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Easy Allies |EZOT2| Love & Respect

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cm osi

Member
liked the spoiler talk even if it was a game i'm not interested, hope we'll see another one soon (it's kinda difficult to set up since you need at least 3 people to play and the game)
feels like it would work for fresh games, not sure a spoiler talk about witcher 3 would make much sense
 
liked the spoiler talk even if it was a game i'm not interested, hope we'll see another one soon (it's kinda difficult to set up since you need at least 3 people to play and the game)
feels like it would work for fresh games, not sure a spoiler talk about witcher 3 would make much sense

I think spoiler talk on some of the smaller games would be great if they had time for it. Shorter games like TLG or Inside last year for example would've been a good fit. I'm sure there will be some narrative heavy titles this year in the same vein that could provide an interesting basis for discussion as opposed to the really long games that enough Allies might not get around too.
 

Mista Koo

Member
I like some of the guests I they've had recently on Bombcast, like the dude from SuperGiant games and the one from the video game museum or whatever. Some fun conversations. They need to get Brad off picking emails though...
I like them sometimes too, but only as guests not to fill a regular's empty chair. In a perfect world Danny would just be a regular.

It's interesting to see a couple more Waypoint mentions :) but not surprising I think, that EZA listeners would jive well with their tone. I think they share similar vibes in regards on hopefulness/positivity.
I don't know, I think Waypoint is more critical which is why I listen to them sometimes (also because they're more diverse). However due to them not being in a singular location it's not as conversational as I like.
 
Also know every time these drops happen they're worse than they appear. Blood has stated it's usually up to 5 days or so after the billing day when the amount really settles as people are working through payment issues

Yep, there's nothing to worry about. This kind of thing occurs naturally with any kind of recurring billing. Patreon just makes the whole thing transparent.

When payment methods get charged on the 1st, about 5% of them get declined. There's a few days for people to update their payment information, eventually dropping the declines to around 0.5% - 1.5%.

And again, as it is a monthly bill, charging people "up front" would only work for new pledges. It wouldn't do much to mitigate the declines.
 

Hasney

Member
Yep, there's nothing to worry about. This kind of thing occurs naturally with any kind of recurring billing. Patreon just makes the whole thing transparent.

When payment methods get charged on the 1st, about 5% of them get declined. There's a few days for people to update their payment information, eventually dropping the declines to around 0.5% - 1.5%.

And again, as it is a monthly bill, charging people "up front" would only work for new pledges. It wouldn't do much to mitigate the declines.

Yeah, you can see on other charts over at graphtreon.com that Patreon, before the EZA launch, used to show the pledged amount, bounced or not, which was misleading. Now those that bounce get reduced, so those that correct it will creep back up again in the month and next 1st of the month, the bounces will show again.
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
I don't know, I think Waypoint is more critical which is why I listen to them sometimes (also because they're more diverse). However due to them not being in a singular location it's not as conversational as I like.

? If I'm interpreting this correctly I feel like this is so emblematic of something I take a huge issue with in today's general mindset. Which is why being critical and being positive are somehow exclusive to each other/interfere with each other?

Doesn't really make sense to me at all. In my mind both have 0 to do with each other.
It's all in the tone. You can be hyper critical but still be positive in tone and you can be someone with no personal quality bars and still be a negative nancy.

Waypoint is absolutely in tone a super positive and hopeful podcast it comes through in how they approach disagreements, in how they treat other people, in how they argue, in how they talk in tone about things, in how they always try to see various perspectives and weight those against their own, in how they are all very much passionate about games in their own way. And in that I think in that way they don't really fall short of EZA at all.

I don't know why someone would feel otherwise because they're critical? The conflation of both like I said I have trouble understanding it and given that I encounter this attitude quite a bit lately I gotta say it makes discussion somewhat tiring. So it felt like worth challenging it and bringing it up. :-x

On a different note though yeah if their podcast setup was everyone in one place it definitely would pull it up another notch def.
 
You can be hyper critical but still be positive in tone and you can be someone with no personal quality bars and still be a negative nancy.

I honestly think a part of this is down to how hyperbolic statements have become on the internet and in the gaming community in general. A week doesn't go by without a GAF thread popping up that's worded like "Am I wrong or is X the greatest *insert game mechanic/game/series* of all time?" - making a sweeping statement like that automatically shuts down conversation because you end up debating the statement rather than the game. i.e. "Is this game the greatest of all time?" when the original debate should've been closer to "Is what this game sets out to do good/successful?".

Hence why a lot of threads on GAF turn in to list wars or just saying something's either the GOAT or "guttertrash".

It's why I like Huber calling himself out on saying a feature of Horizon "sucked", it's just not constructive and doesn't lead to healthy debate. It's also why the nearly-meme-level statement "X is a 10" is sort of weird too.

But yeah, it also helps that these outlets are optimistic without being naive and critical without being hyperbolic/rude. I mean, we get the odd over-optimistic bet like what we saw on this week's podcast and then we get bets along the lines of "Shenmue will appear at E3" which lead to great moments.
 
Allies I need advice regarding Persona 5

These are really long games but seem designed to need 2 playthroughs to see everything content wise and to get the best ending without a guide. When I played Persona 3 back in the day I used a spoiler free guide that helped get all max links and good ending on the first playthrough. It was still a 100 hour game but I got the most out of it.

Now Persona 5 is rolling in, there's a spoiler free guide and I'm wondering if I use it again. There's too many other games out there for me to do 2 playthroughs and I don't want to spend 100 hours to then not get the true ending. But the guide will rob some of the "free" choice of the game.

I'm boarding the Persona 5 hype train. Would you be so kind to link me to the guide you're referring to?
 

Hasney

Member

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
Allies I need advice regarding Persona 5

These are really long games but seem designed to need 2 playthroughs to see everything content wise and to get the best ending without a guide. When I played Persona 3 back in the day I used a spoiler free guide that helped get all max links and good ending on the first playthrough. It was still a 100 hour game but I got the most out of it.

Now Persona 5 is rolling in, there's a spoiler free guide and I'm wondering if I use it again. There's too many other games out there for me to do 2 playthroughs and I don't want to spend 100 hours to then not get the true ending. But the guide will rob some of the "free" choice of the game.

If you want I can write up general tips again that should allow you too wing a guideless 100% max confidant playthrough, Persona 5 is far more forgiving for that than prior titles. There would be slight spoilers in the sense that it would specifically mention certain ability boost opportunities(think like someone telling you the existence of the Special Ramen while raining from P4) but I think those would be in "spoiler" free guides too.

I made a ton of mistakes based on simply not knowing stuff and managed to max out every Slink on the very last free day. And I didn't abide by a strict plan. Reloading was kept mostly to figuring out the answers for max favor points during Slink events outside of at the end I had to reload a save from 2 ingame weeks before to switch priority between the last two Slinks I had to max out.

Basically the only advantage here would be not having to be glued to a screen checking if you're sticking to schedule and basically retain some of the sense of freedom.
That said guides are great for basically not having to worry about failure at all.
 
https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps4/835628-persona-5/faqs/74143

I ended up using it. It gives so little away that it's worth doing if you just like the sotry and social links rather than making your own mind up.

Started today. Fuck me it's a good game. Think I like the Persona 4 tone more so far, but only 7 hours in.

So, does this guide you through social situations? As in it chooses what you should say during multiple-choice answers? I feel like that might take some of the fun away for me, I'm not sure.
 

Hasney

Member
So, does this guide you through social situations? As in it chooses what you should say during multiple-choice answers? I feel like that might take some of the fun away for me, I'm not sure.

It does, but I feel that your answers are so vague half the time that I don't worry. For the school questions, I don't look at the days guide unless I don't know the answer first.

I like the guide if you don't have the time for 2 playthroughs, since you won't be able to level your all your skills without it, and I want to move on to MK8D after this.
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
So, does this guide you through social situations? As in it chooses what you should say during multiple-choice answers? I feel like that might take some of the fun away for me, I'm not sure.


It definitely does. It's a tradeoff between you valuing having a more personal conversation vs seeing all the story lines. I think it's one of my biggest gripes with the series that the conversation system is basically designed around having "1-2 best answers".
I was hoping they'd tried a different approach for P5 but alas not. That said the stories they tell are just that fantastic who am I to begrudge that they might not even have had the budget to support a more complex and less gamified conversation system.

Bah, this whole true ending stuff annoys me a bit for Persona 5.

You're basically going to miss some ending or the true ending if you don't use guides...

I'm going in blind, not ruining the game with guides the first time through.
Not true for Persona 5. It was slightly true for P4 I guess.
Also Max Slink runs aren't even tied to the true ending anyway .
 

N° 2048

Member
Bah, this whole true ending stuff annoys me a bit for Persona 5. It was annoying AF in Persona 4 G.

You're basically going to miss some ending or the true ending if you don't use guides...

I'm going in blind, not ruining the game with guides the first time through.
 
So, does this guide you through social situations? As in it chooses what you should say during multiple-choice answers? I feel like that might take some of the fun away for me, I'm not sure.

Yea, I wouldn't recommend a guide for the first time personally. I think the less you worry about maxing stuff out, the more you'll enjoy the game.

My initial entry into the series with Persona 3 had me wasting so much time and days but it made the experience that much better.
 

Hasney

Member
Bah, this whole true ending stuff annoys me a bit for Persona 5. It was annoying AF in Persona 4 G.

You're basically going to miss some ending or the true ending if you don't use guides...

I'm going in blind, not ruining the game with guides the first time through.

Where to save before getting to the true ending is apparently clearly signposted where to save. The guide is just for maxing out the social and skills element. Unlike P4G, you don't have to max out a social bond for the full true ending I believe.

I've not followed spoiler closely, but someone who finished it told me that much.
 

Wiggy

Member
grr where is the Q+A? has daylight savings borked the easyallies.com calender or am i just being impatient and its a little late?
 

Mista Koo

Member
The way you describe positivity seems to amount to nice people with basic conversation skills. I wouldn't call this a vibe, it's rather the expected behavior. I mean they are professional "content creators" who cater to an audience, not gaffers. Maybe I'm too sheltered?
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
The way you describe positivity seems to amount to nice people with basic conversation skills. I wouldn't call this a vibe, it's rather the expected behavior. I mean they are professional "content creators" who cater to an audience, not gaffers. Maybe I'm too sheltered?
Not sure what that has to do with anything about me challenging the viewpoint that seems to be conflating criticism and negativity aside from you believing that I have this special unique definition of positivity which I think is a bit weird, cause I don't feel like I have.

That said to speak to this different point you seem to raise.
Seems more like you're not listening to much other stuff. What you call "basic conversation skills" is much rarer than what you would think. We don't even need to stay in gaming the last year should have shown us all that positive forces is not a commodity that the world has in abundance to the point you would regard it as common sense.
But if we'd stayed in gaming we just recently had a pretty big gaf thread around someone that was pretty bad about being positive to the point it bred quite a bit of toxicity.

Also given that you speak about someone catering to an audience by the sheer facts of reality and human diversity that means there doesn't exist "expected behavior" for that.
Audiences can wildly differ so much so that catering to some can express itself in form of pretty vile behavior in response to certain audiences being pretty vile themselves.
 

N° 2048

Member
Where to save before getting to the true ending is apparently clearly signposted where to save. The guide is just for maxing out the social and skills element. Unlike P4G, you don't have to max out a social bond for the full true ending I believe.

I've not followed spoiler closely, but someone who finished it told me that much.

Cheers, makes me feel better.
 
grr where is the Q+A? has daylight savings borked the easyallies.com calender or am i just being impatient and its a little late?

sorry we moved the frame trap shoot and I didn't think about it overlapping with when I planned to put up the Q&A. I should have just put it up early before I left.
 
These are the main ones I listen to as well.

I used to think of Beastcast as the cool one (it's probably the theme) and Bombcast as the more wacky one. Now Dan is on the Beastcast and the Bombcast is kinda dead.

I've long preferred the Beastcast over the Bombcast but yeah, the current Bombcast lineup is pretty dry now. I mainly just listen to it for Jeff anecdotes these days, like the one where Microsoft was insulted no-one gave a crap about their ogXbox pitch. Hopefully the new recruits liven things up a bit (whenever they're hired anyway).

Add in Waypoint Radio and that's my vidya game podcast lineup too.

I listened to them for a few months but found I struggled to keep up with the podcasts I had and were the most droppable of the ones I was listening to. Sucks because I'm a big fan of Patrick and Austin.

As for the Patreon payments, I received a "we ran into an issue" email around 2am and then a "Thank you for supporting" email around 6am. Glad I wasn't awake for any of that, I hate it when I encounter weird payment problems and have no idea how to fix them.
 

Mista Koo

Member
Not sure what that has to do with anything about me challenging the viewpoint that seems to be conflating criticism and negativity aside from you believing that I have this special unique definition of positivity which I think is a bit weird, cause I don't feel like I have.

That said to speak to this different point you seem to raise.
Seems more like you're not listening to much other stuff. What you call "basic conversation skills" is much rarer than what you would think. We don't even need to stay in gaming the last year should have shown us all that positive forces is not a commodity that the world has in abundance to the point you would regard it as common sense.
But if we'd stayed in gaming we just recently had a pretty big gaf thread around someone that was pretty bad about being positive to the point it bred quite a bit of toxicity.

Also given that you speak about someone catering to an audience by the sheer facts of reality and human diversity that means there doesn't exist "expected behavior" for that.
Audiences can wildly differ so much so that catering to some can express itself in form of pretty vile behavior in response to certain audiences being pretty vile themselves.
Fair enough. They are more critical so they don't exactly feel similar to me.

And it's true, I don't follow lots of "content creators". Also when I said professionals I meant that in the old traditional gaming outlet sense, totally discouting individual youtubers/streamers. Even then I'd like to think that being a nazi is a one bad apple thing rather than a common thing.
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
Fair enough. They are more critical so they don't exactly feel similar to me.

And it's true, I don't follow lots of "content creators". Also when I said professionals I meant that in the old traditional gaming outlet sense, totally discouting individual youtubers/streamers. Even then I'd like to think that being a nazi is a one bad apple thing rather than a common thing.

Like I said I don't see the connection between them being critical and the tone they carry themselves so don't get me wrong I'm not saying EZA and Waypoint are similar podcasts they are quite different. I'm only saying the general attitude which is a positive one they carry themselves with is rather close to EZA. That isn't enough to make a podcast feel similar because things like their structure, the way they do their show or even the way they approach things all these other things differ a lot(I mean just the fact that Waypoint openly embraces political tones creates very different type of conversations). Basically the nature of the comparison I made was that it doesn't surprise me that people that would like Yakuza 0 would also happen to like Persona 5.
Wildly different games and yet I very much believe that they share this innate Japanese weirdness that informs a lot of the works that make Japanese entertainment so incredibly captivating. And my issue here would be that people would read that and think I'd say these two games are similar in the vein of how Banjoo Kazooie and supposedly Yooka Laylee will be similar.(Hope this more game related example made more sense but most likely I might have only confused people more with that xD)

I think this is why I spoke up about it because it seems people have trouble differentiating between two things that I feel like are to be taken as very different and mixing them up. Tone/Attitude are not the same as the stance and opinion one represents in my opinion. So yes while I very much believe EZA/Waypoint share the things I talked about that doesn't necessarily make them very similar in the vein that Persona 5 and Yakuza 0 are not really similar.

It seems your main point of contention might have been that the reasons you listen to both are unrelated to them sharing those similarities and that the qualities that make them attractive to you are very different.

As for some general commentary on the nazi thing. You know I too believed that the absolute majority of people are empathetic and simply decent mostly because that is what my social circle has been and is all my life. The last year regarding global events forced me very much to reconsider that. For me personally it just wasn't really possible anymore to pretend that people with very concerning views with 0 regard or empathy for other people are just a small minority, they might not be a majority but they exist in rather large numbers I wasn't aware of at all. It's very much more that they were silent. And the global trend currently is that people like that feel much more comfortable to not be silent anymore.

Hey thanks for engaging :) in any case
 
I'm boarding the Persona 5 hype train. Would you be so kind to link me to the guide you're referring to?

https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps4/835628-persona-5/faqs/74143

If you want I can write up general tips again that should allow you too wing a guideless 100% max confidant playthrough, Persona 5 is far more forgiving for that than prior titles. There would be slight spoilers in the sense that it would specifically mention certain ability boost opportunities(think like someone telling you the existence of the Special Ramen while raining from P4) but I think those would be in "spoiler" free guides too.

I made a ton of mistakes based on simply not knowing stuff and managed to max out every Slink on the very last free day. And I didn't abide by a strict plan. Reloading was kept mostly to figuring out the answers for max favor points during Slink events outside of at the end I had to reload a save from 2 ingame weeks before to switch priority between the last two Slinks I had to max out.

Basically the only advantage here would be not having to be glued to a screen checking if you're sticking to schedule and basically retain some of the sense of freedom.
That said guides are great for basically not having to worry about failure at all.

Yea that'd be great. Part of the comfort of the spoiler free guide is not having the lingering doubt of missing things. But it has a cost I'm not sure I want to pay. I keep going back and forth but the fact it seems more forgiving on at least the true ending is encouraging


Just finished all the main story endings of Nier Automata. Great game. I really want a spoilercast from EZA on that one. I don't care how long I need to wait. It'll be worth it. There's a lot to dissect in that one. Now I'm all set for Persona 5!

My game playing order right now looks like:
Persona 5
Horizon
Yakuza 0

All beefy games. I figure that'll take me to June/July.
 
My game playing order right now looks like:
Persona 5
Horizon
Yakuza 0

All beefy games. I figure that'll take me to June/July.

Mine has the same bread but different fillings:
Persona 5
Full Throttle Remastered
Cosmic Star Heroine
Yakuza 0

That is, if the timing works out. If Full Throttle isn't out by the time I finish Persona 5, I guess I'll move straight onto CSH and play Full Throttle after it. Then after that, I guess it depends what I can fit in before FFXII HD comes out.
 

abrack08

Member
This week's Easy Update is so good. I hope this game makes a return soon, either another Easy Update or a special stream or something.


How did that patreon increase happen?

Assuming there's not a more recent bump I didn't notice, it's from the 1 year anniversary stream + updated Patreon goals.
 

Mista Koo

Member
Best episode ever. It was even more hilarious than I had hoped, and he got my 3 favorite allies to play it :D

I need to find people to play the game with, or force my friends to play :(
 
Mine has the same bread but different fillings:
Persona 5
Full Throttle Remastered
Cosmic Star Heroine
Yakuza 0

That is, if the timing works out. If Full Throttle isn't out by the time I finish Persona 5, I guess I'll move straight onto CSH and play Full Throttle after it. Then after that, I guess it depends what I can fit in before FFXII HD comes out.
Oh man Full throttle is sooo good. Have you played it before? It's one of the earliest Lucasarts games I bought when I was really starting to get into pc games growing up
 

CoolOff

Member
Getting back from 2 weeks of travelling with so much EZA-content to catch up on and nothing else planned for the entire Sunday.

untitled1o2yc04kjnd.gif
 

Philippo

Member
Read on twitter that Brad has finished NieR 1, hope he gets to talk a bit about it.
Also wonder if he actually played a 2nd playthrough or just watched the other endigs.
 
I like how in year 2 Brandon is warming back up to trailer analysis and scoring. Just did another one on twitter for the mummy. Seems enough that I've has passed since GT he's getting primed to get back into the fold.
 

Tankard

Member
Man, the Q&As are like a EZA show to me, love watching them.

Bosman answer about doing a show was something i waited for a while for him to address, so i thank him for finally speaking up about it. Also had me hopeful for something in the future.

This Q&A was very good.
 
Man, the Q&As are like a EZA show to me, love watching them.

Bosman answer about doing a show was something i waited for a while for him to address, so i thank him for finally speaking up about it. Also had me hopeful for something in the future.

This Q&A was very good.
Told ya it was one people around here would want to check out. Especially for that question
 
Bosman answer about doing a show was something i waited for a while for him to address, so i thank him for finally speaking up about it.

It wasn't really "finally", he's explained why multiple times in the past but yes, this one was a bit more in depth which helpfully stands as a final answer for when people ask.

There needs to be a word limit to questions though, that Catalyst setup was ridiculous for such a simple question.
 
It wasn't really "finally", he's explained why multiple times in the past but yes, this one was a bit more in depth which helpfully stands as a final answer for when people ask.

There needs to be a word limit to questions though, that Catalyst setup was ridiculous for such a simple question.
Hah yea ben usually paraphrases long posts in the past but nothing was like that before. I remember seeing that wall of text on the patreon site and went wooo boy.

Thankfully Kyle said something after reading that novel
 

Wiggy

Member
Yeah the blackychan question was pretty great, echoed a lot of peoples experiences and thoughts im sure. And it was good to hear Kyle's response, sounds like he puts a lot of pressure on himself, hopefully he can work reconcile that at some point *cough* e3 2017 does and don'ts *cough

I liked the ocean's 11 style heist film to hang out at Kurt Russell's pool bit best though, funny stuff
 

Mista Koo

Member
So as expected it's anxiety that's stopping Kyle from making a show. I can imagine that he's been having anxiety since they started since there's always the (passive or not) pressure from the audience/allies to make a show. Anxiety sucks.
Oh and I really hope he doesn't follow Ian's advice.

The talk about war games and doing them respectfully is laughable to me. You just can't make a real war themed power fantasy game if you want to respect it. What irks me even more is when people mention that a specific war must be handled more delicately or respectfully.
 

Tankard

Member
So as expected it's anxiety that's stopping Kyle from making a show. I can imagine that he's been having anxiety since they started since there's always the (passive or not) pressure from the audience/allies to make a show. Anxiety sucks.
Oh and I really hope he doesn't follow Ian's advice.

I think Ian was just trying the brainstorm a workaround to Kyle's personal problem in the facet of "doing something is better than not doing anything at all (scripted stuff)".
 

Philippo

Member
He could just try and keep on with Bosman at Home if he wants to do something, and then stepping up the production values or doing a brand new show whenever he feels confident enough to do it.
 
I think Ian was just trying the brainstorm a workaround to Kyle's personal problem in the facet of "doing something is better than not doing anything at all (scripted stuff)".
Yea I agree with Ian. Kyle is stuck in his own head and the only way to get out of it is to do something. Anything. Don't want to do a final bosman show? Then do something so different. Don't know what to do? Then just start experimenting. The longer he waits the bigger the anxiety wall will build.

Besides shows evolve and turn into other things. Look how the final bosman grew over time from a guy talking about press conferences. Look at how Tetris turned into what it did.
 
Oh man Full throttle is sooo good. Have you played it before? It's one of the earliest Lucasarts games I bought when I was really starting to get into pc games growing up

Nope, I was probably playing Doom or SimCity on my PC in 1995. I didn't really get into adventure games until relatively recently, in large part because most AAA games have gotten way too long and adventure games make for good palette cleansers. I've heard a ton of good things over the years, so I'm excited to give it a try.

It's a pity this seems to be the last Lucasarts remaster Double Fine are doing, I would've liked to get remasters of Curse of Monkey Island, The Dig and a few others too.

Read on twitter that Brad has finished NieR 1, hope he gets to talk a bit about it.
Also wonder if he actually played a 2nd playthrough or just watched the other endigs.

Nice. The last stream I saw he was about halfway through his first playthrough, so he must've either put a ton of time into it or watched the other endings on Youtube.
 
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