Your video game hot take(s) thread

[meiam]

So its probably not a hot take (at least from player perspective) but I can't believe we still have games where the player is denied the killing blow on a boss in favor of some NPC. I was playing pathfinder wrath of the righteous and there's this awesome level where you assault a demon citadel and at the end fight a fucking Balerog but once you get it close to death some random NPC that wasn't present in the assault show up and kill him in a cutscene :wet fart sound:.

Also its another one of those game where its eventually reveal you're action were all controlled from the shadow by someone else and blah blah blah, so you're not even responsible for your victory.

 

[BrawlMan]

So its probably not a hot take (at least from player perspective) but I can't believe we still have games where the player is denied the killing blow on a boss in favor of some NPC. I was playing pathfinder wrath of the righteous and there's this awesome level where you assault a demon citadel and at the end fight a fucking Balerog but once you get it close to death some random NPC that wasn't present in the assault show up and kill him in a cutscene :wet fart sound:.

So far, Grasshopper Studios/Suda51 are the only ones that pulled this correctly a majority of the time. The old bait and switch boss fight.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I would ask how WREX would even work as a romance option but then I realized I don't have an advanced degree in physics and I also don't want that image stuck in my brain.

Krogan have four testicles. That's all I'm sayin'.

 

[Gordon_4]

Krogan have four testicles. That's all I'm sayin'.

And according to Wrex and Grunt, Shepard too has a quad.

So far, Grasshopper Studios/Suda51 are the only ones that pulled us all correctly a majority of the time. The old bait and switch boss fight.

Fable 2 has that happen, but its conditional. At the end of the boss fight, the final villain Lucien starts ranting and raving and you can shoot him at any point. But if you take too long, due to wanting to hear all his bullshit or assuming he's invincible, Reaver (voiced by the ever amazing Stephen Fry) will shoot him instead, complaining about Lucien talking too much.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

Krogan have four testicles. That's all I'm sayin'.

That's why the robots gave them that virus to make their dicks not work (I think, never played the games myself, only watched my friend play it).

 

[Bob_McMillan]

That's why the robots gave them that virus to make their dicks not work (I think, never played the games myself, only watched my friend play it).

*adjusts glasses* Um, akshually, it was the Salarians and the Turians who deployed the genophage?

But seriously, making the krogans dicks not work would have been a mercy. Instead, they got to enjoy constant stillbirths for hundreds of years. Which is, ironically, a huge dick move.

 

[Dalisclock]

*adjusts glasses* Um, akshually, it was the Salarians and the Turians who deployed the genophage?

But seriously, making the krogans dicks not work would have been a mercy. Instead, they got to enjoy constant stillbirths for hundreds of years. Which is, ironically, a huge dick move.

IIRC, 0.1% of Krogan births are viable or something like that.

Which was intended to offset the fact the Krograns breed like rabbits on fertility drugs but still....

 

[Bob_McMillan]

IIRC, 0.1% of Krogan births are viable or something like that.

Which was intended to offset the fact the Krograns breed like rabbits on fertility drugs but still....

I do love that it's totally a "rational" decision that was totally obliterated by the passage of time. Sure it offsets fertility, but they didn't account for the absolute disregard for self preservation that the Krogan would develop after millennia. I love less that this is never brought up by Mordin when he goes on to update the genophage (at least from what I remember).

 

[Dalisclock]

I do love that it's totally a "rational" decision that was totally obliterated by the passage of time. Sure it offsets fertility, but they didn't account for the absolute disregard for self preservation that the Krogan would develop after millennia. I love less that this is never brought up by Mordin when he goes on to update the genophage (at least from what I remember).

I think he does talk about it at one point but I don't remember the particulars of what he says.

It's the basic issue that the Krogan homeword is a death world, thus Krogans are both tough and have extremely high fertility to survive. Taken out their homeworld, Krogan population numbers explode because apparently everywhere else is so less dangerous but they keep breeding at the same rate(leading to the Krogan trying to expand for more resources to sustain their population numbers) and the compromise to outright genociding them was.....making them almost sterile. But as you said, Krogans not only didn't really adapt to their new fertility in a positive way, they basically just became nihilistic and even more self destructive.

Wrex himself admits that very few Krogans really care about trying to solve it. "When was the last time you saw a Krogan scientist?" And the fact they waged an aggressive war of conquest on the galaxy really didn't endear anyone else to want to help them, or the fact they had already nuked themselves before they were discovered and put to work fighting the Rachni. The whole "We fight for every inch to survive" instinct is so ingrained in them that once they reach a place where that's no longer applicable and appreciated, they don't really know how to deal with it and now their big advantage of high reproduction is gone too, and they really don't know how to deal with that either. So a lot of them do what they've always done and it's mostly not working out for them at all because now they can't replenish the losses they're taking when they act aggressively as their whole existence has primed them to do.

It's honestly really tragic all the way around.

 

[meiam]

I think he does talk about it at one point but I don't remember the particulars of what he says.

It's the basic issue that the Krogan homeword is a death world, thus Krogans are both tough and have extremely high fertility to survive. Taken out their homeworld, Krogan population numbers explode because apparently everywhere else is so less dangerous but they keep breeding at the same rate(leading to the Krogan trying to expand for more resources to sustain their population numbers) and the compromise to outright genociding them was.....making them almost sterile. But as you said, Krogans not only didn't really adapt to their new fertility in a positive way, they basically just became nihilistic and even more self destructive.

Wrex himself admits that very few Krogans really care about trying to solve it. "When was the last time you saw a Krogan scientist?" And the fact they waged an aggressive war of conquest on the galaxy really didn't endear anyone else to want to help them, or the fact they had already nuked themselves before they were discovered and put to work fighting the Rachni. The whole "We fight for every inch to survive" instinct is so ingrained in them that once they reach a place where that's no longer applicable and appreciated, they don't really know how to deal with it and now their big advantage of high reproduction is gone too, and they really don't know how to deal with that either. So a lot of them do what they've always done and it's mostly not working out for them at all because now they can't replenish the losses they're taking when they act aggressively as their whole existence has primed them to do.

It's honestly really tragic all the way around.

Which is a shame that ME3 just completly ignored the complexity of the situation and just boiled it down to "genophage = bad", there's not even any consideration of whats going to happen if the krogan rapidly multiply in a galaxy where every race was just almost wiped out and most infrastructure destroyed.

 

[Dalisclock]

Which is a shame that ME3 just completly ignored the complexity of the situation and just boiled it down to "genophage = bad", there's not even any consideration of whats going to happen if the krogan rapidly multiply in a galaxy where every race was just almost wiped out and most infrastructure destroyed.

ME3 dropped the ball on a lot of things, really. It was set up to fail by ME2 not really setting ME3 up properly but it still faceplanted hard in a lot of ways. Not just talking about the ending here either. It really feels like ME3 needed to be a much longer/bigger game or maybe even the reaper war should have been split over 2 full games.

 

[BrawlMan]

Max is once again keeping it real!

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[Drathnoxis]

ME3 dropped the ball on a lot of things, really. It was set up to fail by ME2 not really setting ME3 up properly but it still faceplanted hard in a lot of ways. Not just talking about the ending here either. It really feels like ME3 needed to be a much longer/bigger game or maybe even the reaper war should have been split over 2 full games.

If you can't wrap up a story satisfactorily over 2 60 hour games you won't be able to do it no matter how many games you get or how long they are.

 

[Dalisclock]

If you can't wrap up a story satisfactorily over 2 60 hour games you won't be able to do it no matter how many games you get or how long they are.

Yeah, I honestly think that's kind of the problem.

ME2 could have gotten half the job done in it's running time, and instead we just get this whole "Kidnapped human colonists" thing that doesn't really matter in the long run other then showing how reapers are made. There's a lot of time spent on your squad, which is great, but the overall plot just doesn't do much to set up for the reaper war coming up 6 months later in ME3, except for the Arrival DLC.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

If you can't wrap up a story satisfactorily over 2 60 hour games you won't be able to do it no matter how many games you get or how long they are.

Well... Depends I guess. The issue with open world games is most of the story has little to do with the main story and most of the stories outside the main story are not connected either. You'll also have multiple writers doing different things which leads to all sorts of additional problems.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Yeah, I honestly think that's kind of the problem.

ME2 could have gotten half the job done in it's running time, and instead we just get this whole "Kidnapped human colonists" thing that doesn't really matter in the long run other then showing how reapers are made. There's a lot of time spent on your squad, which is great, but the overall plot just doesn't do much to set up for the reaper war coming up 6 months later in ME3, except for the Arrival DLC.

This is why SAVE THE WORLD PLOTS CAN SHOVE IT! So many stories become disasters because people try to do too much with them and go too grand with their scale. I've never played the ME series but I've heard people talk about how well done the smaller scope conflicts were. Like the Geth and Quarian conflict could have been the main focal point of its own game and I bet people would be satisfied with it as an installment as an adventure in a series of adventures in the ME universe.

What is your story about? Is it plot? Or is it characters? If it's plot, then you can have grand and complicated storylines since that's your focus and where your resources will go. In that case your characters just need to be designed in the best way to aid the plot making sense and moving forward. If your story is about characters though, having their backstories and personalities be your focus, then you need to make a plot centered around them. I remember a podcast where someone talked about how Garrus and Tali both need their food specially prepared since they need specific food for their physiology, make a conflict around food and resource scarcity and trying to make everything everyone needs and showing how some characters are more effected than others.

Like... I'm 35 and haven't published a single book or written for any magazine or anything and barely taken any college classes dealing with this kind of thing yet I understand this. Or maybe this is a problem with what higher ups want and think is needed for these games and the writers being shit out of luck with where they can go, I dunno.

 

[meiam]

This is why SAVE THE WORLD PLOTS CAN SHOVE IT! So many stories become disasters because people try to do too much with them and go too grand with their scale. I've never played the ME series but I've heard people talk about how well done the smaller scope conflicts were. Like the Geth and Quarian conflict could have been the main focal point of its own game and I bet people would be satisfied with it as an installment as an adventure in a series of adventures in the ME universe.

What is your story about? Is it plot? Or is it characters? If it's plot, then you can have grand and complicated storylines since that's your focus and where your resources will go. In that case your characters just need to be designed in the best way to aid the plot making sense and moving forward. If your story is about characters though, having their backstories and personalities be your focus, then you need to make a plot centered around them. I remember a podcast where someone talked about how Garrus and Tali both need their food specially prepared since they need specific food for their physiology, make a conflict around food and resource scarcity and trying to make everything everyone needs and showing how some characters are more effected than others.

Like... I'm 35 and haven't published a single book or written for any magazine or anything and barely taken any college classes dealing with this kind of thing yet I understand this. Or maybe this is a problem with what higher ups want and think is needed for these games and the writers being shit out of luck with where they can go, I dunno.

Story without big save the world stuff tend not to do really well. Like dragon age 2 didn't do it and it's the least popular entry in the franchise.

I agree, I much prefer small scale conflict since you can more easily justify doing small stuff. It's always silly when the world is ending and thousands are dying but we take the time to pick up apple for granny to make a pie.

 

[BrawlMan]

This is why SAVE THE WORLD PLOTS CAN SHOVE IT! So many stories become disasters because people try to do too much with them and go too grand with their scale. I've never played the ME series but I've heard people talk about how well done the smaller scope conflicts were. Like the Geth and Quarian conflict could have been the main focal point of its own game and I bet people would be satisfied with it as an installment as an adventure in a series of adventures in the ME universe.

Story without big save the world stuff tend not to do really well. Like dragon age 2 didn't do it and it's the least popular entry in the franchise.

That depends on who's doing it, and how it is done. There are plenty of games, TV shows, and movies with small scale stakes that don't involve saving the world/entire galaxy.

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[hanselthecaretaker]

Story without big save the world stuff tend not to do really well. Like dragon age 2 didn't do it and it's the least popular entry in the franchise.

I agree, I much prefer small scale conflict since you can more easily justify doing small stuff. It's always silly when the world is ending and thousands are dying but we take the time to pick up apple for granny to make a pie.

Really, it would seem in terms of designing game progression and pacing that actually makes sense, smaller scale stuff should be far more approachable. Idk how much of it is just clueless creative leads or brain dead suits thinking games need all the save the world bullshit, but it is long past getting old. It might be why I have no sense of urgency to finish The Witcher 3, as given all the hundreds of contracts and side quests thrown in the player’s face it would seem neither should Geralt have any with finding Ciri.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Story without big save the world stuff tend not to do really well. Like dragon age 2 didn't do it and it's the least popular entry in the franchise.

I agree, I much prefer small scale conflict since you can more easily justify doing small stuff. It's always silly when the world is ending and thousands are dying but we take the time to pick up apple for granny to make a pie.

I don't think that's true. What I mean isn't that the story needs to be about some kind of non action plot or something. 'Leiningen Versus the Ants' is a classic short story that's just about trying to save a farm plantation but the sacrifices and plans to do it are exciting and engaging. 'Spirited Away' is perhaps the most popular Ghibli movie and the stakes are very personal, with maybe 4 characters in real danger of losing or gaining something by the end.