Totally new to this and having trouble with selecting funds.
​
Slavick401k put together this:

• BlackRock International Index K Share BTMKX - 19.20%
• Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Admiral Shares - 76.80%
• Fidelity US Bond Index - 4.00%
• Weighted Total Expense of the Funds - 0.039%

​
Should I just go 100% in Vanguard Target Retirement 2060 like I have in my IRA
​
Other funds in my plan:
https://preview.redd.it/nbpm7zt0ddqa1.png?width=1514&format=png&auto=webp&s=da81fa0485d4a0de7d7186305da973b3fef1ebb3

Here are several things in Hunter x Hunter that resemble real life things with similar characteristics. Here are a few examples:

1. Nen: Nen is a type of energy used in the Hunter x Hunter series. It has similarities to the concept of qi, which is an energy field used in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts.
   
2. Greed Island: In the series, Greed Island is a rare and expensive video game that is said to have been created by a group of expert game designers. It has similarities to real-life MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games)based on real-life video games and RPGs. It has various features such as quests, levels, and spells, which are commonly found in video games.that is modeled after video game worlds. It has various video game elements such as cards and levels.
   
3. Chimera Ants: In the series, Chimera Ants are a fictional species of insect that can absorb the traits of other creatures they consume. This concept is similar to real-life viruses and their ability to mutate and adapt.are based on real- life insects and the Idea of the insect kingdom evolving into a more intelligent species's.are based on insects such as ants and bees. Their society and hierarchy are similar to that of insect colonies.
   
4. Kurta Clan: The Kurta Clan in the series have red eyes that turn even brighter when they experience Intense emotions. This concept is similar to the real-life phenomenon of red eyes caused by certain medical conditions or emotions. is based on the Romani people, an ethnic group that has faced persecution and discrimination throughout history. The character Kurapika's ability to use chains is inspired by the Chinese martial art of Wushu, which often features the use of weapons with chains.
   
5. Hunter Exam: The Hunter Exam in the series is a grueling test that requires physical and mental endurance, as well as problem- solving skills. It has similarities to real-life tests such as the Special Forces Assessment and Selection or the Navy SEALS BUD/S training.
   
6. Dark Continent: The Dark Continent in Hunter x Hunter is based on real-life myths and legends of unexplored and dangerous lands.
   
7. Zodiacs: The Zodiacs in Hunter x Hunter are based on the Chinese zodiac and astrology.
   
8. Yorknew City - Yorknew City in Hunter x Hunter is based on New York City. The city's architecture and layout are similar to New York's, and several landmarks such as the World Trade Center and Times Square are referenced.
   
9. Kukuroo Mountain - Kukuroo Mountain is a mountain range in Hunter x Hunter that is based on the Himalayas. The mountain range's terrain and climate are similar to the Himalayas.
   
10. NGL (Neo-Green Life) - NGL is a fictional country in Hunter x Hunter that is based on North Korea. The country's isolationist policies,harsh living conditions, and oppressive government are similar to North Korea's.
    
11. Zaban City - Zaban City is a city in Hunter x Hunter that is based on Cairo, Egypt. The city's architecture and landmarks such as the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Giza are referenced.
    
12. Meteor City - Meteor City in Hunter X Hunter is a place where people who do not belong in society reside. It is based on real-life slums such as Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dharavi in Mumbai, India.
    
13. East Gorteau - East Gorteau is a country in Hunter x Hunter that is based on Ethiopia. The country's geography, culture, and architecture are similar to Ethiopia's.
    
14. Hell-Ly Family - The Heil-Ly Family in Hunter x Hunter is based on the Rothschild family, a wealthy and influential family in real life.
    

there are real-world organizations that share some
similarities with the Hunter Association in terms of their mission, structure, and purpose. For example, some organizations that aim to promote exploration, adventure, and discovery, such as the National Geographic Society or the Explorers Club, share some similarities with the Hunter Association in terms of their goals and values. Similarly, some professional organizations or guilds, such as the Screen Actors Guild or the Writers Guild of America, share some similarities with the Hunter Association in terms of their role in supporting and advocating for their respective professions.
If we're looking specifically at organizations that are hired as problem solvers when no one else can solve a particular problem, then there are several options to consider. One example is the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which is known for its expertise in management consulting and problem-solving for businesses and organizations. McKinsey has been hired by various governments, corporations, and non-profit organizations to tackle complex and difficult challenges, such as optimizing operations, developing new products, and improving efficiency.
Another example is the Crisis Management Team of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is response to global health responsible for providing rapid emergencies, such as disease outbreaks and pandemics. The WHO Crisis Management Team is made up of experts in epidemiology, public health, emergency response, and other related fields, and they are trained to quickly identify, assess, and respond to health crises around the world.
In addition to these examples, there are also many other organizations that specialize in problem-solving and are hired to tackle complex and difficult challenges, such as the Corporation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These organizations have a range of expertise and capabilities, and they can be hired to address various types Boston Consulting Group, the RAND of problems, from business challenges to social and environmental issues
If we are talking about organizations that are hired to handle conflicts and fighting, there are several options to consider. One example is private military and security companies (PMSCs), which provide military and security services to governments, corporations, and individuals. PMSCs are hired to provide a range of operations,including security, combat operations, consulting, and training of security forces. Some examples of PMSCs include Blackwater (now known as Academi) Aegis Defence Services, and G4S.
Another example is international peacekeeping organizations, such as the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, which is responsible for maintaining peace and security in areas of conflict around the world. The UN peacekeeping Force is made up of military personnel, police officers, and civilian personnel from different countries, and they are deployed to areas of conflict to provide security, protect civilians, and support peace processes.
In addition to these examples, there are also many other organizations that specialize in conflict resolution and management, such as the International Crisis Group, which provides analysis and advice on conflicts and crises around the world, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which provides research and analysis on global security issues.These organizations can be hired to provide expert advice and assistance on conflict-related issues, ranging from strategic planning to tactical operations.
. Similarly, the Hunter Exam in the series may be inspired by various real-world tests and competitions, such as the Special Forces selection process or the entrance exams for prestigious schools.
In addition, the conflicts and power struggles between various factions and individuals in Hunter x Hunter may be influenced by real-world political and social issues, such as war, corruption, and inequality
On reasons of "WHY ALL THE SECRECY" in regards to teaching of NeN
Nen: unseen energy source able to be used through unknown to public means
Examples of real life.
Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world for the purpose of healing, divination, or to aid human beings in some other way.
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force.
The Odic force (also called Od [õd], Odyle, Önd, Odes, Odylic, Odyllic, or Odems) is the name given in the mid-19th century to a hypothetical vital energy.
Qi is the central underlying principle in Chinese traditional medicine and in Chinese martial arts it is known as
Qigong (/ˈtʃiːˈɡɒŋ/),[1] qi gong, chi kung, chi 'ung, or chi gung (simplified Chinese: 气功; traditional Chinese: 氣功; pinyin: qìgōng;
Ase or ashe (from Yoruba àṣẹ)[1] is a philosophical concept defined by the Yoruba of Nigeria to represent the power that makes things happen and produces change in ,thought, is dependent upon it In addition to its sacred characteristics, ase also has important social ramifications, reflected in its translation as "power, authority, command." A person who, through training, experience, and initiation, learns how to use the essential life force of things to willfully effect change is called an alaase.
According to Melanesian and Polynesian mythology, mana is a supernatural force that permeates the universe. Anyone or anything can have mana. They believed it to be a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being a source of power. It is an intentional force. is a Polynesian traditional concept denoting something holy or sacred, with "spiritual restriction" or "implied prohibition"; it involves rules and prohibitions. The English word taboo derives from this Accordingly,
Māori regarded all things as possessing a life force or mauri.
Orenda /ˈɔːrɛndə/ is the Haudenosaunee name for a certain spiritual energy inherent in people and their environment. It is an "extraordinary invisible power believed by the Iroquois Native Americans to pervade in varying degrees in all animate and inanimate natural objects as a transmissible spiritual energy capable of being exerted according to the will of its possessor.
Manitou (/ˈmænɪtuː/), is the spiritual and fundamental life force among Algonquian groups in the Native American theology. It is omnipresent and manifests everywhere: organisms, the environment, events, etc.
Reiki (霊気, /ˈreɪki/) is a Japanese form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine. According to ancient and medieval science,
aether (/ˈiːθə, alternative spellings include æther, aither, and ether), also known as the fifth element or quintessence.
Vitality (from Middle French vitalité, from Latin vītālitās, from Latin vīta 'life') is the capacity to live, grow, or develop. More simply it is the property of having life a component to the will to live. As such, people seek to maximize their vitality or their experience of vitality—that which corresponds to an enhanced physiological capacity and mental state
Élan vital, a philosophical term coined by Henri Bergson in 1907, roughly translated as "vital impetus" or "vital force An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremonial rituals or prayers. In the world of magic, wizards, witches, and fairies allegedly perform incantation.A curse is a spell or incantation intended to harm.
In Old Norse, seiðr (sometimes anglicized as seidhr, seidh, seidr, seithr, seith, or seid) was a type of magic which was practised in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age.
A psychic is a person to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, such as psychokinesis or teleportation. Although many people believe in psychic abilities.
Orgone (/ˈɔːrɡoʊn/) is a pseudoscientific concept variously described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force. Originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich and developed by Reich's student Charles Kelley after Reich's death in 1957,*** for those of you keeping track that is technically the most recent to current modern day theory proposed He got killed in prison for building boxes that cured cancer shortly after Don't believe me Google it Anywho...
if you look you will see Even further back in ancient antiqueties you find all it over as well. Examples. Pneuma (πνεῦμα) is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul".Greek translations of ruach רוח in the Hebrew language From Proto-West Semitic *rūḥ-. Cognate with Arabic رُوح‎ (rūḥ).: /ˈruah In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as an agent of divine action is seen as the intermediary between God and man and "the outpouring grace of God and the effulgent rays that emanate from His Manifestation Nephesh (נֶ֫פֶשׁ‎ nép̄eš) is a Biblical Hebrew word which occurs in the Hebrew Bible. The word refers to the aspects of sentience, Adam "became a living nephesh." Nephesh when put with another word can detail aspects related to the concept of nephesh; with רוּחַ‎ rûach ("spirit") it describes a part of mankind that is immaterial, like one's mind, emotions, will, intellect, personality, and conscience, as in Job 7:11 Shaktipat or Śaktipāta (Sanskrit, from shakti "(psychic) energy" and pāta, "to fall")refers in Hinduism to the transmission (or conferring) of spiritual energy upon one person by another or directly from the deity. Shaktipat can be transmitted with a sacred word or mantra, or by a look, thought or touch – the last usually to the ajna chakra or agya chakra or third eye of the recipient. In Hinduism, especially Shaktism (a theological tradition of Hinduism), Shakti (Devanagari: शक्ति, IAST: Śakti; lit. "Energy, ability, strength, effort, power, capability") is the primordial cosmic energy, female in aspect. Shakti represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the universe. Chakras (UK: /ˈtʃʌkrəz/, US: /ˈtʃɑːkrəz/ CHUK-rəz, CHAH-krəz;[2] Sanskrit: चक्र, romanized: cakra, lit. 'wheel, circle'; Pali: cakka) . In Hinduism, Kundalini (Sanskrit: कुण्डलिनी, romanized: kuṇḍalinī, lit. 'coiled snake are various focal points used in a variety of ancient meditation practices, collectively denominated as Tantra, or the esoteric or inner traditions of Hinduism. Prana (प्राण, prāṇa; the Sanskrit word for breath, "life force", or "vital principle") permeates reality on all levels including inanimate objects. Used in yoga Persian martial arts and medicine. Jīvitindriya (Sanskrit and Pali) is a Buddhist term translated as "life faculty" or "vitality". Jīvitindriya is identified as one of the seven universal mental factors within the Theravada abhidharma teachings. In this context, jīvitindriya is defined as a mental factor that sustains the life of the citta (mind) and other mental factors it accompanies. The characteristic of jīvitindriya is said to be “ceaseless watching.
I'm sure there is more I missed of you know of any please don't hesitate to comment just a name is enough for me to go off of thanks in advance for any an all efforts to forward that endeavor of mine.
So I won't lie that some of this is based on real lifes mystical chi, chakra, ki, spirit , faith ,there's many more and wiki is a great source on the subject in regards to when an where specifics. So some of this is based off of my real life experience perceptions of the world Some is speculation I'll try me best to note the difference for easier understanding purposes
Now it is said in most ancient cultures with bad ass warriors being a main staple of said cultures development and legacies Top warriors have a certain code
This is not in dispute
If anything whats disputed is what the code is What is important to remember is tho they may have differed slightly in the end point is all top end martial masters seem to have one regardless.
Some ancient military records flat out describe some warriors doing and not just once but every time having unexplained ways of winning against numerous enemies at once over and over and over battle after battle after battle Point of fact most live to become old in seclusion often wrighting books Like the art of war, there's more but if you can't find the ones who lived it apart from those who didn't you stop reading now an save your time .
One would wonder in real life if lets say kuriapika s announcement of NeN to even fighting fields of all engaged would by the end the winner want said knowing to continue openly.
So in layman's terms ask yourself do you think the end of the succession war arc will end with the winner being a fan of open knowing of NeN being ok or not?
Likely it would be no as the odds of non nen users beating army's of NeN users.is .... Compared to say yes they did allow and promote open knowing of NeN for it not to become a myth this is how I think it went from discovery to open used as much as ever would be to secret and secluded passings of it's existence.
Now I know of a place in real life that is perfectly suited for a hidden in plain sight so to speak place for the number of ppl currently in world alive capable of using nen ,let's go off hxh chairman arc as number as example as it's easy, Housing, training, exam, practicing So in layman's terms
,like even a hisoka looking muther fucker could still check in as long as they didn't cause disturbance and could pay,
once alone out of sight in a elevator or some specific unique game console in a always gaurded room to make change there really is infinity ways with NeN I'm just saying it is the perfect front and like hunter association building ECT
The thing about it's location is particularly convenient for a lot of problems you'd have alot of other places one could almost say it's the perfect place. And it could be a Greed island kinda NeN system making it work Now I'm easily capable of seeing if some knew they would would go a battle tailored fighting style hatsu I can honestly say if it was like Ging taught me an then floated the idea of it being for all to come afters betterment and the greater good to have ppl make powers work in sync for such end results like a GI or Burj khalifa front for HA/hunter association headquarters cause I think that kinda shit is legit as.fuck but I know personally those who would be akin to killua mentality an thinking
In layman's terms it just practicality wise makes a lot sense something like this would be done for the means of access to those who undoubtedly find it thenselfs or through teachings of others ect, if ppl figured it out originally on there own others would inevitably do the same ,
Now there is just about as many legends and storys of places too good for it not to be NeN if in fact they did exist and did also do what is said Sometimes a big task researching enough to say for sure May be we.destroy more then we preserve as a species on average I do know I think there is some real top the list contenders for real life equivalent being real and I'll list them as examples but I want first to do one as a whole reason why I think "all the secrecy" today's times next first .....
So In layman's terms..... Sounds like a good public cover story for why everyone being like yo Netro why those bullets bounce off you bro wtf......
Now this is mostly speculation but at the heart of speculation is the experience of perceptions by who ever is doing the speculation that's why I did the layman's terms for this section first not last
In the middle of Africa is the congo Needless to say without getting into factually wise the horrible ness would allow for the training of say zushi not living horrible but comfy with wing training, one of the real life examples by the by, Because yes folks by comparison getting chopped up in your sleep as a daily occurrence with no not even a minimum but none at all justice system or the like to stop it in remote and no civilization has reached besides what the warlords who are there now Bring to do what they do unchecked in opposed fire power or even a electricity from generator or vehicle let alone guns right vs villages of stick hut fire in middle of camp walking an gathering for water an food still ppl.
I bring this up because In Africa there is ppl called hunters There word is dozo or dono Googling the three journalist deaths in africa causing uproar and demanding investigation for answers Should be effective Note the ppl who were hired as guides They literally are quoted as saying there magic will protect them from bullets harming them And they are a "association of ppl for hire" Again that's a direct quote from the locals who referred them as the ones.to get as guides inland without dieing all on top of they are called a hunter association by the locals they are also protected by bullets with magic ... Now after looking into these hunters I found that African has more or less two versions like a lot of places but it's not the normal north an south or east and west but the outer and inner African continent are vastly different. Like one most journalists don't even go to or just don't return from and it's ironic enough full of diamond so that on top of no technology to prove problematic and interesting enough the outside world at large with any real chance to stop this is in consensus it's not worth the fight If diamonds still flow out to be bought up resold ECT ect
Now let's say there is ppl in Africa who have lived far enough inland long ago and it more or less passed enough to continue which at worst really only takes one to teach another one
I'll relate this to sith in star wars in that if one real promising, anikin , student about to be acknowledged as master level good even tho they are real young type of prodigy, Has even one real bad thing happened, Anikin turns Darth Vader over being told his lover and kids just died at his friends and teachers hands right .
My point is anyone can decide to turn dark side because tragic unfortunate accidents If they happen to be like going to bring balance to the force prophecy level strong then who stops them When you have that nd the whole middle of a continent as your unopposed training ground in a place over head satalights are unable to effectively see with and a monopoly on diamonds to fund your wildest dreams What I wonder would be next World recognition as a world power perhaps A sufficient enough gesture of good faith to compose a reckless new threat with unknown capabilities like the changing of v5 to v6 maybe Maybe the guy running the shit in the congo is just considered by those who would be aging out of a game the obviously got the worst of this time around lucky not to be a world wide menace in person and still via underlings from the shadows of his growing empire.... Maybe it's really when they die the reign begins who knows.
In layman's terms that's my first with enough effort can be verified in real life existence as we speak
Zushi and wing
Rick wing Real life Kung Fu master google him I believe his master seen Bruce Lee Realized the unlimited potential but obviously lacking of.nen knowledge Think of when kuriapika has his license stolen and is taught NeN Rick wings teach found Bruce Lee in his exile from being a life long Chinese monk but losing his temper fighting at a no contact demo All when Bruce a fellow Chinese man was bragging I can beat anyone anywhere that I accept all.challanges with advertising on posters around his dojo n gyms as well in local n some natl news papers Also Bruce Lee only talks about.his fight with this guy in the papers.once ever And is one.of.the few who says he lost Albeit Bruce says he left so he tech lost but he is not a masochist and the guy didn't fight back just let Bruce punch him in the back of the head until his hand hurt as the guy kept stepping away Interesting Bruce who can one inch punch solid wood apart Couldn't even damage a guy enough to knock him off his feet enough to even stop is steady advance away from Bruce Think killua Fighting zushi then talking to gon after He says yea I won but towards the end there I lost my temper cause he wouldn't stay down and.i accidently way over did it I thought I killed him But I didn't even scratch him...Bruce would understand better then prob most humans ever that if he throws a say one inch punch at a human an regrets it so fast that his first thought is fuck I just killed this guy but then sees that in fact he did no damage at all.... Now what if quicker then anyone other then Bruce would be able to catch an understand he said something like I can teach you the secret your missing meet me later or whatever Bruce would understand it must be real Cause his punches fuck shit up normally Wong man jack was this guy's name a legit Chinese monk of Kung Fu his most accomplished student is named Rick wing who teaches in some secret area google.it Now bonolenov the dancing music fighter from the phantom troup who I think is the prince that killed his uncle king in Brazil and is the most accomplished copoeara maestro ever while also having a good reason to hate ppl I might add as his tribe really was killed off completely from industrialization But only after many including but not limited too the original slave owners and even the east india trading company tried and decided yea nah not worth it And they were ruthless as it gets Oh also this guy was kidnapped as a baby raised by priests new latin and cpl other languages an by 15 escaped made it back to Brazil an was such an accomplished warrior in battle quickly earning his way to the leader of the armies of his uncle king who up until he said I want to give in for peace an the nephew poison killed an took over to continue fighting instead was by all accounts great prosperity culture enriched loving community turned kingdom of what originally amounts to some run away slaves Thus all his speech of tribe being important and honored and the dance fighting style an also the well spoken learned mannerism of bonolenov IMO There's more like if you want to stretch further then I did with speculation but with a subject like chi magic esp faith spirit chakra ki Or even NeN what else is there yo
Bungeegum origin story
So the wrapper has comic strips and is a prize of sorts in another snack food treat That inspired stretching retractable sticky or hard ...also is bright pink.... Bazooka bubble gum prize wrapped in comic strip wrapper inside as prize of cracker jacks Which where a baseball and carnival's circus famous snack food
______---part two. H.A is the Burj khalifa. Apart from looking and sitting physically structured in height floor levels and layouts function and position in world for efficiency. There was upon opening 21 kung fu Chinese monks brought in as a , grand opening celebration ceremony, Wired they can just fill the first line up of floor master without delay and infighting it would seem . Would suffice as chairman headquarters as well as hunter exam sight ECT ECT ...on how it works and what else Nen makes it possible I don't care to clutter this with more argument then that ... Not here at least. Work in progress will be back to finish with updates.
The show will run through March 3, 2018.
Jasper Hope, Chief Executive at Dubai Opera, said "This is an incredible show with acrobatics, athleticism and agility that has to be seen to be believed - I am delighted we're able to welcome this extraordinary company to Dubai."
Direct from Shaolin, China, the birthplace of Kung Fu, Shaolin Warriors delivered a fully choreographed, theatrical production featuring rarely seen Buddhist meditation alongside deadly martial arts expertise.
Starring 21 Kung Fu masters, the breathtaking extravaganza is based on the journey of a young child's initiation to achieving fully fledged warrior status through diligent training.
The opening for the day the building that looks just like heveans arena opened up and also has just the same number as floor masters for Kung Fu masters doing it all in real life years after it was in the magna first
Could ging be an enhancer like bill
So hear me out We know going off Netro Ging is top 5 And it's really really rare for enhancer to do stuff for others not themselves We.never see hide not tail of gings true power just his mastery itself of Nen Like copy leorios after being hit He says he can more or less make his own use of someone's uses of nen if he is hit in the face with it to pariston then uses the power in a much better way but also says he had talked to him about it
He plays that show off your mastery of nen game making different animals and shapes with your aura around different body parts in a horse trick shot kinda manner and smokes all of paristons lackys in doing so on black whale
Kite admitted ging personally helped him come up with his crazy slots
So what if gings true nen power is to enhance someone else into having the best fitting for that specific persons optimal nen power
So like he uses his enhancer powers and two doing of cancer twin girl kids can nen masters of greed island forever now don't have to die
Like I can almost see him telling razor how after all there training he won't have to worry about being over run by the other pirates such as bobobob or what ever that fat sumo guys name was in GI arc that razor smokes
Then ging shakes his hand an razor awakens bam the whole team of Dodge ball is thought out after the whole now I'm not outnumbered was why razors power was what it was you see
It also explains why Ging is just so good with aura control he never had to water.down training efforts by doing what kastro did in order to die against hisoka in heavens arena
There is a "Father of archeology" who could be gings real life counter part
I'm not totally convinced the old captain of the boat in the first episodes isn't actually gings dad and Gon's grandpa.
The st Elmo's fire is of st elmo the patron saint of sailors and sailing. If one wanted to venture across a ocean to then charter the DC this would help.
Flinders Petrie who fits the description givin to gon by satotz after the exam is over with his broke arm right before they go to get killua
Palm...uses the same thing as gypsy hand readers crystal ball also used for scrying of ppls location Who just happens to look like the wicked witch of the west in high heels md pointy hat when she uses hatsu and has a real wicked side
Netros real life equivalent is easy enough Search thousand arms bodhisattva cave Note the unknown monk ....

Race Information

• Name: Project 13.1
• Date: March 25, 2023
• Distance: Half Marathon
• Location: Rockland Lake State Park, New York
• Website: https://elitefeats.com/res-det.asp?ID=23051&BibID=5342
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8774663856/overview
• Time: 1:07:29

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Sub 67	No
B	Sub 68	Yes
C	PR (Sub 69:22)	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	5:08
2	5:09
3	5:05
4	5:07
5	5:02
6	5:09
7	5:05
8	5:08
9	5:02
10	5:03
11	5:00
12	5:00
13	5:00
.31	1:25 (4:33 pace)

Training

Since Bockfest 5K 3 weeks ago these were my big workouts and mileage on the week:
Week of March 6th: 90.4 Miles on 6 days Wednesday Workout: 12x 1 minute on/1 minute off (10K effort on the ons/mid 6:30's on the offs) Sunday: 18.12 w/ 3x2 miles @ HMP w/ 4 minute easy jog recovery in between 5:09/5:06, 5:00/5:00, 5:02/5:02
Week of March 13th: 94.5 miles on 6 days Wednesday Workout: 10 x 3 minute on/1 minute off 5:01 (6:55), 5:00 (7:00), 5:03 (6:45), 5:01 (6:52), 5:00 (6:47), 5:01 (6:47), 5:01 (6:41), 5:00 (6:35), 5:02 (6:36), 5:02 Sunday: 18 miles with 2x 2miles @ hmp with a mile jog recovery in 7 degree real feel 5:11/5:11, 5:14/5:11
Race Week: Wednesday Workout: 3x 1 mile w/ 200 jog recovery dodging middle schoolers throughout on the track 5:04/5:02/5:02
Training last week was less than ideal. I bruised the bottom of my right foot right around the muscle/tendon below the big toe towards the end of my 18 miler on Sunday. I tested out a new pair of shoes during that workout and the rocker definitely bruised it up. During my double on Wednesday it got pretty bad so I made the call to take Thursday off out of precaution and focus on scraping/rehab for it. Felt much better on Friday but still had a little bit of inflammation post shakeout run. Crossed my fingers that it would be almost 100% by the next day. If I felt real pain at all I would make the decision to drop out. With this being so close to Boston an injury setback like this could be the end of my Boston hopes.

Pre-race

It was a long day of traveling from Columbus to New York but thankfully I arrived without much issue. u/iam_indefatigable was kind enough to host us for the weekend since he was also racing and having some good friends there definitely took some much needed pressure and anxiety off.
We got up around 5:00AM and got ourselves ready for what was sure going to be an interesting morning. All week we had been looking at the weather reports nervously hoping the weather would break right for us. The race director made the call earlier in the week to run the race Saturday instead of Sunday, believing that was the favorable day. Saturday was set to be cold with some light rain. Sunday was a little warmer but had the potential of high wind. Personally I hoped for Saturday as I wanted to enjoy New York, pop some bottles with my pals and head into the city on Sunday.
I woke up with my foot feeling better than the day prior. No pressure when walking but I knew that the test would be running. The pressure point was much smaller than it was earlier in the week so it eased my nervousness a bit. We made the drive to Rockland Lake State Park without much issue. The four of us were in good spirits joking around the entire drive out. We seemed to have found a good patch of time where we were going to miss the rain for the day.
We got to the park and with about an hour until race time and went off to grab our bibs. I catch u/tyler_runs_lifts in line and chat for a second before we each grab our bibs and head off to our own cars to get out of the cold. The boys meet up at the car and we head off for our warmup. Alex recommends that we check out the first section of the course as it's the only part of it that is a bit tricky. He's familiar with this course and we take his advice. The course is fairly simple. It's just 4 2.95 mile loops around the lake. In order to get to the distance needed we start the course in reverse and run about a kilometer out and make a u-turn around a set of cones. The course was marked on the floor instructing us to take the turn clockwise. I thought, fairly straightforward, and just jogged back to the car.
As I start my plyometrics I can feel the spot on my foot a bit. It was a slight bother but thankfully no sharp or burning pain. The race would be slightly uncomfortable but this definitely felt more of a bruise rather than anything to worry a lot about. With the wind and it still being fairly chilly I made the decision to wear my tracksmith turtleneck underneath my singlet. I had done workouts in just this top before and ran a tune up 9 miler last march in these temps so I was at least somewhat confident I wouldn't overheat. As I made my way to the bathroom it began to hail/sleet. Everyone had the kind of face saying "really?" but at this point with 15 minutes til race time it was too late to just walk away from it. We didn't make our way here not to race.
I got back to the car and tossed my shoes on and did some last minute drills. My vaporflys didn't seem to bother me as much as I thought they would. One last minute pee break and I made a brisk jog to the start line.
The race director introduced the pacers to the field. My game plan for the morning was to stick to the 68 pacer for the first 2-3 miles and start progressing from there. I stayed just behind the pacer in the corral and waiting for the gun to fire. And of course I had a slight feeling like I needed to go pee again. Greeeeeat.

Race

The gun fires and we all dart off the line. I make sure to be conservative in the opening quarter as I figured there would be a lot of jostling and just the excitement of a fast field could make people go out too hard. Sure enough some of the guys that were in the 65 pace group started furiously zig zagging through the field to catch up with the pacer. As hail came down on us, we all began to settle into our packs. It was a slightly chaotic opening minute but didn't compare to what we were in store for.
Remember that hairpin around the cones I mentioned before? Well as we quickly approached the hairpin we realized that no one in the lead pack was aligned on what direction to take the hairpin. So what happened? Well we had a pack of 62 minute guys charging directly at us like it was red rover. The lead pack scattered in all directions hoping not to run face first into another competitor. I hit the curve and came almost to a complete stop to navigate around it. We also came head first into the remainder of the field with shouts to hopefully direct the field into the opposite direction of the crowd. Not to be outdone by this madness, a rogue walker decided it was prime time to just look at us and try to walk in our direction. What a fun start!
After the craziness of the start we all begin to settle in. The 68 pace group begins to feel a bit aggressive and I call an audible and hold back with the pack chasing just behind. I take a glance down at my watch as it beeps for the first mile: 5:08. The 68 minute group has already made pretty big separation and I am comfortable playing it safe here if that group has gone out too aggressively. In this pack I find familiar faces as each person seems to be surging to get into some kind of rhythm. I find myself starting to get dropped off the pack fairly early as I come through my second mile in 5:09. I surged a bit to move up into the middle of the pack and be around people I felt I should be with this early. My breathing is comfortable but my legs can't seem to find any kind of rhythm. My pace was erratic. I would get fresh legs one second and start moving up the field and then back to easing off. Much more, I could feel that spot on my foot with every step. It was an annoying little stiffness that just would not quit. But it wasn't getting any worse, it was just there.
I tell my buddy my race plan as we're running through the early miles. Conservative 3 miles and then start shifting gears and chasing. I'm sure there was probably someone in this pack that may have been put off by this (kind of like, who tf is this guy), but I kind of was hoping for others to join me later in the race here knowing that the pack ahead of us were out hard and chances were good to pass in the late stages of the race. My goal was to try and lock into 5:02's after 3 and hopefully close the last loop in 5:00 or under.
As we approached the third mile I found myself being a bit nervous. I didn't expect my legs to have such trouble running this pace and I began to doubt myself a bit. Despite my breathing feeling comfortable my legs were just not cooperating and each step being a reminder of my foot issue, this was not going to plan. And then seeing that my watch was off the timer definitely didn't help. Not taking the tangents were already starting to do some damage on the distance I was running.
As I battled in my own head I just told myself to focus on the pack. I had some friends I knew from Instagram in this pack and they were running well. They looked comfortable and confident maneuvering through the course. Seeing them do well made me excited and motivated to get myself together here. They weren't letting up on the pace and I was not going to either. So I focused on matching the moves in the pack and moving up with whoever decided to start the chase for the stragglers in the top group.
Over the second half of the loop the wind began to make its presence know. I tried to tuck in a bit and not get exposed too much early. The second half while not much different than the rest of the loop just felt tougher for some reason. It just felt like the perfect time to fall asleep in the loop. Then the beep of the mile would wake me up and I'd surge to get back on it. As I crossed into the second loop I looked up at the timer. 22:11. At this point I didn't realize I was this behind from what I was hoping to run. I did the mental math, 45 minutes would get me to 72:11. I wasn't confident enough with my current state to run that. Heck I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to run 9 miles at the current pace I was running then. But I just kept that number in my head.
First loop split: 15:20 (59th)
At this point my hands had begun to sweat. I was wearing mittens over my gloves as my hands have had serious problems with any cold under 50 degrees for the last couple years. I kept them on waiting for a moment to try and toss them to a friend.
After the first loop I had figured a strategy for myself. From the start line to about 1.5 I realized that I would feel pretty good so I used that section to make moves. The next section had a little area that had no tree cover and some wind so I would try and save me energy through that section and then once out surge a bit to get back into a pace I was confident I could hold. I would make it to the second loop and then just focus on the people in front of me. By 6 miles I had completely stopped worrying about my watch and started to race. I tossed my mittens over to my buddy. Then I decided that my gloves were even too warm for me so I tossed those off just before the second loop.
Second loop split: 15:19 (52nd)
As I passed the water bottle tables I reached out to grab my bottle. I made a mistake placing them on a side that was not my dominant hand but I was able to grab it and not knock over other bottles. I took a big swig of my bottle and immediately started choking on the water. Not ideal. I tossed the bottle to the side and just made a mental note of where I dropped it so I could get the bottle later. I wouldn't be drinking any more water after that failed attempt. I took my gu and just moved on.
At mile 8 myself and a couple of other guys had started to pick up the pace dramatically and I finally began to feel some confidence. I moved my focus from the watch and my foot to the guys I was running with and the guys we were passing.
As we quickly approached the final loop I finally felt confident. It was just 3 miles to go and I knew that unless I wrecked my foot in a pothole we'd finish strong here. The last 2 miles were 5:02 and :03 respectively. So I pushed on the gas. Just 15 hard minutes to go.
Third loop split: 15:09 (46th)
Our little group had now started to separate. A Brooklyn Track Club guy had pulled away from our group late in the third loop and it was just myself and one other battling through our final lap around this lake. As we approached the windy section of the course I made my final move for home. In a little over 10 minutes this would be done, it was far too late in the race to lose it now. I kept my foot on the gas. I locked right on 5:00 and I felt like I had finally found that groove. I waited to finally see that 12 mile marker that would let me know I had just under 2k to go but it never came. As my watch buzzed I realized that there would not be a 12 mile sign. As soon as I saw the cones that we had passed in the opening stages I knew I was home free. With 800 to go I just started hammering as hard as I could and I felt like I was flying. I could see guys in my line of sight coming back to me and I just started chasing them knowing full well that they were further out than I thought they were. It didn't matter, I was going to trick my mind into thinking there was blood in the water. While the guys further out in my line of sight were coming back a bit, I could not reel in the Brooklyn guy that had made the move in the last loop. But I wasn't going to stop trying. I saw the clock flashing 67:2_ and I kept digging. I crossed the finish line, 67:29.
Final loop split: 14:50 (37th)

Post-race

To be completely honest, I was pretty hard on myself immediately after this. In my head I thought that I would be able to run 66's and if I had a perfect day I could shock myself and break 66. It took a bit to shake that off and realize that I have been a bit too far over my skis here. Looking at all the conversion tables this time is pretty much on par with the last couple races I've done this year. Looking back this was a good performance for the runner I am. With the massive growth over the last year I think I got a bit overconfident at what I thought I could do before even doing it or even showing the performances that merited it. When I started back up again in 2018, I told myself that I was going to make sure that this was going to be done on my terms and stay as a fun endeavor. I would not go back to obsessing over it like I did in college. This was a wake up call here for me to get back to enjoying the journey and this is supposed to be for fun.
Looking back at last weekend I'm really proud of my performance here. I think I ran well and showed myself that I could stay tough even with my mind being thrown for a loop. I think this is something I can pull for Boston later this month. This was truly a humbling experience and I'm glad that it came from a performance where I competed rather that finishing with egg on my face after completely imploding thinking I was someone I'm just not at the fitness to be in. Sub 68 was the original goal I had set for myself at the beginning of year. It's almost a 2 minute personal best and faster than I ever thought I could run even a couple years ago. I definitely need to figure out this pee problem before it comes back to bite me again in the marathon and figure out a good warmup routine so that I'm not shaken up early in races like I have been the last few times on the roads.
Everyone in our group had performances to be proud of. I even got to scream my lungs out as one of my athletes ran about a 4 minute personal best, breaking 78 during her own Boston build! The group of us guys enjoyed the rest of the weekend with tasty brews, pizza & wings, and watched The Room for the first time. Absolutely memorable weekend.
As a side note, I just want to give a ton of applause to the team at Trials of Miles and Elite Feats. I've done a couple Trials of Miles events before and they've always been a great experience. To have the opportunity to be involved in a race that had 4 Olympic Trials qualifying performances and a such an collection of talent in both the mens and women's races is amazing. Elite Feats on the timing side was impressive too. They had timers at almost every mile mark, shifting the timing screens down to the next loops mile marker. Was really helpful! By the time I got back to my car I also had a text message with my time and even some photos under the event. That's nuts to me.
As for my foot. It feels a ton better. I barely feel any issues today. Hoping another day of rehab will clear that up.
Made with a new race report generator created by herumph.

Introduction
This is a bit of an odd post. Unlike the other two, I don’t actually have an axe to grind here. Alcryst is a unit who has done the same thing every time I’ve played Engage; he shows up, does great stuff in the earlygame, and then hits the bench forever. His stats never seemed impressive enough to warrant usage, and although Luna is good I didn’t want to rely on something inconsistent in a harsh game like this.
Seeing people praise Luna, I thought back to the fun fact that a killer weapon has nearly a 50% chance to crit at least once if you double with it. I wondered two things. First, are Alcryst’s stats really that bad? I’ve always benched him early, so maybe his growths kick in and make him great later. Second, is Luna really inconsistent? I guess it’s only really bad if he needs Luna to get things done, and maybe the damage gets consistent enough that he can still measure up to other units.
Also, I figured it could be fun to make a couple probability tables in addition to the research. I started thinking about the numbers for too long and decided I should write it all down.
Earlygame
Alcryst’s earlygame is genuinely amazing. He joins with a steel bow, which means he OHKOs all flyers through chapter 12. He’s got a great Dex stat which helps him actually connect his hits. He’s got a great base 12 speed and loses only a single point of it from the steel bow. Compared to level 10 Etie (something not exactly easy to reach by this point), he’s ahead in everything except strength, and his personal skill lets him pull ahead there too.
To put it simply, he’s a no-brainer through chapter 11. It’s great to be an archer when there’s a ton of fliers in chapters 7 through 10 and still a few in 11, and given he’s a strict upgrade over Etie, you’re probably going to be using him for archer duties instead. Chapter 12 might be a bit more dubious as deployment tightens, but he can definitely justify himself for a slot there too.
Chapters 13 and 14
Once you pass chapter 12, promoted fliers start showing up. Despite there only being two of them, wyverns are horrendously bulky and tough to manage. The best way to handle them is by pointing a strong bow at them, as that conveniently sidesteps their terrifying 21 speed.
There’s a lot of options for this task. I’ll be going off of IL 16 for chapter 13 (Fogado’s base level). The options are as follows:
-Alcryst: 15 Str, 17 Spd, 7 Bld at 10/8. Luna isn’t relevant yet. -Fogado: Currently in hell because he can’t become a warrior yet. 13 Str, 19 Spd, 9 Bld at 17/1. -Etie: Doesn’t have Fogado’s weaknesses. 23 Str, 14 Spd, 9 Bld at 10/8 Warrior. -Anna IL 12: 15 Str, 14 Spd, 8 Bld at 10/4 Warrior. She can use silver bows, so she’s on the list. -Anna IL 16: 17 Str, 17 Spd, 9 Bld at 10/8.
I have a little difficulty believing that she can actually make it to IL 16 by this point without Micaiah, as my recent run where I didn’t give her Micaiah had her entering the map at about IL 12, so I put stats for both IL 12 and IL 16 for her in case you did baby her to that point.
The wyverns on this map have 47 HP and 20 Def, so you need 67 Atk to OHKO them.
A +1 Silver bow has 15 Mt, which triples to 45.
-Alcryst does 60 damage, 7 off the benchmark. -Fogado does 58 damage, 9 off the benchmark. -Etie does 68 damage, meeting the benchmark. -Anna IL 12 does 60 damage, 7 off the benchmark. -Anna IL 16 does 62 damage, 5 off the benchmark.
Etie meets the benchmark with no issues. Alcryst can easily make up for the deficit with +3 from his personal skill, +3 from Alear, and any +1 bond ring (or a tonic). Anna can scrounge together +3 from Alear and +2 from a tonic, hitting the OHKO threshold at IL 16, but at IL 12 you’d need some source of +2 strength (like an S rank bond ring) to get her there. Fogado is kinda just screwed, but he does have one upside - he’s the only one not getting doubled by the wyvern.
Pretty much everyone other than Fogado or an underleveled Anna can feasibly reach the benchmark. It’s a surprisingly uncompetitive threshold, and Alcryst can be brought just fine without falling behind as long as you’re smart about using him. He’s arguably the best choice, because of the units who can OHKO wyverns, he’s the easiest to get to that level.
At least, he would be the best choice if not for the last competitor. The Parthia has 17 Mt, which triples to 51. Any unit with 16 strength can OHKO wyverns with it. If you give, for example, unpromoted Amber or base Bunet a +1 strength bond ring, they’re hitting the benchmark to OHKO with Parthia. The fact that there are only two wyverns and they’re so close together means you probably won’t even need to engage more than once to take them both out.
When chapter 14 rolls around, the Parthia stops being an easy solution because the wyverns are all spread out. They have the same defensive parameters, so all the calculations from earlier apply, except now Fogado can escape hell if he really wants to.
-Warrior Fogado: 19 Str, 18 Spd, 10 Bld at 17/1. He now does 64 damage, 3 off the benchmark, and reaches it by standing next to Alear.
In the early midgame, Alcryst does anti-flier duties just as well as anyone. He arguably takes less investment than anyone else for chapter 13 if you ignore the Parthia, and he can reach the benchmark just as well as anyone else in chapter 14. Pretty decent.
Chapter 16
The fliers return after a one map hiatus, and promoted enemies are becoming far more common. Everyone’s set themselves apart a bit and Anna’s probably caught up in levels by this point thanks to EXP scaling, so I think it’s time for another look at the numbers. I’ll use Rosado’s base level of 19 for the calculations here.
-Alcryst: 31 Phys Atk, 16 AS with Silver +1 at 10/11. Has a 26% chance to proc Luna. -Warrior Fogado: 35 Phys Atk, 20 AS with Silver +1 at 17/4. -Cupido Fogado: 29 Phys Atk, 21 AS with Silver +1, 29 Mag Atk, 18 AS with Radiant at 17/4. -Etie: 40 Phys Atk, 15 AS with Silver +1 at 10/11. -Anna: 33 Phys Atk, 18 AS with Silver +1, 30 Mag Atk, 16 AS with Radiant at 10/11.
Chapter 16 Griffin: 42 HP, 17 Def, 23 Res. Needs 59 Phys Atk or 65 Mag Atk to OHKO.
Literally everyone can reach this, Parthia included. This is significantly lower than the benchmark for wyverns back in chapter 13 on the physical side, and the Radiant Bow has 57 Mt against fliers, meaning that you’d need 8 Mag to OHKO with it when Anna and Fogado have 11 and 10 respectively.
As such, the comparative viability of these archers hinge on their performance against the other enemies on the map. Alcryst is weaker than all of the competition except for Cupido Fogado physically. He’s slower than everyone except for Etie (and he’s only a single point ahead of her, jeez), which means that if you want to get someone into doubling range with Lyn, it’s cheaper for everyone else except Radiant Bow Anna (who needs the same amount of investment as he does) and Etie (who does significantly more damage). He also can’t pivot to magic weapons for more damage against bulky enemies like Cupido Fogado and Anna can.
Alcryst’s only upside seems to be Luna. However, the proc rate is hilariously low at this point. Even assuming you invest speed into him and get him doubling, the chances are not in his favor. I’ve rounded the numbers to exact percentages so the decimals aren’t overwhelming.

	First hit Luna: 0.26	First hit no Luna: 0.74
Second hit Luna: 0.26	0.07 chance of double Luna	0.19 chance of one Luna
Second hit no Luna: 0.74	0.19 chance of one Luna	0.55 chance of no Luna

Doubling an enemy hero with 20 Def and 14 Res:
-Alcryst does 11 + 11 = 22 damage 55% of the time. -Alcryst does 11 + 21 = 32 damage 38% (19% + 19%) of the time. -Alcryst does 21 + 21 = 42 damage 7% of the time.
Compared to everyone else:
-Warrior Fogado does 15 + 15 = 30 damage. Half the time this will be better than Alcryst, and 93% of the time it’ll be at worst two points less than Alcryst. -Cupido Fogado does 15 + 15 = 30 damage as well (Radiant Bow). -Etie does 20 + 20 = 40 damage, which is better than Alcryst 93% of the time and will never be more than two damage behind him, and this is for only one point more speed investment. -Anna does 16 + 16 = 32 damage (Radiant Bow), which is better than or equal to Alcryst 93% of the time.
Against an enemy great knight with 33 Def and 14 Res, Alcryst actually only gets an extra 15 rather than an extra 17 from Luna, since he only has 31 Phys Atk.
-Alcryst does 0 + 0 = 0 damage 55% of the time. -Alcryst does 0 + 15 = 15 damage 38% of the time. -Alcryst does 15 + 15 = 30 damage 7% of the time.
Compared to everyone else:
-Warrior Fogado does 2 + 2 = 4 damage. Barely superior to Alcryst half the time, but far behind every other time. -Cupido Fogado does 15 + 15 = 30 damage (Radiant Bow), which is better than Alcryst 93% of the time and equal to Alcryst in the other 7%. -Etie does 7 + 7 = 14 damage. Half the time this will be better than Alcryst, and 93% of the time it’ll be at worst one point less than Alcryst. -Anna does 16 + 16 = 32 damage (Radiant Bow), which is always better than Alcryst.
55% of the time, Alcryst is just straight up worse than everyone else. 93% of the time, Alcryst is at best within one or two points of pretty much everyone other than Warrior Fogado against a GK.
This doesn’t seem worth it. I’d prefer to put speed investment into any of Fogado, Etie, or Anna rather than gamble on the 7% of the time that Alcryst is better than them, especially since his speed is actually kinda low. Without speed investment and therefore without doubling, Alcryst is worse than everyone else 74% of the time and marginally better 26% of the time (five or six points ahead of everyone against the heroes and only ahead of the physical units against the GKs), and I’d prefer my units to be worthwhile more than one time out of four.
Seriously, Etie is looking good next to him right now. That’s not exactly a great sign.
Chapter 21
Every enemy has been promoted for a long time now, and units have differentiated themselves even further. So how are our contestants doing now? As is tradition, I’ll go off of the IL of the unit who joins on this map, so that means IL 31. I’ll bump both bows up to +3 as well.
-Alcryst: 38 Phys Atk (72 against fliers), 24 AS with Silver +3 at 10/20/4. Has a 34% chance to proc Luna. -Warrior Fogado: 45 Phys Atk (79 against fliers), 31 AS with Silver +3 at 17/19. -Cupido Fogado: 36 Phys Atk (70 against fliers), 33 AS with Silver +3, 34 Mag Atk (78 against fliers), 32 AS with Radiant +3 at 17/19. -Etie: 49 Phys Atk (83 against fliers), 22 AS with Silver +3 at 10/20/4. -Anna: 39 Phys Atk (73 against fliers), 26 AS with Silver +3, 39 Mag Atk (83 against fliers), 24 AS with Radiant +3 at 17/19.
Chapter 21 Wyvern: 62 HP, 30 Def, 21 Res. Needs 92(!) Phys Atk or 83 Mag Atk to OHKO.
Worth noting is that these wyverns have either 27 or 30 speed, meaning that Cupido Fogado can double and annihilate them with a mere +2 speed, and Warrior Fogado can do the same with +4. Fogado is fast. Cupido Fogado can also just take a magic tonic and stand next to Alear to hit the OHKO benchmark, so he’s got options.
As for everyone else:
-Alcryst is a full 20 damage away from OHKOing. Luna gives him 15 more damage, so he’d still be a couple points off even with a proc. With Luna + Alear + a tonic, he does still make it. -Etie is 9 damage off of an OHKO. If you’ve got a million ores lying around, you could get her there with Alear’s personal and forging the silver bow to +5. Giving her the Roy ring or the Ike engravecould also get her there, but if you do either, she’s basically guaranteed to never double anything but the slowest enemies even with speedtaker. -Anna cleanly OHKOs with the +3 Radiant Bow because she’s just cool I guess.
Fogado can fix his speed or, if he’s in his personal class, his magic. Etie can fix her strength. Anna doesn’t need any fixing. Alcryst would require +5 strength to OHKO even with Luna (and relying on a 34% chance to kill an enemy can be a little sketchy to say the least). He’s very clearly in the worst position by far.
Okay, what about regular enemies? The thing is, getting Alcryst to double at this point is actually pretty difficult. His 24 AS is about on par with slower enemies, and to double stuff like the 28 AS paladins, 29 AS bow knights, and god forbid the 34 AS heroes, he’s pretty much guaranteed to need speedtaker. Anna might be able to eke it out with a speed boosting emblem and a tonic while Fogado is kinda thriving, which gives them more build flexibility and lets them focus on boosting their damage more easily, and Etie is going to be stronger than Alcryst in single hits in all situations even if she’s having an even harder time doubling than he is.
With that in mind, take a look at Alcryst’s probability table now:

	First hit Luna: 0.34	First hit no Luna: 0.66
Second hit Luna: 0.34	0.12 chance of double Luna	0.22 chance of one Luna
Second hit no Luna: 0.66	0.22 chance of one Luna	0.44 chance of no Luna

Look, I’m not going to say this isn’t better. It is! The thing is, the speed investment required to get Alcryst to doubling thresholds is massive. It requires you to feed him kills early in the map, which is itself rather annoying, just to get odds that honestly aren’t worth it. Look at a random paladin with 30 Def and 27 Res. 44% of the time, Alcryst will be doubling it for 8 + 8 = 16 damage. Surely there’s another unit who can easily be taking Lyn and doing far more than that without having to rely on a 56% chance to do something meaningful (say, a unit who can use effective weaponry). Hell, if you get Anna doubling that paladin, she’s hitting it for 12 + 12 = 24 damage with the radiant bow, and 44% of the time that’s straight up going to be better than what Alcryst is doing in addition to requiring slightly less speed to get to that point. In a game where I’ve missed so many 70s and 80s, I’d rather not have a unit who needs to hit a 56 in addition to his actual hitrate in order to do good damage.
Looking at enemies that he naturally doubles (which is pretty much just generals and sages) doesn’t really help either. Sages are so frail that anyone who can hit 38 Phys Atk ORKOs them, and that’s basically everyone. When Alcryst attacks a 44 Def general, 44% of the time he’s doing literally nothing and 44% of the time he’s hitting them for 16 once, while someone like Cupido Fogado is smashing them with the radiant bow in their 15 Res for 23 + 23 = 46 damage.
When you look at Alcryst without immense speed boosts, it’s not great. Fogado is trashing him because Fogado has enough speed to actually double. He’s worse than Etie two out of three times. He’s worse than Anna two out of three times. And on top of all that, he has the worst time actually OHKOing fliers, which is what an archer is supposed to be doing to begin with. What is he really bringing to the table here?
But what about the Killer Bow?
Ah yes, the fabled Luna Crit. Tripling the extra ten to fifteen damage from Luna sounds great! The issue is that the killer bow is so weak. A +5 killer bow has 12 Mt, a full five less than the 17 Mt +3 silver Alcryst is using in the above section. Without a 34% Luna activation, Alcryst is doing 3 damage to that paladin mentioned earlier (2 if you put the Corrin engrave on it), making him even more reliant on luck to get anything done at all.
But despite everything above, let’s assume Alcryst is doubling. What are the odds of a Luna crit? With the Corrin engrave on a +5 killer bow, Alcryst has 70 base crit, increasing to 87 from half his Dex and being cut to about 77 from enemy Luck. 0.34 * 0.77 = about a 0.26 chance to hit that paladin for (2 + 15) * 3 = 51 damage. This isn’t a kill, but you can give Alcryst some strength boosts and he’ll get there just fine.
So that’s a roughly one-in-four chance to instantly kill an enemy given the best case scenario for everything, and a roughly three-in-four chance to do jack squat. Wrath probably can help with consistency, but even in the best case scenario you’re still relying on Luna to proc, and that’s a chance that caps out at 44%, so it’s never actually going to be reliable. When Maddening has such an unforgiving lategame, I would rather bring a unit with an 100% chance to do okay to rather than investing a ton to get one with a 40% chance to do great and a 60% chance to waste his turn. In the case of crit builds, giving a unit with high strength a maxed crit Corrin killer weapon is probably a better use of the engrave because they’ll be consistently doing high damage rather than inconsistently doing massive damage.
But hey, if you like gambling, go for it I guess.
Errata, or “I forgot about Get Behind Me god dammit”
I don’t think GBM really changes too much, because all it’s doing is inconsistently putting Alcryst on equal footing with other units rather than giving him any sort of noticeable lead, since Warrior Fogado and Etie have noteworthy strength leads while Cupido Fogado and Anna can hit a lower defensive stat. It’s not really saving him from falling behind in regards to the lategame, either.
Conclusion
This is a weird unit to analyze. Alcryst’s earlygame is so incredible that he’s an easy pick pretty much straight through chapter 11, even more than someone like Louis or Yunaka because of the utility he provides. However, his competition ramps up around chapter 13 (including an Emblem weapon), and his statistical advantages are slim to none, making him really reliant on a proc skill to outdamage people. In a game where enemies are strong and being able to reliably make progress is incredibly important, it makes him a lot less useful than the alternatives. Once you hit the lategame, he’s even falling behind in the main thing you’d deploy an archer for in the first place, killing fliers, because his stats are incredibly unimpressive. Hell, I’d argue that Etie has an easier time getting things done in the lategame than he does because she actually has a niche, limited as it is, and that’s saying something given her garbage speed.
(did I just defend Etie of all units what the hell is going on)
Alcryst is a gambler’s dream, but in a bad way. The payoff for Luna is usually around six to eight extra points of damage compared to his competition, and they outdamage him by a solid margin for the roughly fifty to seventy percent of the time that Luna isn’t activating. Luna crits can be good, but their incredible inconsistency makes them an iffy choice.
Bring him in the early game, because he’s amazing there. In the lategame, he falls off in terms of actual consistency and his stats lag behind, which will likely make him annoying to keep using. Don’t let that stop you from using him, because Luna can be really funny and it gives Alcryst good unit-feel, but he’s far from the best choice later on.
Then again, every time I’ve posted one of these mega posts, I’ve received a lot of information in the comments that takes positions I haven’t considered. I’m expecting to be proven wrong because, as usual, I failed to note something blatantly obvious.
tl;dr luna proc rates are inherently inconsistent and that’s bad when a unit is only really worthwhile when luna procs and is having trouble doubling

All of them have been started in the last few months. I have 5k/m SIP in last three funds and the ELSS ones are pending another 25+25 order to be fulfilled.
Thanks.

This will be a very long post with a lot of information. To make it easier to navigate, I have divided it into sections so you can easily skip to the parts you’re interested in. But to start, here’s a link to the Kickstarter I’ll be discussing: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/phoenixgrey/lewd-dungeon-adventures-a-role-playing-game-for-couples

Expectations versus Reality

Since this was my first Kickstarter ever, my expectations weren’t particularly high. I had originally set my funding goal at $500 and would have considered the Kickstarter a success if it made $10,000. I would have considered it a big success if it made $30,000.
When the Kickstarter hit $100,000, I literally cried. Never in a million years did I dream it would make it all the way to $250,000.
Because my goal was set so low, I did what everyone told me not to do. I had a lot of physical items with the Kickstarter. When the Kickstarter blew up, this later became somewhat of a regret because it complicated everything so much and added a bunch of additional expenses I hadn’t prepared for. Which brings me to my next section, and the very first thing you should do before you launch your Kickstarter.

Planning and Pricing Accordingly

There is a lot of conflicting information about whether you should price your products at a discount, at retail pricing, or above retail pricing (to accommodate for all the extra expenses that come with running a Kickstarter(and depending on what you’re offering, there can be a lot)). I had originally planned on discounting all of my tiers, but an author friend advised me not to, and boy, am I glad I didn’t.
Expenses you need to take into consideration besides manufacturing: Kickstarter fees, Backerkit fees (if you decide to use them), Marketing agency fees (if you decide to use them), shipping fees for physical products (I’m talking about actual postage, not just packaging), customs/VAT (if you plan to pay it), warehouse fees (if you plan to use one).
The first three on the list are fees that companies don’t have to pay once the product goes to retail, which is typically why you see the price of a Kickstarted project being more than what it will be when it hits retail.
I consider myself pretty business-savvy and thought I had everything figured out before I launched. I did not. Lol I never anticipated that I would need a warehouse. Nor did I account for the shipping costs of having physical products shipped to me (paperbacks to sign, candles to label) or shipping them to the warehouse, which was a lot. By the end of everything, I incurred an extra $12,700 in unanticipated expenses. My boyfriend calls it ‘the learning tax,’ but it was damned expensive. This is all to say that you should go over your numbers, then go over them again, then probably do it a third time before you launch.
If you plan to use a marketing company…or even do marketing yourself, it’s important to know what your ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) will be so that you don’t sink all your profits into ads. Here’s a great article on calculating that number: https://help.backerkit.com/article/608-guide-to-setting-your-target-roas The basic equation is Average pledge divided by Margin per pledge = Break even ROAS.
Another big mistake I made was that I only had Stretch Goals planned up to $150k, which I had already thought was a pipe dream. I had them all the way up to $150k despite thinking I’d only make $30k max because I had seen other TTRPGs make around $100k, and I thought it was better to plan for more than for less. Everything you see on my Kickstarter page past $150k is Stretch Goals that were created as I went.
For most of my planning, I looked at Kickstarters similar to mine and tried to copy what they were doing. As the saying goes, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. But I also knew that a lot goes into a Kickstarter beforehand. To learn about that, I bought the book Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter by Russell P. Nohelty and Monica Leonelle because it was recommended to me by an author friend. I did most of the stuff in the book but not everything, even though I wasn’t Kickstarting a book. I feel like the marketing stuff for Kickstarters is pretty much the same no matter what you’re trying to Kickstart.
This next tip is going to be specific to TTRPGs and really doesn’t belong anywhere else in this post, so I’m leaving it here. If you are creating your own TTRPG system and can offer up a Kickstarter-exclusive conversion to another popular system, like Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, do it. I leveraged this to the tune of about $100k in sales that I probably wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t done it. Doing this is kind of like creating an insurance policy for your Kickstarter.
Things I did this time: Priced at retail.
Things I’m doing differently next time: Pricing above retail. Why? Because I have an incredibly low-cost product, and even by increasing my prices, with all of the Stretch Goal and Early Bird reward stuff I’m offering, people who pledge are still getting way below the retail price for all of it combined. Plus, it helps to offset Kickstarter, Backerkit, Marketing, and any unplanned fees.
One of the biggest reasons why Kickstarter creators run out of funds and can’t deliver their products is because they don’t financially plan correctly. This is a lot easier to do than you would think.

Building Social Media and a Mailing List

Whether you’re a fan of social media or not, it’s here to stay, and you will need it to run a successful Kickstarter. Lewd Dungeon Adventures had zero social media presence when I started all this. Ideally, you’ll want to start working on building social media for your product before you even go into Pre-Launch. I started maybe a week before Pre-Launch.
I created a Facebook Page and ran ads to build it quickly. To get followers to Twitter and Instagram, I created a giveaway that I posted primarily on Facebook that used people following the other two social media platforms as an entry into the contest. The prize was my highest tier on Kickstarter. I used the paid version of Gleam.io for this, and it did work decently. Much better than my original approach.
According to online research, the cheapest and fastest way to get Instagram followers is to follow people similar to your Instagram page. The theory is that a certain percentage will follow you back. Don’t do this. It’s a complete waste of time.
The Gleam contest also had a link to my mailing list to encourage sign-ups. But I mostly built that list through Facebook ads because it was much quicker and more effective. To build my mailing list, I gave away a playtest bare-bones no-color PDF copy of the Core Rulebook & Starter Adventure for my game in exchange for people signing up. In the book industry, this is a pretty tried and true method, and it didn’t fail me this time either. I believe that I had around 1,000 people subscribed to my mailing list by the time I launched.

Preparing for Pre-Launch

For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to go into all the nuances of using Kickstarter itself. But at the very basics, before you can pre-launch, you will need an image to represent your Kickstarter, ad copy (Your Story or sales pitch), and some tiers. You should also have a video trailer and an idea of whether or not you’re going to do Early Bird Rewards and have Add-Ons.
I did have the two covers for the two campaign books I was offering in my Kickstarter designed before I pre-launched, but those were literally the only art pieces I had. The entire reason I was Kickstarting the game was because hiring artists is expensive.
I decided to use the cover of The Core Rulebook & Starter Adventure as the main image for the Kickstarter. When you go on Kickstarter, you will see tons of main images with text, but Kickstarter advises against this because it doesn’t look good as a thumbnail. Using just an image was something that I was admittedly a bit nervous about, but I also knew that this was pretty standard practice with Facebook ads. Not long ago, they penalized ads that had text in them. I figured there were probably statistics backing up the success of non-text images, so I went with it.
Good cinematic video trailers are typically very expensive to have made. That’s part of why you see so many people just posting videos where they talk about their product. The other appeal is that it helps to connect the creator with the product, which builds consumer trust through feelings of familiarity, as if they are somehow connected with the creator on a deeper level. This is pretty solid marketing, so if you want to take this approach, by all means, do it. It works.
I actually hate being on camera, and I also didn’t want to spend the money to hire someone to make the video trailer for my game, so I learned how to make it myself. This was incredibly time-consuming. I spent close to a week making the trailer, and it still cost around $100 for the program I used and the assets. But I actually enjoy doing this kind of work, so it was worth the savings to me.
For my story (ad copy), I copied the format of several popular Kickstarters in my genre, leaving out what wasn’t relevant to my particular campaign. The first section always talks about what the product is and how it came to be. Telling that story helps to get people emotionally attached to your product. This section of your Kickstarter page should be honest and uniquely you and your product.
Though Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter had a section about Early Bird Rewards, at the time I was planning my Pre-Launch for Lewd Dungeon Adventures, I had only seen one Kickstarter that was offering Early Bird Rewards, and it was not difficult to figure out why. It is damn hard to come up with a lot of freebies to give away, especially as many as Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter suggests.
The whole point of doing this is mainly to get people to pledge early so that you get better placement on Kickstarter’s front page. Giving away free stuff also adds more value to your Kickstarter, which, theoretically, should make more people want to pledge. I do think this works, and I do plan to do it for every Kickstarter.
I wracked my brain trying to come up with Early Bird rewards, and even came up with a few that I was pretty sure most TTRPG players would not care about, like a collection of romance books. Admittedly, I am not planning to have as many Early Bird rewards this next time around, mostly because I really want to keep them relevant to my game.
For tiers, I looked at the top three TTRPGs on Kickstarter to see what they were offering, and then I modeled my own tiers around theirs. I strategically placed the 5e conversion of my game on a higher tier. My main goal was to sell my own system, so if people wanted the 5e version, they would have to buy the original version as well. This worked really well, and it is how I will be running future Kickstarters.
As mentioned in the previous section, I had Stretch Goals planned all the way to $150k. Honestly, I did a HORRIBLE job planning Stretch Goals. Without having fully created the product before launching, I assumed it would have X amount of art, so that’s what I promised with my Stretch Goals. When I actually created the finished product from playtester feedback, that number changed, so I did not deliver on all of my Stretch Goals and ended up making up for it by creating a compendium and sending that to all backers instead. This is all to say that if you’re going to offer something as a Stretch Goal, it’s best to know that you’ll be able to deliver what you say you will. Luckily, none of my backers were upset, but depending on your audience, that might not always be the case. Plan better than I did.
One thing I don’t regret doing was not revealing all of my Stretch Goals at once. The next Stretch Goal was only revealed after the previous one had been reached. This allowed me to modify things on the fly as necessary. It also hid from backers where the bar of funding was truly set. Had I only planned Stretch Goals to $30k and revealed that many right away, I might have seen backer decline after the final Stretch Goal was reached, as there would be nothing else to get excited about.
And finally, I wanted to discuss artwork for your Kickstarter. As mentioned above, I only had two pieces of artwork pre-designed for the Kickstarter. Everything else was screenshots from the interior pages of the game, things I’d made in Photoshop, or stock photos. If I’m being completely honest, aesthetically, my Kickstarter was ugly. You don’t need a pretty Kickstarter to make a lot of money; you just need a good product.

What I Did During Pre-launch

My Pre-Launch was a month long, and I mainly spent it building my mailing list and social media accounts. My Gleam contest also had an entry option for people to click Notify Me on Launch on my Pre-Launch page. Honestly, that’s probably where the vast majority of my Pre-Launch people came from. Aside from doing that, I went through Facebook and made a list of Kickstarter and TTRPG groups that allowed posting of Kickstarter Pre-Launch pages. I found 30 groups in total and posted ad copy with my link to 1 group a day. By the time I launched, I had about 180 Pre-Launch sign-ups, which isn’t great but not the worst either.
I read on a Kickstarter marketing website that having around 10,000 Pre-Launch sign-ups before you launch is best. Even for my upcoming Kickstarter, I currently only have about 800 sign-ups. If I’m lucky, I’ll have 1,000 by the time I launch.
The theory is that a certain percentage of your sign-ups will convert to backers on day 1 of launch, and you want a lot of backers right out of the gate so that your campaign will appear higher in the Kickstarter rankings. From my own experience, I don’t think you need a ton of Pre-Launch sign-ups to have a successful Kickstarter. Do they help? I’m sure they do, but I would not postpone my launch if I didn’t reach some magical target number.
Also, during this time, I worked on all of the emails and social media posts I would send out for hitting Stretch Goals and warning people that Early Bird rewards were about to expire. There was a lot. It took almost an entire day to write the majority of them. Some of them, I wrote on the fly. Still, having all of these written up in advance is a good idea so that it isn’t an added stressor after you launch.
The last big thing I did during pre-launch, which I firmly believe got me to $250k, was looking for a marketing partner, which I will discuss in the next section.
Things I did this time: Ran a Gleam contest to get Pre-Launch sign-ups.
Things I’m doing differently next time: Running Facebook ads directly to my Kickstarter pre-launch page.

Finding and Working With a Marketing Partner

If you look at the very bottom of the page of a Kickstarter that is making bank, you will often see a banner that says Promoted by ‘Insert Advertising Company Name Here.’ These companies have typically compiled massive mailing lists of backers for various projects and have marketing teams specializing in Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads.
As I’m writing this, the two biggest players in the game are Jellop and Backerkit, with Backerkit being the best. Yes, I said it. Backerkit is the best. Why? Because you don’t have to pay any advertising fees upfront. They won’t ask for that money until after your Kickstarter has ended and you have the funds. They also charge less than Jellop, 15% of the money they bring in as compared to a fluctuating 15%+ charged by Jellop.
Neither of these companies are big risk-takers. They typically do not take on a Kickstarter project unless they believe it has the potential to earn 6-figures. Backerkit is even pickier than Jellop.
Backerkit rejected my campaign when I submitted it. I honestly didn’t expect Jellop to accept, either. While I was a mid-tier author in 2 genres, I had never created a Kickstarter before. But Jellop said yes, and that was the first time I realized that reality would likely exceed my expectations of what my Kickstarter could fund for.
As I mentioned above, the problem with working with Jellop is that I had to come up with the funds to market my Kickstarter during launch…and they don’t play with small money. On day 1, you are expected to spend $400. That is the baseline, so you need to be able to maintain that spend for a few days until they can figure out if it’s worth putting more money into it or pulling back.
The great thing about both of these companies is that they meticulously watch your ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and will adjust accordingly. They will also tell you how to optimize your Kickstarter pre-launch. I am currently working with Backerkit on the next Kickstarter. Yes, I switched teams for this one because I wanted the unlimited marketing budget. With that said, I will tell you what they made me change about my pre-launches so far.
Jellop: Made me change my launch date. I had scheduled for a Tuesday thanks to the advice in Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter saying that was the best day to launch. The problem is, that’s when all the biggies launch, so the competition is fierce. They said launching on a day when fewer people were launching was better, so they had me change my launch date from a Tuesday to a Friday. They also made me change my funding goal from $500 to $5,000. Let’s be honest, there was no way I could buy all the art I needed for $500…or pay for any of the other expenses to actually produce the product. I had planned to pay for that out of pocket if I didn’t reach my funding goal. But their reasoning was that setting my funding goal to $500 made the project look cheap. People don’t see a quality product when you set your funding goal that low.
Backerkit: On my current campaign, Backerkit asked me to raise my prices. Why? Because they want to maximize the amount of money we’ll both make. People who launch TTRPG Kickstarters typically charge way more than what I did for my last Kickstater. And to be completely honest, I gave waaay too much away for free last time. By raising my prices, both Backerkit and I will make more money, and backers will still be getting a better value than if they just bought the retail version of the product. Everyone still wins. They also asked me to change my launch date…from a Friday to a Tuesday. LOL Honestly, this Kickstarter hasn’t launched yet, so I have no idea what that will do, but I’m nervous about it. Backerkit specializes in TTRPGs, though, and they have a much bigger mailing list for them than Jellop, so I’m just going to go with it and see what happens.
Both companies require you to sign contracts and upload digital assets (images for them to use for their ads). Backerkit seemed to want these to be ready-made for them. Jellop took my game covers and made a few of their own. To be honest, the stuff I uploaded to Jellop wasn’t that great, but they did the best they could with what they had to work with. Both companies will give you your very own marketing rep.
My relationship with Backerkit Marketing has just started, but they’ve been great to work with so far. I don’t want to focus on them much because this post is supposed to be about my last Kickstarter, so for the rest of this section, I will focus exclusively on my partnership with Jellop.
Jellop gave me a marketing team and put me in a private chat with them. I was given a live dashboard to watch my stats as the Kickstarter was live. The team was very nice and professional during pre-launch. As soon as I launched, it literally became all about how much money I was willing to spend. Our relationship turned very impersonal, and I quickly realized it was all about the money and numbers. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was a bit stressful as they pressured me to keep spending more because they saw the Kickstarter’s potential. Honestly, if I wasn’t limited to the 3 credit cards I was spending on, I could have made more than $250k, but I legit maxed out all 3 credit cards for a total ad spend of $35,000.
In the Jellop dashboard, there is a place to input your credit cards—a primary and a backup. I had thought that this was just for initial set-up and that I would talk to my marketing representative if I needed to update these later on in the process. I had a large expense coming to the main credit card I was using. When I told my marketing rep to update my credit card in their system, she said she would and never did. This got me into financial trouble as I ended up maxing out the credit card, which put a halt on my ads. They did not ever apologize for this, even though I got pretty pissed off about it. It was not until later that I learned it was up to me to update my credit cards in their system for whatever I wanted them to spend on. This was never told to me, by the way, I had to figure it out on my own. Ultimately, it was a big miscommunication, but it was handled very coldly and left a bad taste in my mouth.
The only other thing I disliked about working with them was the constant pressure to up my ad spend despite the strain on my personal finances. They tried to convince me to apply for more financing or take out a loan. And let me tell you, before I got paid from Kickstarter, I was very poor from how much money I had poured into advertising.
I am also somewhat convinced that they take credit for sales they did not generate, as the amount credited to them in their dashboard overlapped with what was generated by Kickstarter, but with the vast amount of money the Kickstarter generated because of their efforts, if they were skimming, it wasn’t enough that I particularly cared.
And I do know that they’re responsible for the vast majority of the success I saw. I know this because I cut ads with them for a few days to try running my own Facebook ads. I will preface this by saying that I have 8 years of experience successfully running Facebook ads for books, so I wasn’t going into it a novice. But no matter what I tried, even up to using the same ad copy and images they had used, I could not replicate their results, so I handed the reigns back to them and don’t regret it.
Though there were a few hiccups and misunderstandings, I absolutely would work with them again if Backerkit Marketing had not accepted my campaign this time around.
Things I did this time: Used Jellop as my marketing partner.
Things I’m doing differently next time: Using Backerkit as my marketing partner.

What I Did During Launch

Launch time was mainly spent blasting social media, mailing out to my mailing list, and responding to comments on the Kickstarter and Facebook ads. Jellop gave me links to all the Facebook ads they ran so that I could respond to comments. Being on top of customer support is crucial during your launch because responding quickly to all inquiries builds backer trust.
I also went through the list of Facebook groups I’d made during pre-launch and posted to one a day throughout the launch to let them know my Kickstarter had launched.
My one regret is that I didn’t post more Updates. Honestly, I still wasn’t sure how the Update system worked then, and I looked at it as just a way to spam people who had just backed the Kickstarter. I personally HATE being spammed, so I did not post Updates about Stretch Goals reached or anything beyond what I deemed absolutely necessary. I have come to realize that during launch, Updates should be used as a hype tool, so I will be posting more Updates this time around.

After Launch - Manufacturing

When the Kickstarter reached about $100k, I realized I had made several mistakes in my offerings. One was that I offered a set of 4 candles…which I would have to label myself. Another was offering signed paperbacks.
My original plan was to have everything shipped to my house, put the packages all together, then load them up in my car and take them to the post office. This was when I was expecting to make $30k max. Surely, I wouldn’t have more than 50 packages to physically ship myself…… yeahhhh. By the time the Kickstarter was over, I had 1,600+ orders that included physical items beyond just the unsigned books. There was no way I, as one person, could do it all myself.
But before we get into the logistics of warehousing and shipping, let’s get into manufacturing, because this project had a lot of different physical products from a lot of different places. I’m only going to list the items I had issues with.
Art – The main reason I Kickstarted Lewd Dungeon Adventures in the first place was that I could not afford all the art I wanted to go into it. During the Kickstarter, I offered 2 additional bonus campaigns as Stretch Goals. This was 2 extra installments of the game that both needed art. It was not long before I realized that my one artist would not be able to illustrate the entire thing and get it done before the projected deadline. I ended up hiring 8 more artists to work on the project. I hired them from a variety of places, from 99 Designs to DeviantArt, to Fiverr, to artists recommended by author friends, and even artists I’d worked with in the past. Two of them, I am not using again because of lack of communication and turning in art late. One of them submitted plagiarized work that ended up getting caught by a fan after the final product was delivered…which was mortifying and a complete nightmare. But for the most part, my artists delivered their work before the deadline, which helped get the product delivered to customers early.
Dice Tray – The dice tray for my game was manufactured by someone on Etsy. The prototype actually had an error when she sent it to me, but her customer service was so good that I decided to still move forward with using her for the Kickstarter, and I don’t regret it. This angel seriously stored those dice trays for me for about 6 months and still was gracious enough to offer me a discount and free shipping.
Candles – I decided to offer a set of 4 votive candles with the game’s logo on them. These were actually relevant to one of the campaigns in the Kickstarter. I ordered the candles from Michaels and tried a few different companies for the logo stickers. I ended up sticking the logos on the candles by hand…and there were about 1,000 of them to do, which took me two days of labor plus having my mom over to help. I would never do it again and do not recommend it.
Signed Books – I also had about 1,000 books to hand-sign. I will NEVER offer signed books again unless I put a limit on the quantity.

After Launch – Shipping and Warehousing

Once I realized I would have more physical products to ship than I could handle myself, I started looking for shipping solutions. Enter EasyShip.
EasyShip is one of the biggest name shipping companies for Kickstarters. They reached out to me directly, and after doing some research, I accepted a contract with them. I was then assigned my own shipping representative. They hooked me up with the warehouse I would be working with, UFreight, and we started coordinating everything.
I do not know if my shipping representative was new or just…not great at his job, and I’m not going to be a dick and name him outright, but he dropped the ball more times than I find acceptable, which made for a pretty frustrating experience, if I’m being honest.
For instance, when I was uploading order information to their platform, all of my orders errored out due to the form missing a field. His solution was for me to enter the missing information on 1,600+ individual orders manually. And I was like… there’s got to be an easier way than this, talk to your tech department. And there was.
Other not so great experiences included being told that the couriers would just bill my account the difference if the weights of packages weren’t right…and having most of my orders returned because of it, which led to a pretty good chunk of fees from the warehouse from needing to have the orders re-shipped. And not knowing that a certain courier would only accept a minimum amount of packages, which I didn’t meet their requirements, so these packages just sat at the warehouse, and I knew nothing about it until a customer reached out to inquire about where their order was.
Would I use EasyShip again? I’m not going to say no, but I 100% won’t say yes until I’ve explored other options first. I am actually taking a break this next Kickstarter from needing to use a shipping company, but when I do have physical products to ship, I will be using a different company. My experience with EasyShip was just too needlessly frustrating to want to continue a business partnership with them.
UFreight, however, was great to work with. My rep there was always on the ball and kept me informed every step of the way. I would highly recommend them as a warehouse partner.

Other Important Things

If you are going to have add-ons for your Kickstarter, I highly recommend using Backerkit for your backer surveys. Setting it up is a bit of a pain, but it makes it really easy to organize and deliver things to who they need to go to. Plus, they will do a lot of customer support for you, leaving you to focus on other things.
With that said, not everyone will fill out their backer survey. It’s frustrating and even a bit perplexing. I have people that pledged to my highest tier but still haven’t filled out their survey, and I delivered the Kickstarter to everyone else in February. It happens, and you can either make a choice to refund people or just wait until, hopefully, one day, they’ll claim their pledge.
Some backers will also try to update their mailing address after their pledge has shipped. As a creator, know that as soon as a package leaves your residence/warehouse and is with a courier, it is no longer your responsibility to ensure it gets where it’s supposed to go. In most cases, the best thing you can do is either give the backer the courier’s information so that they can try to intercept the package or suggest mail forwarding, if they have just moved. Thankfully, most backers are understanding of all of this.

In Conclusion

I know this was a lot. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments, and I will answer them as best I can.
And for anyone curious about following my next Kickstarter, you can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/phoenixgrey/price-of-the-dragon-a-role-playing-game-for-couples Honestly, I’m not really sure how well it will do, but we’re expecting 6-figures.
I hope this helps someone out there that’s trying to get started. Running your first Kickstarter is intimidating and a bit scary, and you probably will make a few mistakes your first time around – Lord knows, I did – but it’s definitely worth it if you’re willing to put the time and effort in.

The adoption of electric vehicles has been increasing around the globe, and almost all automakers are busy electrifying their lineup. But driving an EV may not be as hassle-free as some had thought, as YouTube star Marques Brownlee explains in a recent video on his Auto Focus channel.
Brownlee, who has over 16 million subscribers on his namesake main channel, is known for making technology-focused videos and driving a Tesla.
As the story goes, Brownlee went to a local mall to get food. A woman saw him arriving in a Tesla, flagged him down, and asked for help. As it turns out, she parked her son’s Tesla Model 3 at a ChargePoint charging station at the mall but could not get it to charge.
Brownlee explained to her that to charge a Tesla at a ChargePoint charging station, she would need an adapter. Since the woman didn’t seem to know what that was, Brownlee helped her open the trunk, find the adapter, and connect the EV to the charger. She also didn’t have a ChargePoint account, so Brownlee explained to her how to pay to start the session without requiring an account.
Once everything was set up, Brownlee headed inside the mall.
After grabbing his takeout, Brownlee headed back to his car but was flagged down by the woman again. He went to check and found that the charging still hadn’t started.
“At this point, I’m like, this could be one of those things where you don’t know what’s wrong,” he said.
He then noticed that the car next to hers was charging properly but the person had crossed the wire from one side to the next, perhaps realizing that one of the charging stations was broken.
The video, titled “This is ruining electric cars,” has been watched nearly 2 million times.

The importance of charging infrastructure

Brownlee pointed out that the charging infrastructure is “just as important to the electric car experience as the car itself.”
“Imagine explaining to your parents, your grandparents, or anyone who’s not super adept with technology especially, that instead of going to a gas station, they need to make sure they find a working charger with the right adapter and all this — it might take longer, it might be a slower charger, it might be broken.”
And it could be a major hurdle to electric car adoption.
“There’s been versions of this before, where people are actually, genuinely mad, like ‘I don’t think the electric car thing is for me,’” Brownlee remarked, adding that there are countless examples that keep bringing this to light.
While it’s true that the EV charging experience may not be as smooth as some had hoped, the infrastructure is rapidly evolving.
Here’s a look at three companies that are installing charging stations across the country. With an increasing number of EVs on the road, this trio stands to make money. Wall Street also sees upside in them.

ChargePoint Holdings

Even though Brownlee didn’t have a pleasant experience with that particular ChargePoint charging station, the company is solidly positioned for the EV boom.
ChargePoint Holdings (CHPT) has one of the largest EV charging networks in the world. It has around 5,000 commercial and fleet customers, including 80% of Fortune 50 companies. Since its inception, ChargePoint has delivered more than 158 million charging sessions.
EV stocks weren’t market darlings in 2022 and this EV infrastructure play was caught in the sell-off as well. Despite the bounce in 2023, ChargePoint shares are down 47% over the last 12 months.
That could give bargain hunters something to think about.
JPMorgan analyst Bill Peterson has an ‘overweight’ rating on ChargePoint and a price target of $15 — roughly 53% above where the stock sits today.
Read more: UBS says 61% of millionaire collectors allocate up to 30% of their overall portfolio to this exclusive asset class

Blink Charging

With a market cap of around $450 million, Blink Charging (BLNK) is a relatively underfollowed name in the world of EV stocks.
Shares have been on a rollercoaster ride.
At the beginning of 2020, Blink Charging was trading at less than $2 per share. It shot up to over $60 per share in January 2021 before losing momentum. Today, it’s at $7.50.
Blink has deployed more than 58,000 EV charging ports across 25 countries. It uses proprietary-based software that operates, maintains, and tracks the EV stations connected to its network.
In Q4 of 2022, revenue rose 184% from a year ago to $22.6 million.
The increasing adoption of EVs should continue to fuel growth in Blink’s business.
Roth MKM analyst Craig Irwin has a ‘buy’ rating on Blink and a price target of $25 — implying a potential upside of 233%.

Tesla (TSLA)

Tesla (TSLA) has long been the go-to choice for people looking for EV stocks — its market cap is now several times bigger than Ford and General Motors combined. But other than being an EV manufacturer, it’s also a play on charging infrastructure.
Tesla has deployed over 40,000 Superchargers around the globe. Notably, these Superchargers can add up to 200 miles of range in just 15 minutes.
“Since charging above 80 percent is rarely necessary, stops are typically short and convenient,” the company says.
As an EV maker, Tesla’s business is going in the right direction. In 2022, the company delivered 1,313,851 EVs, representing a 40% increase year over year.
Barclays analyst Dan Levy has an ‘overweight’ rating on Tesla and a price target of $275. Since shares trade at around $195 today, the price target implies a potential upside of 41%.
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ruining-electric-cars-top-youtuber-140000470.html

The Burgomeister stood in his state robes, his ceremonial sword hanging at his side, his gilded cloak and schlappe cap shining in the mid morning sun, the eyes of 135 of the best Reislaufer the confederacy had ever born locked on him. He nodded to the commander of the company who roared out words of command in response, the crack of 135 pike butts being slammed into the ground to assert that these men were indeed now at full attention. The Burgomeister stepped forward, taking a deep breath before he addressed the warriors assembled here before him.
“Reislaufer. You are here assembled from every corner of the Eidgenossenschaft because you are the best we can find. You have no match living or dead and are the physical embodiment of the Eidgenosse spirit and determination of our indomitable will.”
He paused to let the words rest in their hearts.
“You are here assembled for one purpose. The Holy Father has made a request, a request for warriors to defend his persons and the temporal throne of the Church and Holy See. You are that defence.”
He had to steel himself so as not to smile so brightly, this was an austere day and despite how much he wished to gloat, this ceremony was no place for it.
“You are assembled to take a singular oath. Before you stands a legatus pontificus, a divine representative of the Holy Father and in his hands he holds the written words of the Vicar of Christ.”
The Burgomeister stepped back and motioned to the legatus to take the rostrum.
“Here me now, I stand as Legatus Pontificus, I stand as the representative of the Pope and as your Chaplain; heed now this oath that you shall swear!”
He broke the waxen seal of the scroll and began to read, each sentence he would repeat in German, Italian and French.
“I swear that I will faithfully, loyally and honourably serve the Supreme Pontiff Martin VI and his legitimate successors, and dedicate myself to them with all my strength, sacrificing, if necessary, my life to defend them. I assume this same commitment with regard to the Sacred College of Cardinals whenever the Apostolic See is vacant. Furthermore, I promise the Commanding Captain and my other superiors respect, fidelity and obedience. I swear to observe all that the honour of my position demands of me.”
There was a pause as the Legatus swept his eyes over the men, ensuring their total attention.
“I will now call you by name, you will come forward, grasp the flag of your most holy company and raises your right hand with his thumb, index, and middle finger extended along three axes, for the Holy Trinity and the Rütlischwur, and you will swear in your native tongue the following;
I, (name), swear to diligently and faithfully abide by all that has just been read out to me, so help me God and his Saints.
This will be your bond forevermore until you are either relieved of your post or breathe your last.”
And so, each man in turn upon hearing his name stepped forth, clasped the newly sewn banner of the guard in one hand, raised his three finger salute with the other and swore his life to the Holy Father. There was an eerie silence amongst the crowd as both residents of the city and the families of the chosen reislaufer watched in awe of the ceremony. As the last man returned to his position in the square, the burgomeister once more stepped forth.
“You are now one and all sworn defenders of the Pope and our Church, you shall buck no order or belay any command; you are the very best we have to offer and the legacy of the Confederacy rests upon your shoulders. Go forth now to Rome and your destiny!”
Cheers erupted from the crowd and the Pontifical Swiss Guard threw their schlappe caps into the air in celebration. The burgomeister motioned to the officer in command of the review to come towards him.
“Hauptmann, select four of your men, they are needed for a special service to the canton.”
The Captain nodded and went back to his troops, the Burgomeister stood with a smile on his face.
“Albrecht, is the painter ready?” Asked the Burgomeister without turning around.
“Jawohl herr Bürgermeister”
“Excellent, we shall capture this moment in time, make sure to have a duplicate made for the Pope, I’m sure he will appreciate the gesture”
The Burgomeister saw the captain returning with his four selected reislaufer and his smile grew wider yet as he beckoned them closer, already envisioning what a work of art this will make.

Overview

I recognize completely that we've only gotten to level 25, but we've seen enough and heard from the devs on their plans for endgame content to have a pretty solid understanding of what it might feel like.
We’ve seen a lot of feedback posts. D4 is clearly a beautiful game, with awesome moment-to-moment gameplay. And while that’s very important in bringing players into the game, it’s not going to be a driver for the longevity of the game. This post is focused on comparing D4 vs D3 and PoE on the endgame core game loop. Why do players praise PoE’s endgame but find D3’s shallow? How does D4 measure up? You're welcome to apply the same framework to D2 as well, and see why some players prefer D2 and praise it's endgame despite it having many many issues.

The core loop of the game is pretty simple:
Kill monsters → get loot/xp → make character stronger → kill stronger monsters

While many players will talk about PoE’s complex passive tree, or the deep crafting / item system, I actually think some of those design choices are not what makes the game shine (in fact, they are clearly off putting to many players). What PoE does well is actually making each step in the core game loop more interesting. There’s more agency for players, and decisions matter.

Path of Exile

Get Loot/XP

• Strategy: What content should you do to acquire loot / xp? Depending on what you’re playing, there’s different types of optimization you can do to maximize your payoff. There’s also a level of personalization for enjoyment - do I want to kill bosses, or do I want to run maps? Appeals to different intrinsic motivations of players.
• Unique Rewards: Different strategies/content giving different rewards is another vector that allows players to opt into the right experience for them. Different content’s optimized to reward different rewards.
• Crafting: Called out separately here because it does fall outside of the core gameplay a little bit, but has a strong appeal and is a big component for a game with so much randomness in loot acquisition as it provides varying levels of agency for the player to target what they want.
• Risk/Reward: There’s often a cost associated with getting rewards. Do I want to run this expensive/rare map, but risk dying? Stakes matter and that experience is thrilling.
• Scarcity: Loot is rare. There are many substitutes, but getting the exact thing you want is very hard to come by. The substitutes are also quite a bit different than just slightly weaker in numbers (see section below). Makes getting loot/crafting exciting because you have so much variance (this item could be completely useless or it could be the best thing in the world).

Make Character Stronger

• Multiple levers of power progression: At its core, the concept is quite simple. How much damage do I do, and how much damage can I take. There are some other minor vectors like how quickly can I kill content (speed), and how efficiently can I progress (magic find). But while simple, the way to improve on each vector has many paths. For damage, there’s base damage, skill multiplier, attack/cast speed, damage type, crit, more multipliers (# of hits/projectiles), penetration, etc. There are many ways for a player to become stronger.
• That tie in with each other: The real depth lies in having these levers tie in with each other. On paper, adding one additional hit isn’t that much different from 100% increased damage. But when things interact with each other they have wildly different effectiveness. What if you also had an ability that said “each hit applies a debuff that reduces enemy defense by x%?”. Now you value additional hit more than increased damage. For defense, what if you had an ability that said “convert x% of max life to energy shield?”, makes modifiers to life/ES a lot more interesting. This allows the players to feel smart in their optimization.
• Trade Offs: Things have trade offs with each other. Substitutes exist, and most players are not using the perfect gear for them. However, they are substituting it with something else. Maybe I couldn’t get enough resistances on my gloves so I opted for a different ring to get resistance instead of damage.
• Breakpoints: Builds/playstyles that come online at certain breakpoints, enabled by getting enough of a certain combination of affixes, or getting a certain combination of unique items. This creates interesting mid/end-game builds that players can strive for, and grows players’ power in a much more interesting different way than numbers going up.
• Finite Character Progression: There’s an end point to your character progression. You are limited by your max level and the number of items you can equip. The constraint is what pushes players to optimize and makes optimization interesting.

Kill Stronger Monsters

• Non-scaled Endgame Content: There is content in the game that is extremely difficult, and does not become easieharder depending on player power. What this means is that this content becomes a goal for players to reach/achieve.
• Individual Progression Path: Oftentimes, these bosses/content are hardeeasier depending on what build you’re doing. They also have their own progression path to unlock, as well as mechanics to learn. This combination means that even upon defeating the apex endgame content in the game, there are still things for players to do that’s challenging. Infinite depth: Some content have infinite depth (Delve). For those that want to compete on that vector, this exists.
• Challenges: Extrinsic motivators are used to encourage players to add a layer of difficulty / grind to the game. “Beat a boss while certain conditions are true to unlock this new cosmetic”.

New Leagues adds elements to this loop. Some leagues expand on how you get loot, some leagues expand on how you make your character stronger. The most successful expansions tend to be ones that do all 3.

Diablo 3

Get Loot/XP

• Strategy: D3 has some variations too, although a bit more straightforward and simple. Crafting mats you run bounties and rifts with a speed build. XP you run GRs with a slightly different speed build. Because rifts are randomized, and all have a boss, you don’t have as much agency in how you want to play.
• Unique Rewards: There are pretty much two choices. Bounties vs Everything else.
• Crafting: Very basic system. Braindead almost. Kadala is pure random. Enchanting is so basic, it doesn’t really have any decision points.
• Risk/Reward: No risk/reward. There’s no consequence to me trying out harder content. There’s no sense of stake.
• Scarcity: Nothing is really scarce. All items are fairly straightforward to get. You can get your build up and running within a day, easily. The scarcity comes from getting ancients/primal ancients which does exist, but aren’t actually that compelling of upgrades (see section below).

Make Character Stronger

• Multiple levers of power progression: There are much fewer levers for both damage and defense. Not necessarily a bad thing, but…
• That tie in with each other: These levers do not really tie in with each other, they each function on their own. As a result, there aren’t really that many combinations and build opportunities.
• Trade Offs: I’m rarely making choices between affixes/gears. I know what’s best, and I can get the best pretty easily.
• Breakpoints: More is better. While some builds can only exist if you put together a set and get the right legendaries equipped, it doesn’t go beyond that (and as we said, it’s easy to get to that point). There’s no chase of getting to a certain % of CDR allows you to be able to infinitely chain something (there used to be, but those builds got nerfed).
• Finite Character Progression: The paragon system basically nullifies all constraints. Optimizing gear? Why does it matter when I can trivialize it with 5000 additional dex? This goes beyond paragons when you start grinding GRs to add base stats to your gear.

Kill Stronger Monsters

• Non-scaled Endgame Content: There is no endgame in D3. You get to endgame within the first hour of play, and from there it’s just seeing numbers go up. Your actual experience as far as challenge goes is the same at hour 1 as hour 500.
• Individual Progression Path: There’s an element of this in getting the hellfire keys. But that’s not really end game content.
• Infinite depth: Exists as GRs. In many ways, I think the GR progression in D3 is better than delve from PoE.
• Challenges: This exists in the weekly challenge rift, but they’re fairly easy to complete so don’t serve as an endgame long term goal.

New Seasons sometimes adds elements to this loop, and sometimes doesn’t. Double Goblin season? I’m still doing the same thing as I was doing before, except I get a little more loot occasionally. No changes to how I would play the game. Latest season with altar rites? Much more interesting way to progress characters, and it shows, people liked the latest season.

Diablo 4 (Based on what we've seen)

Get Loot/XP

• Strategy: We’ve only seen one type of method of getting loot, that is killing monsters. Dungeons is the primary way we’ve seen it done. This doesn’t seem significantly different from rifts, but the added sigils could make this slightly more interesting than D3. However, we need more ways to play to get loot outside of dungeons, especially since all the dungeons are very samey (kill a bunch of small monsters with a boss at the end).
• Unique Rewards: Unsure yet. Most of the crafting materials I’ve seen can be found in the overworld. I’d be interested in seeing some boss exclusive drops, some crafting materials dropping only off of certain monsters (that you can target, so not loot goblins).
• Crafting: Seems pretty similar to D3 tbh, although the ability to transfer legendary affixes does add an interesting layer.
• Risk/Reward: No risk/reward. Unsure yet what the endgame holds. Sounds like sigils need to be crafted, so if they are not cheap to craft, and failing a NM dungeon means you lose those sigils, that could add some level of risk. We need more of these types of experiences (to be clear, not all experiences need stakes, but there should have varying levels).
• Scarcity: Unsure yet, but legendary gear scarcity wasn’t really real. You acquired them pretty frequently, and the aspects could be gotten. Your build can come online relatively quickly. I’d want to see more scarcity to encourage “make-do” playstyles. You already have “basic” versions in terms of aspects to enable builds, let’s make finding legendaries harder.

Make Character Stronger

• Multiple levers of power progression: There seems to be some more than D3 on the damage side, so it’s a step in the right direction. I think the amount they have may be sufficient for now (given the game hasn’t launched yet). The defensive side could use some work. We need more interesting ways to scale our defense.
• That tie in with each other: They do not tie in with each other at all.
• Trade Offs: Some of the legendary affixes and unique affixes I saw were interesting. They’re kiss-curse so I’m incentivized to build around these effects. I’d like to see more of them, to further encourage players to actively make trade offs in their gearing decision making. Unsure yet whether there are a set of affixes on gear that’s just BiS, which would be a bummer. One question I have is, why would I ever want to use a legendary if I have the sacred legendary? This is the same problem as D3, where you slowly upgrade your gear to ancient/primal ancient. It’s very boring, and I’m not making any trade off decisions. Maybe certain legendary affixes are only available on legendary compared to sacred, etc. I do think there may be trade off decisions you need to make between Uniques vs Legendaries, and if that’s where the game is leaning towards for decisions & trade offs, I’m on board. Just need to make sure it’s executed properly (i.e. Unique effects are extremely powerful but the rest of the effects are likely weaker than legendary/sacreds).
• Breakpoints: I haven’t seen much of this yet, but end game will reveal more. Some of the druid uniques are cool → a black/white effect that you must have if you want to enable a certain build. I want to feel like I have now unlocked a completely new build after acquiring a certain combination of items (this isn’t about viability in terms of damage, this is about a build that I otherwise could not run at all before).
• Finite Character Progression: I think they took out the paragon system and replaced it with a finite-paragon board. This should solve the previous unlimited scaling issue. As long as there’s a cap for your character, this should be fine.

Kill Stronger Monsters

• Non-scaled Endgame Content: Unsure. Is it just nightmare dungeons? Have I already seen all of the end-game during the beta, but with lower numbers? If so, that’s really disappointing. There needs to be pinnacle encounters in the game that’s really hard to beat, that is not accessible to a majority of players. These encounters should not scale with your character, and should be used as a measuring stick for players to stack up against. Ideally these encounters also have specific build-enabling drops. These items don’t necessarily need to be powerful, but need to be different.
• Individual Progression Path: Unsure. Without non-scaled endgame content, this doesn’t matter.
• Infinite depth: I don’t know if this exists anywhere, and that might be okay. For the ultra competitive gamer, there may be no true endgame for them. But for the majority of ARPG players, I think they can find their own challenge and compete on other axis.
• Challenges: Unsure. But this can probably be easily added.

New Seasons - we don’t know anything about seasons. So I won’t comment on it here. But ideally it would look to expand on multiple parts of the core game loop.

Conclusion

While there are many things I think D4 could improve on, the two that stand out the most are:

• Non-scaled Endgame Content: Give players a (good) reason to get stronger.
• Trade offs & Breakpoints in Gear: Add more interesting choices to itemization & builds. (This post has summarized this much better and more in depth)

I actually think Diablo 4 has the foundation to be a fantastic game that could challenge PoE. Things that are difficult to change and improve upon (visual style, gameplay clarity & feels) the game does an incredible job on. In my opinion, it is much easier for Diablo 4 to incorporate some of what makes PoE special, while the reverse is much harder. I also don’t believe that adding these changes will lose the appeal of the game to casual players. Most casual players will never encountesee some of this, and what we have currently will be more than sufficient for that group of players.

Ultimately this depends on where Blizzard wants to take the game: Do you want the game to have a rich endgame that can keep core gamers interested for 1-2 months, and a reason to return every season? It’s entirely possible that is not a goal at all, and the investment to get D4 there is just not worth it.

Mods, this is about phrasing and not seeking approval for wedding attire, but let me know if this ends up violating any rules.
Okay, so our wedding isn’t traditional like at all, and part of the non-tradition is asking all of our guests to wear white, at least on top. Dresses with a white portion at the top, just white shirts and not white pants, and prints with a white base are acceptable, so we’re not asking for anything that’s really unreasonable. We have a couple reasons for this:
1) The ceremony’s in the evening, in Phoenix, and in late June. Daily temperatures for this day has been with highs of 107 (F) and lows of 82 (F) for the past few years. There’ll be watering stations and the reception’s inside, but the ceremony’s outside. We don’t want anyone getting health issues from the heat, and my family in particular isn’t used to such a dry and hot climate.
2) We’re hoping that the pictures will be super cool with a sea of people united by our marriage and their outfits.
I’ve gotten some flack from my mom, and I was personally ambivalent until my fiancé opened up about Reason 2 and the vision he had for it. My family is a bit more traditional (parents are mid-60s, East Coast), but we’re prepared to do this thing with or without their financial contributions (which have been vaguely discussed). The fact that it’s important to him is important to me, and imma defend our wedding from cherry-picked traditionalism until the people trying to pull it give up. However, I wanted to ask opinions on phrasing since it’s something that bucks tradition and can make well-meaning people uncomfortable.
The dress code is going on the reception card, and there’s little space on it to begin with. I can’t go much over the character per line count, so I added my tentative phrasing below for reference. What are your thoughts? Should I put ”white” in all caps? (Another part of the invitation is in all caps, so it wouldn’t be too out of place.) I want to give people the opportunity to ask us if a planned outfit would be appropriate or not, but I worry that giving a chance to ask questions can mean a chance for pushback.
“Dress code is white, at least on top!
If you have any questions, please contact us.”

Hi! Just graduated and looking for the best way to finance the (likely 4-6, possibly up to 8 months) period of unemployment between now and my first job (lots of delays with credentialing). I don't think income at THAT point will be a concern and should have no problem at all making payments and repaying the debt then, just can't during the interim due to a lack of income. I also have the opportunity to travel in a few weeks, and would like to seize the maybe-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity while I have the chance/time to (and while my friends do too). I know this will make things tighter for me later, but I'm okay with that and willing to take that hit.
Need:

• Est. living expenses: 1-1.5k per month x4-8 months.
• Travel (estimated): 3-4k
• Other: upcoming licensing fees of about 1-1.5k
• Est. total need: roughly 10-15k

Income/savings:

• Income: None. I do have another job certification I could fall back on. After mid-May, I might be able to take on a short term position (if they'll take me knowing I'll only be there for maybe a couple of months).
• Savings: ~1,000 left from student loan money/dispersal. Grandparents willing to assist with loan + interest, for whatever I can't get covered after all other options are exhausted.
• Retirement: 401k with <9k

Debt:

• Credit cards
  • Wells Fargo: 7.3k with 18.6% APR (10k credit limit) - mostly accrued while in school
  • Chase (amazon card): $230 with 26% APR (1.5k credit limit)
• 200k in student loans
• Car loan with 4500 remaining, ~280/month
• Housing: for now, none. Friend offering a rent-free stay for the time being.

Credit:

• 699-704 (per CK)
• Avg. credit age: 5 yrs 4 mo, oldest is 10 yrs w/ wells fargo
• 100% payment history, 5 open cards (2 w/ balance - see debt section), 67% utilization
• Medical bill in collections, 5 yrs old

Options I'm considering, alone or in combo with one another:

• Credit card - deferred interest, small initial payments during that period, +/- card rewards, but possibly with small/insufficient credit limits (since I don't have an income and would have to either try to piecemeal sources of income or use a cosigner). Also no guarantee for approval. Hard credit inquiry if I'm not approved or don't end up using it.
• Personal loan - high interest, requires payments I'll have to start paying on immediately, also no guarantee for approval (still no income). Hard credit inquiry.
• 401k withdrawal vs. rollover:
  • No hardships, loans, or partial withdrawals permitted since I'm no longer employed there; only full balance withdrawals & rollovers. (could maybe return to the company? though after May for only a couple of months and likely wouldn't be full time, so not sure how this would work anyway)
  • Would have early withdrawal penalty (10%) and taxes deducted. My contribution was about half (4-5k) of the current 9k balance. Could rollover into a traditional IRA only (& conversion to a roth would require 5-year hold to avoid the penalties, as far as I'm aware?)
  • Will have retirement benefits with new job and could start paying on it again immediately. This is usually advised against, I know, and fees are steep. Though this is also likely to be the only time I'd ever need to do this.
• Something else? Other ideas I haven't thought of?

Thanks in advance. Just looking for some additional input to help me get over the hump, maybe push me into making a decision!
TLDR: Looking for the best (read: least bad) way to fund the gap between grad school and new job. Options seem to be credit cards (with deferred/0% APR) vs. personal loan vs. 401k withdrawal.
EDIT: typos, changed "part time" to "short term", cuz - oops - that's what I meant.
EDITED TO ADD: My primary question is whether the smartest way to fund my next couple of months will be with a credit card, personal loan, or 401k withdrawal. This all while I look for a short term position before I am able to start my main job (medicine, as a PA). The financial information was all provided to give an idea of where I stand with being approved for cards, additional loans, etc. Any handling of my student debt - while daunting, I know - will be an ongoing process that will take years to handle. I think this number may have been distracting, but is not my current concern (well, it is, but not for this question).

CFTC alleges that Binance trades against its customers and prioritizes profits over compliance.
Source [PDF] : https://www.docdroid.net/60YAbCz/cftc-binance-pdf

C. Binance’s Proprietary Trading Activity on Binance 69. During the Relevant Period, Binance has traded on its own platform through approximately 300 “house accounts” that are all directly or indirectly owned by Zhao, as well as accounts owned by Merit Peak and Sigma Chain. Zhao has also traded on the Binance platform through two individual accounts.
At various times during the Relevant Period, Merit Peak has entered into OTC transactions with Binance customers (and settled such trades by depositing digital assets directly into its counterparties’ Binance accounts), while Sigma Chain has engaged in proprietary trading in Binance’s various markets, including its markets for digital asset derivatives. On information and belief, Binance’s proprietary trading activity on Binance’s own markets is directed by Binance’s “quant desk.”

​

1. Binance does not disclose to its customers that Binance is trading in its own markets in its Terms of Use or elsewhere. Consistent with its apparent attempt to keep its proprietary trading activity on its own markets top secret, Binance has refused to respond to Commission-issued investigative subpoenas seeking information concerning its proprietary trading activity on Binance, including transaction data and communications among the members of the Binance “quant desk.”

​

1. On information and belief, Binance has not subjected the trading activity of Merit Peak, Sigma Chain, or its approximately 300 house accounts to any anti-fraud or antimanipulation surveillance or controls and to the extent Binance purports to have required its officers, employees, and agents to abide by a relatively new “insider trading” policy, Binance’s approximately 300 house accounts are exempt from that policy.

​

1. Binance purposefully obscures the identities and locations of the entities operating the trading platform. For example, Binance’s customer-facing “Terms of Use,” purports to be a contract between the customer and something simply called the “Binance operators,” which is a term that has no concrete meaning. While Binance has maintained offices in numerous locations, including Singapore, Malta, Dubai, and Tokyo at various times during the Relevant Period, Binance intentionally does not disclose the location of its executive offices.

Instead, Zhao has stated that Binance’s headquarters is wherever he is located at any point in time, reflecting a deliberate approach to attempt to avoid regulation. Zhao explained this strategy during a June 2019 internal meeting, stating that Binance conducts its operations through various entities incorporated in numerous jurisdictions to “keep countries clean [of violations of law]” by “not landing .com anywhere. This is the main reason .com does not land anywhere.”

​

1. Binance is so effective at obfuscating its location and the identities of its operating companies that it has even confused its own Chief Strategy Officer. For example, in September 2022 he was quoted as saying that “Binance is a Canadian company.” The Chief Strategy Officer’s statement was quickly corrected by a Binance spokesperson, who clarified that Binance is an “international company.”

​

1. Zhao answers to no one but himself. Binance does not have a board of directors. F. Binance’s Superficial Efforts to Limit Trading by United States Customers and Internal Recognition That Its Compliance Program Was Just “For Show” 89. Throughout the Relevant Period, Binance purposefully grew, maintained, and simultaneously concealed its U.S. customer base while also failing to implement an effective AML program that is required of financial institutions such as FCMs to detect and prevent terrorist financing or other criminal activity, among other things.

​

One component of this failure to implement an effective AML program is Binance’s ongoing lack of effective KYC procedures or a CIP that would enable it to determine the true identity of its customers, whether from the United States or elsewhere.

​

Even after Binance began to purportedly restrict access to its platform from certain jurisdictions in mid-2019, it left open a loophole for customers to sign up, deposit assets, trade, and make withdrawals without submitting to any KYC procedures as long as the customer withdrew less than the value of two BTC in one day. Binance has referred to this two BTC-no KYC loophole by various labels, including “email registration,” and “tier 1” customers. The two BTC withdrawal limit was effectively meaningless—the notional value of two BTC in July 2019 was more than $22,000 and in March 2021 was more than $100,000.

​

1. Even before Binance made any attempts to restrict access to the platform by U.S. customers, Lim privately explained to Zhao that the two BTC-no KYC loophole would continue to allow U.S. customers to access the platform. In February 2019, Lim chatted to Zhao: “a huge number” of Binance’s “TIER 1 [meaning customers trading via the two BTC-no KYC loophole] could be U.S. citizens in reality. They have to get smarter and VPN through non-U.S. IP.”

And Zhao stated during a management meeting in June 2019 that the “under 2 BTC users is [sic] a very large portion of our volume, so we don’t want to lose that,” although he also understood that due to “very clear precedents,” Binance’s policy of allowing “those two BTCs without KYC, this is definitely not possible in the United States.”

​

1. In June 2019, around the same time Binance announced a “partnership” with BAM Trading to launch what would become the Binance.US platform, Binance updated its Terms of Use to state for the first time that “Binance is unable to provide services to any U.S. person.” Binance also announced that “[a]fter 90 days, effective on 2019/09/12, users who are not in accordance with Binance’s Terms of Use will continue to have access to their wallets and funds, but will no longer be able to trade or deposit on Binance.com.” 94. In September 2019, Binance claimed it had begun to block customers based on their internet protocol (“IP”) address.

In reality, Binance simply added a pop-up window on its website that appeared when customers attempted to log in from an IP address associated with the United States. The pop-up did not block customers from logging in to their account, depositing assets, or trading on the platform, it just asked them to self-certify that they were not a U.S. person before accessing the platform by clicking a button on the pop-up. 95. Notwithstanding the pop-up compliance control, Binance knew that U.S. customers continued to comprise a substantial proportion of Binance’s customer base even after September 2019 because, among other reasons, Binance’s internal reporting told them so. According to periodic revenue reports prepared for and sent to Zhao every month, as of January 2020 approximately 19.9% of Binance’s customers were located in the United States, and as of June 2020—about a year after Binance amended its Terms of Use as alleged above in paragraph 93—approximately 17.8% of Binance’s customers were located in the United States.

​

1. In keeping with Binance and Zhao’s ethos of prioritizing profits over legal compliance, they knowingly allowed the two BTC-no KYC loophole to persist. In an October 2020 chat between Lim and a Binance colleague, Lim explained: [Because you attended a telephone conference on which Zhao participated] then you will also know that as a company, we are probably not going to remove no kyc (email registration) because its too painful . . . i think cz understands that there is risk in doing so, but I believe this is something which concerns our firm and its survivability. If Binance forces mandatory KYC, then [competing digital asset exchanges] will be VERY VERY happy.
   
2. And on August 20, 2021, Binance announced that “all Binance users are required to verify their accounts,” meaning that all new customers would be required to complete “Intermediate Verification” and provide a government issued identification evidencing their geographic location. Binance also announced that existing customers that had not yet completed Intermediate Verification would have their account changed to “withdrawal only” status by October 19, 2021. Binance did not limit the ability of unverified customers to deposit funds and trade on the platform by October 19, 2021 as represented.
   

In February 2022, Binance testified that the identities of approximately only 30–40% of its customers had been verified though KYC documentation. 99. Binance has been aware that its compliance controls have been ineffective. As Lim—at the time Binance’s CCO—recognized in an October 2020 chat with other Binance compliance personnel, Binance’s compliance environment has amounted to “email sending and no action . . . for media pickup . . . I guess you can say its ‘fo sho.’”

​

1. Zhao’s strategy of refusing to implement effective compliance controls at Binance was widely known within Binance. In a January 2019 chat between Lim and a senior member of the compliance team discussing their plan to “clean up” the presence of U.S. customers on Binance, Lim explained: “Cz doesn’t wanna do us kyc on .com.” And Lim acknowledged in February 2020 that Binance had a financial incentive to avoid subjecting customers to meaningful KYC procedures, as Zhao believed that if Binance’s compliance controls were “too stringent” then “[n]o users will come.”

​

1. Lim’s internal discussions with compliance colleagues illustrate that Binance has tolerated Binance customers’ use of the platform to facilitate “illicit activity.” For example, in July 2020, a Binance employee wrote to Lim and another colleague asking if a customer whose recent transactions “were very closely associated with illicit activity” and “over 5m USD worth of his transactions were indirectly sourced from questionable services” should be off-boarded or if it was in the class of cases “where we would want to advise the user that they can make a new account.” Lim chatted in response: Can let him know to be careful with his flow of funds, especially from darknet like hydra He can come back with a new account But this current one has to go,

​

106. Lim’s instruction to allow a customer “very closely associated with illicit activity” to open a new account and continue trading on the platform is consistent with Zhao’s business strategy, which has counseled against off-boarding customers even if they presented regulatory risk. For example, in a September 2020 chat Lim explained to Binance employees that they Don’t need to be so strict. Offboarding = bad in cz’s eyes.

​

1. Binance’s corporate communications strategy has attempted to publicly portray that Binance has not targeted the United States at the same time Binance executives acknowledge behind closed doors that the opposite is true.

For example, on June 9, 2019, around the time Zhao and Binance hatched their secret plot to retain U.S. customers even after the launch of Binance.US, Binance’s Chief Financial Officer stated during a meeting with senior management including Zhao: [S]ort of, the messaging, I think would develop it as we go along is rather than saying we’re blocking the US, is that we’re preparing to launch Binance US. So, we would never admit it publicly or privately anywhere that we serve US customers in the first place because we don’t. So, it just so happens we have a website and people sign up and we have no control over [access by U.S. customers] . . . . [B]ut we will never admit that we openly serve US clients. That’s why the PR messaging piece is very, very critical Zhao agreed that Binance’s “PR messaging” was critical, explaining in a meeting the next day that “we need to, we need to finesse the message a little bit . . . . And the message is never about Binance blocking US users, because our public stance is we never had any US users. So, we never targeted the US. We never had US users.” But during the June 9, 2019 meeting, Zhao himself stated that “20% to 30% of our traffic comes from the US,” and Binance’s “July [2019 Financial] Reporting Package,” which was emailed directly to Zhao, attributes approximately 22% of Binance’s revenue for June 2019 to U.S. customers.

​

G. Binance Was Aware of United States Regulatory Requirements but Ignored Them 108. Defendants have been aware of the regulatory regime that applies to U.S. financial institutions such as FCMs, and exchanges such as DCMs and SEFs, throughout the Relevant Period, but have made deliberate, strategic decisions to evade federal law. 109. Internal messages among Zhao, Lim, and other Binance senior managers document that Binance was aware of the applicability of U.S. regulatory and legal requirements since its early days. For example, in October 2018, and before the Relevant Period, Lim wrote to Zhao: Cz I know it’s a pain in the ass but its my duty to constantly remind you
We have made no mention of sanctions/or support of sanctions on our platform already (done, cleaned up)
Are we going to proceed to block sanction countries ip addresses (we currently have users from sanction countries on .com) Or do you want to adopt a clearer strategy after we engaged and finalised our USA strategy? Downside risk is if fincen or ofac has concrete evidence we have sanction users, they might try to investigate or blow it up big on worldstage

Hello /personalfinance!
So, recently I found myself in a very positive, but tricky, financial situation that I am trying to solve. For some background, I am very lucky as I am an early employee at a high growth startup that is currently offering a tender offer to employees on any percentage of their vested shares. For those unfamiliar with a tender offer, this essentially means that they are willing to purchase our vested shares at the current value of the stock (right now, each stock is about $20 which is based on the valuation of the company).
Being an early employee, I have been issued a large allotment of stock, ~23k, at my start date, with a $0 strike/exercise price, on a 4 year vesting schedule. So, I get a 1/4 of my total shares each year. I just reached my 2 year mark, meaning I have about 11k shares vested, and able to sell up to 11k. Also, since the cost to exercise was 0 dollars, I exercised my shares 2 years ago.
The company is giving us the opportunity to sell those vested shares, meaning that at most, I can sell them and receive $216,000 pre-tax. I don’t think I can go 100% wrong with any way I decide to sell because I still have a large allotment of unvested shares remaining, and I don’t see myself leaving the company anytime soon (knock on wood).
Here is the tricky part. I am unfortunately in a lot of student debt, ~$132k being in private loans (Interest rate of 5.799%). It is a long story as to how I ended up in that situation, but unfortunately I am in it, and the consensus on this forum/in general is to get out of it as soon as possible. I have thankfully been able to pay the amount needed for each bill as I have a strong salary ($172,000).
My question is, does it make sense to sell the proper amount of my currently vested shares via the tender offer to completely pay off the private student debt? I would only need to pay ordinary income tax, because I technically own the stock, and due to the terms of the tender offer, I do not need to pay capital gains. Here is the breakdown if I were to sell the necessary amount for the loan:
​
Stock = ~9.7k Stock / 23k (~40% of all shares)
Gross Gain = $194,310.51
Cost of exercise/brokerage = $0
Estimated Ordinary Income Tax Withholding = $61,946
Net Liquidity = $132,364
Total Loan = $132,434 (Interest rate of 5.799%)
Out of pocket remaining cost = $70
​
The cons that I see are that: 1. I essentially am locking in myself for 2 more years to get the rest of my shares (assuming the company continues to do well, and I don’t hate my job, which I do not lol) 2. Potentially reducing the upper bound on how much I can make from the shares throughout the duration of the company. I believe the company will at minimum 5x its valuation the next round based on how we have been doing
I think I am lucky in this situation because I feel comfortable with spending the allotment I have due to the amount of stock I have remaining for vesting. The risk here seems to be potentially the difference between being very wealthy vs very very wealthy/not wealthy at all (if somehow the company tanks, once again, knock on wood). However, I have the opportunity for financial freedom here, and I don’t know if I would feel ok just leaving this opportunity. I would love some insight from this group to see if my thinking is right here, and if not, why.
For some additional context on my financial situation if needed, I have an emergency fund built for 3 months of expenses, along with about $40k in my 401k, and make $170,000 a year.
Thank you all for the help!

Hey FF peeps -
I would love to see/hear what you like to see to give you a solid understanding and peace of mind of where your investments and net worth stand on a given day in a given month.
Background
I am newly FF - not really fat at $7M NW all in (~$2M in house, no mortgage), $3.5M invested on a 65/35 bond/equity, and the rest split between a 10 pay life insurance policy and some REIT-esque funds.
My question isn't about where to put the money as much as how to monitor and keep track of the money. I am not an active trader, I don't try to time the markets and like to buy/hold quality while doing annual or every 2-3 years portfolio rebalancing as conditions warrant. Pretty boring really.
I am working with my FA to create a simple one pager that tells me in a quick/easy to understand format (for me, my spouse and ultimately my heirs) the status of my investments. Here is what I have so far on the one pager.
I am not interested in online net worth/investment trackers as I don't want this info electronically in one place - I don't want to log in to a portal. I will have my FA build, just like I used to do with pen and paper every month until recently. I am envisioning a simple excel spreadsheet that is easily deliverable electronically to me via email.
ASSETS
Investments
Bonds/Treasuries (+/- vs. LM)
Equities (+/- vs. LM)
Money Markets (+/- vs. LM)
​
Real Estate Holdings
Address 1 Market Value ($) (+/- vs. LM)
Address 2 Market Value ($) (+/- vs. LM)
​
Private Placements
Investment 1 ($ amount invested)
Investment 2 ($ amount invested)
​
Crypto
Crypto Currency A - Current value ($)
​
Cash on Hand
Bank 1 ($) (+/- vs. LM)
Bank 2 ($) (+/- vs. LM)
​
LIABILITIES
Mortgage 1 ($) (+/- vs. LM)
Loan 1 ($) (+/- vs. LM)
​
Total Portfolio (Also Net worth
Investments ($) (% of total)
Real Estate ($) (% of total) (Calculation: Property Value - Debt = Equity)
Cash on Hand ($) (% of total)
Private Placements ($) (% of total)
Crypto ($) (% of total)
​
Grand Total/Net Worth ($) (+/- vs. LM)
​
RUNWAY
Withdrawal Rate: X%
Monthly Withdrawal:
Monthly Investment Proceeds TTM:
Delta: (Calculation: Monthly Investment Proceeds TTM - Monthly Withdrawal) <--- In a perfect world this number is positive.
Runway (Months): (This is calculated based on simulations from my FA with a bunch of assumptions baked in - YoY portfolio growth, investment performance, risk models, etc.)
​
Notes:
LM = Last Month
TTM - Trailing Twelve Months
Currently have $0 debt, no mortgages or loans but included in case I do in the future.
Grab the current real estate valuations quickly from Zillow Zestimate just to keep track of market(s) - I know it is not perfect.
Also thinking of including a list where we keep track of upcoming significant outflows (college tuition) or other payments that are material.
Also thinking about a To Do/action item list if I owe my tax person or FA any documentation (or vice versa) or decisions for them to do their jobs.

I've recently moved to Ontario Canada from the UK and am looking to maximize my money saving, I'm on a 50,000 annual salary job presently with room for growth as I develop.
I recently sat down with an advisor at my local RBC branch and she broke down how a TFSA would be my best shot for saving money for the long term goal of saving up for a mortgage on a house.
She advised that the TFSA has savings and investment products and that to lock in the biggest potential for growth that I should be saving my money in a conservative investment plan as the gradual growth would come from the funds.
I've always been a bit anxious of investments, just because the value of such can fluctuate with fund performance and I've always been scared of losing the money I'm attempting to save.
I understand conservative funds are designed in a way to mitigate much of the risk of large scale losses, but still some part of me just can't get over that fear.
Is the advisor right in this case though? Is it worth biting the bullet and going with an Investment TFSA plan? Or are there better ways I can be saving money in my TFSA?

It's the beginning of another great week and our team is ready to make a final push toward having everything ready for the Copiosa app launch. We have a few things to update you on as we prepare for a very exciting few days ahead of us.
Let's get started!
Operations
With Q2 only a week away, Josh Stalets is already ahead of the crew in defining our team goals and how we will get there. Following a Q1 full of huge progress, the Copiosa team is geared up and ready to get started on yet another fantastic quarter in 2023.
Our next Weekly Update will include a message from Josh Stalets to the Copiosa Community!
Development & Testing
Proper credit goes to James as he has been leading a swift development cycle. The Copiosa app is looking clean, intuitive, and our initial testing phase has shown us that it is also working really great!
The internal testing phase allows us to play with all of the different features and visualize where and how they will work optimally, as well as catch any bugs in the process. After experimenting with a few layout variations, we have finally determined which one looks and works the best.
The Copiosa Community was already able to catch a glimpse of this configuration in last week's Community Spotlight. For those of you that haven't had the chance to take a look at our latest design, we've added a highly requested feature: our new fiat on-ramp, powered by Transak! This was a feature that we expected to have ready by V3, so adding it required some extra work on behalf of our team. However, we strongly believed that this was an important feature to include in our V2 launch and therefore, did everything necessary to have it.
We are now within the final steps of internal testing and will be opening the app for our selected public testers. VIP Copanion Tiers Gold and Diamond, along with our Moderators and Community Managers, will have the opportunity to test the Copiosa app starting this Friday, March 31st. We will be reaching out to you with our Google Form, where you will be able to register for our public testing. Your feedback and support in bug detection are valuable in our Quality Assurance process and help us deliver a great final product.
Our public testers will conclude the final step before launch day and we have estimated that the Copiosa app will be available for everyone to download by the second week of April. It has always been Copiosa's philosophy to deliver well-tested products with highly functional features and this is why we will never rush to a delivery date that is set in stone. Simply put: we want you to have the best app, with the best user experience that we can offer.
We can't wait for launch day to arrive and for our amazing community to finally experience the cutting-edge Copiosa app that makes your life as a crypto trader what it was always meant to be, easy.
Community Development

• This Friday, along with our Community Spotlight, we will be sharing our quarterly Community Satisfaction Survey with you so that you can give us your feedback and what you would like to see in the Copiosa Community Experience.
  
• Get your applications ready for our Community Program coming next week! Tell us more about your skills and how you believe you could contribute to the Copiosa Community. Initially we are looking for a few specific roles to fill, but we will be considering other outstanding applications for some openings in the future. This is your chance to earn COP while contributing to the growth of the Copiosa Community!
  
• As of today, our Memeout Mondays will now be bi-weekly with the double of prize in COP up for grabs. We will restart competition entries next Monday, April 3rd with a few updates in our #copanion-memeout-guidelines channel in Discord, so make sure to check those out.
  

A Message to our Community
Our Development team is elated to announce that the new Copiosa App for both Android and iOS is close to launch day!
It is necessary for users that currently hold any funds in previous versions of the app, to transfer them to a BSC address on a secure Web3 wallet of your choice. Upon launch, you will be able to move your assets to the new Copiosa Wallet, but for now you want to make sure that your funds are on a third-party wallet.
All funds must be migrated off of the current version of the Copiosa App by April 1st, 2023 at the latest. Please take this necessary action in order to enjoy all of our upcoming features in the new version.
At Copiosa, we believe in our users having 100% ownership over your assets and is why we are requesting you move them. The Copiosa Wallet is self-custody, as we want to preserve the trust-less nature of Crypto.
Additionally, we would like to extend a special thank you to the first 250 users for your support in providing valuable feedback to our team. Your contribution has been fundamental in the development of the new Copiosa Wallet App.
We also apologize beforehand for any inconveniences that temporarily moving your funds may imply.
On behalf of our team, we wish you an easy and enjoyable crypto experience with the new Copiosa Wallet App, available soon!
Thank you for joining us on another Weekly Update! Follow us every Monday for a recap on all of our progress.
TL;DR: A message from Copiosa CEO, Josh Stalets will be included in our next Weekly Update to open Q2! VIP Copanion Golds and Diamonds, get ready to register for public testing! We have an ETA for the Copiosa app! An important update on Community Initiatives!

Okay, please don’t comment on if I should/shouldn’t use a Robo. Generally speaking though and truth is, I’m decided.
Here is where I’m at. Mid 30s.
Have about $50k with a financial advisor that I inherited. Not the best performance so I’m not looking to add to it. However, can’t pull money from there either because of personal/familial relationship. Holds a bunch of the expected mutual funds.
Wife has $850 in a standard Wealthfront account from when we threw in $500 to open the account a few years ago. It’s harvested a whopping $12.
I have other individual accounts that hold regular stocks and no similar etfs to robos, so that is moot.
Question — I want to open a joint stock account for my wife and I. If we open one with Wealthfront, will it understand there are 2 accounts with her name on it from a TLH standpoint? If we go with Betterment (or equivalent), think I should just pull the $850 because it’s relatively minimal and I’m assuming Betterment wouldn’t know what WF is doing and vice versa? Concern here is obviously around the wash rule because I’d set up a monthly recurring deposit into the joint account.
Looking for others that have had similar experiences. Thanks!