Truthfully? A good deal of those types of cartoons are pretty horrendous and absolutely not appropriate for pre-teen kids, despite the rating my old VHS tapes have.
Though I suspect none of them would fall into "extreme" horror category I had in mind.
I had probably seen every 1940s and 50s MGM and WB cartoon ever made with my grandmother by the time I was seven; they were surely worse for me than all the R-rated 80s action flicks I watched with my father.
Likewise, there is plenty of 'E for everyone', PEGI 7, stuff out there that is riddled with racist, misogynistic, pseudo-scientific brainrot, and--worst of all--bad math. It's no wonder my kid in-laws are morons.
All I ask is a ballpark to start from. At least I know what subjects to expect questions about, whether they're ready to understand the answers.
18 rated games are a flat no without me having to look any further. 15 rated means I need to look at it really carefully to see exactly why and anything below that is probably ok, I just need to keep an eye on things. That's all I need.
All I ask is a ballpark to start from. At least I know what subjects to expect questions about, whether they're ready to understand the answers.
18 rated games are a flat no without me having to look any further. 15 rated means I need to look at it really carefully to see exactly why and anything below that is probably ok, I just need to keep an eye on things. That's all I need.
I can honestly recommend Warframe. It's an 18+ game, but there's no sexual scenes and there are settings to disable blood and gore. If you go in-depth, it actually helps develop some neurons. Mathematical optimizations, artistic expression, fast decision making for adapting to various enemies and terrain requirements and mechanics of movement (especially in some puzzles).
After you unlock all the quests (and mission types with them), you'll wonder "Why is this game free?" and "Why do they make premium currency tradeable?".
The issue is that for it to have an effect on your brain, you have to figure it out without copying someone's gameplay from YouTube. A friend or a few to play with is ideal, but not necessary.
It has good storyline too, but the Internet is full of spoilers.
Topic related: I also like it because despite all the possible violence in it, there are ways to stealth around or disable enemies and complete most mission types with little to no killing. Except missions like extermination and defense, of course.
I can honestly recommend Warframe. It's an 18+ game, but there's no sexual scenes and there are settings to disable blood and gore. If you go in-depth, it actually helps develop some neurons. Mathematical optimizations, artistic expression, fast decision making for adapting to various enemies and terrain requirements and mechanics of movement (especially in some puzzles).
After you unlock all the quests (and mission types with them), you'll wonder "Why is this game free?" and "Why do they make premium currency tradeable?".
The issue is that for it to have an effect on your brain, you have to figure it out without copying someone's gameplay from YouTube. A friend or a few to play with is ideal, but not necessary.
It has good storyline too, but the Internet is full of spoilers.
Topic related: I also like it because despite all the possible violence in it, there are ways to complete most mission types without ever killing anyone. Except missions like extermination and defense, of course.
Thanks for the recommendation, but regardless of age rating, that one is going to be beyond my kids at the moment.
Although we're flying way off topic here as really it turns out age rating of Odyssey has nothing to do with the issues affecting stealth kills. So someone at FDev just needs to have a go fixing it so we don't get bounties unless we're spotted by any NPC apart from the one that's imminently about to be killed by the shot we fired at them (since silenced or not they do notice the round when it's just about to hit them).
I can honestly recommend Warframe. It's an 18+ game, but there's no sexual scenes and there are settings to disable blood and gore. If you go in-depth, it actually helps develop some neurons. Mathematical optimizations, artistic expression, fast decision making for adapting to various enemies and terrain requirements and mechanics of movement (especially in some puzzles).
After you unlock all the quests (and mission types with them), you'll wonder "Why is this game free?" and "Why do they make premium currency tradeable?".
The issue is that for it to have an effect on your brain, you have to figure it out without copying someone's gameplay from YouTube. A friend or a few to play with is ideal, but not necessary.
It has good storyline too, but the Internet is full of spoilers.
Topic related: I also like it because despite all the possible violence in it, there are ways to stealth around or disable enemies and complete most mission types with little to no killing. Except missions like extermination and defense, of course.
I played quite a bit of Warframe before I backed Elite: Dangerous. Got a bit bloated/grindy for my tastes...never been a big fan of looters. The pay to win element was not appealing either; the currency can definitely skew the acquisition of weapons and powers. As far as age ratings go, 18+ is surprising and another example of the absurdity of these rating systems. I don't recall anything in it that a five year-old couldn't handle. Though I don't think it would be especially educational either.
Anyway, you can stealth around most missions in ED and complete them with no killing, except where deaths are explicitly part of the mission objective.
So someone at FDev just needs to have a go fixing it so we don't get bounties unless we're spotted by any NPC apart from the one that's imminently about to be killed by the shot we fired at them (since silenced or not they do notice the round when it's just about to hit them).
If any kind of consistency is to be maintained, this change would not be a simple fix as it has implications across the whole C&P system. It would be great if law enforcement wasn't omniscient and criminal's tools didn't self-report, but the whole system is balanced around exactly this.
Of course, the issues around stealth kills, even if fixed, would still leave kills as kills.
While my current CMDR is an unrepentant mass murder, I would definitely appreciate gameplay mechanisms that featured the ability to disable targets, if they were vaguely plausible. Most games with such options make them far too easy and far too reliable. I blame Thief...an otherwise excellent game that set the standard for being able to instantly and reliably render people unconscious via means that would more plausibly have both a high rate of failure to incapacitate and cause quite a few unintended deaths. Ideally there would be a spectrum of attack possibilities with numerous gameplay trade-offs between speed, reliability, and safety. Do you risk not incapacitating your target to minimize the chances of killing them? Do you just take the most expedient approach that will probably not immediately kill them? Of course, there should be implications to one's reputation and other non-trivial repercussions, beyond bounties and fines.
I don't think we'll ever see anything like that and I am largely unconcerned with simply avoiding bounties in the current system as bounties are largely meaningless.
I played quite a bit of Warframe before I backed Elite: Dangerous. Got a bit bloated/grindy for my tastes...never been a big fan of looters. The pay to win element was not appealing either; the currency can definitely skew the acquisition of weapons and powers. As far as age ratings go, 18+ is surprising and another example of the absurdity of these rating systems. I don't recall anything in it that a five year-old couldn't handle. Though I don't think it would be especially educational either.
Anyway, you can stealth around most missions in ED and complete them with no killing, except where deaths are explicitly part of the mission objective.
If any kind of consistency is to be maintained, this change would not be a simple fix as it has implications across the whole C&P system. It would be great if law enforcement wasn't omniscient and criminal's tools didn't self-report, but the whole system is balanced around exactly this.
Of course, the issues around stealth kills, even if fixed, would still leave kills as kills.
While my current CMDR is an unrepentant mass murder, I would definitely appreciate gameplay mechanisms that featured the ability to disable targets, if they were vaguely plausible. Most games with such options make them far too easy and far too reliable. I blame Thief...an otherwise excellent game that set the standard for being able to instantly and reliably render people unconscious via means that would more plausibly have both a high rate of failure to incapacitate and cause quite a few unintended deaths. Ideally there would be a spectrum of attack possibilities with numerous gameplay trade-offs between speed, reliability, and safety. Do you risk not incapacitating your target to minimize the chances of killing them? Do you just take the most expedient approach that will probably not immediately kill them? Of course, there should be implications to one's reputation and other non-trivial repercussions, beyond bounties and fines.
I don't think we'll ever see anything like that and I am largely unconcerned with simply avoiding bounties in the current system as bounties are largely meaningless.
I get what you're saying there, since knocking someone unconscious is potentially only slightly better than killing them, given the risk of brain damage or other complications. To be honest I'm really not bothered about whether or not the target is killed since this is already the current state of things. Do a settlement raid or an assassination mission and by definition of the mission description and the fact you got the reward, someone is dead.
What irks me is that taking your time, using silenced weapons, being methodical and planning exactly how you're going to do it and not being seen by anyone gives you the same penalty as just wading in with the shotgun.
But then, Delaine looks after his favoured. Even out of his territory getting a taxi ship, handing yourself in and jump back isn't exactly onerous either. I can live with the current state of things, it's just a little unsatisfying.
Truthfully? A good deal of those types of cartoons are pretty horrendous and absolutely not appropriate for pre-teen kids, despite the rating my old VHS tapes have.
Though I suspect none of them would fall into "extreme" horror category I had in mind.
Itchy & Scratchy exists for a reason. It's actually very hard to knock someone out, you essentially need to concuss them but not so bad that you do permanent brain damage. I've seen a lot of taser videos with people screaming "Don't taze me bro" but none where they just conveniently pass out.
Itchy & Scratchy exists for a reason. It's actually very hard to knock someone out, you essentially need to concuss them but not so bad that you do permanent brain damage. I've seen a lot of taser videos with people screaming "Don't taze me bro" but none where they just conveniently pass out.
People also conflate "non-lethal weapons" as being "things to knock someone unconscious".
Being knocked unconscious is considered a critical injury, and a critical injury can lead to death. So if your weapon exclusively and reliably causes "critical injuries" in rendering someone unconscious[1], then you don't really have a non-lethal weapon anymore.
The most a (correctly employed[2]) non-lethal weapon should be doing is making the other person realise that keeping on doing what they just did is a really bad idea and stop.
The truth is, an unskilled/inexperienced operator is probably more likely to kill someone with non-lethal means, than not affect them at all... it's that whole "don't be scared of sparring the black belt, be scared of the white belt" idea.
[1] Notwithstanding some sort of magical round which delivers a sedative... but even then, the target is gonna have enough time
[2] Obviously, anything can be lethal, or completely ineffective, when used incorrectly.
There are various ways to incapacitate someone without them making noise and without causing lethal damage to them. Obviously, electrical shocks and blows to the head are not included.
Then again, here we're dealing with a video game which is not tryharding on realism. I mean, we have a plasma shotgun which shoots ball pellets. If that were a forum suggestion, it'd get laughed at.
Going more in-depth, disabling an enemy to save their life can be a procedure involving one or several of the below:
Liquids, (darts, syringes, tissue to a face), gasses (sleepy or tear, delivered as spray, grenades, hose), flashbangs, rubber (bullets or grenade), tying them up with something, stripping their security pass and leaving them in a room, intimidation and persuasion (they could surrender or flee), etc.
I'd gladly give up weapon slots for some of those options. But for now, I'm just pretending that the Energy Link is not killing them. If they have shields, they have to eat a rocket or a grenade first though.
There are various ways to incapacitate someone without them making noise and without causing lethal damage to them. Obviously, electrical shocks and blows to the head are not included.
Then again, here we're dealing with a video game which is not tryharding on realism. I mean, we have a plasma shotgun which shoots ball pellets. If that were a forum suggestion, it'd get laughed at.
Going more in-depth, disabling an enemy to save their life can be a procedure involving one or several of the below:
Liquids, (darts, syringes, tissue to a face), gasses (sleepy or tear, delivered as spray, grenades, hose), flashbangs, rubber (bullets or grenade), tying them up with something, stripping their security pass and leaving them in a room, intimidation and persuasion (they could surrender or flee), etc.
I'd gladly give up weapon slots for some of those options. But for now, I'm just pretending that the Energy Link is not killing them. If they have shields, they have to eat a rocket or a grenade first though.
Only going into this detail because I like to chew on details, there is a point back to your suggestion, and you've acknowledged the somewhat philosophical nature of the discussion here...
The thing is, re:
There are various ways to incapacitate someone without them making noise and without causing lethal damage to them. Obviously, electrical shocks and blows to the head are not included.
Then again, here we're dealing with a video game which is not tryharding on realism. I mean, we have a plasma shotgun which shoots ball pellets. If that were a forum suggestion, it'd get laughed at
... none of that detracts from the fact being rendered unconscious is considered a critical injury (or condition)... and that's derived from the fact that it renders you unable to consciously interact with the world and your circumstance around you, meaning otherwise mundane things become legitimate threats to life. You could drown in a puddle of water, slide face-first into some pillows on the couch and suffocate, or heck, just choke on your own tongue.
Whether you were made unconscious through being hit with a baseball bat, or through medical anaesthesia is pretty immaterial... if the latter is done without consent, that's still assault, just like being hit with a baseball bat would be.
This consideration was a big part of a problem in the courts during a wave of coward punches here in Australia. In most cases it was never the punch that killed the person, rather, the fact that it rendered them unconscious, causing the victim to fall uncontrollably to the ground, hit their head on pavement and die to resulting brain injury from that impact, not from the punch.
And that's what Defence would argue... "Oh no, my client just meant to mess the guy up, not kill him. That was because he fell unconscious, which wasn't part of my client's intent, therefore it's not Murder."... so the law actually changed in Australia to cover this specific situation.
And so, while yes, a suggestion for "rubber bullets" that simply "hurt" the person would be laughed out the room here... "nonlethal" methods do not mean "rendering unconscious", which was my point of contention... if your weapon is designed to knock someone unconscious, regardless of whether it's a baseball bat or a medical procedure, you no longer have a "nonlethal" weapon, because of how unconsciousness is defined.
But that's all chewing on semantics for the sake of the PEGI discussion. For me, you don't render someone unconscious without consent unless you're prepared to entertain the idea you could kill them.
A big problem with "nonlethal" methods in game is the implementation, and I see no end of problems doing this in a game like Elite. Bounties and Notoriety are the incumbent means of applying a punitive penalty to a player committing crime. The measure of that penalty is usually commensurate to the advantage the crime offers[1]. That's why stolen goods have a price debuff, while illegal goods have a price buff, given:
You can buy Battle Weapons for ~5000, sell them for ~6000 legally; or
You can buy Battle Weapons for ~5000, sell them for ~6500 somewhere they are illegal, due to the extra risk if caught; or
You can steal Battle Weapons for (theoretically) 0cr, and sell them for ~2500cr on a black market, the best profit, but the effort involved is substantially more and you almost certainly got an assault and/or murder charge along the way.
Thinking about battle weapons here... yes i'm talking space, but it's the mechanics that matter here. "Not having a murder bounty and notoriety" is the reward for pirating a ship without destroying it. That takes a level of skill (which the game rewards) compared to just destroying the target.
But now... you can just nonlethally 'destroy' the ship.... you dont get murder or notoriety, but you get the same rewards as if you actually undertook the theft under fire and with a manouvering enemy.
In an on-foot example... we have explicit "nonlethal" missions which do pay more than a standard kill mission due to the additional difficulty. Suddenly, these are just "Universally better" because you can play normally but with "nonlethal" weapons which just magically put people down without the negative consequence of murder. Even if this is "more difficult", it's just shifting the bar. Why would anyone choose notoriety and a bounty? Arguably, the consequence of non-lethal methods should be worse than murder, because the victim remains alive to be able to definitively identify you.
But again, this all comes down to "what's the point of it?". We're playing a game, and while I understand that not everyone wants to play a Fanatic Purifier on Stellaris, but the peaceful option shouldn't be at the compromise of your game's mechanics and balance. Without a very substantial overhaul to the game's mechanics, I don't see non-lethal methods being something that can be readily just "dropped in" without disrupting a lot of your game's mechanics (also GG when pvp'ers now render a player unconscious... either they "respawn" like usual and the game mechanics, they just don't get a penalty for it, or it doesn't "kill" the player and relies on someone rousing them (or maybe they wake in an hour... lol...)
Oh, one last thing. Yes, PEGI, ESRB, ACB, IARC, whatever, they're all subjective to cultural norms and expectations. Red Cross, Red Crescent, Red Star of David. That's why my claim of a huge difference between killing someone in an ambush vs killing someone who is unconscious/helpless cites customary International law, because that applies regardless of consent of a nation though, inherent to that, it's only enforced when convenient.
[1] Which is the big problem we have with Anarchies, because it's consequence free crimes against a faction for exactly the same rewards, and therefore thoroughly broken.
The main one for me still being that walking into a crowd of NPCs and zapping someone in plain sight of other NPCs without that giving you a bounty is ridiculous, because effectively that's what's being asked for if the game still can't differentiate between stealth and non-stealth kills with regards to bounties.
The main one for me still being that walking into a crowd of NPCs and zapping someone in plain sight of other NPCs without that giving you a bounty is ridiculous, because effectively that's what's being asked for if the game still can't differentiate between stealth and non-stealth kills with regards to bounties.
(...)Even if this is "more difficult", it's just shifting the bar. Why would anyone choose notoriety and a bounty? Arguably, the consequence of non-lethal methods should be worse than murder, because the victim remains alive to be able to definitively identify you.
One of my friends likes to play as a... Businessman. If a mission requires killing innocents, he'll do it and pay off the bounty later. Another is sworn to the empress. Any bounty put on him by her opponents is just slander by evil guys and therefore inconsequential. None of us are playing as criminals, but I imagine they'd view bounties as badges. Something to brag about. As for me, I'm prioritizing saving lives over avoiding bounties. So, sure. If I get identified, I totally deserve a bounty.
If you maintain stealth, you shouldn't get any bounties. That's true, but stealth wasn't meant to be a part of this discussion. In games, stealth is often the reward for taking a more difficult route in a conflict. As you've pointed out, non-lethal is and should be more difficult. That's why people often associate non-lethal with stealth.
And so, while yes, a suggestion for "rubber bullets" that simply "hurt" the person would be laughed out the room here... "nonlethal" methods do not mean "rendering unconscious", which was my point of contention... if your weapon is designed to knock someone unconscious, regardless of whether it's a baseball bat or a medical procedure, you no longer have a "nonlethal" weapon, because of how unconsciousness is defined.
In that sucker punch example, that punch is murder. If I knocked out my enemy, their life becomes my responsibility in that very moment. If they die because they couldn't protect their head, I committed murder.
In the game, it's the same as rendering the enemy unconscious with a taser and then melee-ing them to death.
Whether that gives a bounty or not, should depend on stealth.
In the game, a taser which knocks an enemy unconscious is 100% chance non-lethal. No real world logic required.
In that sucker punch example, that punch is murder. If I knocked out my enemy, their life becomes my responsibility in that very moment. If they die because they couldn't protect their head, I committed murder.
Maybe in your country. Not the way law worked at the time here though. Not really something I want to debate either. Google king hit laws in Australia if you want to know more though, or read that wikipedia link.
If you maintain stealth, you shouldn't get any bounties. That's true, but stealth wasn't meant to be a part of this discussion. In games, stealth is often the reward for taking a more difficult route in a conflict. As you've pointed out, non-lethal is and should be more difficult. That's why people often associate non-lethal with stealth.
...
In the game, it's the same as rendering the enemy unconscious with a taser and then melee-ing them to death.
Whether that gives a bounty or not, should depend on stealth.
I have no issues with the idea of kills from stealth not attracting a bounty. That should be a thing... and already is for various things but that's a whole other topic.
But the game is arranged around "If you kill someone, you gain an advantage", and so if you "nonlethal takedown" someone as being described here, it just breaks that balance, and there's suddenly no reason to do anything else. It's not "the more difficult" path, it's just "the path" at that point, as it's just an "off switch" for the consequences.
Being stealthy, honestly, it's such a trope to say it should always be or is more difficult... but I digress. Nonlethal is not as a default "more difficult" if all it mechanically achieves is the same as killing someone, but "it's ok, they're just sleeping".
That's why nonlethal is always done badly in games... it doesn't fit nicely into the mechanics of a game without just being a "better". You can be stealthy and either lethal or nonlethal, the two are not separable. The critical difference in Elite is that murder = notoriety, assault != notoriety.
The energy overcharge is murder. That's why we get a murder bounty. Maybe FD did mean it it be non-lethal, but that's not the game logic. It's currently lethal.
An electric discharge sufficient to render someone unconscious could be considered non-lethal, at all. An electric discharge sufficient to knock someone out would likely lead to their death if not receiving immediate medical treatment.
Real tasers do not knock people out. Movies and games are to blame for that.
Assuming this was somehow magically non-lethal, your suit has limited power, if you were knocked out at the end of your batteries, you're cooked. That's what's life-threatening about being unconscious. You cannot control your surroundings or protect yourself from basic threats.
There are various ways to incapacitate someone without them making noise and without causing lethal damage to them. Obviously, electrical shocks and blows to the head are not included.
Then again, here we're dealing with a video game which is not tryharding on realism. I mean, we have a plasma shotgun which shoots ball pellets. If that were a forum suggestion, it'd get laughed at.
Going more in-depth, disabling an enemy to save their life can be a procedure involving one or several of the below:
Liquids, (darts, syringes, tissue to a face), gasses (sleepy or tear, delivered as spray, grenades, hose), flashbangs, rubber (bullets or grenade), tying them up with something, stripping their security pass and leaving them in a room, intimidation and persuasion (they could surrender or flee), etc.
I'd gladly give up weapon slots for some of those options. But for now, I'm just pretending that the Energy Link is not killing them. If they have shields, they have to eat a rocket or a grenade first though.
The problem is that most of those methods are going to be ineffective against someone wearing a spacesuit especially given the near instant operation of the helmet in a Remlok, unless you up the strength when they would probably become near lethal to someone in ordinary clothes.
I have thought about this (yes, I know I am late and a bit slow, it's been known to happen) and I think I agree with that statement. Personally I don't think people really care for non-lethality unless it's for some kind of reward - not getting a bounty, being more "silent" and keep undetected, some silly achievement...
Having read the rest of the discussion again I also got the impression video games and movies might have trivialized rendering someone forcefully unconscious to the point it is perceived as a magic way to have your cake and eat it too.
I don't really get why people get so upset about bounties. It's not like they are impossible to deal with <insert don't do the crime meme>. Heck if I get sent out on a settlement massacre mission, I fully expect some bounties and the odd score of notoriety. It's part of mercenary life.
Apart from that I've always assumed it's your suit - your stealth kill is never undetected, because the ED version of Siri is a snitch. You're never undetected unless you go naked.
Apart from that I've always assumed it's your suit - your stealth kill is never undetected, because the ED version of Siri is a snitch. You're never undetected unless you go naked.
That's a really good argument for always getting a bounty! Stealth or no stealth, kill or unconscious. You could "fix" Siri by using up an engineering slot. Then use up another slot to mask it in case you get a surprise scan because it should be illegal in most civilized systems. 2 slots and farmed materials for effectively no performance increase should be a good enough sacrifice.
Being stealthy, honestly, it's such a trope to say it should always be or is more difficult... but I digress. Nonlethal is not as a default "more difficult" if all it mechanically achieves is the same as killing someone, but "it's ok, they're just sleeping".
Currently, it seems to act this way. Indicated by a swirling stars symbol when you taze someone. However it is exactly the same as killing someone and it doesn't go away even if you shoot the poor downed NPC.
They shouldn't be "just sleeping". They should be able to wake up either on a timer or at random. If not that, they should cause some other inconvenience.
I think it's a much simpler affair to balance around "not being detected" than "nonlethal methods".
