I kind of like that idea! It would also make it possible to see how controversial a post is: mostly upvotes = not very controversial (everyone likes it), fairly even = controversial, mostly downvotes = not very controlversial (no one likes it). Dunno if it would have any real benefit, but just showing upvotes and not downvotes but displaying a controversiality score might also be a nice touch that doesn't highlight the negativity (although it's not as simple, and simplicity is often a good thing too).

I would be in favor of dropping votes as a whole…though I’m certainly in the minority. I also really like how it’s managed on X (formerly Twitter) where the bad comments don’t receive likes, and therefore stay at the bottom of the chat, or they’ll get “ratio-ed” by comments.

Here's a question how about.. a setting?
All - It's normal. All votes remain.
Good - Only positive votes. Everything else gets zero'd out to neutral. No comments get hidden no matter how negative.
NONE - All votes are neutraled out. No comments get hidden no matter how negative.

How votes are sorted etc wouldn't be changed. And you could still upvote/downvote you just wouldn't see the votes.

Who cares about votes? It's not affecting the site. Nobody is going, oh God, there are votes and it is not how I like it, I am leaving.
As for Liking a post or subscribing to a thread. Again, nobody really cares, all of this is just extra stuff to make the site a site. Functionality.
And I do not mean to say, if you care about votes that your opinion does not matter, just saying this thread is about the state of the forums.

Does the votes and the like really affect much?

Well, I personally go through the downvoted stuff anyway, because most of that stuff is usually fairly reasonable. I even click the 'hidden' posts. Hence a setting wouldn't really change anything, and it's not about my perception anyway, it's about how the community works with the system in general.

To be clear, I don't really care at all about upvoting in the forums. I click the so-called 'Agree' button whenever I feel like doing so, and sometimes it's fun to see how many other people agree, but aside from maybe skipping the occasional 'Yeah, I think so too.' post, it's not really affecting me in any way. It's the news comment section that's... not nice. That's also why it's not a huge thing in a grand scheme of things (the forums are the main thing anyway), but news comment aren't exactly a joy. Not that they're great for proper discussion anyway though, because news tend to get lost once more news come in, and the nesting layout doesn't really lend itself well to lengthy discussion anyway. But it'd be nice if reasonable comments didn't get treated poorly just because they're not popular opinions.

Yes.

No idea why voting is being talked. Pointless system with how few users are here.

If you are indifferent to whether voting exists or not on this site, I see nothing wrong with the users who *do* have an issue with it choosing to voice their concerns. imo I’ve found that a social media site typically improves when it becomes far less of a “popularity contest” on every post/comment. 

Maybe not.

But I've seen some people complain, and I've also seen some people kind of weaponize upvotes. (People agree with me, and not you, so people recognize my argument is better).

I think one issue is that news is kind of slow. We used to have a big gaming show every few months (E3, Gamescom, TGS, PSX, plus others.) Sony, MS, Nintendo each would frequently have like 90 minute shows, if not 2 hours at times. Games are taking longer to make, and the big companies are making fewer of them, although Indies are making more games than ever. 

I think the biggest issue with forums, is that Reddit exists. Which has places for having conversations on literally anything. If you want to talk about gaming news, there are tons of large communities dedicated to that. And you can also find groups of people that are like minded for politics and religion and be able to have friendlier conversations that fit one's echo chamber. Which is harder to do in a place like this. 

As it stands, votes are staying in place. Should they create real issues going forward, we'll revisit them.

On the flip side, suggestions are always welcome, but let's move on from votes for now.

Time/Cost

What would we need for a new site/or huge overhaul?