Helldivers 2
- Thread starter lemon
- Start date
I feel like that review is inaccurate, and his complaints are exaggerated or based on confusion with the way the game works.
His technical issues related to performance are subjective, his complaints about massive disconnects while playing are non-existent as far as I've experienced. The only issue is the quickplay matchmaking is broken and is struggling to put players into public games with each other. A product of the games unexpected popularity and their infrastructure coping with the demand. I've never experienced any major issues joining/hosting games with friends, nor any latency issues while playing.
As for the charge of the game being "obscenely monetized" ... that I don't get. You can buy the premium currency, named "Super Credits", but you also earn them by playing the game. Obviously, you earn them slowly in the game, but I've played over the weekend and have 770SC and you only need 1000SC to unlock the premium section of the "battlepass" which, as far as I can see has nothing overtly "pay 2 win" in it. There is a rotating set of items you can spend SC on, but again ... nothing that doesn't have a comparable item you can unlock for free.
The items in the battlepass itself are unlocked using the points (Medals) earned for completing the missions... the amount of grind involved correlates to the time played. Obviously, the less time spent playing, the more grindy it will seem and the more risk you take by playing harder difficulty modes and taking time to scavenge extra medals found as loot in the game, the faster your progression to unlock things will be. You can't buy your way through it with money.
His technical issues related to performance are subjective, his complaints about massive disconnects while playing are non-existent as far as I've experienced. The only issue is the quickplay matchmaking is broken and is struggling to put players into public games with each other. A product of the games unexpected popularity and their infrastructure coping with the demand. I've never experienced any major issues joining/hosting games with friends, nor any latency issues while playing.
As for the charge of the game being "obscenely monetized" ... that I don't get. You can buy the premium currency, named "Super Credits", but you also earn them by playing the game. Obviously, you earn them slowly in the game, but I've played over the weekend and have 770SC and you only need 1000SC to unlock the premium section of the "battlepass" which, as far as I can see has nothing overtly "pay 2 win" in it. There is a rotating set of items you can spend SC on, but again ... nothing that doesn't have a comparable item you can unlock for free.
The items in the battlepass itself are unlocked using the points (Medals) earned for completing the missions... the amount of grind involved correlates to the time played. Obviously, the less time spent playing, the more grindy it will seem and the more risk you take by playing harder difficulty modes and taking time to scavenge extra medals found as loot in the game, the faster your progression to unlock things will be. You can't buy your way through it with money.
sehvi
Veteran XX
Even though i agree with him on a lot of things i think Mack went a little overboard with the complaints about the microtransactions in this game as well. Don't get me wrong: fuck pay to win in general. But you play this with your friends and none of us has bought into it. So it doesn't factor into our experience at all. That being said game is a lot of fun.
Yeah, I take what Mack says with a grain of salt, but I can generally form a reasonable opinion based off of most of what he says and what I see.
He doesn't seem to like (and I agree):
Day one micro-transactions or DLC as it's a pure scam
ESP (press a button and see/mark everyone through walls)
Teleport everywhere
Over-the-top wokeism
Bottom-tier skill required to play
Crappy story/characters/dialogue (again, woke nonsense)
Etc.
He doesn't seem to like (and I agree):
Day one micro-transactions or DLC as it's a pure scam
ESP (press a button and see/mark everyone through walls)
Teleport everywhere
Over-the-top wokeism
Bottom-tier skill required to play
Crappy story/characters/dialogue (again, woke nonsense)
Etc.
Yes. When your players like you, as a developer because of the game you made that they like to play, and feel like you're not using your players to make money, those players tend to want to give you their money simply because they like you and like playing your game.
In Warframe, you feel like you can fully experience what the game offers to full effect without spending real money. In Deep Rock Galactic, no one complains when the developer publishes a paid DLC of optional cosmetics and buys it "just because", despite likely never using the content itself.
Its when you lock access to significant portions of the game behind a paywall, or you charge exorbitant prices for mediocre content, or you create a two-tier gameplay experience between players who spend money and players who don't, that your community will rebuff your need for revenue through monetizing their hobby of playing video games. You attract contempt from your players if you make them feel coerced or tricked into having to spend more money then they already have to play the game.
In Darktide, they completely fucked this up and damaged their standing with their players who otherwise think the game is fun to play.
In Warframe, you feel like you can fully experience what the game offers to full effect without spending real money. In Deep Rock Galactic, no one complains when the developer publishes a paid DLC of optional cosmetics and buys it "just because", despite likely never using the content itself.
Its when you lock access to significant portions of the game behind a paywall, or you charge exorbitant prices for mediocre content, or you create a two-tier gameplay experience between players who spend money and players who don't, that your community will rebuff your need for revenue through monetizing their hobby of playing video games. You attract contempt from your players if you make them feel coerced or tricked into having to spend more money then they already have to play the game.
In Darktide, they completely fucked this up and damaged their standing with their players who otherwise think the game is fun to play.
playing on PS5 the haptics etc for the pods, explosions and guns are amazing and add so much, I think for a game like this where your aim speed is capped anyway, it's easily worth the trade of no mouse
Helldivers 3 needs to be in VR
game looks fucking sick. does ps5 use adaptive triggers well too?