AtheistPreacher

Pretty much this. It made me think of my own reaction when Dauntless came out of early access and decided to go to Epic instead of Steam. I was annoyed, because I simply didn't want a whole other PC game software platform, it's easier and simpler to have it all in the same "container." Most people feel the same way. That doesn't mean that Epic is any worse than Valve; Valve does plenty of bad and stupid shit. But people who don't want to deal with an inconvenience like this will then scream at the top of their lungs various justifications for why they don't want to do it--including data privacy concerns--when they're just not the real reason (and sometimes they even start to believe their own performative justifications). My dudes, just admit that you don't like it because it's an inconvenience. But no, they enjoy screaming and feeling self-righteous.

Whereas, yeah, this was ridiculous. It's like Sony forgot that the reason they allowed a concurrent release in the first place was that Steam reached places they couldn't. Derp.

You're really putting words in my mouth here. I was talking about this specific case. The cash shop thing clearly is malice, trying to get around negative press from reviewers. Also, never seen the 20 tasks thing, not even close. Once at most. Nor do I think 20 tasks would be intentional, sounds like something hinky.

I don't see how this logically follows.

Looks like the linking thing isn't happening now. I guess everyone just made a big enough stink about it.

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929

I do try to remember that as a general rule, one should not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity or incompetence. I don't really have any trouble believing that there were technical issues with intended PSN account linking at launch and that they just shoved the issue down the road for later (especially since there turned out to be far more urgent server capacity issues to address). Nonetheless, even if one gives them the benefit of the doubt there, they should have been more aware of the optics for its delayed implementation, because it does end up looking like a bait-and-switch, even if it was never intended that way. There's no denying that they really failed to read the room.

But also, the most insane part of this little saga was that a lot of countries don't have PSN, and hence people in those countries who'd already bought the game would not have been able to play the game they paid for at all anymore.

https://twitter.com/PirateSoftware/status/1787163524575490404

I believe Steam had been denying refunds based on the account linking issue, but it's not hard to imagine Valve contacting Sony after they removed access to the game for all these countries and saying, "Yeah, you guys are gonna have to refund all these now," and Sony realizing that implementing account linking just wasn't worth the cost of refunds and/or court fights.

@undeadpool: No argument here, you're preaching to the choir. Was just pointing out that the base price for an AAA game used to be well over $100 when adjusted for inflation, and even with the recent increase to $70 for gen 9, it's still well under that. That doesn't mean I condone all the microtransactions we get now, or CEO pay skyrocketing, etc.

Of course all of this isn't exclusively a video game problem. There's a reason that Cory Doctorow coined the term "enshittification" only a few years ago and it already feels like a term that's been around forever.

EDIT: Incidentally, I also just read Doctorow's (relatively) new article, "‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything." It's a good read!

This was fun to read, comes off as a little unhinged, but in a good way, if that makes sense. And yes, of course all this stuff sucks, the only thing we can do is vote with our wallets and hope other people will vote similarly so that the nickel-and-diming becomes less profitable. Doesn't seem likely, but eh.

The only obvious counter-argument I can think of that deserves to be mentioned is that some of this can be laid at the feet of people not wanting to pay a higher base price for an AAA title, even though inflation means that this cost has actually gone down significantly. Don't get me wrong, you're preaching to the choir, I'd prefer to pay more up front and not be nickel-and-dimed subsequently, but it seems like raising that base price more was just not something that most consumers were going to accept, and so publishers looked for other avenues to generate revenue.

Good image, I like it.

I take your point, but also that sounds hilarious, I would buy that game.

Just curious, is there a third blog on these forums about DD2 that somehow isn't displaying for me? Because I only see this one and mine.

The Warfarer implementation does seem really disappointing. It would have been a really cool class if you could have a discrete set of skills for each equipped weapon, even with needing to sacrifice your fourth skill for the weapon switch command and not being able to use ultimate/maister skills. Instead you're still only allowed four skills, period, and most of them can only be used with one weapon (the only exception I can think of is some spells that can be used with both staves and archistaves). Generally speaking it's just not that worthwhile. The only useful application is the one you've already mentioned... being able to switch to a staff for when you have to float somewhere. I did that a lot when I was looking for Seeker's Tokens. It does also let you equip any armor, which is nice, but not really worth the negatives.

@ben_h: The funny thing about P5R, and I know I've said this somewhere on these forums before, is that I don't actually like the extra month added on to the end and the way they retconned the original ending. While that last month is OK when considered in isolation, they didn't need to make a long game even longer, and I thought the new conclusion was less satisfying than the original one. However, they added so much other new stuff into P5R that I still consider it the vastly superior version. The original P5 now feels barren by comparison, just in terms of the stuff you can do within the original calendar and all the new systems.

And as I know I've said in this thread already: I really don't care about the challenge aspect for these games, so the fact that you get really overpowered in the end just doesn't bother me the way it's going to bother other people who are looking for challenge. I want challenge in action games, but usually not in turn-based JRPGs. I'm more in these games to catch 'em all (the personas, that is) and craft all the best gear while experiencing the story and social links/confidants. So I think it's just a difference in what we were each looking to get out of the game.

No joke, I was worried it was about to happen again to me for P3R. I first got interrupted by Helldivers 2, then Dragon's Dogma 2. Then yesterday the second DLC for Remnant 2 was released. Knowing that was coming, I was hoping I could finish P3R beforehand. Finished just in time...

@ben_h: I did not leave the game idling for any appreciable amount of time, no. I just grind a lot in these games. Typically I would only go to Tartarus once per month (save the last month), and stay there for about four hours each time. And I agree that the top-tier gear really isn't *necessary*, it's just something I was looking to do for completionist purposes, because it's typically a thing I've done.

But aside from thinking that gathering all those mats sounded terrible, the "slog" feeling did not come from the dungeon crawling for me. Again, I feel like it came from the fact that there's almost no story before the last quarter of the game, and so there was nothing driving me forward to see what happened next. The large shadows you killed every month were not interesting characters with personalities like the palaces/TV world, there was no story there. It was sheer routine for the first three-quarters of the game, and it was never clear what you were actually accomplishing. And then of course (spoilers!) it turned out that killing those twelve shadows was actually bringing about the end of the world. So doing it was, in fact, worse than useless, and was really uninteresting to boot. One shadow was the same as the next. No emotional impact and no story moving forward, really.

I agree that Mementos in P5 was really boring, very similar to Tartarus from OG P3, but I didn't particularly mind the catbus solution to it in P5R. It accomplished making it shorter, and I'm not sure what other solution they could have enacted.

@av_gamer:I suppose that does make a certain amount of sense, had never thought about it that way before. Still feels weird how little of a presence the school side is. Like Joker is in college and rarely goes to class.