Vampiric_Luma

Vampiric_Luma, 2 months ago

Maybe my subjective take of sudden is different, but is it sudden? (aka I progressively succumb to madness over a title)

There’ve been many fantastic roguelike deckbuilders out since 2020, a little after Slay teh Spire’s official release date. It feels more like people have became aware of how fun the subgenre is after the hype Baltaro generated on streaming platforms. If anything is sudden, it’s the second-wind of attention we’re getting thanks to the above-mentioned game.

I know I’m continuing to split hairs over nothing down here, but 861 games is a little misleading once you get to the end: “Surprisingly, deckbuilders are still an underserved market”

You never know when you’ve reached the peak of a trend, but deckbuilders seem like they’re not quite there yet. Games-Stats tracks 527 roguelike deckbuilders, and Dev_Hell’s Westendorp suggests their higher-than-average revenues, wider revenue spread, and demand make them “relatively underserved as a market.”

So, there’s not 861 games, but 527 games?

If you investigate why there’s a large gap in reported game listings, it’s because Steam is including packs like [Slay the Spire x Backpack Hero] and DLC where Game-Stats is tracking the individual games (i.e, bloatless). This ties back to the title - ultimately we’re not trying to answer the literal question, “Why are there 861 roguelike deckbuilders on Steam”, because OP never answers that question. Instead, we are answering an alternative interpretation: “Why are there so many roguelike games appearing on Steam in a short amount of time?” The answer, may shock you:

spoilerMoney, popularity, ez(er) to dev

While I’ve taken those answers from the article, I find it further interesting that they conclude a different question all-together: “Why are roguelike deckbuilders taking off?”

Buh, I’ve lost it. Ultimately I really liked the core article and their enthusiasm, but I’ve driven myself to madness here.

Vampiric_Luma, 2 months ago

Nah, he fell off the swiss-cheese truck. And wouldn’t you know it, the stack of swiss landed with a perfect line of holes. Zap!

Vampiric_Luma, 2 months ago

By the point of ‘superhuman’ gameplay, it’s less about physical reactions and more about mental foresight or gamesense. Ducking, sliding, bhopping and any tech involved to navigate… planning how your opponent will move around your positioning in relation to their own objectives… Individual players have quirks by this point that can be discovered and exploited, and you are both playing a game to discover & exploit; Deceive & switch-up.

When someone is exclusively reacting to you perfectly rather than incorporating the above, you know. It’s wildly demotivating because now we’re not playing this high-skill game, we’re playing a game of endurance since they always know player locations and will almost always get the first shot… The only two winning moves is you leave or the hacker leaves. It’s a waste of everyone’s time just for some narcissist to feel good (I can say that, I used to do it so I get the power thrill).

It sucks and anyone who’s pushed their competitive gameplay to the edge will recognize a hacker when they see one. So yes, players can tell the difference (including chess players!!), it’s the anti-cheat that can’t. Kind-of like how that one MS guy discovered a backdoor due to a 500ms delay, but a virus protector sees everything hunky-dory.

Source: used to religiously/no-life play competitively

Also, no, matchmaker will not separate these people appropriately. The cheaters will smurf just to dunk on lower-skill players. You can buy game-keys on russian websites for dirt cheap, so it’s very worth it if you have the $$$ to burn. Path of least resistance to feeling power.

Vampiric_Luma, 2 months ago

Curious - why? I’ve played LOL and the Blizzard one, but I never tried Dota 2

Vampiric_Luma, 2 months ago

I think you’re missing the point of why they’re buying cheap game keys. In fact, it sounds like you think a ‘ban’ is something bad to these players or will stop them. If it did, I’d probably be enjoying Rust still.

Not even VAC bans are perfect, although it typically stops the poor unfortunate kids who truly don’t know better at least.

Minecraft anticheat won’t be perfect either. It is a necessary and functional safe guard as is usually the case with anticheat (minus rootkits, fuck those useless tools), but people will always slip through. Note what other people in this thread are saying.

Vampiric_Luma, 2 months ago

I apologize as I seem to have made myself unclear. I’m not disagreeing or saying these security measures aren’t useful, I was just stating the fact that people can and do get through these systems and players in this case can detect them even when security measures can’t.

To your point, as that $$0.01 makes a difference, VAC bans also make a difference by preventing kiddies from jumping back in with their purchased cheat program. That’s great. However, there are ‘whales’ that don’t care for the cost, and even though they’re a small number they have an influential contribution to the negative experience these people can bring.

I’m not a security researcher or a developer so I don’t know what security measures are ever in place or what the hackers do to get through. I mostly play lots of games and once-upon-a-time would dig up free (likely infected) cheat programs that got through anti-cheat and contributed to the cycle that’s ongoing today.

Vampiric_Luma, 2 months ago

EZ: everything runs on a VPN in Italy.

Wipes hands Case closed.

Vampiric_Luma, 3 months ago

claps vigorously

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Vampiric_Luma, 3 months ago

dab pen and the warheads, please.

I’ll get wicked high and make people eat them for my amusement. They’ll be soooo wrecked.

Vampiric_Luma, 3 months ago

You can tell they’re normal because they don’t know what gooning is.

I’m sorry for anyone that has eyes right now.

Vampiric_Luma, 3 months ago

Janitor. Honestly it’s weird they’re moving anything at all, but notify the boss and they’ll notify the contract holder who will whip them into shape.

Businesses spend a gross amount on janitors and it’s a cut-throat business. If they don’t want the contract that bad, someone else very much does. Nothing to lose but your sanity. ;P

Worth keeping in mind if it happens in the future and notes don’t work.

Vampiric_Luma, 3 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmxZ_RaA6Ew

Vampiric_Luma, 4 months ago

An iconic style I’ll recognize even when it’s just two plants

Vampiric_Luma, 4 months ago

Early access paranoia can finally be shared by all~ Yippeeeeeeee

Vampiric_Luma, 4 months ago

I have some suspicions the kitty one is a little less wholesome considering their origins

Vampiric_Luma, 9 months ago

What is stopping AI from showing bias here? The humans tailor the AI, so there will inherently always be that risk without transparency.

Vampiric_Luma, 9 months ago

Sure, but the mistakes aren’t the main issue, it’s that AI is just a tool that by extention can be abused by the humans in control. You have no idea what rules they give it and what false positives result from it.

My primary concern here is that it’s Blizzard, whom love to gargle honey for China and is all for banning players that speak against them, is in charge of this AI.

Blizzard’s previously talked about using AI to verify reports of disruptive voice chat, which is now running in most regions, though not globally. The developer says it has seen this technology “correct negative behavior immediately, with many players improving their disruptive behavior after their first warning.”

Great, they can auto-ban players like Ng Wai Chung, I guess. For whatever they subjectively deem ‘harmful’. There’s also the looming idea that a friend can wander in my room, say something dumb, and now I’m closer to a ban because of an unrelated choice I made outside the game.

And we definitely trust Blizard to be good with all the audio data they get to harvest. That won’t be abused later, right?