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Just because most games do it doesn't make it right. They allowed sales of the game in countries where you could not make a PSN account for one, only to bait a

by krippe 2y ago

Just because most games do it doesn't make it right. They allowed sales of the game in countries where you could not make a PSN account for one, only to bait and switch those users long after the grace period for refunds had expired on Steam. Also, there was no need for a PSN account for Steam users. They cite things as "making the game safer for everyone", which doesn't make sense considering how often SONY has leaked user data. The fact they the game is so beloved by a community that is also large and organized is probably what led to such a massive backlash in such a short amount of time.

multimoon 2y ago
All correct, but this still isn’t a unique scenario. Many games that have been very loved with a very active community have had the same requirement over the years, helldivers wasn’t anything new. I suspect this was just a case of the internet caught hold of something and went nuts as it normally does. Was the outcome positive? Absolutely, but it isn’t a new scenario like everyone’s acting it is.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  It is a unique scenario for the following reasons * The game was being sold in regions where players would not be able to make a PSN account, because of PSN's restrictions being tighter than Steams * At launch the account linking was not mandatory. * It was also not clearly communicated at this time that it would become mandatory later. * Even after their public statement that it would be mandatory, Sony's own FAQ still said that PSN accounts were not required to play any games on PC. This was edited after people noticed (Thanks to Arrowhead's CEO calling attention to the FAQ) At this point it would be reasonable for players to assume it was not actually mandatory at all, despite wording saying it was And the worst part is it took months for them to fix so they could make it mandatory. Well outside of the usual return window policy for Steam As I've said elsewhere, this is not just one screw up, it's a bunch It would have been a very different story if the first time you launch the game it did not let you play unless you link your PSN, which is what most games with this requirement will be like. Then you can choose to either link your account or happily get your refund because you haven't actually played
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Also this game has been mired in mild controversy the entire time it's been live because the dev team is genuinely incompetent ie, they released an update that included new purchasable armor that eliminated electric damage, ie a buff to electric weapons. The same update made using electric weapons crash most games. The released a new mech that could fire rockets. The rockets would explode immediately after firing in some cases because they would recognize a collision with the hitbox of the mech you are firing from. That's like, my-first-unity-game level bad programming there. They released an update that supposedly fixed enemies spawning. The actual result was enemies spawning within view, constantly, to the point that even the easier difficulties would overwhelm you. I'm talking you kill an entire patrol, turn 360 degrees, and an entire new patrol spawns directly on top of the corpse of the previous group. The way the game works, this makes it essentially unplayable. The game's friend and squad management system doesn't work fully if you play on playstation. Since launch. It also fucks up sometimes on PC if your steam username is too short. None of the Steam user APIs work on usernames, they all use a numeric SteamID If you aren't the "host" of the session (which actually isn't the actual host of the session!) "Damage over time" effects like setting enemies on fire, or using poison gas, do not work at all, ie 0 damage. That hasn't stopped them from buffing the flamethrower because their "Metrics" (lol) say not enough people use it. They've even released armor that buffs using fire without fixing that it literally doesn't work for 3/4ths of the group. The premier anti-armor weapon the game has is a knock off of the Javelin anti-tank missile launcher. The lock on has never worked correctly. It sometimes refuses to lock on to an enemy vehicle 10 ft in front of you. After 4 months of complaints, the devs FINALLY put it on the list of "known bugs". When people ask what's taking so long, a dev posted an inane response on discord about how "ray casts are hard and have a lot of edge cases" as if ray casts haven't been a basic tool of game development for thirty years. Like, Arrowhead is amazing at game "feel", Magica feels awesome, even if I've never been able to adjust to the control scheme. Helldivers one seemed really fun but my friends and I couldn't get multiplayer to work, like it would just ignore some players for no reason. That reason is because Arrowhead devs could not program themselves out of a paper bag. It's always been this way, Magica was so crash prone and buggy that they added a spell to crash the game as a joke. Plenty of dev teams are similarly incompetent. Hell, I've been that useless before. But they evidently do zero quality assurance, and don't seem to have good enough source control to know what changes go in what release. Many of the above problems are "this would be caught by a single person attempting to play the game, how did you not catch this?"
polski-g 2y ago
The Arrowhead support staff said (there are only 4 of them) is that they cannot process "conduct-based reviews" of reports because they have so many users. They wanted to outsource those reports to Sony. Basically they wanted to make it easier and quicker to ban people for hurty words.

by krippe 2y ago

multimoon 2y ago

All correct, but this still isn’t a unique scenario. Many games that have been very loved with a very active community have had the same requirement over the years, helldivers wasn’t anything new. I suspect this was just a case of the internet caught hold of something and went nuts as it normally does. Was the outcome positive? Absolutely, but it isn’t a new scenario like everyone’s acting it is.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
It is a unique scenario for the following reasons * The game was being sold in regions where players would not be able to make a PSN account, because of PSN's restrictions being tighter than Steams * At launch the account linking was not mandatory. * It was also not clearly communicated at this time that it would become mandatory later. * Even after their public statement that it would be mandatory, Sony's own FAQ still said that PSN accounts were not required to play any games on PC. This was edited after people noticed (Thanks to Arrowhead's CEO calling attention to the FAQ) At this point it would be reasonable for players to assume it was not actually mandatory at all, despite wording saying it was And the worst part is it took months for them to fix so they could make it mandatory. Well outside of the usual return window policy for Steam As I've said elsewhere, this is not just one screw up, it's a bunch It would have been a very different story if the first time you launch the game it did not let you play unless you link your PSN, which is what most games with this requirement will be like. Then you can choose to either link your account or happily get your refund because you haven't actually played
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Also this game has been mired in mild controversy the entire time it's been live because the dev team is genuinely incompetent ie, they released an update that included new purchasable armor that eliminated electric damage, ie a buff to electric weapons. The same update made using electric weapons crash most games. The released a new mech that could fire rockets. The rockets would explode immediately after firing in some cases because they would recognize a collision with the hitbox of the mech you are firing from. That's like, my-first-unity-game level bad programming there. They released an update that supposedly fixed enemies spawning. The actual result was enemies spawning within view, constantly, to the point that even the easier difficulties would overwhelm you. I'm talking you kill an entire patrol, turn 360 degrees, and an entire new patrol spawns directly on top of the corpse of the previous group. The way the game works, this makes it essentially unplayable. The game's friend and squad management system doesn't work fully if you play on playstation. Since launch. It also fucks up sometimes on PC if your steam username is too short. None of the Steam user APIs work on usernames, they all use a numeric SteamID If you aren't the "host" of the session (which actually isn't the actual host of the session!) "Damage over time" effects like setting enemies on fire, or using poison gas, do not work at all, ie 0 damage. That hasn't stopped them from buffing the flamethrower because their "Metrics" (lol) say not enough people use it. They've even released armor that buffs using fire without fixing that it literally doesn't work for 3/4ths of the group. The premier anti-armor weapon the game has is a knock off of the Javelin anti-tank missile launcher. The lock on has never worked correctly. It sometimes refuses to lock on to an enemy vehicle 10 ft in front of you. After 4 months of complaints, the devs FINALLY put it on the list of "known bugs". When people ask what's taking so long, a dev posted an inane response on discord about how "ray casts are hard and have a lot of edge cases" as if ray casts haven't been a basic tool of game development for thirty years. Like, Arrowhead is amazing at game "feel", Magica feels awesome, even if I've never been able to adjust to the control scheme. Helldivers one seemed really fun but my friends and I couldn't get multiplayer to work, like it would just ignore some players for no reason. That reason is because Arrowhead devs could not program themselves out of a paper bag. It's always been this way, Magica was so crash prone and buggy that they added a spell to crash the game as a joke. Plenty of dev teams are similarly incompetent. Hell, I've been that useless before. But they evidently do zero quality assurance, and don't seem to have good enough source control to know what changes go in what release. Many of the above problems are "this would be caught by a single person attempting to play the game, how did you not catch this?"

polski-g 2y ago

The Arrowhead support staff said (there are only 4 of them) is that they cannot process "conduct-based reviews" of reports because they have so many users. They wanted to outsource those reports to Sony. Basically they wanted to make it easier and quicker to ban people for hurty words.