You can tell this game is beloved. I don’t think I’ve seen this many bugs talked about as funny / cute quirks when they’re just… bugs. It isn’t cats getting drunk in DF, it’s a memory issue that affects your save the longer you play.
It reinforces the idea that the devs are treating players right and making a game that people want to succeed.
I think it’s less bias towards Larian, and more that they did so many things right with BG3, we can accept some bugs, as long as they are working on fixing them. It’s such a massive game with so many moving parts that some bugs are inevitable, but they don’t stop the rest of the game from being amazing.
But whether this stance is going to be accepted (via upvotes/downvotes) in this type of community comes down to a simple popularity contest.
If I thought that Starfield was fun and tried this type of sentiment, I would be downvoted. Would that be because there is some objective measure of quality that separates the two games, or just because more people are fans of Larian than Bethesda?
Personally, I don’t get frustrated so much by the presence of bugs themselves (though it can depend on their impact) as the longevity of some of them. A lot of the bugs were cute in Skyrim, but if you see the same or similar bug in the new game, it gets less cute.
But there could be a part of it that comes from “familiarity breeds contempt”. BG3, while being a sequel to BG2, is new and fresh. Starfield feels like Skyrim in space. Bethesda has been a powerhouse for a long time, while Larian wasn’t as popular going in, so expectations are higher for Bethesda, too.
Though I’ve gotta admit I haven’t played any BG3 and not much Starfield, so this is a bit speculative.
I did say “they did so many things right”, with which I was referring to this objective measure of quality. There is a good reason this game is so universally beloved, and there are good reasons why Starfield isn’t.
If you want a random assortment of these “right things”:
Many, many choices that strongly impact your gameplay (Starfield has few interesting quests, most “choices” lead to the same outcomes)
Very interesting companions that have their own well-defined personalities and perspectives (Starfield/Bethesda companions just don’t have as many interesting things to say/as much cross-interaction)
Dialogues with interesting animations (Starfield/Bethesda dialogues are pretty static, looking at you, since… Oblivion I think?)
Interesting and detailed world design without constant repition and emptiness (Starfield is mostly empty, and mostly not unique)
An interesting story with a few twists (Starfield feels very generic Sci-Fi to me, but your mileage may vary)
Relatively few loading screens for a pretty big world (Starfield has constant loading screens)
Strong replayability due to many different options (Starfield has a few interesting NG+ ideas, but generally isn’t too interesting to repeat)
Should supposed “good” games get a pass? Nay I say both bad and others game be put on the same weighing scale. The subjective “goodness” of a game shalt have no bearing on the sanctity of the product.
Did somebody say “let’s ignore all problems good games have”?
If a game is good, and bugs are getting fixed, why shouldn’t the bugs be viewed more leniently than a non-good game with bugs that are not getting fixed? Why must we view these things as equivalent, when they are different in multiple dimensions?
Have you played the game though? It’s filled to the brim with content. I already have a lot of hours in and I think I’m only about half through the game. You talk to friends and everyone is telling a different story of how they approached a problem in the game. Almost every conversation in the game has voice lines.
It’s absolutely not flawless. Controls are clunky, path findinf of your compagnions is weird most of the time etc. But you absolutely see that this game is a labour of love and not a quick cash grab. Plus again, it’s massive and it’s one of the few games where I actually understand them not being able to fix every bug in the game.
So I wouldn’t say that we lower the bar with them in relation to bugs. They have raised the bar in content and overall quality so high that you are more willing to forgive / overlook a lot of the issues, as long as they are not game breaking.
Obviously it helps that it’s a great game. But I had fun with the bugs. I had one guy who, when pickpocketed, would instantly bolt out the door and down the street at the speed of sound.
Just wish they would have incorporated the fixes into the game engine at some point. I bet some of the devs would have even signed away the code for free or at least very cheap. It was annoying not being able to use mods to fix bugs in Fallout 76 that were patched in Fallout and Elder Scrolls games some as far back as Morrowind. Sure they were mostly rare like being able to get pushed into the void behind what should have been solid meshes and the game engine seeming not to care as you fall endlessly or it crashed.
If the strategy is looking at “what most people use” and “what is overrepresented in the win stats” you will always end up nerfing what is fun and popular.
So I’d suggest smaller changes… off course fix bugs and stuff that does not work as intended… but balance a weapon … and go on to the next. Also decide what a weapon is supposed to do… sniper shotguns should not exist… neither CQB dmr’s.
Nerfing things on a PVE game that’s supposed to be fun shows a lack of creativity.
You can buff the other things while finding better ways to increase the difficulty, instead of just boosting health and throwing more enemies, but that’s the “easy” button.
That’s just false, you’ll end up with Payday 2 where everything is so broken that enemies need to nearly insta kill you from any range to have an actual challenge.
That’s exactly why I super disagree with the idea, “If everything’s overpowered, then nothing is.” All it seems to lead to is a game that’s only dead easy or impossible.
I play DBD, and one of the playerbase’ biggest annoyance is balance by win rate and usage rate. Sometimes an option is just fun and well designed, without being too strong.
It’s especially important to look at what’s fun for multiple players. A good example might be Helldivers 2’s jet pack. Yes, it’s so fun to cover a lot of ground at once, but if the way that’s used is to abandon a cornered teammate to go do objectives while they die surrounded, then it suddenly makes teammates feel slow and useless.
Meanwhile there’s dopamine-driven team synergy potential with the assisted reload weapons. But, there’s not a lot of mechanical information encouraging their use, and it’s pretty simple for people to just use them alone.
I remember TF2’s simple idea where all weapons did more damage the closer you were to enemies, and it demonstrates what I think can be really good balancing design.
It’s also verified by Proton users noting a marked increase in performance with just a code commit. I’d urge anyone not to listen to this troll and go have a look.
This really isn’t a good take when the “random guy” has provided proof, open source code demonstrating, and a relatively easy way to verify his claims (using his code).
It’s all there out in the open if anyone has specific counter points, and this type of thing isn’t an unusual situation with Bethesda developed games, or games on this engine.
It’s clearly not due to obsolete hardware. Not getting 60fps in New Atlantis while playing on a beast with 50-70% usage max points to optimization issues. I honestly don’t know why those people think it’s hardware
I dont understand how this is even an argument dude, bethesda has the worst reputation for this stuff. Literally every game they have released has been buggy as shit with terrible performance, but for some reason people just handwave it and say “its a bethesda game” when did they get so brainwashed, why is it acceptable for them??
Yeah, exactly. I’m getting tired of this too. Even with all of the evidence in the world that this issue is halving game performance people are still dismissing it. $1000 dollars worth of performance I paid for down the drain and yet “a smooth 60 FPS” is enough justification for people.
It’s like if somebody sold you a full-priced V8 that had 4 of the cylinders not firing and your peers telling you to deal with it because “at least it runs”.
It blows my mind how critical everyone was of Cyberpunk, despite it running fairly well on PC especially a few weeks after release, and how much of a pass everyone gives Starfield.
Honestly the cancellation was years overdue. I‘m almost surprised it took them this long but then again it‘s not surprising they couldn‘t even get around doing that.
gog.com/…/alpha_protocol_is_back_drmfree_for_mode… is the actual announcement. And the Raycevick sponsored video is 100% worth watching as it very much acknowledges… Alpha Protocol is probably a bad game but it is still fascinating. And then pivots into a strong push for the preservation aspects of things.
Which is a stark contrast to the way that the usual “I downloaded the latest AAA game because i want to preserve it” pisses on the efforts.
Also, bonus points, Raycevick managed to get THE Matt Rorie to talk for like two minutes on his greatest contribution to society and gaming.
I’m so glad steam hired this guy cause if he was doing this sh*t to cover slack for Bethesda and the huge publishers all for just a personal side project I would lose any hope I had for humanity.
Is there a name for the phenomenon when a company or group has access to all of the metrics for a product or good then makes foolish decisions using that information?
Right now Arrowhead can deflect all criticism of their actions by saying “we made this decision based on the numbers” while ignoring the fact that metrics aren’t magic numbers blindly meant to be followed, you are supposed to use them to discover underlying reasons for why those numbers exist in the first place.
This patch is a big L for me and a bad omen for what is to come of this game if the devs are making their decisions like this.
For the railgun specifically, it was about the only actually effective way to deal with the multiple chargers the game likes to throw at you constantly. Now you’re pretty much fucked.
Should have brought other options up. Shifted the curve right rather then left.
Yeah I just made a similar comment. At the higher levels, you have more tank enemies than are practical to deal with using orbitals and airstrikes alone. The railgun was the only thing feasible to deal with wave after wave of tanks. Taking that away without giving alternatives is a major blow to level 7 and above.
The railgun is still effective, you just have to use the overcharge mode and be precise, they specifically left the overcharge mode at the same damage potential.
They also buffed other weapons, including the flamethrower and the laser Cannon's wieldiness and armor penetration. This is also the very first balance patch, it's not gonna be perfect, it already wasn't perfect, try out some other options and strategies and see how they seesaw the balance. I think if they keep it up they'll get it right.
It’s not the same potential, though. It takes about 4 unsafe shots to strip chargers leg armor for example. Before it was 2 safe shots. That’s over twice as long and twice as much ammo.
They specify that to retain the damage output you have to target headshots and "other specific weakpoint shots to maintain maximum damage efficiency". That's a bit vague, but it's not quite a full range damage debuff
That’s what they mean though. Weakspots multiply the damage received. Their only lever without redesigning the way weakspots function is to drop base damage.
The Arc Thrower for example ignores armor but does relatively low damage, however sometimes it will oneshot a beefier enemy when the arc hits a weakspot. Even with the flamethrower it is better to hit the charger’s armored leg because that is a weakspot on that enemy.
Their butt is the true unarmored weak spot, I usually main autocannon and circle around and just blast the butt, once it explodes they start bleeding out and change to a slower animation set
Hard agree. Played a 7 today and it felt really bad. Without balancing other weapons to make them viable, they just nerfed the only gun that can do shit.
I love the autocannon gun, but it’s useless against bugs and only good against automatons.
I’ll be sitting this patch out. It just wasn’t fun to play with these changes.
I don’t know if there’s a term for that, but imo Rocket League had the same thing going for years. The game used to always queue a team based on the MMR of the highest ranked team member. People complained they couldn’t play the game with their super low level friends in competitive play, so they changed it so it would average the rank between team members.
The reason I always hated this change was because an average bronze player can barely compete with an average silver player, and etc through the ranks. If you play in 2v2, then you can have a bronze and gold player against two silvers and the game thinks it’s a fair fight. In reality, the gold player is likely going to run circles around both of the silvers while the bronze player barely needs to do anything except try and interfere with the silver team’s defence for it to be no competition at all. I can only imagine the problem would have been even worse in 3v3 matches.
At least before when everyone queued by the highest ranked member’s MMR, then you had to be selective about who you brought with to make sure they can carry their weight. After the change, they streamlined the smurfing and boosting problems the game already has.
Tried bringing it up in community discussions but the whole community (especially at the time) wanted to do nothing but circle jerk Psyonix’s dicks with that same argument: “well Psyonix has the data and you don’t, so how do you know this is a problem? They have the data and they made the change so clearly it must not be a problem”
In Japan PCs always had this weird association with porn, and Japan wouldn’t be Japan without all the antiquated traditionalism, so PCs fell out of favor for a while. Now that they’ve noticed PC as a gaming platform prints money in ludicrous amounts they’ve started changing their minds… So it’s a matter of time until the boomer execs get a stroke or something and younger people take their jobs, really.
Weird, considering how low quality Japanese porn games usually are, and how big the porn industry in Japan generally is. But hey, even Sony saw the light, and overall actually does a half decent job with most of their ports.
Though, we've heard the whole mantra of the death of the gaming PC for decades in the West too. And if anything, consoles got closer and closer to PCs, so arguably it seems kinda the other way around.
virtually anyone can watch an adult video without context. not everyone can play a japanese game with no context. the latter also takes more time to develop.
thr console pc paragdim imo started to switch around when consoles are no longer bleeding edge tech. although price/performamce optimized, they are no longer considered visually the best experience, and everything outside of switch carts needs a digital connection to update. on the PS3/360 launch, their performance was considered high end. Nowadays consoles release with middle of the pack performance to minimize cost. Consoles are slowly losing their plug and play status and resorting to other methods of monetization.
Weird, considering how low quality Japanese porn games usually are, and how big the porn industry in Japan generally is.
This is precisely the reason why though, in Japan porn games have existed since the introduction of the home computer and they flourished because of the lack product standards in the platform. With the release of the Famicon, consoles started getting really popular to the point where many devs and consumers stopped buying PCs for gaming, and since Nintendo (among others) enforced strict standards porn games obviously weren’t allowed on their platforms. After a while, because of this shift most games available on PC were Visual Novels, many of them having porn in it in some form or another, so the platform got increasingly associated with pornography and a stigma was created.
I’m VERY tempted to buy Fallout 4: Game of the Year edition due to my hype for Fallout: London (which releases in April of this year), but I’m worried of getting burned if it turns out to be a bad/disappointing mod. :/
As someone who couldn’t tolerate F3/NV because they paled in comparison to 1/2, I actually really enjoyed 4. It lost a lot of the engine jank and felt like a decent FPS with light RPG mechanics, wearing the aesthetics of Fallout.
Imo, FO4 did everything better than FO3, except the plot. But FO3’s plot was already kinda bland to begin with. I mean, back then… It was incredible. But not by today’s standards.
It’s a lot stronger mechanically than 3 or NV - shooting is a lot less janky and the gun customization adds some great emergent quests.
The Boston of FO4 has its moments - a certain duck pond stands out to me in particular - but aside from Nick Valentine the questlines are largely forgettable.
Still, the core game loop is a lot of fun - go here, blow stuff up, scavenge bits to upgrade your stuff.
As a longtime Fallout fan (came for the isometric apocalypse, stayed for the 3D googie architecture) I still put 80 hours into FO4.
It’s a good fuckin’ game. It’s just competing with the legacy of a lot of other great games in the series.
As someone who loves the first two Max Paynes, and enjoys the third; the series should be left alone. With the way Max Payne 3 ended, there’s no good way to revive that franchise.
Look at the games Remedy have been making since splitting from Rockstar.
I really enjoyed Control and the Alan Wakes for the plot and narrative decisions. That’s who Remedy have become, story focused with emphasis on world building. MoCap actors, FMV segments, parallel world building via audio logs and journals, etc while keeping the lessons learned from the Max Payne series for the gameplay combat loops.
All the Max Payne games are mechanics centric; tight gunplay and bullet-time combat. They also have decent-to-solid plots, but I didn’t replay MP2 dozens of times because I wanted the Mona-Max arc’s dopamine hit, nor pathfinding through NYC apartment mazes. Nimble combat against formidable and fair AI is the core part of that series.
It wouldn’t be what you want it to be, and that’s okay that it’s in the past. Remedy have worked an EU and are leaning into that instead, and have done well consistently.
I play Max Payne (2 is my favorite) for the story, characters and game play. They’re all great. I think I disagree with just about everything you’ve said.
I wonder what folks’ reaction will be. Will they pull a GTA Definitive Edition and fuck it up with a bad AI uprez? Will gamers still feel entertained by a one-note gameplay mechanic? I love MP, but I recently replayed 1 + 2 and they feel quaint by today’s standards. The bullet time thing would be a nifty little tech demo in 2024.
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