Gravy Boat
Member
Jesus Christ.
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Jimquisition: Weapon Durability, Fanbase Fragility (Mar. 13th, 2017)
- Thread starter L~A
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Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
You may want to get a refund on whatever qualification you got from that course. I'm pretty sure Occam's Razor isn't simply 'gut instinct'.
I've seen people say "blabla if you want good weapons you can farm at...", granted I'm on the outside looking in atm, but surely something must be ringing in your head if your solution to someone's distate of the durability system and wanting to keep the good weapons for an event that never arrives, is basically telling them they can grind at a certain spot, which is another tedium that can sap a persons enjoyment out of the game.
Yes. 7 is a good score, but not everyone thinks that way, sadly. There would probably be a couple of people who wouldn't get the game simply because Jim gave it a 7. Which is unfortunate.
Thornton Reed
Member
I'm 33 and I think he's hilarious. Reminds me a lot of Charlie brooker when he wrote for the guardian. I think you're taking his routine a bit too literally. He is playing a character at the end of the day.
...Okay. I can empathize with that. I've been playing the game too much to actually pay attention to anything else.
C'mon Jim. I don't understand how the weapon durability could effect the score that much. It just seems to add to the chaos of fighting, and I thought it was nifty.
Game reviews are weird and gamers will never stand to see their games rated as brutally as movies are. We're sensitive little angels. IMO anything rated 6 or under should be reserved for games that have serious technical flaws.
I think it was actually Slant's score which caused the drop? They scored it 60 after Jim.
lvl99 Pixel
Member
Yep, as do a lot of us. Calling it a flaw doesnt make much sense, but if you dont enjoy it thats all there is to it.
Jim saying "im supposed to believe soldiers use these swords that break so easily?", when real swords did break all the time (of course its played up because of how it functions as a gameplay mechanic here, but obviously everything is exaggerated in this game), sounded a bit daft tbqh.
im supposed to believe Link can cook a meal in 5 seconds? he would get food poisoning!
How can link carry so many things and still climb huge cliff faces? im supposed to believe this?
D
Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
A 7/10 on my scale is a good game that I'd happily recommend to friends, just maybe not at full price.
oh god I had erased that one from memory
Dude, that's not how reviews work though. On his scale, 7/10 is a good score and he calls it good repeatedly and he lists a huge chunk of shit he loved about the game. This is why it's such a flaccid criticism. Again, it comes down to a number for people... it's not even whether his criticisms were well supported or not from his perspective. It's just about whether a score was 'credible' because it was too outside the norm. If he thought the game was a 6, he should have gave it a 6.
"Hard work", by the way, is absolutely not part of any assessment of how good a game is. A game could be worked on for thirty straight years with a staff of 9000 employees and cost 380 million dollars to develop and if the game sucks, no amount of "hard work" is going to redeem it.
Similarly, Zelda:BotW is clearly a work which was a labor of love. Nobody is denying this. Jim doesn't even deny this, on his list of things he likes. But just because you're well intentioned doesn't mean you have to believe the systems all work. There are clearly things people have problems with, even those who scored it 10/10 mention it. Things like the technical issues the game has, and for many people the durability. And how much it impacts the score is by definition arbitary. MHWilliams stated that he understands the durability complaints well and thought it would be divisive and still give it a 5/5!
People need to understand there is nothing objective about game criticism, except listing stats like "A, B, Y, Y pulls off a lightning combo" or "this game runs at 900p." No critical consensus ever means that an outlier is wrong. That's not how this works.
A terrible one.
I am also quite calm and I've had my rest. I'm not the one drawing Nazi analogies over a number tho...
Wesley-Sigma
Member
Weapon durability is asinine and pointless. Some of the hardcore Souls guys seem to love it for some reason? At least in Dark Souls III it replenished at the bonfire. During my hundreds of hours of Dark Souls III, I never had a weapon break on me. Nioh made the right call of removing its durability system after the alpha. It's an awful mechanic that I wish would perish.
Oh, that and running to the boss after each death. That is also an annoying trend that has perverted itself outside of Souls games.
Oh, that and running to the boss after each death. That is also an annoying trend that has perverted itself outside of Souls games.
Certainly. This is but one aspect of the whole process though. There's also the need to protect aspects of your own identity from criticism, i.e. people who identify a bit too much with their favorite game/product/company whatever needing to defend them no matter what.
No! NO!
It's like saying no credible reviewer should give Ride to Hell Retribution any lower than a 4/10 because obviously someone put effort into making a game that boots up, gives off sound effects for the most part and has voice acting, then the effort into making those motorbike sections and combat sections because they had to re-work the game engine etc.
If they implemented a mechanic that jim didn't find fun it gets marked down, Jim likes Zelda BOTW, he just didn't like it as much as everyone else.
daninthemix
Member
I agree with him on weapon durability, and - since right now his site seems to be down, presumably due to attack - I agree with him on the fanboys, too. Just pathetic, so pathetic.
Ardenyal
Member
Dropping nukes on civilians is "good"?
This hearkens back to the last gen where it seemed every game deserved above 9 because reasons. It was bad before but last gen especially was really bad until very late into it.
I see. I only poked into the review thread and some were blaming him for it.
Guns with limited ammo is asinine and pointless. It's an awful mechanic that I wish would perish.
Deckard Chapel
Banned
No I'm basing it on professional etiquette.
You and everyone else that's criticizing my opinion of his "reaction to my own review" video is assuming that I'm purely against his 7/10 review based on the Metacritic aspect.
That is absolutely not the case.
I am against it because I think it violates a trust between someone that has an axe to grind with a company and someone that truly wants to get the word out on how amazing a game is.
You don't see any of the mainstream reviewers [and by mainstream reviewers, I'm referring to those that work for corporations, i.e. IGN, GameSpot, etc. that turn in their reviews to inform the public on whether a game is good in their eyes or not - not people that get ad-revenue for clickbait from their YouTube channel shows] employing the same type of childish, trolling tactics that he resorted to. They are reviewing the game confidently and it seems that across-the-board, the game was revered with either perfect, or near-perfect scores. In the case of Jim Sterling, what is so different in his eyes that he would resort to a 7 - and I'm not trying to say that a "7" is a horrible score - but based on the law of averages, his score is far lower than expected. Now add to that the simple fact that he hates Nintendo and he makes this abundantly clear - just look at his "You should pirate Nintendo games" video prior to his BOTW review reaction video yesterday - It's no secret that he doesn't like Nintendo and vice versa, so I wasn't expecting a glowing review from him; but seeing his 7/10 after all the trolling and fanboy bashing aside, it just seems rather a slap in the face to everyone that actually took the time under NDA's and normal mainsream media professionalism to review the game.
I can't speak for those that resort to technologically childish means because they don't like a review score; but I can speak for those that read his review and then saw his childish tantrum afterwards, accompanied by a severely unprofessional attitude in saying that I find it monumentally lacking in social graces and any sort of respectable, critical weight that should carry a Metacritic anything.
Okay, take the example that I gave about you feeling that your girlfriend cheated on you - and by feeling, I mean that you have people telling you left and right that she did - but you weren't there, you're not psychic and you don't know for sure - but the evidence is overwhelming based on the number of people telling you the exact same things - some of whom don't even know each other and her only defense is "I would never cheat on you baby!" ... you also feel it in your gut ...
What's your Occam's Razor response?
Um, I'm just making an educated opinion based on something that Jim Sterling said and did.
I'm not the one standing behind a podium with my initials surrounded by Eagle's Wings behind me...
Wait, what??
Tomeru
Member
Thats even weirder then.
Didn't say it needed to be ignored because of this.
FF8 shows, clearly, that scaling enemy lvl with you is not pointless, and that it doesn't take from the player improvement one bit.
Wesley-Sigma
Member
If you have a point to make here, do it properly without the sarcasm. I know you can do it.
daninthemix
Member
Er, nope. This argument doesn't work. If I find a cool gun - that's a worthwhile pickup / reward, even though I have to also find ammo for it.
If I find a cool sword that will break after a few minutes use, that's a minor reward at best.
Professor Beef
Banned
Those guns don't tend to shatter into a million pieces.
It's exactly the same thing. The only difference is we've been trained by game design to expect that melee weapons should be permanent, rather than an expendable resource like ammo. That's why I said they should have just renamed all the weapons "Melee bullets."
Deckard Chapel
Banned
This is the base of the criticism regarding the weapon durability and I accept it.
Are there times when I'm fighting
a Lynel
Absolutely!
But you know what, it makes me have to think on my feet.
I know that I've got several bows and a couple more weapons in stock and also my Bomb Runes, so there's always something I could do - maybe I could flank him from one side, maybe parry his attacks, maybe dodge a blow and get a "Flurry Rush", perhaps find a high point and paraglide over him while dropping bombs, maybe I'll just have to run away and regroup in the nearest town - there's always something I can do in the spirit of the moment and that's simply the point of it all - and I love it.
If you had unlimited weapon durability, the game would be a cakewalk, just like pretty much any other Zelda game.
Vampirolol
Member
I still think it's the exact same thing.
When people tie themselves to a product and think a criticism of it is an attack on them and a criticism of their buying choices
Ascenion
Member
The problem here is that a 7/10 on metacritic is in fact not a good score. Green defines good and a 7 is yellow. A 7.5 or 75 is a good score. Metacritic seems to be the root of all this conflict anyway so we might as well use their standards. While I'm mentioning that, a reviewer has to know once they allow themselves to be on metacritic the personal scale is gone. You're abiding by Metacritic's scale now which for video games has anything below a 75 being questionable.
Wesley-Sigma
Member
I don't know what shooters you have played, but in something like Vanquish, there are very few guns. You can make clips last an incredibly long time through precise shots and very deliberate actions. Some weapons are situational while all being generally efficient.
Your weapons are broken, you picked up a broken short sword in Dark Souls. Not an efficient tool nor does it help the mechanic.
You can see why this argument isn't appropriate.
kunonabi
Member
The weird thing is he could have pointed out stuff worthy of dropping the game to a 9 or an 8 but instead chose some fairly minor, and in some cases really petty, things to dock the game all the way down to a 7.
Doctor_Thomas
Member
Weapon durability will never be fun. No one can convince me otherwise.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
Games like Titanfall and Overwatch feature unlimited ammo now as well.
You don't rate games from 10 to 0 breh.
Triscuitable
Member
Honestly, the only thing that frustrates me about Jim's review is that he says weapon durability systems are bad, and anyone who disagrees with him is wrong.
It's an awfully petulant thing to say. I don't think he's wrong to have an opinion on a system like that (it's awfully subjective as to whether weapon durability is fun or not), but it is really childish to say people who don't agree with you on a subjective matter are wrong.
I honestly don't care if it's a component of the character of "Jim Sterling" or the Jim himself saying this; it's a really shitty attitude.
And nobody has to. It's a matter of taste. If you don't like it, that's all well and good. I feel a good balance can be struck. Games like Fallout 3 and NV handled weapon durability extremely poorly, while BOTW uses it as a mechanic to encourage players to try out new weapons and master a range of combat styles, instead of picking one style and exclusively sticking to that.
It's an awfully petulant thing to say. I don't think he's wrong to have an opinion on a system like that (it's awfully subjective as to whether weapon durability is fun or not), but it is really childish to say people who don't agree with you on a subjective matter are wrong.
I honestly don't care if it's a component of the character of "Jim Sterling" or the Jim himself saying this; it's a really shitty attitude.
And nobody has to. It's a matter of taste. If you don't like it, that's all well and good. I feel a good balance can be struck. Games like Fallout 3 and NV handled weapon durability extremely poorly, while BOTW uses it as a mechanic to encourage players to try out new weapons and master a range of combat styles, instead of picking one style and exclusively sticking to that.
Lanrutcon
Member
I don't think so. That would mean every single reviewer would be using the metacritic scale just be allowing metacritic to use their review, and their individual scales (that they clarify and define in each of their sites/publications) are moot. None of them would agree to that. Not the 10/10s, not the 9/10, not the rest.
Gravy Boat
Member
You're right, it's so clear Jim hates Nintendo.
He never reviews their games positively.
Absoutely never.
Terrible scores all round
He clearly just gives all their games controversial scores.
Why do you hate Nintendo, Jim?
Why can't you say anything good about them?
Especially Zelda. He clearly hates Zelda.
It's definitely clear that Jim hates Nintendo and all their products.
Or maybe he doesn't and he just thought this particular games was worth a 7/10 to him
SolicitorPirate
Member
The only way I can feel good about this thread is if I assume a majority of posters are children.
The idea of grown adults getting this emotionally riled up about a fucking video game review is...unpleasant
The idea of grown adults getting this emotionally riled up about a fucking video game review is...unpleasant
As Jim said, the system railroads you into using a weapon you may not want to use. Dark Souls, for me at least, is a good example of a game that subtly encourages weapon diversity. Certain enemies are easier to take down with specific weapon classes but any weapon class is viable to a degree. If a game makes a person WANT to try another weapon instead of forcing it, that to me is good game design.
Deckard Chapel
Banned
This is beyond valid, if not the main point of contention here.
What I've been saying is based on all the evidence of him trolling before he even played the game and then his behavior after his review with that "review response" video. It really seems as though *in his mind* he was just "sticking it to Nintendo". I just think that his opinion is so obtuse and irregular that he's literally in the miniscule of the minority view, but whatever.
Thank you. Again, this isn't about the Metacritic ranking, it's about journalistic integrity and the fact that he is not a part of any major NDA signing entity affiliated in any way with Nintendo. He has a clickbait channel based on Patreon, so he's entitled *whatever that means* to do whatever he wants to do. He honestly should not be weighed as a Metacritic candidate because he clearly knew the scale and scored the game just below where it would rank in the yellow, causing it to be a controversy and a problem.
Jim will be Jim I guess, which is why I rarely if ever, watch anything he "makes".
It's a beautiful sight to behold.
Ascenion
Member
That's not exactly what I'm getting at. I'm saying that they know when the review hits metacritic it abides by that scale and the personal one is irrelevant on metacritic. A 7 isn't good there and they know that. Personally I think a 7 is a fine score, but I know if I gave something that and it went on metacritic it would hurt the game. I guess I'm saying metacritic dictates review culture and for some reason it treats games and movies differently. And all reviewers are aware of that. The metascore shouldn't matter but it does and we al know it. I think this is exactly why Kotaku and verge and other places don't score anymore.
Why should he?
That's metacritic's problem not Jim's, none of the reviewers should be giving a solitary single fuck about their metacritic contribution when giving a score because that just raises questions on their credibility.
"I was going to give this game a 7 but because of metacritic's broken perception of a good game I'm giving it an 8"
Zelda: BotW would be a vastly different (and worse) game if weapons didn't break.
As others in this thread have pointed out, weapons breaking is integral to the game balance.
You don't have to like it, but it would be really, really bad if it wasn't there
To (slightly) simplify the issue, think of the weapons in Zelda like ammo. Would, say, Wolfenstein: TNO be the same game if every weapon you found had unlimited ammo?
Gravy Boat
Member
Lol, why is 'makes' in quotations here? Does he not make his videos? What about the list of videos I posted a few points up that compltely refutes your claim that he just hates Nintendo and wanted to "stick it to them"?
I probably would have enjoyed it more tbh. Like Doom basically has unlimited ammo and it's pretty much known as the best shooter of the last 20 years by a lot of people.
So there's no depth to the combat and instead Nintendo have to artificially create challenge with awful weapon durability?
Yikes.
Deckard Chapel
Banned
Lanrutcon
Member
I think there's definitely a huge discussion to be had around Metacritic and how it's warped review culture. My personal belief is that people really shouldn't put much stock in Metacritic, but yeah. I get what your saying.
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