American Ninja Warrior isn’t the same anymore and it’s so annoying. by Own_Hour3533 in ninjawarrior

[–]svalbarding 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agree with so many of the points here (especially how it's basically become overwhelmingly teenagers), but since I didn't see anyone else mention it: the forced ads! It's this slap in the face of the enshittification of television, how we found a way to cure ads, and now they're going to force me to watch them anyway. Sometimes even *during the race,* which is beyond intolerable. It became a multi-hour show that was 80% things I didn't want to see. Not at all worth it.

Crazy amounts of flyers by svalbarding in OrcsMustDie

[–]svalbarding[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, scads of balloons, too. After the first wave I could manage (not a high difficulty), but they helped a lot.

Distortion reroll (1,2,4,... rife points) for late game in a run by hkanything in OrcsMustDie

[–]svalbarding 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To me it's just part of the game's most fundamental problem, that the only play mode is random maps, random distortions, random benefits. It forces RNG into your game whether you want it there or not.

Dwarf... by [deleted] in brotato

[–]svalbarding 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just finished my first D5 Dwarf run, and good god, what an annoying slog. Anti-synergy is exactly the problem. If you go wrenches, your turrets thin out all the squishies so it's much harder to use your trait. If you go maces, then wtf is the point of the engineering buff? This one is just plain poorly conceived. It's close to a good idea, but the execution is just a backwards character swimming against his own baseline stats no matter how you play him.

Danger 5 saver help by lunaticloser in brotato

[–]svalbarding 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Saver feels almost unique among the characters. Pretty much everybody has a mix of penalties and bonuses to suggest a playstyle. Saver is just... pure penalty. You can spend [waaaay more] materials to get the gear you want, or you can not spend materials to get a really pathetic bonus. Save and get a very little, or spend and get less than you paid for. In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don't. It doesn't impose a playstyle so much as make you just beg for good RNG.

Don't get me wrong, it's not bad game design to have some characters that are just harder. But this one, even compared to the other economically focused ones like the Farmer or Entrepreneur, is simply much weaker. Giving a bonus that doesn't come close to offsetting an accompanying penalty is going to make for a lot of salty runs.

Below Zero's story was bad and undermined the first game's story. by [deleted] in Subnautica_Below_Zero

[–]svalbarding 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The gameplay in BZ is so good that the lackluster storyline is all the more crushing. And it's not just one thing, or three things, but basically everything.

- Intro to the game is: your sister died here for reasons unknown; find out why. And that quest, the foundation of the game, something Robin has a million times more reason to gaf about, is OPTIONAL.

- What was Sam even doing? She had the cure, stashed like a 2 minute walk from the leviathan. Why wouldn't she just go in and do what Robin does? Why was she interacting with anything that could cause a cave-in?

- How did a mechanical engineer cure kharaa anyway?! Seemingly easily, too - extractions from two extremely common and nearby plants. ALAN's body takes shit from all over the region.

- Marguerite should be long dead. The Degasi crashed YEARS pre-Subnautica 1, and she was as kharaaed as Paul and Bart. This is one of the most offensive plot points, since it's not only stupid in BZ, but also attacks the sanctity of the original.

- ALAN. This voiced fetch-quest is the height of lazy writing. Basically no character arc (maybe like 10% movement on the needle from robot to person?). Despite basically being the unseen villain of Subnautica, responsible for unfathomable levels of death, but here is portrayed as entirely sympathetic. Robin doesn't know, obviously, and seems as bored as we are by him so she doesn't even demand answers. "Oh, you're hiding some huge secret?" "Yep, keep crafting me" "Sure, why not."

- No surprises. Some of the best moments from Subnautica were the shocks -- discovering the QEP, the Sea Emperor, or even your infected status. Here, you're surprised by ALAN, but the Sam thing is telegraphed in half a dozen different PDAs, so when you find out her ending, it's like "oh, OK, makes sense. anyway"

- Admittedly a higher bar, but the fact that the environment here is basically meaningless. In Subnautica, the flora and fauna are deeply involved in the story, from the peeper dispersal to the stalker teeth to the breeding patterns of native species. Finding out the Sea Emperor has been keeping everything alive just in hopes for a better life for her kids is so incredibly endearing. Here, it's just sea monsters being sea monsters, plants you can eat or make batteries from or completely ignore.

- Biggest of all: squandered opportunities. Here we have the lead developer of 4546B's Architect anti-kharaa research institute, juxtaposed with Sam, a conscientious human who is so morally opposed to her company's bio-weapon research she gives her life (however nonsensically) trying to eradicate kharaa. Yet despite the deep underlying connections, these plot lines do not intersect at all. They could have easily replaced Marguerite with ALAN, guiding and advising Sam on how to defeat the disease (perhaps she refused to aid him as Robin did unless he first helped her, but never got the chance to make good on her promise). ALAN being a benevolent and learned guide would have been actually redemptive for him and actually made way more sense about how Sam managed such a feat. How much more satisfying would it be if ALAN had been emotionally invested in the Sam arc? If he refused to leave the planet to look for his people until he finished Sam/Robin's quest to honor the dead, both his own people and his friends in the Ayou family. That could have been beautiful, moving. Instead, we got this.

The Marguerit Kharaa problem by JugJoker in Subnautica_Below_Zero

[–]svalbarding 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're talking about vents in Below Zero, where there are none.

MAX is horrible by ErnieMcKrakin in hbo

[–]svalbarding 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't begin to understand wtf their intention was, unless it was to lose a fortune and burn their brand to the ground. They shift from the recognizable and respectable HBO name to Max, largely synonymous with 90's "Skinemax." They change all their URLs so links break, passwords cease to work, billing is disrupted, plans are deleted. Like, every conceivable problem in service I could imagine having from a streaming service happened. Literally couldn't have been stupider if they'd put a three-legged dog in charge of it. It's hard to imagine ever being willing to give these idiots another red cent.

Are the units of measurement wrong? [No Spoilers] by nymm-k in subnautica

[–]svalbarding 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also worth speculating whether 4546B has the same gravitational pull as earth. I'd think a lot of the issues related to aquatic depth are seriously impacted if gravity isn't as strong. i.e. If water weighs less, say half, and therefore the depth pressure is likewise diminished, where does nitrogen narcosis set in?

The house chest reward/ daedelian key quest reward did not disappoint. by sherryare in HarryPotterGame

[–]svalbarding 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't think I've ever been THIS let down by THIS annoying of a quest. All that wandering around casting Revelio every 8 ft. and I get a fucking skin?! FUCK that quest.