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Games are shit

anvi

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All these survival/building games are such under developed indie jank, they can all get fucked. Wake me when you can make a survival/building game that also has some sort of gameplay?! And no, dumbass 'sandbox' where you build endless stuff is not gameplay. And a menu with 100000 objects to place for no reason, is not content.

We've already had decades of SimCities and Anno and millions of other similar games that did mostly honorable jobs. And then cool games like Age of Empires and Stronghold already tried to evolve that genre into building AND combat. So there doesn't need to be a whole new shitty generation of basic building games remade in Unity and hipster pixel art. Make something that improves on the past or go flip burgers where you belong.

Same goes for rogues/roguelikes/roguelites. Whatever you call it, it sucks balls, and what I call it is preying on vulnerable autistic people by giving them something to fail miserably at 10000 times so that they can eventually succeed on the 10001st attempt and feel like they accomplished something. They didn't achieve anything, and got robbed of a week of their life and $2. I may make an exception for Tome4/Noita/anything that improves on the past! But a few good ones don't excuse the millions of mindless repetitive ones.

Also, all MOBAs can get fucked, as can all the shitbag people involved in making those high school massacre petri dish breeding grounds. Not only are they ruining future generations and turning them into sociopathic scum, but the games are idiotic and designed like ass. Probably because every single one of them plagiarises the same piece of shit from 1992 which was made by some kid from a modified Warcraft with glitter and glue. Any normal game developer would make something like Nox, because that's what makes sense... But with MOBAs you take 10 random masturbating internet shitbags and they are expected to work together?! And if one of them makes one mistake, then it snowballs into a disaster. To get strong you are supposed to steal kills for the gold/exp. Don't do it and you are poor. Do it and you are playing like shit because you are wasting limited resources on someone who was probably going to die to a dot anyway... Worst game design ever. And again, preying on poor children who can only afford free to play games.

Next week I will cover FPSs, and how hiding from bullets behind a houseplant for your screen to stop flashing, is not something developing brains should be doing.
 
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Machocruz

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Ironically, the survival crafting roguelike Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is one of the absolute best games you can play right now and also makes all this other shit look very, very primitive.

I played the demo for Songs of Syx, an Early Access, fantasy city builder/colony sim, where you can build megacities with tens of thousands of denizens running around. I was hooked for a few days, but began to see there wasn't much to it. I built up to 200 citizens, which triggered a raid that I easily defeated. What to do now? What's the point of building bigger? I have at least one of every structure in the game. I don't know if the population count is that great of a selling point. More happens with a population of 40 in Dwarf Fortress than happens in this game, at least as far as the demo (supposedly unlimited) is concerned. Also there is not an outlet for aesthetics or physics exploits as there is in DF.
 
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anvi

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There are some great plucky indie devs, and they do a good job considering they barely make a living. But it sucks they mostly work alone so even the best programmers are only really making 1980s standard games. The huge mainstream devs are just scumbags now. Everything is obnoxiously buggy, un-finished crap, and the gameplay is usually doing something that was far better in some older game. Even games in the same series. GTA 4 and 5 were total shit compared to San Andreas but it sells a zillion copies anyway. Skyrim was... I won't go into that, but even if you liked that shit you gotta be tired of it being resold over and over for 20 years. Dragon Age got dumbed down to shit and then semi abandoned. Cyberspunk / Watch Dogs Legion are jokes. Low effort rehashes everywhere.

The medium size indie devs are the only hope, but they are the ones who disappoint me the most.
 
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gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
All these survival/building games are such under developed indie jank, they can all get fucked. Wake me when you can make a survival/building game that also has some sort of gameplay?! And no, having some dumbass 'sandbox' where you can build shit, is not gameplay. And a menu with 100000000 objects you can place into some virtual world for no reason, is not content.

We've already had decades of SimCities and Anno and millions of other similar games that did mostly honorable jobs. And then cool games like Age of Empires and Stronghold already tried to evolve that genre into building AND combat. So there doesn't need to be a whole new shitty generation of basic building games remade in Unity and hipster pixel art. Make something that improves on the past or go flip burgers where you belong.

Same goes for rogues/roguelikes/roguelites. Whatever you call it, it sucks balls, and what I call it is preying on vulnerable autistic people by giving them something to fail miserably at 10000 times so that they can eventually succeed on the 10001st attempt and feel like they accomplished something. They didn't achieve anything, and got robbed of a week of their life and $2. I may make an exception for Tome4/Noita/anything that like I said, improves on the past! But a few good ones don't excuse the millions of mindless repetitive ones.

Also, all MOBAs can get fucked, as can all the shitbag people involved in making those high school massacre petri dish breeding grounds. Not only are they ruining future generations and turning them into sociopathic scum, but the games are idiotic and designed like ass. Probably because every single one of them plagiarises the same piece of shit from 1992 which was made by some kid from a modified Warcraft with glitter and glue. Any normal game developer would make something like Nox, because that's what makes sense... But with MOBAs you take 10 random masturbating internet shitbags and they are expected to work together?! And if one of them makes one mistake, then it snowballs into a disaster. To get strong you are supposed to steal kills for the gold/exp. Don't do it and you are poor. Do it and you are playing like shit because you are wasting limited resources on someone who was probably going to die to a dot anyway... Worst game design ever. And again, preying on poor children who can only afford free to play games.

Next week I will cover FPSs, and how hiding from bullets behind a houseplant for your screen to stop flashing, is not something developing brains should be doing.

Masterful.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

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"I didn't realize it at the time, but reading Anvi's unbridled passionate hatred was the probably the closest I ever felt to another man."
 

Fedora Master

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People have an unprecedented ability to make their own games - ALL their own media, really - yet the overall quality hasn't improved one bit. In fact, all this has created is a literal S.E.A. (Steam Early Access) of feces.
Yes, people say "90% of everything is crap" but that doesn't explain how older games with MORE hurdles and adversity managed to be impactful while these new generations are not.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Yes, people say "90% of everything is crap" but that doesn't explain how older games with MORE hurdles and adversity managed to be impactful while these new generations are not.

Most of the people making shit today are chasing trends or trying to echo games they liked as kids but can't quite grasp why they worked then and not when they try to reinvoke it. It used to be if you saw a good idea you'd take it and make it a great idea. These days they take good ideas and make them into a wish only a Monkey's Paw could bring.
 

The_Mask

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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
Also, all MOBAs can get fucked, as can all the shitbag people involved in making those high school massacre petri dish breeding grounds. Not only are they ruining future generations and turning them into sociopathic scum, but the games are idiotic and designed like ass. Probably because every single one of them plagiarises the same piece of shit from 1992 which was made by some kid from a modified Warcraft with glitter and glue. Any normal game developer would make something like Nox, because that's what makes sense... But with MOBAs you take 10 random masturbating internet shitbags and they are expected to work together?! And if one of them makes one mistake, then it snowballs into a disaster. To get strong you are supposed to steal kills for the gold/exp. Don't do it and you are poor. Do it and you are playing like shit because you are wasting limited resources on someone who was probably going to die to a dot anyway... Worst game design ever. And again, preying on poor children who can only afford free to play games.
It feels like you either haven't played a MOBA, you don't know how to play a MOBA, or just regurgitating someone else's opinions.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
All these survival/building games are such under developed indie jank, they can all get fucked. Wake me when you can make a survival/building game that also has some sort of gameplay?! And no, dumbass 'sandbox' where you build endless stuff is not gameplay. And a menu with 100000 objects to place for no reason, is not content.

My impression is that all these indie survival games where you play as one dude/dudette harvesting resources and building an entire castle on your own are just lazy projects where the devs couldn't be arsed to do any level design themselves.

You don't have to design any levels if you can make the player build them on his own.

These games are vastly different from city builders like Anno btw, because in games like Anno you get to manage a city from the top. You place production buildings and design the infrastructure to ensure a flourishing economy, then watch your citizens go about their work.
In these survival games, you have to do all the busywork yourself.

You run to the forest and chop wood until your inventory is full.
Then you run to your warehouse to deposit the wood.
Then you craft wooden walls from the wood.
Then you carry the wooden wall sections to where you want to build a house, and build it.
Then you go chop more wood cause you're out of resources.

In a strategy or city builder, you command dozens of little people to do all the menial tasks of resource collection.
In these survival crafting games, you ARE this guy:
250
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
I never got the appeal of these survival style games myself. I don't really understand the bigger picture of what you're trying to achieve. With games like SimCity or Rollercoaster Tycoon it's all about successful operation of an entire metropolis or theme park along with the various problems and issues you'll face, in these survival crafting games you put up a fence around the house you just built that nobody will ever live in.
 

GewuerzKahn

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...you put up a fence around the house you just built that nobody will ever live in.
Not even that. Every time I build a fence or something in an online survival game some faggots screams at me "Remove the fence befor the server starts to lag" or "Replace the fondation tiles with ceiling tiles because they are buggy".
I don't get the appeal for this genre with shitty coded games.
 

anvi

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I think a lot of the smaller indie games only exist as a project to help that guy improve his programming. Which is fine. But it shouldn't be in the Steam top 10.

With the building/survival games, I don't think they are any different to Anno or SimCity or anything else in that they provide a big area to place stuff. Now I just need a reason to give a shit. Having an economy to balance did an ok job of that. It motivates me to gitgud because if you don't learn to expand using the rules the game expects, then you run out of money, fire breaks out, can't afford fire station, etc. The new games give you the building aspect but no reason to care. Games like The Forest and Ark and whatever else, you have 10000 objects you can build into huge fortresses, but there's nothing to struggle against except the grind. The worlds are mostly empty, no interesting loot or locations that make me want to explore. Combat is always a joke or doesn't exist. No interesting character development. They are 100% reliant on you being ok with the idea of building stuff for no reason in a virtual world that you will probably delete off your hard drive a month later.

It sucks because I kinda like them... Dinosaurs are cool and I wanna fly around on my pterodactyl and build a huge empire, but we live in a Fortnite world now where most games are made for tinky winky babies. So they keep getting away with releasing mostly empty games. I mean come on I'm a well known Bethesda h8r! But you can construct fortresses in New Vegas, F3, F4, now which is a much bigger, more interesting, and more fleshed out world than any of these survival/building games. Not that I recommend playing Fallouts... My point is a sandbox is a sandbox. It's ok if you are 8. I need an economy to manage, some enemies that can ruin everything, some long term goals.... and not just keep building shit for no reason or to launch a rocket into space. What a copout!

Also, all MOBAs can get fucked, as can all the shitbag people involved in making those high school massacre petri dish breeding grounds. Not only are they ruining future generations and turning them into sociopathic scum, but the games are idiotic and designed like ass. Probably because every single one of them plagiarises the same piece of shit from 1992 which was made by some kid from a modified Warcraft with glitter and glue. Any normal game developer would make something like Nox, because that's what makes sense... But with MOBAs you take 10 random masturbating internet shitbags and they are expected to work together?! And if one of them makes one mistake, then it snowballs into a disaster. To get strong you are supposed to steal kills for the gold/exp. Don't do it and you are poor. Do it and you are playing like shit because you are wasting limited resources on someone who was probably going to die to a dot anyway... Worst game design ever. And again, preying on poor children who can only afford free to play games.
It feels like you either haven't played a MOBA, you don't know how to play a MOBA, or just regurgitating someone else's opinions.
Or option 4, I played them long enough to know exactly how they work and how idiotic they are. Just the fact every single game involves 20 minutes of grind should be all the proof you need it was designed like shit. Why would you even begin to defend the moba design? It's is a disaster. 90% of the heroes are weak as shit, just pick Sniper or something and play it safe for half an hour and now you can insta kill anyone. And then you run around getting stronger and stronger while they hide in the well getting weaker and weaker and then an hour later you finally go in and crush them and let out your REEEEEE warcry, venting all your pent up frustrations of your crappy life.
 
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TemplarGR

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All these survival/building games are such under developed indie jank, they can all get fucked

Yeah.

We've already had decades of SimCities and Anno and millions of other similar games that did mostly honorable jobs

I agree, though i generally never liked city building shit anyway.

Same goes for rogues/roguelikes/roguelites. Whatever you call it, it sucks balls, and what I call it is preying on vulnerable autistic people by giving them something to fail miserably at 10000 times so that they can eventually succeed on the 10001st attempt and feel like they accomplished something.

Rogue likes are low effort garbage, repetition instead of creating content.

Also, all MOBAs can get fucked, as can all the shitbag people involved in making those high school massacre petri dish breeding grounds. Not only are they ruining future generations and turning them into sociopathic scum, but the games are idiotic and designed like ass. Probably because every single one of them plagiarises the same piece of shit from 1992 which was made by some kid from a modified Warcraft with glitter and glue.

MOBAs are generally shit, except Heroes of the Storm. Heroes of the Storm was great, but ironically, all the shitbag people didn't like it because it wasn't LOL with Blizzard skin, but instead Blizzard improved on the MOBA formula and cut the crap from the gameplay. They didn't like it. I did. I played it hardcore for 3 years, but i eventually stopped cause Blizzard kept giving me suspensions for "chat violations". So i suppose the gameplay wasn't shit, but the company was.
 

Morenatsu.

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MOBAs are generally shit, except Heroes of the Storm. Heroes of the Storm was great, but ironically, all the shitbag people didn't like it because it wasn't LOL with Blizzard skin, but instead Blizzard improved on the MOBA formula and cut the crap from the gameplay. They didn't like it. I did. I played it hardcore for 3 years, but i eventually stopped cause Blizzard kept giving me suspensions for "chat violations". So i suppose the gameplay wasn't shit, but the company was.
well, since it's you who's liking it I'm just going to have to assume it's actually the worst one
 

anvi

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I got a bit bored with Heroes of the Storm but I love it for at least trying to fix the moba problems. Same with Smite and Battlerite and whatever. The newer ones are trying which is cool. That old Dota/LoL design is a dumpster fire.
 

RobotSquirrel

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But it sucks they mostly work alone so even the best programmers are only really making 1980s standard games.
I resent that a little. A big reason for it is because of the life work balance that at some stage over the course of a long development life will eventually get in the way. I've seen too many good developers even when they produced a massive hit abandon the quality because they had to burn so much just to get there. I don't really know if indie dev is a sustainable thing long term as all evidence suggest the majority of developers are one and done.

From my experience most of the pressures come from external issues. They rarely have to do with the actual development rather some life events or financial obligation getting in the way. It's a shame really It'd be nice if we didn't have to worry about those things and just be allowed to work in peace. That societal pressure is what's effecting my development the most, a lot of people just don't get it and so you get forced into situations that take you away from development. My problem and why I can't be full time anymore is down to family issues revolving around employment so I have to do what I can to support my family whilst still developing. Its a hard balance.

Honestly unsure if it would've been different with or without pandemic but I planned accordingly the problem is that I only accounted for 2 years full time, I had budgeted for a total of 6 years but due to the pandemic I've had to change my plans I'm coming to the end of that 2 year period. On the plus side I managed to get close to vertical slice on the negative though its gonna take a long time to make a final product so I have to fortify for that. For me though making games is a lot of fun so I don't care either way. I'll keep working but I gotta help out my family too.
 

anvi

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It does seem very hard. Crazy industry though. You've got huge teams working long shifts every day to rush out an unfinished happy meal. And solo developers who release some basic early access game and then work on it for the next 7 years. To me all the one man bands who made 1980s games are the legends who created gaming. But when they all formed little companies in the 90s, it was the best we've ever had it. When it worked right, there was someone else taking care of the finances and management, and the devs could focus on making a game they would love to play. We got spoilt! 10 glorious years! Then EA bought them all and dismantled them. RIP Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis, Mythic, Westwood Studios, etc. RIP medium sized gaming companies. The mega corporations crush everything into dust.

 

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