Hey everyone.

Throughout my time of being active here, I've been using the "private messages" feature pretty extensively to chat with several Tilderiños I appreciate, when we don't share any other platform(s) to "chat" on. In every case until now, all conversations I'm in have taken part in a single messaging thread instead of creating multiple threads per topic of conversation because, yes, although technically this is misuse, conversations naturally flow from one topic to another

This has ended up causing UX issues, however: when opening a "private message" thread, you're practically greeted with a massive wall of text that you'll end up having to manually scroll through for several seconds until you reach the latest "end" of the conversation, which makes it pretty annoying for the user to have to do that every time they open the thread. Especially when you can't manage to reply when reading the message itself, but instead hours later

I know that the reason we don't have instant scrolling enabled in general on tildes is because it does not comply with tildes's philosophy - you have to first read the entire thread('s comments) before you create a new comment chain. However, I believe this philosophy does not extend naturally to private messages, as only two people will ever be viewing those threads, and there is zero incentive to read the entire message history before you reply to a private message

Therefore I'd like to suggest/discuss either of the following options:

1. Private message threads (and only message threads - not public posts) should have a "fast scroll" button instantly taking you to the bottom of the page, or
2. Private message threads (likewise) should always direct the user towards the latest messages & the textbox at the bottom of the page, rather than the first messages at the top of the page.

What do you all think?

In some games like Terraria or Horizon Forbidden West, you can have a "fake" set of armor on top of your "real" set of armor. The "fake" set defines how your character looks, while the "real" set determines your stats. This isn't a common thing in a lot of games, but in basically any game with different outfits with stats, I hear this being a requested feature. Whenever someone mentions this feature in a comment, people will chime in that it's cool and they wish [insert game here] would add it. The Horizon devs being one example of a studio who heard about this from the community of their first game, Zero Dawn, and added it to the sequel.

I really don't like this, even having it available as an option for single player games. Let me explain...

I think it really ruins the whole point of stat changing equipment in games. A big part of video games with customizable equipment and builds is designing a build and a character appearance that you like. Do you want to be slow with powerful attacks? Do you want to be fast with weak attacks? Do you want balance?

I'd argue that making a set that looks good while balancing the stats is another one of these things that adds to meaningful character creation decisions. Do you take the insane armor, or the really decent armor with worse stats that looks cool? Find a cool hat the character you're roleplaying as totally would wear? Oh, it has worse stats than the helmet you were using... But it weighs less! Maybe you can use a heavier chest plate to compensate for the stats you lost?

This also makes armor that both looks cool and has great stats into very valuable items that players want to get.

Of course for PvP games, having the type of armor that a player has on instantly give away their power level is important. On a Minecraft server, if you see two hostile players, one has leather armor, and the other has full netherite, you know the netherite guy is going to have better gear.

You might think this only matters for PvP games, but not allowing this mechanic in mostly single player games also adds a lot to the game, since you'll likely either see friends play the game or watch videos of other people playing the game. Each armor being intrinsically linked to certain stats creates a link between what you know that armor does and what kind of player would use that armor. In Elden Ring (which also has PvP, but bear with me), if you see someone wearing Bull Goat (the heaviest armor with the best stats), or wearing nothing but a jar on their head (to get worse defense but faster dodge rolls and some buffs to consumable throwing items), that tells you a lot about their play style just looking at their character's appearance. If both of these people could wear whatever armor they wanted and make the functional armor invisible, I would have no idea what build they had.

Using armor that looks good but has bad stats can be a fun flex to show you're good at the game, and choosing to have terrible fashion in exchange for stats is hilarious, as per this ProZD skit. That concept is a fun part of gaming culture I wouldn't want to see destroyed.