Come on guys…
The game has reached an unplayable state for me now, and I do mean literally unplayable. Since the last update an issue that was happening fairly infrequently is now happening dozens of times a match. Basically, at random times (however, quite often after an explosion) my game will halt rendering completely for 2-3 seconds. I say halt rendering rather than freeze because the game continues running, just without me being able to see it. In fact, I am still able to hear my actions during this time, for instance, if I shoot I hear my weapon fire. Once the render stats up again, I am either synced with what my actions where during the halted render time or I will be in the original position and then warp to the correct place a couple of hundred milliseconds later. The frequency of this makes the game unplayable and very frustrating.
However, that is not the only issue I am having. Since the Containment War update and the latest fine tuning update, there have been dozens of bugs introduced to the game. What makes this such an annoying problem is that many of the bugs, glitches and exploits that were introduced, have actually been in the game at some point or another in the past, and been fixed. Here is a big list of just some of the issues I have run into within the last couple of weeks.
[ul]
[li]Elevators no longer make sound while being used.
[/li][li]Stokers Molotov Cocktail now does very limited damage to objectives (not in patch notes).
[/li][li]Players are sometimes invisible.
[/li][li]Mercs sometimes spawn with the wrong loadout and/or abilities.
[/li][li]Secondary objectives are sometimes rendered in the wrong state.
[/li][li]Turrets some time shoot silently and without warning.
[/li][li]Dying while throwing packs or using abilities can use all available packs and/or grenades.
[/li][li]Redeyes smoke grenade timing no longer matches animation (slow throw).
[/li][li]Healing station now no longer plays a sound when entering radius and starting healing.
[/li][li]Big drops in frame rate when getting in a close 1 vs 1.
[/li][li]The audio that plays when getting hit is now far too loud.
[/li][li]Objectives showing wrong state in cinematic sequences.
[/li][li]EV is sometimes invisible to players.
[/li][li]Increased frequency of players warping during strafe battles.
[/li][li]Players going up and down none flat surfaces appear to stutter step.
[/li][li]MG nests sometimes appear invisible.
[/li][li]Sometimes see a black rectangle in the center of screen when respawning.
[/li][li]Wrong audio plays during cinematic sequences.
[/li][li]Some objective warnings are very delayed.
[/li][li]Footstep audio seems to be much quieter.
[/li][li]General performance seems to have decreased substantially.
[/li][li]Redeyes inferred vision not always showing enemies.
[/li][li]Certain audio queues seem to not be synchronized (delayed reload sounds and revive sounds).
[/li][li]No firing animation or wrong weapon in hands of enemy.
[/li][li]Game goes into the wrong map after a lobby sequence.
[/li][li]Lobby not always saving my loadout changes.
[/li][li]Fire can vanish when hitting small ledges (come on guys this was in the game years ago)
[/li][li]& much, much more…
[/li][/ul]
All the things listed above are either NEW bugs, or bugs that have been reintroduced very recently. These are also just the bugs that I have witnessed in the new build so there are almost certainly many more. Also, to be clear, I have not listed any of the spectator bugs that were also recently introduced. On top of all this there are hundreds, if not thousands of other individual bugs and issues waiting to be fixed. What really makes this all the more concerning is that I honestly can’t remember the last update that fixed more bugs than it introduced! Granted, there have been updates and patches that fix much more serious bugs than they introduce, but does that mean its “ok”?
Forgetting bugs for a moment… The progress on meaningful updates and improvements is far too slow. The game has been in open beta now for around 6 months (we will get back to this later) and it still lacks many important features. Not to mention that many of the features and mechanics in the game are still what many would class as “minimum viable product”. I have been playing the game for around 18 months now and I can honestly say not only do I have much worse performance and a game that also looks worse in some ways but we also have so many really small bugs that have not been fixed. Instead it seems like its more about content then polish which would be fine if the average person that downloaded the game played enough to even get through the content we already have. In the amount of time it took to get dome we could and should have seen the rest of the maps improved. Not only design wise but simple things like collision mapping and fixing some art issues. Terminals forward spawn STILL does not have a texture applied to it!
This post was made because of something I saw in-game today. 3 low level players complaining about the game, with 1 of them angry he paid for the starter pack. His argument was that he would not have paid if he knew the game was in beta. That’s when it hit me… Sure the game has an easy to miss beta warning on the front page and in game but where else is that warning these days? Both the steam front page and the official Dirty Bomb page does not mention beta at all. This guy had watched a video (paid for promotion) thought the game looked good so got the starter pack and then realized he was crashing and low fps. He even said he did not know the game was in beta.
Why this worries me so much is that if your willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on promoting a game, charge for stuff and remove all beta warnings from official channels… Your not only asking for trouble but it tells me that this is the game as it is… Sure things may get a bit better with updates and stuff but kinda “deal with it”. I feel that the marketing right now is really sketchy and from my perspective the game is already feeling like its in the cash out stage. I am no longer confident that even the smallest bugs will ever be addressed!
The problem with Dirty Bomb is not LACK OF CONTENT! It’s how it feels to play and the lack of refinement that every single aspect of the game struggles with! I like all the guys that I have seen/met/spoken to from Splash Damage and I honestly believe they have what it takes make a great game! I’m just not sure its going to happen…
Makes me sad 