I’ve made a comment before in the past when dealing with game publishing. All of the things Steam provides, including worldwide distribution to a lot of regions EGS, MS store, etc don’t sell in because of a variety of laws, Steam just does better.

You pay less because you get less. I’m selling a product. The last thing I’m going to cheap out in is sales. I’m not going to see great sales from the EGS because A)Nobody uses it and B) the shopping experience is terrible. I don’t have access to the same makers and (hearsay) the actual process of getting your game distributed is a pain. I wouldn’t know, I don’t sell on EGS.

Further, we were having a conversation about a problem that doesn’t exist. You’re more than welcome to use Steam and other storefronts.

Hell, you can handle all of the sales yourself AND put it on steam. Most people will buy it on steam simply because that’s where all of the customers are.

Asking Steam to lower their prices because that’s where you’d make the most money is a mind bender.

It’s like trying to sell your hand made Combs. The gas station on the corner is happy to take only 20% of the profit. They’re all over the place and accessible. But you really want to sell it at the boutique shops because they have more comb-seeking customers. But then when they ask for 30% of sales, you balk and tell them that’s too high and they should lower their cut to that of the gas station.

That you’re like, 12 years old? Or at least have the fundamental world view of a 12 year old.

Fukkin lmao “steam is a necessity they owe me to make it cheaper”

Get the fuck back to reddit child. Enjoy your block.

Lmao, thanks for demonstrating my point for me better than I ever could.

This thread contains a lot of great bangers. But let’s play devil’s advocate for just a minute.

Let me know when you build a global distribution platform with 5-9 uptime, credit card processing, full compliance with all of the various laws in all the countries you serve and also provide a cdn for my game for free.

I’ll be waiting. You better pull through on this, you owe the community your labor

“All of these disgusting men use anecdotal evidence to claim they aren’t deadbeat scum. To prove it, here’s my anecdotal evidence!”

“I choose to do this so everyone who doesn’t has a small dick!”

Sorry you have the internal resolution of a toddler. Enjoy your car, I guess.

And by the way: I drive a beater. so don’t go thinking about my dick size, please. I don’t consent.

Do me a solid. Just go get on a plane to any one of those places. Just step off the plane and just live there. No visas or any other nonsense. You’re the smart one and know better. Only 300 bucks to fly! These guys are just dumb.

Go grab a job and just live there.

Have fun, smart guy!

Run them naturally. How should they act?

Having a set plan for creatures can work fine. But think about how a fight will naturally progress.

Let’s take your Goblin encounter as an example.

Against 4 1st level PCs. A fighter, a Cleric, a rogue and a Wizard. classic party. Let’s make it a Moderate encounter. So let’s have 4 goblin warriors.

First. What’s the location and what triggered the encounter? Did the players sneak up on the goblins? We’re the goblins waiting and sprung an ambush? Did both parties collide accidentally and it’s a mad scramble?

Let’s use the goblin ambush. They set a trap and caught the party off guard.

So the first round will be that, say, the Fighter in the front of the party triggered a bear trap that was hiding just under the sandy road. The goblins, after hearing the trap go off, spring up and start lobbing rocks, maybe a alchemist fire they stole off the last mark.

Now the PCs are going to do their thing. At this point, put yourself in the mind of the goblins. They’re going to deal with the biggest threat first. Maybe the fighter escaped from the trap and is currently marching his way up to their hiding spot and they’re going to surround and beat him down?

Maybe he didn’t escape and the wizard is tossing painful spells? What about the Cleric? Is he healing the fighter? And where did the rogue get off to?

With most intelligent enemies, they don’t fight to the death. Everyone probably would rather run away and live to fight another day. But if they think there’s no way out. Maybe they surrender? Or perhaps your party is effectively or brutally killing allies, so they have no choice but to go all out and use all of their resources.

I guess the way I do it is flip it. The enemies are your characters. Play them thematically and if possible, intelligently. Hell, maybe the PCs obliterate half of your guys in mere seconds and you just high tail it out of there.