The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

[Raid]

So I start my new job on monday, and prior to my first day I'm required to upload several documents to a onedrive folder; bank details to receive salary, pension details, diversity forms, that sort of thing. Unfortunately they just assume I have access to Microsoft Office and a printer (I have neither), and supply some of these documents in .docx, and other documents that I download from elsewhere are in PDF. They also want scans of my P45 and degree certificate (amusing given said certificate was supplied by my new employer in the first place).

I've had to come up with about 4 different workflows to get all of this stuff filled in and uploaded. I can't sign a .docx, so I've had to save those as PDFs and add a signature in Microsoft Edge. Some of the docx files don't format correctly in wordpad, so I had to open those from the e-mail they came in using Google Docs, add text there, save to a PDF and add a signature. I don't have a real scanner, so the bits I've had to scan are done with my phone's camera (which has a document scan function), which helpfully uploads them to Google Docs, where I have to go in and download them to a local folder before I can then upload them to onedrive. The less said about trying to work out which pension reference numbers they want, the better.

I know that it's impossible to create a universal standard, but christ on a bike is this irritating. It's about the one thing I miss from when I used MacOS, which seemed to support every document file format under the sun natively, at least when last I used it about ten years back.

[Alan]

PC games and their shite controller implementation.

Current issue. Doom Eternal is showing controller inputs, I guess because I always have at least a fightstick plugged in. Fine I can live with that, everything works fine except after loading a save/level it says "Press A to continue" and will accept no keyboard or mouse inputs, only A on a controller. So Ive been pressing A on my fightstick but it was annoying me so I went into options and disabled controller input in there. I load up a game and it still has controller inputs and still wants me to press A to continue but now because Ive selected no controller inputs in the games own freaking options it will no allow me to go any farther and I have to hard kill the game to get out. You cant even get in the options with escape!

Thats the most stupid conflict Ive had in a long time but Ive had a lot of controller problems. The most common of which are a game only wanting to receive input from the primary controller, which is probably whatever windows recognises first on boot. There's no way to change this (the set primary in controller options is a legacy thing that does nothing) and sometimes Ive even seen phantom controllers that arent plugged in be primaries. There have been games that the only way I could play via controller was to hook a controller to a steamlink, stream the game to the steamlink and play with the controller connected to the steam link while looking at the raw output on my main monitor.

Ok, you could leave all controllers unplugged till you want to use one but fuck that, its a PC! This shouldnt still be an issue in this year of our lord!



edit: I lied. Apparently the key to take screenshots still works as I have a folder filled with screenshots of my loading screen.

[Wrathbone]

I've had controller issues with the Dark Souls series on my new PC. No issues on my old machine, but for some reason on each game it wouldn't detect my PS5 controller unless I started Steam in big picture mode and applied a Steam control layout (note that setting a control layout without big picture mode didn't work for reasons that elude me). After that it's worked fine without having to go into big picture mode, but it took an inordinate amount of time to figure out what was going on and how to fix it.

[Raid]

I hate it when games recognise controller inputs but have no easy of disabling them. Because of my sim rig setup, I have anywhere between 3 and 5 peripherals plugged in over and above the keyboard and mouse, all of which have at least one analogue axis. My rudder pedals constantly input 50% on one axis because of the way they're set up, and occasionally I'll come across a game that decides this is me holding left or right and will make it impossible to control.

I appreciate my setup isn't exactly the norm here, but it's infuriating trying to work out which peripheral the have is reacting to. My throttle alone has 8 individual axes that could be causing an input.

[Wrathbone]

I have a USB hub with individual switches that I plug all my flight sim gear into, so I only turn them on when using them. Makes it a bit easier to manage in terms of games detecting inputs.

[Raid]

Unfortunately my hub isn't easy to get at, just for a change I did actual cable management for the sim rig, and buried the hub underneath the seat. As it's usually the pedals causing the issue, I can at least disconnect them at the source as it uses a USB type B to A cable.

[Alan]

I don’t really do twitch but I’ve been on a bit because of Street Fighter 6 and - old man shouts at cloud - I hate everything about this. I hate the pay to notice me senpai bull, I hate the insidious “pay more to top the chart, you going to let someone else pay more than you you loser?”, I hate the raids which are just layers on the mind games. Every single thing on this platform feels predatory. It makes you appreciate how restrained YouTube is.

[Drarok]

I dunno if it's changed or if I'm blind, but I have no idea what you're on about with the pay or charts stuff. Nor raids, actually.

I've subscribed to a handful of folks and watched various things on there, but it never really holds my interest for long.

[Alan]

Maybe it’s a per channel thing but it seemed to be active on any one I was in. It has little leaderboards of things like gift subs with “gift 10 gift subs to be #1!”. The raids I think are kind of like an experience bar that films the more people spend money in a certain time frame and then there’s the “hype train” which seems to be a slight variation on the raid thing. Then some channels make it worse by playing sound effects and flashing gifs on the screen when people spend past a threshold.

It’s ask just so obnoxious and manipulative and I hate it so much it actively makes me not want to even use my prime sub even though that’s literally just helping Amazon!

I get it, people are trying to make a living on there but it sure feels like it’s preying on the easily manipulated.

[Mantis]

I thought raids were just when one streamer was going offline so they picked a friends channel to direct all their viewers to so they'd all pile in and shout "raid" at the other guy and start watching him instead.

I did see one streamer offering his viewers the chance to play against him at street fighter for a ten dollar donation yesterday. Such a mugs game isn't it if you can build even a half decent viewing base, people just throw money at you for the stupidest crap.

[Alan]

I admit I may have not got the nuances of what was going on correct but I hate it all even so Some SF dudes used to do 50quid for an hour of play with feedback from them which seems like brilliant value these days!




Tbh I’d probably pay 50quid for an hour playing against Mike Ross tbh -_-

[Snowy]

I really don't understand the appeal of Twitch, it is one of those things that I think are aimed at folk younger than me maybe. Don't think I am missing out.

[Animalmother]

It is one of those things that I think are aimed at folk younger than me maybe. Don't think I am missing out.

This is how I refer to pretty much everything now.

[Snowy]

Smartphone obsession

I think I may also be an old man shouting at a cloud, but what is the obsessive fucking appeal with mobile phones?

I have been going to the gym quite a lot since getting signed off following my achilles surgery last year, but the amount of time spent by other gym-goers (usually younger) on their fucking phones is really pissing me off. They will do a short set on one of the pieces of kit, followed by anything up to 15 mins of doomscrolling before they remember why they are there and do a bit more. When I am trying to do a circuit the last thing I bloody want is to be delayed by these cocks.

When I am in the office I have started to have to be in the habit of stepping around people walking about zombified by their screen. Seems people can't walk from their desk to the shitter without plugging in for a quick fix.

Same when out and about, zombies everywhere in thrall to their stupid bloody phones. People on pushbikes that can't look away from the idiot screen even though they are riding on the roads. Car drivers drifting around in motorway lanes because they are on the fucking things. How can such a technological feat result in such a reduction in intellect from the users...

I own one. It is very useful. I like to read books on it when I am out and about if I have to wait for a train, or to meet up with someone. It is not the be all and end all in my life though and I simply don't understand the obsession. I have no interest in any social media - maybe that is the difference - but man do phone obsessives piss me off. My little brother is one such, I repeatedly have to tell him to put the fucking thing away when he comes over to visit. "Mate I haven't seen you for a couple of weeks, but your needing to respond to Facebook or some other shite is of more value to you than catching up and having a laugh? Sort it out!"

[Sly Boots]

Agreed Snowy, and I think it is a generational thing to an extent. Auld fellas like you and me didn't grow up with mobile phones as an integral part of our lives, for us telephones were a tool and nothing more. Heck, I didn't even have a mobile at all until my early 20s, or a smartphone until my 30s. For us, it remains a tool - a flashier tool to be sure, but still a tool.

My eldest though is glued to hers, it's a way to watch entertainment, play games, listen to music, chat to friends (via Whatsapp and the like), and she's not even on social media so no doubt it will get worse. We mainly got it as she's at the age of walking to school on her own and going into town with friends so we wanted to be able to communicate, but it's become an obsession. We're going to have to have a serious discussion about limiting its use while at home I think.