@reconzero wrote:
@Emery_XP
Okay, time to revisit some stuff.
First, I applaud you for your political awareness surrounding issues like crunch, harassment, etc. Bobby Kotick makes my skin crawl and I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. On the other hand, when you have such a long list of must-have game features, it seems like you're really handicapping yourself if you start weeding out every single title that comes from a developer who once had a workplace discrimination lawsuit filed against them. I'd be curious to hear you talk more about this.
At the moment I've said all I know for now, but I'm glad to know I'm not alone here.
Second, I'd like to know more about what constitutes a "dead" game. For example, is this a practical matter for you, where you are considering issues like quality of matchmaking, future dev support, etc. Or is it strictly not wanting to sit at the unpopular kids' table? Explain the psychology on that one....
It is arguably a bit of both. I do not want to be kicked out or shunned off from communities for liking games made by turds (even if that were never to happen, I'll never be able to relate to them, the same as if I'll never relate to the people who don't really care about it but also aren't so socially conscious and don't have such a close understanding of gender). Technical side, I have seen games that were dead on arrival because of Early Access (another point entirely, but vaguely related).
I've played old school-style arena shooters briefly (even Diabotical, the one shooter that most closely revives Quake, but just with cute robots as the characters). but they're all pretty damn dead, as everyone would rather play Warzone, Apex, PUBG or Fortnite instead - the new hype for shooters isn't so much top fragging in the lobby for a specific time limit, but being the last player standing for potentially longer (often close to infinite) time limit.
Almost last, I'm coming back to "Considering too that the only way to do well in a BR is to win..." since no one else has. Think about the statement again and tell me if you still believe that it's true or if you would qualify it somehow. I'm not saying that losing is fun and I'm not saying that winning isn't important. I'm not saying that winning shouldn't be the goal. I guess where I'm headed here is that if you use the win as your gold standard, and if you've come out of two-team, slayer-style arena shooters, then yeah, I can see where a game with an average change of winning sitting at around 5% is going to be hard to swallow. But is there no way to adjust expectations around this basic reality? Is there no way to allow for secondary goals, like kills, or k/d, or badge hunts, or what have you? Is there no way to take fun out of a match even if you don't win?
Someone quoted here how it's difficult to even get in the top 5 for Apex because of the sheer number of experienced players who use most other players as content for easy kills. In free for all game modes in other shooters, the top 3 fraggers are commended.
In Free For All, if you don't make it at least to the top 3, you haven't really done well, but at least you always have the chance to get there. Just change your play style to dethrone other potential podium players/victors. In Battle Royale, there is no chance to remedy even the most foolish of mistakes for the entire session, such as dying to the ring or wasting loot that you'd need later in combat. This is great for something that's trying to aim for something realistic (or if paired appropriately with something comic, a party game), but for an arcade style shooter, I find this incredibly ill-fitting, and this is why I'm deeply irritated by Apex for not offering anything besides BR and arenas permanently.
In both game modes there's time limits that can be overriden by whoever gets the most number of kills before the time expires in FFA, or whoever becomes the last player/squad standing in BR. Living to fight again in BR means restarting a new session, which is quickly forgotten about, but still counted against you in the game statistics. LIving to fight again in FFA is like trying to go back in time to hijack a series of events, but who cares? The mistake isn't terribly punishing, everyone has a chance to come out in glory, it's not the end of the session if you die, there's still a chance to reach the win condition. The outcome and effort are well and truly rewarded, in BRs, you're left frustrated for not surviving the duration of the match or reaching the top 10 or so.
For real lastly, you haven't talked at all about the monetization side of modern, ftp games. What are your thoughts on battlepass? Do you buy stuff from the store? If not is it because you don't see any value, or because you don't want to support a developer who is building a different game than you want to play? Do you prefer the old days when we ponied up $60 at launch and that was the end of the money train?
Ramble away, my friend. I'm curious to read whatever you have to say.
It is kinda predatory, but I admit I prefer it to DLCs which fragmented the online Battlefield experience (although I'd like it to come back only in specific circumstances such as with The Sims 4, which is now free to play and none of the DLC counts towards completion, rather towards the players' preferred experience).
I also prefer it to pay to win/skip the grind, because that is one of the easiest ways to bring me to financial ruin. Therefore, I prefer a cosmetics-only approach. I spent a fair bit on Fortnite skins, and I'm slightly annoyed I can't grind for some of them without a battle pass, but at least I can play to show off the skins instantly, and I can just enjoy the rest of the game without worrying if the weapon(s) I unlocked are good enough for the fight, like I would in Destiny 2 or Call of Duty. In Call of Duty I'd just simply grind and it's not so fun. I've actually enjoyed myself with Fortnite so much in the past few weeks I leveled up a ton, a lot more than I thought I would. Normally trying to reach specific levels would be a stressful experience to me in other games.
Spending just $60 for an online-first or online-only game to me is unsustainable especially in this economy. There are some games I'm refusing to put any money to in light of scandals, like Call of Duty. I paid only for MWII and donated at least double the base game's cost to RAINN. I'll pay for DLC but only as long as it's for a single player and offline-playable game (like Cities: Skylines or The Sims 4) and DLC just changes the experience, not be a prerequisite for completion or more premade maps(unlike with Destiny 2). I can tolerate DLC for Cities: Skylines and The Sims 4 because of the open-ended and creative-focused gameplay as well as large modding support that may sometimes negate the need for me to buy DLC for additional content.
