#that's happened a lot with dbd. despite my grievances with the game. I still love it and recognise that it's not always the devs' faults.

[forcedhesitation]

the whole argument that the devs continually adding new content/features to the game is "pandering to fans" or "unhealthy for the game" is ridiculous in general. they're doing this shit for free, we aren't paying for any of these changes- changes & features that improve the overall quality of the game.

of course this doesn't mean you can't continue to ask for better! or continue to report bugs! or suggest changes that would improve quality of life! as previously mentioned, I still hope to see some improvements to wyll & karlach's routes, because they have so much less content than the other companions! but I'm not going to sit and pretend that what changes they have made have been unhealthy for the game or that larian is overall out of touch with their community.

you know what was out of touch with a community? bhvr nearly nerfing two addons on a killer in dead by daylight that almost no one plays. those addons do not make the killer OP, but simply more fun to play. this was all because whoever's in charge of deciding nerfs seems to only look at statistics without contextualising any of those numbers. that's out of touch. an entire community should not have to make a massive uproar and petitions just to prevent a change that any player with even a basic understanding of how the killer role works would never endorse. THAT is out of touch.

you know what's unhealthy? the way that dead by daylight has to consider profit when balancing perks. the fact that survivors had an obnoxious haste boosting perk that went untouched for MONTHS all because that perk came from a non-licensed chapter that they wanted to increase the profit from is unhealthy. the fact that bhvr has repeatedly stated that the most useless and weak killer in the game is "perfectly fine" is beyond ridiculous and unhealthy. the fact that certain extremely powerful perks with unfair features (like STBFL or adrenaline) have still not been nerfed is unhealthy. the fact that it's taken years for them to even entertain nerfing the numerous, outrageously strong addons of one of the most powerful killers in the game is unhealthy.

larian trying to improve the experience of a one-time payment game for new and existing players by acknowledging exploits in reasonable ways, adding additional content where it's relatively easy and feasible to do (unique kisses, the epilogue), and continuously implementing great quality of life changes (simplifying combat & indicating turns more clearly, the magic mirror) is not unhealthy. it's smart. it's more than you'll get from practically any other game.

so yeah. it could be better. but it's nowhere near as bad as it could be.

the “criticism” that larian should never have added good minthara recruitment and that that was just “pandering” to fans is so unbelievably ridiculous. what else were they supposed to do about the sheepthara exploit?? attempt to patch it out and likely fuck up plenty of people’s game files? the solution they offered literally just acknowledges the exploit without dramatically changing anything, other than the player’s ability to have both minthara and halsin in their camp. if you want to kill minthara, recruit halsin, and play an authentic good run, then do so. if you want to abandon halsin, attack the grove, and authentically recruit minthara, then do so. the sheepthara method being simplified and added into the game has absolutely zero bearing on anyone’s ability to play the game normally. some people are just making a problem out of nothing. perhaps go complain about something actually worthwhile, like the lack of content for wyll and karlach.