Dragon's DLC 2

[kane_magus]

In addition to the ignominious Denuvo infestation, here is another huge reason not to buy Dragon's Dogma 2 right now. I'll be waiting for a "complete" version, with all the DLC included, Denuvo removed, and for that to hit a $12 sale ($12 being what I paid for the original game+all DLC). If that takes five to ten years, then so be it. (And, maybe, by then I will have a computer beefy enough to actually play it, too.)

Also, I normally hate "joke" reviews for games on Steam, but in this case, I will make an exception. I love that that is the current "most helpful" review.

Of course, none of that is going to matter, the game's going to sell like gangbusters, and video game consumers are going to once again prove that they're blithely willing to attach their lips to the sewer pipe and consume whatever the modern video game industry shits into their willing mouths.

Comments

[owsf2000]

While the game may still sell like hotcakes to -other- players (I won't be touching it due to the DRM and consumable microtransactions) it might be a little more of an upward battles with a Mostly Negative review rating tied around it's neck currently.

The first review I saw on there was pretty much spot on "Hey Capcom, you can purchase a "Good Review DLC" for 1.99". I was tempted to respond to it with "Don't worry Capcom, you can earn those for free as well with a little legwork."

[kane_magus]

Yeah, that review is the one I took a screenshot and linked to in the post above.

[kane_magus]

Beyond the Denuvo infection and all the shitty microtransaction DLC, I took a peek into the forums, and most of the posts there are complaining about horrid, game-breaking bugs and absolute dumbfuckery that Capcom apparently wrongly thought was acceptable game design.

[owsf2000]

Yeah I checked the actual link afterwards and wasn't surprised that was what you were talking about. Regarding bugs, wouldn't be surprised if half of them are being caused by Denuvo - particularly the people complaining about horrid performance on their high end PCs. Devs have the ability to determine how often Denuvo activates and treats the customer as a potential criminal - to the point where they could have it activate at start up only, or on every single frame. With people complaining their high end PCs being unable to break 40 fps on the lowest settings, I have a feeling it's probably much closer to the framely rate... but again, I'm not touching the game, probably ever, so there's little point for me to care.

[kane_magus]

Looking at some of the vidya gaem jurnlizm articles on this whole thing, the consensus seems to be a bunch of hemming and hawing about how while the article writers completely "understand" the frustration of gamers... Dragon's Dogma 2 is totally great and fine, though, actually, and the review bombing is utterly unfair and "the furore [sic] is overblown" and "Capcom is only offering an additional convenience to players" and it's all apparently a "misunderstanding" and so on and so forth blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda shut the fuck up.

No.

There is no misunderstanding here, at least not by me. I don't give a flying fat fuck if the $40-plus of DLC is "completely optional" or whatever. (The already $80 game itself before you even factor in DLC at all is also "completely optional," as far as I care, and I'm opting to not buy it, simple as that.) The fact that all the DLC is consumable shit that you can just get via, you know, playing the goddamn game makes the whole thing worse in my eyes, not better. The fact that this kind of daft dumbfuckery exists at all is enough to make me not buy the game just on principle, even if I were to utterly ignore all the other heinous problems with the game. And no, Fraser Brown of PC Gamer, you fucking dimbulb, the fact that "we've been living with microtransactions for a long time" is not a valid argument in favor of Dragon's Dogma 2 having microtransactions, because microtransactions have always been greedy, vile shit and always will be, no matter what game they're attached to.

And all of the comments under these articles seems like about 60/40 (maybe 70/30 if I'm being charitable) of actual gamers being rightfully, justifiably, rationally upset about this stupid shit versus Capcock-slurping fuckbois militantly defending the game and/or reputation management drones reputation management droning on and on.

(Also, "Hey, Helldivers 2 had a ridiculously shitty launch on PC and started out 'mostly negative,' too, but look at it now, sitting at 'very positive,' ha ha you just got schooled" is not the airtight, ironclad counterargument that a lot of these morons seem to think it is. It just further proves my point that most gamers simply learn to tolerate whatever sewer sludge they're munching on, trying to pretend like it's gourmet chocolate rather than the fetid feces it actually is. Which is why I think Dragon's Dogma 2 is still going to sell like fucking hotcakes, no matter what the Steam rating is currently [and accurately] sitting at.)

Yeah, I'm sure the underlying game hidden in there somewhere actually is pretty good, if it's anything at all like the first Dragon's Dogma game (which it seems like that's basically what it is: just like the first game, but more of it). However, the fact that Dragon's Dogma 2 is completely buried under a huge, slimy, diarrhetic shitpile of draconian Denuvo DRM, needless predatory DLC, game-breaking bugs, hideous performance issues, dubious design choices, and a far too large price tag (and that's even before taking the additional $40-plus DLC prices into consideration at all) just means that a lot of people, like us, simply aren't going to be bothered to try to dig through all the dogshit to get at the ostensibly good game lurking beneath. For me, at least, maybe in half a decade or so, I might deign to give the game the time of day, if they've managed to scrape all the residual horseshit off of the game by then. The first game was good enough for me to not just write it off altogether, forever, but I'm certainly not touching it while all that shit is still covering it up and choking it to death.

[owsf2000]

Optional consumable DLC isn't as innocent as some of them may want to think it is anyway. For that shit you end up having to come to the question of "Did they adjust the game design purely to make this 'optional' DLC even desirable?"

For instance, how rare are these things in-game. How much of these things do you need to use them effectively? For example, the packs of gems or whatever that you need to use to hire pawns from other people. Even if you can get those gems by just playing the game, what's the rate you earn them in the game? How many do you need to hire a pawn that's actually useful? If you find yourself looking at the DLC and saying "Wow that'll really speed up the process..." Then you can damned well believe the devs either lowered the drop rate of gems and/or increased the costs of pawns JUST to make you think that. Because the devs want you to buy those 'optional' DLCs. Or make you grind for hours and hours as punishment.

It's like the 'optional' DLC in other games that take all sorts of different forms. One game I played (Fairy Fencer iirc) has a level cap of 99. With that level you can technically complete the base game. You can NOT beat new game+ however, which makes you go through the entire game again, but with boss levels going up and up and up. Which is why they have 3 separate 'optional' DLCs that allow you to increase the level cap by 300 levels. So a maximum ultimate level of 999. I think there's a good end associated with that new game plus, but given I won't buy those level cap unlocks I can't say for sure. That was the impression I got from it though.

Then in other games you have bonus stat DLCs that are "totally optional" as well. But the entire game is a massive grind, particularly the first 99 levels which covers the base story of the game. (Talking about the Disgaea series here). You can either grind for hours going over the same maps over and over or you can buff up and not worry about it as much. Granted Disgaea always had grind to it since the start, but it definitely felt worse to me when the series hit the PS3 where microtransactions became possible.

That's really the easiest way to see how DLC truly affected games - take a look at the jrpg franchises that started on the PS2 or earlier, then compare the newer PS3-and-later games in the franchise to the original games.

[kane_magus]

Heh...

"There's already a Dragon's Dogma 2 mod to get 99 copies of the 'change appearance' item Capcom is selling for real money"

Good, because fuck Capcom. I hope mods pop up for the other shit Capcum is trying to sell, too.

There are a few things about this.

1. This is all well and good until Capcom pulls a Nintendo and sues the modders because "bAwWwW iT cOsT uS rEvEnUe!1!1!" or some dumb bullshit like that.
2. Boy, I bet Capcom wishes that they'd shelled out extra for the Denuvo Anti-Cheat trash for their singleplayer game now, rather than just the Anti-Tamper garbage.
3. A bunch of idiot comments under the article are all like "Meh, the mod is pointlesss. All that stuff is available in the game." I.e. the same sort of people who were saying things under the other articles like "Hargle bargle, the MTX is fine, Capcom's just providing a convenience, there's nothing wrong with this, other games are way worse, hurrrr durrrr."

---

Anyway, to actually reply to your comment, what you've said there, with which I agree fully, is sort of the same thing I've seen some people saying in some of the comments under the previous articles...

...except that those imbecilic asshats were actually twisting it around and saying it, ludicrously, as a defense of the microtransaction DLC, rather than as a condemnation of it the way you did. I.e. they were saying ridiculous dumbshit like "Capcom cArEfUlLy cRaFtEd the game so that these things are intentionally rare... ...so it mAkEs SeNsE that Cacpom would be selling the DLC aS a CoNvEnIeNcE to players who simply don't care enough to go to the effort to get that stuff in game themselves by actually, you know, playing the game. YoU dOn'T hAvE tO bUy It, it's just there for people who do want to buy it. It'S fInE. iT's ToTaLlY oPtIoNaL."

Seriously, this kind of dumbfucking asininity that people spew to try to justify the unjustifiable is shit that would make me tempted to rip my hair out in frustration if I had hair long enough to grab and rip out.

You know what games used to do to make rare shit like that easier to get? They put in cheat codes. But once the modern video game industry realized that they could make players pay real money for the equivalent of cheat codes, that's when all this fucking microtransaction DLC bullshit starting appearing.

"Keep dying in Contra? Buy the 'start the game with 30 lives' (consumable) DLC for only $1.99!"

Or, perhaps more relevantly since we're talking about Capcock here, it's like all those passwords in Mega Man X you could use to start with energy tanks and upgrades already unlocked... you just know Capcum would be parceling that shit out and selling it as DLC these days, rather than simply letting it exist as passwords. (Yes, yes, I know that those passwords were "intended" for people who actually played the game and didn't want to have to redo everything if they had to turn the game off, but those passwords are all over the Internet now essentially for people who want to use them as, yes, cheat codes. And we can't have cheat codes for free anymore, if there's money to be made from that shit, y'know?)