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Harrow
Jun 30, 2012

Magmarashi posted:

So just like any other long-form MMO at one point or another

Not quite. In most MMOs with long-term gear treadmills, each individual piece of gear has an item level that doesn't change. If you get an item level 200 helmet, that's it, that's what level that helmet is. You expect to eventually replace it with a higher-level helmet, either in a later patch of the current expansion or in a future expansion.

In Destiny, you can feed higher-level gear to your lower-level gear to increase that gear's level through "infusion." If you have a gun with perks you really love, you can keep infusing it with higher-level guns and keep it current. That's not something you could do in, say, WoW if you have a set bonus from a previous raid you really liked, for example.

Sunsetting meant that a whole bunch of guns could never be infused past a certain level and would need to be replaced. They tried to make it like other long-running MMOs, essentially, but players rejected it hard. The problem Bungie has with Destiny now is almost the opposite of other long-term MMOs. Just increasing the item level/gear score number isn't enough to make it worth using New Gun over Old Gun. Now it also needs to have new or better perks that make you want to use it over Old Gun, and that means you have to keep coming up with new perks or gimmicks and also make sure they're worth farming for.

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Truspeaker
Jan 28, 2009

A big part of all that is that the guns all feel different to use, so having to throw away a gun you've hella been clicking with for years because the number is smaller is too absurd for players to ignore. Especially when the number used to go up!

FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

Chris Roberts is just breaking the cycle of studios taking money and releasing garbage by simply not releasing garbage, you see.

The 7th Guest
Dec 17, 2003

RagnarokZ posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRAWaole51M

Yep.

Yep. Stop loving buying the games, reading the reviews or watching the content related to Activision and Ubisoft and the rest of them.
you're also seeing this with Riot as their TV show and spinoff games are doing very well. the elephant in the room got pushed into a closet

Metis of the Chat Thread
Aug 1, 2014


The 7th Guest posted:

you're also seeing this with Riot as their TV show and spinoff games are doing very well. the elephant in the room got pushed into a closet

That TV show is getting them so much positive attention! I get it, but at the same time, it's disappointing to see how when people enjoy something they'll forget about all the baggage the company responsible carries.

And personally, I think it shows that if Blizzard does manage to put out a product that people like, they'll be able to shove a lot of these allegations under the rug. I mean, how often does this thread veer into discussion of the quality of Blizzard's storytelling and game balance, rather than the labor issues & sexual assault allegations that are the core of their problems? Not to say that their storytelling and development doesn't suffer because of the workplace dysfunction, but if they manage to improve one without improving the other, would people go back to their games?

Metis of the Chat Thread fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Nov 30, 2021

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!
People still play WoW without it being any good. There's no way people won't come back if it improves.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
I don't know about that. WoW uses a of tricks to keep people playing even though they don't enjoy it necessarily, but once you've already overcome that and quit there's not much to pull you back. Even if it were an okay game again. FOMO only works one way.

Murderion
Oct 4, 2009

2019. New York is in ruins. The global economy is spiralling. Cyborgs rule over poisoned wastes.

The only time that's left is
FUN TIME
Blizzard, and probably Activision, has hit that critical tipping point where they probably just can't produce a good game anymore. The only thing they had to offer employees was ~*Blizzard Prestige*~, and that was slowly draining away before the big allegations hit. They pay like poo poo, with their biggest workplace perk being the ability to horribly abuse anyone under you in the white supremacist hierarchy. The only ideas implemented come from abusers and their toadies, so the collective braintrust is a bunch of crusty old goons who last had an original idea in 2006.

It's not that they lack the talent to build anything new, they lack the talent to capitalize on what they've got. Overwatch was every company's dream - lightning in a bottle, put together out of scraps and leftovers, raking in cash - and it just... fizzled out.

It's a dangerous fallacy to say that bad companies, bad people can't make good games. But there's a point where the evil gets dumb, where it overrides even the banal avarice of corporate capitalism, and you lose the ability to do the thing that made you money in the first place.

Zonekeeper
Oct 27, 2007



Murderion posted:

Blizzard, and probably Activision, has hit that critical tipping point where they probably just can't produce a good game anymore. The only thing they had to offer employees was ~*Blizzard Prestige*~, and that was slowly draining away before the big allegations hit. They pay like poo poo, with their biggest workplace perk being the ability to horribly abuse anyone under you in the white supremacist hierarchy. The only ideas implemented come from abusers and their toadies, so the collective braintrust is a bunch of crusty old goons who last had an original idea in 2006.

It's not that they lack the talent to build anything new, they lack the talent to capitalize on what they've got. Overwatch was every company's dream - lightning in a bottle, put together out of scraps and leftovers, raking in cash - and it just... fizzled out.

It's a dangerous fallacy to say that bad companies, bad people can't make good games. But there's a point where the evil gets dumb, where it overrides even the banal avarice of corporate capitalism, and you lose the ability to do the thing that made you money in the first place.

Their piss-poor compensation has probably caused a lot of unseen brain drain over the years. Imagine how many talented employees they've lost over the years after they realized they were getting hosed over and leveraged that Blizzard resume entry into a job that actually pays well.

One of the biggest things that stuck out to me about the big name departures over the last few years is that no understudies or handpicked successors stepped up to take the place of the big names. And it's probably because anyone with the talent to do so left for greener pastures years ago.

Herstory Begins Now
Aug 5, 2003
SOME REALLY TEDIOUS DUMB SHIT THAT SUCKS ASS TO READ ->>
They're apparently offering more money to people now, but they've been in essentially production deadlock for, what, two years now? There's also been, if anything, negative progress at turning around the morale issues that has plaguing them since the major layoff waves started.


Zonekeeper posted:

Their piss-poor compensation has probably caused a lot of unseen brain drain over the years. Imagine how many talented employees they've lost over the years after they realized they were getting hosed over and leveraged that Blizzard resume entry into a job that actually pays well.

One of the biggest things that stuck out to me about the big name departures over the last few years is that no understudies or handpicked successors stepped up to take the place of the big names. And it's probably because anyone with the talent to do so left for greener pastures years ago.

It's not unseen, riot hired away a huge amount of blizzard's experienced project managers in particular (and has been basically poaching blizzard employees of all types at will for years now). They picked up a crazy number of work-years of experience, but a lot of others have been poaching blizzard employees, too.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Eej posted:

Japanese corporate lifer culture almost killed Square Enix when the guy who did FF11 made FF14 without looking at any other MMOs that existed on the market and created such a money pit that it almost blew up the company. FF15 began as FF13 Versus, a project started under Tetsuya Nomura (the guy who freakin' loved belts and also was in charge of Kingdom Hearts) in 2006 who hosed around so long that FF14 came out before his side project was even close to done and they had to kick him out in 2012 so they could release FF15 in 2016. It's insane they wasted 10 years to make that game.

I didn't say that doesn't have its own downsides, see also Nintendo having its own issues with arbitrary stubbornness and why Paper Mario games aren't allowed to have new characters or big stories anymore. Of course, that's also basically a video game design take on the Not Invented Here problem. Also reminds me of Yuji Naka and Balan Wonderworld, which is its own clusterfuck of a tale.


Herstory Begins Now posted:

They're apparently offering more money to people now, but they've been in essentially production deadlock for, what, two years now? There's also been, if anything, negative progress at turning around the morale issues that has plaguing them since the major layoff waves started.

It's not unseen, riot hired away a huge amount of blizzard's experienced project managers in particular (and has been basically poaching blizzard employees of all types at will for years now). They picked up a crazy number of work-years of experience, but a lot of others have been poaching blizzard employees, too.

A lot about Riot would make sense if it was still better than working for Blizzard.

stev
Jan 22, 2013

Please be excited.



https://twitter.com/BlizzJess/status/1465714592189849613?t=umYdaAzzXS_jH7YgHfBTRw&s=19

About as direct a condemnation as you could hope for.

Magmarashi
May 20, 2009





Clarste posted:

I don't know about that. WoW uses a of tricks to keep people playing even though they don't enjoy it necessarily, but once you've already overcome that and quit there's not much to pull you back. Even if it were an okay game again. FOMO only works one way.

Yeah, cutting the cable, so to speak, involves coming to terms with A Lot. Losing a long term gaming hobby, easing yourself into the idea of Missing Out, replacing that time with something else you can get invested in. After you clear yourself of all that, putting distance between you and the game, the problems become harder and harder to rationalize putting up with. Why did I ever deal with any of the downsides for -these- benefits? I can get the same sorts of fun from places that don't make me bend over backwards to enjoy them, etc. It becomes very easy to not go back.

Magmarashi fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Nov 30, 2021

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!
Even good MMOs can get kind of bend-over-baxkwardy. I know a friend doing Ultimate raids in FFXIV and every story I hear from them makes me so glad I left my raiding days behind when I left BfA.

Abhorrence
Feb 5, 2010

A love that crushes like a mace.

The Bee posted:

Even good MMOs can get kind of bend-over-baxkwardy. I know a friend doing Ultimate raids in FFXIV and every story I hear from them makes me so glad I left my raiding days behind when I left BfA.

Yeah but Ultimate raids are optional, and don't offer gear progression rewards.


Edit: also FOMO is best thought of as enforcing stasis. It makes people who are active want to stay active, but people who are inactive miss out and are therefore discouraged from becoming active again. After all why be active when a bunch of people have something you cannot get?

Abhorrence fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Nov 30, 2021

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


I love Destiny 2. A lot. It may not be a good game, but it's a fun game, and I enjoy the setting and characters.

Every time there's a lull in seasonal content, it gets easier and easier to justify not playing it. These days, I log in once a week for two hours to hammer out weeklies and then I bounce. As excited as I am in the new content, I could easily see myself not playing Destiny anymore if certain pain points don't get resolved.

The most effective way to solve FOMO is the MO part - the less attached you are to a thing, the less effective the FO becomes.

No Mods No Masters
Oct 3, 2004

Though I'm sure it's not true for every kind of FOMO brain, I think there is a blessed opposite side of FOMO for a lot of people where it becomes easier to quit something for good once you've missed out on a lot. The harder the design goes in for exploiting FOMO brain the stronger the counter-reaction becomes.

While it was obviously a completely disastrous way to go for WoW in the long term, I'm really grateful blizzard went in for that stuff more and more because I feel it really opened up the ability to quit permanently to my bad brain

Ash1138
Sep 29, 2001

Get up, chief. We're just gettin' started.

Breaking the spell of FOMO, for me, mostly required a reevaluation of whether I'm doing it for the reward or the experience and whether or not the former is actually important. If it's for the reward and the experience sucks, then what I'm really missing out on is the other, way better video gaming experiences that I could be having instead of grinding for some dumb thing that doesn't matter.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011

Magmarashi posted:

Yeah, cutting the cable, so to speak, involves coming to terms with A Lot. Losing a long term gaming hobby, easing yourself into the idea of Missing Out, replacing that time with something else you can get invested in. After you clear yourself of all that, putting distance between you and the game, the problems become harder and harder to rationalize putting up with. Why did I ever deal with any of the downsides for -these- benefits? I can get the same sorts of fun from places that don't make me bend over backwards to enjoy them, etc. It becomes very easy to not go back.

yep. i completed 31/36 mage towers in legion (translation for people who aren't wow nerds: i leveled and geared 10 different characters in order to get 3 or 4 special weapon appearances each), got bored with bfa, missed out in on an aotc and the cool mount and all that and then it was suddenly like "oh, i've already missed out on stuff. I don't have to go back any more." the end of bfa was something I had been waiting for for close to a decade and i read a couple wowhead articles and never even resubscribed.

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

We just had a discussion of games that were in development hell and not one mention of Duke Nukem Forever?

Get off my internet lawn.

Magmarashi
May 20, 2009





SirPhoebos posted:

We just had a discussion of games that were in development hell and not one mention of Duke Nukem Forever?

Get off my internet lawn.

Everything you could ever possibly want to say about DNF has been said already in the 10 years since release.

Dick Burglar
Mar 6, 2006

Ghost Leviathan posted:

see also Nintendo having its own issues with arbitrary stubbornness and why Paper Mario games aren't allowed to have new characters or big stories anymore.

I am apparently not up on my Paper Mario drama. What happened?


"This may seem harsh" ...is it really, though? It's weird to couch an otherwise pretty firm, straightforward condemnation in this language.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

mutata
Mar 1, 2003

Dick Burglar posted:


"This may seem harsh" ...is it really, though? It's weird to couch an otherwise pretty firm, straightforward condemnation in this language.

This nitpicking someone who does not have to choose to be a public voice doing a very brave and uncomfortable thing.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Dick Burglar posted:

I am apparently not up on my Paper Mario drama. What happened?
Miyamoto dictated no original characters and no unique spins on classic designs. So you know how Bombette is a bob-omb but shes pink and her fuse is designed to look like a ponytail? Yeah, none of that, ever. You know how Vivian and her sisters are weird shadow people that aren't in any other mario game? Yeah, none of that, ever. Hence the modern Paper Mario games.

Violen
Jul 25, 2009

ohoho~
origami king is about as good as paper mario can be under both that framework and the stubborn obsession with completely reinventing the mechanical wheel each time but its frustrating to have that much passion railroaded into weird brand bullshit and insular design philosophy, especially when they keep throwing out nonsensical explanations that contradict whatever the last one was when they broach their awareness of the reception lol, but thats a tendency in nintendo that extends beyond paper mario into lots of awkward poo poo like the reason zelda can never star in a mainline game and whatever else

The 7th Guest
Dec 17, 2003

I could live with that fundamental character lineup change to Paper Mario if they just didn't oversaturate the game with multiple versions of the same character. There's honestly plenty of characters/enemies in the Mario universe that you could populate an RPG with, but for whatever reason they go super Toad heavy.

like, there's Eerie, Blargg, Galoomba, Rex, Jelectro, Muncher, Goonie, Burt, Tap-Tap, and that's just from mainline Mario games on NES/SNES. dig into Mario Land 1-3, the 3D Marios, there's plenty of material they just outright ignore that could easily populate the world with disparate characters

Araxxor
Oct 20, 2012

My disdain for you all knows no bounds.

Violen posted:

origami king is about as good as paper mario can be under both that framework and the stubborn obsession with completely reinventing the mechanical wheel each time but its frustrating to have that much passion railroaded into weird brand bullshit and insular design philosophy, especially when they keep throwing out nonsensical explanations that contradict whatever the last one was when they broach their awareness of the reception lol, but thats a tendency in nintendo that extends beyond paper mario into lots of awkward poo poo like the reason zelda can never star in a mainline game and whatever else

Yeah, it was even said in interviews that the dev team was frustrated with the restrictions as well, since it made their jobs a lot harder. Basically had to put a lot more effort into the writing and other workarounds to make these characters stand out when the actual designs are basically glued to the templates with only minor deviations allowed.

packetmantis
Feb 26, 2013
Why would they make such a stupid rear end rule in the first place?

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Apparently they don't want to be redundant with the Mario & Luigi games? But that series is dead, so...

Sam Faust
Feb 20, 2015

They also just sell better now.

Mamkute
Sep 2, 2018

packetmantis posted:

Why would they make such a stupid rear end rule in the first place?

Probably an over-correction to Super Paper Mario going nuts.

Araxxor
Oct 20, 2012

My disdain for you all knows no bounds.

packetmantis posted:

Why would they make such a stupid rear end rule in the first place?

It's basically one of those "gotta strengthen that corporate brand and can't let any other deviation put the image in a bad light" situations unfortunately.

Also yeah some earlier Mario spinoffs got too out there for Nintendo's liking so they clamped down. The Strikers series also got Nintendo's ire since the Mario cast was depicted as in their own words "too mean."

The 7th Guest
Dec 17, 2003

packetmantis posted:

Why would they make such a stupid rear end rule in the first place?
probably underestimating children's intelligence too, ie "children won't be able to remember so many characters! they're so stupid after all"

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Araxxor posted:

Also yeah some earlier Mario spinoffs got too out there for Nintendo's liking so they clamped down. The Strikers series also got Nintendo's ire since the Mario cast was depicted as in their own words "too mean."

Kith
Sep 17, 2009

You never learn anything
by doing it right.


Araxxor posted:

Also yeah some earlier Mario spinoffs got too out there for Nintendo's liking so they clamped down. The Strikers series also got Nintendo's ire since the Mario cast was depicted as in their own words "too mean."

really enjoying how sweet and kind mario looks during the indiscriminate violence of the smash bros series

Punkinhead
Apr 2, 2015

Kith posted:

really enjoying how sweet and kind mario looks during the indiscriminate violence of the smash bros series

On the flipside Luigi's war face in some of the Mario Kart games is pretty intense

Assepoester
Jul 18, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
Melman v2

PinheadSlim posted:

On the flipside Luigi's war face in some of the Mario Kart games is pretty intense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpxDuNFBVj8






Assepoester fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Dec 1, 2021

Blaise330
Aug 13, 2007

GOD'S FAVORITE CHAMPION

The 7th Guest posted:

probably underestimating children's intelligence too, ie "children won't be able to remember so many characters! they're so stupid after all"

there's 900 pokemon...

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Alkydere
Jun 7, 2010
Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.



Blaise330 posted:

there's 900 pokemon...

And ever since Poke-Hawaii there's new regional versions of old pokemon which breaks the "no unique spins on existing characters" rule as you've got Meowth, Chubby Catte purple Meowth and...unkempt berserker Meowth. Not to mention Vulpix and Ice-Vulpix, Ratatta and Mafia Ratatta, etc.

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