Giant Bombcast 510: Ken's Alpha Hair

Monster Hunter Stories (MHS) is basically Jade Cocoon 1 but you have an annoying rock-paper-scissors element to the combat that strongly changes attack strength. I really liked MHS for 40% of the game, but the back 60% becomes infuriating as monsters stop having patterns they attack in and you just have to give up on correctly playing the system to favor guessing.

How can anyone say bad things about Tropical Freeze?! Makes my brain hurt. DKCRTF has one of the best soundtracks ever! Right up there with something like Chrono Trigger and Baldurs Gate 2.

*solid snake voice* the battlefront economy

Y'all fucked up

SIKE

Because they are doing their job as games journalists? Sure, I can understanding someone who doesn't care about games or the industry and just wants to hear and see Star Wars stuff not giving the progression or boxes any second thoughts. It's why the game will still sell well and they'll continue to milk the battlefront cow for years to come.

But for anyone in the industry, or that cares about the industry, or that wants games to continue being an enjoyable pastime, it's impossible to overlook. Just the sheer fucking hubris of EA to not only release a game with such a terrible, broken progression system, combined with literal pay-to-win, and then repeatedly having to backpedal because you are more interested in seeing just how far you can take it instead of providing an enjoyable experience?

Yea, fuck EA. Games have always been a balance of creative freedom vs "shareholder value". Most other companies manage to maintain somewhat of a balance, but EA? They probably have their "worst company in America" awards mounted and on prominent display in their offices.

I look at BF2 the way I look at taco bell. it's the exact kind of garbage I need right now (especially since Marvel Heroes imploded).

Do they really know nothing about Randy Pitchford?

I'm with Dan. Cereal milk is DISGUSTING. Even as a child I never liked drinking that stuff. Best good for your cereal is Shreddies (the Post Canadian version), best bad for you cereal is Frosted Flakes (35g of sugar per serving fuck yeeeah).

I could go for 20 Hadouken cards.

Inflated Businessman.

As I said, too many people confusing the Star Cards with anything relevant to actual progression which isn't "broken" or "terrible" outside of the unlocks coming few and far between. That and tossing around "pay-to-win" when the loot crates are anything but.

Rarely do you get anything good out of the them, nothing you couldn't craft on your own, and are just a way to earn the supplies needed to level up your cards (perks) when you reach a certain level. The perks (for the most part) do not count towards the kills needed to attain higher tier weapons, the only substantial things worth unlocking. And while there are some that will certainly assist in you staying alive, a player that knows how to properly handle his blaster and plays smart until that point will always win out. Not to mention the many times you're caught in large crossfire battles in Galactic Assault or Strike where they make little difference.

Yes, EA handled the overpriced hero and villain content poorly, which they quickly fixed upon release, but there's nothing wrong with the existence of the loot crate system in its current form outside of the perks just not being that interesting....something that ends up making the crafting materials the only thing worth buying them for. Had they priced the characters reasonably, the backlash wouldn't have been nearly as bad, but none the less...they'll always be those that just won't stand for this business model regardless of if it actually benefits the player base overall.

EA was obviously trying to come up with something that would allow them to offer free content throughout its (likely) two year lifespan until Episode IX drops. If some folks were willing to waste their cash without taking the time to learn the mechanics of the game they just bought, why not let them? Especially if it meant more maps and whatnot for the majority that wouldn't.

Where's the video

Good thing they fixed their walls and then re-recorded this whole thing

Heeeeey held out just long enough! almost went audio only on this one

Yeah, video version, thanks! =)

Thank you Jan and/or Jason!

Kept you waiting, huh?

@dudeglove: @bladeofcreation: @cagliostro88:

So, In summary:

Yes, Pitchford has a history of being an asshole. Beyond that broad brush statement I don't really feel the urge to dive into the specifics of it. He isn't worth that investment of time. But it's not hard to leave well as a CEO whether you're a good one or a bad one.

Yes, Borderlands sold content packs after release - that's entirely normal behaviour in a games company operating any time since ~2008. Yes, they got smaller in line with the long-tail sales of the Games. What's more they reviewed fine.

No, Shift Codes are not microtransactions or predatory lootboxes. They're a long-tail reward system to try and keep people checking back in on Borderlands marketing and playing the odd session rather than selling their game second-hand. They were released regularly through official channels/events but we're not available for cash.

thanks so much!

@steveurkel: There we're some major video issues during the Stream - almost like a noise pattern constantly scrolling across the picture.

Jason tweeted about recovering an alternate archive of the video which was going to take a working day, but maybe it's going to need more work than that.

Edit: Or check the Video page I guess. Looks like it went up while I was typing.

Thanks, I had saw they said it would be up but that was yesterday so happy to see it was posted today. I fell asleep lkast time watching it live and have a hard time staying awake during the audio ones as it is. Time to watch this until the game awards later :)

I am irrationally excited for this year's GOTY deliberations.

Yeah Jesus what WAS that thing.

Giant Bomb's 2017 Hottest Humanimal of the Year goes to.........?

Wait, where is Alex?

The garbage pest intro:

Dan keeps spouting his love for oops all berries. Having a 4 year old and eating regular crunch berries how come nobody brings up the neon green poop that is a result of eating this cereal?

Brian Fargo left Interplay to form inXile (and make the underrated Wasteland 2). I think the job of running Interplay into the ground was left in the capable hands of Herve Caen.

@convox: My point was not that he "has an history of being an asshole". It is that he's a videogame executive (CEO in this case) that decided to screw over his business partner (Sega) and when caught he didn't chose to take his responsabilities but to throw some of his employees under the bus. You know when Iwata and other Nintendo execs decided to take a paycut over poor financial results instead of firing people? This is the exact opposite: it's an extremely wealthy executive (because to have a home like that you know you need a lot of money) that when he fucked up decided to go for profit instead of protecting the livelihood of his employees. And this is the exact scenario that every single time happens in the gaming industry the GB staff comment is to put the blame on the "greedy suits". Yet this guy gets celebrated? Why? I'm sure you can see yourself the dissonance. It's like if next week we get an email about how Andrew Wilson (CEO of EA) bought an awesome private island just a month after shutting down Visceral Games, and the staff goes again with "he seems rad!"...

Where is this ZEBRA PHOTO????

Large pockets of the video game industry are a total clique. It's OK, if Randy gets caught being sexist, we'll finally have people calling him a 'jerk'!

I could buy Gabe Newell not being interested in games anymore.

@shiftygism: So really just 3 things:

1) The progression is "terrible". The majority of the progression is based entirely on random chance. I mean, I'm not sure how much more obvious it could be that is a terrible experience. Well unless you are into gambling I guess? No other game has this level of bullshit for progression. Either you get things for classes you play as (ala battlefield) or you have a linear progression based on experience (ala COD) or your progression is based on what you want to unlock (ala titanfall) or something else in between. Also, I don't even want to touch the terrible design of a progression that is giving players that either pay or have played for longer number advantages over newer or poorer players.

2) The crates are "not pay-to-win". The crates are the literal definition of pay-to-win. You are literally paying money to get crates to unlock gameplay and number enhancing bonuses. You can debate about what level of effect they have and if it even matters, but you cannot argue that they are not pay-to-win.

3) EA needs to have these micro-transactions to "afford" to give out free content for the next 2 years of the games life. Lets see, 2 years ago battlefront 1 sold over 14-15 million copies. I'm sure they had expectations to sell even more this time around (and they might have done it if they didn't try to fuck over their customers). Even w/o micro-transactions they could easily afford to give out free content if they wanted to, and they only have to support the game for a year or so before they get ready to release a "brand-new" battlefront with an incremented number (hello most of EAs other titles).

Once again you're confusing the crates with the actual progression system which is totally based on performance and kills to achieve unlocks and credits which you then spend on purchasable characters or crates to rack up crafting materials. The random Star Cards are just bonuses as you're buying the crates for the materials so you can craft what you want in the class you want. You pick the perks you want to unlock instead of having to wait until you reach a certain level like in most shooters. Cards come in three tiers, with the fourth being exclusively crafted. You may end up with one you're working towards, you may not, but those seemingly worthless cards are in turn building up your card rank of the classes, vehicles, and characters you aren't playing. In RPG terms, it's basically leveling up your party members for you while you are sticking to your main. They're still lame perks for the most part, though.

And I certainly can argue that the crates and crystals aren't pay to win. First of all, they turned off the real world transactions, and even if they hadn't...it wouldn't matter. So someone quickly purchased their way into unlocking Darth Vader slightly faster than the few hours it takes everyone else (after the price reduction)? Big deal. You gotta get enough battle points to actually be able to use him, he's far from invincible, and only impacts two of the multiplayer modes. Secondly, even if they were still active...unless someone got extremely lucky with the card drops, they couldn't craft higher tiers until they reached a certain player level, and regardless if someone unlocked all of their preferred basic perks to get a head start or they somehow managed to beat the odds and received high tier cards via crate purchases, it's still not pay to win as it still comes down to skill. They may have the advantage, but the player that knows what they're doing will win out every time. Not to mention everyone's at a disadvantage anyway starting out regardless of what cards they have as the initial blasters suck ass...as again, they're the only things that really matter and what the actual progression in the game revolves around. Blaster based kills and unlocks. Everything else is window dressing and distractions.

Also, of course EA could afford the free content without the microtransactions, but that's really not the issue. After the success that has been GTAV Online, why wouldn't you pimp the most popular license for all its worth if it didn't have a negative effect on the gameplay? Yes, the hero/villain pricing was a huge misstep and in turn led to the loot crates and crystals receiving disastrous word of mouth...but as I explained, they honestly aren't that big of a deal in reality. Well, unless you care about the people that would be susceptible to such a scam, and in those regards yes, there should be some tweaking to their business model before they flip the switch back on either with cosmetic elements or introducing a emblem/sig system to pad things out a bit, something they should've had in place for the actual level progression and challenge rewards which would allow the scaling to deliver a more consistent sense of actually earning something as you blast your way through the game....which is much better than people give it credit.

The map rotation still sucks though, I've yet to play Hoth in Galactic Assault, and it barely shows up in Blast.

If you like eating kitty litter.

Vinny Abby and Jeff all look so tired

@grustamar: I am irrationally annoyed at how rationally you can think about your irrational thoughts and still let them be irrational. I guess the same thing is happening to me here.

Anyone else feel the video is vibrating?

Dan: There are no count down gems.

Ben: No there are. So once you hit bronze rank you unlock those.

One of these people are good at their job. Have a Mega Mega day.

What is this zebra thing they talk about in the beginning?

@cagliostro88: We keep diving deeper into this Pitchford hole when all my original message said was that Gearbox's has a pretty standard post-release DLC scheme which is nothing like the recent Lootbox schemes from Valve/EA/Activision.

If you're that interested about his house I looked it up - here - and while it's nice, it's only $3-5 million nice and frankly that isn't a huge amount of money with access to the sort of credit a Californian Tech CEO has access to and what I'd assume is a low six-figure salary (making some assumptions about Gearbox's turnover in the last 15 years).

(The theater is about the size of a one-car garage and has seats for 4 and 12 folding seats.)

@convox: duder, your original message was about misinterpreting my initial writing and thinking that I was talking about the quality of Alien Colonial Marines and asking me what i was going about. Plus saying that they don't engage in that stuff when clearly, as multiple comments have shown you, they did (of course not in the current form, nobody did in 2012), but that is besides the point i was making since my first post. Nice find on the house, since the email talked about an 80 seater the sender either lied or Randy upgraded since the video is from 2013, but it doesn't change anything because the team reacted to the email info, and that is what I commented about.

Still, the point (execs behaviour and the staff reaction) I was making from the start stands; there is no hole we are diving in; since your first response to my comment I told you what I was talking about (multiple times by now). Ok that english is not my mother tongue but I'm sure I made myself pretty clear.

This has become a circular discussion where i have to repeat my point and you answer talking about tangential stuff instead of discussing the focus of it, so i'm sorry but i'm out now because there is a clear problem in our communication. Anyway, I wish you a nice evening/night/day (depending on your timezone) duder :)

Ben's Subway story; what kind of ghetto Subway stores do you have out there in California?

@shiftygism:

I'm not really interested in debating the progression anymore. You seem to find it perfectly fine and I think it's utter shit. Opinions and all that, whatever.

But let me break down pay-to-win for you. First, do the items you get from crates give you a statistical advantage? Yes or no? The answer, of course, is YES. Yes they do, you get damage increases, speed increases, damage radius increases, etc etc. You get game-play advantages. Once again, you can argue if they are relevant or not, but they do exist. Second, (before they pulled them) could you buy them with money? Yes or no? The answer, again, is YES. Yes you could, and that makes it pay-to-win. Period. It doesn't matter if it gives a 10% bonus or a 1000% bonus. It is literal pay-to-win. You are wrong. Argue all you want about if the benefits really matter, or how often they result in someone "winning" a fight they wouldn't have otherwise, or any other straw-man you can come up with. But you are just avoiding the point.

"Also, of course EA could afford the free content without the microtransactions, but that's really not the issue". Um... I was specifically responding to your statement: "EA was obviously trying to come up with something that would allow them to offer free content throughout its (likely) two year lifespan until Episode IX drops". So yea, that was the issue? You can change or ignore the issue if you want...

Finally, do you previously work at, are employed, have stock in, or have friends/family that work at EA? I just don't understand how someone can be so defensive of a game that insults it's user base so much. Or do you just get upset about other people being upset?

@hellbrendy: It looked like they were recording while the whole room descended down an elevator shaft.

@ev77:

"I'm not really interested in debating the progression anymore."

It wasn't really a debate, it was you describing how much you hate this fantasy progression that doesn't exist while I explained what the game's progression system actually entails and how you're confusing two totally separate things as if they were one...which they're not.

You can try to break down "pay to win", but I gotta wonder...what do you think "winning" is? Especially in a game where there's no meaningful stat tracking, no public k/d ratio, no substantial bonus for claiming victory over the opposing team. "Winning" in Battlefront II doesn't even come in the form of ranking up until tens of hours into multiplayer when you reach level twenty allowing you to finally craft the highest tier Star Card. No, "winning" comes as result of the only worthwhile thing that you're working towards and that's your blaster kill count, and the perks attained through the Star Card system does not guarantee or even award one of those all important kills.

The crates may fit your definition of "pay to win", but it doesn't really work out that way in reality. As I've stated, and as many outlets have shown, the system EA put in place isn't rewarding at all as the odds are stacked against you of what you're gonna pull regardless of if you sank credits or crystals into the purchases as the deck is reportedly three hundred cards deep and I doubt that's even counting the many taunt animations. And even if the planets aligned and someone wound up with three amazing drops, they would still be on an even playing field with those starting out as the beginner weapons are terrible, though I will concede I could be completely wrong about how much the Star Cards impacts aerial combat. I don't know, I haven't really touched that mode and I kinda keep forgetting that it exists, but you know what?

None of this shit matters, we're arguing over something that hasn't been an issue since the first few days of multiplayer going live, and wasn't much of an issue then. Everyone has now leveled up and unlocked their stuff, any new player would still be disadvantaged, so you know...why not let some poor schmuck try to roll the dice on crates with insanely terrible odds so they can attempt to get some perks that won't help them much at all at this point?

Now regarding EA delivering free DLC over the lifespan of the game, you brought up the issue of them being able to afford to do that based solely on game sales and I agreed with you that they could...but I'm saying, why should they? Microtransactions, for better or worse, are here to stay, and until it becomes something that hinders my enjoyment of a game, I'm not gonna get my panties in a bunch. Some publishers could stand to rethink their approach though, including and especially EA, as charging sixty thousand credits for Darth Vader was an idiotic decision.

So no, I'm not affiliated with EA, but I do get annoyed when folks go on and on about things that just aren't true and it snowballs into a massive bandwagon of horseshit that ends up being a distraction from something that's actually pretty good.

@cagliostro88: Hey, that's entirely fair. At the end of the day we're both here because we're looking for fun games - which don't exploit the player and don't abuse the creators.

It's just a shame that it seems to be harder to find games like that. Good talk.

@shiftygism: Sure you're right, we never really did debate the progression. I said it was shit, you said it was fine, and I'm fine leaving it at that. I don't think either of us is going to convert the other.

Also, continue finding new straw-men to debate pay-to-win with. There is a pretty clear definition of what pay-to-win is and battlefront clearly fell squarely into it.

Micro-transactions, here to stay? Sure, I can agree with that. But like I said, they are there because it's their game, they can do whatever they want. It isn't a matter of "we need these to stay profitable" it's "we want these to maximize our profits". And in EA's case that always means at the expense of the player. And that's the real problem with EA and battlefront.

It isn't a game I can look at and go "Yea, this was made by a really passionate team that had a vision, really wanted to nail that vision, that really care about games, and that wanted to make something great for people to enjoy." All I can see when I look at games that come out of EA is "This is a game where a bunch of (probably) passionate low-level developers and designers had to shit all over their vision and passion to make all the upper-level executives happy about the profits and growth and making-that-money-at-all-cost. Let's make them do the least amount of work and charge the most we can, and design it to encourage spending as much as possible to rack in the most profit. Cause at EA, all we care about is ourselves, our growth, and our quarterly profits. Fuck the people buying our games and supporting us, and fuck all the passionate designers/developers/QA/etc that work for us that just want to make a great game they can be proud of. They haven't released a great game in probably a decade or more. It's the same regurgitated shit every year with better graphics and sound and marketing.

I was going to make a blog post, and maybe still will, but because of the fighting game talk heavy nature of this week's cast- here we go: The year's most under-appreciated and overlooked fighting game, Absolver, and the hopeful relationship between developer and community.

I really wish Jason had the time to stick with/champion Absolver for any kind of notable mention for this year's saturated game release offerings. It has one of the most tragic launches having to do with server instability, a confused audience expecting so much from the 'open world action rpg' aspect, walking away or running angrily to the steam store to leave a negative review, murdering the player count from 16k to a daily average to around 200 in under a month. This weekend, things changed dramatically, and it's worth the long read that follows for what Bungie failed to do with Destiny 2, EA with Battlefront, and so many other less-than-great business practices in video games- and what Sloclap did do in contrast with only four people on the development team, making for a hopeful story not for just Absolver, but for ambitious, innovative games that build communities that return the dedication and support back to the developers that make more than good on what they fix, and over-deliver on content for free.

The part where this story gets interesting and I feel the bomb crew/cast could have found at least hours of discussion especially given the heavy focus on loot crates, end-game shortages (battlefront, destiny 2), is that even post launch, Absolver's four person development team continued to make good on promises to fix, to add content and modes, and go above and beyond the promises to a degree that is nothing short of heroic and historic for independent game developer dedication to their community. October offered a set of new gear, november added an entirely reworked reward system to PVP, but because of the server state at launch, and the misunderstanding around the game's story mode being the core to what is essentially a fighting game, all filtering into the steam reviews, - no amount of effort seemed to stop the dogpile of negativity, and the game would have moments of rebound, but would taper down once again to the hardcore and dedicated. "Dead game" was all too common a label thrown at Absolver. Still, however Sloclap refused to break their promise and dedication to their community.

In the face of a player count that at times would go as low as 88 concurrent players, from September's launch of 16k, they persisted, and I among others I now have become close to over the official and private discord channels- have enjoyed a game that continues to grow, and finally, as of last Thursday, has seen a giant spike in concurrent players. The latest update with a 3v3 mode and so much gear content, an entirely new in-game currency for customizing gear, a matchmaking and UI overhaul, community-driven rebalancing, and offering the game at 50% off this weekend ***ending dec. 11th- has spiked the player base back up to over a thousand concurrently playing, and the reviews on steam have gone from 'mixed', from the 6000 reviews made close to launch, to now 'mostly positive' because of the dedication and insane efforts made by Sloclap, generously offered at half the already low cost of $30.

This is in no small way due to the community on discord, the official channel or otherwise. This is a third chapter that I think is unique to Absolver's ongoing story of success or demise. As the game was largely either misunderstood as a 'dark souls with kung fu', or as a fighting game with too little reward for winning, there were players like myself who stuck with it, the hook of the deck building and the joy of winning for winning's sake, getting better and learning every style, every move, etc kept me playing. That is largely the story behind the small but dedicated hardcore players I converse strategies with daily on discord or steam. Now, with this weekend's development, sale, new systems and game mode, people are coming back, or coming in fresh, but the understanding of the game as a PVP focused game from word of mouth since september, and the robust reward system implimented post launch has people writing the most positive reviews in contrast to some of the worst at launch.

That doesn't cover half the complexity of Absolver's ongoing saga, from developer heroism, and dedication to a dedicated community, the community in turn doing literally everything in their power to seize windows of opportunity to help the company in turn, from twitter posts, buying multiple gift copies for friends, and a concentrated effort to both review and explain the unique and innovative nature of Absolver on steam.

I write all of this because as GB has so much on it's plate to review, it is something that should be discussed in the larger picture for independent developers and their dedication rewarded with a community that returns the favor on good faith and promises kept- something that in the rightfully pessimistic atmosphere regarding post-launch support and communication between developer and playerbase, is a story of relative success in the overall atmosphere for video game developers, and hardcore community being open, vocal, and helping each other. In my mind, it's the best underdog story that does deserve acknowledgement.

To close this long post, I have logged over 600 hours and play literally every day, and have never gotten bored or felt as though I've mastered any aspect of the game- if I do, I help the community, or give my input to the chat where the developers are ever-present. I won't expect everyone to like the game, but for any who were warned to stay away from Absolver because of problems at launch, for half off until Dec. 11th, this game is worth your $15, and the four-person development teams efforts are nothing short of unprecedented in my entire lifetime of following videogames, and that is something worth supporting alone.