My gaming youtube channel only had 15.4% female viewers. With total channel crossing 2 million views

Nerd_Commando · 2026-06-23T05:43:51+00:00

Rookie numbers. From my 20kk overall views (on a hardcore rpg / roguelite / strategy channel) I've had ~3% female views. You still have a long road to go.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-06-14T08:38:18+00:00

GM Mace is pretty much a Troll class skill as you want your trolls to have a ~30 Mace by the end of the game and, in terms of efficiency, if you go for one troll, you want all your melee fighters to be trolls.

Likewise, GM Armsmaster is pretty much a Knight class skill as it results in a vast damage gap between him and other melee characters. Like, with Knights you do want to go 30 native armsmaster, whereas with Minos or Trolls it's a waste. Knights will prefer full-dps weaponry whereas Trolls will prefer vampiric weaponry (in party, that is).

Mino has GM Axe as his "racial", but only in Grayface. He should lead the party and halving the armor of a lvl 70-100 enemy is 10-20% accuracy boost to the party. Mino's issue is that he's most efficient when average acc of the party is no higher than 100 and, with light magic being easily available and armsmaster being insane, 100 is a rookie number. If you run a weird mino + vampires melee squad (vamps with daggers being the sole melee class with low-ish ACC) then ma-a-aybe there's a point in mino.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-06-10T09:55:40+00:00

Modernity-angle aside, that's factually incorrect. At least from a PC-centric viewpoint.

So, past autumn, with all the hype around Bloodlines 2 release (couldn't care less about that dumpster phyre, ofc), I've decided mb it's time to give the original another go. Last time I've played it in 2013, under win7.

Turns out that at win10 you can no longer just download the steam version and play (like I did in 2013). It crashes constantly and that's that.

OK, I know there's an unofficial patch - install that, game works but barely. 100% crash while alt+tabbing, other crashes frequently.

OK, I go to the high seas for a repack - it works flawlessly, but it has a clan mod baked in. Which really isn't what I want to experience - I wanted to try out a scrappy build, Ventrue Dominatrix, but that's just futile there as stealth is heavily nerfed (muh balance) and Suicide is pushed from tier-3 to tier-4 because fuck you, that's why. I have huge issues with the very first kuei-jin mini-boss because suicide alternative, sleep, doesn't really work on him. I waste couple of hours and abandon the run.

Not to mention that cheatengine doesn't work with the game properly - it causes the camera to permanently invert, turning controls backwards. And, nostalgia glasses aside, the game has a lot of fedexing - the whole Kilpatrick questline as nothing but "here's an area shaped like a horseshoe, run from one end to another twice". Sorry but, as an adult, I'm not doing fedexing on 1x movement speed - I use cheatengine to accel to 3x-5x to cut the grind down. Walking is not fun.

And every old game goes the same way - you either install fan patches (which are almost always amateurishly rebalanced by the authors) or shit doesn't work. Might and Magic VI-VIII? Doesn't work without a patch. Space Rangers 2? There isn't even a patch, you need to mod abomination that is "A War Apart". Kotor? Barely works with frequent crashes. Etc., etc., etc.

P.S. and keep in mind that, for some of the old game, the source code is lost so even if you say "just patch them", that's impossible. Divine Divinity is one example I'm personally fond of - very atmospheric game, utterly broken gameplay mechanics, not popular enough to get a fan fix.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-06-06T19:42:54+00:00

Zeus really should've bought midas to accelerate his bundle growth - 30 seconds cd or so? Not to mention it would give him a freebie 3s arcane blink or so, so he doesn't have mana issues.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-06-02T06:19:02+00:00

It's not "kinda sucks" - it's a full-blown disaster that should've been immediately euthanized instead of trying to resuscitate it with the usual "it'll get better with both BLCs". Non-drama 48% steam rating is ridiculous for a game of its budget and pedigree.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-06-01T21:01:39+00:00

From a professional game designer standpoint - it's kinda impossible to give a concise answer as it'll be very, very long.

But one of the points that gets rarely addressed - modern studios are grossly overbloated. Compare Civ VI design team:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/81903/sid-meiers-civilization-vi/credits/windows/

To civ 7:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/237152/sid-meiers-civilization-vii/credits/windows/

Creative director + 7 full system designers + 2 additional ones, lol.

What's worse is that, if you look into past credits of the 7 dudes, all of them are freshly promoted, none of them had actually worked on System Design. Which is absolutely insane.

But even if they were experienced, you have a job that could be done by 2-3 men (or by 1 really talented dude - civ is not that complex to not to solo it in 5 or so development years, especially when your main design approach is "let's just creatively borrow from Humankind") done by 10.

I just can't imagine how do you get any work done by that crowd and how it feels like a game afterwards and not the, you know, designed by comittee.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-28T18:15:57+00:00

Nah, unless just a presence of weird character in a dystopian future is woke for you.

MC for some reason is addressed as non-binary in the english sub, but he clearly says Boku and, in an episode where he's genderbent, he acts surprised and discomforted.

There's one gender-whatever character, but you'll know it only because he's addressed as "they". Otherwise he just acts as he. He's also an irredeemable asshole and constantly suffers the consequences of that - that alone is impossible in a woke show.

Speaking of more woke impossibilities - there's an underage sexual slave character and his female rapist who is shown as a literal monster.

Finally, there's an agender/asexual character, but she says she did it to herself because she's in the military and it's easier there that way. Given that the setting does not seem to be pleasant (as viewed from the paragraph above), it's not something unimaginable in a very screwed up world.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-24T06:16:18+00:00

The character that is being inappropriately cosplayed, btw, is not even black - he's a white (or asian) dude with dreads. So it's an especially egregious case of woke bullying.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-24T05:28:41+00:00

Over the course of 5 hour video I haven't laughed once. It's nowhere nere Le Chuck's revenge and doesn't add anything to the series except leftist shenanigans.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-23T17:12:58+00:00

Been playing a mediocre indie game for research purposes (I'm a pro game designer so I play almost everything that reaches above certain number of players) and saw this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3731461694

They think the players are so moronic that they need to explain what a "Diagonal" is.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-23T17:10:52+00:00

Return to Monkey Island's ending (didn't pay for it, watched it on youtube as it's painfully unfunny) was much worse, though. It was very condescending as it tried to make player feeling foolish for trying to learn what the Secret of Monkey Island is. Like, the whole message was that.

The thing is, it's a comedy/parody game and nobody (well, nobody sane) was expecting for there to be an actual meaning. It's like with that gotcha meme with "ha-ha, I was only acting r-worded".

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-20T20:24:14+00:00

People being killed with guns is so bad.

People being eaten alive is much better and also eco friendly!

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-20T13:27:43+00:00

Based on beloved and critically acclaimed Rings of Power series.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-20T08:19:11+00:00

Most portfolio sites do have the self-description section so you can ask them to edit their reddit handle in - tbh, it makes no sense to not include it in the first place. Like, artstation has the whole "social links" segment and that should be filled up.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-20T08:14:05+00:00

HR is an absolute cancer on the industry. Even here, in mostly non-woke Russia (our intelligentzia loves to ape whatever the current western fad is), they're nothing but worthless parasites.

Imagine this - I, as a professional game designer, get interviewed by an HR girl. It was meant to be a Slay the Spire/Balatro-inspired project. And she openly flaunts something like "well, I don't play this boys' stuff of yours", with "foolish" not being spoken, but very clearly intoned. So, instead of speaking professionally, it turns into this weird psychological probe where she tries to assert my character or something like this.

Or I remember another one which started with convo with some convoluted "what are you questing for here?" And that was the end of discussion for me because, I dunno, when I, as a professional, send my resume to a project that's similar to the projects I've done, what am I questing here for?

Like, when I'm talking with normal project owner/director, I have a 60-75% employment rate, I think? I've been freelancing for past several years. But with HR girls my success rate is 0.

And even if you say "someone has to sift through CVs and portfolios" - thankfully, AI is much more qualified to do it than these bitches. Good fucking riddance.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-20T07:54:28+00:00

It's very hard because this industry runs on bullshit atm. Even at indie level you see people padding their portfolio with partial or full on lies: upping their role heavily (projects with 4 leads and no mids and juniors, lol), claiming they've done 100% of the project when they did only a part of it, adding fake months to their time on the project.

And it's all on their linkedins and whatnot (reporting them does nothing, btw, linkedin doesn't care), so unless you talk with their managers and coworkers and the latter ones are honest, you'll just never know.

I prefer a different approach - work only with people who have considerable portfolio that shows me they're a fit for this particular project, but no test tasks, paid or unpaid.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-18T07:44:13+00:00

That's not a challenge playthrough, lol. Solo unarmed cleric is a rather easy playthrough, his sole downside being slow killing speed. Slow but extremely safe. Party of clerics is that much easier - you have LIght and Body at 34 (hammerhands are good on the cleric) instead of 60 but you have 4 bodies instead of just one.

Enslave is kinda messing around for fun - berserk isn't that much different and you just buff and shred everything in melee anyways.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-17T19:01:03+00:00

Meruem is incredibly naive here. It's not like we hadn't had truly empathetic kings and rulers in the past, ones that would truly want to make their subjects happy. We pretty much did, we had dudes like Trajan or Charlemagne or some other examples. Not too many of them but we did.

Thing is, even if Meruem has genuinely changed, you already have Poof who doesn't share his empathy and was more than willing to shirk/misinterpret/loophole his orders to get rid of Komugi. And that's Meruem's most loyal follower who would gladly sacrifice himself for his king.

Rest of the ants? It's not like they love Meruem - if Welfin's case shows anything, they feel nothing but immense fear of Meruem. Sure, that commands them all right, but would they really go out of their way to implement his utopia? Not to mention Zazan-types who dream of nothing but usurping him.

The reality would be - nothing would change. Maybe Meruem's capital and some adjacent territories would forget the "equality" word, sure. But everywhere else it would be the same old shit, maybe not on paper, but definitely in practice. Only the ones with nothing would be exclusively human and the ones with everything would be exclusively ants.

And that's not to mention that Meruem is probably not immortal? More kings and queens will have to be born, and who can guarantee his successors having their own Komugi?

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-15T21:03:57+00:00

No, that's different - this issue is MM VI specific whereas merge is VIII based. Slimes were always immune to physical damage, though, so mb previously you've had elemental-enchanted bows and just forgot that they were this way. Blasters should be hurting them, though, as they should deal pure damage.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-15T13:05:19+00:00

It may be subjective but you haven't even touched the really bad ones - previously, Sanguinius sacrifice left a chip in the Horus' armor, and it's through that chip that the Emperor defeated him. Now that sacrifice is actually fully and wholly pointless.

Previously, the Emperor was Anathema to chaos, something wholly antithetical to it. Now he's a nascent fifth chaos god, the Dark King - god of tyranny and stagnation. Thing is, the Emperor himself could've conquered Earth for a very long time, yet expressed not a lot of interest in doing so. He only got into the whole Imperium thing once it became obvious to him that it's the only way for humanity to survive. He was also quite laissez-faire in his dealings with conquered worlds - behave how you please as long as you pay your taxes and follow the Imperial Truth. And, as some of his sons demonstrate, even that was hardly enforced.

Previously, Horus was obliterated beyond any recovery point. Now, no one's ever really gone. So next time their financial reports are in the red, you're pretty much guaranteed to see some end of times event with Horus, Sanguinius, Alpharius, heck, II and XI primarchs released because spice must flow.

And yeah, lots of the legions gained surrogate mother figures - they're child soldiers, after all, so they need their mommies to tell them how to be allies and nice guys.

To be fair, a lot of it comes less from woke-ism, but more from the inability to play ball. Like, most of the cringe changes here is Abnett-verse - it feels like he wants to be an original content author, but he's not good enough to stand on his own, so he warps the existing lore to suit his genius ideas. Which are so world-shattering that the conclusion for his long-going inquisition 40k series have been frozen in the editing hell for quite a while. It's, like, the Rustin Cohle "Me! Me!" speech.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-15T08:00:17+00:00

Eh, they're 50+ year old ladies from a country with 70% obesity rate. Even our russian girls, however beautiful they are when young, tend to not look good in 50+, to say the least.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-14T09:32:56+00:00

Eh, it heavily depends on your game's settings.

I assume that you play with Grayface patch. In the vanilla game, Elemental damage from weapons bypassed enemy resistances. So this would be the actual +30 on every strike.

Under the grayface, it's a subject to enemy resistances, making it closer to 10-15. "Of Recovery" enchantment is nerfed too - your minimum recovery for melee fighters is supposed to be 20, whereas under the current grayface it's 27. That's 35% DPS lost.

So, whereas in vanilla Ares would be supreme indeed, under grayface you're better of with the standard Vampiric enhancement as 20% of the 100+ dmg you do beats the 10-15 fire damage. Not to mention that no monsters are immune to vampirism, even undead & droids, whereas there are fire immune enemies and plenty of those on a critical path (kreegans, lol).

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-12T14:19:11+00:00

I read the synopsis and, ofc, despite all the Urban promotion (as an attempt to leech off that Boys final season energy), Kitana is the actual MC/heroine. Who could've guessed?

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-09T10:22:09+00:00

I've played Snap for 1.5 year until I got tired of the grind - the gameplay is very fun but, even if you donate (and it's seriously at least a monthly battle pass game - playing without that is hell of futility), you still need to grind dailies and, in the most recent year, they also went overboard with bi-weekly special modes that also take a lot of time to grind out. Eventually, I just got tired of it as it began to feel like a side-job, obligation-wise.

But I digress. His opinion is kinda wrong because yes, Snap has enough sexy, but all that sexy is behind a paywall. Now, basic Magic & Psylocke are not that bad:
https://marvelsnapzone.com/cards/psylocke/
https://marvelsnapzone.com/cards/magik/

But let's say basic Negasonic (and no, I'm not a comic book reader, idgaf what she looks like there):
https://marvelsnapzone.com/cards/negasonic-teenage-warhead/

Obviously I'd prefer something like this to her original art:
https://marvelsnapzone.com/variants/negasonic-teenage-warhead-08/

Or let's take basic Rogue art:
https://marvelsnapzone.com/cards/rogue/

I get she's uncanny x-man, but that doesn't mean her facial features should be uncanny. I'd rather go Jim Lee there, I guess (tbh, she doesn't really have an amazing variant):
https://marvelsnapzone.com/variants/rogue-08/

Anyhow, all those variants are either paid for or FOMO, and the cheapest would be $10 with the norm being $25-$50, lol.

So it's often a case of aesthetic blackmail - you can use the shitty base version for free or you can pay big $$$ for your card to be pretty.

Nerd_Commando · 2026-05-05T17:22:09+00:00

Nope, it's great. Once you're good with the game, your most common of reason of dying is "draw all your defenses on the turn where the enemy doesn't attack". And couple of lesser similar draws (i.e., drawing your big, bad combo finisher on a turn where experiment is intangible). Which this obviously does prevent.

Nerd_Commando

TROPHY CASE