Is this game dying?

(GregoryH) #1

Hi.
Im pretty much new in this game, but i’ve fell already in love with it. So, as a new player, i checked youtubers creating content about this to learn some new tricks, tactics etc., but first thing i saw is critique of new crafting system and some thoughts, that this game is dying due to the less and less playing it.
Im now asking you: is it true, that DB is losing popularity? Should i be worried about it? And also, did creators rectified this?

(MarsRover) #2

No.

But, every time someone creates this exact thread without using the “search” function, a kitten is placed on an armed Proxy mine.

(TheStrangerous) #3

It’s stable. For every thousands of fresh meat… I mean new players leaving permanently, a new thousand comes by.

(pumpkinmeerkat) #4

Soon™ is not soon enough for casual matchmaking.

(AlphaUT) #5

There will be a huge wave of new players coming once it’s full release which the company will market it.

Main reason why many left is because poor balance system that causes new player can’t take the stress, and competitive also not working as good as it should which also cause many pro players left. However, as we know, they are currently working on a new system. I believe this should help attract more players into this game and stay with it.

As a player who wants to play more comp games, I’m waiting for the new system and hoping it will not disappoint me.

Although I still have no idea when it will happen. Shoe said there will be a surprise when it’s full release ( from one of his video I believe? That’s long time ago)

(Dawnlazy) #6

There’s actually been a real drop in playerbase in the past couple of months (number of unique users seems to have waned a bit). Personally I nolifed the hell out of this game for almost a year but lately it’s been hard to get in the mood due to performance issues that kinda kill my will to play.

(Nail) #7

player base at the beach has risen dramatically though

(doxjq) #8

It’s definitely dying on this side of the world (Australia / New Zealand). It’s so bad that yesterday during the day we had 0 servers running with players in them for a few hours. That’s like unheard of for us. It’s always been smaller but there’s usually at least a handful of servers running.

It’s killed it for me. I don’t play much any more. I have no interest in 7v7 or 8v8 servers (and even if I do play them, probably more than 50% of the players are from Europe playing on 400ms ping for some reason) and starting up a min 10 6v6 server can take hours over here. Literally hours some days. So I just don’t bother any more.

It’s a shame for us. I love this game and want to play it more than any other game, but our player base is so dead I just can’t enjoy the game any more. I used to be able to just jump on and get into a game within seconds and enjoy myself for hours but now it’s a matter of waiting so damn long before we can get a 6v6 server running. I’m honestly expecting to see a total removal of Australian servers in the near future if new content updates don’t bring players back, because there just isn’t any point in having servers for such a tiny player base any more.

(Jostabeere) #9

You should not take Youtubers so seriously since everyone has a subjective opinion.
For example some of them like kAndyREW dislike the crafting system and say it kinda broke the game for them.
And I think it is stupid that people take a side system for so important and don’t play a game because of it.
For example people like @Amerika don’t care about skins at all and play the game solely for the gameplay with Bronze cards.

(Xyfurion) #10

It’s not at all dying. Just because TF2 has more players does not mean DB is dying. Come on mate.

Save the kittens @MarsRover

(DaaDog) #11

The player base is kinda small :http://steamcharts.com/app/333930#All

I can’t see this downward trend changing until they release CMM and or actually fix bugs > release it fully and start marketing it.

The peak at 13k players at the start of July 2015 correlate with the video Total Biscuit and AngryJoeShow released and I’m not sure it will ever reach anywhere near that again unless they pay biggish youtubers to play it and makes videos.

(Jan S.) #12

It’s not dying (and hopefully it never will). Take a look at Battleborn on PC, that’s a dying game for example

(watsyurdeal) #13

Well you got to look at the problems the game has

  1. It’s not clearly explained that the cards do not affect gameplay unless they are Bronze. Yea you would THINK people would be able to figure it out on their own but, that’s just not the case. People aren’t often going to be invested enough to really learn that for the other reasons given below, so it’s something that should really be given upfront. Or imo, we should have just have 4 rarities, with different color cards within those 4 rarities. 1 augment, 2 augments, 3 augments, 3 augments plus sexy bling bling.

  2. The tutorial is both, not mandatory, and doesn’t fully illustrate what to do. We get the basic here’s how you shoot, here’s how you give ammo, etc. But we need an Engineer section, so people understand the objectives are the focus of the game, and NOT the guns and health, which are DM focused aspects, you need bullets to shoot your gun, your gun kills people, and your defib and healing station can help you save people. You got to understand that perspective. By adding a simple engineer section and explaining the main goal of the game is these, you will see a major difference in the mindset of people who JUST start playing. On top of this, we need a course for Aura and the Engineer we get as well.

  3. The consistency of the guns, and the crosshair placement. This is arguably a very minor thing at first, but as players improve it explodes into a major problem. The crosshairs are not all lined up at the center, as well as the exiting angles for the bullets on all guns, and the sights for all of the guns. This is all stuff that should have been fixed from the get go, but still hasn’t yet. Get on it!

  4. Server browsers, or custom servers for players, and an improved Ranked matchmaking. We need to encourage people to play Ranked, not force this whole casual matchmaking bull shit on people. No amount of match making is going to fix bad team work, and that issue in itself should hopefully be fixed with #1’s proposals. But if we are going to have matchmaking, it really should be ranked only, as there is no reason for someone who wants to jump in and just play, to take more than a minute to get a game started.

That’s all I can think of for now, and I gotta get back to work, so see ya.

(Amerika) #14

[quote=“DaaDog;200923”]The player base is kinda small :http://steamcharts.com/app/333930#All

I can’t see this downward trend changing until they release CMM and or actually fix bugs > release it fully and start marketing it.

The peak at 13k players at the start of July 2015 correlate with the video Total Biscuit and AngryJoeShow released and I’m not sure it will ever reach anywhere near that again unless they pay biggish youtubers to play it and makes videos.[/quote]

Peak numbers are not the same thing as unique players. The amount of unique players is always the thing to look at. Peak players is a good slice of how many are playing at any one time but it mostly has little to do with the actual playerbase. However, unique players are down right now also. But that is due to no new content being released (new mercs to try) or events. If you’re going to make your game a “service” you have to keep people invested with constant updates to keep them playing or you’ll lose them to other games. Normally I’d shoot down a post like this because the game has kept consistent unique players despite not having massive peak numbers but due to the dearth in content and the crafting system update that hasn’t been well received it’s driven people off.

And yeah, the crafting system didn’t affect me personally in the slightest. I barely even know it exists due to me caring a lot more about gameplay than the color of the character I’m using. But I do get that A LOT of people do care and the system should be changed to make those people happier while also not bankrupting the devs. It didn’t have a positive net affect for anybody I don’t think and the arsenal crate system is also pretty meh due to low reward items being involved and how long it takes to get an individual level. It just doesn’t have a ton of value to keep people who need that value invested in a game.

I like that bug fixing is currently the focus for the game but since it’s not as exciting as a new event or new content (maps/mercs) it’s not going to entice people to come back.

(aminuseternal) #15


https://steamdb.info/app/333930/graphs/
I would recommend checking either of these sites out rather than steam chats they are way more informative.

But one other thing to remember, is that team based shooters need to keep churning out content otherwise people can get bored really quick. Titanfall died off pretty quick due to it being a AAA game but had so few maps and game modes. I mean hell blizzard Activision would never admit it, but overwatch had people quitting the game in the first week because of how quickly they got bored. I feel like once they finish the summer squash, so bug fixes and performance are taken care of, release turtle, release dockyard, advertise the crap out of the game and get a steady stream of content going then it will be fine.

Oh and SD is doing a lot of the multiplayer for Gears of War 4, which I am sure there is a completely different team working on that, from what I understand they are working on uh… Matchmaking… And level design… http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/splash-damage-is-working-on-gears-of-war-4-s-multiplayer/0164043
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gears-of-war-4-multiplayer-co-developed-by-quake-w/1100-6435666/
Most of the articles I found were related to the chicken company purchasing SD, or saying the same this for the most part. The thing that I find strange is that neither of the articles mention Dirty Bomb as something SD is working on.

Sorry my formatting is crap I am doing this off of my phone >_>

(TheStrangerous) #16

[quote=“aminuseternal;200952”]https://steamspy.com/app/333930
https://steamdb.info/app/333930/graphs/
I would recommend checking either of these sites out rather than steam chats they are way more informative.
[/quote]

Looks like the population’s ain’t that small to panic about.
Now I can throw Steamcharts off the window and welcome SteamDB!

(N8o) #17

I think creators stopped making content for it since they basically ran out of (quality) content to make. The game is updating so slowly that no body is sticking around to make stuff for it.

(SirSwag) #18

I just ran out of footage to make more content. And Australian servers aren’t helping me to get more. We didn’t have too many servers to begin with, but it’s been really hard to find them lately.

(Dysfnal) #19

@N8o this problem would be solved if the developers would peek into the merc suggestions every once and a while, there are some gems in there

In regard to OP, I think this game took a little bit of a hit with the updated crafting system, and I know three people, all three that I play with, no longer play this game, might be specific to me, but I think not. I still haven’t touched the system myself

(doxjq) #20

It’s been on a severe downward slope since they removed 6v6 from public. That was the biggest killer so far for us. We just don’t have the playerbase to randomly start up min 10 6v6 servers without waiting a long time and almost everyone I played Dirty Bomb with regularly despises 7v7 and 8v8, so they just don’t play it any more.