Steam+ Deals Mega Thread (All PC Gaming Deals)

Neuro5i5

Neuro5i5

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This thread will attempt to provide a place to discuss past/present/future PC gaming deals. While mainly focusing on Steam games, any standout sales may also be presented. I will not be updating every Daily/Weekly/etc. sale. The tools to help individuals become a smarter shopper will be provided below.

See this POST for links to store sale pages, threads of interest and other tools to help you become a more informed PC game shopper.
 
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walletandgromice said:
I installed greenlight on my steamdeck 2 weeks ago and now I stream from my Xbox series x console without mucking around with cloud streaming. Plus I get console reward points from bed. I'll probably never boot my windows partition again.

Here are the install instructions I used:

Using Greenlight to Stream Your Xbox and xCloud to Steamdeck

📔 Intro # When I got my Steamdeck in mid-2022, I couldn’t find a way to stream my Xbox to my Steamdeck locally which sucks because I use my Xbox far less than I should.
blog.muffn.io blog.muffn.io

Again the difference between this and edge is that you can also stream directly from your home console on your own network.
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So to make sure I'm understanding.. if the spouse is watching streaming on the Xbox, I can't game on it?

I ask because.. I still use my Xbox as the media center. Like everything runs through it (even my cable).
 
A mini review of Backpack Battles Early Access. For a summation it's a resounding meh after 6 hours and 24 minutes.

First of all Backpack Battles is an auto battler where you start with a piece of a back with slots for items and some starting items depending on your class (4 of this early access so far). Before you start the game you get some starting money and can buy items which you try to fit. These items can use stamina mainly if they're weapons, and can transform if they're next to each other and can make one of the craft items. Other items can be armor, gems (can enhance weapons/armor), more pieces of backpack to get more item spots, potions and some other stuff as well. Generally you want to get synergies such as poison stacking or life stealing with vampirism. You start either ranked or unranked, but regardless it matches you vs other people's backpacks. You fight and you have about 7 life I believe which if you lose a fight you lose a life. If you win you get a trophy and are trying to get 10 of them I believe, of which you can go into overtime for more rank or a bit more challenges unranked. After a battle you earn some money and try to buy stuff for your backpack, of which you can use 1 gold to reroll the items. You can also reserve items so they wont disappear between store refreshes. That is basically it and you just keep powering up your stuff one battle at a time until you win or lose fully. Eventually you unlock specialties which are special items that synergize with some strategy of the class. Depending on your backpack items you may choose between them. They aren't free and do cost money to buy.

The graphics are pretty basic but animate a tiny bit for attacks and such. The graphics for the items are easy enough to identify, but it's all just alright. This is the same for the sound and music, of which none of it stood out to me. The controls are only clicking and dragging with the mouse for things. It generally is good but can be annoying for hovering over things especially backpack pieces.

I think the auto battler genre can be very repetitive at times, and Back Battles doesn't do enough to get away from this. You can and will see the same items over and over and over. I don't feel the item pool is very deep at all. Also many of the classes can and will use similar items, while having specific ones for the class as well. It all feels very samey and also very shallow at times. The same synergies will often have the same items leading to similar backpacks even if you don't always get the same items. Also the early items are very similar so you'll see many people with the same spear and such. I know it's early access, and I hope this gets a whole lot more going on, but it's more of a time waste game. You will have fun the first few runs, but you will likely get pretty bored unless you just like doing the same synergies over and over. There is no story mode at all, and I think that would add quite a bit to the game. It also helps if the game becomes less popular over time.

I do feel this game has potential, but right now just doesn't have anywhere near enough to keep people playing matches over and over. I also feel the classes could have different starting layouts because when you choose the specialty class item some of those items have so little build up to them, so they will be rarely picked. More character classes and items will be nice too. Overall for me this is a good enough game, but is no where near greatness yet. It feels super repetitive and my time will come mainly when I'm bored since the runs are short and when it gets some good content updates. Not a recommend for me in the current state it is in. There is a demo which I recommend as that demo is pretty much the main game except with less classes and likely items. 6/10
 
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Master Miguel said:
Maybe I'm missing something here, but doesn't XBPlay just stream your gamepass account just the same as setting it up through Edge? Even if you have an Xbox console doesn't it still just stream to the steam deck?
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Both are technically streaming, however one is via online streaming from a server and the other is remote play over home network. Huge difference in delay and also circumvents data caps.

On a side note, wasn't there a PS emulator that was being used via unlocked consoles? Lol, that would certainly open doors but at that point you're just complicating what Steam deck can probably already do.
 
I kinda hoped since they'd been pushing this spring sale as the equivalent to the summer and winter sales that they might actually make some attempt at doing an event or something but I guess stickers is the extent of the effort Valve puts forth these days.
 
Ubisoft Connect has been down without explanation for over six hours now. Makes me glad their original uPlay always-on system didn't last long but still prevents installing and running anything new or playing via a cloud streaming service.
 
The thing is, I trust Steam more than GOG, these days. Steam hasn’t gradually broken more and more of its founding principles as time passes, nor have I seen Valve make obvious concessions to the whims of outraged Chinese government shills.
 
Souffrir said:
The thing is, I trust Steam more than GOG, these days. Steam hasn’t gradually broken more and more of its founding principles as time passes, nor have I seen Valve make obvious concessions to the whims of outraged Chinese government shills.
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To be fair, Valve doesn't need to do any of those things. They know they're the most popular gaming platform on PC so they don't need to sell out like GOG have done, or buy out a bunch of devs and make shit exclusive like Epic has.

Don't need to stoop so low when you're always on top.
 
I agree, it’s just that sometimes it’s easier to trust the big guy who’s having it all his own way not to get any worse than it is to put trust in the principled little guy who caves under pressure.
 
Anyone actually buying anything from the Spring sale? I'm getting Hylics myself, but probably not that much more. I haven been cleaning up my wish list a bit though.
 
nitrosmob said:
Anyone actually buying anything from the Spring sale? I'm getting Hylics myself, but probably not that much more. I haven been cleaning up my wish list a bit though.
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I was thinking about Need for Speed Unbound since I've been enjoying Heat a lot, but then I tried it out on PlayStation Plus and didn't find it enjoyable at all. I hate it.
 
Stardew Valley 1.6 update is out. Does anyone know of a cheaper place to get a Steam key than Steam's current 20% off? I checked Isthereanydeal and cdkeys.

I decided to try the demo for Chillquarium. I spotted it originally when browsing the Cozy section of the store. At first it seemed shallow and kind of dumb, but I got more into it and ended up buying it. It's really cheap. I like that it is pretty laid back and you can just do what you want at your own pace. You buy fish, sell them in order to afford more fish and upgrades. There are rare variants of fish and you complete a catalog of them all. It's cool for the price. And my demo progress carried over to the full game.
 
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I went looking at my account and Alpha Protocol was the 25th purchase I ever made on Steam, for $4.99 during the Summer sale in 2011. I played five hours but haven't played since September of 2011. It was one of those darling Steam recommendations every sale for a while, and I remember the $2 daily deal being the first daily deal that seemed significant. Funny that it's been gone from Steam for almost five years, hopefully the GoG return and update means an eventual return there as well.
 
Last day to get stuff from the Spring Steam sale which is active until tomorrow morning. I've liked the stickers a lot for this with the sakura blossoms blowing and the rain being the standouts. I'm just getting Hylics, some expensive VNs with low discounts (lame), and Sword of the Stars the Pit 2 pack which I'll try and refund if it sucks.

BTW I believe someone on here really liked The Last Spell right? I'm curious about it, but not really sure it's a game for me. Any recommendations from anyone?
 
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lomaxgnome said:
I went looking at my account and Alpha Protocol was the 25th purchase I ever made on Steam, for $4.99 during the Summer sale in 2011. I played five hours but haven't played since September of 2011. It was one of those darling Steam recommendations every sale for a while, and I remember the $2 daily deal being the first daily deal that seemed significant. Funny that it's been gone from Steam for almost five years, hopefully the GoG return and update means an eventual return there as well.
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I got mine February 17 2014. $3.75 USD. But I never played it.
 
I bought Wolcen since it seems like a decent Diablo/POE esque game, it's at its all time low and I've had my eye on it for awhile. Also grabbed NFS Heat since it seems like the consensus best NFS game on steam.

Then I grabbed We Were Here Together for my daughter's steam account so we can see if we work any better together than we did before when we tried the prior two games in the series.
 
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Master Miguel said:
I bought Wolcen since it seems like a decent Diablo/POE esque game, it's at its all time low and I've had my eye on it for awhile. Also grabbed NFS Heat since it seems like the consensus best NFS game on steam.

Then I grabbed We Were Here Together for my daughter's steam account so we can see if we work any better together than we did before when we tried the prior two games in the series.
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I had a blast with Wolcen. It was a lot of fun.
 
lomaxgnome said:
Funny that it's been gone from Steam for almost five years, hopefully the GoG return and update means an eventual return there as well.
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This wasn't SEGA choosing to bring the game back on its own. Instead this was GOG contacting SEGA and Obsidian, and actually spending almost two years and who knows how much money to bring it back. Plus they went above and beyond to make it compatible with modern PCs and operating systems, and even implemented achievements that were originally only on console.

Chances are it'll be exclusive to GOG for the forseeable future. And for all the work they put into this, I can respect that. I already own a physical copy and a Steam copy, but I have no qualms about buying a GOG copy too.
 
Dragon's Dogma II.

Dragon's Dogma II is out and sitting at "Mostly Negative" on Steam for numerous reasons:

Notes:

-> DD2 on PC over on Steam ships with Denuvo right now; check the Steam Page.

-> Players are having issues w/ starting new character, messing with their saves, dealing w/ only one slot for saves, and other stuff. Guide on how to mess w/ saves over here - https://steamcommunity.com/app/2054970/discussions/0/4289188517340869363/

-> DD2 is loaded with MTX's to Fast Travel, Change Appearance, Resurrect, and other things:
www.windowscentral.com

Dragon's Dogma 2 launches to "Mostly Negative" review bombing after microtransactions reveal, and man, what a bummer [UPDATED]

Look at how they massacred my boy.
www.windowscentral.com www.windowscentral.com
Pic with MTX's I saw online -> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJPGxSpWgAA8iYQ?format=jpg&name=medium

-> Capcom's looking into working on PC performance here, as there is performance, framerate, and frame-time issues - https://www.ign.com/articles/capcom...-2-frame-rate-issues-on-pc-looking-into-fixes

-> Players are planning to kill NPC's, which supposedly can help performance out in Cities:
www.ign.com

Dragon’s Dogma 2 Players Are Planning an NPC Murder Spree to Boost the Frame Rate - IGN

This week, Capcom told IGN that performance issues with the PC version of Dragon’s Dogma 2 may be linked to the heavy amount of CPU demanded from NPCs in the game. Now, in response, fans are plotting an NPC murder spree in a bid to boost the game’s frame-rate.
www.ign.com www.ign.com

-> GPU isn't the biggest issue, but the game's very CPU-bound. Go see IGN's video on this (under Spoilers section).
 
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The outrage is over people's own incompetence. Rift crystals are not new; anyone that played the original saw them too. The other items are an exact dump of the deluxe edition in a la cart format. The ability to purchase them is completely superfluous and the crystals are gained very easily just from playing the game. The ONLY crowd those MTX are for are the people that absolutely must change their character 2-3x a day. And yes, those people do exist.

The one save isn't new. People are just whelps and bought a game they don't understand. The only thing that even has merit is denuvo but JFC: it's on every new game. Pirate or fuck off.
 
Jodou said:
The outrage is over people's own incompetence. Rift crystals are not new; anyone that played the original saw them too. The other items are an exact dump of the deluxe edition in a la cart format. The ability to purchase them is completely superfluous and the crystals are gained very easily just from playing the game. The ONLY crowd those MTX are for are the people that absolutely must change their character 2-3x a day. And yes, those people do exist.

The one save isn't new. People are just whelps and bought a game they don't understand. The only thing that even has merit is denuvo but JFC: it's on every new game. Pirate or fuck off.
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Granted, DD-DA did also support one character per slot/playthrough too - so this ain't a method they changed here for on DD2. Still, it's a silly idea - and feels very always-online type and MMO-ish; especially here in what's supposed to say be a "single-player" game.

Not sure, but how many character slots are there in DD2? 1 slot? 3? 5? Something else? I need to go finish the OG version and all -but I think there's 3 char-slots for different characters?

Regardless, not having even say like say 5-20 slots for each Character Profile (which OG RE4 allows for even) is silly; especially in what's likely a 20-40+ hour RPG here. I don't trust big games like this - never know what's broken w/ animations, having bugs, quest-breaking stuff, etc. that can cause the player to not advance in the main story. I don't wanna restart b/c I got only one slot b/c say some quest broke the game in some way - especially if its a main quest, which is the worst - and I can't go forth in the main story b/c of an issue of a bug or something on their end.

Thank God for app's like say GameSave Manager - where as long as the database knows the game, I can just periodically back saves up just in case crap breaks (saves break, game update breaks save, broken quest breaks the main quest), etc. I can always just re-install old save and put it where it belong - and pick the game up from there.

And companies wonder why I often don't Pre-Order or Day 1 stuff for years & just wait until games get old? This is why: awful DRM schemes (Denuvo), required client-app non-sense to run the base-game, required to be online in some games just for DLC to work even if base-game works offline (Outer Worlds' Epic version), DLC Mania, MTX Mania, broken games, poor performing games on new & high-end systems at launch, using an engine (RE Engine) that was really map-based & for high-fidelity of graphics and wasn't really built for open-world game, devaluing their games in many ways (w/ loads of DLC's and later putting them in Bundles, GOTY Edition Re-Released with all Expansions/DLC's, doing Remasters, etc), and etc etc. All of these crazy anti-consumer business practices. A lot of this stuff only hurts the paid-players and often especially early game adopters, not the pirates.
 
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MysterD said:
And companies wonder why I often don't Pre-Order or Day 1 stuff for years & just wait until games get old? This is why: awful DRM schemes (Denuvo), required client-app non-sense to run the base-game, required to be online in some games just for DLC to work even if base-game works offline (Outer Worlds' Epic version), DLC Mania, MTX Mania, broken games, poor performing games on new & high-end systems at launch, using an engine (RE Engine) that was really map-based & for high-fidelity of graphics and wasn't really built for open-world game, devaluing their games in many ways (w/ loads of DLC's and later putting them in Bundles, GOTY Edition Re-Released with all Expansions/DLC's, doing Remasters, etc), and etc etc. All of these crazy anti-consumer business practices. A lot of this stuff only hurts the paid-players and often especially early game adopters, not the pirates.
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These are the business practices you get when you support a full digital distribution or streaming model. You lose privileges as a consumer. That's part of the deal.
 
I don't recall if DD1 prevented you from just saying "Scrap it, we're starting over" but it felt like a bizarre choice last night when I wanted to tweak my model and realized I couldn't take it from the top. A single save file is fine but I don't see the logic in not letting you replace that save file. Even a tinfoil "They're trying to force you to buy cosmetic redos!" doesn't really make sense since you can earn/buy them in game without spending money. In any event, a slice of my evening was spent doing a clumsy Windows/Steam Cloud/Capcom Network on/off tango before I got what I wanted.

The DLC/MTX is just a dumb unforced error. Having the DLC/MTX looks bad enough but then they made it a wall of repeating items that presents it like "Buy these 100 things!". I suppose the idea is to make each Portstone is unique purchase to limit how many you can buy but it looks terrible and, honestly, at that point who cares? It's a single player game so if some idiot wants to spend $500 on Portstones, let him. If they shaved that list down to five or six repeatable purchases, it wouldn't look as bad. I don't intend to buy anything anyway so the mere existence of it gets a "meh" from me but it looks awful on the store page.

Performance has been fine for me so far. My CPU is pretty high though (i7-13700k) and it sounds like most performance issues are CPU related. I couldn't tell you my exact FPS but it's been smooth and high enough for me to not say "What the hell FPS am I getting?" and look.

The game itself has been fun. I mean, so far it's more DD1 but I liked DD1 so that's working as intended for me. The usual "Oh noes pre-order purchase doooommmm" stuff aside, the actual GAME has been good times for me and the DLC/Save nonsense is a definite ding against Capcom but it isn't really affecting my enjoying the video game.
 
Since people enjoy these a random game from my backlog Bang-On Balls: Chronicles after 35 minutes. For a summary is it's pretty boring.

First of all the story is you're a ball and an actor I think. After the tutorial which teaches you how to go around and collect stuff you have themed levels where you have to do things. I played the Viking one which is pretty much a big open world level where you have a thing that says you need to destroy some stuff.

So the graphics are decent enough although some ball objects look a bit too small and in turn make them hard to hit. Pretty much in this you explore, gather some orbs, try to do the objectives and you can collect items which are cosmetic except for weapons. I couldn't swing a sword although I pressed the item button so who knows. Your main attack is bouncing into things which does 1 little ball of damage. There are bigger enemies that require multiple hits and are balls and generally have extra quirks like shields or throwing bombs. This game supports co-op, but unless you really want to go through the 4 levels completely together, it's just a slog. The exploration is so-so enough and you just attack things all over. The controls really kind of blow for jumping and attacking and such. It's not terrible but feels a bit inaccurate for everything. It is workable, but never feels clean.

Overall I got pretty bored especially playing it by myself, but it felt shallow enough to not have enough meat on its bones. It's super straight forward but is more a 3D brawler with some light exploration and also platforming. I honestly had very little fun with it, but it being playable enough was something. It's obvious why this has been some bundle fodder. 5.5/10
 
Definitely. Some publishers don't appreciate how MTXs splashed all across the home and load screens massively devalues their entire brand. Anything like NBA 2K or Assassin's Creed Origins is trash. There's no way around it. You made your game trashy and it will always be that. Sorry honey, you are trash. That's what happens when you go to Red Lobster dressed in your pajamas with your front butt hanging out.
 
Jodou said:
The ONLY crowd those MTX are for are the people that absolutely must change their character 2-3x a day. And yes, those people do exist.
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From the reactions I’ve been reading, there’s no way to change your character appearance without the special currency, even by starting a new game. If that’s true, I’d consider that a major sticking point—the number of times where I’ve gotten through CC happy with how my character looks there, only to be disappointed when I see the character in action as soon as the game starts, significantly outstrips the number of times I’ve remained perfectly happy with my character. I don’t tend to make changes at all once I’ve got it looking how I want, but I often need at least a couple passes to get there.

Also if the CC is good, I like having another save file or three just to mess around with it without screwing over my original appearance. Sounds like that’s completely off the table—which yes, was also the case in the original, but I always hope for improvements in sequels.
 
Souffrir said:
Also if the CC is good, I like having another save file or three just to mess around with it without screwing over my original appearance
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Unless they removed it, there's a free stand alone character model editor you can play with. Granted it's 63GB which will be a deal breaker for some people but I have ample drive space and bandwidth so it was no big deal.

This isn't a defense of the dumb save thing, mind you.
 
The two saves thing is dumb, basically meant to corral you into using the mtx stuff even if you can do those things with in game currency earned playing the game. If it doesn't really matter then why limit people to two save slots and one character? Apparently you can delete your cloud save and local stuff to restart a fresh game at least but you jump through a bunch of hoops.

I saw one guy's review basically calling it pay to win for the in game romances, just like in real life. Literally spend $1.99 to buy a necklace for your digital lover. For a single player game. I don't really care about how the first game was with saves either, you've got plenty of new players to it and the design was dumb then and dumb now for a single player rpg, at $70 no less.

I was going to play thru the original, I've had it for several years from some steam sale but I'm losing interest. The DD2 dramas though mean I will likely never play it or wait till it to, like the first one is a hidden diamond in the $5 bargain bin.
 
With Werewolf: TA Earthblood now done (it's solid, but nothing entirely great - a 7 to 7.5 kind of game [out of 10]...even though werewolf smashing everything like a Hulk is a blast or bypassing areas w/ stealth rock), I'll probably just go back to ELEX 2 [Steam] and Greedfall (GOG). No MTX's there and plenty of save-slots in these single-player action-RPG games. Good old-fashioned action-RPG's with no nonsense of the MTX sort.

Plus, I got KCD Royal (GOG) backlogged. Also got DD-DA from GOG: I got that to work on, too. Even more so now w/ everything on-going w/ DD2. ;)
 
Tibor said:
I saw one guy's review basically calling it pay to win for the in game romances, just like in real life. Literally spend $1.99 to buy a necklace for your digital lover.
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Eh, that's like saying Dragon Age Origins is a trash pay-to-win because it also had paid DLC that let you give super-gifts for romance points. Arguably, that's worse since DD2's romance is supposedly pretty take-or-leave side material anyway.

Tibor said:
The DD2 dramas though mean I will likely never play it
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Up to you but DD1 was a great game (IMO). Seems silly to refuse to play a game because other people are mad about irrelevant microtransactions in a different game but you walk your own path.
 
Do people still use Game Save Manager? It was a thing back when I was originally a PC gamer before 2014. I was just reading about how some people lost their Chillquarium saves, so I quickly installed this and set up a custom entry for that game.

If not, what are you using?
 
I still use GSM.

If the game isn't in GSM's database, then I just use PC Gaming Wiki to find the saves folder and back it up manually elsewhere and makes notes on where that saves-folder go.

If you guys know of any other app's like Game Save Mgr., shout 'em out! Not every game and every version's supported by GSM. Sometimes, saves for different versions are in different places/locations - and the database might not have the location for less common versions (i.e. GOG version, Windows Xbox PC App version, etc).
 
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I gotta weigh in on Dragon's Dogma. I'm a little late to the party and have just sunk 140 hours into the original game this year. First time playing. At first I was a little underwhelmed, but I really started liking the ability to continually customize your class and the pawn system is really unique.

I finished the game and immediately started a New Game+ (the new game very oddly does not have one, I understand). I never start a New Game+ on.. pretty much anything. I'm one and done on 99% of the games I play. Ain't got time fo that. Having built a Sorcerer in the first game (amazing magic implementation) I wanted to try to switch to a Magick Archer.

I was loving the game at that point, but when I finally got around to Bitterblack Isle.... well I was completely caught off guard by how well the game plays in that indoor environment. The huge, epic bosses. The somber, ominous mood of it all. It was very Souls-like. I'm already thinking about my next playthrough. Overall, it snuck up on me and I came away loving the whole package.

On DD2: I'm seeing that it has a single play state? That's how the first game is. You can load a previous game or start a new one, but the new game is going to overwrite your save. The game desperately needs a second. That's so Capcom.

The MTX I've seen has me unconcerned. The things that can be bought for cash are readily available in the game. In the first game your appearance can be changed unlimited times for a cost (RC, I think). Your outfits, of course, can be changed at will. Rift Crystals are plentiful.

I do hope they eliminate the stupid layers of DRM. That's gotta improve performance alone. I also hope they have some content like Bitterblack Isle.
 
Syntax Error said:
Eh, that's like saying Dragon Age Origins is a trash pay-to-win because it also had paid DLC that let you give super-gifts for romance points. Arguably, that's worse since DD2's romance is supposedly pretty take-or-leave side material anyway.
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Bioware's romance stuff has been dumb and mostly pointless since NWN1. Really, the only one I thought was ok was the original with BG2. After that I didn't and still don't care much for the "romance" in rpg games. I only played maybe half way thru DAO and don't really remember what the romance stuff was. DAO was bad because of its baloney DLC for an extra quest, character and horse inventory slots or something.
 
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