- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Controversial gaming opinion: video games are good.
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What are controversial gaming opinions you have?
I think I have seen "elimination only" victory as somewhat common for smaller space 4x. SotS is a relatively major example, Spaceward Ho! an especially minor one.
But other victories definitely were in from genre codifiers like MoO and Civ.
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
I mean, yeah? Stellaris is the game where you need to have your warship production and defense infrastructure on point or else even on Ensign some other empire will inevitably declare war and roll right over you. Yeah, this is also necessary in Civ but Civ is a little more cartoony with less units being used more like pieces on a game board. Stellaris wants you to build every ship individually, keep them upgraded, and manage strategic resources to maintain them. Civ doesn't immediately cut your military in half if you go bankrupt on the special space rocks.
Also Civ doesn't spawn hyper-genocidal nations or ravenous hive minds that will declare war on you. Nor does it have world destroying endgame threats. Or let you salami-slice your neighbours by conquering territories piecemeal to 'liberate' into buffer states.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The words of a person who never had Montzeuma spawn next to them
It's certainly true that Stellaris puts more focus on warfare but lets not overstate things, there are most certainly consistently hostile entities in the Civ series. They don't have the flavor of Stellaris but their aggression is just as hardcoded.
gyrobot
Castro-Federalist/One China One Nation
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The words of a person who never had Montzeuma spawn next to them
It's certainly true that Stellaris puts more focus on warfare but lets not overstate things, there are most certainly consistently hostile entities in the Civ series. They don't have the flavor of Stellaris but their aggression is just as hardcoded.
It's more along the lines of " The moment they see you, it's instant war and they already have a doom carpet/doom stack ready to kick your teeth in" that Cravers and Necrophages provide
- Location
- Bay Area, California
Civ just has barbarians from day one who can take your shit without declaring war in the first place.
Yeah you need to have warships in Stellaris but as long as your fleet power stays up there you can easily go an entire game without a war and have a lot of things going on both internally and diplomatically.
Metroidvanias having a reputation for nonlinearity is in contrast to level-based platformers, not Might and Magic.
In particular, the term was coined to describe Castlevania Symphony of the Night relative to previous games in the series. (Other than 2.) At first it was largely pejorative! It only ended up becoming seen as a positive, and then a genre, when it became clear more players who were active online preferred the interconnected world style.
That it was initially about SotN specifically is quite relevant to the question on nonlinearity, because that one is. After the second boss, Doppelganger, the only points at which you only have one boss available to a glitchless run are going to be Richter, whoever you fight last before Shaft, and the final sequence with Shaft and Dracula. That in addition to a large amount of optional content and the number of skips that are easy enough to do that they may well have been intended by the developers -- certainly far easier than Super Metroid movement tech, for example.
Most of the later Igavanias are more linear on a glitchless run... but also, generally seem to be regarded as worse than SotN. Certainly I would, and that's a big part of way. A metroidvania doesn't have to be nonlinear, but when it is, it's playing to one of the genre's strengths and when it's not, the backtracking is much more likely to start to feel like a chore rather than an opportunity.
In particular, the term was coined to describe Castlevania Symphony of the Night relative to previous games in the series. (Other than 2.) At first it was largely pejorative! It only ended up becoming seen as a positive, and then a genre, when it became clear more players who were active online preferred the interconnected world style.
That it was initially about SotN specifically is quite relevant to the question on nonlinearity, because that one is. After the second boss, Doppelganger, the only points at which you only have one boss available to a glitchless run are going to be Richter, whoever you fight last before Shaft, and the final sequence with Shaft and Dracula. That in addition to a large amount of optional content and the number of skips that are easy enough to do that they may well have been intended by the developers -- certainly far easier than Super Metroid movement tech, for example.
Most of the later Igavanias are more linear on a glitchless run... but also, generally seem to be regarded as worse than SotN. Certainly I would, and that's a big part of way. A metroidvania doesn't have to be nonlinear, but when it is, it's playing to one of the genre's strengths and when it's not, the backtracking is much more likely to start to feel like a chore rather than an opportunity.
Mandemon
Gentlemen, I love brawl.
- Location
- Cookie Jar
Main difference is that Civ approach to warfare is unit focused, where each unit occupies a tile and thus can block entire army just by being in correct choke point. It's focus is on individual units, rather than greater strategic plans.
In contrast, Stellaris might have you building individual units, you they don't end up acting like that. You got multiple shipyards cranking out ships that get combined into fleets, and you move fleets, made of individual ships, to engage enemy fleets, which are also made of individual ships. So the focus become a lot more... I dunno, "higher" than in Civilization.
Civilization also doesn't penalise you for having massive units, beyond each unit having upkeep. However, Stellaris has upkeep, but also upper limits what you can "maintain" without incurring extra upkeep. One of the main ways to grow in strength is to just develop technologies that let you assemble more and bigger fleets.
In contrast, Stellaris might have you building individual units, you they don't end up acting like that. You got multiple shipyards cranking out ships that get combined into fleets, and you move fleets, made of individual ships, to engage enemy fleets, which are also made of individual ships. So the focus become a lot more... I dunno, "higher" than in Civilization.
Civilization also doesn't penalise you for having massive units, beyond each unit having upkeep. However, Stellaris has upkeep, but also upper limits what you can "maintain" without incurring extra upkeep. One of the main ways to grow in strength is to just develop technologies that let you assemble more and bigger fleets.
- Location
- my house
I think when most people say non-linear they just mean the path forward is not linear. As in you're not always moving forwards, you have to backtrack, take side paths, etc
Compare the critical path between something like Halo and Symphony of the Night. In halo you never stop moving forward and never get lost. In symphony you're going to need to go down sometimes, or you'll hit a dead end then backtrack and go left, etc.
While the use of non-lineariry to discuss how many different branches a critical path has, it is not the only use of the word and is the more obscure one in the general public.
Edit: Basically part of the fun of a meteoidvania is exploration/map mastery. It's learning how to navigate what is basically a maze, keeping track of what routes you haven't/can't take yet and heading over to those routes once you have unlocked new skills
Compare the critical path between something like Halo and Symphony of the Night. In halo you never stop moving forward and never get lost. In symphony you're going to need to go down sometimes, or you'll hit a dead end then backtrack and go left, etc.
While the use of non-lineariry to discuss how many different branches a critical path has, it is not the only use of the word and is the more obscure one in the general public.
Edit: Basically part of the fun of a meteoidvania is exploration/map mastery. It's learning how to navigate what is basically a maze, keeping track of what routes you haven't/can't take yet and heading over to those routes once you have unlocked new skills
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Basically, non-linear is me recently replaying Hollow Knight and deciding to do shit like "skip False Knight, the first boss, for so long that it's now one of the only bosses in the game I haven't gotten back around to fighting", or "Alright but actually what if I got to all three dreamers without the double jump or the dream nail, and accidentally found a minor glitch by getting the Resting Grounds map last?" Metroidvanias have an intended path, sure, and some in the genre don't really let you deviate from said path, but also if you want in some you can skip half the "mandatory" powerups and signposts to run off in the opposite direction.
Heck, just compare Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission. Fusion actively locks you into areas for most of the game and forces a mostly linear story (though there's one easter egg for doing some crazy shinespark tricks to sequence break slightly, and in general each area will force you to deviate from the acquired map as the X do their best to block off your paths. Zero Mission has map markers that lead you in specific directions... but also it's possible to finish the game with as low as 9% completion, grabbing only a single missile tank, The Ice Beam, the Plasma Beam, the Morph Ball and Bombs, the Space Jump, the Varia and Gravity Suits, and the Power Grip - and of those, the Power Grip is only mandatory because of an arbitrary unrelated obstacle that disappears once you have it, and the Varia Suit because it's automatically acquired even if skipped when you get the Gravity Suit. Instead the game is absolutely littered with optional hidden paths and sequence breaks that let you skip a huge chunk of what might feel like mandatory upgrades.
Heck, just compare Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission. Fusion actively locks you into areas for most of the game and forces a mostly linear story (though there's one easter egg for doing some crazy shinespark tricks to sequence break slightly, and in general each area will force you to deviate from the acquired map as the X do their best to block off your paths. Zero Mission has map markers that lead you in specific directions... but also it's possible to finish the game with as low as 9% completion, grabbing only a single missile tank, The Ice Beam, the Plasma Beam, the Morph Ball and Bombs, the Space Jump, the Varia and Gravity Suits, and the Power Grip - and of those, the Power Grip is only mandatory because of an arbitrary unrelated obstacle that disappears once you have it, and the Varia Suit because it's automatically acquired even if skipped when you get the Gravity Suit. Instead the game is absolutely littered with optional hidden paths and sequence breaks that let you skip a huge chunk of what might feel like mandatory upgrades.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
It is worth noting that this is a relatively recent additition to the Civ Franchise, having only appeared in Civilization 5. Previously, an army consisted of a giant stack of individual units.
In early iterations of Civ, that was possible but highly dangerous - unless inside a city (or maybe fortress?) a single successful attacker would annihilate the entire stack.
Stacking a defensive unit and an offensive unit together would often make sense since few units were effective at both, but adding any more units to that stack was creating an unduly rewarding target for a counter-attack.
This was true in Civ 1 and 2. It was no longer true by 4 I believe. I missed the games in between 2 and 4 (yes, games, if one counts Call to Power) so I'm not sure where they stood.
Also, it was always true that your units could block enemy units, regardless of the rules on stacking your own units.
- Location
- Do you really care?
For reasons of combat mechanics, stacking units in Civ 1 and Civ 2 resulted in the entire stack being defended by a single unit, which was the unit with the highest defense value in the stack. If that unit was destroyed, the entire stack followed, with no further ability to fight back.
This mechanic was removed for Civ 3, which is why it was the first game to feature "doomstacks" - big piles made of as many units as the player could get their hands on, all squeezed together into in a single tile. Effectively speaking, this resulted in the Doomstack being a super unit, with the combined combat ability of all the units that went into its construction.
This was obviously a very unintended effect, one which resulted in the gameplay revolving entirely around these super units, so for Civ 4, they introduced the mechanic of "collateral damage," which basically meant that certain units had the ability to cause damage to every unit on a given tile at the same time. In and of itself, that didn't really make them any stronger than normal units, since it didn't actually make their attacks more powerful or the unit itself harder to kill. It did discourage doomstacking, though, so while there were still a few exploits that allowed you to get around this weakness, the overall goal was achieved.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hot take: this is the best version of the classic Castlevania theme Bloody Tears, and it doesn't even come from a proper Castlevania game:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmrMzyRXdEk&ab_channel=YoannLaulan-Topic
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmrMzyRXdEk&ab_channel=YoannLaulan-Topic
hghwolf
Bird of contempt
Yeah no sorry, you're wrong. The start runs too long and once it finally gets going it lacks the tonal depth a good Bloody Tears version should have.
'I despise Castlevania birds' is musical genius in comparison.
Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
Irrespective of the quality of one story over the other Heather from Silent Hill 3 is such a better horror protagonist than James in 2 that it's not even funny.
James, when confronted with a gun toting murderer talking about how should get to shoot people for making fun of him:
"What are you even saying? You sound crazy!"
Heather, when confronted with literally any other speaking character: "Oh, I get it, you're fucking crazy!"
And of course the classic:
I like to think that the reason why there's so much endless otherworld traversal in the front half of three is because Silent Hill knows that it's mind games are of only limited effectiveness against Heather's zero fucks given teenage mallrat brain so they feel decide to just do a war of attrition instead. The only downside is that Harry died before he could teach her the patented Mason Flying Backstep.
Also shout out to whoever left a fucking uzi in the Brookhaven hospital. I hope it wasn't one of the monsters or ghosts because they definitely would have gotten fired and blacklisted from working in the psychohorror otherworld industry.
And James really was his and the player's own worst enemy at times. I remember when watching (because I let other people play horror games for me) that he looks at a corpse in a morgue and says without prompting "Did that body just move or was it my imagination?"
No dude, it didn't. It's just you. But thanks for sharing your intrusive thoughts so everyone can be paranoid about it anyway, good job.
James, when confronted with a gun toting murderer talking about how should get to shoot people for making fun of him:
"What are you even saying? You sound crazy!"
Heather, when confronted with literally any other speaking character: "Oh, I get it, you're fucking crazy!"
And of course the classic:
I like to think that the reason why there's so much endless otherworld traversal in the front half of three is because Silent Hill knows that it's mind games are of only limited effectiveness against Heather's zero fucks given teenage mallrat brain so they feel decide to just do a war of attrition instead. The only downside is that Harry died before he could teach her the patented Mason Flying Backstep.
Also shout out to whoever left a fucking uzi in the Brookhaven hospital. I hope it wasn't one of the monsters or ghosts because they definitely would have gotten fired and blacklisted from working in the psychohorror otherworld industry.
And James really was his and the player's own worst enemy at times. I remember when watching (because I let other people play horror games for me) that he looks at a corpse in a morgue and says without prompting "Did that body just move or was it my imagination?"
No dude, it didn't. It's just you. But thanks for sharing your intrusive thoughts so everyone can be paranoid about it anyway, good job.
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Spylobster
Centrist-Malenyevist
My own hot take on this is that Wicked Child is better than Bloody Tears.
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
Name me an endgame crisis from Civ! Even a midgame one!
Like even ignoring the fact that Stellaris has actually gone very heavily in the last few patches towards warfare and a classical 4X playstyle, to the point that the diplo/coalition game or even many of the more pacifistic aesthetics for a civilization are at best suboptimal if not outright unusable, yes, Stellaris has always been more warfare-focused then Civ, with much of the game premised on having to meet combat challenges. Civilization's barbarians have never been so violent or as hard to meet as a challenge as the Stellaris equivalent with the space mongols and their Khan, much less an Endgame Crisis, without some serious modding. In Civs after from 3 on they essentially fade out after a time period, not get worse unlike Stellaris. The closest thing in the Civilization oeuvre to an a Stellaris Endgame Crisis is Alpha Centauri's period between completing Path to Transcendence and Ascent to Transcendence, and it can be handled by what's standard for a pre-five garrison of single units per city.
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I mean, James is literally an amnesiac deep in denial about his own actions and motivations, wandering lost through a world that is like deliberately messing with him, personally.
Yeah, he is rather detached and confused when interacting with things and people. It's at least mostly on purpose.
I'm honestly looking forward to the remake because I think facial animations alone will allow for a lot more conveyance of his state of mind, and how some of the conversations are very deliberately awkward, and not bad voice acting (which I have seen at least one streamer confused by).
- Location
- Do you really care?
What, you didn't see it, either?
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I don't like Eternal Doomguy's exposed biceps.
I get that ID wanted to give the Doom Slayer a more unique look after lots of people made fun of 2016 Doomguy's armour for looking "generic." But the Eternal redesign overcorrects and looks tryhardy, as if the Doom Marine is more interested in showing off his biceps than in actually protecting himself from harm.
I get that ID wanted to give the Doom Slayer a more unique look after lots of people made fun of 2016 Doomguy's armour for looking "generic." But the Eternal redesign overcorrects and looks tryhardy, as if the Doom Marine is more interested in showing off his biceps than in actually protecting himself from harm.
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Reveen
Castro-Trudeauist
I dunno, that explanation kinda makes sense to me? How long did it take Doomguy to start wearing helmets again after the Doom 1 box art? Not circa Plutonia at the very latest.
We see Doomguy as a terrifyingly ruthless demon killing force of nature now, but once upon a time he was a jarhead who they couldn't train not to beat the crap out of a commanding officer.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mass Effect would have been better if they had left the Reapers' motive obscured. No, I don't mean switching back to the dropped plot thread about dark energy or whatever - the Reapers should have stayed fully inscrutable the whole time and not engaged with any theorizing in or out of universe.
Also, ME2 is the worst game and story of the trilogy.
Also, ME2 is the worst game and story of the trilogy.
- Location
- Georgia, US
- Pronouns
- He/Him
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKie-vgUGdI
Continue to spit your facts!
ME2 fundamentally fails as a sequel or midquel. People just miss that because it looks great, plays decently, and has some of the best companion content in the series.
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The character work in ME2 is admittedly mostly good. Except when it's trying to convince you that, say, Aria and the Illusive Man are legitimately cool and/or interesting, because they're not.