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I used to think it was incompetence. But they were so smug in their update video where they proudly proclaimed “we didnt do anything to the Coyote.” No, instead, they nerfed it by nerfing ALL FIRE DAMAGE GLOBALLY. Meaning not only did they nerf the Coyote like they wanted, they also nerfed flamethrowers and incendiary weapons.
Then they repeated this with the tank. Right before they dropped the tank, they reduced its health AND INCREASED DURABLE DAMAGE ON ALL ENEMIES. Which nerfed the tank like they wanted, but also nerfed ALL VEHICLES AND TURRETS. So now all our vehicles, not just the tank but also the FRV and the mechs AND all the turrets, are armored with soggy paper.
Then they get backlash, they wheel out Pilestedt, and he says “we will change, we will listen, we will be more transparent.” Every. Single. Time. They have done this like six times, and they keep making the same mistakes. Making a good Helldivers 2 update isn’t even hard. But Arrowhead’s updates make it look like a monumental challenge. I dont even know what the devs do all day, most of the content made for their game is outsourced, they dont even make it themselves.
This isnt incompetence. Its Antagonistic DM Syndrome. It cant be anything other than intentional at this point.
Gatekeeping is necessary for many things, though. Otherwise the thing will be changed into something its not and the thing you loved will become something different that you don’t love. Taken from you by other people coming in demanding the game be changed to fit their tastes instead of enjoying the game as the developers and artists originally created it to be.
For example, Survival Horror as a genre has been all but erased by the “Action Shooter with Horror elements and Over The Shoulder Camera” genre every big name is copy-pasting nowadays. The only Survival Horror games coming out now are the very occasional indie game.
Gatekeeping isnt inherently toxic. Yes, some people can be overly obnoxious about it, but usually that is an indicator that their favorites have been victimized before, and they dont want to lose another one. Becoming mainstream almost always destroys niche stuff, and most of the time it is better to remain niche than erase your identity to “appeal to a wider audience.” Lots of examples of that ending badly.
Weirdest: Five Nights at Freddy’s, Sonic the Hedgehog,
Nicest: Super Mecha Champions (when it was still up, but it was shut down on PC sadly), Goddess of Victory NIKKE
Meanest: Dead By Daylight (playing as Killer and trying to win or even worse actually winning will result in all but guaranteed death threats in end game chat from Survivor players), Undertale, Pokemon (actually basically anything Neu-Nintendo), League of Legends
Confrims exactly what I expected. They aren’t even done with CE and are already moving to the other 2.
In other words: “We aren’t listening to feedback and we don’t care.”
In other other words: “We are still 343 and we haven’t changed at all. We are exactly the same and going to keep making the exact same mistakes. Its not that we can’t learn. We don’t learn, because we refuse to listen.”
I dont think its Microsoft, honestly. The Bungie games weren’t screwed up, and Microsoft controlled every aspect of those games starting with Halo 2. The problems literally only started once 343 was formed. I truly believe the problems lie almost entirely in 343. Either management, staff, or both. Probably both.
As a Halo Oldhead, I really hate to say this but the kids aren’t playing Halo. Its just us Oldheads, because 343 (now wearing mustache glasses as Halo studios) has done such a terrific job ruining the series. I didn’t know it was possible to bury a series that controlled the world so badly.
But then Disney did the exact same thing with Star Wars, and other IP owners are following suit. Crazy times.
I think it is fine if you install the games on a PC that
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Doesnt contain any personal data and is only for playing PC games
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Is never connected to a network, public or private (always offline)
Otherwise I wouldn’t recommend ever installing HyperVisor, and if you do, wipe the drive and reinstall the OS. Maybe even better, wipe the drive, destroy it, and then replace it with a new drive. That is the best way to know for certain there is no security compromise on the drive.
The current global economy. Even regular brand name console controllers have increased to a minimum of $70 brand new, not on sale. With the specialized touchpads on the Steam controller, and with other present features, I don’t see them selling this at a loss. The old Steam Controller launched at ~$50 in 2015. Before the idea of “premium game controllers” was common. Now every product is “premium.” Not to mention higher launch prices potentially dissuade scalpers afraid to lose too much when inventory and availability isnt a problem, like how the Steam Deck roll out happened.
I don’t see any chance at the controller being less than $100. I certainly hope it is $50, but I don’t believe we will ever see those low numbers again until after a global economic crash causes a reset.
I probably wouldn’t play it considering other racing game offerings.
I am an avid racing game player. I enjoy both sim and arcade racers. Test Drive Unlimited 2, Forza Horizon, Need for Speed Underground 2, Midnight Club LA, etc all offer a free roam driving portion of the game. But they keep my interest because of the racing part. Driving just to drive is fun in real life (when I can afford the gas) but in a video game I would rather be doing something I cannot or would not do in real life. Street racing, for example. The mechanical skill of mastering how each car drives, and the expression of that skill in a race, is part if the enjoyment of the game. Without it, the game would need other mechanics to hold my interest, such as The Long Drive, which has driving in it but has other mechanics as well.
Ok, well you obviously don’t understand how Denuvo actually works, so let me give you the simple TLDR version. Maybe if you understand how it works, you can see why it is so bad.
When a developer compiles their game with Denuvo, Denuvo adds itself to various functions of the game (set by the developer but has defaults as well). Usually this includes at least the main game loop which runs every frame, but also to other functions in the game as well. I cannot remember if Denuvo is added to every function of the game by default or just a lot of functions of the game, but it is added in multiple places and not just one. Anyway, by doing this, Denuvo basically partially encrypts the functions it adds itself to. Then, when the game is running in Denuvos virtual machine, it uses a magic number set during development and does a math calculation using a formula with parameters that include your HWID and your game license. It then compares the math calculation result to the magic number, and if those both match then everything is good and the game can keep running. Again, it does this in every function it is added, and since it is usually at least in the main game loop that runs every frame, you often can have Denuvo checking your license multiple times each frame, which is at the very least, wasteful. This is the only actual function that Denuvo accomplishes, by the way.
Denuvo ALSO adds a bunch of other unnecessary “dead end code” to these partially encrypted functions, which either loop on themselves or do nothing, in order to throw off cracking groups. This dead end code contains calculations that the CPU actually processes. They are not just there for looks, they do take up compute power even though functionally they do nothing important. Again, wasteful. The ticket can certainly expire between frames and cause issues.
When you said you watched videos comparing cracked games and non-cracked games and saw minimal gain, this is where I knew you didn’t really know how Denuvo works, because I wasn’t even talking about cracked Denuvo games.
Cracked Denuvo games still run Denuvo. Yes, thats right.
The way that Denuvo games get cracked is simple, but it is tedious and takes time. A hacker has to sift through the game code to find every Denuvo infected function. Then, they have to find where Denuvo checks the results of the magic number and the math calculation which is not always at the end of the function. The hacker then alters the check to always pass even if the numbers don’t match. Sometimes, they can catch the function before it does the math and it just instantly passes the check, but other times it has to be done later in the function depending on what the function does in the game and where it performs the check in the code. Regardless, this is why it generally results in a negligible performance gain: its still running Denuvo. Denuvo is just modified to always say “yes, the license is correct” every time. Two games which had a less negligible difference in performance when Denuvo was altered was Rime and Syberia 3.
I was talking about games that were officially updated to remove Denuvo by the developers. NieR Automata on PC, most notably, on the 21st of June, 2021, received an update that fixed performance issues with the game:
- Removed 3rd - Party DRM - Denuvo Anti-tamper
You can verify this on SteamDB, the change is U:24088901.
The performance gain was immediate, and everyone that had the game could tell the difference. Just for reference, when the game had Denuvo, the executable was ~100MB. After Denuvo was removed, the new filesize was just ~17MB. Thats ~83MB of bloated cancerware removed. Gone. And with it, the stuttering issues that plagued the game when it launched ~5 years prior.
This isnt a made up horror story. I never said Denuvo killed any children. This isnt made up for dramatic effect. This is how Denuvo works, and why I say it is cancerware. It only harms real paying consumers and should be removed for their benefit. Businesses that sell games are forgetting that the only thing that keeps them alive is being slightly more convenient than piracy.
If you don’t like it, I don’t know what else to tell you. This is the way it is.
Denuvo, and in fact ALL anti-piracy countermeasures (including kernel level anti-cheat like nGuard Protect, or Vanguard) added to computer software, is cancerware. It does not do anything to prevent piracy beyond maybe a month depending on cracking scene interest. But it does severely negatively affect game performance. In some cases, games with Denuvo removed have seen +40 fps and more for end users with absolutely no change to game settings or hardware.
Denuvo runs game functions within a VM, and uses the game license, your machine HWID, and magic numbers to make calculations so it can decrypt the partially encrypted by Denuvo game code. It does this EVERY FRAME. Computers have become fast enough that people like you might say you dont notice the difference because your copy of the game runs at 60fps “most of the time” with dips into the 30s or 40s. But without that literal circus of cancerware your game could be running at 90+ fps with absolutely no change from you. Now why, exactly, does Denuvo need to do these checks with your license and HWID every single frame? Well, you silly wallet, your license might expire or be revoked inbetween frames.
Denuvo, and all DRM, only harms genuine paying customers. Its only a minor inconvenience to game cracking groups and pirates.
Just because kernel level anti-cheat is bad doesn’t mean that Denuvo is somehow good. They are both equally bad.
I mean, did we all forget SecuROM? It is malware, defined by most operating systems and anti-virus software as malware. Thats what all DRM is.
There are exactly the same amount (if not more) of trolls, “bootlickers,” and censorship on Lemmy as Reddit. You just might notice it less because you agree with it or aren’t in the most affected communities or instances (like the ml instances). A lot more bots here on Lemmy than I recall on Reddit (which was like, 5 years ago, which may be part of the reason admittedly). Entire instances that feel dedicated to troll accounts (like HexBear). Lemmy has zero protection from a troll setting up multiple instances to use to spam past bans or instance blocking AFAIK.
There is no alternative. None of them are better. They’re all different flavors of the exact same thing because of the people that use them. They’re all equally bad, just different window dressing. That’s it.
People have just become worse in the least year or two. Globally. Like a switch turned everyone from trying to be a decent person to just being the worst version of themselves towards everyone else. And this is magnified on the internet because of anonymity.
These are the players that get angry when people say they don’t want to play the game. And then act clueless when the game is dead due to low player counts. The people that also don’t want to play in lobbies with other high level players and only want to Noob Stomp.
Its why I call this genre of game “Scum Sponge.” Because it attracts all of the worst people on the planet due to the game design rewarding that kind of player behavior. I am thankful for it, because it means other games have less of them.
I certainly hope blocking people in the game does not stop you from matching into each other’s lobbies and only prevents voice/chat with each other.
Xbox tried the “blocking people prevents matchmaking into their games” way in the early days of the Xbox 360 when accounts had a reputation system and all that. Know what the end result was? All the best players and pro players at games were waiting in 10+ hour queues to find a match. Because people were blocking everyone that beat them. So Xbox ditched that, and that was absolutely the correct call.
Blocking should absolutely never prevent matchmaking from doing its job and getting everyone into games. And listen, I hate Extraction Shooters. I played the Arc Raiders closed and open betas, and the server slam, so its not like I have no experience with the game. I lament that another fun PvE Coop Shooter was stolen from everyone to be added to the Scum Sponge genre. But I still think the game’s matchmaking should function correctly.
New Vegas wasn’t a Bethesda game, it was developed by Obsidian and only published by Bethesda. Sure, it runs on Fallout 3s game engine, but Fallout 3 is more stable on PS3 than New Vegas.
I hate Sony, but New Vegas getting cherry picked here for instability is laughable when New Vegas is widely known as perhaps the least stable game published by Bethesda.
Compared to New Vegas, Starfield is a vastly better and more stable game on a technical level. Sure the writing isnt better, but the mechanical parts of the game are. In my experience, I couldn’t play New Vegas for 10 consecutive minutes without the game crashing. Repeatedly. New Vegas crashed more than Cyberpunk 2077 ever did. Meanwhile Starfield only ever crashed once. And thats all on PC.
I don’t play them but I am always happy when something happens and it pisses off Nintendo and Nintendo Fanboys/Fangirls.
I used to love Nintendo, but this isnt Iwata’s Nintendo anymore. Now they only care about money, which isnt a shock considering the CEO has a history in financial, but its still disappointing nonetheless.
The Forza franchise is split into two distinct subgenres (kinda like how Gran Turismo used to have two disks: Sim and Arcade):
Forza Motorsport is the realistic simulator. Tire temperatures affecting grip levels of simulation.
Forza Horizon is the arcade racer. It uses Motorsport as a basis for its basic driving physics, but values are tuned or ignored to maximize the arcade factor of driving.
Horizons driving model kinda feels like Need for Speed, games by Criterion, but less mobile oriented. Its also a little similar to Test Drive Unlimited 2, but the grip is a little lowered to make drifting easier in Forza Horizon.
Its not like Mario Kart, Blur, Split Second, or Asphault. You could maybe try a demo to see if you like it, but you will probably have fun with it.
I feel exactly the opposite.
There are plenty of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs that I fell asleep playing that I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t have to mostly stare at a static screen and menus most of the game. And dont even get me started on random battles.
Turn-based RPGs have repetitive combat loops to me. Same intro, same enemy lineup, same strategy, same music, same victory jingle. Over and over and over. It least in an action oriented game, I can choose where my character is, how I engage with combat, what terrain features I use, etc.
This is why I like Strategic Turn Based games like Fire Emblem and XCOM way more than standard turn based games.
But you still play as Snake. Sure, Venom Snake, not Solid Snake. But Raiden isnt Snake, hes just Raiden.
Perhaps Raiden is the reason that the MGSV protagonist is called Venom Snake and not something else.
There were a few MGS games that released between MGS2 and MGSV, and all of them IIRC had Snake as the protagonist.
Just to add some context here:
This rug pull was practically universally disliked by almost everyone that played MGS2 when it released. People that played MGS2 and liked that this happened are like, a super turbo minority of the people that played the game at the time. Only in recent years have people said they liked it.
The negative reception was so strong that Hideo Kojima himself in interviews would go on to say that the rug pull of Raiden was his biggest mistake with MGS2, and that he would never do something like that again.
I dont think gatekeeping should prevent new people from playing a game, per se, but I dont see anything wrong with telling people to play a different game if they are demanding the game change to fit their tastes.
Basically, if someone is acting like they know better than the developers, and their “improvements” don’t fit in line with how the game plays or feels, then their opinions on the game shouldn’t really matter. They have a problem with the game, and the problem is that they should play a different one.
I don’t go around saying how Final Fantasy should stop being a turn based JRPG just because turn based combat and random battles make me go to sleep from boredom. I just don’t play those games because they aren’t for me.
I guess thats really the issue: not every game (or movie, book, comic, etc) is for every person. Expecting that every game should change to fit your own tastes is toxic, and shouldn’t be allowed in communities. Unfortunately, all too often it is allowed and the result is disastrous. It alienates the core fans that would spend money and soon after the entitled people leave to ruin the next shiny thing.