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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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The Witcher 3 Review (NO SPOILERS)

Score: Recommended, for people that enjoy Storytelling

Best:

Storytelling

Adult content

Difficult Choices

Embodiment of Polish folklore

Quests

Good:

VisualsOnce you have a lot of good tools to use, gameplay is funExploration and Open World

Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Bad:

“Slavic jank”

Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Performance

Best:

Storytelling

This not only includes how the stories unfold, but as well the characters and world they inhabit.

One word to describe it would be believability. Of course, it’s fantasy but the way standard fantasy things would be handled is done well due to the characters.

A plot is a series of character interactions, so ultimately a story is only as good as the characters it has. Truly what sells the world is how the characters interpret it, and they all have differing viewpoints. Some take the Dark Fantasy world seriously, others find it a chance for a Fun Adventure, and most attempt to drink their sorrows away. But my personal favorite interacts in the series is between Geralt and his friends.

This is where it becomes real for me, relationships. Throughout Geralt’s adventures he meets many people. He doesn’t get along with most, but there are some he actually befriends. And even though nearly all his friends are eccentric which contrast the stoic white wolf, he still has long and ongoing friendships with em. As the director of the game said, “friends are the backbone of your life” (he was talking about life not the witcher but oddly enough it connects to the witcher for me) and that is exemplified by Geralt.

All in all, the relationships between the characters make the storytelling real.

Adult content

While other games have sex in it, The Witcher series has been able to portray sex for what it is…. Sex. Bioware has the lovely dovey sex after you Romance them, but in the Witcher it’s different and more Realistic. Adults have sex for various reasons and it’s not always romantic. Most of the time it’s just for the act itself, having a single fling cus sex is Fun.

Since witchers shoot blanks they have the stereotype of being promiscuous. It’s up to the player (no pun intended) if they will let Geralt succumb to Hook Up Culture, or actually stay in a dedicated monogamous relationship.

Something like this just isn’t address in any other mainstream RPG.

Other serious topics are brought up as well related to sexual violence and racism. They are all handled well due to one simple theme present with each situation. That is the fact that you can’t be neutral, you have to pick a side.

Difficult Choices

It’s funny cus the white wolf almost embodies the “grey area” of neutrality that generally serious RPG fans walk the line of. That the player will be understanding for all Characters and trying to figure out a solution. But most situations aren’t like this realistically. Theoretically sure you can be critical of Both Sides, but in practice you HAVE to pick a side. Or maybe you don’t pick a side and “stay neutral” which can be the worst option cus you could be letting bad stuff happen that you could of prevented. This is why when choices pop up for Geralt, it’s pretty serious. Especially cus the effects of them happen way later in the game before you realized what you did wrong.

These choices impact the fates of certain characters, among other things. Choose wisely, or you may not be happy with what you did.

Embodiment of Polish folklore

I’m no expert in Polish culture, or of ye’ old slavic and pagan mythology, but the entire game reeks of something being different. It just doesn’t seem like your typical Tolkien fantasy. There’s a unique twist that is clearly the result of the entire game being developed in Poland, thus polish culture shining bright within it.

Some people joke that the Witcher series is Poland’s main export, but atleast for entertainment it seems quite true. It seems like a major group effort from creative minds of Poland, banding together to present their folklore to world. Major props and respect to the CD PROJEKT RED team!

Quests

Quests are designed like episodic content. For side quests and hunter contracts, they all tell a good standalone story from start to finish of the quest. Sometimes quests interconnect too, reference each other, presenting how much the world is connected. It makes doing the quests quite addicting cus you want to see what’s going to happen next in the quest, and then when you finish it you want another good story so you start another one. It’s almost like bingewatching a tv show. Having good stories for the quests makes even the most mundane tasks more appealing too. Trying to tell a story… WHAT A CONCEPT!

Good:

Visuals

They are pretty nice looking if you got the Specs for it. Sometimes regular real lofe animals like cats and dogs look weird but overall its good. Landscapes pretty, monsters spooky, humans all raggedy. The aesthetic sells the world quite nicely.

Once you have a lot of good tools to use, combat is fun

When starting out the game, you have limited options for combat. But through the course of the game, gaining abilities, new gear, etc etc, gives Geralt more tools to play around with. This is when the game opens up and you can mess around a bit. The white wolf can get pretty OP too if you play your cards right. To which if you think the game is too easy, you can always play on higher difficulties.

Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Due to how alchemy and signs work, signs, oils, potions and decoctions generally have only a Specific situation use. Some are more versatile, but most times you will be looking up the Bestiary to figure out what tools to use.

On one hand this kinda makes the combat seem flat, cus of the limited options you can do, BUT thematically it makes sense why. It makes sense why it’s like this for a hunter of monsters, there’s a lot of monsters and they all have different weaknesses so it makes sense as to why the design is like this.

On top of that, it’s kind of deceptive cus you CAN experiment but only when you have a LOT of the tools and you know what all their purposes are. It’s a barrier, but you can get over it.

But still, in the end the gameplay still isn’t as dynamic as other combat systems which is a shame in my opinion.

Exploration and Open World

Points of interest are labeled on the map. You get good loot and fight monsters at these points most of the time. It doesn’t truly make the game world feel Alive necessarily, it just seems more like extra stuff to do. I appreciate the effort of given the player stuff to do if they completed quests and are bored, and you get neat goodies from going these places but it’s really just There.

Bad:

“Slavic jank”

There’s a bit of a joke about games made in slavic related areas. They are often associated with janky games, but games with so much dedication behind them that even though they are janky it’s so unique that it’s fun. Something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for example. This phenomena is due to how the gamers in these territories are completely out of the typical western Triple A bubble. And generally dedicate their time to old CRPGs, which causes them to grow a fondness for more Detailed and Dense design instead of Simple and Elegant. This isn’t a bad thing, and this type of thing can be seen in The Witcher series, where it’s both Triple A BUT has that old school CRPG style to it.

All that is good in my opinion…. But I have to be honest and say that the gameplay can be too janky at times. Movement in general feels weird with its velocity and acceleration. Roach controls awkwardly and doesn’t feel like a horse, more like you’re on something sliding around. When you run into other animals or enemies on Roach you just push them away and not run them over.

Also, for some reason the controls completely change when in combat mode and you can’t control at all when combat mode happens. This causes awkwardness where you are not moving the same way as before, as in… an enemy triggers you to go into combat mode but they are too far away for you to hurt so you are stuck moving around weird. It’s just an odd system, which I prefer to have a full range of movement and attacks, not being arbitrarily pushed into combat mode.

Also, the inventory is a bit confusing to navigate especially if you are trying to find a specific item hidden in the Other tab.

The whole character upgrade screen too is not clear cus there’s clearly abilities that are better than others WHEN you actually know their potential, but unless you’re looking up guides and the wiki you won’t really know which are the good ones to actually invest in.

All these little things that kind of ruin the “game feel” make people not want to play it past a couple hours cus they think the game is “janky” anddd the game is actually kinda janky. I have to admit it, can’t lie. There’s other open world games that have better movement overall, and I wish that this game did.

Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Now you may wonder, what’s so bad about that? Well, I was being critical about this games jankiness, but really it’s not in the slightest as janky as Witcher 1. Witcher 2 isn’t as much janky, but Witcher 3 improved on a lot of Witcher 2’s problems so Witcher 3 is in fact the least janky.

Now it would be a hard sell to say “you need to go through 50+ hours of the previous installments to play this?” BUT if the other installments were as polished as this than it wouldn’t be as much of a problem… But it’s like I can’t tell someone “Oh you have to play through these janky games to play this game, don’t worry it’s worth it bro” cus that’s disrespecting their intelligence AND worst of all their time. Not everyone has time to look play through decent games to get to an Amazing game just so they can understand the story… which is sad.

Cus don’t get me wrong, I adore Witcher 1 more than most, but I can’t lie and say it’s worth “slogging” through the awkward gameplay to see the amazing story unfold down the road.

Why? Even if it’s a unique OK… there are better games to play that are more than just OK.

And to the book point, you shouldn’t need to read a book series before playing a videogame, the entertainment should be as singular as possible. The witcher videogames too have a different storyline than the books anyways, so it’s a moot point of them being in the same continuity and being “required”… even though they technically can help if you didn’t play the other games. Still not fair though, so nah, just nah.

Performance

You need to make sure you have a midrange build atleast so you can run the game. But man do the frames drop in cities. Back on my old-midrange build I could play at around 50-60fps outside of Novigrad… but IN Novigrad I had 10-20fps due to NPCs and who knows what else. Also just some areas would lag on that build regardless if something was at low or medium. Very finnicky. I think by now with all the patches and optimization it’s probably better buuut I can’t say the game is well optimized. It’s serviceable with a good build… but ya get kinda screwed if you don’t and that’s a shame.

#thewitcher3 #thewitcher #review #nospoilers #geralt

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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The Witcher 3 Quality of Life Tips n Tricks

Tips on everything that is Witcher 3. Whether you are just starting out, OR got through the entire game without learning what the fuck AP is... then this is the place FOR YOU!

Foreword:

This guide goes over various tips that I have curated together to make Geralt receive his butcher title deservingly. This isn’t a tutorial, but more of going over recommendations for character abilities, potions, upgrades, weapons, armor, and wtf AP is. Also explaining the premise of The Witcher series.

I am no Number Crunching expert, I took my 150+ hours of gameplay and looked up other people’s tips and guides to figure out what is the best advice to improve how I play the game. I listed the guides I looked at in end, but spoiler warning since some of those vids show endgame stuff.

Which regarding my guide, there are no story spoilers. The only thing I address is the upgrade paths available through the expansion packs. They really improve the quality of the gameplay once you get to a higher level.

The storytelling of The Witcher is its strong suit, so it’s understandable to kind of not think about the gameplay on a meta level… but it’s sad to see people get frustrated and not get to see the unique stories of the game cus they don’t fully understand Geralt’s POWER.

Thus, this guide is for both complete newbs to Witcher, and people that costed through the main quest and still are completely confused on the gameplay mechanics (like I was lawl). Both shall benefit from understanding the gameplay better, to get to the juicy story bits AND EVEN find some fun in dressing up Geralt and making him POWERFUL AS ALL HELL. Enjoooy.

I HIGHLY Recommend Both Expansion Packs; as they both contain amazing storylines and lots of content, to which some expand the gameplay to improve it substantially. I will talk through this guide assuming you have both.

Story

First thing a complete newb to the series should know about Witcher 3 is…. The Main Quest, and the context of Geralt’s journey and really the whole world as well only makes sense if you either have played Witcher 1 & 2 OR have read the novels the series is based on.

That’s not to say you can’t just jump in to 3 and coast through it, figuring out the gist of it, you can do that……… but you miss out on the best part of the entire Witcher series…. and that is the storytelling.

Yes, Witcher 1 is janky as fuck, and Witcher 2 is out-dated, buttttt the story continuity, and all the callbacks that Witcher 3 does add to the story and world.

If you are curious as to why The Witcher series is different from all other fantasy RPG worlds is due to it being from Poland. People joke about The Witcher franchise being Poland’s sole entertainment flagship to the entire world, but it kinda is. The whole mythos of the series is based upon old Polish and Pagan mythology and folklore. This edge makes the aesthetic of the medieval fantasy look entirely different than your ordinary Tolkien fantasy that everything else is.

Speaking of edge, did I mention this is Dark Fantasy? Prepare the edge, The Witcher did in fact start out as Pulp Fiction mind you. Everything about The Witcher screams Adult. Of course there’s brutality, but really most games are like that… the difference is the SEX.

Adults have sex, and this aint no Romantic Bioware, no sireeee, this is more akin to …. how most adults have sex. Which is more to just have sex, single fling, casual dating… in fact since witchers shoot blanks they have the stereotype of being promiscuous. But it’s up to the player if Geralt shall succumb to Hook Up Culture, or does get into a monogamous relationship.

One last thing I want to touch on is…. Ok whenever someone is trying to sell the idea of The Witcher to a newb they say “it’s like Game of Thrones: the VIDEOGAME!!” I guess since Game of Thrones and The Witcher are both dark fantasy(cough SEX and fantasy). But when saying that statement it’s undermining The Witcher… cus the newb is gonna think “oh so The Witcher just copied Game of Thrones and did their own spin on it.. I’ll pass” which just to dispel this:

Not only did The Witcher pulp fiction serial begin before A Song of Ice and Fire novel series did, BUT ALSO Witcher 1 came out before the Game of Thrones TV series began.

Thus, a better way of saying that recommendation is “If you like the dark fantasy aspect of Game of Thrones, then The Witcher series has that and MORE considering it’s an embodiment of Polish folklore and legend.”

Anyyywaysss enough of me trying to hype up the premise of The Witcher, lets get to the GAMEPLAY.

Character

Builds

Of course you design whatever build you want, but for complete newbs it’s hard to know where to start. The freeform unlock progression is daunting, especially when you have no clue what unlocks are good, which are bad, what to invest into, how to even design a build… so I will be going over some of the best and good unlocks that are going to guarantee success for you. Obviously you can experiment with whatever unlocks you want, but it’s frustrating when you start progressing through the game and you feel gimped.

I would like to state though what is potentially the strongest build in the game, and really the most dynamic and fun, and that is the hybrid build. AKA a fusion of combat, signs, and alchemy brought together by a special mutation. What is a mutation you might ask? Well it relates to the last expansion pack of the game, Blood and Wine. I won’t give any details on how it’s acquired and such cus of Spoilers, but I will say what mutation is the best and how it dictates the recommendations I am giving you.

One True Mutation: Euphoria

Again, I’m trying to be as vague as possible the details surround mutations, but there is one that changes the perspective of whole game, and that is Euphoria. What it does is, every point of Toxicity you have will increase your sword damage AND sign intensity. Thus, making an alchemy heavy build including this power up basically makes you powerful at EVERYTHING.

Also, making a hybrid build which incorporates all the abilities is more fun, since your using all the tools that Geralt could possibly do.

Yellow is BEST, Green is Good.

Combat

Best:

Whirl and Rend are really fun and add more depth to the combat. With Whirl, if you hold Quick Attack Geralt will start spinning around doing damage to whoever enters his bubble. Rend is when holding Strong Attack, where Geralt does a charged overhead slash attack that ignores the enemy’s defenses. Both attacks use up stamina by the way. They are fun since it gives you something else to do in the combat rather than dodge, parry, roll, do 3 quick attacks, etc. It’s much more dynamic when you have the options to use these. Whirl helpful for groups of enemies, and Rend for doing massive damage. They are even MORE fun when their distance is upgraded which I will get to later.

Razor Focus is related to Adrenaline Points. It first gives you one free one when entering combat, and increases the gain of AP from sword blows. Thus, the more attacks you do on the enemy, the more AP you get. All around most useful unlock to gain a lot of AP.

Good:

Muscle Memory and Precision Blows obviously are both good if you are going for either Quick Attack build OR just an overall good build. Same thing with Strength Training and Crushing Blows but with Strong Attack. I recommend to get all 4 of them eventually. Since it just overall boosts your attack output, no downside.

I recommend Sunder Armor but not Crippling Strikes. Sunder Armor is beneficial for breaking down enemies defenses so it’s good. But Crippling Strikes is outclassed by another skill in Alchemy, Poisoned Blades which I will get to.

Deadly Precision is a fun one. AP add a small chance of causing an insta-kill on an enemy. If you’re crazy about the AP than of course get this.

Signs

Best:

Delusion gives Geralt that “these aren’t the druids you’re looking for” jedi mindtricks. Basically, it would be your Charisma or Speech stat in other games. It gives more dialogue options for Geralt to be more Peaceful, rather than having to get into fights all the time. I highly recommend to equip it while doing quests.

Quen is pretty much everyone best friend, so Exploding Shield is a no-brainer to have.

Aard Sweep is part of the alternate modes for the signs. Why I chose this one over the rest is cus it’s the most helpful. This allows you to stagger a crowd of enemies and even bigger monsters. So it’s a safe bet to get it.

Good:

As I was saying about the alternative modes… really all of them can be useful depending on what the enemy is weak too of course, but there’s two that I think are good.

Magic Trap shoots a laser out at enemies that slows em down and hurts them. Obviously useful for specters, but also helpful for slowly down enemies in general since it has a longer range than regular Yrden circle. Also, with certain upgrades it can become even more useful which I will explain later…

Puppet is kinda bad on its own, but there’s a certain upgrade thing I must explain later… lots of explaining laters but trust me.

Alchemy

Best:

Any witcher should have Acquired Tolerance equipped. It increases your maximum Toxicity level so you can chug more potions and decoctions. Which means you can experiment more with them, have some crazy combinations with em, and this goes hand in hand with Euphoria. Since Euphoria means more toxicity is more damage. It’s an all-around amazing ability to have.

Synergy increases the power that a mutagen gives, up to 50% when maxed out. No matter the mutagen either, but for example if you stacked up on red mutagens your damage output would be doubled soooo really helpful.

Hunter Instinct and Killing Spree go hand in hand. Hunter Instinct increases critical hit damage, based upon the oil your using against and if your adrenaline points are maxed out, and Killing Spree increases critical hit chance if your drunk off that toxicity. Combined your gonna be SLICING out that critical hits.

Good:

Heightened Tolerance is very nice for chugging potions. Though, the way it works apparently is a bit confusing. It seems like what it does is prevents the effects of overdosing, aka loss of HP and AP, so it’s quite beneficial for Euphoria. But some say it doesn’t do that, I still highly recommend getting it.

Poisoned Blades is better than Crippling Strikes cus it scales based upon the tier of oil it is. Higher level means better chance of hitting. Thus should theoretically should hit more than the bleeding one.

Protective Coating is obviously good if you want to be more tanky.

Tissue Transmutation, Endure Pain, and Refreshment all increase max Vitality. So if you want to have a lot of health, like if you want to be tanky, then GET THAT HP with THESE!

General

Best:

Rage Management allows you to use AP for Sign usage instead of stamina. If you combine this with Razor Focus you basically don’t really need stamina at all, you can just use all that AP you got on Signs. It really adds to the gameplay that you can use a sign with AP and since you still have stamina you can use Whirl/Rend to combo, totally makes the game more dynamic with what you can do with this simple unlock.

Gourmet makes food actually useful. The effects of food lasting 20 minutes instead of like a couple seconds means you don’t need to waste all the food you have in one single combat encounter ;;; P. Highly recommend. I imagine too if you’re on higher difficulties than this’ll be helpful since you can’t meditate to insta-heal.

Cat School Techniques adds 25% critical hit damage for every light armor piece you have, meaning 100% (and some have reported more, unless that depends on the patch) for full armor set. THAT DAMAGE OUTPUT BOY. And putting that together with the other critical hit abilities, it just stacks up that CR1TIKAL HITS BAY BAY.

Good:

The other armor set boosts, Griffin School Techniques and Bear School Techniques I guess are fine if you are using the respective armors. Probably not as much of a return as the Cat one, but still a nice 20% boost of Sign Intensity or Vitality if you want. Probably best used at lower level and replaced later.

Quests

Priority of Quests go like this:

Quests below your level

Quests at your Level

Main Quest

Quests above your Level

The reason is because you get the most XP out of Quests done at around your Level, so you should get done with the low level quests first to get them out of your way, and then to the quests at your level, and tackle the quests above your level probably later once you gotten through more of Main Quest stuff. Cus if you progress through the Main Quest you will probably gain some more levels anyways.

Alchemy

Pick up EVERYTHING from enemies. Collect as much as possible, so you can start making alchemy recipes as soon as possible.

Don’t sweat it on buying recipes, look around first before putting out the cash on em. But I do recommend getting the base level Oils if you see them for sale. As well as any other base level alchemy recipe so you can start leveling them up with the higher levels you acquire by exploration.

OILS are so important. Try to upgrade them as soon as you can if you have the recipe. It helps so much with doing damage to enemies.

Potions:

This is just a highlight of potions, don’t be afraid to experiment of course. But these are some guaranteed goodies.

Blizzard – Gives you Bayonetta Witchtime. After killing an enemy, time slows down. Extremely helpful for groups of enemies, especially if the enemies have very quick attacks.

Thunderbolt – Damage boost, which is always nice.

Swallow – Vitality regeneration boost, for that HP.

Tawny Owl – Stamina regen boost, for those Signs and ROLLS.

Black Blood – Makes vampires get knocked back once hitting Geralt. Very helpful for a certain DLC…

Killer Whale – Gives you more breath while underwater, and ability to see better. Very nice to have for deep sea diving quests!

Maribor Forest – Increases AP generation, must have for maximizing AP growth!

Cat – Ability to see in dark.

White Honey – Clears out all the potion effect you have going, very helpful for ending the Cat potion once you’re out of a cave.

White Raffard’s Decoction– Restores a lot of vitality immediately. If HP regen isn’t your thing…

Golden Oriole – Immunity to poison, and when leveled up all the way, you get healed from poison.

Decoctions:

Werewolf – Running and jumping don’t use Stamina, so you can run wild, BROTHER.

Succubus – Attack power increases over the course of the battle, really maxxing out your POWER.

Ekimmara – Doing damage to enemies heals you. It’s especially helpful if you want to be on the offense instead of tank, you can now kinda tank hits when your wailing on people.

Fiend – If you ever accidentally go over carrying weight, than this is helpful in a pinch so you can race to storage, or

Bombs:

At early levels the damage that bombs do is more helpful, but once you get to a higher level they stop being extremely useful. Always refer to Bestiary to see what bombs are helpful for what enemies.

Runewright

A new upgrade system added via one of the expansion packs. This be an expensive investment to unlock, mind you!

It’s split into 3 levels, and it gets more and more expensive to unlock higher you go. Though…… the upgrades in the 3rd tier aren’t fully worth it. I recommend upgrading up to 2nd tier and waiting till ya get the money for 3.

Best:

Severance(lvl2) – extending the distance of Rend and Whirl. Beforehand the attacks would kinda miss if you weren’t directly in front of your enemy…. But now you can wheel and deal these attacks from a bit of a range. This turns Whirl into a blender, whirling through a massive group of enemies with ease. Or rend a sniper rifle, frickin’ sniping enemies if they try to dodge away from ya. It just makes the swordplay so much more fun.

Heft(lvl1), Balance(lvl2), Levity(lvl3) – aka Changing the armor to light/medium/heavy – Obviously really useful since your armor isn’t bound by armor class anymore. Both helpful for people using whatever armor they want for any certain build, but also people that want to do some Fashion and dress up Geralt and not need to worry about whatever armor class the assorted pieces are.

Good:

Beguilement(lvl2) and it’s upgrade Possession(lvl3) make Axii’s have potential. Nothing OP, but it makes Axii actually fun to use.

Ignition(lvl1) – after igniting someone, there’s a 25% chance that another enemy nearby will be set on fire as well. Nice addition to igni’s arsenal.

Armor and Weapons

Keep in mind that light, medium, and heavy armors have unique attributes.

Light increases crit and Quick Attack

Medium increases Sign and Stamina regen

Heavy increases max vitality and Strong Attack

Witcher gear gets special abilities once fully upgraded, so keep that in mind when figuring out which ones you wanna max out. Also maybe look up what the grandmaster sets look like to see which ones look the coolest to you.

Basically when your starting out you should just look for whatever armor and weapons have highest numbers.

Try not to buy anything, cus you will get some epic loot from doing quests and exploring. Also, schematics too for making epic loot. So only buy if you have the cash, but don’t buy anything too expensive.

And then of course once you’re a higher level then you will be looking to get grandmaster witcher gear and relic level loot.

Also the best silver sword is available via a quest in one of the expansions FYI!!

Adrenaline Points

This is the 3 red bars next to your stamina bar. Honestly, I had no idea what this did even after beating the main quest, most of the side quests, and both DLCs. But… it really helps knowing what the fuck this is.

Basically, think of it as a multiplier. Ala a damage multiplier but more complicated than that.

What the multiplier does is:

Increases damage

Increases sign intensity

And who knows what else. I’m still not sure of its full extent. But those two are the major key.

You gain AP by doing actions, by attacking and hitting the enemies and parrying for example. You lose AP by getting hit by the enemy.

Thus, you want to try and not get hit as you gain AP so then you can do massive damage later on in the fight.

Misc

Sign intensity effects stuff like if igni will set someone on fire for example.

Always refer to the Bestiary!!! So you know what Oils and bombs to use. Of course don’t be afraid to experiment with potions and other bombs, but use the Bestiary article for a reference.

Meditation heals you if you aren’t on the harder difficulties. Though it also clears you of all effects. BUT it also refills your potions.

Potions are auto refilled once you sleep or meditate if you have alcohol on hand.

Reference

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHbd6ZTHjLo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc5hIUqkOMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9hDNpmHzWU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWgwjZ0ju68

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ATkGx0iFUE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WFkCGcLQMA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKRS0LD-11k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCctUGAr57A

Links:

http://guides.gamepressure.com/thewitcher3/guide.asp?ID=30859

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/3864rg/80_hours_in_and_i_still_dont_know_how_adrenaline/

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/702760-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/73210492

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/702760-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/73952691?page=1

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/6az8wd/overdose_threshold_decoction_toxicity_endure_pain/

Hope this guide will help some poor soul out there..... Good luck on the path Witcher.....

#tw3 #tw3baw #thewitcher #thewitcher3 #witcher3 #geralt of rivia #tips and tricks #QoL #quality of life

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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Internet Dragon news report: Nick Robinson be posting on Twitter again AND Spoiler Alert, we gonna see more Drama in the future

welp gotta reveal the internet dragon earlier than expected.

THE INTERNET DRAGON NEVER FUCKING FORGETS!

well first of all nick never actually left social media lawl. he still used his instagram occasionally during his absence, and his fwb friend would post pics of him. this is just an fyi for yall.

AND to be perfectly clear for all of us outsiders not In The Know, the reason his friends flipped out on him AND why he was fired has still never been officially stated wtf it was.

on surface level we only saw the awkward flirting DMs, but if you looked at how all of his friends and peers reacted, how serious, devastated, pissed off, and sad they all reacted.... no, none of this is about the awkward flirting. there’s clearly something else going on behind the scenes. what is it? well, only time will tell us what truly was and could still be going on.

so nick is posting like normal to move on from the Drama, of course. but he's acting nonchalantly about it cus of either 2 reasons:

1. what he says is true, he only did some silly awkward flirting and thats it! everyone else is overreacting and nick is actually innocent.

2. he wants you to think theres nothing else to it so he's just continuing on since he already addressed the surface level allegations. no point in bringing up the other stuff... especially if the allegations are in fact true. this is regarding flirting with underage girls and one anonymous source claiming potential rape. these are pretty serious, and it explains why he would be fired instantly and have all his public friends Excommunicate him.

is nick obligated to comment on why he was fired? no obviously.

and do any more possible victims have to come forward with evidence about these claims? of course not publically, since the Correct course of action is to go into legal action.

but here's the funny thing about drama, the more you try to ignore it, the more you try to "move away" from it.... it only bottles up, until it EXPLODE.

it looks like nick is choosing the internal combustion method. so, even if he IS innocent we gonna see shit turn UGLY regardless. the truth WILL come out eventually. of course it would be nicer if someone just came out and said what the fuck is going on behind the scenes of the Gaming Journalist / Anime Clique, since then the drama will go away from it being directly addressed. but alas, we are gonna see some serious shit go down instead later on.

for some context i am not In The Know, as im just a fan like everyone else... BUT after following nick long enough you can easily connect some dots to figure out he's had some pretty bad relationships. nothing illegal, just being like what his friends said, manipulative asshole. its not my place to talk about this though...

Now for your Forecast. what will we be seeing in the coming months and Years...

it’s obvious there’s bad shit nick has done in the past that deals with interpersonal relationships so it’s NONE of our business to know about.. but clearly people felt burned enough to make a big blowout, and get him fired from his JOB... but that’s the old nick, is this New Nick Robinson completely different and he has learned from all his mistakes? this goes into the forecast.

IF nick is now a better person AND he never did any reallly bad illegal shit in the first place then the future will be good. roadblocks will be hit, but they can be overcome. he wont do anymore manipulative shit and he will eventually regain the trust of his friends and peers that was originally lost.

IF nick is just gonna keep doing what he was doing in the past... or worse evolves alleged predatory tactics... oh boy (or since its tumblr i should say uwu smol boy...) truth always comes out. honestly, yall know the deal already. all the fire and brimstone that comes with internet drama we shall see some day.

i should also mention the conspiracy theory that anti-sjw and GGer peoples have. which is that the surface level allegations of DM flirting is all that Nick did, and that SJW made up shit to frame him and ruin his career. with the intel i know, the conspiracy just doesn’t hold up, but like i already said theres stuff going on behind the scenes of Gaming and Anime cliques who knows what going down there.

it’s also funny that GamerGate happened cus of an Open Relationship situation that made people perceive that sex resulted into exposure. which the allegations happening against nick are literally the same thing, so it is funny that the whole “it’s about ethics in journalism” meme was abandoned by em i guess.

I shall leave you with this.

this OPEN RELATIONSHIP Hook Up Culture bulllshit keeps clogging up the internet with drama. it would atleast be funny if the results weren’t so clearly toxic and leaving so many people in pain for all parties involved.

MY PSA FOR ALL THE INTERNET PERSONALITIES....... please just realize that the people ya fuck can come back to bite ya in the ass and NOT in the good way. also the “wow it’s my ~personal business~, guys!! quit being so nosy wow RUDE!” thing doesnt work on the internet, cus people can figure out pretty much anything. don’t try to act like ya can keep secrets like ya can in real life lawl.

#nick robinson #internet dragon #sexual harassment #rape #GG #SJW #anti sjw #gamergate #drama #flirting #open relationship #hookup culture #conspiracy #internet drama #internet personality

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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the cheating fetish

Content Description: cheating, fetish, sex, alcohol, sexual assault, open relationship, hookup culture, sociopaths, animals, birds, monogamy, polygamy, gamergate, drama

There’s people who get excited by the prospect of cheating on their significant other. The excitement comes from doing it with someone else besides their s/o without any way of their s/o of knowing. A secret to hide, that's the pleasure of it for them. This is the "cheating fetish".

Of course, cheating is terrible to do as it's a complete breach of trust. But people with this cheating fetish make excuses.

For example, they get wasted at a party and fuck some random person. Someone they could know or only just met. And they don't consider it rape mind you. See in their head, when they're drunk, they are a "different person". And that since they aren't themselves, all the actions they do have no consequence. So, it's not considered cheating if they are drunk!!

Another excuse that usually goes with the drunk one is that Fun =/= Love. Basically, having sex For Fun isn't considered cheating, because they weren't passionately making love! So, it doesn't count!

And to cap all of those off, the last rebuttal to all critic that I've heard is that "EVERYONE DOES IT! Everyone has a random fling once and a while. There's just something you don't tell your significant other! And as long as they never know, then what's the problem?"

Now let me break down these 3 common excuses and why they are bad, cus most people are idiots and think these excuses make sense, so,

Having sex while your drunk with a random person is cheating, as you broke the trust of staying monogamous. It doesn't matter that you were drunk and that you "weren't yourself". If you truly aren't yourself while drunk, then don't drink dumbass. Now if it was an open relationship that's different but I'll get to that later...

Again, doesn't matter what your intent is. If you are having sex behind your s/o's back (not literally, that's just anal... I'm talking figuratively) than it's cheating. Again, again again, breaching that trust is what makes it cheating.

And finally, the last excuse, that everyone cheats. I wouldn't doubt that most people are stupid egotistical assholes that can't take consequences in their actions, so maybe a lot of people do cheat. But you really shouldn't be proud of joining that club of sociopaths.

Now let's get to Open Relationships. I see Open Relationships as official Hookup Culture. And I see how it all connects to the "cheating fetish".

Hookup Culture is people using apps like Tindr and such to have one night stands, friends with benefits, and all around random flings.

These acts basically all go into the excitement of the cheating fetish. Fucking a random person, fucking someone else besides your fwb without them knowing. But it's technically legal to do in Hookup culture, but it does lead to drama cus of the weird grey areas of how people get emotionally attached to people.

Open Relationships are that, but it's officially mandated by the couple. An executive decision to have a polygamous relationship instead of monogamous.

But I have a problem with relationships that turn from monogamous into Poly... all the horror stories I hear, it seems like such a drama magnet.

Like people start an open relationship to "take a break from each other"...... whhhhhat? Instead of breaking up, ya had to set yourselves on fire instead.

There's always one partner that gets extremely and intensely jealous of the other partner fucking random people. This jealous leads to them getting bitter and angered and lashing out in bad ways.

For reference, (Internet Dragon initiated) Gamer Gate happened because of an Open Relationship and a partner holding in his jealousy and bitterness. Look that up. That's how bad open relationships can go, that it literally effects the entire political landscape of the internet. (Internet Dragon deactivated)

Now why does this happen? Well we have to go into some Nature shit, will go back to the Open stuff after that context.

People argue that humans are not monogamous, and in fact are polygamous. This is cus we grow tired of the same stuff and always are looking for new experiences..... but I don't see how this applies to a monogamous relationship. Human peoples are always changing, so a one on one relationship can be infinitely exciting if the people are brutally honest with each other.

The other one is citing how some animals just indiscriminately fuck as many other animals as possible. Basically, animalistic rape. This is true that some animal species are like this, but those are usually animals of low IQs. Birds, that have proven to be able to use tools, are monogamous for life.... but of course some extra sex isn't out of the question for some bird species.

In my opinion, I would say a lot of Humans are monogamous. But, there are people who IF they were brutally honest would prefer to be in that open promiscuous status.

And again, this is just my theory but, the people that bottle in the desire to Fuck as many people as possible are the ones with that "cheating fetish". These people get into hookup culture and are always desiring new partners, not a single partner to stay with.

So, going back to open relationships. If all participants are of that promiscuous denomination than no drama should be had cus they all should be getting horny off of Fucking other people behind anyone they get emotionally attached to.

But if someone is monogamous than they will get incredibly mad, even if they kidded themselves into agreeing with decision of an Open relationship.

So, to conclude:

To all those people with a "cheating fetish", go into the Open Relationship rat king nest. You must be with like-minded people, or your fetish will cause nuclear levels of drama.

And to people who are monogamous and for some reason think that making it open to "take a break"..... no. Just no. Break up instead, that will save all the drama that will unfold.

#cheating #fetish #sex #alcohol #sexual assault #open relationship #hookup #hookup culture #sociopath #animals #birds #monogamy #polygamy #gamergate #drama

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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Kayfabe vs. Immersion, When people say something is “Immersion-breaking”, they mean kayfabe breaking

Content Description: kayfabe, immersion, wrestling, carnivals, boxing, money, fighting, fiction, plotholes, believability,

Kayfabe is an old carnival term. Carnies are meant to influence people into spending a lot of money, more than they should. In one aspect was betting odds. All the contact action fighty spectacle sports that happened in the carnival had many spectators betting on the odds on which fighter was going to win. So, professional wrestling, boxing, and such were all rigged into making money off the betters.

But how do you rig a fight? By telling a story. Cus if something ridiculous happened that made the way the fight ended seem unbelievable, there would be a riot since people would be losing their hard-earned cash over a "fake" fight.

Thus, kayfabe was born. Kayfabe is when a scripted event is portrayed as real. Believability is the major focal point for kayfabe, remember that.

Now let's go to immersion. Immersion is a more whimsical term. You can be immersed into a fictional world or even music. It's that feeling like you understand the made-up rules of a world, or that you understand characters like they are your family, or getting hit by a wave of audio excellence.

Believability really has nothing to do with immersion. In fact, ridiculous stuff can totally work in immersion if it follows the emotion or abstract "feeling" that is going on. Immersion is like a dream, where fiction just SEEMS so real, but it's not of course.

See where I'm going with this? When people say something is "immersion-breaking" I think they truly mean it's "breaking kayfabe".

Plotholes, everyone on the internet points them out and lambaste them, even though they don't even know what it means but that's a whole other subject entirely but... A plot, a series of character actions, gets a hole when there is a missing part that leaves the other actions logic confusing.

Thus, a plothole is based on following the rules of the fictional world (aka suspending disbelief) and the believability of the rules and understanding of characters being undone. Thus, it's breaking kayfabe, not immersion breaking.

But they can be the same thing, like a serious scene somehow turns into a wacky comedy. Both the logic and emotion is broken. But of course, this juxtaposition can be used if the story is a comedy in general. Or if done correctly it wouldn't break kayfabe and the abrupt emotional shift makes sense for the characters as a moment of relief.

But yes. Everyone complains about plotholes being immersion breaking, when it's really kayfabe breaking. The distinction is very important, as it shows the root of the problem of what rule is actually being broken, which is believability.

#kayfabe #immersion #wrestling #carnivals #boxing #money #fighting #fiction #plot holes #believable

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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Basics of Storytelling : Moments

Content Description: storytelling, epic, crazy, wrasslin’

What is a story? A story is a series of actions. Actions by whom? Characters. Through characters a story is told.

But what is the point of experiencing a story? The theme? The message? Those are parts of it and many more reasons but if we boil it down to the core, we experience stories for the moments. Moments we will always remember, because of some reason or another. But these moments are what the stories are building up to, or planned to happen throughout as spots. Call it a rising action, a climax, whatever, it's special moments that we look for in a story.

Thus, if we look at the most basic level of storytelling, it's constructing a story to build to a moment or moments.... but what's the most important moment? The finish.

What happens at the end of a story will leave a lasting impression on you. Regardless of how epic a story is leading up to the finale, if the ending sucks than that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Thus, again, at the basic level when creating a story, you are building to the finish to make the audience pop for the ending.

And then if you go with the dynamic too, you can create false finishes. Moments that seem like the story is ending but it's not so it's a surprise. This would be called the climax in a 3-act structure.

To conclude, without getting into crazy theoretical act structure analysis you can always analyze a story by its moments and if the build up to them was worth it.

Also, yes I realized this from Wrasslin', hence why I used wrasslin' lingo here.

#storytelling #epic #crazy #wrestling #moments #characters

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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Quality of Life Tips and Tricks for Nier Automata

There's a lot of basic tips and tricks that can help new players to the game for their first playthrough be more enjoyable. Only very minor mild spoilers of game mechanics.

Nier Automata has a lot of wacky mechanics that does add some simple enough depth to the game and a level of mastery of these tricks can help you juggle enemies to death. The problem is there so much random little details that the game doesn't go over cus I believe it's meant for the player to discover these tricks for themselves. While i do commend them for that, not knowing some of the basics of the gameplay can make fighting enemies way beyond your level really frustrating. Thus I have compiled some Quality of Life tips that will make starting out the game more enjoyable. So, mild spoiler warning for any basic mechanics you want to discover yourself.

Story

You aren't replaying the game exactly for each ending

In the first Nier you had to replay through the game several times. Not in Automata. There's only one slight replay, but it's different enough that it's not annoying.

True ending

You should be working to get to the True Ending. This is ending E. Ending A may seem underwhelming if you expect it to be the end of the game, but it's not the real ending. Please, work to getting to the True Ending, it has the most special moment out of the entire game there.

Weapons

Have reverse order of weapons be second loadout

Each weapon has heavy and light attack combos. If you want to see all the combos a single weapon can do, have your second loadout be a reverse of your main loadout. That way you can keep switching between them to experiment with each weapon combos.

Upgrade weapons to MAX Level

Each weapon gains special abilities once they are maxed out. This is where weapons have their full potential. Like increased attack damage or attack speedc which leads into...

I Recommend MAXing out Virtuous weapons First

All weapons that have "Virtuous" in their name (like 2B's Sword) share the same 2 abilities once full upgraded. They all get their ATTACK Speed increased, meaning your attack animation is quicker and ofc being able to hit your enemies faster. And attack dmg up if you have full health. Which should be achievable with the chips I will recommend.... But yes, literal DPS boost when you fully upgrade those weapons, highly recommend those for starters.

Chips

Auto pick up items

You may think to yourself, "Wow, picking up every single item is annoying!/Picking up all these items for grinding will take forever!/An NPC is blocking an item pick up! Fear not! Just as how you can pick up money automatically, there is a chip that you can find that will automatically pick up items! I won't say where, that's for you to find out ; ).

Counter

Counter/parry/whatever you may call it is a staple of Platinum games Hack n Slash titles. This works just as it does in Bayonetta. For newbies: Push left stick in direction of an oncoming enemy attack to Counter it. The timing is extremely lenient too, much easier to pull off than in Bayonetta. The chip description makes it seem like the importance is only with the dmg knockback but this clearly isn't the case. What's good about is that you can Counter and Counter Attack just like you can when you dodge enemy attacks. Thus I highly recommend finding the smallest chip size for Counter and equipping that so you don't need to just dodge everything.

Overclock AKA the witchtime one

Bayonetta's Witchtime also makes an appearance as a chip. For those not familiar: when you dodge time slows down. This means you have time to counter attack and also get some combos in. Extremely useful!

Taunt dmg increase

Taunting is the major key to fighting enemies way beyond your level. When an enemy is taunted, they will do more dmg to you BUT also you do more damage to them. And then you can get chips to increase that amount even more! This is how to make something 10LVL above you not a bullet sponge! That is, if you have upgraded weapons ofc.

Healing Chips

Tired of running out healing items or just annoying having to use one after every little hit? Well there's a couple options to choose from. 1. There's one healing chip that auto heals back all your HP if you don't take damage after x seconds. Meaning when you get hurt you can spam dodge to get away and wait a second to heal up. So this is more for Defense style of play. 2. The other major healing chip allows you to heal depending on the damage you do to enemies. Thus in the middle of combat you can still be healing up automatically. This is good for aggressive style of combat obviously.

Pod Programs

Don't be afraid to experiment with them

There's a lot of random ass ones you'll pick up. Don't be afraid to try them out. Some of em are REALLY helpful so don't forget to try them out.

Hold down button to charge

I forget if this is said in the tutorial or not, but yes, holding down the pod program button charges it. CHARGE FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE AND SUCH.

I recommend Slow

So it should be obvious that the first one you get, Laser, is pretty useful for damage output. So if you want another program to try out I recommend Slow. Slow effectively stops/slows down extremely in a bubble. This means you can trap enemies in it and get some crazy combos onto them. Especially helpful if your fighting multiple enemies to stop them in their tracks and take em out quick.

General Combat Tips

Spam dodge and counter

The timing for dodge and counter is so lenient that if you are a complete newbie you can just spam these for a good counter attack. So don't be afraid to just spam it until you learn how to combo properly.

Sprint attack does more dmg than standing attacks(glitch?)

I'll remove this if it's ever confirmed to be fixed but .... when you sprint and then do a running Sprint attack you do more damage than a standing attack. Speedrunners use this to exploit bosses at low levels. So keep this trick in mind when going against higher level baddies!

Use flashlight to Taunt!!!

2B can taunt by spamming the flashlight into an enemies face!!! Very strange I know, but just go with it hah.

One Last Tip

Don't randomly sell resource material items!!!

You will want to look up on a wiki if the material will be used for upgrading or not. My rule of thumb is if you don't want to do that is: Sell fish and machine cores thats it!

Conclusion

And thats all the tips I got. Theres plenty more tricks, and especially many more advanced tips and tricks. But the info I have given you will make playing through the game much more enjoyable IMO, and if you get interested you can always look up advanced guides. In fact I leave you off with a video by donguri990. They are a crazy awesome combo master of many different games like DMC4 and such. This video was created right when the game was released so the gameplay is of the start of game + first boss announced + trailer footage, so only opening part of game mild spoilers. I really do recommend watching this to get an idea of what crazy stuff is possible with the combo system.

youtube

Don't stop gamin' yall ; ).

#nier automata #nier #tips

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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Debating on the Internet isn't Debating, it's only yelling at each other.

Content Description: debate, internet comments, trolling, idiots

When I see people go off on each other in twitter exchanges, youtube comments, facebook comments, any comment sections, and any exchange on public net…. I feel bad seeing them waste their time. Especially if they actually think they are “debating” with this random person. We need to clear up what a debate is.

A debate is when two or more people are given a subject matter to talk about AND (MAJOR KEY HERE) both sides write down the points they are going to make and they exchange them with their opponent(s) so they are able to prepare counter-points in advance. The counter-points will be a surprise, but the points aren’t remember this. So then, everyone is able to say their point, have their adversary make a counter-point, and then it’s up to the judges/audience to decide who made a better point.

On the net, when people “debate” with each other, one side is “trolling” and the other side is attempting to either “counter-troll” them or “change their mind”. This isn’t a debate at all, this is just yelling.

Now, addressing a comment and then making a counter comment for the public to decide who is right is better, as that’s closer to a debate. But it’s still not a debate due to no mutual established talking points for each participant to prepare for.

In conclusion, yall keep wasting your time yelling at random idiots on the net to Impress your friends. 😏👍

#debate #commenting #troll

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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Content Warnings are pointless as everything is a trigger. Content descriptions should be used instead.

Content Description(First EVER Attempt): memes, sexual assault, war, guns, trauma, PTSD, religion, entertainment, bed

Trigger warnings is one big meme as of right now. The meme usage is just an evolved form of “You Mad, Bro?”, but of course the joking stems from a backlash against supposed “snowflakes” yadda yadda.

But I actually understand their backlash, and it’s due to an ignorance.... but these edgy kids really don’t bother me. As they are just trying to get a rise out of people, and more importantly act cool to fit in with Kewl groups of people online.

No... the problem I really have with trigger warnings is the policing of content with Content Warnings... CONTENT WARNINGS MAKE ZERO SENSE, BECAUSE ANYTHING IS A TRIGGER. Of course they are helpful with Obvious disturbing material but... lemme just get into it.

Let’s first break down the term Trigger Warning. Trigger comes from a gun trigger, as in Vietnam vets. Trigger Warnings are meant to be what would trigger someone with PTSD ala a Vietnam veteran. So, what exactly is the difference between PTSD, and just ordinary trauma?

Standard trauma: immediately after event, obvious things related to it will trigger person. If they have support, they will be able to overcome and mostly block out the bad memory. Not to downplay it, but it can be overcome due to it being surface level.

PSTD: no immediate response. They are numb to any mention of the event. It lies in dormant. Months later, any detail related to event will trigger extreme vivid memories and feelings of the event. Literally any small detail. i.e. A bed(possible scene of the crime) to a rape victim. A loud noise(bombshell or gun fire) for a war vet.

So let’s think back to the edgy kids. If someone says their trigger is a bed, they would go “LAWLLL HOW DO U SLEEP AT NITE SNOWFLAKE, TRIGGERED?” but of course they don’t know or care about that the person was raped on a bed so their PTSD trigger makes perfect sense.

Another thing the edgy people exclaim is “well those tumblr kids don’t actually have PTSD” welll that could be true. But it’s not like it harms anyone if the kids are over-exaggerating their triggers a bit. As the meaning of trigger is completely ambiguous, it really could mean anything from an emotional trigger to PTSD trigger, etc...... BUT people that police content under some false-pretense that they are some Savior do it in the stupidest way possible with Content warnings.

I can’t even break down the Content Warning, cus the premise of it is already defeated. Anyone that attacks content for being “triggering” (and no not meme sense) is just doing it all wrong. Cus all that does is make a hostile environment where everyone just ridicules each other. Which for the edgy kids is their whole gimmick so that doesn’t bother me, but for the people who are acting like they are doing something good pisses me off.... because they could be trying to figure out ACTUAL SOLUTIONS. Not trying to impress their friends with jokes.

So lemme actually put front a solution that actually helps everyone regardless if they have triggers or not.

THE SOLUTION:

Trigger warnings are meant for people with trauma to police what they see so they can avoid these bad memories from coming back. But content giving out a trigger warning is pointless because literally ANYTHING can be a trigger warning. Thus the solution is simply describe anything that appears in the content conceptually or literally and have the viewer decide.

This is what Christian movie websites do actually. They list out everything that appears so fellow Christians can decide if they want to subject themselves or family to possible depictions of sin. So this is truly what content should do if they want to be considerate to their viewers possible triggers.

Instead of trying to predict what triggers the audience could have (hint: impossible, since anything is a trigger) just list out everything. For a video it would be the locations, the props, the people, topics discussed, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. And of course this idea can be applied to any medium. That way someone can do a simple ctrl+f through a list.

You see how this benefits everyone? Cus regardless of what your trigger is and how you react to it, you will be able to have a good idea of what is in content. And even if you don’t have a trigger, it helps people that want to watch content with kids or family members cus there’s probably things you don’t want to see with them that you can’t just predict.

And why the content description is better than some letter Rating like with TV and movies is that you can evaluate what the content has yourself and make a decision based upon it rather than looking at a letter and trying to make sense out of it. Or hell, you’re just curious what is in the content.

Really the only downside to content descriptions is they are spoilery, which as long as they are given a spoiler tag/warning that solves that.

Also the fact that the content needs to be evaluated by the creator, which is what happens with the content warnings anyways, it’s just that describing things that are actually in the content is way easier than the “predicting” bs.

As you saw at the top I attempted doing the first ever Content Description, it really wasn’t that bad and I think it covered all the bases. I’ll be glad to see how it evolves in the future.... and while this is where I would gloat about being a genius for thinking this up but now it actually just pisses me off more. Cus WHY isn’t everyone already doing this? Oh, cus the people that act like they care about people with triggers DON’T ACTUALLY CARE. They only care about appearing righteous and of Good Morals to their peers, not actually being a good person. That will always piss me off more than any edgy kid.

#trigger warning #content warning #cw #TRIGGERED #u mad bro #PTSD #content description #memes #sexual assault #rape #religion #entertainment #bed #guns #edgymemes #so edgy #war #vietnam veteran

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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NieR: Automata Review (SPOILER FREE! NO SPOILERS HERE!)

Score: Must-Play, anyone who loves videogames should play this as soon as possible.

// Read my Reviewing system for Context of Score

Nier Automata is Yoko Taro’s first game to ever get both critical and commercial success which he has earned it rightfully. For why I believe Automata is a masterpiece is because of the ending. As everything in the game builds up to one gameplay moment. And that gameplay moment is an emotional climax all because of a well crafted journey. Yes the game’s story is told through cutscenes, dialogue, music, etc, but when the climax of the story is GAMEPLAY it just reminds me why we play videogames in the first place.

The Good:

Gameplay

Nier References

Art Direction

The Bad:

Unoptimized port for PC

Little support for PC version

The Best:

Music

Messages/themes

The Ending

Meaningful Sidequests

The Good:

Gameplay:

This is a PlatinumGames game, so of course the gameplay is good. When it originally announced that Yoko Taro would be helming a Nier sequel with PlatinumGames it was an instant "hype" moment because the original Nier had quite simple gameplay. Pitting PlatinumGames expertise with fluid combo oriented hack n slashes with Yoko Taro's crazy storytelling and it was a match made in GAMERRRRRR Heaven. But how did they deliver?

Well they did deliver, in the context of this game. This is an RPG, so the game is story based. Thus, PlatinumGames decided to make this the most simple out of their hack n slash titles. Basically you can spam dodge and attack buttons and mostly cruise through the main story IF you really want to. But the combo system does actually have a little depth to it, and you can pull of some fun wacky stuff once you know some tricks.

Even a recurring simple minigame that will happen a lot throughout a playthrough was fine by me. Some people were bother by it, but it's an easy enough mini game that does have a major story payoff in the end so it's all worth it.

And to cap it off, the way that abilities and special attacks are unlocked is pretty unique. Effectively you’re doing ability item management, which has some limitations but it's a fun way to make it thematic with robots.

Which I think is why the gameplay is so good regardless of its weak points is because it was all made within the theme of androids. I'm not going to mention every cute detail but I will finish off talking about gameplay with one controversial design choice: no autosaves. Instead you manually have to save at save stations. Maybe it's because I have played all the From Software Soul's games but it didn't annoy me. Really the save points are frequent in Automata that it doesn't effect it that much. And just like in Souls games, the save points have a thematic purpose of "saving your data" to the in-universe network. Basically the manual save is there as a meta-element. And again there's many other examples of this but this is Yoko Taro's strong suits, metaphorical gameplay.

Nier References:

Nier Automata is part of a strange series that spans two different games. In fact, here's the series order:

Drakengard 3 -> Drakengard 1 -> Nier Gestalt / Nier Replicant -> Nier Automata.

Yeah, that's pretty wild. So it's understandable that you may be worried about going into Nier Automata without a clue of what's going on due to ~Lore~ reasons. "Do I really need to watch a Let's Play on Youtube of some niche game, or worse LPs of all the niche games??" Worry not, as you absolutely don't need to... well right away atleast.

To break it down, no you don't need to play the Drakengard as all the references to it are just cute references.

Yes there are characters and side quests that are deeply connected to OG Nier, but they have no bearing on the main story being told. They are supplementary knowledge that helps both boost the main story and help provide additional emotional moments IF you have played Nier. But again, understanding what happens with the main characters is all self-contained within this game.

Now do I recommend playing OG Nier? Yes, in fact I believe that is another Must-Play game, but I specifically recommend PLAYING it. Watching a let's play on youtube will not do it justice.

To summarize, if you play Nier Automata without playing OG Nier you will be perfectly fine. You will be confused at first, but that is intentional and all will be revealed by end of the story. But, once you beat this game, you will probably get the urge to play the first game and THAT'S when you play it. Don't spoil the first Nier's experience, ya can wait it out.

Art Direction:

From the characters, to enemies, and locations the vibe is clearly of apocalypse, but there is almost a level of cuteness to it all strangely enough.

Our android protagonists, and the group they’re in called Yorha, are decked out in futuristic style gothic lolita fashion. The enemies almost look like the smartphone brand Android's mascot. With a round head, an oval body, dainty arms/legs, and tiny eyes they look quite innocent.

While there's the obvious ruined city, abandoned factory, and barren desert locations for a "post-apocalypse distant future" setting there's actually some surprise appearances. To not give too much away, two standout areas would be a 2001 A Space Odyssey rotating spacestation and a cheery amusement park.

All in all, the art direction is pretty nice. But, I need to address the elephant in the room. The 2B "controversy", specifically her butt.

Alright some context needs to be given to understand this stupidity, so bear with me. This timeline will explain it all, for the Western World specifically:

NieR Gestalt releases to little fanfare. It doesn't have much critical or commercial success, but it does get a cult following.

NieR Automata gets announced at E3 to little fanfare. The diehard fans are hyped beyond belief, but everyone else doesn't care. Though everyone is amused by Yoko Taro's antics with the emil mask.

A puzzle platformer on Steam gets greenlight and released by the name of Haydee. The title is the name of the games TITular protagonist, a robot that for some reason has huge breasts and butt. It gains a major following, spawning lots of pornography being made of this character.

NieR Automata's free demo releases on PSN. Because of the people going off of (and getting off on) the previous robot girl, people all of a sudden are extremely horny towards 2B (even though they didn't care about her for 2 years up until this point) A lot of pornography is created of 2B, most notable is a screenshot edit that starts the "controversy". An upskirt screenshot of 2B climbing a ladder is edited so that she has an asshole visible. People thought it was a real screenshot and went even more ballistic. Even after confirmed fake, people stayed horny for her.

NieR Automata releases. This time, because everyone regardless if they were horny or not, has seen the protagonist 2B all over the internet. Since everyone is hyped over 2B (and not because of the cult-classic series), NieR Automata has both critical and commercial success.

Alright, now that you are caught up, I can confirm that.... yes, 2B is cute. Yes, she has a butt. But, there's barely any fanservice of her in the game. If you’re not going up a ladder, you basically have to glitch the camera to be able to see under her skirt, and even then she pushes your camera controls away. If you detonate as her you will see her in the leotard but uhh Wonder Woman shows more skin than 2B so I honestly have no idea why some people are so pissed off at her. Some people even refuse to play the game cus of her which is really silly.....

I'm going to leave off on that for now. I will come back to that later, but let's finally get to The Bad.

The Bad:

Unoptimized PC Port:

You’re going to need a graphics card leading on the high end side if you want to see the pretty graphics.

Also, FAR mod is required if you want optimization. You’re going to need to look that up before playing.

Now I do put this in the bad category, and many people want to boycott PlatinumGames and Nier Automata for this unoptimized port, but that's going too FAR (get it). I'm going to give the context as to why this happened:

While I didn't play the PS4 version, I have heard reports of poor framerates at certain points. This leads to the revelation... this game was really only made optimized for PS4 Pro. Which I think it still lags there but not too much.

Anyways, so Square Enix decides that since Nier Automata is part of a niche franchise they might as well put it on Steam to get a quick extra bucks. So they have a quick port job happen by who knows what and boom it's on Steam.

So basically, the major problem here is Square Enix. It almost seems like they don't respect the game. No amount of "boycotting" by random people on Steam of a masterpiece game will make the company retract their thought process. SE has their FFXIV money printer, there is no incentive for them to fix a niche game. It's sad but true. And in fact, not buying the game proves their point that only FFXIV will make them money.

Now I don't condone a bad port job, this is why it's in the bad but.... the game is still perfectly playable even if you put all the grafix as low as possible, which is what I did. The only times the game crashed was when I tried to max out the graphics and resolution beyond what my PC could handle and made my GPU be at 100% usage for too long.

Little Patch Support:

This goes off of the other point. There's only been a couple of stealth patches for the DLC release, but nothing addressing the optimization. Again, it's sad that Square Enix isn't treating the game with the respect it has earned.

The Best

Music:

As the old saying goes, film is 70% audio and 30% visual. Of course that is an exaggeration, but it's trying to get across how important a soundtrack can be to making a movie iconic.

Now why am I talking about all that? Well. OG Nier had such a beautiful OST that it could be the sole reason why it got such a cult following.

Automata is no different, the music here is simply breathtaking. But listening to the OST alone doesn't do it justice, as the music is contextualized within the game perfectly. Every area has such a distinct song that I can FEEL that area when I hear the song out of the game. And without saying spoilers, the credits song makes me FEEL the ending all over again. Hell, even when I heard a song from the first Nier in this game I almost cried for real.

The music just compliments the moments within the game so well, that the music MAKES the game. And that playing the game makes the music more emotional. If you love music in games, or music in general, you gotta play Nier Automata.

Message/Themes:

As you probably know already, Yoko Taro is an odd fellow. You can lump him with other japanese videogame auteur directors ala Kojima and Kamiya. But what makes Yoko Taro different from Kojima's wacky metaphors is his consistency.

Right from Drakengard 1 Yoko-san established his auteur theme: Violence in Videogames. He explains that for a videogame protagonist to slaughter thousands of people, he has to be a crazy psychopath. The enemies in that game beg and plead to not kill. But, after 9/11 his view changed. So, in the first Nier he went with a different concept. That someone can discriminately kill without remorse if they believe their cause is Righteous. I can't say how this is achieved as spoiler, but you get the picture. Automata continues the violence theme off of the Nier idea.

There's other themes, but that's the main one.

The Ending:

The True ending is quite possibly why I think the game is a masterpiece. The entire game is building up to this climax.

Every sidequest, all the confusion is finally explained (albiet maybe too quickly). But that's just one of many twists. In which the final sequence has so many false finishes that I truly believed where the ending that the final moment caught me off guard. This last finale is what justifies getting through the entire game, regardless if you don't like hack n slash games. The trick done too is so simple that it being the emotional climax in my opinion proves it’s a masterpiece.

Meaningful Sidequests:

When going through the game, understanding what is going on is confusing. Hell even the prologue is confusing. This is intentional, because information is being kept from you. While The Truth is only revealed at the end, nearly all side-quests foreshadow the ending.

The side-quests are special in that each one has some type of twist to it. They all seem like some ordinary RPG fetch quest, but there's always a twist. Sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's sad, but they can catch you off guard.

But as I was saying, the twists of these side-quests don't stop there, as once you beat the game and know The Truth you will have a epiphany if you think back to side quests you have done. They give hints to the Truth, sometimes the events in the side-quests mirror what was revealed. It's quite awesome how well this was put together.

This is all most likely cus Yoko Taro creates stories backwards, starting with the ending and going to the start. And also why the ending is so good.

I've seen some people say they think the "twist" of the game is "practicable"... but considering the entire game is hinting at it, hiding in plain sight, I would say no... foreshadowing isn't practicability, it's good storytelling plain and simple.

2B:

I already talked about the controversy with 2B being cute and having a butt, but(t) to wind down I want to address something as my final point. The thing is I don't know if Yoko Taro is a puppet master genius, or how intentional was this but.... people's obsessive hype over 2B has a payoff as a moment within the game.

To give a little context, the lady from the previous Nier, Kaine was extremely scantily clad with purpose. It being to challenge body norms, and people fell hook line in sinker. People said she was way too sexy and only eye candy, and even barring the amazing character arc she has, there is a part of her body that's really only hinted at within the game. I won't spoil it, so Let me go back to 2B.

Now 2B is cute, and everyone loves how 2B looks or wanting to be knee-jerk contrarian cus of the annoying horny people. Here's the thing, this is addressed in the game. This obsessive of 2B is reflected back at the player in one moment. I have no idea if Yoko Taro knew there would be this fervor over the games protagonist but mannnnn,

I think we all got played, hook line and sinker. Ya got us good Yoko Taro.

Details of Playthrough

I played on PC, bought on Steam. FAR mod used as well. I had a pretty low/midrange spec going in, so i had to play everything on low at 900p, also using FAR mod to turn off lighting effects. Still, I had framerate drops at certain areas. Game crashed if I played on higher settings, but keeping it on low stopped that.

My Specs (at the time of playthrough):

CPU: i5-2400

GPU: Radeon R9 270 Sapphire

RAM: 16GB

#nier #nier automata #automata #no spoilers

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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My Review System Part 4: References

The basic thumbs up or thumbs down for reviewing was done first by Siskel and Ebert as far as I know.

The idea for where I got the Must-Experience category was a recent controversial 6/5 star rating that renown wrasslin' reviewer Dave Meltzer gave to the Omega vs Okada match at Wrestle Kingdom 2017. His reasoning for going beyond the limit of his own score system was that it was a match so exceptional, that it was so much better than anything else he has seen in recent memory he wanted to give it a score to signify that everyone should watch it as soon as possible. It sort of exposed how little the star rating numbers actually matter, but to me it showed the true purpose of them and what is trying to be conveyed by the reviewer by the arbitrary numbers.

The Good, The Bad, and The Best comes from youtuber BC Amplified's review/analysis of WWE Pay Per Views. He reviews them by splitting the events into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. (ofc a nod to the movie). It's not a spoiler free review though, as he analyzes the results of each match. Which wrestling is a bit weirder with spoilers, because it's sports related the results are spoiled right away by everyone so unless you saw it live your out of luck. This happens with TV too, everyone says their reactions to events live so you kinda get screwed. Anyways I think this system is very simple and to the point which is what a review should. I didn't like that there were two bad categories though, the bad and the ugly, so I went with the glass half full approach instead of glass half empty.

8.5 is basically a gag review score. Whenever a hyped up game gets an 8.5/10 fans freak out cus 8.5 does not mean the game is a masterpiece (which is what they want out of it) and instead it means the game is just ordinary.

#review

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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My Review System Part 3: The Good, The Bad, and The Best

This should be a quick one, I'll be going over the meat and potatoes of the review now.

First and foremost, a review should not spoil anything. This means at most only the premise should be explained, as explaining beat for beat the entire story just spoils it all. Also, no deep analysis can happen as well because that would require spoiling elements. The reasoning for all of this no spoiler talk is because a review is trying to first and foremost recommend (or not recommend) something. So, if you just tell someone what specifically happens within the experience it doesn't persuade them, because first of all they have no context to it. If they hear what Epic thing happens, they aren't going to understand why it is epic, so it's not going to make them any more interested. And second, since now they know about it the surprise of the journey is ruined. Thus, a review should always be spoiler free.

And now, finally, how exactly is the review formatted? Well the review is split into three separate categories, the good, the bad, and the best. In detail,

The Good: Obviously, the good parts of the experience. It's serviceable, competently done content. This isn't masterfully done, as that's The Best category, but something enjoyable. And hell, it could be something memorable for some individuals, but really something to write home about.

The Bad: Botches. Errors. Mistakes. Or just straight up bad parts of the experience, where it be intentional or not. Nothing is perfect, so everything is going to have some bad to it even if it's a masterpiece. But the level of badness (and I don't mean the good kind) is what matters here. A couple botches doesn't completely negate an entire experience, which is what's annoy about people who count "plot holes", but if so little thought was put into the experience that say a story makes no sense or to do some specific examples, a videogame is completely bugged to hell or very bad editing for a film. Really there's a big difference between someone trying and failing vs someone that didn't try at all, and that is what this section is gauging.

The Best: The best of the Best. The best the medium or genre could possibly offer. These would-be things that are more than just memorable, it's something you will probably remember forever. At the most basic level a story is moments, and if the moments of an experience are able to actually give you an emotional reaction because you're fully immersed within it, that's the beauty of storytelling and what we chase after in all entertainment.

I based this off a small niche wrasslin' reviewers style by the name of BC Amplified.

Aaaand that's pretty much it. I will probably evolve this system at some point the more I use it, so I'll probably have a basic summary page for each version. Again, can't wait to see everyone go with this reviewing approach. Heh.

Part 4 =>

#review

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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My Review System Part 2: compared to everything else

Thumbs up or Thumbs Down:

Two Thumbs Up: Must-Experience

Thumb in the middle to Thumbs up: Recommended

Thumbs Down to Thumb in the middle: Not-Recommended

Out of 3 Stars:

3/3: Must-Experience

(2 to 2.9)/3: Recommended

(0 to 1.9)/3: Not-Recommend

Out of 5 Stars:

(4.5 to 5)/5 or Greater: Must-Experience

(3 to 4.4)/5: Recommended

(0 to 2.9): Not-Recommended

Out of 10:

(9 to 10)/10: Must-Experience

(7 to 8.9)/10: Recommended

(0 to 6.9)/10: Not-Recommended

Academic Letter Grade:

A (+/-): Must-Experience

C + to B (+/-): Recommended

F (+/-) to C -: Not-Recommended

As you can see, my score system says what every other system says but waaaay more succinct. No need for the pointless filler numbers.

And this is mainly achieved by Recommended being modular. Instead of trying to quantify the niche-ness of something with numbers, just say what it's niche-ness is.

In writing, there is this thing called a "thesis". The review score is the thesis, and you’re supposed to argue and make your case of it. The filler numbers are completely arbitrary, so when people look at that it means NOTHING to them. A thesis should make sense, so putting it in to words is required.

Now picture this: A casual newbie wants to peek at the review score and then dip. For example, they see a 8.5/10 and think "oh the game is probably good but not the best". Now there really isn't anything enticing them to read 10 paragraphs to understand what the hell the random 8.5 really means.

Now picture the same situation but with my score system: The same casual newbie peeks at the review score. They see "Recommended, for Open World games and (Game Dev Studio) fans", and then they think for a sec. Are they in that category? Maybe they say to them self "oh I'm a fan of open world games, but not that (Game Dev Studio), I'll pass on it". And maybe... just maybe... they read the review to see what arguments I have to back up that statement! Either way, the person should leave satisfied with some information whether they only see the score or not.

Sorry I only did a game example there, but you can apply the same logic to any genre of review.

What is also important to note is that the bell curve still exists within my system. As most things, will go into the Recommended category, while theoretically not a lot of things should be going into Not-Recommended as niche experiences will be addressed in Recommended, and of course Must-Experience is special cases and cream of the crop.

Again, I don't see a case NOT to use this system I've presented here. While creating the best thesis is harder compared to putting an arbitrary number, just flat out makes more sense since that is the basis of argumentative pieces anyways.

So, if you start implementing this review system into your own, hell I even encourage it, I would like to say this. Of course, I would love a shout out, but I am not expecting that happening since internet reviewers are egotistical. So whether you credit me or not, I have a special message for you: the Top Clique rules you for Life.

Part 3 =>

#review

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vjdarkworld · 7 years

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My Review Rating System Part 1: condensing down review scores to what they actually mean: Recommended, Not-Recommended, and Must-Experience.

When you look at a review score, you’re basically trying to dissect what it actually means. When it's out of 10, we all know a 10/10 isn't perfect but "close to it", that 8.5 or 7 out of 10 are average or mediocre respectively, and that if it's below a 7 it's bad. Same thing with movies and star ratings. Numbered ratings have a top-heavy bell curve, and when they are out of 10 it mirrors academic letter grades. So maybe you think that letter grades are more True, right? But it still has the range of A: Great, B-C: Good, Below C: Bad. So, then we are left with just a flat Recommend and Not Recommend, or thumbs up and thumbs down. This is close to almost conveying it all, but it just doesn't. When there is something that is good but also very niche, you can't do a blanket recommendation for everyone to go see it. Or if you didn't like it personally but it was very well executed, it's not a solid thumbs up or thumbs down either so is it a "thumb in the middle"? And if it is really good, like better than nearly everything else, giving it a normal recommendation which has all the niche recommendations almost seems like a disservice. Thus, I have boiled down the entire essence of the review score into 3 simple categories.

A review score is either trying to recommend something to a specific audience, flat out not recommending it, or saying that you Must-Experience it as soon as possible. To expand each one in detail,

Recommended: This is something well put together, but can only be recommended to certain groups of people. Whether I personally like or dislike it shouldn't be a factor, as if it's well constructed for a (whether it be intentional or not) target audience than it can be recommended. And due to this niche, it does not need to be experienced by everyone any time soon.

Not-Recommended: This is something no one should have to experience. It is poorly constructed, in a sense that what it tried to achieve didn't work out and that even the niche audiences that it could reach would at most think it is "ok", "decent", or worst "turn-your-brain-off mindless fun". I mean there could be some fun to it, but most of it is boring and there is nothing memorable about it so it is effectively pointless. It is important to note that something that is "so bad it's good" would go into the Recommended category as it atleast has a niche.

Must-Experience: The only requirement for this one is that the person going into the experience loves that medium of entertainment. In fact, the wording changes based upon the medium, for example for videogames it would be Must-Play, for movies Must-Watch, music Must-Hear, books Must-Read, etc. It is a masterpiece, and I define this by it being a story well executed from start to finish. And yes, I said story. A story does not need to be told through words or visuals mind you. It can be what people call an "emotional rollercoaster ride", which can be expressed by any medium of art. For example, instrumental music can achieve this. And as for videogames, the interactions the player has with game can be a story within itself. Whether that be gaining of skill or having meaningful actions to do. The KEY thing here is that there is a payoff in the end, whether that be climatic or anti-climatic. For many stories, it starts off good and the longer it goes on it over stays it welcome and eventually the ending could be boring or annoying. And the reason would be because you tuned out of the story, and when you lose that investment your experience is over. In which those stories would go into the other two categories. Here, when the story ends you still have an emotional response, which could be anything from sadness, anger, happiness, fear, etc. And that is because you are attached to it. Hell, even cynical people that can't get connected to any story would be able to tell that the bulk of the story is told to the best of its ability. That's not to say there isn't mistakes or errors, because nothing is perfect, but if the execution is the best the medium can achieve than it has earned kudos from everyone.

I want to do a write up on the essence of stories and storytelling later so I'll link that here so I can expand more on that.

Anyways, I'm not really sure if anyone has done this type of system before, but this is what I'm doing and I don't really see any point in using any other system after figuring this one out. It literally covers all the bases, and doesn't have pointless filler rating numbers. In fact, if I see everyone start using this system without referencing me I'll be fine, because I will know that I shaped the entire landscape of reviews forever and that's what the Top Clique does, rule the world.

Part 2 =>

#review #score #5 star review #8.5/10 #10/10 would recommend

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