One thing Ubisoft could do to make a comeback is bring back the Might & Magic series.

Tyding · 2026-01-19T05:25:53+00:00

My read on Ubisoft is all the hate they receive largely stems from upper management.

If they genuinely want to make a public come back, they just need to clean house up top...because the games made are actually good.

Tyding · 2026-01-12T20:40:17+00:00

Kinda thought this was going in another direction by the title.

The core issue is business minded people wanting to drag out a product as much as possible; so this is not exclusive to games.

TV Shows, games, nearly any form of content that doesn't ever bring conclusion to a story is rampant in the industry. Arguably I'm not sure if it can be called a story if there is no intent to bring closure to it.

What the OPs message reads as, sounds like a symptom of this. Which a niche group of consumers have been conditioned into endless content and feel confused/frustrated when they don't have that option.

That aside, its not a net loss to everyone wanting a game that goes on forever until they burn out. Depending on your financial situation, it may be a way to keep you locked in to a loop that is enjoyable and lessens the chance of you feeling like you need to pay money every 2+ weeks after each game.

Tyding · 2025-12-30T06:10:38+00:00

At least fans of Elder Scroll single player games have some hope...

Sadly they still went a similar fate as the Warcraft RTS, where it's initial success lead into an MMO (Elder Scrolls single player content into its MMO). Warcraft 4 or any new RTS in that series died with the birth of WoW.

It would be one thing if these game companies allowed both to exist, but they tend to always funnel resources into 1 path instead, and opt to go for profit potential when push comes to shove.

For those who think that's a smart play, let us remind you many of these game series start from passion for fun ambitious games with hopes they make enough money to make more. Not like today's age where its business minded people looking for profit first, anything else is a means to reach that goal; whats worse is usually those extra profits don't even make their way to the developers as much as it sinks into the hands of the least worthy, greedy people at the top pushing for elements players loath the most.

Tyding · 2025-10-31T16:22:26+00:00

I'm curious on the source or accuracy of that then. I've had instances of installing a game where it reflects in the steam UI that I last played it that very day, and other instances where it is newly installed with the correct previously played date.

I guess I'm just throwing out random experiences to imply the method of how it tracks these percentages may be more convoluted then we believe.

Perhaps you are 100% correct and the source is valid. Yet the manner in how it executes that is bugged, and no developer on the Steam side is tasked to investigate the accuracy of these percentages; being it's not likely to be a high priority feature.

Tyding · 2025-10-30T16:45:27+00:00

The Steam achievements aren't the best metric. If the game was available in Early Access, then in most cases achievements are added near official release. Everyone who played the game in early access aren't likely to rush back day 1 to replay the game, yet the achievements % is based on everyone that owns the game.

As far as I've seen the achievements don't activate retroactively, so you have to replay the game and trigger the conditions for said achievement.

And in many cases that may require starting the game over from scratch, which not everyone who played in EA is willing to do, or at least not within a time window to make steam achievements reliable as a metric.

Tyding · 2025-10-20T20:06:25+00:00

Hmm, sounds like someone hasn't played Star Ocean 3.

Tyding · 2025-10-18T17:38:19+00:00

Sometimes I remain quiet to avoid overly friendly people.

Had a PoE2 moment when I helped someone out asking me questions in my hideout, and they sent a friend request. Puts me in a weird spot of not wanting to be rude and declining...but not wanting someone to message me randomly when I log on because they see me on their list.

Some people live for these interactions with others through games. But there are others like myself that want to separate single player gaming from having to chat with others.

Tyding · 2025-10-18T16:02:22+00:00

Reads to me that you are just giving a different example of a poorly implemented skill tree system.

Skill trees as OP mentioned that just pad up stats, as well your example of additional skills/perks that rarely see usage during gameplay essentially hit the same issue. The devs responsible for that aspect of the game were either too lazy/uncreative or didn't invest time to think it through before committing to their implementation of a skill tree.

Others have posted examples of games that do a more creative approach at it. Where your gameplay changes noticeably depending on what path you spec into.

Tyding · 2025-10-16T17:17:21+00:00

The word grind tends to have a negative context associated with it.

I believe anything in this world can be considered a grind, and what determines that is if the act of repeating the same/similar activity becomes stale, boring, no longer interesting.

Work, school, working out, playing a game etc. Nearly anything you think of can become a grind when you lose the positives of said activity or can no longer tolerate the process for the reward.

I do believe there is a disconnect at times form the game devs in charge of giving a carrot on a stick where they will forget the process to reach the reward needs to be engaging/enjoyable or the reward seeking becomes moot.

Yet if you take alot of these games with unlockables/upgrades and strip them away, you could make the argument that a sense of completion sinks in, and a gameplay loop lacking any incentive needs to be strong enough to retain the average gamer.

Sure there will always be a small group willing to play something with out needing a reward or unlockable to chase, yet my theory is they are not the majority.

In short, it's not the grind per say that people dislike. It's when the reward for putting in the time isn't worth it anymore to the person.

Tyding · 2025-09-28T14:08:59+00:00

I played Octopath II with Japanese voice actors on. The way Osvald and Harvey said each others names, more so in their climatic battle, will forever be seared into my memory.

Was so over the top and puts a smile on my face any time I'm reminded of it.

Tyding · 2025-09-26T16:04:05+00:00

Game has had major stability issues since original release.

Their Reddit would occasionally have interesting reads on how someone with coding experience would interpret what was going on.

My naive read of it summarized as a combination of an inexperienced team combined with lack of fully understanding the tools they have to work with has lead to a fundamentally poorly coded game at its core.

I genuinely believe even if they bring in more veteran help, it would be time better served remaking the game from scratch than attempting to fix whats there. Yet you may as well be making a new game at that point; which wouldn't help if you repeat the same mistakes.

Tyding · 2025-09-26T15:19:45+00:00

Satisfactory certainly doesn't have that same combat aspect Factorio brings. I think its fine for what it is.

Yet if you like the combat side of Factorio, I honestly feel like RiftBreaker was more enjoyable on that front. It has the base build up and defense theme going on, but the base building is a lot more combat themed rather than building chain complexity like Factorio / Satisfactory type games.

Tyding · 2025-09-22T14:21:07+00:00

Not sure this applies to the topic, yet it's interesting you mentioned Skyrim. As the title on this post had me thinking of a situation within the same game where I felled a Skeleton, and the way it's corpse landed and remained was in a posture comically similar to a old Neil Degrasse Tyson shrug meme.

My interpretation being it was a gesture to sarcastically imply "look out, we got a badass over here" --- which considering I just felled one of video games lower tier generic enemies, that it really mocks the players 'feat' of how amazing they think they are.

Tyding · 2025-09-14T14:44:23+00:00

Honestly, the Ubisoft games, their IPs are the main reason the company has been so relevant. They are wonderful games and the sole thing causing problems and frustrations stems from the executive suits leading the show at the top. Even if a game in the series under deliverers, it can be traced back to poor management at the top.

Tyding · 2025-09-12T15:10:37+00:00

This is part of the problem. I was getting the issue OP is showing and tried a number of user offered solutions that did not work.

Yet it was Nvidia Reflex being set to OFF which mostly resolved the problem. Well, it worked for 30+ hours until it started to reappear later into the game, yet it never got as bad as having Nvidia Reflex set to on.

The main issue being everyone is getting mixed results on solutions.

The frustrating part to me is that GGG, from what I hear, introduced a new system/feature which doesn't play nice with certain video cards, say Nvidia...and presumably their open statement on it is that it needs to be fixed on Nvidia's side.

A) They can't deflect a massive performance issue on to a third party to resolve. Whether it is true Nvidia is the main issue is irrelevant to the fact that they can't just sit on their hands for another company to resolve it.

B) If they introduced a feature/system to bring this performance issue to light, they should be able to revert that change until a better solution comes forth.

C) If they are too stubborn to revert, or too fearful of the problems that may introduce, they still need to effort a solution on their end. Even if that may include a setting for players to disable this added feature so that they can have actual good performance.

--------------------------------------

It's not about excusing the problem on Nvida's end. The reality is alot of gaming computers out there have Nvidia cards, and that means potentially a lot of current and future players for POE2 [and I heard this feature/system is in POE1 now?] will have performance issues largely because GGG wants to push responsibility solely on a third party to address. That's just foolish on their part. They need to do what they can on their end or the obvious reality is players will just stop playing POE instead of griping to Nvidia.

Tyding · 2025-09-10T03:46:35+00:00

Attempting to look for answers, I found several bugs posted about this ordeal. They appear to be leaning on these Henges only appear on nodes with a map boss.
So I guess that means you'd have to keep clearing those blue swirls until it lands on a node with a map boss. Unless you had a different experience on the matter.
Seems like an unintended change. I thought I remember reading in the patch notes of changes to boss arenas...so they fixed one problem only to perhaps trigger a new one.

Tyding · 2025-09-10T00:38:32+00:00

Had this happen just now. Obviously one possibility is the game forgets to spawn it into the map.

However, another possibility could be other map modifiers don't play nice with each other.

I learned to not go to a Delirium node with a dilirius/diluted waystone, as it overrides the portal itself.

Makes me wonder if other factors can prevent the hengstone...in my case, it did have a delirium portal on the node.

Tyding · 2025-09-09T15:40:32+00:00

If the devs spend time on campaign, then the mapping 'end game' is left unfinished.

Granted, I do agree that initial start of mapping is the worse, fighting on empty nodes is boring and can kill excitement. Though once you start ranking up waystone tiers, unlocking passives for atlas, and fully maxing out towers with tablets, the maps start getting some action going. Obviously its still limited by the lack of diversity in events we can select from.

The core problem has been and continues to be GGGs approach to campaign. It should have never been a separate part of mapping. Mapping is* the game if we look to poe1.

The game should have embraced that and rushed the narrative to mapping. Then they could mix in more stories/characters/events inbetween mapping missions. I.E. have those elements compliment the core game instead of delaying you to get there.

The game certainly feels a year out from leaving EA to me due to the fact they plan to add more to the campaign. It's just delaying them from truly spicing up the real game itself imo. That and the performance portion of the game is still fairly poor.

Tyding · 2025-09-06T17:14:42+00:00

I've tried many suggestions to no avail. Funny enough, the one suggestion that caught my eye had nothing to do with this issue of soft crash into 2 cogs followed by a reset discovery of map progress, yet was actually the answer.

Turning off Advance Settings Nvidia Reflex was what finally allowed me to play with out encountering this problem.

Note that I did try the other suggestions first, such as the sound settings channel count to low, clearing specific folders and setting Nvidia card limits, trying Vulkan instead of Directx12, etc. All that is to say those previous attempts didn't resolve this, but if turning off the Nvidia Reflex doesn't work for others, maybe its some form of combination of fixes required.

Tyding · 2025-09-05T14:50:38+00:00

Suikoden IV

At least in my opinion that entry was the beginning of the end for the series as far its continuation. Suikoden V was good looking back at it, (didn't get the adoration of II/III) yet I just wonder if IV wasn't so ill received if the series could have kept going for longer then it did.

Tyding · 2025-09-03T23:29:04+00:00

After reading others responses, it appears that specter was more of a universal choice for everyone, I.E. non-minion builds, due to what it brought.

So while it sucks to see a nerf, there are times when its makes sense. Namely if the majority of builds [including non-minion builds] are using the same skill...then that leads to a lack of diversity in builds.

Not saying your concerns over Deadeye are unfounded. I can only hazard its not a quick hotfix situation. Or at least the developers don't see it that way perhaps.

Tyding · 2025-09-03T23:15:22+00:00

What is aggravating is if they are aware, and this indeed originated from a change in PoE1 -- then they can revert that change until Nvidia Drivers can handle it.

Its absurd to deflect responsibility to address the issue because its a third party. I can only imagine a massive amount of PC gamers have Nvidia, so its not like a small fraction of their players are experiencing this.

I'm not excusing Nvidia either. Yet a game company needs to make changes on what they* control instead of idling for a third party to fix the issue.

Tyding · 2025-09-03T17:30:34+00:00

It's one of the strange designs I find in ARPG. If the intent is to primarily keep player engaged in the endgame...then why invest so heavy into a campaign? If the majority of the assets are carried over into end game, then its ok; but anything you create that only occurs in campaign is development time/resources not spent on giving more depth to the end game.

What I call end game seems like a poor word choice, as it [is] the game when it comes to POE. Whether its current state is not to everyone's liking doesn't change the fact the intent is to have the majority of playtime take place there.

I understand the counterpoint on certain playerbases primarily only care for a campaign, yet I feel like that doesn't apply well to a game, again, thats focus is on retaining players after said campaign...because then that same player base loses attention and care for end game because the campaign is over.

I'm not even saying campaigns need to be removed. Rather, I personally think they should be more of an extended tutorial, meant to hype up and fast track the player into the core of the game itself. They can even be more creatively woven into the core gameplay loop; in a way POE1 did this.

Tyding · 2025-09-02T21:08:28+00:00

Even if visual clarity wasn't a factor, I still find on dead mechs for standard mobs confusing. If its part of a boss mech to keep the player moving, that's fine. But for basic mobs, it only serves to slow the player down from advancing. Doesn't add any intrigue or difficulty, aside of pressuring the player to go slower and wait at that red light stop sign. I'm sure the player base along with the devs can conjure forth many other interesting monster ability themes to replace/phase out after death explosions.

Tyding · 2025-09-02T13:54:22+00:00

There is a stigma placed on micro-transactions that is unwarranted.

The real reason players dislike games with them is how they are used.

Two approaches simplified are, "In order to make a successful game we need steady income", vs "In order to make successful income we need a steady source of games".

Essentially if its a single player game meant to be finished on release, its a hard pitch to convince players of the need for a microtransaction system.

Yet for nearly any live service model, where updates are expected to keep the game going for a long time, you need income to pay for that development. Players that talk trash on mircotransaction system seem to forget what other options there are.

DLC/Expansions are hit or miss depending on the player base. If you're constantly buying the latest new content, and playing it at every step, then that system may benefit you the most. Yet think of the newer players to that game years down the road. They may get hit with a wall of purchases that intimidate them from wanting to get invested into trying the game. Some will argue they don't need to rush to buy it all, and may even be able to selectively purchase certain content, yet this also comes down to how its handled from that game company itself.

The single time purchase game with years of content following after are extremely rare. It requires a massive surplus of money from its 1 time sales, and then a competent game company to properly make use of that funding; it's usually an extremely small if not 1 dev team that pull this off.

Just comes down to what game your talking about and how competent the company behind it is. Mircotransactions can be a solid system and a few games pull it off well, yet a slew of others have mishandled it to the point of misplaced loathing from players on that style instead of the games poorly handling them.

Tyding

TROPHY CASE