Linus Rage Quits

[@NavyDood21]

I have run into games that felt unfair, because the enemies I was fighting didnt have to obey the same basic combat rules I did. That is when A game stops being fun for me. If the only way to make it harder is for the enemies to "cheat" then it doesnt seem like good design to me.

[@Qardo]

Well, old days. Devs would do that. Heck, even in a lot of modern games, the Devs do that. More so in RTSs. All because they just can't get the AI to function like a human being. Without causing the game itself to be bloated to the point. You need a literal server to play the game. That is with ONE AI opponent. Meanwhile, in older games. It was a cost saving measure on space. Cause they could only fit a game in a tiny amount of memory (compared to today's sizes). So they would just cut out a lot of stuff that the player has to follow with the AI. Thus, the AI would be able to spam Super Nova XXIV 30 times in a row. When that same move costs pretty much all your mana if your party attempts to cast it. These days. Well, being these are old school JRPG makers that made this game. Likely habits they never unlearned. Likely, they hadn't made a game since the last game. They had been a project lead. Project leads don't necessarily do the grunt work. They oversee and hopefully maintain a level of quality the company is known for and wants. So yeah.

[@kalfu5194]

@@Qardo that's its a lot of insight i wouldn't even imagine if you didn't brought it up, thank you for that

[@lw8882]

This is my biggest problem with the total war series. AI that gets free armies, doesn't have to deal with attrition mechanics that the player does, has no fog of war, and destroys infrastructure buildings but makes more money than you do. Combine that with the fact that battle AI in those games is atrocious and I think Creative Assembly just aren't that good with making AI, really.

[@alicec2033]

Dust for Fallout New Vegas lol. Bullets are treated as extremely scarce and deadly, but enemies still go full Rambo at you and drop like 0-2 bullets on death. I love Dust and I get that my gripe is down to engine limitations, but the fact enemies don't play by the same rules is still annoying nonetheless.

[@supremecai5857]

*looks at GOTY this year* (I 100% it don't try and @ me about difficulty, its still shit design)

[@RadicalEdwardStudios]

"Hard", in the context of a game boss, should mean that there's an element of skill, or planning, or context awareness. It should not mean that you have to suffer until you get lucky. I also dislike puzzle formats where the only way to solve it, rather than skill, is brute force time and repetition. At that point, I'm no longer playing the game. I'm working on a problem I have to solve to get back to playing the game.

[@cornonjacob]

Not a boss game but candy crush is the exact same way, except it's even worse bc it becomes p2w. There are some levels where it's essentially impossible to do with the base number of moves unless you get like 5 combos of power ups going off and actually hitting what you need every single turn. It becomes super clear that you're forced to use extra items and pay for more moves to have any chance of winning. The only reason these levels didn't make me delete the game sooner was that it's not too hard to earn the in game currency and those power ups for free, but I'd prefer to save them for when I almost beat a level and am too lazy to retry it

[@mattymerr701]

Brute force is the opposite of a puzzle, it is looked down upon to make a puzzle that needs brute forcing instead of strategy. Brute forcing is just brute forcing, plain and simple.

[@rya3190]

I feel a boss should be able to be beaten with most strategies, but have a most optimal. Arriving with water armor for the fire boss should make it easier, but you could just as well walk in naked and beat him with your bare hands...even if he can one shot you. The point is you can.

[@helplmchoking]

@@cornonjacob I'm not trying to disagree with you but it's actually way worse than that in lots of those match 3 cash grabs/games because not only do some levels basically require special paid items but whether the "luck" of the supposed RNG gives you good colours is entirely predetermined, they will deliberately give you a few easy wins if you haven't played in a while then lock down the rng of the little gems so you literally can't win after a while to push you into spending cash. That's not a difficulty thing, those games lose all their (limited) shine when you realise they're basically scratch cards. They look like puzzles but your skill isn't what determines whether you pass a level or not, it's decided before the level even loads

[@AB-80X]

Puzzle solving is part of some games, and especially back in the day, games were a lot less about instant gratification.

[@stevenarvizu3602]

I actually downloaded that game based on Linus’ recommendation and I also stopped because there was certain points where you can’t level anything up or improve anything about your character, you HAVE to fight a boss, but I sucked at the game and also the moves are RNG so it’s not like I could memorize attack patterns or anything. And there weren’t any guides at the time so I was just stuck and I just deleted it later lol

[@MizzeN_]

Well great more space on your harddrive :)

[@Succer]

​@@MizzeN_Nice profile pic

[@Warhammerdude299]

Oh man. Bosses getting two actions in a row is EXACTLY what makes the DS remake of FFIII so teeth grindingly hard. The fact that it can just choose to do two major spell AoE attacks and wipe most if not all of your party. Medusa in particular is an unforgiving nightmare, as well as the bloody rat in the temple when you're shrunk down. The Pixel Remaster is so much better in terms of balance.

[@thekingofpotatoes1932]

I had no idea that it was a DS specific problem, I might actually replay the game at some point now lmao

[@Warhammerdude299]

@@thekingofpotatoes1932 To clarify, essentially every port of that version has the exact same problems (Mobile, PC). I forgot to mention the game punishing you for changing jobs, having to spend several battles kneecapped before being considered at job level 1. Especially when there are certain parts of the game that require certain jobs that there is the very real possibility you would have no reason to touch before hand. The Pixel Remaster version is definitely what you want to check out. It makes for a very fun NES era gaming experience with a bunch of creature comforts added in.

[@camilofuentes7056]

I am still mad at the fact that I played that game on my ds and my girlfriend at the time played it on her psp, she finished it and I could never beat the final boss because it was so goddamn hard, I grinded for like 15 hours at the final tower(that tall cristal tower at the end) and I didn't even had the chance to beat the boss. my girlfriend teased me so long after that, I was salty. really good memories, but not because the game was fun

[@thekingofpotatoes1932]

@@camilofuentes7056 THANK YOU IM NOT ALONE, I managed to beat medusa and the giant rat fine, but that final boss took so much grinding that I almost dropped the game over it lmao

[@eddythefool]

I don't know. I don't consider that being so bad since I essentially get four attacks and four health bars while most bosses only get one health bar. My only problem with the DS FF3 was that Phoenix Downs were a finite item unless you stole them from a cockatrice or eagle, can't remember which one. The item duplication glitch helped balance that out though and also gave me infinite elixirs. I made it a point to always finish fights with all my characters alive, which meant when i beat the final boss i had to reset my game because one character got killed by the boss' last attack.

[@lukebrown2674]

Favorite final boss was xenogears. The final boss had 4 to 6 mini bosses around it that are all hard in their own right, and each will give the actual boss an ability, but you are basically not able to heal between the fights. It's also on a time limit that is very reasonable to finish the fight, but you cannot just stall out

[@mushi_k]

THIS. I gave up and never saw to its completion because i couldn’t go back out to grind anymore. Sigh, just jrpg things.

[@paulcarmi8130]

Best final boss was Mario Luigi partners in time lmao

[@benkentucky4380]

In Ni No Kuni, a light-hearted game I played with my partner that otherwise had inexcusably difficult gamey mechanics, there's a double-resurrection item whose casting animation time is literally longer than the Boss' attack cooldown. So using this item *ever* is just a trap to ruin your run. It's worse than useless, as soon as you cast it you're dead.

[@pietroalessandrini]

I remember not being able to defeat the steam tank pig because I did like 5 dmg each attack. Still one of my favourite games though

[@Atomy111]

Ni no kuni isn't really difficult it's just EXTREMELY grindy

[@benkentucky4380]

@@Atomy111 Yeah that's fair, it's only difficult because of poor balancing creating random pitfalls and huge spikes. There's that one ice cave where you can be RNG'd by a random encounter where 3 enemies chain-cast huge AOEs before you can issue a single command. Huge waste of healing items.

[@0neWhoKnocks]

I tried out Ni No Kuni when it went on gamepass awhile back, genuinely really enjoyed the game, but the random spikes killed it for me.

[@m.f.3347]

The area where you're in the dark valley with branching paths was such BS in that game

[@voggers2593]

This is why I feel like From Software perfected difficult boss design with the souls series. They give you an extremely strong mechanic - the dodge - that makes you temporarily invincible and lets you avoid anything. Because of this you can beat any boss, at any level, depending on how skillfully you can make use of this mechanic. All character progression does is make the game easier, but beating the game is certainly possible regardless. Even though souls games are known for their difficult boss fights, every one of them is fair.

[@lathrin]

Difficult? Not really in the grand scheme of things, but challenging, yes. With the Souls games, it's meant to be as fair as possible. The enemies are all designed with the absolute lowest character level possible, so even on SL1 runs you can have a good time. But of course now they're kinda throwing it out the window with Elden Ring, which sacrifices fairness with unfair BS spam

[@quaser6029]

@@lathrin def think for anyone who started souls esp with like ds3 instead of 1 or 2 will find its difficult more than challenging just because bosses movesets were perfected by that time and i disagree with the elden ring take you can still do the game at lower lvls if you get gud 4hed

[@arconreef]

Lol. I think we have very different definitions of "fair". I don't think any boss that requires pre-existing knowledge of phases and attack animations to beat could be reasonably called fair.

[@quaser6029]

@@arconreef you dont need that for any boss in any of the soulsbourn series if people needed pre existing knowledge then how the fuck do you kill the boss first its called figuring it out i did blind playthroughs of every soulsbourn game and i didnt need any pre existing knowledge its called get gud and just progress a boss

[@arconreef]

​@@quaser6029 Bro, you're actually delusional. How are you gonna tell me Dark Souls is fair when the Capra Demon exists? Also, you didn't understand what I was saying at all. Every time you fight a boss, you gain knowledge about it's attack patterns, phases, animations, etc. That's what I meant by pre-existing knowledge. If a boss is designed with the expectation that players will not be able to beat it on their first attempt (at the intended level) because the boss has cheap moves that require a very specific strategy to beat, that's not fair game design. Imagine playing a board game where everyone but you knows the rules. That's what it's like to go up against a Dark Souls boss for the first time. It's the actual definition of unfair. To be clear, unfair doesn't necessarily mean it's not fun. Many people enjoy playing From Software games, so clearly they're doing something right. But "fair" is not an accurate description.

[@CompletelyNormal]

Last time I rage quit was a game that had crashed for the third or fourth time, and I decided the game wasn't good enough to justify the inconvenience. Usually boredom is more of an incentive to quit a game than anger.

[@jordanolson11]

gaming has been ravaged by the industry lol.

[@custos3249]

It's almost like there are consequences to running talent out of businesses/industries, since, evidently, "everyone" is replaceable. Except the CEO and upper management, strangely. Nah, that couldn't possibly be where the issue lies.

[@flamedarkflare]

Mad because bad

[@tnpcook]

Make interesting experiences and you can sell entertainment. Regrettably, it's easier to design a systematic that doesn't invoke anything in the audience. Hopefully more entities start to prefer selling entertainment, so we can get experiences unburdened by things that don't support them.

[@jeffl5253]

Reminds me of a certain boss in octopath where it could summon 2 minions, deal aoe dmg, and stun a character for 3 turns.... All in one sequence of turns

[@cybercv05]

Isn't that the pirate?

[@jeffl5253]

​@@cybercv05 The pirate was pretty tame compared to the one I'm referencing but it is close to the pirate ship, The boss I'm referencing is the Leviathan, It summon a couple minions that would lock down 1 of it's weaknesses, and it would get 3 turns per set.

[@kumble2687]

@@jeffl5253 on 2 there is one early on too, which is just maddening, he has a phase in which he just spams attacks in 3 to even 4 waves before you can heal up, its insanse

[@Sp4ceG04t]

Octopath has answers to that boss (dancer) super mage and super healer.

[@SwarmofAngryBees]

Use Tressa.

[@Cimlite]

We're squarely back into the idea of business model leads, and game design follows. It's no different than how it was back in the 80ies where games were designed wholly around the arcade and eating up as many quarters as possible.

[@DEMENTO01]

at least back then there were clever design mechanics and it wasnt just obviously unbalanced and completely over the top

[@Cimlite]

@@DEMENTO01 I don't know about that, there was a lot of games back then that were pretty horrendous. Stuff like Ghost 'n Goblins or Gauntlet. People love those games today because of the challenge they provided, but they weren't even meant to be finished, ever. They were designed around making money, and that's it. Wasn't all that clever to be honest.

[@lunchtreyy]

@@DEMENTO01 Nah many Arcade-NES-SNES era games were just straight up unfair.

[@stitchfinger7678]

@@DEMENTO01 Play Monster Party on NES and tell me that with a straight face.

[@marcelroodt]

It's possible that these kinds of "unfun" aspects could be due to the fact that JRPG mechanics are almost ubiquitous at this point. For every amazing and balanced JRPG, there are several that just crank it up to 11 and assume players will already be familiar with how to deal with it.

[@rubidium1948]

Blatant enemy cheating and odds completely skewed against you doesn’t seem to be a problem when people know exactly what they’re signing up for, such as SMT, which is obviously more niche. Going for a more widespread audience with that kind of “nonsense” normal to JRPGs definitely seems to be a turn-off for people, though.

[@helplmchoking]

@@rubidium1948 I think there's a good reason Persona has completely eclipsed SMT for popularity, though, despite being technically a spinoff series - it's way less grindy and the player gets a bunch of "cheaty" feeling options the enemies just don't get with the attack chaining and extra turns etc. that it evens out. The enemies get special tactics you don't have but you get your own set of tools as well to balance it

[@surfn-]

I remember rage quitting Fallout 3 on PS3. I had reached a point in the game where I could acquire a set of power armor, but every time I took the armor, the game crashed. Without fail I tried to get this armor with variations in my approach and it crashed and crashed and crashed. "F**k this, I'm out"

[@Dorumin]

That's hilarious and sad, I completely believe FO3 crashing always on some random shit. It's still my favorite fallout and it's not even that difficult, but the instability without fix mods is a pain

[@j377yb33n]

Fo3 is a lead water tank suspended 20ft in the air with nothing but reject hockey sticks, jute string and gum. It's great when it holds, but the fact there's a hidden 'code' to reset the physics so the game won't crawl to a halt at 100hrs is really telling

[@Idlepit2]

Haven't played FO3 for years so my memory isn't that fresh but I don't remember having issues on xbox

[@j377yb33n]

@@Idlepit2 depends on the disk or save corruption iirc. There was always one area I couldn't go to without the game locking up, swapped to a friends disk and it was fine, there was no redundancy for failed sectors

[@lupolinar]

All Bethesda games had these problems on the PS3. I remember NV and Skyrim crashing randomly while entering buildings and only disabeling autosave while entering would minimize this.

[@UnknowinglyDerpy]

This is also where my limit is in terms of mobile games where the answer to the boss is either the wall of grind you have to do, or like just one strategy that is viable with the boss and you happened to have invested in a different way to play all together basically making the effort i put in trying to learn the nuances of this playstyle a moot point. On PC/Console i can deal with it but mobile games, mobile, i only play them while I’m on the go and if this BS comes along id rather just save my anger for something else

[@DredlyLB]

As I've gotten older, and my time to game has diminished due to work / family etc, I've really discovered that I just have so little patience to play games that have a mechanic that is just not enjoyable that I just drop it. This isn't like the 90's where you couldn't just pick up another game and move on... also if I can't save anywhere and quit, I'm just not playing.

[@mattymerr701]

Yep, grinding is just not fun. Busywork is boring. I don't get how people can enjoy that stuff

[@SammyNail]

@@mattymerr701 the grind is why i dont play monster hunter

[@rfv618]

This here is why I stopped gaming altogether. Also the cost of entry for something like a first party Nintendo game is just too much for the number of minutes I have in a day to play

[@kazaakas]

Loved when Luke chimed in about FTL. What a wonderful game. Been playing for years. Still have a few ships left to beat the game with! Regarding balancing, it has lots of viable ways to beat the game, but since the Advanced Edition, it's so likely you'll be able to get Flak I and Hacking, which makes it a little bit too easy.

[@Mastealth]

A great game similar to FTL is Barotrauma, its a submarine game with similar gameplay but does its own unique twist on the concept.

[@KevanWalter]

You know, part of the reason I think you get so many pixel art/old school indie RPGs is the fact they are comparatively easy to make. Like Chained Echos was put together by one dude. I don't wanna diminish the work he did or the value of the game because it's absolutely fantastic but it's still probably far easier to put together than say a competently built full 3d looter shooter. Hell, we had RPG maker ages ago, and it worked pretty well for an over two decades old building game.

[@Kitteh.B]

Not diminishing at all! A low barrier to entry is a low barrier to entry. That comes with pros and cons. We are games like Stardew because of that! But then we have the thousands of spam games on steam, too lol

[@frozenbean]

The amount of effort is always relative. If you're doing everything yourself, and not using asset packs or anything, it's still very difficult - art, programming, qa, marketing, customer service, etc. It's unfair to compare a game built by a team of people with steady funding (aka a typical studio made 3d looter shooter) vs a single person working on their own with far less money. It's comparing apples to cinderblocks.

[@raka1996]

Then there is one absolute madman, who coded a game in Assembly, and it's a banger

[@ebmusicman84]

This conversation reminds me of a philosophy I see a lot in minecraft modding. A lot of minecraft modders don't know the difference between making something harder and making something just grindier, which is really frustrating.

[@SirNarax]

Ironically they tend to do both in my experience. Minecraft is not a great game for fighting and not many people play it expecting a challenge so when mod makers decide they want to make mobs that are much stronger than anything in vanilla it is a bad experience.

[@MikeIsCannonFodder]

I like to figure things out to a point. When the fight isn't fun anymore I'd rather cheese like mad and move on in the story, which I think is the important part anyway.

[@michaelbradley14]

I started playing Chained Echoed a few days ago, an RPG that came out December 2022 in the style of FF6 / Chrono Trigger with a story similar to FF Tactics. As someone who is always looking for a game that can capture the SNES JRPG magic I think this is a game Linus should play. It’s available on Steam and Switch, if you are a fan of old school RPGs or modern indie games inspired by them (Cross Code etc) it’s a must play

[@spk._]

It would be a cool mechanic if the barrier was linked and you wanted a bigger number of minions so you could AOE down the barrier faster, so it became a minion management fight

[@TheDoppelganker]

Linus should try to play Chained Echoes. At least i think he will like it based on his descriptions.

[@darcevader7012]

I thought exactly this, sounds like he was describing this game instead. I'm playing it through the xbox app via streaming through my TV (beta? not streaming from PC). I get a lot of graphical artifacts from time to time that are quite bothersome, but that could be mitigated by downloading and playing on the PC instead.

[@TheDoppelganker]

@@darcevader7012 i don't think he will have any issues with his setup. I played through steam and it was flawless.

[@Aljeron100]

@@darcevader7012 Weirdly enough same! I was like oh no what was wrong with Chained Echoes? Then he said Apple Arcade and I was like oh nvm.

[@xmen123ist]

FTL's so ridiculously addiictive, my god. I have abouut 400 hours, and got ~70% of the Steam Achievements without even trying too hard for them, but there's so much I have to explore still. More spaceships, more random events to discover, more tactics....and this isn't mentioning the mods!

[@JellySword8]

Been playing it recently and I can't believe how much I love it, I wish I played it sooner. The difficulty is so perfect too, people say it's really hard but honestly it's pretty fair and easy when you know what you're doing. Edit: Seeing Luke bring up FTL filled me with joy

[@maxxyang3723]

I love FTL but I feel like a majority of the ships are tedious to play. Engi ship is my all-time favorite easily

[@JellySword8]

@@maxxyang3723 lol I've literally just been playing the kestrel only. I did try other ships but only very briefly. I wanna get a hardmode win before I experiment with other ships.

[@markk9530]

700 hours here...guess it's time to download ftl again...

[@tinyrobot7443]

The "You're dead in 10 seconds" is fun as long as you or your group can do something about it. In ESO e.g. in one of the raids (Sanctum Ophidea) the end boss has a mechanic where he targets you, and then you have 10 Seconds to get your magicka (mana) as low as possible, and at the end if you get low enough they will recharge 30% magicka or (if you didn't get low enough) it will deal 3 times your current magicka as damage. This is super fun because it is POSSIBLE (not necessarily easy) to get rid of your magicka quickly, and basically tells you "Hey, here is another thing to take care of, and IF YOU DON'T you're dead in 10 seconds" rather than telling you "you're dead in 10 seconds".

[@Gamerboi99]

All this time later, and Fantasian Neo Dimension gets announced, bringing the game to all the platforms with 4k support and a new difficulty option, to make the game more approachable.

[@cammogamer8391]

I think in this case it has been forgotten that all JRPGs are based from dragon quest. Also with the popular explosion of octopath traveler and bravery default has made the hour long boss normal which personally that's too long. But everything explained in this video is literally the experience of any dragon quest game I've played especially dq 7 for PlayStation.

[@jGRite]

I like the parallels between the difficulty of this boss, and building a computer for someone that can't troubleshoot on their own. One is possible to do with enough effort, while one is impossible to do without an unreasonable amount of effort.

[@feyntmistral1110]

Sad to hear about Fantasian. I have a rule: Never by a console of you can't list 5 games you want to play. I've no reason to get an Apple TV anyway, but if I think about it as a console, that is the only game that I would want to play. Anything else is a game found on other platforms as well which have more compelling selections, or is PC which... Yeah, emulation and infinite possibilities. There are people who argue that a console can get better over time and you should hop on anyway. But if I have to search out new games to justify my purchase, or bank on more compelling games eventuality coming out, that's just more reason why I should wait on buying in, because console bundle deals will eventually come out which make buying in for a game I want to play a sound choice due to the value.

[@m.f.3347]

That's an understandable rule to have, but even then there are times for some people where getting a console for 1 game is 100% worth it to them.

[@chubbysumo2230]

Yeah, that experience is pretty common with jrpgs. A lot of the Korean an Asian RPGs I played over the years expected you to grind 40 to 50 hours per boss.

[@antoinep.2565]

Sure asks for a lot of dedication dang

[@Edward-Not-Elric]

Yeah, that's exactly my problem with most JRPGs. They basically require you to grind or else the boss is either impossible or borderline impossible. It's just not fun.

[@williamyt6174]

It is possible. I had to map out the RNG patterns and eventually tried it like 7 times, and got passed the boss. Takes way too long for a casual JRPG tho

[@MilkIsASauceTV]

No game should need that to happen, what garbage tier game design

[@benjaminmiddaugh2729]

Linus, while there might be a bit of predatory mobile-style monetization design going on, I distinctly remember several old JRPGs that behaved the same way, long before any of the modern predatory design systems were in place. It's one reason that I have tended to like the idea of JRPGs a lot more than actually playing them. Because they design with the grind in mind and I'd much rather enjoy the story instead of having to spend a whole bunch of time doing work before I'm strong enough to earn the next bit of story.

[@DefendYoungstown]

The meta issue is that anymore it's hard to parse if it is overlooked bad design that could have been fixed with a little more playtesting, or an *intentionally* placed bad design barrier to get you to spend more real life money or spend more "engagement time" (or both) to get through it. Having to question that is what makes this disheartening.

[@FeelsGouda]

I think it's kind of a trend with JRPGs lately, I remember Bravely Default 2 also having boss fights that are unnecessarily grindy. Not unbeatable, but it felt like the boss had double the health he should have in a well-balanced game. Not trying to defend the developer, sometimes they just make bad balance/design decisions. All you can do is hope that they patch it at some point if there are enough complaints.

[@DefendYoungstown]

@@FeelsGouda that's fair, but it's also possible that this was something put in place at the behest of Apple as part of the conditions of funding. Sort of like that one game mode in Deus Ex: Mankind Divides that nobody liked and the devs even want to do, but got mandated to be shoved in at the last minute because some higher-ups in an office thought it would be a good idea and we outrank you to just shut up and do it. Again, it's speculative, but being basically a wholly owned and distributed property of that particular brand of device - with all their previous "walled garden" predilections and no other ports to compare with to see if it's a bug or a "feature" - doesn't help the nagging notion that this may be something done on purpose for one nefarious monetization-aimed metric or another. That's a bit of goodwill in the gaming space that has long eroded. The way Linus described the experience gain in proportion to actual progress where this happened makes this start to smell of being intentional, and he shouldn't have to piss away hours upon hours of his life just to be incrementally stronger to *maybe, possibly* have a chance to advance past that point... and I don't blame him for not sticking around to find out if that's baked in so that anyone without that neccessary grind attrition to simply throw more money at Apple to buy their way out of with some sort of "time saver" like most modern mobile games do.

[@m.f.3347]

back in the day the challenge was "how do we make a game fit into 128KB on an NES cartridge but take 40 hours to finish?" and usually the answer was just to add some bullshit difficulty spikes

[@thewatchersofthewood3530]

FTL is one of my favorite games and I was part of the kickstarter. I really wish there was a part 2!!!!!!! I have the PC version and have played with the mods and its very cool but the iOS version is still my favorite one.

[@robbhays8077]

FTL is so freaking good.

[@salmon_wine]

Into The Breach, the second game by the FTL devs, recently had it's Advanced Edition come out which added a ton of content to the game! Gaming isnt entirely dead, thank god for small independent devs and studios!

[@sprockettt]

A big part of why FTL's design works so well is its simplicity. The game uses very small numbers for health and damage, so quickly doing the math in your head during a heated fight is easy. Every individual system and mechanic is very simple and straightforward, and the game's complexity and strategy comes from how those simple elements interact with each other. I think that's why a true "FTL 2" would be so difficult to pull off. Adding more stuff to the game means you risk ruining that simplicity and tight design. In a way, you could argue that the Advanced Edition update was basically FTL 2. "AE" added a ton of meaningful new content that dramatically changed the way you approached the game, but still remained true to FTL's core design principals.

[@CodeREDACTED]

The fight Linus described reminds me of Nyx from persona 3. If he hates Fantasia's boss, Nyx would frustrate him beyond belief.

[@seankkg]

Nyx was certainly something.

[@KazernskyYT]

The best strat is starting the devil arcana on the last day, thus skipping nyx entirely and getting the good ending

[@aoukoa607]

Oh god I have PTSD from staying up until 5:30am on a school night trying to beat that boss for like 4 hours lol

[@PaperReaper]

The arcana is the means by which all is revealed

[@algis-kun8777]

Usually one hit mechanics on RPGs are usually reaction triggered or triggered on patterns or really conditional (like lvl 5 death in some FF games which only affects characters with levels dividable by 5) or are telegrapged but i do not discard games where bosses are just way out of place.

[@silmarlfan1]

o my god. before LOTRO was bought out by Standing Stones, it was Such a grind to even get past one level if you free played. it was like around level 30 you hit a huge curve and it just had to grind to level up. I gave up and bought a new area just for more quests to level up! I'm level 135 now. You can guess what I did!

[@Pixelblurr]

Linus, you ever play Lost Odyssey on 360? It was made by some people behind FF7 and reminds me a bit of what you're saying. 1st boss wiped the floor with me until I ran around and leveled a couple times...but that didn't take more than an hour or so. The good old days when games were complete and tested.

[@DoubleRBlaxican]

I had the same experience with Bravely Default. I love the game and the art style, but what I can only assume is the first actual boss you have to fight with whatever you like, I was completely unprepared. I have no idea what I missed, but I assumed the boss was the end of the first part. Then, when I beat him, I realized I had to go further into the dungeon. Unfortunately, I had to use every consumable to win and I just kind of gave up at that point because I wad 4 hours into the first part of the first boss and I would have to start from before I even went into the dungeon. I plan on going back to the game, but it's sad I had to stop so early into the game. I even bought the second game and haven't even touched it since I want to beat the first game before I play the second.

[@williampearce5757]

Oh Bravely Default gets sooooooooo much worse. You have to do almost every boss fight at least twice, or more if you don't know what you're doing. It's soooooo damn stupid, even if the combat is well designed.

[@jaysonesguerra]

I really wanna see Linus play Chrono Trigger

[@BBStrung]

Just FYI, game balance is not QA's job. QA is laser focused on bugs and feature functionality. The only people responsible for balance are the game designers and results from playtesting.

[@F3lixCZ]

I have played the whole game and I loved it! Yes, the bosses are hard and I usually don't like being stuck, but whenever a hard boss would come up and I would get angry at the game because of it, I'd read a strategy and watch a video of the boss. I don't think there's any shame in that and for me the strategazing and preparation was part of the fun. Plus you can see in the vid that the boss CAN be beaten and that's kinda motivating. With Rudy (the boss Linus is stuck on) you need Tan (or rather you have to use him), Valrika for AoE and Ez with Vacuum and buffs/heals. Get them your best armor and defense gems! Tan is your damage dealer and can heal a bit, use AoE for mobs and finish them with Valrika's Arrow Rain +2, Ez keeps Vacuum and Speed Up All (best buff in game and the reason why you allways want to have Ez in the party) and heals. Make sure to keep the mobs to a minimum and when Rudy uses the barrier, hit the rest with Valrika (Arrow Rain +2 hits 7x, so you need to hit the boss and mobs 3x to break it, which you should be able to with Speed Up before the mobs overwhelm you). Tan can help with healing here. If you manage to beat a lot of the the mobs before the barrier, then you can switch Ez for Leo for a turn and use Samidare +2 on the boss. Then there's the one-shot skill, you need to suffer through it - ress with one character and heal with another and you need a bit of luck. GL

[@rya3190]

I feel like, for balance sake, you should be able to beat a boss using whatever method you want, with certain strategies being more optimal. One of the things that helps FromSoftware games is the fact that you can use a super optimized (or even broken) mechanic that a boss may be susceptible to, or you could run in naked with a weak weapon that damages you for some reason, and win. Same with FTL, as Luke mentioned, you can have a hacking ship, a cloaking ship, several shields, and even Drones, and while you're expected to have some optimization, you could likely beat the boss with a skeleton crew and less than fully kitted ship. This forces people to learn and grow, while encouraging them to push forward. Some people like to put the most optimized builds known to man, some people like their favorite characters to be at the forefront. You've gotta find the balance...

[@rantanen1]

The fact that you need a very specialized setup in terms of characters, abilities and gear etc. to beat a boss like this, it IS bad game design theres no way around that, forcing you to read up guides, and arrange your entire setup to beat a boss and you still rely on good RNG is just a failed boss design, especially if it's an RPG game where part of the fun often is being able to play the game in multiple ways. Linus didn't say the boss is impossible to beat. I'm sure it is, still it's badly designed.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

The quest Linus mentioned in Zelda might've been the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 quest where you can get Rex's armor (the main character of that game) for Link and it looks...rather goofy on him considering Rex is like 15 years old and Link is 17 and way more built to be a soldier.

[@sumdud23]

nah it's a main quest, bringing back the lighting helmet

[@cratty16]

That's actually great timing. The Creator just a couple days ago, wants to bring this game Fantasian to PC and possibly make a sequel.

[@DEMENTO01]

thatd be great bc thatd mean that id be able to play it and that cheating or modding the game to make these completely broken boss fights bearable would be possible/easy

[@cratty16]

@@DEMENTO01 I guess we will see. I'm still not sure who actually owns the Fantasian name. Does apple own it because they completely funded it? I feel like it might be a similar situation to Bayonetta for the Nintendo switch. Nintendo funded it so it will never be released to another system. Hope it won't be the same with Apple.

[@mightysquish3492]

​​@@cratty16 by legal means u mean? XD all switch 1st party ips have repacks available

[@ike789125]

sounds like old school ff to me; is there a reflect ability you can get that barrier enemy with before he casts? like using healing on undead

[@PyroBlonde7777]

Sooo when are we gonna get an update on your 7900XTX Red Devil???

[@PaperReaper]

My favourite boss ever was in Persona 5 Strikers. The final boss incorporates your entire roster ( you split into teams of 3 for each stage) and kinda ties all the stages together so that they are all happening at the same time. And the end involves the team making one final attack all together.

[@jaredbitz]

The only game I've ever ragequit was league of legends. And afterwards, I finally realized that I'd spent about three years of my life having zero fun with it - instead, I was just convincing myself that the game would finally become fun if I could just play more and get a little better at it. That was the motivation I needed to uninstall it forever lol

[@lw8882]

I had a similar thing with dota. It wasn't just that, but I got irrationally mad while playing it too. I definitely had a problem with that game.

[@llrennanll]

I stopped playing LoL after Valorant launched, I was having way too much fun trying out Valorant's beta than the last 2 years of League. But, unlike League, I stopped playing it before I was bored with it.

[@orppranator5230]

Heroes of the Storm is basically LOL except actually fun, for me at least.

[@jas_094]

12:56 It's very annoying when people are clearly not paying attention to what he is saying and drop a comment like that

[@SaltyMon]

This reminds me of Demi Fiend fight in Shin Megami Tensei fight as well as the same secret boss in Digital Devil Saga... If you didn't have a guide, you would be dead, either by bad RNG or just not focusing enough.

[@R3_dacted0]

I know exactly the feeling Linus is talking about. So many games I've played with bosses just having BS game mechanics that just take the fun out of the game. I don't understand the design philosophy of hanging a looming "You just die cause I said so" mechanic over the player for no apparent reason other than "lol difficult." If you want difficult, look at Dark Souls. It's hard and you die a lot, but it never feels unfair and you feel like you can actually beat it. But that RNG, you dead... that's really stupid.

[@SirNarax]

I would say the Dark Souls franchise and their sister games are the exact antithesis of 'fair'. They are not even particularly difficult games they just have an inflated difficulty due to bullshit.

[@DashMan-g7z]

Funny enough the only JRPG I can finish consistently are the Neptunia games because of how easy and fast it is to grind and progress if you decide to do it. They're not good games but it's sad that they're the only ones that get it. I don't want to waste dozens of hour walking, fighting the same enemies and doing the same fetch quests. I can just start a dungeon, enjoy it until I don't and then just run for the boss to keep doing or take 5 minutes to grind levels like crazy.

[@kael070]

Ah yes good old neptunia where they recycle whole dungeons Game feels like asset dumpster tbh

[@thelazyworkersandwich4169]

They're so many of those games and they feel so souless.

[@luis4290]

When you described that boss, my Octopath nightmares returned

[@LtGrandMaster]

Linus should really give Chained Echoes a try. Great jrpg style game that has removed the bloat in the best ways possible

[@tehcooles]

My exact thought. Playing through it right now and man is it incredible.

[@emulationemperor8924]

Chained Echos is goated and unfortunately flew under the radar because of it's release window

[@KevanWalter]

Agreed, it's probably one of the best turn-based RPGs I've ever played. And in my opinion, the balance is fairly spot on.

[@supernenechi]

It's an entirely different genre, but rhythm games also the sort of games that encourage playing for very long sessions and trying over and over again. Though, somehow I'm always extremely relaxed even while playing the most insane maps

[@m.f.3347]

Cuz a rhythm game (at least the ones I've played) do two things right: you're engaged in actual gameplay the whole time, and you're usually only challenged for a few minutes max. It's not waiting 25 minutes clicking attack until the boss goes into its second phase and one-shots your entire party

[@davec7]

You remember when "Fate" was an HP game...I played forever and finally researched how many levels. I quit playing that same day. 🤣😭😡

[@blitzfyre669]

what i've heard from most QA testers about QA issues, it's not that these weren't found. It's likely that these issues were found by QA, and more disappointingly, QA wasn't listened to and these weren't fixed because of that.

[@SamSammut]

The first optional boss in Persona 4 Golden has an AOE physical attack called Rampage but for whatever reason it does a shit ton more damage than anything else at that point that is encountered.

[@JustCallMeQuincy]

We all ragequit sometimes

[@GuusKlaas]

Honestly, I'm about Linus' age, and oddly enough share a lot of PC/cultural background when it comes to hardware, PC's, and games. When I were younger, I loved JRPG's. And hearing Linus say: "FF6 was my favourite" makes me so happy, because it was mine as well. I preferred it over the Sony-FF's, and actually had a certain feeling of remorse towards sony/square because I stopped getting FF's for a while. Later on I simply didn't care anymore. X360 had come, and games like Lost Oddysey had me hooked. That being said though, that was around the time I was growing up, and JRPG's... well... started growing some "growing pains" for me as well. In FF6 era I was fine hitting a sudden difficulty spike suddenly. I'd just kill crabs for a couple of hours. The games were linear, and that's basically all I could do. Heck in the original pokémon I had killed so many zubats and gone back through that cave until I could continue. Re-starting Lost Oddysey, I would often have some pre-knowledge about some bosses/fights to 'cheese' them, and investing in certain characters/mixes/equipment bits later on (Golden Sun had a LOT of this with the djinn system) would make the game easier/less grindy -- but in retrospective. Aside the playtest bit (OBVIOUSLY), Linus probably hit one of those walls where either the 'early cheese' would have been a thing (hence: foreknowledge and being pidgeonholed in a meta), or: vastly overlevel it (kill crabs for 2-3 days). The thing is: this is a thing that I personally grew out of. It's probably why I think JRPG's aren't for me anymore. I haven't played fantasian, nor will I ever (sorry, not in an Apple ecosystem nor do I like Apple), and hearing that the grind part is stopped because the mobile bit... well... makes me feel like I don't miss out. Heck, I miss the FF5 era where the game could be so broken in a cheese where the hard bosses could suddenly be easy because using a phoenix down on an undead mob would oneshot it... but the next boss I'd still have to grind crabs for 8-9 hours before being able to do it. Why did I use to think that was fun? Are games just MORE fun now? Did my taste change? Did those old geezers building the game simply NOT change whereas I, their original audience did, DID change? Why do I miss killing the same crab over and over for 8 hours?

[@svpracer98]

The most jarring flaw in any game is mechanics that clearly give the CPU an advantage. When it's clear the computer is always going to win, why keep trying to defeat it?

[@donutmaster0]

One of the final fantasy tactics games has a death roulette that I found interesting. I believe tonberrys could use it and it would select a random character(friend or foe) on the field and kill them. Definitely the only time I could think of something like that being interesting.

[@inthefade]

I've seen that in an FF game, and yeah it is interesting. If there are equal enemies to your party it feels fair, and if there are less enemies and you lose a party member, at least you still have an equal or upper hand in number of moves.

[@Adam_Ferguson]

Forza Horizon has a similar issue with this with their AI. In the higher difficulty AI opponents don't have to adhere to the same physics as the player, I've seen the ai just drive away because they weren't braking into sharp corners

[@Twinrehz]

"Suplex the boss" is mainly a meme, because in one FF-game (I forget which one), you suplex a train boss.

[@hazonku]

I recall some JRPGs back in the day that would punish you for trying to grind low level enemies, Earthbound immediately comes to mind, but that's specifically to encourage you to fight whatever boss is blocking your progression to move ahead to the next map. This game though just does NOT sound like fun with a boss like that.

[@hoodio]

the triangle of calamity sounds like the circle of trust or the rhombus of doubt

[@thedarkdragon1437]

Most Wanted 2005 Rubberband Earl Also, for offline mobile, Galaxy on Fire 2 also works

[@Monado.]

Honestly if you're into Final Fantasy games I would suggest looking into the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise. All three of the numbered entries are now on Nintendo Switch, 1 originally being a Wii game, remastered for Switch, and 2 & 3 being released on it originally. The director & creator, Tetsuya Takahashi, had also directed the Xenogears, which was originally pitched to be what would have been Final Fantasy 7, but was deemed too dark. Like previously stated, he went on to make the Chronicles series as well, and they are in my opinion one of the best story driven RPGs I've ever played, with some of the coolest combat. The first game also easily takes the cake for the best English voice acting out of any video game I've ever played.

[@Pies_By_Arvid]

I'm in my 4th decade of gaming, and FTL is my favorite game of all time. It is so well balanced and interesting and allows so many different strategies. It's over 10 years old and I still play it pretty regularly despite owning everything from an NES to a PS5 to a modern high end PC.

[@doorbox788]

This is how the Raid Dens are in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Aside from everything else that makes those games absolute fucking garbage, there’s no amount of power that can brute force through them, and there’s no amount of outthinking or outskilling them either as that is usually prevent or outright blocked. You just have to hope and pray that you are able to win. It’s legit just a luck based thing. Very bad artificial difficulty.

[@392redienhcs]

I remembered, in the time of dial-up internet, I went for a werebear druid in D2:LOD and (not really looking at game guides) would do 2-hour Diablo fights in Hell difficulty - that's a single fight. I found that to be truly fun. And then I'd go up Mt. Arreat and just get stuck fighting minions and just GG-quitting the character.

[@hokage102364]

Fantasian: Neo Dimension

[@julienmarschall7518]

There is a game called Middle Earth the 3rd Age and when you fight the Nazgul King you have to use 1 specific Item you never haf to use ever before to reduce his armor or the fight will take 2 and a half hours. That was no fin either

[@SoulReaverVidView]

Chained Echoes is a really good small production classic style JRPG with modern mechanics. It's really good and just gets better as you go.

[@GeneralNickles]

Is there a silence spell? If you could prevent it from cast spells at all, then both barrier, and presumably summoning minions is out the window.

[@jjcc8379]

Inside you there are 9 wolves. They also have shield for some reason. The normal ammount is 0.

[@fran8442]

Linus just described a regular Persona 3 boss fight

[@zack-115]

Yoko shimomura, that's the artist, at least recently. Love her!!!

[@XIIchiron78]

I feel like everything is just like this now. I can't think of anything... At all... That I have been genuinely excited for, in years.

[@rsearchtim]

So, My son asked me to get Diablo II installed (because we used to play it like 20 years ago. He wanted to reminisce. I installed it and was playing all of Act 1 and then almost all of Act 2. I had no problem killing all bosses up to that point (Tal Rasha's Tomb). When you get it the room, the boss like 2 or 3 shots you, and you lose ~ 40k gold. No real curve to prepare you for this boss that is practically unbeatable. I fell like I don't even want to join more players to kill this boss, because you should be able to do it.

[@BeansEnjoyer911]

Linus you should play Lost Odyssey. Imo it’s the true swan song of Sakaguchi. It’s an amazing game and his best writing in my opinion

[@NinjaxShadowXx]

Wait Fantasian is actually really good and I beat it. Absolutely worth it if you are a fan of 90s style JRPGs like Final Fantasy its worth playing and it has no microtransaction or any play to win stuff at all.

[@daveonezero6258]

Agreed from what I played it has been great. I just fell off a little bit.

[@JimmayVV]

you just described my problem with escape rooms

[@Claudia-km9lo]

the game sounds so Shin Megami Tensei inspired, buffs and debuffs being so important and each party member having their own turn, doesn't sound like it has the mechanics of SMT that make these sort of situations fair tho, specifically the Press Turn system where each time you hit an enemy's weakness, you get an extra Press Turn, which allows you to recover from a bad situation and revive all your party members if you end up in a bad situation while still keeping up respectable, if reduced offense

[@lw8882]

I absolutely love the gameplay of Hades, but the RNG not so much. I stopped playing because it felt like I could learn the move sets of my weapons and the enemies, and eventually get good at the game, but if I don't get the right RNG mix of abilities and upgrades then I'm just not going to enjoy the build and it won't do enough damage or have the right survivability. It felt like it wasn't the gameplay I was struggling to learn, but an RNG system of drops and shops that I have no control over dictating whether or not my time was wasted or I was actually able to enjoy myself. I get that's part of the appeal for some with the extra replayability that adds in having a much wider possible build variety, but the range of possible enjoyable and good builds seems so small that it's down to the RNG whether or not you have a fun time.

[@p_serdiuk]

The point is to git gud enough that you can beat Hades with a suboptimal build. It's not just possible, it's fun.

[@uonadtehrrocks]

Ninja Gaiden is a look up every boss game I never understood… Super crazy graphics for the time and the in between guys are fun to fight.

[@GlenMerlin]

Chrono Trigger has one boss that uses an almost 1-hit move your characters at that point have 999 heath and the attack does 998 damage while this is annoying it's well balanced because the boss loses a turn for using it so you get one turn to panic heal yourself additionally while this boss is difficult she also has very little health and is a major glass canon if you have a lot of high level characters with good spells you can kill her in a way that feels satisfying (before her second phase where she loses that ability)

[@bartoszmackiewicz1666]

Linus is a real boomer, I love that he explained basics of classic jRPG to Luke.

[@GamingOptimist]

Giving me flashbacks of The Revenge of the Mummy video game, Scorpion King boss.

[@they2kguy822]

UT99 and 2004, these bots are actually goddamn insane

[@emilemil1]

I've never ragequit a game, but I do quit a ton of games because of lost interest. Sometimes those games can be really awesome, but if they take too long to end then I'll want to switch to something else regardless. For example I got 50 hours into Elden Ring, and I didn't get bored of it, the game is crazy good, but the initial excitement had definitely died down and my brain was already looking for new experiences, so it got put on the "games I'll finish later when nothing new is coming out" list. That list is now like 20 games long.

[@SwirlingDragonMist]

Can we talk about the cheese which is instant death headshots with perfect accuracy weapons. My character is wearing a helmet for Christ’s sake, at least let me take it off to run faster, or put it on for some protection with a compromised field of vision. Instant death just isn’t a fun mechanic, it doesn’t provide any player exchange. Aim bots and sniper classes have combined for instant checkmate. And the fault doesn’t entirely lie in the aimbots. Games where you die instantly make respawns the gameplay. So the user experience is walking half way across the map to re-live the same interaction but now with advanced knowledge of the situation, it’s a triple fail. Most headshots are helmet shots, and whether up close or at a distance, some kind of stun or ability drain would be a more appropriate multiplayer interaction. We may think some weapons are pinpoint accurate, but in the real world it takes time to set those shots up. The player taking the shot is stationary and exposed as they aim, they don’t just lean out behind a tree and have pinpoint accuracy. A calibration mechanic for accuracy would be a welcome addition. And then we need enough drift that aimbots are hindered. But really there’s a whole world of helmet mechanics that are yet unexplored which could add allot of fun dynamic scenarios as your character changes based on the damage they take in each scenario, making those kill streaks a scarred and grizzled triumph.

[@starsetknight]

Luke should Look into the Multiverse Mod for FTL, it's really sick and bassically FTL 2.

[@garfield1245]

Trigon

[@steelfalconx2000]

It's like playing destiny 2 where you can only use your super with a long cool down but the enemy uses it every 5 f*cking seconds.

[@stephenphelps920]

does anyone know what boss fight is linus talking about? is there a video for it?

[@Cordovan]

Look up "Fantasian Rudy Boss Fight"

[@daveonezero6258]

Fantasian has been great from what I played....There has to be a strategy to beat this. Some attacks do multiple hits and will destroy shields.

[@bubmario]

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on Tunic. Very different genre and type of game, yet what I find interesting in this discussion here is its approach to puzzles. I loved the game, but some of the puzzles are....very esoteric. I think that's the best way I can put it. Not bad but not necessarily brilliant - just....out there.

[@Tygron]

I absolutely loved Tunic, and I need to go back for the full ending some time soon. The one problem I have is some of the combat scenarios just feel really unfair. The Garden Knight (I think that was its name) was stupidly hard at the time. There's a couple other bosses that feel a bit unfair and made me want to throw my controller. Even after looking up ways to beat those bosses easier it was still way too difficult for no reason. It wasn't satisfying to beat those bosses, if anything it made me want to find whoever programmed that encounter and beat their head in. But the rest of the game is just wonderful. The puzzles the world, the way the story is told. It's one of those games that has stuck with me.

[@bubmario]

@@Tygron The game has been living rent free in my head since beating it last week. I want to play it again even though I already know the ins and outs. It's just such a delight to enjoy. It's funny, I've read so many experiences like yours where people say the combat/battles were really challenging. I actually didn't struggle as much. Sure, I died probably a dozen times at the 3rd main area boss, but I felt like I was markedly improving each time with my strategy and it clicked for me. What started to get me were some of the hidden puzzles involving the holy cross and the golden path...I'm not going to say much more than that since I don't want to spoil anything. But it was a delight when I cracked one of the puzzles and immensely infuriating when I would walk away stumped by it. I wound up looking up about half the answers at the end because it felt less like fun to me and more like a guessing game and a chore. But I suppose that is "extra" and optional. Considering the "true" ending is locked behind it, I don't entirely agree with the idea it is optional. I think my experience with Tunic was very similar to other's experiences with Breath of the Wild. The game gives you a set of tools to forge your own path and you can have a ton of fun drawing outside the lines.

[@3f_18]

The title hits different now

[@patrykjedi4583]

Jrpg difficulty spikes on bosses is classic jrpg formula...

[@bradenmcg]

Outside of you, there are nine wolves...

[@filipjovanovic8138]

It's a shame about Fantasian, but now you have time to check out Chained Echoes! Just an absolute gem of a game

[@screes620]

Sounds like your typical JRPG honestly. Try Ruby weapon or Emerald weapon in FF7. They are incredibly difficult fights that require a very precise not super obvious way in addition to overleveling all your characters.