New Unreal is a an all around miserable experience.

[Packetdancer]

at that point, I either consult the guide or I ask around NN or my LSs.
My first assumption is that I did something wrong. And if after reviewing stuff it turned out that it was someone else's I just shrugged and carry on.

Sure, and I approach things similarly. And once you have that foundation of confidence, finding ways to optimize things -- be it your healing/mitigation strategy, or how to move most effectively for a given mechanic -- is half the fun of endgame content, for me.

But if I look back to when I was a brand new shiny fresh-out-of-box raider who could barely find her ass in this game's endgame content with both hands and a map, I definitely know that at that time I lacked the confidence that I'd even be asking the right questions, much less that I'd necessarily be able to effectively make use of the answers. So as I took my first hesitant steps into savage (and often got immediately flattened), I know that I found callouts really useful as they gave me some added sanity-check on whether or not I was reading stuff correctly.

[hagare]

Sure, and I approach things similarly. And once you have that foundation of confidence, finding ways to optimize things -- be it your healing/mitigation strategy, or how to move most effectively for a given mechanic -- is half the fun of endgame content, for me.

But if I look back to when I was a brand new shiny fresh-out-of-box raider who could barely find her ass in this game's endgame content with both hands and a map, I definitely know that at that time I lacked the confidence that I'd even be asking the right questions, much less that I'd necessarily be able to effectively make use of the answers. So as I took my first hesitant steps into savage (and often got immediately flattened), I know that I found callouts really useful as they gave me some added sanity-check on whether or not I was reading stuff correctly.

which is why I die practice die practice repeat ad infinitum.
But you gotta be willing to take the first step and accept that you will fail a lot of times.
and confidence, I still fear messing up when I do it xD