It's not a bad thing to be a gamer, nor it is to be a huge fan of a game series. What's bad is when people take that obsession a little too far.

This blog entry was inspired by a... an "incident" that I've experienced while using the Warframe forums. If you know me well, my main Warframe is Ash Prime, which I've been using for like forever now in every single mission I do, even in missions he wasn't designed for like Defense. But that's not the point. It was around November 2016, when Digital Extremes decided to rework on Ash's signature ultimate ability, Blade Storm. That rework was necessary because it was determined that Blade Storm was a little too powerful: simply activate Blade Storm at an enemy, then sit back and relax as Ash does a teleportation frenzy and clears an entire room full of enemies in an instant. It's one of those "press 4 to win" abilities: it takes zero effort; there's hardly any gameplay there; and this makes Ash more attractive towards more lazier gamers who'd rather not want to take time and effort to train themselves to be awesome and kill enemies on their own. And he practically steals kills from other players, much to their annoyance.

So what DE did was that the mechanics to activate Blade Storm has changed. Simply pressing 4 alone no longer activates Blade Storm immediately. Now, pressing 4 once puts Ash into enemy-marking mode. You'll now have to individually mark enemies by running your crosshair over them, for a maximum of up to three marks on an enemy. The good news is that you can still use your other three abilities -- Shuriken, Smoke Screen and Teleport -- and kill enemies as normal while in enemy-marking mode. Press 4 again to actually activate Blade Storm itself, killing all enemies you have marked. In addition, marked enemies can still be killed by other players in your team, so you don't have to feel guilty for accidentally steal kills from them. Everyone should have equal opportunity to kill enemies in a mission.

Personally, this is a change for the better. Blade Storm is no longer "press 4 to win" anymore. Now, actual skill is involved in order to pull-off Blade Storm in the same amount of awesomeness as before, which I managed to do so after much practicing. Sure, it's a nerf, but with enough practice, it also makes Blade Storm a more satisfying ability to use, because you consciously decide which enemies get to die in your Blade Storm attack.

Well, as predicted, people's reaction to these changes were rather... vile. :no: Players claim that Ash is "useless" now, that DE made a terrible mistake, etc. much boycotting, death threats and name-calling directed towards the developers. While those who were in massive support of these changes were mostly those who have always hated Ash in the first place for being a ridiculously cheesy Frame to use and the kill-stealing potential of the old Blade Storm mechanic. And there are still others who wished that DE completely removed Blade Storm -- or even Ash himself -- from the game. The flamewar was so ridiculous, it made Trump's presidential inauguration seemed tame in comparison.

I couldn't help but posting my own opinions in the Warframe forums, regarding the changes made to Ash's Blade Storm. I wanted people to calm down... After all, Blade Storm hasn't disappeared, nor will it ever be. It's just takes a little more effort now to activate Blade Storm. What a mistake! :ohmygod: People called me a liar, a fucking asshole, etc. accused me of stuff that I'm not, and basically twisted my words in an attempt to make me look like a jerkass and try to make my opinions as invalid as possible. I've mentioned before that the Warframe community has been rather nice. However, I did not mention that this same community is also quite toxic, with flamewars erupting because people argue over which Frame is the best or worse, people proclaiming that their "builds" -- how people customize their Frames and weapons via mods -- are better and everyone else's "builds" suck, and so on. Suffice to say, I stopped posting in the forums since.

Well, we can all agree for one thing: Warframe is just a game. Deal with it. It's nothing to lose temper over. Once you realize that, only then Warframe becomes fun to play. Elitism only makes it worse.

Well, it isn't just Warframe. Any games out there would also have this elitist attitude among gamers. People ask for too much stuff that the developers can't provide. People even demand a game to be even harder than it is now, as if "Extreme" and "Nightmare" aren't even enough anymore for these gamers, while completely ignoring casual gamers who only want to play for fun. I dunno... It gave me the impression that gamers are masochists and want the learning curve to be as impossibly brick-wall vertical as possible. And not only that, they want games to be made on their terms, no matter how utterly ridiculous that may be. I remember my friends mentioning about how bad this elitist attitude is happening in Final Fantasy XIV, especially in the forums. These FFXIV gamers claim that everyone else are not playing their chosen classes correctly, that a class is "broken" because it's too easy to play with, that even the Extreme difficulty dungeons are not even difficult enough, etc.. It's a mess. :shrug:

So yeah, it's never a good thing when you allow a game to take over your life, to the point that it literally becomes your life, your sole reason to keep on living. Whenever I see the words "Game Over", whenever I fail a mission in Warframe, go DNF in DiRT Rally, or my team loses in Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch and so on, I told myself, "Hey, it's just a game! There's nothing to make a fuzz about!" And then I grinned, because, yes, they're nothing more than just games. Losing, as well as winning, is part of the gaming experience. You'll also have to accept the fact that there'll always be someone better than you out there. Games are meant to be fun, and they should be fun to play, not something to take seriously with and to have elitist attitude out of.