Your video game hot take(s) thread

BrawlMan

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Definitely not a healthy coping mechanism, but not as bad as addiction.
That coping mechanism will become an addiction, if not treated early or he decides not to do anything about it. What happens after he finishes med school?

Dude is from a rich ass family, so he's not exactly endangering his financial status either.
For now. If he starts spending way more than he should, or effects his family's finances, they will have something to say about it then.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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That coping mechanism will become an addiction, if not treated early or he decides not to do anything about it. What happens after he finishes med school?


For now. If he starts spending way more than he should, or effects his family's finances, they will have something to say about it then.
The more disturbing factor is someone with these kinds of issues entering the medical field someday. Needs to be nipped and sooner the better.
 
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BrawlMan

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The more disturbing factor is someone with these kinds of issues entering the medical field someday. Needs to be nipped and sooner the better.
Exactly. My mom was in the medical field and she's seen this stuff happen. Not too often, but she has seen plenty from both sides over many years in the nursing field. @Bob_McMillan, I know you said the family is loaded, but I still feel it's best to reach out to them, if possible. Because if they truly care for their son, they need to look out for him and help him asap.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Exactly. My mom was in the medical field and she's seen this stuff happen. Not too often, but she has seen plenty from both sides over many years in the nursing field. @Bob_McMillan, I know you said the family is loaded, but I still feel it's best to reach out to them, if possible. Because if they truly care for their son, they need to look out for him and help him asap.
Another unfortunate (no pun) fact is often times there’s a good amount of enabling and/or neglect going on in wealthy families. It’s almost like money takes the place of parenting skills by providing a false sense of security (“We have money; our kids will be fine!”). Meanwhile on the other end, people with good parenting skills often struggle with financial security and their kids also don’t get the kind of attention they need because they’re preoccupied with trying to make money to pay bills. Sucks for the kids either way.
 
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Another unfortunate (no pun) fact is often times there’s a good amount of enabling and/or neglect going on in wealthy families. It’s almost like money takes the place of parenting skills by providing a false sense of security (“We have money; our kids will be fine!”). Meanwhile on the other end, people with good parenting skills often struggle with financial security and their kids also don’t get the kind of attention they need because they’re preoccupied with trying to make money to pay bills. Sucks for the kids either way.
And if they neglect or encourage his bad behavior, then they have no one to blame but themselves when they start losing all that money.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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Grinding/farming/leveling can suck it, already.

I'm playing Elden Ring. I can't use anything cool because my numbers aren't right, and if I want the right numbers have to kill the same 5 guys a billion trillion times. This is considered, by gamurs and critics and FromSoftware and RPG fans, as better than other open world "copy and paste" content.

Like... no, just no.

"You can play the game on easy mode by just over-leveling" is not "easy mode" to grind for a billion hours.

Yeah, I know I've ranted abou this before but as I was farming for runes yesterday it just really hit hard how this was a 10/10 game while I'm bored out of mind.
Yes of course I still like it and it's good for other reasons but it's just insane that this is the masterpiece while AC: Valhalla is garbage for having repeitition and being long while ER has WAY MORE freaking repitition- it's literally repeating the same thing, which is even worse than "copy and paste" content.
 
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$20-25 is not too short of an asking price for complete, made from scratch, remakes of old Sega rail shooters. I really don't know what critics and certain gamers were expecting. If they were expecting 10 to 15 bucks, then they were all living in a fool's dream. Hell, I paid $30 for the physical version of Panzer Dragoon Remake. I didn't even pre-order for that, I found it at a Best Buy. For those unaware, Limited Run are the only ones that made physical copies of this game. They say you can only get it from them, but if you wait a few months down the line you'll usually see them at Best Buy or Walmart.

Both remake sold well anyway, and they are remaking the sequels to each game. So prepare to see remakes of Panzer Dragoon 2 and House of the Dead 2 from each respective outsourced developer. Since the first remake of each game was a testing ground, they should have everything ironed out for the sequels.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Grinding/farming/leveling can suck it, already.

I'm playing Elden Ring. I can't use anything cool because my numbers aren't right, and if I want the right numbers have to kill the same 5 guys a billion trillion times. This is considered, by gamurs and critics and FromSoftware and RPG fans, as better than other open world "copy and paste" content.

Like... no, just no.

"You can play the game on easy mode by just over-leveling" is not "easy mode" to grind for a billion hours.

Yeah, I know I've ranted abou this before but as I was farming for runes yesterday it just really hit hard how this was a 10/10 game while I'm bored out of mind.
Yes of course I still like it and it's good for other reasons but it's just insane that this is the masterpiece while AC: Valhalla is garbage for having repeitition and being long while ER has WAY MORE freaking repitition- it's literally repeating the same thing, which is even worse than "copy and paste" content.
No grinding here. The game gives you more places than any before it to level and get better stuff without needing to grind the same group of enemies. Maybe that’s the problem, being conditioned into that since it was pretty much a prerequisite in past games.

Saying the game is basically boring whatever while ignoring the whole map to farm a single group of enemies is kinda missing the point of what they were going for. I will admit though, after Sekiro there is much less in the way of instant gratification here, especially if leveling is the main concern. Some games are a slow burn and not accepting that fact means disappointment is inevitable.
 
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Old_Hunter_77

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No grinding here. The game gives you more places than any before it to level and get better stuff without needing to grind the same group of enemies. Maybe that’s the problem, being conditioned into that since it was pretty much a prerequisite in past games.

Saying the game is basically boring whatever while ignoring the whole map to farm a single group of enemies is kinda missing the point of what they were going for. I will admit though, after Sekiro there is much less in the way of instant gratification here, especially if leveling is the main concern. Some games are a slow burn and not accepting that fact means disappointment is inevitable.
Losing runes negates that whole thing, though.
Yes I can ride around exploring trying different caves and forts. But I don't know what's in them so I get killed, there goes my 3,000 runes. But wait you say I can just go retrieve them, right? But that literally means I cannot go somewhere else! So I go retrieve them, I'm still in a cave surround by the same gank in front of the same whatever that took them away so I'm running or I'm re-fighting. The only way to keep those runes is, yep, good ol' classic grinding in a familiar spot.

One of the many many things I love about Sekiro is that you can bank your currency. You can buy these little money bags and then your inventory now has the equivalent of Elden Ring's golden runes, but acquired with the currency you got from combat. If ER has such a mechanic, I've yet to find it.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Losing runes negates that whole thing, though.
Yes I can ride around exploring trying different caves and forts. But I don't know what's in them so I get killed, there goes my 3,000 runes. But wait you say I can just go retrieve them, right? But that literally means I cannot go somewhere else! So I go retrieve them, I'm still in a cave surround by the same gank in front of the same whatever that took them away so I'm running or I'm re-fighting. The only way to keep those runes is, yep, good ol' classic grinding in a familiar spot.

One of the many many things I love about Sekiro is that you can bank your currency. You can buy these little money bags and then your inventory now has the equivalent of Elden Ring's golden runes, but acquired with the currency you got from combat. If ER has such a mechanic, I've yet to find it.
LOL how did you manage to play the other Souls games, with death penalties on top of losing souls? Then there’s Bloodborne where your stash is often bloody stolen by one of the enemies in a mob, and you need to usual kill them all if not somehow single that one out to get them back. Getting runes back isn’t that difficult and it’s usually easy enough to run in and back out if an area is too tough. Riding torrent makes it even quicker in the field, and your rune location is always marked on the map where you can set a beacon to use as a guide back if needed. There’s also the Sacrificial Twig, which is a consumable but leaves rune count intact upon death. Best used sparingly in unfamiliar areas if you have a lot of runes, which typically should be spent anyways before going anywhere that’s too challenging.

Runes are pretty easy to get in general though, and leveling is far quicker than in something like DS3 or especially Sekiro, where each skill point usually takes several dozen enemies or a couple tough bosses, and you’re completely at the mercy of unseen aid if you die before hitting the next point.

One you get a bit further along there are quicker ways to amass the increasing number of runes needed to level, as an example -

 

Old_Hunter_77

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LOL how did you manage to play the other Souls games, with death penalties on top of losing souls? Then there’s Bloodborne where your stash is often bloody stolen by one of the enemies in a mob, and you need to usual kill them all if not somehow single that one out to get them back. Getting runes back isn’t that difficult and it’s usually easy enough to run in and back out if an area is too tough. Riding torrent makes it even quicker in the field, and your rune location is always marked on the map where you can set a beacon to use as a guide back if needed. There’s also the Sacrificial Twig, which is a consumable but leaves rune count intact upon death. Best used sparingly in unfamiliar areas if you have a lot of runes, which typically should be spent anyways before going anywhere that’s too challenging.

Runes are pretty easy to get in general though, and leveling is far quicker than in something like DS3 or especially Sekiro, where each skill point usually takes several dozen enemies or a couple tough bosses, and you’re completely at the mercy of unseen aid if you die before hitting the next point.

One you get a bit further along there are quicker ways to amass the increasing number of runes needed to level, as an example -

Well, the other Souls games don't have this Big Open World where all the fans keep telling me that it's ok that everything is super hard because I can leave and do other stuff that's also very hard. I am a bit overwhelmed with the sheer size of this game.

But also, those games were a niche. Elden Ring is the first From game that I'm seeing directly compared to AC and Horizon and Borderlands and whatnot, which is freaking insane.
So my posts here are an exaggerated rant (hot take). In fact I'm enjoying Elden Ring very much. I just don't enjoy the leveling system, but I never enjoyed the leveling system in these games, I enjoyed the games despite them.

I much prefer BB and Sekiro in large part because they don't have the frustrating experience of finding cool weapons I can't use and being brutally punished for putting points into Dex past a soft cap or whatever.

You also caught me in a moment in ER where I may have overleveled- I'm 39 in Limgrave, it will take me almost 10,000 runes to level once, and I got half that money from clearing a whole cave dungeon and beating another mini-boss in the field. And yeah, that's on me, but it is in contradiction of the admonishment that I can "just level up for easy mode."
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Well, the other Souls games don't have this Big Open World where all the fans keep telling me that it's ok that everything is super hard because I can leave and do other stuff that's also very hard. I am a bit overwhelmed with the sheer size of this game.

But also, those games were a niche. Elden Ring is the first From game that I'm seeing directly compared to AC and Horizon and Borderlands and whatnot, which is freaking insane.
So my posts here are an exaggerated rant (hot take). In fact I'm enjoying Elden Ring very much. I just don't enjoy the leveling system, but I never enjoyed the leveling system in these games, I enjoyed the games despite them.

I much prefer BB and Sekiro in large part because they don't have the frustrating experience of finding cool weapons I can't use and being brutally punished for putting points into Dex past a soft cap or whatever.

You also caught me in a moment in ER where I may have overleveled- I'm 39 in Limgrave, it will take me almost 10,000 runes to level once, and I got half that money from clearing a whole cave dungeon and beating another mini-boss in the field. And yeah, that's on me, but it is in contradiction of the admonishment that I can "just level up for easy mode."
If you’re unable to get anywhere outside of Limgrave after nearly reaching level 40 and having played at least a few of FROM’s previous games, then I don’t really know what to say. Maybe you’re letting the game’s size be more overwhelming than it really should be.

Bloodborne and Sekiro also had their own ways of locking the player out of weapons or special functions; the former via making several of them only available late game while still requiring upgrades anyways to be useful, thus needing NG+, and the latter via filling out an elaborate skill tree to make most of them worth using. Which for me took most of a Platinum run. It’s still a FROM-centric thing, just approached at a different angle.

But anyways, after about seventy hours, I’ve yet to spend one farming runes. I have grace sites all over Limgrave, Caelid, Weeping Peninsula, Liurnia, Altus, and most recently Siofra. I’ve only switched from my starting weapon once about ten hours ago or so (Lordsworn SS + Bloody Slash ashes to Morningstar + Wild Strikes). Well, I technically started with a club being Wretch but swapped it out as soon as I found a sword. If progress is proving that much more difficult than previous Souls games, maybe it’s the game trying to tell the player to stop playing it so much like previous Souls games. FROM has presented these kinds of learning curves before, with Bloodborne and later with Sekiro.

Eventually I might try the farming place in that link above though, since I just did the quest for it and it looks pretty efficient.
 
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Gergar12

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Yes, I know repost.

So there's this game called X4 Foundations, I played the previous game X3 Albion Prelude and X Rebirth. It's made by a German Company called Egosoft. Anyway in the first series of games; X3, all of the Terrans/Earth people are bad guys but were more advanced, we just are. While the humans that weren't the bad guys were called Argonians. Now in this game, our ships are slowed like 3 to 4 times slower. Why??? The Terrans are the most advanced species in the game, and their explanation is basically Terrans aces have superior movement, explain to me how I can move well when I am flying a BF-109, and the other guy has a supersonic jet. Crazy. Also, they made a super mod that fixes everything for it called X-Extended, and the Terrans got nerfed again in X3.

I am literally going to stop playing games made by the literal nihilists, and if we ever join up as a species and a nihilistic German runs for Earth President, I will do everything in my power to not get that person elected. We don't need nihilists like Trump or most of the German Soc-Dems, and some Christian democrats in power.

Also, Make Tera Great again by sending the community of planets to hell, and yes I still think you should get the game, now if you will excuse me I have to find a mod where I can yeet Argon Prime to a black hole.

Now, why do I say that in X3 Albion Prelude the Community of Planets/Argon lead aliens space federation literally commit Pearl Harbor times a thousand on a large space station ring surrounding Earth called the Torus Space Station using an Argon Human called Saya Kho who sneaks in and explodes a nuclear device on there The absolute race traitor cunts. They THEN send a swarm of killer terminator AI that hates all organic life to the Solar system. So if that wasn't bad enough the only thing the Terrans do is declare war against the Community of Planets. I would have done the exact same thing and sneaked in a nuclear device straight to as many smaller space stations in Argon Federation territory as possible. I would have fucking massacred every Argonian military age adult, and then I would have taken their children and been like here's why your parents suck, here's why your government sucks.

This is how large the space station is. I am not lying when I say it's Pearl harbor times a thousand it's more like Pearl harbor trimes a million. I loved that station in X3 Terran Conflict.
1651186746894.png

Oh, and I would have killed the alien governments, and militaries as well, the split are warmongers, the Boron are hippies who I would totally tear gas their planets, the Paranoid aliens are parnoid, the Teladi are cool.
 

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Eventually I might try the farming place in that link above though, since I just did the quest for it and it looks pretty efficient.
I've used the chicken farm sparingly, mostly so I can unlock certain weapons, make an expensive purchase or raise my weight load. I'd much rather play the game to get levels and cheesing a bird to gain levels feels like work even if it really isn't much work. Interestingly, it's still viable as of the most current patch so FROM apparently doesn't care about it much. I can't believe they don't know about it by now.

I mean, sure, I could just power level like crazy and maybe at some point I'll get desperate and do that to stack damage or something but right now I'm at least attempting to play the game normally.
 
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Specter Von Baren

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Yes, I know repost.

So there's this game called X4 Foundations, I played the previous game X3 Albion Prelude and X Rebirth. It's made by a German Company called Egosoft. Anyway in the first series of games; X3, all of the Terrans/Earth people are bad guys but were more advanced, we just are. While the humans that weren't the bad guys were called Argonians. Now in this game, our ships are slowed like 3 to 4 times slower. Why??? The Terrans are the most advanced species in the game, and their explanation is basically Terrans aces have superior movement, explain to me how I can move well when I am flying a BF-109, and the other guy has a supersonic jet. Crazy. Also, they made a super mod that fixes everything for it called X-Extended, and the Terrans got nerfed again in X3.

I am literally going to stop playing games made by the literal nihilists, and if we ever join up as a species and a nihilistic German runs for Earth President, I will do everything in my power to not get that person elected. We don't need nihilists like Trump or most of the German Soc-Dems, and some Christian democrats in power.

Also, Make Tera Great again by sending the community of planets to hell, and yes I still think you should get the game, now if you will excuse me I have to find a mod where I can yeet Argon Prime to a black hole.

Now, why do I say that in X3 Albion Prelude the Community of Planets/Argon lead aliens space federation literally commit Pearl Harbor times a thousand on a large space station ring surrounding Earth called the Torus Space Station using an Argon Human called Saya Kho who sneaks in and explodes a nuclear device on there The absolute race traitor cunts. They THEN send a swarm of killer terminator AI that hates all organic life to the Solar system. So if that wasn't bad enough the only thing the Terrans do is declare war against the Community of Planets. I would have done the exact same thing and sneaked in a nuclear device straight to as many smaller space stations in Argon Federation territory as possible. I would have fucking massacred every Argonian military age adult, and then I would have taken their children and been like here's why your parents suck, here's why your government sucks.

This is how large the space station is. I am not lying when I say it's Pearl harbor times a thousand it's more like Pearl harbor trimes a million. I loved that station in X3 Terran Conflict.
View attachment 6000

Oh, and I would have killed the alien governments, and militaries as well, the split are warmongers, the Boron are hippies who I would totally tear gas their planets, the Paranoid aliens are parnoid, the Teladi are cool.
....... What? Don't post while drunk my dude. All I got out of this was a stream of consciousness.
 

Gordon_4

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Yes, I know repost.

So there's this game called X4 Foundations, I played the previous game X3 Albion Prelude and X Rebirth. It's made by a German Company called Egosoft. Anyway in the first series of games; X3, all of the Terrans/Earth people are bad guys but were more advanced, we just are. While the humans that weren't the bad guys were called Argonians. Now in this game, our ships are slowed like 3 to 4 times slower. Why??? The Terrans are the most advanced species in the game, and their explanation is basically Terrans aces have superior movement, explain to me how I can move well when I am flying a BF-109, and the other guy has a supersonic jet. Crazy. Also, they made a super mod that fixes everything for it called X-Extended, and the Terrans got nerfed again in X3.

I am literally going to stop playing games made by the literal nihilists, and if we ever join up as a species and a nihilistic German runs for Earth President, I will do everything in my power to not get that person elected. We don't need nihilists like Trump or most of the German Soc-Dems, and some Christian democrats in power.

Also, Make Tera Great again by sending the community of planets to hell, and yes I still think you should get the game, now if you will excuse me I have to find a mod where I can yeet Argon Prime to a black hole.

Now, why do I say that in X3 Albion Prelude the Community of Planets/Argon lead aliens space federation literally commit Pearl Harbor times a thousand on a large space station ring surrounding Earth called the Torus Space Station using an Argon Human called Saya Kho who sneaks in and explodes a nuclear device on there The absolute race traitor cunts. They THEN send a swarm of killer terminator AI that hates all organic life to the Solar system. So if that wasn't bad enough the only thing the Terrans do is declare war against the Community of Planets. I would have done the exact same thing and sneaked in a nuclear device straight to as many smaller space stations in Argon Federation territory as possible. I would have fucking massacred every Argonian military age adult, and then I would have taken their children and been like here's why your parents suck, here's why your government sucks.

This is how large the space station is. I am not lying when I say it's Pearl harbor times a thousand it's more like Pearl harbor trimes a million. I loved that station in X3 Terran Conflict.
View attachment 6000

Oh, and I would have killed the alien governments, and militaries as well, the split are warmongers, the Boron are hippies who I would totally tear gas their planets, the Paranoid aliens are parnoid, the Teladi are cool.
What the fuck is it with the military sci-fi genre bringing out the absolute shittiest aspects of someone's personality?
 

Gergar12

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What the fuck is it with the military sci-fi genre bringing out the absolute shittiest aspects of someone's personality?
Oh no even if I have disagreements with various human governments, I tend to lean in on mercy afterward, Traitor humans that commit Pearl Harbour on Earth get the atom bomb, and bad aliens get glassed. By the way, if Mars ever raised a finger against Earth, I would immediately sprint to the nearest militarist, and call for rods of god kinetic bombardment.

#TheTerransAreTheGoodGuys
 

BrawlMan

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Yes, I know repost.

So there's this game called X4 Foundations, I played the previous game X3 Albion Prelude and X Rebirth. It's made by a German Company called Egosoft. Anyway in the first series of games; X3, all of the Terrans/Earth people are bad guys but were more advanced, we just are. While the humans that weren't the bad guys were called Argonians. Now in this game, our ships are slowed like 3 to 4 times slower. Why??? The Terrans are the most advanced species in the game, and their explanation is basically Terrans aces have superior movement, explain to me how I can move well when I am flying a BF-109, and the other guy has a supersonic jet. Crazy. Also, they made a super mod that fixes everything for it called X-Extended, and the Terrans got nerfed again in X3.

I am literally going to stop playing games made by the literal nihilists, and if we ever join up as a species and a nihilistic German runs for Earth President, I will do everything in my power to not get that person elected. We don't need nihilists like Trump or most of the German Soc-Dems, and some Christian democrats in power.

Also, Make Tera Great again by sending the community of planets to hell, and yes I still think you should get the game, now if you will excuse me I have to find a mod where I can yeet Argon Prime to a black hole.

Now, why do I say that in X3 Albion Prelude the Community of Planets/Argon lead aliens space federation literally commit Pearl Harbor times a thousand on a large space station ring surrounding Earth called the Torus Space Station using an Argon Human called Saya Kho who sneaks in and explodes a nuclear device on there The absolute race traitor cunts. They THEN send a swarm of killer terminator AI that hates all organic life to the Solar system. So if that wasn't bad enough the only thing the Terrans do is declare war against the Community of Planets. I would have done the exact same thing and sneaked in a nuclear device straight to as many smaller space stations in Argon Federation territory as possible. I would have fucking massacred every Argonian military age adult, and then I would have taken their children and been like here's why your parents suck, here's why your government sucks.

This is how large the space station is. I am not lying when I say it's Pearl harbor times a thousand it's more like Pearl harbor trimes a million. I loved that station in X3 Terran Conflict.
View attachment 6000

Oh, and I would have killed the alien governments, and militaries as well, the split are warmongers, the Boron are hippies who I would totally tear gas their planets, the Paranoid aliens are parnoid, the Teladi are cool.
 
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