Is Moon Studios right about early access needing to be the new normal?
https://www.eurogamer.net/no-rest-for-the-wicked-dev-defends-early-access-says-dark-souls-wouldve-benefitted
 |
 |
|
Is Moon Studios right about early access needing to be the new normal?
No.
Reminder this c**t talked all this shit about his game would revolutionize the genre and went on and on about needing something new. Only to release a 1:1 copy of souls, boring resource collecting, and dailies and weeklies system
>the more things change, the more they stay the same
kek, like a clockwork
i hope they revolutionize the resource gathering and inventory management, dear lord
>reinventing the genre
>isometric Souls
Soulscultists are mentally ill.
>mahler
Found your problem
As usual the developer comments are perfectly reasonable and the headline is clickbait
No they aren't.
> You should have ruined all the mystery and discovery of Dark Souls by doing Early Access!
>Lost Izalith was bad so you should make sure your game is moronic EA slop that bends to fan feedback
Not even slightly reasonable
The fundamental difference
>fromsoft games
inspired product with actual depth in its RPG mechanics and ambition
actually attempting new risky things
technically simple, but still well made combat with good weight and responsive enemy animations and built around deliberate actions
released a buggy and less balanced but respectable product
very humble developers and director
>no rest for the wicked
extremely generic title that copies tons of things from the predecessors it apes and makes it worse
extremely generic bland stats and RPG mechanics
braindead combat of i-frame spam, even dumber backstabs, or just effortlessly mashing enemies to death once you get out of early game
absolutely no confidence in its difficulty or challenge design : cook 99 foods to trivialize all challenge, game is already easy but enemies never respawn so you can die to a gank with 3 enemies after killing one and now theres only 2 to fight against (you can throw your head against the wall in any challenging area), you can teleport back to sacrament at any time and theres no sense of depth
released like genuinely brainless slop that runs badly on the latest generation of graphics cards, hotfixes made it worse for a lot of people
director has his head completely up his own ass, cannot shut the frick up about how they are "recreating the genre" and how people should stop copying souls and diablo (which he did even harder than any comparable game)
games
>released a buggy
their games have never been buggy
>b-b-but one player out of millions encountered a minor bug one time!
meanwhile western games are literally unplayable because of the bugs
BG3 had tons of game breaking bugs where you couldnt continue the game at all without loading an older save from hours ago
and this was after it had been in early access for years
well yes thats part of the point
I think you underestimate how poorly old DeS/DS1 released, but point being they released a proper product in an adequate state. This developer released a product in a moronic state and dares compare it to DS1
I like Dark Souls, but putting it and From on a pedestal is a service to noone. From has gotten a pass on shitty game design for over a decade for their interesting worlds and hint system, but with ER showed they move slower than a glacier when it comes to innovation, perfectly content rehashing after rehasing.
And I can't speak for NRFW yet or their developer, but what I garner so far is that they've been on early access less than a week and already made four substantial patches. It remainds to be seen if they keep this up.
If nothing else we will see a game using Dark Souls as it's template with crowd sourced feedback and maybe it will be good. Which might be the reason why From is still stuck in 2010 with their same playtesters and nobody wants to tell Miyazaki his regurgitation is getting hold, but someone will show me sales numbers without saying how much of the budget was spent on Marketing and GRRM's name plastered all over so the wheel turns again I guess.
It’s so fricking incredible that they don’t get why souls games were influential. We’re over 15 fricking years in and rather than say well this is my take on things or you were influenced by the game they have to take a super caustic defensive take to push the product and it ends up failing.
>with actual depth in its RPG mechanics
>thief class can't even steal from NPCs
>entire stat can be more or less ignored by every class
>cannot shut the frick up about how they are "recreating the genre" and how people should stop copying souls and diablo (which he did even harder than any comparable game)
It's true, at the end of the day, this game's looking to be an isometric Dark Souls with a significantly worse combat system. Maybe the multiplayer aspects will save it.
>Going with EA
Oh nononono.
He’s not exactly being unreasonable when not taken out of context.
I think what he’s missing is that, during the time when dark souls released, early access was a synonym for Scam. It wasn’t until games like warband, grim dawn, D:OS and DRG showed that the model could be sustainable and useful for multiple genres that the stigma finally fell away.
That said, I can’t see it catching on for AAA. The whole point of early access is to slowly work towards a stable point while adding more options, and it seems beyond AAA to do this without fricking up and tainting the game. Starship Troopers shows that a disastrous decision after a positive start can royally frick up prospects by causing a loss of trust.
>He’s not exactly being unreasonable when not taken out of context.
he is absolutely being unreasonable when taken in context. Have you seen his fricking game?
The fact that his game is shit doesn’t mean what he’s saying is wrong for a competent developer.
it does because it shifts the significance of many of his takes
>games become more complex and sophisticated, so early access is more important
however, within his comparisons, there are a few games that are entirely not sophisticated and significantly less complex/involved than older titles. So basically hes defending anyone being able to put out slop in an unfinished state while claiming that generic shallow titles are "much more complex than older games"
>i think certain big old games would benefit from early access because theyre unfinished and lack polish
trying to accuse a finished and not entirely, but mostly well polished game of being comparable to his actual fricked up garbage. Therefore, once again, trying to defend a growing issue of incompetence in game development while masking it as a reasonable point if it was defending actually proper games.
>especially if your product is accomplishing something new
hes trying to make products that accomplish nothing new pass off as new innovative things
>He’s not exactly being unreasonable when not taken out of context.
If he wants me to pay for a game that won't be finished for half a decade he better ask for the same price his game will sell for half a decade after release.
You want the community to meet you halfway, you actually need to come half of the way by yourself. And yet I go on steam and see standard pc game price.
you can get it for like $32, that's half the price of a standard pc game
No, that's half the price of an aaa game. This shit isn't aaa and it ought to retail at 40.
Also I'm seeing 39.99€ not 32, maybe steam is running a geolocked sale on the game.
you can get it for $32 on the private division site with some affiliate links.
either way, with the production value this game has, it is more worthy of $60 than most AAA titles
holy shit anon stfu
okay, you can go ahead and pay $70 for your next soulless trash AAA
>it is more worthy of $60 than most AAA titles
This is beyond unwarranted boot licking.
>I think what he’s missing is that, during the time when dark souls released, early access was a synonym for Scam
still is moronic zoomer bro.
This
> what he’s missing is that, during the time when dark souls released, early access was a synonym for Scam. It wasn’t until games like warband, grim dawn, D:OS and DRG showed that the model could be sustainable and useful for multiple genres that the stigma finally fell away.
Nope. He's missing exactly how much people hate Early Access because of all to vocal dickrider morons on Twitter. Early Access makes sure your game is
>boring an accessible because you're obliged to cater to morons
>understood inside and out by the community well before 1.0
>literally an inferior product for the first several months
It's dogshit. Imagine playing an Early Access game right at the start of EA. Great! Now you're playing the shittiest most unfinished version of that game you possibly could. What the frick would possess you to make sure your first 10 hours with the game are spent on the shittiest least complete version you're able to access?
>I think what he’s missing is that, during the time when dark souls released, early access was a synonym for Scam.
Still is
That's cool and all but why should I pay 35 eurobucks for the privilege of offering feedback to his team?
you are paying 35 eurobucks for the game moron
No, he is paying 35 eurobucks for a tiny slice of a game that one day might leave Early Access.
>one day might leave Early Access
there is no way this game won't leave early access, so you're just being disingenuous now.
like I said, you are pre-paying for a game
>there is no way this game won't leave early access
sure, in that the dev says "it's officially released" but they'll never actually "finish" the game because why would they? they've already been paid.
>there is no way this game won't leave early access
You don't know that. Games get stuck in early access hell all the time. Will this one? Probably not, but the risk is always there.
I bought Grim Dawn in early access and it's become one of my all time favorite ARPG's. And it's still getting content to this day. It was in EA at 2013 and left EA in 2016. It's now getting another large expansion coming out in only a few months.
I hate zoomers so much
why do you hate yourself so much?
Just don't buy it until release then you god damn moron.
What so complex about new games?
Ill just say if Dark Souls 1 was early access on PC, they wouldn't have needed a modder to fix their dogshit locked 30FPS framerate.
Completely agree.
Early Access is the future for vidya. Dragon's Dogma 2 is another good example;
In its current state it's pretty much an early access game being sold at full price when in reality Capcom should've sold their shit unfinished game at half of the price and increase the price after Early Access development(1.0 launch), if the issues still persist in 1.0 people who bought early access will just warn new buyers to not buy the 1.0 because it's unfinished.
If the 1.0 is finished people who waited for the full release can buy without expecting the buggy mess that was Dragon's Dogma 2.
People who bought early also get the benefit of paying less for the buggy release if still bad after the 1.0.
>DD2
>Buggy
Shitskin-kun just accept your poorgay rig is out of date and move on.
I'll buy Capcom kusoge once the price matches reality, U$35 or less with all expansions and bugfixes, keep licking Capcom's boot homosexual
That still doesn't make DD2 buggy you hideous moron
Imagine if George Lucas could have shipped Star Wars in early access.
>Thank you for the free beta testing!
>free beta testing!
if only it was free
you're paying to do their playtesting for them when it used to be the other way around
Lazy shit wants us to do his job for him
>doesn't even name BG3
I don't get why devs get so mad. BG3's a shite game for the most part, it just has very high production values.
To me the problem is using your consumers to do your work for you at their expense, but it's something these consumers are willingly buying into for some moronic reason and I imagine they'd be a hell of a lot better sample than pulling randos off the street who'd walk in circles for 2 hours in a cave with one fork in the path, so whatever I guess.
We love EA *obnoxious heart and thumbs up emojis*
Somebody tell that to the wildhearts team that got abandoned the second the game didn’t sell 10 million copies.
>EA
>It's 5 hours of game
>The rest is being held back for 1.0 frick you c**t we have your money
israelite.
>Dark Souls 1
>second half of the game unfinished
Did we play the same game?
>Y-you have to back track after getting the lordvessel
Yeah, and there's entire ass zones behind those gates. Except for one, but it's located in a skeleton rape cave covered in darkness that most people are going to nope the frick out of until the game forces them to go in it.
>lost izalith isn't unfinished
Come on now
>9 women can't make a baby in a month
What the frick did he mean by this
Doubling the number of people in a project won't suddenly make the project finish twice faster.
anon how do you think babies are made?
He has plenty of moronic comparisons
>the obsessed moron who screencapped the dev's tweets with his moronic captions is a moron who is unable to understand a simple analogy
imagine by shock
Well that's from their standpoint. Also I don't trust all developers like i trust Fromsoft.
For us, Early Access is simply anti-consumer. Studio can stay in EA indefinitely while consumer has no way of getting their money back if the game doesn't deliver. We're not investing in some project that might or might not release, we're customers.
>then EA is simply not for you
No. Customers are idiots which is why we have consumer protection law.
Also their best example which is Larian, was in EA for 3 years and still release with tons of bugs and unfinished endings
I don't really mind early access, as I would always wait for the finished product, I think the people upset about it are the ones with protagonist complex who are not willing to pay for early access and can't bear the fact other people are playing something before them. Otherwise early access feel more like opening development to the public.
People can cry "hurrr but they'll listen to plebbit and the game will become shit now!!" all they want, but that's up to the devs not the community, who are the ones actually developing the game and have the final say if they want to listen to morons or not.
People are upset because that moron argue every modern game should release in Early Access and pretend like it's all for the sake of development.
That matters little in the grand scheme of things, a shit game will always be a shit game, whether it used early access or not. We've had good games from early access (Grim Dawn) and shit games from early access, just like we've had good AND shit games with normal releases as well.
Seems like a dumb idea since early access never includes the late game areas that tend to be hit or miss with most people. It's basically just results in a thoroughly beta tested green hill zone
To be fair, in the current state modern vidya is releasing, going early access sounds like the best option we have right now, because the alternative is paying full price for an unfinished product full of bugs, or worse, what gran turismo 7 did with the full-price game plus the freemium model. At least with early access people are paying only half price for the same shit, and that's already an improvement over what we have right now.
Another hard-R realtard.
This screams like "Consoles are the future, PC gaming is dead" back in 2010.
>we couldn't have made this game without offloading the player testing to the players who already payed $40
sounds like you shouldn't have been allowed to make the game then if you can't justify the cost to create it. Frick this entitled dipshit.
>let's encourage the market to release games even more unfinished than they already have been
Just when you think we've reached the bottom of the barrel.
Bla bla bla excuses, excuses. Early Access is always wrong.
>going with EA is one of the best decisions we could've made
>worked for one of the most successful games in the last decade
>being up front and transparent that its EA
>Ganker still gets mad
How could you possibly give a frick? If it works for them and their players know what their getting the why are you crying about it?
Kys shill
>"No, often times you couldn't."
>No Man's Sky:
still a shit game because of its dogshit core btw
If early access is about bug fixes then why do you have to buy the game to play it in early access? Why do people have to pay you to bug test your game?
That's what betas have been for for the last two decades
They have the benefit of not beating a shitty unfinished game in a few hours and never touching it again. But yeah, it's free, so we can't have that
I'm not going to read that article but if they honestly believe early access darksouls would result in anything but homogenised, easy mode, streamlined slop they are fricking moronic and they can keep their focus tested, bullshit made for everyone and no one.
Could you imagine the star if the industry if Demon's Souls was an EA game?
early access is good because you can directly see its complete dogshit, and thus not be affected by fomo.
Irrelevant, you can also see a game without early access is shit by looking at the gameplay before buying it, that's not something exclusive to early access games.
Modern AAA games ARE early access, they just don't say it.
I honestly wouldn't complain if AAA studios just slapped "early access" label in their games, because even if they aren't broken at launch that is what they are with their preplanned content drips and post-release roadmaps.
Could be way worse, like Gigantic (an old moba that failed), coming back in 2024 with a price tag of 20$, no new feature, shitty servers and dwindling player base not even 2 weeks in
I'd be more willing to put up with early access if those games still got proper fricking release dates
It's always
>pay for the unfinished product now and you'll get the full thing in the future, it totally won't take over half a decade 😉
You're just a dumb cattle who need an arbitrary 1.0.0 number in order to feel compelled that you're getting a "finished product" when in reality it's the same shit regardless of the label they give it.
>I can't tell an unfinished game from a finished one
>probably because I watch games on youtube
Good to know. Meanwhile I can fricking tell when a game's missing content, animations, text or sounds by motherfricking playing it.
>le dumb meme reaction face
nothing else needs to be said
>no argument
If it produces stuff of this quality I don't care
They've done 4 hotfix patches in 4 days with substantial improvements in each one
>that backstab
man they really did just make an isometric souls game huh
> Soulslsop invented backstabs!
Fromslop 15 IQ post.
you're right, there's no comparison animation-wise or mechanically, it's just a coincidence
>disingenous c**t cries "SLOP SLOP SLOP SLOP SLOP SLOP" at the studio that obviously heavily influenced the game he's shilling
>quality
>braindead i-frame spam and backstabs
>overpowered lategame character that literally destroys all crucible enemies effortlessly, to mask how shit the combat looks when you actually need to attack a lot
lol
>overpowered lategame character
>lategame
The crucible IS the ENDgame. If you're struggling so much with this trash you have to be doing something wrong because these weapons aren't even maxed out and my daggers are still lv2.
You're going to have to elaborate on what you mean by "the combat looks shit when you need to attack a lot" because that sounds like some Ganker babble to me. Are you crying about the game having a stamina bar?
>combat you posted
brainlessly deleting enemies because youre overpowered
>combat before you get overpowered
comical levels of braindead iframe spam and backstab fishing and weightless garbage, where enemies can sometimes recover 0.2 seconds after you hit them with heavy things. Either ultra passive playstyles encouraged, or you find some mechanically braindead thing that makes extremely shallow offense crush everything
yes, the combat is okay at best, nothing new or impressive. at worst its just weightless undeliberate slop
this game tried to ape souls in 99 manners and didnt get a single lesson from any of these
you have a very limited stamine bar, how exactly does brainless iframe spam work when after 2 or 3 dodge rolls you're out of stamina and wide open for a counter attack?
> when after 2 or 3 dodge rolls you're out of stamina
what the frick are you on moron
you can chain like 6-7 dashes/rolls in a row in this game without investment on stamina
it takes 1 stamina to roll and it comes back so fast that you can roll as fast as a souls character when out of stamina
you see him go out of stamina in that clip tho
how does mashing dodge help you beat anything?
>how does mashing dodge help you beat anything?
i dont know anon, maybe because mashing the roll has near 100% iframe uptime
maybe because it recovers so fast that you can still chain into a backstab or several attacks effortlessly
Stamina doesn't balance dodging, it balances offensiveness, as
shows
NRFTW might just be the only Souls-like that kind of understood how stamina works in Souls games
>NRFTW rolls and dashes recover much faster than souls dodges and let you start attacking instantly, and 1 stamiana recovers instantly so you can always pull off charge attacks when you have a window, and rune attacks cost no stamina (in fact at one point they recover it all)
>and the dash covers a lot more distance over time
>and the dash can still be relatively rapidly performed when out of stamina
>and in general is a direct crushing upgrade to souls dashes that requires no skill whatsoever
>and also in a game where its pathetically easy to get massive stamina reduction and regenerating
>>"but its totally engaging and in depth dude, you totally need real strategy and skill here, it totally limits your offense, its totally not as overpowered as souls rolls"
some of you gays are genuinely delusional
>Stamina doesn't balance dodging, it balances offensiveness
I don't really think this is a better design than say, DS2 where both attacks and rolling are very expensive and also subject to long recovery times. If anything I'd rather see attacking be limited mostly by the commitment of your animations but I don't think stamina is a big issue with Wicked currently, the bigger issue for me is that all of those unique weapon movesets don't even get used because you just put the strongest Rune attacks on any weapon and spam them with infinite focus.
You don't understand how to minmax the game yet so you're doing things which are stupid and then getting fricked for it. Rune abilities are overpowered and Focus is nearly free on properly geared characters, one big issue with the game right now is that it is heavily focused on abusing the best Rune abilities and regular weapon movesets are undervalued - Just like launch and arguably current Elden Ring, where Ashes and jumping attacks are so much better than the unique movesets of your weapon class.
I'm hoping they fix that part, but if you're just hitting basic attacks into shields and getting yourself fricked then you should figure out how the game works before you complain about it.
are you moronic
im saying the game is easy. I just said that its even dumber when youre not yet overpowered like in your WEBMs where you can effortlessly get past enemy shields and 3 shot everything
i cleared the crucible at level 16
>complains a character is overpowered
>oh but the game is EASY btw OK
>being able to get overpowered effortlessly means the game is not easy
>the game already being brainless when not overpowered except you can easily get overpowered somehow means the game is not easy
are you moronic?
oh wait, you think this game's combat is somehow super impressive. i guess you do
>cleared crucible at level 16
Proof.
>done 4 hotfix patches in 4 days with substantial improvements in each one
homie, they anticipated it and thus "wow, this dev really care! ". It's an old trick, anon. You should learn one or two from it. That's why they go early access in the first place.
>launching with mixed reviews because the Chinese text is all fricked was ACKKKSHUALLY their cunning masterplan!
>hitting a blocking enemy in their great shield with a single light attack causes them to fall backwards on their ass for heavy punishment
Wow that's great and not moronic
hes extremely overpowered for the area
in which case i'd say its dishonest because not being overpowered makes it look even more shit
>hitting a blocking enemy in their great shield with a single light attack
It's not a light attack it's a Rune ability that deals low damage and is specifically designed to knock things over and I'm using it because the enemy is blocking with a great shield, dipshit. Play the game.
>soulslop
>but top down!!!
tiresome
Hotfixes can be done even when a project isn't early access.
It's 2D Dark Souls but it does look competent at least. Nice graphics.
this game looks fun as frick, why does it have mixed reviews on steam?
not optimized, runs like shit
probably the big reason
It was pretty hard when it first released because on death your equipped armor/weapons took a big durability hit so people were getting stuck in a losing cycle, they've since made death durability less punishing
sorry anon, it's now 70% and mostly positive
>Souls but you can't enjoy the environment or world
I hate it.
BUT. If you compare it to something like Diablo, then yeah this is fricking amazing i think. I'd much rather gravitate to this kind of gameplay vs. what isometric games like this has become.
>can't enjoy the environment or world
errrrrr
So... Are you trying to prove my point or what exactly?
The point being that you are an entirely soulless bot
You think that environment looks good? Do you see that nasty ass blurry overbloomed basic b***h color/contrast rock face?
No mister "human" tell me what you think looks good there? There's virtually no environmental story telling whatsoever, they don't even use the distance there to actually tell you anything about that opposing cliff side in the distance there because its blurred to fricking shit.
It's nothing, that little section is literally nothing. There's nothing to discern from it besides rocks you have to move past.
>anime reaction face
>t.hasn'tplayedthegame
big homosexual energy
That's better but you clearly do not understand what i mean. This kind of view is like, that one scene of going into Anor Londo, all fluff no substance, quite apt for how barren exploring most of Anor Londo is.
I mean looking through nook and crannies, finding little tells in the environment to find secrets and hidden areas that actually reward your observation.
THAT is environment environmental story telling to me, (As well as damaged areas, claws weapons/armors clues to what enemies or creatures are/were there, among certain set pieces that tell you what goes on there besides the visuals. Think the constant fires and burning bodies in the intro of Yarham in Bloodborne.) Simple "pretty" looking areas isn't enough for a video game.
Here's another MANGA (not a fricking anime you moron Black person), reaction for your worthless aspie ass too.
You can literally see a hidden chest in that webm
And I'll add to my initial observation, the nature of the Genre (and fricking brain dead players) is at fault here, not so much the game itself. I fricking despise diablo and it's clones these days, theyre all exactly the same, so this game actually having a more involved combat system is actually brilliant.
However, by nature of the the of game this is, the environmental front is very likely to falter on the sheer fact of the point of view.
I think i'll actually give this game a shot in a year or two or even three when they actually release a near or complete product.
Don't take constructive criticism so harshly when you're not even a dev.
>However, by nature of the the of game this is
Jeez, I stroked out; However, by nature of the genre that this game is"
what even WAS your point?
>can't enjoy the environment or world
Read you stupid monkey Black person, fricking read.
dude its dark souls but isometric so its different, buy now, jesus christ the souls games are such cancer
go back to your waifu visual novels nerd
Holy frick this is the definition of the dumbass term "soulless"
If the game is early access it should be mandatorily locked at $5 max until it full releases for the full price whatever they want
I think it’s fair if early access prices are much lower than the end products. EA buyers are essentially beta testing for free on top of funding the development of the game so it’s only fair they get a large discount.
What does a Diablo Clone have to do with Dark Slops? I hate this meme. It's worse than "Metroidvania" because apparently platformers didn't exist before Sloptendo.
Americans are fricking morons.
Which Diablo clone?
It's not our fault that you're too stupid to see where the direct inspiration is coming from. Obviously this is a mix of Diablo and Souls-slop. It's also very clear what people are talking about when they're referencing games that play like Super Metroid/Symphony of the Night. They're not inspired by some gay shit like Millon's Secret Castle.
have a nice day contrarian gay
>. Obviously this is a mix of Diablo
lol
Well yeah I'm playing by the factors brought up by the homosexual I was replying to. Isometric gameplay like Diablo, but everything else is just ripped from a Souls game. Not rocket science.
>Diablo invented isometric action games and Dark Souls invented combat games
Pure Gankercore
It's almost as though they're representative of the genre as a whole considering they're the most popular. Only an autistic contrarian is gonna be like "nuh uh, this game did it first!" when no one gives a frick about said earlier game, and it's extremely evident that these devs are copying the POPULAR game.
So yeah, the rope is waiting for you.
>pay us for the privilege of doing our beta testing
Classic.
Ah, yes, because current games don't release in an unfinished state and people still have to beta test them but this time they pay full price for it, classic indeed...
lmao the sheer fricking arrogance of these morons. Mind-blowing.
Nah.
>says Dark Souls would've benefitted
He's not wrong, all those souls games suffered from deadlines and incomplete content.
Early access would be fine if there was a guarantee that it would be released. As it is now devs can just keep their scams in EA forever with no repercussions, avoiding any sort of commitment or even reviews from critics.
Games shouldn't be in EA for longer than 2 years, if they can't release before the deadline they should be forced to refund everyone that bought it.
didn't read but I want to frick that girl
consumers have shit taste and want things to be like the things they're used to and if you give them too much say on the game's direction during development you're going to create slop
which is why Miyazaki is right to isolate himself from the opinions of people who want to turn FROM games into yet another open world co-op circlejerk
but isnt that what already happened with elden ring minus the co op?
tell that to the redditors crying that the seamless co-op mod is the only way they can enjoy the game
why is the main character built like a gorilla
they took inspiration from your mother
It depends.
On big passion projects that may need years, where the dev team is extremely small and lacks the resources to pay for R&D and QA? Sure.
But we all know why its used. To double-dip on marketing while getting paid for an extremely unfinished and unpolished turd. You get your "early access release" that brings in a bunch of sales, then you gradually increase the price more and more, getting a bunch of sales later on as you do your "full release" (which oftentimes still isn't finished).
>Dev tries to defend himself, but says moronic bullshit.
Devs have the weakest ego ever
Early Access has been the default for most titles for years now.
My issue with this thinking is that it leads to the developers being entirely dictated by players instead of just influenced by players.
Crowd pleasers are vapid. Sometimes the most important parts of a game are the part you don't like.
Demon's Souls' primary design inspiration was doing things to piss the player off. Do you really think Early Access twitch chats would have liked the idea that dying over and over makes the game harder?
Over the last few years I've seen so many interesting indie games that were in development start discord servers for fan feedback and then start radically changing their games in line with the tastes of the people in those servers for the worse.
You also have a massive selection bias of people who play early access games to begin with. And if you're not a strong willed dev you're just going to cave to pressure regardless of your vision because you think appealing to the people who already bought it will make you sell more copies
Have there been any that actually improved for the better? Pizza Tower maybe?
ultrakill
deep rock
two games mechanically far more ambitious than no rest for the slopped
I've seen more of the exact opposite, where devs ignore player feedback while pocketing their cash.
whose fault is it that every other game is a roguelike? there were so many good game ideas on steam's last demo fest ruined by roguelike mechanics. i played a couple of them, they sucked ass.
i wanna take a wiffle bat to their shins.
Few things worse than being dictated by people who use discord. Even ignoring the scum who claw at such opportunities to shove their shit everywhere, the average person is moronic, has no clue what they want, and will just try to prioritize whatever biases they hold while eliminating anything that threatens whatever they want to believe. Nothing but sterilization of the vision when you pander to an audience.
I checked their official discord and the "Feedback" channel is just a pinned post which directs people to the forum and no chat is allowed
Demon's Souls was already casualized.
It was supposed to have permadeath from dying in Soul form, which would have been a lot more interesting than playing Cling Ring 24/7 and I would have loved to play that version of Demon's Souls actually, but would have required a rework of how Stone of Ephemeral Eyes can be obtained and stacked and how healing and MP recovery works.
Early access can actually help developers finetune mechanics and designs that are bold and could ruin a game with no chance to finetune and correct it.
An example in NRFTW adding durability which pisses off morons that throw themselves at bosses without understanding and learning them, very similar to an impactful Sekiro Dragonrot but for your gear
Nothing is stopping you from starting a new character when you die- the reason you don't do it is because it's not a fun gimmick after the first time and it actively discourages the experimentation that Demons Souls did better than any other Souls game, and funnels players into playing as passively and safetly as possible at all times.
You are just making excuses. Permadeath pisses you off so you don't want it. How do you get to decide what is a game mechanic that should be kept and what isn't? Sounds like you are giving your feedback and attempting to influence the game.
I hate to tell you this man but Demons Souls was released 15 years ago and is no longer in active development. Great post though.
That's irrelevant, you are being an hypocritical homosexual.
You cry players would be able to influence for the worse game design in early access games as developers pander to them, but also ignore that there's many other influences on directors.
Feedback and testing can be used positively and even confirm or help developers refine the game
I didn't say any of that though, I said that you can play Demons Souls and still delete your character on the death, and that I don't think it would be a fun idea to do so more than once. I think you are confused or an idiot.
that doesn't matter.
Demon's Souls was casualized by Sony feedback
oh i wish these games had a hardcore mode like diablo
new game ++++++
>le white men holding le heckin' powerful western white female (the most privileged creature on this planet) down
I don't even need to play that game to know it's pozzed trash.
I'm glad I'm not this mentally ill
>I'm glad I can't notice patterns
Ignorance is a bliss, enjoy it.
>Players are reporting it's hard to hit things, we need to make the combat snappy and responsive
SO THEY'RE FINALLY HERE
He's the leader of the bunch, you know him well
He's finally back to kick some tail
WOULD
I think video games should release fully complete and have all of the content they're ever going to contain on the first day of their release with no additional or optional extra purchases. If you can't do that then you're bad at the job of developing a game.
i dont care about op b***hing, i just wanted to say how much i like the armor design in this game
i cant beat that stupid homosexual, 4v1 my balls
once you learn to parry darak he's a piece of cake. he has really slow, telegraphed swings. trust me.
horrifying monkey arms
Well, BG3 did it, so...
The funny thing about BG3 is that it has basically the same issue he is accused Dark Souls of having. Despite being in early access for years, the last Act is still a complete mess compared to the earlier two, especially the first. It had absolutely no positive effect on how the studio created a holistic game.
The early acess had only the first act for a long time, that's the joke.
Larian never put their final acts in EA, and they always suck, since divinity
>just decided to start spamming backstabs
>>tfw it completely breaks the combat vs normal sized humanoids
holy frick, you can miss-roll 333 times and still roll more times. then you roll a frickton of times against said attack and you still get a backstab
an enemy can throw some shit from really far away, you can still roll to him so fast that you land a backstab before he leaves his animation
That is how it is vs normal enemies in DS1 too, circle strafe is super fricking strong in DS1 and to an extent even DS3
>circle strafe in ds1 is super strong
>meanwhile braindead roll mashing in NRFTW is super strong and sometimes circle strafe gets you fricked because enemy tracking on chain attacks is all over the place, so it just wants you to do something even more brainless instead
yes, its a downgrade. the roll in this game is at least 5x stronger than DS1 rolls
Every single game after DS1 made the roll stronger/take less stamina. They took BB's stamina management and made that the baseline for all future games. We aren't really going to pretend FROM's games are well balanced or thought out? Its add more anime attacks on bosses, when its too much make rolls cost less stamina. Issue solved.
>Every single game after DS1 made the roll stronger/take less stamina.
Not only we were talking about ds1..
and yet the roll in DS3-ER is still significantly less overpowered than the roll in NRFTW
How is this roll any more overpowered than the ones in recent FROM games? You can absolutely chain a ton of rolls together in those games, but a single swing of a Claymore is a full third of your stamina bar. Weaving attacks and rolls is much harsher on your stamina bar here than in ER.
If anything i was judging more by dark souls 1, but still, see
>meanwhile braindead roll mashing in NRFTW is super strong
MEDIUM roll specifically is too good, because for some reason the roll has no real recovery time and can be instantly cancelled into another roll. It looks like an oversight.
Meanwhile LIGHT roll has extended recovery frames at the end of the dodge and is much more vulnerable while also giving you far less mitigation. If you want the game to be more challenging just play Light, the fashion is better.
>If you want the game to be more challenging just play Light, the fashion is better.
i might have overlooked that then, ill go play light and get back to you.
I still feel like light dashes were insanely braindead, but if its as worse as you describe then yeah thats a significant upgrade to the gameplay
roll spam is a little too easy once youve invested any points into stamina. hopefully they take feedback like yours and make it less thoughtless and more balanced.
imagine how much better bosses like human Darak would be if they were less about rolling constantly against chain attacks with extreme tracking, and instead it actually made you avoid the attacks by actually dodging them
They are right, Dark Souls would have been less unfinished
it also would've been even easiear
I was legit hyped about this game
Loved Ori so thats a point for the devs and i love arpgs...
Then it released
Thanks for the refund policy steam, never been so disappointed about a game before but then again i dont usually get hyped
That will teach me
In a year or 18 months i ll pirate it and see if it has improved then decide if im picking it up at a discount but holy frick this shit underdelivered
Frick no. Take your time, make the damn game and polish the frick out of it with zealous autism. You can even add your garbage gacha lootbox bullshit too, just finish the fricking game first.
Dumbasses reinvented beta testing and think they're the saviors of gaming.
I like the game. I'm having *FUN*. Unfortunately I've completed all content.
But I did get 30+ hours out of an Early Access title so I'm pretty happy with it. Definitely looking forward to release.
I couldn't have thought of a more moronic opinion. the way this game was more than "underpolished" shows that they just wanted beta testers who PAY to test the game at the expense of their own time. fricking ridiculous.
What a fricking idiotic take.
> early access soulslop
daring today aint we
from software should have been nuked from day one after they destroyed the entire action genre
Early access dark souls sounds like an absolute nightmare if it came out today. People would be demanding to get rid of stamina and limited estus. There would be nothing to discover like ashlake because everyone already played and datamined every patch.
24$ on grey market sites and its not worth that much
but if you are resolute on trying this dumpster fire then... might as well save a bit
Too lazy to make a webm.
>https://streamable.com/bl0zan
I went strength faith and big armor and big shield like I do with all of these games. It's pretty fun. I'm enjoying it a lot.
The exploration and maps are really nice. Combat is pretty basic but the animations are fantastic.
My only issue so far is inventory management. It sucks. Items need to stack higher and maybe even give us a bigger inventory.
>Heavy shield BOUNCES the massive abomination swings
absolutely mad
It's pretty cool. Aside from Bosses, I don't think any one doesn't get staggered. With Health on Block and Focus on Block, it's damn cool. Damage sucks compared to just pure dex though. Killing the Echo Knight on this guy takes me about.... 5 minutes. Killing Echo Knight on my Dex guy takes like 30 seconds.
I want to make an Int build. Someone said it's good.
I can't see how INT is good
>blues/purples give you 2 total slots for spells/runes
So you are waiting for a legendary that comes with 4 spells+good affixes or you are stuck with a white.
>blues/purples give you 2 total slots for spells/runes
Don't use blues or purples. The colours are misleading, the best weapons are White with good gems in.
From what I understand, blues and purples are actually shit. They're like... what you use when you don't have the proper gems and whatnot to craft something you specifically want. It seems weird at first, but yeah, that seems to be how it is at this level. Maybe it'll change later on.
As for INT, I saw a guy kill the Echo Night in like 10 seconds with Int. Though now that I'm looking for the video, I can't find it. I can't tell if he was just vastly overleveled though because he had frick tonnes of Focus. Or if he just put all his points into Focus and Int.
>shields are actually good
Nice. I might buy this.
I would rather buy something in early access than preorder, I bought kenshi back in ~2012 when it was just a flat desert with vague rpg and building mechanics back in like 2011 and I regret nothing
obviously some people take the piss with it but there are a lot of great games that have been birthed from EA, one of the biggest problems with a lot of indie projects is that they're a stunted game built around some really cool ideas, this way indie and smaller devs can flesh shit out while they generate dev funds
Also he's not wrong about dark souls, it would've been way better if up to Anor londo was EA and they actually had time and money to finish the last half
i boughted project zomboid when it was a flash game on a website
then i had to boughted it again when it released on steam because i couldn't claim the old one as mine.
EA is cancer
not a problem on steam, dumbass
When they start talking about what other companies shouls have done with their games instead of talking about your own you know their game is shit.
No
Provided it's used honestly to slowly improve a game rather than just as an excuse to ship an incomplete product, sure. But as a general rule an early access title shouldn't be more than 20 dollars. This incentivizes the devs to actually finish their work and put out a complete product that they can charge full price for.
>they want dark souls to be early access shite like still unfinished tech demo blade and sorcery somehow the best vr game still to this day
was covid weaponized moronation or?
Why do these devs respond to criticism at all on social media? I can't remember it ever turning out well for them. Usually just digs them into deeper shit. The only games that recovered their reputation were the ones that put their heads down and worked on patches to actually change shit. Talk is cheap and easily twisted to your antagonist's ends
>and Nintendo
The ones who manage their development correctly?
early access is a fricking scam.
Get some pro testers you lazy and moronic devs.
>pretty much all the godly enchanted/cursed weapons i get are on stats i didnt invest in
fml
>people pay 35€ to beta test a game
you can't make this shit up, PC "gamers" are literal goyims
>buy early access
>play for 40+ hours
>refund
>pay unfinished slop for 40h
damn you really are moronic
Paying 35€ to beta test a game is better than paying €80+ on a "full" game.
At the very least Early Access admits the game is incomplete, which may or may not be completed after some time but you're not paying full price
>but you're not paying full price
Sure, but you're also still paying way too much for a proudly-incomplete product. If the intent of early access is really just to get the product out there so the devs can give the players an opportunity to play and give feedback then the games should launch at a massive discount, if not totally free. Regardless of the intent you're buying into a promise that the game will eventually be completed, which is by no means a guarantee. That's quite a boon to be given to a dev, for them to be able to profit off of an unfinished product, one they could easily abandon at any time.
>That's quite a boon to be given to a dev, for them to be able to profit off of an unfinished product, one they could easily abandon at any time.
Devs already do this even when it's not early access, might as well get the benefit of a cheaper product.
Dark Souls 2nd part is still unfinished, which will probably be sold in a remake in the near future instead of just updating the old game for free like it should have been from the very start lol
>Dark Souls 2nd part is still unfinished
There's a difference between a game being rushed and sloppy and a game being unfinished. Dark Souls is finished. It is a complete experience with a proper ending. They obviously starting cutting corners later in the game due to time constraints, but that just means the vision is incomplete, not that the game itself is unfinished. If having an incomplete vision is the same as the game being unfinished then most games would be considered unfinished, especially in the last two decades. There are very few AAA games that don't leave stuff on the cutting room floor.
I only bought Hades after it left early access and I hated how I apparently missed out on a lot of conversations because I beat it too quickly, because most of the convos were there to tide people over during early access when it used to just kill you at the end of content
How good are the DEX builds?
I assume all types of knives, katanas, reapers, spears are all dex?
Reaper is Dex Faith I believe. Spears are Str DEX I think? The others... I think they're all pure dex.
Oh and yeah, Dex is powerful. Better than STR by a long shot. I haven't tried Reapers or Spears though.
Is there a level cap?
No idea. I only got to level 29 before I stopped playing. I got 34 hours out of the early access and decided that was it for me. I completed the campaign. Built up the town. Completed the End Game Dungeon several times. Brother played Dex where I played Str. He was a lot stronger than me.
>I only got to level 29 before I stopped playing
The level cap is 30, the highest gear requirements are lv21
Webms do not show an overpowered *character* they show a player using the overpowered rune attacks
>I assume all types of knives, katanas, reapers, spears are all dex?
Varies, you will find a lot with random INT/FTH requirements early on. I have not found any pure DEX Reaper yet, there is a 26 STR / 26 DEX Spear later in the game. Katanas are fairly early with just 26 DEX requirement. The first Dagger upgrade is 16 STR / 16 DEX
>Is Moon Studios right about early access needing to be the new normal?
No, and I hope this game flops now.
Even the "good" early access games that supposedly benefit suck shit for people that buy them at the proper release because they are often patched worked together from content that was created piece meal for early access customers instead of forming a coherent game.
It's doubly worse when they bloat to unreasonable amounts of unlocks that were used to feed the EA crowd sufficient content so they stop whining
The highlight of the game is the level design and verticality to the areas. Its crazy how much looping back there currently is, but you can already see shortcuts from areas not in the game to earlier parts of the game to facilitate the world replacing its enemies so going back is worth it.
Yeah, I was definitely impressed with that. The combat is pretty basic, though the animations are fantastic. But the game really shines with it's exploration. Honestly reminds me of the first half of Dark Souls 1.
SUCH good level design. even exploring the rooftops of the hub town was fun.
>12 hours in, I realize the town connects DIRECTLY to the Glades
Would have helped for farming to have a new route out but didn't find it until later
That UI is horrendous--the sleak minimalism, the chevrons, sans serif font. Just so tonally inconsistant with the game
>reach the second checkpoint
>there's an item above me
>frick up and fall down, expect to die from fall damage
>i actually land in water in a completely separate side area that allows me to bypass even freeing a smith dude
Rattigan pls, I didn't have anything to do with you getting arrested, why are you swearing vengeance on me instead of the guy arresting you?
You only get to launch a game once, make it count.
man gamers are buck broken...
>company has a team
>decides to cut cost at a lower managerial position by getting rid of QA testing
>QA testing migrated to India or Vietnam for pennies
>CEO gets another 25% salary increase
>QA team sucks donkey dick because that's the sort of quality you get from there
>QA cannot be done on game properly
>Use "Early access" excuse to ship half-assed game AND force customers to PAY for it
They could have released a free demo for you to have a taste of the game AND QA their game for FREE. But no, you morons actually want to PAY for that...
Ask for free short demos, not for early access.
>force customers to PAY for it
>force customers
>force
this is your brain on CONSOOM
Early Access is a crutch for financially irresponsible dev studios.Work within your means, don't expect people to pay for ideas instead of substance.
>tools have higher durability, went from 6 hits to now 3 to break nodes. Iron does the low tier nodes in 1 hit.
So the last big change I need is crafting/projects from chests directly. It feels like this wasn't added because it might frick with MP but its a no brainer really.
Maybe besides that, locking in an affix, and being able to reroll the rest instead of needing an entire new weapon.
>EA
>holding parts of the game back
>They are literally ready to be given to players you know EA
>FRICK YOU WAIT NO GAME FOR YOU
israelites.
>Dipshits reinventing the wheel
Yea, we used to call this concept a 'demo' a decade ago.
It's not a demo. It's paying to be a tester
they should be paying us to play test
These specials are actually giving me a huge Vagrant Story break art nostalgia
>that close up camera
I want it
CAN I PLAY AS A MAGE OR AN ARCHER? OR DOES THIS GAME WITH THE RNG LOOT FORCING ME TO PLAY WITH SHIT WEAPONS???
You can and from what i've seen mages are decently powerful since they can generate focus without hitting enemies
Bows are sidearms for 1h dex builds, they are pretty fun to use if you stack enough focus regeneration but you can't really play a full bow build
>you can't really play a full bow build
You can because you can make the basic shot recover Focus instead of spending it, but the damage is low
>Paying money to do QA for the game.
Hmmm interesting.
I'm gonna trust the anons that played it, seems cool. Will play (pirate)
i keep getting my shit pushed in by this game. it's annoying.
What weapons are you using? I found it much easier after switching to claymore
Azure blade lvl 6
>No Rune attacks
>No healing on hit
So this is going to suck because your basic attacks aren't going to interrupt regular enemies and you're going to bounce off shields. You're still very early in the game though, so you should be able to slowly push through things but I would look at sticking any decent Rune attack in that empty slot so you can reliably pound stuff when needed. Otherwise remember you can backstab in combat.
Game is just weird, i'm actually not sure how it could evolve over the course of new chapter unless the enemies get to a new level of insane when it comes to the basic soul formula. At this point it almost feels like i'm playing a game like diablo which makes mowing down hordes of enemies rather trivial.
The whole healing and death related systems are also pretty bad to the point they sometime don't make much sense.
I don't really see the issue some people have with the stats, it's equally as boring as it was in soul, i guess the weapon scaling is not as in depth but this does't matter whatsoever honestly, if anything it's better this way.
I can see why they are happy to put this thing in EA, it definitely needs some huge changes, but it's relatively decent overall, the best part is clearly exploring the map, they need to keep up the same quality going forward.
I don't mind early access but I won't buy your game until it releases. Frick paying to beta test for devs
>creating games is easier than ever with idiotproof engines and AI
>somehow modern indie devs have so much trouble putting out a game that they "need" public play testing and still struggle to put out a finished product
How the frick could people back in the 90s release complete experiences all on their own, with worse hardware, more obtuse solutions and a much higher entry barrier then? Can anyone explain this shit?
I didn't even know that game existed who?
this looked interesting right up until i saw the stamina bar. Pure garbage
There's no discussion to be had about this topic until it releases in 1.0.
If it's a masterpiece, then yeah, they're right and this model should be the new standard. Until then, we'll see.
I'm going to play devils advocate here and argue for early access by saying that it CAN let the developer interact with the community better and shape the game with player insight. Some EA games have benefitted greatly from this model in the past and I don't wanna see it go away entirely. However, most EA games aren't managed well and can end up going to shit very easily. You need a really good concept and a competent dev that is willing to recognize their mistakes and accept feedback. Having a decent portion of the game finished and working also helps as opposed to some half broken v0.1 with no content.
Early access doesn't necessarily mean bad in terms of the overall game and i've played plenty of EA games that have more than double the content that finished titles have. Starsector is a good example of a successful EA title (and it's still in EA), and space engineers would be a bad one where it's success has only fueled the dev's laziness and greed.
>Some EA games have benefitted greatly from this model in the past
unironically name 5
I always regretted buying EA games
>Early access doesn't necessarily mean bad in terms of the overall game
You're a fricking liar
99% of Early Access games are shit and never get finished. You're fighting for a 1% of games, and I'm willing to bet that 1% is roguelike garbage that requires like 0 effort in designing new area and bosses anyway
99% of modern games are shit regardless of early access or not, so i don't know what point you're trying to make here, there's no difference anymore
And EA has a bigger problem in that they're literally unfinished and the devs have no obligation to finish the damn game. They can just pocket the money and release another game.
>literally unfinished
sounds like modern vidya with their day 1 patches and shit, you are living in the past when they used to be good, wake up soon and realize the problem applies to "fully released" games now
Do you understand that you're actively defending this exact practice you're criticizing?
I'm just pointing out the flaw in your argument, early access and non-early access games suffer from the same problem currently, it is not exclusive to one or the other, the only difference is a label for morons like you who think a game might be finished or not (pro-tip: they never are)
Early Access is cancer and needs to be abolished.
I think it's fine if devs actually respond to feedback and update regularly
>early access
Most games who spend time in EA gets destroyed by player feedback.
I would never purchase any EA game.
You speak as if normal released games can't get destroyed later on with a balance patch or something, this is not something exclusive to early access games and you tards can't even connect the dots.
Early access can be good for games that are almost entirely gameplay focused where you're focusing on improving the only thing you're offering. A massive part of the Souls magic is in exploration and the unexpected. Not knowing what you're going to find or what's going to be thrown at you. Even really minor stuff like static treasures to find makes learning where something is a meaningful experience. It's not just randomly dropped slop from loot pinatas. Knowing more about a Souls game before playing and seeing it constantly changed because of feedback would be a terrible loss.
people still hold onto that retro view that non-early access games are good because they were good back when early access didn't exist, but the truth is modern games do not have good quality anymore regardless if they'er early access or not, so you are correlating it with different times which can't be applied anymore
who?
>Dark Souls would’ve benefited from early access
There are probably some takes out there that are more moronic, but I’m struggling to think of one right now
He's right though, the second half of Dark Souls was rushed and shitty because From were pressured by Bandai to release before Skyrim came out
>t-the second half...
Early access generally means working on the first half, the second half would be just as unfinished
The second half of EA games always sucks, this proves literally nothing.
anon V1.0 of DaS was insanely different from the game after patches
to the point where when xbox accidentally uploaded the 1.0 version to their games with gold, it was a big event here to go back and experience the game like that
I don't agree with early access overall but if your game's getting updated so drastically so soon without adding content, it was basically early access
>Beta testing is expensive. Please understand.
EA good for highly experimental indie games where the devs figuring things out with heavy community feedback
for anything else its trash
>those gigantic thighs and huge asses on female characters
If I can't transform into a fleshy multi limbed horror that makes john carpenter's "the thing" look like an angel, you can miss me with the gay shit. I want to unleash swarms of flies that will shit maggots down my enemies throats, I want to put a seed of a man eating tree in their gut and watch it erupt out of them.
But we all know this will be the most basic cookie cutter shit.
It's an artificial problem. If publishers didn't pull Milestone bullshit and cared about a polished product that would sell, the dev teams wouldn't require emergency funding by selling the game earlier in order to complete it.
When does this shit come out on PS5? There are no infos anywere beside "soon lol".
Early access is only acceptable for low income indies who need that funding to keep the project going, or kickstarters.
The scope of Wicked is above the size of its small developer/publisher, that's why its plausible that they can't easily fund the full project outright
>The scope of Wicked is above the size of its small developer
Then maybe they should..
...hire more people?
You can't tell me a developer who sold succesful games like the Ori slop can't afford to expand.
for
The wrong way to do it
>Getting player opinions to fix minor gripes
The right way to do it
>Getting player opinions to fix game-breaking bugs and major balance issues
no way gay
most games need a year of patches to get fixed
it just depends if the developer is honest about it
most AAA trash needs patches to get fixed
not most games
>13 years later
>another developer being a Dark Souls worshipper and ripping it off for their own game
"Reinvent the genre" my ass.
just don't buy games unless they're fully released or you want to support the developers
homosexual