DLC vs Expansion

[kucsidave]

Hello everyone, I am here to discuss something. The DLC hate.
I myself hate this DLC system, but as I found out, many people don't mind it. So I want to know those people's opinion on the subject.
I don't like the DLCs because they are a minimal effort for a lot of money, and they make many of those usually, so they can grab money quickly.
I think the old system where they spent more time, but they published an expansion was much better since they had more time to test it, so we got a better quality game, usually had much more content than a DLC.
BUT! I know that there are good DLCs. The best example I can come up with is State of Decay.
It had 2 DLCs and each gave you a brand new game experience.
The Lifeline was the one hooked me the most, but Breakdown was awesome too.
So what is your opinions? I really really want to know it.

[Illidan Stormrage]

I mean I'm fine with dlc as long as it is reasonably price and contains enough new content. What annoys me is when games have things that are not skins or cosmetic items as pre-order dlc. I mean its really bullshit that I must pre-order in advance it I want a last jedi hero. KEEP in mind this is a hero that could be broken and unbalance. When I pre-order the battlefront (EA) I could get a free han solo blaster which if you look in the game member was really powerful and also unlocked at rank 25.

this video gives you the idea

yeah I do agree on state of decay .
Games like that do good dlc. Another great example is the division which gave you free content with every expansion pack. the first two were free to everyone while when the big dlc came out they gave a good amount of free content to players who didn't buy the dlc.

Bad examples of dlc is: battlefield one which promise they give free maps but so far we only have one and a new map(not dlc packs) you must have premium.
Another is battlefront which you could preorder for the han solo blaster and not have to work for it. that weapon was powerful and was forced to be patched after the bespin dlc.


interms of my opinion their is good and bad dlc. their are companies who do good dlc. Atvision has great call of duty dlc plus they offer new weapons(even though they are hard to get sometimes)

[Revanchist]

In my opinion, there are two types of good DLC. First, there is DLC that opens up a new game experience, as mentioned already. These are almost to the level of expansions, and thus are worth the money. The second is DLC that adds things, but doesn't shake the game in any way. Sins DLC, for example, adds some nifty features, but your gameplay experience won't be any less enjoyable if you don't have them. The type of DLC that is garbage is powercreep DLC or when you need the DLC to have a complete game experience.

[Helix345]

I agree that there is good or bad dlc. When a company is doing it for more money, (such as activision and its supply crates) then its a terrible game killer. When its like total war where they give you an entire new campaign, I'm okay with it.

[Mr.Puerto]

I agree that there is good or bad dlc. When a company is doing it for more money, (such as activision and its supply crates) then its a terrible game killer. When its like total war where they give you an entire new campaign, I'm okay with it.

To be fair I think micro-transactions are a different beast of a topic. Back on topic its a mixed bage for me There's cases where you have companies who release paid DLCs so they can invest the money back into the game and develop more games which is good (ARMA series and Witcher series). There are some where all of them are already on disk and are locked until you pay money that is terrible since there is no instinctive to go back and fix the game, and maintain your audience (Mortal Kombat). Then there's releasing 3 or 4 major paid packs per year which is good since it adds more to the game more so than free DLC however it splits your fandom which is bad (all Dice games). Then Finally there's the hidden Gem in the desert of Titanfall (created by respawn and published by EA for all of you EA haters out there its not them its the developer) who releases all of their DLC for free, while it is a very good thing for companies to do, if you don't market your game right it can screw you over.

[kucsidave]

yeah. if it is micro-transaction it is bad no matter what. it has two types.
1, you don't have to work to get the best stuff if you give us money
2, you get an overpowered thing that helps you wreck anything in your way if you give us money
Either way, it ruins game experience for the non-paying players.
Now I found out recently that SWTOR is still on, and started a new account, and I almost immediately remembered why I stopped in the first place.
They made so much restrictions on F2P players that it is exruciating.
I am not going to complain about it, since I am the one chosing to not pay for it(at the moment I have no money for it), but it's still a painfull disadvantage.
Though 1 good thing is that if you have already spent 5$ you get a "prefered" status and at least the 200K credit restriction goes up to 350K.
More info on that in case you want to give this game a go here

[Mr.Puerto]

yeah. if it is micro-transaction it is bad no matter what. it has two types.
1, you don't have to work to get the best stuff if you give us money
2, you get an overpowered thing that helps you wreck anything in your way if you give us money
Either way, it ruins game experience for the non-paying players.
Now I found out recently that SWTOR is still on, and started a new account, and I almost immediately remembered why I stopped in the first place.
They made so much restrictions on F2P players that it is exruciating.
I am not going to complain about it, since I am the one chosing to not pay for it(at the moment I have no money for it), but it's still a painfull disadvantage.
Though 1 good thing is that if you have already spent 5$ you get a "prefered" status and at least the 200K credit restriction goes up to 350K.
More info on that in case you want to give this game a go here

Yeah I agree with you on those things, that's why I stopped playing SWTOR as well couldn't be bother with that. Anyway the only bearable Micro-transactions of free games or games designed to have a long life cycle are skins, they don't effect the content in anyway, and it allows the developer to continue to receive income to develop. I think over watch does this but I'm not really sure.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

A good DLC example would be most of Paradox's stuff, especially with Together for Victory for Hearts of Iron IV, so, while not all are good, there are some that are very worthwile

[Mr.Puerto]

A good DLC example would be most of Paradox's stuff, especially with Together for Victory for Hearts of Iron IV, so, while not all are good, there are some that are very worthwile

Paradox is easily the worse example of DLC lol, they don't fix their games at all until DLC and make you pay for it, then have really unnecessary DLC for 15 bucks. Its pretty sad actually

[Corey]

Yeah, micro-transactions are actually a great model when used on cosmetics and stuff like that. It's the standard model for most MOBAs, and it works really well there. League of Legends is probably my favourite game, and I know people who have played for years spending from $0 to hundreds of dollars, with no competitive advantage either way.

With all three types of additional paid content, it's too diverse to give a generic good/bad answer here. Sins did fairly well with both expansions (Fortification, Rebellion) and DLC (Forbidden Worlds, Stellar Phenomena) models, while also having some on the less-great side (Diplomacy). Cities: Skylines as well. They have really robust expansions, with a lot of the functionality coming through free patches for people who don't buy it, and they've done cosmetic DLC/microtransaction stuff where for a few bucks you get a couple new building models and skins in different styles. For these, they've even contracted individual modders to do the work and then paid them a certain amount of the revenue, which I obviously think is a fantastic model for a business to follow, and think they should contact us at ThrawnsRevenge@gmail.com ....

anyway, my bottom line is, while a lot of this stuff may seem like it's overpriced, there's a certain understanding with a lot of these models where you go in with the understanding that part of what you're paying for is for the company to continue being able to support the game. Some would say easy cash grab, others, like myself, would disagree with that characterization. It's a lot more dependent on the company, and a lot of that comes through in the quality of the base games as well. With Colossal Order and Cities: Skylines and SoaSE, you can tell it's a company that really cares about the game it's making and uses the DLC, expansion and microtransaction models to support that in a pretty transparent way. There's other companies, like EA, or microtransaction-based freemium games which are usually a lot more obviously just in it for cash grabs.

[Mr.Puerto]

Yeah, micro-transactions are actually a great model when used on cosmetics and stuff like that. It's the standard model for most MOBAs, and it works really well there. League of Legends is probably my favourite game, and I know people who have played for years spending from $0 to hundreds of dollars, with no competitive advantage either way.

With all three types of additional paid content, it's too diverse to give a generic good/bad answer here. Sins did fairly well with both expansions (Fortification, Rebellion) and DLC (Forbidden Worlds, Stellar Phenomena) models, while also having some on the less-great side (Diplomacy). Cities: Skylines as well. They have really robust expansions, with a lot of the functionality coming through free patches for people who don't buy it, and they've done cosmetic DLC/microtransaction stuff where for a few bucks you get a couple new building models and skins in different styles. For these, they've even contracted individual modders to do the work and then paid them a certain amount of the revenue, which I obviously think is a fantastic model for a business to follow, and think they should contact us at ThrawnsRevenge@gmail.com ....

anyway, my bottom line is, while a lot of this stuff may seem like it's overpriced, there's a certain understanding with a lot of these models where you go in with the understanding that part of what you're paying for is for the company to continue being able to support the game. Some would say easy cash grab, others, like myself, would disagree with that characterization. It's a lot more dependent on the company, and a lot of that comes through in the quality of the base games as well. With Colossal Order and Cities: Skylines and SoaSE, you can tell it's a company that really cares about the game it's making and uses the DLC, expansion and microtransaction models to support that in a pretty transparent way. There's other companies, like EA, or microtransaction-based freemium games which are usually a lot more obviously just in it for cash grabs.

Very true, I do that like that self plug there, I know DICE hired the modders behind the modern day mod for battlefield 1942, in order to develop battlefield 2, so there's always that possibility. I do also agree with you over the DLC thing, but there is always that one bad example I know HOI3 can barely run unless you buy the DLC for it since the developers won't patch the base game which sucks. It's also funny how you mention EA, because I know Titanfall 2 had free content all around expect for skins, and a DICE developer also said there would be no season pass for BF:2, however when Mashable (the people who first broke the story) reached EA for comment, EA said to retract that conformation because they don't know if they're going to have a season pass or not. I guess you can't really generalize this issue since there are always different situations 

[kucsidave]

Paradox is easily the worse example of DLC lol, they don't fix their games at all until DLC and make you pay for it, then have really unnecessary DLC for 15 bucks. Its pretty sad actually

I wouldn't agree with that.
As said prior, Together for Victory is one of the best DLCs out there. Sadly it has a very bad marketing, but it actually does a whole lot more than just give you a few new focus trees.
It actually gives a huge variation in the puppet system as a whole, which you can play without, but it is more interesting that way. You can break away from your master, or if you are the master you can fully annex your puppets.
Also with the faction research continous focus even minors with few research slots can gain back on the members having better tech, since it gives 10% research bonus after every faction member who already researched that tech.

[Mr.Puerto]

I wouldn't agree with that.
As said prior, Together for Victory is one of the best DLCs out there. Sadly it has a very bad marketing, but it actually does a whole lot more than just give you a few new focus trees.
It actually gives a huge variation in the puppet system as a whole, which you can play without, but it is more interesting that way. You can break away from your master, or if you are the master you can fully annex your puppets.
Also with the faction research continous focus even minors with few research slots can gain back on the members having better tech, since it gives 10% research bonus after every faction member who already researched that tech.

Very true, I think there are good examples and bad examples for every case and company. I think at the end of day all I could ask for is constancy with DLC, if you make it filled with good content, enjoyable, and the money goes toward development, then its all good in my book. But if you're for example World of Tanks we all know that money isn't going toward development most of the time, its going toward marketing and overflowing pockets. Hell they have their own inventory of operational tanks here in the US. Now I can't bash them too much since they do help preserve, maintain, and obtain a lot of historical items, and do help out museums that are World War II based mostly in the Russian Federation and The United States, but also some in the United Kingdom. Its just not black and white, even though most of the internet would paint it in that light.