Leaderboard

My next stream will start in a few minutes. It's going to be for the Ace Attorney Trilogy! Me and my co-host @Executor Akamia will go on and play this game for as long as our sanity allows. So yeah! Let's all have some good ol' fashioned Ace Attorney fun.

1. because the publisher tends to overhype and then the devs don't deliver. -.- aka Anthem (even tho, it now looks that Anthem will become the next No Man's Land) 2. because the game is too hard even though that's what the game's intention was -.- aka Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (even tho, some speed-runners have finished it in an hour!) 3. because some people just like to hate on stuff, because jumping on the hate-wagon is really easy. Hate bounces from person to person and spreads instantaneously. The third group's probably the largest by a vast margin. Praise, love, and play. Cheers! ❤️

I think this is a worthwhile point to consider. It reminds me of people who play buster-only runs of Mega Man games, or Nuzlockes in Pokémon. The achievements of people who succeed these are not undermined by the presence of Special Weapons or the ability to keep your mons even if they faint, respectively. These self-imposed challenges are not denied, discouraged, or encouraged by the game itself. People just... do them. However, most of these games don't have an "easy" mode. Or any other mode beyond the default, for that matter. Mega Man 2 had a "Normal" mode that was only put into the international release, but the only difficulty in the original Rockman 2 was the Hard one. To the best of my knowledge, mainstream Pokémon games have never had difficulty settings.

Exactly. I've actually read that the sheer volume of quests in NV is apparently larger than Fallout 3, yet the game does feel much smaller and tighter to me. I definitely prefer it, even though I think 3 is a great game.

Rofl! That is a very good point. The sheer amount of cheese he can carry is also most fearsome.

Eeyup-yup. I'mma be there.

I don't think all, or even most, games really need an easy mode. Accessibility is one thing, but difficulty is another matter entirely. Some games – particularly those that are played for their competitive multiplayer – can, in fact, be negatively impacted by both. To illustrate, I want to talk about a game series that I greatly enjoy: StarCraft For those who don't know, StarCraft is a series of sci-fi RTS games created and published by Blizzard. There are presently 2 games in this series: StarCraft, released in 1998, with an expansion (StarCraft: Brood War) being released later that year. Its full sequel, StarCraft II, was released in 2010 with the title StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, with 2 expansions releasing in 2013 (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm) and 2015. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void) StarCraft is one of the earliest examples of esports in gaming history, predating the first MOBAs by several years. Fighting games like Street Fighter might be even earlier. StarCraft, however, is on a different level entirely; it's particularly popular in Korea, where it may as well be considered the national sport. I myself am a StarCraft player, particularly a StarCraft II player. I'm not particularly good at it; on the ranked ladder, my highest finish was top Silver League, which is really, really low. Part of the problem is my computer having mouselag with the game, which hinders my accuracy and speed significantly, but in all honesty, the lion's share of my problems are that I'm just bad. Period. I can improve, and will if I keep at it enough; perhaps even overcoming that particular limitation, but I don't have that kind of patience. I prefer to lose on my own terms, not because of bad hardware. Or maybe it's my OS that's the problem... The mouselag wasn't a thing before I upgraded to macOS Sierra a couple of years ago... Anyway. There is a faction within the playerbase – a few, actually – who believe StarCraft II overall was watered down from what the StarCraft: Brood War experience was. Not just in the campaign, but in the gameplay itself. After having some lengthy discussions with some of these people in my spare time, I can see where they're coming from for certain. I don't like Brood War myself, and a lot of the reasons I like StarCraft II are a few of the reasons these people hate it, because these are things they believe lowered the skill ceiling for the game compared to what it was in Brood War. First, let's talk about the campaign. In StarCraft: Brood War, the campaign was more or less designed to teach you how to play the game. How each unit works, and when you need to use them. Except for hero units, every unit you play with in the campaign can be used in the multiplayer, and they work pretty much the exact same way in both modes. That said, the campaign is very difficult for those not used to the (in my experience) very restrictive UI, and in some cases, very difficult even for those who are. More on that later. In StarCraft II's campaign, this is a whole different ballgame. While the game does teach you the very basics of how to play, it doesn't teach you how the units work the same way Brood War did, and in fact, the units in the multiplayer can end up playing completely different roles than they did in the campaign due to balance changes completely overturning the metagame. Sure, you'll learn how units work in that campaign, but those units don't necessarily work the same way in the multiplayer, and some of those campaign units – Terran Goliaths, Protoss Dark Archons, Zerg Guardians, for example – don't even exist in that mode. Conversely, some multiplayer units don't exist in the campaign. Blizzard even added a completely different mode at some point that was intended to aid in the transition from campaign play to multiplayer play because the disconnect was so big. This mode was called "Training". In addition, multiplayer is played at a faster speed than most campaign difficulties, the exception being Brutal difficulty, which is played at multiplayer speed. I didn't spend enough time with Brood War to notice a speed difference between the modes; I doubt there is one. Speed is an important factor to consider here, because it affects timings. But that's getting into gameplay... ... which is the next thing I want to talk about. In StarCraft: Brood War, you're only allowed to select either 1 building at a time, or up to 16 units at a time. While commonly attributed to hardware or software limitations of the time, I'm... having a hard time buying that excuse, as it's the only RTS game I've ever played that had that limitation. Granted, I haven't played any other RTS games from the 90s or earlier, so for all I know, this could be completely true. I'll have to ask some fans of early Age of Empires or Command & Conquer games later. Anyway, regardless of the technical reasons for this being the case, the effect was that players had to be smarter about unit management. It was excruciatingly difficult to send what are called "death balls" over to the enemy base and roll over them because of a combination of this and less-than-stellar unit pathing algorithms, the latter of which affected the Terran Goliath and the Protoss Dragoon the most of any other unit in the game, or so I'm told. In addition to this, worker units had to be specifically ordered to gather resources, even when rallied to them from the primary base structure, or they would do nothing at all. StarCraft II? You can select as many units at one time as you want, and even have more than one building in your selection. This streamlined several things, but it also made it painfully easy to build those death balls I talked about in the previous paragraph. In the Protoss arsenal in particular, there's a unit that rather annoyingly enables and borderline encourages death ball play: The Mothership. As a Protoss player myself, I personally avoid building this thing on principle, though it does usually fall off in the upper echelons of play as death balls do anyway, at least in current versions of the game. Early on in the game's lifetime, though? Death balls were everywhere. This has frustrated quite a handful of series veterans enough to write the game off entirely. All of this because of an effort to make the game more accessible. It worked, but it came at a price. I'm not gonna deny there's some elitism at play; there totally is. However, it doesn't change the fact that these seemingly innocuous quality-of-life changes have altered the game in such a way that it very nearly took the "strategy" out of the real-time strategy game. I'm sure there might have been a better way to make the game more accessible to new players without alienating the old ones, but in the end, as much as I like StarCraft II over StarCraft: Brood War, I don't think this was it.

That's the stupidest connection I have ever heard in my entire life. How the hell is that supposed to be any form of supremacy? Just how?! Look dude, the fact is that no matter where you go, you won't be able to please everyone in any way. You are going to find players that are certainly not going to enjoy the game you're making for them. Catering to them at the expense of the player base that's already loyal to you will not only never really turn the heads of those who didn't want to play the game iun the first place, but it will also turn those who already enjoyed the game for what it was away. And seriously, I am known for saying that things are linked to politics and such.. But this was the most vague and stupid connection I have ever heard. To the point where I am not even comparing you to the left, I just think you're entirely delusional.

Totally. I think that Dark Souls is thematically and structurally built around this whole "suffering together" design philosophy. An easy mode would definitely undermine this particular game.

Hahaha! It is the Dragonborn's way of dealing with stress because he is so nerfed in-game - The guards could at least try to be a bit more sympathetic! 🤣

Hey, sorry for replying late. I was out of town for a few days. About EVE and my experience with it. Yeah, the cosmetics can get a bit pricy. But that's true with all of the games, I reckon. I mean, have you seen how much do some of the skins in CS:GO cost? It's absurd! Player interaction depends on yourself. You can play solo and keep to the shadows, or you join a corporation (like a guild in other MMOs) with other players. I tend to play Solo as I don't play often and don't want to commit myself too much so I might not be the best to talk about player interaction. But corps can get crazy, forming alliances with each other, starting wars, etc. The game can be a bit overwhelming at first, but I recommend you try it. It's free, after all! FTL seems interesting, but I never got a chance to play it yet. It's on my list to play.

I second this! The gaming world needs more professionalism, and you're off to an awesome start here!

That pretty much sums up my view of this issue. I also think that there is a nuance in this topic which we keep bringing up, but not necessarily pointing out, which is a difference between "difficulty" and "accessibility." I mean, even on an "easy" mode, Sekiro/Souls/etc probably would never really be playable/accessible for me because the entire structure and play style of the game doesn't suit my abilities. Both my executive function and performance anxiety will always get in the way along with my general personality. I don't think a dev can do anything about that--that would be one of those impossible challenges @DylanC mentioned. But I still don't see a problem with providing an "easy" mode so that those who could feasibly get something great out of playing a game like Sekiro or Souls on a lower skill level can enjoy it. I also don't think it should be a requirement, but I see no good reason not to do it. Mostly, I am bothered by arguments which boil down to, "My enjoyment of this hard game is contigent upon others not being able to beat it on their level." It seems most sensible (and decent) to derive enjoyment from one's own experience, not from another person being deprived of their lower-skill equivalent of that experience.

Once again, DlyanC says exactly what I've said before in a less aggressive manner. But still, I SAID THIS BEFORE GUYS COME ON!

Saturdays at 5PM CST

@skyfire @killamch89 Great, thanks for the suggestions!

A forum is a place for discussion and you'll meet people who do not agree with you. Also.. Yeah.. I mean, there are games that I simply cannot play for the life of me like the Tohou games (or any bullet hell game for that matter) because they cause motion sickness to me. You know what I do? I turn back and play the games I can actually enjoy and play. I don't know why that's a hard concept to grasp.

@skyfire that home sweet home game sure does give me the creeps! RE 7 is the most terrifying one I've played...or rather not played since I was at my friend's house. I quite literally wanted to hide under her bed and had to try my hardest not to scream although I can't because I have a deep voice. Alien Isolation is also a pretty awesome survival game although the first 30 mins to an hour are boring as hell but once it gets going - OH BOY!

I just finished Bioshock 1 a couple weeks ago for the first time :)

I only jumped into the Assassin's Creed series with Odyssey, and honestly, I'm having a blast with it. It's probably thanks to the latest couple of games focusing more on the RPG side of things, which is my wheelhouse. From the very limited experience I've had with the early entries, I wasn't really very impressed tbh. Felt like something was missing.

The Evil Within 2, has some good levels to play around. I'd say dead space is good but there are too many clones of that concept and it's kind of getting repetitive lately. I'd also add alien series of games into this.

I may consider finishing up some of the unplayed games in the steam list. I have lot of indie games to finish. I managed to buy them as a bundle back in time. And I have not much followed up them over as well.

The best survival horror games I've played so far are Silent Hill 2, The Evil Within 2, The Last Of Us, Dead Space, Resident Evil Remake and both Resident Evil 2s from 1998 and the more recent 2019 one. All terrific and super creepy games. However, from the game's I've played, some good survival/crafting games worth checking out are 7 Days To Die, Conan Exiles, Don't Starve and Minecraft (on survival mode).

When you are stuck on something, you can be rest assured that you will keep making excuses on why you had to keep being involved with such act or addiction. It's just the same thing with gaming because when you are so hooked up to playing, it's going to affect other things that you are supposed to do.