#laz rants

[lazdahuman]

dude i've been dropping 20s like crazy in anarchy this is insane, i'm doing so well

wiper was NOT made to get these k/d ratios yet here we are, absolutely curb-stomping the enemy team. i love my little windshield wiper sword with a giant freaking hammer.

now, if only i could have a team every single time i go into anarchy rather than praying my mates are online,,

[stilltoolazy]

Why does it have to be so hard to contact all these people? 'if you have questions, feel free to contact us!' they all say, but no one tells you how to contact them! give my an email, dammit! or even a phone number.

[chamander-used-razorleaf]

Why catch up A.I. in racing games is an outdated concept

If you’re like me, you play racing games because you like driving cars with no risk of actually spending the cash to build and wreck a car. Then there is one thing that annoys the ever loving life out of you and that’s the catch-up A.I. or Rebounding A.I. If you are unaware, Rebounding A.I. is where the other drivers will go from say a 10-second gap down to literally a 1-second gap in under a second without the player screwing up. To put it in a different way, say someone is running a race with you. You are a mile ahead of them, and then suddenly they are 30 feet behind you without you stopping or anything happening to you. Most game devs will say somethings like “it increases the challenge of the race.” I say well so will matching the rank of the player’s car. Say the player has a car with 870 horsepower. Putting the NPC cars around the same mark, and that is including both a little bit under and a lot over. The best example of this is Need For Speed 2015. The catch-up A.I. in that game is not broken but it is not working completely. The A.I. will go from a 20-second gap between player and the next NPC only to jump to right behind the player’s car. Several people on the subreddit and youtube videos have complained about how this ruins the experience for them since it is almost always at the last second before the race is over and the player can only watch as the get second or third after leading by at least 5 seconds the whole race. I will admit that this style of A.I. makes the game more difficult, but it doesn’t make it any more fun. Other game devs may say, “Well it makes for an interesting dynamic for the race.” I say, giving death row inmates knives and guns makes for an interesting dynamic for prisons, but we don’t do that now do we? I also realize that this is a ridiculous metaphor and is over the top, but it serves the point. Just because something makes for better dynamics doesn’t mean it should be done. Lastly, “Well, it been done for so long gamers are used to it.” Stagnation is the killer of any genre. FPS are slowly dying because COD and Battlefield never change. So, game devs please stop using rubberbanding A.I.  Not only are you killing the experience for the player, you’re also killing a genre.