Am I missing something? I don't quite understand the Mixed Reviews

[Horrow]

Bought it just recently due to the sale and have fallen in love with it. Took a few tries to get the hang of things (Though, that's my fault for sticking with Weaver as my first pick),

The aspect seem really fun and it seems like I have A LOT of things to unlock still. What's all the fuss about?

[Sneaky⸸Blunders]

There's not much fuss, there's people that love it, and people that haven't played more than 20 hours lol.

[Itaru]

Some people are annoyed that the game is effectively not being supported anymore.

[Stone Thrower]

Inkbound devs announced that they're not releasing any new content going forward (https://steamcommunity.com/app/1062810/discussions/0/599640143391918677/) which makes it not very attractive to buy as a game anymore for new players, and for those who have many hours in it, it's disappointing to know the game was effectively abandoned. You can love it, it just took a ton of luster off for most people to know nothing new is ever going to be added to it.

[ShyGuy]

I can understand the feeling of wanting more and not getting it, but I think it's pretty unfair to consider it a betrayal and worth negative reviews. The developers, for a while, ran with the idea that they'd keep the game up as a live-service type deal, with regular updates and seasons and content, but the sales didn't provide enough money to do so, and so they decided that it will stay the way it is now.

All things considered, disappointing news, but the game is certainly complete and filled with content, stable and fully enjoyable in solo and multiplayer for at least a hundred hours easily. Many people just like to knee-jerk react negatively whenever a game decides it's time to stop updating.

[Horrow]

Originally posted by Stone Thrower:

Inkbound devs announced that they're not releasing any new content going forward (https://steamcommunity.com/app/1062810/discussions/0/599640143391918677/) which makes it not very attractive to buy as a game anymore for new players, and for those who have many hours in it, it's disappointing to know the game was effectively abandoned. You can love it, it just took a ton of luster off for most people to know nothing new is ever going to be added to it.

As a new player, I'm finding the game very enjoyable and that it has a lot of content as is? You make it sound like they stopped support and left the game with barely anything. It has a good number of classes that each have a variety of skill augments to go with all the items and trinkets that are currently offered in the game.

As far as roguelikes go, this has quickly become one of my favorites. After seeing some of the discourse, I can see why people would be upset at the announcement, but to give negative reviews due to the ANNOUNCEMENT itself rather than the game itself is kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up for people to do. This game shouldn't be 'mixed'. Having played it without any knowledge of these announcements, I truly found nothing wrong with the game itself. Its providing everything I look for in a roguelike.

[Isaac]

Originally posted by ShyGuy:

I can understand the feeling of wanting more and not getting it, but I think it's pretty unfair to consider it a betrayal and worth negative reviews. The developers, for a while, ran with the idea that they'd keep the game up as a live-service type deal, with regular updates and seasons and content, but the sales didn't provide enough money to do so, and so they decided that it will stay the way it is now.

All things considered, disappointing news, but the game is certainly complete and filled with content, stable and fully enjoyable in solo and multiplayer for at least a hundred hours easily. Many people just like to knee-jerk react negatively whenever a game decides it's time to stop updating.

"filled with content"
yeah, no. after about 10 hours you ahve seen everything this game has to offer, the lack of content is by far the biggest issue this game has, and that is never gonna be fixed now.
incredibly dissapointing.

[Sneaky⸸Blunders]

Originally posted by Isaac:

Originally posted by ShyGuy:

I can understand the feeling of wanting more and not getting it, but I think it's pretty unfair to consider it a betrayal and worth negative reviews. The developers, for a while, ran with the idea that they'd keep the game up as a live-service type deal, with regular updates and seasons and content, but the sales didn't provide enough money to do so, and so they decided that it will stay the way it is now.

All things considered, disappointing news, but the game is certainly complete and filled with content, stable and fully enjoyable in solo and multiplayer for at least a hundred hours easily. Many people just like to knee-jerk react negatively whenever a game decides it's time to stop updating.

"filled with content"
yeah, no. after about 10 hours you ahve seen everything this game has to offer, the lack of content is by far the biggest issue this game has, and that is never gonna be fixed now.
incredibly dissapointing.

you absolutely haven't seen everything the game has to offer in 10 hours. If you mean, you've seen the basic version of the books and enemies in 10 hours, mostly thats correct yes, but still not true, as you don't have the starship unlocked by 10 hours. And even with that being said, ANY roguelike you see the "basic" version of the gameloop at the beginning, would you say that has anything to do with the content? No. You don't have all the vestiges, nor ranked runs unlocked (which include the dozens of modifiers that make runs diverse and challenging) in 10 hours, which is where the runs even remotely begin to become varied and exciting/more difficult. You also haven't unlocked the hidden boss and the hidden mid-run fight by 10 hours. If you think the game's lack of content is its biggest issue, you haven't played more than the 10 hours you are speaking of lol.

[Stone Thrower]

Originally posted by Horrow:

Originally posted by Stone Thrower:

Inkbound devs announced that they're not releasing any new content going forward (https://steamcommunity.com/app/1062810/discussions/0/599640143391918677/) which makes it not very attractive to buy as a game anymore for new players, and for those who have many hours in it, it's disappointing to know the game was effectively abandoned. You can love it, it just took a ton of luster off for most people to know nothing new is ever going to be added to it.

As a new player, I'm finding the game very enjoyable and that it has a lot of content as is? You make it sound like they stopped support and left the game with barely anything. It has a good number of classes that each have a variety of skill augments to go with all the items and trinkets that are currently offered in the game.

As far as roguelikes go, this has quickly become one of my favorites. After seeing some of the discourse, I can see why people would be upset at the announcement, but to give negative reviews due to the ANNOUNCEMENT itself rather than the game itself is kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up for people to do. This game shouldn't be 'mixed'. Having played it without any knowledge of these announcements, I truly found nothing wrong with the game itself. Its providing everything I look for in a roguelike.

I disagree, I think I took very careful steps to NOT say that. I still like it, but nothing will change that I feel disappointed that it didn't meet some internal metric for the company so they decided to stop developing for it - sign I thought it was a good game.

As for the reviews, that speaks of something ♥♥♥♥♥♥ a lot of people do in general, which is leave bad overall reviews based on one or more adjacent problems (kinda like someone leaving a bad review for a restaurant because they couldn't find parking.) It sucks and I don't agree with it, just aiming to answer your initial question

[Black Hammer]

The game's always had a bit of an uneven reception. I like Inkbound, but I wouldn't say I love it, and it's very much the kind of thing I do 2-3 runs of, get bored, then forget about for a couple months.

The nature of it gets very repetitive, since most runs go like this:

Pick your character with a fixed lineup of skills
Look for exponential scaling support effects
Get them and cycle your combo to win, or don't get them and lose

Generally speaking, winning in this game is done by knowing how to combine items to scale incredibly hard out of combat, rather than the decisions you make in combat.

More variety in enemies or items or skills could maybe have fixed that, but I doubt it.

Frankly, I think moving on was the correct choice. Inkbound was never going to be as good as Monster Train, and I think making something better is entirely within Shiny Shoe's capabilities.

[mcflux101]

I also understand why they go on from a financial perspective but it's quiet a letfdown of the community they have and instead of fixing that feels still unfinished with the content (they promised 10 characters i think and there are only 8) just run and leave the problems to people. They also abandon the players and lose quiet a big potential clients for their future games. It does not motivate for buying their next because it's probable they will abandon that one too.

The game has a solid base and the hours I played now is enough to play more of it and i will pick it again in the future. Monstertrain also had a limited variiety in enemies and levels and it was sill very well received.

I hope they add modding options so at least the community could extend it. But I dont expect that.

[spyr0th3dr4g0n]

Originally posted by mcflux101:

(they promised 10 characters i think and there are only 8)

They didn't promise this, this is an assumption you've made.

I don't think that is a fair assessment at all, they have delivered on everything in roadmaps that were put out, there are no unfulfilled promises afaik.

[Sneaky⸸Blunders]

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

The game's always had a bit of an uneven reception. I like Inkbound, but I wouldn't say I love it, and it's very much the kind of thing I do 2-3 runs of, get bored, then forget about for a couple months.

The nature of it gets very repetitive, since most runs go like this:

Pick your character with a fixed lineup of skills
Look for exponential scaling support effects
Get them and cycle your combo to win, or don't get them and lose

Generally speaking, winning in this game is done by knowing how to combine items to scale incredibly hard out of combat, rather than the decisions you make in combat.

More variety in enemies or items or skills could maybe have fixed that, but I doubt it.

Frankly, I think moving on was the correct choice. Inkbound was never going to be as good as Monster Train, and I think making something better is entirely within Shiny Shoe's capabilities.

I'm not going to make this a long reply, but it's pretty obvious you never *really* played the game to the depth that it had to offer and push r20 unbound runs. "fixed lineup" of skills is improper way of looking at the fact you have the ability to get 9 ascensions for just your base class, and another 6 ascensions to pick from for your drafted bindings in a run, which very much change the outcome of how you will play the combats.
"look for exponential scaling"-while there are definitely builds that you can go that are essentially just made to offload as much burst as you can with stacking omni, there are a plethora of builds and variables to what makes a build that are not exponential scaling, or even scaling for that matter, in and of themselves.
"get them and cycle to win, dont get them and lose"- This is actually what made me realize you don't actually have much experience in the latter difficulties of the game, not much to say here other than this is wrong.