That country is living under the delusion that dictators can be good, and the law matters less than charisma.

And you like that?

Do treason…?

And my point is that Macron loves the idea of using war and chaos as a way to become the hero that saved everyone and can now control the world.

Macron’s big heroes are people like de gaulle or Napoleon that were clearly dictators selling the dream of the benevolent, “chosen one”-like dictator. Macron feels like he is meant to be the one true leader, and situations like that are definitely making him very excited because he will have the opportunity to try to become one.

Why do you think he’s reacting only now? He’s just been waiting for the right time to do whatever he can to increase his influence, just like he’s been doing since before he even got elected.

Macron is so happy that the world is going to shit, which he hopes will let him be a little dictator

I mean, there’s far worse stuff and people get a slap on the wrist for those, so it’s not really so shocking here.

I basically don’t disagree with much of what you’re saying, but I do have a few comments.

For the monopoly, I guess that I made myself fall into this because what typically causes a problem here is that it’s multiplayer, which changes everything. People trying to make others play a certain way is what makes it unbearable, it’s not really about messing up the gameplay loop; the proof of that is that no matter how messed up the loop is, if the players are liking the alternate system, they will enjoy it fully. With a solo experience, it’s different. If I start playing rimworld on easy difficulty, and it’s boringly easy, I can just pick a different difficulty that I prefer. No one else will ever be impacted, and I’ll pick whatever is more fun for me.

Where there is a little nuance that I will give to you, is that some games are meant more as an art form or an experience than as a game (narrative games, horror games, etc) and in such a case things are much more constrained. But most games aren’t like this, and can be enjoyed either way.

For dark souls, they are unfair as a lot of things involve an unexpectable event that kills you, that you then memorize to be able to avoid it. That first part is what is unfair, the second part is what requires skills (and the skill requirement is another issue)

Even for minecraft, the game has a peaceful mode that locks out a lot of the content, because the devs didn’t bother changing the hostile drops to be given through alternate ways.

And for the roadblocks, you’re totally right, but those roadblocks are always tailored to the “average player” that the devs defined, which generally will completely block (at least for a good amount of time) the less “skilled” players. And my observation is that the definition of “average player” has been leaning more and more towards the hardcore gamer, and that’s in my opinion making things worse and worse.

I would say that not every game needs to be for everyone, but that most games should be for playing, not working. And most games now like to make you work for them.

But overall, I still agree with you on many things, we’re just seeing the same things from a different perspective in a way.

The game is not run based, but there is an expectation of losing easily.

You cannot “win”, since it’s just a city builder in the end, but you don’t necessarily get any progress after a run. I’ve been playing it for some time, and most things are locked away because I’m not playing “hardcore” enough to unlock them. Which in turn makes the game harder, which makes me not get the achievements. It’s a vicious circle.

And I would gladly adjust the difficulty (which can be changed precisely) to make some parts that bother me a bit less tiresome, but even if I increase the difficulty of other parts of the game to compensate, the fact that I dared make anything easier at all is enough to prevent unlocking anything.

Some games are like what you described, made to make you progress very slowly, and that’s okay. But what I’ve observed is not generally a slow progress rate, but an actual roadblock that tells you that you cannot continue playing/progressing until you invest a significant amount of effort in the game.

And for the argument of ruining the gameplay loop… So what? If I want to play Monopoly with my homemade rules, does it matter if the gameplay loop is broken, as long as I’m having fun with it? No, because the point is to have fun. So why is it different with games, where there is the holy way to play properly, and every other way is invalid? If breaking the planned gameplay loop doesn’t prevent me from having fun, why is it a problem? And if it does prevent it, then I would just not do it. It doesn’t change anything for anyone else. If someone has fun playing dark souls with a cheat that makes them invincible, it ruins the intention of the game, but they are having fun, which is the goal of most games.

That’s my point: people and games, by default, consider that having fun is less important than playing “the right way”, which is already favouring hardcore players over others.

No, no they’re not.

The only way in the world where Macron would want to do that, is so that he would replace them.

Most of the other problems I mentioned are about being raised or growing together. So in your example, it probably would be mostly fine.

My main point is, what does it bring to try to make exceptions when the only exceptions that are not bad are very, very unlikely, and do not bring anything more than any other relationship would?

In your case, sure, the two sisters could get together, fine. But if they got together while knowing they are from the same family, it does raise a weird point, and if they did not know then fine. But how many offspring-free relationships between two people that didn’t know they were related, exist? How many of those last? I cannot imagine such a big proportion, so what is the point of making an exception, that on the other hand will bring in a lot of problems and creepy behaviours trying to fit in it.

I know that I’m pushing a bit too far in the opposite direction, but that’s because basically no one is trying to counter this endless trend of “hardcore is cool and edgy”

Obviously not all players are like that.

The problem is that the norm now is to assume that a game needs to be hard, and that anything less is “too easy”.

Recent example that comes to mind, Songs of Syx (you probably know it already, if not you can look it up, it’s not a bad game). The game has unlocks in an achievement-like way, which help make the game a bit easier; logical one would say, it’s along the lines of rogue-like unlocks, you can play and lose while still progressing, amazing. But the game itself can be pretty hard, and while there are difficulty settings, changing any to be easier prevents unlocking anything (but harder difficulties don’t, which clearly gives the vibe of “you are too bad at the game to deserve the achievements”). There’s no good reason to do that, the developer is far from being incompetent, but yet there is the idea that you cannot enjoy the full game if you don’t want it as hard.

It’s not about the core of the game being hard, nothing actually would change badly if the achievements were never locked from a difficulty setting, but here it is. And you are put with the background thought that you’re not really playing the game properly if you reduce the difficulty (even though the achievements themselves do that, but the " hard" way so it’s ok I guess)

Normal, il est d’extrême gauche violence et terrifiante. On ne peut pas blâmer les pauvres victimes nazies apeurées et sans défense qui se sentent en danger.

Mais dans l’esprit napoléonien, elle ne les utilisera que contre les manifestations pacifiques de gauche

“Souls like” is an overly used term that just means “unfair” at that point. It’s not a genre, I’m pretty sure you can find card games that call themselves “souls like”.

And requiring to think and strategy isn’t the same as forcing micromanagement and making you lose immediately if you don’t comply.

I don’t play horror games because I don’t like the genre. I played over a thousand hours of rimworld, but I never would have with the base game, default settings and no mods. And while rimworld has those (even though people do get bullied as soon as a mod is “unbalanced” even if optional, or as soon as they play the easier settings), most games don’t because they think that everyone wants to be a hardcore gamer. Heck, even the term “casual” is used as an insult, as if not being a professional hardcore gamer is an anomaly. That’s where I have my grief with “hardcore games”.

Once again, in a perfect world without this stupid bullying, with accessibility settings, etc, I’d have zero problem with hardcore games and gamers. But in the current state of the world, it is very different.

This is also a weird case, because the problem with age difference is maturity, which is not measurable as of now. A 30 years old dating a 50 years old is weird, but less than a 20 years old dating a 40 years old, and yet all of these also can vary based on individuals. And most people wouldn’t see a problem with a 70 years old going with a 90 years old. That’s why it’s struggle to make well-defined laws about it.

For incest, once again, the problems are the norm, and then maybe you can find some exceptions. But why push it to be fine and allowed, when it doesn’t bring anything, again? It’s just opening for more issues to come, with no real benefit because incest is, in most cases rather than not, a problem.

And how do you prevent problems of offsprings, or of dominant position? Do you have to sterilize by force people in such relationships, after having them investigated to check that the relationship is actually consensual? Who would need to have sex with their relative so much that they would want to go through all this? That’s why I’m saying that it just feels like a lot of trouble and problems, for nothing good.

The fucking post is called “I have a confession” and you’re telling me that there is no problem with people being shamed for not playing the game at the “proper” difficulty?

My point is that this love of “hardcore” is bringing a lot of toxicity in all games (including other than video games) and so yeah, right now I have a problem with hardcore gamers because they lead the movement of hardcore games, which are making games worse for everyone else.

It is similar to the paradox of tolerance because with the way things are now, not fighting against hardcore gaming actively makes everyone else have less fun with games. It wouldn’t be like that in a world of empathy and inclusion, but that’s not where we are at, just like “colorblind” would be a good term in a perfect world but for now it’s just racist.

I will add, you can always make a game more challenging on your own. Play with one hand, don’t save, don’t look at the screen, whatever suits you. But you cannot make the game easier without accessibility settings to do so, and even when they exist, then you get mocked online for using them or not playing the game the “right way”. So I call bullshit, rejecting hardcore games does not prevent anyone from having a challenging game.

Yeah, just like freedom of speech is about freedom, and yet to enforce it you need to block toxic behaviors.

See my other comment about accessibility, if you want, I’m not going to write it again.

Because that’s what lead to the flood of “souls-like” games that intentionally have a bad design, because it encourages toxic competitiveness, encourages mocking and shaming online based on “performance”.

A lot of games either don’t let you make the game easier, or “punish” you for it (no unlocks, no achievements, no progress, etc) because they try to appeal to the stupid “hardcore gamers”. You have a disability, a situation that makes things harder, not enough money to buy the proper kind of controller, or anything else? Well fuck you, you do not deserve to play the game, and if you try you’re going to be bullied for it.

If everyone had no problem with the idea that allowing to adjust precisely the difficulty of a game was mandatory, then sure. But until then, the toxic culture of “hardcore” needs to die because it just makes things worse for a lot of people, with no added value.

Also, the initial reason games were hardcore were either bad (or none at all) game design, or as a scam so that you keep on putting money in the machine to continue playing. Then boomers started crying about “new generations” when games became more accessible, and that’s when people started thinking that a game being easy means that it’s shit. It all comes from a bunch of boomers and edgelords.

With the difference being that incest brings a lot of problems that other relationships don’t. Offsprings are one, I mentioned others, and I’m sure you could find more.

I mean, if you have a royal family, you’re asking for this shit

What can be good about it that a normal relationship cannot provide?

I can’t imagine a single answer. Thus, “nothing good about it” seems accurate.