Exactly. I remember this really being an issue with Far Cry 4. The villain there had me on the edge of my seat since the intro and I still think FC4 was one of the best far cry games to exist. The setting was amazing, mechanics worked really well, and the vehicles rocked.

The thing it flopped on completely was interactions with the main bad guy and any semblance of story development. It wasn’t nonexistent, but the main villain is criminally underused in that game and is on screen for maybe 15-20 minutes total.

But now we have the issue of far cry doing the Ubisoft signature multi-zone storytelling thing where the story is not linear and it’s completely wrecked by that. This game has the same exact issue that’s been here since FC5 and I hate it. I’d rather they keep the lookout points around and have a worse world and a better story with actual progression and characters. It’s like they’re determined to make games at a 6 or 7 out of 10 level.

You’ll get your wish of more Fallout games around about the same time that Bethesda is absorbed into Microsoft around the year 2029 when ES6 performs about as well as Starfield did.

That’s already going to happen. Bethesda is a washed up game studio at this point

Yes but the main reason those consoles were so shaky is specifically because they did not address a much younger audience. The original Wii kind of tried to but if you look at its best sellers, a ton of them were not aimed at adults.

The same is true of the Wii U where rather than targeting that audience, they tried to pivot to a more adult console with games like the zombie launch title.

So most of the success of the switch is just that it finally was a family console again. But keep in mind, they have nowhere to pivot to. That’s why the switch 2 is what it is and why it’s so late. They can’t afford a misstep and they also can’t afford to saturate the only market niche they have left.

I swear that Bethesda tries as hard as possible to mess up everything they do. There’s not much hope left for them so we just have to twiddle our thumbs and wait till they release Elder Scrolls 6, receive more awful reviews and outrage, and then get gobbled up entirely by Microsoft.

This is sort’ve true but post processing isn’t where the game struggles per se. Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 lacked LOD lighting and featured prominent Z-fighting of many textures, that’s an inherent way that the LODs are calculated in the engine.

So most of what I’m talking about like lackluster quest design and poor visuals aren’t unfixable by the engine, but they’re direct results of developing using it. The quest structures are mostly the same as they have been for decades.

And yes, they could easily code something like an ENB mod but they just don’t. They’re so bad at this in fact that they can’t even get proper anti-aliasing working. If I remember right, Fallout used TAA and it was so awful that I preferred a 3rd party FXAA to their solution.

Also to be fair, ENB is similar to other graphics injectors which aren’t new on the block but you dont really want to use an injector so they’d have to code something like an ENB into their DLL and that would affect the engine so they don’t do it. It needs a big update to add stuff like that and this will be the third game they haven’t bothered to significantly change it.

Imo it’s not about having a new engine, it’s that they don’t make enough changes to it and it’s very apparent. On launch, their games are some of the most lackluster games visually. I remember the update from Skyrim to fallout was just that they added god rays to the engine, that was basically the only difference.

Then Fallout 76 came out and not only was it extremely ill equipped for multiplayer and online, but graphically the game suffered.

Then we talk about the quest systems in the engine, and that’s great and all, but the quest systems haven’t been fundamentally updated since Oblivion came out. Go play any other RPG, they’re running circles around Bethesda in quest design.

What’s worse is that Starfield was met with mixed reviews and showcased their inability to modernize their engine with the loading screen problem. So ES6 is set up to make or break Bethesda.

I don’t think most cheats are just for the fun of the game. Most cheats get developed to sell to the huge Asian markets of cheaters. It’s fairly normalized in China and somewhat Japan to cheat in games. And then they get sold to everyone else as well.

Then after the cheats are sold, TF2 and CS2 become vulnerable to bots and idling. Many of the drops you get in those games can be sold, often for a very low price but multiplied by a thousand, it’s worth it for cheaters. And valve doesn’t much care so long as their game reviews are positive because it inflates the player counts of the games and also they can ban the accounts, take away items, and then the cheaters will spend more to get them back on a new account.

Good points on the saturation thing. My experience in the vr space is that most companies aim right at the middle of all of those goals and fail as a result. The price ends up lower, but not low enough. Software is supported, but not enough. Software is targeted but then turns out underfunded.

In my opinion, Sony should have created a headset targeting $300-$400 and then focused not on just making random good VR games but play off of existing titles.

The reason that works so well is that many people have a favorite PS5 game, why not offer 3D models viewable in VR? Or the maps? Or a shot minigame mode with small bits of content for a low price? These things are relatively cheap to do but have a huge impact on gamers wanting to get into VR.

Resident evil is a great example of this. The Horizon game less so. Either way, use those titles all the time to your advantage. Try to get a VR camera mode in more 3rd person games. Promote VR movies and streaming maybe.

You still have this issue though of pivoting out of a catch-22. No software, no gamers, no money, so no software or hardware. The way to break out of that is by maintaining a library of games and adding to it over time as adopters get on board. This is why them ditching PSVR1 killed the second headset. Build that library to a tipping point like SteamVR and Meta are working on, don’t abandon it.

Sony could’ve done a lot of things to help this push honestly and they did nothing. It’s like none of these companies even know how to exist in experimental spaces anymore and it shows big time.

Well even then, if the content was there, people would buy it even at its ridiculous price. You have to consider there is a massive amount of PlayStation users so if only 1% of their playerbase has enough money for this, that’s still a ton of people compared to current VR numbers.

So I stand by saying the price is a barrier, but not a problem or dealbreaker. The real issue is just that PSVR1 people are no longer getting support, PSVR2 has few games since they don’t include the previous library. And why buy a PSVR2 if you know they’re going to lock your games into that specific headset? Sony put all that money into hardware and has zero idea how to exist in markets that aren’t already growing, so this was inevitable

I mean I think VR has a bright future but it won’t be until Meta can gain some serious traction with their headsets that we get some really good games on other platforms.

Now Meta would assume this is a win but they’re just going to generate temporary traction for themselves and then people will move elsewhere as Valve and Sony are better at both software and hardware. They’re letting Meta do the expensive part, the R&D, for them. Then all of these players plan to swoop in and steal their business. You’ll watch it happen in 6-10 years.

I really wish that people would pile on Sony for not having PSVR1 games be compatible with the second headset. I would consider buying their headset just for PCVR and the entire PSVR1 library plus the PSVR2 stuff. At that point if you also own a PS5 like I do, that opens up a lot of games and rivals what Meta is doing.

I think PSVR2 is dead in the water unless Sony invests a lot into it. Great PC headset but otherwise no. I really think Meta is doing an okay job with their library, so if you aren’t super worried about Meta having personal data on you, bite the bullet there. Otherwise you’ll be stuck with the stagnant SteamVR offerings which only have a worthwhile longer experience a couple times a year.

This is exactly why I think Valve is primed to bring Steam Machines back. They’re already working on making a full functioning Linux OS, Steam OS. They have a huge library of games that regularly go on sale that you can now play on a handheld. Your save games sync across platform. Your Steam Machine would support existing controllers from either Xbox or PlayStation. I mean at this point they would be silly NOT to make them again.

Yeah except most consumers no longer care about goodwill when buying new products so they’ve just figured out that it doesn’t matter what they do. So if a company has goodwill at this point, it might as well just be unspent money.

It seems that steam pulls refunds directly revenue in most cases which means that the publishers and studios feel an immediate impact in their numbers from them.

Valve may choose to absorb some of the refunds but I don’t see why they would. Sony made the games unplayable in certain regions while telling Steam they wanted the game sold in those exact regions beforehand. They misused the store and I’m sure they paid dearly for it with those refunds.

These companies are obsessed with money. The money they lost on refunds forced by Steam is the punishment.

I mean sure but I don’t see how this is “half assing it” since you have no idea what happens on the server side.

And look I’m not saying they’re in the right here, I’m just saying that people are quick to jump to them hating their players and wanting their data when this seems to be more like something that’s being done to make their backend function.

Yes but they likely have existing infrastructure on PSN so it makes sense to do that. Theyre just taking your steam ID and verifying your purchase, then using a PSN ID on their end after the purchase validation for online matchmaking and server side stuff. Not to crazy.

Otherwise they’d have to redo their server code and what not just to handle Steam and for a game that’s already this old, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do that.

Apparently this was always a planned feature but probably wasn’t ready for prime time at launch.

It is entirely possible and potentially more effective to satire the US while centering the story outside of the US