The difficulty with voting with your wallet

On a youtube video about review bombing and how it was just about the only way for players to communicate displeasure with developers and publishers, another user talked about why companies did not want to tell about micro-transactions and other impopular elements of games. That it was naturally because just telling would show that we were being ripped off ("burned") and we should vote with our wallets and either not buy or if we already ahd, then stop playing and leave.
I made the following comment.

There is a problem with voting with your wallet. At least if you want another game in the series. There is no certainty that they will make another game in the series. Look at Mass Effect Andromeda. It didn't get good reviews and so didn't get good (enough) sales and now the series might be dead. So, sure it stops you from getting burned again, but it might not get you what you want. Not saying it isn't the best option, just that it might not be a good option.

The user replied that while this is a problem, what can you do as a consumer? If their next game of choice arrives with micro-transaction, they will just have to no buy it. And that in a capitalist world, the only way to show they publishers might be to let franchises die.
They concluded with telling me to feel free to explain to them why DLC and micro-transactions feel like such a ripoff, why a game like Fallout 76 selling for 60$ needs to charge 20$ for a single cosmetic item.

I'm not in any way a fan of overpriced micro-transactions. They argue that the whales keep the price down for the rest. Is this true? I do not know. I know i do not think they are not as bad as buying weapons and the like. (20$ is a rip-off however.)

Part of me wonders if what is needed is for players to do the market research for them. Or even further promise purchases if x, y, z is delivered. ("I promise to buy the game if it is delivered without micro-transactions and on steam."), the other part thinks even this is not something that would work.

You probably have a point in that series need to be allowed to die over including micro-transactions, but it might need to be basically the whole industry. PC, console and mobile.

And i think the last one is most important. Mobile games take less resources to create and is where micro-transactions seem most accepted. Where else would you accept buy more energy? (Or rather buying premium currency to buy energy.) And i don't doubt it leaves companies wondering "Why can't we have that?" And that is the problem, why shouldn't they? If a triple-A game on PC costs tens of millions to produce while a Mobile game costs hundreds of thousands (i can't imagine more), while reaping the profits of continuous micro-transactions, why should publishers want to sell Triple-A PC games without micro-transactions?

It kind of makes you wonder if micro-transaction-less games are the exception over time. When did arcades go out of style?

Life is strange and analytical timetravel

Bit late but i just got the game on sale.
The game is emotional but it mainly comes from two tragic sequences.
The sub-timeline of trying to save Chloes biological father and the ending.

i stumbled on a video on youtube for a happy ending to the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3kZ138J_1M

Someone commented that they didn't think this ending should be easy to get possibly require a second playthrough. and the videoposter agreed, saying one should have to 100% the game to get it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3kZ138J_1M&lc=Ugxg-ggqxfWrWAx1aW54AaABAg

I only kind of agree that it should be a second playthrough.
This is something that would be very difficult/expensive to achieve (as in develop) but what bothered me is Max never tries to find the limits of her power. (Granted, till the end she has no indication that there is any.)
In the timeline where she saves Chloes biological father, she tries it once and gives up. i was going "how about establishing some connection? trying to give herself something to act on to stop Chloes accident?"
She does have access to her 13 year old self. She could have made it an annual thing that she came back and stayed with the Price family around that date and that she takes a photo each year. Or for a lesser change that she at least called Chloe regularly (with a photo before each phonecall.)
Either of these would have allowed her to travel back and influence Chloe and try to avert her accident, with the old photo incase she needs to change more.
And at this point she has no idea that travelling too much is a bad idea.
In short, Max doesn't try to get it right.

And it is the same with the end and the tornado. How much is too much? Is she not able to time travel at all without causing it? Is she able to do it once in a while? Can she do it as much as she likes as long as the timeline stays about the same? Can she get away with a small tornado by just doing something like what is in this video?

Yes, Max is emotional at these points but emotional can drive you in different directions.

I guess my wish would be a third option at the end of the first playthrough where Max goes "No! i can fix this!" and that is the start of a second playthrough where the first choice is how Max tries to limit herself, "fewer changes or smaller changes? Maybe less frequent changes?" and if you fail you end up back at the tornado scene. Possibly with a smaller tornado.) Of course it would require the developers to allow there to be a happy(happier) ending.

If we want to lock it behind extra playthroughs, maybe each playthrough would only unlock a clue. "maybe if i do this....."

This is of course all beside the point of what the developers were going for but the sad endings stray very close to idiot-plotting, where characters have to idiotically not talk to each other for the plot to work.

Unless of course Max cannot time travel at all without causing the tornado at full size, which would be an easy choice for the developer but that developer choice tangents something that annoys me with Far Cry 5, "the best choice is not to play", that is, the best choice is to do nothing even though you can. And in Life is Strange it is even worse because they give you a power and then, in the end, tell you that it is something you shouldn't use. (At all if you sacrifice Chloe and anymore if you sacrifice Arcadia, unless you're willing to sacrifice more towns.)

Min/max and allround

When i play rpgs i tend to go for the consistant damage. I don't want extra critical chance unless i'm allowed to get it up to say 80 percent. I'd prefer to increase ny base damage by some percentage.

Also i enjoy skillbased levelling so i can be allround as opposed to the pseudo min-maxer they have planned out.
Partially this is because i do not enjoy consummables(potions), especially in a consistant world setting and so want som healing.
But no generally the developers balance by giving specific roles. Further they balance by putting limits on how far a skill can be taken.

It would be interesting with a rpg where one could continue to advance in a skill rather than having to replace it after a few levels.

New skills shouldn't entice with being stronger because the earlier ones stopped advancing, they should entice by being special in some way.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be benefits to specializing, especially in a group, but it shouldn't be enforced.

Rift soul system and rogues in general.

Rift gives the player a set of souls to chose from that can be combined in different ways. This lets the give partial customization where they linit the player with what each soul can do.

How could this be done in reverse?

The player chooses a type of attack (say charged bolt), element and effect? The game limits damage and such based on player level and player input on cost etc. (Hmm, elder scrolls? ).

Distinguish between charged and channeled. Charged spends a moment to gather energy then does a larger effect, channeled continously does a smaller effect. Wirh channeled it doesn't matter if you are interrupted because you don't loose anything. With charged you risk loosing that larger effect (or if dev is kind, you simply get a timepenalty).

Easy (well, easiest) to do for mages.

For rogues i am curious about tiered buildup / attackpatterns. You start with A which lets you do B which lets you do C or D. How many on lowest level? 3? How many tiers? How many different attacks?  Maybe have it that A also unlocks tier two of A? So the player can choose to go A-A2-A3 etc?  Or have A give an effect? That effect is needed for B but also enhances A to sort of A level 2? Say A enhances accuracy, B enhances speed, C enhances damage. So the player can choose to go for more and more accuracy (enhancing crit%) or switch between the three.

Rift soul system and rogues in general.

Rift gives the player a set of souls to chose from that can be combined in different ways. This lets the give partial customization where they linit the player with what each soul can do.

How could this be done in reverse?

The player chooses a type of attack (say charged bolt), element and effect? The game limits damage and such based on player level and player input on cost etc. (Hmm, elder scrolls? ).

Distinguish between charged and channeled. Charged spends a moment to gather energy then does a larger effect, channeled continously does a smaller effect. Wirh channeled it doesn't matter if you are interrupted because you don't loose anything. With charged you risk loosing that larger effect (or if dev is kind, you simply get a timepenalty).

Easy (well, easiest) to do for mages.

For rogues i am curious about tiered buildup / attackpatterns. You start with A which lets you do B which lets you do C or D. How many on lowest level? 3? How many tiers? How many different attacks?  Maybe have it that A also unlocks tier two of A? So the player can choose to go A-A2-A3 etc?  Or have A give an effect? That effect is needed for B but also enhances A to sort of A level 2? Say A enhances accuracy, B enhances speed, C enhances damage. So the player can choose to go for more and more accuracy (enhancing crit%) or switch between the three.

Limiting

A further advantage of limiting how many powers the user can have active (and further such neverwinter tier them) is that it makes the ones you do have more special.

It also gives an argument for the lowest tiet (spam tier) being continous. If it isn't you are just going to cast it again anyway.

Rotations

Been playing a "rogue" in swtor and as they give me more abilities i'm starting to realize that while i do enjoy rotations
1. It is not clear enough for me. I want it as 1-2-3-4. If i remember correctly age of conan dis this well.
2. I do not enjoy deep rotations. I want.me right hand on the mouse and me left hand stationary on left side of keyboard.

Also i do not enjoy having everything on cooldown. Especially global cooldown.
Neverwinter does this well. It lets you have 2 attacks that you can do constantly and those continue as long as the button is pressed rather than happening and then waiting for cooldown.
Then it gives you up to 4 special attacks that are on individual cooldowns along with two extra specials who share a chargeup.
Of course there are many to chose from but they have to be slotted into those slotts.

Edit: and the reason i like the neverwinter approach more is because it lets me feel i am doing something the whole time while letting me watch the world rather than having to watch the attacks the whole time.