Huge thanks to Best Buy for sponsoring this video! Check out the laptop, It runs darktide very well and that's all I could ask for right now

@owlson2527

Жыл бұрын

Hi dadd

@Zedzilliot

Жыл бұрын

sponsored by mfkin BEST BUY? that surprised the hell out of me when I heard that

@501FighterWing

Жыл бұрын

@@Zedzilliot bro, you not lying. I thought it was gonna be Asus not fuckin best buy

@J--12

Жыл бұрын

I turned off the video as soon as you mentioned overwatch, miss me with that gay shit.

@felipebisi4145

Жыл бұрын

Bricky could you do a all weapons by faction explained I love your 40k explanation videos

"When everything's unbalanced, _nothing will be."_ -John Titanfall, 2016

@Jerry-dx3cb

Жыл бұрын

Not sure I agree wholly with the sentiment. If say every gun kills in 2 shots then sure any 1 gun might be 'balanced' compared to other weapons, but it'd still be horribly imbalanced compared to player health. Then there's the issue of fun to play with vs fun to play against, and often times this is a zero sum game. This is where balancing comes in.

@CyrusL

Жыл бұрын

god i love titanfall

@silver1340

Жыл бұрын

@@Jerry-dx3cb I don't think there's a point in making something OP, but to play around with the concept of "rock, paper, scissors" where one thing beats another, but all are stuck in a cycle where none beats all.

@spinyslasher6586

Жыл бұрын

@@Jerry-dx3cb I think op meant unbalanced AND fun, not unbalanced and unplayable against. For example, the Monarch titan in TF2 is op, but it has weaknesses you can exploit, like the lack of a shield ability means he has no counter to a rocket lock other than to kill you first or run; and you can also use AT weapons like charge rifle and thunderbolt to harass him from long range without much repercussions.

@invisibleuser_d9fe3H1obHj7

Жыл бұрын

@@Jerry-dx3cb shut up Jerry

Bricky: *Has an insanely powerful laptop given for sponsor* Also Bricky: *Uses it to play Minecraft*

@butterlerpunch

Жыл бұрын

The only way to use such a rig

@phylippezimmermannpaquin2062

Жыл бұрын

mc ftb has entered the chat with malicious intent

@HinokasArabfan1

Жыл бұрын

Well, minecraft DID blow someone's rig up. So it is possible tbh.

@josearmandoarenalescarreno7751

Жыл бұрын

I mean depending on how you put minecraft you might need a decently strong PC to make it work seamlesly

@wraithboo4196

Жыл бұрын

"He who scoffs at minecraft has clearly never ran it in full settings with shaders on" -notch probably

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: These half rant, half discussion videos are just prettied up Fireside Bricky episodes in a VERY digestible format, and I am ALL for it. Love the content, Brickster.

The pyro from tf2 is an interesting case. Release pyro was a close range ambusher. He couldn't do much else. When Valve added the airblast, it only added more flavor and gameplay to the class. He's still extremely dangerous in close range but now he's also a more well rounded defensive class.

@Petrico94

Жыл бұрын

I'm thinking of the Flare Gun and some replacements to the secondary Shotgun. Pyro is designed for close quarters, ambush, counterspy and that airblast support, any changes should keep that identity alive. Pyro can shoot long range projectiles? Okay but he's slow at it, has to work extra hard to snipe people and you're giving up your medium range gun. Some flamethrowers can't airblast, you get more damage but now you realize it's actually helpful against Soldiers and Demomen (or cop out and just increase the cost so you need to visit ammo boxes more). Pyro isn't the best class but can out perform Heavy in some situations and most teams will get some if spies become a problem in their base or need to push through some tight corners, some things more popular classes won't do. If Soldier got a rocket that could home in on enemies after it hit a wall, something that could check corners, spy check effectively and still do his normal functions of destroying sentries and rocket jumping then it would ruin Pyro's niche. Sadly TF2 doesn't release interesting weapons as much anymore. I get it's hard to keep things balanced and come up with new ideas but they're even slow on smaller modifications. Old school game design and mods are keeping that game alive longer not just compared to Overwatch but possibly Blizzard.

@Roach2137

Жыл бұрын

@@Petrico94 🤓

@richardvlasek2445

Жыл бұрын

pyro is literally the shittiest class in the game in terms of dps which is the only metric that matters in close range he's an airblast bot with an ability to maybe kill someone if they're not paying attention and miss their shots

@anexistanthuman2435

Жыл бұрын

@@richardvlasek2445 watch a single sketchek video to prove that is false

@megarayquaza9054

Жыл бұрын

@@richardvlasek2445 W+M1 is surprisingly effective if you use it right so that's not true

The fact that Bricky got sponsored by none other BEST BUY is kinda awesome. Congrats man!

@F4Wildcat

Жыл бұрын

non american here= what is best buy?

@supermemerboi1587

Жыл бұрын

Basically a corporate tech store chain. Best Buy is like the top dog of tech store corporations

@rhettorical

Жыл бұрын

Ah yes, Best Buy. The unashamed greediest tech chain in existence. The chain that feels like they train their employees to be shysters. The store that says: "Oh, your gear broke one day outside of the return policy? I know we just unveiled our 90-day returns for Christmas, but you bought this 16 days ago so your return window expired yesterday. Sorry, buy another one." The store with the salespeople who will not accept that you know more than they do. I have literally never had a pleasant experience at a Best Buy and I actively avoid them at all costs. I would recommend you form your own opinion, if only the stuff they sell wasn't so expensive that learning the hard way hurts like hell. And sadly, they've been that way for decades to the point that even my dad's generation knew all of this.

@johnvermintide

Жыл бұрын

woww

@Nixahma

Жыл бұрын

just when I was looking for a gaming laptop, Bricky gets sponsored by a site that apparently sells them! But not in my country!

Which is one of the many reasons why Disnhonored is, in my opinion, one of the best games of all time

@ringo3917

Жыл бұрын

That game sucked fat ass .

@llrennanll

Жыл бұрын

Same reason why I prefer Doom 2016 over Eternal.

@LeatherDaddy97

Жыл бұрын

@@ringo3917 i loved it

@PatrickBowser2

Жыл бұрын

when I first joined the army and spent my free time in the barracks because I had no friends, I was playing Dishonored. Still one of my favorite games to date

@ravnemagne9598

Жыл бұрын

I have always loved Dishonored 2 for the sheer enjoyability of the different abilities, to the point that I get sad that other games don't have abilities like Blink or Far Reach or Shadow Walk.

I think this is part of why games where you're supposed to make your character as overpowered as possible are so cathartic. Slay the Spire, Monster Train, etc. The game puts you up against increasingly difficult challenges that are impossible to beat with the tools you start out with and then it says "break the game"

@JDReC100

Жыл бұрын

...and then theres the achievements were you have to beat the game with starting items and /or no artifacts/relics....

@blade8741

Жыл бұрын

@@JDReC100 just to show how good you got

@Zooasaurus

Жыл бұрын

Honestly more games need to do this tbh

@ivyivyyiivvvyyyyvy

Жыл бұрын

Cruelty Squad is a great example of this. Multiple missions I found you can literally get out of bounds to kill your targets with explosions through walls

@majones117

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely. That's why when single player games have things needed, it is so awful.

A large portion of why I love playing Cyberpunk 2077 is that you can basically just turn your character into a person cosplaying as a buzzsaw and RIP through anybody. Some measure of balance was attempted, but with only a bit of effort you can make yourself an absolute MONSTER in melee. With all the things you can get, a lot of them fairly easily, that make melee a very viable tactic you can with little to no difficulty at all breeze through the entire game without firing a shot. And leave dissected meat chunks in your wake

@miceatah9359

Жыл бұрын

that was fun for like 1 hour got boring really quick

@JettMann8

Жыл бұрын

@@miceatah9359 It definitely isn't for everyone, can confirm

@lj_maestro3391

Жыл бұрын

@@JettMann8 it's weird because for my first playthrough, I was kinda going for a "balanced" build where I was kind of a jack of all trades. Pretty good at everything, but not amazing at anything. It led to a bit of stagnation towards the end where even though I was pretty powerful, I felt like the build favored falling back on "hehe...gun go pew." So now that I understand how the spec tree works and which traits affect certain aspects, I found that trying to spec into a certain playstyle early has been a ton more fun. Right now I'm trying to do a "Lucy" build: High intelligence for scary quickhacks, highish reflexes for the Monowire and a pistol to fall back on, and medium Cool for some sustain. Not only do I find the process of slowly becoming more specifically powerful with hacks and melee to be really satisfying, but the moments when you can visibly see the fruits of your labor come to fruition once you get the better cyberdecks for more hacks and *better* hacks, installing monowire, etc. then hitting the streets and watch as one half of a goon's forces get short circuited then see the other half in a million pieces because of the monowire is amazing. IDK I guess it never gets boring for me because I can't get over how overpowered I've become (and still will be bcs I'm only lvl 30 so far), and the pride of perfectly building my character to become the new menace of Night City heavily outweighs the fact I've pigeon-holed myself into a specific playstyle. One of the best things about 2077 imo

@dr.calibrations7984

Жыл бұрын

Quick hacks are about the same as a fun factor. Especially a stealth hacker I can just fire off a contagion and a cyberpsychosis go get a sandwich and then move on unmolested because everyone took care of themselves.

@JettMann8

Жыл бұрын

@@lj_maestro3391 EXACTLY!! I went for the balanced playthrough my first time too and just ended up a sort of decent and competent mercenary who didn't stand out. Did a corpo run and made a V who basically went cyberpsycho when Arasaka cut off her implants. Under the surface, she went batshit insane and Jackie was the only thing keeping her above water. When he died, she saw one thing and one thing only as her purpose and that was breaking Arasaka into a million pieces. She uses blades obsessively, like I have run her with a different bladed weapon in every slot. She is super sneaky, but goes apeshit when actually attacking. She will be walking down the street blissfully minding her own busness, passing by guards and mechs and all that and just randomly decide these three guys wearing Arasaka uniforms, or that lady she just scanned that works for Arasaka, just aren't supposed to be alive anymore and leave a bloody smear in her wake. No netrunner anything, no real skills to speak of other than stab and slice at mach speeds. She only later gets a little less screwed up and branches out a little bit when the Relix has scrambled a little more of her brain. The game makes it a lot of fun to make roleplay builds like that both viable and a good time!

Unbalance can be fun but rarely is it fun for everyone who's not using the unbalanced thing in multiplayer. Now in single player unbalance is completely okay as long as it lies within the scope of what the dev thinks is okay to do and doesn't break the game

@Brian-tn4cd

Жыл бұрын

Yeah this is the crux of why i dislike (especially competitive) multiplayer, doesn't matter what i find the most fun im forced down paths just to "play", sometimes it coincides, many times it doesn't

@abrenmam

Жыл бұрын

@@Brian-tn4cd one of the reasons I quit league is the fact they had single player focused designs while making a multiplayer game. Every champ now is entirely focuaed on being flashy in eSports and making the user alone, have fun. Yasuo was the most hated character in the game for 7 years and they added a second yasuo that's just as annoying. eSports and competitive design ruined multiplayer games

@vrapbrap

Жыл бұрын

That's why multiplayer games are tweaked to be so balanced that they lose all sense of identity as a whole. R6 siege on launch and a few years later were so different that I stopped playing the game entirely. It became too "le esports balance" Instead of fun. Game itself became more popular, but there was no fun to be seen anywhere when everything was tuned to be surgically boring. The counters clear as day, what works when and where always clear. Things became predictable and boring.

@kendaar9002

Жыл бұрын

I think having identity is preferable, and there are some simple ways to counter the unfair feel, first off a pick ban phase in any competitive format, and make whatever is unbalanced available to the player base instead of locking it behind a giant pay wall. Beyond that depends on the game, I don't care if I get one shot in a battlefield game but in overwatch it's BS, so try try to design games where op stuff is fine

@Crazy_Diamond_75

Жыл бұрын

Isn't it more fun when someone is good at using the mediocre/niche thing and can stomp average players trying to use the OP thing? Like, I think the point here is that things need to be balanced within reason, but it shouldn't really be a goal beyond that. If a suboptimal loadout or character build is still fun, people will still play it.

haven't seen the video yet, but Risk of Rain 2 comes to mind immediatly when reading the title. The only things they really nerfed were Guillotine and Sticky Bomb because they trivialised the game and made it too easy, which detracts from fun and is a case where I believe balance needs to be considered to preserve fun. But a lot of the time, a game is fun and balanced if everyone is broken.

@absp2006

Жыл бұрын

Haven't touched that in a while. How is it AND the Meta?

@raveelemental4928

Жыл бұрын

@@absp2006 Gearbox bought the rights to the game, which is pretty bad. But the game is doing fine, especially after Survivors of the Void

@luk4aaaa

Жыл бұрын

@@absp2006 the game still slaps, and fun over balance is really exemplified with one of the new items called "Benthic bloom". The item upgrades 3(+3 per stack) items up a rarity tier after each stage, making you have like 30 legendaries after 5 stages, it's halirous (it upgrades the entire stack of items yes, not just 3 individual ones). there's more build diversity too, mega burt one shot loader or Artificer, crit builds, on-hit builds and many more.

@jmanwild87

Жыл бұрын

@@luk4aaaa the funny and is Benthic bloom is constantly hilariously bad by most people who play the harder difficulties because it eats up all your boring veggie items and gives ya reds that are meant to be ways to supe up the greens and whites

@itol2201

Жыл бұрын

A newer item, "Ben's Raincoat" was also nerfed. On release, it negated all negative status ailments, but it was changed to negate one status affliction upon getting hit, with a cooldown.

Balance is a tricky thing to nail, especially in PvE focused games. Take Warframe for example, where AoE is king and it's super fun to wipe out entire rooms, but man it sucks to go into public and see someone doing it before you can so you can't kill anything. If one power fantasy makes another person's irrelevant, it becomes unfun and needs some adjusting (how though, is a huge subject of debate in so many ways)

As someone who is looking to get into the gaming industry and make games (40K, Star Wars, dreaming big here!) I very much look for and appreciate videos likes these. This is the kind of content that I want to watch when making a game so I can keep myself grounded. If you ever feel bad about making these videos, know that you've got dreamers like me rooting for you in the back!

I feel like the goal of balancing in itself should be fun. As long as both players/teams have access to the same ressources, like characters, weapons, cards whatever, the game is technically fair. But people want to play different things, and want the meta to change over time. Not because its fair, but because its more fun to most people.

@ralphize5153

Жыл бұрын

The issue is that games that require balance (competetive games) don't prioritize fun. They Prioritize close matches. That's why Fortnite can get away with broken shit way easier than league or apex, since you really don't care about winning in fortnite as much

I feel like balancing should be done when things are getting out of hand. Reasonable players will know that their fun favorites won't always be meta but they should still be viable. When it's all meta or you're steamrolled players will get bored and irritated.

@Petrico94

Жыл бұрын

I agree action should be taken when something is completely overpowered, but at the same time there are competitive games with hundreds of pieces and you're never sure what adding a new piece will do or how to keep less loved pieces in consideration. A few changes to close the gap are helpful or address known issues that might not be game breaking but people know exist. Getting steamrolled is certainly a call for a hotfix, but the meta can get stale if there aren't regular changes or people catch on that one character is meta and has few viable counters, or the counters don't deal with the rest of the meta as fast as the top character players learn to work around counters. Even if the game is left static the players are always prodding to see what's the best way to win the game before the game.

This makes me think of DnD, really (which at the moment is current in the transitory phase approaching a new edition, so things may change for better or for worse) The power gamers often call the Monk class the weakest for a plethora of reasons (too low health to be a front liner, few and situational secondary support abilities, not high enough damage for ranged/hitnrun, etc) yet, despite that, it remains one of the most popular classes, your likely to have a monk player in 1/3 of the groups I bet. A lot of that comes down to the fact that playing a monk FEELS exactly like you’re playing what a monk should be. Running on walls/water, catching bullets, fuckin KI BLASTS. Players know exactly what they’re getting and they love that. On a personal note, I do think that the monk needs some flavor/lore rework done, cuz it feels out of place as it’s own class with what’s given, but this ain’t the right place to discuss it.

@adam-ft2ny

Жыл бұрын

Monk needs some like battle Master martial art techniques, like a jump kick or something

@OGXenos

Жыл бұрын

Funny how Monk is considered to be an underpowered class when DMs immediately lose their faith in any encounter being a challenge when their players say they're gonna choose monk Stunning strike go brrr

I love the praise you gave for Titanfall 2. It's the best fps out there atm imo. Shame it got overshadowed by huge titles like battlefield and cod when it came out. It goes on sale often (less than 5$ even!), so definitely consider getting it if you can. Easy recommend.

@b-beale1931

Жыл бұрын

Are servers still going for it or do you need to go through a modding nightmare to still play?

@st.altair4936

Жыл бұрын

@@b-beale1931 The northstar mod just needs you to paste it in the game directory lol and it works just fine The official servers sadly still crash matches sometimes, though it's not as bad as before Honestly I'd use the northstar mod even if the official servers worked cuz of its added functionality and gamemodes

I have more fun beating the meta with the worst weapons than I would if the devs buffed the worst weapons to make them superior

@bunnysash3298

Жыл бұрын

Is that a Battlefield 1 Kolibiri I smell?

@nightshadegaming1735

Жыл бұрын

@@bunnysash3298 I love the smell of 2.77mm in the morning

@nightshadegaming1735

Жыл бұрын

@@jonatanrobledo9812 I don't need to win, I just need to ensure you lose to memes at least once

@dr.dylansgame5583

Жыл бұрын

@@nightshadegaming1735 This is actually one of my favorites and a pretty good strategy. If you kill someone with whatever meme ass weapon or character it absolutely demoralizes and Tilts the person if they understand at all what just happened. That level of tilting has single handily won me games in multiple different generes across the board. Plus it's fun killing someone with something so bad that when it finally works it usually is followed by laughing till your kidneys and liver hurt.

@stopreadingthisnow9381

Жыл бұрын

Trolldier

I remember when Roadhog's hook could grab anyone who was on your screen within the last 3 seconds. Good times. One of the biggest nerfs I can remember that broke identity was the degreaser/flare gun combo Pyro had in TF2. I rarely ever saw the degreaser afterwards.

@Valsorayu

Жыл бұрын

Degreaser Combo works... *if* you use the Scorch Shot.

@OGXenos

Жыл бұрын

Except combo Pyro ABSOLUTELY deserved his nerf, because while the Pyro mains were having a field day, every class other than Heavy was getting really tired of being instakilled by Pyro from any range, in any scenario, for the crime of existing in view of an enemy Pyro.

@CocoHutzpah

Жыл бұрын

@@OGXenos It wasn't that bad. If you used something that couldn't be reflected, it was easy. I had good mileage with the crusaders crossbow

@OGXenos

Жыл бұрын

@@CocoHutzpah If you're just referring to Degreaser and Flare Gun, they've barely been affected together, with the only real overall "nerf" being the airblast fix that stopped it from always shooting somebody in the same direction without accounting for physics. But COMBO Pyro as an overall playstyle at its peak was an absolute menace, it had nothing to do with reflecting. It was 90 damage crit flares and 195 damage Axtinguisher crits that were complete cancer to fight against. You turn a corner: degreaser puff - flare shot, axtinguisher crit. Instant 300 damage in one second. Nobody had fun fighting Pyro. There never was any Degreaser/Flare synergy past the puff and sting. Flare Gun hasn't even been changed once; Degreaser has barely changed. Even though it doesn't have the same universal switch speed boost, TF2's switch speed was buffed across all classes, balancing it out. Other than the point blank puff n sting, Flare Gun was no different on Degreaser than it was on stock, and still isn't. Also the crusaders crossbow can be reflected.

@CocoHutzpah

Жыл бұрын

@@OGXenos the degreaser nerf was reducing the speed of weapon switch and greater air control after an air blast. That's what killed the combo. Pyro is a close range class so of course it's hard to deal with at close range. The point is to not get close. Yes, the crossbow can be reflected, but I've never fought a pyro that reflected one before

I think that ending quote of "Sticking to an identity, first and foremost is more important than any balance you can achieve in the game" can be applied to ourselves as people as well. I think personality wise its more important to stick to who you are as a person than always choosing the optimal way of doing things, because honestly that's how you get personality and not just end up a constantly shifting miasma of bland rightism's. No one wants to be around someone who constantly changes their personality to fit the situation, be who you are and you will find your place.

Very solid points. Do not prioritize balance over fun and character unless the tweak is absolutely essential to the opposing player's enjoyment of the game. S+ take.

Fuck yeah, The Stand is hands down the best novel ever. Just a masterclass in character development. Awesome slow burn and build up. A huge amount of protagonists, which is almost... annoying at first? Cause you'll be really wrapped in one character's predicament, wanting to see how it resolves, you'll turn the page and go "Who the fuck is Frannie? I guess she's a university student? Oh, and she's got an overly strict and judgmental mother... oh wow, how's she gonna handle this situation? I can't believe her dad did that! So then what happens? Wait, who the shit is Larry?" But it's great cause once you're invested in all these characters you watch them navigating the dangers differently, or see them struggling because they don't have the same information as the other characters. The best is when they start running into each other! Best character is Harold. Change my mind.

@silver1340

Жыл бұрын

This reminds me of the way that Douglas Adams, author of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", wrote his books. Introducing lots of seemingly disconnected elements, which are then combined at mid- or end point of the story. Those parts where things form a cohesive whole are cathartic.

@MarkerMurker

Жыл бұрын

I was on a huge Stephen King kick, but I ended up not finishing The Stand around the point of sodomy.

@KingOfOnes

Жыл бұрын

@@MarkerMurker Was this Harold and Nadine, or the part involving The Kid? Hope you didn't move on to IT afterwards.

The way you talk about your favorite Destiny gun reminds me of my own love of the quick fix in tf2. Even though it’s not as strong as stock and is practically useless to use against a kritzkrieg medic, I love it so much since it’s mobility is super fun and it’s fast healing and knock back immunity are Uber are strong in their own ways.

I feel like Centurion in For Honor is the epitome of just ok but insanely fun to play due to his cool animations and bombastic voice lines

I hope to one day see a game with stuff so brokenly OP to the point that everything IS the META

@davisia81791

Жыл бұрын

There already exists a game like that. It's called DOTA.

@chrisestabrooks8197

Жыл бұрын

I'd say battlefield 1

@marcinzysko1653

Жыл бұрын

Heroes of might and magic 3 (kind of)

@Crazy_Diamond_75

Жыл бұрын

Civ 6 did this a lot. About half of the leaders are broken-tier OP, and the rest are at least good or interesting. That made all of them fun as hell.

@supermansuperman3047

Жыл бұрын

Civ 5 does this too, with science/production/culture/gold builds all having their broken strengths and weaknesses and each with their own snowballing potential. Even weaker civs like France and Venice can get genuinely unstoppable positions and win

This is the reason why I love playing the new Darktide. Yeah some of the things need to be balanced out but the game is so fun!

@garvielloken9297

Жыл бұрын

Bar stats 😭

@squidopedia_

Жыл бұрын

My favorite part of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is when John Darktide said "Every Tide has its Dark"

@ICCUWANSIUT

Жыл бұрын

@@garvielloken9297 nah bro bar stats are not bad compared to everything else

@Eskeletor_210

Жыл бұрын

I need my shield as an ogryn

@toast7632

Жыл бұрын

Psyker nerf 😢

Bricky, I love your videos because you have a great screen presence, you're easy to follow, informative, entertaining and fun. It's a light touch (with just enough bad-assery) that makes you extremely watchable. I'm always sad when the video ends. Great work. And congrats on the Best Buy sponsorship! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

HUUUUUUGE props for the Hakan vs Balrog match in the background. Honestly didn't expect such a deep FG refference and it fits perfectly with the point ur makin. Good for u, sir.

Apex Legends has an incredible view of how balance should be handled. A few years back a developer was asked about how they make balancing decisions (Because at the time, there was one character with a significantly larger pick rate than any other), and they mentioned how they dont really do balance in a means of power, but in the means of what they call "Sharpness". Which in his words, was something along the lines of it being the feeling you get when using it VS the feeling you get when someone else uses it on you. They want to balance the frustration around that thing and the excitement that thing brings. The Seer Meta was a massive sign of this. Seer had one of the heaviest nerfs in the history of the game, because his kit was extremely frustrating to deal with, and also did not really feel good to use. Where as Valk's kit felt amazing to use, and was not AS frustrating as Seer until her pickrate was through the roof, so her kit took significantly longer to get nerfed

@JimBobJoeB0b

Жыл бұрын

That’s a very intriguing way to go about it!

Symmetra, oh poor Symmetra. I never played her much but back during my OW days I had this one friend who was a master of every mechanic in the game except for the part where he actually had to shoot the enemy gamers. His mobility was exceptional, his jukes perfect and he could not only perfectly manage his own cooldowns but also predict other people's. He could stall points as Lucio by himself for upwards of 15 seconds, he could keep an entire team alive during a push as Mercy, he could throw the opponent's all over the place as Winston. When he wanted to play DPS however, he playerd Symmetra and oh dear god his Symmetra game was brutal. He'd drop turrets, lock on and begin dodging every attempt the opponent made to kill him. Comboing his playstyle with the fact I was a Roadhog main and another friend played a lot of Zen gave us some crushing team comp where we'd hook someone into a room full of Symmetra turrets, Discord Orb him then watch him melt in milliseconds. Then they completely reworked Symmetra's gun and that friend stopped playing OW entirely by the end of that month.

1. Love your videos and your humor is very unique and highly enjoyable. You definitely have carved out a niche and your 40k videos I watched repeatedly because they make me laugh. 2. I like this video because no one really talks about balancing fun and fairness and you did a great job, keep it up

It's a complicated topic - but I'm happy to hear someone else is watching Dan Olsen's stuff :-D Competitive games generally prioritize balance because the fun is in outplaying. Cooperative games have to be mindful of balance - otherwise you create exclusions for people who want to play what they like even if it's not ideal (FF14 raiding vs WoW raiding, etc). I'm a firm believer that there are plenty of situations where I perform better with a lower tier weapon/character than the one ranked higher because it fits my playstyle better. Or just simply that I have more fun with it - even if I don't win.

"Indirect" Balancing imo will always improve a meta more than just changing number values. Like, yes, those values are important and need to be tweaked now and then, but I agree with your take. A recent game on my mind is Hunt Showdown, they like to nerf weapons by changing their aim ready time, or adjusting animations, changing scope options. That seems better than just "damage down" or "damage up". They still do that stuff, but to a smaller degree. I also pray to the omnissiah that Fatshark can figure out Darktide's balance, because it honestly isn't terrible right now. Just focus on bug fixing and lets go from there once we have all the systems to play with.

@casperaaron5530

Жыл бұрын

hey buddy aim ready time is a number. animation time is a number.

@derbonuspool1274

Жыл бұрын

I'd love for bricky to check out hunt.

My personnal example would be Torbjorn in OW: he used to be a good defensive support, with the role of building a turret to help cover a chunk of the map, and give allies Armor as people die on the battlefield. Now he no longer has the armor mechanic, and his Ult is no longer tied to his turret, so he HAS to be played like a regular soldier with a pet turret. It lost me.

As a ride or die Tyranid player, thank you for saying that shit man. Taking that away from us did not stop bugs from running people over, but it took something pretty cool from us

@AGrumpyPanda

Жыл бұрын

I'm still sad that I never got to play against a swarm Tyranid army back in the day, it was only ever Nidzilla at my local store. I wanted to see my opponent put down three minis for every one of mine ffs

@Somadr0

Жыл бұрын

@@AGrumpyPanda I got a Kraken list that's a little more in line with that now. Practically gives away points for No Prisoners

@AGrumpyPanda

Жыл бұрын

@@Somadr0 I used to play back in 4-6ed, swarm nids would have been a blast to play against in Cities of Death but the circumstance never really arose.

In school for game design, they taught us a concept that Blizzard was really well known for back in the StarCraft days called "Perfect Imbalance". Which seems to be more or less what you're getting at here, except our lessons were a bit more concise.

rember fun is fun but balance is not fun. balance can be fun but if balance leads to a net loss of fun then why even do it.

@El_tomi22

Жыл бұрын

well said

@HinokasArabfan1

Жыл бұрын

This is why I love Bethesda games. Yes. Unironically. I love it when it's broken because I can just break the game up and be overpowered from the get go.

@abbywoodhead2764

Жыл бұрын

​@Siberian ? ok not what i even said. if balance and fair ness are a stronger form of fun to you then you might like chess or mirror match starcraft. yes there are other thing that are fun to diffrent people like game genra or theme but what im geting at is that A dosnt mean B. balance can be fun but it in and of it self isnt fun. it is up to the deloveper to decide whats best some times that nerfing a champ so there less fun but it more blanced and that balance is fun so it a net W or it could be that doing that is a net L. so you should do things that are FUN. if it end up leading to fun or enjoyment or just a good thing then it prob a good move. but just cause you make your game more balanced or made it more wild and unblanced it isnt a good thing out right. so please dont go around calling people toddlers cause you didnt understand what they were saying.

@BlackPeagas

Жыл бұрын

@@abbywoodhead2764 don't you dare disrespect chess. It's quite fun game.

not in a competitive game in a competitive game, balancing should always be the top thing

the "first video standing up bit" has given me a significant amount of insight into Bricky's editing process

The most interesting thing that IMO had complicated things and has sometimes made things worse is that with things like metas and balancing now at the forefront of most gamers' minds, competitive balance and viability is even more at the forefront of devs' minds to the detriment of fun. It's even worse in cases like Overwatch and Halo because with an e-sports scene to tend to, now changes have to take that in mind moreso than "Okay, how do I keep it FUN while also still tuning it to be balanced" and now a lot of multiplayer games just tend to feel so hyper-competitive that it frustrates too much or that weapons and maps are not designed with fun first. I still remember a match with a pre-overhaul Doomfist just kicking our entire team back in a corner and while it's dejecting at the moment, time has made me more appreciative of how *good* that guy was with Doomfist and how much his identity was "Y'all are playing an FPS, I'm playing a fighting game".

I balance every multiplayer game I join as long as the team I join was doing better before I showed up.

Big fan of this one. Definitely got the point across and provided really good examples. Good on ya, Bricko.

I do agree that fun is more important, but at least for me, I have more fun when a game is balanced.

I once saw someone describe fighting game tier lists as being about how easy it is to win with said character than necessarily how strong you are. I feel viewing that thing as "there is a difficulty curve from worst to best" makes everything a lot more interesting. At least it can showcase why people can be attracted to off meta stuff. Unrelated but related; there was a period of time in Tekken 7 balancing (might still be a problem I dunno) where any time a surprise character or off meta character won in a big tournament they'd almost immediately get nerfed in the next balance patch and holy shit I've got so many words to articulate why that's a terrible idea I could run out of space. Keep up the good work Bricky, may we stand evermore.

I would really love a review of Ultrakill from you because it shows exactly what fun over story and balance means

holy shit a fucking bestbuy sponsor thats insane congrats brick

There is one huge point for balance against fun. Like the creator of Civilization said "given the opportunity the players will optimize the fun out of a game". Dead by daylight comes to mind where the most try hard players play in a really unfun way.

Original Aatrox in league of legends was honestly really good, he had a very powerful place in the jungle and keeping the enemy team from advancing, and the neutered that for no good reason

@Deadlychuck84

Жыл бұрын

You mean Riven 2, edgy boi boogalo? Yeah it was pretty unwarranted

I've always had the mindset that fun and balance are not the same thing. Nice to know I'm not alone with that idea. And to explain it, simply put; think of it like a balancing act, fun on one side and balance on the other, go too much one way and it's too much of one and not the other and vice versa. I feel like too many developers focus too heavily on balance for a competitive sake; but frankly put, not everything needs to, or should be competitively balanced. But considering, every game nowadays *must* be competitive I guess this just isn't possible.....

@jagersouji5109

Жыл бұрын

You use this logic to tell Fighting game fans to stop wanting to shove Skill Based Match Making to Casual in COD, they will insult your ass for “ wanting to stomp noobs with no skill “

@ariannadravis3934

Жыл бұрын

@@jagersouji5109 Fighting Game fans? I don't think they specifically are the problem, im one of em' for example..and i can't say most of us are intrested in COD and the like. Fighting Games *do* need it, but i cannot comment on a 3rd Person FPS, so i shall not.

@jagersouji5109

Жыл бұрын

@@ariannadravis3934 YOu should check Twitter people because that is where what I said spawn

On one hand, it can feel unfun, unfair and frustrating when one option is pushed over others, and it feels like it's impossible to win unless you pick that option, or your favorite options are too weak to win in general. On the other hand, finding ways to make your weak thing work and win over the stronger ones is insanely satisfying. I did love the feeling of winning my league games and my lane with a very weak off meta character (or when i was severely counterpicked) because i was playing smarter and felt like i earned it. Yeah, i guess it's unfair that people who like certain options get to be competent with much less effort, but if you happen to be someone who likes putting in that extra effort, it can be fun.

For me my fun that got nerfed was shugoki's insta kill back break in for honor. God knows it was fun trying to time his hyper armour with an opponent's masive damage that took you over the threshold to enable it.

I believe many people have a misconception of what Balance actually means. Here is my take as Game Designer/Class Designer and my philosophy on balance. Let's define what is NOT and what IS Balance. **Let’s define what is NOT Class Balance.** - Homogenization - Mass utility distribution to every class of the same types of utility. *Utility = stuns, snares, roots, interrupts, silences, fear, self-heals, buffs, debuffs and nullifies (lose control of character, hard CC) - Same damage/healing outputs and mitigation input. **Let’s define what IS Balance. (The scale of balance should represent the strength and weaknesses, not the distribution, or solely numbers balance with buffing/nerfing)** - Abilities have specific strengths that are balanced with their specific weaknesses. - The tool kit for every class/role/character are different, no mass utility distribution of the same utility. Includes, ability type, ability power, frequency of ability used, resource cost of ability etc. - Roles of classes/characters have clear strengths and weaknesses opposed to classes that share the same role and have different roles. DPS should have clear strengths and weaknesses, Tanks and Healers or any other core role in the game should share that philosophy. - A class/character is an avatar of a role with a unique thematic tool kit that best represents that classes identity and role.

I think this is less "balance" and more identity. To a shotgun user, a sniper is overpowered. But if you can close the distance, the sniper's at the disadvantage now. In COD MW2, I've been using LMGs. They're definitely not META, their ADS times are too slow to keep up with even assault rifles, let alone SMGs, but man, I can't deny how fun it is to lay down a massive amount of sustained fire. Has gotten me fun kills (especially with Hardcore now in the game). Keep firing, you've got the bullets. Identity is king though. LMGs are balanced weapons. They've got their role, and it is massive suppressive fire. The issue becomes when LMGs have Assault Rifle like handling and ADS times, THEN they become too powerful. There's something that people forget, Balance doesn't mean everything's equal, it just means everything's got its role and purpose, and they have equal strengths and weaknesses. Snipers are powerful 1 shot weapons, but they're clunky, and usually require scopes which limits their close-range abilities. SMGs are bullet hoses, but don't deal damage far out. Everything's in balance when everything has a purpose. Its why the UMP45 was so broken in OG MW2. It outclassed Assault Rifles, while having SMG capabilities. So yes, I agree. Fun before balance, but balance is nice too for everything to have a purpose.

I could not possibly agree more. I totally love this concept, that fun should always come first.

I love that you're talking about an orochi as the boogy man as you face the toe stabbing, light spamming demon that is gladiator

when I played r6 seige a lot my go to characters were the almost always the unconventional ones like the shield operators or snipers like Glaz and kali and the reason I like playing them is that they are so uncommon especially when you are playing with people who only play ranked and play for an imaginary title instead of fun that the majority of players either have basically never played against them or have only played the meta characters for so long they forgot there are ops without an smg or shotgun and my favorite moments were watching sweaty players have zero clue what to do when I walk up to them with clash and taze them with a riot shield for the whole end of the round and they always have the same response something to the effect of "why don't you play a regular op bro your trash" etc. and it was always funny watching the players that talked a ton of trash or were just sweaty as hell have no idea how to respond to a non-meta/ uncommon character

As the first person I comment here today, I demand of you Bricky to go over the Mass Effect series.

I don't know, I feel like fun and balance are basically the same thing, an unbalanced game isn't fun, particularly if its unbalanced against you. There is a line there however between making something challenging or unique, vs something completely balanced. Ideally you would have both and which one is more important I think varies depending on the type of game.

@MouldMadeMind

Жыл бұрын

You like chess?

@spyfire242

Жыл бұрын

@@MouldMadeMind Chess is alright, something about it being a game totally solved by computers however does put me off it.

Total War Warhammer 2 had an issue with hyperbalancing mid-lifecycle. Near the end, the devs realized "Hey, actually making them more extreme and unbalanced is more fun and what Warhammer is about." and the new DLC and Warhammer 3 development has been kind of leaning/understanding that

Hey brickster such a enjoyable video that I wanted to talk about a rework to a character in for honor. In the past there have been characters that I was hesitant to try and learn due to their challenging and different playstyle or "reputation" specifically shinobi in this case i felt like his low health pool small move kit made it too hard but him being able to hold the heavy attack and throw his Sickle was so unique and cool since nobody else in the game could do that. It made him a really fun mosquito in team fights and if you were good and knew the limits of him you could almost always hold your own. I started playing him a lot with my friend right around the news about his rework was coming soon and I had a lot of fun and gained respect for the Shinobi mains out there but ever since the change i can't touch him because it just makes me feel gross with how "just like everyone else" he kinda became.

For me it has to be Talon from League of Legends, I loved playing him pre-rework, I loved his instant E behind target, you could dodge projectiles outplay people and it was super fast. He still has pretty much all skills beside that E, yet I miss it so much and didn't really enjoy playing him since the rework. I remember being so dissapointed that my favorite champ is no longer in the game in a way I enjoyed playing him.

@VinnieSaint

Жыл бұрын

I'm in the same camp as you, but with Kayle (god I miss old Kayle so much you would not believe, it was the objectively superior champion compared to the new Kayle) and Aatrox.

One thing I liked about Leona in LoL was that her Stun Ability could get 45% CD and it would be back up just after the Stun finished by like 0.5 seconds. It allowed for a bit of counter but then they changed her base CD for it to be the same at all levels which is great until you realise you could no longer Perma Stun a Rammus.

@casperaaron5530

Жыл бұрын

Yeah bc believe it or not a champion who can permastun make the game not fun for the person being stunned.

I think Doomfist is the perfect example for what you’re saying. Was he OP? Oh for sure. Without a doubt. Does him being nerfed make my gameplay better? Not being a Doomfist main, that’s one less thing I have to worry about, so I’d say yeah. It made my life easier. Despite that, do I still want them to revert him. 100%, absolutely. Seeing what good players could do with him and his movement was honestly inspirational. I’m a Lucio main, meaning movement is pretty much my whole thing. I never really play DPS, mainly because my aim is shit and I prefer to be a team player, but Doom is one of the only heroes who made me want to pick up a flex DPS. I wholeheartedly sympathize with all the doom mains, who had their pride and joy ripped from them, and replaced by someone that’s barely recognizable as Doom. The countless hours they spent mastering his incredibly unique movement mechanics, trimps especially (idk if that’s the actual name for it, but that’s what a kinda similar mechanic in tf2 is called) that are now rendered pointless makes me so sad. If Lucio’s wallriding was deleted, I would honestly probably stop playing and cry every time I thought about Overwatch. For me, my identity, and Lucio’s identity, is being the guy who’s bouncing off walls dodging and weaving through fire to either grab a nasty pick, or rush to the rescue of a teammate, and being a center of positivity for my team. Doomfist had such a clear and iconic identity, that is all but destroyed now. He used to be THE guy that could fly across the map faster than anyone else, even me sometimes, using his rocket powered fist to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies with just the sound of his punch. But now he’s just some guy with a big fist.

just seeing "A Screaming Cloaker" played the sound in my head and im fight or flight kicked in

It depends, big imbalance leads to less fun.

Fun should also triumph over the grind.

I remember being a scorch main. I used him as long ranged artillery. Works really well

One Thing I love, It's when you can break the game in many aways as possible. It's a Singleplayer exemple, but a game I have a lot of fun is RISK OF RAIN 2, I just love how you can build things in a way that you are so OP that is fun! The game is not easy when you are learning the game for the first time, but as time progresses and you try to do a certain combo or stack an item, most of the times you get something really fun! I love games that give that feel, there are multiplayer games that I die a lot because of a certain OP thing, but when there are other OP things to choose from (Unbalanced game), the game becomes a chaotic or even rational & crazy fun.

Old monster Jax in season 5(?) of League of Legends is probably one of the biggest examples in my mind of something that was really fun and then, it wasn't even a rework, it was a small change that just pulled the wind out of his sails. I lost to monster Jax a lot, but I also dominated as monster Jax so many times, and it wasn't game breaking it was just so much fun.

@battlefuta9953

Жыл бұрын

Fuck this, he was broken as FUCK. And everyone was forsed to suffer to play against him.

Bricky finally speaking what I’ve been thinking for years

In Team Fortress 2, there is Competitive Mode, and there is Medieval Mode. One of these modes restricts the weapon choices, class viability, and forces a strange feel onto the happy-go-lucky TF2. The other is a gamemode that has only ONE map, and despite neutering Pyro and Engie, they both find their weird place despite being the worst off in the gamemode. The Pyro's weapons let him do a variety of things, being a slightly-slower but tougher scout, or dealing fire damage with the Volcano Fragment. The Engie may have lost his buildings, but Engie's Gunslinger lets him be tankier and gets critical hits every 3rd consecutive hit on an enemy, the Southern Hospitality gives his attacks bleed damage, and the Jag lets him hit faster. The Area-denial Demoman becomes the Demoknight, the bread-and-butter DPS in Medieval Mode combat, with a lot of combos and weapons to choose from. The DPS Soldier turns into a support character, using their melee and horn weapons to modify how they help their team (Half-Zatochi + any Banner lets you get instant stat boosts for you and your team if you kill an enemy holding a Half-Zatochi, because the Banner is charged through damage and the Half-Zatochi insta-kills any enemy Soldier or Demoman who's holding them, instantly charging your banner). The Heavy, Medic, Scout, Sniper and Spy don't change too much, but their equipment gives them a lot to play with despite them being deprived of firearms. The Heavy has his sandviches to buff himself, heal allies, and health to keep him up front and bulwarking incoming attacks. The Scout can equip different baseball bats, a couple of which let him have ranged attacks (basically everybody gives him a cleaver in this mode). The Medic does his best with the Crusader's Crossbow, firing into crowds and hoping to heal allies and hurt enemies, and his saws let him take up combat roles when people get close. The Sniper's kit is just the Huntsman, but his backpacks and machetes let him change up his playstyle (Sniper VS Sniper goes Leatherback, because of fire-arrows, closer-range confrontation is best with the Cozy-Camper's passive heal, the Razorback forces Spies to butterknife him). The Spy effectively is forced into a situation where there isn't going to be any fancy trickstabs, just because everybody is crashing into each other at high velocity and expecting to get stabbed in one way or another, so his knife selection becomes much more important and Spy players effectively need to hyperfocus on their infiltration and timing skill. HOWEVER, TF2 is balanced along the 6v6 competitive mode, where the class selection is effectively down to 4/9 classes, and if any of the classes outside of that small number shines too brightly in ANY regard, it gets spayed and thrown into the streets to die like a stray cat. And also no random crits, so overextending isn't punished.

This was actually a buff rather than a nerf, but the Death Guard moving from 8th Edition to 9th had a rule called "Disgustingly Resilient" changed from providing a 5+ Feel No Pain, (roll a dice after you failed a save for each point of damage, each 5+ you ignore 1 point of damage) to providing a flat -1 damage (to a minimum of 1). Statistically this ended up being a buff (they added a TON of Damage 2 weapons) but it felt like it really gutted what the Death Guard was about. We couldn't get insanely lucky and shrug off a TON of damage, and while it was a buff, it doesnt feel as good to just subtract one from the damage. Not to mention everyone and their mother has a -1 to incoming damage nowadays.

Damn I’m early but facts I’d rather play an unbalanced fun game than a boring balanced game

I think the stuff you just talked about mirrors my experience with Mario Kart perfectly. I really like Mario Kart 8, but i don't think any ammount of tracks, characters or items will ever make me like it as much as the completely unbalanced yet stupidly fun Mario Kart DS and Wii, those are so fun BECAUSE of how unbalanced they are.

@madmonty4761

Жыл бұрын

Mk8 aint balanced

@lucasdellamaggiore

Жыл бұрын

@@madmonty4761 Compared to every other Mario Kart, it is

I remember when I played TitanFall2 back in the day, that I would pick bad weapons on purpose as a way to force improvement. Like a Training-by-fire kind of thing.

The Care package/crafting rotation in Apex Legends I think is a great stroke of genius to subtly enforce a switch up of playstyle and weapon choice since every season its possible your favourite gun would be out of the loot pool, and you would have to go out of your way to use it. It's a decent way to destabilise metas.

I maintain that while balance is important, you never have to get it perfect. You actually want your game to be a bit imbalanced here and there, because it creates more interesting choices for your players.

Watched it on Asmons ytb and wanted to repost my comment here, since I thought this was a great video: Man this video hits close to home - I have abt 3.5k on Doomfist in OW1 and I've been gm/t500 since s10. His unique game-play and the reward you would get out of his mastery was so satisfying and the main reason why I kept grinding the game. I was first concerned, but still intended to play him, whenever they announced Tank Doom would be a thing, but him just being complete dog tier at launch and lowering his skill ceiling by killing most intriguing techs us doom players would learn made it really demotivating for me to play. Which makes me really envious, since the majority of people are convinced (including me) that ow2 is a better game overall. I stopped playing during my climb at m1/low gm mmr, because I had enough of the unrewarding gameplay and cancerous community flaming you 24/7 for playing him. I played doom in all the metas at high elo in the past ,no matter the meta, I played it and even back then he was was dogshit in most metas and yet he still had something that made it fun and rewarding to play him , but yes while dooms gameplay is still unique it just didn't keep the fun that made me fall in love with him in ow1. And I know I'm not alone, ik so many OG doom players and high elo dooms and they eighter quit, or play diff characters. - Most who still grind the hero are streamers who probably would've quit the game/hero too if they didn't stream in the first place. :(

Team Fortress 2 is actually the epitome of this topic, especially when Valve was planning on it being more competitive (tough break, meat your match, etc). A decent amount of the weapons in the game serve a lot of interesting stats and fun gimmicks even though some were REALLY broken and yes deserve a tweak. The common route stuff got fixed was simple: NERF IT INTO THE DIRT. Sadly much of the nerfed weapons lose what made them so unique. A great example of this was the Sandman bat for scout. Sure, stunning is a stupid mechanic in a fast paced fps(stun locking ubered enemies like....wtf why even) however nerfing it so it slightly slows you on hit(heavy's default speed) + can easily escape the effect with a movement exploit = boringly impractical. Also the range the baseball hits a target effected the time of stun would be in effect; this is still the case for the time of the slow and but NOT the speed itself....making it pointless against heavy players. 🤦‍♂

12:46 The original Galio and Nunu! I quit League a couple years ago, but I will come back to the game if they revert one of them. I'm not even kidding. I LOVED those two champs. I get why they had to be reworked, but I still miss them.

Another good example of Fun for me would be Lawbringer in For Honor, weak in gameplay, but character himself was fucking great

I play a tonne of magic the gathering commander. Having an over powder deck at the table become arch enemy is so much fun for both the pilot and the 4 people trying to stop them from winning while working to take a win for themselves. I run an incredibly toxic arvinox deck that aims to steal all my opponents things and man the fun is unreal

I used to main Mordekaiser during S1-3 'cause of how his old identity was basically "aggressive AoE turret pusher/teamfighter", and though I understand his rework, I haven't gotten into him since, and I loved his style, aesthetic, and bloodmage mechanics, the third of which is no longer there or at least to the same extent if it is at all. I had also speclalised as a support in subsequent seasons, so I never really got the chance to get used to his reworked version either. On the flipside, Swain was someone whose old and reworked versions were both awesome, and the new voice lines and VA also helped to solidify his identity. Also randomly, Ornn was a character I always found to be cool but impractical, but now I main him (yes, as a support: his kit gives everything you want in a tank support and then some) 'cause I recently tried him out and I took to him immediately, and he's the most fun I've had in League in years; I never really had champions I picked often since I got bored of Zilean a few years back.

I used to play Final Fantasy XIV. I mained a class, called "Samurai." The class was fun as heck. The devs removed the class' fun button; they removed what fundamentally made the class fun to begin with, for the sake of, not even _CURRENT_ balance, but issues that _MAY_ arise in the future. I'm still bitter against the devs tbh.

they did change the firebase glacier map though. the moneymaker thing about it was not that the geth were easiest but that there was one spot at the back of it where the geth faction specifically was not able to spawn in a location where they could approach you from the back or sides, paired with the fact that you could pull approaching enemies over the cover to one-shot them and that the only elite enemy was a small threat that could neather teleport nor just turn up randomly behind you and one shot you. this was fixed by adding a part in the back of the map where enemies could spawn rendering the tactic void.

I had an idea for a fps game that has a huge amount of weapons that are just plain crazy. Examples include: -toaster launcher (not toast launcher) -pistol on a stick -music gun (not original, still cool) -deadly hugs -cardboard gun (even better if it has mouth-made pew pew sounds)

When I think of something that got a rework that I hate I think of the panic attack in tf2. The panic attack was by far my favorite shotgun for memes, and while I still use it, it's nothing like the old panic attack and I miss it

Bricky as a avid member of the FGC you fill my heart with joy when you make references and memes to any fighting game. Also fantastic video as always. I love hearing people complain 🤣

I personally thought of team fortress 2 when you mentioned the fun factor and sudden changes to X. One weapon, called the panic attack, used to work by starting with 0 bullets in the clip, and when you held mouse 1 you would load said clip until you had 4 rounds. The bullets would stay loaded until you let go of your primary fire button, and you would unleash bullets onto enemy gamers, but sadly this was changed a long time ago. Now the panic attack can hold up to 6 rounds and fires like a normal shotgun, losing the identity that made it an original concept in the first place. I really enjoyed the old panic attack and even if it was a gimmick, which tf2 is filled with, it was a fun one and I hope that some day valve will decide to update the game again.

My example is very specific, but it applies to D&D. And in the game as you level up, you can eventually pick up Feats if you DM allows them. They're like Perks you can take at certain times for your character to customize them a bit more and make them stand out and more unique. There is one called Medium Armor Master which is one of my personal favourites. Without getting hugely into the meta game, this feat allows you to have a higher armour class (the score that determines how hard you are to hit) while wearing medium armour, thus making you harder to hit, but it also allows you to be more stealthy with medium armour (as most medium armour makes it harder to stealth). While not the most powerful Feat, with the right stats it can allow you have the same armour class as someone in the best heavy armour you can buy, but without any of the disadvantages. So maybe not the most balanced, it is a very fun feat. Recently the company that publishes the official books has been revealing their playtest material for the future of D&D, including some revised Feats. Some have been changed for the better to make them more viable, but unfortunately some have been hit with some unnecessary nerfs, and Medium Armour Master was one of them. They aren't the final versions of the Feats for this new direction of D&D, it's basically just to test the waters, but I think it's a prime example of them prioritizing balance over fun in this instance because it took away one of the things that made the original version of the Feat so much fun.

titanfall is the game where you progressed to get dumb guns instead of better guns and thats why i loved it. that one dude in every lobby with the kraber missing all their shots, i fucking love you

There is one thing to consider. Balance in PvP and PvE games are totally different beast. Bad balance on PvP negates the fun,especially in fighting games, nobody enjoys seeing the same characters because is objectively the best character in the entire game, balance in a pvp can negate fun. For example, For Honor, Shugoki at launch was the most boring thing to fight. Warmonger at launch straight up made TWO GAME MODES impossible to play due her powers. Then, it was Pirate, then Conqueror, etc. After that is the other side, Jormungandr is getting an entire character rework due how bad it is nowadays, he is literally the only E tier in the game. In PvE games, it adds to the fun, from the dumb crap you can do. Like in Payday 2

I think the issue at hand is that fewer companies are willing to let their metas develop organically due to eSports and perceived need to be a viable product. League is the quintessential example for this. The meta for League was unrecognizable at the start of its lifespan, with ACD middle, bruiser and tank at bottom, with mage and your 5th at top. Then people figured out jungle was possible with a few champions and it became a risk/reward strategy to single lane against two in order to get the extra farm. Then it was figured out that it was better to send ACD bottom with a champion that needed less gold or could help that ACD fight the lane for kills. And then RIOT got involved... Champions began to fit nicely into the five determined roles, instructional videos came out on how you should play those champions in those five designated roles, matchmaking came out and encouraged taking those specific roles, items became tailored to those roles. There's been some positive pushes over the years (damage diversity across the roles) but we've also seen a lot of champions get stripped of their identities because they don't fit into five neat little boxes that RIOT has deemed the acceptable meta. They get changed because they're problems instead of waiting in the wings for a champion or game mode release that brings their skillset to the forefront of the meta. It's now trickled down into its predecessors for the worse and has now polluted a lot of games that aren't even in its genre. Game devs need to start taking a step back and realize they shouldn't determine the metas, the communities should. Because the communities are also the ones responsible for finding out the counters and shifting the metas to cycle based on who's the strongest.

I remember years ago in original WoW Burning Crusade having a ton of fun as a Feral Druid; I could do my tanking in dungeons and raids and cat dps in solo pve or pvp - or even switch when needed. It was core to being a feral druid, it's what made it fun. But then other tanks complained that they couldn't do the same and it wasn't balanced and I ended up never playing my druid again - the reason I played the class just wasn't there anymore. Afaik (haven't played in ages) they still keep cat and bear specs seperate now.

I love this video and it reminds me of my time playing R6 Siege so much. I LOVED playing the weird and mediocre characters in that game, the fact that it had a character so bad you got PRAISED for picking them. But I was a Fuze main, was he the best? no he was fat and had an ability that was sometimes infuriatingly unreliable to use. However, using him was satisfying as hell, no one else could give you the dopamine high when you pulled the trigger on his special and heard half the enemy time audibly panicking at the sound. Queue into Titanfall 2 I used some aggressively terrible weapons in the form of the softball and the micro-rocket-thing (no idea the name). Effective? hell no, fun? hell yes. And you could have a satisfying chuckle when the stim-car players got mad at you in all chat for using an explosive weapon.

Congrats on the sponsorship But also i like the standing setup, although now I'm wondering if bricky can make the setup work in a way where he can pace or use his hands to emphasise an point to more things all over would be interesting

I don't how long it's been since you played DBD, Bricky, but Hillbilly was the first thing I thought of when I realised what this video was about. Nerf after nerf after nerf, hardly any of them actually being necessary, and they turned what was once one of the most fun killers for BOTH sides into the lowest pickrate killer in the game.

Balance and fun are one of those *balances* that are hard to land. It made me think about Dota2's Techies. Pre-patch he was a defensve ambusher, laying mines to take you out unawares. Imagine Teemo without the poison and but with bigger bombs. He made games take 20-40 minutes longer, so potent was his defensive ability. Post-patch he has maintained that essence of being a demolition mines guys, but is fun to play and far more fun to play against, as he is a hero that can participate in fights and cannot stall the game out anymore

Reminds me of a dev response from Ghostcrawler (iir) in response to World of Roguecraft (early days WoW when rogues were insane) "when you are having fun, other people arnt'. Very hard to manage

12:46 Ah yes, this one stings still because of how recent it was. So in League (I know I know, what a twist) there was a bit of a change to how much recovery healing did. Now I would normally play a funny little champion called Mordekaiser. Mordekaiser was a bit of a tank, a bit of a duelist, and mostly used Ability Power in a mostly Auto Attack lane. Well his W was a bit of a funky ability as unlocking it gave you a bar under your healthbar (And it scales with your health), when casting this ability it gives you a shield that lasts for a few seconds with the amount of shield depending on how full the bar is, and if you press it again you sac the shield and heal for a portion of that shield. There was also a mythic item (a build defining item, you can only have one mythic item on you) called Moonstone Renewer that, for the most part, gave you bigger Shields and Heals. well due to the healing changes, this playstyle kinda got gimped.