I've actually gotten much better at that! I do try to only buy games I know I will play. Since well I have no money usually, so when I do have some and put it on steam it has to go to something good.we all do ... that's the SteamThread™ way!
Community MetaSteam | December 2018 - We got 99 problems, but 76 ain't one
- Thread starter lashman
- Start date
- Status
fuck that Two Point Hospital friend's list rival system
dat peer pressure >_<
dat peer pressure >_<
Looking at the recent Paratopic dev post in pc thread on ERA I fear Valve might ve losing the battle for indie devs hearts and minds. At least the U.S. based ones.
I mean, there seems to be a lot of resentment flying around. Not all of which is warranted (remember that dev that was angry at Valve for forcingregional pricingdiscounts), but people aren't necessarily rational beings...
I mean, there seems to be a lot of resentment flying around. Not all of which is warranted (remember that dev that was angry at Valve for forcing
OP
- Thread Starter
- #1,454
In all the noise in the Epic Store threads, the algorithm changes are the one of the only complains that I can't really dismiss. Valve obviously can't be totally transparent about the changes or people will game the system, but it can't it also can't be this dismissive of what appear to legitimate complains about the drastic change in the behavior of the recommendations.
I personally haven't encounter the issue too much as my Discovery Queue is still mostly free of Hentai - only 4 total on the last two days doing 3 queues per day and. I was thinking that maybe it's because I haven't idle cards in a long time, but the developers comments point to a more general an serious issue.
But of course, we will only know if the new algorithm is truly broken if sales are down in general and not just for specific developers.
I personally haven't encounter the issue too much as my Discovery Queue is still mostly free of Hentai - only 4 total on the last two days doing 3 queues per day and. I was thinking that maybe it's because I haven't idle cards in a long time, but the developers comments point to a more general an serious issue.
But of course, we will only know if the new algorithm is truly broken if sales are down in general and not just for specific developers.
If Valve were transparent about this, they would just be able to say it is a black box running some Machine Learning algorithms, wouldn't they? From the perspective of their algorithm, these lewd games must be really interesting in some quantitative way. The fact that the screenshots in the Community Hub of the lewd games must be getting a lot of views could skew, for the rest of us, the discovery queue towards these games. I would not expect a much more complex explanation.
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I honestly don't know enough about Machine Learning to say a lot about the whole process, but I'd imagine you have a lot of control not only about the data you're feeding the "black box" but also the weight of each element. In any case they did change something in October that appear to have really reduced the number of views some indies were receiving and as far as I know they only did a generic "we're working on it".
I don't know about the lewd screenshots, but maybe you're right and Valve starting feeding more data from the community activities that changed the behavior of the algorithm. But... the time just before the biggest sales of the year probably isn't the best time for this kind of tweaking.
PC Gaming Era | December 2018 - We got 99 problems, but 76 ain't one
Probably this.
Honestly something does seem to be wrong with the queue. I've ignored every dev and pub I could for the Hentai/Sakura games and still they show up in my queues...
I'm not offended by this content or anything, but certainly, I have better and more interesting things to spend my time and money on.
Saw this in my IndieGala news feed on Steam so i suppose it could go here?
If the names 100% Orange Juice or Fruitbat Factory mean anything to you then IndieGala are giving away "Xmas Shooting - Scramble!!". If those words mean nothing but you want a light-hearted, strange, cute, whimsical, Bullet-Hell shoot-'em'up with wonder-weapon switchable bunny formations then go for it. If it's like "QP Shooting - Dangerous" It's probably hard and slightly unfair but i haven't played this one so can't say.
Xmas Shooting Scramble!! - IndieGala freebie
If the names 100% Orange Juice or Fruitbat Factory mean anything to you then IndieGala are giving away "Xmas Shooting - Scramble!!". If those words mean nothing but you want a light-hearted, strange, cute, whimsical, Bullet-Hell shoot-'em'up with wonder-weapon switchable bunny formations then go for it. If it's like "QP Shooting - Dangerous" It's probably hard and slightly unfair but i haven't played this one so can't say.
Xmas Shooting Scramble!! - IndieGala freebie
Hacknet would have legit had a case for my GOTY if I had played it whenever it came out.
It also made me download the Hacker Evolution games and Uplink, the floodgates are open. I wonder if the same thing is going to happen when I eventually finally play a VN...
It also made me download the Hacker Evolution games and Uplink, the floodgates are open. I wonder if the same thing is going to happen when I eventually finally play a VN...
Year after year I realize that's Hacknet is a bit of a hidden gem that most of us have in our libraries thanks to a variety of Humble bundles.
If you looked at it and thought, "eh, hacking game, not my thing," give it a chance. It isn't Zachtronics tier. If you're just not a fan of puzzles, or think you're too smooth-brained for them - you're fine. It's doable. I promise.
If you looked at it and thought, "eh, hacking game, not my thing," give it a chance. It isn't Zachtronics tier. If you're just not a fan of puzzles, or think you're too smooth-brained for them - you're fine. It's doable. I promise.
Uplink is great, I just suck at it. Hope you have better luck!
And yes to your VN comment. If you can't wait for the Steam release of Ace Attorney, I'd suggest you start with 999. It has a lot of puzzles, so it's not just reading.
I am *this* close to getting the zero escape trilogy, I'll probably cave before the sale is over even if the price is a bit out of my comfort zone for something I might not enjoy. Although knowing they have actual gameplay and puzzles helps.
"playing a VN" was actually one of my 2018 gaming resolutions, which I completely failed (along with "play a 4X game") so maybe if I actually buy them Ill do it in 2019 lol.
I did try a new genre (if you can call it a genre) in MonHun World tho, which hooked me on the series and I proceeded to play it and later Generations Ultimate a ton, so now that series is basically as day 1 for me as any of my favorites, so who knows.
Hmm, looks like i'm going to buy Zero Escape Bundle this sale. Not buying anything feels really weird!
And finished Mad Father.
That was really good.
And with this I've finished 52 games a year, even without creative counting. I think that's a first for me and I didn't even plan to!
List time~
Steam:
1bitHeart
Alicemare
Bladed Fury
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate HD
Cosmic Star Heroine
DARK SOULS™ III
DRAGON QUEST® XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age™
eden*
Eternal Senia
Graze Counter
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.2 Watanagashi
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.3 Tatarigoroshi
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.4 Himatsubushi
Hunted: The Demon's Forge
LiEat
Little Nightmares
Mad Father
Misao: Definitive Edition
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
Narcissu 10th Anniversary Anthology Project
Nights of Azure
Pharaoh Rebirth+
Rakuen
Resident Evil Revelations / Biohazard Revelations
Shadowrun Returns
SOMA
Sonic Generations
Sound of Drop - fall into poison -
Spellforce - Order of Dawn
Splasher
Subsurface Circular
Tales of Berseria
The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
The Sexy Brutale
The Swapper
The Vagrant
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux
Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity
Umineko When They Cry - Question Arcs
Wuppo
Yakuza 0
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Zwei: The Arges Adventure
軒轅劍外傳穹之扉(The Gate of Firmament)
Origin:
Titanfall 2
Other:
Deltarune
Wii:
Xenoblade Chronicles
That was really good.
And with this I've finished 52 games a year, even without creative counting. I think that's a first for me and I didn't even plan to!
List time~
Steam:
1bitHeart
Alicemare
Bladed Fury
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate HD
Cosmic Star Heroine
DARK SOULS™ III
DRAGON QUEST® XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age™
eden*
Eternal Senia
Graze Counter
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.2 Watanagashi
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.3 Tatarigoroshi
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.4 Himatsubushi
Hunted: The Demon's Forge
LiEat
Little Nightmares
Mad Father
Misao: Definitive Edition
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight
MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
Narcissu 10th Anniversary Anthology Project
Nights of Azure
Pharaoh Rebirth+
Rakuen
Resident Evil Revelations / Biohazard Revelations
Shadowrun Returns
SOMA
Sonic Generations
Sound of Drop - fall into poison -
Spellforce - Order of Dawn
Splasher
Subsurface Circular
Tales of Berseria
The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
The Sexy Brutale
The Swapper
The Vagrant
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux
Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity
Umineko When They Cry - Question Arcs
Wuppo
Yakuza 0
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Zwei: The Arges Adventure
軒轅劍外傳穹之扉(The Gate of Firmament)
Origin:
Titanfall 2
Other:
Deltarune
Wii:
Xenoblade Chronicles
My finished game list:
Pillars of Eternity 2
Forgotton Anne
Book of Demons
Haha, I need to make an effort.XD
Pillars of Eternity 2
Forgotton Anne
Book of Demons
Haha, I need to make an effort.XD
There's no way to keep everyone happy. Valve has to do the best they can to address legitimate concerns but history has shown that there will always be someone complaining.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #1,476
it's not really about that, i think ... it's more about the "visibility" of those that do complain .... and i've been seeing A LOT of devs complain (and retweet others who do) about steam lately
The usual indeed. What troubles me is this: if we consider the audience's attention to be a finite resource, in the sense that customers can't possibly keep up with all new releases, how do you divert attention from one game to another without upsetting the creator of the former? It doesn't matter what type of criteria you use, someone is always going to get the short end of the stick.
Now, I'm guessing the counter-argument will be that Steam should divert the audience's attention away from bad games and towards good games. The problems with this are that a) even if you abolish all of the 'bad' games there will still be a metric ton of good games left, therefore discoverability will not be solved, b) the definition of a 'bad' game is often very subjective and c) sometimes bad games sell very well.
So if any developers are posting here and reading my posts, I'd like to ask them to not just criticize something but suggest possible solutions. Because I fear that many of their issues are only solvable through a Thanos-like solution.
The catch with The Vagrant is, more or less, the publisher. The game used to cost more (15€). Then Sakuragame got it and went with its usual sell games for cheap to make the money on quantity.so I just played about 20mins of The Vagrant, which is on sale for $1.59 / 1.59€, I got it because it looked cool in the pictures and it was cheap enough to take a leap of faith.
Let's get the obvious out of the way right off the bat, the protagonist couldnt be more animu waifu if she tried. Shes basically naked, so surely this is trash bundle fodder right? I expected a simple 2d action game, I did not expect a fully fledged 2d action rpg with great vanillaware style art, npcs to talk to, stores to buy stuff, gear (enchantable gear even apparently), magic skills, a talent tree with various stat passives, cooking system with various food buffs to get and new moves to learn... what's going on here, at first glance this looks like a $15-20 "normal" indie game that given the subject matter would even had made some waves (*cought*ifitwasonswitch*cough*), I keep looking for "the catch" and I can't find one. Oh wait, it must be like 2 hours long right?
welp, that's not it! So unless the game is straight up broken and deletes your save or something, which given the very positive reviews on steam is probably not a thing, again I dont get it, The gameplay seems fine from what I played, if a little loose (also the lady's dash attack makes her cross the entire screen which messes with my positioning) and enemies dont block your path so you can pass through sprites which again makes adjusting for attack postioning weird, but those are small things in a otherwise enjoyable game (again, from the 20 or so minutes I played).
I'm struggling to wrap my head around the game's low base price (and in this case, sale price). But hey, one fiddy for a vanillaware-style 2d action game is not shabby at all especially since those dont usually land on PC.
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OP
- Thread Starter
- #1,481
i think most of those devs just see all those animu tiddy puzzle games getting recommended (and actually being in top sellers from time to time) and are getting upset about volvo recommending/promoting those games instead of their games .... and that algorithm change in October where apparently everyone's discoverability plummeted and hasn't recovered (even though volvo said it's fixed now)
So, I've played around 2 hours of Star Ocean 4. I like it so far.
Combat is really fun, and I like the auxiliary systems so far - crafting/inventing, the crystal board, field skills, collecting monster data,...
And I've probably only scratched the surface.
Story setup is promising, japanese voices being available is great (I've heard some of the English VA, and.... *shudders*).
Graphics are impressive in places and pretty good in others, though the ingame character faces range from "fine" to "creepy".
Also the "Classic" visual style >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Modern". That Enami art
Combat is really fun, and I like the auxiliary systems so far - crafting/inventing, the crystal board, field skills, collecting monster data,...
And I've probably only scratched the surface.
Story setup is promising, japanese voices being available is great (I've heard some of the English VA, and.... *shudders*).
Graphics are impressive in places and pretty good in others, though the ingame character faces range from "fine" to "creepy".
Also the "Classic" visual style >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Modern". That Enami art
Another issue is the radicalization of discussion. Some devs feel that only bad things can be said about Steam, and the second you try to bring any of positives to light, you are branded a Valve fanboy and get ignored from then on. Also the other side is free to spread FUD and fabricate some half-truths (at best) at will, correcting which gets the same result.
Really noticeable on ERA.
Really noticeable on ERA.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #1,485
yeah, i noticed that as well ... you can't say anything positive about steam and not see people quoting/screenshotting saying "look at all those steam fanboys"
This sale the queue has been even more weird than usual for me, showing me a lot of those cheap, uninteresting hentai (in name only) puzzle games the first couple of days. I'd blame myself because I just click next when I see a game I'm not interested in (I'm in the queue for the cards primarily, not to discover games) and wishlist those that actually catch my interest in the few seconds of attention I give each page (I give them more attention if I'm not in a hurry to get my cards and if the title/video/pictures look interesting then i might stop there to read a bit about the game), almost never hitting the ignore/not interested button but as I look at the reason why these games were showing in my queue Steam said it was not because of games I've played, those I've bought, those I've wishlisted, those played/recommended by my friends but just because these games have positive steam reviews, which is a bit of a weak reason to show them to me back to back to back.
I started hitting that not interested/ignore button but then I swear a game I ignored the day before showed up again the day after in one of my 3 daily queues and the ignore button wasn't ticked.
It feels like there is still something weird going behind the scenes.
Speaking of the malcontent toward Valve, I'm going to say that Valve doesn't communicate well with its userbase (which includes both the customers and the developers/publishers) and that doesn't help smoothing things now that a lot of (indie) developers are getting frustrated and even when they do say something, they still do the opposite here and there (opening up to adult content and then banning games without giving a reason to the developers/publishers is simply not a good look, not because they should let everything in but because communicating what the issue is, what's the reason they ban a game, why the review of a game is taking long is necessary and leaving devs in limbo isn't cool, especially when devs see their game in limbo/refused without a reason, while another similar game with similar themes releases without issues) so I can't blame those devs who get annoyed with Valve/Steam.
At the same time, I wish developers were a bit more rational with their complaints.
Take the visibility complaints, which are fair. Steam should facilitate users finding out games and despite improving discoverability, there is still more work that needs to be done but promoting game X isn't Steam/Valve's job. They're a store, getting customers to find the games they might be interested in is their job, everything else (marketing the game) is on the one building the product the store sells.
Then there is the complaint about the 30% Steam takes. It is completely understandable that developers and publishers want more of the cut going their way, but why act as if the 30% Steam takes is akin to theft? Why dismiss all the tools and baseline perks the platform offers developers and the customers purchasing their products?
Why the 30% issue always comes up only in regard to Steam? Developers seem happy to get a console release for their game (30% cut there too), they don't complain about other storefronts where they sell their steamkeys (30% cut there too) or the retail market taking their 30% cut as well. The whole complaint feels as if they want to be on Steam but only because they are forced to be on Steam while they don't really want to be there, to pay for the hosting, the tools, the userbase, the handling of purchases/refunds/scams. It feels like they think they are owed a spot, as if Valve did nothing at all in all this time and Steam became as big as it did just because of luck/fate/chance.
I also keep getting this contrasting feeling from the complaints, as if Steam should both let everyone in because they are this big PC store and be strict with who they let in because those other (indies) aren't worthy to sell next to my game.
It's a very weird feeling watching from the outside and while Valve has to shoulder the blame for some of the animosity (the latest bug, the still subpar communication, among other things), some developers give me this impression as if they have a very skewed perception of not only what a digital storefront should do for the cut they ask for, but also of their own worth/importance and, as shown by the AUD update, even when Valve communicates with devs/pubs, some can't be bothered to act so customers can continue purchasing their games.
Sorry for the rambling, I just wanted to share a bit of what it feels like as an outsider seeing this back and forth between the developers and Steam going on lately.
I started hitting that not interested/ignore button but then I swear a game I ignored the day before showed up again the day after in one of my 3 daily queues and the ignore button wasn't ticked.
It feels like there is still something weird going behind the scenes.
Speaking of the malcontent toward Valve, I'm going to say that Valve doesn't communicate well with its userbase (which includes both the customers and the developers/publishers) and that doesn't help smoothing things now that a lot of (indie) developers are getting frustrated and even when they do say something, they still do the opposite here and there (opening up to adult content and then banning games without giving a reason to the developers/publishers is simply not a good look, not because they should let everything in but because communicating what the issue is, what's the reason they ban a game, why the review of a game is taking long is necessary and leaving devs in limbo isn't cool, especially when devs see their game in limbo/refused without a reason, while another similar game with similar themes releases without issues) so I can't blame those devs who get annoyed with Valve/Steam.
At the same time, I wish developers were a bit more rational with their complaints.
Take the visibility complaints, which are fair. Steam should facilitate users finding out games and despite improving discoverability, there is still more work that needs to be done but promoting game X isn't Steam/Valve's job. They're a store, getting customers to find the games they might be interested in is their job, everything else (marketing the game) is on the one building the product the store sells.
Then there is the complaint about the 30% Steam takes. It is completely understandable that developers and publishers want more of the cut going their way, but why act as if the 30% Steam takes is akin to theft? Why dismiss all the tools and baseline perks the platform offers developers and the customers purchasing their products?
Why the 30% issue always comes up only in regard to Steam? Developers seem happy to get a console release for their game (30% cut there too), they don't complain about other storefronts where they sell their steamkeys (30% cut there too) or the retail market taking their 30% cut as well. The whole complaint feels as if they want to be on Steam but only because they are forced to be on Steam while they don't really want to be there, to pay for the hosting, the tools, the userbase, the handling of purchases/refunds/scams. It feels like they think they are owed a spot, as if Valve did nothing at all in all this time and Steam became as big as it did just because of luck/fate/chance.
I also keep getting this contrasting feeling from the complaints, as if Steam should both let everyone in because they are this big PC store and be strict with who they let in because those other (indies) aren't worthy to sell next to my game.
It's a very weird feeling watching from the outside and while Valve has to shoulder the blame for some of the animosity (the latest bug, the still subpar communication, among other things), some developers give me this impression as if they have a very skewed perception of not only what a digital storefront should do for the cut they ask for, but also of their own worth/importance and, as shown by the AUD update, even when Valve communicates with devs/pubs, some can't be bothered to act so customers can continue purchasing their games.
Sorry for the rambling, I just wanted to share a bit of what it feels like as an outsider seeing this back and forth between the developers and Steam going on lately.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #1,488
sorry for the lazy reply, but i pretty much 100% agree with you
... and you just know that if volvo decided to set prices automatically using their regional pricing guidelines - developers would complain volvo is doing it without consulting/asking them
The thing is that these animu tiddy puzzle games do sell. We may consider them low-quality content but they do have an audience. Anyway, it's all speculation since no one knows how the algorithm works.
Yeah, it's exactly as you described. All developers that ask for curation would immediately backpedal if it meant that their game would stay out of Steam.
I must be the luckiest man of this forum, I do queues regularly and I haven't saw any hentai game so far, the nearest thing was a "waifu blablabla" game that was bought by some people of my friend list so I assume the platform thought I would be interested but I clicked the "ignore" button and that's it.
Maybe I haven't seen any of those games because I tend to curate my store and look for specifically those games just to put use the ignore button. Anyway, I feel like I'm the only one that hasn't been having problems with Stem lately, but to be honest this also happens with horrible ports that work like shit for everyone but me, so yeah, I'm the exception.
Maybe I haven't seen any of those games because I tend to curate my store and look for specifically those games just to put use the ignore button. Anyway, I feel like I'm the only one that hasn't been having problems with Stem lately, but to be honest this also happens with horrible ports that work like shit for everyone but me, so yeah, I'm the exception.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #1,492
yeah, i know ... i'm just telling you what the devs are saying
i'm seeing a lot of that on my twitter timeline
After setting up my preferences setting, I haven't seen a hentai game on my discovery queue or the storefront anymore.
If you were a bit more comfortable with VNs, I'd suggest The House in Fata Morgana, which I played recently and totally blew my mind. But it has A LOT of reading; in fact, there are very few choices, and since it autosaves during them, you can always retry if you screw up. There's really no gameplay to speak of, so I'm not sure this would be a good starting point. Don't get me wrong, I loved it completely (except for the first chapter which was a little boring at times), so if you ever get into the genre you should definitely play it.
Some people also like the Danganronpa series, but I haven't played them (even though I own the first game), so I can't tell you anything about them. Same with Steins;Gate.
I just remembered about Doki Doki Literature Club, which I liked a lot. It's free, so you could give it a try. But, and this is a big but, you may be turned off by the anime aesthetics and dating sim style. I won't say anything more because it would be a spoiler, just know that it's way more interesting that it seems.
Yeah I understand, I'm not responding to you directly, I'm just writing some of my personal thoughts on the matter. I don't use twitter at all so I have no idea what's happening there.yeah, i know ... i'm just telling you what the devs are saying
OP
I mostly bought local co-op games this sale, and that's almost never a waste since we eventually play all of them.
Thanks for the heads-up - wishlisted for whenever I have a craving for dungeon crawlers.
Looks more like a Mysterious Dungeon game with fights in vein of Wizardry.
Also, Durante, any particular reason you don't have DROD on Steam?
Basically, I'm saying 'Do you want DROD on Steam?'
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Well that's done. Also this is post 1,500 in this thread hehe.
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