Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
34 
Report this post
The birds have been a part of the game for as long as I can remember (as-in, the very beginning). I made a post about how I thought they should be nerfed almost two years ago in this thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1371690/discussions/0/3275813284150174756/
They're honestly much easier now. They seem to attack more frequently now than I remember from before but their attacks deal significantly less damage. Back in early access you'd practically have to chain health potions to survive their poison attack. It was absolutely ridiculous, especially considering they're silent and you rarely have any warning that they're attacking until you've already been hit.
Now, they're just more annoying than anything.
The developers have taken ideas from a lot of old games, often choosing bad examples and randomly mixed them into this game, like a chef randomly throwing all sorts of things into a pot when cooking. The result would then hardly be a tasty dish. Also the few good things in the game are still just ideas from elsewhere, e.g. the praised visual style reminds me a lot of Warhammer: Vermintide.
When playing I fall off ladders like in HL1 because the developers didn't notice in Black Mesa how to do it better, I wander unnecessarily because there's no map in the game, etc. Supposedly the map isn't there because it's hard to make it and there's no money left for it. Honestly, why should I as a paying customer care?
I read somewhere that they prioritized the co-op and other features instead, but they are broken and barely usable like practically all else.
Everything about the game just screams: cheap and half-baked product. For example, the NPCs aren't voiced, I guess there are no money for it too. And if there's no map in the game, why aren't there at least enough directional signs, visual cues, etc.? I wonder how much it would cost to add a few signposts?
Every handbook for aspiring developers says how to improve guidance in the games, but the developers chose to ignore all the recommendations. Likewise, they ignored suggestions from players of early access.
For virtually every thing that bothers me about the game, I've found a number of recommendations for improvements in the forums, often years old. But the developers only seem to listen to a few fans who praise absolutely every decision they make, no matter how dubious.
As for combat, half of my dying in the game is due to the fact that it has nonsensically clunky controls and I can't quickly switch to the appropriate weapon. I'm playing with a gamepad and there's no weapon wheel (BTW: it was too recommended in the discussion a long time ago), not to mention the cumbersome and unnecessary limit on weapon slots.
The combat is also strangely unbalanced with poor enemies AI. Some of them are easy to defeat while others kill the player instantly, sometimes from behind and without warning. The boss fights are not better either with bosses like the librarian, who is almost impossible to beat (and yes, I know from the guides, because the game doesn't bother to communicate it properly, that I should shoot side skulls first).
There are also some puzzles in the game that are lacking sense even for the writers of the guides, yet they have not been modified.
On top of that I encountered huge amount of bugs, some places with a big FPS drops as well as several soft locks where I couldn't continue playing. The obligatory return to the hub in such a cases just adds to the overall frustration.
The game just feels like the developers were trying to make it as frustrating for the players as possible. Honestly, I'd rather play an Embracer manager simulator instead of Graven.
I don't disagree with the spirit of your overall post but I do think it's important to look at it objectively.
As I've said multiple times elsewhere already, the map was never really useful, even in early access. I doubt it would have been useful at all in act III unless a lot of work was invested into it and when you consider all of the other issues Graven has, the map is so trivial. It doesn't really matter.
I don't think the paying customer angle holds up very well, either. More and more, I'm starting to think that the video game industry is dying in a similar way as the music industry has (rock music, especially). Even if Graven sold 100,000 copies (which is a lot--I'd be surprised if it sold 50,000, honestly), you're looking at $2,500,000 in revenue.
Once the parent company, publisher and distribution platform take their cut, you're probably looking at half of that (best case scenario). So, in other words, you're probably looking at a maximum of $1,500,000 left for development. Even if you just split this between a small team of just ten people over four years, this leaves each person with a salary of around $37,500 per year or $18 per hour (before taxes).
Considering I'm just using made up inflated numbers, that's not very good at all. The only way I can see it really working would be to hire a bunch of inexperienced programmers, designers, relying on students or a lot of unpaid overtime / crunch work, which is something you commonly hear developers complain about across the entire industry.
I'm not trying to make excuses for it--I think long hours, hard work and low pay are common problems with a lot of jobs across most industries (personally, I think my job is a lot harder than video game development could ever be) but people still need to be reasonable.
Simply put, when it's all said and done, everything considered, I think calling it garbage is really extreme, to the point that it seems cold or even kind of cruel.
The thing is, I don't disagree with what you're saying and yes, gaming isn't very kind to its employees, whether it's the triple A companies, or the small, indie ones. I would say there's like 5% people working in gaming overall that are satisfied with their working position and their salary and it's mostly the higher-upps with their suits and ties.
BUT
At the same time, does it mean you as a customer are required to accept half-baked unfinished products like Graven, especially when despite all these mentioned hardships, there are thousands of other games that actually come out in a much more playable state? Not to mention that in this case, the problem with the game being unfinished goes deeper than just not having few features that were promised, such as the map or beastiary. The "gunplay", overall feel of the combat, unfinished enemy animations, lazy enemy placement, shortage of content in act 2 and 3...
And if I choose to pay 25€ for this and then based on all of those factors I decide I want to refund, I think that's fully justified. And it doesn't matter to me WHY is all the stuff as bad as it is, for me as a customer, the only thing that matters is that it IS indeed bad. If you think this is cruel, just remind yourself of that thinking whenever you buy a product that you're not satisfied with.
Would you pay a full price for a food that was inedible simply because the chef came out of the kitchen and told you his working conditions didn't allow him to cook anything better? Sure, you wouldn't scream at him with anger, and you'd politely acknowledge his situation, but if you talked about that experience later with your friends, I don't think you would shy away from using words such as "garbage", "trash".
And similarly, I'm using these words to describe Graven, together with "insult to anyone who has ever played a videogame". That doesn't mean those harsh words are aimed personally at the developers and that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge their hardships. In fact, in this case, I don't blame the developers at all. The fault here falls directly onto the publishers' shoulders. But I would refund the product if I could and I'm still keeping my negative review on.
I hope I enlightened you a bit on how SOME, not all people, perceive this situation. Of course someone might just straight up put the blame on the developers and be harsh towards them, because they didn't do enough research about the situation of the game. But frankly, they are not required to do so anyway, at least not here on Steam. If they dislike the product for whatever bullsheit reason, they are free to refund and provide a critique, however harsh it might be.
I didn't say garbage, but a frustrating unfinished game with a number of poor developer decisions (well, some may consider it the similar thing), and I stand by that. I just didn't get a good feeling from playing it.
Can it be salvaged? I don't know, given the developer's financial problems, but some improvements can be made cheaply and others could be added if the game had at least the mod support (this is, after all, what made some of the older games great).
For example a few signposts could still improve the navigation when the map is missing. These should be especially in the main hub areas, so the player doesn't have to memorize all the directions and place names.
In the second hub, after leaving the village, there are several paths through the forest. I only found one of the paths after seeing the walkthrough. The game gives some hints in the journal as to where the player should go, but they are often too vague and cryptic (e.g. "go to the castle" when every second building looks like a castle). The third hub, where I'm now, is probably the worst in this regard, there definitely should be more visual cues, etc.
Otherwise I agree that the games industry is in trouble with no clear path forward and the money side is IMHO just part of the problem. I think there are simply a limited number of ideas - in games as in movies or music, and then other creators have a hard time finding something of quality and meaning that hasn't already been made. I often prefer to go back to older stuff because I don't find the new things (even modern replicas of old things) better, quite the opposite.
It's most likely going to be yet another janky title with tons of unfinished things like Graven. 3Delay Realms is a terrible publisher and every developer studio working under them does poorly, except the guy who made Cultic, but he's a sole developer, so I bet he's so used to doing all the hard work himself.
Ion Fury is good, not great. 7/10 going by numbers. Wrath, I don't agree, but I think in its case it depends on one's opinion and it still better than anything that came after. But that's exactly it. Nowadays, I don't think any project that's currently under the 3Delay Realms' wings has good prospects for its future. In the old days, when they were just 3D Realms and not 3Delay Realms, they occasionally produced a good game at least.
Most "hard" fights or enemies have alternate ways of dealing with them and you're usually getting fed the appropriate ammo for the weapon you need to use in the area. You're finding ballista and crossbow bolts dropping in a big castle? Shrapnel in a cramped basement? Color me surprised, maybe I should use that weapon here. Zombie hordes you avoid or funnel, and anything fast you can use a peat launcher or ballista on.
Regarding getting lost, this one is totally baffling to me, since the areas are pretty well delineated and often you're rewarded for doing exploration anyway. The one literal maze has a map as part of the puzzle.
I'd say once the glitches are ironed out and there's some stronger signaling on puzzle triggers the game is totally fine.