Hate it hate it. This game is so good, and it’s like I’m playing my old favorite again. The fact that they marred my baby with MTX like this is just gross. DD1 should be more popular, and what they did to DD2 may keep it from being the powerhouse it could because people will see the “mixed” ratings and second guess. Or they’ll open the store page and see a wall of MTX and get the wrong idea.
But that’s just part of it of course. If this works for them, it’ll explode. And it will work for them. And everyone will get these fucking MTX in their full priced AAA games. And then once sales on MTX aren’t up to snuff – or if they are up to snuff, but in a few quarters when sales are merely consistent rather than continuing to grow – they’ll start pushing it. Just like they did with Shadow of Mordor where the gameplay gave you a nasty grind and a quick “buy your way past it” option.
I’ll never buy the “it doesn’t effect you in a single player game” argument. It will, because the market incentives a worse experience for those less willing to buy in.
Here’s someone corroborating you, but it’s impossible to Google at the moment for obvious reasons. I have 0 recollection of any MTX, though. FWIW, it wouldn’t be any less bad if they did it before too.
To be clear though, it didn’t ruin it. I said it “marred” the game. It is a mark that affects how the game is perceived and I hate that. The game itself is fun, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Dark Arisen just gave you most of the MTX content for free. When you start the game and pull an Eternal Ferrystone out of your bank along with all the starter armor that sells for 500k gold - yeah, that was all MTX gear.
As with DD1, DD2 is fun and I don’t mean to say it isn’t. The MTX just provides a barrier to entry for folks turned off by it, and I wish it wasn’t there.
If the mtx is meaningless because you can get it easily in game, then it is predatory as it is intended to be purchased by people who are not aware that they can earn it in game. That strikes me as worse than mtx that is required to do something they can’t without it, because it preys on people’s lack of information and they aren’t making an informed choice.
You encounter the merchant where you can buy the MTX stuff in the first few hours of the game. You can’t even use the majority of them before reaching that point.
I would honestly bet money that they’d designed the game to not have microtransactions, then some executive at the 11th hour told them to find a way to include them, and they made them inconsequential as a sort of malicious compliance. Not that I think it’s OK to have them in the first place, it really soured me on the game initially. I think it’s considerably worse for including them, but they are completely meaningless.
The whole thing is a storm in a teacup. I’m level 40 in the game and have not once felt the need to even LOOK at the MTX store. The game is complete; the MTX are there if you’re too lazy to be bothered using the in-game travel mechanics. Simple as that.
This is another layer of “horse armor MTX”, now with selling pay-to-win features in AAA single-player games. In this case, the first (early?) time it’s been done, it’s “mild”, but it’s a step in the wrong direction.
I don’t like “slippery slope” arguments, in general, but it doesn’t cost me anything to boycott this game for having P2W MTX in a full-priced single-player game. If enough people agree, that might send the message to the industry that nickel and diming their customers isn’t a good business model.
Edit: Also, not including the MTX in review copies is egregiously sleazy since they were hiding it. Customers couldn’t make an informed decision (and their review scores are inflated).
In this case, the first (early?) time it’s been done, it’s “mild”, but it’s a step in the wrong direction.
It’s certainly not the first time, capcom did this. I remember them in DMC 4 and 5 and they were in DD1 as well but so inconsequential that everyone has forgotten. I think capcom just requires their devs to add them but the devs only do malicious compliance. I dislike capcom for it as it preys on uninformed people but like the devs for not making them actually required or designing the game around them.
I was also confused at first by the controversy, because I’d been playing for like 20+ hours and I was like “What microtransactions?” Then I checked the main menu and sure enough there’s an “online store” option, which I guess I had just thought was for upgrading to the deluxe edition or buying expansions or whatever. I guess they’re selling rift crystals or ferry stones or something? IDK I still haven’t bothered opening it.
DD1 didn’t have any MTX right? I think I expected it to since “rift crystals” absolutely sound like some kind of premium currency bullshit, but I don’t remember any actual way to buy them. That’s about the only thing I think makes the outrage make sense, it sucks for corporations to start adding shit like that to a series that didn’t have it before and I’d be worried about DD3 in the future being even more upfront with them.
I am against MTX because they have put parents in debt when their children have racked up huge MTX bills and it’s very difficult/impossible to get refunds. Yes, parents can protect themselves against this but many parents are not particularly tech savvy and games companies will see these as potentially huge revenue streams and abuse the hell out of them… like EPIC did.
Also, gaming addicts should also be considered and potential routes to indebtedness avoided.
Knowing a game has MTX just makes me less likely to buy it. Price the game correctly in the first place, and offer DLCs if you want some extra revenue.
I’m less upset by what the MTX is or that it’s there in a seventy dollar single player game, than I am that they did not disclose it would even have MTX until the day it launched.
If it has been known before hand, I wouldn’t have really cared too much. RE4 has the same kind of MTX, it does not affect the game, but it was also known before launch that it would have it.
Tbf this kind of bullshit useless mtx has been in probably every capcom game for a while now so it was expected on my end. I hate that capcom forces the devs to include them but every game I’ve played that had them they were useless and the devs were only doing malicious compliance.
the consensus I’ve gotten is that the MTXs are largely meaningless because they’re so easy to get in-game
I would push back on this a bit. Some of these items are easy to acquire small quantities of, but are not available in infinite amounts, such as (as far as I know) the fast travel tokens. I am 20-ish hours in, and I think I have 8 fast travel tokens, which means that I really just don’t use them, and hoard them for emergencies.
Convenience is addictive, and people absolutely will have trouble not pouring tens or hundreds of dollars into MTX once they get a taste of the convenience it offers. Ask ESO users how many don’t have ESO Plus; it’s incredibly common to have, because it gives you free fast travel and a dedicated, infinite inventory for crafting materials. It’s weaponized convenience.
Other items in DD2 I’ve used CheatEngine to dupe, but I think most people (and obviously, no one on console) aren’t going to be able to figure out hex editors, and shouldn’t have to.
So there’s fast travel tokens but you can get to most places by Oxcart for very cheap. The ferrystones also get more common as you go and I’ve never had a lack of them. I just finished the game yesterday and have not felt the game design being influenced by micro transactions.
playing offline because that’s where all my stuff is as last I checked the online was a disaster. Other than that, it’s pretty cool ARPG. Though I have some thoughts about some “gearcheck” -type bosses. After ~180h (since beta) or whatever, I’m still thinking it’s a solid 7/10. Fairly enjoyable, but not greatest of all time by any stretch.
Content Warning
It’s completely stupid and I love it. Essentially wannabe-“spööktubers” take a camera and few flashlights into dark, abandoned industrial complex to film something spooky, just to gain views on “Spööktube”. Views gain you money, money buys you gear.
The dives to the industrial complex are very short too, as you can only film so much (90s max, it seems), and the monsters are hella deadly. Either the camera gets filled or everyone is dead in minutes.
The footage can be saved as .webm -videos to desktop, which is GREAT
Also playing Necropolis league of Path of Exile. Started with an explosive arrow totem build but it wasn't great for levelling, so rerolled an exploding minions witch. Much much smoother so far, and should scale right through maps for currency farming. Will see how invested I stay, as I'm waiting patiently for S4 of D4 to hit consoles, some really nice updates, and basically its more approachable than PoE.
Path of Exile! I began with a minion sacrifice build, and while it’s good and I’ve killed all the major basic bosses sustain is hurting so I swapped into a BAMA build, and let me tell you haters of the Maw build, it clears faster than Bama because ignite is broken in Poe.
Playing on my Oldschool Runescape ironman. I’m currently grinding out cooking so I can cook my own sharks. Other than that it’s a bunch of stupid farm runs. >:(
I could see the writing on the wall last week, but after about 20 hours I've dropped Dragon's Dogma 2. Exploration felt just like a chore to me, and combat was super boring. This is definitely one of those games, where I absolutely don't see what reviewers saw in it to give out such high scores and maybe even call it GotY. From what I've read, the online discourse has shifted a little as well, and not just because of the bad performance or microtransactions.
I tried switching over to Horizon Forbidden West, and was going through the first small zone, when the game started crashing constantly with no error or hint on what the problem could be. It was weird, because it ran smoothly for almost 10 hours, and then it became basically unplayable. Crashes every 1–5 minutes. I tried a lot of things, but nothing helped, and was close to giving up. Then one or two days ago I had a breakthrough and I think I found the cause, something with the textures or my GPU memory. First, I reduced the memory OC of my GPU, which I haven't changed in almost 2 years, although it still crashed after an hour, which was definitely an improvement. Then I turned down the Texture Quality setting from Very High to High, I was finally able to play with no issues again. Today I'll check with my normal overclock again, if it's just the in-game setting or both.
As for the game itself, I like it, it's basically Assassin's Creed Valhalla or something, just that controlling Aloy doesn't feel like you're moving through molasses. I don't play these open world RPGs where you're basically checking off markers on the map too often, but I do enjoy them from time to time. Because of all the problems I had with the game, I just made it out of the prologue / introduction or whatever (before you get to the titular Forbidden West), so I can't say too much about it yet, however I gotta say it does look fantastic, probably the best looking game (on a technical level) that I've played.
I also played the new stuff, that was released in the first big patch of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. The new zone is really neat and I had a good time.
Then I tried Halls of Torment, another Vampire Survivors-type game. I love the look and vibe while playing, but it feels like you have to grind the early levels somewhat for upgrades and stuff until you're ready for the later stages, which I'm not really a fan of. For now, I've shelved it, but will definitely check it out again later.
I gave Pathfinder: Gallowspire Survivors another chance as well, this time on my desktop PC, since I didn't have a great time on my Steam Deck before. The game just loves throwing ranged enemies at you, so your screen is constantly filled with projectiles, which is just not fun, and the bigger screen only helps a tiny bit. It also seems super grindy, since there is sooooo much stuff to unlock and upgrade, although basically everything are just tiny passive improvements. Not really sure how I feel about it yet, but it's another game, which I'll check out again at a later time.
I had to stop myself from playing, because i was waiting for an update. Also, there is a multiplayer mod and it's the most chaotic clusterfuck i have ever seen. It's great.
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