Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[RobynDaBank]

snip!

I... That is so, so darn hilarious.

[Kolsykol]

The Dunmer theology and the 3 "good" Daedra are probably my most enjoyed fictional cultural/belief system outside of maybe Tolkien.

Yeah, I actually do like that the Elves in Elder Scrolls games aren't generic Elves.
They do look a bit derpy in some of the games but at least they look different.
I really like the aesthetic of the Dunmer too altho I am not huge into the lore so I can't speak much for that.

It's too bad that they downplay it in the CG trailers.

So I went to check back on PSO2: NG the other day, the game I quit for XIV. Man, I know we say FF is dying a lot of the times, but at least we don't have this:



Yup, that is gacha. Yup, that is "buy gacha for a chance to increase the chest slider". And this is a bonus item that you get for whaling a crapton of the gacha.

Oh Sega, how far you've fallen once again, unsurprisingly of course lol.

I don't really see the issue with the slider itself, people always want more options and to create bizarre characters ( both male and female ) so I fail to see why it suddenly becomes an issue with the chest.
But I dunno, I just think it's stupid how breasts is like the one and only body part other than literal genitals that you have to walk on egg shells around and people are so touchy about.
It's like every other body part is fine to exaggerate and have fun with but boobies '' HALT YOU'RE HAVING TOO MUCH FUN AND NOW IT'S A SOCIAL ISSUE '', lol...

The only issue I see with it really is that they're locking it behind a gacha system and paywall, that's just more blatant and shitty.
PSO2 actually looks like fun but it never really grabbed me, it's really difficult for me tho to get attached to another MMO it's just so time-consuming.
It's why I keep GW2 installed and go back to it every now and again, because it's very easy to play it alongside another MMO and not have to invest your life into it.

Edit: '' Physique Limit Breakers '' is pretty funny tho lol, again people are so insanely touchy about breasts but I just kinda find it funny.
It's when the gacha enters the picture it becomes bad to me.

When I invaded for the questline to get that mark for easy access to the rune farm bird cliff, I tended to just wait for the Host to find me, no weapons out, and when they approach I drop a bar of soap and step back and do the fetal position emote.

Sometimes they just kill me instantly with Rivers of Blood or w/e the new OP flavor of the week build is.

Sometimes, though, I see the visible confusion as they approach, pick up my soap, and just stand there like they're trying to process what just happened. I imagine me immediately bolting for the nearest high place to fling myself from only adds to the confusion, lmao.

It's good fun. I hate invading, but I at least try to make it a funny encounter when I do.

Invasions in Souls games are basically just cheese incarnate I always play offline, but it makes for pretty good Youtube content.
I like watching funny compilations of people getting creative with it.

[RobynDaBank]

I dunno why but Vivec is really cool to me, the cities also felt more unique than in Oblivion and Skyrim ( also uh, the guards weren't literally copy paste in all cities ).
I like the three dimensionality to it too.

ESO has a really great world too, I don't like the gameplay and I think that basically all of the gear design is just really bland tho ( even the store skins look like trash o_o ).
But I can't fault the world at all, it's really really good.

I might be one of the most late people to hop onto the Elder Scrolls bandwagon ever... and honestly I really got to see what people like about the universe. OFC I played Skyrim, and it really sucked me in - I've paused playing it for Witcher 3 right now, but I still miss my master mage Livia. I married her to the blacksmith in Riften, adopted the flower-selling girl from Windhelm, and got a cozy home also in Riften. Was trying to do all the quests and dungeons that I could. I think the Daedra lore to me is sooo fascinating. Each while being stereotypical bring something new to the table; I always look forward to starting the quests and submitting myself to their will. Got nearly all the artifacts before I stopped.

I keep wondering if there's lore books covering the Daedra. I could just read the books in-game, but that's not really my thing to be honest.

[Padudu]

I don't really see the issue with the slider itself, people always want more options and to create bizarre characters ( both male and female ) so I fail to see why it suddenly becomes an issue with the chest.
But I dunno, I just think it's stupid how breasts is like the one and only body part other than literal genitals that you have to walk on egg shells around and people are so touchy about.
It's like every other body part is fine to exaggerate and have fun with but boobies '' HALT YOU'RE HAVING TOO MUCH FUN AND NOW IT'S A SOCIAL ISSUE '', lol...

The only issue I see with it really is that they're locking it behind a gacha system and paywall, that's just more blatant and shitty.

It's not the slider I have a problem with - you can already have big booba in PSO2 anyways. It's the fact that you have to guy a crapton of gacha for a chance to get it lmao. It's a "reward" for basically whaling out

But yeah, tbh I never the appeal of extremely huge booba.. for the most part it just always look so tacky and out of place, especially when people tend to make their characters skinnier lol, but to each their own. :P FTR I don't think anyone made it too much of a social issue, but "50% chest boost" just kills me lol.

[Kolsykol]

It's not the slider I have a problem with - you can already have big booba in PSO2 anyways. It's the fact that you have to guy a crapton of gacha for a chance to get it lmao. It's a "reward" for basically whaling out

But yeah, tbh I never the appeal of extremely huge booba.. for the most part it just always look so tacky and out of place, especially when people tend to make their characters skinnier lol, but to each their own. :P FTR I don't think anyone made it too much of a social issue, but "50% chest boost" just kills me lol.

Yeah I just meant more in general not you specifically.
I mean I see even just above average chest sizes get very extreme reactions and people losing their minds over it all the time, like yesterday I saw people on the FFXIV reddit lose their shit about this Y'shtola fanart https://twitter.com/BellPepperArt/st...764867/photo/1 .
( Look at the artists other work too, *she* mainly does hot fanart of the male FFXIV characters )
And people were talking about her as if she was a literal monster and like this was on the same level as in the PSO2 pic.

I think the PSO2 example enters the area of bizarre, I do think it can work sometimes tho I think the Sorceress in Dragons Crown works for example because it kinda just blends into the whole artstyle where EVERYONE has caricaturized physiques.
All of the animations too are heavily stylized.
*PLEASE GIVE US A PC VERSION I BEG*
But again people REALLY zero:ed in on the Sorceress even then.

I mean I don't look at it any differently than people creating abominations in Souls games or if they had sold the same for male characters but with synthol '' muscles ''.
I think that what makes it look so bizarre to me too is how there's no gravity there lol, it's like two hard torpedos just protruding out.
But yeah the gacha is what makes it really bad.

I might be one of the most late people to hop onto the Elder Scrolls bandwagon ever... and honestly I really got to see what people like about the universe. OFC I played Skyrim, and it really sucked me in - I've paused playing it for Witcher 3 right now, but I still miss my master mage Livia. I married her to the blacksmith in Riften, adopted the flower-selling girl from Windhelm, and got a cozy home also in Riften. Was trying to do all the quests and dungeons that I could. I think the Daedra lore to me is sooo fascinating. Each while being stereotypical bring something new to the table; I always look forward to starting the quests and submitting myself to their will. Got nearly all the artifacts before I stopped.

I keep wondering if there's lore books covering the Daedra. I could just read the books in-game, but that's not really my thing to be honest.

The lore definitely seems like one of the strong points of Elder Scrolls.
Tbh when I played the games I was much younger and I didn't care much about that stuff I was a '' skipper '' lol.
So even tho I played the games A LOT, I basically don't have much of a clue about the lore.

Skyrim sucked me in when it first came out too but I've had a hard time going back to it, even with modding it out like crazy I tend to do the first quest to find the tablet and hand it in and kill the first dragon then I sorta just lose interest.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

Invasions in Souls games are basically just cheese incarnate I always play offline, but it makes for pretty good Youtube content.
I like watching funny compilations of people getting creative with it.

It's particularly egregious in Elden Ring due to the open world aspect of it and how co-op works. A lot of people defend it to the death as being "part of the Souls experience, just git gud", but when the game was advertised for its cooperative aspect (play with friends, overcome challenges, explore a vast beautiful world! that sort of thing) and any time you want to co-op, you run the risk of some coward with the newest OP PvP build coming into your world while you're just trying to PvE with a friend, that is not enjoyable gameplay.

I feel like it was shoehorned in just because "it's part of the Souls identity" and they didn't really give thought to how it would actually work with the new game style... Even the in-game 'lore explanation' for it existing is... tenuous at best? Volcano Manor made more sense than Varre's questline, at least.

'Course, on the other side of the fence, you have Hosts who jump into an impossible-to-reach-on-foot place with Torrent, open themselves up for co-op and use the Taunter's Tongue in the hopes of frustrating Invaders enough for them to jump off and leave a portion of their runes behind for the Host's "victory". That is equally as egregious as some mouthbreather coming in to ruin someone's leveling/PvE co-op experience, lol.

[Kolsykol]

First thing I notice when I login to GW2 again is how poor I am lol.
Doesn't matter what MMO I play, forever poor.

[Padudu]

Yeah I just meant more in general not you specifically.
I mean I see even just above average chest sizes get very extreme reactions and people losing their minds over it all the time, like yesterday I saw people on the FFXIV reddit lose their shit about this Y'shtola fanart https://twitter.com/BellPepperArt/st...764867/photo/1 .
( Look at the artists other work too, *she* mainly does hot fanart of the male FFXIV characters )
And people were talking about her as if she was a literal monster and like this was on the same level as in the PSO2 pic.

I think the PSO2 example enters the area of bizarre, I do think it can work sometimes tho I think the Sorceress in Dragons Crown works for example because it kinda just blends into the whole artstyle where EVERYONE has caricaturized physiques.
All of the animations too are heavily stylized.
*PLEASE GIVE US A PC VERSION I BEG*
But again people REALLY zero:ed in on the Sorceress even then.

I mean I don't look at it any differently than people creating abominations in Souls games or if they had sold the same for male characters but with synthol '' muscles ''.
I think that what makes it look so bizarre to me too is how there's no gravity there lol, it's like two hard torpedos just protruding out.
But yeah the gacha is what makes it really bad.

Yeah I figured, I just wanted to make sure that I'm not booba shaming lool

I think in general it's just a tasteful thing. Cleavage, huge knockers, ect are seen as more porny and Y'Shtola is.. well, not portrayed that way at all. Mix in the fact that she's a lot of people's waifus, and BAM, there's that discourse. Don't mess with people's vision of waifus or else you'll get it..

I checked out her other drawings though, holy crap she's amazing! That's wonderful work right there, especially the male ones which I see why you've now pointed out :P

Dragon's Crown was just meant for it, tbh. The art was just there for it.. which I think S.E trademarked Tactics: Ogre VERY recently which is related to Dragon's Crown iirc, right? That also has a fair share of cleavage "done right" IMO.

And tbf, with the Sorceress I can't knock people for commenting. It was very uh.. out there lol, despite how fitting. But overly beefy guys has always been pretty funny to look at - I mean just look at how ridiculous most of the Street Fighter roster looks. Ryu is a HULK, a walking mass of pure muscle that breaks cement whenever he walks.

[Kolsykol]

Btw damn, I just now came to think about it again since I've been thinking a lot about RPG's recently.
Wtf happened with Vampire Bloodlines 2 o_O???
I loved the first game so much, just the setting and overall tone was great.
But then the project just... Died.

Some say it's cancelled others not.
It just totally disappeared off my radar, it looked great based on what I saw leading up until the supposed cancellation.

huge knockers, ect are seen as more porny

I just kinda take issue with it, both because I think it actually does genuinely lead to real women who are well-endowed being inherently sexualized against their will etc but also because it's a quite narrow view on sexuality.
It's not exactly like even flat chests aren't seen as sexual by quite a lot of people.
The same goes for muscular or big women, a lot of the same people who will moralize when it's about large breasts will then be even more '' thirsty '' about them and act like it's fine and totally different.
Imo women should be able to exist and not be modesty incarnate or have no or average/ bellow-average breasts without being reduced down to their chest.
Men are able to be acknowledged as whole people and still run around looking like Adonis with their shirts off casually.
I think it's kinda important to push back and question those things.

But yeah I did see some people say that they thought it was out of character, I personally don't think it matters much in fanart I mean I'd argue a lot of her other art could be considered so as well.
But I doubt if the art in question had been of Estinien that people would've complained about that, I also think she's portrayed as quite sassy ingame and she's the only character that had a romantic subplot and I mean it's her ingame outfit.

As a side note on Street Fighter, they intentionally made the hands and feet enormous :P.
I play a lot of fighting games it's my favorite genre I've never really seen that before, but they said that it was to make it easier to see and register the animations.
I guess it kinda works but damn they're HUGE.

[SturmChurro]

...

I don't really see the issue. Not for me (I think it looks dumb), but they obviously know their target audience. Unlike a publisher like Amazon who is seemingly constantly trying to enforce that "they know best" and in turn killing their games.

First thing I notice when I login to GW2 again is how poor I am lol.
Doesn't matter what MMO I play, forever poor.

I always wanted to like GW2. I really like how my tree girls look, but that game never really pulled me in. Not like games like SWTOR, FFXIV, or even Lost Ark have. I like ESO more too, but 'Elder Scrolls' in general is most likely the reason I always came back to ESO.