WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE PONY
Anonymousit’s a toss-up between blue eyes white dragon and pikachu
Has anyone ever gone so far as ever to need more to do look more like such as?
Anonymousgo away jeff
Arguments about game criticism that generally bug me
Oh hey what’s this I actually posted something? World must be ending or something. At any rate…
I tend to find myself criticizing (Admittedly, a lot of it is bitching, but meh) games a lot lately. I tend to get a lot of counter-arguments and I think the vast majority of them are just…dumb.
So why not bitch about people bitching about my bitching on my tumblr. That’s what’s all the rage, right?
For context, a lot of my complaints and arguments tend to be centered around difficulty, and while I concede I have very picky standards for what is a “proper” difficulty, I’d like to believe I have a sound logic to everything.
Anyways, on to the “counter-arguments” and my stances on them
A) Someone did a self-imposed challenge of it
(Subtopics include: Well, there are lots of people who like it)
This is one of the more baffling ones because it doesn’t really address the argument at all. It’s really a digression of the main topic, and I actually consider it the video game equivalent of replying to someone’s complaints of having a bad day with #firstworldproblems. Yes, I’m sure someone can do Crappy Mario Romhack of the week under an aesetic challenge or do Obnoxious Pokemon Romhack #15 under the rules of a Nuzlocke. Who cares? I mean, hell, people speedrun the notoriously bad Sonic 2006 and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them for other such memetically horrible games like Superman 64.
The secondary argument of “There exist people who like it” doesn’t really address the argument directly either, because you can have people like a thing that’s bad. I mean, Call of Duty gets record breaking sales even though the multiplayer hasn’t changed for half a damn decade (Which is pretty much why most people get the games nowadays, and even if you ignore that, the single-player isn’t much to write home on either). Actually, this happens a bit with Mario, too (Just so nobody accuses me of fanboyism), since if I recall right NSMB2 sold quite well when even some fanboys argued that it was samey and gimmicky. Also, if I want to be more of an asshole, I could just flat out say “People generally have shitty standards”, but well, there’s a reason I spewed a few articulate words first.
Like, I could understand if it were a proper rebuttal, but it just generally derails the topic, and I have to wonder if that’s part of the point.
B) The game’s not meant for players of your style
This is an argument that, outside of the right context, works, but it’s also misused very frequently during criticism of a game or hack. I think the best way to approach this is that it’s only reasonable when the “type of player” is within a reasonable bounds.
For example, this is a valid argument if I wasn’t good at sports games and as a result do poorly on them and I start complaining. They aren’t my type of game, and so it’s fair that I shouldn’t expect it to be a thing that I’m adept at.
However, with a lot of “hard” hacks, this gets used as a way to deflect criticism by defaulting to a “secret-club” mentality. ‘Oh, it’s meant for us who were too bored with how easy the base game was’/’it was meant for those who completely mastered the original’, The problem is that much like Argument A, it’s mostly a diversion of the criticism. It also ignores the fact that making a game that’s meant for masters of a precursor is a bad idea.
This is a very slight digression, but if you’ve made a game or a hack intended for “masters”, you put yourself at a much more steep disadvantage in creating an interesting and reasonable level curve. So what happens is that you either peak early on or introduce a bunch of gimmicks to either make it more frustrating or to mask the now flatlined difficulty scale (A good example is Pokemon hacks that raise the level curve enormously and end up either failing to keep up or just start introducing inflated base stat totals and cheap, illegal movesets that encourage tedium)
C) You’re just mad because you’re bad at it/You just don’t like things that are hard/Go play something easier/CASUAL SCUM/ENTITLED
If I weren’t a patient and articulate man, my response here could justifiably be “lol, go fuck yourself you ignorant shitheel” (And yes, someone did try to call me entitled once over this, which is absolutely hysterical).
I’m going to make clear that I’m not a super-mega-pro gamer. I’m not claiming to be some ultimate master of all video games forever, but I would put myself above the median in terms of general skill. I’ve handed hard games, I’ve handled games on their highest difficulties, and in some cases on a first run. This is generally why I get pissed off at “difficulty” hacks because they just go severely over the top with it. I’m not bad at video games. I just have low tolerance for difficulty that is both unreasonable and unrewarding.
It also pisses me off because it implies that there’s some sort of qualifying factor, some sort of credential I need in order to criticize a game. I mean, to some extent this is valid when you’re criticizing difficulty, but only to a certain point. Even if I were bad at video games, I could watch someone else play it and make a judgement through observation. Which I’ve done on a few occasions for things I’ve not personally played. This argument is generally considered bullshit in all other circumstances (You don’t need to be a director to criticize films, you don’t need to be a chef to criticize food), but I see this one crop up so many times it’s like people think there’s some sort of exception to poorly designed difficulty.
There’s probably a few more I could think of, but I’ve spent enough time typing all this shit up. Maybe for my next post in six months!
(Also don’t be surprised if you see this get deleted and show up revised later as I look things over and realize I did something wrong because I’m a shitty writer)
rudenberkcelestia replied to your photo: My Tumblr Crushes:unmovinggreatlibrary…
tell that filthy lunarian to get off MY list. i own this list. just look at these important-looking papers
I’m a little scared to ask but what is this screenshot even from
thedonravioli replied to your post: rudenberkcelestia replied to your photo: My Tumblr…
Wait where did this come from again ?
If only Youmu-chan can help me cut this.
tell that filthy lunarian to get off MY list. i own this list. just look at these important-looking papers
I’m a little scared to ask but what is this screenshot even from
I wish more people I know on Tumblr played Tales of the Abyss mostly so I could have people to talk with here about it
I’m sure I know someone I follow/follows me plays it, But I’m not sure who.
You should stalk the people I follow, you may find someone
I’ve played it! I haven’t finished it yet though.
Touhou 14: Announced
You know what that means
“When will character X, Y, and Z be in Touhoumon??????”
well duh obviously we have to start making touhoumons in fourth gen, then we’ll be good until like Touhou 24
