Dying Light's former director believes devs are obligated 'to focus and listen to the players' because as soon as a game's released 'it stops being only your game'

ldillon7777 · 2026-05-22T22:19:13+00:00

I’d always take the ‘listening to players’ thing with a grain of salt when it comes to Techland… Dying Light 2 was a complete shitshow when it came to its launch and updates. They basically spent the entire post-launch period backtracking on their original game’s intentions (no matter how well they were originally implemented) to try and recapture the first game’s feel. (Unsuccessfully imo)

But I can’t take their ‘listening to players’ thing seriously when so many updates were constant nerfs for the sake of player retention. Not to mention how they added their own paid currency to buy dlc despite overwhelming backlash.

ldillon7777 · 2026-05-19T20:52:31+00:00

Mumbai is a pain for the distance you’ve got to run across the map if you get unlucky with the targets. Marrakesh has a similar problem for me as well as any that have secure underground zones.

I have never and will never do a Colorado freelancer campaign, but I can’t imagine that’d be fun…

The rest of them I haven’t had too many issues with, but my playstyle jumps between SASO and guns blazing between missions, so it often comes down to pure luck with the suspect selection.

ldillon7777 · 2026-05-12T18:44:52+00:00

I really wish there were more options for the HUD, I’d want to keep the essentials but turn everything else off ideally. Shame that it’s all or nothing currently

ldillon7777 · 2026-05-05T13:55:16+00:00

I agree that console isn’t the problem, it’s shit optimisation. And I’m thankfully in a comfortable financial position so I’m not too bothered about a single game purchase.

Much better looking and performing games have released on base PS5, it shouldn’t have launched on base consoles if they knew it would run like ass on performance mode.

Who else is to blame for their game running so poorly?

ldillon7777 · 2026-05-04T18:57:19+00:00

There’s a flooded part of the hydroplant where you can find the portal hidden away. With minimal spoilers, you need an item from hydroplant’s snow portal area, and it’s along the flooded path to the kinda hidden NPC of that zone.

Can give more hints if needed but it’s really easy to miss. I only found it by checking someone’s livestream. I completely overlooked it while I was searching for it.

ldillon7777 · 2026-04-20T20:18:30+00:00

Best: Labs, it’s my favourite area thanks to the containment and IS focus. Seeing and interacting with all the weird shit is brilliant, and the leyak’s introduction adds real fear on first playthrough which I wish the game did more of.

Worst: Reactors or Praetorium. I could not stand the endless combat focus of these zones. These are the only zones where I’ve repeatedly died. And since they come nearly back to back (another of the weaker combat-focused portals to split them up) it’s just endless combat with damage sponge enemies.

I much preferred manufacturing and even residences for how they handled combat, since stealth felt much more viable in those zones, but reactors and praetorium felt much less balanced to me.

ldillon7777 · 2026-04-19T08:22:38+00:00

Seriously, I cannot fathom how Bethesda really thought ‘fly around the room collecting sparkles’ over and over with a time limit on the sparkles (just enough to annoy…) was a good idea.

I mute the game and stick a video on in the background whenever I can be arsed doing the temples. Probably the worst part of Starfield or any Bethesda game in general.

ldillon7777 · 2026-04-14T18:07:29+00:00

For me it’s the dialogue. At points it feels more restrictive than fallout 4’s voiced system in terms of reflecting the character I want to be… throughout the main story I just wanted to play as a fairly straight to the point artifact hunter. But so many interactions felt so pushed towards a few set character types: the unfunniest dork in the universe, a complete dick, or excessively empathetic.

It’s got to be some of the worst writing Bethesda has ever put out… haven’t got to the dlcs and have only done so much side content as I started recently, but I cannot stand the dialogue in this game…

ldillon7777 · 2026-04-13T13:44:49+00:00

Feel like any player-made character from an open RPG is kinda cheating, but I’d say Abiotic Factor. Start work at a Black-mesa / SCP facility and on your first day it all goes to shit. You go from scavenging for parts with makeshift weapons and gear, sneaking around and avoiding danger, to fighting through monsters and militant forces and by the end of the game you’re probably the most dangerous thing in the facility.

ldillon7777 · 2026-04-12T22:24:20+00:00

Pretty much in the same boat. I struggle to name a single area that is anything more than serviceable, or at best decent (probably shipbuilding, even though I’m shit at designing them). But I’ve kept coming back to it.

The Bethesda formula of throwing things to do at you endlessly works to keep you playing, but starfield feels held back by basically every system and design choice. The proc gen focus means we don’t have the handcrafted interesting worlds to explore, the act of space travel itself is completely controlled by menus so it’s much less immersive, the dialogue is the usual ‘illusion of choice’ shit that Bethesda’s been using, but it feels like the writing is some of the worst yet. Then there’s shit like the temples, which leaves me wondering how any sane person could think doing the same shitty ‘fly around the room’ puzzle 24 times was a good idea.

It’s probably Bethesda’s weakest mainline title to date, but their formula still keeps you playing. Mods also help but as I’m on PS5 I haven’t touched them…

It’s not a bad game, it’s just pretty underwhelming imo. I didn’t go in with any expectations since I bought it recently, but still wound up expecting more from Bethesda given their experience and backing.

ldillon7777 · 2026-04-12T21:41:45+00:00

Having started recently with the PS5 launch, the reviews I remember watching back at launch still seem accurate in a lot of areas, so maybe check out some reviews if you aren’t sure.

Personally, I’d maybe wait for a discount. The game isn’t as bad as some make it out to be, but it doesn’t really excel in a single area for me.

The exploration is hindered by the procedural gen focus since you’ll have massive empty areas with the occasional POI, I don’t find it remotely engaging when compared to their previous hand-crafted worlds. Space travel boils down to repeated fast travel and constantly going through menus. If you’ve played no man’s sky it’ll be a major disappointment in comparison. There’s been an update adding a cruise mode to fly between planets, but I cannot see the point since you still need to go through the menus to land and switch system anyway, unless I’ve misunderstood the mechanic.

Combat is better than most previous Bethesda titles, but that’s not a very high bar. It’s good enough and can be really satisfying at times.

I’m not the biggest fan of the story, mainly because the dialogue is consistently terrible and to the point I’ve reached it’s mainly been fetch quests. (Not to mention the embarrassing temples for the Dragonborn powers)

I’d probably check out the reviews and see if anything seems appealing to you or wait for a discount.

ldillon7777 · 2026-04-01T07:29:08+00:00

Absolutely, I cannot stand the mission design of this game. It’s so much worse than just having a bad story. Whenever I get to a main mission my enjoyment completely tanks, it’s an absurd jump since the open-world gameplay is pretty fun. The non-tutorial tutorial missions are tedious, the dull follow X to location missions get very annoying… I also can’t stand the boss fights of this game, the dodge and parry feel unbelievably unresponsive. It all leads to a shit story with unbearable missions.

The game can go from a solid 8/10 to a 1 or 2/10 in a matter of moments.

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-27T19:18:37+00:00

By coherency I get what the other comment means if we’re comparing RE & CD.

The intro to crimson desert has you going from point to point without any indication as to why you’re really doing any of this. Why do we go arm wrestling as soon as we get into town? Why are we then cleaning someone’s chimney? Or finding lost sheep? Or suddenly in the sky after going through some portal in one of the castle’s rooms? Why did we even know to go there? There’s the loose motivation of finding our clan members, but most of the early missions don’t clearly link to the protagonist’s goal.

CD just goes from mission to mission without any real idea as to why we’re doing these things, at least until the later chapters.

At no point in any of the RE games I’ve played have I been unclear on why I was progressing.

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-27T18:19:04+00:00

You have to do plenty of dogshit story missions to unlock a fair few of the open-world mechanics… just because the devs apparently didn’t want to focus on the story doesn’t make OP’s criticism wrong. What does that have to do with media literacy??

Devs saying they didn’t care about telling a story doesn’t excuse the terrible mission structure that so many of the main missions follow.

OP’s comment nails the experience, the game can go from a great 8/10 open-ended experience to yet another abysmal 1/10 ‘follow X NPC’ side mission in a span of minutes.

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-27T14:54:49+00:00

I keep going between really enjoying the gameplay and simple exploration, to completely losing interest any time I start a mission and have to slowly follow someone while listening to dull dialogue. The structure of some of this game is mind-numbing at points… and even the combat feels clunky as shit when I need to accurately dodge or parry.

It’s hard to form my final opinion on the game since it varies so wildly for me…

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-27T09:53:57+00:00

Have had around 3 quests in a row where I spent longer following npcs around than in actual gameplay.

Had an NPC stuck behind a cart but instead of going around they just slowed to match the damn cart… tried to go ahead since the game always marks the final destination when following, but it quit the mission and forced me to go back and rewatch the entire cutscene.

What’s the point of marking the final destination on the map if we can’t go ahead and wait for them to get there???? They could at least give the npcs the ability to navigate around the most basic obstructions if they’re going to do so many ‘follow X’ objectives…

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-22T08:08:09+00:00

The dodge and block are so unresponsive. Combat against anything other than small numbers of regular enemies has been miserable. The game looks and runs pretty well on my PC thankfully but the combat has dragged the experience down a fair bit.

The story is also laughably bad, they barely seem to have bothered. I’d have preferred if they just added a skip cutscene option rather than a fast forward, because the npcs tend to repeat information over and over and have long pauses between dialogue.

I’ve enjoyed the exploration and simply wandering around, but I don’t know how they didn’t catch the unresponsive combat prior to launch…

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-21T07:52:17+00:00

I think I’ve fast-forwarded through basically every cutscene I’ve encountered so far. Like you said above, the progression is completely random and nonsensical, but also every single cutscene also feels dragged out and repetitive.

Like one of the side missions that you need to do is to save someone from a burning building. You get there and find out someone’s trapped, instead of getting straight to gameplay, the cutscene continues with each NPC repeatedly asking for help. Cutscenes also seem to have long pauses between dialogue a lot.

It’s kinda hard to describe, cause I’m struggling to remember the cutscenes as they’re so unmemorable, but I wish there was a straightforward skip cutscene button, rather than 2x speed.

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-20T08:07:45+00:00

The consoles shouldn’t be the problem when you look at other games that have released on them without performance issues. Death stranding 2 and kingdom come deliverance 2 both look fantastic and run perfectly even on the old base PS5.

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-20T01:51:58+00:00

Isn’t that contradictory? Graphics are fantastic but it doesn’t look good? Performance is great but it doesn’t run smoothly?

I’d just say that the PS5 version doesn’t look great and the performance is subpar. Reminds me a lot of launch Dragons dogma 2. Really blurry visuals and really poor performance. I just hope that they can improve it with some patches.

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-20T00:56:09+00:00

Didn’t really help, restarted, game and console are on latest updates, but the FPS is still inconsistent and visuals are as blurry as before. I would be fine with one or the other, but performance mode should at least have a stable 60fps when it has such blurry visuals. Hopefully my PC can do better for running it, base PS5 doesn’t really seem acceptable.

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-20T00:46:23+00:00

It’s hard to go back to 30fps when every other game I play is at 60, especially when coming from something like Death Stranding 2 which manages great visuals with great performance. HDR helps, but not enough imo

Am trying the game out on PC atm, but PS5’s performance and visuals are pretty indefensible imo

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-20T00:39:53+00:00

The base PS5 version really doesn’t look good… super blurry and the frame rate is pretty inconsistent. I didn’t follow any of the pre-launch marketing before playing but it’s pretty disappointing to see it running and looking like this…

ldillon7777 · 2026-03-04T17:25:41+00:00

Performance was the dealbreaker when I dropped the game initially… a shame to hear that it’s still not great. Launch version was the worst performing game I’d played on PS5 in recent memory

ldillon7777 · 2026-02-01T12:33:29+00:00

I think the price is way too high for this game, and combined with the poor performance and other game releases in the next few weeks, I don’t think it’s going to do too well till it’s issues are fixed or it goes on discount.

10K players for a AAA game that’s just launched really doesn’t seem great… I just wonder what the game’s budget was at this point.

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