Chatting about games

> type responses
Use Simplenote. It's free, cross-platform and stores it in the cloud with an autosave. It's my go-to app for basically everything, even groceries.

> mayo
Going to do the same thing with that video as the rest: not watch it.

> action platformer
Shinobi still qualifies well imo, and NG:B is still equal parts adventure game and platforming as it is action before it became an established genre. Same with GoW's first two games. Definitely Warrior Within btw, many people lambast that game because it has better combat and thus they assume the platforming took a dive, but the platforming was vastly improved there as well.

Maximo Ghosts to Glory also qualifies for being an action platformer. Army of Zin focuses more on the action but it's still an action platformer.

I really gotta play Maximo, games sound super fun.

> chatting
Been diving into Garou: Mark of the Wolves on Fightcade a bit and jesus this is a sick ass game. Really adore it so far, though I'm still learning and can't even beat a CPU haha.

Rorc: >made for high level play
Haven't played anything past X6, but from what I've played, I'd argue that X's and Zero's gameplay is at their best on this title, as well as the customization. The stage design is another story, though, with some stages not being beatable as certain characters (or with X, if he has the wrong armor), even though players have been discovering ways to clear some of these stages, but still, not all of them can be cleared. Still, nothing that prior knowledge about them can't solve.

>Zero games are amazing
>ZX are worse, but still good
Nice to hear. Will give them a try when I get the chance.

Raeng: >Simplenote
Looked into it. Thanks for the suggestion.

>Shinobi qualifies well
I concur. How's Nightshade on this front?

>WW
Another game that's been on the list for a while.

>chatting
I'll be playing ZoE2 shortly. Coming from GoW and after hearing some things about it, I have high expectations for its grab/collision system.

> nightshade
There's one stage with actual platforming, otherwise it's very dumbed down in that regard imo. Shinobi really clears it in my book, especially in its EX-stages.

Birdman
>Knack 2
How much platforming is there and, most importantly, is it integrated well with the combat?

Wright
>3h
Jesus. Not even an emergency power supplier can save you there. The ones Zesty gets seem to be like 10 minutes long.

Omar
>DMC vs GoW
This is going to be a disaster. Can’t wait.

Roy
>Garou
We could do a couple of matches next week if you’re up to it. Tinkered with it a bit in training mode and saw some matches and the game seems fun. Love that you can spam the shit out of the fakeout moves to confuse the opponent.

Raeng: >platforming is dumbed down
I see. I forget what were your thoughts about it from a combat standpoint. Sidegrade?

Malcar: >outside of an emergency power supplier's reach
Afraid so.

>10m
Sounds about right, judging from his streams. Also the fact that the power never goes out for long enough to interrupt his streams.

>DMC vs GoW
It's so bad that I would believe it's a joke if I didn't know it was Mayo. He spents half of the vid talking about story and when it comes to gameplay he talks about most superficial stuff out there. It's killing me when he said "[...] I have to pay attention to the buttons I press". No shit man, that's a QTE.

He doesn't know a lot about mechanics of either, so comparison is so shallow and boring.

> mayo video
I`m kinda defensive side to Mayo on this forum, but when the "GOW vs DMC" video came out I said "nope". No, His review are not that good at, and so he should not make a comparison. I didn`t watch it, and I will not.

> PS2 game with only keyboard
In my opinion, MGS1 and MGS2 is quiet fit into keyboard only category. You will rarely look around so right stick is enough for arrow keys, no need for mouse. MGS3 is tricky, because you have to do certain things.

But I don`t have any idea about key binding system for steam port, If it support fully like old MGS2 version then it will be fine.

> Chat
Roll 7 dead. Tango studio Dead. Arkane Austin Dead.
Goddamn what is going on this industry.

> garou
Sounds good!

> wright nighthade
It's a downgrade honestly. In removing the simplicity of Shinobi by adding all these extra moves and making fights way longer, enemies have lost their danger and instead are now just food for Tate. Platforming also takes a backseat, so most fights are just in dull square rooms with no danger of falling to your death. You can check out the articles on both, they're on the main site.

> Mayo
The cracks began to show when he branched out from his Doom content (which I'll be honest, I liked). It's been hard to find much value in any of his videos since.

> Studio Closures
It's just depressing. At the moment, there are no reasons for me to support the industry. While I doubt it'll be remembered as one of the greats of the genre, Hi-Fi Rush had cool ideas that made it definitely worth at least one playthrough, and I respect Tango for trying to do something different in a stale market. As for Arkane Austin, I've never played their titles but heard Prey was very highly thought of. A real shame to lose entire studios for the sake of making the numbers look a little bit prettier for the shareholders.

Prey is great, but Redfall looks like trash. I heard many devs left Arkane Austin cause they wanted to keep making games like Prey but couldn't due to Bethesda.

> studios closure
Should note that there's also a lot of misinformation going on. Most of the staff isn't fired, just relocated to other MS-owned studios. The one exception sadly being Tango, since they're based in Japan and probably not easily re-distributed as a result.

I am curious about Mikami though. I always respect him and the way he paves the way to newer generations, but it does make me wonder if the knew what was going to happen and jumped ship, leaving his team in the dust. I highly doubt that's the case though, considering his distaste for MS.

Regarding what happened, it's disgusting and a bad look. But let's not assume players won't forget about this the second a new Halo trailer drops or whatever - it'll be forgotten in a week or so I fear. 

It's a sad state of affairs that companies are ruled so heavily by investers that just want higher stock numbers.

Raeng: >enemies were demoted to being food for Tate
Oof. Indeed, that sounds like a downgrade alright.

>no danger from platforming
Was the game even made by the same devs?

> Mikami

From Freddie(as he wrote "Formerly Principal Level Architect at Arkane Studios")`s post, No one see this coming... But your alert toward misinformation was important. Thank you very much.

P.s. If we believe in his interview, Mikami said that he wanted to retire tango studio from 8 years ago, bur there were many projects for wating. When Hi-Fi rush was done, he finally got his chance. In according to John Joahnas, they had a plan to make a sequel of hi-fi rush but not in presenting nor in actual pre-production process yet(I heard that Arkane Austine was similar, they had a plan for a sequel of dishonored).

Regarding Mikami, I will say this: if he knew it was going down, do you think he would say so in an interview? "Yeah I'm leaving because everyone will be fired soon anyway".

Jokes aside, don't feel that's his style either. He's a legit good guy that just wants to make fun games and drive expensive cars. Don't think this was in the cards for him.

Wright: >Cereza
Hypa covered it.

>oof
And you MUST land the launcher part of the string. Just doing the thing to go into the sky won't let you catch someone already up there (like Jumptroopers). Gaining the on-demand option to air throw was a big boon in SWFU2. It had a few improvements, but a lot of downgrades (some sidegrades). This mostly owed to rushed dev time (half what was needed thanks to betrayal from Lucas).

>you mean
Here I was talking about "Grip" (the magic throw with range that can manipulate objects, foes and interactible elements of the stage *and has multiple follow-ups be it tossing your primary weapon at it before it comes back homing style to whatever position you move to, zapping to charge with explosive electric discharge or sending a kinetic blast wave at it*). It can only be done grounded. Upgrades will let you multi-grab with it (Krate never gains this, but Cereza does for one weapon). It never lets you pull to them (just them to you). You also cannot move while doing it at all (no upgrade made for that as the controls are a disaster as is *takes work to master*).

>canon
Star Wars is a mess since the original holder isn't the only writer (by a longshot) and let tons of fans make stuff (made official and called canon for dosh *where it is just a meme with DB as they don't have that word/concept in Japan*). SWFU was "canon" until the rights were sold to Disney (who scrubbed it and a lot of other Extended Universe stuff rebranded "Legends"). As for the use of flight in Star Wars, I don't really recall it or even gliding so much being a thing at all in any version, no. As Starkiller, we have 'quick recover' which defies gravity as with holding the Repulse. The 'Force Dash' (especially Dashing Blast) in the air? That feels related conceptually. But straight up flying or even gliding? No. Likewise, for just lifting things you're on. Others? Sure. Just not you.

Very arbitrary in this respect. Hell, Galen was able to do a move called "Aerial Strike" with intense range (easily over a hundred feet away) and traveling at a speed like mach 1 (may as well be warp speed by human conception). Way faster than anything else. We just zip to the target from where we are. The target can be any locked on thing. Move is done air-to-air or air-to-ground (not good directly above as it bugs out into a false version of another move *very GoW of it* that cannot hit). There are a lot of odd powers that just turn up and don't make sense with the established nature of things. More recent sequels had Force 'calls' with them passing physical objects through them. That would have been handy during events of the last few thousand years of much more powerful, far more talents types (of which there were many). Whatever. Still not flight (got dem dubble G-umps, son *no enemy stepping or wall jumps much less wall running and Force Parkour*). If Marek could just grab a ledge, many people would have been far less frustrated with his platforming.

>different scaling
Different thing altogether. It wasn't like spending MP to enhance throws (let alone make them a different animation). Sadly, we couldn't do such a thing as press the lightning button or push button during such animations to enhance saber strikes or change the types as such (even at the cost of Not-MP *read FP since it is Force Points*).

>very surprising
Less so knowing the original combat devs (they pushed for what they got, but wanted more *just couldn't get permission for everything as with delayed input strings*). They were Fighting Game fans, so their depth of appreciation for combat was far deeper than would be expected from the likes of Style geeks with their ridiculous list of samey, flashy filler with no notable properties (just juggle the sandbags endlessly *if it doesn't allow it, fuck that enemy and you for allowing it*). Just so much pointless fluff existing for the sake of Style points (themselves ignored in favor of user sensibilities).

>guard down
Our hero....

>Mayo
Sounds like the poor man's Decino. Bet he was second-rate even with DOOM.

> mayodoom
His Doom content was pretty fun in that he was urging players to mix up their play and just have fun, while also having some stage/weapon deepdives. Like most Youtubers that make their mark with a single game and turn it into their employment, it just caves in the second that game lost it's hype. He's still going back and forth in what he wants to be, at least last I checked.

Only one I feel that avoided this is Ryker. He's a pretty solid guy that just makes consistent Diablo content, even when Immortal, HongKong and D4 were happening and honestly just kept going and having fun. I can respect that.

> star wars
Always felt the films were stronger than the IP, at least the originals. The force had its nuances and the characters were great, but the worlds (other than visual wowing you) didn't really feel like actual places most of the time and were more setdressing for the story (which is fine). Later films and expanded universe content relying more and more on the lore and the worldbuilding always fell flat to me.

>X's and Zero's gameplay is at their best on this title
I agree that X6 has the best Zero in the X series, but I think that X himself was done best in X8. It has the distinction of being the only game to allow X to mix and match his armor parts (something that people are working to add to X5 and X6 via modding), and the stage/enemy design of X8 makes good use of X's charged shots. The new guard break mechanic also plays very nicely with X's buster.

>Shinobi/Nightshade
I'll defend the platforming elements of Nightshade. The new aerial homing divekick adds more freedom of movement and makes aerial Tate sequences into interesting platforming challenges. I'd argue that stages 6, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are all pretty heavy on platforming, stage 9's boss is even a platforming challenge moreso than a fight.

>enemies were demoted to being food for Tate
This part I completely agree with. Shinobi does a much better job of establishing tension and danger, enemies in that game are scary. They don't even need to do much to be scary, because every minor inconvenience raises the threat of your ticking clock. Nightshade is a great game to play for rank/score, but that just doesn't generate the same excitement as battling both aggressive foes and your own sword in Shinobi.

> nightshade
Yeah the biggest thing I remember being shocked by were the hidden challenge rooms, which were just giant open cubes with 100+ enemies that you zigzag between. It's cool for about 1 minute, but after that you notice it's more about pressing buttons and having sick animations than the threat of death. Shinobi's enemies were dangerous, but also patient. I really feel like they were designed at times to just slow you down, like they knew your health was draining. Even the basic ninja needs to be backstabbed to avoid blocks for example.

I had hoped playing as Hotsuma in Nightshade would fix this, but even then it doesn't really since enemies are more passive and more about quantity than quality. Will say Nightshade starts really cool, the first stage is absolutely the coolest shit ever.

> platforming
IIRC there were very rarely holes in the ground. Later stages in Shinobi were more wall than floor, while Kunoichi didn't really have that issue. There were even complete stages that were just office spaces/rooms. Only two instances I remember is the timed section where you have to climb up and the destroyed bridge (which ironically you can just skip completely iirc).

>Mega Man Zero

Just want to second these being kickass action games; more action games people need to play and talk about them because there's just so much there.

> Mayo DMC vs GoW

I ended up watching this out of morbid curiosity a couple hours ago because people in my discord were talking about it, and it's about as bad as you probably imagine.

It's weird, because he wants to defend GoW in a "polite" way to DMC fans, and the way he does it is by just parroting the Character Action Fan stereotype of claiming that GoW combat isn't deep and doesn't have much to it, but that here are a bunch of things about the story and visual design that stand out. And even I having not played much GoW know that's just kinda bullshit; I've talked to enough people into it to believe there's a lot of neat mechanical stuff.

It's like he doesn't think he can persuasively argue the mechanical merits of GoW, so he tries to avoid having that fight. And even then, he can't help slipping into criticisms about how DMC enemies attack you off screen while GoW doesn't (supposedly), or how the continue system in DMC is worse because dying in DMC3SE gold mode and onward "only" hurts your rank and restores you health when you come back (this nonsense again).

>nightshade pits
Stages 6 and 9 are the truck and boat stages. I don't remember if falling is death or just damage in stage 6, but I've died many times by falling off stage 9. Stages 11 and 12 are loosely modelled after Shinobi's 8-A and 8-B, with a similar amount of pits to fall in. 7 and 8 are almost entirely enclosed, but they do have that one cool vertical shaft with the catwalks.

>how DMC enemies attack you off screen while GoW doesn't (supposedly)
DMC enemies have strict rules about what they are allowed to do while offscreen. If you learn these rules, you gain a lot of power to predict and control enemies. I would be more annoyed at Mayo for glossing over it, but glossing over stuff seems like the only thing he does in that whole video.

Camera complaining is something I have a hard time taking seriously. First of all because people like Mayo manage to get their camera stuck inside a wall in every game ever made regardless of the camera, so I think it's just a skill issue (he also thinks pressing a direction to do Stinger is too hard, apparently). And also because limited or obscured visibility can be an interesting challenge. Like calling an assist to hide your mixup in MvC2, it's a feature not a bug.

> camera
Knowing how enemies react to the camera and their precense on it (or not) is key I feel always in how to handle action games at a high level. God Hand, NGII, DMC, GoW - they all have rules. GoW in a sense is the most crystal clear from what I recall - offscreen enemies don't do anything. You can even cancel enemy attack-animations iirc by getting them off camera, it's pretty sick.

DMC also has very clear rules for it. So feels like a non-issue, but not a surprise tbh. I know the guy likes NGB and GoW3 but he's not the mechanically gifted or knowledgable person to be able to verbalize it. He's the guy that plays them on Normal, goes "damn that was sick" and then tries to find reasons as to why while sounding like a bafoon. Nothing wrong with just thinking a game is sick tho.

> Nightshade
I will admit, I had COMPLETELY forgotten about those stages haha. The boat-stage was sick.

>glossing over stuff seems like the only thing he does in that whole video.
Honestly, it feels like that's what he does about ANYTHING that's not Doom Eternal or whatever other game he might be super knowledgeable about.

It's such a strange attitude he has where he HAS to speak like he knows something when he doesn't, and I don't get that. There are tons of things about action games and games in general I'm not knowledgeable about, and I do my best to not discuss them with an air of authority, or at least caveat where I'm coming from. But Mayo will just confidently spew bullshit that he HAS to know is bullshit, right? There's no way his Dunning-Kruger Syndrome is so strong that he unironically thinks he has an educated take on these things.

>and I don't get that.
He and his filthy ilk, along with journalist SCUM have been doing this since forever. They seem to believe the experience they have is all there is. The concept of discovery and learning doesn't seem to exist to them.

I've questioned why they do this quite a few times but can't come up with anything other than mechanical blindness.

Why, when I first played GoW and NG, did I go to Raeng and other experts here for advice like that time I got utterly dematerialized by ninja dogs? Why did I seek to understand mechanics and get better rather than stating with authority that the game was unfair, badly designed, etc?

Why can't they do this?

> confidence
Granted, half the job is being confident when speaking. There's a pretty good TEDtalk (iirc) about a guy going on stage noting that sugar induces cancer and convincing the entire audience that it's a fact, because he's one a stage (so he must be right) and speaks confidently and lists random 'facts'. Afterwhich the talk is ofcourse about not believing everything you hear etc.

The problem here (as with many other speakers) is there's plenty of knowledgable folk out there that will look at your material and go "wait, what the fuck are you talking about". But with such big channels it's easy to just get lost in the noise. I don't even think it's possible to get Mayo to communicate with you outside of Patreon at this point - which also leads to my biggest issue with content-creation; hivemind.

There comes a point (one I thankfully don't reach) where you just have too much comments and connections with your channel to humanly go through individually. So you have to cull it, and most do this by limiting it to their paid users. The downside to this (imo) is that you only get yes-men. These people are paying for you to make content, so they'll like what you have to say. This often also gives a very wrong sense of confidence, and often leads to these people getting really pissy when they go out their bubble.

> doom eternal
IIRC he was laughed out of his community at the time too, remember reading some high level players didn't agree with his points and he got pissy at them. But that's dead internet at this point so good luck finding it.

Another Lollipop Chainsaw: RePOP tweet where, once again, they talk about anything except the aforementioned mechanical changes.

And of course, the replies are all gooners crying about the censorship boogeyman instead of asking about mechanics.

I really hope this changes, because the mechanical changes they talked about before were honestly a bit worrying and felt like they would serve to dumb the game down, and they haven't mentioned them since. Also all this talk about cosmetic stuff has me worried that the budget is so run into the ground that it's ultimately just going to be a straight port of the game at 4K or whatever.

I honestly believe the combat is a happy coincidence in Suda titles, that there's one guy running around the office with a Kamiya shirt, Mikami tattoo on his ass and Itagaki sunglasses just making sick ass combat engines in what are more artistic expression games and Suda just lets him do whatever.

Killer is Dead was absolutely fantastic too.

>Suda combat
I disagree with Lollipop Chainsaw in particular because combat in that game feels intentionally rearranged as a reconsideration of the combat of No More Heroes 1 and 2. I gotta go back to work (playing Muramasa Rebirth on break and now commiting time theft to talk about action games; living the dream!), but here's a copy/paste of my thoughts on this in the meantime (apologies for any weird formatting artifacts):

**DISCLAIMER–** These opinions are, to a degree, pending further replays of *No More Heroes* and *No More Heroes 2*, which I have not replayed since I got back into *Lollipop Chainsaw* this year. So keep that in mind. **That said...**

I see LC combat design as a streamlined refinement of NMH1/2. They have these similarities:

1. Bespoke high/low blade attacks
2. Low-damage, high-stun melee attacks
3. Command grab takedowns that put enemies into knockdown and knock other enemies back
4. Groggy status effect
5. Cinematic finishing moves that can catch numerous enemies at once with proper positioning and timing
6. Medals based on kill efficiency
7. Midair downward thrust command

What sets these two apart is that while NMH1 and 2 had all these bespoke elements, LC reconsidered and cohered them into a more structured score-chasing game where the positioning and melee attacks and groggy state become critical to the main gameplay loop. They become more formalized, as TheElectricUnderground would describe it.

For example, the finishing blows in NMH1/2 were QTEs based on enemy health, and catching multiple enemies in one—while requiring skill—was ultimately *just* an advanced tech and happy accident thing on its own.

However, in LC, it no longer becomes an automatically-awarded QTE and instead becomes the sparkle hunt, a little cinematic reward with a high score/medal payout for naturally death-blowing at least 3 enemies with a single regular attack.

This further incentivizes attention to melee attacks (which were streamlined into a single input, instead of high and low like NMH), and hence the groggy state since groggy state allows an instant kill regardless of health (idr if this is the case in NMH as well).

And not to mention the command grabs and takedowns which were more of drawn-out QTE affairs in NMH, but are more robust and natural separate command inputs in LC.

The result is, imo, LC is the true *No More Heroes 3*, **specifically** in terms of combat design.

Rest of his games though (at least the ones I've played) I agree though, Suda is an "artiste" who cares not about how messy his mechanics are if they're in service to his grindhouse statement lol

can i play perfect dark zero without playing perfect dark?

You can but in god's name why would you want to?

Had no idea whether to play it chronologically or release order.

Plus I am craving for tactical espionage action games

Just play the Xbox release of Perfect Dark, it's really fucking good. I couldn't get through Zero personally, trashfire imo

It’s so damn annoying when some chud calls a boss in a action game a “souls boss”, as if the mechanics couldn’t even be more differently entirely lol.

>Souls boss

lmao, which game and boss was it this time?

Some guy compared a god of war boss to a souls boss due to not being a giant ass boss and being more gameplay oriented lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqL_AfNxNEE

I have my disagreements with this guy but damn what an amazing video. Perfectly sums up the problem with design and the normie reaction to every game being "this needs to be easier/streamlined/have less friction" rather than "this could be more interesting and engaging and here's how".

The screenshot of the comments about Mario Wonder made my eyes roll out of their sockets.

>Souls boss
>More gameplay oriented
Yeah, that sounds like modern gamers alright.

>Electric Underground video
I knew which video you were referring to before even clicking, lol. I'm the same way, I think Mark faceplants a LOT, but when he knows his shit, he REALLY knows his shit, and I can tell this video was carefully put together.

I remember the old terminology for such bosses being 'technical' (versus environmental as with those where you just stand in certain spots and they can only do certain things versus having multiple options for multiple ranges and scenarios).

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqL_AfNxNEE
Nope, sorry, I hate this video just like I hate every other Electric Underground video I've sat through.

Games are not being simplified for mass audiences. The most complex Devil May Cry by far is 5. The most complex Bayonetta by far is 3. The most complex Zelda by far is Tears of the Kingdom. The reason a shmup like ESP Ra.De. has 20 seconds of tutorials and TotK has over 2 hours of tutorials, is not because Nintendo has a fetish for tutorials. It's because it takes 20 seconds to explain how to play ESP Ra.De. and more than 2 hours to explain how to play TotK.

To the extent that modern games are easier, it's often because they are complicated. Breath of the Wild has an entire quite large region of the map where you take constant damage and many weapons will disintegrate simply from being exposed to the air. It does that while still challenging you with the usual enemies and puzzles. Ocarina of Time never asks half so much from the player. BotW puts massive obstacles in front of the player and remains an easy game, because your array of abilities is so vast and so unrestricted that every problem has a simple solution, if the player can think of it. Which raises the question of why the creative thinking is not considered as part of the difficulty, btw. People praise the Trial of the Sword for being challenging, but it only accomplishes that by taking away 99% of your options.

In conclusion, if you're one of these people like Electric Underground that worship at the altar of punishing difficulty, then don't complain about simplification. You should be begging for simplification.

>compares difficult games to Ulysses
Not gonna justify this sophistry with a response, but I am gonna point out that he said it, LOL.

>repeatedly complains about easy modes
>suddenly starts praising shmups for including practice mode, level select, and save states, AKA literally easy mode
Oh my god. He made a half-hour video about this stuff and doesn't even bother to explain what he thinks the difference is between easy mode and save states. Dark Souls would be pretty fucking easy with save states, my dude.

Spends 20 minutes telling me how games shouldn't be easy and then says "but it would be nice if they were easy." Genuinely infuriating.

> Electic UnderGround
I find him interesting in that we have the exact same conclusion and opinions, but the wording before it always makes me want to cut off my ears and blind myself for life. Like he loves NGII, and so do I, but when he talks about it I'm constantly going "no no no no dear god no" hahaha. Stopped watching him.

> tutorials
I find it hard. Like, for example I played Gears 1 recently and Gears 5 (just casually, didn't beat either). Both games are exactly the same. Gears 1 has a really short (optional) tutorial. Gears 5 has a 40~(!!!!) minute degrading tutorial that literally boils down to 'push the left stick to walk' levels of mental insult.

I'm still more a fan of if you like a game enough, you can play it and find things out by yourself. DoA5 has a 2-3 hour long tutorial mode, DoA2 has none, mechnically they are nearly identical. Same in regards to for example NG:B as opposed to later action games.

I definitely feel there's a "players are too dumb to think" mentality going on at times, especially in terms of gameplay mechanics devs are afraid they'll miss and thus dump the title for.

Feel Sifu has the best tutorial in recent memory. It's short, storybased, skippable (upon replay) and teaches you the pure basics. How you use the tools you still have to figure out.

I'm happy to see TEU speak on this issue. Often times if feel like game are way too much playedtested and remove most exciting parts, because somebody who never play games before should be able to beat it first try.

On the otherhand, he's way too generous towards Dark Souls. It didn't help with introducing difficulty to wider audience. It just made that only difficult games can only be souls clones now, otherwise they're "unfair". And after DS2, Fromsoft doesn't even try to expand on the formula beyond first playthrough. Popularity of their games only further resulted in exacerbation of homogenization and spreading of beginner bias and simon's says design to more niche genres.

Difficulty selection was great solution to this back in a day. You could make easy as easy you want and hard as hard you want without worrying about those two intersecting, but nowadays even higher difficulties are nerfed to accommodate casuals' complaints. They're no longer serve a purpose of crafting a experience that build ups on itself as player gets more skilled at a game, they're now there to artificially boost ego of people who play souls games. Not mention, there is general sentiment that video games should have only one diffculty.

> tutorials

I don`t know why literal "Training" option (on top menu) was gone, except for some genres(like, fighting games).   Some old PC games, like Deus Ex and classic Rainbow Six, have a training option so you can do it or just jump into main campaign. It will be more elegant that optional tutorial and game narrative resonate like System Shock 2 (you can just skip rooms!) , but I think that it is still more effective to have training option rather than a bunch of pop-ups.

Remove all tutorials.

>I hate this video just like I hate every other Electric Underground video I've sat through.
>Games are not being simplified for mass audiences

Everyone on the YouTube needs a shtick and his is being a contrarian. Like all contrarians sometimes he makes a sensible point but mostly talks nonsense like in the video.

> training room
It's oldsk00l but the way games like NGB and SuperContra did it are imo the best. Just have the first screen be empty, no threats. You can press the buttons, try shit out, and once you feel confident what does what you move on and play the game.

So what did people think of that elden ring trailer?

It was a cool cutscene, can't say much more about it tbh

Maybe you have talked about that in the past but what do you think about armored core 6? It's honestly the only AC game that I ever played, but I likes It a lot (almost loved). Yeah It has its problems (and was pretty umbalanced), but I found myself enjoying It a lot (I have to Say I didn't try to S rank all missions, but I completed all three runs and the arena. Oh I speak only for single player content, never played online)