this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Always good to see someone in the industry push back on all of these shitty tactics the AAA publishers want to push.

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[–] [email protected] 167 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (11 children)

I'm at 750 hours in this game which I spent $70 on. More games like this please. Even if they're multi years apart I'd rather play a game like BG3 that has immense replayability than some random looter shooter that is trying to mine my wallet using every dark pattern known to humanity.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I swore off buying 'new' games close to their release dates because I was sick of overpriced, unfinished games that are just trying to squeeze every cent out of me. Then BG3 came out and everyone raved how great it was, but I stuck to my principles and said I'd play it a year or so after its release. Then someone pointed out to me that the game plays well, has no charge for online play, doesn't have microtransactions, and is complete. So I bought it, figuring that this is the type of game we should be rewarding, and I've not been disappointed.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

To be entirely fair, BG3 has its share of bugs and act 3 is not as polished as the first two.

But still, it is by far the most polished AAA game I've seen in a long time, and very satisfying, too. So I'm ok with some roughness

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

In fairness, pretty much all games have some bugs, even far after launch. The issue is launching games that are clearly not finished.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don't even care about the replayability. I can see myself at some point going for another run at BG3, but that's a big commitment and I think I'm going to play BG1 and 2 before then, and plenty of other games.

I care if it's an interesting and enjoyable experience. I'd gladly play another Outer Wilds, even though it's hardly replayable, because it was such a good and unique experience. I don't care to play yet another Assassin's Creed or whatever other garbage that isn't interesting after you've tried it once and also purposefully wastes your time with stuff that is not designed to improve the experience, only playtime.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Yeah I sometimes really don't like the "hours of entertainment" argument because it almost overvalues bloated experiences over tight ones.

I've played <=3 hour games that have left more impact than some 200 hour games

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I bought it when the alpha was released.

Like two years of act 1 had me around 200 hours before it even released. Act 1 did seem bigger back then tho, the intro especially.

I've moved from PC to PS5 since and I'm definitely going to rebuy on PS5 eventually. It's the only game I still play on PC these days.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I have yet to play it, but I can't wait to get my hands on it.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Suprisingly human take from a Baldur's Gate 3 boss. Usually, they just wait in a chamber and want to slice you in half.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Fuck everything about them having like 3 actions while I get one at a 35% hit rate. Goddamn...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Are you effectively synergising your party? Martial characters have multiple actions, while casters typically get one.

If you’re frustrated with 35% hit chances then you could focus on using some members of your party to debuff the enemy and buff the hard hitters; this has much better damage output than all 4 party members just slinging attacks with hit chances below 65%. If you want to just blast with all 4 characters then that’s a valid play but it isn’t guaranteed to be viable.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Reevaluate your party and where you're attacking from(height, darkness, etc). I have a couple level 8 or 9 fighters that have multi-attack, so it evens out a bit soon enough. Under some circumstances, with a high initiative, multi-attack, then action surge, my fighters can debilitate an enemy before they even know they're in a fight.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I do like the gamepass model, but just like Netflix, it only works because it's the most diverse, as soon as more publishers make their own it will suck again. No I will not pay 10x the price of a subscription for a new AAA game, indies are the only ones still having fair prices in Brazil.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Even now Gamepass is only worth it for one or two months to play some indie games, maybe Yakuza if you're into that. It just doesn't make sense to have a long time subscription there like it used to be with Netflix a while ago. Most of the good stuff is older and most people already own that, I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

gamepass has decent value if you have a group of friends who like to jump around playing random coop titles, as you have a low risk value critea to try a game to see if youd like it as a group.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Movie industry right now: oof, a hundred competing services was a bad idea, now what do we do?

Games industry right now: let's do what the movie industry did

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Love the immediate contrast between this and the dude from Ubisoft where he claimed that people just need to get used to not owning games. Larian is definitely the way to run a company.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It's already been normalized for music and videos for people to subscribe instead of owning. It may just be a matter of time for video games, or it may be that there are real lasting differences between video games and other types of media.

Of course, there are several sorts of games you can't own already, and many games that are all but inaccessible as abandonware type things, so that process is at least somewhat started.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The indie scene in Video Gaming is FAR stronger than the Indie Scene for at least movies, which I think will cement the ownership vs subscription in a stronger way than music and videos had. Digital ownership does have its worrying traits, but I still think Video Game ownership will stay strong at least as long as Gaben is alive, past that, if Valve DOES nosedive, well the internet'll still internet

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

It's more or less the case that all the music streaming services have all the music, so you can pick the one that offers the best balance of price, features, and other things like amount of money they pay out to artists, and then listen to whatever you want. That works pretty well for consumers, and streaming services don't get to dictate what music gets made.

TV and movie streaming services have basically ended up in a situation where everything's on exactly one service, and you need to pick which ones you pay for based on which have the things you most want to watch, even when that means tolerating an interface that barely works or annoys you with ads or trailers for things you'd never watch. This works fairly crappily for consumers, and streaming services pick everything.

Video game subscriptions seem to be going for the latter approach, and so overall, things are probably going to suck. Hopefully, nothing important ends up solely available via subscription, though, and experiencing the sucking remains opt-in.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Forcing subscription would probably be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I have no desire to pay for a gaming subscription. I play one or two games at a time, tops. The excuse that it gives me access to an entire library of games I DGAF about is the same bullshit cable companies did. Give you one or two channels (games) you want and a bunch of shit you don’t want so you have to subscribe to the next service to get the one or two things you want from them.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago

He is our man in shining armor........literally.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (4 children)

The problem is it gets polluted by greed and the publishers want it both ways: they want £60 front, for half a game. The second half of the game is sliced into 3 - for an extra £20 a pop.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You mean £5-20/month for 3 years as a "season pass"

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I want freedom. Offer both so everyone can pick the model that best matches their usage pattern. A GamePass+GeForceNow combo is nice if you want to play a diverse library of games without having to install terrabytes of game data. Also if you only want to play stuff a short while (hello ADHD), a subscription might be better than full price.

But again: freedom. I don't want to be forced into subscriptions but neither would I want someone to forbid me from subscribing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Totally agree. However, I think the word you're describing is choice rather than freedom. You're always free to purchase what you want, nobody forcing you. It's just good to have choices.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not sure what happened but it looks like your comment got tripled posted.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

He wanted to emphasize that he likes freedom.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Damn. More than 3. The instance I posted from has some problems and my mobile client retried over and over. Apparently the HTTP status code didn't match the result.

Once the other instance is responsive again, I'll clean up. I killed the mobile app now.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Subscriptions need to go down, down, down, down the river.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

I won't subscribe or buy micros, I only want to play fun games

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Subscription games to me are only good when there's nothing good. Something to do in between.

They're never on the same level of quality as a finished product. Even for the high points that are really high, the low points are disappointingly low

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Because games are made subscription-based for profit, so the incentive isn't making a good game or giving the players more content or whatever.

The games that want to give the players more actual content have no subscription, like Terraria, Deep Rock Galactic, Stardew Valley or other fantastic games that keep getting free updates.

Maybe you could exclude early WoW from that statement but current WoW definitely fits in the greedy bag too.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

At this point I'm thinking about buying BG3 even though it's not the typicla game for me, just to support the devs and their good mentality towards gamers 🙏

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

I think I need to buy a certain game juat to support a certain point of view...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Forced subscriptions are the new cancer.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'll only ever sub to one game at a time personally.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Spoke to my adult offspring who said yes, he has whatever iteration of PS, but plays single player games, because with work and familial responsibilities, who has money to waste on subscriptions when time is limited?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

You also can't step away from a multi-player game whenever you want, which is a huge problem when you have kids and a spouse. Your attention will almost always be needed the moment things heat up in your game.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Aah, you meant that boss.. makes sense.

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