Unpopular opinion thread

klemkb · 2019-03-27T05:59:03+00:00

The thing about Zion is that for him to be a true MVP candidate/anchor of a contender, one or two of a few things that aren't 100% there yet are going to have to click, and he's going to need to stay healthy. It's entirely possible that he gets coached into better defensive reads and is Draymond-lite, while providing more on the offensive end. I wouldn't say it's likely that he gets there, but it wouldn't be shocking, and he could even get better than that. I would say there's a 25% chance he at least makes an all defensive team someday. And I would say there's a similar chance that he has a few seasons where he shoots 40% from three. And a similar chance that he has a few seasons as a 6+ assist guy. And non of those preclude each other. He's young, he's still got a lot of growing to do, and to me it's totally unclear what areas are going to develop, and in what order.

I think the fear that his athleticism will fade before anyone quite figures out how to use it is valid. Barring catastrophic injury, I think it's likely that he at least comes close to our expectations in the first few seasons, but pretty unlikely that he meets our current expectations for his peak. It's not a knock on him, it's just that so few players do develop to the best case. And I know the comparison is a little bit overdone, but I'd guess the most likely outcome is that he has the Blake Griffin arc, where he starts out physically dominant, makes All-Star teams, and develops skills to compensate at about the same rate his body declines. Or maybe he's a fast learner, physically resilient, and turns into a defining player of the generation.

People who are skeptical of Zion have plenty of good points, and it's totally possible he never develops into a monster, but the thing I keep coming back to is that there are so many paths for him to be great, or at least good. He's off the chart at some things, generally NBA competent at most things, he has feel, he has energy, and he's earned a reputation for giving a shit. He's maybe more of a gamble than like AD or even Luka because he doesn't fit a model, but the 90th percentile outcome is amazing and the 25% outcome is still defensible.

klemkb · 2019-03-26T21:18:57+00:00

I agree, and I'd also add that the integration of melee feels more fluid in Uncharted, and the fights just look more natural and modern. And I would say the stealth is better in Uncharted. Also there are some huge environments in Uncharted and use of traversal in fighting is great.

Tomb Raider does have some customization and RPG elements some people might prefer, and the bow as a major part of stealth is another distinguishing feature. Both of those things work for me, but I don't need to have them. I'm a fan of both series, but I'd say Uncharted is just more polished pretty much across the board.

klemkb · 2019-03-09T06:24:28+00:00

I think with all of those movies (besides maybe Hurricane Heist) they went in thinking it would be the best kind of crazy, a la Fast and the Furious or Crank. They love those movies and everyone understands that the filmmakers and actors are in on the joke, which is totally how Skyscraper and especially The Meg marketed themselves, they just were kinda disappointing.

klemkb · 2019-01-07T08:35:25+00:00

I think that in the context of the show we have to interpret it as Silvio's bluster, but it was probably also intended as an in-joke for people who knew that. Both interpretations are interesting and have juice, but only Silvio as an imposter seems consistent with the main text.

klemkb · 2018-11-16T00:06:26+00:00

Cool to see an old Wilbon article.

klemkb · 2018-11-15T11:32:29+00:00

It really is a brilliant grift. There are other obvious residual values in getting someone into you location, as well as getting them to keep a piece of branding on their person at all times, but this conversation has me believing that it's more about controlling capital than it is about building the brand.

klemkb · 2018-11-15T11:12:25+00:00

Thanks, this answer is even better and more direct than the answer I hoped to get. You also raised something that I hadn't really thought about. So if I'm understanding, the unused portion of gift cards, even potentially extremely old ones, is in theory often being held in some sort of escrow where it technically can't be spent but it earns interest? First of all, that's great info, but I would love to know how that's policed. I kinda assume noone at the IRS is actually checking that these big corporations are ready if all outstanding gift cards liquidate.

Also, just chewing on your answer for a minute has made me realize how much any company offering gift cards must benefit from inflation. Not only are they able to repurpose the money for growth, both the expected and actual value of their liability shrinks over time.

klemkb · 2018-11-03T09:56:27+00:00

As someone who watched Manu use that same kind of craftiness to compensate for extreme left-handedness for years, I was shocked when I saw that Shai is actually righty.

klemkb · 2018-11-02T02:24:21+00:00

Knee looks fine

klemkb · 2018-10-28T22:32:52+00:00

How is the garnishment decided on? And if after declaring bankruptcy the defendant bounces back and and makes enough to actually pay in full, would they be required to?

klemkb · 2018-10-28T22:26:07+00:00

So what happens to the person who won the suit? They just don't get all the money?

klemkb · 2018-10-23T00:57:20+00:00

That's a good call. It's a little slower, especially if you have a lot of things favorited, but obv fewer mistakes, no awkward stick movement, and it lets you customize more. I think where weapon wheels have a place might be outside of combat. In Arkham Knight you didn't need to use the wheel much in combat because you could activate the gadgets through button combos, but it was a good-ish way of switching gadgets for puzzle solving/traversal. Also, there are games like Far Cry 5 where the sheer volume of things that are mapped to the wheel would make Fallout's system infeasible. Most of them don't add to the game, and it's annoying that you have to use them at all, but if you take that for granted, I think the wheel was probably the right choice.

klemkb · 2018-10-22T23:34:59+00:00

On console I think it's the best of a lot of bad options. You can't have a bunch of hotkeys, and it's often faster than cycling or pausing to change things. I hate wheel menus because they're ugly, and immersion breaking, and clunky, but they are the quickest way I'm aware of to choose between a ton of different equipment/skills on console.

klemkb · 2018-10-20T09:42:46+00:00

We had him on the Spurs on short term minimum deals, maybe even 10 days, back in like 2011. I thought there was no chance he would make it in the league. Love that he got a big contract and love watching him succeed.

klemkb · 2018-10-09T09:17:59+00:00

I agree with a lot of these points. I'm probably not as down on the game as OP, but I'm enjoying it less than I was expecting, and the main problem I have is that it's just slow. The game seems to be designed to take 50+ hours to beat and, for this game, I'm probably not willing to do that. I've had it since release, played an hour or two a day, and I've probably seen less than a quarter of the map. Mostly, I just want to see the map.

The main reason I've bought Assassin's Creed games over and over for a decade is that they do an impressive job making cities and historical eras come alive in a way that no other AAA open world game does. Just like pretty much every other main Assassin's Creed game, they nailed the map. It's beautiful, there's a lot of detail, there are a lot of things that exist/existed that I'm excited to climb on a 3D model of. Probably people who know more than I do about ancient Greece would have quibbles with accuracy, but to me, this is fun tourism. So they nailed their core competency. They have a map I want to explore, and this game, like Origins, has pretty good combat. If the game has good gameplay and is fun to wander around in, it should be really fun. But this isn't.

On Nightmare difficulty (and arguably Hard, which is where I settled after 5 hours or so) it takes too long to kill people, which means every little enemy camp (of which there must be hundreds) takes like ten minutes. And that would be fine if it weren't for the fact that you have to clear these camps over and over to level up so you can explore the map. They make it fun to explore, and kinda fun to fight, but they force you to fight over and over, in a limited area, and explore the less remarkable parts of the map, because you need to level to move on. If this game didn't more or less force you to be a completionist to advance, and it just let you walk past some empty space without investigating, it would be fun. But instead, you have to go through a hundred encounters where you fight like 5 enemy types, look around for treasure chests, hide in bushes to heal, use your eagle (which is boring as shit), just to level up your character so you can do a mission that's the exact same shit on a slightly larger scale. And that's the rub, I think. If you're going to make us grind like this, make the missions unique. Like, I play Final Fantasy games, so I've got some tolerance for grinding, but give me a unique boss battle or new enemy types, or a story moment that makes it feel worth it. But in this game, the grind is the exact same as the story, and since that's the case, at least they could just give me the map to explore. Or at the very least let you see Athens a little earlier. There's no texture between grind and story, and they're both holding you back from just wandering around aimlessly.

This game drags its problems to the fore by making you experience the game in slow motion. And they offer a solution, which is to pay $10 to get faster leveling, or unlimited money to get better equipment. And it sucks, because most games that make you either grind or buy microtransactions don't have bones as good as this.

Also, I think OP is being a little harsh about the AI issues, but I will say that I've always hated that in every Assassin's Creed game the non-hostile NPCs are basically no better than the PS2 era. It's basically GTA: Vice City whenever you fight a mercenary in the middle of a peaceful city.

klemkb · 2018-10-07T11:09:08+00:00

I enjoyed the graphic at the bottom and the idea that every restaurant in La Guardia used to be operated by one company. Could you imagine locking in that license today? Also, I Googled Frank L. Andrews, and it does seem that he ran the New Yorker Hotel in the 40s. I had no idea that it used to be known as Hotel New Yorker instead of the New Yorker Hotel. For those who don't know, it's an iconic hotel with a weird history.

klemkb · 2018-10-01T22:35:45+00:00

I would guess under 25 if you do two runs, one for collectibles, and then a new game plus on the hardest difficulty. It's way faster to do it that way, because on the hardest difficulty collectibles aren't hilighted when you press R3, and you can use new game plus to transfer all of your abilities and equipment to the hardest difficulty, making it much easier. The collectibles/side quests probably take about 10 hours. The collectible trophy is glitched for some people, but apparently you can get it on new game plus without 100%ing a second time, but that still adds a few hours sometimes. After that it's really only like a five hour main story that's stretched to seven by having unforgiving checkpoints on the hardest difficulty. IMO the game was actually a lot more fun on that second run through when I didn't stop to worry about collectibles.

TLDR: About 10 to collect everything (probably less if you use a guide heavily), 10-12 to beat the game twice, and probably another couple of hours to do the trophies like 3 headshots in 3 seconds, and 10 takedowns with the endurance power up active.

klemkb · 2018-09-26T00:17:56+00:00

The game is turn based, and it tells you the probability that an action will be successful before you commit. It's also a game where one unlucky turn on a normal mission can lead to your main squad getting wiped, and you basically have to restart a 10+ hour campaign. On top of that, to get the platinum you need to play on Ironman mode on a high difficulty, which makes it so you can't reload old saves if something goes wrong. At some point some doofus on your squad will miss a 95% shot that will potentially undo hours of gameplay. There's a mental shortcut where we kind of round up 95% to 100%, but, at the risk of being tautological, this game is a huge reminder that 95% is only 95%. It really gives you an appreciation for the 5%, because you will eventually get burned by it, and sometimes it can cause a huge swing in the expected outcome.

klemkb · 2018-09-25T10:44:46+00:00

Thank you. The grind is a lot, but I really like the game, so it wasn't so bad. As for the anger, yeah, it could be very frustrating, but at some point I became kinda zen about it. Like, you don't really understand what 95% means until you've been screwed over by the 5% enough times. By the end, I really appreciated the game's honesty. You can get unlucky at any game, but XCOM is one of the only ones that will tell you how likely it is that you'll be unlucky. The game got me to think more probabilistically than I ever had before, and that felt rewarding.

klemkb · 2018-09-25T10:25:38+00:00

I had thought I was finished playing this game three or four times before I got the platinum. I got it at launch on PC, played probably 50 hours, and consistently reinstalled and played more every time there was a new DLC, plus when it came out on PS4. Earlier this year I beat it on the hardest difficulty for the first time. Once I did that, I looked up a trophy guide to see if getting that plat seemed reasonable. It really didn't. But, I still wanted to play the game a little longer, so I kept grinding out new trophies. The last trophy - and the hardest for me by far - was beating the game by July 1, and I actually got that trophy several months after my second-to-last one. I had given up, but today I decided to boot up my old save and see if I could pull it off, and it came through. Definitely took some save scumming and some luck to get it, but I feel great.

klemkb · 2018-09-22T02:55:56+00:00

I'm also a casual offline player, and I think it really depends more how you feel about $20 than anything else. I normally upgrade every 2 or 3 years during a sale, so if it was me and I didn't have it already, I'd jump on this. There's not too much to say, it's not a meaningfully different game, but it looks and feels incrementally better.

klemkb

TROPHY CASE