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.
Elite Dangerous. The early game up is brutal and you don't get much help. Mid game is very long and a grind. I'm only on a few engineering trees and still haven't left the bubble.
I haven't even gotten to end game.
I can't even do PvP because I get gonked too fast.
this + the community is full of the most insipid whiny fuckwits you've ever met.
E:D would be so much more tolerable if there were a "no bullshit" mode -- private servers with votekick + vastly reduced grind, something like that. I know you can invite friends to a clan of sorts, but that only fixes half the problem and unless you, personally, curate every invited person, you might still encounter an asshole that you know through a mutual friend.
I'm okay with the early game being brutal and not holding your hand, I am very much not okay with the experience continuing to be a slog after I'm well out of the Steam refund period. Like, I got to trader Elite and bought a Federal Corvette, and I still found it a fucking slog.
One of the few things E:D is very competent at, is looking extremely pretty, especially in VR; that's about the only real, pure fun I had in the game was flying around and going "wooooaaaaahhhh that's sick" with my Index on my head.
It also has the greatest flight model and sound design of any space game, ever. This is an objective fact.
The flight model and sound design coupled with the visuals and the scale make it irreplaceable when you look at the market’s other offerings.
It’s just a shame the games code is so spaghetti, and that the engine is so old.
On my 3rd CMDR, 2nd set of HOTAS, being playing E:D since it came out. So I have some experience.
But yes, a significant percentage of the player base seems to be "I am so witty!" frustrated Incels who live in their parents' basement. At least that's the impression I got from chats on Discord servers of some in-game groups.
Frontiers hasn't provided a meaningful endgame loop. Just the usual "spend in-game resources that took lots of real-world hours to gather on some BS (carrier, station growth etc...)" that has no significant impact on the game world.
Lots of fun can be had with things other players come up with; the Fuel Rats, player factions and them influencing the "Power Play" meta, expeditions, canyon racing, expanding the DSSA etc. - but that means that a lot of game-relevant information and interaction happens outside the game.
So unless you are willing to spend a lot of time on Discord and run a bunch of extra tools (EDMC, searching on Inara etc.) the game itself remains rather shallow.
Brutal game dawg. Brutal.
I sometimes do miss the flute music playing so magically while I hurl past a red giant at super cruise.
But it's not enough to keep me into the grind.
this is the first game that came to mind, although i don't regret my time playing and plan to return someday. i managed to fly to the center with a mid-budget loadout (took two all-nighters), then the new colony