I can totally understand that you need a Microsoft account to play with friends. I'm not a fan of it, but I can deal with it.
I completely understand that you can invite friends to play together directly in the game menu. It is a great design that is standard and should be. Unfortunately, it requires Xbox account. But believe me, I can really understand that, as it may be a good solution for crossplay, etc., though I would much prefer it if you could also invite friends via Steam or using an invite code.
What I absolutely can't grasp, however, is that to accept an invite, you absolutely must have the Xbox app. It would be enough to have the option to accept an invite in-game, and it would work perfectly. However, the game requires a certain application running in the background, which I absolutely don’t want to use it, as it serves virtually no purpose for me beyond accepting the invite.
And it would be great if, for once, I could swallow my pride and install this product from a certain Redmond corporation. But I literally can't because I'm running the game on GNU/Linux. (or just "Linux," as many people call it).
Yes, someone might point out that the game is officially only for Windows and Xbox. That’s true. But the game itself runs flawlessly via Proton - only with the single, frustrating exception of accepting invites. That one feature seriously disrupts the multiplayer experience.
This isn't a technological limitation anymore, but rather a poor design issue with the system for inviting other players to play together. This makes absolutely no sense. I can host a game by linking my Steam account to my Microsoft account and inviting my friends there, but I can't join a game my friend has created.
This kind of design issue is unfortunately all too common in modern game development, whether it's unnecessary launchers (thankfully not an issue here if you play solo) or forcing users to install software they don’t actually need.
My suggestion is to add additional ways to invite players, and to add a way to accept invites without using the Xbox app or using only xbox account, but without its client.
