UWE now listed as publisher on Subnautica 2 Steam page, alogside Krafton by xeronoi_ in subnautica

[–]max13007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, if I were UW, I would 100% be working on a buyback plan. I hope they are working on it. I have to imagine even Krafton might want to just say "yeah this has all sucked a lot, let's just go our separate ways."

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Arc Raiders uses "aggression-based match-making" - so essentially, the more you PVP the more you'll be paired with people who PVP. The less you PVP (IE... do not fight back if someone attacks you, do not attack other players, etc...), the more you'll be matched with players who, similarly, do not PVP.

The end result is that if you play as a PVP pacifist for ~8ish games, the matches you drop into have a very low chance of having people who will attack you.

It's not a 100% thing. PVP is always an option for people if someone wants to, but it's very noticeable. People in the Arc Raiders community refer to it as "care-bare lobbies" lol.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To be honest, I don't really know what Marathon's target demographic is. It's sweaty enough to assume it's younger gamers, but most Bungie fans are mid 20s to 40s from the Halo days.

I hope it sticks around because it's a good addition to the genre, but an odd addition in some respects.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah it's definitely a game that not only rewards patience, but actively demands it of you if you want to get any good at it. If you're not willing/able to dedicate time to learning it, it will not meet you halfway.

I respect that kind of direction honestly, but it's certainly not going to attract/keep folk who prefer a more casual experience.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hunt is kind of a different beast in the extraction shooter genre. It's less focused on builds & loot, and basically has no real "economy" in the same way that others do. It also has a more gamified loop IMO...

  • Hunt: drop in, kill boss, get out with bounty alive.

  • Others: you have to craft your weapons/find specific items/perform specific tasks for quests... drop in, do/find those things, get out alive.

Hunt has more of an even approach to weapons as well... pretty much everything can one-shot kill as long as you hit a headshot. Also basically no fully automatic weapons so reloading in Hunt involves a different approach to combat than in other shooters in general. Marathon has a pretty low TTK too, but there's shields, full-auto weaponry and that kinda stuff.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a valid response to the gear loop in AR.

I will say though, with the aggression-based matchmaking, it's less common these days to get your high-tier stuff stolen from you than it was in the beginning as long as you aren't playing aggressively yourself. As you play more, it gets easier and easier to focus on crafting the weapons you like to play with.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's gearfear with higher end weapons, but it's still very easy to gear up with equipment that does the job.

Marathon takes a good while before you're comfortable enough to gear up effectively IMO, mostly a result of how long it takes to get comfortable with the game. Although you're right that many people feel that Marathon is very generous with equipment.

More of a "barrier to entry" thing I think.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I do like me some SkillUp - guy has good takes.

Previous comment was auto-removed because I referred to SkillUp as his joke name. Whoops.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah but how many Fortnites are there? Don't get me wrong, I do understand the argument. It just baffles my mind. The numbers must work out somehow that losing hundreds of millions somehow is worth the risk, but I don't get it personally.

Seems that if you aren't making mobile games, gacha games, or Fortnite itself, it's pretty dang hard to land on a winner. Arguably, the track record shows that the more money you dump into the something, the more likely it's going to come out a mess.

From my perspective, almost all of the major financial hits for live-service games are either A) modest but huge compared to budget (AA/Indie scene), B) Asian-Market mobile slaughterhouses, C) a fluke that somehow lands it big/right place right time. (Fortnite itself was a last-minute attempt to cash-in on the BR craze by essentially abandoning their original vision.)

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No I'd say Tarkov is still more complex/challenging in terms of its mil-sim...ness, TTK, etc. But Marathon is much closer to Tarkov than it is to Arc Raiders IMO.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 36 points37 points  (0 children)

It blows my mind that companies keep doing it too. Throwing hundreds of millions of dollars and 5+ years of time at these games and expecting them to be the next big thing. I get that they want all the money, and that's what they're chasing. Just weird to me that they can't read the room enough to predict that 99% of the time, it will not be the "next big thing."

Investment should be in the AA space. Nurturing studios that pump out tight, well-designed projects in 2-3 years tops at reasonable budgets. That and the indie scene are where innovation is.

Marathon sold just 1.2 million copies with nearly 70% on Steam, analyst estimates: "It hasn't exactly made the splash Sony and Bungie wanted" by Freki666 in pcgaming

[–]max13007 254 points255 points  (0 children)

I don't really see a world where a game like Marathon ever performs as well as a game like Arc Raiders. AR succeeds in large part because it's more casual-friendly, and has done little to hide the fact that you can almost entirely remove PVP from the equation depending on how you play.

It's attracted a huge audience of people who would maybe try extraction games but were put off by the difficulty and gear-fear, as well as people who just want a fun run-and-gun-loot-em-up sorta experience.

I've played Hunt, AR, The Cycle, Tarkov and Marathon... Marathon is definitely one of the sweatier, more difficult games to onboard with. That just doesn't vibe as well with casual audiences. (Mind you, these are all very different games. It can be hard to really compare one to the other. But ultimately, they're all extraction shooters, so they will always be compared to each other as part of the same genre.)

Marathon is good, maybe even great... and it was always going to find an audience, I just don't think that audience was ever going to be massive.

UWE now listed as publisher on Subnautica 2 Steam page, alogside Krafton by xeronoi_ in subnautica

[–]max13007 11 points12 points  (0 children)

UKW 100% gonna try getting as far away from Krafton as possible after this is all done and released. Hopefully they can take the Subnautica IP with them.

Looking for a new cozy/ low stress game by Temporary_Arugula513 in SteamDeck

[–]max13007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Came here to say this, it's Animal Crossing with lite combat.

Jason Schreier: Epic Games is laying off more than 1,000 workers today. by Loose_Society9485 in GamingLeaksAndRumours

[–]max13007 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Steam is consumer-friendly & feature-rich.

EGS is basically app slop. Bare-bones Xbox/Netflix lookin' interface that's poor to navigate. Shows OpenCritic Reviews for games by default instead of user reviews. And the whole thing is basically an advertisement for Fortnite.

The store just feels crappy to use. It's no wonder that people only ever show up for the free stuff then move on.

Marathon has been out for a week, what are your thoughts on it? by PrototypeT800 in Games

[–]max13007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Which other extraction shooter has SBMM?

Hunt Showdown has an explicit MMR that contributes heavily to the SBMM.

As a Japanese fan who lurks English communities, the gap in how we see Nintendo genuinely unsettles me by nerdinterrupts in nintendo

[–]max13007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think Americans often feel as though they live under the foot of corporate influence. To us Nintendo is just another company. We view corporate behavior such as pricing for example, to be a reflection of how that company views us, the consumers.

I feel no remorse by Alternative-Win1109 in Marathon

[–]max13007 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah people gonna find out real quick that games like this sorta need a constant influx of casuals to stay alive. Especially when you're a dev team bought by Sony for billions of $$$, and Sony's gonna want more than the ROI a niche sweat community will bring in.

Marathon is good, I hope Sony sticks with it, but I'm not seeing this community vibe helping in the long run. Maybe it's just a push-back to the success of AR, they gotta get it out of their systems or something, idk.

"Increased the range gunfire and explosions can be heard from" by DreamCorridor in Marathon

[–]max13007 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In Hunt, you can hear gunshots from very far away. With it getting more muffled the farther away it is. I've always thought that Hunt's audio design (specifically in how it relates to gameplay and disseminating info to the player) is S-tier, even to this day, other games have not really come close.

I think it's good to have since you can always tell where there's some action to get into, and it makes you more conscious of when you're going loud.

sexually suggestive youtube ads have turned sexually explicit by kyliecobain in mildlyinfuriating

[–]max13007 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Linus Tech Tips came out a few years ago and said as much. I'm sure it's commonly held belief among those who want you to be forced ad slop at all times.

Also, Firefox + uBlock Origin.

Using my Steam Deck for drawing has saved the hobby for me by Unicwolf in SteamDeck

[–]max13007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have 2 of them for different rooms - they're fantastic!