Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I think micro is a cancer that killed RTS games. There's a small cult of people that play RTS and their genre is so autistic and off-putting it can't expand. Most importantly, it isn't strategic at all. It's bullshit busywork, athleticism (of that narrow reaction speed kind) that has no place in "strategy."

I've been enraptured with an idea for a while that RTS games ought to take a page out of Total War's book and have combat be between literal units (companies, platoons, squads, etc.) that look big on the map but are small, significant, have longevity. The exact opposite of disposable trash units. You have much more interesting tactical battles, and frankly, you have more interesting strategy too when the loss of a unit is significant. Company of Heroes actually comes fairly close to that with how retreating to heal is a real mechanic and how limited the size of forces is) that losing a squad is noticable.

If the classic "build a city" type RTS games had embraced that kind of design they would have been much better.

 

[TheHarbinger]

I think micro is a cancer that killed RTS games. There's a small cult of people that play RTS and their genre is so autistic and off-putting it can't expand. Most importantly, it isn't strategic at all. It's bullshit busywork, athleticism (of that narrow reaction speed kind) that has no place in "strategy."

It's 'real time' gaming. Like fighting games or shooters you need tons of practice and execution. There are tons of turn based games that are competitive from chess, board games, tabletop games, CIV, XCOM, and so on. Making RTS games dumb and simple execution wise is pointless. Just play a turn based game. And even then people love taking turn based games like chess and forcing quick moves with 'rapid' or 'blitz' rules. We are supposed to make RTS games easy because you have old man reaction times?

The reason RTS games are dead is that they are a niche PC style of game already. And the once most dominant RTS company, Blizzard North, no longer makes Warcraft and Starcraft games. No one plays RTS games competitively. Everyone plays stuff like "Tower Defense" and "DOTA" and the story campaigns. The ladders for these games are usually empty compared to people playing custom games or campaigns and single player modes.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

It's 'real time' gaming. Like fighting games or shooters you need tons of practice and execution. There are tons of turn based games that are competitive from chess, board games, tabletop games, CIV, XCOM, and so on. Making RTS games dumb and simple execution wise is pointless. Just play a turn based game. And even then people love taking turn based games like chess and forcing quick moves with 'rapid' or 'blitz' rules. We are supposed to make RTS games easy because you have old man reaction times?

The reason RTS games are dead is that they are a niche PC style of game already. And the once most dominant RTS company, Blizzard North, no longer makes Warcraft and Starcraft games. No one plays RTS games competitively. Everyone plays stuff like "Tower Defense" and "DOTA" and the story campaigns. The ladders for these games are usually empty compared to people playing custom games or campaigns and single player modes.

Because the simultaneous gameplay of real time is found in turn based?
Because the realistic combat (where soldiers actually shoot/swordfight like a real battle) is found in turn based?
Because the decision-making, where you watch it unfold and intervene at any instant, is found in turn based?

What the fuck do you need micro for just because it's real time? Real time has a completely different feeling entirely. Total War, like I mentioned is real time but it has no "micro" at all like AoE2 spergs do having their archers spaz out. Yet it has more actual tactical depth in terms of things like positioning.

The micro is bullshit. There's no tactical depth to it, it's just another hoop you jump through. There's no realism to it either. It adds nothing to the game except to appeal to spergs that have already gotten good at it.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Thread Tax: I'd like gaming be a niche thing with a small number of releases for a while, but not for some culture war bs or some kind of "normies out!" reeing.

I hear stories of old game development. Where half a dozen people get together to make something cool, even if they had no computer experience going in and had picnic tables for computer desks. Or when I hear one man autistically making something he thought was interesting and it becomes a cult classic. I want that, it sounds fun. That kind of exists in VR where there's no AAA and culture war hipsters have no interest, but that leads to the next problem.

There are so many games and gamers themselves are fractured into so many sub-sub-sub-cultures that there's no common ground for discussion. If one likes Lethal Company, another is maining Deep Rock Galactic, a third is deep into Final Fantasy 14, and I'm talking about Snowrunner and Sigil 2. We're all gamers but none of us really have anything in common to talk about because we're off in completely separate bubbles.

That's a thing that is really nice with that game and pretty realistic. In the end it comes down to who has the most points, not who won the most races. Do well enough and don't die will go a long way in F-Zero 64 and GX.

It baffles me that F-Zero 64 and GX had 100 cars on the track, each of them simulated, and each fairly smart, whereas even now AAA devs are bragging that they have 12 car grids with rubber banding follow-the-rails AI.

Another racing game I love with fun AI is the original GRID on Xbox 360. I've heard sim fans complain that it's unrealistic that AI drivers will mess up a corner and crash every now and then, but that's part of the appeal for me. They don't feel like robots glued to the racing line that rubber band to give the illusion of challenge. The game even includes team racing, with drivers you hire even preferring different kinds of racing.

Western RPGs needed competitors to stay on their toes, and without that competition, they sank into the muck and became a laughingstock of the glory that they once had.

JRPGs have been stagnant since the PS2, if not the PS1. They are still using the Dragon Warrior template and refuse to do anything to move forward.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Another racing game I love with fun AI is the original GRID on Xbox 360. I've heard sim fans complain that it's unrealistic that AI drivers will mess up a corner and crash every now and then, but that's part of the appeal for me. They don't feel like robots glued to the racing line that rubber band to give the illusion of challenge. The game even includes team racing, with drivers you hire even preferring different kinds of racing.

I think that slight retard racing AI can be fun and as I remember it the ai in project Gotham racing would muscle past or dog nose you at times. It could be extremely frustrating on higher difficulties but it also meant that the race wasn't as sterile as the more sim-ish games where the opposition is a carefully coordinated centipede of cars. It would be okay with perma-death though...

I would really like a new PGR.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Dixie is best girl.
View attachment 5577552

Rumble Roses is a weird case when you think about it. Konami doubled down on what people love about DOA--namely T'n'A--but it didn't take off. Were the controls ass or something?

 

[Judge Dredd]

Rumble Roses is a weird case when you think about it. Konami doubled down on what people love about DOA--namely T'n'A--but it didn't take off. Were the controls ass or something?

There are a few reason. Bad timing and a bad sequel.

The first game was kind of simple as far as wrestling mechanics goes. It was very much in the PS1 era Smackdown mold, which made for great pick up and play, but little depth which is fine for a multiplayer focused game, but Rumble Roses was not really a game to play with friends... Not only that, but wrestling games were just ending a long tail of classic after classic. Wrestlemania on the N64, Def Jam on GameCube, the Smackdown series on PS1 and PS2 were all big hits of recent years and offered far more depth and modes, plus there was a bit of wrestling fatigue setting in.

As TnA it worked really well, but the big selling point (the mud match) wasn't quite there technology wise and was more like rolling around in chocolate milk. But the regular matches were fine.


The second game I don't own but what little I played was awful iirc. It tried to be a wrestling game and a traditional fighter, but the controls were complete arse. Wrestling fatigue was set in by then so a bad wrestling game wasn't going to cut it.

As a TnA game, it failed as the graphics were arguably worse despite being a modern system. Everything is slathered in brown filters and more bloom that JJ Abrams Star Trek. Everything was just off in some way, like how the camera's field of view feels too narrow to see anything. There were also far better alternatives by that time. The Xbox 360 had DoA Xtreme Vollyball and Bullet Witch, PS2 games like Death By Degrees and Stolen offered better TnA, and even the Smackdown games at the time were doing it better by including Bra and Panties and Fulfill Your Fantasy matches where you strip women to their underwear.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

When it comes to RTS games, I don't like that Unit stat upgrades are a thing, i.e. Blacksmith upgrades in Age of Empires 2, or Engineering Bay upgrades for infantry in StarCraft 2. It seems like that they're there, just to be things to spend resources on, so that your units aren't as garbage as your opponents ones. (assuming that they research upgrades too) Also, to a smaller extent, I don't like how population management, as in needing to build Houses/Supply Depots/Overlords/Pylons/etc., is a thing in RTS games as well. At least there are a few exceptions to that, i.e. Huns in AOE2 don't require houses.

They exist as resource dumps to make sure everyone is upgrading things. It adds another aspect to the resource management, while also alluding to the real-world militaries spending extra cash to make sure their guns/armor/tech is up to snuff.

@Judge Dredd

It baffles me that F-Zero 64 and GX had 100 cars on the track, each of them simulated, and each fairly smart, whereas even now AAA devs are bragging that they have 12 car grids with rubber banding follow-the-rails AI.

That's because modern AAA is the gaming equivalent of a dumb blonde anime chick with big tits. The graphics are there, but the programming and the innovation took a massive turn for the worse. Half the fucking games released now are unfinished.

JRPGs have been stagnant since the PS2, if not the PS1. They are still using the Dragon Warrior template and refuse to do anything to move forward.

That actually made their games easier to understand for newbies. Most dorks who usually played FPS/fighting/adventure games can just pop in a PS2-era JRPG and play it. Western RPGs got so convoluted by the end of the 90s that they kept trying to reinvent themselves, from realtime games, to action games, to shooters. While that brought in new blood and made things easier for newbies, it alienated CRPG fans from the 90s who wanted western RPGs to keep the ''digital DnD'' dynamic. Now, you have western RPG fans whining about how RPGs no longer ascribe to the DnD formula, and fans who like the ''casualized'' games and the way they're more action-oriented.

I doubt that any of the CRPG creators were playing many JRPGs. Most of them came from tabletop games or ancient DOS games. The teams of the original Fallout or Diablo games were small developers that mostly played Western games. Diablo's class system came from NHL 94 and other sports games.

Oh, boy, they did play JRPGs. The makers of Baldur's Gate 2 played FF7 and realized how shit their characters were compared to it, then they got inspired by FF7 and made games like KOTOR and Mass Effect.

https://kotaku.com/baldurs-gate-2-3-final-fantasy-7-bioware-cloud-tifa-1850918340

 

[Calandrino]

If you're talking about the GP mode, don't quick a GP until it's over. Unlike most racing games, being consistent is more important than coming first. So many people have got the mindset from bad rubber banding games that the same cpu car will win every race, but GX on harder modes doesn't do that. Your car will do better on some tracks than others. Also, a well timed bump of a high scoring rival can win you the GP as he goes from a 90 point lead to last place.

In F-Zero X I found it easy enough, even on max difficulty, to succeed by ignoring the race altogether and focusing on murdering whoever had the most points.

There are so many games and gamers themselves are fractured into so many sub-sub-sub-cultures that there's no common ground for discussion. If one likes Lethal Company, another is maining Deep Rock Galactic, a third is deep into Final Fantasy 14, and I'm talking about Snowrunner and Sigil 2. We're all gamers but none of us really have anything in common to talk about because we're off in completely separate bubbles.

Yeah I would consider myself something of a "gamer" and I really don't know what any of those games are tbh. But if you didn't want to talk to deranged political extremists with no normal interests, you really came to the wrong neighborhood. I think you just have to go to discord to actually talk about anything (it's not just for cp anymore). There are drawbacks but it's probably best to have some variety, you guys don't want to get stuck playing the shit I unironically like, trust me.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I personally hate how the general meta is:

• Bunch of gamers complete a game dozens of times
• Said gamers become so knowledgeable about the mechanics that they can breeze past even the hardest challenge
• There's suddenly a market for a mod that makes things harder so they can replay the game 'just like they did at the start'
• Said mod nerfs practically all fun and requires autistic grinding and/or insane knowledge of every system in the game
• As the mod is endorsed by the most hardcore of hardcore fans, it becomes heavily advertised and even considered the 'base' game
• New players pick up the game, hear that the definitive version of the game is this ultra hard mode and downloads it
• New players drop it because it's unfun and frustrating
• Said new players are called babies for not 'gitting gud'
• The game gradually loses its fanbase until only the most autistic folk are playing it.

Even moreso when devs endorse the difficulty, and cater to it.

And why every single update to Binding of Isaac has been a colossal failure due to the faggots playing it.

No, TBOI is a colossal failure because every update adds a item that doesn't synergize with anything, nerfs a couple items people liked, and adds some tedious mechanics that clash with the design of the game.

Remember Delirium? And how fun it was to have a boss that moves so fast it's always on top of it and you need min 10 hearts to progress?
Remember Mom's Knife, and how tedious it is to do all the challanges without any items? I mean the original mod got it right; you did them once then you could skip them for ever.

 

[The Last Stand]

How on Earth do you have pro tournaments of battle royale titles? If you die first, you're just sitting there, waiting for the next game.

 

[Kurt Eichenwald]

The first game was kind of simple as far as wrestling mechanics goes.

For me this is the main thing that limits it's replayability. Once you start figuring out the right buttons to mash it gets really easy to throw the girls around the ring, but when you get used to the controls then you notice that there's not much more to learn, you mostly just hit a button and a direction and then the rest is automatic. The game needs combos.

 

[The Hardest R]

It baffles me that F-Zero 64 and GX had 100 cars on the track, each of them simulated, and each fairly smart, whereas even now AAA devs are bragging that they have 12 car grids with rubber banding follow-the-rails AI.

I think it’s because the game development scene is radically different.

Back in the 90s, you had a lot of people who really liked the idea of pushing things to the limit. So some programmers saw it as a challenge. Today, after hearing about developers sob about crunch time and you find out that for the first half of the game’s development timeline they were playing video games and having keggers almost daily. So everyone is just trying to get shit out the door and it can be patched later. There’s no desire to be the next Carmack, especially now that a company is judged by how many niggers, faggots, and women are in key leadership roles. None of them know or care how more advanced racing games were 20 years ago than today, they just know they’re not working the weekend and they damn well better get their performance bonuses.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Going off on what I said about western RPGs, the DnD fanatics among the WRPG fans are hilariously way behind the times. They expected things to stay the way they were back in the CRPG days, where it's a turn-based DnD in digital format, whereas western RPGs have always been trying to reinvent themselves, from KOTOR mixing turn based with real time, to Elder Scrolls being realtime, to Mass Effect and Fallout becoming shooter RPGs, and so on. Some of the most well-loved western RPG titles like KOTOR, Mass Effect 2, and Fallout 3 were not your garden-variety DnD WRPG where people take turns kicking each other. And yet these were the games that garnered the love of millions, not the CRPGs of the 90s. Yet the DND purists think otherwise.

DnD purists blame WRPGs moving away from the DnD formula for the decline of WRPGs, but that couldn't be further from the truth. ''Casual'' RPGs like Skyrim sold extremely well. Mass Effect 2 is remembered as the high point of the franchise, despite it being the most casualized in terms of RPG mechanics. Fallout 3 became Game of the Year right after Halo 3 despite it being Oblivion with guns. Shedding the chains of the DnD formula didn't kill WRPGs, it made them so successful that Skyrim was being copied by Japanese developers making Zelda games.

The real core of the problem is that WRPGs became way too successful that they became lazy, especially on the storytelling aspect; ME3's problems laid not with the combat or the RPG mechanics, but the lackluster story ending that pissed people off. Fallout 76 was extremely lazy in the story department. SWTOR's later stories that followed the otherwise-good vanilla game stories were mediocre, padding out a plot that should've ended a long time ago. Mass Effect Andromeda's story was awfully derivative. Without JRPGs to provide a counter-balance and a point of competition, WRPGs got strangled by their own success. They got to the point where they became hot shit, but then forgot that to stay in that top spot, you need to keep being good, and with no competitors, they thought they can just pass any b-grade plot in and call it a day, which in the end, caused their decline.

 

[TheHarbinger]

How on Earth do you have pro tournaments of battle royale titles? If you die first, you're just sitting there, waiting for the next game.

The waiting times are bad for all game tournaments and sports broadcasts now because of advertising. You play one RTS match then they pause for several advertisements. You play one fighting game set and you get half an hour of commercials for fast food or 'gamer chairs' or some other horseshit. The NFL has "TV timeouts" where they stop the game just to run commercials.

It's like the military saying "hurry up and wait". People are socially conditioned to wait through mass marketing and advertising for that next ten minute block of "new content" or whatever.

 

[Miller]

Despite being in Epstein's flight logs, I think Bobby Kotick did nothing wrong at Activision. Without him, the company wouldn't exist.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

It baffles me that F-Zero 64 and GX had 100 cars on the track, each of them simulated, and each fairly smart, whereas even now AAA devs are bragging that they have 12 car grids with rubber banding follow-the-rails AI.

I'm pretty sure there's only 30 cars on the track at any one time, at least during GP mode. I like F-Zero as much as the next man but unless there's a 100-car race in the story mode (I haven't beaten it in over 10 years because fuck that), that simply isn't true. Still impressive, though.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

As much as I love shitting on Nintendo, I'd like to talk about the much repeated lie of the PS2 having the best launch window by far. Here's the first games to launch on the PS2:

• Armored Core 2 10-16-2000
• Dead or Alive 2 Hard Core 10-24-2000
• Donald Duck Going Quackers 12-14-2000
• Dragon's Lair 10-24-2000
• Dynasty Warriors 2 10-20-2000
• ESPN International Track and Field 10-17-2000
• Eternal Ring 10-26-2000
• EverGrace 10-26-2000
• F1 Championship Season 2000 12-19-2000
• Fantavision 10-17-2000
• FIFA 2001 11-21-2000
• Gradius III/IV 11-16-2000
• Gun Griffon Blaze 11-01-2000
• Madden NFL 2001 10-17-2000
• Midnight Club Racing 10-18-2000
• Motor GP 10-20-2000
• NCAA Final Four 2001 12-20-2000
• NFL Gameday 2001 11-15-2000
• NHL 2001 10-25-2000
• Orphen 10-17-2000
• Q-Ball 10-25-2000
• Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 10-24-2000
• Reel Pool 11-09-2000
• Ridge Racer V 10-17-2000
• Silent Scope 10-17-2000
• Sky Odyssey 11-14-2000
• Smugglers Run 10-20-2000
• Space Ace 10-24-2000
• SSX 10-17-2000
• Street Fighter EX3 10-11-2000
• Summoner 10-25-2000
• Super Bust A Move 10-24-2000
• Surfing H30 11-02-2000
• Swing Away Golf 10-17-2000
• Tekken Tag Tournament 10-17-2000
• Theme Park Roller Coaster 12-05-2000
• Time Splitters 10-25-2000
• Time Traveler 10-30-2000
• Top Gear Dare Devil 12-20-2000
• Unreal Tournament 10-21-2000
• Wild Wild Racing 10-19-2000
• World Destruction League Thunder Tanks 12-19-2000
• X-Squad 10-17-2000
• All Star Baseball 2002 03-16-2001
• Aqua Aqua 01-02-2001
• Army Men Air Attack 2 03-26-2001
• Army Men Sarge's Heroes 2 03-26-2001
• ATV Off Road Fury 02-06-2001
• The Bouncer 03-06-2001
• Driving Emotion Type S 01-30-2001
• ESPN NBA 2 Night 02-15-2001
• ESPN NHL Hockey 03-26-2001
• High Heat Baseball 2002 03-18-2001
• Kengo Bushido 01-04-2001
• Knockout Kings 2001 02-06-2001
• MDK 2 Armageddon 03-26-2001
• NBA Hoopz 02-28-2001
• NBA Live 2001 01-23-2001
• NBA Shootout 2001 02-20-2001
• NHL Face Off 2001 02-06-2001
• ONI 01-30-2001
• Onimusha Warlords 03-14-2001
• Quake 3 03-27-2001
• Rayman 2 Revolution 01-31-2001
• RC Revenge Pro 01-10-2001
• Ring of Red 03-13-2001
• Shadow of Destiny 03-06-2001
• Star Wars Starfighter 02-20-2001
• Tiger Woods PGA 20001 02-28-2001
• Triple Play Baseball 03-13-2001
• Unison 03-27-2001
• Warriors of Might & Magic 03-20-2001
• Winback 03-28-2001
• Zone of the Enders 03-27-2001
• 4X4 Evolution 04-02-2001
• Adventures of Cookie & Cream 05-02-2001
• Bloody Roar 3 06-26-2001
• Cart Fury 05-25-2001
• Cool Boarders 2001 05-23-2001
• Crazy Taxi 05-15-2001
• Dark Cloud 05-30-2001
• Escape From Monkey Island 06-19-2001
• ESPN MLS Extra Time 04-25-2001
• Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge 05-?-2001
• Gauntlet: Dark Legacy 05-01-2001
• Heroes of Might & Magic 04-18-2001
• Motor Mayhem 06-22-2001
• MTV Music Generator 2 06-05-2001
• Nascar Heat 2002 06-22-2001
• NBA Street 06-20-2001
• Red Faction 05-23-2001
• Rumble Racing 04-24-2001
• Silpheed 05-01-2001
• Star Wars: Bombad Racing 04-24-2001
• Toyko Xtreme Racer Zero 05-30-2001
• Twisted Metal Black 06-20-2001

An absolute fucking truckload of average games for nearly the first year of the console. I'm sure if you were a kid growing up around that time a few of these titles especially stick out as games that were perpetually on sale but still didn't interest you. Don't let soniggers lie to you about how the PS2 was leaps and bounds above the Xbox and the GameCube from the get go.

 

[Vapor Sauce]

I hear stories of old game development. Where half a dozen people get together to make something cool, even if they had no computer experience going in and had picnic tables for computer desks. Or when I hear one man autistically making something he thought was interesting and it becomes a cult classic. I want that, it sounds fun. That kind of exists in VR where there's no AAA and culture war hipsters have no interest

Yeah that kind of game development has been lost to time at least for the most part. Pretty sure Bethesda started out with just a handful of guys making Elder Scrolls because they thought it would be cool.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

@Tom Nook's Gloryhole
The Gamecube and Xbox had stronger launch titles. The PS2 won in the long run because of the avalanche if JRPGs on the console, ina time when JRPGs were hot shit.