Timegazer Studio

@BecomingCaptain Top left

When a game is very dynamic, is it better to place the HP closer to the protagonist or would you rather keep it on the usual bottom left of the screen?

@KuoeyStory The item removal was such a good move. It's the difference between easy and hard.

ATLUS can very easily keep Persona easy while offering alternatives for more seasoned MegaTen players. Make the hard difficulties ACTUALLY hard, add difficulty exclusive mechanics, limit things like item usage like SH2 did (not a personal fan of this one but it’s SOMETHING)!

@Mangaminx 6.5/10 bait

I look at this list and am really happy I don’t think any of these are better than a 6.5/10

@RayzuReturns @nothingbruv_ You don't need to see them with the torch. You can: - Track their footsteps - Mark them with a debuff - Have a summon track them (Sage's Cave) - Use AoE

@nothingbruv_ Unrelated, I have a question Wdyt about the unseen Assassins in ER? The only way to know how to see them is buying the hint notes Would you call that unfair or bad design in an open world when they already introduced to you the concept of hints?

man I am so dumb. thanks to lies of p quality of life changes from the shitty souls games that in such a linear game, it makes sure to tell you through dialogue and the visuals on the menu that you have to go the place just two bonfires before to open a door you just passed by.

@fornatron "People" is a bit generous of a term for those who would dunk on something with peak art direction for graphical fidelity.

People dunk on FromSoftware for their graphical fidelity in their games. And it is true to some degree, they are lacking in raw graphical capabilities. But DAYUM they make up for it with INSANE art direction.

@shitpostingPD @PrValkyrie Gameplay.

@TimegazerStudio @PrValkyrie Liking PQ games more than mainline is crazy. They’re nothing but fanservice, regurgitating same character cliches over and over without any growth. At least Arena games are direct continuation.

Gonna get roasted for this but I fully stand by it:

@CaffeinaWeb3 I don't know the numbers between WoW, the clones, Gaia Online, and Habbo, but all of them (or some for the clones) were extremely popular. The one thing they had in common was being a place to talk to and play with likeminded people in a time before Discord and Twitter.

@TimegazerStudio That's fair. I just don't put Vanilla WoW in the same category. Some games are remembered because they were influential. WoW was influential because people genuinely loved playing it.

Calling Vanilla WoW average is one of the easiest ways to tell everyone you weren't there. Compared to what? The games that spent the next 20 years copying it? You don't compare a pioneer to its descendants. You compare it to what existed when it launched. At its peak, WoW wasn't following trends. Everyone else was following WoW. Kids. 💀

@CaffeinaWeb3 I actually feel MMOs in general, and even today, are actually designed pretty much like gacha, but less predatory (unless Asian, where they're just proto-gacha). I believe what made MMOs work is not gameplay, but providing a place for "outcasts" to have community.

@CaffeinaWeb3 Fundamentally we don't disagree, yes.

@TimegazerStudio I don't think we're disagreeing anymore 😅 You're giving examples of older games that aged exceptionally well. I'm saying you can't strip away the historical context that made them exceptional in the first place. Those aren't contradictory positions.

@CaffeinaWeb3 I understand your point. My view is that quality exists statically. We may mistakenly think X is 10/10 until someone proves otherwise, and that repeats until X is 5/10, average. X was always average, we just weren't aware. Sometimes we were right about X the whole time.

I think we're drifting away from the original point 😅 We can debate EVE, Classic, Deus Ex, nostalgia, modern standards and a hundred other things. But my point has stayed the same from the start: You can dislike WoW. You can prefer other MMOs. You can think parts of it aged badly. But calling WoW average is where the argument falls apart for me. Average games don't shape an entire genre. Average games don't define player expectations for decades. Average games don't leave a footprint that large. WoW did.

@CaffeinaWeb3 Some just don't separate the baby and the bathwater, they can be dismissed outright SMT 1 and SMT If... laid the path for what the SMT and Persona series would look like, but their gameplay is horrible, relatively great at release, but HORRIBLE I love them for the impact though

You see, and that's exactly my point 😊 I played plenty of games inspired by WoW after I stopped playing WoW, and I genuinely enjoyed many of them. But that doesn't take away what WoW did. If anything, it makes the impact even easier to see. You start noticing how many ideas, systems and expectations carried over into the games that came after it.

@CaffeinaWeb3 There are also SRPGs far better than the latest Fire Emblem, and NFL 2K is still praised for being better than the latest Maddens. And that's just the ones off the top of my head.

That's not really a universal test though. You can't remove 20 years of context and then judge a game as if it was built with 20 more years of technology, design knowledge and industry lessons. If WoW was made today, it wouldn't be Vanilla WoW. That's the point. The real question isn't whether Vanilla would beat a modern MMO in 2026. It's whether it was good enough to influence the next 20 years of MMO design. The answer to that is pretty obvious.

@CaffeinaWeb3 Well, I also disagree with downplaying impact, and had similar experiences. In fact, my experience would be impossible without WoW. It was an Asian clone of it with anime-style.

That's fair. Some people are still looking for that experience, and that's exactly why Classic exists. Me personally? I lived Vanilla. I lived TBC. I lived Wrath. I lived Cataclysm. I lived Pandaria. I briefly tried Classic and stopped almost immediately. Not because it was bad. Because you can't recreate something I already lived through at the time. I got everything I needed from WoW years ago. My journey moved on. But that's also why I find it difficult when people try to downplay WoW's impact. Some players stayed. Some players left. Some moved on to different games entirely. But the impact remains. A lot of the standards gamers take for granted today were shaped during that era. You don't have to still play WoW to acknowledge what it did for gaming.

@CaffeinaWeb3 My universal test for these cases is: Erase the game from the past. Imagine it were made today and offered at an equivalent price point/monetization scheme. I don't even think the gacha addicts would touch it for more than a few weeks, if at all.

That's where you lose me. If the gameplay was truly mediocre, why are people still playing it, recreating it and debating it 20+ years later? Influence doesn't happen in a vacuum. At some point the gameplay has to get some credit too. Mediocre games usually don't leave this kind of footprint.

@DeadFeature DS2 exists, so it's reasonable. DS2 to other action games: "I'm closer to DS1 than you are to me."

How much do y'all buy the "it's a good name, but not a good [franchise] game" argument. I don't think I find myself ever agreeing with it tbh, even though I understand it to some extent

@Bemol417647 @clean3romega If the criteria for it being hardest is you need to play as though you're less competent, then...

@TimegazerStudio @clean3romega The people who think Hard Mode is more difficult than Merciless are the people who have replayed the game 30 times and have min-maxed the strategy and fun out of the game. Merciless is the hardest difficulty if you intentionally avoid playing optimally.

Play on Safe Difficulty Mode.

@noirsavant1 People will always yearn for the mines.

Seriously like try a story game or fighting game or something that values your time gacha games are fundamentally worse on your psyche if you’re playing multiple

@Bemol417647 @clean3romega No, it's the highest difficulty, but because it triples weakness and technical damage, it isn't the hardest, since optimal play involves covering your own weaknesses and targeting enemy weaknesses where applicable.

@clean3romega @TimegazerStudio Merciless IS the hardest difficulty.