-Rant- Dying Light 2 and Promises

[Rabbit]

I'm just gonna rant into the void for a bit since I feel like this might be the last time I ever touch this game again mentally.
Dying Light 2 was disappointing, and as far as i'm concerned, the team that made DL1 what it was, let alone the revered, mysterious E3 version of 2 so engaging is no longer at Techland. And no amount of guns or updates seem to be interesting me enough to pull me in, and I wondered why. I loved the parkour, but what was stopping me from coming back to this game to a point where i feel grossed out by the notion?
If they gave us the highly replayable survival-horror, choice-dependent narrative experience that was sold to us.
See, when you look at the trailers, and look at the gameplay for Dying Light, including the sequel, it's sold as a survival horror narrative experience. Even the first one, with its knock-off Far Cry style narrative with even a fancy Albert Camus quote in one of the trailers for DL1. Similarly, with Dying Light 2, the majority of its marketing rested on Avelone's laurels, and when he was axed, STILL rested on the narrative and interactivity with the world, if not the story trajectory itself.

I bought Dying Light 2 thinking i was going to get Dying Light 1, but with, at the very least, more attention to story and worldbuilding and interactivity. What i got instead was a glorified Destiny-esque live service whose devs give more attention to cheap, "retention" farming raids, updates, and recycled ideas (like copy-pasting guns from DL1 instead of sticking with the modern-dark ages aesthetic and limitations FOR said guns). It comes off as more Techland buying time and gambling away good will for retention and microtransaction sales for flashy cosmetics. None of which actually do any good for people that bought into the game for that initial promise the game has been, and still is, sold on.
And the worst part about all of this, all of the above, is that Techland is all bark and no bite. If they really wanted to deliver on what they're selling, then they wouldn't be treating us like we're retention pigs that need to be dripfed live service slop. They'd give us an overhaul of the main campaign to at LEAST clean the bugs, optimize it, and THEN give us features and further refined systems as promised by their own marketing material.
And hell, while they're at is
maybe even a good, well realized story DLC that wouldn't need to be sold for free later down to line in the hopes of reeling in newer, less informed customers about Techland's shenanigans.

To me, Techland doesn't seem interested in solving their actual problem. It isn't Tencent, or DL points, though those certainly don't frickin help. It's the narrative and the fundamental Role Playing/World Reactivity systems. The very heart of this game is in need of an overhaul of some kind, and likely, more story content that actually expands and fixes issues with the story's narrative, makes characters more interesting or at least less annoying (Lawan) or gives more options to players to facilitate meaningful choices on their environment that evolves with them as the story progresses. Better integration of narrative setpieces with player freedom and impulses (looking at you, Lawan, again, with the paraglider tutorial).
If they need to recast the voices, then so freakin' be it, if they need to remove the VA altogether and make the VA simlish with a focus on text bubbles, then SO BE IT. The point is to fix the actual narrative so it isn't a slog you have to push through if you want to play/replay it, and actually fulfill that fundamental promise, THEN expand on that foundation with DLC that can interact with what was fixed or established
THEN after ALL OF THAT, dripfeeds of updates and sidequests and microtransactions would feel far, FAR more acceptable.


Anyway, that's my rant over. I hope my frustrations aren't too insane, and it's important to state that if I truly believed the game had no potential, i'd likely not even review it let alone discuss it.
Dying Light 2 has potential... but its not going to be this next big Destiny-clone faux-live service experience. That wasn't what it was sold as, and if the developers keep pushing for that route with their nerfs and dripfeeding of content, and such, then the game will eventually fade. Maybe not die entirely, but it will pale to what it could've been if it capitalized on its core, fundamental promise as a single player, narrative first experience as the marketing, and E3, materials suggest. It doesn't have to be the exact beast we saw back then... but could Techland at least TRY? At least ATTEMPT to bring back those features, that experience that was pitched to us? To do more than a minimum so bare, it may as well not be there at all?
And actually optimize it, for heaven's sake.

[BimboGooch]

Womp womp

[chimchimchim]

Keep whining lol, game is great and so are the devs for giving us free content.

[BimboGooch]

Originally posted by chimchimchim:

Keep whining lol, game is great and so are the devs for giving us free content.

Vivic has spoken!

[chimchimchim]

Originally posted by BimboGooch:

Originally posted by chimchimchim:

Keep whining lol, game is great and so are the devs for giving us free content.

Vivic has spoken!

ALL KNEEL

[Lufka]

cool story however i enjoy the game

[Fugana]

Over-promised and under-delivered.

[Niliu]

No one cares