Sorry but this is just bulshit. "given its size, it is almost a game on its own." This sentence is used a lot, used for Witcher dlcs before and it can't be a reasoning. It is still a dlc.
By size I don't mean just volume: Erdtree has its own map, its own story lines, enemies, NPCs, progression. Really the only thing that firmly connects it to the main game is that you can bring in your existing player character. If they had released it as a standalone game, it wouldn't have been very different from its DLC form, I think.
and also, crap award event. You don't have to be a genius to see this is rigged and biased.
It's very much a show by and for the games industry. There can be quite a gap between what the industry thinks and what players think, especially this year where some big budget games flopped hard. Despite what it is, I still think it's fun starting point for discussion.
Are you upset that a DLC for Elden Ring was included in the running for Game of the Year?
Not really: given its size, it is almost a game on its own.
I can't get upset about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth either, since while it is a remake, it changes things up quite a bit, so it's not just the same game in a new coat of paint. However, while Silent Hill 2 got a generally positive reception, that game did lean very heavily on the original, which is a good thing in this case, but it raises the question of how much it really is a 2024 game.
What I am upset about is "Most Anticipated Game", because I don't think we should be celebrating hype. Hype leads to pre-orders, which reduce the punishment for games launching in a broken state. It's also a lot easier to generate hype for a sequel compared to something new. So hype helps sustain the games industry's bad habits.
I'm surprised I don't see Satisfactory (1.0 this year) and the Factorio DLC on the list: those were pretty big releases and very well received.
At least my personal favorite, Animal Well, is on the list. I think that's the game from 2024 that I'll remember most.
Interesting to see Dragon Age didn't make the cut in the Best RPG category. Opinions were quite mixed about that game, but I would have expected it to at least get nominated.
First I tried Shapez 2, an abstract factory builder which despite having just launched in early access is very polished. I got through all of the "campaign" (no story, but a series of tasks that become more challenging as you progress). The end game is to build a "make anything machine" and while mine does work, it cannot build everything yet (no crystals) and it could be optimized quite a bit still. I got a bit burned out by the end, but I put in over 100 hours and I'm likely to pick it up again in the future.
Yesterday the 1.0 release of Satisfactory happened and I've been playing that with friends. So far I haven't seen all that many changes compared to early access, but there are snippets of lore added (the alien artifacts now do something) and some quality of life improvements. We picked a different starting location from last time, so that already makes the game different. Highly recommended if you like building stuff. You might start out building spaghetti factories, move on to carefully planned efficient factories and in the end acquire an appreciation for brutalist architecture.
Would a new player actually benefit from adding all those DLCs? DLCs can add mechanics, events and customization options. More mechanics is probably a net negative if you're still learning the basics, extra events is not really necessary if you haven't experienced all the base events yet and more customization options is nice but the base game does offer enough for at least a few playthroughs.
Like most players, I'm not immune to FOMO: I really had to convince myself to just buy the X4 base game and not think about getting DLCs until I've put in a few dozen hours.
A game that I personally really like is Stellaris. I used to play Master of Orion 2 a lot and Stellaris delivers a more complex and refined version of that. It's not a 1:1 replacement though. Stellaris plays quite slow; expect one game to take a week rather than an afternoon. And MoO has a stronger personality, in the sense that the alien races are clear archetypes. Stellaris does have some lore, but is more subtle and spread out among a lot of randomly generated stuff. This does make Stellaris more varied in subsequent games, but not as immediately gripping.
I was thinking of picking up X4, as I really enjoyed watching Perun play it.
I've been playing Monster Sanctuary, a metroidvania with turn-based monster combat (similar to Pokemon, I think, but I've played very little Pokemon). Both the exploration and the combat are done well, but I don't think it's an ideal combination, as the detailed but therefore slow combat doesn't match the faster pacing of the platforming exploration. Still, I'm invested in the combat and upgrade system now, so I'll probably play more of it.
I also still want to finish Shadow of the Erdtree. I got to the end boss a few weeks ago, but then my desktop PC broke and this game is too heavy to play on my laptop.
I haven't gone back to Hearthstone and now that I'm off the treadmill I don't think I will jump on again.
It's hard to compare it to any other DLC, because it's so massive in scope: it's almost a sequel. I haven't finished it yet (although I think I'm pretty close) and I've been playing almost daily since it came out.
By the way, I think Miyazaki said the map was larger than Limgrave, so technically that is true, even if it is misleading. You already mentioned that there are parts of the map where very little happens, which was almost never the case in the base game. It might have benefited from a slightly smaller map.
I like the verticality of the world, although maybe they went a bit too far, as it becomes quite complex to navigate at times and the top-down map isn't very useful once you have 3 layers at different heights at the same 2D location.
Overall I'm having a great time. I like how much of the story is happening now, rather than most of it having happened long ago.
What I'm not a fan of is how little breathing room there is in the fights. I like being able to look at the boss after summoning a spirit, instead of blindly rolling to the side because I know the boss will be hitting my original position half a second later. Not only is it more comfortable to play, it also makes the fight more cinematic if you have short moments of rest every now and then, when you can take in the battlefield as a whole instead of only focusing on health bars and hit boxes. I defeated Bayle by doing nothing but dodging and poking at the closest body part, paying attention only to the mechanics and never feeling like I was in an epic fight. Which is a pity, because the road there had a fantastic atmosphere.
In particular I don't understand why the NPC summoning signs were placed inside the battle arenas. They give you the opportunity to call for help, but then force you to find the sign, walk there and navigate a clumsy UI while being under constant attack. This wouldn't have been so bad if battles started slow like in the base game. Maybe technically the boss AI starts at the same time, but the DLC bosses move at a ridiculous pace and can cross the distance to the player in no time.
The Blessings system has its drawbacks, both in people hitting difficulty walls if they don't explore enough or cruising past bosses if they do explore thoroughly. However, I don't know if it is possible to design a system that equalizes DLC stats between players without ignoring their very different main game progressions; it seems like two contradicting requirements. I was probably over-blessed, as I defeated several bosses on the second try and I'm not that skilled in combat. Personally, I don't mind though, as my favorite part of the game is exploring the world and bosses can be obstacles to that. I'd rather have a boss that puts up too little of a fight than a boss I get stuck on.
Thanks for the tips. Although I know the basics, there are still quite some buff opportunities that I missed and that might become useful if I'm stuck on a boss.
I'm actually having an easier time with the DLC than I had with the base game. Some of the bosses I got in the second try and even the ones I did have trouble with only took me a dozen or so attempts. Part of the reason is likely that I went on a personal quest to unlock as much of the map as possible, so I found a lot Scadutree Fragments early. I think I had blessing level 7 before I even started taking on bosses. I'm at blessing level 11 now and I haven't finished the DLC yet, although it feels I'm approaching the end game.
For the curious, the bosses that I had most trouble with so far were:
Show Spoiler
Scadutree Avatar and Messmer.
There is a Flamedrake Talisman +3 and it doesn't require defeating any bosses as far as I recall, or maybe one mini-boss. It offers slightly more protection as the +2, so while it's not a game changer, it is a strictly better alternative. There are a lot of enemies using fire damage in this DLC, so tracking this one down is probably the most worthwhile of the lot.
If you have high Strength or Faith (both is even better, but not necessary), I can recommend the Anvil Hammer as a weapon. It has carried me through much of the map and even some of the boss fights. With most enemy types, if you can land the first hit, you can keep them staggered until they're dead. The attack is not as slow as it looks; my guess is that a lot of time is spent to lift the weapon again after a swing, but because the enemy needs time to recover from the hit, you are allowed that time if you're in a one-on-one fight with anything that is not super sturdy.
You can find it early in the game too:
Show Spoiler
It's the reward for solving the Ruined Forge Lava Intake puzzle dungeon.
Maybe it's interesting if the gyros turn out to be useful, but otherwise I don't really see a significant advantage over other controllers, at least when used with a PC where I also have access to keyboard and mouse for games that weren't primarily designed for controllers.
Steam claims the DLC will unlock in less than an hour, so significantly earlier than the map shows for my region (CEST). We'll see which is correct. Edit: The Steam counter just jumped up 5 hours, so unfortunately the map was right.
I had a relatively easy time defeating Mohg, skipping his second phase entirely. It was probably a combination of having a bleed build combined with being over-leveled, as I only found out about his existence when I started reading wikis in the end game; I played the early game avoiding most spoilers.
While the story and atmosphere of Tainted Grail are indeed excellent, mechanically it has some issues, in my opinion. As you start, the combat system is relatively complex and a lot of combos are impossible to trigger because your characters have insufficient stats. Maybe this was intentional to emphasize that the player characters were a choice of desperation, but it doesn't feel great to play.
Combat gets better as you progress in the story and unlock stat upgrades, skills and useful items. But as you progress to later story chapters, the encounter decks become more monster-heavy, which has the side effect of providing more XP but less food, which means you'll have to fight more often to gather enough food and will get loads of XP. So where the early game was difficult and slow to progress, the mid-game is grindy but not as tense.
We also had an issue where we took a wrong turn on the map: we investigated an area where we could only discover things in later chapters. However, this wasn't clear until we had spent all our resources and were stuck in a place where it was impossible to recover them. So we had to revert back to the start of the chapter and explore in a different direction.
That said, when the game does work, it is awesome, full of gritty descriptions and difficult choices. We will likely finish the game for its story, although I don't think I'd be up for a second playthrough. Maybe other people feel the same way, in that case getting a second hand copy for a more reasonable price might be an option for you. While the game has legacy elements, that's implemented as deck building and one double-sided paper record sheet, so it should be easy enough to reset a game to its starting state.
The four-player limit is a hard limit though: the player characters all have dedicated story content, so even if you could mechanically fit in a fifth player, they would just be a sidekick without a story line.
Maybe it will start thoughtful, but then they'll expect the revenue from ad placements to grow every year and under that pressure the limits of "thoughtful" will be stretched again and again.
I haven't gone back to Hearthstone yet and as time passes it becomes less likely that I will.
I have started on Eldritchvania, which as the name suggests is a metroidvania with Lovecraftian elements. It seems very much inspired by La Mulana, but the lore is easier to follow due to clearer writing and a lore fragments interface that is auto-ordered and has infinite capacity. This is important, because both in this game and La Mulana, many essential puzzle clues come from lore fragments. It's pretty good, especially for a free game. It's not easy though; if the difficulty ramps up more, I'm not sure I'll stick with it until the end.
I'm also doing a round of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor every now and then. It's still fun, but I am at a point where progression slows down, so I'm not doing one run after another anymore.
Today a Stellaris expansion released and the first reviews on Steam are pretty positive, so I'll likely jump back into that.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that our BG3 co-op is still going strong, approaching the end of act 2 now.
About $1400 in 10 years. Some of it was gifts to other people, but I've also bought a significant number of keys on Humble and Fanatical that are not included. I do have a tendency to buy more games than I have time to play, but at least financially it's not out of control.
Co-op favorites in our group: Zombicide Black Plague (hack your way through undead hordes), The Siege of Runedar (dwarves defending a gold mine; max 4 players unfortunately), Mansions of Madness (solve Lovecraftian horror mysteries).
Flamecraft ("dragon placement") is an accessible and very cute game that can handle 5 players.
7 Wonders (civilization building via card drafting) is great with many players (up to 7) because turns happen simultaneously, so it doesn't slow down much with larger player counts. Similarly, Libertalia (pirates on a plunder tour) can be played with 6 players and is partially simultaneous.
Terraforming Mars is an engine builder, so it might appeal to the Wingspan fans, but it is longer and a bit more complex.
Oh, and I agree with the recommendation of The Crew (either variant). Some people don't enjoy the pressure of mistakes dooming the mission though, so it does depend on the group. I'd recommend giving it a try online via BoardGameArena and buy the box if it fits your group.
I feel sorry for the developers. Redfall flopped, but Hi-Fi Rush made it on to a lot of game of the year lists. And in the case of Redfall, it seems it was another victim of trend chasing (everything must be a multiplayer live service) instead of letting the studio do what it was good at (single player games with a strong story). Also it didn't help that it was released before it was properly finished. I hope the developers find a new workplace that respects their talent more.
It's ultimately about adding value to GamePass, isn't it? I'd subscribe to GamePass if it would give me a full HS collection to play with. I don't think there is much overlap between HS and CoD players, so having both in their portfolio would help them reach a larger audience.
I play since Open Beta have all cards I need, have a few k gold and over 100.000 dust. The game became 100% free to play for me since years.
You must be putting in a lot of hours to get that many resources. That's fine if you're enjoying it, but some people either don't have the time or do not enjoy playing long stretches and for them changes in the economy hit a lot harder.
Negative changes to quests, real money offers and pre order nonsense don`t bother me.
Pre-order exclusives could put F2P ladder players at a disadvantage. Last expansion they selected an unplayable card, but that might not be the case next time.
HS is much more generous than in the early days. Most players seem to have forgotten this or haven't been playing the game long enough.
On the one hand, players get much more free stuff now, the core set is free and duplicate protection helps a ton. On the other hand, there are now 11 classes instead of 9, two legendaries per class per expansion instead of one (*) and a mini set every expansion, plus a larger percentage of cards is actually playable due to better balance, so a lot more cards to acquire. As a result, while you get more game for your buck, staying up-to-date hasn't become cheaper.
(*) If I recall correctly, they started doing this with Un'goro because of the quests, but they never went back to one legendary per class after that. Yeah, I've been around since open beta too.
But it's definitely not so bad that you have to stop playing because of it.
For any of the listed items individually, I'd call quitting an over-reaction. But all of this happened in the time span of a few months and there was very little positive news to counter-balance it (unless you play Battlegrounds, I guess). And I don't see any reason to assume this trend of ever more aggressive monetization is going to stop here.
I had hoped that with the acquisition completed, they would be under less pressure to monetize, but things have only gotten worse since then.
The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear that quitting the game is the right choice for me. For the last two years or so, I've spent 40 euros per expansion: the Tavern Pass plus a bundle with 20 packs and 2 legendaries. I don't play the game enough to make it feel worth putting more money in and I don't want to play more because I'd just get fed up with the meta sooner then.
I could probably continue as F2P for one more expansion cycle, disenchanting my duplicates and cashing in my tavern tickets, but in the long run it would become too expensive to keep playing the way I want to. Maybe I could afford one competitive deck as F2P, but I'd be bored in no time if I could play only one deck. Deck building is my favorite part of the game and that requires a pretty wide collection. So F2P is not a long term option for me.
I'm not sure I even want to finish the current Tavern Pass. I haven't played since Wednesday, when I logged in to do the Tavern Brawl and the daily quests that had piled up since Sunday, only to see the new weekly quests. Once I realized those were not a bug, I logged out without playing a game. Knowing that there is no future for me in this game has killed a lot of my motivation to log in and play.
By size I don't mean just volume: Erdtree has its own map, its own story lines, enemies, NPCs, progression. Really the only thing that firmly connects it to the main game is that you can bring in your existing player character. If they had released it as a standalone game, it wouldn't have been very different from its DLC form, I think.
It's very much a show by and for the games industry. There can be quite a gap between what the industry thinks and what players think, especially this year where some big budget games flopped hard. Despite what it is, I still think it's fun starting point for discussion.
Not really: given its size, it is almost a game on its own.
I can't get upset about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth either, since while it is a remake, it changes things up quite a bit, so it's not just the same game in a new coat of paint. However, while Silent Hill 2 got a generally positive reception, that game did lean very heavily on the original, which is a good thing in this case, but it raises the question of how much it really is a 2024 game.
What I am upset about is "Most Anticipated Game", because I don't think we should be celebrating hype. Hype leads to pre-orders, which reduce the punishment for games launching in a broken state. It's also a lot easier to generate hype for a sequel compared to something new. So hype helps sustain the games industry's bad habits.
I'm surprised I don't see Satisfactory (1.0 this year) and the Factorio DLC on the list: those were pretty big releases and very well received.
At least my personal favorite, Animal Well, is on the list. I think that's the game from 2024 that I'll remember most.
Interesting to see Dragon Age didn't make the cut in the Best RPG category. Opinions were quite mixed about that game, but I would have expected it to at least get nominated.
It's factory building month for me.
First I tried Shapez 2, an abstract factory builder which despite having just launched in early access is very polished. I got through all of the "campaign" (no story, but a series of tasks that become more challenging as you progress). The end game is to build a "make anything machine" and while mine does work, it cannot build everything yet (no crystals) and it could be optimized quite a bit still. I got a bit burned out by the end, but I put in over 100 hours and I'm likely to pick it up again in the future.
Yesterday the 1.0 release of Satisfactory happened and I've been playing that with friends. So far I haven't seen all that many changes compared to early access, but there are snippets of lore added (the alien artifacts now do something) and some quality of life improvements. We picked a different starting location from last time, so that already makes the game different. Highly recommended if you like building stuff. You might start out building spaghetti factories, move on to carefully planned efficient factories and in the end acquire an appreciation for brutalist architecture.
I should get back into Endless Space 2 some day. I started a game, but something interrupted it and over time I forgot how to play.
Stellaris is more of an economic game than a combat-focused game, so it's probably more like Endless Space than like Sins.
Would a new player actually benefit from adding all those DLCs? DLCs can add mechanics, events and customization options. More mechanics is probably a net negative if you're still learning the basics, extra events is not really necessary if you haven't experienced all the base events yet and more customization options is nice but the base game does offer enough for at least a few playthroughs.
Like most players, I'm not immune to FOMO: I really had to convince myself to just buy the X4 base game and not think about getting DLCs until I've put in a few dozen hours.
A game that I personally really like is Stellaris. I used to play Master of Orion 2 a lot and Stellaris delivers a more complex and refined version of that. It's not a 1:1 replacement though. Stellaris plays quite slow; expect one game to take a week rather than an afternoon. And MoO has a stronger personality, in the sense that the alien races are clear archetypes. Stellaris does have some lore, but is more subtle and spread out among a lot of randomly generated stuff. This does make Stellaris more varied in subsequent games, but not as immediately gripping.
I was thinking of picking up X4, as I really enjoyed watching Perun play it.
I've been playing Monster Sanctuary, a metroidvania with turn-based monster combat (similar to Pokemon, I think, but I've played very little Pokemon). Both the exploration and the combat are done well, but I don't think it's an ideal combination, as the detailed but therefore slow combat doesn't match the faster pacing of the platforming exploration. Still, I'm invested in the combat and upgrade system now, so I'll probably play more of it.
I also still want to finish Shadow of the Erdtree. I got to the end boss a few weeks ago, but then my desktop PC broke and this game is too heavy to play on my laptop.
I haven't gone back to Hearthstone and now that I'm off the treadmill I don't think I will jump on again.
It's hard to compare it to any other DLC, because it's so massive in scope: it's almost a sequel. I haven't finished it yet (although I think I'm pretty close) and I've been playing almost daily since it came out.
By the way, I think Miyazaki said the map was larger than Limgrave, so technically that is true, even if it is misleading. You already mentioned that there are parts of the map where very little happens, which was almost never the case in the base game. It might have benefited from a slightly smaller map.
I like the verticality of the world, although maybe they went a bit too far, as it becomes quite complex to navigate at times and the top-down map isn't very useful once you have 3 layers at different heights at the same 2D location.
Overall I'm having a great time. I like how much of the story is happening now, rather than most of it having happened long ago.
What I'm not a fan of is how little breathing room there is in the fights. I like being able to look at the boss after summoning a spirit, instead of blindly rolling to the side because I know the boss will be hitting my original position half a second later. Not only is it more comfortable to play, it also makes the fight more cinematic if you have short moments of rest every now and then, when you can take in the battlefield as a whole instead of only focusing on health bars and hit boxes. I defeated Bayle by doing nothing but dodging and poking at the closest body part, paying attention only to the mechanics and never feeling like I was in an epic fight. Which is a pity, because the road there had a fantastic atmosphere.
In particular I don't understand why the NPC summoning signs were placed inside the battle arenas. They give you the opportunity to call for help, but then force you to find the sign, walk there and navigate a clumsy UI while being under constant attack. This wouldn't have been so bad if battles started slow like in the base game. Maybe technically the boss AI starts at the same time, but the DLC bosses move at a ridiculous pace and can cross the distance to the player in no time.
The Blessings system has its drawbacks, both in people hitting difficulty walls if they don't explore enough or cruising past bosses if they do explore thoroughly. However, I don't know if it is possible to design a system that equalizes DLC stats between players without ignoring their very different main game progressions; it seems like two contradicting requirements. I was probably over-blessed, as I defeated several bosses on the second try and I'm not that skilled in combat. Personally, I don't mind though, as my favorite part of the game is exploring the world and bosses can be obstacles to that. I'd rather have a boss that puts up too little of a fight than a boss I get stuck on.
Thanks for the tips. Although I know the basics, there are still quite some buff opportunities that I missed and that might become useful if I'm stuck on a boss.
I'm actually having an easier time with the DLC than I had with the base game. Some of the bosses I got in the second try and even the ones I did have trouble with only took me a dozen or so attempts. Part of the reason is likely that I went on a personal quest to unlock as much of the map as possible, so I found a lot Scadutree Fragments early. I think I had blessing level 7 before I even started taking on bosses. I'm at blessing level 11 now and I haven't finished the DLC yet, although it feels I'm approaching the end game.
For the curious, the bosses that I had most trouble with so far were:
There is a Flamedrake Talisman +3 and it doesn't require defeating any bosses as far as I recall, or maybe one mini-boss. It offers slightly more protection as the +2, so while it's not a game changer, it is a strictly better alternative. There are a lot of enemies using fire damage in this DLC, so tracking this one down is probably the most worthwhile of the lot.
If you have high Strength or Faith (both is even better, but not necessary), I can recommend the Anvil Hammer as a weapon. It has carried me through much of the map and even some of the boss fights. With most enemy types, if you can land the first hit, you can keep them staggered until they're dead. The attack is not as slow as it looks; my guess is that a lot of time is spent to lift the weapon again after a swing, but because the enemy needs time to recover from the hit, you are allowed that time if you're in a one-on-one fight with anything that is not super sturdy.
You can find it early in the game too:
Maybe it's interesting if the gyros turn out to be useful, but otherwise I don't really see a significant advantage over other controllers, at least when used with a PC where I also have access to keyboard and mouse for games that weren't primarily designed for controllers.
Steam claims the DLC will unlock in less than an hour, so significantly earlier than the map shows for my region (CEST). We'll see which is correct. Edit: The Steam counter just jumped up 5 hours, so unfortunately the map was right.
I had a relatively easy time defeating Mohg, skipping his second phase entirely. It was probably a combination of having a bleed build combined with being over-leveled, as I only found out about his existence when I started reading wikis in the end game; I played the early game avoiding most spoilers.
While the story and atmosphere of Tainted Grail are indeed excellent, mechanically it has some issues, in my opinion. As you start, the combat system is relatively complex and a lot of combos are impossible to trigger because your characters have insufficient stats. Maybe this was intentional to emphasize that the player characters were a choice of desperation, but it doesn't feel great to play.
Combat gets better as you progress in the story and unlock stat upgrades, skills and useful items. But as you progress to later story chapters, the encounter decks become more monster-heavy, which has the side effect of providing more XP but less food, which means you'll have to fight more often to gather enough food and will get loads of XP. So where the early game was difficult and slow to progress, the mid-game is grindy but not as tense.
We also had an issue where we took a wrong turn on the map: we investigated an area where we could only discover things in later chapters. However, this wasn't clear until we had spent all our resources and were stuck in a place where it was impossible to recover them. So we had to revert back to the start of the chapter and explore in a different direction.
That said, when the game does work, it is awesome, full of gritty descriptions and difficult choices. We will likely finish the game for its story, although I don't think I'd be up for a second playthrough. Maybe other people feel the same way, in that case getting a second hand copy for a more reasonable price might be an option for you. While the game has legacy elements, that's implemented as deck building and one double-sided paper record sheet, so it should be easy enough to reset a game to its starting state.
The four-player limit is a hard limit though: the player characters all have dedicated story content, so even if you could mechanically fit in a fifth player, they would just be a sidekick without a story line.
Maybe it will start thoughtful, but then they'll expect the revenue from ad placements to grow every year and under that pressure the limits of "thoughtful" will be stretched again and again.
I haven't gone back to Hearthstone yet and as time passes it becomes less likely that I will.
I have started on Eldritchvania, which as the name suggests is a metroidvania with Lovecraftian elements. It seems very much inspired by La Mulana, but the lore is easier to follow due to clearer writing and a lore fragments interface that is auto-ordered and has infinite capacity. This is important, because both in this game and La Mulana, many essential puzzle clues come from lore fragments. It's pretty good, especially for a free game. It's not easy though; if the difficulty ramps up more, I'm not sure I'll stick with it until the end.
I'm also doing a round of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor every now and then. It's still fun, but I am at a point where progression slows down, so I'm not doing one run after another anymore.
Today a Stellaris expansion released and the first reviews on Steam are pretty positive, so I'll likely jump back into that.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that our BG3 co-op is still going strong, approaching the end of act 2 now.
About $1400 in 10 years. Some of it was gifts to other people, but I've also bought a significant number of keys on Humble and Fanatical that are not included. I do have a tendency to buy more games than I have time to play, but at least financially it's not out of control.
Co-op favorites in our group: Zombicide Black Plague (hack your way through undead hordes), The Siege of Runedar (dwarves defending a gold mine; max 4 players unfortunately), Mansions of Madness (solve Lovecraftian horror mysteries).
Flamecraft ("dragon placement") is an accessible and very cute game that can handle 5 players.
7 Wonders (civilization building via card drafting) is great with many players (up to 7) because turns happen simultaneously, so it doesn't slow down much with larger player counts. Similarly, Libertalia (pirates on a plunder tour) can be played with 6 players and is partially simultaneous.
Terraforming Mars is an engine builder, so it might appeal to the Wingspan fans, but it is longer and a bit more complex.
Oh, and I agree with the recommendation of The Crew (either variant). Some people don't enjoy the pressure of mistakes dooming the mission though, so it does depend on the group. I'd recommend giving it a try online via BoardGameArena and buy the box if it fits your group.
I feel sorry for the developers. Redfall flopped, but Hi-Fi Rush made it on to a lot of game of the year lists. And in the case of Redfall, it seems it was another victim of trend chasing (everything must be a multiplayer live service) instead of letting the studio do what it was good at (single player games with a strong story). Also it didn't help that it was released before it was properly finished. I hope the developers find a new workplace that respects their talent more.
It's ultimately about adding value to GamePass, isn't it? I'd subscribe to GamePass if it would give me a full HS collection to play with. I don't think there is much overlap between HS and CoD players, so having both in their portfolio would help them reach a larger audience.
You must be putting in a lot of hours to get that many resources. That's fine if you're enjoying it, but some people either don't have the time or do not enjoy playing long stretches and for them changes in the economy hit a lot harder.
Pre-order exclusives could put F2P ladder players at a disadvantage. Last expansion they selected an unplayable card, but that might not be the case next time.
On the one hand, players get much more free stuff now, the core set is free and duplicate protection helps a ton. On the other hand, there are now 11 classes instead of 9, two legendaries per class per expansion instead of one (*) and a mini set every expansion, plus a larger percentage of cards is actually playable due to better balance, so a lot more cards to acquire. As a result, while you get more game for your buck, staying up-to-date hasn't become cheaper.
(*) If I recall correctly, they started doing this with Un'goro because of the quests, but they never went back to one legendary per class after that. Yeah, I've been around since open beta too.
For any of the listed items individually, I'd call quitting an over-reaction. But all of this happened in the time span of a few months and there was very little positive news to counter-balance it (unless you play Battlegrounds, I guess). And I don't see any reason to assume this trend of ever more aggressive monetization is going to stop here.
I had hoped that with the acquisition completed, they would be under less pressure to monetize, but things have only gotten worse since then.
The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear that quitting the game is the right choice for me. For the last two years or so, I've spent 40 euros per expansion: the Tavern Pass plus a bundle with 20 packs and 2 legendaries. I don't play the game enough to make it feel worth putting more money in and I don't want to play more because I'd just get fed up with the meta sooner then.
I could probably continue as F2P for one more expansion cycle, disenchanting my duplicates and cashing in my tavern tickets, but in the long run it would become too expensive to keep playing the way I want to. Maybe I could afford one competitive deck as F2P, but I'd be bored in no time if I could play only one deck. Deck building is my favorite part of the game and that requires a pretty wide collection. So F2P is not a long term option for me.
I'm not sure I even want to finish the current Tavern Pass. I haven't played since Wednesday, when I logged in to do the Tavern Brawl and the daily quests that had piled up since Sunday, only to see the new weekly quests. Once I realized those were not a bug, I logged out without playing a game. Knowing that there is no future for me in this game has killed a lot of my motivation to log in and play.