Games which were patched to greatness?

[endoperez]

In the Wrath of the Righteous thread, AOTRS Commander mentioned how War for the Overworld (a spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper) was "very buggy and incomplete on release (not that they had much choice), patched and supported and is very very close to knocking DK1 off the pillar of one of the best gaems of all time."

I had completely missed out on that one. I had heard about it being in development, I probably heard about it on release, but the reviews were disappointing and as such I passed on it. It looks like it got new patches and content for about three years after the original release - I haven't tried or bought it yet, but I'm definitely intrigued now!

Then there's the famous example of No Man's Sky. It wasn't what the developers promised, when it was released, but they've been pushing further updates with No Man's Sky: Next, and Beyond, and Synthesis. The consensus is that the updates make it much closer to what the players expected, even though it's of course hard to measure up to something as intangible as hype, hope and dreams.

Dwarf Fortress has been in constant development for over a decade, and the Steam version will come with built-in graphics and improved UI. That might finally make it moderately approachable for a much wider audience - many of whom would've been pushed off by the ASCII implementation and keyboard-only control scheme. So not only has the game's actual content changed a lot during the long development, its finally starting to fix the UI and graphical side of things.


I don't actually have any more examples to throw out. Do you guys have any favourite games that you think deserve more attention than they originally got? Did one of your favourites recently get a cool new patch? Well, here's a place for you to boast about why your favourite game was made better by a patch; or even how it became great with the release of certain patches and updates.

[Dienekes]

Total War: Rome II

Originally a buggy mess that made pointless gamist changes to the Total War formula that made the tactical battles feel unreal. Especially with the stupid flag to victory system.

Now the second most played Total War game of all time, just under Total War: Warhammer II.

For Honor, I’d give an honorable mention. Still the most fun sword fighting system I’ve played. But suffered from cost cutting server issues that have since been corrected. And several combat revamps to get it to play as it’s supposed to without one strategy being definitively the best. I’d still say it’s not as good as it’s potential, and a lot of the design choices have annoyed me over the years. But it’s now a fun and functioning game.

[Tome]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker, perhaps? It was a buggy, unbalanced mess on release but patches fixed the bugs, corrected a few of the more egregarious balance issues and added several sorely needed QoL features.

[Man_Over_Game]

Anthem is one I'd put on the list. Although it had a lot of issues and complaints when it first came out, the development team made it into a very decent game. I'd personally say that it's not always my taste of game, but it has a lot going for it. Beautiful game.

Borderlands 3 has definitely been tuned to greatness. Balance on both characters and weapons are a lot better, along with most of the local coop UI issues. They also recently increased the level cap, so there's more reason to go back to it, if you tried it before.

[Gnoman]

Old example, but the flight sim Falcon 4.0 is a major example. The release version was unplayably buggy, particularly for the hardcore enthusiasts it was marketed to (nobody wants to spend thirty minutes doing a full ramp start only to crash as soon as you leave the runway), but patches and rereleases fixed the worst of it. Fan productions derived from the code base remain gold standards for single-player detail sims.

[Aotrs Commander]

This has been largely true for PC games for a long time now, I think. (Console games, are, I think both slightly easier in theory (because of the fixed system architecture) to get stable, and until the last couple of generations, harder to fix if you fracked it up. For course, that said, the inability to patch console games and just having to accept it doesn't itself mean that they don't NEED patching in some cases...)

I think personally, it is rarely worth playing a PC game on release unless you are really keen, even if you buy it then. Very, very few games don't require patching (and those that don't are generally small in scope), and I think one of the flip-sides of Kickstarters is they are prone to this in particular (because just... less resources). At some point, they have to get the game out when the kickstarter money runs out (so they can continue to y'know, have jobs and stuff), and that then fuels the next round or two. Given most kickstartered games tend to be mid-tier at best, I find it wise to give them plenty of time to get everything patched up and I appeciate that means that sometimes, release into the wild is requird before stuff can all be fixed (and also that food has to be put on the table).

I honestly can't recall the last time I played a game as soon as it was released (maybe Dragon Age 1 or Mass Effect 3?) in recent memory. It is now not infequently a year plus after release (sometimes even only once the "final edition" has been released) before I look at something.



That said, I have rather less sympathy (re: none) for "triple AAAAAAAAAAAAAA" games companies than I have for small to mid-tier developers; the former actually do have the money to do the job properly and usually just don't.

[Eldan]

For me, I disliked a lot of the updates to No Man's Sky. What I basically wanted from the game was to walk and fly around, explore, look at stuff like interesting animals and landscapes. Ground vehicles, I can tolerate, but now it wants to force me to build bases and crap like that. Why would I want to build a base when I never intend to stay in one place? I'd rather have more diverse planets and animals.

[Narkis]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker, perhaps? It was a buggy, unbalanced mess on release but patches fixed the bugs, corrected a few of the more egregarious balance issues and added several sorely needed QoL features.

Kingmaker definitely counts. The patches allowed the game underneath the bugs to shine, and that game perfectly captured the spirit of Baldur's Gate in what I can only assume was an unholy necromantic ritual. I can't wait for the sequel.

And I will submit pretty much all Paradox games, but especially Stellaris. On release, it was about 40% of a great game, breaking down completely at the midgame mark. But with all the DLC I'd say it's now about 75% there.

[NeoVid]

I named this phenomenon "The Diablo 3/Final Fantasy 14 Method." They were the first games I know of to be considered total disasters on release that patched so hard they replaced their launch version with what felt like a different game that's actually fun.

I'm glad that quote about a bad game being bad forever is slowly becoming untrue.

[Rynjin]

I named this phenomenon "The Diablo 3/Final Fantasy 14 Method." They were the first games I know of to be considered total disasters on release that patched so hard they replaced their launch version with what felt like a different game that's actually fun.

I'm glad that quote about a bad game being bad forever is slowly becoming untrue.

These are some real good examples. A lot of other things mentioned so far are games that were okay to good before being patched to excellence.

But Diablo 3 and FF XIV are the real **** here. Diablo 3's launch was so infamously bad that there are still people who only remember the game for that launch, and FF XIV flopped so hard that as I recall the entire design team was fired, and of course the setting itself was annihilated in a cataclysm; A Realm Reborn is basically a completely different game.

Now, both are pretty darn good. FF XIV is the MMO I've played by far the most hours of, and I don't even like MMOs very much. It's a pretty big deal to go from a game so bad it nearly killed a studio to the best MMO on the market, and rapidly becoming the most popular.

[Olinser]

In the Wrath of the Righteous thread, AOTRS Commander mentioned how War for the Overworld (a spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper) was "very buggy and incomplete on release (not that they had much choice), patched and supported and is very very close to knocking DK1 off the pillar of one of the best gaems of all time."

I had completely missed out on that one. I had heard about it being in development, I probably heard about it on release, but the reviews were disappointing and as such I passed on it. It looks like it got new patches and content for about three years after the original release - I haven't tried or bought it yet, but I'm definitely intrigued now!

Then there's the famous example of No Man's Sky. It wasn't what the developers promised, when it was released, but they've been pushing further updates with No Man's Sky: Next, and Beyond, and Synthesis. The consensus is that the updates make it much closer to what the players expected, even though it's of course hard to measure up to something as intangible as hype, hope and dreams.

Dwarf Fortress has been in constant development for over a decade, and the Steam version will come with built-in graphics and improved UI. That might finally make it moderately approachable for a much wider audience - many of whom would've been pushed off by the ASCII implementation and keyboard-only control scheme. So not only has the game's actual content changed a lot during the long development, its finally starting to fix the UI and graphical side of things.


I don't actually have any more examples to throw out. Do you guys have any favourite games that you think deserve more attention than they originally got? Did one of your favourites recently get a cool new patch? Well, here's a place for you to boast about why your favourite game was made better by a patch; or even how it became great with the release of certain patches and updates.

I quite enjoyed War for the Overworld. Put it on your wishlist and wait for it to go on sale, it goes on sale pretty regularly.

[endoperez]

Thanks for all the tips, guys!


This has been largely true for PC games for a long time now, I think. )

While patches have been a thing for decades now, often it's already clear on release whether the game is good or bad. Even Fallout 2, which was extremely buggy on release, it made the gameplay experience worse, but it wasn't enough to make it a bad game. Like, there's a difference between bugfixing, and changing gameplay mechanics so the game becomes more fun. Or fun, period, if the game failed at even that.



For me, I disliked a lot of the updates to No Man's Sky. What I basically wanted from the game was to walk and fly around, explore, look at stuff like interesting animals and landscapes. Ground vehicles, I can tolerate, but now it wants to force me to build bases and crap like that. Why would I want to build a base when I never intend to stay in one place? I'd rather have more diverse planets and animals.

Funnily enough, walking and flying around are what I also expected from No Man's Sky. I didn't have the time or the money to check it out, but honestly speaking, I probably would've liked the original release version as well. I haven't looked too much into the expansions, though, so I can't claim that I'd prefer the original experience to the expanded one.

[Man_Over_Game]

But Diablo 3 and FF XIV are the real **** here. Diablo 3's launch was so infamously bad that there are still people who only remember the game for that launch, and FF XIV flopped so hard that as I recall the entire design team was fired, and of course the setting itself was annihilated in a cataclysm; A Realm Reborn is basically a completely different game.

I kinda disagree on D3. There were definitely elements to the game that I didn't like, but I feel like they royally screwed up the difficulty of the game.

When it first came out, literally nobody could get past the 2nd-hardest difficulty. Most people couldn't get past Act 1, and only talented teams could get past Act 2. But it created a true sense of difficulty. Since then, they've been drilling down the difficulty and trying to "add" more/easier difficulty levels for high level players to the point where the game is nearly nonexistent.

"Normal" is nearly impossible to die to. You might as well just stand in a horde and wait 5 minutes without playing the game, and even two difficulties past that is pretty hard to find anything challenging. Late-game content mostly comes down to "What legendaries/sets you can find", and melting hordes of enemies as quickly as possible.

I want to go back to the times when it was insanely hard, when I had to:

Dash in as Monk
Cyclone Strike the enemies towards me
Blind all of the enemies surrounding me. Blind is runed to activate again in 3 seconds.
Attack to gain spirit for the ~5 seconds that they're blinded while trying not to get mulched by 3 attacks.
Run back before the second blind runs out.
Cast Sanctuary somewhere between the badguys and my allied Wizard or Demon Hunter friend who has been dealing all of our damage while I nullified the enemy horde for them. Try to put it against terrain or a wall. This effectively creates a "bunker" for as long as the Sanctuary wall keeps back the tide of badguys.
Run like hell when Sanctuary runs out until my cooldowns are back.


All of the versatility and build potential of the game went out the door when players no longer had to actually try to do anything. I tried going back to it for friends and family, but it just doesn't have the same "game" it once had. It's now a game for grinders and noobies, with little to offer anyone else.

Ironically, this did make a lot more similar to D2, which I guess is what people wanted.

[Eldan]

My problem with No Man's Sky was that it was fun for a few hours, then you noticed that every space station was identical and every planet was more or less the same with a different colour pallette and so were the animals. I didn't think it was a very good game, but the updates didn't improve for me any.

[MCerberus]

My problem with No Man's Sky was that it was fun for a few hours, then you noticed that every space station was identical and every planet was more or less the same with a different colour pallette and so were the animals. I didn't think it was a very good game, but the updates didn't improve for me any.

What I remember about the original NMS was that it had one of the singular most breathtaking moments in gaming in the first time you broke the atmosphere. Everything after that was just a letdown.

OT: I'd like to broaden the recommendation about Total War games from Rome 2 to... all of them. It's something of a meme to never buy a Total War game at launch. From Med2's AI refusing to stack and DOOM Inquisitors to Warhammer 1's incomprehensible diplomatic moon logic.

[Rynjin]

I want to go back to the times when it was insanely hard, when I had to:

Dash in as Monk
Cyclone Strike the enemies towards me
Blind all of the enemies surrounding me. Blind is runed to activate again in 3 seconds.
Attack to gain spirit for the ~5 seconds that they're blinded while trying not to get mulched by 3 attacks.
Run back before the second blind runs out.
Cast Sanctuary somewhere between the badguys and my allied Wizard or Demon Hunter friend who has been dealing all of our damage while I nullified the enemy horde for them. Try to put it against terrain or a wall. This effectively creates a "bunker" for as long as the Sanctuary wall keeps back the tide of badguys.
Run like hell when Sanctuary runs out until my cooldowns are back.


All of the versatility and build potential of the game went out the door when players no longer had to actually try to do anything. I tried going back to it for friends and family, but it just doesn't have the same "game" it once had. It's now a game for grinders and noobies, with little to offer anyone else.


Have you tried not playing on Normal? All difficulties up to Torment II are open from the start; I typically begin Seasonal runs on Master and torque up from there.

Trust me, starting on T2 will give you that experience you want.

[Man_Over_Game]

Have you tried not playing on Normal? All difficulties up to Torment II are open from the start; I typically begin Seasonal runs on Master and torque up from there.

Trust me, starting on T2 will give you that experience you want.

Interesting. It's locked off every time I played and tried to increase the difficulty. The hardest difficulty available for me is Expert, and it just feels so...well, easy.

Maybe it just hasn't been patched on the console or something. I'd feel pretty dang stupid if that was the case.

[Rynjin]

Interesting. It's locked off every time I played and tried to increase the difficulty. The hardest difficulty available for me is Expert, and it just feels so...well, easy.

Maybe it just hasn't been patched on the console or something. I'd feel pretty dang stupid if that was the case.

Could be. If you're on Switch, maybe it's behind on patches?

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Anyone who played Final Fantasy XV (or FF XIV too) will probably be wondering what happened to the game if they played it today.

Final Fantasy XV is one of my favorite games and so many things have been improved! I liked the game when it came out for the most part, but this version is awesome.

[Anteros]

I picked up Diablo 3 on pc a few months ago and everything over expert is indeed locked out. I also quit fairly quickly due to a lack of difficulty.


Anyone who played Final Fantasy XV (or FF XIV too) will probably be wondering what happened to the game if they played it today.

Final Fantasy XV is one of my favorite games and so many things have been improved! I liked the game when it came out for the most part, but this version is awesome.

I just wish that they would have fixed the plot for the second half of the game.

[Rynjin]

I picked up Diablo 3 on pc a few months ago and everything over expert is indeed locked out. I also quit fairly quickly due to a lack of difficulty.

Bizarre.

Do you have Reaper of Souls? Maybe that was a change which came with the DLC and Adventure Mode (the only real way to play the game, IMO).

[Anteros]

Bizarre.

Do you have Reaper of Souls? Maybe that was a change which came with the DLC and Adventure Mode (the only real way to play the game, IMO).

I don't even remember to be honest. I didn't have any interest in playing the necromancer, so I may not have bought it if it was extra.

[heronbpv]

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines comes to mind immediately.
It first started as a messy buggy game, with good potential but prone to freeze while opening doors for example, to one of the most long term unofficially supported games I've ever since (practically since the company responsible went under). There are still patches to this day, and not only do they make the base game more stable (which is almost all it needed, I dare say; being one of the people who finished the vanilla version before playing with the patches), the plus patch option brings a significant amount of extras to spice up the gameplay. It's such a cult classic, legend says that whenever it's mentioned somewhere in a conversation, the people listening will need to install the game again...

[Eldan]

Damn you, now I need to go reinstall it and test the last two years of patches. I've still never played a Nosferatu.

[danzibr]

Anyone who played Final Fantasy XV (or FF XIV too) will probably be wondering what happened to the game if they played it today.

Final Fantasy XV is one of my favorite games and so many things have been improved! I liked the game when it came out for the most part, but this version is awesome.
I beat it shortly after it came out, then saw all the cool stuff they did. Motivated me for a NG+ (not that I've done it yet).

I just wish that they would have fixed the plot for the second half of the game.
Ya think they would've learned their lesson with XenoGears...

I'd toss out River City Ransom: Underground. It was buggy, had some severe gameplay issues, and uhh, since then they added more content and stuff.

I might not say it's been patched to *greatness*, but it sure came a long way.

[LuckGuy]

Falcon 4, absolutely.

Stellaris is a funny one, because they patched it to greatness, then broke it, then worked back to greatness, then broke it, with the cycle showing no signs of slowing down. It is like Mass Effect, except the developers are the Reapers.

[Man_Over_Game]

Bizarre.

Do you have Reaper of Souls? Maybe that was a change which came with the DLC and Adventure Mode (the only real way to play the game, IMO).

One of the last times I played it, I did. My buddy was playing the Necromancer. There was also Adventure Mode included, although were never actually did it.


I don't even remember to be honest. I didn't have any interest in playing the necromancer, so I may not have bought it if it was extra.

Good call. The Necromancer is pretty broken. It adds this new mechanic where dead enemies leave behind these corpses that you can expend to fuel your powers. The most busted of which was Bone Spears, dealing 2000% damage, homed in on a random enemy, has no cooldown and costing no mana.

So you killed one enemy, Bone Spear, mulches the enemy it hits, creates a new corpse. You basically spam one button, watch a bunch of random bone spears fly, and...that's it. That's before including some of the other powers that actually generate corpses for you.

Not to mention that your first basic attack is a quick ranged AOE that kills most things in 2 hits, has about as much range as your screen, and has the AOE size of the Witch Doctor's Grasp of the Dead (your slowing zombie pool).

Better pets than the Witch Doctor, more damage than either the Wizard or the Demon Hunter, more defensive options than both. It even had a melee build. I guess if you just want to steamroll the game, it's fine.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I picked up Diablo 3 on pc a few months ago and everything over expert is indeed locked out. I also quit fairly quickly due to a lack of difficulty.



I just wish that they would have fixed the plot for the second half of the game.

Plot was fine and stuff with Luna was added in. I love what they did with Ardyn from day one and that they confirmed a very, very, popular fan theory.


I beat it shortly after it came out, then saw all the cool stuff they did. Motivated me for a NG+ (not that I've done it yet).



Being able to play as Prompto with his rocket launcher was enough to get me to play again.

[Man_Over_Game]

Being able to play as Prompto with his rocket launcher was enough to get me to play again.

Lol, the game became so much easier by playing the other characters. Sure, Noctis had some cool stuff he could do with this swords, but I could definitely take out stuff far beyond my power level just by swapping to one of the sidekicks and just playing them correctly. Kiting backwards while blasting away things as Prompto, or just blocking insane amounts of damage as Gladio just felt so damn satisfying.

Weirdly enough, Noctis feels like he doesn't do anything well in comparison except maybe attack flying enemies or wield a sword, and even a minor mistake was often enough to start losing.

[Tvtyrant]

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines comes to mind immediately.
It first started as a messy buggy game, with good potential but prone to freeze while opening doors for example, to one of the most long term unofficially supported games I've ever since (practically since the company responsible went under). There are still patches to this day, and not only do they make the base game more stable (which is almost all it needed, I dare say; being one of the people who finished the vanilla version before playing with the patches), the plus patch option brings a significant amount of extras to spice up the gameplay. It's such a cult classic, legend says that whenever it's mentioned somewhere in a conversation, the people listening will need to install the game again...
I still listen to the Deb of Night when playing other games.

[Rynjin]

One of the last times I played it, I did. My buddy was playing the Necromancer. There was also Adventure Mode included, although were never actually did it.



Good call. The Necromancer is pretty broken. It adds this new mechanic where dead enemies leave behind these corpses that you can expend to fuel your powers. The most busted of which was Bone Spears, dealing 2000% damage, homed in on a random enemy, has no cooldown and costing no mana.

So you killed one enemy, Bone Spear, mulches the enemy it hits, creates a new corpse. You basically spam one button, watch a bunch of random bone spears fly, and...that's it. That's before including some of the other powers that actually generate corpses for you.

Not to mention that your first basic attack is a quick ranged AOE that kills most things in 2 hits, has about as much range as your screen, and has the AOE size of the Witch Doctor's Grasp of the Dead (your slowing zombie pool).

Better pets than the Witch Doctor, more damage than either the Wizard or the Demon Hunter, more defensive options than both. It even had a melee build. I guess if you just want to steamroll the game, it's fine.

Necro is actually currently one of the weaker classes on T13+ and in Greater Rifts.

[heronbpv]

I still listen to the Deb of Night when playing other games.

I do so while in game, myself. It never gets old! xD

[Anteros]

Lol, the game became so much easier by playing the other characters. Sure, Noctis had some cool stuff he could do with this swords, but I could definitely take out stuff far beyond my power level just by swapping to one of the sidekicks and just playing them correctly. Kiting backwards while blasting away things as Prompto, or just blocking insane amounts of damage as Gladio just felt so damn satisfying.

Weirdly enough, Noctis feels like he doesn't do anything well in comparison except maybe attack flying enemies or wield a sword, and even a minor mistake was often enough to start losing.

I do prefer Noctis to the others just for his versatility and mobility. Plus his combat system is a lot deeper than the others which are all 1 of 2 trick ponies. They're good tricks though.

[MCerberus]

Oh, a lot of talk about FF14 here, but it should be noted that WoW's continued success after launch was in no small part due to a successive number of patches that redid pretty much every mechanic in the game slowly. On top of that original WoW was notoriously empty at level 60 and had some extremely poor decisions made about the original raid content. Hell it launched without a meaningful pvp system.

[AlanBruce]

I wouldn’t say patched to greatness, but maybe...to less cheeseness?

Sekiro’s the Corrupted Monk fight.

If you have played the game, you fight the Corrupted Monk twice- first as an illusion. Much later, the real deal. And the real monk has 3 health bars. This, combined with his attack style made for a tough fight.

And then the cheese came in.

You could end the battle in under a minute by stealth killing his 2 first health bars in an incredibly easy way. Fromsoft took notice quickly and patched the monk so he couldn’t be killed that way.

Is it a harder battle because of it? Sure, but far more rewarding when you beat her.

[thracian]

I dunno, finding an exploit in a game has always felt pretty rewarding to me.

[danzibr]

Oh, a lot of talk about FF14 here, but it should be noted that WoW's continued success after launch was in no small part due to a successive number of patches that redid pretty much every mechanic in the game slowly. On top of that original WoW was notoriously empty at level 60 and had some extremely poor decisions made about the original raid content. Hell it launched without a meaningful pvp system.
Called it!

I played WoW from BC to Legion. While I didn't approve of a couple changes (grumble grumble Combat -> pirate grumble grumble), the quality of life changes throughout the years really made the game more enjoyable.

[MCerberus]

Called it!

I played WoW from BC to Legion. While I didn't approve of a couple changes (grumble grumble Combat -> pirate grumble grumble), the quality of life changes throughout the years really made the game more enjoyable.

Oh man, the stories. The STORIES I can tell you from vanilla.
Flight paths didn't connect to each other. You could only ever fly one hop at a time, and you had to know what your destination flight path connected to out of memory.
Discipline... was a melee tree.

[The_Snark]

I picked up Diablo 3 on pc a few months ago and everything over expert is indeed locked out. I also quit fairly quickly due to a lack of difficulty.

I remember running into this. Eventually I found that for some strange reason it wouldn't let me increase the difficulty above Expert while I was in-game, but when I did it in the starting menu it worked fine. Sounds like that might be it?

That said, I found the difficulty settings in Diablo 3 to be a little unsatisfying. When you've got it set too low, enemies explode in one hit and even bosses have trouble so much as denting your health bar, when you've got it set too high the reverse is true, and the middle ground which ought to be ideal often ends up as "enemies are moderately to very threatening, and they all have a ton of health so it takes forever to whittle them down". Which just ends up feeling tedious. And it's not like I was playing a tanky class, either, most of my experience was as a wizard.

[Rynjin]

I remember running into this. Eventually I found that for some strange reason it wouldn't let me increase the difficulty above Expert while I was in-game, but when I did it in the starting menu it worked fine. Sounds like that might be it?

Oh, were you guys trying to change the difficulty in game? Yeah, you can torque difficulty down in game, but not up.

[Knaight]

Moving away from the Diablo III discussion, Age of Wonders III fits this perfectly. Patches added feature after feature, dramatically improved the units at the intersection of race and class (which used to just be nigh identical class units with different models), improved balance, etc.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Total War: Rome II

Originally a buggy mess that made pointless gamist changes to the Total War formula that made the tactical battles feel unreal. Especially with the stupid flag to victory system.

Now the second most played Total War game of all time, just under Total War: Warhammer II.
I'll second this and add Total War: Attila. Just as much of a buggy mess as Rome II, but has since greatly improved over time, with some of its features even being ported back to Rome II, along with a rounded-out roster of factions that broke up the sameiness that initially plagued it.

I still haven't actually won the campaign (or even the TUTORIAL), though, because it's still one of the most difficult Total War games, even at its easiest difficulty...

[Rydiro]

That said, I found the difficulty settings in Diablo 3 to be a little unsatisfying. When you've got it set too low, enemies explode in one hit and even bosses have trouble so much as denting your health bar, when you've got it set too high the reverse is true, and the middle ground which ought to be ideal often ends up as "enemies are moderately to very threatening, and they all have a ton of health so it takes forever to whittle them down". Which just ends up feeling tedious. And it's not like I was playing a tanky class, either, most of my experience was as a wizard.There is a good difficulty to be found in pushing greater rifts. You are up against the timer; miss a beat and you die (basically just a time penalty); You need to kill the monsters and the boss in 15 min. I literally made it sometimes in fractions of seconds. Like .13 seconds left.

[Morty]

Not sure if it counts, but Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire received a lot of patched improvements, which I guess is par for the course for Obsidian.

[Anteros]

Not sure if it counts, but Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire received a lot of patched improvements, which I guess is par for the course for Obsidian.

Obsidian is in this really weird place where they make some of my favorite games...but I also don't trust the games that they release to be actually finished. I don't buy anything from them anymore until tons of reviews are out because despite making some of my all time favorites, they just don't deserve my trust.

[Rodin]

Edit: Wrong thread, whoops. Feel free to delete mods.