Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 чер 2024
- Fake FUN
TWO QUESTIONS, ONE ANSWER. THINK ABOUT IT, YA DOLT!
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: / stratedgy
Twitter: / pfassett
TWITCH
/ strat_edgy
PODCAST
/ pfassett
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CHAPTERS
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INTRO - 00:00
CHAPTER I - THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT - 1:38
CHAPTER II - THE EFFECTS SPREAD - 8:58
CHAPTER III - STRIPPING AWAY ORIGINALITY - 18:01 - Ігри
Now, when is "How to Fallout: Tactics" ?
Are you fuckin' nuts!?!
@@StratEdgyProductions How.To.Fallout.Tactics That's all I'm gonna' say buddy.
@@StratEdgyProductions I was on your side initially, but if it's all he's gonna say that'd be really annoying to see under every video. Especially if it caught on and other people started saying it.
Grimbeard just put out a pretty good video on it 👀
@@StratEdgyProductions Cliff Racer Sounds
It was me I ruined Zelda
You missed a JoJo reference here smh
@@Kekkakek true
Damn you
Good job 😃
You monster
When I heard the line "at least it isn't feathers" while picking up VHS tapes in Blood Dragon, it clicked for me. First of all, yes, it fucking is. And second of all, wait, they _know_ we hate this? Why am I still doing this?
Fucking brilliant.
Like in far cry 5 where you have to climb a radio tower inthe tutorial and the guy on your radio is like “lol dont worry compadre I wont mkay you go climbing up towers throughout the county. Just this one.” Why the one even?!?! Just stop ubisoft christ
@@yungoldman2823 Because it's "meta" and "cool" to tell your fanbase you know they hate you and your game design.
For once, I'd like to see a game lampshade that something is tedious, and then _actually_ throw that mechanic out in favor of something more fun, instead of doing it anyway despite the lampshade.
Feathers? I don't get the reference
Was this whole video made because you got all 900 korok seeds?
Uh... No, I mean, what? No, of course not. Pffft. Come on.
@@StratEdgyProductions what do you think about gta 4?
@@StratEdgyProductions At least you can tell people you have golden shits
Strat I’m gonna be honest, I got roped in because it’s like listening to Hank Venture talk vg critique, but then I fell in love. Thanks for the vids dawg
Wow, he really does sound like him. I knew he sounded familiar.
Strat, as always, it's a pleasure! Glad to see you're doing well.
I like to see your take on things not because I agree with everything you say. Far from it, we disagree on many things. But I love to see someone putting their heart into their arguments and really making me rethink things so I can agree or disagree with you. Because of you, for example, I started to think about games in a "Fun/Rewarding" way. If I wanted to be rewarded for an addiction of pure completionism, or simply have fun with the way I play the game. Needless to say I saved a ton of money when I realized which I prefered to play, hence buying them or not on those dreaded sales. I knew there was something missing from those "rewarding" games, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. After all, reward means I'm having fun, right? Yeah, no. Very wrong.
Why am I saying this? I'm part of a small game dev studio. We've made some games, some you may or may not have played (I'll keep the surprise for some time). All "indie" though. Don't worry, I'm not from Bethesda trying to leak some Starfield candy.
Well, your way of seeing things affected us. We always thought about reward. But was that fun? Well, we are finally having fun with the games we are making. I hope you'll have fun with them too in the future. Or not. Like I said, we may disagree sometimes.
Just leaving my two-cents here. Thanks for being edgy.
Interest: captured.
If you don’t mind me asking, how are you implementing what you’ve learned and discussed? I’m really interested in game design overall and though I have literally no skills that would aid in production I really love understanding the process
Thanks for commenting. I am intrigued as well. Hit me up in the DMs on twitter. Would love to see what ya'll are working on.
Love your videos Strategy. Appreciate it.
this is such a cool moment. I really appreciate this channel for the same reasons as OP, the passionate and in depth analysis from someone who not only expresses himself well but has unique insights into the applied psychology of video games and how that translates into mechanics and game play loops. so cool to see a real life developer change their approach because of it
@@jesserichardson8116 glad you asked! We're still a pretty small studio so ideas are generally more well-received, which isn't the case in bigger studios.
So for the first question, we talk a lot. We are gamers first, developers second. And we want to capture that same feeling of fun we used to have when we were kids. Not reward, but just pure joy. To wake up one morning and say "Damn I can't wait to boot up that game"
As for the skills, being a developer can mean many things. Maybe you are modelling something on Blender, writing scripts in Unity, or just playing 'building blocks' with Unreal. There are many flavors to it. My advice is what I did to become a developer: study hard. There are many courses in Udemy that can get you started on many things (I'd suggest trying Blender and Unity first, to see what you like the most. Coding or modelling), then put yourself out there. Don't beg for a job. Get good at what you do. And if no one hires you, make what you always wanted to make. Eventually people will see your skills and line up.
I think AC Brotherhood did sidequests well because just about every side quest ties into the main quests. Every tower you destroy, officer you kill, war machine you destroy, courtesean or thief mission you complete is furthering your war against the Borgia. Its a bit of a far cry from taking part in random quests not even tied to the character by anything other than "Ugh..best deal with the map marker".
Reminds me of why I liked hyrule warriors- every extra action you took helped the overall battle, gave you a boost, etc
@@qwerty_artist Thats why I love the better Dynasty Warriors games. Saving an officer usually leads to them dealing with their side of the map while defeating certain enemies leads to your allies not being pressed as hard. Fun times.
What timing with Ubi preparing to make paid DLC inaccessible from both Assassin's Creed II and Far Cry 3...
WTF??!!
Please tell me Blood Dragon doesn't count!
Yeah I'm not really sure how that's going to go down, the way it's written it sounds worse than it should be.. like it's it's just genuinely bad but they've been doing this for a while now there's the the the primary instigator when it comes to the Dead game news Ross Scott offenders.. but the things with the DLC things is confusing it's like they're taking it to a new level where previously they had just lapidated the live services that were designed to be dilapidated.. and threatened at every turn. Like I'm genuinely confused what they mean by not having access to DLC or something, it's like are they taking it off the market maybe? Like as in you can still play your game that you own.. but they won't let you like go purchase DLC unless you buy it in the whole pack with the super special deluxe double plus bundle edition* I know they're taking the multiplayer offline because parently we've lowered the standard so far that apparently multiplayer is entirely dependent upon publishers to maintain servers because that was ever a good idea ever.. and hasn't let at all to the vast plague of hacking and DDOS and servers being shut down by publishers that don't care anymore.. with no distribution pack to run a dedicated server, the game will die just like the god emperor when the plug gets pulled..
like I'm genuinely confused about it because they say DLC and I don't understand if that means that they won't be able to purchase or if they won't be able to run it at all because I have no idea what the systems are in the modern age for this kind of garbage, I don't think I've ever played a live service game.. in its current form.. anyhow.. I always thought DLC was just like you download the DLC and then and then you had that and that was your little expansion just like you downloaded the game.. or in most cases your little paid temporary cheat code.. or user mod, or an Ubisoft case nft of both LOL.
So yeah that's the thing LOL it's one of those situations where I think they might have said what it was worse than any sort of headline could twist it.. and it also I think introduces people that aren't familiar to a system that exists underlying the game that they hadn't really paid much attention to, if they had they probably would find a good one.. but either way, thank God for cracks I guess.. the only way I can legitimately play rdr2, because they screwed it up in an update and you can't actually roll back patches and you really can't not run that social club with a real version, which will automatically update you and I have done all the things I have spent days trying to get that thing to roll back to the patch before they screwed up the texture filtering and the streaming.. thankfully, 6 months after they screwed it up somebody cracked the game and now I can play it eventually although I haven't, as I spent too much time trying to get it to run.. and it was too late, but I do like having the option finally it makes me feel a little secure and safe inside.. because judging from how many times I had to recopy my mom folder over to Grand theft Auto v because it would overwrite every single time the game would update which was every single week.. I can only imagine the shenanigans that they were going to visit upon the game with no repercussion whatsoever because the reviewers and the tech analysis had already been done and they did not go back LOL I looked I desperately looked for anyone to fix this the game that was released in November was the game.. if only they hadn't broken it in June.
* now with professionally degraded gameplay mechanics to add added challenge and extend the lifespan of the game that we're about to cancel, and not just cancel.. we're going to God emper... err... Terry Chavo this bitch keep in mind if you buy this duluxe package it's going to come with all of the curated user mods made by our development crew on their free time in the basement when they were taking the truth about unions seminar.. of course they had to work during the seminar it's like.. but we were kind and we had low expectations...All the quality of FPS bananas worst bottom shelf.. but with the thrill of loot boxes and micro transactions LOL... Unlike that user made content that isn't really real, and we won't let you make anymore as much as we can make it so that you can't make it or do any sort of adjustment whatsoever, certainly certainly not going to give you any sort of console commands LOL.. that's that's why we sell you the XP boosters LOL.
It's not the first time.
Back in the day, one of the primordial DRM systems went down.
The result?
Your games would not start, even if you had the disks.
Steam gifted us new versions for those games who were tied to Steam.
Nothing is permanent.
@@The_Catman YARR HARR FIDDLE DEE DEE is the way to go bros, wake up.
"They designed the game that way.
Then they made fun of you for playing it."
That one's gonna stick with me.
Im in the strange place that i agree with what you have said but at the same time FC3 and BOTW are both games that fill me with joy each time i play them.
And that's fine. They're both good games, it's just good to look at the insides and see how they work and ask yourself if this is good for you. Not everyone should stay away from these types of games, but some DEFINITELY should. It's all about who you are.
@@StratEdgyProductions Might have to do a lot with saturation too, on the last ten years the only "Ubisoft Tower" games I played was those two plus Shadow of Mordor.
I finished playing the entire Arkham series of Batman games recently, back to back. You know why the first game remains my favourite? All the side-content is so beautifully laced throughout the confined environments of the asylum that it didn't feel like a chore to 100% the game; it felt like delving into every interesting nook and cranny of a cluttered room, and finding treasure (which perfectly fit the setting of a creepy asylum that had been renovated multiple times, full of old and new). And the progression of gaining access to new tools, and thus new treasures, felt natural and in some way bound to the plot.
To tie this into the above video a bit more - the joy of the first game's Riddler challenges and whatnot? They were a reward for exploring, not a list of chores.
Arkham City destroyed that sense of treasure-finding, that sense of exploration, with its hundreds of trophies scattered across a more open, less fine-tuned map, and where the first game locked certain trophies and riddles behind story progress in a natural and logical way, Arkham City was far clumsier and more arbitrary in its progress-based restrictions. Where the first game's Riddler challenges existed to reward exploration, tucked away in secret spots, Arkham City's challenges were right out in the open - you didn't have to "discover" them, you just had to spot them. But at least you could still ignore them.
Arkham Knight though? I played through every short-lived, narratively-rushed side story. I completed every side objective; defeated every enemy; every checkpoint; defused every bomb. I rescued Catwoman from the Riddler. What was my reward?
"You don't get to see the real ending until you've collected 240 trophies scattered across the largest Arkham game world yet. And the real ending is a 5 minute pre-rendered cutscene."
And so that's how the series ended for me. Deflated, I watched the "true" ending on youtube, and uninstalled.
That was how the Batman ended; not with a bang, but with 240 collectibles and a sigh.
Did the exact same thing. An utter waste of the player's time for a dumb 5 minute render, and even it kinda copied the ending of Dark Knight Rises.
Wide as an ocean,deep as a puddle. Well unless you're New Vegas that is
Everyone seems to stand in awe of New Vegas. I just started playing it & it is fun, but the premise is broken.
Caesar wants Hoover Dam & to expand into Nevada & California. New Vegas & the NCR want energy from the dam. Caesar's Legion controls the headwaters of the Colorado River. He could dam or divert water far upstream & dry out Lake Meade. No turbines spinning at Hoover Dam means 'lights-out New Vegas'.
Why would he commit to a pitched battle when he could win without firing a shot? Isn't he supposed to be a military strategist & fan of old Rome?
Not a big deal. People love the game & I'm trying to get into it. It's just nags at me when I can see the idea of the main conflict is (like most things Fallout) based on a complete lack of understanding of how things work.
@@Mr._Anderpson well that's one of the flaws about the legion. Really every faction has them and its supposed to make you think as a player.but remember this is a roleplaying game so your character can justify or believe in anything
@@joenathan8059 True, but relativism (anything is possible depending on how you wish to justify it) of one flavor or another is often the crutch used to overlook flaws. I'm not saying I hate the game. So far, I'm enjoying it & I totally see how people are disappointed in FO4 after the consideration which was paid to NV.
At the end of the day, the guys & gals who make the games spend more time looking at computer screens than living under the sun. I appreciate their sacrifice & try not to judge them too harshly for the details they get wrong. Then I see a "radstag doe" and have to shake my head & laugh. That's like saying "radrooster hen". That's my own cross to bear for growing up on a farm & knowing how to tell a heifer from a bull.
Buncha good takes in this and I love how you processed and presented this development.
In fact I was talking about a very similar topic today - but I think you forgot two key things:
1) Bethesdas normalization of turning Open World games into glorified To-Do lists and how this spread to the whole industry.
2) How the failure of Immersive Sims (Looking Glass stuff, but especially Trespasser) scared commercial
publishers and developers away from more experimental gameplay, especially that involving emergent
behavior and narrative.
I loved elden ring. But the number one thing that drove me up the wall was how terrible the drop rates for armour and weapons are from enemies.
I had to grind for 5 HOURS to get a full set of the big fat Fire monk Smough armor because the game kept dropping me 14 pairs of boots and gloves 6 helmets and 0 chest pieces.
This isn't the only time I had to spend hours to grind for some 0.3% drop chance loot either.
Halo scythe, Nobles slender sword, that damn magma whip candlestick 😖
@@Fresh_Pants that candlestick and sword I still don't have
damn man that sucks i had the entire drop in like 4 minutes "(
DS1 outside the dlc is kinda like that if you're looking to get or buy titanite chunks and twinkling titanite.
@@ThatGuy-ky2yf definitely. Although I only ever felt like that was a problem if I was trying to upgrade more than 2 or 3 weapons a playthrough or upgrade earlier than intended.
They definitely should have added some more merchants or upgraded existing ones later on to sell some of the more rare titanite.
This might be your best video. idk, it's up there. You nailed the ubisoft open world formula and this feeling of fake fun perfectly.
Beat Ghost of Tsushima recently. Friends described it at least being the best of the generic open world, hidden ubisoft formula, not in your face. Like the wind blowing in the direction of where you gotta go, even though you look at the map, the way point and the distance till destination.
I think even with the smoke and mirrors your brain knows it's getting screwed with somehow.
The first act is nearly great. The new skills, the voices, the story all makes sense and is exciting.
EXACT akira kurosawa samurai movie quality. Fun loop, but act 2 and 3 felt less good. By quite a lot. Because it's exactly the same.
I could only handle an hour or two at a time before I got sick of it. I got so tired of getting a vantage point on a mongol camp that I wanted the mongols to win at some point, but no.. they only had the same 5 or 6 enemy types and I knew they weren't gonna send anything more.
Not a bad game, but I feel less inclined to do a second playthrough or to complete the strongholds or get the knick knacks.
Great video.
If I had the camel I'm owed and enough straw to cause a humpy collapse then I would say Dragon Age: Inquisition was the straw that broke my camel.
I wasn't even big on DA. I played Origins and not DA2 but the race design, roster and the rave reviews about its dialogue really got me curious. My hosuemate bought it and when he was away for a weekend I gave it a try.
What the fuck was that game.
Collect the skulls, "claim" areas by putting down banners, "secure" resources? Jump like a lunatic on beautiful terrains that have a map absolutely plagued with little things to go and press A or X on? Close the rift! Fight baddies! contextual story, what? No, just run around. Click things.
I could never get into open-world games until Elden Ring after that. Didn't like BoTW for much the same reason, though I respected its reserve with not cluttering the map with little icons.
You should try DA 2 then, it's linear, has a rather good story, hard choices between factions, and it's not as bad as people say. The combat and waves of enemies coming from nowhere are tedious though, that might kill the game quickly.
@@Texelion3Dprints Disagreed, DA2 is easily the worst in the series.
@@palladiamorsdeus Aside from re-used dungeons what is actually worse about it than Inquisition? Or Origins if you swing that way? I guess not having the option of race is a bit of a bummer.
Glad someone said it, I've played every Zelda a couple times (except for the 4 swords games cause I have no friends 😔) and botw has just never felt like the others,
it's so much less replayable and meaningful
It really depends on what you love about zelda's. For me the dungeons were always fun but not what I played the games for. It was the world. It's why my favorite zelda ever is majora's mask (followed by wind waker). And it's why I love BotW.
BotW is that side of zelda taken to a new height. And I hope the next game is the opposite. The underground could work as one big dungeon (or more realistically multiple big but not as big ones). The world has already been explored. Now it's time to focus on the dungeons. More than ever before.
Open world games have to run a very fine line, otherwise they just become a series of checkboxes with temporal spaces in between.
Started for me with Far Cry Blood Dragon and is still going strong to this day.
Yeah Blood Dragon just...didn't do it for me. I heard about how acclaimed it was then tried it and...meh. I liked the 80s action movie feel but the gameplay was just dull as dishwater.
@@palladiamorsdeus I was reddit face for 80s aesthetics at the time so it was what I wanted. But that's all it really is. A series of towers to a power glove soundtrack
On your whole drowning comment... there was a blood drive that came to my high school. One of my female classmates was super concerned about being ready for it so she drank an ABSURD amount of water for days in advance. Well they tested all of our blood for iron concentration and such before the procedure. They turned her away and told her that she needed to stop drinking water or she would literally drown. Because her blood would be so diluted as to not get enough oxygen to the brain. I recall her being light-headed at the time.
So yes. A little water never hurt anyone. But a lot can kill you. 5 Fake Internet Points for anyone who gets the reference...
There are cases where marathon runners can drink so much water they develop hypo-natrimia (hopefully spelled that right) meaning 'low sodium concentration in blood'- too much water can cause organs to swell (including your brain) and be fatal,
But many people still encourage 8 cups a day and to guzzle water like no tommorow lol
(Medical advice: just drink when you're thirsty)
@@qwerty_artist Used to be like three glasses a day...then they started SELLING water...
I find it funny how with each video the Sseth influence in your humor seeps through more and more.
Ass Ass Creed Odyssey is most certainly a treadmill. I stomped on it enough to be indiscernible from the ground
Over the last year, this has become my favorite channel on UA-cam. Thank you for all the amazing content you create.
It's kinda the opposite for me. Kinda. I mean, I used to love his in-depth analyses and this new "how to break a broken game" content isn't doing it for me as a replacement. I'm not really judging though, it probably is more profitable. He doesn't have to cater to the interests of people who don't repay him with views and Patreon money. Besides, every now and then, he still makes something I'm able to appreciate. So, it's fine. Just not "every upload is a cause for celebration" fine like it used to be. But hey, good for you!
You're the only UA-camr I know who does work on presenting "Immersive Sims" This s such an interesting topic in gaming to me thank You
You should check out Charlatan wonder then, he does alot about the genre also
@@JustSkram seconded. That guy is immersive sim the channel.
This content is always able to bring out the repressed parts of my brain that say “this isn’t fun anymore” and really make me sit and realize that video games for me have essentially been a waste of time when I play games that I don’t feel are as good as what I want to be playing
That's why I mainly play indie games nowadays. Say what you want, but something like The Swapper or Baba Is You is fresh and original, and doesn't rehash the same old formula over and over with no difference except the particular coat of paint they've settled on this week.
I have to appreciate what you do just for bringing attention to the relationship between mass media, design by committee and the dopaminergic system, all without getting too sensationalist.
I remember when Farcry 5 tried to change the formula by removing watch towers, but made it so side activities you do in freeroam actually progress the story too. This was awful because I accidentally skipped some "story missions" as the story bar towards beating each boss could be completed without even touching them. The game took me hostage so many times, the cult would miraculously kidnap or hypnotise you without fail (it even happened in a plane or skydiving, there was no escape!) and you would have to do the story mission with no option to quit. I was forced to do main missions when I wanted to free roam and missed out on so many others because I was unintentionally progressing the story (because even dealing with random ambushes progressed the story bar). What a terrible game design, an attempt to make side content more relevant and connect it to the story only resulted in the equivalent of being swatted and forced into a police van...
It was such an awful story, too. The fact that they stuffed your face in it and rubbed it around didn't help. I really enjoy the gameplay in 5 but by god, the forced kidnapping story got old after the FIRST time.
@@palladiamorsdeus first time it was kind of neat, reminded me of Farcry 3, Which had good surprises.
but in 5 they get in the way! It even happened when I was playing co-op with a friend (I like to play story in single player without the distraction of mics and chat, etc) but nope, game forced us to play through it. 😡
The train mission in SA has an undeserving bad rep. Its super easy to do it in the intended way (yes, really), and it DOES have alternative creative solutions.
Hopefully BotW 2 has more actual dungeons rather than just 100 different dungeon rooms (every shrine is, as you said, just part of a dungeon)
Man I love your videos I get excited just to see a new one pop in my feed
This was the 1st time I saw the face behind the voice Ive spent many hours listening to.
I'm glad someone shares the criticism with me I thought I was the only one
I get what you mean. Sometimes it feels as if i am the insane one with stuff like this.
But just wait until some special people find the video. :D
There's a couple of us. But this is also Nintendo fanboys we're talking about here and those lot are a...special breed.
Darksiders 2 is still among my favorite Zelda games.
That game is amazing. Shame they never made a 3.
Interesting. I look at BotW not through the lens of modern open-world games (mostly because I haven't played one since AC2), but through the lens of the original NES game -- in which discovery was the main draw. Once you burned a bush or bombed a rock to reveal a secret entrance, the world was full of mystery that could be behind every corner. I feel like BotW took this feeling of the original game and amped it up to 11 -- it made exploration and discovery its own reward, just like the original all those years ago -- instead of just a dungeon puzzler like later Zeldas.
My biggest problem is: To discover what exactly? Yes, the landscape is great and I love the sights, but when I found my millionth weapon and billionth Mineral, I lost interest. In the old TLoZ Games you could find new interesting items or upgrades, but in BotW it all feels the same after a while. And that's a shame because I liked the world the game was set in.
@@Horky_Porky Exactly, Nintendo should've stuck with the old formula. Zelda fans love dungeons, and they ruined them in BotW.
I hope they return to the old Dungeons in BotW 2 and try a mixed approach: Open World, but still big dungeons to find new and interesting stuff that lasts and gives you new abilities to discover the world. And at least one bigger settlement, I really missed those.
Yeah I agree, the Ubisoft comparison feels surface-level and spurious. Because sure, there's towers, but they don't dot your map with a bunch of markers, you have to place the markers yourself. The content is spread out all over instead of concentrated, but that's simply the game returning to its roots and promoting exploration above all. BOTW does take some inspiration from modern open world trends but is still quite distinctly its own thing, the level of creativity and freedom it provides puts Ubisoft schlock to shame.
I think it loses its mystique very quickly when you start recognizing the formulas. Nothing is really hidden either, you just stumble upon things. I'll never be as intrigued by the actual game as I was with the trailers.
I always think back to Shadow of the Colossus. A giant world with genuinely not much to do besides kill the bosses. Until you realize the deeper mechanics and start getting rewarded for exploring or doing challenge runs. The game never spells out most of the content besides the main draw of fighting giant monsters. A quest marker doesn't tell you exactly where to go and a tutorial doesn't explain to you really anything besides "this button holds, this button stabs".
The game was so confident in it's design and never treated you like a child. No one makes games like that anymore. It was the player's adventure. Not the character you were controlling's story that you just occasionally got to move around in.
I still consider that to be one of the most overrated games to date, no offense intended.
Why do you think so? Just curious
Hey man, I just want to tell you I've been watching your videos since I was in highschool. I used to skip school to watch them to!
I remember watching your CRT videos and they hooked me I love your energy and personality! Keep on keeping on bro!
Wonderful video! I don't always agree with the things you say but I definitely always come away from your content with a greater understading and a fresh perspective. Thank you for your hard work!
Using Monty Python material will ALWAYS get points from me. Well done, sir.
It actually does feel like a fake experience compared to the OG 3D zeldas
I see you've discovered the Cyberpunk soundtrack in a big way, I heartily approve
Something I've argued with people about many times now. I appreciate this video and your opinions.
And the zelda cycle keeps on rolling, baby
lmao not even close, rip skyward shit
That's the kind of commentary video I love seeing from you, strat 🖤
Man, I really freaking miss old-school AC
I agree with your points, but I think the reward being poop is kind of a stroke of genius in that respect. Collecting the korok seeds were always better to treat as a "when you come across them" activity, even if that means you'll miss out on some of the more interesting activities you can do in the game.
I say this as someone who started using a map to collect them, and gave up after a while. I still think when you play Zelda BOTW casually, it works the best because you don't have to engage with all of the content to get to the end of the game.
While I see his points on BOTW like the dungeons being too short idk I feel they use em as a marker to drive the player forward into the world and make them explore. Also they’re just really nice fast travel spots imo. And I agree with you on the korok seeds they’re there to get em when you notice them in the world. I don’t think they’re meant to be fully collected and that’s why the reward was so lame and a joke haha
christ, BotW fans are worse than Morrowind fanboys
@@xBINARYGODx Oh no, people like a concept of a game?!? They’re the worst!! 😱😱😱
@@xBINARYGODx "Oh no, someone has a different opinion than my favorite UA-camr. They must be fanboys with no points whatsoever."
@@xBINARYGODx morrowind is objectively a better game, I don’t get your point
Much like Skyrim back in the day, I felt like BotW was a great game that simply didn't know when to end. It kept on going far past the point that the progression systems plateaued, the difficulty curve broke, and the repetition of assets and so forth set in. I'm ~120 hours into Elden Ring and this experience has really drawn attention to what was missing from BotW.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey was the breaking point for *most* modern open world games, for me. I kept waiting for "the good part' and I realized about 80 hours in that I wasn't really getting anything out of the experience and (and hadn't been for a while). It wasn't compelling or well made, it was a haphazard assortment of skinner boxes stitched together into a content delivery platform.
You ever sat down to snack on some chips while watching TV, then just kept eating and found yourself sitting there a half hour later wondering why you ate the whole bag? That's most open world games for me, a bag of empty calories that tricks my brain into eating more and more until I'm sick of it.
I wish ER have better legacy dungeon to mini(copy paste) dungeon ratio, the handcrafted ones are miles better and more fun in general. The hybrid approach is a welcomed one, hope the DLC will blew me away.
One of the biggest and most notorious issues with both Oblivion, and Skyrim, is the fact that you can incredibly easily max out basically any faction storyline in like one or two sittings, and it's completely unrelated to your actual character build.
Want to be a Supreme master of the Mage guild, while you are playing a mentally stunted Nord with no magic skills? No problem. There is no actual demand on you to have your character and your faction progress in any way relate. Combined with fast travel, and generally trivial systems, it makes the game play like a sandbox, and not an RPG. There is no commitment to anything, and that removes any sense of actual presence.
RPG's need to have some degree of restrictions based on your character build. That is what makes an RPG, as opposed to pure sandbox. TES abandoned that notion with Oblivion, and it's what frustrates real RPG fans about Beth games so much.
@@shira_yone Really wish they cut 20% of the game and focused on making the slightly less content a bit more fun and unique
Hope they make another open world game with lessons from Elden Ring, they got plenty of stuff right their first try
@@threemeters1425 yeah. Also wouldn't mind if their next game is another unique themed one like Bloodborne and not another "generic fantasy world" vibe again.
@@shira_yone Genuinely want a GTA-like open world except in a Bloodbornish city. It just makes so much sense.
I mean, Jump King rewarded you with little to nothing and I absolutely felt like I accomplished something significant whenever I opened an achievement and got an item in that game, even if it was an item to my detriment and suffering.
our boy strat keeps churning out bangers
If I walked away with only one thing from this video, it’s that I now understand why Ubisoft was never going to finish/release BG&E2
I am finding way too many good UA-cam channels with videos like this where the YT'er has unique observations and fantastic breakdowns of them.
I'm glad someone else feels this way about BotW, I always felt insane coz BotW felt so shallow.
Botw is not a Zelda game
@@omensoffate Its not, its an Elderscrolls game wearing the rotten corpse of Link.
most open world games feel like fake fun to me
Is it weird that I quit playing horizon zero dawn and ghost of tsushima halfway through because I felt that they got too repetitive for me? I dunno most open world bores me with the exception of elden ring. Now THAT'S how you do a open world game!
@@shawklan27 The Ubisoft Curse hit hard after Far Cry 3. Most open worlds seem to be the same nowadays... kind of sad tbh
@@shawklan27 Elden Ring is garbage. Even reuses plenty of assets. Stretched out Dark Souls 3.
Can't wait for this awesome video
For some reason, I never even thought to follow you on Twitch, followed and subscribed my guy.
The thing about the train section in San andreas that no one ever mentions is that it's a cake walk if you choose to take time and level up your motorcycle skill. Kill a bike cop. Put it in your garage and spend about a week driving around. Train mission easy as fuck
Yesterday someone had to hear me rant uninterrupted for 5 minutes about how much I hated Far Cry 3's "oh, you need a *different* kind of leather" garbage of going to a specific point of the map *once* in the entire game, killing one to two animals and *never* looking at that place again, as if they just had to fill that place with something instead of making a smaller fucking map.
I care more about story than a lot of things, so to me I think botw doesn't live up as much as it could, mostly I want a game explaining link and breaking the reincarnation curse one day lmfao
Really enjoyed this video, keep it up dude
You perfectly outlined many of my gripes with open world games. I was a huge Zelda fan before botw. My disappointment stems from the departure of increasingly adding on to the problems you face to inspire challenge and progression like previous zelda games. Instead botw like most open world games presents you with the same challenges repeatedly for hours and hours and just slightly changes the context or damage scaling. Sometimes not even that much.
Sounds like you only played oot but ok
@@yellothekunt6826 sounds like you only played botw but ok
i was watching ur daggerfall video before this and you said something along the lines of "its normal for games to waste your time back then because, well games are a waste of time" in response to not completing a quest soon enough u get labeled a traitor and thought "at least their not like that today right?" then i saw this video
very well made
The E3 that this showed off, was one of the most absolutely brilliant pieces of marketing that I've ever seen in video game design.. like absolutely nothing about the design for far cry 3 is brilliant.. most of it is poor to mediocre at best.. but having a giant theater screen with thousands of people and going right into a first person sex scene.. that game was going to sell if it was just the sex scene.. like you could have sold that demo and it would have sold, people would have been mad about it but they would have bought it LOL.. I just remember seeing that even as a younger man being like.. well that was smart of them, I guess we've we've embraced the fact that our entire audience is actually man children now.. too bad we couldn't have sin level design gameplay with that kind of philosophy... Still I got to say well done Ubisoft! Because nothing says presale like starting your hype off with a 30 ft tall naked chick grinding on the player.. as they would grind upon our wallets later.
Well..don't know about my wallet but.. and I don't know about our.. it was very clear after far cry 2 these weren't my people... Although I am a fan of the first person sex scene so maybe a little bit..
Excellent insights as always
Im really glad I found this video it’s everything Ive been saying for years
I love Best Of The Worse. Those guys are a riot.
I think you got to understand that a lot of people like tedium. Everything you do in games is just the stuff you hate in real life, but recontextualized. Beating a boss in Dark Souls is no different to perfecting your trade or solving a hard math problem. It merely recontextualizes it and condenses it into an enjoyable form. That's the nature of games. Personally, I don't want the "best of moments", I want completely systems driven worlds the tedium is the fun. That's why I'm big on space sims. I think the problem is that people view these games as big artistic experiences, when really you're supposed to play what you want out of them and then put them down. Ubisoft's games are not for the game reviewer or streamer. They're the games that you have for months, playing as much as you want for the individual fantasy and then stopping when you're satisfied. Similar to an mmo.
Spot on dude. People will tolerate tedium in whatever their preferred games are like dark souls, then act completely dumbfounded as to why someone deals with tedium in another game like GTA. And apparently everyone is an expert on open world gaming design as if it’s not all just an illusion anyway. There are always going to be flaws. It’s just preference!
I think you're rather missing the point. Nobody likes tedium. For some people though, the threshold of "tedium" is different; some people like to do a little, not-so-important task. Sometimes you're in the mood for that simple satisfaction. I spent a lot of time relaxing by doing the repetitive taxi missions in GTA V for example - I just enjoyed driving around, listening to music, with a simple objective.
That wasn't tedium. If it had become tedium - if I had felt COMPELLED to do it, if a story element was locked behind 20 taxi missions, or it was a primary method of acquiring money in the game, and I felt that I had to do it or miss out on something? That's tedium; to do something repetitive and unexciting that you don't want to do, but feel you must do. A feeling of necessity defines tedium.
Side quests are fine. Looking at Batman: Arkham Aslyum - I never felt like the Riddler trophies were "tedium" there, because I didn't NEED to get them, they merely rewarded my curiosity and exploration, and I enjoyed the little mini-buzz I got from acquiring them. They were unobtrusive, deliberately tucked away, and I was not reminded of their presence unless I specifically went looking for them.
But in Arkham Knight? Riddler won't shut up about them, and you can't get the true ending to the game unless you've collected over 240 Riddler trophies. And after being thorough and exhaustive in my search during the main story, by the time I had done literally everything else in the game, I had only acquired 40 trophies - my exploration had not been rewarded. Indeed, was being punished for not going out of my way to do a repetitive thing, replete with giant projections of Riddler all over the city belittling me for not acquiring them all.
"I think the problem is that people view these games as big artistic experiences, when really you're supposed to play what you want out of them and then put them down"
This is the fundamental problem with your argument: You're right, and you're wrong. Games ARE big artistic experiences; they are the product of every art form, from music and writing, to sculpting and architecture, coupled with all manner of engineering skills. Yes, people are supposed to play what they want out of them... but that's the problem, and the point this video actually makes; they have been increasingly engineered to trick you into playing MORE than what you want out of them.
If you want to sit down, have some fun, experience some story, escape reality for a bit... oh, it might let you, but it'll use every psychological and game design trick in the book to make you feel like you're missing out, doing it wrong, if you don't engage with the side content.
Intent is everything. When you log into Elite: Dangerous, or load up the old clunky classic X: Beyond The Frontier, the game doesn't bombard you with "things to do"; it doesn't impose arbitrary restrictions specifically to encourage you to engage with side content; it doesn't pester you to remind you about how you could go kill those enemies over there, or how there's space station you haven't visited yet. It doesn't try to play you. It simply sits there, and lets you play IT.
@@NicholasBrakespear You missed my point. Most things in games are just things we consider tedium, recontextualized by default. However, on a personal level, can convince themselves they're not. You DON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING in game. In fact, you don't even need to play it. Nothing is compelling you to play a video game. You don't need to get the best ending in Arkham, you don't need to hunt for trophies, you don't need to do anything. You don't even need to finish the game. Nothing is compelling you to do anything. It's a game, you take what you want out of it. No one is forcing you to collect riddler trophies. In fact, I ignored them, and did what I want.
You're operating under the assumption that you have to finish and complete a game. Do everything it has to offer. But you don't. Ubisoft specifically makes its game where you play as much as want, then leave. Which is why they have de-emphasized story so much, especially in the recent games.
Also, you're not really making a good argument for games being art here. By your logic, everything that is a product of art is art, which is very literally everything. I make art for and design websites. However, I don't consider those websites to be art. I program web applications and think programming is an art form, but I don't consider those apps to be art either. If your argument is that everything that is a product of artistic mediums is art, then literally everything crafted by humanity is art. And art becomes a pointless word in this conversation.
Regardless, when I say "these games are not big artistic experiences", I mean they are not supposed to one and done experiences that you do altogether like a PlayStation game. They are gameplay loops that you repeat until you're bored and then stop. Then start again when you're ready. That why half of Assassin's Creed Valhalla's post launch content has contained two modes for people to continue playing the game long after they completed it. One being a river raiding mode and the other being a new rogue lite mode coming soon.
The game aren't telling you that you're playing them wrong. They're telling you this is all the content you can do and here's what you need to do to level up. If you're bored, just stop fucking playing. Your argument only works if you fail to understand the side content is the game. If you're not playing Farcry, AC or Fenyx Rising for the side content, then you are absolutely playing the wrong game.
Elite Dangerous doesn't force you to do anything, and neither does Farcry. But if you want to fight Thargoids in space, or go farther than anyone else, you've got to do some things first. And that's either going to be tedium or you're going to convince yourself that its gameplay like every other game.
In Skyrim, you can either B-line the story which will leave you with one of the most cliché and boring experiences of your life, or you can interact with the world. Which is the game. Interacting with the world and being rewarded is the game not the "artistic experience" because if it was Skyrim would be one of the least interesting pieces of art out there.
@@nbkhnzzr "You DON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING in game. In fact, you don't even need to play it. Nothing is compelling you to play a video game"
I think you'll find that's just a bit of a bizarre logical path to take. You may as well say, you don't need to have fun. You don't need to know the ending to a story. You don't need to know the punchline to a joke.
Yeah, you don't need to, in a life or death gun to your head sense, but that's... a totally different discussion altogether.
"They are gameplay loops that you repeat until you're bored and then stop."
Really not the case for a huge number of games. Huge chunks of gaming history are interactive storytelling first and foremost. Grim Fandango is not about minor gameplay loops repeating, for example, but about the progression of a story, with the interactive element presenting a minor challenge in the form of a few puzzles and conversations.
"Also, you're not really making a good argument for games being art here."
I didn't really make an argument; I didn't think I'd need to. Frankly, if you're of the opinion that games aren't an art form, or that there aren't big artistic works in gaming, you've been playing the wrong games.
But then given your insistence on using the word "tedium", I think you get a very different experience from games to a huge percentage of other gamers.
"because if it was Skyrim would be one of the least interesting pieces of art out there"
As a story? Yes, Skyrim's writing was awful.
But the artistry of the world design, the music? There's artistry there. I think you need to let go of this "Art" with a big A stuff.
"Ubisoft specifically makes its game where you play as much as want, then leave. Which is why they have de-emphasized story so much, especially in the recent games."
No, they've made games to min-max cost and profits; they are notorious for the fact that they have religiously pursued a strict formula, copying and pasting as many concepts as they can in order to keep people playing a game that is creatively bankrupt.
But given that your attitude is evidently, "You don't even need to finish the game", then you seem to exist in a strange realm that is quite different to the attitude of most consumers of fiction and interactive entertainment, and we are severely lacking a common frame of reference here that would facilitate a real discussion.
So enjoy your space trucking, I guess.
@@NicholasBrakespear I don't think you don't need to have fun. I'm saying you're not being compelled to do anything that is not fun. When I play a MMO, there are tons of things to do and progression systems to go up. That doesn't mean I need to do everything, and especially not in one sitting. Sure, you can keep playing Risk of Rain forever based on how it works. Does that mean you need to play it forever? Hell no.
I find it funny that you would compare the ending of the game to a punchline of a joke. The punchline of the joke is the FUN PART. You know, like the gameplay loop of a video game. Nobody plays video games to see how they end, they play them to have fun and escapism. Precisely why games like Fallout 4 have removed a true ending entirely in favor of just having the game continue indefinitely after the story.
The fact you think most games are about interactive curated storytelling tell me that you only play one type of game, really. Also, doing a puzzle and then having a conversation is LITERALLY the gameplay loop that I'm talking about. That's the gameplay loop. If I don't like it, I'll find the puzzles boring and tedious because the game is apparently "compelling me" to play the puzzles.
I didn't say games cannot be art, I said that many games are trying to be. They're trying to create fun gameplay loops. Just because artistry is in something doesn't make it art itself.
Ubisoft has a formula for its open world games, I agree, but so do most other studios. Bethesda, Rockstar, CDProjekt Red, etc. They use the same concepts in every game just like them. They're used to provide as much of the gameplay loop as you want, and then you stop playing.
Lastly, I don't know where you got this idea, that my perception of games is particularly different from the masses. Just look at the top games on steam right now:
CSGO: A game where you play the same game mode over and over with increasing player ranks
Dota 2: A game where you play the same game mode over and over with increasing player ranks
LostArk: An MMO that goes on infinitely, constantly upgrading your character do the same raids over and over
PUBG: A game where you play the same game mode over and over with increasing player ranks
TF2: A game where you play the same game modes over and over with increasing player ranks
Destiny 2: An MMO lite where you are constantly upgrading your character to do the same raids/strikes over and over
Monster Hunter Rise: A game where the story is literally nothing half the time, and you just fight monsters, constantly being compelled to fight one to get to the other.
Don't even get me started on the top console games, which are usually Fifa, Rocket League, Call of Duty, Fortnite or Apex Legends.
You're looking for a common frame of reference, but my entire point is that there is no frame of reference except what people like in their gameplay loops, which will always turn tedium into fun.
I've been replaying Skyrim. It's pretty obvious to me after a total of 600+ hours in the game that the way to "win" is to min/max to break the grind over your knee.
This feels more like a shallow comparison than anything else. Yes, Ubisoft has a formula. No, BotW isn’t in that formula.
The dungeons are meant to be the guardian beasts and Hyrule castle. There are a few mini dungeons you need to complete to gain glyphs, but the game is based around exploring the world.
I’ll never understand how optional, completely ignorable content in a game shades one’s view of the entire experience.
From what i remember playing FC3-5 wasn't almost everything that wasn't main story related optional? Meaning one could make the same argument that it's weird to let "optional, completely ignorable content in a game" shade one's view of the entire experience for Ubisoft games?
@@endlesstrash4718 You don’t have to. Plenty of people love Ubisoft games, which is why they’re generally successful.
My point was that BotW doesn’t follow the typical “Ubisoft” formula, and has plenty of the “Zelda” experience in it.
Also of note, I have yet to make a video criticizing Ubisoft at all, so I kinda don’t get your reply.
I enjoyed this video even more due to the Cyberpunk 2077 fighting music (one of the best parts of the game) being included as the background music. very thoughtful video.
I might be crazy but I always thought AC 4 was always the best of the series. No AC game ever immersed me quite as much. A truly top tier game.
A good piece of art make you forget it's fake. If you can feel the cold in a heat wave while reading "build a fire", it's art.
The good and bad is that BotW is very wide but shallow. The genuine challenge mazes and areas that can lead to a quick death are great but they're so few and far between. I would appreciate it far more if there was more to the shrines. Even the dungeons could take a half hour because they were minimally sized and had only one or three gimmicks that were rarely even seen in shrines.
I wonder if people still even know that the 'ubi' in 'Ubisoft' is for 'ubiquitous'.
You perfectly articulated why I dislike open world games. It’s a big world but there’s not much you can actually do with it, and devs spend so many resources on making that big empty world that they don’t have the time or money to make actual content. I’ve tried BotW, Genshin, and a few others and gotten burned out on them very quickly. I hate how every dev and their dog has decided to go this route… the homogenization of the AAA scene is part of why nowadays I mostly just play indie games and stuff from smaller studios.
Everyone seems to gush on and on about how they love BotW and other open world games like it so I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels like this.
Every time I hear the word "activities", I think of Step Brothers.
I think the original intended purpose of these games with checklists on the map screen is that you're supposed to play the game naturally, and when you do that you find a good amount of content every which way you go. Somewhere along the timeline, companies started designing for those completionists and expressly building these checklists to be filled out. The reward for finding all the korok seeds is a nod to that I think, every player was supposed to find enough to max out their inventory space, not systematically uncover every single seed in the game world.
I'm sick to death of open world games, but pretty much every one I've played has given me 20-30 hours of fun. That's a lot for $60. It's when you try to stretch it, you put off doing that final mission until you clear the journal, or you systematically visit every map marker, that it becomes a slog, and companies have started to encourage this specifically because then they can put "200+ hours of content!" On the store page.
Elden ring is the only game in recent memory that I really enjoyed exploring and playing. Lack of checklist probably helped :)
When I played botw I never saw the map as something to do, which probably added a lot to my enjoyment. I don't think that's really something you can conciously do though. Maybe if I played the game after I was older and more conditioned into the collectathon grindset it would have been different. Maybe it was my adhd stopping me from systemically completing every side quest. Whatever the reason, I only got like 50 korok seeds, did around half the shrines and almost none of the shrine quests, and completed the last 2 towers after beating ganon. I spent my time just fooling around the world building my own home and then a city. Surfing down the mountains with whatever shield I had in hand and trying to snipe enemies with my bow.
@@oonkymppa5923 yeah I agree, and I was a fully jaded adult when I played BotW. It might have something to do with just not really wanting to do shrines because they weren't very fun or interesting, but regardless I was fully immersed right up until fighting Ganon.
The only thing I didn't really like was tower hunting, the reward was too good not to do them as soon as you see them, but there's no variation. It was before "climbing towers to reveal the map" was such a meme though, so I guess it gets a pass. I just started playing Spider Man and those towers are pretty unforgivable for when the game was released.
Of all things, this really put Fallout 4 modding into perspective for me. I'm oddly hooked on looking into various mods for it and watching showcases of them, even if I won't install a fair number of them. Modding the game is almost a form of control-based entertainment itself, akin to other control-focused gameplay you pointed out like designing and making a small home in Kenshi, or various parts of gameplay in Factorio and Rimworld.
I remember when AC2 came out some gaming news outlets were praising its GTA like mission structure, meanwhile I was suffering from whiplash from the tonal shift from AC1
I'm going to defend the poop (a little bit).
I do like that because the poops are tied to expanding your inventory, but there are so many of them, you're likely to find them throughout a pretty steady rate to then be able to upgrade your inventory's carrying compacity. THAT SAID the final reward is SH*T and should not exist. Like, I wish there were collectables this numerous, if they are tied to a game mechanic, as a way to prevent you from having to look up the precise locations, but somewhere an NPC or text box should clearly note there's no ultimate reward attached to getting them all. Actually, crazy idea... What if when you get the final upgrade from collecting, all the remaining uncollected-collectibles of that type in the world disappear? Have a bit of text mentioning that like; "Wow! You've fully upgraded your inventory! I guess it's time to tell my friends the game is over and they can come home!". Maybe the "ultimate reward" for then closing the collectible chapter is you get a map revealing where all the collectables were with two different color nodes showing which ones you got this time and which ones you didn't?
What really gets me about the poop-collecting is that the fact there are so many more then you actually need and the game doesn't stop you from continuing to collect them makes my brain assume that I'm building up to some really cool Easter egg. And it could have been a cool treat, but because it wasn't it really disappointed me to get a useless mark of acknowledgement. The longer it takes to complete something, the more of a "neat" factor the reward should have and if you DON'T have something "neat" to give the player (many game studios don't have the resources to create endless content) then you should end the quest right at the point were value of the rewards cuts off. That way that element of the game will be remembered as a component of the while experience and not an utter let-down.
Botw starts with... Hours of railroaded content... Just for an empty open world
This video very much goes over all the issues I have with fully open world in general, how Zelda used to be unique while still letting you explore such an expansive world and what Zelda has now become...
16:55 new dono sound
Oh my god, that's the best thing ever. I need to get on making that.
Good job Strat! I really enjoyed the more condensed style of this video. Ending was a tad abrupt though, and it would have been helpful to your point if you showed the difference between these games trying to give you a false dopamine injection and something like Doom's unlocks or any Elder Scrolls game's/RPG's loot system. All of those games involve killing a enemies, taking stuff from them or the environment so you can kill more enemies slightly faster, and repeating. What's the real difference between a fun gameplay loop and a grindy one which gates your progress based on level, especially when that kind of loop is what most RPGs are based on?
I had an entire chapter I had to cut for time. Maybe I will release that chapter as a companion piece to this video,.
@@StratEdgyProductions please do!
"Oh wait, you can't _because they died."_
*fucking lol*
THANK YOU, I'm like the only person I know who thinks BOTW has massive issues, I tried playing it when it came out and I was so fuckin bored. Then I tried digging into all the mechanics to get good at it and understand it, and I was so fuckin bored. Then I tried to make my own fun in the open world and I just... I was so fuckin bored. Just massively bored through the whole 10 hours or so I spent.
Guess I'm a crackhead because I love Far Cry 3 & 4. I'll pick the reset strongholds option after clearing them out just to do it all again. Killing every animal I came across is another pastime.
My favorite AC is actually the first game.
Turn off the minimap and it accidentally becomes an investigative immersive sim with stealth and murder.
You start to pick up on a few things like every assasins' hq is identifiable because it is the only building in town with a green dome under construction next to it. The instructors in each also give accurate directions as far as I can tell, so listen to their dialogue and look for landmarks that they mention, town squares and churches being common.
You also realize you don't need to know what your max health is for most of the game and you know what the buttons on the controller do, so you turn off the rest of the UI after some of the playthrough and it clicks what the series should have been. If only people didn't brag about collecting fucking dumbshit feathers.
The ubisoft logo being a poop from above got me xD
Great vid as always. You should do a video on Kenshi. Great sandbox RPG, underappreciated imo.
I always found it odd that as time goes forward, and technology gets better, that the Zelda games have had less and less dungeons, and less special items. Seems a bit backwards to me.
BotW was all about quantity, just in different ways. They should've found a middle ground.
Never have I ran into someone who could put into words, the cycle of feelings I have playing one of these Ubisoft-type games. Where you get to the point of questioning why you even play games. Then you find yourself questioning everything. What’s the point of anything, really? The spiral is real, man.
Best example of all of this to me was Saints Row 3. Somehow a game with 42 solid missions got grinded down to having mandatory missions that are literally just activities
1 and 2 was also like that
The weed burning mission was the high point in the game for me. Fucking loved it the first time i played that mission.
I fkin lost it at the wallet thing
I just bought Steep on steam and it is just events the whole way up the mountains. I remember very fondly having fun in the game but maybe it will return as I refamiliarize myself with the old experience I had with the free weekend. I also never realized it was an Ubisoft title. The crew games weren't much better than you describe but I really like racing so I'm deeply biased.
Love it, dark humor is a treat👌
For some reason I enjoyed the gameplay so much in Assassin's Creed Valhalla that I did the side content for fun primarily, not for the rewards. The rewards were not what motivated me. One time I found a place where enemies kept respawning and I just stayed and kept fighting for a while because I liked the combat so much. There was no quest or activity to do it and no rewards. I just did it for fun.
That said, I get what you mean and I get why many others think Valhalla is too long and repetitive.
Strat with the 100000 IQ play: bait people with a seemingly negative title associated with a picture of Zelda, calm the viewer down with by explaining that modern Ubisoft games are bad which is an agreeable take in general, and then just when you tought it was over he brings you back to Zelda like a jumpscare
Masterful
And I was thinking something was wrong with me for not enjoying breath of the wild. Someone spoke the TRUTH about this game
BotW was the 2nd time I did not like a Zelda game, since the original
This is why I have avoided the game. It's a shallow pool. Sure, you can soak your feet in it, and it can feel refreshing, but you can't do any swimming, unless you want to make some sweet coarse love with the concrete and tile. Depth, context, purpose beyond being a glorified gopher, those are drivers to push players beyond simply getting that chemical fix. It's like being fed a gelatin cube, like konnyaku (konjac). It'll fill? you, but you won't be filled with mirth to be eating more of it come dinner time.
Actually try it.
I mean why interest in games altogether. They are a mere waste of time, there is no point to them to begin with.
I love the zelda series but I did not like botw, while the world was amazing and exploring said world was awesome, everything else I didn't care for at all, I'd rather have 10-12 really good dungeons as opposed to 120+ crappy mini dungeons. But the thing that really made me hate the game was the weapon degradation feature and not being able to repair. I understand it's to make the player switch up combat with weapons, which is fine, but the weapons all felt like they broke way too fast so instead the feature made me never want to fight anything unless it was a boss/important mob and my master sword was reduced to a pickaxe/tool to break shit.
But its NOT fine. Its not Zelda. Weapons in Zelda have always been linear. Starter sword, maybe one upgrade, then Master Sword. This system was completely unnecessary.
I don't think the volume is wrong I just wish we could get the classic experience first and the open world would come afterwards.
Imagine if you could play through something akin to metroid prime but whenever you beat an area you unlock some partially procedurally generated content that lies beyond the typical playing area. But the game doesn't even suggest you explore it the game tries lead you to the next mission and whatever you unlocked is meant to be there when you get bored with the mission. a true reward that the game never needs to acknowledge because it's sweeter to discover something for yourself especially when juxtaposed against the more curated standard experience. Best of both worlds.