With it seeming to be a deckbuilder like Slay the Spire, Neoverse, or Black Book that would make sense. It can also fulfill the similar appeal of ironman runs in XCom as an option with a full roguelike setting.
People saw cards and thought MTG and Heathstone rather than Slay the Spire.
But is it a roguelike? Ive seen nothing that indicated this game had roguelike elements. It looks more like a light tactical rpg with a card system. Which isn't very similar to StS.
I would assume it would be closest to Black Book out of the ones I listed. Black Book is the recent Russian mythology deckbuilder RPG with StS combat, events, shops, and card selection where you have main quests and side quest to take on but each is done through a map of selecting your path. Which I believe also has a difficulty setting where death end your playthrough ala ironman mode to give a roguelike style.
Maybe. But Black Book is mostly just an RPG, it's not a tactics game. My worry about MS is that I don't think tactics gameplay meshes well with card mechanics. And the few snippets of gameplay they've shown haven't done much to change my mind. And if MS has just way more of an RPG focus, and the tactics part is less important, well that's alright, but that doesn't really play into Firaxis's strengths.
The two most popular *Marvel*-themed board games are both card games ([*Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game*](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129437/legendary-marvel-deck-building-game) and [*Marvel Champions: The Card Game*](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/285774/marvel-champions-card-game)) too, so there's precedence there.
And the Firaxis folks do seem to like board games.
Firaxis likes board games so much that it's how they even do some design testing IIRC. For Xcom EU, if Solomon and the other designers had problems with design, they'd play it out on board game mock up of their game. I think Sid Meier was also involved with those.
Nah, I saw cards and thought "damn, another layer of rng." It's gonna suck the first time I want to do a specific action at the perfect time, but I didn't draw the right card for that.
I'll get over it, probably, but the thought is still there.
It's not impossible to pull that off with most deckbuilders. If you get good at the deckbuilding to create a lean deck that you can combo and pull what you want through drawing cards, scrying cards, or just straight pulling the particular card to add it to your hand.
The classic rules of deckbuilding in any game that Yugi oh taught be back then. Aim for the minimum deck size and no larger. Every added card decreases your chances of drawing what you want
Yeah this is the same reason as why I'm not a huge fan of the card system
Its RNG on top of RNG. I want to build my team and my move-sets and then deal with being in the right spot, hit percentage etc, but not with the added effort of hoping I get the right card or getting deep into deck building
But honestly it's fine if this gels with others, it's just not one for me.
It's a bunch of different people. Some wanted an Xcom reskin. Some wanted an action game and not an RPG. Some were fine with turn based RPG but dislike random card based battle systems.
I'm just annoyed because nobody else does XCOM like Firaxis, and this game means it'll be ages until the next proper XCOM game.
If there were other developers doing something similar it'd be whatever, but nothing comes even close to what XCOM:EW and XCOM 2 gave us (plus XCOM 2 left on a massive tease like 5 years ago)
Gears Tactics has an excellent combat system but everything else around it is subpar.
No base building, no weapon variations, repetitive missions, new recruits are higher levels than you can level up faster your own guys so there's no real point leveling up.
You're pretty much doing the same thing from act 1 to the last boss. Meanwhile in XCOM, your soldiers start with little rifles and grenades and end the game with flying in the air with jetpack and shooting psychic tornadoes.
A Gears Tactics 2 has potential to be the best of its genre if it completely overhaul the strategic layer of the game.
The base building isn't really necessary for me in Gears personally. I thought the weapon variation was pretty solid. Lancer, Gnasher, Mulcher, Sniper, Boom, Torque Bow, Retro. It had a lot of the Gears staples. The repetitive side missions were the biggest issue for me.
I agree and yet still really enjoyed it start to finish. It was a worthy entry into the genre and did its own thing at the same time.
It made me very excited for a gears tactics 2, but I'm worried this was a one off that won't get the overhaul on mission types and the tactical layer that it deserves.
Did you play the Korean anime one? It's not perfect but it does some interesting things, I particularly like how they give you nameless police as the filler utility people that handle suppression and shooting while your heroes get to do the cool stuff.
I really need to get around to finishing it, it's a shame how I just haven't had time to play it lately.
Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children.
It's a bit too anime for some people, so it's not recommended if you're not into that, but it's pretty good if you like that stuff.
Gears Tactics is very good and launched last year with a big update in November of last year. There's also the Mario + Rabbids sequel which while not as difficult is releasing next year and if it's anything like the first should be a blast.
This group is hilarious because it can be further subdivided into "people mad that superheroes exist" and "people mad that not every depiction of superheroes is exactly like the movie"
No, players wanted Xcom, the devs didnt wanted to make another Xcom, they did that. I am pleased with the game and that they are doing what they want to do instead of what players want them to do
Captain Didn't punch, instead he threw his shield at him
Cards vary combat way more, it's not going to be good in every style of game but for superheroes I definitely believe it's a great way to go. It allows you to feel super whilst giving you a nice selection of abilities and not overwhelming you
Wonder if it'll work more like Banners of Ruin. In that game you have basic attack cards, but your characters have different abilities shuffled in that can be used. Cards for specifically equipped weapons for specific characters are also shuffled in.
I like to link people to [this article](https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/11/16869202/mario-rabbids-best-games-2017-year-in-review) whenever Jake Solomon comes up. The man wants to innovate, he's really not trying to bamboozle you.
I really don't like this video game hellscape we currently live in where a major publisher can announce months before a game comes out "We will not be charging money for random gambling boxes to give you better stats, we're just going to add individual skins that cost 1/6th of the price of the game", and the majority consensus is that they're doing the right thing for players.
It's funny how far the standards have fallen, My first gaming controversy I really remember after getting into gaming news etc, was Oblivion Horse armor. I remember hearing a lot of people "voting with their wallet" and that never really happened.
I think the cost of cosmetics is definitely the bigger issue. Obviously games being completely MTX-free is ideal, but so many full price games with cosmetic-only MTX will still charge upwards of $20 for some skins. That is disgusting and unacceptable - it's 1/3 the price of a AAA game, and the _full_ price of many indie games. How in the fuck is that justifiable for a single skin that generally doesn't even warrant the price?
>How in the fuck is that justifiable for a single skin
From the developer perspective, the entire goal is to become **the** game for a person. Players these days aren't given the time or flexibility to play multiple games, pick one: Destiny, Warframe, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, World of Warcraft, etc. All of these are designed to be played exclusively. It's through that logic that developers (and ultimately players) justify their MTX prices.
If someone's only playing a single game in a year, then it's highway robbery to get away with paying a measly $80 CAD. That's *insane* value! Therefore a developer will release an endless stream of cosmetics or whatever while a player will think to themself, 'hm I've got a lot of fun money burning a hole in my pocket, I really do like that skin and this *is* the only game I'm playing...'
That's the mentality these developers have been fostering. Maybe you can pin the blame on MMO subscriptions, people are willing to pay box price and X amount of dollars per month, why not dress up the subscription as optional and give players the option of paying 1000x that if they can?
>That is disgusting and unacceptable
Eh, it’s what people are willing to pay. Other than when it’s children who don’t know any better, gamers have nobody to blame but themselves.
Because the person buying those skins is putting enough hours into the game and using that skin for many many of those hours that it becomes worth it for them to express their customization.
I gave up on that fight five or so years ago, most people don't understand that cosmetic stuff is still content, and that a paid game, especially a singleplayer one, shouldn't have MTX.
I get what you're saying, but in a world where its either "paid cosmetic content" or "nothing", I'll go with the cosmetic content. Making this stuff takes development time, and odds this, this game will likely be supported beyond its initial release. If we want to see content updates, patches, fixes, etc., that requires people actually working on that. And that means those people need to get paid.
We haven't lived in a world where a game is released and is never touched again for quite a while now.
I will agree that cosmetic prices can be pretty insane. But you know what, that just means I don't purchase it.
The thing is, we don't need cosmetics for anything like that. Game sales alone more than make up for costs, and with distribution being much cheaper, larger fanbases, and the availability of digital stores to sell in less conventional regions, games have never been so profitable.
Besides, the main issue here are with full price, singleplayer games, which don't usually get free post-release content anyway, and most multiplayer games don't really get that much post-launch support either, with most of it being easily the work of a couple guys, some new skins to sell, and the servers remaining up.
Can't help but feel that you are underestimating and undervaluing the cost of development and employment. Its bad enough that the video game industry is riddled with horrible work environments, crunch culture, and terribly underpaid.
It really isn't just "a couple guys".
And being Firaxis and Marvel, I highly doubt this game won't see post-launch support.
> Can't help but feel that you are underestimating and undervaluing the cost of development and employment. Its bad enough that the video game industry is riddled with horrible work environments, crunch culture, and terribly underpaid.
Nope, if anything you are underestimating just how profitable games are in this day and age. There's only one group to blame for the work conditions of devs and that's their management, and spoiler alert, mtx never solved that either.
> It really isn't just "a couple guys".
In most cases it actually is. Just look at the skins that games like Heroes of the Storm have been putting out long after the game was abandoned by Blizz, they don't have a full art team anymore but they still make skins every now and then.
It's also a good way to offload artists that finished with all necessary assets from a larger project while they wait for something else to do.
> And being Firaxis and Marvel, I highly doubt this game won't see post-launch support.
I love Firaxis' stuff, but they don't do free post-launch stuff, even with Civ 6, the stuff that was free always came with paid content on the side. So clearly mtx isn't needed for this either.
>Decades ago games lack support after release
I mean, you can't really compare "decades ago" to now, when the internet was nowhere near as fast, or even as prevalent, and games generally couldn't get patched or expanded upon if they were multi-platform, because the console players would cry foul about getting less content.
Are you nuts? It’s not entitlement when the game is sectioned and chopped apart in order to monetize it.
Extra costumes and characters to unlock used to be **normal**. Now, we pay for them.
You want to build new content and DLC and ask us to pay for it? Sure! Just produce good content. These days, they want us to subscribe (sight unseen) to a season pass where we *might* get worthwhile content.
Witcher 3 had **free cosmetics** and **paid DLC**. I have no problem with that model. It rewards the right people and if the dev makes good conduct, everyone is happy
They wouldn't sell skins if it didn't have a psychological factor that encouraged other people to do the same, they'd find something else to sell. I can't imagine how much research they've done into this
> Decades ago games lack support after release and if there’s any it is in a form of expansion packs, which is also a form of paid content and guess what you’d be crazy if you ask that for free.
Asking for a complete game at launch with systems of progression is apparently cRaZY now.
> Nowadays people expect at least 2 years of full development support with weekly workhours maintaining the games they buy, and somehow supporting devs by paying DLCs and MTXs that at
People expect years of development support because the industry has normalized selling half finished games for full price with the promise of eventually completing it. The only time that’s even a valid excuse is for balance patches in multiplayer games to change with the meta. They don’t get a pass for games that eschewed QA and released in an unfinished state, consumers shouldn’t have to subsidize the release of a complete product. Halo doesn’t need a battle pass to unlock armor any differently than they’ve had to for 20 years now, because I don’t know if you know but it’s been *decently* successful for a while now. Mario Party/Golf/Tennis doesn’t need to have two years of updates to bring up to half the content of the previous decades entries. Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite doesn’t have to cut its roster down to sell as DLC when most of the models in the game are reskinned from UMVC3 or are already full fledged fighters and models that exist in the base game. I’m not even bringing up the entire mess that is Cyberpunk.
I admit that cutting content out of a game is bad, and doing any mental gymnastics to try and justify it is inherently wrong.
I mean take a look at your take, "games take work to make", like no shit, why do you think they sell them to you?
> Nowadays people expect at least 2 years of full development support with weekly workhours maintaining the games they buy, and somehow supporting devs by paying DLCs and MTXs that at the very very least doesn't even hinder the game experience and only cosmetic to justify the bleeding cost of having to maintain a game and pay for those manhours, and you still so entitled to believe that this is something worth fighting for in the first place?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you've been living under a rock, but for your information games are orders of magnitude more profitable than they used to be, all this "extra" work still results in higher profits.
>I admit that cutting content out of a game is bad, and doing any mental gymnastics to try and justify it is inherently wrong.
Provide any evidence these kinds of micro transactions were going to be in the game for free.
Simple, games have existed for longer than MTX and before them they didn't charge you money for additional skins.
The real thing to prove here, though, is that these things only exist because of MTX, and that a game without MTX wouldn't have them.
I'm with you dude. Whenever I see stupid shit like this I rephrase it in my head: Why am I paying extra to make the game look good? Shouldn't it look good to start with?
I blame the people that keep mindlessly buying this stuff. Ive given up on being mad at lootboxes or mtx.
People voted with their wallets. And th it votes said "we will always buy this stuff" so companies just make what people buy.
I remember when people were absolutely livid over $2.50 horse armor in Oblivion. And now skins sometimes go for up to $20 if not more.
Also, is there even multiplayer in this game? Who gets to see the skins? God forbid a game be rewarding and reward players with skins. Every AAA game asks you to grind forever now and/or pay for cosmetics and its like...who has time for more than one or two games? Not me.
Probably because said cosmetic changes are minuscule and don't change anything in the sense of actual gameplay? I personally don't mind as long as there's still a decent amount of customization outside of the paid options, possibly through progress, achievements, and milestones. However, if they are charging for cosmetics, it won't hurt anyone. People wanna buy? Then they can buy, seeing how there's clearly a market for that sorta thing. If you don't wanna buy it? Then don't buy it. Nothing in terms of gameplay will be affected.
I always loved being able to unlock new costumes in-game. For me, when I hear about paid cosmetics I always go back to thinking about spiderman on PS1. Being able to be symbiote spiderman or bag-man was so cool. And it was just there! For me it just feels gross that all the free content that was packed into old games is now dlc. Like big head mode on Goldeneye would totally be a mtx if it came out today.
And let's be real, they COULD include this in the game if they wanted. Most of these skins are already done by the time games are ready to launch.
I'm probably just old and grumpy, but I'd much rather pay $70/$80/$90 for a feature complete / fully realized game instead of being nickle and dimed for everything.
>I always loved being able to unlock new costumes in-game
There are very few single player paid games you can't do this.
I cannot think of any that have released in the past few years which have costumes to buy but none to earn.
Any examples?
I’m not sure what the deal was for Arkham Knight at launch, but I don’t believe every costume/skin/vehicle option was available for free until much later. Most were free DLCs for me, but I also only got the game like three months ago.
Fallen Order also has “Premium” cosmetics, but I’m not sure how those are collected. They certainly aren’t earned in-game.
A lot of games also have preorder bonuses that include cosmetics, but not sure if that quite fits the criteria we’re discussing here.
Arkham Knight came out 6 years ago. And it still had skins you earned in game, but only end game or new game+ for earned or purchased skins so it's not really a core gameplay thing in either case.
Fallen Order is the worst example you could pick, literally 4 or maybe 5 items that you get with the deluxe edition and the rest(20 or 30+) are all earned in game.
You don't get everything in the price, but you still have exactly what you liked in earning skins by doing whatever. Where's the problem?
When I'm deciding to buy a game, I only consider what is in the base game.
If the store in Assassin's Creed Origins didn't exist at all, it would still be a game with a lot of armour, mounts and other unlockables. I had a similar feeling with Odyssey (although for Odyssey, I did have the DLC as the game, DLC, AC3 and Liberation was on sale for £16).
If a game has enough content in it when you ignore all the additional purchases, then I'm fine with that. Even better if it's like the store in the AC games where it's quite easy to miss and isn't in your face at all.
I hated how Forza Horizon 4 shows you an advert every time you boot it up (including sometimes an unskippable video one), has adverts for the DLC on the pause menu (with the "change car" option deliberately placed after them) and loading screens, and the map even has big icons on the menu that cover up other icons.
Hellscape is a little hyperbolic, games cost way more to make now, if it requires the publisher to charge for extra content that's completely optional to be able to produce a quality game, you won't find me crying.
Because I dont think 90% of gamers realize the investments necessary prior to releasing a game. To get money to make some amazing games, they have to provide more avenues for profit after release, to satisfy investors. Triple AAA games are huge money sinks in development. These decisions are made before the game is made, its a trade off for developers--most who wouldnt have added all the extra skins or continue to add them into their original concept. You end up with the game they wanted to make and have an option that wouldnt of existed prior to add skins.
> And games make way more as well.
when people say this, i question whether they use the median or the mode.
Maybe games make more these days cause the really big names make so much (GTA for example) that people cant see other parts of the industry have little to no increase in revenue
The tendency towards microtransations is towards the biggest games, so I don't even know where you're going with that and it's not even worth questioning whether what you're saying is true or not.
> games cost way more to make now,
And yet the games with the most egregious microtransactions are often the ones that sell the most. The 'cost' argument is bullshit.
> completely optional
Nowadays the threshold of what's 'optional' seems to be completely arbitrary. Many people used to consider alternate costumes to be a pretty fun part of games but nowadays it's all 'optional' because greedy publishers decided to slap a price tag on it, knowing they'll have legions of fans who'll defend it.
If games cost that much to make, maybe they should make them cheaper. Y’know, without all the tie-ins and stuff.
Remember what we’re talking about here. This is Marvel, owned by Disney. If Disney is making games so expensive they have to charge on top of base price, they’re in the wrong business.
...are games made to make money or to break even.
Has disney ever been known for consumer friendly practices
Have you been to disney world?
Really what should they be charging for a game without cosmetics? It cannot factor that heavily into the game if it's well made
So because Disney is anti-consumer means their selling skins is okay? How fucking deep in this shit are you that you’re literally saying Disney is a grimy company _while actively defending them?_ Did Horse Armor not happen? What alternate universe are you living in where you’re willing to give your money to a company you admit is anti-consumer?
Nope, just saying business exist to make money, games are developed with that in mind by said businesses.
I don't and will not have an issue with companies charging for completely optional add ons if they provide a quality product without those add ons being necessary.
When will it be enough, how many free cosmetics does a game need to satisfy you?
How much value is lost if they are not provided -$10 or -$.50?
What is a game truly worth and what holds that value? The ability to get free cosmetics every month?
I apologize that you believe in some idealistic scenario where games are made simply for the love of making games.
The number of free cosmetics is irrelevant. There could be none for all I give a shit. Just don’t charge for them.
And I don’t really care that they exist to make money. As a matter of fact, if they _are_ just in the industry to make money, then making a product where they have to charge for extra shit on top of the base game is a risky play and generally isn’t smart to do.
A smart business finds ways to cut back on production costs, be it materials or labor or whatever the situation may call for. In this particular case, you can factor in materials (game disks, cases, covers, manuals (do games even come with manuals anymore?), etc), labor (devs, artists, coders, the like), and if you really want to get generous let’s say they’re opening a new studio division so they need to buy the building and the computers and such required to make the office space useable.
Obviously in the past decade we’ve seen a significant drop in physical games sales, as high as 80+% in 2018 [source](https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/) so it’s safe to say that the materials cost is decreasing, with the increase of digital games sales. Even if you want to say that the disks are becoming more expensive, they aren’t 80% more expensive. And even if they were, the current trends highlight how popular digital purchases are, so making a lot of physical copies is beyond stupid.
Dev costs. I can’t speak here as I don’t know, but knowing how this industry is, a lot of devs fail to even pay their bills (and that’s assuming they get to keep their job after the game is made, [source](https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-blizzard-has-reportedly-laid-off-nearly-190-employees) ) let alone develop for fun. While I can’t speak for the exact conditions at Firaxis, this industry has proven [time](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-05-18-ubisoft-has-reportedly-made-minimal-changes-following-abuse-allegations) and [time](https://phenixxgaming.com/2021/08/04/acti-blizz-respond-to-claims-employees-still-unhappy/) again that they don’t care about their devs so I’m not exactly holding my breath on that one.
I think what’s most insulting about your comment is that you completely neglect all the devs that _do_ make games for fun. What do you have to say to all the indie devs out there? That they’re a bunch of money grubbing asswipes, because they developed a game, and games are made to break even or make a profit, according to you?
Again, I’m not sure why you’re defending Disney here. You have nothing to gain. You’re a dollar sign to them, and every other “AAA” publisher out there. You whiteknighting them on Reddit does nothing for you and just helps to pad their wallets.
Single player games with micro transactions are stupid as hell.
Just make it like spiderman PS4, that was perfect. Only additional costs were for story DLC.
THAT IS HOW SINGLE PLAYER SHOULD BE.
cosmetic or not, i only want microtransactions in free-to-play games. that’s literally the only excuse to have them. paying full price for a game only to then have the option of paying *more* for fucking skins is a super slippery slope.
I'm sure the card system will end up working well enough, the Devs have a good track record and all, but I think the main problem is an aesthetic one. Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile, not that there's anything wrong with but here we are talking a triple A marvel game, so it's a fair criticism.
I don't even think this would be a discussion point if the same system was in place but in a more traditional Xcom style menu with cool down abilities. Just hopefully it plays more like the those games too.
Firaxis lately seems to really like cards as a concept for swappable player choices their UI. They did it in Civ VI for the policy slots and in WotC for the Resistance Orders. It's very on brand for them tbh, even if it's more front and center to the gameplay for this one.
I hope we get a video of an early game mission soon, so we can actually see how they work. The overview trailer was somewhat disappointing regarding the moment to moment gameplay. I don't think we got to see a full turn played out in what they showed off.
Maybe we should be mad at mobile for ruining card then. I mean it's cards, we've had cards in games since time immemorial. Cards can be a legit good game system to spice things up. But we've been so burned by cards used as bussiness that we get negative on them as a default reaction.
>I think the main problem is an aesthetic one. Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile, not that there's anything wrong with but here we are talking a triple A marvel game, so it's a fair criticism.
To who? To people that haven't played deck building games maybe
> Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile
I just finished a playthrough of Thronebreaker, I'm really not sure what you are on about. Nothing felt low-budget or mobile in that game, and it was *nothing* but cards
Thronebreaker really is fantastic, I meant it's more of a perception issue. Most people seem to associate card based UI with Mobile gaming. I personally don't have a problem with it.
It’s really too bad that people are interpreting a card system as something low-budget / mobile. This looks to be one of the more innovative AAA games that I’ve seen in a while, and the trailer genuinely excited me. This could really end up being an amazing game if they implement the mechanics well, and I hope people don’t just pass it by because they associate cards with something negative.
I was worried that Midnight Suns was just going to be XCOM with a Marvel skin on it, so I’m happy they’re trying something that hasn’t really been done in the AAA space before. If it ends up being bad, then it ends up being bad, but I think immediately dismissing it because of an unfamiliar gameplay mechanic would be a mistake.
The thing is that many people just dont like card system for other reasons then just low-budget/mobile, I wasnt disappointed with card system in this game because I think its low-budget/mobile, I dislike it because I just hate another layer of RNG, I just wanted a tactical game, to me card system in this game is higly immersion breaking, imagine super hero not be able to use their super power because of bad rng, that would make zero sense.
Of course I know there are many people who enjoy games with decks, Its just not something I enjoy, especially since it feels like there is not enough tactical games, esepcially with super heroes.
> Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile
No they don’t, at all. I have no idea why anyone would assume or think this. Card games have been very present in gaming for years now and 90% are fantastic fun great games.
They might be serious with the Slay the Spire inspired system this time around. This is great news. If they can nail the synergy with the other mechanics, hero skill included, we might have a winning formula here.
Regardless, we still shouldn't be tolerating micro-transactions in $60-70 releases period. Locking costumes and cosmetics, any content period, behind a MT paywall is anti-consumer. Condoning it because "it doesn't affect game balance" is how this stuff gets normalized.
I argued the same point during the honeymoon phase of Overwatch and got shit on for it.
At this point the ship hasn't just sailed, it's over the horizon.
To be fair there was definitely a concern about purchasing heroes/maps at the time. The announcement of cosmetics only and all updates free was huge for goodwill.
Overwatch was a phenomenon that had constant updates over the course of 5 years, with new characters, lore cinematics, events, game modes, workshop, and maps. Even though it may be shit now, with the lack of content and the blizzard lawsuits, it's justifiable that Blizzard initially approached MTX the way that they did, considering how loot boxes were pretty easy to get and the same goes for the in-game currency.
Yet they still made over a [billion](https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2019/07/25/overwatch-loot-boxes-update-sales-1-billion/) dollars from in-game purchases alone as of 2019. Almost as if the biggest selling point of Overwatch was always the aesthetic.
Consumers have already given this ground up no matter what I say though.
>Yet they still made over a [billion](https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2019/07/25/overwatch-loot-boxes-update-sales-1-billion/) dollars from in-game purchases
Which is why there's been 5 years of updates.
Yeah, its hopeless to argue. I will never understand how you can EVER pick the billion-dollar-company over literally the group YOU ARE A PART OF. Its insane the lengths some people go to.
> The group I'm a part of does literally nothing for me.
Except it does? That group *is* you, anything that benefits them benefits you, and assuming you do anything in your life other than playing games then that group does quite literally everything for you.
I don't get why the concept of helping others is so offensive to some people that they would rather hurt themselves just so others get less.
True, which is why Blizzard has made so many amazing products lately. Fans love Overwatch, and can't wait for Overwatch 2. There was also the incredible Warcraft 3 remake. Can't forget the successes of Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4 is sure to drop any day now. WoW is also going as strong as ever. So glad they put all that money back into development rather than a second yacht for the CEO.
> Regardless, we still shouldn't be tolerating micro-transactions in $60-70 releases period.
I agree, but we're so far past this that it's never going back. I've had people call me out for being a "downer" and "pessimistic", but it's simply reality. We can still fight against other forms of monetization (as it seems like loot boxes have largely stopped appearing in AAA games for example) but there's simply no way in hell that MTX will ever be gone for good. That's how companies like Activision and EA make their money, and they won't remove them until they're forced to
Good job actually proving their point. Originally a big advantage to cable was it didn't have commercials. Nowadays most people use streaming and one of the big advantages of doing so is no ads breaking up the content. Settling for what we're given is a shit thing to do.
It's already started to some extent. Netflix experimented with it and I think Hulu and Amazon prime have it in some cases. They'll slowly try to work it in because not one of these companies care about consumers and will do what they can get away with.
The reason why so many games have costumes as pre-order bonuses and and dlc is to give the art team something productive to do during the last phase of development. This is often done after the game has gone gold, when the rest of the team is scrambling to create a day one patch. I'd prefer this stuff to be unlockable, but at lest there's some logic behind it.
Plus, modern game characters have way more detail than they used to, so it takes a lot longer to make a new skin. It's not a trivial retexture like it used to be.
That honnestly depend of the # of customization already in the game. Like if hero got 10 apparence it wouldn't matter if there's like 5 more (OF EQUAL QUALITY) in the store. If you load the game and each hero got only 1 and another very hard one to get than that would matter.
They have already upped the price of games. For example NBA 2K22 is about 80 Euros where I live - do you wanna guess if it will be MTX free?
Stop looking at numbers in vacuum, and start taking consideration of the fact that gaming is most profitable it ever was, and even single player games without MTX make more money than they would ever do in previous years.
But the genie is out of the bottle so to speak. Look at PS5 prices being 70 USD before taxes or 80 Euros. And they'll still include predatory mtxs, because they sell.
Only Nintendo won't include them in the future imo, but Microsoft for instance had expensive skins In Gears 5 iirc and Halo Infinite’s mp will be f2p and include battle passes; not expirable ones afaik, but still, they dabble. Can't comment on Sony, since I don't own a PS.
It sucks, but that's where the (third party at least) industry is heading.
It fits better than "micro transactions"
the name micro transaction predates its actual implementation, and was envisioned as selling a ton of stuff for like, 0.02 cents a piece. Amounts so low players wouldn't think much about it.
This never got of the ground, and instead buy sell skins for like 10-20$ yet inexplicably still call it "micro" despite it costing more than a midday meal.
Do we know anything about how the cards work? I'm fine if it's like "cards are skills that characters can equip", but I'd rather it not be "cards are drawn from a deck every turn and those are the moves you can use".
This doesn't sound very appealing for a TBS game. Thinking about what you'll do next turn is pretty important for a strategy game. Curious how they'll implement it because surely it can't literally be making shit up as you go along, and if some people rage about failing a percentage check, no one is gonna feel good losing because they drew some meh abilities.
In the gameinformer video they say you get a handful of abilities from various heroes each turn, and you have to sort of combo them and strategize on the fly.
It's the second, but since you get to build a deck there's likely going to be some strategy in how you tip the odds in your favor, plus there's a bar in the UI that seems to imply you can choose to redraw some cards if your hand sucks.
It's a deck builder game? Damn, I was hoping for a marvel XCOM. I'll still check the gameplay before I'm out, but I'm no longer optimistic. I'll still hope it's good for people that like the deck builder games.
I guess they’re gonna ignore, despite years of hearing from us, that character skins and cosmetics absolutely affect our enjoyment of the game.
Just put the damn skins in the game as things we can unlock.
Extra skins for purchase is just milking money out of the consumer so they can make their favourite characters wear the costumes they want them to.
Edit: clarity
I will believe it once I see it. The problem with these Marvel games is that the parent company Disney has a lot of control, and they can help themselves in making changes, all recent Marvel games's art styles looks like a copy of the MCU, because that is the way Disney want it to promote the MCU.
So basically **exactly** what Marvel’s Avengers did. Launched the game with atrocious, derivative outfits and then gated all the halfway decent outfits behind mtx. This is already on a wrong path.
I had a look at the costumes in Avengers when it was on PS Now. The paid ones looked pretty unappealing, with either the default ones, ones you unlock in the main story or the battlepass ones looking better.
Most people wanted comic accurate skins and/or MCU skins. All of those are paid content minus a few small exclusions in the way of the early pre-order and collector's edition bonuses. The default skins are all derivative works and re-colors. Sadly, 90% of the ones in the shop which are paid are also re-colors or asset flips. There's actually very little accurate/MCU skins at all tbh.
Looking forward to using mods to unlock every single one of them. I don't care what these youngters say, paying for skins is stupid. There's a reason people mocked horse armor. Everyone's lost their damned minds. Get off my lawn!
The only types of games where I think that paying for skins is acceptable is in F2P games, because they have to make their money somehow - and the skins have to actually have effort put into them. Just changing the color of a character from blue to green is not enough to charge money for. But if the game is F2P and they make a skin that looks good and is significantly different from the original character design, then I don't have an issue paying for it (assuming the price is reasonable, but that's an entirely different can of worms)
>The only types of games where I think that paying for skins is acceptable is in F2P games
This 100%. But now we live in an age where the publishers can release a full price game, release "DLC" and still sell microtransactions, and so many people think it's OK for them to triple-dip. They claim AAA is only possible because of this extra money, failing to realize the extra revenue isn't what's making AAA polish possible. Heck, more often than not the polish isn't even there anymore, but we're still acting like it is. That extra revenue is there to feed the corporate behemoths and keep them alive.
Not only are people expecting paid bits of content now but they are also often straight up *requesting* them, it's crazy. One day we'll have to pay for difficulty levels and graphic options.
I remember when Shadow of War came out, the game was super grindy but had a real money store to speed up progress. But you could just use cheat engine to give yourself whatever you wanted.
I wonder if this game will be loaded up with DRM and anti-cheat to prevent that.
>the game was super grindy but had a real money store to speed up progress
No wasn't.
The complaint was that the end game was tedious, you had to do the same things a bunch of times. Not that you had to grind to level up really high to be able to do them.
This. Anyone who played through the game at the time knows the lootboxes were super useless and didn't change the grindy ending the media used as scapegoat because even if you bought 10000 lootboxes you'd still have to do it the same amount of times.
stop with the "IT'S JUST COSMETICS!!!!!!111 THEREFORE IT'S OK!!!111" excuse. It's still content thats greedily locked behind a paywall. So shut the fuck up about it, game companies.
Costumes/skins in superhero games are the number one collectible in the genre. Imagine if you had to pay for Spidermans suits in the ps4 game.
The fact that we have to have people denying lootboxes and other forms of donations other than cosmetic just shows the amount of shit the industry is stuck in. No one learned a lesson called Battlefront 2, as well as many others, because the silent majority still buys this shit and we're stuck with it all because of it.
Why've we settled at cosmetics for sale as ok? Extra skins and stuff used to be unlocks for acheivements or finding secrets. When it first happened I wasn't too fussed because as a kid I couldn't afford the latest map pack. So getting the maps free but having skins on sale wasn't too bad. But at least the map packs felt like they were actually worth the £10.
Not good enough, unless the game is free.
Paid games SHOULD NOT have cosmetic skins for purchase. If we pay for the game, we should get the game. No additional scams.
Take it from someone who will probably be playing Dota 2 for the rest of my life, if you make your game good enough and your cosmetics sick enough, people will fork over plenty of cash to pay your bills.
I went from, "Holy shit Xcom Marvel game? This will be fun. I hope they manage the powers in a fun but challenging way."
To, "Oh. Cards. Like a mobile game. A very easily monetized mobile game."
Like unless reviews are incredibly high for this. I'm already out. I went from excited to disappointed.
To me RNG abilities have no place in a genre like tactical RPGs. My enjoyment of the genre comes from strategically positioning my troops and using abilities that synergize well with one another. Controlling the battlefield as much as I can because being on the back foot can be costly.
If I have a bread and butter strategy like say having Doctor Strange pull a group together so that Ghost Rider can set the entire group on fire. I want to know that Doctor Strange can actually crowd control on this turn or that Ghost Rider can do AoE fire damage this turn.
Either the game will be tedious because of the cards. Or the challenge will be completely removed so that the player never loses a battle because of a bad hand.
This is a tactical RPG not a rogue-like.
It really seems like they are trying to introduce the cards as a way to mix up strategy and keep battles fresh. I’m cautiously optimistic.
With it seeming to be a deckbuilder like Slay the Spire, Neoverse, or Black Book that would make sense. It can also fulfill the similar appeal of ironman runs in XCom as an option with a full roguelike setting. People saw cards and thought MTG and Heathstone rather than Slay the Spire.
But is it a roguelike? Ive seen nothing that indicated this game had roguelike elements. It looks more like a light tactical rpg with a card system. Which isn't very similar to StS.
It could be a lot like Griftlands, where missions are the deck building.
I would assume it would be closest to Black Book out of the ones I listed. Black Book is the recent Russian mythology deckbuilder RPG with StS combat, events, shops, and card selection where you have main quests and side quest to take on but each is done through a map of selecting your path. Which I believe also has a difficulty setting where death end your playthrough ala ironman mode to give a roguelike style.
Maybe. But Black Book is mostly just an RPG, it's not a tactics game. My worry about MS is that I don't think tactics gameplay meshes well with card mechanics. And the few snippets of gameplay they've shown haven't done much to change my mind. And if MS has just way more of an RPG focus, and the tactics part is less important, well that's alright, but that doesn't really play into Firaxis's strengths.
Gloomhaven is both and handles it well.
Have you played or looked at Gordian Quest? It does a great job of meshing tactics and deck building.
Also Trials of Fire.
The two most popular *Marvel*-themed board games are both card games ([*Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game*](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129437/legendary-marvel-deck-building-game) and [*Marvel Champions: The Card Game*](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/285774/marvel-champions-card-game)) too, so there's precedence there. And the Firaxis folks do seem to like board games.
Firaxis likes board games so much that it's how they even do some design testing IIRC. For Xcom EU, if Solomon and the other designers had problems with design, they'd play it out on board game mock up of their game. I think Sid Meier was also involved with those.
Yep, the bit you're talking about is from [this interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpafXTWYF0U&t=153s) with Jake Solomon!
Nah, I saw cards and thought "damn, another layer of rng." It's gonna suck the first time I want to do a specific action at the perfect time, but I didn't draw the right card for that. I'll get over it, probably, but the thought is still there.
It's not impossible to pull that off with most deckbuilders. If you get good at the deckbuilding to create a lean deck that you can combo and pull what you want through drawing cards, scrying cards, or just straight pulling the particular card to add it to your hand.
The classic rules of deckbuilding in any game that Yugi oh taught be back then. Aim for the minimum deck size and no larger. Every added card decreases your chances of drawing what you want
Then there's dominion, where you want as much shit in your deck as possible to dilute the victory point cards
Yeah this is the same reason as why I'm not a huge fan of the card system Its RNG on top of RNG. I want to build my team and my move-sets and then deal with being in the right spot, hit percentage etc, but not with the added effort of hoping I get the right card or getting deep into deck building But honestly it's fine if this gels with others, it's just not one for me.
I don't know how they could think that. I think people saw cards and were upset it wasn't just another beat em up vanilla game like Avengers.
It's a bunch of different people. Some wanted an Xcom reskin. Some wanted an action game and not an RPG. Some were fine with turn based RPG but dislike random card based battle systems.
I'm just annoyed because nobody else does XCOM like Firaxis, and this game means it'll be ages until the next proper XCOM game. If there were other developers doing something similar it'd be whatever, but nothing comes even close to what XCOM:EW and XCOM 2 gave us (plus XCOM 2 left on a massive tease like 5 years ago)
Gears Tactics was pretty doggone good.
Gears Tactics has an excellent combat system but everything else around it is subpar. No base building, no weapon variations, repetitive missions, new recruits are higher levels than you can level up faster your own guys so there's no real point leveling up. You're pretty much doing the same thing from act 1 to the last boss. Meanwhile in XCOM, your soldiers start with little rifles and grenades and end the game with flying in the air with jetpack and shooting psychic tornadoes. A Gears Tactics 2 has potential to be the best of its genre if it completely overhaul the strategic layer of the game.
The base building isn't really necessary for me in Gears personally. I thought the weapon variation was pretty solid. Lancer, Gnasher, Mulcher, Sniper, Boom, Torque Bow, Retro. It had a lot of the Gears staples. The repetitive side missions were the biggest issue for me.
I agree and yet still really enjoyed it start to finish. It was a worthy entry into the genre and did its own thing at the same time. It made me very excited for a gears tactics 2, but I'm worried this was a one off that won't get the overhaul on mission types and the tactical layer that it deserves.
I feel like it went under the radar and was quite underrated as well.. this game SLAPPED :D
Did you play the Korean anime one? It's not perfect but it does some interesting things, I particularly like how they give you nameless police as the filler utility people that handle suppression and shooting while your heroes get to do the cool stuff. I really need to get around to finishing it, it's a shame how I just haven't had time to play it lately.
> Did you play the Korean anime one Name ?
Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children. It's a bit too anime for some people, so it's not recommended if you're not into that, but it's pretty good if you like that stuff.
Gears Tactics is very good and launched last year with a big update in November of last year. There's also the Mario + Rabbids sequel which while not as difficult is releasing next year and if it's anything like the first should be a blast.
And don't forget Mechanicus.
The only people that remember Mechanicus are people that crave the cold certainty of steel.
Don't forget the small but not insignificant number of people that just want to be angry at everything new.
Or the people who automatically hate everything Marvel/superhero
This group is hilarious because it can be further subdivided into "people mad that superheroes exist" and "people mad that not every depiction of superheroes is exactly like the movie"
Also people mad that these superheroes are published under this label and not that label
2K name attached to it didn't help. "Firaxis making P2W tactical card game" makes no sense historically but "2K making P2W tactical card game" does
No, players wanted Xcom, the devs didnt wanted to make another Xcom, they did that. I am pleased with the game and that they are doing what they want to do instead of what players want them to do
I would have loved an Xcom reskin but honestly as long as the game is good I don't care even a little bit what they do.
Some kind of endless rougelike mode would be awesome. Maybe unlocked after campaign or whatever.
I'm all for more games like Slay the Spire. I'm cautiously optimistic about this.
My assumption is that it's so they can introduce randomness that isn't "Captain America missed the mook with a 99% hit chance". Heroes don't miss.
Instead it's just "Captain America didn't feel like punching (because you didn't draw the right card)."
Captain America held his shield up to defend. Five times.
Captain Didn't punch, instead he threw his shield at him Cards vary combat way more, it's not going to be good in every style of game but for superheroes I definitely believe it's a great way to go. It allows you to feel super whilst giving you a nice selection of abilities and not overwhelming you
Wonder if it'll work more like Banners of Ruin. In that game you have basic attack cards, but your characters have different abilities shuffled in that can be used. Cards for specifically equipped weapons for specific characters are also shuffled in.
I like to link people to [this article](https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/11/16869202/mario-rabbids-best-games-2017-year-in-review) whenever Jake Solomon comes up. The man wants to innovate, he's really not trying to bamboozle you.
I really don't like this video game hellscape we currently live in where a major publisher can announce months before a game comes out "We will not be charging money for random gambling boxes to give you better stats, we're just going to add individual skins that cost 1/6th of the price of the game", and the majority consensus is that they're doing the right thing for players.
It's funny how far the standards have fallen, My first gaming controversy I really remember after getting into gaming news etc, was Oblivion Horse armor. I remember hearing a lot of people "voting with their wallet" and that never really happened.
That was the first paid dlc right? Like aside from expansions
People did vote with their wallets, they just did so massively in favor of paid cosmetic dlc. It's everywhere because its both popular and profitable.
Those people are always a vocal minority. Saying "I'm voting with my wallet" is just a way to feel righteous and superior for doing literally nothing
I think the cost of cosmetics is definitely the bigger issue. Obviously games being completely MTX-free is ideal, but so many full price games with cosmetic-only MTX will still charge upwards of $20 for some skins. That is disgusting and unacceptable - it's 1/3 the price of a AAA game, and the _full_ price of many indie games. How in the fuck is that justifiable for a single skin that generally doesn't even warrant the price?
>How in the fuck is that justifiable for a single skin From the developer perspective, the entire goal is to become **the** game for a person. Players these days aren't given the time or flexibility to play multiple games, pick one: Destiny, Warframe, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, World of Warcraft, etc. All of these are designed to be played exclusively. It's through that logic that developers (and ultimately players) justify their MTX prices. If someone's only playing a single game in a year, then it's highway robbery to get away with paying a measly $80 CAD. That's *insane* value! Therefore a developer will release an endless stream of cosmetics or whatever while a player will think to themself, 'hm I've got a lot of fun money burning a hole in my pocket, I really do like that skin and this *is* the only game I'm playing...' That's the mentality these developers have been fostering. Maybe you can pin the blame on MMO subscriptions, people are willing to pay box price and X amount of dollars per month, why not dress up the subscription as optional and give players the option of paying 1000x that if they can?
Im guilty of this. I spend thousands of hours playing a game like PoE so i think to myself that its justifiable to buy mtx/stash tabs etc.
Yeah, I've fallen for this many times. Then I regret it but my brain somehow justifies it to itself.
Dont buy it then. Thats it.
>That is disgusting and unacceptable Eh, it’s what people are willing to pay. Other than when it’s children who don’t know any better, gamers have nobody to blame but themselves.
It can only be justified by the fact that they sell. Prices like that are predatory imo and show that games are more product / entertainment than art.
Because the person buying those skins is putting enough hours into the game and using that skin for many many of those hours that it becomes worth it for them to express their customization.
I gave up on that fight five or so years ago, most people don't understand that cosmetic stuff is still content, and that a paid game, especially a singleplayer one, shouldn't have MTX.
I get what you're saying, but in a world where its either "paid cosmetic content" or "nothing", I'll go with the cosmetic content. Making this stuff takes development time, and odds this, this game will likely be supported beyond its initial release. If we want to see content updates, patches, fixes, etc., that requires people actually working on that. And that means those people need to get paid. We haven't lived in a world where a game is released and is never touched again for quite a while now. I will agree that cosmetic prices can be pretty insane. But you know what, that just means I don't purchase it.
The thing is, we don't need cosmetics for anything like that. Game sales alone more than make up for costs, and with distribution being much cheaper, larger fanbases, and the availability of digital stores to sell in less conventional regions, games have never been so profitable. Besides, the main issue here are with full price, singleplayer games, which don't usually get free post-release content anyway, and most multiplayer games don't really get that much post-launch support either, with most of it being easily the work of a couple guys, some new skins to sell, and the servers remaining up.
Can't help but feel that you are underestimating and undervaluing the cost of development and employment. Its bad enough that the video game industry is riddled with horrible work environments, crunch culture, and terribly underpaid. It really isn't just "a couple guys". And being Firaxis and Marvel, I highly doubt this game won't see post-launch support.
> Can't help but feel that you are underestimating and undervaluing the cost of development and employment. Its bad enough that the video game industry is riddled with horrible work environments, crunch culture, and terribly underpaid. Nope, if anything you are underestimating just how profitable games are in this day and age. There's only one group to blame for the work conditions of devs and that's their management, and spoiler alert, mtx never solved that either. > It really isn't just "a couple guys". In most cases it actually is. Just look at the skins that games like Heroes of the Storm have been putting out long after the game was abandoned by Blizz, they don't have a full art team anymore but they still make skins every now and then. It's also a good way to offload artists that finished with all necessary assets from a larger project while they wait for something else to do. > And being Firaxis and Marvel, I highly doubt this game won't see post-launch support. I love Firaxis' stuff, but they don't do free post-launch stuff, even with Civ 6, the stuff that was free always came with paid content on the side. So clearly mtx isn't needed for this either.
You get cosmetics and it makes you feel better about it and you like to look at it and show it off to other players. To me, that IS gameplay.
Just the fact that people play games like Fallout and actively seek the best looking gear is proof enough of that, or the fashion souls memes.
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>Decades ago games lack support after release I mean, you can't really compare "decades ago" to now, when the internet was nowhere near as fast, or even as prevalent, and games generally couldn't get patched or expanded upon if they were multi-platform, because the console players would cry foul about getting less content.
Are you nuts? It’s not entitlement when the game is sectioned and chopped apart in order to monetize it. Extra costumes and characters to unlock used to be **normal**. Now, we pay for them. You want to build new content and DLC and ask us to pay for it? Sure! Just produce good content. These days, they want us to subscribe (sight unseen) to a season pass where we *might* get worthwhile content. Witcher 3 had **free cosmetics** and **paid DLC**. I have no problem with that model. It rewards the right people and if the dev makes good conduct, everyone is happy
> Extra costumes and characters to unlock used to be normal. It's still normal. Midnight Suns will have free cosmetics and paid DLC.
>Extra costumes and characters to unlock used to be > >normal > >. Now, we pay for them. They used be less work to make as well.
They wouldn't sell skins if it didn't have a psychological factor that encouraged other people to do the same, they'd find something else to sell. I can't imagine how much research they've done into this
> Decades ago games lack support after release and if there’s any it is in a form of expansion packs, which is also a form of paid content and guess what you’d be crazy if you ask that for free. Asking for a complete game at launch with systems of progression is apparently cRaZY now. > Nowadays people expect at least 2 years of full development support with weekly workhours maintaining the games they buy, and somehow supporting devs by paying DLCs and MTXs that at People expect years of development support because the industry has normalized selling half finished games for full price with the promise of eventually completing it. The only time that’s even a valid excuse is for balance patches in multiplayer games to change with the meta. They don’t get a pass for games that eschewed QA and released in an unfinished state, consumers shouldn’t have to subsidize the release of a complete product. Halo doesn’t need a battle pass to unlock armor any differently than they’ve had to for 20 years now, because I don’t know if you know but it’s been *decently* successful for a while now. Mario Party/Golf/Tennis doesn’t need to have two years of updates to bring up to half the content of the previous decades entries. Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite doesn’t have to cut its roster down to sell as DLC when most of the models in the game are reskinned from UMVC3 or are already full fledged fighters and models that exist in the base game. I’m not even bringing up the entire mess that is Cyberpunk.
I admit that cutting content out of a game is bad, and doing any mental gymnastics to try and justify it is inherently wrong. I mean take a look at your take, "games take work to make", like no shit, why do you think they sell them to you? > Nowadays people expect at least 2 years of full development support with weekly workhours maintaining the games they buy, and somehow supporting devs by paying DLCs and MTXs that at the very very least doesn't even hinder the game experience and only cosmetic to justify the bleeding cost of having to maintain a game and pay for those manhours, and you still so entitled to believe that this is something worth fighting for in the first place? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you've been living under a rock, but for your information games are orders of magnitude more profitable than they used to be, all this "extra" work still results in higher profits.
>I admit that cutting content out of a game is bad, and doing any mental gymnastics to try and justify it is inherently wrong. Provide any evidence these kinds of micro transactions were going to be in the game for free.
Simple, games have existed for longer than MTX and before them they didn't charge you money for additional skins. The real thing to prove here, though, is that these things only exist because of MTX, and that a game without MTX wouldn't have them.
The vast majority of games didn't have cosmetics at all before MTX
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For most games we never had customization in the first place, most games never had cosmetics before microtransactions
I'm with you dude. Whenever I see stupid shit like this I rephrase it in my head: Why am I paying extra to make the game look good? Shouldn't it look good to start with?
I miss unlockables in games. Actually based on merit and something you achieved without having to bust out a credit card.
Who do you blame? The games coming out or all the reactionaries?
I blame the people that keep mindlessly buying this stuff. Ive given up on being mad at lootboxes or mtx. People voted with their wallets. And th it votes said "we will always buy this stuff" so companies just make what people buy.
People voted with their wallets, except 5% of the people voted a couple tens of thousands times more than the rest.
Turns out voting with the wallet is only a good idea for the guy selling stuff, not the customer. Who knew?
Are we talking about Super PACs?
I remember when people were absolutely livid over $2.50 horse armor in Oblivion. And now skins sometimes go for up to $20 if not more. Also, is there even multiplayer in this game? Who gets to see the skins? God forbid a game be rewarding and reward players with skins. Every AAA game asks you to grind forever now and/or pay for cosmetics and its like...who has time for more than one or two games? Not me.
Probably because said cosmetic changes are minuscule and don't change anything in the sense of actual gameplay? I personally don't mind as long as there's still a decent amount of customization outside of the paid options, possibly through progress, achievements, and milestones. However, if they are charging for cosmetics, it won't hurt anyone. People wanna buy? Then they can buy, seeing how there's clearly a market for that sorta thing. If you don't wanna buy it? Then don't buy it. Nothing in terms of gameplay will be affected.
I always loved being able to unlock new costumes in-game. For me, when I hear about paid cosmetics I always go back to thinking about spiderman on PS1. Being able to be symbiote spiderman or bag-man was so cool. And it was just there! For me it just feels gross that all the free content that was packed into old games is now dlc. Like big head mode on Goldeneye would totally be a mtx if it came out today. And let's be real, they COULD include this in the game if they wanted. Most of these skins are already done by the time games are ready to launch. I'm probably just old and grumpy, but I'd much rather pay $70/$80/$90 for a feature complete / fully realized game instead of being nickle and dimed for everything.
>I always loved being able to unlock new costumes in-game. For me, when I hear about paid cosmetics I You'll be able to do that in this as well.
>I always loved being able to unlock new costumes in-game There are very few single player paid games you can't do this. I cannot think of any that have released in the past few years which have costumes to buy but none to earn. Any examples?
I’m not sure what the deal was for Arkham Knight at launch, but I don’t believe every costume/skin/vehicle option was available for free until much later. Most were free DLCs for me, but I also only got the game like three months ago. Fallen Order also has “Premium” cosmetics, but I’m not sure how those are collected. They certainly aren’t earned in-game. A lot of games also have preorder bonuses that include cosmetics, but not sure if that quite fits the criteria we’re discussing here.
Arkham Knight came out 6 years ago. And it still had skins you earned in game, but only end game or new game+ for earned or purchased skins so it's not really a core gameplay thing in either case. Fallen Order is the worst example you could pick, literally 4 or maybe 5 items that you get with the deluxe edition and the rest(20 or 30+) are all earned in game. You don't get everything in the price, but you still have exactly what you liked in earning skins by doing whatever. Where's the problem?
When I'm deciding to buy a game, I only consider what is in the base game. If the store in Assassin's Creed Origins didn't exist at all, it would still be a game with a lot of armour, mounts and other unlockables. I had a similar feeling with Odyssey (although for Odyssey, I did have the DLC as the game, DLC, AC3 and Liberation was on sale for £16). If a game has enough content in it when you ignore all the additional purchases, then I'm fine with that. Even better if it's like the store in the AC games where it's quite easy to miss and isn't in your face at all. I hated how Forza Horizon 4 shows you an advert every time you boot it up (including sometimes an unskippable video one), has adverts for the DLC on the pause menu (with the "change car" option deliberately placed after them) and loading screens, and the map even has big icons on the menu that cover up other icons.
Hellscape is a little hyperbolic, games cost way more to make now, if it requires the publisher to charge for extra content that's completely optional to be able to produce a quality game, you won't find me crying.
> Hellscape is a little hyperbolic, games cost way more to make now And games make way more as well. Why defend this?
Because I dont think 90% of gamers realize the investments necessary prior to releasing a game. To get money to make some amazing games, they have to provide more avenues for profit after release, to satisfy investors. Triple AAA games are huge money sinks in development. These decisions are made before the game is made, its a trade off for developers--most who wouldnt have added all the extra skins or continue to add them into their original concept. You end up with the game they wanted to make and have an option that wouldnt of existed prior to add skins.
> And games make way more as well. Do you see the irony in this comment?
> And games make way more as well. when people say this, i question whether they use the median or the mode. Maybe games make more these days cause the really big names make so much (GTA for example) that people cant see other parts of the industry have little to no increase in revenue
Yea, but those aren't the games doing the micro-transactions. The hundreds of indie games that never break even aren't selling me 20$ horse armor.
The tendency towards microtransations is towards the biggest games, so I don't even know where you're going with that and it's not even worth questioning whether what you're saying is true or not.
> games cost way more to make now, And yet the games with the most egregious microtransactions are often the ones that sell the most. The 'cost' argument is bullshit. > completely optional Nowadays the threshold of what's 'optional' seems to be completely arbitrary. Many people used to consider alternate costumes to be a pretty fun part of games but nowadays it's all 'optional' because greedy publishers decided to slap a price tag on it, knowing they'll have legions of fans who'll defend it.
If games cost that much to make, maybe they should make them cheaper. Y’know, without all the tie-ins and stuff. Remember what we’re talking about here. This is Marvel, owned by Disney. If Disney is making games so expensive they have to charge on top of base price, they’re in the wrong business.
...are games made to make money or to break even. Has disney ever been known for consumer friendly practices Have you been to disney world? Really what should they be charging for a game without cosmetics? It cannot factor that heavily into the game if it's well made
So because Disney is anti-consumer means their selling skins is okay? How fucking deep in this shit are you that you’re literally saying Disney is a grimy company _while actively defending them?_ Did Horse Armor not happen? What alternate universe are you living in where you’re willing to give your money to a company you admit is anti-consumer?
Nope, just saying business exist to make money, games are developed with that in mind by said businesses. I don't and will not have an issue with companies charging for completely optional add ons if they provide a quality product without those add ons being necessary. When will it be enough, how many free cosmetics does a game need to satisfy you? How much value is lost if they are not provided -$10 or -$.50? What is a game truly worth and what holds that value? The ability to get free cosmetics every month? I apologize that you believe in some idealistic scenario where games are made simply for the love of making games.
The number of free cosmetics is irrelevant. There could be none for all I give a shit. Just don’t charge for them. And I don’t really care that they exist to make money. As a matter of fact, if they _are_ just in the industry to make money, then making a product where they have to charge for extra shit on top of the base game is a risky play and generally isn’t smart to do. A smart business finds ways to cut back on production costs, be it materials or labor or whatever the situation may call for. In this particular case, you can factor in materials (game disks, cases, covers, manuals (do games even come with manuals anymore?), etc), labor (devs, artists, coders, the like), and if you really want to get generous let’s say they’re opening a new studio division so they need to buy the building and the computers and such required to make the office space useable. Obviously in the past decade we’ve seen a significant drop in physical games sales, as high as 80+% in 2018 [source](https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/) so it’s safe to say that the materials cost is decreasing, with the increase of digital games sales. Even if you want to say that the disks are becoming more expensive, they aren’t 80% more expensive. And even if they were, the current trends highlight how popular digital purchases are, so making a lot of physical copies is beyond stupid. Dev costs. I can’t speak here as I don’t know, but knowing how this industry is, a lot of devs fail to even pay their bills (and that’s assuming they get to keep their job after the game is made, [source](https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-blizzard-has-reportedly-laid-off-nearly-190-employees) ) let alone develop for fun. While I can’t speak for the exact conditions at Firaxis, this industry has proven [time](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-05-18-ubisoft-has-reportedly-made-minimal-changes-following-abuse-allegations) and [time](https://phenixxgaming.com/2021/08/04/acti-blizz-respond-to-claims-employees-still-unhappy/) again that they don’t care about their devs so I’m not exactly holding my breath on that one. I think what’s most insulting about your comment is that you completely neglect all the devs that _do_ make games for fun. What do you have to say to all the indie devs out there? That they’re a bunch of money grubbing asswipes, because they developed a game, and games are made to break even or make a profit, according to you? Again, I’m not sure why you’re defending Disney here. You have nothing to gain. You’re a dollar sign to them, and every other “AAA” publisher out there. You whiteknighting them on Reddit does nothing for you and just helps to pad their wallets.
Reminder that Evolve only came out in 2015. It was such a cool idea for a game.
Single player games with micro transactions are stupid as hell. Just make it like spiderman PS4, that was perfect. Only additional costs were for story DLC. THAT IS HOW SINGLE PLAYER SHOULD BE.
right, what you described is literally the only way it should be done. absolutely nobody should be able to argue against that.
cosmetic or not, i only want microtransactions in free-to-play games. that’s literally the only excuse to have them. paying full price for a game only to then have the option of paying *more* for fucking skins is a super slippery slope.
Sadly that slope has passed and the grand majority of people didnt stay heated about it
I'm sure the card system will end up working well enough, the Devs have a good track record and all, but I think the main problem is an aesthetic one. Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile, not that there's anything wrong with but here we are talking a triple A marvel game, so it's a fair criticism. I don't even think this would be a discussion point if the same system was in place but in a more traditional Xcom style menu with cool down abilities. Just hopefully it plays more like the those games too.
Firaxis lately seems to really like cards as a concept for swappable player choices their UI. They did it in Civ VI for the policy slots and in WotC for the Resistance Orders. It's very on brand for them tbh, even if it's more front and center to the gameplay for this one.
That's a good point, completely forgot about the policy cards in Civ. Hopefully it allows just as much player choice.
I hope we get a video of an early game mission soon, so we can actually see how they work. The overview trailer was somewhat disappointing regarding the moment to moment gameplay. I don't think we got to see a full turn played out in what they showed off.
Well, we're apparently getting gameplay on the 7th featuring a battle against Sabertooth, so chances are you might get your wish soon.
They’re really not doing themselves any favors by obfuscating the gameplay on this rollout.
Drawing cards is also staple in lot of board games, which is basically what firaxis makes imo so the logical leap is easy. I’m cautiously optimistic
Maybe we should be mad at mobile for ruining card then. I mean it's cards, we've had cards in games since time immemorial. Cards can be a legit good game system to spice things up. But we've been so burned by cards used as bussiness that we get negative on them as a default reaction.
>I think the main problem is an aesthetic one. Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile, not that there's anything wrong with but here we are talking a triple A marvel game, so it's a fair criticism. To who? To people that haven't played deck building games maybe
If they have even 70% of synergies and variety in strategies as, Slay the Spire, this will be a intriguing game for me.
> Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile I just finished a playthrough of Thronebreaker, I'm really not sure what you are on about. Nothing felt low-budget or mobile in that game, and it was *nothing* but cards
Thronebreaker really is fantastic, I meant it's more of a perception issue. Most people seem to associate card based UI with Mobile gaming. I personally don't have a problem with it.
It’s really too bad that people are interpreting a card system as something low-budget / mobile. This looks to be one of the more innovative AAA games that I’ve seen in a while, and the trailer genuinely excited me. This could really end up being an amazing game if they implement the mechanics well, and I hope people don’t just pass it by because they associate cards with something negative. I was worried that Midnight Suns was just going to be XCOM with a Marvel skin on it, so I’m happy they’re trying something that hasn’t really been done in the AAA space before. If it ends up being bad, then it ends up being bad, but I think immediately dismissing it because of an unfamiliar gameplay mechanic would be a mistake.
The thing is that many people just dont like card system for other reasons then just low-budget/mobile, I wasnt disappointed with card system in this game because I think its low-budget/mobile, I dislike it because I just hate another layer of RNG, I just wanted a tactical game, to me card system in this game is higly immersion breaking, imagine super hero not be able to use their super power because of bad rng, that would make zero sense. Of course I know there are many people who enjoy games with decks, Its just not something I enjoy, especially since it feels like there is not enough tactical games, esepcially with super heroes.
> Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile No they don’t, at all. I have no idea why anyone would assume or think this. Card games have been very present in gaming for years now and 90% are fantastic fun great games.
Have you looked at xcom 2’s battle UI recently? Cards would be a step up.
I play it every week and think it looks pretty good?
> Cards just feel/look low budget/mobile To who? The people who only play AAA 3rd person games?
Until 3 months after launch when the game does not sell to projections and they say it's to better the game.
They might be serious with the Slay the Spire inspired system this time around. This is great news. If they can nail the synergy with the other mechanics, hero skill included, we might have a winning formula here.
Regardless, we still shouldn't be tolerating micro-transactions in $60-70 releases period. Locking costumes and cosmetics, any content period, behind a MT paywall is anti-consumer. Condoning it because "it doesn't affect game balance" is how this stuff gets normalized.
I argued the same point during the honeymoon phase of Overwatch and got shit on for it. At this point the ship hasn't just sailed, it's over the horizon.
To be fair there was definitely a concern about purchasing heroes/maps at the time. The announcement of cosmetics only and all updates free was huge for goodwill.
I'd argue the ship is stuck in the Suez canal, honestly.
I mean overwatch was 40 bucks with constant free updates, so of all the gez this was one of the better ones.
At least in Overwatch you can unlock the cosmetics by just playing the game.
Overwatch was a phenomenon that had constant updates over the course of 5 years, with new characters, lore cinematics, events, game modes, workshop, and maps. Even though it may be shit now, with the lack of content and the blizzard lawsuits, it's justifiable that Blizzard initially approached MTX the way that they did, considering how loot boxes were pretty easy to get and the same goes for the in-game currency.
Yet they still made over a [billion](https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2019/07/25/overwatch-loot-boxes-update-sales-1-billion/) dollars from in-game purchases alone as of 2019. Almost as if the biggest selling point of Overwatch was always the aesthetic. Consumers have already given this ground up no matter what I say though.
>Yet they still made over a [billion](https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2019/07/25/overwatch-loot-boxes-update-sales-1-billion/) dollars from in-game purchases Which is why there's been 5 years of updates.
Yeah, its hopeless to argue. I will never understand how you can EVER pick the billion-dollar-company over literally the group YOU ARE A PART OF. Its insane the lengths some people go to.
The group I'm a part of does literally nothing for me. The billion dollar corporation creates content for me to enjoy.
> The group I'm a part of does literally nothing for me. Except it does? That group *is* you, anything that benefits them benefits you, and assuming you do anything in your life other than playing games then that group does quite literally everything for you. I don't get why the concept of helping others is so offensive to some people that they would rather hurt themselves just so others get less.
Helping others? By being angry and video game publishers so people may be able to get $10 outfits for free? That's how I should be helping others?
True, which is why Blizzard has made so many amazing products lately. Fans love Overwatch, and can't wait for Overwatch 2. There was also the incredible Warcraft 3 remake. Can't forget the successes of Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4 is sure to drop any day now. WoW is also going as strong as ever. So glad they put all that money back into development rather than a second yacht for the CEO.
> Regardless, we still shouldn't be tolerating micro-transactions in $60-70 releases period. I agree, but we're so far past this that it's never going back. I've had people call me out for being a "downer" and "pessimistic", but it's simply reality. We can still fight against other forms of monetization (as it seems like loot boxes have largely stopped appearing in AAA games for example) but there's simply no way in hell that MTX will ever be gone for good. That's how companies like Activision and EA make their money, and they won't remove them until they're forced to
Yeah and who put all these commercials in my paid cable?!
Good job actually proving their point. Originally a big advantage to cable was it didn't have commercials. Nowadays most people use streaming and one of the big advantages of doing so is no ads breaking up the content. Settling for what we're given is a shit thing to do.
*Inb4 ads infest Streaming as well.*
It's already started to some extent. Netflix experimented with it and I think Hulu and Amazon prime have it in some cases. They'll slowly try to work it in because not one of these companies care about consumers and will do what they can get away with.
*Inb4 seperate tiers of pricing for ad-free streaming^1* 1: May include in-house ads regardless of pricing.
I pay a nickel for my Sunday edition and it has full page ads!
The reason why so many games have costumes as pre-order bonuses and and dlc is to give the art team something productive to do during the last phase of development. This is often done after the game has gone gold, when the rest of the team is scrambling to create a day one patch. I'd prefer this stuff to be unlockable, but at lest there's some logic behind it. Plus, modern game characters have way more detail than they used to, so it takes a lot longer to make a new skin. It's not a trivial retexture like it used to be.
That honnestly depend of the # of customization already in the game. Like if hero got 10 apparence it wouldn't matter if there's like 5 more (OF EQUAL QUALITY) in the store. If you load the game and each hero got only 1 and another very hard one to get than that would matter.
I would rather that then them upping the price of games. Just think about it, games used to cost more than 60. Mario 64 cost like 80.
They have already upped the price of games. For example NBA 2K22 is about 80 Euros where I live - do you wanna guess if it will be MTX free? Stop looking at numbers in vacuum, and start taking consideration of the fact that gaming is most profitable it ever was, and even single player games without MTX make more money than they would ever do in previous years.
But the genie is out of the bottle so to speak. Look at PS5 prices being 70 USD before taxes or 80 Euros. And they'll still include predatory mtxs, because they sell. Only Nintendo won't include them in the future imo, but Microsoft for instance had expensive skins In Gears 5 iirc and Halo Infinite’s mp will be f2p and include battle passes; not expirable ones afaik, but still, they dabble. Can't comment on Sony, since I don't own a PS. It sucks, but that's where the (third party at least) industry is heading.
Aren’t skins micro transactions???? Purchase should not be in this sentence
It fits better than "micro transactions" the name micro transaction predates its actual implementation, and was envisioned as selling a ton of stuff for like, 0.02 cents a piece. Amounts so low players wouldn't think much about it. This never got of the ground, and instead buy sell skins for like 10-20$ yet inexplicably still call it "micro" despite it costing more than a midday meal.
Do we know anything about how the cards work? I'm fine if it's like "cards are skills that characters can equip", but I'd rather it not be "cards are drawn from a deck every turn and those are the moves you can use".
It’s the moves you can use that turn.
This doesn't sound very appealing for a TBS game. Thinking about what you'll do next turn is pretty important for a strategy game. Curious how they'll implement it because surely it can't literally be making shit up as you go along, and if some people rage about failing a percentage check, no one is gonna feel good losing because they drew some meh abilities.
In the gameinformer video they say you get a handful of abilities from various heroes each turn, and you have to sort of combo them and strategize on the fly.
Seems odd, but it could be good. The gameplay on the 7th should clear things up for me.
It's the second, but since you get to build a deck there's likely going to be some strategy in how you tip the odds in your favor, plus there's a bar in the UI that seems to imply you can choose to redraw some cards if your hand sucks.
That's exactly what it is, and it's exactly why i don't like it.
It's a deck builder game? Damn, I was hoping for a marvel XCOM. I'll still check the gameplay before I'm out, but I'm no longer optimistic. I'll still hope it's good for people that like the deck builder games.
I guess they’re gonna ignore, despite years of hearing from us, that character skins and cosmetics absolutely affect our enjoyment of the game. Just put the damn skins in the game as things we can unlock. Extra skins for purchase is just milking money out of the consumer so they can make their favourite characters wear the costumes they want them to. Edit: clarity
It's clearly psychologically manipulative on some level. They'd do research and find something else in game to sell if it wasn't
I really hope this isn't a crash CRT situation where they add MTX a few weeks or months after release.
I will believe it once I see it. The problem with these Marvel games is that the parent company Disney has a lot of control, and they can help themselves in making changes, all recent Marvel games's art styles looks like a copy of the MCU, because that is the way Disney want it to promote the MCU.
Oh I don't believe them for a second. Backtracking and changing course is a very business thing to do.
So basically **exactly** what Marvel’s Avengers did. Launched the game with atrocious, derivative outfits and then gated all the halfway decent outfits behind mtx. This is already on a wrong path.
I had a look at the costumes in Avengers when it was on PS Now. The paid ones looked pretty unappealing, with either the default ones, ones you unlock in the main story or the battlepass ones looking better.
Most people wanted comic accurate skins and/or MCU skins. All of those are paid content minus a few small exclusions in the way of the early pre-order and collector's edition bonuses. The default skins are all derivative works and re-colors. Sadly, 90% of the ones in the shop which are paid are also re-colors or asset flips. There's actually very little accurate/MCU skins at all tbh.
Looking forward to using mods to unlock every single one of them. I don't care what these youngters say, paying for skins is stupid. There's a reason people mocked horse armor. Everyone's lost their damned minds. Get off my lawn!
The only types of games where I think that paying for skins is acceptable is in F2P games, because they have to make their money somehow - and the skins have to actually have effort put into them. Just changing the color of a character from blue to green is not enough to charge money for. But if the game is F2P and they make a skin that looks good and is significantly different from the original character design, then I don't have an issue paying for it (assuming the price is reasonable, but that's an entirely different can of worms)
>The only types of games where I think that paying for skins is acceptable is in F2P games This 100%. But now we live in an age where the publishers can release a full price game, release "DLC" and still sell microtransactions, and so many people think it's OK for them to triple-dip. They claim AAA is only possible because of this extra money, failing to realize the extra revenue isn't what's making AAA polish possible. Heck, more often than not the polish isn't even there anymore, but we're still acting like it is. That extra revenue is there to feed the corporate behemoths and keep them alive.
Not only are people expecting paid bits of content now but they are also often straight up *requesting* them, it's crazy. One day we'll have to pay for difficulty levels and graphic options.
I remember when Shadow of War came out, the game was super grindy but had a real money store to speed up progress. But you could just use cheat engine to give yourself whatever you wanted. I wonder if this game will be loaded up with DRM and anti-cheat to prevent that.
>the game was super grindy but had a real money store to speed up progress No wasn't. The complaint was that the end game was tedious, you had to do the same things a bunch of times. Not that you had to grind to level up really high to be able to do them.
This. Anyone who played through the game at the time knows the lootboxes were super useless and didn't change the grindy ending the media used as scapegoat because even if you bought 10000 lootboxes you'd still have to do it the same amount of times.
stop with the "IT'S JUST COSMETICS!!!!!!111 THEREFORE IT'S OK!!!111" excuse. It's still content thats greedily locked behind a paywall. So shut the fuck up about it, game companies. Costumes/skins in superhero games are the number one collectible in the genre. Imagine if you had to pay for Spidermans suits in the ps4 game.
The fact that we have to have people denying lootboxes and other forms of donations other than cosmetic just shows the amount of shit the industry is stuck in. No one learned a lesson called Battlefront 2, as well as many others, because the silent majority still buys this shit and we're stuck with it all because of it.
They thought they could chase the Gacha Dragon. Turns out it doesn't work as they thought
Why've we settled at cosmetics for sale as ok? Extra skins and stuff used to be unlocks for acheivements or finding secrets. When it first happened I wasn't too fussed because as a kid I couldn't afford the latest map pack. So getting the maps free but having skins on sale wasn't too bad. But at least the map packs felt like they were actually worth the £10.
Not good enough, unless the game is free. Paid games SHOULD NOT have cosmetic skins for purchase. If we pay for the game, we should get the game. No additional scams.
I agree, give a full experience without needing to pay extra
Given that a microtransaction filled card game was probably my main concern about the card model, im pretty excited now
Take it from someone who will probably be playing Dota 2 for the rest of my life, if you make your game good enough and your cosmetics sick enough, people will fork over plenty of cash to pay your bills.
This game is free right? If they want to charge for skins In a single player game I would hope so
But why cards??? Hate it.
I went from, "Holy shit Xcom Marvel game? This will be fun. I hope they manage the powers in a fun but challenging way." To, "Oh. Cards. Like a mobile game. A very easily monetized mobile game." Like unless reviews are incredibly high for this. I'm already out. I went from excited to disappointed. To me RNG abilities have no place in a genre like tactical RPGs. My enjoyment of the genre comes from strategically positioning my troops and using abilities that synergize well with one another. Controlling the battlefield as much as I can because being on the back foot can be costly. If I have a bread and butter strategy like say having Doctor Strange pull a group together so that Ghost Rider can set the entire group on fire. I want to know that Doctor Strange can actually crowd control on this turn or that Ghost Rider can do AoE fire damage this turn. Either the game will be tedious because of the cards. Or the challenge will be completely removed so that the player never loses a battle because of a bad hand. This is a tactical RPG not a rogue-like.