this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 138 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It can be the least predatory mtx system ever, being in a paid game is still not acceptable and I'll die on that hill. Never bought anything with a shop or battle pass and won't start now.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can literally earn all the credits you need to buy out the store just from playing.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Having the option to use real money is the problem. Nothing is stopping them from adding more and more expensive stuff until you cannot grind it anymore. That's how we went free cosmetics to 60+ bucks for skins.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, they can add content not included in the original purchase? And they ask me to buy those things they worked on if I want to play with them? Fucking monsters... someone needs to stop them.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

You know, drip feeding stuff is no fun. Paying for trivial things is no fun either. We used to get full-blown expansions for the price some companies want for a single skin.

Instead of adding stuff to a shop, games could get actual new content. Instead of buying every asset separately, they could all be thrown in with said new content. Like, yeah, they should get paid for their continued work, but that does not mean the consumer should be milked for every penny.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Nothing is stopping anyone from making something predatory from some angle at some time. You're just slippery sloping this.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

To each their own, but I think this is a bit extremist. Life isn't black and white. Free games with mtx can be good or bad, paid games without can be good or bad.

Just not buying solely because it has a shop/battle pass means you miss out on a lot of games where it has zero meaning and you're not allowing any nuanced discussion to happen on the issue.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think there need to be a balance. If it’s a service game, they need money to keep servicing the game. There is a fine line between a reasonable voluntary option to support a game in exchange for some symbolic cosmetic and gross predatory practices.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think every topic deserves nuance. Every mtx shop is predatory, every successful service game lives off whales. You'd just draw an arbitrary line at how aggressivly they hunt whales, but they need them all the same. Even if you can get everything with ingame currency drops, if people wouldn't spend enough, the game wouldn't get new content.

The only fair solution is to scrap mtx entirely and make all service games subscription based. But people aren't ready for that, this conversation often comes down to "as long as they don't exploit me, I'll take my free games".

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would not call Deep Rock Galactic predatory.. They release one! cosmetic pack for each season, and that’s it? There is no whales to catch, because in that case it’s very limited how much you can even spend. Like 10 euro every 4-5 months and that’s it. Is that predatory to you?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's OK for people to spend as much money as they want supporting a game. If you enjoy the work that a developer does for a live service game, it makes sense to fund their business.

I paid for a couple of the cosmetic packs in DRG for example. They genuinely made a great game, and they released additional content as well. I like that I'm not pressured into a subscription, and I can choose how much extra money I want to throw their way.

Destiny 2 is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. The DLC is very expensive, each pack corresponding to the cost of a full game, and there are several of these packs at least. That being said, some people really like Destiny 2. Who am I to say that their spending is wrong? It's their hobby, and they're funding it by supporting the company that makes the content for them.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Unpopular opinion but I think it's acceptable as long as its optional especially as multiplayer game where they are hosting servers. Those aren't cheap and I don't have the game so I wouldn't know but if they do release more multiplayer content for free, I think it's further justification because that's better than paid content packs. As an example, CoD on PC had a recurring issue of DLC content being useless since too little people would buy them. Titanfall saw this issue as well and it was even worse due to the smaller player base. So with Titanfall 2 they just made it free and added cosmetics microtransactions that were actually reasonably priced.

Maybe this is not the solution for everything but as long as it has no bearing on gameplay what's the harm? If you're not one to spend on microtransactions then you only get the benefits. I don't think a more benign implementation should be criticised just because we fear the potential of it potentially becoming worse.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree if those things leverage fomo to get people to pay. In helldivers you can earn that currency just playing the game so if you have less time to play you have the option of purchasing the currency and their versions of battle passes are always available to buy and work on at your leisure.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It started with "It's just a silly horse armor DLC, just don't buy it!", continued with "It's just cosmetics bro, just don't get them!", then we got "The shop is fine though, you can get the currency ingame!" and got to "The timed battle pass is fine, you also get free stuff!". You can draw your own line for mtx, but slowly we're both approaching and crossing it if you accept anything before that.

The way I see things, "the least pressured to buy stuff" reads like "the least aggressive cancer". Sure, it could be worse, but like, you've still got cancer. There's still the ideal option of being healthy instead.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You only earn so much, though. Once you finish with requisitions it's buy only

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

No, you can find super credits in every single battle. Should be leaving any mission with a minimum of 20 super credits

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

You can actually find the premium currency as a loot item in some mission types

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Nope, you can find them in missions as well, just in smaller amounts

[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I still can't look past the rootkit anticheat for a goddamn co-op game.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes.

nProtect GameGuard (sometimes called GG) is an anti-cheating rootkit developed by INCA Internet.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I wonder if shit like that will eventually lead to more people using wine in windows, in order to sandbox rootkits. Helldivers 2 works fine with proton on Linux, at least.

The absurdity of having a reason to run wine on windows through WSL is amusing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

God, it's so convoluted I'll become a monk first.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

If Linux gaming continues to increase in popularity, I imagine the anti-cheat will start to crawl its way out of the WINE environment and into the native system. But I actually have no clue about how these AC work or is handled by WINE.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 year ago (2 children)

nope. game is good, but i'm not interested in the ingame store.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You can find supercredits on missions. I've unlocked the premium battlepass and bought some armor without spending a dime of real money.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yeah I know, still not interested in any battlepasses, never was. I usually quit as soon as any game start their "Season of the..." crap and return to my evergreen Guild Wars 2.

I also got me a decent looking outfit already and the stats fit my playstyle, so I'm pretty much playing the game for fun now with no interest in any additional unlocks besides stratagems and ship upgrades.

Lol the downvotes...

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Ah I get you. Just so you know, the battlepasses are more like level unlocks than typical battlepasses, but you probably know that. Also, old battlepasses that you didn't finish or even start will stay in the game permanently, so don't feel like there's a rush to finish them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You are not using war bonds? I'm very confused. This is how you unlock more gear and you don't have to pay for anything.

Also all of their war bond passes stay with you forever, you don't have to finish them before season is over or whatever.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Premium currency is freely available on missions and it's not hard to accrue enough to make frequent buys in the money store without spending a cent. The problem becomes the amount of time I spend in game, which doesn't feel like a problem.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why is there content in the game I paid for that I can't access without paying even more?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you are genuinely asking, I can play Devil's advocate:

Because then they can set the price at 40 USD, making it more affordable, and possibly make back the difference with some (mostly) cosmetic premium content.

This is not so easy to argue for games that are sold at 70 USD, and premium content is much more tied to gameplay, and all the FOMO dark patterns are turned to max.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Helldivers barely have enough content to justify 40 bucks. It makes up for it in presentation though

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why I think people are praising the helldivers2 monetization is that isn't the case. The "premium currency" is earnable in game and at a reasonable. I haven't bought any but still have the battlepass and a few of the premium armors.

You get it as part of the battlepass, and the gameplay loop guides you to the currency. You'll be looking for ammo or in game currency, and there also happens to be premium currency sometimes. The battlepass not being timed and on a work at your own pace is great too.

It feels fair to me? Like the developer can still make a buck but not ruin the experience. I.e. the monetization lets people pay to instantly gratify if they want vs punish you for not spending.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No. This is not a "creative" way to nudge us towards the store. Definitely not. It's just the type of monetization every gamer has been secretly yearning for, right?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

I feel this way too. You find premium currency laying around all over the place. You can buy everything in the store and the premium warbond for free if explore around as you play, just like any of the other in-game currencies.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Ques are over. Come in the water is warm and full of bug juice.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The “queue to connect to the server” is how I read their message.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yup exactly, I spelled it wrong tho 😐

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

When Helldivers 2 closes down you can't play it anymore, it's still part of the problem and not the solution, let people host servers or do it p2p.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Instantly refunded when I entered a queue.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good, less queue for the rest of us 😎

btw: there are no more queues

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Picked the game up yesterday. No queues, but the matchmaker is still having trouble filling pubgs. Also running into massive CPU utilization straight at start of game, and with Nvidia recommended graphic settings im getting dips to 25fps in some missions. Hopefully the technical patch is not too far away.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I've already given up on online games. I don't enjoy them like i use too a few years back and endlessly grinding doesn't come close to the satisfaction of actually finishing a game. My friend streamed some of this to convince me to get it, the gameplay looked bland and he clipped through the map and had to start the mission again. I think ill stick to finishing my backlog of single player games.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I didnt know single player games are not made anymore.

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