I agree. I used to play Destiny 2 for a while, but lately it's evolved into some odd FOMO (fear of missing out) grind, and I have to say that playing the game just to play it for fun isn't something I can really do much anymore. The gameplay and the engine limitations are kind of wearing thin, and I honestly feel like they should have been working on a sequel at this point, but it seems like they're just going to milk Destiny 2 and stretch it on as long as they can due to a lack of resources. Especially money.
Anyhow, Bungie sure isn't what it used to be, just like Bioware, and Infinity Ward. Seems like greed and deals with the devil are killing many formerly great companies. Kind of like with Blizzard after it partnered with Activision.
Honestly, my experiences are the same as yours. I feel like a lot of people realize that MMO's are a grindy waste of time and money for the most part. It's why even WoW, the king of MMO's no longer releases subscriber numbers, and more and more MMO's seem to be pumping out mobile like microtransactions, loot boxes, and "monthly passes" and such to try to monetize a fewer amount of whales.
I got Black Desert Online for free, and will probably give it a few weeks just for the pretty graphics and action gameplay, but when the grind kicks in, I'm taking a hike. If I wanted a pretty part time job, I'd go move so I could work inside a Natural Park or something.
I'm also dabbling with Rift again, but at this point it's so abandoned, it's kind of like a single player RPG with open world elements, similar to a lighter version of Skyrim. At least while leveling up that is, so I'm I'll stick with it so long as the story keeps me involved.
But like with any sort of "live service" game (like Destiny and whatnot), when the actually fun content runs out and the grind begins... I'm out.
I also feel like MMO's and MMO-like experiences are past their prime, and I wonder why Amazon's investing in this, as I'm not sure how it can really carve out a niche unless it has some sort of really fun action-based moment to moment gameplay that's engaging in of itself. Something to differentiate it from its competition. Otherwise, I feel like it'll just wither away pretty quick, maybe like Anthem.
Mediocre or not, if people don't pay to watch this movie, it's unlikely we'll ever see a Season 3, so I guess I'll go see it somewhere. If nothing else, I'll rent or buy it digitally later on to view at home.
It offers Jon Bernthal yelling a lot, and having to replace your gun every 5 feet because +5 level "Blue" one just dropped, and also your armor changed for the same reason. Apparently a backwards baseball cap gives you +11 more protection than a full helmet with ballistic goggles, because "rpg elements".
Don't get me wrong, I liked Wildlands so I mostly like Breakpoint, despite its flaws, but feel that the reviewers are more right than they are wrong. If you know what the Division 1 and 2 are, this is like those, except sneakier and stealthier, and you can go prone and camo yourself using the environment, and use a drone to scout enemies out. Plus, human enemies aren't bullet sponges, but the drones still are.
For what it's worth, I'm enjoying this game more than I'm not, but once the honeymoon period wears off, you can definitely start to see the flaws, repetition, and how the RPG elements add inconvenience to the game, but not necessarily more depth or fun.
It's true that a lot of elements seem half-baked and underutilized. The survival mechanics can be tense, to be fair, when you roll down a cliff into a bunch of enemies, but are out of stamina, then take a wound that makes you limp while running away... only to run smack into a patrol or an Azrael drone and have to alternatively run, sneak, and shoot your way out of that sticky situation... but moments like that where it all clicks together are rare, and rather than giving you an interesting challenge, you tend to just die immediately and have to restart from the last checkpoint.
I feel like this game has the potential to be patched into something better in the future, especially when they add the AI teammates they promised, but for now, the live service elements and the daily, changing online grind missions and the Division style RPG elements take away from the experience rather than add, imo.
Except for certain types of polish and enemy AI being slightly improved, this game feels like a step back from Wildlands in many ways. Don't get me wrong, I actually like this game, but I'll probably put it down quickly once I'm done with the main story and the interesting side missions. The rest of the map feels like filler, honestly.
Totally agree. I got kicked off my single player limited time mission because the servers went down, and wasn't able to finish it before the daily reset. What did I do during that downtime? Played Wildlands, which required no servers to just play single player campaign by yourself.
There was 0 reason to make Breakpoint always online when Wildlands was not.
@TJDMHEM: It's decent. I liked Wildlands better, even though it had slightly wonkier AI, because Wildlands was designed more to be a game to be played for fun than a grind meant to be padded out to sell microtransactions.
I signed up for a month of Uplay+ for $15, so I'm giving it a shot. It has some decent elements, but I can feel the repetition settling in, and the fact that they converted it into a live service that REQUIRES you to be online even to play single player solo is NOT cool, given that Wildlands was not like that.
Plus, the RPG elements feel out of place, and there are way more microtransactions that dip into many more areas than Wildlands. If the playerbase isn't careful about not encouraging this kind of behavior, Ubisoft will probably go full EA with these microtransactions soon.
I'll admit that I've been out of the loop for a while as I quit right during the Gambit Prime season (Season of the Drifter?), but if they want to make PVP more robust, I felt (while I played PVP at least) that they should try and balance the weapons so that Handcannons weren't the primary that you'd choose over pretty much everything else, with secondaries basically being whatever can 1 or 2 shot people at close to mid range.
I say this even as someone who could use certain hand cannons decently well. A well rolled Duke until I was able to get Ace of Spaces, and then Ace of Spades after that. Sure I was able to win around half the time (I'm not THAT good at PVP) or slightly more, but it was boring as hell to always be hand cannoning the head all the time, and then reloading to get that damage boost and doing it all over again.
I got sick of that repetition. Winning by doing things the same way every time without variation because it's the only way to win wasn't fun for me, it was work.
People have politicized women on covers so much, but I actually like that cover, and the girl on it looks cool and tough. I feel like some "feminism" from some extremists is basically less pro-women and anti-men, but I still feel than in this day and age of extreme division and identity politics rhetoric that we can still stop and appreciate things for the way that they are instead of what they're supposed to represent or something.
@KBABZ: I mostly agree, but think that the original Z had some extra content and filler episodes that add to the series and work well, particularly those that include fan-favorite characters like Lunch that were omitted by Toriyama for the most part in his later work.
That said, I do agree that Kai's much closer to the manga, doesn't take as much time to watch, and does cut some of the worse filler out, particularly the ones that don't make any sense.
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