Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the best game of 2018

The Madman has sealed the deal.

Moderator note: Ramshutu's RFD that was removed was:

"Pro made a well rounded, well sourced argument that provided multiple alternative games that would be contenders as the best game. While a subjective bit substantiated argument would have been acceptable and could have beaten con: pro doesn’t make one, his primary thrust was to mostly dismiss cons arguments by complaining that he was simply presenting data -which wasn’t even entirely true. Pro could have argued that the criteria con used were invalid but did not. As a result, almost every specific game, and all specific points raised by con were effectively left unrefuted.
Con sweeps source hands down, as he used multiple reliable links and citations for his stats, pro did not.

Con wins on conduct, not only is the opening argument riddled with profanity: pro is petulant, belligerent and childish throughout.
Grammar/spelling go to con due to pros wall of text approach, where he refuses to use line breaks or formatting, his occasional capitalization of words that should not be capitalized (eg: “Has” in the middle of the GoW section), several sentences starting with but and because, and frequent and poorly phrased sentences that I had to read several times: “how well the sales did or the payed critics think”. Also, I think technically the phrase “cunt-breathed” requires a hyphen."

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>Reported vote: Ramshutu // Moderator action: Removed<

7 points to Con (conduct, S&G, arguments, sources). Reasons for voting decision: {RFD exceeds 1,000 characters; refer the vote for the RFD}

[*Reason for removal*] (1) Conduct is insufficiently explained. To award conduct points, the voter is required to point to specific instances of poor conduct, compare that conduct between both sides, and explain why one side's conduct was sufficiently poor and sufficiently worse than the other side's to award conduct points. This vote fails to do that. (2) Argument points are insufficiently explained. The voter only analyzes the positive arguments made by Con (who the voter mislabels as Pro), failing to analyze any of Pro's case or all the clash in the debate, and not doing the weighing analysis required to justify neglecting a significant portion of one side's case. (3) The reasoning for awarding sources is too generic and could be copy/pasted into any debate and still be meaningful.
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Votes don't need to have an issue with every point they award to be removed. They can be removed if their explanation for one point is insufficient. I'd suggest simply (a) recasting the vote and awarding just arguments, or (b) referencing the specific conduct from Pro that you thought warranted awarding the conduct points to Con. This is true even when the conduct violations are "clear," just as it is true when the argument points are "clear" or spelling and grammar is "clear."

I made a typo in the vote removal message. I meant to say: given that Con also had conduct violations (e.g. calling Pro "dipshit"), your RFD needed to have comparative analysis of why Pro's conduct was specifically *worse* than Con's, rather than just why Pro's conduct was bad. Thus, for your RFD to be more thorough on conduct, it needs two things: (1) Specific reference to what Pro said that was a conduct violation and (2) explanation of why those conduct violations constitute worse conduct than Con's in the debate.

A Socialist atheist is your mortal enemy, a Capitalist liberal atheist is still not your ally but more tolerable to the Conservative Christian. They are people you merely dislike, but I am your mortal ideological enemy.

I must say it's a very impressive deduction on your part. As I was coming up with mechanisms to conceal my conservative christian agenda by voting on an Assassin's Creed game debate, I was almost certain that no one would be any the wiser if I voted in favor of imabench, an atheist liberal, but you saw right through me. I tip my hat off to your superior intellect. A boundlessly brilliant intellect that yankee doodle ding dongs like myself are unable to fathom.

It's pretty much true though. For example if I, a Socialist lose a debate about Socialism, it's not because I'm wrong but because all the voters already had the very same opinion about Socialism to begin with. Therefore the majority is automatically biased against me and biased for my opponent's side because you are all within a relatively similar paradigm (including mainline liberals who still believe in Capitalism.) That is just one example, everyone is biased against me because I am so removed from normal ways of thinking. As a conservative Christian you probably already believe the lie that Socialism is about the state owning the means of production, and all of your favorite propagandists like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson have been reinforcing that belief for years so no matter what I say the majority will always automatically dismiss it. This is why I technically don't lose half the debate I lose, it's just that everyone is automatically against me because I'm not a yankee doodle ding dong.

Yeah, I'm definitely out to teach non-conservative Christian waggly doodles a lesson! As are the voters from . . . most of your other debates from the looks of it. This is neocon town here and we don't give a f-ck who knows it!

If you know that reviewers opinions and sale statistics are useless then why are we even having this conversation? I think it's because you have something against me because I'm not a conservative christian waggly doodle.

That's just it though. Your whole "refuses to make an actual argument" point was just an argument by assertion. I'm not a mind reader. I don't know why you thought CON's arguments did not constitute "actual arguments" other than you saying so and making it loud and clear as to what you do and don't "give a f-ck about." You basically came into the debate making a lot of unsubstantiated opinions. Which is unfortunate because there's enough truth to reviewers getting paid to make reviews and sales not being indicative of quality (e.g. anyone who has ever eaten at Hooters will know what I'm talking about :P ) to make your position very defensible.

Your vote was invalid for more than just the reason it was removed. When I provide reasons for my position and the opponent simply says "but here's a list of games that are more popular" and thus refuses to make an actual argument, and then you believe their assertion that I am conceding when they are in fact conceding by refusing to stick to actual arguments, then you don't deserve a say in who wins this debate.

A couple of issues I have with this mod action:

1) There appears to be no issue with my convincing arguments assessment, but the vote was removed anyway.

2) The conduct violation in this debate is as plain as day. Frankly, I'm surprised mods didn't use this opportunity to issue a warning to PRO. I've been to sites where I would get banned for carrying around the way PRO did during this debate. I mean I guess I'm glad DART is more tolerant than other websites towards this kind of thing, but still . . .

3) I did explain my justification for the conduct vote. PRO reduced the debate to being about personal attacks. I don't know why the concern here is that I didn't explain why CON's "specific poor conduct is worse" since I'm not saying CON's conduct was worse. If I thought it was worse, I would've given conduct to PRO.

4) At the rate you guys are going, you may as well make it to where all votes need mod approval as someone is always going to take issue with the votes on a debate.

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>Reported vote: Logical-Master // Moderator action: Removed<

4 points to Con (conduct, arguments). Reasons for voting decision: Pro argued that ACO was the best game of the year due to its RPG elements and open world features. CON countered that there were a bunch of other games released in 2018 that accomplished this just as well (if not better) : God War 4, Far Cry 5, Marvels Spiderman, Monster Hunter World, etc. Pro's rebuttal to this was mostly unsubstantiated opinions (as CON pointed out) and as hominem attacks. As such, I buy CON's contention that PRO conceded to his arguments. The other arguments raised in the debate (i.e. ACO is not even the best ACO game in the series and open world games are not even unique anymore) didn't really weigh into my analysis since CON effectivally conceded to them and since they technically are not relevant to a debate about what is the best game of 2018. I give conduct to CON since PRO reduced the debate to being about personal attacks. I don't mind personal attacks per se when used artfully or for theatrical purposes, but one shouldn't use them as a substitute for a counter argument or else it's just bad form. That and we can tell PRO is just taking things too personally (i.e don't ever accept my debates again!).

[*Reason for removal*] While the voter sufficiently explains arguments, they fail to meet the standards for awarding conduct points. The voter is required to reference *specific* text in the debate which they consider to be conduct violations and *compare* the conduct of one side against the conduct of the other side. Since the voter acknowledges that Pro also engages in ad hominem attacks, the voter is required to explain why Con's specific poor conduct is *worse* than Pro's conduct in the debate.
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I didn't claim I was a genius you sophistic dingle berry. The fact is the real world is cruel and merciless to anyone who doesn't fall into either the "wolf" or the "sheep" category.

What a genius is doing spending so much free time with witless troglodytes is beyond me. A conundrum perhaps only a "genius" has the capacity to unravel.

Elitism is overrated. Don't learn the hard way that the real world is cruel and merciless to self-proclaimed special snowflakes who see themselves as being above the chaff.

It's so obvious that sales/popularity don't equate to quality that the very fact I need to explain it proves my point that if a genius where to join this site, they would "lose" even more often than me because "winning" means you have appealed and gained the favor of a hoard of witless troglodytes.

None of your facts are based on facts though, only other peoples opinions.

You would've been a lot better off constructing a case on why sales and reviews themselves should never be taken into account as opposed to just asserting that they shouldn't. No need to go around asserting what you do and don't "give a f-ck about." That could have made for a good debate.

Not when your own arguments are themselves only unsubstantiated opinions..... The sooner you learn that your opinion isn't fact just because its your opinion, then the sooner you might be able to get your win rate above 10%

Focusing on sales is an appeal to popularity. Critical consensus is an appeal to authority. Only examining the actual games and making your own arguments holds any weight.

You seem to be completely and hilariously ignorant of the difference between 'appeal to popularity' and 'critical consensus', but thats to be expected

Your arguments are non-existent, you merely appeal to popularity without addressing anything of substance. You literally didn't make a single point this whole time.

That seems to be the case with a lot of people. So naturally, it's complete and utter bollocks wagons. AC has had it's ups and downs in various areas ever since the beginning. Graphically it has improved steadily as well as with the quality of it's open-worlds but that is a given with the increase of technology. In terms of the story it was at it's best in AC3 but took a sharp downward dive after AC3. AC3 and the original AC are the best story wise, Origins and Odyssey have the best open-world and Black Flag has the best gameplay mechanics.
A lot of people dislike Connor as a character and see AC3 as the point where AC got destroyed, I attribute this to the fact that many people have a hard time relating to Connor or understanding him, not to mention the story as a whole. AC3 has it's flaws and ever since then AC has struggled to have a point story wise but Black Flag was a great game gameplay wise and so was Unity despite the fact that Unity marked the end of the "good old days" in AC.

Stopped playing AC after AC3. The series went downhill after AC2.