Full agree. I do want some kind of policy for games that introduce anti-cheat both during early access and after release. Bricking a game you paid for should offer some sort of recourse.
I only play online games with friends because I don’t feel like dealing with fuckheads in my spare time. That does mean there are a lot of games which are probably cool but I won’t play because they are meant to be played in lobbies.
I’m not convinced Paradox knows what they are doing as publisher. Millenia was similarly pushed out the door before it was ready (though in a better state than Cities: Skylines 2). And both games pushed out the door in the last week of the quarter in a transparent effort to boost their earnings. The shortsightedness of the publisher is now impacting their reputation in ways that will be hard to recover. I no longer consider buying Paradox published titles until they are at least a year old or have at least a few months of reviews showing they are solid (like AoW4).
Shadow of the Forbidden Gods - a strategy game where you play as the ancient cthonic entity waking up because the stars are right. Set in a fantasy world where the forces of good slowly become aware of the coming apocalypse and attempt to forestall your return. You have to get past the janky UI and some dreadful AI art, but the gameplay is unique and satisfying.
Shadowbringers was just so good. The parts that really get me were in 5.3 and just… everything. Probably the best patch the game ever had. One quest in particular left me a blubbering mess (returning a certain crystal), even thinking about it now chokes me up. The voice acting is also just top notch the whole expansion.
Endwalker also had several moments that got me and basically the entire last zone (and the music. Omg).
I ended up fighting Nere really early before finishing most of Act 1 and reloaded that fight just so many times before finally winning with some creative strategies.
I don’t think demanding quality games is inherently at odds with wanting studios to not abuse their workers. What we really should support is broad labor protections and labor unions for developers. Because clearly the AAA studios don’t need the excuse of high demand for features from gamers in order to abuse their people since they have been doing that for years while churning out trash titles.