwing knives that you can't just dodge sometimes.

and if he is, i disaree :P

@Daniil It's from SOX I think

i think the only reason bloodborne 100% gets away with no shields is because of rallying

For those who've seen me mention Bloodborne's rally system but don't know what it is, it's this: in Bloodborne, when you get hit, you lose health, but the portion of health you lost stays there in your healthbar shaded in red for a second or two. If you attack an enemy during that time, you recover a portion of the lost health. (But if you get hit again, that section vanishes, then you lose HP and can only recover the HP you lost just now.)

This is just like fighter games tracking the HP you've lost in the current combo for effect

Except with getting to actually restore it.

The function of the system is to encourage you to be reckless. Did you just get hit? Don't just run away, get right back in there and beat the crap out of the thing that hit you!

That's a great way to get hurt even more

@JohnDvorak Exactly true! :P It's incentivising you to take risks for rewards, and to prioritise that over playing safely

@doppelgreener the point is that as far as I am in the video he mostly blames the shield. But the shield is just one play style in a sense. The real problem is that Demon Soul and even the later Dark Souls games don't teach you how to play... but not in the sense he means that actually makes you turtle up. The problem is that Dark Soul and Demon Soul are full of easy out routes that make you avoid the chalenge

And Demon Soul even makes the error to TEACH you to abuse the easy out at least twice.

there are two dragons that annoy you in an area, and will forever be an obstacle unless you kill them.

Bloodborne is set up to give you environments you can beat if you play methodically, but also on so many levels psychologically pushes the player to take risks and possibly make mistakes.

The only option to kill them? A safe place when they can't kill you and tons of arrows.

You don't have the option to play them fairly

Oh damn

That's rough

That's really rough

And you wonder why then people will kill bosses like the Tower Shield Demon by knitting him with arrows from a place where he can't even reach you?

The game just taught you to not play the boss fairly but abbuse the system by giving you a tutorial on a "boss" that you can only beat abusing the system (what else can you do if the only thing the dragon does is flying around a bridge showering it with fire so that you have to time your run?? Kill him from distance from outside the bridge)

The game even gives you a prize! A trophy and a free demon soul item worth about 10/40k souls

"Good player, good, you learned how to abuse range to make boss trivial. Now go, and use what you learnt here to ruin the rest of the game for you."

I seem to recall a dragon in the first section of DS3 too

Didn’t we just kill it with arrows too?

@user400654 there was, but we could just run past it. If we hit it with arrows it'd fly away after a bit.

Although, I am curious if there is a dragonslayer build that will beat it

It was not a dragon that perpetually pestered you just like what @Νеvеrꭑoꭇе (is that it? two of the characters don't render) is describing, he just guarded one passageway

@doppelgreener I was speaking of two dragons in Demon Soul. Both found in the first archstone.

Yeah

cool, didn't realize my block on teams would also block any mention of teams in questions/answers too

though... it does make such questions/answers a little weird

The first, the red dragon, you will meet in the second area of the Archstone. That area is basically a long straight path on an high wall. The dragon just flies around and tries to kill you with ranged fire. It never lands and therefore you can only kill it with ranged attack standing still in a place where it can't kill you (it flies a fixed route, without reacting to your attacks)

The second you meet in the last area, while you are climbing some stairs to reach the boss. There, you also have to avoid the fire in order to reach the door. After you reach the door, the dragon won't adjust its aim and just continue to attack the empty stairs, so you can just stand under it and turn it into a pincushion with arrows or magic attack while it won't attack you

not even killing those dragons rewards you with many souls and an easier level next time you die (they are considered bosses and don't respaw)

@Νеvеrꭑoꭇе dragons are dumb

there is even an area somewhere else in the level where they have a nest.

In that are there are some good items. Go to close and they will roast you.

You can get SOME of the items if you are fast enough, but some are basically a suicide run.

In this area the dragons are INVULNERABLE and can't be defeated.

So. To summarize.

The game has an area that could be used to let you fight the dragon on ground in a fair battle. They don't do that.

The only way to kill the dragon is neither fun or challenging. You stay still and use about 200 arrow on them. 10 minutes of your life wasted and frustration if you discover halfway you don't have enough arrows.

The game rewards you for killing them in multiple ways, from easier levels should you die, to free items, to free souls (they even kindly give you a soul ITEM instead of straight souls so that you can't lose it if you die)

The game teaches you how to kill stuff in the most boring way possible.

The game punishes you for not killing them by non giving you the trophy and making the items they protect in the nest very hard to get.

I was quite amazed the author of the video @doppelgreener linked didn't mention this (at least so far), it is IMHO a far worse offender that giving you a shield.

anyway, have to go for now. Thanks for the chat and see you later.

Bye.

@doppelgreener will try to finish the video and then report back to Not A Bar. :P

i have a certain ocarina of time song stuck in my head

guess it's not the worst melody to have stuck in your head

"Clicking “Log out” will log you out of the following domains on this device"

Will that log you out on that device only?

that's what that text specifies

Just seeking validation.

if it does more than that, i'd call it a bug

either in wording or function

It does do more than that.

Or less.

It doesn't log you out on that device

Only in that browser.

i mean

in a sense the browser is the device

not the PC

the site can't tell the difference between you visiting on firefox or chrome, in terms of knowing that you're on the same device or another device on that network

etc

sdc tea ShadowWizardWearingMask

@Ollie brews a cup of mint tea for @ShadowWizardWearingMask

Possible troll? movies.stackexchange.com/users/83421/ajah-wilson

Could be.

Not going to get very far by typing random letters though lol

The post they wrote in @SmokeDetector's report was just nahklfjklasjfhashfwotfjvhsjhfjkajkfjshfjlhawesd.

We get one off nonsense posts like that all the time.

sdc coffee Rubiksmoose

@Ollie brews a cup of Mocha for @Rubiksmoose

:) thanks

You're welcome :D

@SmokeDetector unplugs @SmokeDetector's coffee machine.

🚽

sdc coffee

@Ollie brews a cup of Macchiato for @Ollie

My Editor Stats are very skewed.

sdc tea Shadow

@Ollie brews a cup of earl grey tea for @Shadow

sdc coffee Shadow

@Ollie brews a cup of Macchiato for @Shadow

!!/coffee Shadow

@Ollie brews a cup of Latte for @Shadow

!!/tea Shadow

@Ollie brews a cup of chamomile tea for @Shadow

@JourneymanGeek @Rob That is an... Extremely expensive screen!

Gotta say, I've been pretty happy with my Essential PH-1. Apart from, y'know, the company going out of business.

I'm hard on phones. It's nice when they can take a beating, and also be inexpensive to fix when they do break

@doppelgreener I think it's important to remember that companies are people, but not individuals.

There are people who care.

There are a lot of people who don't care.

There are people who care... About things that cause them to be overtly hostile to other concerns.

None of them is "the company". Some of them "drive" more than others.

If you imagine the last few years as a bunch of folks arguing over some sort of trolley problem wherein one group gets killed if no lever is pulled, and another group gets killed if the lever is pulled, and... I donno, the trolley explodes if its velocity drops below 50 MPH...

...it probably makes more sense.

IOW: lots of debates where everyone assumed that someone else had to suffer, and "no suffering" scenarios were dismissed out of hand.

The data was... Almost irrelevant. It just turned it into a "is killing 3 doctors worse than killing 10 ditch-diggers" trolley problem. If you're deciding based on the data, you were still a callous asshole.

What ultimately mattered was someone speaking up who wasn't already hated.

Someone arguing for less suffering.

Someone the trolley people would believe.

🍺

@Shog9 It is estimated that their cost is U$72.50, and that when the bill of materials cost is compared to the price they make 58% - whereas your phone's screen, at U$33 must be below cost (?).

Eh. Who knows what you're getting from eBay... Currently there are listings even less than that: ebay.com/itm/…

AliExpress has them for 1/2 that price while Amazon is only slightly cheaper - going out of business sale?

I'd guess their market is quickly drying up, yeah

Gotta buy an extra before they're gone, if you're planning another repair. :D

Not a bad idea

This was a reasonably easy-to-repair phone

had to heat the screen to get it off, but other than that just a few little screws and stuff came out pretty easily, went back in just as easy

just set it face down on a griddle while washing dishes, was easy to cut off once I was done. Did the same to set the glue on the new one.

griddle: the low-tech alternative to a heat gun

Naw. Can control the temperature more easily.

Too easy to get hot & cold spots with a heat gun over that kind of a surface. Dial in the griddle and less worries.

DIY is certainly cheaper, if you have the tools; and nerves of steel. Some phones have a low repairability rating, I understand that Sammy doesn't usually score well, while yours (developed by an Android creator) might have had serviceability built-in.

Pixel phones are also a PitA

I kinda suspect anything they're trying to make water-resistant now is just hell

Now, if I had something like this...

I put a new battery in my Nexus 6P a couple years ago, using a hair dryer instead of a heat gun

Samsungs are a massive pain to repair, but... as long as you treat 'em right, they do tend to last. I've had my S8 coming up three years, and the battery's slightly down but the phone itself has got more years left in it

@SonictheMaskedWerehog I've had to do that on a few electronics repairs, where the heat gun even on low was just waaaay too much heat

IP68 - 5 feet for 30 minutes.

Perfect snorkeling phone!

I've saved the battery endurance scores from that time. The old battery scored 1,069, and the new one almost doubled the score to 1,926. (I later upgraded to a Pixel 3a XL and it scores a 5,090)

I don't know why Google dropped the ball on the battery when it came to newer Pixel phones than the 3a series.

Chasing apple, without the same ability to compensate

@Shog9 That's what you need, so easier to pay $50 (hopefully) infrequently for a repair shop with lots of experience to do the deed.

yeah

Now it's time to replace the battery in my original 2012 Surface RT

...I'm kinda hard on screens. Those glass screen protectors are the best thing.

Still, if you roll over 'em or drop 'em in solvent, screen is toast

There a new screen with a camera behind it, no notch or hole; that probably means greater cost and something funky replacing it - sure neat to have a clean front (and true full screen).

My phone case is drop protective and it's edges slightly rise above the glass, so it prevents scratching on flat surfaces.

I don't like how newer phones have screens taller than 16:9 (or 9:16), it means having to stream online video either with black bars or zooming in, and effectively allows the manufacturers to advertise a larger screen diagonal size without actually increasing the viewing area

I was... Pretty ok with bezels, honestly. The full-glass full-front screens are a neat trick, but... At the end of the day, having a bit to grab on that doesn't trigger anything was nice too.

Sure, the Pixel 3a XL has a 6" size, but when it comes to online video which is invariably 16:9, the actual viewing area is only 5.5", which is smaller than my Nexus 6P which had a 5.7", 16:9 screen

Sammy has an 'edge smart desensitization' setting, so I can grab the phone without activating anything almost all the time, yet squeeze slightly to bump the 'screen timeout' and keep it lit.

I don't mind forehead and chin, lack of sides (and curved edge glass) is nice; I can set my phone face down and see Notifications shine out the side.

@Shog9 Shipping from Vegas NV: fixez.com/essential-phone-ph-1-screen-replacement

Nice 👍