The weird loot range issue, where if you’re not standing in juuuuust the right angle, you won’t be able to loot certain corpses or containers.
The fact that, outside of combat, controlling Geralt feels like driving a boat. Weird large turn radiuses, slow start and stop, etc… The devs did this to make his movement look more natural, but it feels like the game is constantly fighting against or trying to correct your inputs.
Combine those two things together, and you get a consistently frustrating experience outside of combat. Installing a ranged loot mod was one of the biggest quality of life upgrades. You walk near a corpse or container, and it automatically gets looted.
The combat can also get repetitive at times, and the difficulty scaling is weird too. But as long as those two things and still deliver a good story, I think players will ultimately walk away happy.
I feel like the repetitive combat is more a result of combat that actually encourages dodging and using signs rather than just standing still and slicing while the enemy either hits or not based on RNG, and the fact that in combat you truly are jumping around, dodging, parrying, etc. makes it more true to the source material.
The style of combat in The Witcher 3 also makes it so that if you do find yourself in a much higher level fight than you should be you can with enough tries manage to beat it. I had one playthrough where I took on the werewolf quest while too low level for it, didn’t preserve any saves before the no turning back point for the battle. In order to save my save file I had to keep trying and failing to defeat the werewolf until I finally got the hits and dodges just perfectly enough to defeat the werewolf. It sucked but ultimately it was possible to complete and not just by an attempt with golden RNG rolls results
Morrowind is the best. Oblivion remaster is better than skyrim (in my Morrowboomer opinion) and that was just refreshing a 20 year old game. I feel like there is a lot of hype for TES6 that it may not live up to, but surpassing skyrim is definitely doable.
Honestly TES6 has one thing going for it and that’s that Skyrim is over a decade old now so matching the scale and scope of Skyrim is much more achievable.
In my opinion when a sequel falls flat or is outshined by an earlier entry in the series, it’s usually because the studio messed with the formula for the gameplay, not because of a change in characters
Oblivion and Skyrim were both massive disappointments to me.
If ES 6 comes out, it’ll have maybe three skills - magic/combat/sneak. Any interesting/complicated lore will be retconned and shoved aside. (Why wasn’t Cyrodil a jungle? Where are my river drakes? What happened to Sutch? Where is my Colovian armor set?)
He apparently worked on Oblivion (and Skyrim), so there’s a chance. He took a chance on Starfield and failed, so hopefully he learns from that instead of doubling down.
I thought the same thing about Cyberpunk, they couldn’t make lightning strike twice. But in the end, once the issues were fixed, it’s also one of my favorite modern games.
PS5 game on sale did cost 2 EUR less than the regular price on Steam. I don’t think Steam overcharges me. It’s not like the game is cheaper somewhere else on PC either: …epicgames.com/…/banishers-ghosts-of-new-eden-f9e… (50 EUR)
Yes, but they sue Steam that has competitors selling games for the same price instead of literal monopolies. Even Apple was forced to open up to other app stores.
I’ll go counter-current here and say that it was a fun game. IGN review sells it really well, and I had fun while playing it. I’d say the main problem of the game was releasing in a year already full of big-name releases, and a marketing campaign that was too quiet - I’m honestly surprised it cost $40 million, because I only heard of the game by pure chance.
Yeah I will say, it’s painfully generic and I hate the MCU-style humor, but it’s not a bad game per se. It’s just in no way shape or form triple-A, except for looking rather snazzy.
The worst offense to me though is how there’s no magic in the game. Just guns with weird graphics. They managed to not make the magic feel like, well, magic. That’s the big flaw of it to me. Everything else is minor by comparison. Still, not a bad game, just not a good one either. At least for me.
The terms have changed a bit over time, but generally “AAA” now means (in the industry) a large studio makes a game with a large marketing budget. If you think of those games that are published by EA, but made by one of their smaller studios and has a smaller marketing budget, that’s “AA”.
Much like “alpha” and “beta”, the meanings are changing so quickly it’s hard to keep up with what the industry means and what players mean.
I’m so old when I started in games “alpha” meant a feature complete game with a few crash bugs, and beta meant no (25% repro, or whatever the studio chose) crash bugs and all assets added and working.
Now it’s basically “alpha” means a demo, and “beta” means they’re buying time for GM release.
Regarding the alpha/beta point, increase in internet availability and rolling updates probably made all the work in that shift. In the old days if you published a raw product it would take a hell of an effort to amend it. Now it’s just a matter of a user not plugging the internet off for some time ¯_(ツ)_/¯
This started happening when studios got bigger and marketing controlled release dates. By the 2010s or so, the actual devs had zero say. So some idiot owner would promise a game in 18 months, half the ideas would be removed due to time, and a rushed product went out.
“Games as a service” was just corporate speak for how to streamline putting out a game with less components and then adding them over time.
Coming from bg3, I had the opposite opinion. BG3 loading screens take a while but it doesnt load very much unless your loading saves a lot. With Starfield you get hit with a small loading screen constantly like when transitioning in/out of ships, buildings, planets, etc.
For me it’s not the speed, but the quantity. Docking? Loading screen. Launching off planet? Loading screen. Changing planet? Loading screen. Landing on the same planet? Loading screen. The only solution is to fast travel everywhere in an “immersive” space sim RPG. NMS and Elite:Dangerous have solved this issue. Bethesda needs to get with the times already.
This, I think, is the big open secret about the push for consoles to move towards pure digital distribution.
It’s easier to not have to compete against your back catalog for gamer attention, if you cut off end-users ability to access it!
Rockstar already tried something like this, when they released the Definitive Defective Edition.
It failed successfully, in no small part to the remaster being absolute garbage, but for the AAA publishers, it’s merely a small setback that they will try again in the near future.
Nah, I played it 2-3 years ago and it was totally fine. The only bug I recall was at the end with the helicopter sequence, and it was really frustrating. Basically, I had to set a framerate cap to 30 FPS to progress the game (60 might work too, but I needed a cap).
There’s one impactful decision soon after and then a cutscene that’s based on that decision, but otherwise that’s the end. So if you run into the bug and don’t want to fix it, just watch the ending on YouTube or something.
Rockstar patched out a bunch of radio music they had time-limited licenses for. I don’t think you would notice that, though there are mods to bring them back. Performance-wise it only had problems with integrated graphic cards under Windows in my expirience. Haven’t tried it on Linux.
The Assassin’s Creed franchise nowadays seems more like one of those slushy machines at the mall that perpetually move the same ingredients around in a neverending cycle of despair and stagnation.
I haven’t bought full price games in ages. Games are always released half finished now. Wait six months to a year until it goes on sale and they actually finish the game.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I paid full price for a game. Between free amazon prime games, epic games, gog, and steam demos/freebies: I hardly have time to invest in new games.
I used to buy Madden/NBA2k every year up until 2008 or so, now I grab one every five years at $10. Includes all the bugs from the previous version.
I have 1000s of games now and don’t have any time to play them. BG3 is the only game I’m considering spending $40 for.
I’ll gladly buy indies, breakout titles with huge reception (BG3, E33 etc), or games from well renowned studios that have yet to let me down. Anything else I’m fine waiting for a sale. With these $80 price tags I don’t see myself buying a AAA title again for a LONG time.
CDPR hadn’t let me down. Yet. Ultimately, they redeemed themselves, sure, but at launch… whew, there were issues.
Game companies CAN redeem themselves. Business wise though? Its hard to recoup that kind of shaken faith in investors, board members, etc; let alone the people you’re actually trying to sell to.
There are so MANY fucking games out there these days, that I’ll look at something new, and decide I don’t like certain elements of the gameplay, and just move on.
If a feature looks more frustrating than fun? I’m good, thanks.
I’ve played hard games on the hardest setting for the challenge. I’ve also played “easy” just to get drunk and enjoy a story.
If it isn’t fun though? Then what am I doing here?
I already spend 8+ hours a day on the computer and hate it, but at least they pay me.
yea, but BG3 didn’t release in a complete state. With that said, Larian has delivered on their promise and that’s really a good example of how a AA/AAA title can do early access in a good and healthy way.
servers ain’t free. I know ubisofts are a bunch of pricks but if you run servers indefinitely without generating income you’ll eventually run out of money.
Not every game is an MMO requiring vast server farms. A game like the crew 1 that is past it’s prime is not expensive to keep a few servers running for. It’s a negligible cost.
They could also put in the time to give players the tools to host their own servers, or simply allow offline play. This used to be standard for all PC games. They chose to do neither of these things in an obvious effort to force players towards the sequel or their other games. They should not be permitted to do anti-consumer things like this.
Depends on the game for what point scaling further gets difficult. I think Factorio can do near infinite with the clusterio mod and from a server host perspective it’s very easy to setup. You just need enough servers, the mod allows cross server interaction.
that’s a good point too. however it’s very possible they’re using proprietary code that’s used in other IP. Especially the core game engine, which you’d have to open source too.
It could be but it wouldn’t take long before it’s replicated in a way thats not propriety or just stolen by devs in countries where that means nothing.
They are a giant shitty conglomerate they will find 10,000 reasons
I agree with this, however, I also don’t think they should be allowed to call it purchasing. If you don’t own something, then you didn’t purchase it. The button for games like these should be “long-term rental” or something to that effect.
I’m okay with servers being shut down eventually, my issue is we don’t know when. If they want to call it a license and that it will be revoked later, well fucking plan it out and tell people. Did the game get cheaper as the clock ran down? Did the people buying 10 years of access pay more than people that only got to play it once? I’m pissed for the people like me that sometimes take a few years to get to playing their games only to find the servers are gone and they thought they were buying something (or at least licensing something) they would get to use.
Of course they would probably find that if they told people how long they could use it, a lot of people wouldn’t pay them for it (i.e. their business would fail without intentionally deceiving their customers).
Although ubisoft is a shit company, don’t think it’s the only one. Every game you bought on Steam, Origin and Epic aren’t your property either. You just bought the right to play their game for as long as they allow you to.
If you truly want to own your products, buy on GoG (you will get the offline installer as a download) or pirate. Because when you pirate, you have more rights and benifits than a paying customer.
Companies don’t even care anymore, it’s just a money grab with the newest bug simulator. As soon as the first purchase bubble ended, the project is abandoned and people are stuck with a piece of junk they do not even own.
In the exceptional case a dev truly delivers, like indie studios or Larian studio, the game dev world goes mental as it shows how corrupt and fucked up they are.
Support the few proper devs, pirate the rest. I pirate everything these days and when the game is good I’ll buy it.
I have over 500 games on steam. If the platform dies, that would be a major loss for me.
Honestly, platforms like steam and Netflix made me stop pirating. But with the increasing amount of streaming services, with increasing prices and more and more limitations and loss of rights, loads money grab junk content, I dusted off me old pirate hat. I am a paying usenet user, I automated all my movie and TV show downloads, I pirate games first and only buy them when they are worth it. I use Grayjay to view YouTube, because it has more freedom than a premium user.
I’m happy to pay for stuff which is good, I refuse to pay for junk, limitations and loss of my rights.
DRG Survivors is innovative enough for what it is. More importantly it’s well-made and a fun addition to the world of DRG. Does it reinvent the genre? No, but it does some interesting things with its different challenges so it stays fresh for longer than most bullet heavens.
I’d say it’s time to push the argument that the Library of Congress needs to be piercing games as part of the cultural history of the USA. If the legislative branch won’t abide private efforts then it’s time to make the government do it.
One of the definitions of scoundrel is “A wicked or evil person; someone who dies evil deliberately.” Bounty hunters can be scoundrels too.
If Key was an actual scoundrel it would’ve made the game much more entertaining. The unconfident scrawny teenager Kay is now doesn’t fit in with the outlaw world at all.
I doesn’t really, I know they explained why they made the choice. Dunno if I %100 agree with it but playing the game it doesn’t feel like that big of an issue, for me at least.
My point was more to say that she wasn’t a bounty hunter. A BH might be more aggressive and lean into combat more, where a Scoundrel is going to try to use tricks, smooth talking etc.
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