Co-Opting Opinions Without Thinking When You Don't Even Play the Game 

Stealing other people’s opinions without playing the game is the neutral skip for twitter arguments

Sajam says to not co-op opinions so I will listen to his advice by not listening to his advice.

Bold of Sajam to ask gamers to reflect on themselves when they would instead choose to quote the beast

I can't wait for "that one guy who's main game is complaining on reddit" to demand Riot nerf the 2XKO assists and call them ganks

Learning about fighting games comes with a free course in human behavior, psychology and sociology.

"when people turn green and go fast it's too strong" that is why blanka is top 1

The discourse around 2XKO is going to be WILD. You are going to have an entire genre of people who've never touched a FG coming into a genre where losing and losing a TON when you are new is the norm. It's going to be the wild west of opinions.

The “ *THINK* “ flashing on the screen while Sajam is explaining his opinion LMAO the irony

Watching this youtuber to form my opinion on what to think about this opinion forming

I wish more devs were more open about this. The proliferation of creator opinions and the emphasis of gathering opinions through social media leads to so many cooked takes on games that makes them worse.

This has never been a more relevant talking point for Tekken specifically. Phidx has become the voice of players of all skill levels and many of the people regurgitating his thoughts and opinions don't even understand why or how he came to those conclusions, so the convo only goes as deep as "Well Phidx said ______"

Regarding jwong video title thing: there's a saying that long predates thumbnails and video titles "If the headline is a question, the answer is no." It's not true 100% of the time and it's not a perfect analogy to this new context, but the basic idea remains. If the writer could declare the sexy, attention-grabbing thing and be telling the truth, they would. So if they instead ask a rhetorical question...

Tale as old as time, players just wait until someone says something that confirms their bias towards a game they didn't like already and say "finally, someone said it!"

Thanks for the opinions Sajam, I’ll be sure not to process them and instead regurgitate the information without knowing why it was said in the first place

I think people often feel a need to parrot or repeat takes they've heard popular youtubers or top players express because the FGC has a strong tendency to respond to any complaints or takes with "git gud" or accuse people of scrubquoting, especially people who aren't playing at a level where they're considered "worthy" of having an opinion. There's a lot less social risk involved in expressing Knee's opinion on tekken 8 instead of your own, because if someone calls into question your views or your "credentials" as a player, you can always fall back on "well Knee said the game is too agressive and he's a veritable tekken legend." People should definitely form their own opinions on things and inform their takes with actual experience, but I think it's important to acknowledge the role that "lol you're only Garyu/Bushin/Tekken God/you dont even win your local" plays with regards to this phenomenon.

The problem is social media rewards popular opinions, not critical thought

By the way, it's really stupid when you think about it, but it's so important to see/ interact with NUANCED opinions. Extreme opinions or behaviours are more popular, and that's tirering. So thanks to all people with a actual fonctional brain to not make the world more xtreme than it already is.

I dont understand anything Sajam is talking about but I parrot it because funny hair chipotle man said it and he seems like a smart guy.

I haven’t watched this video and have only read the thumbnail and I think the best thing to do is agree with Sajam without thinking!

I have to say, with thumbnails or video titles specifically, some of the responsibility has to fall on the content creator (and whoever they employ that actually make those), especially when it comes to saying things that they don't actually believe but what they think will pull in viewers. Do what you gotta do to make money, but any confusion or misunderstanding that comes from it is also on you.

I'm glad they know this is super common online Edit - viewers that don't even know the game well also don't realize when a streamer is salty. I saw a streamer, annoyed by a loss, say that wake up drive reversal doesn't change anything. Then several chatters immediately said 'it's literally the exact same rps'. Literally the exact same... Nevermind all the ways it's different, without even discussing good or bad it's just mathematically different in multiple ways. I already knew this happened but it was one of the most direct examples of this I've seen, and they were just wrong. Assume most people are mostly wrong most of the time. Just keep thinking,ya know? If you have an opinion that's so strong that it ends up a dead end for thought, you're fucking up. Edit - a decade ago probably I realized people would often say they saw movies they hadn't seen, because they legit believed they had read enough discourse on the movie that they, they more or less knew what it was. As if the WATCHING of the movie wouldn't be a relevant point of experience for a film. Likewise, PLAYING the game.

you're placing a lot of faith in peoples abilities to form thoughts

There is also an issue of people repeating opinions from previous interations. It was especially prevalent in SFV where there were serious problems that were addressed, but the discourse was still stuck on them. This why I haven't discussed much about Strive since season 1.

I've had to learn to work on this as a Strive player. It doesn't matter if someone's a casual new fan who doesn't play much but watches streams or an old head who's salty that Strive isn't like the old games; I'm going to treat your opinion as not weighed by experience.

at this point I wouldn't be surprised if arcsys just logs the transcripts of leffen streams and checks against them whenever someone makes a dumb balance suggestion

Honestly i dont understand why people say things with their FULL CHEST that they know arent true. Like, wow, youre so right. Floor 9 **is** being ruined by Wild Assault lol

My go-to when I'm autopiloting in conversation is typically the, "I don't know enough to have an opinion"

This is a phenomenon seen in more than just fighting games. This is the same as people just googling best builds for certain characters in things like League, not understanding WHY it's the best build, just following what others have already pioneered. I don't think it will ever end, but it does become frustrating when you choose options that aren't exactly "meta" in their eyes and get flack for it because of something they've seen others post.

I'm glad they didn't go overboard with Honda nerfs and gave him some buffs as well. If they listened to reddit for one (just search his name on the subreddit,) they'd have practically deleted him from the game. I'd like to be able to play my favorite character without feeling like public enemy number one, and also get to see him in tournaments sometimes. I feel like sometimes people go to look for matchup advice and tech against the character, see the outrage and instead just feel justified, oh this character's busted so there's nothing I can do, so I won't bother learning how to fight him, and it snowballs from there. Meanwhile, some people who want to play the character drop him, because they go looking for tech and then they see the reputation he has, and think "oh, I don't want to play the character that's supposedly weak, yet that people will say I have no skill if I play."

I love that this video applies to like every single competitive video game ever. It happens so much it's crazy.

"Whenever any human being says something to you, you should think to yourself: What are they saying, and does that make sense?" Simple but sage advice.

But Sajam if I don’t copy someone’s opinion I won’t be able to contribute to Discourse about a game I don’t play. You can’t do that to me

Coming up with your own valuation judgments and then testing them is one of the funnest parts of playing a fighting game!! Don’t rob yourself of that experience!

Hey, I edited that EvoFGC video. Neat.

The 2XKO point at the end is valid, especially when talking about frequent patches. I think there's a good chance that people who do not play the game will repeat outdated opinions for months, without knowing how characters have been patched or how balanced the game actually is

I felt this a lot when SF6 came out, apparently the only complaints about Modern that were allowed was how it interacted at the highest level. I was saying that as a casual unskilled player in the genre, who enjoyed pulling off motion controls more than directional supers/specials, an "issue" with modern at low ranks was how powerful the autocombo system was. I understand the combos are not optimal and there is a damage nerf on supers etc. but the difference those easy combos make is appreciable at that level and it I think a lot of veterans forget how difficult combos can be for new players, not just the motion inputs but the "strict" timing requirements. It takes time before new players can even approach B&B combos. Trying to say anything negative about the autocombo system from modern was almost always met with people ignoring what I was saying and telling me that new players focus too much on combos. Yes, a better player could defeat low rank players only using normals, that doesn't invalidate the immediate difference in damage output capability when a new player jumps into ranked and plays classic vs modern.

To be fair I think that it's possible to have an opinion or understanding of high-level play without actually being able to play at that level. Not in a "my rank is way lower than it should be" way but in a "I understand the game and what should be happening but my execution/reactions/dog isn't quite there yet" way.

Content creators automatically have weight to their opinions because they have a platform. But I think in the gaming sphere it runs deeper than that. Nobody wants to get roasted for having a skill issue and we automatically discredit the opinions of those who aren't high-level players. I think high-level opinions only matter when discussing high-level play. It's okay to have mid or low-level opinion as long as you have humility in it. "I'm only a floor 8 player but I really hate fighting May. Dolphin pressure has been consistently annoying for me to deal with." is a perfectly valid opinion to have. A developer might actually find it insightful that you feel that way at your level of play. And like someone else suggested: It's okay to not have an opinion if you don't know. It's also okay to have humility in treating other people like a source, rather than adopting it as your opinion. Had a buddy of mine who knows nothing about Type Lumina ask me if certain characters were good while we were watching Combo Breaker and I just told him stuff like, "Well, I'm not sure from experience, but there are high-level players who argue P. Ciel is the best character in the game."

This is really evident in the Tekken community...

This video is basically telling people in the nicest way possible that they are brain dead lmao

This entire video is secretly about the FGC and DNF Duel

I do really think they should make drive rush punishes into counter state. I also think invincible backdash would be a great addition to negate throw loops and give players more defensive options since drive reversal still sucks.

Critical thinking is hard, so many individuals do not want to put in the effort of forming their own opinions

Sajam videos got the gooner edits where they flash text on the screen to hypnotize you. I agree Sajam

This happens a lot for NRS games. And the infuriating part is that all the people who don't like or play the game just confirm each other's completely ridiculous bias.

For a second there I thought every sentence would flash one spoken word onto the screen for the rest of the video.

Wait I’m supposed to be thinking?

I think part of why people do this is because they don't trust themselves to come to conclusions on their own, and they don't want to be on the wrong side of popular opinion. Source: I've been there lots of times in fighting games and it's annoying to have people constantly tell you that you're Wrong & Dumb, lol.

LMAO my response to Strive balance discussions pretty much always end in "... but in the end, I'm a floor 10 player"

He's telling me to think and that makes me uncomfortable

It's an easy way to look like you know about the game without putting any effort.

So what Katano-san is telling us is that White Wild Assault is here to stay.

You don't want people to question what they're thinking. You want people to ACTUALLY question themselves. Most people think they're making sure they have their own opinion, and just automatically assume they are. People assume finding someone else's opinion is doing their research (which, tbf, it can be), but they're just copying someone's homework and wondering why the teacher doesn't listen to them Introspection requires putting in the work, much like wearing deodorant for EVO

just because people who havent played the game just parrot that drive rush is too strong doesn’t mean it’s not true though is the problem.

Genuinely was not expecting this sajam topic to be critical thinking 😂

Speaking from personal experience as I've absolutely done this, I remember watching some of Max's streams on Mortal Kombat 11. I never played MK11 or wanted to play it, but this was the era where fighting games were focusing on 'grounded footsies based neutral' and 'taking away comboes and options for the sake of newcomers'. I will say I dont think is as bad as alot of big streamers made it sound but when I was trying Granblue and Blazblue and Guilty gear and seeing all the things they were taking out trying to appeal to new players, it was getting annoying. So hearing Max talk about "oh armour break moves are extremely reserved" or "the custom moveset stuff is too restrictive" was GREAT fodder to reinforce my own opinion. Like "yeah, the devs probably made the armour moves work like that cause they wanted this blah blah" or "the devs did that so people couldnt have as much fun with blah blah blah." Again, never played the game; nor really saw footage or people's opinions on it outside of Max himself, but I was nonetheless thinking about what he said and using it in my head to validate my own opinion and assumptions about "Current Fighting games" The extra irony is that I sometimes like to be a contrarian and go "okay hang on, what if we look at this from the other side" with things im curious about but apparently I will COMPLETELY listen. I will defend Mighty no. 9 and Balan Wonderworld, and go full scrubquotes on everything I hate about GBVS and why I dropped it, but streamer says things that validate my opinion? yeah lets listen to that.

So - will it kill? Done with that, or?

"That's a cute opinion. Did a subreddit give it to you?"

co-opting opinions on a game at a level you don't even play at is a plague on every multiplayer game. You end up with changes that don't even affect 90% if the player base

Love this topic something I wish was talked about more is instead of how x character is broken or bad is terrible in x or y way it was rather am I playing the character in a way that the developer intended there strengths to shine

The chunli low tier thing is fucking hilarious. JW ('s channel) made that fucking clickbait thumbnail! They have some responsibility for that take existing out in the wild.

I love how, every few months, all the streamers I watch/have watched put out a video basically saying "Use your critical thinking skills"

Someone take the audio from this and put it over The Bio O Ost - Stoning and send it to me.

Guys Sajam said Jwong said Chun is bad spread the word

Maxdood’s fanbase is definitely one of them.

> Arcsys: we don't listen to twitter for opinions on balance > proceeds to buff all the characters whined about on twitter, namely Johnny who was already good, and gave him a fucking CH on mist finer.

Dev: "People parrot the opinion of pro players" Video: *shot of Leffen watching a match*

Sajam told me not to listen to him so we should nerf conversation.

Ah yes, one of the morals of "The Squid and the Whale." Granted it's about literature and not fighting games in that context, but otherwise the exact same phenomenon.

2:05 Hmm. Interesting insight, Sajam. I agree - regularly exercising skepticism for new information is an important skill. And while it's undeniable that a lot of people just neglect to practice it, let me raise you an insight: "Hmm. Whenever any human being says something to you, you should think yourself: 'What are they saying and does that make sense?'" Alright, but hold up. What up about causality? What about "Hmm. I WONDER why this happens? That people just echo what they heard from others..." Shouldn't it be obvious that one of, if not the main, reasons is because of being in a prolonged state of information overload? In today's world, for most of the people that can afford the time and energy to BE fans of the FGC and LISTEN to those voices they would then later echo, it should be safe to assume that they've got regular internet and social media access. There's a good analogy to this in Information Technology, with something called MAC Flooding. When the device normally responsible for managing and filtering internet traffic gets overwhelmed, its panic solution is to turn into a hub - allowing any and all traffic. Similarly, a person's brain, which under normal circumstances may practice a reasonable level of skepticism, when overloaded by information instead deactivates all skepticism to reduce the mental exhaustion. Some, if not many, people are not excused by this. They've undeniably failed to develop the critical skill of skepticism, and hence deserve the stigma of being "gullible". But many others aren't. They're just overwhelmed by all the other bullshit information they've been subjected to that day, and therefore just aren't functioning at full capacity. Knowing the solution is certainly important, but knowing the cause is just as, if not more, important. That saying "History repeats itself"? Yeah, this right here is one of the key fallacies intrinsic to humans that contributes to that phenomenon.

The grim reality is that the people who are level-headed, that entertain the possibility that they could be wrong, and that measure their responses are going to be outperformed by the loudest, gut-reaction, sensationalist voices every time. This isn't only because hot takes get clicks, but because the person who is reserving their input on the chance that they're wrong is going to speak much less often - and with much less confidence - than the person who never considers that they could be wrong. The person who knows very little doesn't even know how little they know, and the person who knows a lot is constantly second-guessing themselves.

redditors (and jiyuna) in r/streetfighter when they repeat mago's word by word about how jamies gonna be a problem because he has a divekick and a rekka (that was his opinion in the beta but they pray for his words religiously until now)

i'm always shocked that nobody even talks about the obvious conflict of interest in being a top player who actively complains. like yeah, i'm sure you think aki is "broken" when you lose to one in tournament, you would obviously prefer to win! why should i listen to a guy with a vested interest in the characters they don't play becoming worse?

so what i think sajam is saying is that i should keep co-opting opinions without thinking so as to avoid co-opting his opinion on co-opting opinions.

im very scared 2XKO will have leagues balance philosophy

This isn’t even just an fgc problem, it feels like everyone is suffering from persona fan syndrome these days

Don't think, only type

Personally I think the thought propaganda did have an effect on JP and AKI changes. Everyone making out JP was S tier and broken whilst everyone saying AKI was low tier caused Capcom to severely nerf JP and severely buff AKI.

I feel like 2XKO might not be as bad (but also potentially worse) because Riot's 2 modes of balancing are: Small touches over the course of years that don't always make much of a difference and massive sweeping changes/complete gameplay overhauls that completely fuck over the balance of the character. So, if Riot ends up balancing 2XKO like they do League of Legends, expect them to gut strong champs and overtune weak ones fairly regularly lol

Sajam teaches you how to critically think

I do think a lot of people who just parrot other people's opinions (confidently) are also the ones who see youtube thumbnails and reddit thread titles and don't actually read the notes or play the game or even watch the video. The problem with clickbait is that it works: having an inflammatory title and a nuanced opinion 15 minutes into a video is a good way to get clicks that also spreads half-informed opinions that lack nuance that can end up being wrong. What's the solution? I say we need to get some youtubers making clickbait titles that are just wildly positive of the game or contrary to the hordes opinions to mix it up. Let's get "DRIVE RUSH is DEAD?!? BEST PATCH EVER" or "ZANGIEF is SO back! BALANCE is RESTORED" in the mix. Lets get some "TEKKEN 8 is SAVED: It's so much fun now" out there to counter all the negativity they got. Cuz the people who got their opinion from reading other people's opinions aren't gonna change their complaints if the game gets fixed.

Sakurai said this.

People also don't like forming their own opinions because they don't like being challenged on it. It's easier to take someone elses well thought out statements as the defense is already laid out In other words Imma copy paste your opinions Sajam, I aint about to think and thanks for the content

When forming opinions based off an expert's/vocal opinion, don't just agree with it until you've had some sort of experience with the topic. Even if all the data or examples seem reasonable and makes sense, try to see how strong/annoying it is to you as an individual. I fought plenty of Lukes and never had much issues with fighting them. But, that's because I'm a Platinum player. Platinum Lukes weren't abusing cr MP and j HP and dealing massive damage on Punish Counters. They were playing him like a normal shoto and jumping like crazy with j HK. I guess they were still throw looping, but that's all. It's okay to agree with the stuff you hear. But, don't go spreading out the information like you're a professor in the subject now. If you do play often and don't even get a chance to experience the exact thing people are complaining about, then it shouldn't be your problem.

It's always crazy talking to people about the game. My diamond experience and the people regularly competitng in Top 8s play two different games. You know what's S tier to me? Hoppy McSweepy Ryu on a 10 game winning streak.

Disregarding this advice because I'm a free thinker and I refuse to be influenced by Sajam

I understand why this is a problem for developpers, but I will say, if you are someone reasonnable that understand that you opinion is not valid during these discussions, there's a real sense of rejection from being able to participate in current events. The FGC made discourses and balance talks a lot of the social element of the scene. The feeling of " I'm not a good enough player, so I guess I should never talk " is inately depressing.

"Is Akuma broken?" Well it's only been a week so it's too early to say... But yes, he's always top tier and this is no exception.

"Mashing on words" 😂😂😂 Stealing. ❤

You share someone else's opinion, i steal other people's toughts, we are not the same

I don't have much experience on this with fighting games because I'm not that involved in the happenings of the FGC, but I see it with so many other communities and it irritates me beyond belief. Everyone adored MCU Spider-Man until HiTop dropped his video about Spider-Man Homecoming. That video turned half the damn Spider-Man community on MCU Spider-Man and has done so much damage that to this day (it's been 7 years since Homecoming btw) people are STILL bombarding IG and Twitter posts about MCU Spider-Man by saying he's the worst adaptation or whatever (he's arguably the most accurate but that's neither here nor there). Or the Assassin's Creed community that has been plagued with opinions so objectively wrong that it feels like the people who say these things haven't even played the games. People complain about how the protagonist of AC Valhalla is a reincarnation of a god even though the game literally goes out of it's way to say these "gods" aren't actual gods, just Isu (precursor civilization, long story) who's stories became legends that were later deified by humans. Or how AC Odyssey lacks a focus on stealth, some going as far as to say there's no stealth at all, even though 80% of the game can be played in stealth. You can literally make entire gear sets solely focused on stealth. It's just so absurdly irritating that all it takes is either some guy with a camera and a microphone or a collection of tweets and YT comments to completely brainwash an entire community.

Can't wait for League twitter to call for nerfs to *champ* *autos*

Justin is playing the RU-vid game with those thumbnails and as annoying as it is, I respect that - it's the hustle. However, as pointed out in this video, people often don't watch the video and just go by the thumbnail, much like reading a headline without reading the article and just immediately adopt this "opinion". Pros are also content creators who mostly cater to people of lower skill levels and their sensationalist, clickbaity titles, perpetuate the spread of awful opinions and so on. Balancing teams are in a catch 22. It's a vicious circle. We're all drinking from the poisoned chalice.

Obligatory comment about KI balancing Jago

Sorry if you've already been bombarded with this question Sajam. I promise I tried to look for the answer before commenting. Are you going to make a video about Beatrix or are you busy with other stuff?

I certainly think that everyone's opinion is valid to a degree, but if you want to actually give feedback about something as crucial as game balance, you need some experience under your belt. It's kinda like the whole 24fps vs 60fps battle that went around on the animation scene. People were talking about how interpolated videos were better than the standard 24fps, and what that tells everyone is that the casual crowd doesn't have an eye for animation. It's the same for games. Casuals don't know game design but they like to pretend like they do. They gather opinions from others and say they came up with it just to fit into the conversation, when in reality you should be reaching your own conclusions based on the experience you have with the game. And then on top of that, prove yourself right by experimenting with your own theories. If you think a character is top tier, go into training, experiment with their tools, play the character, see how your opinion holds up, ect.

I think this problem got a lot bigger recently since the FGC has grown a lot with all the new releases. So you have a lot of new players going through their scrub quote phase or having a severe case of the Dunning Kruger effect and thinking they know a genius balance change that would absolutely not fuck the entire game up. But worse of all are the people that don't actually play the game and act like they know shit, these people at most play arcade mode or watch streams. Like it's really cool that people can enjoy FGs without having to play competitively, but I'm tired of people acting like they have valid opinions on the gameplay when they don't even play the freaking game. Scrub quotes are funny but at least they come from a reaction of what happened when the scrub was playing. People that just watch and talk shit might as well be playing an imaginary meta in their heads lol.

Hey streamer man what's your opinion on beatrix

Or you can just have opinions that cover all fighting games, like how they should buff all hot waifus.

Formin your own opinion its like Soulborne of suggestion Kappa Its undeniable that we livin with random social media bums who bear no common sense but hivemind, people usually pushin other people opinion to the extend of catchin directive team attention or blindly pick any popular opinion without fully understand the definition first and only here 4 main part of opinion then shove into the director faces until they accepted The purest ignorancy at its lifelong finest