HELLDIVERS II

Armenius said:
Just as a reminder, since Reddit seems to be going apoplectic, the store page has always said the game requires a PSN account.
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It'd be interesting to consider whether it would have gained the same success and positive inter-user recommendations had this been enforced at launch. We can already see that users now have varying reasons for their distaste of the enforcement:

- PSN not available in their region. Affecting quite a number of users. Xbox online accounts said to have far better worldwide availability than Playstation.
- Against the inconvenience or principal of creating a separate account for a game that was functioning without it, not to mention on a console network when they're PC players.
- Against the added potential security/privacy exposure of having their details in yet another database, with all the breaches that occur (there's a Reddit sub-discussion about this right now).
- Not wanting to tie one identity to another even if they have an existing PSN account (see a user here who expressed such).

OTOH from their announcement Sony's reasoning is a moderation-based one. I'm not familiar with how much of a problem this has been since I've only read about positive experiences.
 
Okatis said:
It'd be interesting to consider whether it would have gained the same success and positive inter-user recommendations had this been enforced at launch. We can already see that users now have varying reasons for their distaste of the enforcement:

- PSN not available in their region. Affecting quite a number of users. Xbox online accounts said to have far better worldwide availability than Playstation.
- Against the inconvenience or principal of creating a separate account for a game that was functioning without it, not to mention on a console network when they're PC players.
- Against the added potential security/privacy exposure of having their details in yet another database, with all the breaches that occur (there's a Reddit sub-discussion about this right now).
- Not wanting to tie one identity to another even if they have an existing PSN account (see a user here who expressed such).

OTOH from their announcement Sony's reasoning is a moderation-based one. I'm not familiar with how much of a problem this has been since I've only read about positive experiences.
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It was enforced, but it was causing widespread issues for people at launch, so they temporarily allowed people to skip the linking process. People just have short-term or selective memory.

Posted in the Steam support forum on February 8, shortly after the game went live:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/discussions/1/4206994023681197128/

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Post in this thread the day after release:
https://hardforum.com/threads/helldivers-ii.2028063/post-1045828467

I can see having an issue with Sony's general enforcement, though, as with a PlayStation account comes needing to play by their rules. I can see people who have been meme'ing it up while playing the game getting bans coming their way.
 
Armenius said:
I can see having an issue with Sony's general enforcement, though, as with a PlayStation account comes needing to play by their rules. I can see people who have been meme'ing it up while playing the game getting bans coming their way.
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Not to mention that apparently in some countries, you can't even create a PSN account. So I guess those people are just fucked?
 
MavericK said:
Not to mention that apparently in some countries, you can't even create a PSN account. So I guess those people are just fucked?
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Just select a region that does have PSN support when creating your account instead.
 
An issue some were expressing with that approach is it's against the Sony ToS (that is, providing incorrect account information), so in theory if they detect and enforce the correct region the account can be suspended. One would think Sony will release some statement addressing these issues given the backlash.

Edit: some anecdotes of users who have had 10+ year old PSN accounts with different region without running into account issues. So seems Sony may not practically enforce this.

Edit 2: read a counter-anecdote from someone in a chat where their friend was banned on PSN allegedly for having a different region set.
 
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Community managers position.
 

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I bought this game months ago but then immediately got a refund because I couldn't log in when they didn't have the server capacity. Sucks to have to create yet another account but this is the world, everyone wants your data so they can sell it.
 
Armenius said:
Why? As a multiplatform gamer, I find it convenient, though I wish there was an option to disable cross save and cross trophy/achievement progress.
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Because I don't trust Sony or MS but especially not Sony these days. Nevermind that I cant play the game on ps5 because I don't own one and I dont think it runs on a ps4.

Edit to add: When I had to add a MS account for Halo Collection and the Gears Tactics game to play them on Steam, it would freak out if I went months without playing the game and demand re-linking or saying that my MS account (which I've had for years for win10 testing) wasn't a legit account or something. Remember Games for Windows Live? I've at least had less problems with Ubisoft and Steam or EA and Steam.
 
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Armenius said:
I don't like their tone, but I agree with their position.
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I think the tone is fine - from what I heard, people were just bitching on Discord, where it's going to make zero difference. Also, this is a Sony decision, not Arrowhead, they did not want this to happen by all accounts.
 
When I bought the game, it required me to link my PSN... forgot I had one and a nightmare to reset pwd as old email acct was lost. Got pwd changed... all good and no downtime here.
I havent played it more than 2h but my son has been for me. Lol... he says it is just a grind..kinda repetative but fun.
 
Ranulfo said:
Updates via the Helldivers discord, their Community manager:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjyll7/some_discord_updates/

It looks like Sony is backing down, at least for those who can't get a PSN account in their country.
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Apparently the game has now been delisted in a large number of countries (“non-PSN” ones). Valve is refunding a bunch of people in those countries as well. What a tone-deaf shitshow for Sony.

What gets me is how all Sony needed to do was offer a free cosmetic or some “super credits” as an incentive for (optional) linking of PSN accounts. They would have gotten massive uptake on that offer, some goodwill, and an easy marketing win. I can’t fathom the logic that would lead you to refund a huge number of customers - and piss off many more - all to collect some email addresses on throwaway accounts…
 
SamuelL421 said:
Apparently the game has now been delisted in a large number of countries (“non-PSN” ones). Valve is refunding a bunch of people in those countries as well. What a tone-deaf shitshow for Sony.

What gets me is how all Sony needed to do was offer a free cosmetic or some “super credits” as an incentive for (optional) linking of PSN accounts. They would have gotten massive uptake on that offer, some goodwill, and an easy marketing win. I can’t fathom the logic that would lead you to refund a huge number of customers - and piss off many more - all to collect some email addresses on throwaway accounts…
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I don't think you understand just how profitable data is....
 
It is not just the data for marketing etc., they also want the ability to easily ban you (and possibly your psn account as a whole) for any transgressions in Helldivers2.
 
Good call. At least make it worth someone's time to OPTIONALLY do so (free super credits or some sort of incentive), rather than just forcing it on everyone and screwing over 100-ish countries who can't even normally get a PSN account.
 
All done within 72 hours or so. A good example of how protest via review "bombing" etc. can indeed work.
 
Ranulfo said:
All done within 72 hours or so. A good example of how protest via review "bombing" etc. can indeed work.
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Not saying the review bombing had no impact, but I'd bet that the unconditional refunds Steam was giving, as well as delisting the product in 100+ countries from sale entirely, had more to do with it.

I hope the negative reviews get cleaned up, and people don't just forget about it and leave them. Maybe Steam will clean some of them up as well.
 
MavericK said:
Not saying the review bombing had no impact, but I'd bet that the unconditional refunds Steam was giving, as well as delisting the product in 100+ countries from sale entirely, had more to do with it.

I hope the negative reviews get cleaned up, and people don't just forget about it and leave them. Maybe Steam will clean some of them up as well.
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Plus the optics were absurdly awful from the start. Now you can't play the game you own and have been playing. Cya, you're fucked.

It was such a screamingly obvious slow moving disaster. I don't know what they were thinking. I'm assuming the devs were hopeful this could of been resolved in time to not be a cluster fuck, but feet dragged somewhere and shit show it was.
 
socK said:
Plus the optics were absurdly awful from the start. Now you can't play the game you own and have been playing. Cya, you're fucked.

It was such a screamingly obvious slow moving disaster. I don't know what they were thinking. I'm assuming the devs were hopeful this could of been resolved in time to not be a cluster fuck, but feet dragged somewhere and shit show it was.
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They should have put a notification in the game when you skipped account linking stating that it was temporary, and that linking an account would be mandatory in the future. That way people wouldn't have made the assumption that it was always optional. Also a prime example of why you need a dedicated community rather than expecting people to look on Discord for important updates.
MavericK said:
Good call. At least make it worth someone's time to OPTIONALLY do so (free super credits or some sort of incentive), rather than just forcing it on everyone and screwing over 100-ish countries who can't even normally get a PSN account.
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I'm sure Sony is going to make sure it's working day 1 in future games so there is no more gaslighting by the internet.
 
Originally I didn't care about the making a PSN account. MS makes you do it for their games also. The fact it locked people out from playing that paid for it in a lot of cou tries was the real problem. Sony is being very anti-comsumer recently and it is coming to bit them in their ass. Sony forgets they can easily be knocked off the top just like what happened with the Xbox one.
 
vegeta535 said:
Originally I didn't care about the making a PSN account. MS makes you do it for their games also. The fact it locked people out from playing that paid for it in a lot of cou tries was the real problem. Sony is being very anti-comsumer recently and it is coming to bit them in their ass. Sony forgets they can easily be knocked off the top just like what happened with the Xbox one.
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I agree with the fact that they always made it for sale in "non-PSN" countries being a big foul up on Sony's part.
 
vegeta535 said:
Originally I didn't care about the making a PSN account. MS makes you do it for their games also. The fact it locked people out from playing that paid for it in a lot of cou tries was the real problem. Sony is being very anti-comsumer recently and it is coming to bit them in their ass. Sony forgets they can easily be knocked off the top just like what happened with the Xbox one.
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Yeah this was a HUGE misstep.

Should have never been allowed to purchase in the first place - super dumb and super egregious.
 
Review scores are already back up to "Mixed" - glad people are reversing their negative reviews in light of what happened. The HD2 community seems to actually be pretty cohesive.
 
MavericK said:
The thing about the verbiage in that screenshot is that it doesn't really imply that it would be enforced to where if you can't link, you can't play the game. It just says later users will be asked to "TRY" to link their account again.

Plus, none of that really addresses the issue of the 100+ countries without legitimate PSN access still being able to purchase the game at launch. Should never have been sold to those countries in the first place if this was going to be forced from the start.
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good thing its not happening then...
 
pendragon1 said:
good thing its not happening then...
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True, I was just pointing that out because people keep saying, "well, it said at the start it was going to be enforced, so why are people complaining?"

My point is that a) it wasn't completely clear it was going to be enforced (Arrowhead CEO even said this was not well-communicated to customers) and b) even if it was, Sony was still selling the game to customers who would have just been screwed trying to play it, had that enforcement worked.
 
MaZa said:
AFAIK in the Discord there are only their community managers, PR guys, and they are not exactly more privy for information than their bloody CEO is, a person who was in the middle of this and who originally decided that they should drop the PSN requirement when it was not working properly when the game launched.
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sounds aboot right.
 
Comixbooks said:
Community Manager was let go because someone incited him.
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The dude was historically bad at handling the community - it sucks that he took the fall for this particular incident, but realistically he just wasn't that good at his job.
 
I am not a huge fan of PvE hoard co-op games, but I have to admit I am addicted to HD2. Just so much fun and the weapons feel visceral and satisfying.

All the mechanics would be great for a PvP game.
 
Blade-Runner said:
I am not a huge fan of PvE hoard co-op games, but I have to admit I am addicted to HD2. Just so much fun and the weapons feel visceral and satisfying.

All the mechanics would be great for a PvP game.
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Fuck PvP lol, I like this game because it's PvE co-op. And this developer has enough trouble trying to balance one game mode, let alone adding a whole other where balance is way more important.
 
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