I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
Destiny 2. Best platform shooter I’ve ever seen. Worst everything else: monetization+FOMO, some really shitty loot tables, locking away paid content/sunsetting.
Kept going back because the core gameplay loop is solid. Kept leaving bc it inevitably got boring quickly.
Yeah, Destiny 2 pretty much lived in the core gameplay loop. To this day I don’t think there’s another game that felt as good to play as Destiny. But without refreshing the core gameplay or giving some actually meaningful progression. I remember at one point I was doing a strike and those who have played the game will know what I’m about to talk about. After clearing the second wave of enemies and waiting for the third I realized that I was just going through the motion of threes. I was going to fight the third wave of the encounter so I could get to the second stage of the three stage strike and those strikes I have to do 3 times because that’s the weekly goal and that’s the entire 3 months of the season. It just started feeling like a treadmill where I’m running just for the sake of running. Just a carrot in front of the treadmill and if you get it then the next season the treadmill resets and the and carrot is put in front.
Once I saw that I could no longer get into Destiny. It just feel like I was there only to go through the motions. No emotion, no engagement, just doing the same thing over and over.
This game was so good for a few years. On PS4, I got to play all the OG cut content, it was awesome. I think I played up to Forsaken. I really enjoyed the lore, and I usually skip that stuff. I even have a ghost statue on my bookshelf, one of my only gaming nicknacks (8 bucks at target). I went back to play on PC a few years ago and I didn’t have a good time. I was also pissed that I couldn’t transfer my PS4 character (or I lost my dlc loot or something).
Oh my god Destiny 2 is such a good example for me. I never played the first one, because I quit consoles with the PS4/XBox One generation. Got Destiny 2 for free with my video card, and was so excited to play, hearing so much about the first game. I bought the expansion pass and played immediately when it came out. I maxed out all three characters, did the raid, and played for a couple more hours, before realizing there was nothing to strive for.
The fuck is up with “We have a chat in the game, but nonono, you can’t actually use it to TYPE to people like, y’know, EVERY OTHER ONLINE GAME EVER—it doesn’t actually DO anything unless you’re in a party.” Also every weapon drop was exactly the same, no variance, no random rolls. Then they added in text chat, Woo!
…but made it OPT-IN, and nested the toggle in settings. Meaning NOBODY DID IT. Fuckin idiots on Reddit were defending the decision too, like “oh what if you don’t want to have that toxicity” THEN DISABLE IT IN OPT-OUT, don’t make it opt-in in the first place!
Then a few months after it came out, I told my partner “look I bet they put random rolls back in and fix a ton of QoL stuff WIIIITH the first full-priced DLC that isn’t included in the expansion pass so everyone has to buy it.”
Then Forsaken dropped, for full price. I don’t even care about the money, it’s the principle of it all.
I never bought Forsaken, never logged in again. Fuck you Destiny 2, I’m glad you’re dead. I wish you died harder, sooner, and less lucrative.
(Also more Reddit defenders were screaming “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY FORSAKEN, YOU CAN STILL PLAY” like fuckin EVERYTHING wasn’t locked behind the paywall now, and like I wanna support that shit by giving them more engagement to log for their investors…)
Good one. This is probably it for me as well. I tried so hard to like it, but the whole thing felt like it was punishing me for not being there day one. A convoluted mess of whatever was leftover from what I assume was all the fun.
I was there Day 1 and it punished those players too. See my long rant touching on but two or three of the 50 issues I had with it hahaha
The moment I noticed they were docking xp back in the early days, I quit instantly. I enjoyed the game up to that point, but the way they had done that was just so dishonest that I have just never bothered with anything Bungie since.
Ooo I forgot about that one. And their horrible excuses like “oh we’re so sorry you think our algorithms are unfair, we’ll be more transparent about our great game mechanics so you don’t complain more”