Dauntless has launched on Steam, and smashed straight into a huge brick wall that claims “Overwhelmingly damaging.” The co-op looking recreation, which has been accessible to play since August 2017 however is new to Steam, has over just a few days collected almost 1,000 damaging opinions they usually’re all concerning the main overhaul Dauntless obtained for this lunch. The brief model: Everybody, and I imply everybody, hates what it is achieved.
The complaints revolve across the double-whammy of the Steam relaunch seeing progress reset for gamers, which isn’t the primary time Dauntless has pulled that trick, alongside a brand new monetisation mannequin that does sound just a little bit a lot.
“All weapons you had within the recreation are taken from you,” says Dragontooth562. “Weapons are locked behind a $20 pay wall. (Aside from the beginning 7). Eliminated a variety of weapons (Sure those you like and grinded for) […] This recreation was a primary instance of a recreation that by no means wanted to be touched and was ruined, replace by replace.”
The Steam relaunch and the modifications to the sport additionally got here shortly after gamers found that developer Phoenix Labs, based by Riot alumni, had been acquired in 2023 in an unannounced deal, and its guardian firm is now Forte. Forte is a blockchain firm and, erm, in accordance to a Sport Developer report Phoenix Labs employees had been ordered to maintain silent concerning the acquisition, which is at all times a optimistic signal.
“This replace is well, out of each recreation I’ve ever performed, the worst one I’ve ever seen,” notes Steam consumer Saturniidae. “Nevertheless it was the primary replace that got here out after a brand new firm purchased Phoenix, who was a blockchain/NFT group. Effectively they’ve nonetheless had their fingers in video games that had nothing to do with crypto stuff, like…. oh all these video games closed down very quickly after. Hmm.”
OK, so issues weren’t going nicely. The developer then issued a letter to the neighborhood searching for to justify the modifications made to the sport, and it is solely thrown gasoline on the fireplace. Phoenix Labs says the nice reset is so all gamers must do the tutorials for the brand new methods, and I am not kidding: “We needed to make sure that even veteran gamers would have and take the time to dig into the brand new and complicated methods earlier than leaping straight into the hunt doubtlessly with non-ideal gear set-ups, due to this fact encountering a level of problem that may be counter to a optimistic gameplay expertise.”
This went down in addition to you’d assume. Phoenix clearly is aware of individuals are fuming about this, however the most effective it might supply is the marginally weaksauce concept that veterans will race by means of this content material anyway. Nice I assume? Lastly the developer does acknowledge a difficulty with gamers accessing chain blades, strikers or repeater weapons with out an in-game buy, and says it is made a change to grant pre-Awakening gamers variations of those.
The pretty lengthy missive mainly simply explains all of the modifications and why Phoenix Labs thinks they’re nice anyway. An particularly bum be aware is when it addresses the complaints about new Canisters being loot containers, and says “Canisters are certainly loot containers, nonetheless, our staff has taken a really cautious method.”
For sure, the letter has not had the specified impact. “The contents of this huge textual content dump quantity to ‘that is how the sport works, that is what you hate concerning the new Dauntless,'” huffs Umbra. “That is it. Not ‘we’ll change this,’ or ‘we’ll repair this,’ simply ‘that is how a loot field works; you do not HAVE to purchase it.’ Yeah, we KNOW how a loot field works. We do not need them right here. The brand new gameplay is, in my view, fairly good. The brand new monetization mannequin is canine shit.”
Dauntless is because of obtain a giant replace on December 19, and Phoenix Labs hopes to handle a few of the points gamers have: However there are clearly some larger issues right here that appear past a little bit of patching. I ought to level out that the sport has at all times been pitched as a free-to-play different to Monster Hunter, so it isn’t just like the grumbles about monetisation are new. PCG’s Wes Fenlon, as effective a hunter as you will discover, took Dauntless for a spin just a few years again and, whereas he discovered loads to love concerning the recreation, the nickel-and-diming bought just a little an excessive amount of:
“As soon as once I booted up Dauntless, and as soon as once I merely returned from a hunt, it threw up adverts for its ‘ELITE TRACK BUNDLE.’ On the display on the finish of each hunt, it reveals me how I am not getting a bonus as a result of I haven’t got the Fortnite-inspired Elite Hunt Cross […] Monster Hunter has cats that cook dinner me gigantic steaks; Dauntless has this man who desires me to spend $9.99 on Platinum. Sure, it is an unfair comparability, however solely one in every of them fills me with pleasure.”
Dauntless nonetheless gained over a sizeable playerbase and has been a going concern for seven years now: So there may be clearly recreation someplace in there. However a launch that ought to’ve introduced it to a a lot wider playerbase, and perhaps even seen it win some veterans again, has attracted all of the incorrect kind of consideration. Per SteamDB the sport at the moment has simply over 400 gamers. Phoenix Labs could nicely really feel the modifications it is made to the sport are justified, however it’s bought an extended method to go to persuade its gamers.
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