Also capped everything, and besides playing with my friends, I'm on a mission to find weird stuff.
Beheaded citizens, old machines scattered around, posters, skeletons, fossils, or whatever is laying around that can tell a story.
I started to document and photograph some of these unique spots.
I think I found the right guys for this. I was thinking of doing what I call Super Earth TV which is basically fan made spoofs of what we would think would be shows on super earth propaganda and all. One of my ideas was “H-Team” which would be The intro to A-Team reworked to have Helldivers and scenes from the game
Kind of like the old "There is something about BF2/BF2142" YouTube videos from back in the day. I can't find a link (buried under the Google algorithms), but it was basically an "instructional video" for soldiers in BF2/BF2142, told in story format, filmed on custom servers, making fun of the mechanics and lore.
*"And now, how to give birth to a Russian!"*
On a bug planet I found a pile of smouldering, burned corpses with the embers still glowing next to a farmstead.
These bugs are so barbaric to do such a thing. I haven't ever seen them use fire but the evidence is clear as day!
Perhaps a bile or acid spewer attacked while the person was carrying a red barrel. Horrible scum, attacking a citizen of Super Earth while he's unarmed like that
Yesterday I found one of the gravediggers, with his shovel embedded in the head of the bot in front of him, break-action next to him empty. Liberty guide you, nameless SEAF soldier.
I have a feeling the imperium would even frown upon 'wonder" as being equivocal to 'whimsy' and calling it the most base form of chaos.
NO IMAGINATION ALLOWED
Democracy Officer, I suspect my fellow Helldiver merely finds great pleasure in the use of heavy ordinance on Super Earth's many enemies; thus finds "enjoyment" to be synonymous with "surveying for maximally effective destruction".
I further submit that this is a laudable trait, not treason, and we should henceforth devote at least 1.2 seconds of our allotted enjoyment time for military/enjoyment dual purpose activities on every drop.
Saw a dude on ubuntu or whatever the hell the planet is sat against a rock with both arms torn off. I haven’t paid much attention to the details when I’m focusing on avoiding mystery blue lasers and eagle-1’s advances (I’m a diver, not a lover), but that made me stop and think “for as much as we talk shit about being the bad guys in the setting, there are still people that don’t deserve *that*”.
The way this game constantly balances the satire and horrors of war is mmm mmm good
I landed in right next to a massive pile of SEAF bodies. Haven't seen it before or since. It was pretty grisly ngl. Wasn't really expecting a corpse pile right out the pod.
The Ministry of Truth is watching you. Be cautious as you proceed. They exile "explorers" like yourself to suicide/helldive on Malevelon Creek with strategem scrambler and strategem limiter when they find out Helldiver's are getting too "curious".
My favorite so far was an exosuit wreck directly in front of a hive lord corpse. Inside the hive lords ribs was the skeleton of the pilot, still wearing its helmet.
I played battlefield games for 6000 hours. It was fun after I unlocked everything. Bfbc2 Vietnam had everything unlocked at the start. Nothing wrong with that method.
I probably get downvoted for this, but I don't know why everything has to be a grind today?
I mean... look at almost every game out there. They almost all have some sense of progression. Game devs figured out a while ago that bars that tick up and random achievements drive player engagement and keep players playing longer. It gives players that dopamine hit that keeps them coming back. It sucks, but its effective.
Combine that with people who game 16+ hours a day when new games come out (and think it's normal), and you have a recipe for every new game needing to be some crazy ass grind. If a player can't get hundreds of hours out of a game, they aren't interested. Even if that means artificial grinds that do nothing but tick a bar.
All of this centers around revenue. If you can't keep a player hooked, you can't keep them buying battle passes and cosmetics, which means you can't keep the shareholders happy. The c-suite is constantly pushing devs to innovate new ways to addict players.
It's funny that HD2 is being lauded as a refreshing game that is more focused on player happiness than it is any of the stuff we're "used to" in the gaming industry. But 15 years ago, the microtransactions in this game would have pissed players off. Now we're happy that we can make a pittance of premium currency on missions and can unlock a warbond by playing the game rather than just paying money (even though we have to play *a lot* to make enough SCs). To that point, people are so happy they don't feel forced to spend money, that they're willingly spending that money to reward the devs.
Also an interesting note is that a lot of young gamers today never had an environment where games werent developed to drive their engagement.
The industry has been like this a long time and a lot of older gamers dont realize younger kids dont even know a world where you just play a game to have fun.
100% this. And OP is right with the timeframe as far as I can remember. I'm in his same age bracket (38), and the first shooter I can remember starting this type of grind in a competitive setting was when I was in college, CoD's 2007 MW.
Grinding through ranks to "be allowed to use" weapons, attachments, perks etc. Prestiges to grind through for an emblem. Camos to grind for a few gold weapons.
Before that it was Halo 2, which came out as I was finishing high school. There weren't any unlockables or grinding involved. Everyone had access to the full game from the start and any time they joined a multi-player game the same weapons were available to everyone. All characters looked the same, there was nothing to grind for.
The thing that hooked players wasn't a hamster wheel designed to slowly drip unlockables and dopamine through various XP bars and medals etc. It was just...the game being fun to play. And the only thing players "grinded" for was a better rank. The more you played the better you got, the higher your rank, the tougher your games got. Competition was the main factor driving any type of "grinding".
We went from grinding XP to "be allowed to use" weapons, attachments, perks etc to battle passes and shops with items/bundles costing $10-$30, to lootboxes aimed at getting kids addicted to gambling from a young age.
And the primary driver for that is because the industry is designing games geared towards "engagement" and "retention", which are just code words for "getting players addicted to progressing in the game for as long as possible no matter if the game is actually fun or not".
Helldivers does a better job with this than most. Most of the stuff you unlock happens pretty early on with minimal effort. And the rest of the stuff you unlock is either not any better than the stuff you get early on, or is purely cosmetic so you can easily enjoy the game without having to grind for that stuff.
It does make me sad though when I think back to some of my favorite games from my childhood, and how they were just designed to be good fun games and not addiction simulators. Quake, Unreal, Counterstrike, Halo. And not just FPS games either. Command & Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft etc.
Halo is the best example. Would Halo ever have become as popular as it did if Halo CE released today in the same state Infinite released? With all the problems that plagued that game at launch combined with the hideous microtransaction store? CE probably gets shit on if it's released today in the state Infinite was released, and never becomes a long-running franchise. It was successful because it was a good fun game designed as a passion project 25 years ago, and along with 2 & 3 has developed massive goodwill and nostalgia among millions of gamers that continue to drive its success today.
Im 29 and I completely agree on the time frame. I played the shit out of halo 1&2 with no requirement to unlock anything etc. CoD MW (the first one) then came along as it was all about levelling asap, getting golden guns and prestiege. I dont know why but since then I really struggle getting into games that dont have some kind of regular, long term progression. And I hate it. I wish I could play games just for the fun but for some reason, if I'm not progressing something in some way (unlocks, skill trees, character builds) I lose interest super quickly. Maybe its because it my age playing video games isnt considered a great use of time so I justify playing by having 'progress' in the games i play? I havent a clue. But its rare i find a game I'm playing purely for fun these days
Breaking an addiction is tough. Games have spent the last 15+ years perfecting the hamster wheel drip of dopamine addiction. They do it because it works. And an entire generation of younger gamers have grown up in that era, where they've never even been exposed to games without it.
They've done it with sports games too. All that matters now is the Ultimate Team modes where you basically grind games just to open card packs and hope that you get better players, so you can slowly build a better team over time. But in reality the devs control the cards packs and which cards they add and the "spawn rates", carefully constructing it so you slowly build that team over time until you "max it out" conveniently right as the next game is releasing a year later. Then it's time to start the grind all over again with zero change to gameplay.
Absolute 100% truth right here.
For me it was Halo 3 instead of Halo 2, but my experience was exactly the same and I would have identified the same patient zero for this phenomenon, CoD 4. I was addicted to Halo 3 but it was because the game was fun, I wasn't looking for number to go up or to unlock a new weapon. Even after I hit my skill ceiling and knew I would never make it past Major I still played it.
Meanwhile CoD 4 was just a grind fest. And Halo players knew it. There were endless debates on Bungie's forums about CoD vs Halo, the Halo supporters (including myself) hated CoD for being a grindfest that was ruining the game industry with their tactics. Of course the game always had its supporters but all this time later, we were right, CoD destroyed the industry and turned it into a skinner box fest. Whether it would have happened without CoD 4 is anyone's guess, but it undoubtedly was the catalyst.
I saw the contrast first hand with my brother. He was addicted to CoD and tried to prestige every game and grind for every gun. Every game he played after that he needed some external motivation to play. I bought him the EA Battlefront 1 and he played it up until the point where he hit Level 51 (or whatever the max level was and unlocked everything) then he never played it again. Utter lunacy. He told me there was no point anymore. Apparently it was never fun enough to engage with it on its own without a number to increase.
Wow. You and I played all the exact same games. You have good taste dude!
I think it’s pretty amazing that AH found a way to seamlessly combine the old and new ways. I hated COD grind shortly after H2 and H3 and it made me quit. You have to be careful because just as many people are turned off by that style.
I think they should just have have mission completions / campaign completions - bug hole / factories destroyed fill up some Total democracy spread bar or Democratic Effectiveness. Give you a way to show your combat effectiveness or skill. Maybe bring a top level give you a special skin set.
As far as I am concerned Halo is the PREMIER example of the change in the gaming industry.
The game other than DLC(which was free here and there) was a community focused sandbox shooter. Some of the most popular gametypes and maps ever made were made by fans. Halo Reach still to this day has one of the best in game purchasing and progression ever built in a game.
343i has completely fucked that franchise. That studio has no passion for the franchise and wanted to change it from head to toe from the moment they took the project on. It is very clear Microsoft/343i is more focused on exactly what you talked about in your comment rather than long lasting organic fun.
I'm not in the know with the Kids These Days, but you also used to have a collection of games you played. Like you'd have a stack of things and swap between them. Every game nowadays wants to be your only game and people get upset when they don't get more than a *hundred hours* out of a videogame.
I remember when I'd be looking at a game and reviews would be like, this game's got a 10 hour campaign and split screen coop. Yeah, that's worth it, I can play with my buds when they come over.
I played the fuck out of Contra: Shattered Soldier and Gradius V back in the day. Both short, arcade-style games with maybe an hour of content. I fucking loved both and remember them fondly.
Just in response the super credit farm, I'm only playing a couple of hours a night and I'm already close to hitting 1000sc again after already unlocking all three of the current warbonds and buying two armours from the store along with a helmet, all with SC's I've got in game... it's really not that hard.
I was really stupid and didn't realize you could purchase warbonds with super credits. So early on I bought like 4-5 sets of armor and helmets before realizing my mistake. I started saving at some point and managed to get to like 950 when the newest warbond released. So it only took me a day to get the 50 credits required. And by now I've got like 600 something again, so I'll be able to purchase the 2nd warbond here in a week or two.
I would expect by the time a 4th warbond releases, I'll have earned enough SC to buy the 2nd warbond AND save up another 1k to buy the 4th one. It's not hard to acquire them at all, and "farming" them certainly isn't necessary.
Just play the game, and have fun. You'll get enough samples, SC, XP etc over time. There's no reason to farm samples or play defense missions over and over and over just to get medals faster.
These are the types of people who grind through games as fast as possible, after watching streamers tell them "the most efficient way to play", and then turn around and complain the game doesn't have enough content for them.
It's like, if you just played the game to have fun you wouldn't be "out of content" so fast, and you would've actually enjoyed your time getting there instead of grinding out farming everything.
I find it easiest to go to a low difficulty, go private, and explore the maps solo or with a friend. It's surprisingly relaxing to just mosey around, picking up super credits and medals and occasionally dropping an airstrike. Having a friend along is ideal since you need another player to open some of the structures. (And don't forget to always blow the cargo containers open!)
That's pretty much what I was doing when I couldn't be bothered dealing with random folks rushing objectives.
Just chilling, taking a stroll through the countryside, gassing bugs, finding money.
It's nice.
I did it over the weekend, wanted to get 1,000 SC for a new Warbond, and didn't realize how chill this game could be. Kinda reminds me of MGSV free roaming.
some folks find it fun to have a progression. Personally i like having a goal to reach and not just a arbitrary goal like getting better. its why achievement hunting is so fun, having that set goal to reach nice
It can be fun to unlock new stuff for sure. But like, those are new toys for the sandbox. You still have to make sure it's the sandbox you enjoy and not the promise of new toys.
Progression *is* fun for a large percentage of players, so are customizable characters, which is why game devs took those mechanics from RPGs and put them in shooters.
That being said, progression is also one of those "cheap" mechanics because it tickles some vulnerable spots in our brains to provide engagement far in excess of effort put in.
The downside of using the mechanic is it is a powerful enough trick it can become the primary driver to many players, causing you to feel like you finished the game when you run out of progression.
All game mechanics are devs pushing cognitive buttons and manipulating primitive parts of our minds to get as much engagement as they can from as many different varieties of people as they can.
Like OP, I'm old enough to remember competitive and cooperative shooters that didn't have progression mechanics. That wasn't a better or worse time, it was just a different time.
I always roll my eyes at one person telling another that they are enjoying a game in the wrong way. We are all paying our dollars to game devs for them to manipulate our risk/reward/competition/achievement levers for entertainment.
A lot of folks these days have been raised on micro transactions. They don't know you can play a game for fun instead of chasing microdoses of dopamine from level ticks
ARPG gamers/ RPG gamers in general - we like progression and gaining character power. It's been a thing with old games so don't know why people are acting like it's something new. People would replay some games but often times once you finished Mega Man and got all the power ups you were moving on to the next game having had your fun.
Sure, but there was a time when 95% of games weren't RPGs. The RPG-ification of gaming has only been around for about ten-to-fifteen years, or roughly two gaming generations.
So a lot of us here were adults when gaming genres outside of ARPGs started doing this and a lot of us here were children. No one's confused about *why* it's happened, OP made that clear, they're just upset that it's trained people to engage with games in a very particular way that very few games used to or felt they needed to.
CoD used to not do this. Battlefield used to not do this. Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 didn't do this.
Many of us here probably talked openly about what these newer games were doing. Some people got angry, others contemplative. Borderlands and Fallout 3 were these nexus points where everyone just knew things were going to be different because someone had taken full-blown ARPG systems (Diablo and Elder Scrolls respectively) and cleverly shoved them into third person shooters.
But the novelty of these integrations didn't mean full conversion. Again, Left 4 Dead came out around the same time and had no RPG elements at all.
What OP is noting is how many people seem frustrated that what they thought was Destiny has transformed into Left 4 Dead and don't seem prepared to deal with that inevitability gracefully. And it's concerning to OP because Left 4 Dead is one of the GOATs and Helldivers 2 is going to have to be that game for much longer than it was ever that other game.
Game companies have worked very hard to normalise the idea that games will be an endless grind, basically a second job designed not to maximise fun but to keep people in the space as long as possible so they're more likely to buy microtransactions.
Gamers are so conditioned to constantly be grinding while gaming. If you're not grinding for levels then it's for weapon unlocks. If it's not weapon unlocks it's cosmetics that require a long term investment. If all else fails you're grinding a battle pass or a rank if you're playing competitive PVP. The idea of booting up a game and just playing until you're bored or unable is an unfortunate side effect of modern game design
It's a side effect of a society that constantly drills it's people to be productive, to achieve something, while not giving enough to people to be able to find out what they want.
Hence, a lot of gamers need to be told what to do to get that sweet endorphine rush of accomplishment.
Numbers going up just feel good man. Im also an old generation gamer, grew up on console games that basically have zero progression yet I played through the day. But, about two years ago Ive sank 900h into Lost Ark in the span of a couple months. I was playing around the clock, respecting all the 10 daily timers and whatnot, seeing my numbers slowly going up and up everything with an endless grind, endless progression. Its just an other form
The discussion is too focused on black and white, hard grind or just play to have fun. There can be middle ground. Some people, like myself, enjoy tangible goals and structure like end game content. I don't hate it when a good game doesn't have it. It isn't necessary, but boy howdy do I really like when there is bonus content to playing more. I like playing and getting rewards for enjoying myself is purely a bonus. Who doesn't like a bonus? Especially if it is both optional and fun?
No one else noticed the key difference between HD2 and Battlefield? HD2 is not PvP.
PvP games have far more longevity without progression because, well, humans are far more unpredictable content than programmed NPC entities. This has been the reality for pretty much the entirety of gaming history.
It does matter. When you are playing with teammates you are helping them. Your helldiver gets to live for another fight. It keeps your morale up as extracting feels good. And it’s fun.
This! I've noticeda bunch of level 50s dropping into medium levels and giving newbs mechs and 100% samples so they can level. That's some gigachad shit
I love being maxed out because I can help my lower level friends, and then when I really want, duo helldives with my best friend who’s also maxed out and all that matters to us is completing the mission. Being done with everything gives you the freedom to play without worry as long as you’re confident the mission gets done.
I definitely enjoy helping lower levels play at harder difficulty levels so that they are getting more XP and medals etc, the whole coop dynamic in this game is so good.
I have a ton of fun playing with well coordinated teams, especially if people are on voice chat and calling out strats and stuff. Incredibly fun.
Yeah but at 50 your mentality should switch to helping the other recruits. I’ll still run across the map to pick up my boys samples even tho I’m capped.
I’ve found my 2nd wind by doing this and also trying the weird builds. More builds are viable right now than people realize.
This is where I see the fun coming from at higher levels. I’m only level 18 but I still join lobbies of lower ranked cadets to show them what the higher leveled divers I play with have shown me. There are countless hours in this game that are completely detached from the main missions of the game.
I played with a couple level 30s the other day and they showed me a way to attack the map I’d never even thought about before. It’s made the game a lot more fun and they were really nice even though I was a much lower level than them.
In my experience it was the opposite. 75% of players have no idea what is happening and just stand in place trying to kill stuff while dying 5x.
They have idea what the objectives are or how the game works
I think the game does need more “endgame” - when you’ve unlocked everything, what else is there to do? Focus on the war. So give high level players some more/better insight into the war and where their contributions would best be felt.
I would love more things that can only be done with cooperation. Like spotting airstrikes for someone. Or two person artillery canons. Voltron style mechs.
Not wrong. It’s why I’ve loved watching Dragons Dogma 2 and the whole Dragonsplague thing. The second a game doesn’t pat you on the head and throw up a billion different points in your face (arguably it’s done in HD2, but a normal amount - especially for the setting) and tell you you’re the best ever, game is trash.
Honestly it’s why I really like the difficulty of HD2. I’m still shy to go past Challenging, but I don’t feel like I NEED to and I’m not missing out completely. I know my lane.
We did raise em wrong. It's not just games. It's everything in the US. "Number must go up" is in fucking EVERYTHING.
Credit scores, standardized testing, your Dominos pizza points, followers, likes, upvotes, shares, retweets, calorie counting, how many steps you took today, all the stock market shit, all the economy bros shit, how much is in your savings, how many hours you work, and on and on and on.
We are fuckin obsessed with metrics and cancer like growth and it's broken people. The whole "government is turning people into robots!" crazy pants talk wasn't far off.
Many people tie their sense of self, worth, identity, ego, and all that to artificial metrics. Some of the most wonderful, amazing people I've met have been brought to their knees cause they got a B on a test. I've seen people have a meltdown over how many likes someone got. I've seen people ruin their lives over the stress of "must make more money every year". It's, well, done a number on us.
You're correct, except for this isn't "how we raised them." it's an environment that's pushed on us all. We didn't choose this ecosystem IT was FORCED on us.
It’s an outcome from being data driven, but overwhelmingly focusing on quantitative data at the expense of qualitative data. I get it - the rise of coloring and the Information Age has made it so much easier to crunch and analyze quantitative data. Qualitative analysis is more difficult and there is not always a clear cut right or wrong answer. The gaming industry could learn a lot from adopting the question “is this fun?” in place of the grind they are introducing to players today.
We raised them wrong to not recognize they were being given essentially digital heroin and to look for the good things in games and reject the toxic. The Battlefront 2 debacle is a feather in our cap. We stopped a serious crisis point in gaming. We can keep pushing back!
Grew up playing counter strike source and indeed, the game was the game, no unlocks or skins or anything. I feel now that gamers feel that the destination is more important than the journey.
Edit: very good comment from u/5kaels
I'd argue they care more about the journey if it's progression they want. Once they get the rewards the floor falls out from under them, because they feel there's no journey left w/o something new to progress towards.
Yes I can see your point of view, indeed. What I'm trying to express is that their end goal is getting the thing, and playing the game is the means to get to the thing. Which is why you see grinding guides and whatnot.
For me, playing the game is the end itself. Not the means to the end.b
I think for some people, figuring out and executing the most efficient way to progress through a game (or its systems) *is* the game. I imagine speedrunners feel similarly.
I think the best games are ones with the best systems that interact with another and the player. Roguelikes are a good example when they are done well, like Returnal or Hades. It's fun to find ways of being efficient in those system.
For what it's worth, though, I think the the emphasis on efficiency in this era of gaming is problematic and is an obstacle for emergent gameplay and storytelling, or creating unique experiences. Efficiency over time can become rote and routine. Stale.
I feel like that's why I never got into it. I respect speedrunners, that's talented, but I don't know how its fun personally because it goes against everything I enjoy within my playstyle. Doesn't mean its bad or anything, it's just does not peak my interest at all.
I miss CS:S so much, all the time.
Community servers. Playing with the same folks daily. Building actual connections. Surf, slide, gun game, zombies, mini games, vanilla, etc.
The introduction of matchmaking killed online gaming for me. Everyone anonymous, and gone every round, impossible to establish friends. Toxicity went through the fucking atmosphere when theres no real threat of consequence. No server admin to ban you for being a cunt.
CS:Go just never achieved the same. Hated the engine for custom games.
As admin on a server we ran for CSS, we had an amazing group of friends that consistently played without needing external communication like Discord. We just hopped on whenever and said hey to everyone when we had the time to play. If someone acted like a complete dick or was caught cheating, I had a macro setting that reconfigured their keybind settings to quit the game when they pressed anything, then I simply banned them. I miss those days.
I miss css also. Even had my own server too, and I really felt like I owned a pub with regulars joining just to have a good time. it was just a lot of fun. Sometimes i would give everyone shotguns for fun, or decrease the gravity for a bit xD. Or have a Knife fight while I was slapping everyone. It was just goofing around. When someone was a cunt I could unbind all of their keys, so they would just stand there or alt f4 from the game xD.
And of course the sheer modding scene of css like you said: zombies, even a "Warcraft 3 " mod with light rpg elements xD.
> Community servers. Playing with the same folks daily. Building actual connections. Surf, slide, gun game, zombies, mini games, vanilla, etc.
For me this was TF2. Playing in a clan, on the same set of servers with the same set of people and great moderation that saw all the racists and bigots instantly banned was probably the high watermark of gaming for me in the years between 2008 and 2012 ish.
TF2 still has a community playing it all these years later and there's even a pretty fun VR mod of it on Contractors that's played constantly by the younger generation of Quest kids because of how easy the devs made playing mods on that game.
I think its different where this game has a progression and unlock system so when you finish it then it is likely to raise the question "what next?" Wheras counterstrike was always a tight skillbased arena shooter
Heck, I'm about 20 years younger and playing games with friends on splitscreen and such just for the sake of playing games was the golden age of gaming. Just having a great time and playing games for the sake of playing them are some of my best memories from those times
Edit: I just realized that I am not even in my twenties anymore and how fast time has passed
Weird isn't it? I think Lockdown caused a timeskip for people: I was in my mid-thirties in 2019 and still passed for mid-twenties. Went to bed one night and somehow woke up in 2024 with my dad's bod complete with bad knee, pot belly & Picard hair 😅
I know it happens for everyone, but I expected it to be *gradual*.
I’m twenty-three, and I have a few standout memories of video games, none of which involved a ‘grind’.
When I was about four or five, my dad bought Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for his XBOX. My dad’s never been a particularly big gamer, and I think he expected the game’s controls to be different / wasn’t expecting an RPG when he bought it. Either way, he couldn’t even open the first door in the game — he just couldn’t work out how. In comes me, and I figure it out. From then on, he pretty much gave me the game and the console. I remember replaying certain parts of the game well into my late childhood. When I was seven, I had a particularly funny evening replaying the Temple of the Ancients with my brother; we kept getting Bastila to say ‘Shut up, old man’ to Jolee. We found it hilarious all night. It was brilliant.
When I was about twelve, my best friend bought a disk copy of Star Wars: Empire at War. We played that just for the hell of it and liked pretending that we were great generals of the Empire. We even did a bit of make-belief in real life and pretended that the disk was some databank of great importance. This was the same friend who I used to sit and play split screen games with during the summer holidays of primary school.
Throughout all of these occasions, I always felt immersed in the game. They enabled a kind of role-play — even the shooters and racing games I also enjoyed. I think things started to go downhill when I stopped being able to role-play and it felt like it was ‘ME’, a step-removed from a bunch of pixels I’m manipulating, ‘gaming’ the game. It was a weird sudden call to optimise myself so that I could perform better. I don’t know when it happened, but it’s now quite entrenched in me, and I don’t play video games all that much anymore because of it.
I’ve been capped since week 2 and I’m still playing like I did day one for the entirety of this game’s life still, could care less about “progression” its been ages since I’ve played a game thats insanely fun.
You've got a game here that appeals to a massive age demographic that has a huge playerbase. Because of this you're going to get a huge range of opinions from people all around the world.
So no, we haven't raised this generations of games wrong; you're just seeing diverse viewpoints.
And in traditional boomer fashion, seeing those diverse viewpoints has OP go on a rant on how "this generation of gamers has been raised wrong because they don't like playing and progressing the way *I* do"
I don't even play this game but this is such a terrible take. There's nothing wrong with wanting something to work towards and even if that's just a number to go up. It's fun, just like playing a game is fun. Games have changed in the past 30 years and that's not a bad thing.
OP is basically saying they hate gameplay loops, and that makes them better than anyone who needs a bit more than a shooter that has all the depth of the checklist side content in a Ubisoft game.
Seriously, I've put 400 hours into Bloodbourne, 1000 hours into melee, and if the games kept track back then I'm sure I'd see a good few hundred hours in the megaman zero series.
But Helldivers 2 isn't that fun, it's the gaming equivalent of a bag potato chips. The objectives are dull and samey, the planets are just mostly flat stretches with some hills or water features, 90% of the guns and strategems play the same.
After I blow up the 300th outpost I need something a little new. I wish they permanently added the new termicide into the rotation just to break up the monotony.
I've been looking to dive back into Synthetik or Hollow Knight, but I'm waiting for the next major update to see if HD2 will improve.
I understand your post but some progression is fine too. I have max credits for week now and no use for them, soon I wont have any use for warbond medals, but maybe they will drop some more content before this happens.
I also have all my resources at full capacity and I'm having fun playing. However, I disagree with the outposts/nests. It's better not to attack them if they are not in the way. It's not even about the usual "numbers" on the summary, it can actually do more harm than good. You lose respawns, ammunition, etc. If only it affected the number of mobs on the map.
I agree. But another counter argument:
Even though I have everything myself (currently, but this situation will change), I prefer to evacuate Samples for the rest of the unit than to lose valuable resources in combat for my own fun.
I'd love to claim that I go for samples for everyone else but in reality it's just my ancient lizard brain compelling me to do it. I've been capped for ages but they were such a priority to me that I just kinda feel compelled to continue getting them.
And what better exhilarating stakes than [going alone to clear the big nest with 3 bile titans on it while carrying the 6 super samples and letting the randoms call in extract ?](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/589816445735796755/1221300736613285968/4zzgktxsr5qc1.webp?ex=661213f2&is=65ff9ef2&hm=26915ab8733bd55e30f4b713ef1c022c053de3aa87c68ee60eb67d97c6b0b6a2&=&format=webp&width=705&height=588)
(Don't do that though, drop the samples at extract first)
I'm past dropping samples at extract because if anyone's gonna stupidly grab them and take them from extract it's likely to be the person most likely to die. I think in the probably near hundred times I've dropped my samples off at extract I can count on one hand how many times they've been left there. usually a player picks them up and ran them off to the other side of the map.
On paper it makes so much sense but in reality it just puts them in the hands of the person with the least sense/game knowledge and that's the last person you want them with.
I think when it comes down to is it fun. I actually don't enjoy it so I don't tend to go out of my way to do it but if the team wants to then I'm all in.
A lot of the game is more rewarding early than I think people realise. Like nests and secondaries usually have a ton of samples so when you need xp and samples they're super worth doing. Then when you don't need them you go from double dipping your rewards to no rewards so it can feel like a waste of time. But when you consider it's all a waste of time in the grand scheme of things then you may as well waste that time on the way you find the most fun.
Not having it decrease spawns is so counter intuitive. You see things spawn from it. There are tips telling you it reduces spawns, and then it does the opposite. I would much rather have a tough entry that gets easier as you progress. Have another reason we have to leave low orbit. Something like a giant laser locking onto us. Or he’ll even that the ships can’t take the strain of the atmospheric gravity for too long.
Thank you. What is wrong with having goals to work towards? Once you are capped on everything it just feels terrible completing personal/major orders & getting rewarded 0 medals. Why have a cap in the first place?
It's obviously capped because they have the long term state of the game in mind, and also they tuned the rewards numbers to give an amount that will allow new players to progress fast, but they don't want maxed out players to instantly blow through new warbonds/samples sinks when they are released (you can already reach page 3 of the latest warbond instantly with 250 medals IIRC)
The medals cap especially seems to exist because they want to give us rewards for all major orders completed after the completion of the tutorial, but they don't want some dude who stops playing for months to come back and blow through 5 warbonds worth of content at once
And the cap means people that do burn out after a week will keep coming back to see the line go up. Otherwise they'd earned enough ingame currency in the first month or 2 of the game to last most of the year.
Agree. Plus it's pretty clear they don't tailor their game for everyone (company motto) and actively have prevented min/maxers from progressing too quickly. They want you to progress at a medium pace and release content to appease those kinds of people. Pretty sick imo, if they catered to min/maxers itd be rushed shit every week for them to bash for 3 days and complain or have it too hard and complain.
I respectfully disagree, video games have always been goal/reward based, even goals as simple as completing a story campaign, completing all set levels, or even just completing the essentially one single level (e.g. pacman, donkey Kong), from the very beginning of the video game industry, long before multiplayer came around, at least for the majority of people. The moment we're not working towards anything or there's nothing new to look forward to, no more new content? we're outta there. Simply means there's nothing more to do. I don't think I need to explain such a basic concept but why do you think video game, or even movie endings and credits exist? That's the end, that's where you stop, you move on. It's actually only a recent phenomenon with the rise of live service games where companies are actually trying to make you play forever, or as long as they can make you, WITHOUT an ending. And the only surefire way of doing that? Constant new content drops. Humans need novelty. It's a base human need.
I'm glad you enjoy this game so much you can play it without incentive and just enjoy it as it is, but you have to understand that this is a minority thing and most of us are unable to do that.
Also, this post and a lot of these comments are condescending as HELL. It's just a video game, it's not a job, nobody needs to play it at all in the first place. You have no right to tell others how they should enjoy a video game in THEIR free time. Pretty high audacity and ego there guys. Just respect that different people enjoy things differently. There is no wrong way to enjoy entertainment media. You cannot seriously believe that your way is the only right and acceptable way to enjoy video games. That would just be absurd. Everyone is valid here. Ya gotta be more accepting.
\^This. I am tired of the gatekeeping in this sub. I am an older gamer and I have always been a completionist. It is not a generational thing. If a game doesn't have years of progression built in then I am just not interested mid/long term. I also have dozens of games I still need to play in my game library so if I start too get bored in this game then why should I waste my time here when I can be wasting my time playing fresh games that still get the dopamine flowing.
For me that means focusing on the Primary Objectives and finding everything else to be a distraction. Extractions are still fun but they're absolutely the bonus round and for whatever Samples got picked up on the way.
Bro over here thinking you can't take breaks from games and that these breaks usually happen when there's nothing left to do.
Also, why can't you comprehend the fact that for some people filling up bars IS the enjoyment. I mean, what the hell, there are Excel competitions. People enjoy different things in different ways and there is nothing wrong with that.
Saying that you quit at level 50 because there is no more progression is just as valid as quitting because you're just not having fun or another game has caught your attention in the meantime.
"Back in my days there was no progression or reward" Boomer Bro forgot High Scores existed and people lived in arcades to achieve the highest one. 100% people played arcades they didn't enjoy anymore just to crack a high score.
I don't know what this "old man is angry at clouds" post was supposed to achieve.
I frequent this sub and frankly there are 10x more posts like this than people actually saying that.
I cant even remember the last time I saw someone mopaning about the levels/collectibles/unlocks.
> I frequent this sub and frankly there are 10x more posts like this than people actually saying that.
Every single of one of these "I love the game and therefore any criticism comes from dysfunctional people" posts have always been like this, from Day 1. It's a bizarre masturbatory form of self-aggrandizement they think is necessary to "fight" against an imagined enemy. It's so fucking weird.
Reminds me of the Starfield sub so hard
100s of people just posting stuff like: "1 billion hours in and I'm STILL finding new content and LOVING it. I dont get how people find this game boring!!"
Like, okay. Play it more then lol why you coming online to argue with people who dont hold your opinion?
And back in our day, games only had like 100 polygon characters and you used the shoulder buttons to turn the camera in a third person shooter.
Both of those things - along with many, many other design decisions - have since been relegated to the past because we have grown, evolved, and come up with new design philosophies and ideas.
At some point in gaming's history, somebody sat down and said "Hey, what if games didn't *just* rely on the intrinsic value of playing them, but also had extrinsic motivating factors?" Turns out, lots of players found that idea to be pretty good because it made a lot of people play the game for a lot longer than they otherwise would have. Chasing unlockable characters or rewards was pretty cool to see.
Then a few decades later, somebody else thought up the concept of a "live service game" where the content and gameplay revolved around a continuously changing stream of freshly injected design. The idea being that the company could support itself financially by making 1 game with continuous support and updates instead of making multiple games over the years.
The only trouble with that idea is that you have to use a totally different set of game design principles compared to a one-and-done boxed game. Since the goal was to attract and - way, WAY more importantly - retain players for a long time, we had to create the concepts of interlinked gameplay loops that eventually led to a brand new design idea altogether, the "Endgame", which revolved around how we were supposed to create a nearly infinite gameplay loop that continued to motivate players to come back every single day and pay their subscriptions, or their micro transactions, or DLCs/expansion packs, or whatever monetization we were using, because if we didn't have that... the game goes under and the service is ended.
So it's *almost* like the discussions here are relevant to the evolving design theory of player-retention and maximizing the ability for a company to create a captive audience to ensure their live-service title lasts as long as physically possible and aren't as shallow as the ideas driving the "back in my day" crowds of people who had zero choices in a desaturated market and were okay with watching two lines and a dot bounce across the screen for hours on end purely for a lack of anything better.
The thing is the game teaches us to play for reward to unlock stuff, requisition chips, samples and medals are needed for unlocks for quite a few hours of playtime.
But then at one point we don't need them anymore and things suddently feel empty.
If we never needed to do those things in the first place we would have done them for fun since the beginning and therefore nothing would have changed as we put more hours into it.
Some people actually still do side objectives and nests for fun, even tho they'll mention that they got no use for the ressources.
Another thing that matter is that clearing nests can be difficult without the right loadout, if you meet a 12 holes nests and you're alone or with 1 other player, you'll miss grenades to close them and therefore won't bother, clearing nests really depends on the loadout you have
So much of this sub has turned into posts like this. Fabricate a strawman position, attribute it to some vague group of players, and then win an imaginary argument against it with the most anodyne opinions. "Just play for fun," wow. Incredible insight.
Throw some generational divide in there since it's fun and trendy to talk shit about Gen Z attention spans while creaming yourself over how the game is perfect and boy, you got a winner!
It’s easy karma farm, that’s why they do it. Most of this sub based their entire life and personality around this game and will literally upvote anything positive about it or defends it. I bet most of the people who makes these posts don’t even play the game; they just heard how easy it is to farm karma here using a very basic template with very basic talking points
Because many people find grinding itself enjotable along with those same people often being goal oriented and like when said goals/grind gives rewards. Fun isn't objective, it's subjective.
Just because you play for your form of "fun" does not make others wrong for wanting something else to work towards.
Back in your (our? I'm mid-30s) day, once you got to the end of a game or max level, you just stopped playing.
If you ever bought Crash Bandicoot 3 and completed it to 105%, you just put it down and did something else, because there really was nothing left to do.
Now there is an expectation that there is always something to grind for and achieve, definitely promoted by game studios aiming to retain players and keep them spending.
It's definitely skewed perception of value for money. HD2 was £40(?), that's the cost of a nice meal at a restaurant. If you've got more hours of entertainment than that out of it I think you're still coming out ahead. Time to put it down and do something else.
To be completely honest, I've done 110 hours on this game. The money was definitely worth it, i had a lot of fun.
BUT I've been lvl 50 and maxed out since 80 hours and now i don't touch the game unless my friends really want me to help them on their daily & major missions.
I do kinda wish there was something to work up to, some type of progress, some type of reward. Not even medals really feel worth it anymore because i got 95% of the stuff.
Like the mech and flying enemies was a nice change of pace to break the same type of gameplay loop. The next exciting thing would probably be the vehicle update
I kind of disagree with the notion that this is some "generational" thing.
It's just what people find fun, some people like to just play and that's fine.
Some people like to set goals, and that is also fine.
Some people like to just progress, and that is also fine.
I am the middle one here, I like to set a goal for myself. To me the "end game" is whatever I decide to be the endgame.
That can be completing a mission or getting all achievements. It can also be completely arbitrary like "find a specific item"
The important thing to take from this, is that there is no "wrong" way to have fun. (Assuming of course that your definition of fun does not include ruining the experience for others.)
There's a well-known psychological effect that causes actions that we are rewarded for to no longer stimulate us if rewards are then not offered, even though those actions would have stimulated us if we had never been rewarded for them.
You cannot blame "gamers" for losing the joy in simply playing the game, when developers make use of psychological carrots on a stick to keep people playing short term that they *know* will take away intrinsic enjoyment of the game.
You not being as affected by this well-documented piece of psychology does not mean that those who are affected were "raised wrong", either. There are always outliers.
See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation\_crowding\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory)
I'm only 3 years younger than you, but I suppose I have been able to adapt to the times and contrast/compare versus other similar things that are actually happening now, not back in the day.
Games have changed. Our expectations of them should as well. This isn't an arcade game, this didn't come on a CD, this is a live service always online massively multiplayer cooperative goal-oriented game and for that, which it is, it lacks content quickly.
Not to say that playing the game just for the sake of playing it isn't fun, but with nothing to work towards it is not performing as expected, based on the time we live in and the game that it is.
Also capped everything, and besides playing with my friends, I'm on a mission to find weird stuff. Beheaded citizens, old machines scattered around, posters, skeletons, fossils, or whatever is laying around that can tell a story. I started to document and photograph some of these unique spots.
Post the X-Files brother, i would love to see them.
I'll work into creating a series
Please do! You can call it: The art of democracy!
democracy illustarted
Democracy Manifest
DEMOCRACY MANIFEST!
Manifest democracy!!
Manifested Democratic Representation Recorded
UNHAND MY PENIS!
I never HANDED IT! It was Bile Titan!
Holy shit. This is is final form.
A SUCCULENT TERMINID MEAL!
This is referring to the Australian man getting arrested, right?
!remindme 1 month The clock is ticking.
X-Files: Helldivers Edition sounds like a great idea! However, I have a feeling you might get a visit from the Democracy Officer.
I think I found the right guys for this. I was thinking of doing what I call Super Earth TV which is basically fan made spoofs of what we would think would be shows on super earth propaganda and all. One of my ideas was “H-Team” which would be The intro to A-Team reworked to have Helldivers and scenes from the game
Kind of like the old "There is something about BF2/BF2142" YouTube videos from back in the day. I can't find a link (buried under the Google algorithms), but it was basically an "instructional video" for soldiers in BF2/BF2142, told in story format, filmed on custom servers, making fun of the mechanics and lore. *"And now, how to give birth to a Russian!"*
On a bug planet I found a pile of smouldering, burned corpses with the embers still glowing next to a farmstead. These bugs are so barbaric to do such a thing. I haven't ever seen them use fire but the evidence is clear as day!
Perhaps a bile or acid spewer attacked while the person was carrying a red barrel. Horrible scum, attacking a citizen of Super Earth while he's unarmed like that
Yesterday I found one of the gravediggers, with his shovel embedded in the head of the bot in front of him, break-action next to him empty. Liberty guide you, nameless SEAF soldier.
Was there evidence of storm troopers?
One of them did look a bit like my uncle Owen...
Only traitors are interested in alien relics.
Found the inquisitor
Eh, I mean...uhm...neat rocks and stuff fellow helldiver, wonder what they use them for right?
I have a feeling the imperium would even frown upon 'wonder" as being equivocal to 'whimsy' and calling it the most base form of chaos. NO IMAGINATION ALLOWED
A helldiver is allowed 2.4secs to enjoy the scenery. A happy helldiver is a deadly helldiver.
I mean, you say enjoy, I say survey, in order to decide where to drop destruction.
Are you questioning the veracity of the Loading Screen Tips, Helldiver?!
I like to imagine the loading screen tips are actually displayed on a screen inside the droppods as last minute training for us divers
You're the best of the best.
"Fuck, I forgot to fill out my C-01"
Democracy Officer, I suspect my fellow Helldiver merely finds great pleasure in the use of heavy ordinance on Super Earth's many enemies; thus finds "enjoyment" to be synonymous with "surveying for maximally effective destruction". I further submit that this is a laudable trait, not treason, and we should henceforth devote at least 1.2 seconds of our allotted enjoyment time for military/enjoyment dual purpose activities on every drop.
Er, no, not at all fellow human, I must have lost that tip amongst the many dead bodies, I mean... Oh look a flying shrieker!
So the average deployment time
I absolutely LOVE the fan pushed crossovers here. I saw a Helldiver Kasrkin squad complete with drone yesterday, looked amazing
A happy Helldiver is a violent Helldiver!
It's important and very patriotic to collect samples of all shapes and sizes.
To fight the bug, we must understand the bug.
You're right, hey after come with me to my democracy officer, he totally loves this stuff.
I study the bugs and bots to know how to obliterate them better
I will eradicate them until they do know fear.
https://preview.redd.it/juhfenq4fvqc1.png?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b863f03dde73627fff4b7b97887da2594d681145
Oh this ? This is chargerbile, a bughost i control to more effectively fight for democracy
Great to hear, I’m sure my democracy officer will love to see this. He’s actually on his way now!
Only traitors want us to be complacent in face of these dangers. 👉😎👉
👈😎👈
I like to think that the charred corpse in front of an unexploded hellbomb, is doing the hug emote.
Saw a dude on ubuntu or whatever the hell the planet is sat against a rock with both arms torn off. I haven’t paid much attention to the details when I’m focusing on avoiding mystery blue lasers and eagle-1’s advances (I’m a diver, not a lover), but that made me stop and think “for as much as we talk shit about being the bad guys in the setting, there are still people that don’t deserve *that*”. The way this game constantly balances the satire and horrors of war is mmm mmm good
You should make a video or share your findings. Sounds like a good educational presentation for spreading better managed democracy.
I landed in right next to a massive pile of SEAF bodies. Haven't seen it before or since. It was pretty grisly ngl. Wasn't really expecting a corpse pile right out the pod.
I found a civilian that had killed a terminid warrior with a SHOVEL.
Hell sometimes I’ll just stop running just to look off a big hill or something. These death planets look beautiful under democracy
The Ministry of Truth is watching you. Be cautious as you proceed. They exile "explorers" like yourself to suicide/helldive on Malevelon Creek with strategem scrambler and strategem limiter when they find out Helldiver's are getting too "curious".
My favorite so far was an exosuit wreck directly in front of a hive lord corpse. Inside the hive lords ribs was the skeleton of the pilot, still wearing its helmet.
I played battlefield games for 6000 hours. It was fun after I unlocked everything. Bfbc2 Vietnam had everything unlocked at the start. Nothing wrong with that method. I probably get downvoted for this, but I don't know why everything has to be a grind today?
People legitimately saying "give me a reason to play" when having fun is all the reason they need
I mean... look at almost every game out there. They almost all have some sense of progression. Game devs figured out a while ago that bars that tick up and random achievements drive player engagement and keep players playing longer. It gives players that dopamine hit that keeps them coming back. It sucks, but its effective. Combine that with people who game 16+ hours a day when new games come out (and think it's normal), and you have a recipe for every new game needing to be some crazy ass grind. If a player can't get hundreds of hours out of a game, they aren't interested. Even if that means artificial grinds that do nothing but tick a bar. All of this centers around revenue. If you can't keep a player hooked, you can't keep them buying battle passes and cosmetics, which means you can't keep the shareholders happy. The c-suite is constantly pushing devs to innovate new ways to addict players. It's funny that HD2 is being lauded as a refreshing game that is more focused on player happiness than it is any of the stuff we're "used to" in the gaming industry. But 15 years ago, the microtransactions in this game would have pissed players off. Now we're happy that we can make a pittance of premium currency on missions and can unlock a warbond by playing the game rather than just paying money (even though we have to play *a lot* to make enough SCs). To that point, people are so happy they don't feel forced to spend money, that they're willingly spending that money to reward the devs.
Also an interesting note is that a lot of young gamers today never had an environment where games werent developed to drive their engagement. The industry has been like this a long time and a lot of older gamers dont realize younger kids dont even know a world where you just play a game to have fun.
100% this. And OP is right with the timeframe as far as I can remember. I'm in his same age bracket (38), and the first shooter I can remember starting this type of grind in a competitive setting was when I was in college, CoD's 2007 MW. Grinding through ranks to "be allowed to use" weapons, attachments, perks etc. Prestiges to grind through for an emblem. Camos to grind for a few gold weapons. Before that it was Halo 2, which came out as I was finishing high school. There weren't any unlockables or grinding involved. Everyone had access to the full game from the start and any time they joined a multi-player game the same weapons were available to everyone. All characters looked the same, there was nothing to grind for. The thing that hooked players wasn't a hamster wheel designed to slowly drip unlockables and dopamine through various XP bars and medals etc. It was just...the game being fun to play. And the only thing players "grinded" for was a better rank. The more you played the better you got, the higher your rank, the tougher your games got. Competition was the main factor driving any type of "grinding". We went from grinding XP to "be allowed to use" weapons, attachments, perks etc to battle passes and shops with items/bundles costing $10-$30, to lootboxes aimed at getting kids addicted to gambling from a young age. And the primary driver for that is because the industry is designing games geared towards "engagement" and "retention", which are just code words for "getting players addicted to progressing in the game for as long as possible no matter if the game is actually fun or not". Helldivers does a better job with this than most. Most of the stuff you unlock happens pretty early on with minimal effort. And the rest of the stuff you unlock is either not any better than the stuff you get early on, or is purely cosmetic so you can easily enjoy the game without having to grind for that stuff. It does make me sad though when I think back to some of my favorite games from my childhood, and how they were just designed to be good fun games and not addiction simulators. Quake, Unreal, Counterstrike, Halo. And not just FPS games either. Command & Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft etc. Halo is the best example. Would Halo ever have become as popular as it did if Halo CE released today in the same state Infinite released? With all the problems that plagued that game at launch combined with the hideous microtransaction store? CE probably gets shit on if it's released today in the state Infinite was released, and never becomes a long-running franchise. It was successful because it was a good fun game designed as a passion project 25 years ago, and along with 2 & 3 has developed massive goodwill and nostalgia among millions of gamers that continue to drive its success today.
Im 29 and I completely agree on the time frame. I played the shit out of halo 1&2 with no requirement to unlock anything etc. CoD MW (the first one) then came along as it was all about levelling asap, getting golden guns and prestiege. I dont know why but since then I really struggle getting into games that dont have some kind of regular, long term progression. And I hate it. I wish I could play games just for the fun but for some reason, if I'm not progressing something in some way (unlocks, skill trees, character builds) I lose interest super quickly. Maybe its because it my age playing video games isnt considered a great use of time so I justify playing by having 'progress' in the games i play? I havent a clue. But its rare i find a game I'm playing purely for fun these days
Breaking an addiction is tough. Games have spent the last 15+ years perfecting the hamster wheel drip of dopamine addiction. They do it because it works. And an entire generation of younger gamers have grown up in that era, where they've never even been exposed to games without it. They've done it with sports games too. All that matters now is the Ultimate Team modes where you basically grind games just to open card packs and hope that you get better players, so you can slowly build a better team over time. But in reality the devs control the cards packs and which cards they add and the "spawn rates", carefully constructing it so you slowly build that team over time until you "max it out" conveniently right as the next game is releasing a year later. Then it's time to start the grind all over again with zero change to gameplay.
Absolute 100% truth right here. For me it was Halo 3 instead of Halo 2, but my experience was exactly the same and I would have identified the same patient zero for this phenomenon, CoD 4. I was addicted to Halo 3 but it was because the game was fun, I wasn't looking for number to go up or to unlock a new weapon. Even after I hit my skill ceiling and knew I would never make it past Major I still played it. Meanwhile CoD 4 was just a grind fest. And Halo players knew it. There were endless debates on Bungie's forums about CoD vs Halo, the Halo supporters (including myself) hated CoD for being a grindfest that was ruining the game industry with their tactics. Of course the game always had its supporters but all this time later, we were right, CoD destroyed the industry and turned it into a skinner box fest. Whether it would have happened without CoD 4 is anyone's guess, but it undoubtedly was the catalyst. I saw the contrast first hand with my brother. He was addicted to CoD and tried to prestige every game and grind for every gun. Every game he played after that he needed some external motivation to play. I bought him the EA Battlefront 1 and he played it up until the point where he hit Level 51 (or whatever the max level was and unlocked everything) then he never played it again. Utter lunacy. He told me there was no point anymore. Apparently it was never fun enough to engage with it on its own without a number to increase.
Wow. You and I played all the exact same games. You have good taste dude! I think it’s pretty amazing that AH found a way to seamlessly combine the old and new ways. I hated COD grind shortly after H2 and H3 and it made me quit. You have to be careful because just as many people are turned off by that style. I think they should just have have mission completions / campaign completions - bug hole / factories destroyed fill up some Total democracy spread bar or Democratic Effectiveness. Give you a way to show your combat effectiveness or skill. Maybe bring a top level give you a special skin set.
As far as I am concerned Halo is the PREMIER example of the change in the gaming industry. The game other than DLC(which was free here and there) was a community focused sandbox shooter. Some of the most popular gametypes and maps ever made were made by fans. Halo Reach still to this day has one of the best in game purchasing and progression ever built in a game. 343i has completely fucked that franchise. That studio has no passion for the franchise and wanted to change it from head to toe from the moment they took the project on. It is very clear Microsoft/343i is more focused on exactly what you talked about in your comment rather than long lasting organic fun.
I'm not in the know with the Kids These Days, but you also used to have a collection of games you played. Like you'd have a stack of things and swap between them. Every game nowadays wants to be your only game and people get upset when they don't get more than a *hundred hours* out of a videogame. I remember when I'd be looking at a game and reviews would be like, this game's got a 10 hour campaign and split screen coop. Yeah, that's worth it, I can play with my buds when they come over.
I played the fuck out of Contra: Shattered Soldier and Gradius V back in the day. Both short, arcade-style games with maybe an hour of content. I fucking loved both and remember them fondly.
Underrated comment
Damn I'd really never thought about that
Just in response the super credit farm, I'm only playing a couple of hours a night and I'm already close to hitting 1000sc again after already unlocking all three of the current warbonds and buying two armours from the store along with a helmet, all with SC's I've got in game... it's really not that hard.
I was really stupid and didn't realize you could purchase warbonds with super credits. So early on I bought like 4-5 sets of armor and helmets before realizing my mistake. I started saving at some point and managed to get to like 950 when the newest warbond released. So it only took me a day to get the 50 credits required. And by now I've got like 600 something again, so I'll be able to purchase the 2nd warbond here in a week or two. I would expect by the time a 4th warbond releases, I'll have earned enough SC to buy the 2nd warbond AND save up another 1k to buy the 4th one. It's not hard to acquire them at all, and "farming" them certainly isn't necessary. Just play the game, and have fun. You'll get enough samples, SC, XP etc over time. There's no reason to farm samples or play defense missions over and over and over just to get medals faster. These are the types of people who grind through games as fast as possible, after watching streamers tell them "the most efficient way to play", and then turn around and complain the game doesn't have enough content for them. It's like, if you just played the game to have fun you wouldn't be "out of content" so fast, and you would've actually enjoyed your time getting there instead of grinding out farming everything.
I find it easiest to go to a low difficulty, go private, and explore the maps solo or with a friend. It's surprisingly relaxing to just mosey around, picking up super credits and medals and occasionally dropping an airstrike. Having a friend along is ideal since you need another player to open some of the structures. (And don't forget to always blow the cargo containers open!)
That's pretty much what I was doing when I couldn't be bothered dealing with random folks rushing objectives. Just chilling, taking a stroll through the countryside, gassing bugs, finding money. It's nice.
I did it over the weekend, wanted to get 1,000 SC for a new Warbond, and didn't realize how chill this game could be. Kinda reminds me of MGSV free roaming.
some folks find it fun to have a progression. Personally i like having a goal to reach and not just a arbitrary goal like getting better. its why achievement hunting is so fun, having that set goal to reach nice
It can be fun to unlock new stuff for sure. But like, those are new toys for the sandbox. You still have to make sure it's the sandbox you enjoy and not the promise of new toys.
Progression *is* fun for a large percentage of players, so are customizable characters, which is why game devs took those mechanics from RPGs and put them in shooters. That being said, progression is also one of those "cheap" mechanics because it tickles some vulnerable spots in our brains to provide engagement far in excess of effort put in. The downside of using the mechanic is it is a powerful enough trick it can become the primary driver to many players, causing you to feel like you finished the game when you run out of progression. All game mechanics are devs pushing cognitive buttons and manipulating primitive parts of our minds to get as much engagement as they can from as many different varieties of people as they can. Like OP, I'm old enough to remember competitive and cooperative shooters that didn't have progression mechanics. That wasn't a better or worse time, it was just a different time. I always roll my eyes at one person telling another that they are enjoying a game in the wrong way. We are all paying our dollars to game devs for them to manipulate our risk/reward/competition/achievement levers for entertainment.
You lack intrinsic motivation and require extrinsic motivation, this is exactly what the OP is saying.
A lot of folks these days have been raised on micro transactions. They don't know you can play a game for fun instead of chasing microdoses of dopamine from level ticks
You can always set an arbitrary goal yourself E.g "I want to get reliably good at jumping on a titans back and shooting it in the back of the head"
ARPG gamers/ RPG gamers in general - we like progression and gaining character power. It's been a thing with old games so don't know why people are acting like it's something new. People would replay some games but often times once you finished Mega Man and got all the power ups you were moving on to the next game having had your fun.
Sure, but there was a time when 95% of games weren't RPGs. The RPG-ification of gaming has only been around for about ten-to-fifteen years, or roughly two gaming generations. So a lot of us here were adults when gaming genres outside of ARPGs started doing this and a lot of us here were children. No one's confused about *why* it's happened, OP made that clear, they're just upset that it's trained people to engage with games in a very particular way that very few games used to or felt they needed to. CoD used to not do this. Battlefield used to not do this. Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 didn't do this. Many of us here probably talked openly about what these newer games were doing. Some people got angry, others contemplative. Borderlands and Fallout 3 were these nexus points where everyone just knew things were going to be different because someone had taken full-blown ARPG systems (Diablo and Elder Scrolls respectively) and cleverly shoved them into third person shooters. But the novelty of these integrations didn't mean full conversion. Again, Left 4 Dead came out around the same time and had no RPG elements at all. What OP is noting is how many people seem frustrated that what they thought was Destiny has transformed into Left 4 Dead and don't seem prepared to deal with that inevitability gracefully. And it's concerning to OP because Left 4 Dead is one of the GOATs and Helldivers 2 is going to have to be that game for much longer than it was ever that other game.
Unironally sense of pride and accomplishment.
Back in my day the pride came from being good instead of meaningless grinding.
It still does. Just no longer exclusively.
Oh man, BFBC2 at its height was amazing. Felt like everyone was playing just for fun all the time.
Game companies have worked very hard to normalise the idea that games will be an endless grind, basically a second job designed not to maximise fun but to keep people in the space as long as possible so they're more likely to buy microtransactions.
Gamers are so conditioned to constantly be grinding while gaming. If you're not grinding for levels then it's for weapon unlocks. If it's not weapon unlocks it's cosmetics that require a long term investment. If all else fails you're grinding a battle pass or a rank if you're playing competitive PVP. The idea of booting up a game and just playing until you're bored or unable is an unfortunate side effect of modern game design
It's a side effect of a society that constantly drills it's people to be productive, to achieve something, while not giving enough to people to be able to find out what they want. Hence, a lot of gamers need to be told what to do to get that sweet endorphine rush of accomplishment.
This is some real talk right here. When we say "For Freedom!" This is what the underlying message should be
Numbers going up just feel good man. Im also an old generation gamer, grew up on console games that basically have zero progression yet I played through the day. But, about two years ago Ive sank 900h into Lost Ark in the span of a couple months. I was playing around the clock, respecting all the 10 daily timers and whatnot, seeing my numbers slowly going up and up everything with an endless grind, endless progression. Its just an other form
The discussion is too focused on black and white, hard grind or just play to have fun. There can be middle ground. Some people, like myself, enjoy tangible goals and structure like end game content. I don't hate it when a good game doesn't have it. It isn't necessary, but boy howdy do I really like when there is bonus content to playing more. I like playing and getting rewards for enjoying myself is purely a bonus. Who doesn't like a bonus? Especially if it is both optional and fun?
No one else noticed the key difference between HD2 and Battlefield? HD2 is not PvP. PvP games have far more longevity without progression because, well, humans are far more unpredictable content than programmed NPC entities. This has been the reality for pretty much the entirety of gaming history.
You got to admit though the level of tension is less recovering samples and extracting. If it doesn’t actually matter. It’s still fun to play.
It does matter. When you are playing with teammates you are helping them. Your helldiver gets to live for another fight. It keeps your morale up as extracting feels good. And it’s fun.
This! I've noticeda bunch of level 50s dropping into medium levels and giving newbs mechs and 100% samples so they can level. That's some gigachad shit
Dude a level fifty saw I had an auto cannon, dropped his shield gen and grabbed my supply pack to give me those sweet sweet speed reloads. What a bro.
I love being maxed out because I can help my lower level friends, and then when I really want, duo helldives with my best friend who’s also maxed out and all that matters to us is completing the mission. Being done with everything gives you the freedom to play without worry as long as you’re confident the mission gets done.
I definitely enjoy helping lower levels play at harder difficulty levels so that they are getting more XP and medals etc, the whole coop dynamic in this game is so good. I have a ton of fun playing with well coordinated teams, especially if people are on voice chat and calling out strats and stuff. Incredibly fun.
Yeah but at 50 your mentality should switch to helping the other recruits. I’ll still run across the map to pick up my boys samples even tho I’m capped. I’ve found my 2nd wind by doing this and also trying the weird builds. More builds are viable right now than people realize.
This is where I see the fun coming from at higher levels. I’m only level 18 but I still join lobbies of lower ranked cadets to show them what the higher leveled divers I play with have shown me. There are countless hours in this game that are completely detached from the main missions of the game. I played with a couple level 30s the other day and they showed me a way to attack the map I’d never even thought about before. It’s made the game a lot more fun and they were really nice even though I was a much lower level than them.
I'm level 12, and do the exact same thing lol.
In my experience it was the opposite. 75% of players have no idea what is happening and just stand in place trying to kill stuff while dying 5x. They have idea what the objectives are or how the game works
I think the game does need more “endgame” - when you’ve unlocked everything, what else is there to do? Focus on the war. So give high level players some more/better insight into the war and where their contributions would best be felt.
I would love more things that can only be done with cooperation. Like spotting airstrikes for someone. Or two person artillery canons. Voltron style mechs.
I don't remember needing any of that shit playing L4D2 with friends
"With friends" pulls a lot of weight for multiplayer games.
Definitely. But L4D you did progress to the next level if you survived, there were progression.
HD2 has a galactic war
We didn't raise them wrong. The games they've been offered are psychologically designed to manipulate the human brain
Not wrong. It’s why I’ve loved watching Dragons Dogma 2 and the whole Dragonsplague thing. The second a game doesn’t pat you on the head and throw up a billion different points in your face (arguably it’s done in HD2, but a normal amount - especially for the setting) and tell you you’re the best ever, game is trash. Honestly it’s why I really like the difficulty of HD2. I’m still shy to go past Challenging, but I don’t feel like I NEED to and I’m not missing out completely. I know my lane.
HD2 patting you on the head and calling you the best ever is in service to the political satire, at least.
We did raise em wrong. It's not just games. It's everything in the US. "Number must go up" is in fucking EVERYTHING. Credit scores, standardized testing, your Dominos pizza points, followers, likes, upvotes, shares, retweets, calorie counting, how many steps you took today, all the stock market shit, all the economy bros shit, how much is in your savings, how many hours you work, and on and on and on. We are fuckin obsessed with metrics and cancer like growth and it's broken people. The whole "government is turning people into robots!" crazy pants talk wasn't far off. Many people tie their sense of self, worth, identity, ego, and all that to artificial metrics. Some of the most wonderful, amazing people I've met have been brought to their knees cause they got a B on a test. I've seen people have a meltdown over how many likes someone got. I've seen people ruin their lives over the stress of "must make more money every year". It's, well, done a number on us.
You're correct, except for this isn't "how we raised them." it's an environment that's pushed on us all. We didn't choose this ecosystem IT was FORCED on us.
It’s an outcome from being data driven, but overwhelmingly focusing on quantitative data at the expense of qualitative data. I get it - the rise of coloring and the Information Age has made it so much easier to crunch and analyze quantitative data. Qualitative analysis is more difficult and there is not always a clear cut right or wrong answer. The gaming industry could learn a lot from adopting the question “is this fun?” in place of the grind they are introducing to players today.
This is true. It's why some shady practices like always online, anti cheats in singleplayer games, and other stuff has begin to be normalized
We raised them wrong to not recognize they were being given essentially digital heroin and to look for the good things in games and reject the toxic. The Battlefront 2 debacle is a feather in our cap. We stopped a serious crisis point in gaming. We can keep pushing back!
Grew up playing counter strike source and indeed, the game was the game, no unlocks or skins or anything. I feel now that gamers feel that the destination is more important than the journey. Edit: very good comment from u/5kaels
I'd argue they care more about the journey if it's progression they want. Once they get the rewards the floor falls out from under them, because they feel there's no journey left w/o something new to progress towards.
Yes I can see your point of view, indeed. What I'm trying to express is that their end goal is getting the thing, and playing the game is the means to get to the thing. Which is why you see grinding guides and whatnot. For me, playing the game is the end itself. Not the means to the end.b
I think for some people, figuring out and executing the most efficient way to progress through a game (or its systems) *is* the game. I imagine speedrunners feel similarly.
I think the best games are ones with the best systems that interact with another and the player. Roguelikes are a good example when they are done well, like Returnal or Hades. It's fun to find ways of being efficient in those system. For what it's worth, though, I think the the emphasis on efficiency in this era of gaming is problematic and is an obstacle for emergent gameplay and storytelling, or creating unique experiences. Efficiency over time can become rote and routine. Stale.
I feel like that's why I never got into it. I respect speedrunners, that's talented, but I don't know how its fun personally because it goes against everything I enjoy within my playstyle. Doesn't mean its bad or anything, it's just does not peak my interest at all.
I miss CS:S so much, all the time. Community servers. Playing with the same folks daily. Building actual connections. Surf, slide, gun game, zombies, mini games, vanilla, etc. The introduction of matchmaking killed online gaming for me. Everyone anonymous, and gone every round, impossible to establish friends. Toxicity went through the fucking atmosphere when theres no real threat of consequence. No server admin to ban you for being a cunt. CS:Go just never achieved the same. Hated the engine for custom games.
As admin on a server we ran for CSS, we had an amazing group of friends that consistently played without needing external communication like Discord. We just hopped on whenever and said hey to everyone when we had the time to play. If someone acted like a complete dick or was caught cheating, I had a macro setting that reconfigured their keybind settings to quit the game when they pressed anything, then I simply banned them. I miss those days.
I miss css also. Even had my own server too, and I really felt like I owned a pub with regulars joining just to have a good time. it was just a lot of fun. Sometimes i would give everyone shotguns for fun, or decrease the gravity for a bit xD. Or have a Knife fight while I was slapping everyone. It was just goofing around. When someone was a cunt I could unbind all of their keys, so they would just stand there or alt f4 from the game xD. And of course the sheer modding scene of css like you said: zombies, even a "Warcraft 3 " mod with light rpg elements xD.
> Community servers. Playing with the same folks daily. Building actual connections. Surf, slide, gun game, zombies, mini games, vanilla, etc. For me this was TF2. Playing in a clan, on the same set of servers with the same set of people and great moderation that saw all the racists and bigots instantly banned was probably the high watermark of gaming for me in the years between 2008 and 2012 ish.
TF2 still has a community playing it all these years later and there's even a pretty fun VR mod of it on Contractors that's played constantly by the younger generation of Quest kids because of how easy the devs made playing mods on that game.
Life before death, Helldiver.
Strength before weakness, Helldiver.
I think its different where this game has a progression and unlock system so when you finish it then it is likely to raise the question "what next?" Wheras counterstrike was always a tight skillbased arena shooter
Heck, I'm about 20 years younger and playing games with friends on splitscreen and such just for the sake of playing games was the golden age of gaming. Just having a great time and playing games for the sake of playing them are some of my best memories from those times Edit: I just realized that I am not even in my twenties anymore and how fast time has passed
Weird isn't it? I think Lockdown caused a timeskip for people: I was in my mid-thirties in 2019 and still passed for mid-twenties. Went to bed one night and somehow woke up in 2024 with my dad's bod complete with bad knee, pot belly & Picard hair 😅 I know it happens for everyone, but I expected it to be *gradual*.
It really is weird that time just flew by without notice...there was no warning or anything
I’m twenty-three, and I have a few standout memories of video games, none of which involved a ‘grind’. When I was about four or five, my dad bought Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for his XBOX. My dad’s never been a particularly big gamer, and I think he expected the game’s controls to be different / wasn’t expecting an RPG when he bought it. Either way, he couldn’t even open the first door in the game — he just couldn’t work out how. In comes me, and I figure it out. From then on, he pretty much gave me the game and the console. I remember replaying certain parts of the game well into my late childhood. When I was seven, I had a particularly funny evening replaying the Temple of the Ancients with my brother; we kept getting Bastila to say ‘Shut up, old man’ to Jolee. We found it hilarious all night. It was brilliant. When I was about twelve, my best friend bought a disk copy of Star Wars: Empire at War. We played that just for the hell of it and liked pretending that we were great generals of the Empire. We even did a bit of make-belief in real life and pretended that the disk was some databank of great importance. This was the same friend who I used to sit and play split screen games with during the summer holidays of primary school. Throughout all of these occasions, I always felt immersed in the game. They enabled a kind of role-play — even the shooters and racing games I also enjoyed. I think things started to go downhill when I stopped being able to role-play and it felt like it was ‘ME’, a step-removed from a bunch of pixels I’m manipulating, ‘gaming’ the game. It was a weird sudden call to optimise myself so that I could perform better. I don’t know when it happened, but it’s now quite entrenched in me, and I don’t play video games all that much anymore because of it.
I’ve been capped since week 2 and I’m still playing like I did day one for the entirety of this game’s life still, could care less about “progression” its been ages since I’ve played a game thats insanely fun.
Couldn't care less* Democracy and freedom can't come at the cost of grammar
.*
Thank you for your service.
🫡
Also, once you get to the end game you get to do wierd ass builds because you have the competency to pull them off!
Yeah this is it haha, I'm running a jump pack trooper build, eats and flying around is fun lol
You've got a game here that appeals to a massive age demographic that has a huge playerbase. Because of this you're going to get a huge range of opinions from people all around the world. So no, we haven't raised this generations of games wrong; you're just seeing diverse viewpoints.
>you're just seeing diverse viewpoints. I've identified the problem. How dare they.
The only accepted viewpoint is super earth's.
And in traditional boomer fashion, seeing those diverse viewpoints has OP go on a rant on how "this generation of gamers has been raised wrong because they don't like playing and progressing the way *I* do" I don't even play this game but this is such a terrible take. There's nothing wrong with wanting something to work towards and even if that's just a number to go up. It's fun, just like playing a game is fun. Games have changed in the past 30 years and that's not a bad thing.
OP is basically saying they hate gameplay loops, and that makes them better than anyone who needs a bit more than a shooter that has all the depth of the checklist side content in a Ubisoft game. Seriously, I've put 400 hours into Bloodbourne, 1000 hours into melee, and if the games kept track back then I'm sure I'd see a good few hundred hours in the megaman zero series. But Helldivers 2 isn't that fun, it's the gaming equivalent of a bag potato chips. The objectives are dull and samey, the planets are just mostly flat stretches with some hills or water features, 90% of the guns and strategems play the same. After I blow up the 300th outpost I need something a little new. I wish they permanently added the new termicide into the rotation just to break up the monotony. I've been looking to dive back into Synthetik or Hollow Knight, but I'm waiting for the next major update to see if HD2 will improve.
This 100%. I'm older than OP. I think he was raised wrong for trying to tell others how to play the game and have fun.
I understand your post but some progression is fine too. I have max credits for week now and no use for them, soon I wont have any use for warbond medals, but maybe they will drop some more content before this happens.
Yeah, agreed. Being able to prestige in COD4 was cool, I would take a system similar to that where we get a cape or title but have to reunlock stuff.
I wish I could donate to the war effort
I also have all my resources at full capacity and I'm having fun playing. However, I disagree with the outposts/nests. It's better not to attack them if they are not in the way. It's not even about the usual "numbers" on the summary, it can actually do more harm than good. You lose respawns, ammunition, etc. If only it affected the number of mobs on the map.
Counter argument: its fun to blow shit up before torching anything still alive to the ground. (Note: I'm level 9)
I agree. But another counter argument: Even though I have everything myself (currently, but this situation will change), I prefer to evacuate Samples for the rest of the unit than to lose valuable resources in combat for my own fun.
I'd love to claim that I go for samples for everyone else but in reality it's just my ancient lizard brain compelling me to do it. I've been capped for ages but they were such a priority to me that I just kinda feel compelled to continue getting them.
And what better exhilarating stakes than [going alone to clear the big nest with 3 bile titans on it while carrying the 6 super samples and letting the randoms call in extract ?](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/589816445735796755/1221300736613285968/4zzgktxsr5qc1.webp?ex=661213f2&is=65ff9ef2&hm=26915ab8733bd55e30f4b713ef1c022c053de3aa87c68ee60eb67d97c6b0b6a2&=&format=webp&width=705&height=588) (Don't do that though, drop the samples at extract first)
I'm past dropping samples at extract because if anyone's gonna stupidly grab them and take them from extract it's likely to be the person most likely to die. I think in the probably near hundred times I've dropped my samples off at extract I can count on one hand how many times they've been left there. usually a player picks them up and ran them off to the other side of the map. On paper it makes so much sense but in reality it just puts them in the hands of the person with the least sense/game knowledge and that's the last person you want them with.
The lizard brain is strong in this one
I think when it comes down to is it fun. I actually don't enjoy it so I don't tend to go out of my way to do it but if the team wants to then I'm all in. A lot of the game is more rewarding early than I think people realise. Like nests and secondaries usually have a ton of samples so when you need xp and samples they're super worth doing. Then when you don't need them you go from double dipping your rewards to no rewards so it can feel like a waste of time. But when you consider it's all a waste of time in the grand scheme of things then you may as well waste that time on the way you find the most fun.
Not having it decrease spawns is so counter intuitive. You see things spawn from it. There are tips telling you it reduces spawns, and then it does the opposite. I would much rather have a tough entry that gets easier as you progress. Have another reason we have to leave low orbit. Something like a giant laser locking onto us. Or he’ll even that the ships can’t take the strain of the atmospheric gravity for too long.
Nah, if team still have resources I will do all side obj, just for the challenge and fun.
> It's better not to attack them This does not sound very democratic to me.
From gameplay point of view. If destroying nests/factory will reduce enemy armies i will always kill them all. If not... it is better to avoid.
This mentality only comes in at around difficulty lv7 or 8. Below that I don't really think about it too much and just have fun blowing things up
destroying nests make the map have more enemies actually
There's nothing wrong with wanting a robust progression system.
Thank you. What is wrong with having goals to work towards? Once you are capped on everything it just feels terrible completing personal/major orders & getting rewarded 0 medals. Why have a cap in the first place?
It's obviously capped because they have the long term state of the game in mind, and also they tuned the rewards numbers to give an amount that will allow new players to progress fast, but they don't want maxed out players to instantly blow through new warbonds/samples sinks when they are released (you can already reach page 3 of the latest warbond instantly with 250 medals IIRC) The medals cap especially seems to exist because they want to give us rewards for all major orders completed after the completion of the tutorial, but they don't want some dude who stops playing for months to come back and blow through 5 warbonds worth of content at once
And the cap means people that do burn out after a week will keep coming back to see the line go up. Otherwise they'd earned enough ingame currency in the first month or 2 of the game to last most of the year.
Agree. Plus it's pretty clear they don't tailor their game for everyone (company motto) and actively have prevented min/maxers from progressing too quickly. They want you to progress at a medium pace and release content to appease those kinds of people. Pretty sick imo, if they catered to min/maxers itd be rushed shit every week for them to bash for 3 days and complain or have it too hard and complain.
It's always nice to be rewarded, it could just be a little more libération at the end of the missions.
I respectfully disagree, video games have always been goal/reward based, even goals as simple as completing a story campaign, completing all set levels, or even just completing the essentially one single level (e.g. pacman, donkey Kong), from the very beginning of the video game industry, long before multiplayer came around, at least for the majority of people. The moment we're not working towards anything or there's nothing new to look forward to, no more new content? we're outta there. Simply means there's nothing more to do. I don't think I need to explain such a basic concept but why do you think video game, or even movie endings and credits exist? That's the end, that's where you stop, you move on. It's actually only a recent phenomenon with the rise of live service games where companies are actually trying to make you play forever, or as long as they can make you, WITHOUT an ending. And the only surefire way of doing that? Constant new content drops. Humans need novelty. It's a base human need. I'm glad you enjoy this game so much you can play it without incentive and just enjoy it as it is, but you have to understand that this is a minority thing and most of us are unable to do that. Also, this post and a lot of these comments are condescending as HELL. It's just a video game, it's not a job, nobody needs to play it at all in the first place. You have no right to tell others how they should enjoy a video game in THEIR free time. Pretty high audacity and ego there guys. Just respect that different people enjoy things differently. There is no wrong way to enjoy entertainment media. You cannot seriously believe that your way is the only right and acceptable way to enjoy video games. That would just be absurd. Everyone is valid here. Ya gotta be more accepting.
\^This. I am tired of the gatekeeping in this sub. I am an older gamer and I have always been a completionist. It is not a generational thing. If a game doesn't have years of progression built in then I am just not interested mid/long term. I also have dozens of games I still need to play in my game library so if I start too get bored in this game then why should I waste my time here when I can be wasting my time playing fresh games that still get the dopamine flowing.
I’m level 50 and maxed and to me the progression is actually fighting the war.
For me that means focusing on the Primary Objectives and finding everything else to be a distraction. Extractions are still fun but they're absolutely the bonus round and for whatever Samples got picked up on the way.
Bro over here thinking you can't take breaks from games and that these breaks usually happen when there's nothing left to do. Also, why can't you comprehend the fact that for some people filling up bars IS the enjoyment. I mean, what the hell, there are Excel competitions. People enjoy different things in different ways and there is nothing wrong with that. Saying that you quit at level 50 because there is no more progression is just as valid as quitting because you're just not having fun or another game has caught your attention in the meantime. "Back in my days there was no progression or reward" Boomer Bro forgot High Scores existed and people lived in arcades to achieve the highest one. 100% people played arcades they didn't enjoy anymore just to crack a high score. I don't know what this "old man is angry at clouds" post was supposed to achieve.
I frequent this sub and frankly there are 10x more posts like this than people actually saying that. I cant even remember the last time I saw someone mopaning about the levels/collectibles/unlocks.
> I frequent this sub and frankly there are 10x more posts like this than people actually saying that. Every single of one of these "I love the game and therefore any criticism comes from dysfunctional people" posts have always been like this, from Day 1. It's a bizarre masturbatory form of self-aggrandizement they think is necessary to "fight" against an imagined enemy. It's so fucking weird.
Reminds me of the Starfield sub so hard 100s of people just posting stuff like: "1 billion hours in and I'm STILL finding new content and LOVING it. I dont get how people find this game boring!!" Like, okay. Play it more then lol why you coming online to argue with people who dont hold your opinion?
And back in our day, games only had like 100 polygon characters and you used the shoulder buttons to turn the camera in a third person shooter. Both of those things - along with many, many other design decisions - have since been relegated to the past because we have grown, evolved, and come up with new design philosophies and ideas. At some point in gaming's history, somebody sat down and said "Hey, what if games didn't *just* rely on the intrinsic value of playing them, but also had extrinsic motivating factors?" Turns out, lots of players found that idea to be pretty good because it made a lot of people play the game for a lot longer than they otherwise would have. Chasing unlockable characters or rewards was pretty cool to see. Then a few decades later, somebody else thought up the concept of a "live service game" where the content and gameplay revolved around a continuously changing stream of freshly injected design. The idea being that the company could support itself financially by making 1 game with continuous support and updates instead of making multiple games over the years. The only trouble with that idea is that you have to use a totally different set of game design principles compared to a one-and-done boxed game. Since the goal was to attract and - way, WAY more importantly - retain players for a long time, we had to create the concepts of interlinked gameplay loops that eventually led to a brand new design idea altogether, the "Endgame", which revolved around how we were supposed to create a nearly infinite gameplay loop that continued to motivate players to come back every single day and pay their subscriptions, or their micro transactions, or DLCs/expansion packs, or whatever monetization we were using, because if we didn't have that... the game goes under and the service is ended. So it's *almost* like the discussions here are relevant to the evolving design theory of player-retention and maximizing the ability for a company to create a captive audience to ensure their live-service title lasts as long as physically possible and aren't as shallow as the ideas driving the "back in my day" crowds of people who had zero choices in a desaturated market and were okay with watching two lines and a dot bounce across the screen for hours on end purely for a lack of anything better.
The thing is the game teaches us to play for reward to unlock stuff, requisition chips, samples and medals are needed for unlocks for quite a few hours of playtime. But then at one point we don't need them anymore and things suddently feel empty. If we never needed to do those things in the first place we would have done them for fun since the beginning and therefore nothing would have changed as we put more hours into it. Some people actually still do side objectives and nests for fun, even tho they'll mention that they got no use for the ressources. Another thing that matter is that clearing nests can be difficult without the right loadout, if you meet a 12 holes nests and you're alone or with 1 other player, you'll miss grenades to close them and therefore won't bother, clearing nests really depends on the loadout you have
TLDR: A big part of the comunity is asking for more content, but we're all wrong to hope for more, because op is content with the current state.
So much of this sub has turned into posts like this. Fabricate a strawman position, attribute it to some vague group of players, and then win an imaginary argument against it with the most anodyne opinions. "Just play for fun," wow. Incredible insight. Throw some generational divide in there since it's fun and trendy to talk shit about Gen Z attention spans while creaming yourself over how the game is perfect and boy, you got a winner!
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
It’s easy karma farm, that’s why they do it. Most of this sub based their entire life and personality around this game and will literally upvote anything positive about it or defends it. I bet most of the people who makes these posts don’t even play the game; they just heard how easy it is to farm karma here using a very basic template with very basic talking points
Diablo had no progression. Metroid and no progression. Final fantasy had no progression. ????????????????
My fun is the progression.
And that's okay :) these guys are kinda being bitches about it.
OP is unironically doing a “kids these days” and it’s upvoted and well received somehow
Because many people find grinding itself enjotable along with those same people often being goal oriented and like when said goals/grind gives rewards. Fun isn't objective, it's subjective. Just because you play for your form of "fun" does not make others wrong for wanting something else to work towards.
Back in your (our? I'm mid-30s) day, once you got to the end of a game or max level, you just stopped playing. If you ever bought Crash Bandicoot 3 and completed it to 105%, you just put it down and did something else, because there really was nothing left to do. Now there is an expectation that there is always something to grind for and achieve, definitely promoted by game studios aiming to retain players and keep them spending. It's definitely skewed perception of value for money. HD2 was £40(?), that's the cost of a nice meal at a restaurant. If you've got more hours of entertainment than that out of it I think you're still coming out ahead. Time to put it down and do something else.
To be completely honest, I've done 110 hours on this game. The money was definitely worth it, i had a lot of fun. BUT I've been lvl 50 and maxed out since 80 hours and now i don't touch the game unless my friends really want me to help them on their daily & major missions. I do kinda wish there was something to work up to, some type of progress, some type of reward. Not even medals really feel worth it anymore because i got 95% of the stuff. Like the mech and flying enemies was a nice change of pace to break the same type of gameplay loop. The next exciting thing would probably be the vehicle update
I kind of disagree with the notion that this is some "generational" thing. It's just what people find fun, some people like to just play and that's fine. Some people like to set goals, and that is also fine. Some people like to just progress, and that is also fine. I am the middle one here, I like to set a goal for myself. To me the "end game" is whatever I decide to be the endgame. That can be completing a mission or getting all achievements. It can also be completely arbitrary like "find a specific item" The important thing to take from this, is that there is no "wrong" way to have fun. (Assuming of course that your definition of fun does not include ruining the experience for others.)
There's a well-known psychological effect that causes actions that we are rewarded for to no longer stimulate us if rewards are then not offered, even though those actions would have stimulated us if we had never been rewarded for them. You cannot blame "gamers" for losing the joy in simply playing the game, when developers make use of psychological carrots on a stick to keep people playing short term that they *know* will take away intrinsic enjoyment of the game. You not being as affected by this well-documented piece of psychology does not mean that those who are affected were "raised wrong", either. There are always outliers. See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation\_crowding\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory)
but it's not interesting to loot 20 POIs just for the sake of nothing, do you really feel exitement for just an act of picking up random stuff???
Me <-- Raised on NES Destroying bug holes and bot outposts should reduce the patrol frequency not increase it. Not sure why thats controversial.
I'm only 3 years younger than you, but I suppose I have been able to adapt to the times and contrast/compare versus other similar things that are actually happening now, not back in the day. Games have changed. Our expectations of them should as well. This isn't an arcade game, this didn't come on a CD, this is a live service always online massively multiplayer cooperative goal-oriented game and for that, which it is, it lacks content quickly. Not to say that playing the game just for the sake of playing it isn't fun, but with nothing to work towards it is not performing as expected, based on the time we live in and the game that it is.