RPGs versioning/builds

[OGchan]

I wanted to open this thread for a while but never found the right words to express this. What is your stance on versioning/builds of RPGs? I mean, do you have the tendency of always playing the latest version of a game no matter what or do you stick to what you deem more fun or balanced, or simply familiar to you? Maybe glaring bugs fixing is a good choice for jumping on a version from another. I know many roguelikes that have different versions that are often quite different, like Rogue, DCSS or Cataclysm (not counting the many forks of course, this thread is not about that for now), etc. Diablo 2 is another game where you can pick your poison as far as versions go. Deus Ex if I remember right has its GotY version a bit messy as well, something to do with filenames or missing files, so people often patch the base game instead. Maybe we could talk about expansions/DLCs as well, I know many of these alter the base game experience instead of simply adding more content.
Sorry I can't give more examples, I'm still a n00b. Lemme know if I made myself clear enough.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

For non live service games, I can only think of two instances where a post-launch patch changed the play experience of the game.

The Banner Saga 1. When I beat that game on normal difficulty, it was challenging throughout but never too hard. I did not gameover until the very final battle, and I only had to redo that once and then I had beaten the game, which felt satisfying. Unfortunately, according to the developers, completion rates dropped a lot at this final battle (and ofcourse they wanted people to finish the game so that they would go on to buy and play the continuation), so they released a patch which nerfed it. I am kinda "eh" on this change, so in that case I would maybe suggest to people trying to play the pre nerf version. But it's not a huge deal.

Monochrome Mobius' hard difficulty was actually way too hard, and actually made the unique mechanics the devs had designed for one of the four party members unusable. Basically the gameplay amounted to the two weaker girls getting two shotted, and this is a game where you can't sufficiently divert/mitigate damage for them via aggro tanking/evasion/shields/etc. So they would keep going down, you'd have to waste a turn to rez them and get them back up, and then they would probably go down again a few turns later. One of the girls, Shunya, has a mechanic where each turn she can build magic charges which can be consumed to cast more powerful spells. But you never really get to use this mechanic on hard because she will probably be dead before amasses enough charges. After I had slogged through the game on hard and finished it (and recommended to people not to play on hard), apparently Aquaplus patched the game and nerfed the hard difficulty. I would consider this to probably be a good change, but I haven't played it since then, so I don't know what it is like now. I'd just continue recommending people to play on normal. The Monochrome Mobius patches also apparently brought other very much requested changes, such as giving the background NPCs actual eyes.

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

I've always played the latest versions. Bug fixes, additional content, continued support etc. If there's something that I don't like that's been added or changed, I can mod it out.

Only exception I can think of is World of Warcraft. I no longer care much about the retail version, but I'm tempted to play Classic (I don't want to give woke Activision/Blizzard any money though).

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've always played the latest versions. Bug fixes, additional content, continued support etc. If there's something that I don't like that's been added or changed, I can mod it out.

Only exception I can think of is World of Warcraft. I no longer care much about the retail version, but I'm tempted to play Classic (I don't want to give woke Activision/Blizzard any money though).

Live service game changes are very infuriating. There are far too many to perform an exhaustive list.

Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns: the first expansion upped the difficulty. You walked into the first zone, and you actually had to sit up straight in your chair, build a balanced build that contained some survival features like more dodges or more tankiness, and then also actually dodge the monsters rather than trying to facetank everything. The difficulty of the overworld mobs and the hero point challenges also incentivized you to group with other players. You also had to wait for mobs to walk away before running in to grab a hero point. Rather than the vanilla experience where people could waltz around into wherever, not looking where they are going, and just eviscerate everything with a glass cannon build. Unfortunately, the vanilla experience had cultivated this expectation for a lot of people that the expansion would play just like Vanilla, so there was a lot of whining when HoT launched. 6 months later, Anet nerfed HoT into the ground, and the game has never been as engaging since. Even after the nerf, HoT content is still noticeably more difficult than all of the expansions added after.

Final Fantasy XIV: a lot of the solo instances were challenging (for the main story and the job storylines), and made you sit up straight in your chair and pay attention, and also built suspense. I fondly remember the level 60 Samurai fight (where you fight Master Musosai), the level 60 Red Mage fight with the evil wizard who is dashing around and dropping AoEs everywhere, and the (apparently infamous) In From the Cold duty from Endwalker where Fandaniel kidnaps you, Zenos bodyswaps with you and is heading to go stab your friends in the back, while you are trapped in the body of a weak Garlean soldier and have to run through the city in 20 minutes, and you just barely making it out in time and you are screaming at your character as he is crawling along the frozen ground after all of the other soldiers you just fought along with died in the explosion. All of those got nerfed into the ground, and the nerfing of that last one was highly controversial because a lot of people thought it was very suspenseful. But apparently there were enough people who complained that they couldn't do it in 20 minutes or the stress factor.

The recent revamp of ARR content also made it worse, IMO. The ARR dungeons were the only dungeons in the game with some non linearity that allowed you to pick where to go, had some unique things like spiderwebs that slowed you down, poisons that had to be cleansed, the Darkhold lanterns you had to stand near to avoid being killed by the Ahirman's AoE, the morbol seedling pods that you could allow to hatch as a bunch of adds so that you could get more EXP when levelling alt jobs, etc. All of that got scrubbed away. I also really disliked how the one cool, WoW-esque raid setpiece fight in the entire game, the Steps of Faith, was turned into a solo duty you only did once and never again.

Warframe started out as a slower paced, higher stress Left 4 Dead-esque game where there were fewer enemies but they were threatening, you couldn't bullet jump or blink across the map in half a second, couldn't press a button and one shot everything, etc. You had to sit up straight in your chair and pay attention. Unfortunately that experience is long gone, replaced by you zooming across the entire map in second wiping everything out with a button press. There is no tension.

[DemoGraph]

I've been playing Diablo 2 on an old version, because later versions changed balance in a way I didn't like (don't remember the specifics though).

Also, the best version of Minecraft for me is, IIRC, about a decade old 1.10, because that's the one with obvioiusly gorgeous Mystcraft and Thaumcraft 4. I don't need to have a shield or whatever if I can have an alien world generator and high magick. (alas, last times I've tried, I didn't manage to make it run because Java became backwards incompatible).

Also, obviously, nobody sane runs WC3 Reforged. You want an old version of real Warcraft.
And WoW, remember WoW classic?

[J1M]

Unless I encounter a specific bug I usually wouldn't care about what version I am playing.