Game, its not me, its you.

[laggyteabag]

Games are no longer static.

It used to be that the game you got on a disk, or in a cartridge, was the same game throughout its entire lifespan. These days, games are constantly in flux. Bug fixes. Balance changes. Events. Expansions. A game 5 years into its lifespan, can sometimes look drastically different to the way the game looked when it first launched.

Whether you lose interest in the direction that a game is going, or FOMO just snowballs out of control, unfortunately, some games lose fans along the way.

With the announcement that Hearthstone will be getting a Classic mode, which restricts the pool of cards back to the way things were, back in 2014, I remembered that Hearthstone was one such game for me.

I love card games. I love World of Warcraft. So a card game based on WoW was a match made in heaven. I stuck with HS from 2014 to 2016, then I started to lose interest in 2017. In April 2016 they introduced the Standard format, which saw cards from the first two expansions getting removed from play. Whilst I understand the importance of sunsetting/vaulting earlier content in the name of balance and longevity, it still sucked watching dozens of hours of effort (and a decent amount of money) become obsolete. This was so controversial amongst my group of friends, that at least one person quit the game entirely.

Still, as someone who had stuck with the game through some more recent expansions, I still had a few cards to draw from, so it wasn't the end of the world.

Fast forward to 2017, and my interest was waning. By the time I felt like I had a decent footing in the current expansion, a new expansion was released. And by the time I had barely scratched the surface of this new one, another expansion was released. Hearthstone was releasing content faster than I could keep up, so I just quit.

Now, in 2021, I have missed 13 expansions, and every card that I owned outside of the basic/classic sets is now obsolete. If I wanted to get back into the game right now, I would have 7 expansions of cards to catch up on (or all 13 if I dipped my toes into the "everything goes" wild format), which represents an incredible amount of grinding, or a likely sickening amount of money, just to get a deck that approaches anything competitive. Only to watch most of that effort disappear, as the next set of cards rotate out of play.

Hearthstone in its current state just isn't for me, nor would I say that it is for anyone, who hasn't kept up with the game since day-1.

So, does anyone else have any games that they previously loved, only to lose them to the changes that came with time?

 

[Gordon_4]

Games are no longer static.

It used to be that the game you got on a disk, or in a cartridge, was the same game throughout its entire lifespan. These days, games are constantly in flux. Bug fixes. Balance changes. Events. Expansions. A game 5 years into its lifespan, can sometimes look drastically different to the way the game looked when it first launched.

Whether you lose interest in the direction that a game is going, or FOMO just snowballs out of control, unfortunately, some games lose fans along the way.

With the announcement that Hearthstone will be getting a Classic mode, which restricts the pool of cards back to the way things were, back in 2014, I remembered that Hearthstone was one such game for me.

I love card games. I love World of Warcraft. So a card game based on WoW was a match made in heaven. I stuck with HS from 2014 to 2016, then I started to lose interest in 2017. In April 2016 they introduced the Standard format, which saw cards from the first two expansions getting removed from play. Whilst I understand the importance of sunsetting/vaulting earlier content in the name of balance and longevity, it still sucked watching dozens of hours of effort (and a decent amount of money) become obsolete. This was so controversial amongst my group of friends, that at least one person quit the game entirely.

Still, as someone who had stuck with the game through some more recent expansions, I still had a few cards to draw from, so it wasn't the end of the world.

Fast forward to 2017, and my interest was waning. By the time I felt like I had a decent footing in the current expansion, a new expansion was released. And by the time I had barely scratched the surface of this new one, another expansion was released. Hearthstone was releasing content faster than I could keep up, so I just quit.

Now, in 2021, I have missed 13 expansions, and every card that I owned outside of the basic/classic sets is now obsolete. If I wanted to get back into the game right now, I would have 7 expansions of cards to catch up on (or all 13 if I dipped my toes into the "everything goes" wild format), which represents an incredible amount of grinding, or a likely sickening amount of money, just to get a deck that approaches anything competitive. Only to watch most of that effort disappear, as the next set of cards rotate out of play.

Hearthstone in its current state just isn't for me, nor would I say that it is for anyone, who hasn't kept up with the game since day-1.

So, does anyone else have any games that they previously loved, only to lose them to the changes that came with time?

Multiplayer PvP games have balance and something based on trading cards has expansion packs. That's kind of the nature of the beast.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Games are steering towards being more service-oriented vs product-oriented, and with that comes a bevy of content that will likely induce fatigue to the average user at some point in time.

I long for days when AAA games cut the bs and are content to be smaller, more focused endeavors.

 

[BrawlMan]

Games are steering towards being more service-oriented vs product-oriented, and with that comes a bevy of content that will likely induce fatigue to the average user at some point in time.

I long for days when AAA games cut the bs and are content to be smaller, more focused endeavors.

it's why I don't bother with most AAA games anymore. I instead look towards the medium size AA or indie studios. Especially when I get physical releases of games I like.

 

[Gergar12]

I somewhat avoid multiplayer games, and PVP, because you are competing with people who do it for a living or spend lots of time on it or both. I aim for single-player games.

Edit: Or co-op.

 

[SilentPony]

I somewhat avoid multiplayer games, and PVP, because you are competing with people who do it for a living or spend lots of time on it or both. I aim for single-player games.

Edit: Or co-op.

I have, I guess PTSD sorta, for PvP because I grew up with dial up internet, and a shit computer, so any PvP games I lagged so hard I never got anything done. Hell the internet was so bad growing up if a Diablo 2 battlenet update would literally take all night, so just try again tomorrow.
As a result I have no interest in PvP games at all, because I'm well aware its not really person vs person. Its personal set up, internet connection, computer/console set up, controller and reaction time vs all of that for the other player, and that's just too many ducks to get in order just to see who is better at pretend war, let alone somehow make that a career or of value.

Single player games are were its at, if for no other reason the experience is limited to and only by myself.

 

[Trunkage]

I somewhat avoid multiplayer games, and PVP, because you are competing with people who do it for a living or spend lots of time on it or both. I aim for single-player games.

Edit: Or co-op.

Back in the old days, I did PVP with my friends. It wasn’t until I got real internets that I realised how shit we all were

OT: Mulitplayer should be service based rather than product based. You would hope that your game WOULD be continually updated. Having a static multiplayer is a sure fired way of making your game not played

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Fucking Payday 2.

My friends and I have like 300 hours in that game. We had tons of fun cooping it, it's one of the few games where we actually purchased DLC. Then they put pay to win loot box bullshit in the game after specifically promising never to do that. Dropped that game immediately, never went back to it even after they removed the loot boxes, will not be buying Payday 3.

Bridge fucking burned.

 

[DJShaddycat]

It's so unfortunate that every game is teed up to be potentially ruined by the developers choices and there's nothing we as the consumer can do to prevent it. It should be a crime for a developer to update a game you own, offer no recourse for going back, and say "Well, you either play the game you have no or don't play at all."
I did not pay $30 for Killing Floor 2 at release just to have the game ruined by a string of poor updates by the developers and pay to use weapons thrown in the mix. I want to go back to playing the version that was available in 2017.

 

[wings012]

I used to play a decent amount of Robocraft, which basically kinda stopped being fun once they removed tier progression. Their approach to in game balance was also to bash it with a sledgehammer than to finetune things. I have no idea what happened to the game now, but I heard rubbish about being unable to directly buy the blocks that you need to build your bots and that you had to earn them through lootboxes. Which sounds terrible.

Anyway the game used to have a tier based progression system, where your robot's tier determines what tier of match you got put in. You raise your bot's tier by increasing its 'cost', which is done by using more expensive parts. And you earn more cash the higher tier you were, so you kinda worked your way to more elaborate, expensive builds and increased your ability to earn them.

There was also a way to 'under-tier' which was controversial but I found enjoyable and thought it made the mid-tiers fun. The idea was to bring parts from higher tiers into lower cost robots, but to remain in the lower tiers you had to minimize the amount of blocks you used. This allowed for interesting glass cannon builds. So the mid tiers had a greater variety of builds available to them.

Understandably there were people who were still progressing up the tiers who hated people that did that, and it was likened to seal clubbing. I personally just enjoyed the diversity. After reaching the ability to play at max tier, I'd drop back down since it was just more fun and diverse down there. And cheaper to experiment with new builds. These under-tiered builds often came with huge weaknesses(namely having the durability of tissue paper, so you just needed to be patient and aim), so they were fairly easy to deal with.

Of course with the removal of tiers, everybody became on the same level and it resulted in just an optimal few builds dominating the space. Which are basically super chunky max durability builds cause there's no reason to use less blocks unless you couldn't afford them.

I typically avoid MP games unless it's something I plan to play with friends, but this was one I found pleasant for a time and would be content to solo queue in.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Battleborn messed up the character Mellka in a patch that was my favorite character to play as and I pretty much stopped playing at that point. It's not even like she was super OP S-tier character or anything.

Multiplayer PvP games have balance and something based on trading cards has expansion packs. That's kind of the nature of the beast.

There's still some PvP games out there that just have super minor patches like say CounterStrike where the meta isn't constantly changing. I'm guessing R6 Siege is like that too, they add new characters but I don't think they do major gameplay changes or major nerfs/buffs (I could be wrong though, but it's a type of game that shouldn't have those type of drastic changes).

It is on the developer actually being competent and knowing how to balance a game, which most of them don't know how to do. When you start listening to the community or looking at stats of what's being used the most/least and balancing from that information, you're just gonna end up fucking up the game. For example, sniper rifles not being used much doesn't make them underpowered, it's just that only a few players are actually good at using them so if you buff them to get them used more, you'll make the players that are really good with sniper rifles basically gods within the game. Same thing with popular guns, is a gun popular because it's OP or is it popular because it's the type of gun that's best for the average player (which will be an automatic of some type obviously)? Most devs suck at balancing because they go off their "stats" and community feedback vs just knowing if something is OP or not.

 

[EvilRoy]

I experienced something kind of similar a while back, when Borderlands 3 was pretty much brand new. Its rare for me to get a game on release but I was desperate for a new shooter after getting frustrated/bored with Overwatch and having no will to revisit some older shooters I had on the list. So I was playing my first run and digging into the game only to suddenly find out that a strategy I was using just kind of stopped working. An ability seemed to take longer to charge, my grenades were less damaging, my gun wasn't shooting as fast. Looked up online to find out they started to actively balance the characters during the first several months of the game being released.

Normally I wouldn't care, balancing is part of any multiplayer game, but they were balancing the single player game the same as online teamplay. So I'm trying to play a game using whatever cheesy and/or hilarious strategy I could come up with but I'm getting fucked with by the developers who apparently decided I was either having too much fun or having fun too effectively. I get that a game like this will require some kind of tweaking as you go, but I don't think any dev has a right to complain that they made this or that too powerful in a game about collecting randomized loot drops looking for more and more powerful combos. It just kind of killed the game for me - I stopped playing with the intent to return once they cooled it on the balance tweaks, but I haven't felt much desire to go back to it.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I used to play a decent amount of Robocraft....

As did I, though I fell off the wagon around the time they were introducing hover parts (I think). Every time I think about taking it back up again, I go to the Steam reviews to see how bad the game has gotten and lose the desire.

 

[Trunkage]

Fucking Payday 2.

My friends and I have like 300 hours in that game. We had tons of fun cooping it, it's one of the few games where we actually purchased DLC. Then they put pay to win loot box bullshit in the game after specifically promising never to do that. Dropped that game immediately, never went back to it even after they removed the loot boxes, will not be buying Payday 3.

Bridge fucking burned.

Literally had the same experience. I'm pretty sure I got John Wick and then they lootboxed it all

 

[laggyteabag]

Fucking Payday 2.

My friends and I have like 300 hours in that game. We had tons of fun cooping it, it's one of the few games where we actually purchased DLC. Then they put pay to win loot box bullshit in the game after specifically promising never to do that. Dropped that game immediately, never went back to it even after they removed the loot boxes, will not be buying Payday 3.

Bridge fucking burned.

I think I quit PD2 before the lootbox debacle, so I just heard about that from the sidelines.

I really enjoyed the game, but much like my issue with Hearthstone, the constant barrage of new content made it difficult to keep with with all of the new heists, and the new guns, and perks, and whatever else is in the game, now.

I do find it funny how much lootboxes completely ruin the reputation of games, though. Star Wars Battlefront 2 launched with lootboxes, but removed/reduced their functionality years ago, yet the game is still hated on for lootboxes, and SWBF2 lootboxes are still posterboy for pretty much every article that complains about them.

Is the short-term profit really worth the long-term reputational damage? Probably not, but I doubt the lesson will ever be learned.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I think I quit PD2 before the lootbox debacle, so I just heard about that from the sidelines.

I really enjoyed the game, but much like my issue with Hearthstone, the constant barrage of new content made it difficult to keep with with all of the new heists, and the new guns, and perks, and whatever else is in the game, now.

I do find it funny how much lootboxes completely ruin the reputation of games, though. Star Wars Battlefront 2 launched with lootboxes, but removed/reduced their functionality years ago, yet the game is still hated on for lootboxes, and SWBF2 lootboxes are still posterboy for pretty much every article that complains about them.

Is the short-term profit really worth the long-term reputational damage? Probably not, but I doubt the lesson will ever be learned.

Loot boxes are bad when they contain items that cannot be unlocked any other way, and which affects the balance of a game.

Call of Duty and Battlefield both used to do that and it was awful. It wasn't just that loot boxes were in the game, it's that the loot boxes contained weapons which you couldn't get any other way. Everyone hates pay to win mechanics, but even more than that people hate gamble to win mechanics. People have a lot less problems with loot boxes when the things in them are cosmetic and don't offer any advantage.

I honestly still think that the loot boxes in something like Overwatch are fine. They only contain cosmetic items and you can earn all of them without ever buying a loot box.

The problem with Payday 2 was that when the games launched the devs specifically promised never to have loot boxes in the game, and then like a year after launch they added loot boxes into the game, and they were the worst kind of loot boxes that contained weapon parts that specifically affected weapon balance. Say what you want about Battlefront 2's loot boxes but at least they were in the game at the start and people knew what they were getting into when they bought the game. It's extra scummy to add loot boxes in post release.

 

[BrawlMan]

I honestly still think that the loot boxes in something like Overwatch are fine. They only contain cosmetic items and you can earn all of them without ever buying a loot box.

That's where it started. The whole "it's just cosmetics" is when publisher realized they could push lootboxes even further. Overwatch was not perfect either, as you could keep getting the same costume over and over again and not get the one you wanted. Max_Dood and Angry Joe can attest to that.

• Resident Evil 4 - I don't like the pacing of this game, and I barely find the effort to get started. I don't like Ashley.
• Devil May Cry 2 - The combat and everything is so fucking boring.
• Most RPGS in gerneral are too long for my taste and don't have the time for that. Even when I did have free time as a kid or teenager, I still preferred shorter games.
• Advanced Guardian Heroes - Why did Treasure even bother doing a sequel to a Sega Saturn game on GBA? I am not saying it could not work, but they screwed up badly. Treasure changed too many things and made the game way too difficult, even by their standards. This game was not play tested all that well.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

That's where it started.

Not really TF2 had loot boxes long before Overwatch even existed, and TF2's loot boxes included weapons. With TF2 you also had the ability to pay real money to people for in-game items, so it's the purest form of "gambling" that loot boxes have ever been. Despite all of that everyone loves TF2 but hates other games with loot boxes even though pretty much every other game did loot boxes in a less scummy way.

If you want to blame the popularity of loot boxes on any company blame it on Valve.

 

[BrawlMan]

Not really TF2 had loot boxes long before Overwatch even existed, and TF2's loot boxes included weapons. With TF2 you also had the ability to pay real money to people for in-game items, so it's the purest form of "gambling" that loot boxes have ever been. Despite all of that everyone loves TF2 but hates other games with loot boxes even though pretty much every other game did loot boxes in a less scummy way.

If you want to blame the popularity of loot boxes on any company blame it on Valve.

I meant in terms of everyone getting greedy. I have not forgotten about Valve. I think the reason people don't hate on Valve as much, because the game became free by that point, if I remember correctly.

 

[wings012]

As did I, though I fell off the wagon around the time they were introducing hover parts (I think). Every time I think about taking it back up again, I go to the Steam reviews to see how bad the game has gotten and lose the desire.

That's quite early, probably before I started playing. They added a lot of fun stuff before it went to shit. Railguns, thrusters, healing guns, legs, tracks, helicopter rotors and such. My most fun build was a 'phage'. It's basically modeled after a bacteriophage virus. It stands tall on legs, has thrusters and wings for flight which allows me to reposition quickly. Though it can't compete with an actual plane build flight wise, it could land and walk around. I used healing guns with it as a sorta quick response medic, hopping from spot to spot. I could've probably used railguns on it, but the phage shape is not ideal for a railgun sniper type and I didn't really like the railguns anyway.

Steam reviews seem to indicate they rolled back on some of their changes, but it never really went back to its old peak according to some of the old player reviews. The reviews overall don't seem quite as terrible as it used to be. It might be playable, but I'm not keen to get back into it either way. I've had my 200 hours of fun.