Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Having the option to let the game point you exactly where to go and what to do is good. You can take my hardcore gamer card and shred it I guess, but especially in open world games sometimes you just want to get to the action instead of wandering around aimlessly.

Pokemon looked the best when it was on the original Nintendo DS.

I'm partial to it on Game Boy Color. That's before the art style changed. It did still look pretty good on DS though.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

And seeing videos like this, still makes me wonder how Valve gets away with a lot of things, that other game companies would get absolutely ass-fucked if they were to do the same.

A lot of companies get away with this shit. Roblox, mobile games, etc.

Idk why nobody cares

Now, because of the battle royale trend, anybody and everybody would be focused on those games while others would "die out" a year or two after launch. It doesn't help that monetization now preys on FOMO and short attention spans for the casual player.

Like others have said, it's games as a service that caused it.

There's a shitton of money going in maintaining a always online server... You have to make sure you get a large number of players to justify the cost. Etc etc

from release of a lot of games you can notice if the soul of the game is dead or not, that can't be changed by updates, a different developer, or a fanbase fixing it.
if the game has a soul and it gets ass-fucked to death by the devs, it can be repaired, those types, cannot.

Nope, there's a process.

- mmo is somewhat popular
- bigger company buys it
- changes monetization to make more money
- dumbs down gameplay to make it more accessible
- basically moneymaxxxes and kills the game in 1 year

 

[Museum Burning Rioter]

Nope, there's a process.

- mmo is somewhat popular
- bigger company buys it
- changes monetization to make more money
- dumbs down gameplay to make it more accessible
- basically moneymaxxxes and kills the game in 1 year

l can see why you'd say that, but that's not quite my point, it can still be repaired if a different dev handles it or if it has proper mod tools to modify the game and make it better (e.g fallout 4).

 

[The Last Stand]

If MS had bought Sega with its current philosophy back in the day. Sega could've survived that console generation.

 

[Matt Damon]

Having the option to let the game point you exactly where to go and what to do is good. You can take my hardcore gamer card and shred it I guess, but especially in open world games sometimes you just want to get to the action instead of wandering around aimlessly.

The "hardcore gamer" argument is always gay and I can understand the convenience of always being pointed in the right direction, but I have to admit that almost every time I put in the effort to play a game that isn't leading me around with a compass marker, I find the experience significantly more engaging and rewarding.

I think there's something deep in human psychology that's stimulated by getting one's bearings and mentally mapping a new environment. It's hard work (as far as video games go), but it's more satisfying than the quick dopamine hit of crossing a task off a list or getting some new loot from a treasure chest.

 

[Flaming Insignias]

Having the option to let the game point you exactly where to go and what to do is good. You can take my hardcore gamer card and shred it I guess, but especially in open world games sometimes you just want to get to the action instead of wandering around aimlessly.

On that note, that is something I really hate being brought up by Morrowind Fanboys. We get it, they liked to wander around aimlessly based on painfully vague clues, but sometimes it's nice to have a wayfinder so you can journey with some semblance of direction when dealing with massive open worlds.

I also think that action RPGs shouldn't have missing mechanics if your attacks have to make physical contact through player input.

 

[popnloch ness monster]

Having the option to let the game point you exactly where to go and what to do is good. You can take my hardcore gamer card and shred it I guess, but especially in open world games sometimes you just want to get to the action instead of wandering around aimlessly.

On that note, that is something I really hate being brought up by Morrowind Fanboys. We get it, they liked to wander around aimlessly based on painfully vague clues, but sometimes it's nice to have a wayfinder so you can journey with some semblance of direction when dealing with massive open worlds.

I also think that action RPGs shouldn't have missing mechanics if your attacks have to make physical contact through player input.

heh, I didn't know they let gay people play video games
come back when you're old enough to play vidya, kid

 

[Pissmaster]

Having the option to let the game point you exactly where to go and what to do is good. You can take my hardcore gamer card and shred it I guess, but especially in open world games sometimes you just want to get to the action instead of wandering around aimlessly.

As far as destination markers go, it really depends on the game. I don't want one in a roguelike, since adventuring around and discovering what's around the corner is the game, but there are plenty of games where the environment's reasonably safe and mundane, and with no markers, it could turn into a boring pixel hunt.

A good example of when destination markers are really handy are like, in a Bethesda game, someone might tell you "Go talk to Eduardo in the Anime Guild, he'll give you the proper training to help you identify the difference between anime and real women", so you go to the Anime Guild and there are like twenty different dudes, all with different dialog trees, all of which say nothing of value except for Eduardo. It then becomes a game of trial-and-error until you find the right guy.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

The "hardcore gamer" argument is always gay and I can understand the convenience of always being pointed in the right direction, but I have to admit that almost every time I put in the effort to play a game that isn't leading me around with a compass marker, I find the experience significantly more engaging and rewarding.

I think there's something deep in human psychology that's stimulated by getting one's bearings and mentally mapping a new environment. It's hard work (as far as video games go), but it's more satisfying than the quick dopamine hit of crossing a task off a list or getting some new loot from a treasure chest.

I basically agree. But I think if game design is good enough then you won't need to wander around, things will be intuitive or at least make the process fun even when you're not immediately making progress.

Sometimes the game world is just fun in itself, which is what BotW fans insist, and while I disagree about BotW being a good example of that it's still the same idea I'm trying to get across.

I had New Vegas in mind when making the comment. The map marker is just busted sometimes and so I end up wandering around samey looking dull environments for whoever I need to find. It's a fun game but Skyrim definitely did things better, it has magic to create a direct trail which streamlined things.

As far as destination markers go, it really depends on the game. I don't want one in a roguelike, since adventuring around and discovering what's around the corner is the game, but there are plenty of games where the environment's reasonably safe and mundane, and with no markers, it could turn into a boring pixel hunt.

A good example of when destination markers are really handy are like, in a Bethesda game, someone might tell you "Go talk to Eduardo in the Anime Guild, he'll give you the proper training to help you identify the difference between anime and real women", so you go to the Anime Guild and there are like twenty different dudes, all with different dialog trees, all of which say nothing of value except for Eduardo. It then becomes a game of trial-and-error until you find the right guy.

Yep, that's the thing, sometimes nothing is really lost, like in big RPGs. I think Mario Oddsey has arrows on easy mode but that's the kind of game I definitely wouldn't use them in. That just ruins the fun, 3D Mario is exploration and platforming, so you'd be stripping out half the game.

I still don't mind the option existing though.

 

[74164978231]

Their obsession with making money makes it looks like they're a publicly traded company though. They released their AR division, and a former Valve dev, Jeri Ellsworth, said in an interview that she made a pitch for something that can make millions, and Valve said it makes ZERO BILLIONS.

Thats the mindset of every company in the consolidated world. If they arent making dumptruck loads of cash every second why even bother? Either were gonna have the next fortnite on our hands or fuck off back to your cube.

Microtransactions and the general saas paradigm has been an unmitigated disaster for the person who enjoys video games. The quality and amount of content you get nowadays is an absolute fraction of what you would get just 15-20 years ago.

As long as retards continue to fork over their paychecks for shiny pixels that will not exist in 2-3 years, this will only get worse.

 

[The Last Stand]

Game difficulty in games nowadays boil down to handholding easy or unfairly difficult.

By "unfair," they either increase enemy health, damage, or just intentionally make it based on luck because of poor game design. See OW2 PvE or GTA Online. Of course, that is to get you to "buy" your way to a victory.

 

[Matt Damon]

If MS had bought Sega with its current philosophy back in the day. Sega could've survived that console generation.

So if Sega had been given the funding that we already know kept the Xbox brand solvent, they could've stayed afloat for another 4-5 years?

I mean, it's true but it's practically tautological. If given effectively infinite money, any company can survive even with no revenue at all.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

Game difficulty in games nowadays boil down to handholding easy or unfairly difficult.

By "unfair," they either increase enemy health, damage, or just intentionally make it based on luck because of poor game design. See OW2 PvE or GTA Online. Of course, that is to get you to "buy" your way to a victory.

I feel like strategy games are notorious for how bullshit they can get, at least at higher difficulties, with how much the AI gets to cheat. And it's a real shame, because while it can make it more challenging and engaging, it also can make it total nonsense.

Vision blocked by fog of war? The AI can see the entire map, at all times, including hidden units.
Start with 1000 gold and a unit costs 100? The AI starts with 10000 and can pop out units every turn for free.
Your warrior has 10 attack? Well the AI's exact same (free) unit has 20 attack.
Not to mention how the gameplay can involve tipping points where every faction drops what they're doing and tries to dogpile the human player to stop them from winning. In some cases, like if you're close to victory in Civilization, it makes sense. But stuff like Realm Divide in Shogun 2 will take utterly loyal allies or vassals that have been at your side the whole game suddenly flip to hating you and trying to stab you in the guts. Total War: Warhammer will have factions march armies across the entire earth just to fuck with you, since you're the human.

Now, I get it. Making an intelligent AI for a strategy game is probably the hardest part, and saying you've got a very smart, adaptive computer opponent will probably sell less copies than just smacking elf titties on a "Play now, my lord!" advertisement. But it's sad to see what looks like the whole industry and players just shrug and say "Well, it's as good as it'll get." Stuff like Halo Wars 2 went out of its way to get help from pro players and shape the AI around popular and effective strategies, like rushes and turtling. And GalCiv 2 remains the only game where I've had the AI actually show how smart it was by saying "I see you amassing troops on my border, but since you're at a lower difficulty, I'm prevented from acting. But I know." I feel like people just accepted mediocre AIs with unfair cheats as the only way to add more difficulty to strategy games. If anything, the AI should be brutally smart, and you get cheats on the easier difficulties, with the hardest mode being fighting it on an even playing field.

 

[The Ugly One]

So if Sega had been given the funding that we already know kept the Xbox brand solvent, they could've stayed afloat for another 4-5 years?

I mean, it's true but it's practically tautological. If given effectively infinite money, any company can survive even with no revenue at all.

Microsoft would have acquired some reasonably valuable software IPs and a pants-on-head retarded hardware business, like Sega managed to actually be worse at putting together a cost-effective hardware roadmap than Microsoft.

I feel like strategy games are notorious for how bullshit they can get, at least at higher difficulties, with how much the AI gets to cheat. And it's a real shame, because while it can make it more challenging and engaging, it also can make it total nonsense.

Vision blocked by fog of war? The AI can see the entire map, at all times, including hidden units.
Start with 1000 gold and a unit costs 100? The AI starts with 10000 and can pop out units every turn for free.
Your warrior has 10 attack? Well the AI's exact same (free) unit has 20 attack.
Not to mention how the gameplay can involve tipping points where every faction drops what they're doing and tries to dogpile the human player to stop them from winning. In some cases, like if you're close to victory in Civilization, it makes sense. But stuff like Realm Divide in Shogun 2 will take utterly loyal allies or vassals that have been at your side the whole game suddenly flip to hating you and trying to stab you in the guts. Total War: Warhammer will have factions march armies across the entire earth just to fuck with you, since you're the human.

Now, I get it. Making an intelligent AI for a strategy game is probably the hardest part, and saying you've got a very smart, adaptive computer opponent will probably sell less copies than just smacking elf titties on a "Play now, my lord!" advertisement. But it's sad to see what looks like the whole industry and players just shrug and say "Well, it's as good as it'll get." Stuff like Halo Wars 2 went out of its way to get help from pro players and shape the AI around popular and effective strategies, like rushes and turtling. And GalCiv 2 remains the only game where I've had the AI actually show how smart it was by saying "I see you amassing troops on my border, but since you're at a lower difficulty, I'm prevented from acting. But I know." I feel like people just accepted mediocre AIs with unfair cheats as the only way to add more difficulty to strategy games. If anything, the AI should be brutally smart, and you get cheats on the easier difficulties, with the hardest mode being fighting it on an even playing field.

One of the challenges of AI design is that fair fights are actually not fun. Overcoming long odds is fun. If the AI in a game were good, then starting a mission where the enemy has a full base, and you have a builder unit with a few resources should end in failure 100% of the time. If the AI in Halo were actually really good, you would never, ever survive a fight with three Elites.

So how do you design an AI the player can reliably beat in come-from-behind scenarios, but doesn't seem either like it's stupid or cheating? It's a tough problem.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Game difficulty in games nowadays boil down to handholding easy or unfairly difficult.

By "unfair," they either increase enemy health, damage, or just intentionally make it based on luck because of poor game design. See OW2 PvE or GTA Online. Of course, that is to get you to "buy" your way to a victory.

Yeah, you're right.
Bethesda's method of handling difficulty is so simple: just a modifier when you're dealing damage vs. the enemy dealing damage to you.
Cyberpunk's 2077 is similar; very hard difficulty in that game is just a barrier to don't being so easy in early game but still broken in late-game.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I feel like strategy games are notorious for how bullshit they can get, at least at higher difficulties, with how much the AI gets to cheat. And it's a real shame, because while it can make it more challenging and engaging, it also can make it total nonsense.

Vision blocked by fog of war? The AI can see the entire map, at all times, including hidden units.
Start with 1000 gold and a unit costs 100? The AI starts with 10000 and can pop out units every turn for free.
Your warrior has 10 attack? Well the AI's exact same (free) unit has 20 attack.
Not to mention how the gameplay can involve tipping points where every faction drops what they're doing and tries to dogpile the human player to stop them from winning. In some cases, like if you're close to victory in Civilization, it makes sense. But stuff like Realm Divide in Shogun 2 will take utterly loyal allies or vassals that have been at your side the whole game suddenly flip to hating you and trying to stab you in the guts. Total War: Warhammer will have factions march armies across the entire earth just to fuck with you, since you're the human.

Now, I get it. Making an intelligent AI for a strategy game is probably the hardest part, and saying you've got a very smart, adaptive computer opponent will probably sell less copies than just smacking elf titties on a "Play now, my lord!" advertisement. But it's sad to see what looks like the whole industry and players just shrug and say "Well, it's as good as it'll get." Stuff like Halo Wars 2 went out of its way to get help from pro players and shape the AI around popular and effective strategies, like rushes and turtling. And GalCiv 2 remains the only game where I've had the AI actually show how smart it was by saying "I see you amassing troops on my border, but since you're at a lower difficulty, I'm prevented from acting. But I know." I feel like people just accepted mediocre AIs with unfair cheats as the only way to add more difficulty to strategy games. If anything, the AI should be brutally smart, and you get cheats on the easier difficulties, with the hardest mode being fighting it on an even playing field.

People wouldn't play if the AI started out playing like a seasoned human opponent right out of the gate. Look how many people play offline in a game for hours and then go online and get immediately wiped.

Playing against other people involves a far steeper learning curve.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

People wouldn't play if the AI started out playing like a seasoned human opponent right out of the gate. Look how many people play offline in a game for hours and then go online and get immediately wiped.

Playing against other people involves a far steeper learning curve.

I'm not saying that an AI on a default difficulty should wipe the floor with human novices over and over. That'd be just as unfair and tedious. I just mean that the AI's potential should be able to reach that professional level, and the developers than scale it down incrementally from that base for lower difficulties. Age of Empires 2 does something like that, with the AI only getting bonus resources on the highest difficulty setting, but more importantly, each setting also allows for the AI to perform more advanced tactics, like contesting resource nodes with offensive towers or performing first strikes against you rather than letting you push first. If you're starting out, it will be handicapped in your favor, but then will reach parity as you go up the scale, until finally needing its own "cheats" to really fight you. My understanding of the Halo Wars 2 AI is that the developers helped it learned pro-level strategies, but that it didn't really perform them at a pro-level of mastery unless you were at the highest difficulty possible.

You have to give some kind of leeway to AIs when it comes to bonuses/maluses just because they don't operate on the same level of things like reaction time or micromanagement, but I just feel that AIs are more interesting if they're designed in the perspective of player-focused handicaps than computer-focused handicaps. It's more fun to play chess against your older brother and have him go easy on you (until you start kicking his ass) than playing against your younger brother, but he gets to have four queens instead of one.

 

[M3xus]

I liked Freespace's handling of difficulty. Higher difficulties increased the power drain of your guns (going from near-zero to actually needing some fire discipline), but it also dictated how many AI enemies are "allowed" to attack you. They'd still dodge your fire, but if were already pursued by the "max" your target wouldn't suddenly turn around and engage you. Insane, naturally, let everyone attack you.

Right, unpopular opinions. Chris Avellone is way too high up his own ass.

 

[verissimus]

I feel like strategy games are notorious for how bullshit they can get, at least at higher difficulties, with how much the AI gets to cheat. And it's a real shame, because while it can make it more challenging and engaging, it also can make it total nonsense.

Vision blocked by fog of war? The AI can see the entire map, at all times, including hidden units.
Start with 1000 gold and a unit costs 100? The AI starts with 10000 and can pop out units every turn for free.
Your warrior has 10 attack? Well the AI's exact same (free) unit has 20 attack.
Not to mention how the gameplay can involve tipping points where every faction drops what they're doing and tries to dogpile the human player to stop them from winning. In some cases, like if you're close to victory in Civilization, it makes sense. But stuff like Realm Divide in Shogun 2 will take utterly loyal allies or vassals that have been at your side the whole game suddenly flip to hating you and trying to stab you in the guts. Total War: Warhammer will have factions march armies across the entire earth just to fuck with you, since you're the human.

Now, I get it. Making an intelligent AI for a strategy game is probably the hardest part, and saying you've got a very smart, adaptive computer opponent will probably sell less copies than just smacking elf titties on a "Play now, my lord!" advertisement. But it's sad to see what looks like the whole industry and players just shrug and say "Well, it's as good as it'll get." Stuff like Halo Wars 2 went out of its way to get help from pro players and shape the AI around popular and effective strategies, like rushes and turtling. And GalCiv 2 remains the only game where I've had the AI actually show how smart it was by saying "I see you amassing troops on my border, but since you're at a lower difficulty, I'm prevented from acting. But I know." I feel like people just accepted mediocre AIs with unfair cheats as the only way to add more difficulty to strategy games. If anything, the AI should be brutally smart, and you get cheats on the easier difficulties, with the hardest mode being fighting it on an even playing field.

Sort of hard to disagree with this sentiment in particular with regard to the Total War series (especially Shogun 2); however, the thing I find is that while the AI certainly cheats from a "strategic"/campaign map sense especially when it comes to money, it still is quite stupid if not flat out retarded when it comes to fighting. This is where a seasoned player clearly has an edge even if they're outnumbered especially when it comes to defending cities/castles. You can easily annihilate enemy armies in Shogun 2 under the right circumstances in such battles. Also, the player is more than likely going to have the advantage in terms of agents as well (in the long run at least, not so much in the very beginning). In particular abusing the ninja's ability to sabotage armies. Also there is one "exploit" that the player can use that the AI will never use, and that's the ability to effectively move a full stack army almost anywhere on the map provided they have enough ships spread across the coastline (note this is also possible in Empire and Napoleon Total War as well).

Basically my take is that, while the advantages that are given to the AI are cheap/lame, it really doesn't amount to much if the player has a pretty good idea what he's doing.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

If anything, the AI should be brutally smart, and you get cheats on the easier difficulties, with the hardest mode being fighting it on an even playing field.

That reminds me of Really Stupid Chess. The across all difficulties the AI never changed, what changed was what pieces you both started out with. At the bottom of the difficulty barrel you might have three queens while the AI has none. As the difficulty slowly ramps up you reach the point of normal chess, that's the mid-point of the game, after that you are the one getting worse and worse pieces while the AI gets an advantage. It never gets smarter though. It was pretty fun.

The original release of Masters of Orion 3 could be won on "impossible" difficulty by doing nothing other than pressing next turn. At some point these huge empires will vote for the player to be leader of the senate(a win condition) just because the player hasn't engaged in any wars or schemes so no one hates him.