I Don’t Want Extra Powers, Just Let Me Shoot People!- Ep. 29 of Intentionally Blank
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- čas přidán 21. 12. 2021
- Brandon and Dan talk about their video game journeys from their childhood and about the different types of games their most interested in playing as adults.
You can join the discussion and vote for your favorite podcast title at r/sanderson: / sanderson
Can be listened to almost everywhere podcasts can be found.
Produced by Adam Horne
Sound engineering and editing by Daniel Thompson - Zábava
Has anyone told Brandon that Dishonored is literally a Mistborn game?
Dan: I play games to enjoy them!
Also Dan: I play League of Legends
Maybe he enjoys getting bombarded with death threats and racial slurs 😂
I play League with chat turned off and everyone muted, and usually only with people I know :)
@@danwells9305 it's probably safer that way 😂
@@danwells9305 MOBAs became so much more fun and less stressful when I disabled chat, highly recommended!
@@Dysiode Pokemon moba is enjoyable for that reason. No chat at all.
Dan: I like to take things slow and strategize in games.
Brandon: I just want things to die.
Dan can be so contradictory, he says he mostly only plays LoL and Overwatch these days. .. which requires being quick and dexterous in my opinion.
@@chubbeebunnee1708 yeah actually most things he said in this entire video contradicted something else he’s said. I feel like could notice some slight annoyance with Brandon at this lol
@@chubbeebunnee1708 Being top tier good at Overwatch requires those things. Playing casually does not.
@@SomeTomfoolery well I just disagree with that. Even casually, you gotta have some focus or you just die. I'm willing to bet Dan at least tries to win at games he plays...
@@chubbeebunnee1708 not me loving the fuck out of WoT and listening to it on repeat for years (decades now) to fall asleep, but also playing Overwatch every second of my leisure time lmao. Ruh Roh.
Now that's a tag line for an episode!
with a switch and no zelda history, Dan should totally dip his toes into Breath of the Wild
That is a good assessment.
I have a long history with Zelda, and I don't care for breath of the wild at a Zelda game. I think it is a good game, but with just a Zelda skin. If you remove the characters to me, it doesn't feel like a "Zelda game".
BOTW: Good game, bad Zelda. But that is just my minority opinion, I know others love it.
breath of the wild is a good game, i played it for many hours till i got all the shrines.
That said, it is not a zelda game in my opinion. Zelda games are linear dungeon crawlers, botw is not.
If someone wants the core 3d zelda experience, they should play either twilight princess or ocarina of time I say. Not to ignore the many excellent 2d zelda games(im biased towards oracle of ages/seasons as the best ones out of the bunch here)
@@zacharyanderson6836 Yeah, I feel like BOTW is more like "Princess Mononoke: the video game." That said, I am glad it's a Zelda game, because realistically, who else could make a game like that, and also make it so good?
@@groofay perfectly said
"Figure out how to use these powers in interesting combinations..."
That was a very Brandon Sanderson comment.
I really want a peep into the alternate universe where Brandon is a hugely popular challenge speedrunner
Love Brandon's POV on figuring out the games. I have never had much interest in multiplayer. Give me a good story and a good play mechanic.
Brandon really needs to play Hollow Knight, i think he would like it a lot, from the lore, charms, characters, artstyle, music, etc. It also matchs up with all the things he said to like in a videogame
Reminder for the Civ fan that Age of Wonders is an awesome game. It's basically a Fantasy Civ with with mini X-Com missions for every tactical combat, and much more focused on that area of the game.
I love that Diablo II was as impactful for you guys as it was for me and my friends.
I was OBSESSED with the dragon warrior games when I was a kid. To the point I’d ignore basic body functions…. 😂 The only difference now is that I get up and actually *use* the facilities 🤣
Dan, you should check out divinity 2, Brandon I think you might like it too, it’s super in-depth, it’s like the video game version of dnd, but it’s fights are super technical, you won’t win if you just charge in, you have to pay attention to the stronger enemies, the terrain, and more, it’s really good
Dan Wells is a PC gamer? I knew he was a cultured man.
Petition for Brandon to stream playing Elden Ring!
Damn didn’t know Brandon was a Dark Souls enjoyer. This just makes my respect for him even higher
Same with Final Fantasy X being his favorite. I think FFX is one of the best video games of all time.
The only gaming I've really ever done was on the NES, so I'm glad y'all chatted about that first. After that I'm like, yes. I know some of these words.
Still fun to listen to!
I credit playing Diablo2 Hardcore as making me a better / more generous person. The culture of handing down equipment when you out grow it, instead of hoarding it (because if you die, your equipment dies with you) translated into that attitude in real life. I like the steep consequence of death in a game - it adds fun - and a sense of cathartic release when it happens. You get a closure to the game, and can move on to either start over or do something else. And gives you a sense of accomplishment when you do succeed. "Put in the time, and you will beat the game" has it's place, for sure - but it lacks the suspense and tension of steep consequences.
Thanks for sharing this, it's good to be reminded that while the core of blizzard is rotten there are others who decided to do good
I also assumed that Dishonored was a stealth game. Then I discovered how many game mechanics and powers are made for loud, overt fights. Replayability of it really increases when you shake off the "good karma" stealth gameplay.
shoutout to "blades! of! steel!!!!" :))
I haven't watched the video yet. But that thumbnail - "I don't want extra powers, just let me shoot people". Hahahaha! Love it so much.
I've been playing Ratchet and Clank Deadlocked lately, and the absence of puzzles that make you think, the just straight up dopamine from shooting things, collecting bolts, and levelling up weapons....there's definitely something fun about it. =D
I fell in love with both Final Fantasy 4 and 6. Four was the first, so it will eternally possess a dark corner of my old heart.
The game that defined my childhood was age of empires 2
That game was craaaaaazy
I still play it today!
I love it so much! And I miss it! I wish I could play it again.
True story: My kid came home from school when he was about 10 asking to play a game. He went on and on about it. He kept asking. He was all, "There's no blood, Mum!" (for some reason he used to think I objected to games based on the amount of blood in it. =D). and finally I was all, "How can there be no blood? There's vampires in it!"
Anyway, it turned out he was saying Age of Empires, not Age of Vampires.
We got the game that day, and I've loved it ever since. That was .... my gosh, it must be 16 years!!!
Anyway, I miss it. I wish I could play it again. Any idea how I can play it on a Mac?
@@madiantin I think they are exclusively under windows since they owned by Microsoft
@@idkype_7142 Le sigh. I was afraid of that. Thank you.
DAN NEEDS TO PLAY *FIRE EMBLEM* . YOU LITERALLY PLAY AS A TACTICIAN.
I don't say this lightly, but Three Houses broke boundaries on the way video game stories are told.
He'd love the gameplay, too. Play it for a review if nothing else! (Choose Golden Deer if you don't want to have to replay the game)
Believe it or not, since recording this I have played Fire Emblem! And HATED it :(
I really love and respect what the game did in reversing the typical squad-based formula: the combats are secondary, and the main thrust of the game is an incredibly elaborate leveling system. I genuinely think that's cool! But I did not enjoy it in the least. This is probably exacerbated by the fact that the game assumes you've already played previous Fire Emblem titles: it offered me a thousand knobs and dials to help create exactly the team I wanted, but never actually told me what any of those knobs and dials do. What are the classes? How do the attributes and skills relate to them? What are the areas of specialty and how do I prioritize them? There is zero tutorial for any of this, and I didn't want to make five hundred incredibly granular decisions per game-day without knowing what any of the consequences would be.
@@danwells9305 You're talking about Fire Emblem:Three Houses right? Usually that game will default the characters down a recommended path, which is usually good for their best skills and stats (It will make someone good with swords a swordmaster, or someone good with magic a mage), but I do agree that if you want to customize your teams and try out different things it is not exactly friendly to new players. How did you feel about the school element of it? (that's not in the other games at all)
You guys should definitely get into Final Fantasy 14. Its one of the best stories I've gotten to experience in a video game.
Grinding. Don't down talk it too much. I grind while listening to these episodes in the background! :D
See, my take is that if something is worth doing, it's also worth paying attention to.
Brandon you'd probably like the Dishonored series, the story is REALLY good, and the characters are really interesting and unique takes on traditional character tropes. The magic system is interesting and has some really unusual powers you don't see a lot (summon a rat swarm to kill the guards! 😂) The Outsider is my favorite of them. It's one of those games you can play stealthy or play guns and swords out, I play stealthy but if I'm not going for achievements I don't worry about being seen or not.
Fun conversation! I've never played Diablo, but I fell in love with Borderlands when it came out. The first one is still my favorite. And I've mostly played them single player, I think it's a great way to play them, you just approach it differently.
In RPGs with random encounters, I'm always afraid that if I explore or side quest and generally slow down and enjoy the world, I will become over leveled.
Same. Being forced to choose between exploring all the game has to offer and being challenged by the main game is a crap feeling. I usually explore the first time just to see if exploration is worth the time sink (it's often not) then go through the next time running straight through to be as low level as possible to see if the game is challenging.
I would much prefer harder encounters set up at key points along the main path and guarding the side loot, that way you can maintain the game's intended leveling rate while still exploring. If you *do* want to over-level, you can simply re-run the same path as much as you want. That would be a much better design, IMO.
Woah just started watching but I have to comment. I also remember every detail of my first NES experience (currently 35) and Dragon Warrior was MY first rpg ever played as well. Will always love that game.
Hearing about the wolfenstine reminds me of the first game like that I played into the ground. I didn't like the guns but got really into Heretic (the fantasy setting). Rather than speed run or only using the newbie weapon, I simply played it "Without getting hit". If I took one hit, I started the level over (started with starting the game over, but that was too extreme).
Here's my take on his "Weirdly Inconsistent" his brain doesn't like an interrupted flow. For him, the flow of the game is what is important regardless of what it is. When he has to engage his processing beyond the standard patterns he's used to he gets annoyed. While the concept of fun is relative on some level, high levels of stress in anything is rarely regarded as "fun". I see a pattern of a desire for engagement without the stress of new unpredictability.
Brandon on the other hand seems to love having those patterns challenged to the point of trying to find ways to challenge them himself.
I am sort of a mixed bag. For me, there's value in a consistent flow becuase it's relaxing and I've learned to use it (like grinding) to my benefit. I ride my exercise bike while grinding in games becuase I don't have to engage higher thought processes. It's a real thing, people's higher problem solving functions tend to shut down when they work out hard. If you recording me riding my bike when something challenging suddenly happened, I would slow down or stop. On the other hand, I love challenge becuase there's no value in what I'm doing if I didn't have to struggle for it, and nothing is more challenging than being on a pvp server with unpredictable people. That said, I'll play hardcore, but if I die to latency or lag too many times....no.
I bet Brandon would enjoy Control. He of course shpuld do no research before playing it, but it's a fun plot, and good action. And great acting.
I feel like both of them would really. Weird supernatural seems in Dan's wheelhouse.
His uncle sounds pretty damn cool
I rarely play video games, but totally enjoyed this video. It would be fun to see you guys match someone like me to a game based on a personality survey!
Haha loved the Final Fantasy 6 (3 us) talk. That is by far my favorite Final Fantasy. I remember playing Final Fantasy on the NES first and 6 on the super NES a few years later.
Has Dan played Deathloop? Same team as made Dishonored and Prey, it's a really fun game, but one thing they do differently that I love is that a) if you die, there's a mechanic that resets you to the last safe spot you were at, and the really big-deal mechanic for me, is b) the game is broken up into inherently episodic chunks that take 30-60min. This makes it suuuuper easy, as a busy adult, to hop in, play a section, and then close the game; you don't have to commit huge blocks of time to it.
I was initially very interested in this one, because of the Dishonored connection, but the actual gameplay is basically "a shooter with powers," which is not for me
Adoooonalsiiiiium
shoutout to Michael Kramer
I wonder if Brandon has played Factorio, Satisfactory, or another factory building game? They sound like they may be up his alley for problem solving.
Dan would probably enjoy Hollow Knight, if he hasn't come across that yet.
I'm with Dan on Call of Duty. Black Ops 2 was like the golden age for those games, whenever I try them now it's just not what I'm there for.
Very curious what your take on the Monster Hunter series is. I think it might hit some points Brando likes: good challenge, progression and wealth of mechanics to understand and min-max. Perhaps not Dan. There isn't particularly anything out there like it as far as I'm aware and World was personally my favourite game of all time and I've played... quite a few.
P.S I'm an aspiring writer working diligently and relentlessly towards that goal and find these podcasts both very intriguing and informative, so thanks!
Splintercell blacklist, the way Dan describes it.
That's every Hitman game :P
I'm a big fan of the Hitman games
11:30 sounds like Brandon has never beaten Bowser Big Bean Burrito
My game recommendations (if they haven't played them already) are XCOM: Enemy Unknown for Dan and Divinity: Original Sin II for Brandon.
Since Dan likes the Hairbrained Studios Shadowrun games, I also highly recommend their BattleTech game. So much tactical stompy robot goodness! Once you beat BattleTech, then get one of the total conversion mods: BattleTech Advanced 3062 or RogueTech. Both are amazing fan-made expansions for the game.
best episode yet!
Thief is a good game that I think Dan would like, it’s a stealth game where you really have to think how to make your way through different areas without dying, Brandon might like it too though, because it’s a stealth game that doesn’t rely on you not being seen, if you want you can fight and kill your way through, the only way you’ll be reset through most of the game is if you die
Oh my gosh, the coolest uncle ever!
I love how I instantly knew the Zelda Dungeon he was talking about it. I'm on it right now!
I'm in the same age group and this was like a stroll down gaming memory lane! So much fun! I love Diablo 3 too. I know most don't, but my kids and I have enjoyed so many hours together! The Borderlands games too, and I am TERRIBLE at FPS. Love those though. There's just something about those legendary drops... I may have missed it but do either of the gents plan on playing Elden Ring?
Brandon, my wife is dying to know: why is every third signed page special and goes to your right?
A friend of mine described "Doom 2016 is like Going to Hell and punch Satan in the balls!" :D
I just started playing the Final Fantasy 7 remake on PC. I'm in the same boat with the old grindy rpgs, it was fun for me back in the day, but I just can't do it anymore. The interesting though is the FF7 remake takes the other extreme and doesn't let the combat shine enough. Most of the encounters are too short or lack variety or interesting combinations. There's a ton of unrealized potential the game has just under the surface, but it just never taps into it.
I can be tricked into liking a grind if I'm not literally grinding slimes (or otherwise facing identical encounters over and over) and the combat itself is really deep and engaging. If I can just sit down and play some satisfying combat for an hour here and there and feel I made some progress, that's acceptable. Dark Souls combat is a good example. I can grind that for an hour or two at a shot and not make any real story progress, but still feel I got something done.
Can Tedium be a godmetal feared by all of the Cosmere?
Does he sign his books 24/7? Respect.
How many pages can he sign per podcast? That's such a genius efficiency gain!
Signing books while doing a podcast. What a strong flex 😂
My days of gaming began with Mickey Mania on Sega. We also had Lion King but that was impossible. I graduated to playing Age of Empires and Sim City on my brother's computer. This was back before I learned how to read (and even if I could have read the text would've all been in English which I wouldn't have understood) so the learning process involved a lot of trial and error. I don't have that kind of patience anymore.
This was pretty epic 😄
Brandon is aware of Kaizo Mario? How can I possibly love this guy more?
I remember working at a video store (that used to be a thing) back in 89/90 when Blades of Steel came out for the Nintendo. People would try to bribe us to hold them when they came in for sometimes upward of $500. It was fruitless as we never touched them--only the manager had access. But damn people were on fire to get that game when it came out.
It IS the Borderlands with good writing! I'm glad someone else thinks so!
Brandon! You should try Magicka 2, its a game of a wizard aprendice that have to figure out the magic and the combination of elements and effects. I love it
Fail state stealth games are very rough, which is why I find playing stealth in Skyrim so great. You can clear dungeons in nothing but stealth, and even if you’re spotted, you just finish that fight before moving on. Fail state stealth games just…I dunno…need to be burned or something.
Yea I was going to say borderlands isn’t a single player game. Part of the reason the enemies are bullet sponge is because there’s meant to be multiple people shooting.
Speaking of games, have you seen Arcane series? It was based on the league of legends game and wanted to see your thoughts on it.
He discussed this recently, I think during the spoiler stream (you can find the archive here on his channel, but I don't have a timestamp). He has not seen the series, and may or may not in the future.
I LOVE Arcane, and will attempt to make him watch them.
I agree with what Brandon said about the Zelda: Breath of the Wild Trial of the Sword dungeon being tedious if you screwed up and had to restart from the beginning. As such, I resorted to watching videos of each level before I started them so I would go into it knowing what to do. After that I didn't die anymore and completed all the levels.
When Brandon talks about his dislike of stealth games because of the dumb end state, totally agree. I like a lot of stealth games though. The ones that are the most fun are games like MGSV or Middle Earth Shadow of War, where if you get spotted, you just take off the suppressor or pull out the sword and have a firefight.
"I don't want abilities, I just want to shoot people." *plays Overwatch
I’m gonna need some more info on Dan playing league, what champs does he play? Does he agree that Talon is blatantly just Kelsier?
Dan also mentioned he’s a fan of Overwatch and Csgo, I wonder if he’s tried Valorant since it’s the lovechild of those two games, being raised by the company who makes league
i love that Brandon knows about kaizo mario
33:08 it sounds like Dan needs to switch up his classes to enjoy Borderlands 2 🤣 I’d suggest Salvador over Zero next time. Your special power is literally duel wielding two guns instead of one and shooting faster.
Awesome... U brought up rogue lites .. Hades seems soooo Kool... I will get it someday
TIL Brandon Sanderson and I have the exact same taste in video games.
The New Vegas discourse was music to my ears. It’s worth saying that New Vegas has the best companions and important characters whose dialogue trees are quite sophisticated (but in truth I’m sure F2 was still better.)
I think brandon would enjoy the hitman series
We all should be so lucky as to have our own Michael
Dan should play Divinity: Original Sin 2, and I think Brandon would love it as well
"The borderlands with good writing" is the lowest possible bar to set for a game
Borderlands 2 isn't "the borderlands with good writing," that's Borderlands 1. Borderlands 2 was obnoxious and irritating and it just got worse from there.
@@indigotyrian whaaat, handsome jack was so good. Bet there's video essays on how good he is.
@@indigotyrian 10000% disagree. Borderlands 2 had amazing writing. Borderlands 3 on the other hand was pretty terrible.
The best of the classic turn based RPGs is Wizardry 8. Fight me.
It sounds like they would both really like the Wasteland games, especially Wasteland 3. Similar mechanics to the original Fallout games, but it also has modern RPG elements. The fights also borrow from XCOM. The writing and worldbuilding are clever and tight, and the choices you make have large ripple-effects on the plot in a micro and macro scale.
NPC's are memorable, as well as some of the party members. It has a difficulty to it that I think Brandon likes. It's also an initiative style turn-based strategy that Dan likes.
Big LoL fan! Only just got into it a couple years ago.
Does anyone have a link to the Beast game Dan mentioned? I've been looking for that for ages but never found it and given up, but it appears that today might be my lucky day.. :)
Dan I love the shadow run games for the exact same reason. Oh there's some kind of story in this rich world. Do I have to care to enjoy the game? No I do not.
Please try Path of Exile. It's the spiritual successor to Diablo 2 but with modern game development. I have spent 10,000 hours in that game and it still brings me back every new league launch.
I tried Path of Exile and like it a lot.
@@danwells9305 Hey Dan. Loving you guys hanging out on stream. I recently listened to your short story from the writing excuses anthology, it's good! I found Brandon because I also grew up reading wheel of time and ended up a permanent fan. I really like who he is as a person and I never see him laugh like he does when he's hanging out with you. You are a really good friend and I appreciate you sir. Thanks for adding good things to our world and encouraging other people to do the same.
@@jonathansimpson2287 Thank you :)
Dan should check out Into the Breach, sounds like something he'd really like
I play League of Legends just for fun too. I think, there is something really satisfying in playing a character with fairy tales powers (fireballs, magic arrows, light bursts, haunting, soul sacking shadows etc) and at the same time to do it just for fun, for sport sake. That's very different from how usually such a characters are available mostly in genres where you have to save the world, (or at least some village, d&d style), or you have to survive, you have to unravel some story, so basically a lot of responsibility on the character, plus the game takes hours upon hours. That stuff can be fun too, but... In LoL it's possible to play just a match or two, no need for deep, long immersion in the game world, and no stupid grinding. Just shoot all the fancy magic abilities and show how much you are more skilled at using those abilities than your opponents (or less skilled, but learning is fun too). Also you can use different strategies, and since all the players are just humans, you and your opponents sometimes do such hilarious mistakes that NPC would have never done. We all heard about those magic abilities since kindergarten. It is fun what you can do with them just for fun.))
That title is Curveball in a nutshell
I agree with ALL of both of your opinions. I even installed Dishonered to give it a try, since that same Splinter Cell is the only one I like.
Have you tried Hitman? I'm usually not a fan of stealth games, but the wild variety of options you can do in hitman really appeals to me. You can go stealthy, you can disguise your way to the target, go loud, or any combination of those methods. Or you can set up various levels of elaborate and unlikely to succeed, but somehow still work traps. Some of these end in 47 in hilarious and awkward positions, like posing as a real-estate agent and giving a tour of a house for sale to your target, or disguising yourself as a dead body at a funeral.
I can't help but wonder what would happen if these guys played the original Magicka. Especially with Brandon being the concrete magic system guy.
I have an Idea for a Rpg Fantasy Rouge like, survival game. With a magic system that focuses on Utility/Damage/and Buffs. With magic that affects your world around you how you traverse it. Money being actually hard to come by and having to decide if you can afford to sleep in a town/city or camp in the wilderness and risk an ambush or wild creature encounter.
Honestly, I think the only thing that's kept people playing original Mario is that you can easily knock it out in a single sitting, it took me about an hour and a half (cause I'm bad lol)
I have a suggestion for a game that you might find fun. Europa Universalis IV. It's essentially more realistic and complex Civilization. You control a nation from about
1440 to 1820. What you want to do is up to you, but usually people increase their power and create empires and such.
I love Doom's glory kill system. I haven't played it myself yet, because money is hard and my computer isn't powerful enough, but I really want to. In most games you regain health by running or hiding, but in Doom you do it by doubling down on the aggression. The idea resonates with me on a personal level. There's a lot to love about the games, and that's one of my favorites.
Every mechanic in DOOM Eternal is incredible. You need to pick it up as soon as possible.
Yeah it sounds amazing
Don't even try the MTG games they're super expensive, either in time or money, pick your poison. However, the free software Xmage is insanely fun and has tons of custom gamemodes
"pass the puck"!
Deus Ex lures me back over and over
D2 came out in 2000, I bought a copy that had been stolen and then returned from the store where I worked for $15. I played it so much but never progressed for some reason, I never beat Diablo until now when Diablo 2 Resurrected came out in September, lol. Brandon, you should play the Pacifist paladin in hardcore, or the no healing challenges.
45:25 i looked at Brandon and thought i had a hallucination, but its just weird editing
When I was 11 I bought my first NES from a Crazy Eddie’s in some town in NJ.
Dan plays GW2?! No way! Good taste in MMOs!