Video Game Chat Thread - Pre-Alpha Experimental Version

[Judge Dredd]

If you have a digital only service on the console you can say goodbye to cheap games

I know people hate special currencies for online services, but I remember the day of Xbox 360 and getting heavily discounted cards. I forget the exact number, but let's say it was £30 for a 4200 point card, they would regularly go on sale or be found at markets for £20 or less. Once they changed it to real currency, that kind of deal went away.

actual ownership of your games in the long term

I think this is the real goal. Ubisoft especially has been set against this, and with GamePass I expect a return to the 2010s. Only instead of every publisher having a custom installer, they have a custom game pass service. And as with film streaming, content will constantly change hands or be censored.

Horse armor was innocent, it was the other pay to play oblivion DLC that was dogshit.

Horse armour was innocent. It was testing the waters to see what kind of DLC people wanted. People forget that from those experiments we ended up with Shivering Isle, and later Fallout DLCs like Point Lookout that are considered better than the base game.

I think it was the success of Fifa Ultimate Team and Mass Effect 3s loot boxes that started the trend we saw until Battlefront 2 got too greedy. And that's where the line is now.

It's a shame too because there's no real way to fight against it. Whales and consoomers will buy anything and the value of one of them far outweighs dozens of players.

 

[ZMOT]

Whales and consoomers will buy anything and the value of one of them far outweighs dozens of players.

they don't, there are plenty of games that failed.
instead of companies trying to find THE audience, they are now trying to find THE formula which makes the whales keep spending and filthy casuals not getting distracted by the next FOTM. in that regard not much has changed, if the rest of the game sucks, whales won't stay either. adding microtransactions doesn't magically make a game profitable.

 

[Brigadoom]

I know people hate special currencies for online services, but I remember the day of Xbox 360 and getting heavily discounted cards. I forget the exact number, but let's say it was £30 for a 4200 point card, they would regularly go on sale or be found at markets for £20 or less. Once they changed it to real currency, that kind of deal went away.

I was always in 2 minds about those points cards. I mean aye on one hand you could grab them discounted however it seemed to mostly be a way for them to obfuscate the actual price you were paying for things. On top of that unless you were lucky you always ended up with remaining points left after a purchase because the prices were set in such a way that required you to spend more.

I think this is the real goal. Ubisoft especially has been set against this, and with GamePass I expect a return to the 2010s. Only instead of every publisher having a custom installer, they have a custom game pass service. And as with film streaming, content will constantly change hands or be censored.

You're right in that the end goal has always been complete, 100% control of every aspect of the game business. Game passes are the next endgame for them and it's gonna fuck your wallet up. As you say every single publisher are going to want there own service and it's going to be a huge clusterfuck. Netflix was great for people when it first came out, pretty soon though people noticed how much cash they were making and of course the greedy fucks wanted a piece of the pie which is now why we have about 40 different streaming options. Gaming is very soon going to go that same way. Basically gaming is going to get a hell of a lot more expensive and restrictive. People seem to be oblivious to the brick wall we are currently zooming right towards.

Horse armour was innocent. It was testing the waters to see what kind of DLC people wanted. People forget that from those experiments we ended up with Shivering Isle, and later Fallout DLCs like Point Lookout that are considered better than the base game.

I think it was the success of Fifa Ultimate Team and Mass Effect 3s loot boxes that started the trend we saw until Battlefront 2 got too greedy. And that's where the line is now.

I got to disagree with on the horse armour. It was definitely to test the waters but I believe it was to see what people were willing to accept so they knew exactly how to fleece us. Don't get me wrong some companies have had amazing, fairly priced DLC, we unfortunately have a huge amount of sheer junk DLC that outnumbers the good. They are constantly pushing and prodding to see just how much we are willing to accept (see Yakuza New Game +). Paid loot boxes should never have been allowed or accepted as usual though too many decided to suck corpo cock and here we are.

It's a shame too because there's no real way to fight against it. Whales and consoomers will buy anything and the value of one of them far outweighs dozens of players.

Aye it's a done deal, we lost a long time ago. It legitimately makes me angry. I've been playing video games for most of my life and I hate to see how far it's fallen. It's only going to get worse as time goes on too.

 

[ZMOT]

however it seemed to mostly be a way for them to obfuscate the actual price you were paying for things. On top of that unless you were lucky you always ended up with remaining points left after a purchase because the prices were set in such a way that required you to spend more.

that's exactly it, iirc there were even studies about it. or even simpler there's a reason they did it that way (compared to steam or even PSN where you charge the currency).

They are constantly pushing and prodding to see just how much we are willing to accept (see Yakuza New Game +). Paid loot boxes should never have been allowed or accepted as usual though too many decided to suck corpo cock and here we are.

dunno why, but I'm not phased by NG+ being gated. how many people actually played that in the past? for the people that do it's sucks of course, but "want more, pay more" is basic business.
as for loot boxes, people like to gamble, and there's a sucker born every day. however like any other monetization it depends on the numbers and implementation? does it have a pity? is the baseline crap or ok where you just want to get lucky before you finally get it? etc

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

dunno why, but I'm not phased by NG+ being gated. how many people actually played that in the past?

Just them chopping up normal game features like that to resell separately is scummy, and it shouldn't be rewarded with anything but a boycott.

It's one thing if they're cutting actual content, because we can never prove what was actually the base game and what's extra anymore (which is a problem in and of itself), but basic features like difficulty modes or NG+ has to be where the line is drawn, if nowhere else. You might not use NG+ but this emboldens their greed, and they'll be doing it with everything sooner or later.

 

[ZipDisk]

To follow up my "horse armor was innocent" comment, there WAS shitty DLC for Oblivion, like a pay 2 wizard tower, when the mage's guild had one of the most convoluted questlines in the base game.

I believe there were also skill books tied to real money transactions. THAT is evil DLC. Horse Armor didn't really do shit, oblivion horses died if you looked at them funny.

 

[Asian tech support]

I believe there were also skill books tied to real money transactions.

Spell tomes, not skill books. The state of tomes, scrolls, and skill books in Oblivion was a disaster. Nearly everything was gated behind dungeon chest rng. Even if the plugin added skill books instead of tomes, the rng was such that it wouldn't have made much of a difference.
I never knew anyone who actually paid for Oblivion dlc a la carte.

 

[ZipDisk]

I kind of liked the idea of scrolls as fire and forget spells, even if you've got almost no mana you can spell bomb a motherfucker. From a player standpoint they were pointless though, once you've got the spell or spell creation you just hotkey the shit and don't have to buy any more scrolls.

 

[Brigadoom]

that's exactly it, iirc there were even studies about it. or even simpler there's a reason they did it that way (compared to steam or even PSN where you charge the currency).

It's an old con that loads of companies use and have used. It's not solely a video game thing it's used by all sorts of shady bastards. The only reason MS changed to an actual currency system was because the points were being "abused". You were able to get point codes from 3rd parties which were significantly cheaper than if you bought direct from MS. I never bought direct from them and I ended up saving a shit ton of cash.

dunno why, but I'm not phased by NG+ being gated. how many people actually played that in the past? for the people that do it's sucks of course, but "want more, pay more" is basic business.
as for loot boxes, people like to gamble, and there's a sucker born every day. however like any other monetization it depends on the numbers and implementation? does it have a pity? is the baseline crap or ok where you just want to get lucky before you finally get it? etc

NG+ being paywalled should be a huge concern. If we signal it's fine that something like NG+ is slammed behind a paywall then we are well and truly fucked. There's no reason it should be being a paywall, it's literally the same game content you already have, you're just playing through it fully upgraded. Why would they need to make you pay for that other than greed? It's different when they argue you have to pay because they made new content, this however is like them taking away 2-player in something like Mortal Kombat then making you pay for it later.

Loot boxes are extremely predatory. I'm fully against them myself but obviously people can speak with their wallets. It's no surprise though that once lootboxes came on the scene gaming got noticeably worse.

 

[X Prime]

Imagine if Chrono Trigger's New Game Plus was DLC.

 

[Asian tech support]

I kind of liked the idea of scrolls as fire and forget spells, even if you've got almost no mana you can spell bomb a motherfucker. From a player standpoint they were pointless though, once you've got the spell or spell creation you just hotkey the shit and don't have to buy any more scrolls.

If Oblivion characters weren't nudged in the direction of becoming jacks masters of fucking everything, shops actually sold scrolls, and useful effects like levitate and recall were in the game, I definitely would have used scrolls more.

 

[bango skank]

This is the first I’ve heard of it, but if they’re really trying to charge for new game+ then it’s only a matter of time before they start trying to charge per playthrough of the game.

“Congratulations! You beat the game! Click here to purchase again and see how different choices would have affected the story!”

 

[Thiletonomics]

This is the first I’ve heard of it, but if they’re really trying to charge for new game+ then it’s only a matter of time before they start trying to charge per playthrough of the game.

“Congratulations! You beat the game! Click here to purchase again and see how different choices would have affected the story!”

That reminded me of when Metal Gear Survive charged players to have multiple game saves.

 

[ZMOT]

Just them chopping up normal game features like that to resell separately is scummy, and it shouldn't be rewarded with anything but a boycott.

NG+ being paywalled should be a huge concern. If we signal it's fine that something like NG+ is slammed behind a paywall then we are well and truly fucked.

don't get me wrong, I'm not defending it, but I see it more as a devil's advocate. the interest of a company is always diametrically opposed to that of a customer, a company wants to make as much money as possible, a customer wants to spent as little as possible. then keep in mind most customers are fucking retarded with the memory of a goldfish.

so if you take the company wants/needs to make more money, how would that work? and who would be affected by it? instead of raising the price 10 bucks across the board (which would affect everyone equally) or cut content (same), why not have the people who play the game twice spend a little more? on paper they get more out of it than the average filthy casual, so...
problem is those people are more outspoken than the average filthy casual, which then generates more bad word of mouth. otoh everyone of those filthy casuals is probably happy they don't have to spend the money.

remember even if it's just a restart with existing progress it still costs money, because like everything else the moment they sell it, it needs to work - which means devtime, QA etc. the only alternative is to scrap it completely, because after all the majority won't play it twice (or even finish it the first time, fucking casuals). so from a business perspective it's not the dumbest idea, even if looks that way as a customer. you want "more"? you pay for more.

again, not a defense, but even if it's easy to call everyone retarded, most people aren't and there's an explanation they do what they do.

 

[Brigadoom]

don't get me wrong, I'm not defending it, but I see it more as a devil's advocate. the interest of a company is always diametrically opposed to that of a customer, a company wants to make as much money as possible, a customer wants to spent as little as possible. then keep in mind most customers are fucking retarded with the memory of a goldfish.

so if you take the company wants/needs to make more money, how would that work? and who would be affected by it? instead of raising the price 10 bucks across the board (which would affect everyone equally) or cut content (same), why not have the people who play the game twice spend a little more? on paper they get more out of it than the average filthy casual, so...
problem is those people are more outspoken than the average filthy casual, which then generates more bad word of mouth. otoh everyone of those filthy casuals is probably happy they don't have to spend the money.

remember even if it's just a restart with existing progress it still costs money, because like everything else the moment they sell it, it needs to work - which means devtime, QA etc. the only alternative is to scrap it completely, because after all the majority won't play it twice (or even finish it the first time, fucking casuals). so from a business perspective it's not the dumbest idea, even if looks that way as a customer. you want "more"? you pay for more.

again, not a defense, but even if it's easy to call everyone retarded, most people aren't and there's an explanation they do what they do.

I get what you're saying and I can totally understand the reasoning but it doesn't make it less fucked up. Video games are the only industry in which it seems you're supposed to say please & thank you after being shafted with a dry cactus. Consumers expect to get a full product whenever they buy something not for it to be chopped up and sold back to you piece meal. There are ways for them to make their money without shitting all over the very people who pay their bills. I'm old enough to remember when you'd buy a full and complete game then they'd sell you completely optional expansion packs that actually add significant content. If you didn't want them no sweat, now though it's how much can we strip back of the core game experience while still charging these spastics £70? It doesn't help when you have all the consoomers who fellate these kike bastards no matter what they do. You could lay a brown trout right on their dinner table and they'd defend it so of course we're seen as easy marks.

 

[ZMOT]

I get what you're saying and I can totally understand the reasoning but it doesn't make it less fucked up. Video games are the only industry in which it seems you're supposed to say please & thank you after being shafted with a dry cactus. Consumers expect to get a full product whenever they buy something not for it to be chopped up and sold back to you piece meal.

nah, that's slowly creeping into other industries as well, have you bought a car recently? consumers are retarded.

however in retrospect another reason it doesn't bother me as much is that I simply don't buy it if I think it's not worth the money, which I'm aware is more the exception to the rule. I don't really suffer from FOMO or the group pressure to play HOT NEW THING right away, so I just buy it down the line in a complete package down the line.
and tbh that's all anyone really can do, since the industry is too big and there are way too many retards funneling money into it (although with the recession who knows how it will turn out). I just stick to my principles and play something else, it's not like there's a shortage of videogames.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Anyone have any thoughts on the Nioh games? I've got them both; got the Platinum on the first one and loved it, but the second one I just found to not be very fun and dropped it. I've been thinking about hopping back into it sometime, give it another go; either continuing on my current character or making a new one.

Anyone have any thoughts? Any builds that you like to run? Any suggestions?

 

[Brigadoom]

nah, that's slowly creeping into other industries as well, have you bought a car recently? consumers are retarded.

however in retrospect another reason it doesn't bother me as much is that I simply don't buy it if I think it's not worth the money, which I'm aware is more the exception to the rule. I don't really suffer from FOMO or the group pressure to play HOT NEW THING right away, so I just buy it down the line in a complete package down the line.
and tbh that's all anyone really can do, since the industry is too big and there are way too many retards funneling money into it (although with the recession who knows how it will turn out). I just stick to my principles and play something else, it's not like there's a shortage of videogames.

You're right there I'd forgot about the skulduggery that car companies are trying to start. One point I'll add to that though is that their bullshit faced near universal backlash, I've not saw a single person actually defend it. Granted I may just be missing the people sucking BMW's bratwurst but it's definitely not like the fanboys who will happily chow down the slop of EA, Ubisoft etc.

I behave almost identical to yourself when it comes to games. If I really want to play something that tries this shit I'll simply pirate the fuck out it. If it's a decent game that isn't full of DRM I'll nab a complete collection down the line. I only recently bought a PS5 because my brother wanted someone to do co-op shit with but if things keep heading in the direction they seem to be going it'll be the last console purchase I make. I'm not stupid enough or egotistical enough to think anyone will give a shit but we all need to draw a line somewhere.

Anyone have any thoughts on the Nioh games? I've got them both; got the Platinum on the first one and loved it, but the second one I just found to not be very fun and dropped it. I've been thinking about hopping back into it sometime, give it another go; either continuing on my current character or making a new one.

Anyone have any thoughts? Any builds that you like to run? Any suggestions?

I fucking love Nioh. It was the first Dark Souls type game I played and I couldn't put it down. I unfortunately haven't played more than an hour of the second yet. I enjoyed what I saw I unfortunately had some life things stop me playing it at the time and I've not went back to it yet. What made you dislike it?

It was so long ago I can't remember too much about my build other than it being tanky and mostly using the bigger weapons like the axe and hammers. I tried a lot of experimentation when I first started but I could never get into any of the other weapons/styles. I tried to switch it up in Nioh 2 by using the hatchets instead which I quite liked as a change of pace. I'd need more time in the game though to see if I'd stick with them. What kind of builds were you running with?

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

@Brigadoom In Nioh 1, I mainly used a generalist build, mostly just using the basic single katana, occasionally using magic and ninjutsu, as well as played around with other weapon types for certain bosses. Main focus was stacking as much health and tankiness as possible, as well as getting good at dodging. Nothing fancy, and it wasn't optimized in the slightest, but it worked well enough for me to get the Platinum, despite my general casual playstyle.

Meanwhile, in Nioh 2, I changed it a bit; still used a bit of magic and ninjutsu for variety, but I stuck with the odachi for my run; a mixture of heavy attack spam, dodging, and general stamina management carried me all the way up past the William boss fight. Again, not the greatest, but it worked well enough for me. That said, I had issues with the general "feel" of the game; it just didn't feel as solid as the first one overall, the Yokai Realm and Yokai Shift/Core mechanics were something that I had difficulty using properly - especially when using Yokai Shift to parry, which I was never good at - but I am still thinking about giving it another shot, though I would like to get a solid build figured out first.

 

[Brigadoom]

@Brigadoom In Nioh 1, I mainly used a generalist build, mostly just using the basic single katana, occasionally using magic and ninjutsu, as well as played around with other weapon types for certain bosses. Main focus was stacking as much health and tankiness as possible, as well as getting good at dodging. Nothing fancy, and it wasn't optimized in the slightest, but it worked well enough for me to get the Platinum, despite my general casual playstyle.

Sounds like we had similar playstyles. Despite setting myself up in order to tank as many hits as possible you still needed to get your dodging timing down pat otherwise you'd get demolished. I never really bothered much with ranged weapons or offensive magic other than buffs. Now that you mention it I do remember having to switch weapon for a couple of the bosses but it wasn't very often. The axe was pretty viable from start to finish. I spent a lot of time farming weapons and armour in order to squeeze out any extra benefits I could get too so that helped I imagine.

Meanwhile, in Nioh 2, I changed it a bit; still used a bit of magic and ninjutsu for variety, but I stuck with the odachi for my run; a mixture of heavy attack spam, dodging, and general stamina management carried me all the way up past the William boss fight. Again, not the greatest, but it worked well enough for me. That said, I had issues with the general "feel" of the game; it just didn't feel as solid as the first one overall, the Yokai Realm and Yokai Shift/Core mechanics were something that I had difficulty using properly - especially when using Yokai Shift to parry, which I was never good at - but I am still thinking about giving it another shot, though I would like to get a solid build figured out first.

I'll need to see how I get on with it and see if I notice a difference. I do recall it feeling a wee bit different in general though not by much, and you obviously had the new mechanics like the Yokai transformations which make a big difference. I was going to get around to playing Sekiro next however just talking about Nioh makes me want to get fired into that instead.