February Games Chat Thread: It's Not March Yet

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > February Games Chat Thread: It's Not March Yet

devtesla: Jan 2, 2012; Grimey Drawer

haveblue posted:

They half are, Japan outlawed one particularly egregious form a few years ago and all the F2P mobile companies hastily patched it out.

Back ally illegal gacha games

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:27

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# ? May 8, 2024 18:30

bloodychill: May 8, 2004; And if the world
should end tonight,
I had a crazy, classic life; Exciting Lemon

haveblue posted:

They half are, Japan outlawed one particularly egregious form a few years ago and all the F2P mobile companies hastily patched it out.

That was just going "you can fleece people but only so hard." gacha mechanics are all hosed up and are a pox on gaming.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:31

Help Im Alive: Nov 8, 2009

At least it wasn't Advance Wars that they decided to try the mobile thing with or that series might have died

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:33

Phantasium: Dec 27, 2012

Help Im Alive posted:

At least it wasn't Advance Wars that they decided to try the mobile thing with or that series might have died

You mean the series that's already dead?

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:34

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

bloodychill posted:

That was just going "you can fleece people but only so hard." gacha mechanics are all hosed up and are a pox on gaming.

What about it makes it more predatory than say, random loot crates you get in games like Overwatch, etc.? Not familiar with any gacha games.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:34

Sakurazuka: Jan 24, 2004; NANI?

The sad thing is that Nintendo already put out a mobile game that was just straight up 'pay this much to play the whole game' and people complained, so now we have FE gatchAIDS edition.

TBF it was probably gonna be that all along no matter what happened with Mario Run.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:34

Sakurazuka: Jan 24, 2004; NANI?

Phantasium posted:

You mean the series that's already dead?

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:35

Phantasium: Dec 27, 2012

Sakurazuka posted:

The sad thing is that Nintendo already put out a mobile game that was just straight up 'pay this mich to play the whole game' and people complained, so now we have FE gatchAIDS edition.

TBF it was probably gonna be that all along no matter what happened with Mario Run.

https://twitter.com/ynakamura56/status/827328126753464320

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:37

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

exquisite tea posted:

What about it makes it more predatory than say, random loot crates you get in games like Overwatch, etc.? Not familiar with any gacha games.

To use the Overwatch example, imagine a version of Overwatch where:

You don't immediately have access to every character. Instead, you get a random handful of characters when you make your account and the rest have to come from a loot crate.
You get loot crates fairly often early on but it seriously tapers off as you go.
There's no protection against duplicate characters, so even if you pull a character, there's a decent chance you already have them.
There are lots and lots of samey characters so that the chances of you getting the one you want are lower.
Characters aren't intended to be equal--there are inherently good and bad characters, and they have a star rating to let you know if you got a good one or a bad one. You will not do well without high-rated characters.

Ultimately it means that you're reliant on random character draws to progress past a certain point. Overwatch, at least, is purely cosmetic, though I'm not a big fan of loot crate monetization in the first place.

People who play gacha games often spend hours upon hours right out the gate uninstalling and reinstalling the game to reroll their initial pull because they know without a couple of five-star characters, they're going to stall out their progression sooner than later, and the only way to get past the hump when you do stall out is either to grind for hours and hours, or pay money on character draws until you finally draw something good. In many cases, you can pay extra money for a special character draw with a higher chance at getting something good but often no protection against getting some two-star bullshit anyway.

Harrow fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Feb 3, 2017

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:37

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

exquisite tea posted:

All the original great beat-em ups were conceived out of 80s zeitgeist fears of organized crime and urban decay, now in today's political climate I think the opportunity is there for a modern revival where you beat down nazis and corporate shills with razor-lined briefcases.

I mean you're not wrong but there was a significant amount of beat-em-ups that were like set in the post-apocalypse, medieval fantasy settings, or where you fight aliens and robots as a superhero. And all the best street gang beat-em-ups end with you fighting a guy in a suit, anyway.

I don't know if it's any good, but this game is kinda close to what you're talking about, since you spend most of the game fighting a corporation and cops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21bdEu8smSE

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:41

chumbler: Mar 28, 2010

Loot crates are garbage and should be unacceptable even for cosmetic stuff, but they are never going anywhere because gamers inexplicably defend them and there isn't really a competing product if a game you like decides to switch everything to them.

But I'm just being entitled by wanting to exchange money for a listed good.

PS Funbux middle man currencies also need to die.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:44

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

I think loot crates are just the western version of gacha even if they're not as bad. They're still bad and encourage marketers to design games rather than game designers.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:44

devtesla: Jan 2, 2012; Grimey Drawer

Phantasium posted:

https://twitter.com/ynakamura56/status/827328126753464320

Mario Run fell really fast too, and I'd expect FE to gain spots as players hit the squeeze points.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:44

Guy Mann: Mar 28, 2016; by Lowtax

Chomp8645 posted:

You know you're an rear end in a top hat when your video game is so terrible that sovereign nations start passing laws against it.

The EU is currently raking Steam over the coals for restricting Steam keys for the same game to individual countries, maybe if we're lucky it will go the way it did when Australia fined them for not having a refund system.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:46

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

The interesting part about Mario run is that it has one of the highest purchase rates ever for a game like that even though only like 5% of people who downloaded bought it. Apparently it's closer to like 0.5 - 1% of people who put money into F2P games

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:47

bloodychill: May 8, 2004; And if the world
should end tonight,
I had a crazy, classic life; Exciting Lemon

Harrow posted:

To use the Overwatch example, imagine a version of Overwatch where:

You don't immediately have access to every character. Instead, you get a random handful of characters when you make your account and the rest have to come from a loot crate.

You get loot crates fairly often early on but it seriously tapers off as you go.

There's no protection against duplicate characters, so even if you pull a character, there's a decent chance you already have them.

There are lots and lots of samey characters so that the chances of you getting the one you want are lower.

Characters aren't intended to be equal--there are inherently good and bad characters, and they have a star rating to let you know if you got a good one or a bad one. You will not do well without high-rated characters.

Ultimately it means that you're reliant on random character draws to progress past a certain point. Overwatch, at least, is purely cosmetic, though I'm not a big fan of loot crate monetization in the first place.

People who play gacha games often spend hours upon hours right out the gate uninstalling and reinstalling the game to reroll their initial pull because they know without a couple of five-star characters, they're going to stall out their progression sooner than later, and the only way to get past the hump when you do stall out is either to grind for hours and hours, or pay money on character draws until you finally draw something good. In many cases, you can pay extra money for a special character draw with a higher chance at getting something good but often no protection against getting some two-star bullshit anyway.

This is a good way to put it. Loot crates in OW are dumb (the duplicates in particular) but gacha is a step worse. The thing that got outlawed in Japan by the way was "multi gacha" in which you didn't even get things from loot crates, you got parts of things. Think like the McDonalds monopole game where each monopole has one property with a very rare rate except the entire business is based on it and marketed to children.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:47

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

I wish there was like a 5 to 10 dollar version of puzzle and dragon that was just a normal video game because I like the mechanics of it

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:48

bloodychill: May 8, 2004; And if the world
should end tonight,
I had a crazy, classic life; Exciting Lemon

In Training posted:

I wish there was like a 5 to 10 dollar version of puzzle and dragon that was just a normal video game because I like the mechanics of it

Didn't it get a normal 3DS release without the gacha?

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:50

devtesla: Jan 2, 2012; Grimey Drawer

In Training posted:

I wish there was like a 5 to 10 dollar version of puzzle and dragon that was just a normal video game because I like the mechanics of it

There's one for the 3DS

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:50

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

In Training posted:

The interesting part about Mario run is that it has one of the highest purchase rates ever for a game like that even though only like 5% of people who downloaded bought it. Apparently it's closer to like 0.5 - 1% of people who put money into F2P games

For some reason people were really offended by the price of the game.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:52

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

devtesla posted:

There's one for the 3DS

bloodychill posted:

Didn't it get a normal 3DS release without the gacha?

Yeah but I kinda like using my thumb to move the orbs around

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:53

oddium: Feb 21, 2006; end of the 4.5 tatami age

i'm not very good at puzzle and dragon. they should have made a mario puyo puyo

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:55

Help Im Alive: Nov 8, 2009

I like overwatch lootboxes because it's all cosmetic stuff and I get at least one or two each time I play. They added a new mode called arcade a few months ago where 3 wins gets you a lootbox (you can get 3 boxes per week this way) and it's a good incentive to boot up the game few times each week

idk it's just kind of satisfying and I don't feel any need to put real money into the game

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:54

CJacobs: Apr 17, 2011; Reach for the moon!

The person who went out of their way to make sure you can still get duplicates out of boxes you actually paid money for is a lovely rear end in a top hat. This is true of almost any video game that has loot boxes because duplicates extend how many it will take you to get everything

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:59

Motto: Aug 3, 2013

A game where you draw characters from a digital vending machine every now and then wouldn't be so bad if they weren't invariably coupled with grindy-rear end raid stuff where you have to fall down an insane hole of resource grinding and optimization to get anywhere.

e: that's why idol rhythm games are probably the most tolerable gacha, since loving with that genre so as to require optimized characters would just make it unplayable

Motto fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Feb 3, 2017

# ? Feb 3, 2017 21:59

devtesla: Jan 2, 2012; Grimey Drawer

In any case cosmetic loot crates are not going away anytime soon. Look at the player count bump during CS:GO's first sale after adding loot crates.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:00

Meme Poker Party: Sep 1, 2006; by Azathoth

Loot crates for random cosmetic stuff is really not anywhere on the same level at what people were actually deriding in gacha games.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:02

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

chumbler posted:

Loot crates are garbage and should be unacceptable even for cosmetic stuff, but they are never going anywhere because gamers inexplicably defend them and there isn't really a competing product if a game you like decides to switch everything to them.

But I'm just being entitled by wanting to exchange money for a listed good.

PS Funbux middle man currencies also need to die.

On the other hand, cosmetic loot crates allow for support for some games farther than they otherwise would get, like tf2 and others. They don't affect gameplay either. And good ones allow the loot to, generally, drop outside of the crates, though maybe without some special aspect (in tf2's case, special effects or stat counters).

The newer addition of "you won't get dupes until you've gotten one of everything" is a good one too. So long as they don't affect gameplay I've got no qualms against lootboxes, and this is not me saying this because I deal in csgo/dota/tf2 items, since there's a hell of a lot more games that do it than those three.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:07

chumbler: Mar 28, 2010

Chomp8645 posted:

Loot crates for random cosmetic stuff is really not anywhere on the same level at what people were actually deriding in gacha games.

They don't have to be on the same level to still be awful.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:07

Motto: Aug 3, 2013

In Granblue Fantasy, skilled play is constituted by drawing at least three good characters, grinding them to max (which unvolves multiple resource gated upcaps), building a weapon grid of ten weapons that must be similarly grinded and upcapped, and same again for the summon grid. All this has to be done through RNG draws and grinding raid drops

Oh, and they all have to be within the same element. It also runs like poo poo on phones so hell if I know how it got popular in japan.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:10

suuma: Apr 2, 2009

Captain Invictus posted:

On the other hand, cosmetic loot crates allow for support for some games farther than they otherwise would get, like tf2 and others. They don't affect gameplay either. And good ones allow the loot to, generally, drop outside of the crates, though maybe without some special aspect (in tf2's case, special effects or stat counters).

The newer addition of "you won't get dupes until you've gotten one of everything" is a good one too. So long as they don't affect gameplay I've got no qualms against lootboxes, and this is not me saying this because I deal in csgo/dota/tf2 items, since there's a hell of a lot more games that do it than those three.

TF2 is full of items that change gameplay, though?

e: at least it was when I played it, maybe you only get cosmetics from crates I don't know

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:10

oddium: Feb 21, 2006; end of the 4.5 tatami age

Captain Invictus posted:

On the other hand, cosmetic loot crates allow for support for some games farther than they otherwise would get, like tf2 and others. They don't affect gameplay either. And good ones allow the loot to, generally, drop outside of the crates, though maybe without some special aspect (in tf2's case, special effects or stat counters).

The newer addition of "you won't get dupes until you've gotten one of everything" is a good one too. So long as they don't affect gameplay I've got no qualms against lootboxes, and this is not me saying this because I deal in csgo/dota/tf2 items, since there's a hell of a lot more games that do it than those three.

consumer watchdog alert: invictus is flush with hat baron cash

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:12

Motto: Aug 3, 2013

And you can't even just toss a few dollars at the thing to get ahead! A 10-pull is 30 dang bucks, and same for the promotions that let you freely pick one character. :psyduck:

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:14

Help Im Alive: Nov 8, 2009

oddium posted:

consumer watchdog alert: invictus is flush with hat baron cash

How does that work

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:19

Scaly Haylie: Dec 25, 2004

I feel like monetizing cosmetic stuff is cool and good, but the loot crate system of Overwatch (and whatever other games use that kind of system, I'm no expert) is little more than a way to make people keep feeding the game money.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:19

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

A 60 dollar game should not have loot boxes. I don't mind cosmetic purchases but spending 3 dollars on a skin you want is whatever. You can make that decision, I've spent like 5 dollars on Guilty Gear palette swaps for the characters I like to play. But pumping more money into a random system that can also roll dupes is just so hosed and huge, popular successes like Overwatch just normalize that system to be used/abused for decades.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:23

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

THERE IS A NEW EPISODE OF TOUCH THE SKYRIM, EMPHASIS TOUCH, GO WATCH IT :siren:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu-w1-viB2E&hd=1

suuma posted:

TF2 is full of items that change gameplay, though?

e: at least it was when I played it, maybe you only get cosmetics from crates I don't know

Everything that changes gameplay drops while playing or can be directly created by the player without paying anything, which is fine.

Help Im Alive posted:

How does that work

brother, do I have some STORIES for YOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF52sL2wi1c&hd=1

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:23

Instant Sunrise: Apr 12, 2007; The manger babies don't have feelings. You said it yourself.

i'm still mad i was never able to get the witch mercy skin

loot crates are bad

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:26

devtesla: Jan 2, 2012; Grimey Drawer

Man, I didn't realize you could buy loot crates in overwatch, I thought it was just a level up thing. That sucks.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:31

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# ? May 8, 2024 18:30

Captain Invictus: Apr 5, 2005; Try reading some manga!; Clever Betty

Why does it suck though, since it does not affect the gameplay in any way? That's what has always weirded me out about the argument against purely cosmetic loot crates. You WANT, you don't NEED the cosmetics in there, and no doubt they would never exist otherwise. Having an option to buy them gives those who really, REALLY want some specific set or item to pay for them directly(in cases like dota or overwatch with in-order loot box loot), or often just let you pay for the skin directly.

# ? Feb 3, 2017 22:36

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