I fucking hate modern gaming
Don’t buy AAA games at release, and instead try out popular indie titles. They’re usually a quarter of the price and some of them have become my favourite games of all time. Indie games have small teams of passionate devs who have total creative control.
AAA games will typically release a “game of the year” edition a year or so after release with twice the amount of content the original game had for half the price.
Don’t buy AAA games
SAY NO MORE! I’m on it, chief!
They also have 1/100th the bugs.
Nowadays buying games at release is doing yourself a disservice. You pay way more for way less than someone 6+ months later who gets it on sale with fixes already done
Great! But do they have memes?
If you wait they do
But then you’ll miss out on the pre-order exclusives. How can you even play the game if you don’t get that car with the special dickbutt livery? How will you defeat enemies if you don’t get that special cabbage-shooting gun?
This exception to this rule seems to be Nintendo titles but the caveat is that they’re on outdated hardware (and their own thing).
I never seen a problem with Sony games actually.
The exception to the Nintendo rule is Scarlet and Violet. That game was extremely buggy and absolutely unpolished when it came out. Yet compared to other triple AAA titles of coming out around the same time, it looked like a game with almost no glitches whatsoever.
Don’t buy at release, be a patient gamer. Comes with benefits too.
There are hundreds of awesome games available. If all you’re doing is buying the few AAA bug ridden and money grabbing games that come out each year you’re doing yourself a huge disservice.
never did. newest game I own is doom eternal from 2020 edit:grammar
Nice. I’ve heard good things about that one. I’ll probably pick it up someday.
But yeah. Indie is where it’s at.
But yeah. Indie is where it’s at.
Sometimes, I guess. What percentage of them ever get beyond years of early access limbo and actually end up releasing as finished games? What percentage of those actually end up either being any better than typical AAA games or offer a significant amount of play time?
Yeah, the good indie games are good, but indie games are no more likely to be especially good, or ever get finished at all, than AAA games are.
You’re right. Don’t play any indie games because not all of them are good. 👍.
What was the point of your comment?
My point is that it’s stupid as fuck to rightly shit on part of the industry that mostly just churns out trash while verbally jerking off over another part that’s only marginally better, if it’s actually any better at all.
Work on your reading comprehension.
Aww someone needs a nap
Not playing Ubisoft games as a rule helps. Also works with EA, Activision Blizzard, and all mobile games.
havent played a single mobile game since like 2019
real (my passion for gaming has slowly atrophied from childhood as capitalism has taken hold, while passion for creating anything more than a busted cash-grab has long gone)
Plague of Unfinished Games: https://youtu.be/6PTnJ_iuVjQ?si=Dkecy5jeMBpN7FPm
Talks about MVPs and how execs are disincentivising over-delivery and stuff.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/6PTnJ_iuVjQ?si=Dkecy5jeMBpN7FPm
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
“Stepping on a dollar to pickup a dime” is such a perfect description of what AAA publishers do.
Gaming saying this as if they didn’t buy a poorly optimised shooter in the mids 2000’s for “benchmarking”
Not to be that guy but the Far Cry games seem pretty damn complete and bug free on release.
Because they are releasing the same game multiple times with just a splash of paint.
I hate to defend Ubisoft, but this isn’t fair at all.
That “splash of paint” is the world design of entirely unique locations, a full story, a cast of characters, and new arsenals of weapons.
As an amateur dev I have a bit of insight into this. I can, and have, made an entire FPS system in less than a day. A play that can move, weapons to shoot, and enemies that can target, follow and shoot at the player with the same weapon system. That part is not where the work is.
It took two weeks to build on that foundation to barely make one small level. And I didn’t even manage to fit in any story.
The point is, those mechanics that to you are “the game” take infinitely less time to make than everything “the game” takes place in.
Yeah but far cry primal still has the literal copy pasted map from far cry 4.
Game is a lot of fun though.
Tru, map re-use does sound lazy
Funny thing is that I am an software engineer.
Anyway, you might be right, but you also might be wrong, it entirely depends on how they have implemented it.
They are from a gameplay perspective the same game. That ubisoft possibly does the sadly very common “to win the marathon you have to sprint faster”, which makes it take a lot of work to spit out something very similar would not be surprising, but also does not change the fact that they are imo too similar.
I mean I’m not entirely in disagreement with your original statement. I don’t imagine they change much about their gunplay at all, apart from adding some new mechanics each game, and they likely crank the core out quickly by either reverse engineering, refactoring or just copying the whole thing in.
My main point is just that the “coat of paint” which they do indeed throw over reused mechanics probably takes a whole lot of work. It’s perhaps lazy thinking, but not lazy design exactly.
I’d also say, Immortals Fenix Rising was excellent, complete and bug free as far as I remember. It’s too bad they dropped it right next to AC Valhalla and nobody played it.
I don’t know. AC Valhalla doesn’t have achievements on steam, so impossible to tell if I’ve 100% in it
Let’s not and say we did
I can safely say that unless their design philosophy changes significantly I will never 100% an Ubisoft cookie cutter open world game because nothing they’ve produced is worth a hundred hours of boring repetitive gameplay.
It’s crazy because they have all the tools to make a successful game. Their AI NPCs are cutting edge, their environment models are so good that it was used to restore that one chapel that burnt down, etc. They just choose to make the same game every time.
So, is that what carpet-bombing with nukes looks like?
Anno and Far Cry are usually in a very good state from the start. Assassin’s creed isn’t bad either. Unfinished games isn’t that much of a ubisoft problem. There are much worse problems they have and other publishers have worse of the unfinished games problems.
I remember when I bought AC Unity on release it was in a sorry state. Littered with major bugs and the multiplayer was literally (and yes I do mean literally) unplayable for me. Probably the most broken game I’ve ever played on release!
Generally though I agree, they’re not the worst for bugs. Ubisoft have plenty of other issues with their games but that’s a whole different discussion.
Ok, i haven’t played ACs for a few years now…
Uno Reverse!
Wouldn’t be like that if we didn’t have unrealistic expectations of what software development is. We expect perfect ever increasingly better graphics and zero bugs. That’s just not realistic, especially as we ask for better graphics, dev time takes longer, and gets more expensive, and requires more moving parts.
And then we just jump online and complain about how the graphics aren’t perfect.
Really? Graphics are the big issue? Then why was redfall’s basic gameplay loop worse than Skyrim’s (a game that hasn’t received a mayor update in 10-15 years)?
Like, I understand expectations can be batshit crazy, and often quite bad. You’ve got a point there. Graphics are only a minor part of what makes a good game, a good game though.
P.s. People nowadays tend to say that a game is incredibly buggy, or boring. Haven’t heard complaints about looks in a long, long time. Only heard complaints that the game is shite, or just simply doesn’t even work.
Yes, people expect top notch graphics and a great story to go with it. There’s only so much bandwidth in a team. We’re lucky we get a coherent story at all most of the time considering how much we expect from games these days.
That still doesn’t excuse shitty gameplay, or like I said, an awfull basic gameplay loop. Gameplay loops don’t have to be difficult. Take minecraft as an example. The basic gameplay loop there is simple. Mine, craft, repeat. That, in its most basic form, is it. But if you look at redfall as an example, it’s using a tried and true method. Shoot, loot, upgrade, repeat. They don’t do anything else with it though.
Minecraft adds enchantments, building, cool alternate equipment.
Redfall (to my knowledge) adds nothing. And it doesn’t even have top-notch graphics. iirc Horizon: Zero Dawn looked prettier. So does Minecraft, but Minecraft is a complicated comparison that I won’t go into here.
I work in software, so I get it. However I don’t think it’s graphics. There’s a lot of bugs to do with other things. I probably don’t hang out in the same game forums as you but a lot of complaints about unfinished games are about bugs or just incompleteness. Also, organisational challenges as well. I enjoyed FF15 but that game felt disjointed and when we look into why, it’s obvious why it was a nightmare.
I think you have a good point that games can have unrealistic expectations now and there’s only so much time and money.
I think the thing is that putting out an incomplete game at full price with microtransactions now feels like a slap in the face from the consumer point of view.
Microtransactions are a scourge on gaming. But, I can see why they’re drawn to it. Games are a huge financial investment upfront, and a big risk on release with no guaranteed return.
That said, I do think expecting better and better graphics is a big part of why games end up being a mess, but certainly not the only reason. I also work in software, and work on games in my spare time, so while I’m not an expert or have any inside information from the gaming industry, I do know that graphics suck up a huge amount of time, and resources on a project.
Oh yeah, they definitely do. Most people think it don’t, but there’s a lot of work going into it.
I took a hiatus from gaming and when I bought a PS5, I was like, wow these PS5 graphics are killer! Then I realized I was playing PS4 God of War …
I think it’s a huge burden for AAA, which is why it’s a huge relief for those indie games going with sprites.
I don’t really care about graphics.
If some modern game dev decided to tackle a modern idea of Ocarina of Time with dated graphics and pulled it off, I’d be there with my wallet open.
Gameplay.
Gameplay.
Gameplay. (Thanks, Ballmer for the memes)
You’re an exception unfortunately. I know gameplay loop is really important. But the sad reality is a lot of people won’t even pick up a game if it doesn’t have modern graphics.
When those people graduate high school they’ll eventually figure out that fun games are more important than shiny coats of paint.
Stylized is just as well.
Some people look at a game like Team Fortress 2 and see age. I see style and substance.
I love a good stylized game. I think those usually hold up the best as they age.
Because studios hype up for specific release date and then rush to finish rather than delay
That’s because of our unrealistic expectations. Every new game IP is a risk for a studio, and as I said, our expectations are sky high.
It’s not unreasonable to expect a game to be, to the publisher’s knowledge, bug free. In fact, it’s not just reasonable, as a programmer, it’s fucking baseline.
Most game devs are a fucking embarrassment, and they deserve to be dragged.
I think it’s less game devs but the way their studios are made to operate. I feel like the majority of game devs would love to finish and polish their projects but tight deadlines and crunch culture prohibit them from. It.
Yep, in big studios the big guys making the decisions really couldn’t care less what product is actually being made. They expect X return on investment by Y date, and you better be shipping your game then because ressources are already being reallocated to that bew project that was already in pre-prod as you were finishing the previous one.
Game devs are also artists in their own way. It sucks for them when a game, sometime one that had lots of potential, gets released in an unfinished state. Your reputation takes a hit, people blame the QA and loot devs, but really the big guys are almost always to blame. More mid-term money that way, less bonus to pay, players still buy the unfinished games, and etc.
I mean couple this with quiet quitting and how people are coming around to working according to the wage they get, as opposed to striving to work towards a wage they want which comes after bonuses, pay raises, etc. Wonder if this trend in gaming reflects a larger issue of how developers are realizing that capitalism doesn’t compute with art-making
This seems relevant
If you’re a developer then you know bugs in software are inevitable. You’re either not a developer or so full of yourself, you think you’ve never made a mistake in your life. Either way, you don’t know ow what you’re talking about.
I think they meant that known bugs should be fixed brforing shipping a release. And as others commented, this is not usually in the devs hands and unfortunately, they usually take the public blame.
