It's like the people complaining about the micro-transactions in Dragon's Dogma 2.. You don't have to buy them.
If you don't like story points, don't use any?
I don't necessarily disagree with the rest, but this is quite possibly the worst argument you could make for it! AAA game devs consistently mess up the balancing and pacing of the base game in pursuit of selling more microtransactions yes, even in single player games. The typical move is to make the game less convenient and add annoyances and problems, then sell the solutions for real money, which they did. It doesn't matter at all whether you "have" to buy them, it aligns the dev and publisher's incentives towards making the game worse! Running defence for a billion dollar AAA corps making games worse to make more money is so weird, still don't really understand why do people do this.
The argument I'm making is: Don't use story points if you think they make the game too easy. That was a really big gas-light attempt by you, don't obsess over micro transactions. I just used that as an example of 'something being in a game that you don't have to pursue'. Do you not like story points, why exactly? Be clear in your argument. This is a conversation about story points not insidious AAA corporation agendas and greedy finance strategies.
People genuinely defending this kind of microtransactions in a 70 USD AAA title gives me zero hope for the future of gaming.
I don't think I am defending micro transactions, I hate them too. In terms of Dragon's Dogma for example (I've waited years for DD2) - people complained and focused about 95% of the negativity towards the micro transactions, when the game had bigger issues like performance problems and Denuvo anti-cheat resource hogging software. I actively fight against micro transactions by not supporting them and not purchasing them.
I've also put thousands of hours into Dragons Dogma, played and completed all of the Dark Arisen content and waited with great anticipation for DD2. I didn't purchase the game due to the negative steam reviews, which were mostly people complaining about aggressive micro transactions. Personally that wouldn't of bothered me because I would of just ignored them. But in reality the game had much bigger problems such as poor performance and lack of starting a new game etc..
The entire argument of "Well you don't have to use <insert whatever system>" is irrelevant. People use this to whitewash issues with games everywhere and it's silly.
In the case of s-points, it's just a ridiculous argument. It's a system in the game, the player should be expected to utilize them in varying capacities. If they change the game in a way that's undesirable, telling players to just not use them instead of acknowledging that there might be a problem is ignoring the topic entirely.
My suggestion is a pretty easy / quick solution that doesn't upset the player base that actually enjoys s-points and gives at least an option for people that don't like them and requires no code changes on Alex's part.
What are you suggesting exactly? How am I avoiding the issue entirely?
Do you want:
- Remove story points completely? (Large change it's ingrained in a lot of stuff ATM)
- Add a tick box in the options to not use story points (Possibly a larger change, littering if() conditional logic through the codebase, turning off story points in all the different screens and dialog)
- Have a version of star sector available for download / purchase that doesn't have the story point mechanic? (Old historical versions?)
- Nerf story points so they aren't used in certain situations? (Escaping a big fleet or embedding s-mods?)
I could produce loads of other examples of solutions, a little different to just moaning about a problem and not suggesting any feedback. Rather than just gas-lighting and moaning, be specific about what you don't like then suggest some solutions for those problems.
If there's a chocolate bar downstairs do you have to eat it just because you know it's downstairs? Are you going to complain to people that it exists and that it shouldn't exist? or do you have some will power and choose to not eat it? That's the entire basis of your argument at the moment.