I got interested in that question based on the Elder Scrolls series. Morrowind had a basically static world, Oblivion was basically entirely scaled to the player, and Skyrim is scaled to the player but within a min/max range.

To me, Morrowind was great because it could put appropriately powerful rewards in difficult (or just plain obscure) areas. Oblivion in particular was bad at making leveling feel like a treadmill because every time you leveled up as the player, pretty much every enemy would be that much more powerful also. Skyrim was better about that since an area would generally set its difficulty scale based on the first time you visited it, so you could leave and come back later if it was too tough, but it still felt a little off.

Another associated problem is how loot gets influenced by those leveled lists. In Skyrim, loot in containers and in the inventory of leveled enemies generally scales, but loot sitting out in the open in the game world generally doesn't. Which is really annoying, because all generic loot pretty much everywhere ends up being crappy low-level iron. God forbid there's some steel, elven, or dwarven gear in places where it would totally make sense to be (say, dwarven gear in dwarven ruins) that you might venture into before that gear becomes "level appropriate".


In a related issue, one beef that I have with general RPG mechanics is how they all feel the need to make you drastically more powerful at level 5 compared to level 1, and again at level 10 compared to level 5, and so on. By the time you're near the level cap, you're probably 100-1000 times as powerful as you were at level 1, which gives a good sense of accomplishment but just doesn't seem realistic, and leads to this problem with fixed difficulty or level scaling. Western RPGs (boiling back to pen and paper DnD rules) certainly aren't great about this, but JRPGs are completely ridiculous about it, which is pretty much why Final Fantasy 3(6) was the last one that I enjoyed. In my adulthood, I just can't handle them -- even going back and trying to play FF3 that I *loved* way back when.

I'd like to see more games where you get more skills, polish, and versatility as you progress, but overall you aren't more than 3-5 times as powerful at max level as you were at the beginning. Mount and Blade is one of the few games I can think of that comes close to that.

I think if you're going to have P2W - it should take place on a P2W server separate from those who are grinding the game. It's just one of the many reasons WoW isn't all that special anymore. Need a level 100 toon? Pay $30, get one instantly, on any sever ya like, you know with the people who put in 1000 hours of their real life.

I don't really care about loot boxes as long as they are cosmetic. In HOTS or Overwatch it's just like an added bonus, even though most of it is trash. Though, having loot boxes in HOTS is a little different than Overwatch which was an overrated/overpriced $60 game while HOTS (also made by Blizzard) is actually free to fucking play and even then I have most of the toons and never spent a cent and get plenty of loot boxes for free as well.

Keep this shit up though and the underground/indie devs are going to take over the gaming industry. Just like what happened with music, MTV not playing real music, the radio playing the same shit over and over again, major labels putting out garbage over and over again... and it eventually broke the mainstream music industry (thank fucking god).

I don't think anyone suggests that civilian disarmament encourages tyranny, merely that civilian armament discourages tyranny.



In any case, there are a variety of applications that aren't "fighting hitler".

No country goes on forever without some domestic strife. Could be domestic war, could be economic collapse, could be the government scapegoating "your kind", could be a weather disaster, could be whatever.
In such an unlikely event, if you happen to be around at the time, you may wish to guard your family, food, fuel, etc.

Note that these events affect a LOT of people when they do happen (as in millions at a time).
Even though they are less frequent than a random shooting, the sheer quantity of people makes them significant.

Eg. The last Houston destruction by hurricane was in 1979 (38 years ago). That's not so infrequent, in a city of 2.3 million people (ish).
That's an upper bound of 60'000 people affected per year on average.
Either way, it's a lot of people that need to guard their homes from looters, etc.
Granted not everyone is on a destroyed street - but you see what I mean.

There have been plenty of disasters and riots in the last few decades where you wouldn't want to be caught helpless - just in case.

That's also a commentary on society. During the Fukushima disaster, nobody was looting or robbing, or whatever. Japan has a better behaved society.

-scheherazade

Re. slavery and sins of fathers

I don't think anybody is suggesting that white folks be held personally responsible for slavery, but you do need to accept that, in the main, whites start life with a headstart. We still profit from that history, and that is to say nothing of the racism that still exists today.

I'm not sure that Schwarzenegger really gained much from his father fighting on the losing side of a war. As far as I am aware he came to America almost penniless and somehow manufactured a career for himself. Like...maybe if his dad had got a load of looted art or something and then Arnie inherited that... idk.

Anyhoo, he's white, so he had that going for him.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Game-of-Thrones-The-Loot-Train-Attack-HBO

Recreating Game Of Thrones' Loot Train Attack has been added as a related post - related requested by ant on that post.

Game of Thrones: The Loot Train Attack (HBO) has been added as a related post - related requested by ant.

Your video, Game of Thrones: The Loot Train Attack (HBO), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Agree. Can't stand all the superfluous fetch quests - at this point I'm even sick of inventory management. In games like Fallout, or Elder Scrolls, Witcher - these days I hardly even loot the corpses because I'm so sick of it after 25+ years.

One of the best games I've played recently was - What Remains of Edith Finch - a linear, "walking simulator" which implements innovative/interesting design solutions to drive the story forward, very detailed and very tightly designed - kind of on the opposite spectrum of open-world RPGs - but very awesome.

Obamacare was sold as THE ANSWER. IS HAS FAILED. It isn't the answer.

Clinton Foundation is so freaking great. Just ask the president of Haiti and its people how they got screwed by the Clinton Foundation. Its a scam for them to line their own political pockets.

To believe anything from a Clinton is utterly fullish. History is full of Clinton lies.

Democrats don't back down no matter what.

Loot at Clinton wiki leaks have her dead to right but she is not backing down. Attack the Russians but lets not looks at the emails just blame the Russian. Great miss direction and teh mainstream media goes right along with it.

look Hillary will will win by a land slide (not) and you can cream your pants.

You can pull any website and "look" at premiums but until you actually y go through the process you don't know the number,

Yeah, exactly. There were tons of streams on Twitch of NMS before release. I should have said this in my statement, but before I thought it was just going to be an indie space exploration survival game - but it became clear from the streams - that this game consisted of a lot of grinding and was pretty repetitive. I wasn't sure if I would actually enjoy that, which is why I didn't pay for it First thing I noticed was the nerfed surface travel, you can't even crash and second thing I noticed was the retarded inventory system, third - mine, mine, mine, grind and not much variation. It WREAKS of consolitis (framerate at 30, on PC, attention to detail Sean, come on?!), but to their credit, playing the game with a controller is quite nice, so much better than the shitty PC controls they implemented. I still like it and am enjoying the surprising relaxation of the grind/exploration, so I will pay for it when it's $30 and is heavily patched & modded. $60.00 is absolutely ridiculous for this game, but hopefully they take that extra $30 they ripped off from people and put in some major work.

Overwatch is another game that I was pissed at having paid $60.00 for. But, since it's a Blizzard game I always know they will make it worth my while in the long-run and it's steadily been true of Overwatch. Blizzard really know how to support their games unlike any other developer. I enjoy OW much more now that the competitive mode came out, a new hero (a little underwhelming but still cool) added and pretty soon an awesome looking new map. The lucio-ball thing is cool that they added in, but don't care much for it. Still hate the loot, though....

Whatever, Blizz gets so much hate non-stop. I just want to say that I own pretty much every game and expansion they've ever put out. But, to relegate it to their newest crop of games : their F2P games both rock, I've spent probably $200 on Hearthstone over time, and nothing on Heroes of the Storm and I play HoS all the time.

All of their expansions are always worth the loot. And the games themselves and their longevity is worth the money as well. They continue to support their games well after launch marketing has died down.

@JustSaying

I'm gonna be nice cause I don't have any experience with you or your opinions yet. And, to an extent, I agree..

Hopefully you can contribute something meaningful to videosift, considering all the great voices who've disappeared from this place.

It's just extremely frustrating that these two goofballs are haven't left yet.

And in fact, your premise is a topic that I definitely have been meaning to discuss.

There's a Prager "University" video that addresses that exact premise of sugarcoated vs blatant belligerent racist.

The video itself is flagrantly patronizing.

That being said we have all three types of racist on videosift currently:

Bobknight is your classic Neo-Con Racist.
- He hates blacks, gays, jews & liberals and makes no qualms about expressing how subhuman those groups are.

Trancecoach is your more politically-correct racist.
- Seems pretty open-minded and accepting, until you reach the middle or end of his comment.
Then it's all like "isn't it sad that all black people have no fathers and live in the ghetto."

Lantern is a special case.
- He'll be toned-down yet flagrant at times. Openly belligerent at others.
But it's always under the guise of "I can't be racist cause I don't FEEL like i'm racist"

He even used the classic "Well I CAN'T be racist cause my DAUGHTER married a BLACK/BIRACIAL guy! See, not racist"

Then will immediately say some heinously racist shit like he has in this thread. i.e.

"Of course I didn't bother reading the article for context or facts.
I'm a cop, I know how the 'Criminal Element' thinks.
Clearly those kids were dangerous.
If we had just heard the audio, we would have seen how those punks are no better than those looting rioting savages in Baltimore"

So no, JustSaiyan.. I would NOT prefer to have some idiot saying idiot things whenever I come back to check out the site.

At least Bill O'Reilly is smart enough to have a somewhat substantive discussion.

Lantern just says racist shit, then cowers behind the "i'm a good person because my job & family FORCE me into being around lesbians & colored people.. and I put up with that pretty well. so.. yeah.."

But yeah, I just hate people like Lantern cause he's too chicken shit to just say he thinks black people are inferior whenever I press him on it.

At least Bobknight will straight tell you gays are immoral sinful perverts or whatever. The old-fashion, honest, terrifying-murder-clown bigot he is.

Then again, Bobknight can't admit he's racist either.
So.. maybe that's just a core Conservative talking point now.

But I forgot, you're not racist cause you "don't blame ALL you problems on black people"

You just automatically jump to the conclusion that a group of young black highschooler, waiting to take the elevator up to there homes, are CLEARLY part of the "criminal element".

You just say shit like..

"Black people kill black people all the time, so why are those savages rioting now?"

Let me try that logic out..

"White bankers steal from & defraud other white people all the time, so why are you complaining about looting?

You white people never get up in arms about Bernie Maddoff or Jamie Diamond or Dick Cheney, so you have no right to complain"

Glad we can finally share some common ground assha- Lantern

Glad someone sifted this.

I was just about to post this so I could rip into @bobknight33's butthole.

*Ahem*

You see Bob, you're so focused on hating Liberals & Democrats you willfully ignore all these vicious white SAVAGES & THUGS.

Just look at those wild white beasts.
They're destroying property, acting like animals, and tearing apart THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES!

Just common thugs rioting and looting, committing white on white violence.

And for what? Because the didn't like some sporting event results?

How trivial and uneducated of them.

It's a shame, this is exactly why we can't make any progress as a country.

You know, this is precisely what the Conservative Agenda is promoting. White on White crime.

Repulicans, they can keep lining their pockets on Wall Street.

While the average single white mothers fight over the scraps.

~Fin~

See Bob, doesn't that sound like a shit argument? No?

Oh wait, I already know your answer to that. "It's the liberal agenda!" Right?

The Liberal-homosexual-illegal-alien-It-makes-me-uncomfortable-to-acknowledge-the-centuries-of-global-oppression-that-my-white-privilege-represents-so-I'l
l-just-blame-every-minority-for-the-problems-my-forefathers-created Agenda!

Right?!?!