golguin

@pyromagnestir said:

As with the Dark Souls easy mode thing, I say what does it matter? If I can still play the game the way I want to play the game and the only thing that changes is the game maybe becomes a bit more accessible for people who wouldn't normally try it, thus perhaps making it sell a bit better and meaning even more Fire Emblem in the future, then I don't see the issue.

I don't want to start up the Dark Souls easy mode thing again since it will probably come up again in the future if things go bad, but I don't believe you understand why a Dark Souls "easy mode" is the wrong decision. Many things could be done to that game to make it more accessible without changing anything about the environmental and enemy obstacles. A lot more information can be presented to the player instead of having to figure it out for yourself and the UI and/or the tutorial could explain why you would level up one stat over another to create a good build.

The Dark Souls easy mode argument is wrong for the same reason as a Super Meat Boy easy mode.

@golguin: They didn't call everyone who didn't like the ending entitled, they called the people making petitions and throwing around personal insults and threats at anyone who dared say that the ending wasn't bad entitled. Jesus fucking christ you people can't see that distinction can you?

@MildMolasses said:

@WinterSnowblind said:

I hope you're not referring to the outrage over ME3's ending, because I think that's exactly what the topic creator was getting at.

People had legitimate and typically well explained reasons for disliking what happened and the press basically brushed it aside as "entitlement". Some people took their complaints too far, but that's always the case and the journalists proved to be just as immature as the ones whining.

What exactly was the games press supposed to do about the ending? Its OK not to like it. Books, Movies, TV shows and games have bad endings all the time. Its not the games press' job to engage the audience or the developers on something so subjective. Its up to the each individual consumer to decide what to do with that. If they want to write a review, comment on a message board, or stop buying Bioware's products, those are all totally valid responses. Those are not the people who are "entitled" or crossing the line and not the ones that games press were talking about.

The people who were demanding a new ending, harassing employees and attempting to file lawsuits are crossing the line, and is a whole lot of entitlement. Those are non-subjective reactions and worth covering. They are not in the same camp as the people who didn't like ending for whatever reason and could discuss it rationally. If you felt that journalists were attacking you, then you clearly were not mentally separating yourself from that group which you should have been and should be angry at the "entitled" for derailing any reasoned conversation.

Listed to what the guy is saying. People had legitimate well explained reasons when they pointed out the issues with the ME3 ending and their criticism was brushed aside as "entitlement". It took nearly a full year for the gaming press to come around during GOTY discussions and say, "Hey, maybe those people had a point about the ending and the game." The contrast between the experience Jeff and Brad had with the game is proof that the ME3 experience was lacking and it took the additional DLC to fix it.

The same kind of the thing just happened with DmC. The legitimate concerns for the game were drowned out by accusations that fans were really only upset because Dante didn't have white hair.

I think going forward the gaming media should probably try to understand legitimate concerns expressed by fans before throwing them under the bus only to later go "Oops, should have heard you out before I did that."

Just wait. If development for Dark Souls 2 goes in the direction that fans of the series are hoping it doesn't go in (more casual) there will be a shitstorm and I see the media already peppering their articles with the phrase "entitled gamers".

@MildMolasses said:

@squiDc00kiE said:

There is a barrier to entry, just like anything in life. If you aren't familiar with something, then there's a disconnect from people who are.

I think this is what a lot of people tend to overlook. My mother plays a lot of games on her ipad, but if I were to hand her a 360 controller, she would be lost. It's the same way I feel about playing games with a mouse and keyboard. I recognise the advantages of it, but I much prefer using a controller, so any time I try to go keyboard, I find it frustrating and it puts me off. Its a matter of dealing with the unfamiliar and whether you are willing to put in the time to learn it. With the way the GB guys move from game to game, its more of a daunting task than for someone who picks up Disgaea and says 'this is my game for the next two months"

That is the thing. You have to decided to play the game and make the time commitment. They all committed to playing XCOM and learning its systems. They could do the same for FFT and Disgaea. I feel that most of us played those games when we were kids. If kids could figure out the various classes and how to deploy them in combat then there's no reason the bombcrew shouldn't be able to do the same as long as they decide to learn.

Watching the Disgaea trailer literally made me OMG back in the day. Playing FFT and seeing that thing was like a mind blowing thing.

I think the main issue is that people are not familiar with the genre and believe that there is some impossible barrier to entry. The reality is that the systems in all the games I've played are always explained in a very easy to understand manner. FFT was my first and I beat that game when I was like 12 and that was before the internet was a thing. All the game asks of you is to be patient and learn what its trying to teach you. It wont hold your hand past the tutorial levels. It assumes you have basic reading comprehension and that you'll actually read the description on skills.

The biggest obstacle is reading. It's amazing how many people feel they could skip tutorials and ignore text.

@ArbitraryWater said:

@golguin said:

It was kinda an interesting read until you called FFT grindy and slow. Now I don't know what to think.

As a guy with a Prinny avatar, I think you would know yourself some grindy and slow games where you can't skip or speed up battle animations. FFT is pretty dang grindy, at least where I stopped playing. Apparently the difficulty curve is such that the endgame becomes a bit of a cakewalk if you've built your party efficiently, but I didn't really get that far. To be fair, the PSP remake of Tactics Ogre is a lot less grindy, but it's still a tactical RPG.

I never thought battle animations were slow in Disgaea because of all that crazy that went into those attacks. The only argument for a slow attack animation in FFT is if a player decides to calculate the Holy spell and kill everyone on the field except for the party units that can absorb Holy. Back in the day I'd calculate the hell out of Holy with more than 12 units on the field. It went something like this, but 12 times. I'm not even going to talk about using a Mimic to copy the calculated Holy.

Skip ahead to the 50 second mark to see it in action.

It was kinda an interesting read until you called FFT grindy and slow. Now I don't know what to think.

@Animasta said:

@golguin said:

@Animasta I saw that listed and have heard that name mentioned here. What is it about?

a high school girl inherits her father's pirate space craft and she does pirate shit.

It's better than it sounds, trust me (it's very realistic in that most of the combat is electronic combat between ships and stuff like that)

Okay so I saw the first 5 episodes and now I think I want to look into FTL. I think I might have ignored the quick look for that game.

Sounds like CP/Honors/AP but with animals.

@golguin said:

t about your academic and physical abilities.

Wait, what? I hope that only applied to gym class.

@dungbootle said:

I had something like that in middle schools, all the kids in the same grade were sectioned off into teams but it wasn't based on academic ability or anything, just random or alphabetic. What you're describing doesn't sound like a good system to me.

At the very least it created competitiveness within the class since your classmates were legit into academics. It continued into high school as the top tier students were encouraged to sign up for the AP courses and a college preparation class that forced you take take notes for every class in a very specific manner and you were graded on your note taking ability. I was smart enough to only take the English AP courses and a few others and I said no to that note taking class.

My class was actually the case study for the high school's full AP class driven workload. I can tell you that they worked us harder than any GE courses at my college (Cal Poly Pomona), but I guess that was the point. Those English AP classes had weekly timed writings (write essay in 45 minutes) on top of normal essays and you were reading around 2-3 books at the same time.

I remember this really smart hot chick being upset that I was #1 in the AP Environmental course and she was ranked second. Our grades were above the 100% mark (grades were curved so that the top score on a test was in the 90% range), but she was still annoyed. It wasn't about getting a good grade. It was about being better than those around you.