How do you feel about Saints Row DLC?

[SwingSwing]

Also I feel that Volition really made a big mistake in the way they handled Saints Row 3 dlc prices and the season pass. The price of that game and all it's dlc dropped so fast that many early adopters probably felt they'd been screwed over buying them all immediately when later adopters got everything for as little as $13. Volition was in a way training their customers to wait for price drops and ultimate/game of the year editions of their games, something that's obviously not a good long term strategy for their profit margins. I think it would have been a lot more fair and enticing if the gave people some real rewards for being early adopters - for example, giving pre-orders free season passes. (Also, actually include all the dlc in the season passes, not just a few of them.) I would have been a lot more tempted to pre-order Saints Row 4 for $60 if I'd known I'd also be getting all future dlc for that price. Instead I waited until it was $25 to get the game for Xbox (and probably won't buy any dlc for that platform) and will likely wait until a Full Package version is on steam for under $20 before buying the PC version.

Honestly that's a problem across the board. Even if someone that bought edition with the trip to space they'd still be paying for the DLC later. It's entirely backwards. Early adpotders paying more for a special edition actually getting less.

Can't blame THQ for prices when the exact thing happend with SR IV. Same shenanigans happend with the WWE game too keeping THQ's rubbish around.

The new DLC is also bad. We're paying you to advertise something? Also backwards. That sort of thing should be free and often is.

 

[shitface]

The "Elements of Destruction" DLC is almost as big of a fuckup as the bloodsucker and unlockable packs. All of the included elements are ridiculously overpowered and are unlocked right away. There's almost no incentive to upgrade any of the other powers or elements when you start the game with these. Why couldn't they have been bought with clusters like the other upgrades? I understand people want to use their powers right away after spending a shameful amount of money on them, but they kind of break the game.

 

[War Raichu]

while I do agree that they should've been purchasable rather than a forced unlockable (I HATE forced unlockables, and SR4 is full of them), the new powers are way easier to avoid than the Bloodsucker or Unlockable packs. Bloodsucker's "perks" are forced on you and you can't escape it. Without mods, you're stuck with the neck-bite animation and the increased cashflow/respect bonuses. With the Unlockable packs, you have to scroll through all the unlocked vehicles and clothing to get to any you added yourself.

At least the new powers can be ignored.

 

[Gondar]

What I'm wondering is the actual purchase rates of the assorted DLC packs. More than that, a system breakdown. Are a lot of the DLCs on consoles? Or PCs? Do PC users prefer one type over another? Does the cheat pack even SELL on PCs? (on consoles I can see somewhat, they can't get the cheat list mods like we can). How do the stories go?

The problem is this thread gets our opinions on DLC types so they can get a better feel for what fans want, but at the same time what everyone else wants may vary. Let's face it, we're a select group here, and with a tiny few exceptions are all PC users who probably have a decent familiarity with the game to work with mods at some level (the average pc user doesn't install mods, I suspect). So it gets some opinion from us, giving fans what they want, but at the same time it's a business, so their market metrics will have a big influence on what is also made, coupled with their manhours/profit ratios (how much work goes in versus how many sell?)

So I really wonder some rough figures of what sells well, and what sells well on the other platforms. Are we really that different from the general PC user populace? Do console users have a heavier influence on what is made, or are the two types actually rather even (with even the percentages of DLC bought per copy equal?)


Probably won't get that, but it'd be neat to know what goes into the decision to spam clothing packs, particularly if they really dramatically sell for the lower effort (modeller and texture artist, plus a bit of support to pull it into a pack).

 

[zefie]

I'll just list my complete experience with the SR series, so this may get a little OT, but it will come back to topic.

1) Discovered Saints Row Series via PlayStation+ and getting SR2 free.
    (My hype: 5% ("what is this? i'm curious"))
2) Played SR2, loved it. SR3 was out. Bought it
    (My hype: 80% ("this is fun"))
3) Played SR3, and all major DLC missions. SR4 announced
    (My hype: 85% "A new SR? hell to the yes!")
4) Got gaming PC and can play SR at full framerate rather than console framerate
    (My hype: 105% ("Oh. My. Gosh. This is EPIC"))
5) Realize SR2 won't run on most PC correctly. (had win7 at the time and powertools were helpful, but not the solution we need)
     (My hype: 90% ("eh, I already beat SR2"))
6) Discover SaintsRowMods.com, mod SR3.
     (My hype: 100% ("wow, I can do this? sweet."))
7) See Volition plan to work with SaintsRowMods.com
     (My hype: 175% ("holy crap a dev working with the modders")
8) SR4 comes out
     (My hype: 200% (hell I tried to crack into the steam preload to get access 8 hours early. I of course failed, but I was pysched))
9) SR4 Bugs. Lots of bugs. Playable, but feels a rush job
     (My hype: 100% ("hmmm. whatever it just came out, its gonna have a bug or two.."))
7) First SR4 DLC
     (My hype: 75% ("well, this is cute")
7) First non-free SR4 not included in season pass
     (My hype: 65% ("okay...")
9) DLC everywhere, weapon DLC, costume DLC, DLC DLC DLC
    (My hype: 45% "gotta sell em all, eh V?")
10) First SR4 mission DLC, ETD
     (My hype: 60% ("i'm over SR4 but I'll give it a shot")
11) What ever happened to the promise of game hacking tools?
     (My hype: 50% ("I'm sure they are just busy (sadly, probably making more pointless DLC)")
11) Hey Ash DLC
     (My hype: 45% ("Wow, I remember that show, they still make that? Eh, not bad."))
12) New Christmas Mission DLC
      (My hype: 45% "eh, so it was included in the season pass, I guess I'll give it a try later" (not yet played)).

This may be a pain for some to read but, in reddit TL;DR terms:

The DLC cash grab for SR4 is putting me off the SR series and Volition as a developer.
I feel they make fun games, but do not debug them sufficiently, and then try to milk it more with pointless DLC.
I don't mind pointless DLC, if someone wants it, they will buy it, and both that person and V wins.

What I don't like is crappy cash grab dlcs having higher priority than bugs.
The crash bugs were addressed but not after a few DLCs oozed out.

And it wasn't until the Christmas mission that the voice playback bug from launch got fixed, 15+ DLCs later. (note: was it sooner? as stated I've lost interest so I just checked today and its fixed, but it wasn't for ETD)

At any rate, this is not a company I feel comfortable handing my money to anymore.
I still love Saints Row, but Volition is killing it, and my love for them as well.

Volition should take a step back and analyze this thread, and the past few months and rethink their strategy.
You can't please everyone, but this thread pretty much sums it up.

 

[tonicmole]

Anybody else finding Saints Save X-mas to be broken with or without mods installed? I've continued to attempt to get the DLC to work in some fashion but no luck. removed all mods, validated, still can't "break the ice." However, everything else seems bugged to begin with. Horrible texture flickering, and glitchy shadows.....wait, was I just hired as a DLC tester at Volition!? Would have been nice if they would have gave us a heads up that their DLC would break all of our mods.......I'm gonna go play Skyrim and cool off.....

 

[Zack Royer]

What really grinds my gears is that I don't own any non-free DLC and now don't plan to buy them because every goddam time a DLC is released all (or at least many) mods get incompatible with the game. and as tonicmole said, the game practically turns into a bug pool party with or without DLC. Every time I see Steam downloading a Saints Row IV update I think: "Great...now the game will explode when I open it."

 

[zefie]

What really grinds my gears is that I don't own any non-free DLC and now don't plan to buy them because every goddam time a DLC is released all (or at least many) mods get incompatible with the game. and as tonicmole said, the game practically turns into a bug pool party with or without DLC. Every time I see Steam downloading a Saints Row IV update I think: "Great...now the game will explode when I open it."

Personally I do not hold this much against them. It is not feasible to debug your code against every users' mod. I doubt it was intentional. Once it's modded the 'warranty is void', so to speak.

Besides, updates should be applied to a clean code base... which, while off topic for this forum, check out my Steam Feature Request for a quick and easy way to reset to vanilla.

 

[ChuCathedra]

I have no problem with Volition making optional content available for people to purchase and I understand that content teams are different from troubleshooting/bug-fixing ones. However, I dislike that most of, if not all, the clothing options added through DLC are outfits or suits meaning they have to be worn as a set and trying to change something small like shoes removes the entire thing. It was an issue with The Third and the scenario seems to be repeating for this game as well which makes the vast majority of DLC clothing completely unappealing to me. That and the price ($3 a piece), kind of puts me off buying any more content for SRIV.

As for the DLC missions, I was largely unimpressed by the ones for The Third, best attribute was granting superpowers, and Enter the Dominatrix was a bit funny but was at least somewhat interesting as far as a look into what could have been. I have not tried the Saints Save Christmas one yet, though I have heard it is funny, short, but enjoyable.

 

[zefie]

Anybody else finding Saints Save X-mas to be broken with or without mods installed? I've continued to attempt to get the DLC to work in some fashion but no luck. removed all mods, validated, still can't "break the ice." However, everything else seems bugged to begin with. Horrible texture flickering, and glitchy shadows.....wait, was I just hired as a DLC tester at Volition!?

I used the sky slam thing to do it, worked first try.

However, I only just finished the first section of the new DLC and already triggered 2 bugs.

1) When you get your powers back, you have to equip a different one then switch back. For example, if you had fireball before starting the mission, once you get powers back its empty, even if you choose fireball again, you have to choose something else, like TK, then fireball again, before it will work.

2) I super powered to the "antenna" and jetted right through the marker, so the boss was on the ground, performing the mission animations on the ground, with no antenna or saints around.

I'm convinced Saints Row 4 is a beta program in which we pay to participate. Again, I still love Saints Row, but if you ask me what two things come to mind when you say "Volition" I will answer "Saints Row" and "Buggy Software". This is not the opinion you want your customers to have of your company.

Edit: I should illiterate, I mean no offense to any Volition devs. In reality I kinda hope some day the devs here can get management to see how the customers feel, and maybe with mine, and others complaints about the practices and bugs, management will give the devs and QA a bit more time so the product comes off as a professional piece of work that one can feel confident in recommending to their friends, instead of feeling like a public paid beta.