How to increase population and make the game a better experience

(zfzmikey) #1

  1. Work hard at keeping out cheaters.

  2. Use incentive or simply force most of your population into MM.

  3. (long goal) find a way to make the games a tad shorter, perhaps map rework?

You push this as a competitive game. You advertise for it through competition. You go hard on the PR before open beta about how this game is hard, and you aren’t out to make it easy for newcomers to learn. You put effort into ranks and seasons. Yet, matchmaking is a barren wasteland that takes ages to find a game, and ends up with a crappy result.

Complaints against MM

  1. Difficulty - either it’s a stop or you’re getting stomped. This is fixed by a larger pool of players in queue so they can be appropriately matched.

  2. Cheaters - this needs to be taken on as a #1 priority, but even still, with a much larger pool of players, encounters with hackers will be less frequent.

  3. “But I just want to pub”. That’s fine, but a huge number of people looking to play competitive games don’t want to just pub. It’s boring. When there’s nothing on the line, the charm of a game quickly fades. This is a competitive game right? Then maybe prioritize that aspect of it. Besides, devs have been quoted as saying the game is balanced around 5v5 Stopwatch.

  4. “It takes too long to get a match”. Again, fixed by a larger pool of players.

Your game is bleeding players and not even retaining your most die hard fans. This is because the pub experience sucks, straight up. Some people might have fun with it, but that’s not the group of people you’re trying to market to or capture.

What have my friends and I been doing for the past few weeks? Playing Rocket League. With a controller. The reason why we have is extremely simple. We can consistently and quickly get into matches against another group of people with a relatively similar skill level and try to win. When it’s over, we can do it again, and get in another game within 30 seconds.

Matchmaking is the secret sauce to making a difficult competitive game stay alive. If you’re new, and the game is hard, that’s fine, cause you get queued against players who are just a bad. If you’re a vet and quite good, you are pushed to do well because the competition is stiff.

Phantom, aim punch, weapon and ability balance, all of that is almost meaningless compared to how important this is for enticing players to keep playing. Those are the things that you complain about in between queuing, because competition is so addicting that you immediately go back for more. At that point, you’re ironing out details. Right now, you’re trying to iron out details on a sinking ship. Give it a boost and fix your game before it’s too late.

(zfzmikey) #2

Apparently there’s no edit button?

In any case in the “Complaints against MM” section, first line should read:

“it’s either a stomp or you’re getting stomped”

(XavienX) #3

[quote=“zfzmikey;59316”]Apparently there’s no edit button?

In any case in the “Complaints against MM” section, first line should read:

“it’s either a stomp or you’re getting stomped”[/quote]

I agree with OP, and btw the edit button is under the settings gear icon in the upper right hand corner of your post.

(Amerika) #4

There is an edit button. It’s the cogwheel in the top right hand corner that is hard to see.

Also, hi @zfzmikey

(Ghosthree3) #5

I disagree with making games shorter, the only time I feel that way is when one team is stomping the other. If the teams are balanced properly I’m perfectly happy with match length.

Objective mode sort of fixes this issue in itself though by lengthening the game to maximum as the game goes on instead of just giving the full duration to start with. Long live Objective mode!

(Yes) #6

[quote=“Ghosthree3;59351”]I disagree with making games shorter, the only time I feel that way is when one team is stomping the other. If the teams are balanced properly I’m perfectly happy with match length.

Objective mode sort of fixes this issue in itself though by lengthening the game to maximum as the game goes on instead of just giving the full duration to start with. Long live Objective mode![/quote]
100% agree, I’d love stopwatch if it wasn’t too long. 15 minutes is just way too much if the first defense team is stomping, it gets extremely boring being on either side.

(zfzmikey) #7

I really hope someone at Nexon or SD sees this.

You have ~2.5 million install base, but numbers of daily players are almost halved from just over a month ago.

http://i.imgur.com/queTnrW.png

You need matchmaking to be filled to keep your player base. It’s the secret sauce to mobas, Rocket League, and essential to CS:GO. Please force MM, or add incentive for players to queue that way instead of filling up pubs that are unbalanced with non-optimal game modes.

(Fap Fap Master) #8

Steam trading/market is planned, that’d make the game spike!

(immenseWalnut) #9

[quote=“Ghosthree3;59351”]I disagree with making games shorter, the only time I feel that way is when one team is stomping the other. If the teams are balanced properly I’m perfectly happy with match length.

Objective mode sort of fixes this issue in itself though by lengthening the game to maximum as the game goes on instead of just giving the full duration to start with. Long live Objective mode![/quote]

I agree 100% with the first part. I would say emphatically, that the only time you can mix casuals with the more solid part of the playerbase, is only if team sizes are large (16 per team etc) or if the mechanics of the game prevent the skilled ones from wrecking the lesser skilled ones from halfway across the map. TF2, for all its flaws, got that element spot on.

In DB, we have accurate weapons with varying precison over long ranges, with small team sizes, and players that are basically fodder most of the time. It just isn’t working.

We need skill bracketing (let the Vasili’s noobs and Phantom noobs play with each other) and let the serious chaps and chapettes do the same. Comp is supposed to be that outlet, but each time I played comp, the teamwork/player skill was awful, and hackers are rampant.

Dislike your thoughts on objective though, that gamemode just needs to go. Stopwatch is the only real fair way to play attack/defend, the maps weren’t designed for the way people like to play. Being on a team of 3 Bushwhackers camping spots when we are supposed to be attacking is only barely acceptable if they get to do the same on defense. Objective is just a wearisome mode that only exists to create a gamemode that causes further division (many players think certain maps are balanced for attackers/defenders, not uncommon I know, but still). The only saving grace it has, is that games end quickly so we can get out fast and hopefully play with better players on the next server. But that is a matchmaking issue more than anything.

Good luck getting changes though, SD will promise us the world, then give us Phoenix, another merc with cheap skills for da noobz, who serves no real purpose in a comp game.

The real bummer is, I could happily play a not serious game that catered to noobs, if done well. Same as I could play a serious comp game that pisses on noobs. This game is too much of a compromise, aiming to please all.

Roll on either Overwatch, or NS3, if it ever happens/fingers crossed!

(titaniumCrouton) #10

Implying both are only for noobs and neither see any competitive play…(only true in phantom’s case…Vas is generally one per team in every tourney game…)

Oh and the rest of the post is trash, mostly due to your insults to SD, calling random mercs trash and “Noob” guys, etc, etc…but I’m not going to really bother typing out a long responses in this game. It…it honestly doesn’t warrant the thought process required.

I simply leave this here in response, I suppose.

(immenseWalnut) #11

I really can’t tell if you are serious, or just joshing.

Go and read a book called Wizard’s First Rule, and pay attention to the insightful paragraph where the Wizard’s first rule is explained. I am not aiming that at you by the way, I am aiming it at the people that you think your above solution will compel to play the game.

One of the reasons Valve’s system works so well, is because they created a game that kept the good guys interested. And because those good guys stayed, and formed a community that lasted, those games grew. Once they reached critical mass (call it what you want), the sheeple flooded in.

DB will just be a laughing stock if they don’t sort the hackers. This game is still proudly displaying the Beta flag to cover it’s sins. And it has a shrinking playerbase. If they implement Steam Trading and silly hats, it will still be a laughing stock. You have to copy the good stuff first, and make your game hard to put down, before you copy the other stuff that keeps the sheeple interested. They will bleat their way to a new game within moments if they perceive a game to be said laughing stock. On the other hand, a game which has the pros interested, a game which has semi-pros interested, a game which is drawing attention on YouTube from the drama queen reviewers, and is being talked about on social media and every gaming site you have ever set foot in, that is the real advertisement that keeps the sheeple invested. POPULARITY. They wont play a dead game, but they will ALWAYS play the most popular game.

DB doesn’t have that pull, and their recent updates, are driving a wedge between the semi-hardcore players that want to take this game seriously, and the noobs that just want to button mash.

(Yes) #12

[quote=“titaniumCrouton;59863”][quote=“immenseWalnut;59862”]

We need skill bracketing (let the Vasili’s noobs and Phantom noobs play with each other) and

[/quote]

Implying both are only for noobs and neither see any competitive play…(only true in phantom’s case…Vas is generally one per team in every tourney game…)[/quote]
He probably meant they are more appealing to noobs, so more often than not a noob would be playing them.

(zfzmikey) #13

The game doesn’t have that pull because it’s a game balanced around hard core competition with quick decision making and fast changes to strategy due to the merc system. But then they service pubs, add a game mode that is widely hated, and don’t offer a legitimate way to get in competitive games outside of cumbersome PUGs.

They have the formula, they have a great game that requires minimal tweaks to get perfect, but are lacking on the execution of their ideas as they get bogged down in Reddit stupidity.

GET YOUR PLAYER BASE INTO MM AND FIX THE HACKER ISSUE

(bwort110) #14

I saw many posts that people cant play this game, cause its wasnt released in their contry. Is this game restricted? If they would open it, the playerbase would grow.

(bushyg) #15

The teams should have odds and the team with the lowest odds should always be put on defense. Attacking for 15 minutes when your team is clearly outclassed isn’t much fun.

If your team finds a way to hold, then a decent game might ensue, if not the game should be over more quickly and not result in a 15 minute spawn camp.

(immenseWalnut) #16

[quote=“zfzmikey;59869”]The game doesn’t have that pull because it’s a game balanced around hard core competition with quick decision making and fast changes to strategy due to the merc system. But then they service pubs, add a game mode that is widely hated, and don’t offer a legitimate way to get in competitive games outside of cumbersome PUGs.

They have the formula, they have a great game that requires minimal tweaks to get perfect, but are lacking on the execution of their ideas as they get bogged down in Reddit stupidity.

GET YOUR PLAYER BASE INTO MM AND FIX THE HACKER ISSUE[/quote]

I disagree mate, this game has steadily lost those elements that made it balanced around hardcore competition. It is almost like Nexon told them to get Comp play up and running first, and when it didn’t take off (and it never will without a significant prize purse) they went for the money mode of providing cheap style classes to fill the void and nerfs to the strongest weapons to limit/restrict the power of the good players. Almost every change could have an almost accurate conspiracy theory behind the reasoning. I await the coming day where Airstrike gets a larger radius buff!

I highly doubt this ‘new merc every 2-3 weeks’ is an accident, and I hate seeing game breaking flaws being ignored while their new stuff is being worked on. I watched Tribes Ascend die that way (and yes, I know these are very different games, but the time window for fixing flaws is no different). We are already seeing a drop off in players, and that can be excused because it always happens (which is misleading in my opinon) but what happens in a month or two when it gets worse? This isn’t a bad game, the devs are just focusing on the stuff that we don’t need, but they do.

I have always maintained (and I say this on every gaming forum out there), if you want to do F2P, you need to have a payment system that is both beneficial to the players, and to the devs. DB had P2W accusations fired at it, because of that loudmouth YouTube guy, and that was uncalled for, but if someone was to throw a bait-and-switch accusation (with Phantom) could anyone (no matter how fanatic about the game) actually defend against that? OP cheese class, famous for how popular they are with super low skill players, being OP?

(zfzmikey) #17

Almost none of that matters to the comp crowd, or people who enjoy 5v5 MM. It certainly does for pubs though.

As I’ve said, those things are all peanuts compared to not being able to get in and play a game of 5v5 that the game is designed around.

(Gi.Am) #18

I give an agree. But I also think that matches should not be shorter. Stopwatch matches take 40 min maximum (30mi match time + overhead) thats pretty par for the course imo. especially considering that you are effectively playing 2 matches. Cutting playtime would mean reducing the mapsize/ amount of objectives, further or balancing, the maps very strongly in favour for attackers.

@Clown I once suggested a simple solution for the 15 minutes stomp problem. The stronger team (based on overall/median ranks) always attacks first. They have a higher chance of completing the map. When they defend afterwards the first objective fullhold (that might come), only takes the time they set in the first round. The stronger they are, the shorter the stomp.

(immenseWalnut) #19

[quote=“zfzmikey;59894”]Almost none of that matters to the comp crowd, or people who enjoy 5v5 MM. It certainly does for pubs though.

As I’ve said, those things are all peanuts compared to not being able to get in and play a game of 5v5 that the game is designed around.[/quote]

Pretty sure I mentioned that at a certain point in DB’s development, it felt like they had Comp in mind.

Don’t get me wrong, Phantom was always on the cards, he wasn’t designed in a day. But his presence, along with many of the more aggravating changes that hold back the full potential of comp players but make life easier for the noobs, suggest a certain kind of plan no? Only a fool would think the changes we see are just guesswork to see what sticks. The moment I saw my precious Crotzni nerfed (and the Kek-10 although I had never used it) I knew where we were headed. Those were the ONLY 2 weapons people were talking about as being strong. The Blishlok? Did we not also see that weapon being a powerhouse in the hands of skilled players, then being nerfed into a medium range spray and pray popcorn shooter? Complain all you want mate, the devs have made their intentions clear, the divergence away from comp play wasn’t a random mistake.

This game is not going in the right direction, and I am past the point of livestream promises about how good it is going to get. I believe in actions, not words. And the actions of SD are basically screw comp, focus on cash. Nerf the stuff good players are using to hammer bad players, and give bad players more of a chance to not die so easily.

(beigeTackle) #20

People are leaving because first impressions are a big deal and the phantom patch and follow up patch did not look good to fans. closed beta should have continued until balancing was perfect and ready to go and a working anti-cheat was in place. These two things have killed a lot of the spirit of dirty bomb.

And the whole “we’re looking into it” response for anti-cheat is not helping either. look into what? get rid xigncode and put in something valid and that works. And if its going to be awhile, fine, but let players know. Like a rough date type of know.