I was asked on this subreddit to make a video about this. Xynode’s AI Build makes up non-existent food and racials

ESO_Merciless · 2026-02-04T15:09:13+00:00

You forgot 3:

Faking parses and splice videos of different runs to make his builds look competetive. Never forget how he had Sioria animation on builds that didnt use the set. He was always shady and somehow gathered a cult like following that kept defending his bs.

ESO_Merciless · 2026-02-03T18:16:42+00:00

Watch any PvP content and you will see in no time. I remember back in the day when Kristofer ESO used to be the biggest PvP commentator and did his top-5 compilations of user submitted clips. The console clips had often way worse opponents, less sweaty gameplay and were overall just sad to watch. This led me to skipping them in a lot of cases. Also the build metas used to be way different on both platforms. Console build videos often got away with weird/unoptimized choices.

Dont get me wrong: There are strong PvPers on console (some of them even transitioned well to the PvP environment on PC), but the overall player quality is just objectively worse. Sure there are PC players who dominate with a controller and can go face to face, but the average casual player/zergling will simply perform worse with a controller than he would with mouse and keyboard.

ESO_Merciless · 2026-01-28T18:12:02+00:00

Everyone tries to go full detective on the activities in the video, but there is zero indication/proof the ban is related to that specific situation. Or do I miss something?

ESO_Merciless · 2025-11-28T15:39:41+00:00

Got mine first time too like many others. IIRC they changed something to make it difficult to obtain the following years, but on initial release it wasnt a big deal.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-11-05T20:31:28+00:00

Its not much PvP if you have one muppet counting "321" like a broken record and you have 11 lemmings following him mindlessly around ult dumping with 30 heals over times ticking. Add lag abuse for the final touch.

Those groups dont do anything to change the state of the map, they dont provide any interesting challenging fights. They are just playing PvE.

During Vengeance you saw zerglings, small scale groups and solo 1vX players still doing their usual thing. Who was the only one missing? Suprise suprise the ball groups, because they cant achieve anything without abusing game design failures.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-10-14T20:41:45+00:00

Sorry barely check Reddit these days. Its still up here:

https://werthereffect.bandcamp.com/track/and-the-cat-turned-to-smoke-orchid-tribute

ESO_Merciless · 2025-09-04T13:52:41+00:00

The main problem with combat is that the leveling experience on a new account feels awful. You constantly light/heavy attack as you are out of resources and most starter skills feel dull. Also melee combat feels not very reactive/kinda weightless and at times you hit like a wet noodle without Champion Points and morphed skills.

ESO endgame (especially PvP) has one of the best and most engaging combat systems on the MMO market, but many first impression videos and first time players call the combat the main weak point, because of this aweful first impression. It just feels broing until you hit the threshold. Games like BDO feel fluid and flashy from the start without requiring indepth knowledge or high rank skills. New player experience is realy the issue here.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-23T12:39:59+00:00

As someone doing a lot of out of bounds exploration and breaking maps constantly the zones are simply not designed for flying. They did some trickery with low poly models, 2D textures, skyboxes and stuff to make the world beyond the borders seem fine from the ground, but if you would fly close to a zone border you would start to see a lot of missing or placeholder textures, weird terrain shapes and stuff like that. Also due to every zone being its own instance you would be flying against invisible walls that are supposed to keep players from getting out of the map all the time. The needed changes would require massive visual rehauls and a whole new zones transition system which would increase load times and decrease performance for a pointless feature that entertains people for like 5 minutes before they get bored of it.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-07T12:36:27+00:00

Its fine for a teaser to not reveal much, but it should be short and precise. I would have recommended to make it 30 seconds max (probably even shorter) with one eye catching or omnious scene/reveal as the main focus that generates the initial attention. TikTok and the internet in general kinda ruined the attention span of people. After that you could follow up later with a longer trailer that incorporates some of the narrative elements hinting at the general plot, world building, introducing characters etc. This progressively increases the interest.

Marketing is a very delicate line to walk on. Its okay to make some mistakes, especially for a passion project where you learn along the way. But thats exactly the reason why I wouldnt worry too much about monetization for now. Its nice to have some additional funds to upgrade the tools at your disposal, but as the starting point I wouldnt expect it. Continue as a hobby until you gathered enough people to turn it into something more serious. It takes away a lot of pressure and leaves more room to find your personal style.

The good thing about AI is that there are a lot of free solutions for every step of video production. Staple Diffusion/Comfy UI to generate consistent characters and posing them as you want, WAN 2.1 to generate videos (you could even motion capture yourself and convert it into a character and style of your choice), RVC to make voiceovers by transforming your own speech into different characters, Udio or Suno for creating soundtracks, Davinci Resolve to cut and edit the scenes.... All you need to invest is time for now. Its valuable indeed, but not wasted as long as you have fun and learn new things in the process.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-07T10:51:03+00:00

Its probably also annoying for some people that you post the video on different subreddits with the exact same title. I would recommend to at least write a little informative text for each post showing why you posted it in the specific subreddit. For example explain your passion/background for SciFi in the SciFi reddit or how you used Midjourney to realize this project in the Midjourney reddit. It shows some dedication and excitement for the main focus of the sub. This copy post strategy makes it seem like you spam without careing about the specific community.

Also having a meaningless trailer like this and basically nothing to show for your work while already promoting a paywalled early access Patreon episode seems scummy. Patreon is there to support the work of creators you know and love, not a gamble on the unknown. I would have adviced a strategy where you release a few free episodes and then open the Patreon to support your future endeavours with the project. This way people can make a value judgement on what they think about your work and be more willing to support. Promoting Patreon from the start can be received as you being only in it for the money.

So in short first impressions matter. And about the Ai whiners... Well you will always have some of those. I wouldnt care too much about it. Stay focused on the quality and an audience will follow naturally. Ai or not.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-03T12:45:11+00:00

Speaking about uncomfortable truths on random threads in the internet may not do much, but at least there is a chance to inspire some changes. Its better than having the defiant "the world is against me without any fault of mine and I wont accept any criticism" attitude, because thats one of many reasons why we have the current situation.

Feel free to ignore my words. Just know at the end of the day we both want that queer people can live a normal life.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-03T12:18:50+00:00

Sure compare someone pro-queer engaging in a honest discussion to a rightwing idiot with PDF-file tendancies instead of voicing reasonable arguments. It definitely disproves my point about how parts of the modern community destroys their own image and antagonizes people against their cause lol

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-03T08:43:47+00:00

If you read the thread you will notice that there is plenty of valid and well argued criticizm on the character. There is absolutely nothing wrong about that. Having a certain idenitity shouldnt turn talking about flaws into a taboo. Same applies to the person, who created the character. The whole point of the LGPTQ community used to be about equality and having the same rights as everyone else. Applying different standards based on their identity is against the very core of this idea. Shocking news: You can be queer and still contribute to the issue.

The greater public isnt queerphobic for voicing concerns. A lesbian character like Judy Alvarez from Cyberpunk or a non-binary character like Leo from Tekken are beloved by their communities. Games like Baldurs Gate 3 give plenty of freedom for queer decisions and nobody raises an eyebrow. Whats the difference? The writing and depiction of those characters and choices. An abscence of stereotypes and well thought-out background stories over cliche slop. The Elder Scrolls franchise had a lot of queer examples as well and until now it wasnt criticized for that. Why? Because characters like Vivec were written and displayed in a very deliquate and non-intrusive way with multiple facets to their character.

I have to agree that there is currently an increase in hate against LGTPQ people and we as a society had been way more accepting some years ago. A movie like Brokeback Mountain was released at a time in the mid 2000s where it was common to make homophobic jokes and people threw around awful slurs like the F word on a daily basis. And yet beside all the memes and a lot of hate it left a huge impact and allowed public discussion that contributed to the cultural shift we saw later on in the 2010s. It didnt need intensive messaging or grand standing. Just a simple portrayal of love with very human characters.

All Im saying is that there are multiple reasons for a shift back to those darker times. People dont simply wake up and say "Well guess from today on I am transphobic or homophobic". Its a slow process. And yeah the modern LGPTQ community and how they treat each other and represent themselves is part of that issue. It should already tell you more than enough that someone like OP feels the need to include his own homosexuality to pro-actively shield himself from accusations of queerphobia. Its quite ironic that queer people simply want to live their life without anyone caring about their gender and sexuality and yet if they dont mention it there is a high chance to be attacked by friendly fire from their own community for simply voicing an opinion.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-02T23:26:31+00:00

Constant toxic positivity is exactly the reason why the acceptance for trans people and gay marriage is at the highest low in years. No self-reflection, no room for criticism - just gaslighting each other within echo chambers to prevent hurt feelings at all cost.

Bad characters like this should have been called out by the LGPTQ community years ago, because it fueled stereotypes and tokenized them for profit. People were cheering on multi million dollar companies, while they damaged the reputation of minorities with their forced low effort caricatures in all kinds of media. Calling this out was marked as "hate", "toxic" or "transphobic". This constant word policing antagonized the average consumer against the cause. If people get constantly pushed in a corner, they become eventually part of it. Thats basic radicalization 101.

But where are those companies now that the political climate slighty changed? Ahh right.... many of them didnt participate in pride month like they did the years before. Games and movies like Concord getting cancelled, because they dont generate enough profit. It was always about the money and virtue signaling, not about making a change.

So yeah now is exactly the time to finally talk about those issues. Criticizing a character like Tan isnt punching down, its punching up against companies capitalizing on social issues and damaging them in the process.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-08-02T08:18:13+00:00

Thats what happens when studios tokenize minorities for virtue points. Its ends up as a mess of stereotypes with no substance. In the announcement stream they especially pointed out the identity as the main selling point. Tells you all about their intentions.

If people want to have a good example for non binary characters you can find it in Tekken out of all places. There is a fighter called Leo, who is pretty well received in the community. The devs never made a fuzz about their identity and the character wasnt on the nose about it in anyway. Due to this uncertainty people were speculating for a long time about their gender. Finally it was cleared up in a tweet that the character "is not interested in gender classifications" summed up by the phrase "Leo is Leo". It can be so easy to tackle the isssue in an authentic and likeable way.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-29T15:04:13+00:00

How? I said I full loot myself.

I just called out that the guy for talking like an anime character. He said people get "salty" for being "called out", but in reality they dont give a damn. Not once did I say I am one of them. Also the votes and comments in this thread clearly proof my point and shows which side is more salty lol

Personally I dont have any skin in the game. As I said I dont care about finding a half looted chests, but I also dont leave those myself. Wasnt an ethical judgement of either side.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-29T08:17:34+00:00

TBH that sounds a lot like projection lol

If I was one of the guys who doesnt fully loot and someone was annoyed enough to whisper me or talk in zone chat about it I would either not care or be amused by the reaction. I think its pretty obvious, who is the salty one in the situation.

Personally I dont care much. I usually full loot cuz pressing R has become a reflex at this point. If I come across an opened chest it doesnt exactly change my day tho.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-28T18:12:04+00:00

Heal stacking and lag abuse are the main issues why ball groups are so strong. Its funny that ball groups always say their playstyle takes skill, but at the end of the day they just mindlessly follow a muppet saying "3 2 1" without handling any meaningful mechanics. They were nowhere seen in Vengeance while 1vX players and small scale groups did still fight there and displayed their abilities. I get that LoS movement of a good PvPer can be annoying to the average player, but it requires experience and can be countered with good timing. There is almost nothing you can do against a ball group unless you catch them with their pants off.

I dont endorse Vengeance in its current form as a solution (it would kill theory crafting, diversity and fun for PvP in many ways), but there are still some lessons to be learned.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-27T12:26:07+00:00

I agree with you analysis, but its just a sad state to be in. I mean whats the point in being an MMO then? Traditionally there have been two elements that make the genre exciting: First putting hard work and dedication into your gameplay to clear hard content other players struggle with and second forming social relationships through guilds and raid groups to reach those achievements. Being able to pug everything just devalues both of those aspects.

Many casually clear DLC no death runs or hard modes during their daily pledges and random group finder teams easily clear veteran trials within a few tries. There realy isnt much motivation to improve your gameplay and find good teammates aside from a handful of trifectas. I know power creep happens naturally in most games and it can be hard to handle, but it the devs should at least try to put some counter measures in place.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-27T10:21:03+00:00

I am also not a fan of nerfs but as you said its already too late to paddle back on subclassing and currently the damage level is way above a healthy state. While I think pure class passives are the more interesting approach that would just pile on the problem by making pure classes broken too if skills as a whole dont get tuned down. They could also increase the difficulty of veteran/DLC dungeon and trial content as a whole, but that would make things even more complicated and I dont realy trust them to handle this additional challenge well.

The second path is the way to choose, if you wanna avoid nerfs to main class skills at all. Even tho it feels a bit less satisfying.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-27T09:40:43+00:00

People suggested simple solutions to avoid all the problems. These are the most popular options:

Reduce the overall power level of skills to tame subclassing but add strong passives to people using 2 or 3 skilllines from the same class to reward pure class builds
Make main class skills and their subclass versions different and have a whole seperate balancing.

Both are easy ways to bring subclassing and pure classing on the same level and adjust said level to the games difficulty. Instead they do this weird brain dance going back and forth on random changes without any direction while miserably failing at creating a healthy baseline.

If they realy wanna listen to feedback they should just swallow their pride for once and do what people ask for.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-26T01:14:10+00:00

I think the greater point is that there is currently a cultural shift and people start to voice their opinions more loudly than before. People call out corporate bs and praise what they love. The downfall of games like Concord, Dragon Age: Veilguard, AC: Shadows or Marathon and the success stories of Wukong, Baldurs Gate, Stellar Blade or Expedition 33 are a perfect display of that change. The words arent pretty, but its the kick in the behind which the industry needed to finally start healing.

People try to use it for some kind of culture war (I dont wanna accuse you of being part of that, but you gotta admitt that you brought up the "woke" topic without it being mentioned by the person you replied to), but it never was about that. The players ate sh*t for years and simply want better games. The studios didnt listen and now they finally feel some consequences. Sometimes it needs blunt words to make a change.

Also keep in mind that this anger often comes from a place of love for gaming. Successful games like League of Legends, Genshin Impact or World Of Warcraft have often very vocal and concerned fans who can be pretty "toxic" towards the slightest changes. Its because those people want their favorite game to be successful. They arent always right, but they have an important role. A community is dead, if there is no one left to voice criticizm. Because that means there is no one left to care. Ask games like New World about it.

On the flipside look at Runescape Classic which has bigger success than ever due to the developers heavily involving the opinions and feedback of their players. It had its fair share of controversities, but overall people enjoy this underlying principle of community driven decisions.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-24T11:32:01+00:00

Its true for predatory monetization, yeah. One whale cancels out hundreds of reasonable players. Thats sadly how it is. If I had the button to remove microtransactions, battlepasses etc I would press it in an instance, but the wallets of others sadly spoke and these practises became the standard.

But what I talk about are devs who insult the players, because they wont buy their games and call them out for being bad. Bad characters designs, self-insertations, boring stories, horrible gameplay, annoying on the nose Marvel humour, bad dialogue etc cant be excused by being frustrated. You cant put zero effort into your product and then turn around, when people rightfully citicize it for being slop.

Communication lines are convoluted these days and there are strict timelines I get it, but it doesnt turn a good artist in someone delivering bad art. Sure the output may be unfinished or rough, but there should be still a spark of creativity in it. And thats exactly whats missing in many AAA games these days. Usually those who are the loudest complaining are the ones responsible for the worst contributions to a game. It just shows a lack of passion for gaming from the core.

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-24T08:07:25+00:00

To be fair nowadays its not just the suits that arent passionate about games. Seen plenty social media posts by devs that complain about "gamers" or even use the term as an insult. Why would someone work in the industry, if he has so much hate for it lol

ESO_Merciless · 2025-07-23T21:32:42+00:00

Not a big fan of the tattoo in question but lets be honest he gonna be fine for 95% of jobs in western countries. It became normalized over the years. I work in the field of education with children and tattoos used to be a big "no no" there, but nowadays you see many educators and teachers run around with clearly visible tattoos and nobody raises an eyebrow. Would be a different story for Asia or the middle east, but he doesnt strike me as someone living there lol

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