It kinda sucks honestly, because I think if they literally got one or two more weeks, and disabled the offending settings such as depth of field, they would have received far less flak. I feel like a good 70% of the complaints are due to bad defaults.
Like, sure, they probably still would have gotten some justified criticism for it, but I don’t really think the game deserved as harsh criticism as it got, or at least, the problems are all very surface level, and underneath what is there actually works well.
Traditional roguelikes tend to do NPCs/enemies which often have comparable stats to the player. With the benefit the player has is a “better AI” aka, an intelligent human behind them.
Path of exile is great because it doesn’t shy away from complexity at all, instead it does the exact opposite, it just goes balls deep. It really make for a very refreshing change to typical AAA games where your intelligence as a player doesn’t feel insulted.
In the end, it’s personal preference, and so both play styles should ideally be supported.
I love a challenge, it’s how I relax. If something isn’t challenging for me I quickly get bored and stop playing. I basically need my brain to be stimulated and thinking and trying to properly relax. Which is why I often trend towards “hardcore” or difficult/brutal games.
Making the boss easier after I die to it would frustrate the hell out of me unless it was optional. I want it to be a challenge, not just something I can beat if I die enough times.
Yeah, honestly, the state of the game is fine. Yes, they should have taken a couple of more weeks to fix up the performance, and they definitively should have chosen more sane default settings…
But, other than that, the launch state is fine. There are no major bugs, and there is nothing too major missing. A lot of things are done and designed quite well actually, I’d say.
Just give it a month or two and then look again. There’s no rush, it’s not a story game. But I’ve been enjoying my time so far.
They do invest a lot in cpu optimization. The problem here seems to be unoptimized GPU performance.
In addition, you will always struggle with CPU performance in complex simulation games with many interlocking systems. There’s only so much you can do without limiting the gameplay.
I feel like this is already the case, and has been for years. Few AAA games interest me these days, especially the ones coming out of the biggest studios like EA, Ubisoft, Activision-Blizzard, etc. The only recent one was Baldur’s Gate 3, but that by itself is an exception to the norm.
Most AAA games are just complete soulless profit generators. It often feels as if any fun and experimental things get taken out because it would involve too much “risk”, and stand in the way of earning money, instead of trying to make a good or fun or unique game. Instead they are just being made for as wide of a mass appeal as possible, allergic to anything that could make the game a little more interesting and niche.
Sounds like those game developers are about to become unemployable without further education
Also, I don’t really know how one can be a good developer without that necessary foundation. Maybe you can use a tool, but how would you know what to do with it…?