It's called cultivating a less toxic audience
TotallynotJessica 119 points 2 days ago
Swedneck 71 points 2 days ago
also free advertising, having shitheads publish videos of themselves turning red from talking about your game makes the kind of person who frequents 196 go "lmao based let's buy the game out of spite"
TheRealKuni 14 points 2 days ago
Seriously all the chuds bitching about the “girlboss” character they added for the new prequel missions in Halo: Campaign Evolved just highlighted that there were new prequel missions.
(Although actually most of the dipshits I’ve seen complaining about her didn’t actually play so they don’t know that she’s not part of the standard campaign, so they’re saying things like, “The game was already good, they didn’t need to add a new woke character.”)
new_world_odor 7 points 2 days ago
true shit, their cries have actually led me to some things i wouldn't have found otherwise! like Hazbin Hotel!
cloudskater 1 point a day ago
Ive heard genuine testimony that Hazbin's creator is pretty shit. I wouldn't know too much tho, it's not my fandom.
caseyweederman 2 points a day ago
That's why I bought that one game about the trans caterpillar
Enkrod 16 points 2 days ago
True true. You definitely get a relaxed fanbase with a good ability to take some irony and self-mockery like that. You just also will always have an army of haters turn up wherever someone expresses personal joy in your game online.
KombatWombat 3 points 15 hours ago
They would be better off not judging people for any selected difficulty then.
atomicbocks 44 points 2 days ago
I feel like I actually did see things like this in flash games in the early 2000s specifically making fun of 90s tropes.
atomicbocks 8 points a day ago
I spent way way too much time on Albino Blacksheep, YTMND, NewGrounds, EbaumsWorld, and so many others as a kid.
uriel238 18 points a day ago
Left 4 Dead had the achievement What Are You Trying to Prove? earned by completing all the campaigns on expert.
L4D2 had Still something to prove, again by beating all the campaigns on expert.
I was able to get the second one by playing Last Man On Earth, which is single-player, but special infected only. The higher difficulties are mostly harder by having common infected do more damage.
Klear 35 points 2 days ago
They kinda do, in this respect. When huge warning signs didn't work, devs started locking the highest difficulties until you beat the game once or implementing a hidden system that lowers difficulty or sneaks you some goodies if you keep dying too much.
FishFace 13 points 2 days ago
When huge warning signs didn’t work, devs started locking the highest difficulties until you beat the game once or implementing a hidden system that lowers difficulty or sneaks you some goodies if you keep dying too much.
Adaptive difficulty has been a thing for decades. The first one I remember is Max Payne, released 25 years ago, though I don't remember if it was active on all difficulty settings...
FishFace 3 points 2 days ago
Yeah I realised that might have been the case as I was hitting "comment" and was like "oh well" - just my first impression was that you meant to imply that it was recent :)
frog 12 points 2 days ago
Replay value doesn't really have to do with difficulty. That's what all these mobile game designers found out. They get replayability through a reward system or adding some kind of social aspect to it for peer pressure.
djsoren19 7 points 2 days ago
No, but people these days are very stupid. AAA game design these days tries to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The C-suite types don't want a player bouncing off their game because the player was too dumb to select the right difficulty type for themselves.
Their solution seems to have been to phase out difficulty selection altogether though. It'd have been more fun if they tried something like this though.
trem 4 points 2 days ago
I think, with modern AAA games, you also run into the problem that they're typically a dozen games in a trenchcoat. So, you might be able to make the shooting gameplay more difficult by just adding more enemies, but you can't easily do that for the platforming parts or the stealth sidequests.
You'd need to build the game three times over, pretty much, to really offer three different difficulty levels.
And so, yeah, they try to avoid that by giving help to players that struggle and optional challenges for players that can handle a higher difficulty.
darthsundhaft 9 points a day ago
Are people actually making a big deal about what other people set their difficulty as?
Idk sounds like those people are the ones lacking said social life, not the people minding their business enjoying their game the way they want to.
TotallynotJessica 17 points a day ago
See Wolfenstein having you as a baby when you pick the lowest difficulty
cloudskater 2 points a day ago
They should have made that mode just have no enemies at all. I would've laughed at that
NihilsineNefas 6 points a day ago
The nazis all have clown noses and explode with confetti if you get a hit on it.
blockheadjt 4 points a day ago
Must have been later games. 3-D only had one death effect per enemy type
cloudskater 1 point 12 hours ago
Yeah that's even better lol
NihilsineNefas 23 points a day ago
Where's your sense of whimsy, your joie de vivre, your ability to take the piss out of the parts of yourself that can be lightheartedly mocked?
Come onnnn and join the jerk, the planet's on fire, more than half of us are set up to die by systems put in place generations ago, and the government of every country is full of pedos.
Come play a game and if the wellington boot with frog eyes fits you a bit too nicely, dont take it personally, jump in the puddles.
TotallynotJessica 6 points 6 hours ago
I'm surprised by how many people took issue with this post. Like, it's specifically funny because some games already make fun of your for picking easy, which is far more mean spirited than making fun of people who are good at games and have nothing to prove. Some people have disabilities that make playing games harder, lack the time to get good because of responsibilities, or just plain aren't good at games. Games shouldn't be make fun of people who already have trouble accessing them, while people who are good at them often need to learn to take themselves less seriously. It's punching down (something that already happens) vs getting proud and successful people to have humility. The game was made for gamers, it's not like they don't want you to play it.
I'm gonna throw this one on my ever growing pile of "posts that people took way more issue with than I expected." The throughline for those posts seem to be that people have a hard time joking about themselves and take anything that pokes fun at themselves seriously. It's a shame, because I'm usually also the target of the jokes that piss people off the most, which is why I get surprised that other people don't also find them funny.
InternetCitizen2 2 points 5 hours ago
Idk I through it was funny
Curiousfur 6 points a day ago
Power fantasy simulator
Fiona 4 points 14 hours ago
The thing is: We are not doing that on any other skill-based competitive thing (sports or similar), even though you could largely make the same argument there. Of course any game like this will want to be respectful to its most dedicated players instead of pissing them off.
Honestly, wanting to insult the best players mostly just comes across salty, as if by someone who is annoyed that they are not particularly good (which is fine) and mad about it (which indicates that YOU are the one taking this too seriously). Back in the day playing through the Maw on Legendary in Halo CE was something that was respect if you managed to do it, but nobody really looked down on others for not doing so…
BigBananaDealer 4 points 11 hours ago
depends on the game. some games hard mode is just fighting one enemy for a long ass time over and over again
TheTetrapod 9 points a day ago
Was this a joke? Are you objecting to "plowing"?
SourDragon 3 points a day ago
Would you have preferred it in French?
onehundredninetysix
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go to feed...
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Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
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No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
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- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
go to feed...
The thing is this:
The people playing on easy don't get angry when they're called easy-goers, this is not about their ego for them.
But the "I'm the most manly man of them all, I only play on the hardest difficulty!"-types will instantly have their overinflated egos implode when you call them out like that. And you'll have your game shitstormed by incels.
save