Giant Bombcast 577: Google Doggie Kruger

As a Super Sentai fan, that's not a thing I ever expected to see as an episode title.

For reference, Doggie Kruger, Total Badass:

Video toggle not working for anyone else? I'm not normally this early, does it usually come later?

Hell's Guard Dog!

I save scum playing Sekiro. Makes life easier as I don't have to fight mobs back to a boss. Also saves on expendable items. I don't Twitch stream so it's no big deal and I enjoy the game more that way.

Really should've put safesearch on first.

Whoa the audio on the video is WAY hot

I remember Doggie... And her...

Hot mics incoming!

I totally fell for this... not sure why. Perhaps because how outrageous special editions have become. And, anyways, isn't this illegal? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night/posts/2464754

Thanks for sticking up for Borderlands Jason, I kept laughing when Brad kept referencing but games like Anthem and Destiny are doing this and that, yeah worked out great for them.

It's neat when in the same podcast they say game A is too much like the previous games and not innovating enough then 30 min later that game B is too different from the previous games cool guys cool cool cool.

Also Sekiro does have difficulty options just not in the menus. Base Sekiro is normal then there's two different ways to make the game harder and both can be stacked to make it the hardest so...

And lastly I agree that Destiny is to blame for all the games as sevice terrible treadmill garbage and PUBG is to blame for all terrible battle royale garbage. Ok that's all from me enjoy your day everyone.

I don't get the demand for difficulty options. Just because it's interactive doesn't mean there should cease to be artistic intent. I wish that new Yoshi's game had a hard mode so I could get into it, but that's not what that game is about so it doesn't. Some music is noisy, some books have complicated language and some films uncompromising pacing. Not everything is for me or you and that's okay.

Difficulty options has ruined many games, I found over the years. It encourages developers to be lazy, either making normal/easy so free of punishment that you never see the full potential of a game's systems (there were many systems in Bayonetta and MGR I never knew existed because I could ignore them) or overlook its shortcomings because you can breeze through them. Or a hard mode that is so poorly balanced that it ruins the game entirely. I prefer Sekiro where there is one, well thought out mode everyone will experience together. I don't have to second-guess if I'd be having a better experience on another mode, like I did with God of War.

If Sekiro is "too hard" then it's not for you. That's the game. It's not meant to be a "power fantasy". For me, It's not about who is "a real hardcore gamer", it's about preserving and respecting artistic intent in an industry where any other developer would offer all sorts of options for wide-market appeal. From Software got to where they are today but relentless dedication to that vision, so I applaud them for not changing. They've put out "easy"/story-focused adventure games in the past, so again it's about serving a vision -- not just, making things hard for hardcore gaming bros.

At least on PC version Sekiro gets a trainer. But yes, if you're a paying customer, you should get an option to finish the game in any way possible. More option is always a good thing and more players enjoying your game is always a good thing.

That Borderlands 3 discussion was... weird. Why does it have to be like Anthem or Destiny? Borderlands has characters and that's cool. The audience cheered when Maya was shown. I don't want to be nameless/faceless hero who saves the universe in this story. I want to be one of the vault hunters. Tales from the Borderlands expressed that so well.

A good way of looking at why Sekiro's lack of an easy mode compared to From's previous work is "there's no easy mode. make peace with this."

One of the biggest problems with this is the emotional block around it. "But other games!" This isn't other games, which are for sale.

Perhaps if they see the rise of From going from "that company what doesn't do what everyone else does it'll bankrupt them, ignore the money and awards" of Demon's Souls to "oh god this is must play and getting praise and sails but im on the outside of the zeitgeist errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh" for what it is they'd get this about ownership and FOMO, I dunno. I do wish they'd watch that Jim Sterling video about acceptance of stuff you can't control and taste before shameless groveling and demanding changes though.

Sorry, but I am in NO way interested in Borderland taking nearly ANYTHING from these "Shared World" shooters. Character customization (as in, sex and hair color and blah blah blah) and armor stuff that works like the guns = yes, yes, yes; but not social areas or any of that other lame crap.

You can always play with friends, or god forbid randoms, if you want (you could in the first two). I would very much like to be able to solo it all, offline (and any company that offers the share world crap is never going to allow it to be optional so it would be online only). If you want that other stuff, there are already games that do that. Play them.

Just because nearly all other recent looter shooters have done the online-only, crappy MTX thing, doesn't mean this has to. If anything, I guarantee you they can get massive PR props for pointing out how they are NOT just another Destiny clone.

As someone that watched lets say way too much of the power rangers twitch marathon with some of the other members of this community I am so looking forward to this.

AUDIO!

@elvenstein: It got more to the real reason at the end, was more the "ohhh gross Randy Pitchford" stuff which I totally get, was just a weird dance to get there that made them look rather silly. I never want a game to do anything like Anthem ever again, never bring that up as a comparison game.

Behold my RGB toilet

From wants to make difficult games, fine. But I kinda despise the culture that emerged around them. It's very much anti-live and let live.

If you want more info on uncovering the original Polybius, this youtube doc did a fairly deep dive on it:

https://youtu.be/_7X6Yeydgyg

"The way it's meant to be played" was a reference to that being the canon difficulty. That is, however hard or easy you the player feel that experience was, that's what the Chief went though (that many shots to kill that enemy with that gun, how quickly do the shields drain, how fast are the enemies, etc.).

That is not "normal" difficulty because play testing proved (or they assumed) that it was too hard to be called "normal" for the average gamer during whatever year they first claimed that.

That said, I think after Halo blew up, they probably did play into that in an arguably shitty way, but that was also a different time. That is, what we call the hardcore gamer today was just what a gamers was back then. I think it worked fine, because they didn't lean into it too hard and most people probably just played normal who didn't know better about it (didn't read the description or didn't quite get exactly what it meant).

Agreed, why be just like everyone else, (and as someone else said - its not like Anthem and Destiny are knocking it out of the park). I like Claptrap and the characters from Borderlands. (I also liked the abilities from 1 better than 2 though, just like Jeff). In fact I wish they had more character interaction in those games, if they'd gone further in that direction. If you know you dont want that in the game, then dont play it. But Jeff wasn't playing Destiny of Anthem that much compared to Borderlands 1 and 2 anyway. So its an odd complaint from him. Maybe he was hoping Gearbox could have perfected that style of game? Or maybe they can just keep doing what they've been good at - (and do it even better hopefully - Id like to see way more NPCs like FarCry 5 did, maybe even have some come with you like Claptrap did at times - not just a quest giver with a funny line of dialog).

I didn't like the online aspects of Destiny and Anthem and wanted to play them 100% solo. I think Jeff said he also solo'd most of those games. so I'm so confused by his view.. So if BL just aped those other games, then there is nothing for me in a franchise I already like.

Not saying they dont have to change anything. They've already done 3 of these games, and the guns gimmick, and the art style.. they do need something new.

But yeah to say Brick was crappy as a tank, but then in Destiny the Titan or in Anthem the Colossus gave you tons of personalized customization? i mean you had some armor that made you look kind of different? And like 2 ability trees you could pick from. But Literally Borderlands has that, and the guns your character is better with, just your person has a specific face. i really dont see them as any different in that respect. I dont feel more attached to my Destiny avatar in any way.

The discussion on adaptive difficulty reminded me about this video by Game Maker's Toolkit about Resident Evil 4. The best part of Resident Evil 4's adaptive difficulty system wasn't that it's implemented particularly well, but rather the fact that they did not tell anyone about it!

Can I play Minecraft too?

Why on earth would you want Borderlands 3 to "learn" from the other loot shooters that have come out ? 95% of the new ideas they've introduced have been unsuccessful. If anything you'd want Borderlands 3 to come out with new ideas and again be the groundbreaking game to show how to do these things right. The only really good example of a loot shooter upping the standard of the genre is Destinys gunplay, which is something pretty much any shooter would want to aspire to.

@ripelivejam: Yeah, when Bandai Namco really started leaning into the "Prepare to die" marketing for the PC port of Dark Souls 1 it brought a lot of assholes into the series and a large portion of the souls community took to huffing farts and being openly hostile rather than be welcoming or helping new players like the Demon's Souls and early Dark Souls community did.

Jason, just stop playing Sekiro. It’s not for you.

Borderlands is a really good co-op loot shooter series with fun stories and memorable dialogue and characters and that's all it needs to be, imo. These live service shared world games with boring repeatable daily/weekly missions and meaningless NPCs can shove it. Borderlands becoming another Destiny/Division/Anthem was my biggest fear and I'm so relieved they didn't go down that path.

Different armor might be cool but I don't really care if it's not a thing in BL3.

On the Borderlands 3 discussion, I think everyone confused by the discussion might be less confused by thinking that Brad and Jeff want character aesthetic changes that are in line with Diablo 2 and 3? As mentioned in the podcast, getting some cool shoulder pads or boots from Crawmeraxx. I assume they expect the armor to have attributes to them, but maybe they will live if they were cosmetic only.

As for drawing from Destiny or Anthem, maybe Borderlands can have a fun, PSO-hub-ship like social space without all the bad baggage of Destiny and Anthem? Perhaps all this confusion could have been avoided if Brad and Jeff mentioned Diablo and Phantasy Star Online instead of Destiny and Anthem.

I'm baffled that neither Jeff nor Brad understand what makes Borderlands unique and liked by so many people. Borderlands fans actually like the custom characters and prefer them over bland character creation (Destiny 2, The Division...). Also why the fuck is a social hub needed in Borderlands? Should every game in a genre do everything that has been done by others? Should Borderlands 3 be a reskinned Destiny 2? Because it seems that's what the Brad/Jeff want and I'm pretty sure that's not what the fans of Borderlands want.

Also why is it so hard to understand why Randy showed up on the reveal? Even if he is guilty of what he was accused - acting guilty and not showing up on the reveal would not help him or the company in any way. Besides, I'm sure most gamers are not even aware that there is a case going on.

Borderlands 3, here is a bunch of new characters people can cosplay as.

Also, a game like this needs armor drops, not just weapons.

No one is going to see this but I disagree with Jeff about Sekiro and adding difficulty options. I dont know if this is true but from my perspective, the souls games are all about stepping up and fighting, hitting a wall over and over until you beat it. Its about stepping up and believing in yourself and realizing that you can do it. That's what they have all been about, in my mind, and making it easier for people who feel like they can't do it is taking away from the fact that they can do it. Its a matter of how hard are they willing to work to get past this obstacle. I mean, if its too hard, and the game fails, then thats on From Software and they made a bad choice and I suppose the game will fail but I appreciate them making games that make the player decide, I can beat this, most players can if they try hard enough, I just need to put in the work to get past the mechanics of this specific game to move forward.

My opinion on the whole difficulty thing is that accessibility is cool, more people being able to play games is cool, but if the developer wants people to have a very specific experience with their game then they have no obligation to add an easy mode or anything like that as unfortunate as that is for people who can't gel with that.

Risk of Rain 2 = GOTY 2019.

The lack of enthusiasm for the game on this podcast is concerning.

I generally don't think I could ever say the Bombcast, or most of the duders, are "out of touch" but hearing them talk about Borderlands (outside of Jason) made me think so. Also, hearing Brad talk about how much you could customize your character in Destiny was...weird. Borderlands has as much class distinction as BL2 and BL:PS did with the talent tree, in my opinion. Seeing someone, in 2019, go, "Did people really like the characters or stories of Borderlands" comes off as slightly hilarious. Would be like me going, "Wait, people care about Overwatch characters?"

Man fuck all that Destiny-like trend chasing nonsense Brad and Jeff want Borderlands 3 to be. Hell no to all of that. Exactly the reason I'm so excited for B3 is because everything about that trailer says oh hey more BORDERLANDS, awesome exactly what I want exactly.

Half Life VR is rumored to be a prequel (Between HL1 and HL2) where you play as Alyx. There have been mentions of HLVR in code for Steam Updates and they claim they have been working on 3 VR games. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't know if they would make it completely VR exclusive though due to backlash. I could see it built from the ground up for VR, but then baking in things to make it a standard FPS.

Man, that borderlands 3 discussion is about as out of touch as you can be. Like I get what Jeff wanted but how can not understand what a minority that opinion is.

Now that we had a bunch of livegames pass us by, what has it brought to the table in a succesful manner? Has anyone experienced something cool that was only possible in the livegame environment of these recent games?

Now i've only played a bit of the Division 1 & nearly everything of base Destiny 2 (until my GPU died :P) but it felt like the main appeal of the online nature of these games was that you could play through campaign missions with your friends; Something that plenty of non-live games have offered before.

The public events & seeing characters walk around in a few hub area's is the main aspect in which i was reminded that i was playing a live game. But those events often amount to standing around a spawn point with a bunch of people and shooting the enemies a bunch. Afterwards, everyone runs towards the reward chest & moves on. In the Division you could pass through a gate and enter the dark zone PvP / PvE zone without having to click a menu. But are those type of new options good enough? Have i been missing out on amazing 1000 v 1000 battles or entire regions working towards a shared goal to blow up a sun or something? To be honest, i mostly see it as an extra barrier to piracy instead of it offering meaningful new gameplay innovations. There's nothing that i can point to and be like 'well.. if Borderlands 3 doesn't have this, it will be a huge dissapointment.'

I do have to admit that the livegame zeitgeist means that a lot more games have to account for you being able to play with friends through the story missions. There have been a lot of singleplayer games in the past that do offer coop options, but often section it away to an entirely different mode instead of letting you play the campaign together.

I feel like @jeff ,intentionally or not completely misinterprets why people are against difficulty options in the souls/from soft games. Are there people out there that dont want it because they can brag they are tough shit? I dont doubt it.

But acting like thats the main argument is just flat out wrong. It has to do with people appreciating the design philosophy and (at least in the soul games) how the feeling of overcoming seemingly impossible odds with no way out or around it is core and crucial to the story, philosophy and themes in these games. Its part of the artwork .

@brad Your Lenovo(?) WMR headset has noticeably better specs (2880x1440, 1440x1440 per eye) than the original Rift or base Vive (2160x1200, 1080x1200 per eye). All WMR HMDs even have a higher resolution screen than the recently announced Rift S (2560x1440, 1280x1440 per eye). That being said, I'm willing to bet that the Rift S could look slightly better due to advancements in screen and lens technologies.