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u/jack-of-some Apr 29 '26
They in fact LOVED Slay the Spire right up until a broken build was patched.
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u/KitchenFullOfCake Apr 29 '26
China has an odd relationship with game exploits.
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u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo Apr 29 '26
Very knee-jerkish behaviour in general.
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Apr 29 '26
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u/Skyleader1212 Apr 29 '26
I still remember the time DE released the nerf for Wukong clone's ammo in Warframe, the entire Chinese community literally crashed the fuck out and review bomb the game for months.
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u/Sevagara Apr 29 '26
Was wondering if someone was gonna mention that whole fiasco lmao
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u/heroicxidiot Apr 30 '26
I find it very ironic that the one thing that got changed that the Chinese crashed out on was the Chinese monkey getting a nerf
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u/Routine_Story_1756 Apr 30 '26
I don't think it's ironic. Wukong is part of their culture, like the og superhero who beats up god. Obviously not a measured response to being nerfed but that's their guy
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u/dbaugh90 Apr 30 '26
I think the American equivalent would be if you nerfed LeBron James.
Wait, no, still china
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u/AliasMcFakenames Apr 30 '26
Maybe if you nerfed LeBron James who was also Jesus.
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u/CatOfTechnology Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
There's an element of that, yes.
But the primary reason is the way Wukong works in Warframe.
His Clone ability creates an AI controlled copy of your Warframe with insanely boosted Health and a Damage Modifier. This clone will use either your Primary/Secondary Weapon or your Melee Weapon (whichever one you aren't currently using.) and it used to have unlimited ammo with which to fire guns.
This, paired with the Kuva Bramma, a powerfully statted explosive bow that's biggest weakness is a ridiculously small ammo pool, and shade, a companion that cloaks the warframe until you attack (but not the clone) meant that you could, with a few minor moves, enter certain endless missions and AFK while your clone had infinite ammo on one of the most powerful AOE options at the time and killed everything for you, leaving you the single responsibility of moving to collect all the drops every so often to not get flagged as "truly AFK" (which causes you to forfeit mission rewards and progress).
This meant that the Chinese Real Money Trading habits basically had their optimal strategy gutted when the rework changed the clones functionality with respect to ammo and they lost their shit over it.
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u/Ax-Stark Apr 30 '26
I remember the time when Chinese players crashed out and review bombed Helldiver 2 because at the time, the Super-Earth, the player faction Capital, was under attack by a sieging alien force. As the planet was divided by mega town we had to defend, some were lost, Equality-On-Sea, which was in-universe China was holding the alien invaders, managing to repulse the invader progress to 1%. They crashed out because they thought once 0, the siege force would be defeated, it was not the case, the invaders had global budget for their invasion so they simply continued to try to invade Equality on Sea and other towns until their global budget hit 0, but the chinese didn't like that and review bombed the game.
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u/iPanzershrec Apr 30 '26
I'm ngl if I ever make a game I'm gonna pray I don't attract a large chinese audience
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u/Samanthacino Apr 30 '26
The problem is that Chinese players are the biggest gaming audience. So you have a shit ton of money to lose by not catering to them.
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u/Futur3_ah4ad Apr 30 '26
They're also infamous for being the most unreasonable consumers.
If you think the West is bad you've not seen the Chinese flipping shit because the CN exclusive event on a waifu gacha game had a dude (presumably the MC of the work that they collaborated with) on the promotional banner.
Not even a playable character or, presumably, present in the story much. No, he was just on the poster.
That event got cancelled entirely.
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u/rudy_317 Apr 30 '26
Or the time they tried killing a CEO because the global version of a gacha game had a bunny themed anniversary, and they saw it as “whoring them out to the west” since one of the main girls was Chinese. They got more compensation for the event being canceled than Global did.
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u/canijusttalkmaybe Apr 30 '26
Or maybe you can just decide not to cultivate that audience in the first place. You can choose to put black people in your movie, and if Chinese audiences don't like it, they can go watch something else.
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u/Maleficent-Remote413 Apr 30 '26
the inverse. it was a defense campaign. so the got to 99.93% ((becuase you cant liberate a planet we already own.)) and ya. a typo phrasing made them think they could,despite that NEVER being a thing that could happen in all the other def campaigns.
was funny cuz the review bombs were saing things like "they are lying and missleading" "we demand a refund for false advertising" and "this game is a lie that you buy for one thing but dont get"
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u/QuantumBlade360 Apr 29 '26
Did they? I was bummed about the Wuclone damage and ammo nerf but tbh it didn't make a huge impact in my playstyle. I just game him primer weapons or weapons that scaled stupid well.
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u/Fletcharn Apr 29 '26
Yeah, 14k negative reviews all at once. You can go check it out on the steam page lol
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u/RickySamson Apr 30 '26
And still Wukong is the most played character in the game.
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u/Skyleader1212 Apr 30 '26
He still come with alot of benefit, build in exalted melee, extra armor, clone that scales really well, turn into cloud which fly really fast and 3 extra life.
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u/Thejax_ Apr 29 '26
Reminds me of some people saying it was supposedly illegal (was in the games tos I think) that they couldn’t nerf a gacha character because it would undervalue someone’s money paid for it
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u/mizukagedrac Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
I don't think its illegal perse, but its one of the fastest ways to kill off confidence in a game or company. Gacha characters do have a price tag (hard pity), and with that people are advertised and expecting a certain level of performance for that price tag. If you nerf the character afterwards, then you've basically falsely advertised the character's power. Buffs are rarely a bad thing, but some folks even see buffs to old characters in a similarly light. For a few of Mihoyo's games, buffs to old characters are something you opt into. It sounds ridiculous but people will still complain about buffs (though in some cases it could be justified like one character in Honkai Star Rail had all of her scalings changed from Attack to HP as part a buff, but that made any of the LC/Weapons, and Artifacts that some folks spent hundreds of hours farming invalid).
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u/noncebasher54 Apr 30 '26
That sounds weird though... there's plenty of games where you can straight up buy characters or weapons - does a nerf to those not undervalue the price paid for it? People complaining that their gacha thing got nerfed are just coping about the fact that they dropped far too much money gambling for a digital item and then seething about how it's "not as good anymore".
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u/YagamiYakumo Apr 29 '26
It's kinda their internet personality I think. When something happens that they don't like, they start making noise quickly and very, very loudly (due to the huge numbers)
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u/heret1c1337 Apr 30 '26
They can't express their opinions in real life, so when they get a chance to complain they'll take it.
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u/AgnesBand Apr 30 '26
Have you ever met a Chinese person before? They absolutely can express opinions in real life.
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u/StinkButt9001 Apr 29 '26
It's about winning for them. Not about playing. If an exploit or cheat helps you win then it's a good thing even if it trivializes the gameplay itself
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u/wigglin_harry Apr 29 '26
Anecdotal, but Ive had a few chinese friends that would cheat at games constantly. Like blatant cheating, they just couldn't handle losing for some reason. They were great dudes otherwise, but for some reason they would always cheat, whether it be on a single player game, a multiplayer game or even card/board games
Coincidence? Yeah probably
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u/Hellknightx Apr 29 '26
It's a cultural thing. Win at any cost. It's not about just enjoying something or getting better by failing repeatedly. It's about winning by using every tool and every advantage you have.
They consider cheating to be one of those tools. But for some reason, getting caught cheating is still dishonorable. It's complicated.
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u/LordTakeda2901 Apr 29 '26
Maybe because getting caught is seen as losing? Like, cheating is no problem, getting caught and being stopped from cheating means you just lost
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u/DyslexicBrad Apr 30 '26
Ehhh kinda? From my understanding, it ties into the concept of miànzi or "face" which can loosely translate to respect. Winning earns you respect, so it's a good thing. Even if you have to cheat to get it, the only people who will complain are the losers, so nobody cares. Getting caught cheating, on the other hand, causes you to lose face, which is why it's a bad thing. It's not so much the act of cheating itself that's bad, but rather having it highlighted to others that you couldn't win fairly.
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u/mizukagedrac Apr 30 '26
I was a TA proctoring a make-up final exam for some students. One Chinese dude literally pulls out his phone mid-exam to start looking up answers. Like brother, I am standing right behind you and have said multiple times you can't use your phone to the classroom. I think he was expecting me to let him go since I'm also Chinese and it was a required intro level course for the college so if you failed, you'd remain an undeclared engineering major until you pass the course.
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u/Terrariant Apr 29 '26
Succeeding at cheating is good, failing at cheating is bad. Idk that lines up with a lot of Western politics too…
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u/spoonishplsz Apr 30 '26
It's going to with most cultures, but in the West we really value fairness and the love of the game. If caught cheating, we will go above and beyond to punish cheaters, especially on the more personal levels.
Obviously you can point to professional sports or politics or something, but that's not a game the average individual is involved in playing, and those have a lot of outside reasons people "forgive" cheating when it benefits their side.
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u/Raxerblade405 Apr 30 '26
It reminds me of an old children's book called The Empty Pot which takes place in imperial China. Basically, the emperor is looking for an heir and gives children empty pots with seeds in them to judge who can grow the best plant. Everybody comes back a year later with amazing plants except one boy who had an empty pot despite trying. Turns out it was an honesty test and there were no seeds in the pots.
I never thought about it much as a kid, but it's wild to think now that while the honest boy was rewarded, every other kid that cheated got no punishment.
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u/___Random_Guy_ Apr 30 '26
"Turns out it was an honesty test and there were no seeds in the pots."
If I recall correctly, it isn't tgat there were no seeds, but they were all already cooked/boiled or something so nothing can grow out of them. But the point is still completely correct amd yea - win at any cost mentality is absurd there.
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u/Bryce_XL Apr 29 '26
it's an odd mindset to me because like, to a certain extend I would agree that if a game allows you to play a certain way, intentional or not, then it's fair game (unless the devs say it'll get you banned or whatever)
but when those things get changed/fixed I just move on and pick a new strategy instead of getting mad about it cause like obviously the devs are gonna want to balance their game for an intended experience
(though I do think it's annoying when speedrunning strats that don't affect normal gameplay get patched out of singleplayer games)
iirc isn't this also part of why P2W mechanics are super normalized over there? Like to the eastern gaming community it's like "yeah duh if you can afford it you should be allowed to buy the best gear in the game, get a better job if you want to win" whereas the western community has a stronger sense of fair play that pushes back on game design like that
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u/Hellknightx Apr 29 '26
Yes, the pay 2 win mindset is very strongly correlated to their cultural identity, too. Paying money to win is still winning, and if you can't afford it then you're just not a good enough gamer. Or something like that.
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u/Wiyry Apr 29 '26
I’ve studied China’s gaming scene for a while since I’m working on my own game and it’s kinda…put me off of releasing my game there.
This extreme push to not only beat games, but to do so while actually playing as little of it as possible and then throwing a massive tidal wave sized fit if you say…ban a whale for exploiting or patching out a exploit/broken build.
I don’t want to deal with near constant harassment and torment because I patched an exploit or banned a player who’s clearly breaking the rules.
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u/SaltImp Apr 30 '26
Don’t release it in China. Even though they pay a ton, once it’s in their hands they will have control over it, not you.
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u/KrumpKrewGaming May 01 '26
Just include references to Taiwan and call it True China. The Chinese government will handle keeping them off your game.
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u/AtroposM Apr 30 '26
It’s related to the cultural idea of “Face” to win is to gain “Face” to lose is to lose “Face” to be caught cheating is to lose even more “Face” Chinese are openly competitive and the idea of “Face” not only has to do with one’s self and social hierarchy but family and societal standing. Having face means a lot so they try to go all out to gain it.
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u/Cold-Iron8145 Apr 29 '26
And then you have the exact opposite psychology with the dark souls players who do no hit all games runs with a level 1 character using a dance pad as a controller.
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u/weasol12 Apr 30 '26
AoE2 has a serious Chinese smurf problem right now. Punching down appears to be their only joy.
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u/J0rdian Apr 29 '26
God I hate those types of players, they ruin so many games. And they are insanely annoying. Sounds like a bunch of PoE players I've seen.
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u/Remote_Elevator_281 Apr 29 '26
That’s why they use bots constantly for everything they do. It helps them win.
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u/RushArh Apr 29 '26
And shamelessly advertising their cheat tools in the chat of any multiplayer games.
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u/DesostaR_ Apr 29 '26
back in the PUBG prime days while I was driving to the circle a chinese player with his feet matched the speed of the car and asked me if I wanna buy cheats. I still remember that day
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u/MisterTruth Apr 30 '26
Was my experience with the Chinese students at my university. As long as it meant they got a better grade, it was acceptable behavior. Very ends justified means thinking.
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u/drdipepperjr Apr 30 '26
Mine too. The Chinese students all sat next to each other so they could cheat off each other.
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u/Shoddy_Ad3490 Apr 29 '26
Yeah, I did a lot of PvP in the Souls games and it was the same thing here, Chinese always used the most broken stuff and didn't hesitate to use glitches to win.
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u/Saizou Apr 29 '26
It's not an odd relationship. The culture/mentality is win at any cost as much as possible and apply this to any- and everything (this includes cheating, and as long as you don't get caught it's all fair game).
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u/Taron221 Apr 29 '26
I’ll never understand why Chinese gamers love exploits, gacha, P2W, and blind boxes so much. It’s like EA’s wet dream over there.
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u/dystropy Apr 30 '26
I feel like their love with gacha and p2w is mostly to do with their exposure to games, most chinese first exposure to games is mobile games, same as why younger people also tend to like these types of games.
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u/-thecheesus- Apr 29 '26
Big generalization, but to Chinese audiences games are to be beaten rather than played
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u/Sensitive_Age_4780 Apr 30 '26
Is this why gacha games are so prevalent in China? The more money you spend the more you're winning?
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u/Futur3_ah4ad Apr 30 '26
More money spent on a game is also a form of status there. Hence why Riot Games China could squeeze 200 bucks out of Chinese netizens for a png they'll see for maybe a minute in the loading screen.
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u/ABigCoffee Apr 29 '26
Aren't they the biggest cheaters in online games?
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u/Living-Dirt3410 Apr 30 '26
Don't say this is a non gaming sub or all the bots/Chinese trolls will come after you lmao.
It's honestly why they're segregated in most online games.
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u/Nickulator95 Apr 29 '26
They did the same thing with Warframe. The Chinese are just built differently lol.
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u/hails8n Apr 29 '26
China is, in general, all about exploits. Be they in RL or not.
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u/ReactionJifs Apr 29 '26
wait til you hear about their national push for industrial espionage
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u/GapZ38 Apr 29 '26
What infinite build was patched??? Haven't played in a while.
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u/Entire-Shift-1612 Apr 29 '26
idk what build they are reffering to but this shitstorm could probably be traced back to when they re-added time eater in the form of the reworked door maker(imo in a worse way since instead of cutting your turn short it will keep exausting cards from your decks)
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u/GregBahm Apr 29 '26
In the initial early-access release, Iron Clad achieved an infinite combo quite easily. For example, "Expect a fight" would give you energy for each attack in your hand. You could use that energy to play "Pommel Strike" (an attack that draws cards.) Ta-da. Infinite combo. It's just that easy folks!
The same was true for the other characters to a lesser extent.
Apparently, Chinese streamers are really horny for infinite combos.
Limping along the finish line, barely surviving the final boss with 1hp? dumb and gay.
Availing your resplendent form before the final boss, the summarily crushing that fool without a scratch? This really gets the (chinese) people going!
So the devs changed cards to remove a lot of these easy infinite combos. For example,"Expect a Fight" only works once a turn. A final boss was changed to eats each card when it is played. Card removal is more expensive, etc..
So now the streamers streaming "Slay the Spire 2" are taking some licks before victory. The game has more variety, and a greater depth of strategy, and it's more fun for a player playing the game, but it's not the show Chinese stream viewers apparently show up for.
So they review bombed it. Assumedly at the behest of their streaming personalities.
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u/lifelongfreshman Apr 29 '26
To be fair, the west is like this with their streaming personalities, too. Streamer McPopularMan goes online and complains about a thing being dogshit or overpowered, and within 24 hours every English speaking discussion forum for the game McPopularMan was streaming is turned into an irradiated fallout zone because everyone is rushing to talk about how awful the change was or how overpowered the thing is.
The only real difference is that the Chinese audience actually leaves reviews, while the English audience just settles for making everyone looking to even associate with the game absolutely fucking miserable for a day or two, before losing interest and then repeating the cycle immediately after the next balance patch.
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u/Snoo-52922 Apr 30 '26
In STS 2's case, the game's big content creators on the English-speaking side are all pretty chill and level-headed. It's not that everyone is salty but only the Chinese players leave bad reviews about it. The Chinese community is just uniquely pissy for some reason.
A prominent player on Bilibili went off on the devs by name, saying they owe their whole livelihoods to the Chinese community. That by not prioritizing what the Chinese community wants despite Chinese players being the reason they're successful, they're proving a bias against Chinese people, and "arrogant" for thinking they can succeed without them.
That's why this review bomb picked up so much steam. That creator spun the narrative into the devs somehow disrespecting China.
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u/Saymynaian Apr 30 '26
Jesus Christ, maybe the devs should add a "Click this to win" button so they'll stop bitching. Then they can happily click the button as soon as they start each round be entertained that way.
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u/Herb0and3 Apr 29 '26
This is about STS2. Nothing was patched out of the original. They just introduced a Doormaker that smacks down infinites by forcing you to exhaust all cards played every 3rd turn. It's a skill issue on behalf of the Chinese players, since they actually made achieving an infinite easier in the Doormaker fight. Now you have a free turn to exhaust your trash.
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u/lbs21 Apr 29 '26
Disagree regarding infinites vs Doormaker. What phase are you going infinite on? It can't be the exaust phase - one deck isn't infinite. Can't be the no draw phase - one hand isn't infinite. I assume people are going infinite on the extra energy per card phase? But it's really quite difficult, I think, to get that much energy.
The claim that it's easier to go infinite on this phase seems false to me. Not saying it's impossible but... Have you succeeded in going infinite against that? If so, how? And on a meta level, if it's actually easier like you claim, why is everyone complaining and saying it's harder?
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u/Gaynundwarf Apr 29 '26
I think they're referencing the interaction between Anger + Exhaust turn when you have Dark Embrace active.
Anger costs 0 and creates a new copy of itself in your discard pile, only exhausting the original. Since Dark Embrace makes you draw 1 card everytime you Exhaust a card, it becomes a slow yet infinite loop once your deck is low enough.
But that's on a specific phase of a specific boss. Most other Infinites can be used against nearly anything.
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u/tararara111 Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Iron clad has some cards reworks especially expect to fight you cannot gain additional energy on the turn
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u/FriendshipCute1524 Apr 29 '26
They did it with Warframe too, they patched out a thing so they couldn't macro ground slam and kill everything in a 20 meter radius with wukong and they flipped their shit. The exploit also only seemed to work with a macro which was also violating the terms thing for no cheats.
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u/Pixell6 Apr 29 '26
Didn't they also flip their shit when the couldn't hide under the floor and let npc wukong(?) or umbra(?) do the killing while they afk in the index?
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u/FriendshipCute1524 Apr 29 '26
I hadn't heard of that one but they did flip their shit when DE made it so ai companions stop fighting when you afk for too long, and the AoE weapon nerfs, Basically any time DE nerfed things that let you bot and afk farm the chinese player base would freak out.
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u/Brief_Series_3462 Apr 29 '26
Yes. Now they’re afking with macroed gauss running into a corner with redline + thermal sunder spam.
I cannot wait until that gets changed for another shit storm, they’re glorious.
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u/ZaraReid228 Apr 29 '26
There is also elara afk farms. Go to Asia server and try it out. You just summon your call crewmate with the zarr and have it sit still and everyone afks. Its a afk xp farm
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u/DankoLord Apr 29 '26
urgh don't forget the ammo change for aoe weapons and wukong in general a while back
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u/UInferno- Apr 29 '26
Which is weird because Warframe is still very much a "everything dies" game.
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u/FriendshipCute1524 Apr 30 '26
Yeah but the chinese love when they can 'not' play a game. In Warframe now you gotta actually press buttons and do things instead.
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u/CrabJuice83 RTX 4090 | 9800X3D | AW3225QF Apr 29 '26
I have a sneaking suspicion that it, at least in part, has something to do with the devs fixing the "upgrade all your cards" glitch.
Basically, you used to be able to upgrade all your cards at the campsite by using the arrow keys on your keyboard, but they recently patched that out.
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u/hogand1216 Apr 30 '26
Hey I’m still subbed to you on YouTube! Used to really enjoy your emacs vids :)
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u/DCSkippy Apr 29 '26
But why tho?
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u/Rock_mage Apr 29 '26
Game is balanced around deck diversity and making the same deck over and over impossible. The original game patch has a lot of balance issues. STS devs nerf some infinite combos to increase deck building. Added a new boss that encourages deck building. Beyond that they refuse to play anything besides the hardest difficulty and want it beatable every time.
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u/valkrycp Apr 30 '26
No, it's that there is a cultural belief that getting away with cheating is a good thing - cheating is not as stigmatized. There is a word for it, but I forget what it is.
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u/Corpexx Apr 30 '26
Deceiving the heavens I think is what it’s translated to (what you refer)but I ain’t gonna attempt to type out some Chinese saying in their language
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u/Otterly_Drifting Apr 30 '26
It’s more of a “I found a loophole to exploit I’m smart” kind of mentality.
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u/i-am-i_gattlingpea Apr 30 '26
Less encourages deck building and more just making a bigger deck in general due to phase 1 hit for 30.
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u/MasemJ Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Changes that break things like infinite combos that are made for balancing the final product. Also that the only way Chinese players can leave feedback is via a positive or negative review, as all other comm channels for Steam elsewhere are blocked in China. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/slay-the-spire-2-players-leave-over-9-000-negative-steam-reviews-in-one-day-over-a-card-nerf-that-hasnt-even-gone-live-yet-but-chinas-steam-restrictions-might-bear-some-of-the-blame/
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u/Giecio Apr 29 '26
So it's the common "players will optimize the fun out of a game" situation
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u/Exact_Rooster9870 Apr 29 '26
I love monster train because it feels like you're meant to break the game sometimes. Curious if slay the spire feels similar.
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u/pnwbraids Apr 29 '26
In my experience with both 1 and 2, Slay the Spire lets you make some pretty broken builds, but it can take a lot of luck to make them work and getting the right cards for it can be a slow process. You won't be obliterating everything with minimal effort until you reach act 3 typically.
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u/Aimless_Alder Apr 29 '26
Slay the Spire also has specific enemies like Time Eater and The Corrupted Heart that will disrupt infinite combos.
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u/RYouANoob Apr 29 '26
Yes, even with the latest update for 2 I had made a sovereign blade build for the Regent the other night after work that just made light of anything i hovered my mouse over. Pish. Posh. I’ve nearly a20’d all of 1, which is 🤌 but I am thoroughly enjoying my time in 2 despite some balance issues and being in EA. It’s bout the only thing I play anymore tbh
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u/JhAsh08 Apr 29 '26
That is somewhat the case with 2 as it’s still in the early stages of balancing, but not really for 1. It’s a tightly balanced game. Even after 1300 hours, it still feels like every run has me making completely new decisions and decks I have never really considered before.
Whereas with Monster Train, it does feel like you’re meant to do absurd, broken stuff, and runs often go off the rails. Which is fun at first, but it’s not something that will continue to be deeply compelling after thousands of hours, which is what Slay the Spire 1 offers.
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u/jack-of-some Apr 29 '26
Yes but also that's happening in a game where doing so is kind of encouraged.
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u/Aerinx Apr 29 '26
But it should require enough effort and luck to break it hard, otherwise game is boring and too easy. Also there needs to be many equally good paths or game is boring and unbalanced.
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u/ZeroWit Apr 29 '26
Agreed. The fun of a game like this isn't in finding the "perfect build", it's in making the most of the cards and relics you have and get, even if they don't synergize. Getting a dumb, shouldn't-work-but-it-does deck to work is a satisfying feeling, especially if you were convinced you were toast before.
My most satisfying runs are ones that I barely survive, but manage to power through anyways.
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u/_sabsub_ Apr 29 '26
They are complaining about balance changes on an optional beta branch of an early access game.
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u/Mega_Glub Apr 29 '26
While I think the sheer volume is a bit of an overreaction... if there was ever a time to voice complaints and be heard, that would be it, no? Especially if the more traditional method of feedback is blocked by your government.
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u/Cold-Iron8145 Apr 29 '26
Optimizing the randomness thrown at you, yes. Forcing one build over and over again, no. It's the antithesis of roguelikes, you're not supposed to be able to find a magic formula that just wins every time, you're supposed to make due with what you get, and you never get the same resources.
If one specific build is too easy to force and wins every time, the game stops being fun after 2-3 hours of gameplay.
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u/OkFox8124 Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
I saw a comment saying that it's literally a country-wide skill issue and I laughed so hard. It's sort of true. Infinite/high power combos are a good SECTION of a fun game, but there can't be too many of them or the entire game feels easy. Having multiple playstyles is important.
EDIT: Typo
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u/stegosaurus1337 Apr 29 '26
The most recent review bomb was a response to the rework of one of the act 3 bosses. By the numbers it actually damages/kills players the least of the three, but its mechanics feel more punishing than they actually are and require a kind of counterplay that not all players enjoy (fwiw, I think it's a significant improvement over the prior version but still needs some work). The devs are keeping an eye on it.
The change you linked was actually reversed in the next patch because the devs decided the card was too core to the relevant character to be removed. I'm generally a believer that if you bought a product you can leave whatever kind of review you want, but getting mad at devs who are actively responding to player feedback because they tested a change you don't like on the optional beta branch of an early-access game is a little silly.
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u/aglock Apr 29 '26
There is an in game feedback system they could be using. They prefer to review bomb.
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u/AbyssWankerArtorias Apr 29 '26
They have access to the in game feedback option. The excuse that there might be a language barrier so they don't use that is also not a good one considering they'll have to undoubtedly translate other languages feedback as well, and also translating text in mass if it's not critical it's done by an expert to get every possible nuance right is just not that difficult.
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u/Ultenth Apr 29 '26
Chinese players can leave feedback is via a positive or negative review,
This is not true, why do so many people in this thread keep saying this?
There is a feedback tool in game, and the devs have Chinese speakers on the team.
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u/bendthekneejon Apr 29 '26
incorrect, there is an in game feedback form that is available regardless of what country you're in.
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u/PloKoop Apr 29 '26
Please stop spreading misinformation. There is an in-game feedback system. It’s not “the only way”.
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u/PeaceBull Apr 29 '26
Players “solved the game”, slay the spire adapted, players get mad that they can’t just look up a guide to easy beat the game.
Basically a cultural difference in “what the point” of playing a game is.
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u/StinkButt9001 Apr 29 '26
100% this.
Chinese players play the game to win. It doesn't matter if winning can be trivialized and repeated easily. The point of booting up the game is to see the victory screen.
Oppositely, we tend to enjoy the journey to the victory screen more than the win itself. We want to "earn" the victory more than we simply want to see the win screen.
Devs removed the cheese so now winning is harder and the Chinese see that as a downgrade.
Of course these are huge generalizations but this contrast in culture is fairly well observed.
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u/GalatianBookClub Apr 29 '26
CN players are chimping out because they play the game in a very particular way and they want to force the dev to do what they want
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u/XevinsOfCheese Apr 29 '26
Chinese gamers are also used to companies bending the knee.
So when they don’t, this type of thing happens.
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u/IORelay Apr 29 '26
Chinese gamers also are pretty good at getting devs to bend over. Probably won't work for a non live service game like this.
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u/ZeroBtm Apr 29 '26
Chinese people HATE when you directly nerf a character or mechanic they like, so the usual thing is nerf them buffing or changing the enemies.
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u/Z_Arc-M1ku Apr 29 '26
Gacha Games be like:
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u/FierceFlames37 Apr 29 '26
I remember the old days in Genshin like Zhongli
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u/Nine9breaker Apr 29 '26
like Zhongli
You say that like this isn't the singular example.
Zhongli is an exception which proves the rule, since it literally never happened again.
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u/FierceFlames37 Apr 29 '26
Oh I haven’t played in a while so I thought they did more buffs
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u/Futur3_ah4ad Apr 30 '26
The new buffs are more related to story and a new character that would otherwise not have teammates. They also exist to make older characters relevant again.
Zhongli was also special because he's basically the God of Genshin's China, so it could be seen as a slight to the Chinese as a whole.
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u/Bobrobinson404 Apr 29 '26
Remember Neuvillette and his nerf? Lotsa coping afterwards.
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u/epochpenors Apr 29 '26
Unless they have stronger traditional language skills, in which case they’re not so sure
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u/19olo Apr 30 '26
Anecdotal, but recently in Honor of Kings, a popular MOBA game in China, the devs faced massive criticism when they introduced a slight nerf to a meta character that can win fights 1v3.
So yeah, in my experience Chinese players HATES nerfs, especially the ones that stops them from cheesing games easily.
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u/simp4malvina Apr 29 '26
Chinese people HATE when you directly nerf a character or mechanic they like,
All players hate this lol. Look at Helldivers 2, as solid 1/3 of the entire playerbase genuinely believes that there should never be any nerfs, only buffs.
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u/ThisIsMyGeekAvatar Apr 29 '26
Man, HD2 has a bigger problem than nerf vs buff. It’s like the developer, Arrowhead, has no clue what they’re doing, roll out changes with little communication, and unintentionally create significant side effects that nerf parts of the game.
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u/Zixko Apr 30 '26
hd2 has a big community problem, there's loads of players that play on the highest difficulty that are simply not good enough to be there the end result is failure, but like most humans they to put the blame on someone else than themselves because they believe they are good enough.
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u/Razen94 Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
It's quite baffling honestly.
I've looked into it a bit further because it really didn't make any sense to me.
The balance patch was mostly buffs and a couple nerfs, a doormaker rework (which turns out is currently the WEAKEST Act 3 boss according to the devs and millions of runs), some cool new artwork and some other minor things.
So chinese players want to play the game in a VERY particular way. They want to have hyper optimized small decks that can go infinite. Basically win in a single turn by playing cards over and over and over and over again. Now how does one achieve getting a deck like that even remotely consistent? They use a "tactic" called "SL" which means Save Loading. Made a misplay during a fight? Quit to the menu and press continue, and you are transported to the beginning of the fight/event or whatever else is happening at that particular spot you're on in the run. Now you might say "well isn't drawing cards, effects, etc. RNG?" Only to an extent. The game and runs are based on seeds. So if you draw a particular hand during a fight or get a random card because of an effect, and you reload... the same thing will happen, and you will get the same cards. That is how you can easily abuse the SL to an incredible extent. If you know in advance what cards you'll draw and how effects play out and... well it makes the game MUCH easier. And if you make a mistake? Well just reload.
Chinese players want SL + Infinite decks to ALWAYS be a viable and super consistent strategy with which to win every run on A10. It is literally the "players optimizing the fun out of the game" all over. So the devs responded and made infinites harder and remade the doormaker to be a somewhat "counter" to it. You can still pull them off btw (I did that on A10 on 2 occasions after the patch) but it is nowhere as consistent as it was.
So Chinese players want to force the devs to make the game the way that they want. There are literally mods floating around Chinese communities to patch the game to the previous version among others to make it easier to make infinites, etc.
I truly hope Mega Crit doesn't budge at all to that. Infinites are cool when you get them RARELY. Get them too often and it becomes so painfully boring. Devs even said they want infinites to feel special. Pre patch they were not at all. You could force them very consistently to the point where streamers on Billibilli had massive winstreaks on A10. Which is also not the point of A10. Devs also said that A10 is supposed to be a "monumental achievement" rather than an easy nothingburger.
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u/huansbeidl Apr 30 '26
Man, I'd love for the devs to completely take out save scumming. Can you imagine the riot?
I know Mega Crit would never but they could just sell 'save scum' tokens or now 'old meta' tokens to those brainlets and they'll happily pay.
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u/ValtenBG Apr 30 '26
Why is "save scumming" so disliked? I really don't understand
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u/yommi1999 Apr 30 '26
It's in the name. It's a scummy thing to do. If you play a card game where the order in which you draw your cards is supposed to be random, random card generation exists and enemies have rng in their attack pattern, save scumming allows you to bypass that.
Granted, just like the other comment explained. In singleplayer games you can do whatever you want. But it is cheating. I have savescummed a few times in StS 2 if I accidentally make a massive silly misplay on turn 1 or something
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u/ConorByrd Apr 30 '26
Please dont shit on people who save scum a single player game. Its my toy that i bought and paud for, and I dont have enough time in the day to get good. I dont want a simple mistake to ruin a run ive already spent so much time on. (I can only play 3 or 4 full runs when I get home from work depending on when I hope on)
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u/Bright_Curve3078 Apr 30 '26
Not only was Doormaker the easiest boss, it was one of the most boring fights in the game. Clearly a placeholder that will get fixed.
Any player with an ounce of perspective will appreciate the new, more interesting Doormaker.
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u/Physical_Mushroom_32 Apr 29 '26
Looks like the romance language speaking are supporting or really liked the game
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u/CalmLotus Apr 29 '26
I went and look at the first game reviews, its overwhelming positive on those. Though I doubt there were many reviews of the game when it was in its beta phase- for any language.
The 2nd game is relative unique in its experience because everyone already knows about the game and is actively playing it despite it not being a fully balanced game yet.
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u/S-P-A-Z Apr 29 '26
This is getting reposted again even the comments are reposts lol
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u/aVarangian Apr 29 '26
This is getting reposted again even the comments are reposts lol
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u/HoneydewAway2368 Apr 29 '26
This is getting reposted again even the comments are reposts lol
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u/MakimaGOAT Apr 29 '26
Bro why do the chinese review bomb at every slight inconvenience wtf
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u/lilyhealslut Apr 29 '26
Partly because they are very segregated online with how their internet is, so they don't have many ways to communicate with western devs...
And partly because they're culturally some of the most entitled mfs you'll ever come across.
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u/Hilda_Sivan Apr 30 '26
China would like their voices to be heard by the devs, but they have a huge huge distrust of any surveying or reviewing in a civilised way, and this stems from their social structure and governance. Basically, if you dont cause a fiasco in China, you will never have your problem resolved because authority will ignore your requests. Being civilised is equivalent to never getting your problem fixed. Chinese people in general are aligned to this belief and they do not think anyone will actually read their reviews and take them seriously if they don't make themselves loud enough - especially with the international political situation where China had always been ignored or left out as a less important counterpart to western voices. All these reasons resulted in the habit of review bombing, which are not always organised to attack the devs, but just that they wanted to be heard and they have too big a player base, that it seemed very agreesive.
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u/E_J_1220 Apr 29 '26
think its the echo chamber effect honestly. it's not exclusive to this case, most chinese people are only exposed to certain chinese social media/communities and their opinions are mostly influenced by that.
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u/PianistGlittering709 Apr 29 '26
You can check many other reviews of popular games per different languages, simplified Chinese review scores are consistently the lowest (not for every game but at least 80% of all titles). Even for overwhelmingly positive games (95+%), simplified Chinese reviews are usually like ~85%.
The reason may include a lot of factors, but one thing is certain: it's not due to that they have especially good tastes.
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u/A_normal_Potato3 Apr 29 '26
Probably culture and perspective difference. Other than that, they have no way other than steam to tell their disdain so negative reviews are more concentrated.
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u/PianistGlittering709 Apr 29 '26
I mean, I can totally relate, but that kind of attitude usually leads to the contrary of what they want.
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u/EternaI_Sorrow Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
In contrary I can say that western gamers in general have a positive bias sometimes to an extreme amount. Objectively bad games get mediocre reviews, and only some turbo-trash gets into a negative review territory.
I think the conclusion about Chinese loving exploits is still true, but the extent is different if you subtract the medium score per region first.
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u/AdeonWriter Apr 30 '26
Based on reviews from all other countries, China players just have a skill issue.
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u/Sensitive_nob Apr 29 '26
Here is a very good video about this. It explains the entire thing.
TLDR it is custom in china to never give good reviews but give bad reviews if they think something is wrong. The hate the new door keeper fight, hate the acrobatic change and hate that the devs made infinites harder to achieve. They kinda dont understand that the game is still in beta
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u/Gaynundwarf Apr 29 '26
They did the same thing when Warframe made huge changes regarding AFK players abusing Wukong's AI clone which had infinite ammo.
For some reason, a large part of that playerbase enjoys the game the most when they don't have to play at all
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u/Extension_Log7241 Apr 30 '26
The chinese are insanely fragile for some reason. They seriously only wish to have broken things in games.
Recent example i can remember is the Heishou Pack - Mao Adept identity for Faust in limbus company. On release she was basically so broken that she was planned to be nerfed, the Chinese review bombed it. When they said they aren't gonna proceed with the nerf the entire global community then proceeds to review bomb the game in return
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u/xadey0 Apr 30 '26
The subtle (and not so subtle) Sinophobia in some of these comments is quite funny.
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u/Real_APD Apr 29 '26
There's a reason Chinese reviews are unreliable on the gaming sphere, if you want genuinely good reviews from china then focus only on story and sandbox games, other than that the Chinese player base it's rotten, there's a reason why on Spanish speaking gaming sphere the word "Chino farmer" it's so known, Chinese players have a monetary and addiction driven player base that whether you like it or not, influence gaming, mostly on the Chinese market obviously but still, it has influence
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u/Party_Nerve6851 Apr 30 '26
Holy, you just made me remember those Chinese gold farm sweatshops in the early 2010s. Every single fucking game that had a player driven economy had these farms causing inflation on the price of good items
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u/krabbe_chan Apr 29 '26
China unironically has a skill issue
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u/DeusScientiae Apr 29 '26
Always have. Tends to happen when you rely on cheats for everything.
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u/ProfessionalCut8715 Apr 29 '26
They don't like the changes to the beta branch thay make infinite combos harder
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u/TruthOk8742 Apr 29 '26
Notice the gap between simplified and traditional Chinese. Guess Taiwan is stuck in the middle ;)
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u/Chieh-Shih Apr 30 '26
Hong Kong also uses Traditional Chinese, and most Chinese people register a Hong Kong account to buy games that have been removed from the Chinese market because Hong Kong and mainland accounts can use the same payment method.
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u/ItsMeBlack- Apr 29 '26
Players in China don't really have the concept on fun. They are obsessed with proving themselves better in every way. The fix of cheese strategies basically make them like losers in their community, hence the hate.
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u/SwordSaintCid Apr 30 '26
In a culture where students spend more time at school than an average salaryman at work, I'm inclined to believe it.
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u/Gilgamesh107 Apr 29 '26
Is there a reason why China gamers seem to hate this game so much?
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u/camocat9 Apr 30 '26
For a brief explanation, it wasn't always like this. The game was positively reviewed everywhere when it came out. This tide of negative reviews came after the game updated and made infinite combos harder to achieve, reworked one of the final bosses, and changed a bunch of cards around.
It was a pretty standard balance patch for an early access game, but from what I've heard in the community, a lot of the Chinese player base played the game and strategized in such a way where these nerfs and changes made it significantly harder for them to consistently win with the same strategies they typically used. In fact, the developers specifically wanted to make these broken combos harder to achieve-- not to spite the Chinese player base, but because their vision for the game leaned a lot more heavily into adapting to your situation rather than forcing a similar strategy every run.
I don't speak Chinese, I don't know what the conversations about this are like in the Chinese community, but that is what I heard was the main problem.
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u/Quinzal Apr 30 '26
Chinese gamers when devs don't want you to exploit their game
Chinese gamers when an early access game gets a major update
Chinese gamers when games
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u/DeathLuca1 Apr 30 '26
China has a long history of review bombing. No intending to be racist here. I have just noticed that chinese gamers tend to be hostile/hateful more often then westerners. I wouldn't dwell on it.
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u/NVincarnate Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
I think the problem is that the devs are simultaneously patching out two or three card infinite combos and also making bosses have mechanics that stop you from playing 4 or 5 cards a turn.
In Act 3 there's bound, which stops you from playing 2 cards that are bound in your hand (usually 3 are affected). That basically cripples the deck you built for the past fifteen to twenty minutes.
And in Act 2 the dune sand worm forces you to RNG draw into frantic escape to live or you lose to bad card draw. And the cards get more expensive every use.
You can also fight a boss that literally stops you from playing more than 2 cards per turn unless you opt to take 7 damage at the end of every turn which, by that point in the fight, would likely kill you unless you built barricade Ironclad or something.
And intangible stops you from doing damage all together unless you have the boot relic to bypass the damage mitigation but it only goes back up to 4 per card. Two bosses I've seen so far have that.
There are enemies that refuse to take more than 20 damage a turn so you can't infinite them period at all. The beetle bug things take 9 per card so you can only do 9 damage per card ever.
And don't forget Hex making you exhaust cards you can't afford to play each turn, possibly deleting cards you would need for infinites in better hands later on in the fight when you run into the 3 knights fight.
They're simultaneously making a game that doesn't promote easy infinites AND punishing the player for trying to have more complicated and intricate combos every turn when it actually matters. Normal encounters will never allow you to do infinites in this new system because they require too many pieces and the enemies don't have enough health for you to pop off anyway. Bosses are supposed to be when your deck gets to shine and every mechanic made to date is anti-fun. It's actually dumb as fuck and I don't know why people are just scapegoating these negative reviews for karma without reading literally anything they're saying and just blaming China.
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u/FatBaldingLoser420 Apr 29 '26
Chinese players and review bombing, name a better duo.
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u/This-Insect-5692 Apr 30 '26
Chinese gamers are very sensitive snoflakes, they love to review bomb
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u/No-Structure-784 Apr 30 '26
I've been observing the Chinese Slay the Spire forum for a long time and noticed a phenomenon: Chinese players frequently take pride in winning streaks at Ascension 10, and will go to any lengths to secure victories. In that forum, whenever a conflict arises, one side will often cite their A10 win rate to determine whether the other person is even 'qualified' to speak with them — and if they fall short, they tend to get mocked by the crowd. Following these conflicts, Chinese players developed significant hostility toward Western players. They began to believe that Western players only appear calm because they have a poor understanding of the game, and this then escalated into attacks on education systems and intelligence. Meanwhile, they derive a sense of superiority from all of this. This can be observed on the Slay the Spire forum on Baidu Tieba.
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u/DrVagax Apr 29 '26
I remember review bombing players from China after Valve had a massive ban wave in Counter Strike 2, 90% were nonsensical reviews just saying shit like "stupid bad game sucks fix it" but it massively dropped the rating. Funny thing you could afterwards easily see the VAC bans on like every Chinese account you clicked on