Yeah author just changed the genre of the game from tactical grinder to idle rng hell. Checking every wall for secrets? Nah man, barely any input. Difficult and can just die if you make a mistake? Just play 20 copies at the same time man. This whole chapter undermines his previous grind.
Also what even is our guys motivation!? He's loaded IRL, Healthy relationships, actually going full no life loser over pixels. SMH. Gavis told us this is a reality, he accepted that then calls it a dream at the end? Bro what?
I think that's the point of this arc. It doesn't matter if Rafdonia is real or not. That's why he's speed running the game without testing anything else even if it's smart to do so. None of that matters he's just desperate to get back into the game. He's not Hansoo anymore so none of this stuff that he seemingly wanted before is enough for him either. That's what Hansoo wanted but he's Bjorn now. Bjorn just wants to go back. It's kind of like the ending to Inception, when the dude doesn't even finish checking if his spinning top falls over because it doesn't matter.Hopefully, this is a major turning point for him and we see him admit that he loves his girls and is gonna stop making excuses. Hopefully the doll-fucker was the last bit of Hansoo that will corrupt Bjorn and we're finally done with that shit.
Tbh that's the more cringe way to proceed, but we'll see.His character growth is reality denial and fantasy escapism??Hopefully the plot improves but yeah, lost alot of faith in the Author to not produce slop
He's missing two huge chances here. One, explore the basement floors in the game. Even if he doesn't know the exact sequence of events that led to the secret first floor boss, he should have been able to trial and error it.
Second and even more importantly, he should've tried to recover his monitor to see the logs with all of his progress. That would explain so many things he doesn't know, like the evil gene being removed from his body, when he drained access to the first floor of the archives, etc
Alot of the recent chapters have flirted alot with the what-ifs that would improve world building and the author has instead just written speedrun thing, then new speedrun thing etc with the loosest if any connecting threads or consequences.Pacing is completely fucked, story and plot feel completely different from the author who gave us the first hundred or so chapters.This is a longway to say, yes I would have loved reading that, I would have loved reading more about the world bjorn is in with more hints dropped to sway whether it's real or fake or whatever, and if real those threads you mention (monitor, people with it etc) from the very start been wrapped up or expanded on.It is concerning when the comment discourse is consistently more interesting than the source material for potential avenues of exploration.
Is there even a basement in the game? I know the game was based off Raphdonia, but it could be possible some things only exist within the world of Raphdonia… maybe
think it was a mistake for him to not try and explore the areas in the game he found as Bjorn, as much as he was trying to clear the game, he had 20 instances running, he could have easily dedicated 2 of them to information gathering in the basement and beyond the walls, with the In game Prompts that he cant see when in Raphdonia, he could gain So Much Information and perspective on everything
I think the fact that he doesn't know how the secret stage of the floor lord started because they were stabbed with the goblin blood, so I would assume he is still locked out of everything after that point
even if he cant figure out the exact method, he could have still attempted to refine the knowledge he does have, and he now has the knowledge that he needs 4 not 5 people like past attempts he did, so if nothing else, a line about trying would have been nice, plus there was mention that Dimensional Collapse could happen in the game as well, at a tiny tiny chance, and we now know that it was possible for characters to live and travel to the basement, so an instance dedicated to trying that could have been possible also, more just why not try and get more info with 20 instances
TlDr: Author gave him infinite money to make a godlike gaming rig for his epic grind session and undercooked it just like everything else in the last few arcs.My actual complaint for that is that he's taken the poverty route and it mechanistically makes the least sense to have speedrun like that, it's what someone who is an idiot or only plays phone games would think you'd do. Eg multiple shitty laptops and some weird ass desk layout to use them all at once with a tiled screen (4 instances per laptop so fair assuming hes tiled it into a letterbox) and since it's a cheap laptop let's be optimistic and say it's a 1080p screen.This comic was written 2021+The quote “cheapest laptop” in 2021 is going go have 2-4 cores and 2-4gb of RAM. Let's double him up and say 4-8 cores and 8gb of RAM and an igpu so bad its not worth mentioning, so we get extemely pessimistic minimum requirements of 2 cores and 2gb of RAM (completely ignoring how much of a resource hog any OS is) for the game.Meanwhile in 2020 at the other end of the spectrum.The amd threadripper 3990x with 128 threads exists.Motherboards for it support 256gb of RAM.So that gives me a pessimistic ceiling of 64 instances, most likely way more.Slap any GPU with a shitload of monitor-outs in your PC or multiples in it (because thats a thing you can do) and make a huge wall of 4k monitors, so you can now get 8-16 instances viewable per monitor at a time then sit back in your comfy gamer chair and play 64+ instances on your goddamn dungeon and stone gamer cave wall.You’d now have 1 keyboard and mouse and a wall of the game, thats much more pro-hacker vibes and infinitely more accessible than swapping between 5 laptops.If the author knew anything about cluster computing and server hardware you could scale this shit way the fuck up even more, if the whole motivation is bjorn need get back asap, his setup sux, hus approach sucks and he genuinely doesnt do everything he could to get back rapidly.He could have recruited hyun to get more run attempts in, he could have had literally any interactions with literally anyone to demonstrate resolve or desire or anything. He could have talked more about his hobby, ie whats good in it, why he loves the game etc, but no, bro chose to be a ragey total loser for this stint of the journey. This absolute loser didn't even check the online community for his favourite game in this reality. Lastly If he's actually dedicated to leave he has no reason to not spend all of his resources on hardware, on hiring people to get runs on barbarians up to the 9th floor etc. Where are his multiple gaming rigs as described above where's the cubicle farm for paying people to grind this game for viable characters with him?? So many avenues to get shit done faster the author just didn't go down. Had he outsourced the grind justifying spending time looking for secrets would be much much easier and it wouldn't have completely undermined the fact/accomplishment that what took him 10yrs solo the first time just took him 6 months this time round, supposedly on the same setup.
I think that’s the idea though, that he’s not playing a game anymore – he still thinks this is a dreamworld, and that he’s underwater – he’s trying to make it back and prove that he’s not wrong. The speed run is to get back as quick as possible using the strategy he knows
He could still have gotten to the basement floor. The only requirements are RNG for shit on the 3rd floor and going back to the first floor.It's not even a difficult grind considering he's 20x-ing the game.Argueably, if it exists, it's the cleanest speedrun strategy as it removes alot of rng for essence drops given the library room exists and circumvents the dungeon timelimit. Assuming 1 it exists and 2 the game doesn't just kick you out when the dungeon closes anyway.The real exit strategy is potentially known too (kill Island guards, activate stones, yeet) even if hamiski and the computer aren't friendly and won't let him yeet.
also, if people could do 20 instances of it, then someone could do 100 instances. And yet we are now supposed to beleive that there was No One else who could do this? and just RNG out a Win on the original game? if this was possible, then there would be more people willing to RNG out that grind, people do that with a .01 chance for item drops and grinding out for things, so theres no reason to think others wouldnt grind out this game with the multi instance method
I think it’s more than just RNG – remember he beat the game before, so he already knows all he needs to, to get to the gates. However D&S is a game with massive random misfortunes – you step on a trap, or get shoehorn into a particular scenario I think it’s for that reason he needed all the PCs, to maximize his strategy against the negative random odds. That’s how I read it anyway
Actually Dragonian is right, he doesn’t know the trigger to open the new floor. He know how to trigger the portal once it becomes available, but without the floor open, it’s like not having the DLC
I guess now we'll have to see how time has passed. If it was just a convincing field effect then probably a few minutes or hour.
If it was a properly realized world he got sent back to, and he's going through the process again, the he’ll have a new body, reset progress, and if he spent 6 months beating the game then more than 2 years will have passed.
IF that's the case, then i imagine Baekho would be extatic. He’d take Bjorns body to get resurrected by Misha and do everything in his power to get the revived Bjorn on his team. Hansoo would have to get in contact with the Chief and use the artifact to transfer bodies back to Bjorn. Then i think he and Baekho might finally openly try to kill each other.
Hope not though, time skips like that first one never sit right with me.
that easy ? i thought he would had to do some weird stuff but he just needed to clear the game again … at least now he is more resolved . thx for the chapter . see you on Monday
I was worried for a second that I get a line “congratulations, you cleared it. Check our website for the new dlc comming next year.” or something like that and nothing happening. I actually hope he wakes up. That being said, I wonder what happened to him in the game world and how much time has passed since then
I went back and read through first few chapters before reading this one and… man the parallels just hit harder. I need some sleep but I'll be back to comment
Now that I've slept as well I can give some more thoughts about what happened. Firstly, anything involving time travel or parallel universes should be avoided by writers unless they have some unique perspective about it. These 2 plot contrivances always cause issues. For instance, how hilarious would it be if this works and Hansoo’s mom and ex beat the game as well since they know it'll work and try to get him back? Imagine mommy going to Rafdonia to get her baby back. It's almost always a huge mistake to introduce parallel universe travel or time travel. This is especially true because most people don't comprehend what “infinite” actually means.
Conceptually our MC has no motivation to even play the game again. He accepted Auril Gavis’ take that this is a reality not a dream. He has the potential for better relationships with his mother and ex in this reality. He still has his infinite dollars. The “there are people there too" take is genuinely horrid, of his close companions very few are people. Or all people there are people and he's a 100s over serial murderer.I have issues with how his speedrun is described, would have been less shit if he straight up just cheated with save states or memory manipulation after a heart to heart vs going full loser for a month. But hey, author has to timeskip most of a year somehow. Guess this is the slop we get.
I resolved to you in your other comment but you're right about the time skip. We've all been expecting it and I also don't like how it's being executed. Overall the story feels like it's being rushed still, but this arc specifically can be good overall for bjorn's character growth.
So much for coming back to comment after sleep, lol. Totally forgot. I see much of the comments are about how Bjorn didnt try to uncover any more secrets of D&S during his speed run, but remember, he’s still convinced that he has to go back, and if he cane go back, that means this is a dream. If this is a dream, then he's drowning… he’s trying to get back as quickly as possible using his already existing knowledge of how to beat the game. Plus the game throws horrible curve balls of misfortune, hence the multiple instances of the game. They way I read it, it makes sense to me. I would have loved to explore a bit more of the interpersonal relationships/history in this world, but I get he has no time for that and is trying g to get back to Raphdonia…Ifni had to psychoanalyze, it’s like it’s easier for him to find comfort in the world where one has to fight for their life, over a world where life isn’t so black and white. His earth life was emotionally harsh, whereas that’s harder to deal with that the struggle to survive in Raphdonia. That’s my take
so if he had chosen it,it could have been real. what a sweet and terrible temptation…
but he did it 😀 he chose to move on. he's letting himself be the best version of him and that's honestly great. is it weird I hope like 8 seconds have passed since he passed out and he suddenly wakes up enlightened lol
I'm thinking it's a ‘real' world in that he could have lived and died there, and been happy, but not a true world in the sense that it was all catered to Han-Soo and his desires.
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Yeah author just changed the genre of the game from tactical grinder to idle rng hell. Checking every wall for secrets? Nah man, barely any input. Difficult and can just die if you make a mistake? Just play 20 copies at the same time man. This whole chapter undermines his previous grind.
Also what even is our guys motivation!? He's loaded IRL, Healthy relationships, actually going full no life loser over pixels. SMH. Gavis told us this is a reality, he accepted that then calls it a dream at the end? Bro what?
he is going nowhere… I can smell the subvert expectations cliffhanger a mile away…
He's missing two huge chances here. One, explore the basement floors in the game. Even if he doesn't know the exact sequence of events that led to the secret first floor boss, he should have been able to trial and error it.
Second and even more importantly, he should've tried to recover his monitor to see the logs with all of his progress. That would explain so many things he doesn't know, like the evil gene being removed from his body, when he drained access to the first floor of the archives, etc
think it was a mistake for him to not try and explore the areas in the game he found as Bjorn, as much as he was trying to clear the game, he had 20 instances running, he could have easily dedicated 2 of them to information gathering in the basement and beyond the walls, with the In game Prompts that he cant see when in Raphdonia, he could gain So Much Information and perspective on everything
I’m so glad this “go home” arc is over. I hated every chapter.
I’m not even done reading, just zoomed down to say 20 characters same time is insanity, MC is a madman and I love it lol
I guess now we'll have to see how time has passed. If it was just a convincing field effect then probably a few minutes or hour.
If it was a properly realized world he got sent back to, and he's going through the process again, the he’ll have a new body, reset progress, and if he spent 6 months beating the game then more than 2 years will have passed.
IF that's the case, then i imagine Baekho would be extatic. He’d take Bjorns body to get resurrected by Misha and do everything in his power to get the revived Bjorn on his team. Hansoo would have to get in contact with the Chief and use the artifact to transfer bodies back to Bjorn. Then i think he and Baekho might finally openly try to kill each other.
Hope not though, time skips like that first one never sit right with me.
With this Hansoo is officially dead. Long live Bjorn bitches! Good riddance. Hansoo sucked.
that easy ? i thought he would had to do some weird stuff but he just needed to clear the game again … at least now he is more resolved . thx for the chapter . see you on Monday
I was worried for a second that I get a line “congratulations, you cleared it. Check our website for the new dlc comming next year.” or something like that and nothing happening. I actually hope he wakes up. That being said, I wonder what happened to him in the game world and how much time has passed since then
I went back and read through first few chapters before reading this one and… man the parallels just hit harder. I need some sleep but I'll be back to comment
This was absolutly mindblowing bur necessary for him to 100% his resolve to live in the game
Was pretty much on the money. I will laugh hysterically if he wakes up in the dream world again in a loop. Let’s hope for no more filler.
so if he had chosen it,it could have been real. what a sweet and terrible temptation…
but he did it 😀 he chose to move on. he's letting himself be the best version of him and that's honestly great. is it weird I hope like 8 seconds have passed since he passed out and he suddenly wakes up enlightened lol
I'm thinking it's a ‘real' world in that he could have lived and died there, and been happy, but not a true world in the sense that it was all catered to Han-Soo and his desires.