Out of what? Like 5 extraction shooters? I don't get the popularity, it's pretty damn bland and shoves MTX in your face like crazy, but I have been pretty out of touch with the mainstream market for a while now.
I don’t think I would call HD2 an extraction shooter. I mean sure, you shoot things and try to extract, but for the same reason HD2 isn’t a RPG just because you can roleplay or an RTS just because you need to make strategic decisions in real time, there’s a lot more to these genres that HD2 doesn’t include. Hell, technically you don’t even need to extract, as the only thing successfully extracting gives you is any samples you find… completing the mission counts as a win regardless.
ARC has the exact same system by the way. It’s the battle pass thing where you choose the things you want each tier, and that includes the credits (Raider Tokens I think is what they’re called here). You can also buy them. They’re used to unlock other battle passes (no others available at the moment besides the one free one) and also cosmetics.
Some of us actually understand that the quality of assets has significantly risen since the 00s and it takes artists significantly more time and effort to make high quality cosmetics. We’re talking about going from assets taking days to assets taking weeks. Is the cost of the game supposed to eat all that extra development time? Are artists supposed to work for free? The realistic alternative to paid cosmetics is no extra cosmetics because quality cosmetic items are too expensive to make for free. Is that what you want?
You’re free to be the old man yelling at the cloud but at least acknowledge that that is what you are.
No need to start throwing insults. It takes away from your argument. If you want to pay for cosmetics, sure go for it, but that's how we got in this mess.
Artists get paid either way, they are not paid on commission of skin sales. Any extra profit goes to the executives anyway, not to the artists. So that entire point is null.
Games existed before with no paid cosmetics, they would exist again without them. This used to be the free-to-play model, but now they realise they can charge you for the game and then again and again for skins. These types of games are designed to extract as much money from you as possible, that's their entire purpose. They are not giving you extra skins to be nice and then paying the artists more from it. A skin is made one time and sold a potentially infinite amount of times for ridiculous prices.
As I said:
It's so ingrained it's actually crazy.
Why would you ever want to advocate for a worse experience? It blows my mind, but that's the situation we got ourselves into.
No need to start throwing insults. It takes away from your argument
Pretty ironic considering you’re implying people who think it’s okay to pay for cosmetics are crazy.
Artists get paid either way, they are not paid on commission of skin sales. Any extra profit goes to the executives anyway, not to the artists. So that entire point is null.
Like I said before, the realistic alternative to paid cosmetics is no extra cosmetics. Artists get paid anyway but if their work is freely given away how does it justify them working on it? And if you strip away the capitalist BS it becomes even more apparent that the artists making the assets deserve to be compensated for their labor.
A skin is made one time and sold a potentially infinite amount of times for ridiculous prices.
A game is also made once and sold infinite amount of times. Why aren’t you complaining about having to pay for games?
Why would you ever want to advocate for a worse experience? It blows my mind, but that’s the situation we got ourselves into
I’m not, which is why I’m advocating for cosmetic items to be reasonably priced. You’re advocating for a worse experience where cosmetic items get made with minimal effort (if they even get made at all) because the labor is not going to pay off.
I said the situation is crazy, not a specific person. I dont blame any individual, the strategies used over the years by these companies to sell skins and make consumers complacent are all very manipulative and effective. The people designing the systems and the ones doing the marketing have done a very, very good job.
You seem stuck on artists all being freelance, getting paid on some sort of commission. They are almost always salaried employees like anyone else at the development company.
Weird analogy, paying for a game, something usually worked on for years, is a lot different than paying for a cosmetic change to something. It's like going to the movies and paying the price of the ticket again to sit in a green chair instead of a red one and being told that's completely normal and something you should do.
I agree, if skins were sold for $0.50, $1.00, max $5, then I would have less issue with them. I'd still have issue with the predatory practices used to sell them though. Some people are more susceptible to this than others, so I would rather it didnt exist at all.
You buy a game once, have all the content and are not pressured again to spend anything, that's the ideal scenario, why would I compromise on that?
Games should be a sustainable art form, not gross corporate projects to extract as much money as possible from consumers.
I said the situation is crazy, not a specific person. I dont blame any individual, the strategies used over the years by these companies to sell skins and make consumers complacent are all very manipulative and effective. The people designing the systems and the ones doing the marketing have done a very, very good job.
Maybe you should’ve been clearer on what you meant considering your passive aggressive tone towards the consumer like “consumers keep sucking it up” (I don’t think this one need explaining) or calling them complacent (indirectly criticizing people for being too passive or indifferent) or saying we forgot cosmetics used to be free (implies we used to know better and now don’t).
You seem stuck on artists all being freelance, getting paid on some sort of commission. They are almost always salaried employees like anyone else at the development company.
First of all, whether they’re freelance or not shouldn’t matter to you considering you’re claiming they shouldn’t get paid either. And secondly I don’t think you understand how companies operate. People at companies work to generate revenue. Free cosmetics do not generate revenue and if they’re packaged with the game their contribution to the pricing is marginal thus the labor cost of making these assets would be disproportionate to their value and they don’t get made. The artists will get paid by they won’t be working of cosmetics. For artists to work on cosmetics there needs to be an incentive to work on them.
Weird analogy, paying for a game, something usually worked on for years, is a lot different than paying for a cosmetic change to something. It’s like going to the movies and paying the price of the ticket again to sit in a green chair instead of a red one and being told that’s completely normal and something you should do.
Is it? Last time I checked money goes off my account and I get something that costs no extra for the company (outside of making the thing).
Or are you drawing the difference at the amount of time it takes to make something? So a game made within a month should be free? A cosmetic that for some reasons took years to make should be paid? Or is it a matter of respect? That you respect game devs and their labor but you don’t respect artists and their labor?
As for your cinema analogy, some cinemas have higher quality chairs in the same theater and as a matter of fact, you do pay extra for them.
I agree, if skins were sold for $0.50, $1.00, max $5, then I would have less issue with them.
Are we starting to move the goal post here? Cosmetics costing less shouldn’t matter to you at all because your issue is that you have pay ANY amount for them.
I’d still have issue with the predatory practices used to sell them though. Some people are more susceptible to this than others, so I would rather it didnt exist at all.
Which is a completely different issue. I also have issues with predatory practices but the existence of predatory practices doesn’t mean cosmetics should be free.
You buy a game once, have all the content and are not pressured again to spend anything, that’s the ideal scenario, why would I compromise on that?
And if the game releases a DLC with new content are you not pressured to buy the DLC? Are you going to argue that DLC should also be free or are you going to draw another arbitrary line in the sand stating that game devs deserve the money but artists don’t?
Games should be a sustainable art form, not gross corporate projects to extract as much money as possible from consumers.
And how exactly is something sustainable when you give it away for free?
You are very confused. My point is very simple and understandable, yet you will purposefully misinterpret everything I say, just to fit your agenda for the sake of argument.
I already said, if you want to buy skins, go for it. It's your money. You dont need to get so defensive over that. It's okay.
Because you are so hellbent on going in circles as an argument strategy, I wont discuss further. Good luck out there.
Your point is very simple and understandable, but that doesn’t make it right. If your point was right it should be able to withstand the criticism I’m giving it, but it can’t. That’s why you think I’m confused and misinterpreting what you’re saying, because you don’t like me poking holes in your misguided belief.
We are certainly not playing the same game, then. All good.
Edit: so, finally back home and started the game. Main screen, after game loads has 0 references to MTX. Zero. Only and only when you go to STORE tab do you get to see anything. Or if you click on RAIDER TOKENS section in the top right. Nothing else, anywhere.
So while I love shitting on game devs, I prefer to do it for a good reason, and not based on lies. You might not like the prices and that’s perfectly ok, noone likes them.
But that does not equal “shoving MTX in your face”.
I’ll agree with the other comment; ARC does not shove then in your face. The only time you see that stuff can be purchased is when you go to the customization menu. That’s it. You also get some of the premium currency for free.
I’m pretty confident theyll handle it well because in The Finals I’ve been playing for about ~2 years and have purchased most of the battle passes and some outfit stuff, all with putting no money into the game. This is a $40 game. I suspect it will be handled well.
You can purchase extra stuff, but you can’t say it’s shoved in your face. It definitely is not. It’s just a way to get extra money from whales. I think it’s probably not smart for a game to ship without some MTX at this point. You can make the game cheaper for most people by having the whales fund it. It’s practical.
It’s bland? You can not like it if you want. That’s fine (if you’ve played it). Don’t make shit up though. In the realm of modern shooters, it definitely isn’t bland. It’s pretty unique. It’s got a style you don’t see anywhere else (though still based in realism), and the gameplay isn’t like many other games.
The enemies in particular are incredible though. That’s where it stands out. They’re actually physically based, and if you shoot out a leg or motor then they adjust to compensate. They used some machine learning to have them run in simulations where they learned how to move with different pieces missing. It’s really special how they feel.
It's bland. That's my opinion. If you don't think so that's fine, but that is literally what an opinion is. The style is very similar to their old Frostbite games. You can see the EA Star Wars Battlefront in it.
The drones just being physics based isnt all that impressive that it makes the game for me, it's not exactly revolutionary, similar things have existed before anyway. The gameplay is like you see in a lot of other games, that's why I think it's bland. It's your run-of-the-mill 3rd person shooter, with some basic extraction shooter elements added.
If you enjoy it, fantastic go have fun, doesn't mean I have to like it and you don't have to defend the game or your position at all.
I was largely being sarcastic. Yeah, Outer Wilds might be the only game that pretty much does it’s own thing I’ve played in many years.
I’ve been playing The Finals a lot for quite a while now. I would say it’s incredibly innovative and unique. However, it’s still a first person shooter based on capturing an objective point. At its core, it’s derivative. The way everything fits together is unlike anything else though. Just listing features that are shared by other games does not mean it isn’t doing something different.
ProtonDB reports say that it runs great under Linux, including multiplayer, so I’m not sure if kernel level anti-cheat can really be in use. Maybe it’s just under Windows?
I’m gonna give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work I’ll refund I guess.
Kernel Level Anti-Cheat For Windows Only. Embark specifically publishes a build for Proton Users validated by Codeweavers. We don’t have to worry about it :)
Yep. Honestly if someone still uses Windows but complains about kernel level anti-cheat they’re hypocrites and only have themselves to blame. If you want sovereignty as a PC user you have to put in the minimum effort and not just sit on your ass and wait until big corp is spoon feeding it to you. That day won‘t come.
I believe for Proton users the kernel level anticheat is substituted for a user level anticheat or is deactivated. Only for windows is the kernel level anticheat utilized.
Not all kernel level anti-cheat are the same. Riot’s Vanguard and whatever Battlefield 6 uses requires TPM and SecureBoot and they quite invasive. I believe Vanguard just runs in the background even when you’re not running the game which is awful. Arc Raiders devs made some pragmatic concessions to allows the game to run on Proton and Steam Deck which is pretty good.
And worth pointing out that the Linux version of EAC (which is what Embark games use) runs in user space. It’s literally not kernel level anticheat on Linux.
I can confirm, both this and The Finals (same developers) works great on Linux. No Kernel level AC for us. I even load into games faster than Windows people I’m playing with, and I just realized this is possibly why.
Microsoft is maximizing subscription revenue this year. It’s all about increasing that y/y revenue while burning cash on AI that will explode in their face revenue wise, unless the subscription price hikes land.
John Carmack: We couldn’t figure out how to perfect virtual texture streaming. I’d walk backwards and turn and the world would reload textures. It just comes down to a problem with the implementation.
Randy: The technique is fine you just need to play differently.
I see a lot of folks trying to blame this on Unreal, but that makes no sense in light of other Unreal games being smooth for the visual fidelity, and Gearbox having worked with Unreal for literally forever.
This is all on Gearbox, and their CEO/devs throwing gas in the fire via Twitter.
It’s honestly insane. There is clearly internal dysfunction at Gearbox, yet their CEO and leads are allowed to damage their brand to their hearts content with… no repercussions? WTF is Embracer (their parent) even doing to miss that?
UE5 by default uses a lot of flashy tech that is supposed to improve performance, but a lot of it only does so in scenarios that are already extremely unoptimized. Using more traditional methods tends to achieve the same fidelity at a fraction of the performance cost. But there’s no time for optimization, and these fancy options “just work”, so there ya go.
The end result is a poorly running blurry mess of a game, but at least it’s out on schedule I guess.
I looked up some videos from YouTube sleuths on why so many UE5 games suck. For any studio previously using UE3 or 4, they had to relearn/recreate nearly their entire workflow again. 5 very much changed damn near everything. But also that 5 has all this tech that everyone assumes works in all scenarios and is a miracle, when in reality it’s still software tech and has very real limitations and best use cases that studios ignore. Larger studios “should” be able to trial and error while burning through $ to figure it out, but usually management doesn’t give them enough time. Smaller studios can’t afford to have many many months of downtime learning to re-adapt everything. It’s just so damn complex that very few have had time and $ to just trial and error figure out its limitations and to work within them.
It SHOULD get better and better as time goes on, though. The tech pieces in 5 keep getting improvements, and theoretically people should eventually start to adapt to it correctly, and the knowledge should spread as devs move to different studios for new work.
What you on about, there’s always been crappy game releases. There’s a reason “can it run crisis” became a meme. That game is a lot older than 10 years old and it was a unoptimized mess when it was released.
To be fair, Crytek said it wasn’t unoptimized, but graphically over tuned on purpose, so that even years after release new hardware could finally play the game to its full potential and keep it a relevant graphical benchmark. That on launch only a fraction of gaming PCs would come even close to playing it on max settings with high fps was intended.
If that was a stupid idea in hind sight is another matter 👀.
I heard nothing in CryEngine 2 was multithreaded because they bet on processors getting better single core performance instead of getting more cores (which is what happened). Not sure about the gpu load though
I feel like there have always been buggy releases. But I do feel they have gotten more frequent and have become the actual norm, with people being impressed when AAA releases don’t have deal breaking bugs on release
Yeah, in the 15 minutes it takes to see if changing the setting caused any performance issues, I can easily just boot up Maze Mice and get through roughly 2 rounds with zero complications whatsoever. No need to change any settings from default or wait absurd lengths of time just to play a game without stuttering and other performance issues.
Also, your game is piss poorly optimized if you can’t get shader compiling working properly without tanking your experience in game.
I’ve played a handful of games that precompile shaders at boot up without it taking 15 minutes, and they try to hide at least some of it behind the splash screens and such. This is absurd. If pre-compilation or caching is needed, just fucking do it.
On top of what you said, that any company with the funds of Gearbox has no excuse for not being able to optimize it to happen during runtime without tanking FPS.
When you launch a game, and… your drivers have changed, or there’s been a substantial update to the game… it just tells you its compiling shaders before properly launching the game.
15 full minutes is pretty terrible though.
I think my worst ever is around 5 to 10, and that is when I am intentionally fucking about with mods and different versions of Proton and changing up Proton/Wine prefixes with new attempts at finding a working Windows component/requirement for some nonsense that by all rights should not work at all, lol.
I don’t understand exactly why but they’re not storing the computed shaders so you constantly have to redo it. But it also shouldn’t be taking that long anyway. It takes the new battlefield maybe 30 seconds to do this, so something weird is going on in the background.
Here, pick from various amounts of these 3 options, these have been the explanations for basically every ass-tier AAA game in the past couple of years:
UE5 is very flashy, ‘developer friendly’ garbage that explodes in complexity when you try to do any serious modification/customization of the engine or render pipeline
None of these AAA devs that are supposed to be experts in UE5 actually are
Management is beyond incompetent and tells devs to do things that are actively bad/harmful/destructive/broken.
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