Recent reviews by ๖Un1ty

The 4.0 update is a change that nobody asked for. Despite this, we still received it anyway.

The economy overhaul is nonsensical, and the balance is broken. So many buildings, districts, civics, policies, mechanics, etc are either broken or unbalanced to the point of absurdity. Multiplayer desync is a common occurrence, and was supposedly even worse on 4.0 release before the last few hotfixes. The new planetary UI is just straight up worse. The whole point of the 4.0 pop changes was supposed to be about improving tick performance, yet in 4.0, tick performance and late game lag is currently significantly worse than in 3.14. Sure, I do believe they will fix it over time, as they get patches out: but why? Why was this necessary? How long will it take before the balance stops being nonsensical, and all the systems work, and everything is up to the same standard of quality as 3.14? The 4.0 update was so obviously rushed out the door by upper management to meet the DLC release schedule, and nothing more.

I have to leave a negative review on principle, in spite of the fact that I like Stellaris.

To put it simply:
Paradox slashed the tires on our car, then gave us square tires to replace them. And the square tires are flat.
But don't worry, they are pumping air into them as we speak.

I want to say first that Barotrauma is a unique and good game, the type of game that AAA companies wouldn't make, the kind they would likely never even consider to make. That is ok, because this kind of game doesn't have to be a big thing, it just has to be its own thing, and be its own thing well. I wish that more games had the respect for their audience that Barotrauma does.

Before reading further: The game loses something if you are planning to play it solo. For that reason I would generally recommend having at least one other person to play with, ideally two or three. It's a team focused game around crewing a submarine in dangerous waters, dragging it back from the brink of catastrophe and putting out fires (sometimes literally) to keep that rusted tin can of a submarine chugging along just long enough to reach the next safe harbor: it benefits from communication, coordination and that shared experience. Think of the moment in Das Boot when U-96 is stuck on the bottom of the gibraltar strait, the hull groaning under the pressure as the crew scrambles to desperately try and save the submarine. Bots just can't replicate that fully. it won't really be the same, it'll just be silent.

I think Barotrauma is the type of game that is kind of hard to write review for, given that what the individual takes away from it can vary wildly depending on preference. I think it would be good to first say that like many indie games it has its own specific niche it caters to: for some of us, that niche is something it does very well, for others, that niche might not be enough to get past some other aspects. This is not to imply that Barotrauma is a 'diamond in the rough', but it is the type of game where the appeal can largely be derived from whether the atmosphere and the experience are something you think is worth looking for. If a relatively complex-but-simple crew based submarine game about exploring deep into uncharted alien waters is something you find inherently appealing, then the experience that you will likely find is hard to replicate anywhere else. If that kind of thing is not something that excites you, or if submarines in general don't strike your interests, then some of the jankier aspects (the physics, character controls, some of the aspects of the gameplay) will begin to make your experience feel like a chore that dissuades you from going further. The reward you get out of playing the game is that unique atmospheric experience, so if the appeal is lost on you then you may find yourself losing motivation to continue. I think there is a lot depth here if you are willing to dive into it, but if that prospect doesn't seem appealing on it's own, then consider doing some more research into the game before you make any decisions.

I said before that Barotrauma is a niche game that does its niche very well. I also said that the game has respect for its audience. While I won't go into general gameplay mechanics in this review (because it would take too much time), I do want to talk briefly about what made the game so appealing to me. The submarine editor I think is the most in-depth and interesting part of the game, given it allows you to take what is effectively the main character of your story (the submarine) and completely rebuild it from the ground up. Starting from scratch I can create a submarine however I want, handling the hulls, the layouts, the electrical systems and wiring, the automatic control systems and subsystems (through logic components, which allow you to do some really complex things given enough dedication), the ballast and fluid control systems, the decoration and aesthetics, the gun coverage, etc. Some of the things you can do with the tools available to you are really complicated and in-depth, like switcheable periscopes and gun systems, remote-control shuttlecraft and drones, 'overdrive' engine systems, 'silent running', emergency backup power systems, autonomously-controlled submarine guns, moonpools, automatic reactor and temperature control, REGEX-based computer control systems, periscope navigation, etc. As of right now, the workshop has 31,170 player-made submarines uploaded. I have uploaded 7 of my own (they are mid at best). The majority of my hours were in the editor. These kinds of things take hours of effort to make and demonstrate the kind of passion that people have for this game, as well as the depth that the game offers to tailor your experience to you. Some of them are low effort, some of them have problems that have not or cannot be fixed: the game is complicated by nature and not everything will work as you might want it to. But it goes to show just how dedicated people can get to this game, and just how much the game (and its developers) trusts you to do whatever you want with its systems. Want to create creatures of your own? The game has a creature editor for that too. A lot of the game is moddeable, and adding new items, equipment and armors can be as simple as XML and a text editor, depending on what you are making. Once you have an understanding of just how much effort and knowledge goes into the workings of both the systems themselves and the submarine you chose, you gain a sort of profound respect (or disrespect sometimes, ha) for the game that doesn't really seem to go away.

A fun game that has been purposefully and scientifically optimized to be as unfun as humanly possible in order to maximize possible revenue.

This is not an exaggeration. The game is purposefully designed so that vehicles from the tech trees (acquired without paying) will eventually return negative profits in silver lions (the primary free currency of war thunder), meaning that you can and inevitably will join a game, get a 2:1 or higher k/d ratio and end up losing more money than you made to repair costs. This can get to ridiculous extremes with specific vehicles, as Gaijin will 'conveniently' use repair cost as a balancing choice to nerf vehicles which are either powerful or profitable.

What is repair cost? Effectively when whatever vehicle you are controlling gets destroyed, it will cost X amount of silver lions to repair the vehicle so that it can be played again. This cost increases as you unlock upgrades for the vehicle (since non-paid tech three vehicles require you to grind in order to get the full performance of the vehicle). Vehicles have a % modifier for how many silver lions they make from regular actions, such as kills, assists etc. Premium (paid) vehicles have a usually significantly higher % to this gain, with the game being purposefully balanced so that at a certain point, it will become significantly more difficult to break even on repair cost without purchasing premium subscriptions or vehicles, sometimes both. The intent is for free players to barely or never break even at all, Gaijin have literally stated this in their own developer posts.

In order to circumvent this, a free player could also just maintain a high k/d ratio. This is important. In order for a free player to progress at higher levels of play, they will need not only to be skilled but also prevent others from progressing. Repair costs punish the losers, which means that if the game requires a 2 or 3:1 k/d ratio for a free player to progress, then that means 2 to 3 other players must be eating the cost to repair their own vehicles, setting them back in progression. By playing the game better, you make the game worse for everyone else.

That's not to list the numerous ways in which the game is also designed to take your progression (in silver lions) away from you. Vehicle purchase costs, crew train costs to swap to that new vehicle (which exists for no purpose other than to serve as a hidden cost, imagine buying something from amazon and paying a 30% 'convenience' fee), ammunition restocks (admittedly minor most of the time), buying part upgrades that need to be unlocked by playing with that vehicle (which is weaker without those upgrades), crew slots, a teamkill penalty which is purposefully designed to cost both parties (the perpetrator and the victim) to pay the repair cost (the perpetrator is hit with negative sl to cover the cost of repair, but the victim still has to pay for their repair out of their own sl) and the fact that they have consistently nerfed rewards again,

and again,
and again,
and again,

over the course of the games lifespan, culminating in the most recent which saw some vehicles (including paid for premiums) see their reward modifiers halved. Although recently reverted, this change will likely just be snuck into the game in some form or another later down the line. Their consistent behaviour just reinforces the point. As of right now I would be just around the end of tier four of the german air tree, and I already feel as though I have hit that progression wall, where everything slows to a crawl. For reference, there are four more tiers to go till I could reach the top.

War Thunder is a fun game. I have had fun playing it with friends, and I might have fun playing it again in the future. There is nothing wrong with liking War Thunder, or playing it yourself. If you are playing War Thunder and having fun without paying, just know that Gaijin literally considers that unintended / a problem and will do anything in their power to try and frustrate you into forking over money.

Do not give these people money.