(Marvel's) Avengers, ASSEMBLE!

[Casey]

Lawrence from Funhaus (well, formerly) said that it's like the main campaign was a giant tutorial getting you ready for the multiplayer aspect of the game, and I think that fits.

As it is, I'll keep playing it, because I do think it's fun and I oddly kind of like getting better gear and shit like that, but man, they dropped the ball hard on first impressions for a lot of people. Credit to them, the devs are active in the subreddit for the game, and addressed glitches/bugs and added them into the upcoming patch, but still. I have no doubt I'll run into some of these glitches and whatnot, but right now, I'm more upset that it feels like a game with Avengers characters in the real world, instead of Avengers characters in a Marvel world. Wakanda would have at least fixed that a little bit, but having a section of the game just be the Utah Badlands or Scandinavia is lame when you have like 70 years of Marvel lore to pull from for locations and shit.

[Eivion]

1 hour ago, Craig H said:

I still read the Destiny 2 thread and honest to god, it just looks like @RIPPA, @J.T., and @Eivionare just participating in a slack discussion about a second job they all have together.

Yeah JT finally gave up two months ago. RIPPA and myself still play and do enjoy it to a degree. Right now though its just kind of at its most boring with the current season getting dragged out due to the next DLC being delayed until November. Said DLC is also the big one that comes out each year and is supposed to be a big move forward in story.

[odessasteps]

I gave up during the first destiny game.

[Casey]

I knew it would happen eventually, and earlier today I got that glitch where you fall through the map (but I could move the stick and my character would reappear... then get sucked back into the void a few seconds later). I just restarted at the last checkpoint, and it was fine after that. But still - I was expecting this. FWIW it didn't happen on the helicarrier like a lot of people, it was in the first AIM Hive mission.

But, anyways - got my Black Widow up to lvl 26. Power level isn't where I'd like it to be yet, but we'll get there.

[Raziel]

On 9/11/2020 at 11:20 PM, The Natural said:

What does games as a service mean?

I don't think anyone ever answered you.  Games as a Service is the term used to refer when games have continuing "roadmaps" for content to continue to drop after the initial release, more specifically behind paywalls, like MMO's, games with Season Passes or regularly released DLC, or stuff with microtranactions.

Biggest examples are games like World Of Warcraft, Street Fighter V, Battlefront II, Pick a Call of Duty,  Dragon Ball Fighterz AND Xenoverse 2, Destiny 2, Rainbow 6 Siege, DOTA2, Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption Online, and Grand Theft Auto Online (although to be fair, in Rockstar's case, RDRO and GTAO both can in theory be totally Free To Play if you spend enough time grinding money).  

 

It more focuses on Online multiplayer games, as single player games don't necessarily *need* the DLC to be enjoyed (like Arkham Knight), but the online games you won't have access to all the stuff with the Vanilla versions that you would with all the DLC (like fighting games having characters locked behind pay DLC that you still have to encounter online, as some of those DLC characters end up being Tier S and such), Or higher end gear, or full expansion content in the PvP area (like WoW).  

Edited September 14, 2020 by Raziel

[The Natural]

7 minutes ago, Raziel said:

I don't think anyone ever answered you.  Games as a Service is the term used to refer when games have continuing "roadmaps" for content to continue to drop after the initial release, more specifically behind paywalls, like MMO's, games with Season Passes or regularly released DLC, or stuff with microtranactions.

Biggest examples are games like World Of Warcraft, Street Fighter V, Battlefront II, Pick a Call of Duty,  Dragon Ball Fighterz AND Xenoverse 2, Destiny 2, Rainbow 6 Siege, DOTA2, Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption Online, and Grand Theft Auto Online (although to be fair, in Rockstar's case, RDRO and GTAO both can in theory be totally Free To Play if you spend enough time grinding money).  

 

It more focuses on Online multiplayer games, as single player games don't necessarily *need* the DLC to be enjoyed (like Arkham Knight), but the online games you won't have access to all the stuff with the Vanilla versions that you would with all the DLC (like fighting games having characters locked behind pay DLC that you still have to encounter online, as some of those DLC characters end up being Tier S and such), Or higher end gear, or full expansion content in the PvP area (like WoW).  

Cheers, @Raziel. Appreciate that.

[Craig H]

I would say Dota 2 isn't a GaaS. As someone who has paid for Dota+ and the Battle Pass, no one needs to purchase either. Dota+ is never even updated and the Battle Pass isn't anywhere close to being as good as it once was. The Battle Pass is now a way to raise money for the top prize at The International. Otherwise, all of Dota 2 is free. You don't need to pay to unlock anyone. The only thing you ever have to pay for are skins. LoL is more of a GaaS I suppose, but both are more or less ultra-competitive team games. Everything else you mentioned probably can be classified as a GaaS.

I had no idea DB FighterZ or Xenoverse 2 went down the GaaS path. I didn't even know Xenoverse 2 had extra content for it.

Destiny 1 and 2 and the Division 1 and 2 are probably the biggest GaaS offenders, with each doing some form of goodwill to their player base while also treating their player bases like crap. Neither have a monthly service fee like WoW or FF14, but at least with Destiny 2, there's lots of paid DLC that for a time you could look at as that being their way of charging players a monthly fee, but just all up front.

[Raziel]

Yeah, DBFZ has Tier S fighters locked behind the Season Passes (UI Goku and DBS Broly being the 2 biggest offenders), although it *is* totally possible to field a cohesive Top Fighter Tier team with just the Vanilla game, it's just that UI Goku is just so fucking OP.  X2 has the higher end transformations/abilities locked behind DLC characters, so if you're PvP'ing, you're gonna run into some guys running SSB Evolved and Ultra Kamehameha's that are fucking ridiculous.

 

I'm not as hard on Division 2 in the GaaS category because I've played perfectly fine through that Vanilla without spending any more than the $2 it was on sale for right before it's expansion dropped.  Although I never really dug into the PvP section of the game, so I can't fully comment on that.

 

I've given up on the "Devs treat their playerbases like shit" arguments because I really can't find an example of a dev *not* treating their playerbase like shit at some point.  Or at the best, treating certain portions of their base like shit (like Freemium games treating their F2P base like shit in favor of the whales, which is somewhat understandable but you could at least not be obivious about it).  Even back in my MUDding co-ownership days, we treated some portions like shit for one reason or another.  

[Craig H]

I beat the single player campaign and honestly, I'm done with this. It's so fucking glitchy and shitty. I'm not even exaggerating, but even the end credits were stuttering and affected by frame rate slow down. There were so many times during the final mission where the game would damn near slow to a crawl. Frame rate drops like that in what is supposed to be a AAA title is inexcusable.

Then there's the loot aspect to this game, which is beyond irrelevant and arbitrary. There's no rhyme or reason to the loot you get, none of it results in any physical change to the look of your character, and there's so many fucking stats per character that you're better off just equipping the highest level piece of gear you get and then dismantling the rest. None of the stat upgrades or "bonus abilities" you get from the items matter. You still get 1 or 2 shot by basic fucking creeps. If it's not that, then you have 5 to 10 ranged enemies blasting the fuck out of you until you're nearly dead.

The ending was just a bunch of nothing. I would say it was cool that each Avenger had a role in defeating the final boss, but there was so much slowdown during those parts that I just have a bad taste in my mouth from the whole thing.

What annoys me the most is this...I don't give a shit if they set out to make a GaaS. That's fine. I want replay value out of this shit. Diablo 3 and, hell, even Borderlands have showed how you make gear matter. I assume maybe Destiny 2 does this well to a point. Regardless, Diablo 3 is the template for this shit. All pieces of gear matter. They all do something you need them to do especially when you get into Torment difficulty levels. They change the look of your character, they give you meaningful stat buffs or status effects, and it makes you want to find more. Shit like Avengers feels like you have developers who don't fully understand how this all should work, so they throw a ton, literally a ton, of garbage at you. None of it matters, it's all garbage. There's no special helm or body armor I want to farm to help me with a specific run. 

I want this game to get better so it doesn't wind up being a total waste. It's still the first game that really gives you the Avengers and that should mean something. I don't want this first outing to be a failure. Unfortunately, that's what it is at this point. My experience really was a bell curve. I was down on it, played more, started having fun, even thought it was cool, and then it got monotonous as hell. All of the framerate and farming issues didn't help too.

[The Natural]

Action and cut!

[RIPPA]

https://avengers.square-enix-games.com/en-us/news/v130patch/

Patch notes for the game's first major update

[The Natural]

SPOILER WARNING:

Looks so repetitive.

Edited September 25, 2020 by The Natural

[Casey]

My main complaints with the game now are:

• the Elite Hive missions that are STRICTLY single player and require you to basically have a team of fully leveled up characters (because once one dies, you take over another character or something).
• I can't get above power level 145 no matter how long I try, so the two trophies that are for getting a character to 150 and two characters to a combined 250 are pretty impossible (for me anyway).

For that first bullet point - the final mission of the Scientist Supreme story chain is one of those Elite Hive things. So I basically have to grind all my characters to Level 50 before I can even try it, because those fucking things are HARD.

Other than that, I'm still having fun. Matchmaking works now, so the missions aren't as frustrating since you have unlimited character downs while in a strike team. But it's also hard to get that trophy where you need 100% on a Challenge IV War Zone.

[RIPPA]

https://kotaku.com/crystal-dynamics-claims-relief-in-sight-for-bored-aveng-1845317433

Story about Crystal Dynamics saying that updates are actually coming... eventually

They claim they will put out a blog post next week will all the info

[Eoae]

I laughed when the studio head said he's confident players will com back when fresh content is released (the number of players online is apparently dwindling rapidly).

Later, I'm going to reach out to him on Twitter and see if he wants to buy some swampland off me or trade me a cow for one magic bean.

[EVA]

So...it’s going pretty much exactly like I predicted.  Except maybe dropping off even faster than I expected.  I thought we wouldn’t hit the crisis point until after the holidays.

Edited October 9, 2020 by EVA

[Craig H]

The game is basically dead at this point. Welp. That's $60 wasted.

At least it somehow got me back into Destiny 2, which I've really been enjoying more than any other GaaS or MMO.

[Casey]

I'm still playing some, but yeah, it's gotten pretty old. I'm still pretty upset that for a mostly multiplayer game, they have the ending of the (first) Avengers Initiative "storyline" or whatever be a huge single player Hive that requires you to have all of your characters maxed out level wise. Why it's not optional like all of the other warzones, I'll never know. Oh well, maybe one day. It's a fun game in short bursts, but I can't play it for hours like I did when it first released. I don't mind fighting a bunch of AIM enemies, but at least have a variety of different maps.

And using two bosses is fucking insanity when you have access to the entire history of Marvel.

I'll still jump back in when the new characters release, but as it is right now, I've moved on to the Tomb Raider games having all my time and attention.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Casey

[Craig H]

And the villains are all mostly tutorial boss fights, which was something pointed out early on by Giant Bomb. Taskmaster - Tutorial boss fight. Abomination - Tutorial boss fight. Modok - Kind of a tutorial boss fight. Like, you have all of Marvel to pick from and the ONLY villains that mean anything are...Taskmaster, Abomination, and Modok?

Also, from what I've read and watched, people are still getting one shot by random enemies, which is fucking dumb. 

[Casey]

The patch they had a week or two ago decreased the chances or something of getting one shotted by certain enemies but I'm sure there are still some out there. I haven't had any frustrating gameplay like what you mentioned when I last played (which TBH was 2 weeks ago? I think?). But there's still glitches and bugs. I was doing an Elite Hive, I think, with some people online, and every time the elevator would open to a new level, out of the 6 tiers, at least 3 or 4 times at the beginning of a level, as soon as you walked out, you'd plummet into nothing. But it'd only last a few seconds then you'd be right back to where you are.

There's a lot of annoying things - one I saw mentioned on the subreddit that I forgot about was that not everyone can hack a terminal to get to a chest (even though the entire team uses JARVIS), or someone like Black Widow not being able to break a wall (even though she has fucking grenades).

The boss fights are annoying because 1) It's only two (MODOK only shows up in the single player campaign - which you can't replay any of, at all) and 2) The boss fights are boring. I wouldn't go as far as to say they're tutorials, but yeah, they're boring. It ramps up the more you level your character - by the time I got to level 50 with Ms. Marvel, the boss fights were pretty hard, but only because they throw waves of smaller enemies at you while you're fighting the boss.

Like I said, I'll still return for a week or two when they release new characters, but that's it probably. I hope they aren't lying when they say each new character will have mini-campaigns with cut scenes and whatnot, but I'm not too hopeful. I really just wish they would have done a Ms. Marvel stand-alone game, because she's by far the stand out character throughout this entire fucking thing.

[The Natural]

18 hours ago, Casey said:

I'm still playing some, but yeah, it's gotten pretty old. I'm still pretty upset that for a mostly multiplayer game, they have the ending of the (first) Avengers Initiative "storyline" or whatever be a huge single player Hive that requires you to have all of your characters maxed out level wise. Why it's not optional like all of the other warzones, I'll never know. Oh well, maybe one day. It's a fun game in short bursts, but I can't play it for hours like I did when it first released. I don't mind fighting a bunch of AIM enemies, but at least have a variety of different maps.

And using two bosses is fucking insanity when you have access to the entire history of Marvel.

I'll still jump back in when the new characters release, but as it is right now, I've moved on to the Tomb Raider games having all my time and attention.

Yeah, that's scandalous. Real bad call there. I didn't like the character designs and the gameplay seems so samey/bland.

Edited October 13, 2020 by The Natural

[The Natural]

DOA already, damn.

[RIPPA]

https://avengers.square-enix-games.com/en-us/news/v1-3-3-patch-notes/

Patch notes for the latest patch which is basically just bug fixes and supposedly some quality of life stuff

[Casey]

....and introduces Tachyon Rifts and the SHIELD Substation Zero starting tomorrow, which is presumably leading up to Kate Bishop being introduced sometime in the next few weeks.

At least it's SOMETHING new. No clue what those two things entail or look like, but I'm desperate for new content in this game right now.

And I'm probably the only one on this board that's still playing, so...

[Travis Sheldon]

I might pick this up if it hits $20.

So glad I didn't give in on release day.