I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
To be fair sometimes a game is great for a time, but then the DLC treadmill breaks the balance.
It can have many great reviews from people who have since stopped playing, while the 500+ hours players become increasingly unhappy with what happens to a great game.
2 examples that come to mind at Stellaris (it has 57 DLC addons now) and Hearts of Iron 4. (Paradox games). Those games are dead to me now.
Warhammer total war 3 is going down a similar path, but not quite that extreme.
Civ 6 was also getting there.
Its usually the publisher pushing the DLC every 2 months train.
Its fine if a game has a core game that is complete and then get expanded upon in a yearly DLC. Rimworld and owlcat games like Pathfinder and Rogue Trader come to mind.
Yeah, hearts of Iron is a game that I played a lot for a short time, but have no interest in playing again.
If the DLC was truly separate it would be one thing. But, with each DLC they modify the base game a bit… but not completely. To get the complete modification you need the DLC. That leaves all kinds of stubs in the base game that don’t make any sense without the DLC. Like, you can create a special weapons research centre where (sans DLC) you can research 1 item, and that 1 item isn’t even useful or interesting. Or, you can choose to research a vehicle chassis that… can never be used because all the vehicles that use that chassis are in the DLC.
It even seems to me like the basic “war” part of the game is broken simply because certain DLC exists. Like, at certain parts in the game, it is essentially 100% impossible to break through an enemy’s entrenched position, so you simply reach a stalemate where neither side can advance.
What I think happened is that they added mechanics to some DLC package that make it possible to entrench more than in the base game and also to break through that entrenchment. But, then they basically added the entrenchment to the base game and the way to break it was only in the DLC. I don’t think this was necessarily done in a malicious way. It’s just that with dozens of DLC packages, it probably becomes impossible to properly test things (and they care more about the users who buy their DLC).
Man I used to love that game, but… 57? I have single digit DLCs in it. Don’t even want to get back into it if I’m missing more than half the content, and I ain’t buying 50 DLCs. Or paying a subscription for a singleplayer game.
Indeed. And then some people suggest 'waiting for all DLCs to release" before playing, but I’ve found games impossible to get into if they’re inundated with extra content by the time i start them. (Sims 4, City Skylines, Anno 1800)
Stellaris wouldn’t be so bad if they finished the DLCs. I love Stellaris, but nomads clearly had missing parts that they are still fixing.
Fewer, larger DLCs are probably what they should be doing.
But gotta have something new to sell for $15 every two months.