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What are controversial gaming opinions you have?

Ser_Serendipity said:
Still, in any Dark Souls game the average enemy should die in two or three hits to any proper weapon. The only ones that won't are mini or actual bosses.
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Sort of. Depends on the "type" of enemy, really. For example, if it's a guy twice as tall as you are in full plate mail, they should be able to take quite a few hits unless you use heavy damage weapons. In turn, they'd be fairly easy to avoid taking damage from. Of course, then you add fragile ranged people who act as the DPS to the plate dudes' tank, forcing you to go around the knights to get the archers.

I suppose that I can count a lack of tactics in non-strategy games as a controversial opinion. There's been tries at it, but it almost universally pisses players off. For example, one time, a game had an enemy AI that did proper flanking, and the players though the game was just spawning enemies behind them to screw them over. Now, emulating the effects of the tactics also works, such as having the final position the enemy turns out to be in be determined by what screws the player over most out of positions that could be reached since the last time that enemy was seen (useful for a superhard mode in a super high graphics game that saves on GPU and CPU by only rendering on screen things) or, indeed, actually making enemies spawn behind you.
 
Morphic Tide said:
Sort of. Depends on the "type" of enemy, really. For example, if it's a guy twice as tall as you are in full plate mail, they should be able to take quite a few hits unless you use heavy damage weapons. In turn, they'd be fairly easy to avoid taking damage from. Of course, then you add fragile ranged people who act as the DPS to the plate dudes' tank, forcing you to go around the knights to get the archers.

I suppose that I can count a lack of tactics in non-strategy games as a controversial opinion. There's been tries at it, but it almost universally pisses players off. For example, one time, a game had an enemy AI that did proper flanking, and the players though the game was just spawning enemies behind them to screw them over. Now, emulating the effects of the tactics also works, such as having the final position the enemy turns out to be in be determined by what screws the player over most out of positions that could be reached since the last time that enemy was seen (useful for a superhard mode in a super high graphics game that saves on GPU and CPU by only rendering on screen things) or, indeed, actually making enemies spawn behind you.
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FEAR dealt with this well by having the enemies shout things like "FLANKING" so that there was a nice audio cue
 
Grunt said:
In the defense of Grand strategy, CK2 is our oldest still running game. If you look at the more modern titles you can see a clear attempt at being more accessible.
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CK2, even with all the DLC, is far and away more accessible than any of the newer titles in the series up until HOI4 itself. In the time it took me to get pretty much all the basic mechanics of CK2 down pat, I'm still basically playing EU4 like a teenager riding the clutch on his parents standard. Victoria 2 is substantially simpler but I still run my economy at a level of 'fund every one of my capitalists factory building proposals, and then rake in millions until my economy implodes for mysterious reasons'.
c.j. said:
"I mean, for me Dragon Age: Origins doesn't even succeed at being a throwback to Infinity Engine games. Because for me it's less about being an isometric RPG and more about the structure. Baldur's Gate was a semi-free form adventure that gave you a vague goal and set you off to wander around and fulfill it as you see fit. Dragon Age: Origins is functionally no different from KOTOR in regards to structure. You go to one hub world, do the stuff there, then go to the next.

It feels like Bioware understood thatBaldurs Gate was isometric, and that Baldurs Gate was medieval fantasy. But stopped there and ignored all the stuff that made it good."

I tried balders gate and I thought is was tarabad so that's probably why I prefer DAO system much more then you.
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The reply function is not that hard to figure out.
Morphic Tide said:
I suppose that I can count a lack of tactics in non-strategy games as a controversial opinion. There's been tries at it, but it almost universally pisses players off. For example, one time, a game had an enemy AI that did proper flanking, and the players though the game was just spawning enemies behind them to screw them over.
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This always struck me as a bullshit cop out. If you set an actually intelligent AI opponent against a player who basically had zero idea that intelligent AI opponents even exist because they've never over the entire course of their gaming career ever seen enemies in a shooter that did much beyond stand there and die, no shit they're going to assume you just cheated and had them teleport around or something because why would they not?
 
the atom said:
CK2, even with all the DLC, is far and away more accessible than any of the newer titles in the series up until HOI4 itself. In the time it took me to get pretty much all the basic mechanics of CK2 down pat, I'm still basically playing EU4 like a teenager riding the clutch on his parents standard. Victoria 2 is substantially simpler but I still run my economy at a level of 'fund every one of my capitalists factory building proposals, and then rake in millions until my economy implodes for mysterious reasons'.
The reply function is not that hard to figure out.
This always struck me as a bullshit cop out. If you set an actually intelligent AI opponent against a player who basically had zero idea that intelligent AI opponents even exist because they've never over the entire course of their gaming career ever seen enemies in a shooter that did much beyond stand there and die, no shit they're going to assume you just cheated and had them teleport around or something because why would they not?
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The V2 economy fails naturally. If you don't monopolize key resources or something really high pop start industrializing(say China) then there's litterly not going to enough factory inputs late game.
 
the atom said:
CK2, even with all the DLC, is far and away more accessible than any of the newer titles in the series up until HOI4 itself. In the time it took me to get pretty much all the basic mechanics of CK2 down pat, I'm still basically playing EU4 like a teenager riding the clutch on his parents standard. Victoria 2 is substantially simpler but I still run my economy at a level of 'fund every one of my capitalists factory building proposals, and then rake in millions until my economy implodes for mysterious reasons'.
The reply function is not that hard to figure out.
This always struck me as a bullshit cop out. If you set an actually intelligent AI opponent against a player who basically had zero idea that intelligent AI opponents even exist because they've never over the entire course of their gaming career ever seen enemies in a shooter that did much beyond stand there and die, no shit they're going to assume you just cheated and had them teleport around or something because why would they not?
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Well guess what, when no won on this bord can properly explain it then, then ya, it is hard to figure out, thanks for the help in fighering it out thoue:rolleyes:.
 
My biggest regret when I heard that Half-Life 3 was never getting made was that we wouldn't be able to make jokes about Half-Life 3's release date anymore.
 
Night said:
This is probably a controversial opinion right here. EUIV is not complex at all, it's just ungodly slow, whereas Vicky 2 is only marginally better than trying to play Dwarf Fortress.
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I don't know how that's possible. My first game was as a released Canada in 1836 and I was stomping America's face in by 1914 or so.
 
Cici said:
Hm, it's been a while. Let's see, what have I got tonight...Ah! Here we go.

Splatoon 2 is, overall, the most well-designed competitive shooter currently on the market.
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That's not controversial...? I mean, at least it does something differently in a technically excellent manner that is both fun and engaging?
 
Are Tabletop games okay to use for this thread? If so: D&D should go back to the 2e EXP gain system where every class got XP for different things and murderhoboing didn't actually get you XP unless you were a fighter.
 
Richardson said:
That's not controversial...? I mean, at least it does something differently in a technically excellent manner that is both fun and engaging?
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Eh, the idea that it's the most well-designed is definitely controversial as is the idea that it's particularly competitive (in the sense of depth of play) or the greater idea that it's well designed within the competitive space even if both of those two are true. I'm not a shooter guy so I can't really comment as to the veracity of those claims though.

The idea that it is not only fun but the best competitive shooter is definitely got my 14 year old hardcore UT player's hackles on edge though.
 
Richardson said:
That's not controversial...? I mean, at least it does something differently in a technically excellent manner that is both fun and engaging?
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The controversial bit is that I'm placing it on a tier above Overwatch and Counter-Strike, among others.

Mutton said:
Eh, the idea that it's the most well-designed is definitely controversial as is the idea that it's particularly competitive (in the sense of depth of play) or the greater idea that it's well designed within the competitive space even if both of those two are true. I'm not a shooter guy so I can't really comment as to the veracity of those claims though.

The idea that it is not only fun but the best competitive shooter is definitely got my 14 year old hardcore UT player's hackles on edge though.
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It's too bad UT's dead as heck, and probably never coming back. (I was looking forward to UT4, dang it!)

Anyway, I would argue that what Splatoon, perhaps, lacks in terms of the depth and breadth that other shooters have, it makes up for in accessibility. It's probably the best game at teaching players what they need to know in order to succeed on high levels of play, and the short matches and small maps make things a bit more digestible for people just starting up.

Its game modes are also the best. Just, straight-up. There's not been a whole lot of effort to try and deviate from what's tried-and-true in that regard lately, so for a game to leave them out entirely in favor of deriving new ideas from old concepts is great to see.
 
Cici said:
The controversial bit is that I'm placing it on a tier above Overwatch and Counter-Strike, among others.


It's too bad UT's dead as heck, and probably never coming back. (I was looking forward to UT4, dang it!)

Anyway, I would argue that what Splatoon, perhaps, lacks in terms of the depth and breadth that other shooters have, it makes up for in accessibility. It's probably the best game at teaching players what they need to know in order to succeed on high levels of play, and the short matches and small maps make things a bit more digestible for people just starting up.

Its game modes are also the best. Just, straight-up. There's not been a whole lot of effort to try and deviate from what's tried-and-true in that regard lately, so for a game to leave them out entirely in favor of deriving new ideas from old concepts is great to see.
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Eh, it's not really more accessable than say, Gears of War with the way the term is generally used and that's not really a huge feature in terms of being competitive. Rather it does what Nintendo does best and makes explicit the implicit goals of a genre. Splatoon flat out tells you the game is about territorial control through gameplay instead of players having to figure it out. Smash is about positioning and movement. Fire Emblem is about waifus. They remove the chaff to create the core experience.

Also, comparing Splatoon against FPS games is silly; they're entirely different genres
 
the atom said:
This always struck me as a bullshit cop out. If you set an actually intelligent AI opponent against a player who basically had zero idea that intelligent AI opponents even exist because they've never over the entire course of their gaming career ever seen enemies in a shooter that did much beyond stand there and die, no shit they're going to assume you just cheated and had them teleport around or something because why would they not?
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Also smart enemies have more scope for disastrous failure than uninspiring and dull stupid AI, and judging by past attempts, smart AI can still be gamed but it might just look extremely ridiculous when it happens. And some behaviours that may be smart (ranged enemies that kite you / skirmish by shoot-and-scooting) in certain contexts might be overall just make the game more annoying and tedious

Mutton said:
Eh, the idea that it's the most well-designed is definitely controversial as is the idea that it's particularly competitive (in the sense of depth of play) or the greater idea that it's well designed within the competitive space even if both of those two are true. I'm not a shooter guy so I can't really comment as to the veracity of those claims though.

The idea that it is not only fun but the best competitive shooter is definitely got my 14 year old hardcore UT player's hackles on edge though.
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While I don't really enjoy duelling because I'm not great at Quake (the arena shooter I'm most familiar with), IMO the various iterations of 1v1 arena shooters are the highest skill and most refined FPS games.

This is a pretty good primer on Quake duel gameplay and the mechanical and mental considerations. tl;dr high skill movement, variated weapons that test correct weapon selection and which test all aspects of your aim, balance between efficient map traversals that pick up all your weapons, red armor and megahealth as they spawn (denying the spawns to the enemy) and being unpredictable to avoid being hit by timed shots, fast noisy movement that pinpoints your prediction vs needing to be in advantageous positions in the upcoming moments as you anticipate their movement, forcing fights while you have an advantageous health and armor stack, harassing the enemy with timed shots and advantageous trades while they have map control to chip at their stack and keep it manageable but not letting them engage you.

One of the best Quake 1v1 duels to watch, even for non-players:



Oh, and Quake 3 had the distinction of having one of the only usable mouse accel systems in an FPS, enough so that some dude wrote a standalone mouse accel driver based on the concepts there that occasionally makes the rounds in esports communities.
 
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Dig or Die is the best game in its particular narrow subgenre. Mostly because sticking to a single world lets the different ecosystems be really interesting in how they're arranged, whereas the games that procedurally generate all the planets you want just get dull really quickly.
 
stormbringer951 said:
Also smart enemies have more scope for disastrous failure than uninspiring and dull stupid AI, and judging by past attempts, smart AI can still be gamed but it might just look extremely ridiculous when it happens. And some behaviours that may be smart (ranged enemies that kite you / skirmish by shoot-and-scooting) in certain contexts might be overall just make the game more annoying and tedious
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Also, people hate being outsmarted by AI, and actually smart AI will probably outsmart the vast majority of people.

Like in Chess. You have to force the AI to make mistakes, or you'll never win against them.
 
stormbringer951 said:
Also smart enemies have more scope for disastrous failure than uninspiring and dull stupid AI, and judging by past attempts, smart AI can still be gamed but it might just look extremely ridiculous when it happens. And some behaviours that may be smart (ranged enemies that kite you / skirmish by shoot-and-scooting) in certain contexts might be overall just make the game more annoying and tedious



While I don't really enjoy duelling because I'm not great at Quake (the arena shooter I'm most familiar with), IMO the various iterations of 1v1 arena shooters are the highest skill and most refined FPS games.

This is a pretty good primer on Quake duel gameplay and the mechanical and mental considerations. tl;dr high skill movement, variated weapons that test correct weapon selection and which test all aspects of your aim, balance between efficient map traversals that pick up all your weapons, red armor and megahealth as they spawn (denying the spawns to the enemy) and being unpredictable to avoid being hit by timed shots, fast noisy movement that pinpoints your prediction vs needing to be in advantageous positions in the upcoming moments as you anticipate their movement, forcing fights while you have an advantageous health and armor stack, harassing the enemy with timed shots and advantageous trades while they have map control to chip at their stack and keep it manageable but not letting them engage you.

One of the best Quake 1v1 duels to watch, even for non-players:



Oh, and Quake 3 had the distinction of having one of the only usable mouse accel systems in an FPS, enough so that some dude wrote a standalone mouse accel driver based on the concepts there that occasionally makes the rounds in esports communities.
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Yeah, Wagar does some great stuff when he's focusing on mechanics

How big is the ESL Splatoon league anyways? As I don't think there's any other major ones
 
stormbringer951 said:
"Wait Mutton has heard of this guy how, this website doesn't seem to have been that notable"

*googles*

"Oh he writes a lot about fighting games in various places, that explains things"

:tongue:
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Found him a while back when Tripping on Air went slightly viral and wholely support his project to create a game criticism dictionary even if I get into arguments about what immersion is. Since the level of literacy about why mechanics with or even a level of agreement about basic terminology is shockingly low.
 
Mutton said:
Eh, it's not really more accessable than say, Gears of War with the way the term is generally used and that's not really a huge feature in terms of being competitive. Rather it does what Nintendo does best and makes explicit the implicit goals of a genre. Splatoon flat out tells you the game is about territorial control through gameplay instead of players having to figure it out. Smash is about positioning and movement. Fire Emblem is about waifus. They remove the chaff to create the core experience.

Also, comparing Splatoon against FPS games is silly; they're entirely different genres
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Had to step back for a little bit because I was getting into a "People disagree with me on the internet!" sort of mood, and I realized I completely failed to make two points.

First, in my original post I didn't mean "competitive" as in, "professional play;" I was using the word to refer to a game that pits player against player in its core mode of play. (Which, looking back, I probably should have replaced with "multiplayer-focused". My bad.)

Second, Splatoon is absolutely not the most well-designed game in terms of sheer gameplay, though I do think it's good enough to actually foster a healthy competitive community--and here I am using it to refer to professional/high-level play, to be completely clear. It succeeds where just about every other multiplayer-focused game fails, though, in world design. I can actually believe Splatoon's setting is one that could and does exist both alongside and outside the players' interaction with it, which is something I straight-up do not get with any other multiplayer game. Take Overwatch, for example. The game's clearly got a well-defined setting with an interesting story to tell. But in just playing the game, you have no real indication that's the case. Hell, as I recall, the developers of Overwatch even explicitly say that the fiction of the game exists as a separate entity from the game. So, in the end, any character interactions or nods to the story within the game are just...meaningless chaff. The setting doesn't matter to the game, and the game doesn't matter to the setting. The fact that Splatoon does not do this is something to be celebrated, I think.
 
Cici said:
Had to step back for a little bit because I was getting into a "People disagree with me on the internet!" sort of mood, and I realized I completely failed to make two points.

First, in my original post I didn't mean "competitive" as in, "professional play;" I was using the word to refer to a game that pits player against player in its core mode of play. (Which, looking back, I probably should have replaced with "multiplayer-focused". My bad.)

Second, Splatoon is absolutely not the most well-designed game in terms of sheer gameplay, though I do think it's good enough to actually foster a healthy competitive community--and here I am using it to refer to professional/high-level play, to be completely clear. It succeeds where just about every other multiplayer-focused game fails, though, in world design. I can actually believe Splatoon's setting is one that could and does exist both alongside and outside the players' interaction with it, which is something I straight-up do not get with any other multiplayer game. Take Overwatch, for example. The game's clearly got a well-defined setting with an interesting story to tell. But in just playing the game, you have no real indication that's the case. Hell, as I recall, the developers of Overwatch even explicitly say that the fiction of the game exists as a separate entity from the game. So, in the end, any character interactions or nods to the story within the game are just...meaningless chaff. The setting doesn't matter to the game, and the game doesn't matter to the setting. The fact that Splatoon does not do this is something to be celebrated, I think.
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It's pretty damn fun causal multiplayer, that's for sure. In terms of being a complete product where the world interacts with the gameplay I don't really think it's anything special however; Overwatch is an aberration in how it DotA's it's world, but most games actually do make an effort to have a real reason Red and Blu are fighting it out withou the boundaries of a larger conflict. Blizzard just said fuck it, anything we write well let well be unrecognizable within the fandom in minutes so we'll give you broad archetypes and let them at it.
 
Mutton said:
It's pretty damn fun causal multiplayer, that's for sure. In terms of being a complete product where the world interacts with the gameplay I don't really think it's anything special however; Overwatch is an aberration in how it DotA's it's world, but most games actually do make an effort to have a real reason Red and Blu are fighting it out withou the boundaries of a larger conflict. Blizzard just said fuck it, anything we write well let well be unrecognizable within the fandom in minutes so we'll give you broad archetypes and let them at it.
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Yes and no. They do usually have a real reason, but the games tend to be snapshots of a specific time period rather than feeling like an actual, living world. Take your earlier example of Gears of War; you've got the Locust and the COG fighting and dying on the same battlefields, over and over, ad nauseum with no resolution, progression, or sense that all of these things are actually happening within the setting. It's just the exact same battles, fought over and over, on repeat until the servers shut down. By contrast, the framing of Splatoon's battles as a sort of sport within the setting, along with the nonlethal nature of the events within the game, means that each of your play sessions could plausibly just be one day in an Inkling's life.
 
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