Limited edition obsidian cash-only is bullshit

[Meerkats]

I remember when Dirty Bomb didn’t have a new limited edition, buy now or forever be separated, obsidian for sale every month. Yeah. That was like eight months ago.

I’m not gonna go on some rant about how Dirty Bomb was better back in the day, so let’s just level.

You gotta make money, and now, you are. Great. Happy for you, more power to you, whatev. In fact, I’ve prior made recommendations on things you could sell like voice packs. I am not opposed to you guys selling shit.

But why is it every single new skin has to be a limited edition obsidian that will never be sold again? This isn’t about your half-assed Phoenix, this is about the Javelin, the Arty, the Stoker, etc. You’re pumping out a new obsidian once a month now, so why you gotta do us dirty like this. Just open a legit market where we can buy skins. Maybe have items rotate or be seasonal. Maybe have sales. You know, like about every other game that has a cash shop. What is up with this high pressure, hard sale bullshit? Why you gotta be so damn scummy? Is it to justify your abusive pricing by creating artificial scarcity to create demand? To con us, your players, by taking advantage of us and our anxieties via artificial expiration dates? What’s next? Limit a skin to only the first 250 buyers? You aren’t fooling anybody; these are piles of pixels on a computer that you can redistribute at will whenever you damn well please.

Come on Splash Damage. You guys think you’re Wells Fargo CEO’s or something? If the product is good, we will support you. You know that. When limited edition obsidians came once a year to commemorate the release of a new merc, we could understand. When you’re shitting them out every month, yet insisting on these bullshit hard sales tactics, you’re just taking a dump on us. Open a store tab for skins. Don’t make the skins limited edition. We’ll still buy your dumb pixels, and you guys won’t be tremendous jackasses.

[STARRYSOCK]

I’ve bought a few cards from this game, but the main reason I’ve done so is just to support SD. I’ve gotten over 1,000 hours out of it, I figured I should give them something in return. Some looked great like phantom, others looked like shit like turtle, but the main reason I bought them was for SD.

But if I didn’t support SD like I do, there’s no way in hell I would have bought those cards. I don’t have a problem with them being limited edition. I’d prefer if they went on sale periodically, but whatever. The issue I have with it is that the cards are all so stupidly expensive. I know a lot of people who would have bought them if they were more reasonable for what they were, but 15$ for a single card? (because really, how many people will play all three cards they get from a bundle regularly)
You could buy a small game or a large DLC with that, but instead you expect people with no emotional attachment to the game to drop that kind of money on a skin they won’t even see, outside of the glorified default weapon that you’re holding?

Now, I’m not a business expert. But I know when you aren’t being scared away by the price, you can usually move more product, especially when your product is something that can be duplicated infinitely for no cost to you. If more people bought them, even at a lower price, I can easily see the devs making more money off of them. But instead literally everything in this game is overpriced as shit, even things with no paid alternatives.

I highly doubt anything will change though, especially not from commenting here. SD seems to be doing it’s best to ignore us completely, as well as shoving almost everyone away who isn’t sucking their dick to try to maintain some sort of harmful secrecy with their community and the people who are actually supporting the game.
“Don’t like this? Banned from the PTS! Oh, a lot of you don’t like this? Make a new secret PTS for only people we love. Who cares about actually testing mercs, just look at how great javelin was at launch! Now let’s get an even smaller test group!”
Of course not everyone at SD is like this, but well, the people who are are currently the ones who are making themselves most obvious

[GatoCommodore]

you said it yourself

if its good, people will buy it regardless the price

[Eox]

@STARRYSOCK said:
I highly doubt anything will change though, especially not from commenting here. SD seems to be doing it’s best to ignore us completely, as well as shoving almost everyone away who isn’t sucking their dick to try to maintain some sort of harmful secrecy with their community and the people who are actually supporting the game.
“Don’t like this? Banned from the PTS! Oh, a lot of you don’t like this? Make a new secret PTS for only people we love. Who cares about actually testing mercs, just look at how great javelin was at launch! Now let’s get an even smaller test group!”
Of course not everyone at SD is like this, but well, the people who are are currently the ones who are making themselves most obvious

I don’t think you know why PTS got removed just to be replaced in the first place.

PTS got wiped down due to recent events of multiple people leaking stuff and very high toxicity. People in the moderation (me included) were unable to punish any player belonging to PTS on Discord for their toxicity, because if we did SD was afraid about a new big wave of PTS leaks. Talk about a frustrating issue. Not being able to get rid of toxic users just because they happen to have been picked for the PTS experience in the past is incredibly infuriating. Not being able to do your job sucks, especially when it gives trouble to other people around you. This is why SD decided to break it down and rework it to include a new batch of people much more trustworthy than the original group and with stricter rules. Quality > Quantity.

Saying that the dev team does not listen to their players is a gigantic slander. Granted, the changes are sometimes far from being ideal, but they do some efforts. The community asked for a sniper nerf : we got one. We asked for a Javelin nerf, we got one. We asked for new maps, here comes Dockyards and Vault. We said Vault first obj was a pain. Here comes new 1st obj for Vault. They even changed Phoenix’s Obsidian colors due to community feedback. How is that not listening to players ?

Devs are sure less active than they should in the official forums, but Pinflux did show up in the official forums recently when someone reported being kicked from servers recently. This shows that we’re not abandonned.

[frostyvampire]

I would buy the skins if they were actually good and at a reasonable price. During ReV I wanted to support Dirty Bomb so I spent a lot of money (which I now regret seeing how things have come but it’s too late for that now), considering at that time DB was my favorite game and I played it most of the time. I even bought the Proxy obsidian.

But now, it looks like every event is the same and the obsidians are overpriced and not really that good (in my opinion). I don’t even want to support the devs anymore because they seem to just cashgrab. The current obsidians are all pretty bad and in no way worth 12$.
I think that these cards should be just skins and not loadouts that you can get in cases (but obviously they will be very rare) and to turn them into loadouts you will have to combine them with a cobalt loadout. It will keep the cobalt value high, not limit you to loadouts AND the obsidians won’t be overpriced since they will be unobtainable from the ingame store and the only way to get them will be from cases and trading with players. Oh and they won’t be limited edition.

And if that’s too advanced, then maybe just sell them for 5-8$. That’s a more reasonable price. Or make them so good that people will feel like spending 12$ for them is actually worth it

[GatoCommodore]

if you think its not that good then dont buy it

[neverplayseriou]

I personally just find it a complete joke that the bundle which has Phoenix and 3 obsidians is 20 euro’s and one individual obsidian is 13 euro’s, it’s way to expensive for 1 card.

And maybe start adding in good obsidians for mercs that are actually used a lot instead of making obsidians for Phantom and Phoenix…

[Guziol]

Just don’t buy it? I bought an obsidian phantom just to give devs some money because i enjoyed this game for 1,2k hours without spending a penny. I never play phantom.

[OwynTyler]

@GatoCommodore said:
if you think its not that good then dont buy it

then an announcement “uhh ohh we’r shutting down servers cuz nobody buys our stuff T_T”

[Homu1124]

I thought obsidians were cards of founder status, cards that were given to those that stuck with the game for a while to be there for their advent. Now it’s just money skins. q_q Way to ruin their magic.

[ImSploosh]

The idea of limited edition is the same in every game, it’s a business model that works. People are more likely to spend money, especially larger amounts, if the items are limited edition because then they’re considered special and prestigious. The idea that they’re available only for a limited time makes them desirable. When people consider the short period of time they have to purchase the item before they never get the chance to again, they’re more likely to pick it up. People worry about regretting not picking up those “special” items when they have a chance. It’s weird how it works, but that’s psychology for you.

Anyways, my problem with these type of cards is that they haven’t listened to us at all. We can’t choose the loadout we want and the prices are ridiculous for what we’re getting. It would definitely be nice if they dropped the prices and kept them in the store under a skins tab forever, or even if they just kept them in longer than they have been.

[Melinder]

@Eox said:
Devs are sure less active than they should in the official forums, but Pinflux did show up in the official forums recently when someone reported being kicked from servers recently. This shows that we’re not abandonned.

No, it shows that only in extreme circumstances will they take action.

As for this PTS Drama, I really have no knowledge on the situation. I have been told by many people, some of which whom have been in the PTS at some point in time, that the PTS is filled primarily with content creators/community figures, of which have very little knowledge on how to actually “test” or balance the game. I for one have a problem with that, and it is very clear that this has had lasting affects on how the game has turned out over the years.

As for the devs not listening… One step forwards, two steps back basically sums it up. On top of their inability to actually balance things properly, their lack of urgency on basically every problem is rather frustrating.

[Meerkats]

@Guziol said:
Just don’t buy it? I bought an obsidian phantom just to give devs some money because i enjoyed this game for 1,2k hours without spending a penny. I never play phantom.

@OwynTyler said:
then an announcement “uhh ohh we’r shutting down servers cuz nobody buys our stuff T_T”
Thanks for not reading. You guys are heroes.

@Homu1124 said:
I thought obsidians were cards of founder status, cards that were given to those that stuck with the game for a while to be there for their advent. Now it’s just money skins. q_q Way to ruin their magic.
The founder’s are still exclusive, and therefore, still magical.

@ImSploosh said:
The idea of limited edition is the same in every game, it’s a business model that works. People are more likely to spend money, especially larger amounts, if the items are limited edition because then they’re considered special and prestigious. The idea that they’re available only for a limited time makes them desirable. When people consider the short period of time they have to purchase the item before they never get the chance to again, they’re more likely to pick it up. People worry about regretting not picking up those “special” items when they have a chance. It’s weird how it works, but that’s psychology for you.
Yes, that’s what I meant by “high pressure, hard sale bullshit” and creating artificial demand. The same tactics that are making the gaming industry shit and leading to prominent figures like TotalBiscuit calling on players to boycott preorders. All this endless limited edition bullshit. Despicably conflating needs and wants with fear of being a victim.

This is not how you treat your friends and honestly, not even how you should treat your customers. This is the sociopathic behaviour of that greasy scumbag that keeps leaving you text messages. This is when a shitty Billy Mays is yelling in your face, “Hey come check out these games buy my Dirty Bomb normally $49.99 but if you buy before you leave the store only $29.99 but wait there’s more if you buy in the next five minutes you get a second Dirty Bomb for only $5 more what a deal but wait there’s more this is a special Dirty Bomb that will never be sold again never ever ever so don’t wait buy now Don’t Wait Buy Now DON’T WAIT BUY NOW DON’TWAITBUYNOW” when you’re in the grocery section trying to buy celery sticks. This is like when Leo was taking advantage of old people, robbing them blind, in Wolf of Wall Street.

@neverplayseriou said:
I personally just find it a complete joke that the bundle which has Phoenix and 3 obsidians is 20 euro’s and one individual obsidian is 13 euro’s, it’s way to expensive for 1 card.
The worst kind of upsale, the type of upsale where the victim is conned into purchasing a bunch of fluff that would typically be free. Think about it. We’re not buying the loadouts; we can get those for credits. We’re buying the skin. How much does it cost Splash Damage to give us the skin we already purchased two more times? A hundred more times? A million more times? This is a $7 upsale for nothing.

@Eox said:
Devs are sure less active than they should in the official forums, but Pinflux did show up in the official forums recently when someone reported being kicked from servers recently. This shows that we’re not abandonned.
Hardly. You though, thanks for putting up with our shit.

I just want a legitimate cash shop to buy skins, yaknow? Preferably, where I don’t feel like I’m getting hustled. Like wtf am I even buying? Shitty, homemade mix tapes ( and drugs ) from the back of a running van from some shady ass mofo?

[Eox]

@Melinder said:

@Eox said:
Devs are sure less active than they should in the official forums, but Pinflux did show up in the official forums recently when someone reported being kicked from servers recently. This shows that we’re not abandonned.

No, it shows that only in extreme circumstances will they take action.

As for this PTS Drama, I really have no knowledge on the situation. I have been told by many people, some of which whom have been in the PTS at some point in time, that the PTS is filled primarily with content creators/community figures, of which have very little knowledge on how to actually “test” or balance the game. I for one have a problem with that, and it is very clear that this has had lasting affects on how the game has turned out over the years.

As for the devs not listening… One step forwards, two steps back basically sums it up. On top of their inability to actually balance things properly, their lack of urgency on basically every problem is rather frustrating.

You can’t expect the dev team to make a move if the same feedback does not come enough times from the playerbase. Don’t expect a change to be made of nobody complaints about it, or just a few people among thousand do. It’s perfectly normal that a community request gets done only if enough players speak about it.

[Mr.Cuddlesworth]

Trading will help fill in the obsidian gaps in your collection.

[anon41468043]

@ImSploosh said:
The idea of limited edition is the same in every game, it’s a business model that works. People are more likely to spend money, especially larger amounts, if the items are limited edition because then they’re considered special and prestigious. The idea that they’re available only for a limited time makes them desirable. When people consider the short period of time they have to purchase the item before they never get the chance to again, they’re more likely to pick it up. People worry about regretting not picking up those “special” items when they have a chance. It’s weird how it works, but that’s psychology for you.

Anyways, my problem with these type of cards is that they haven’t listened to us at all. We can’t choose the loadout we want and the prices are ridiculous for what we’re getting. It would definitely be nice if they dropped the prices and kept them in the store under a skins tab forever, or even if they just kept them in longer than they have been.

Well said.

I’m 100% confident that allowing us to choose our own loadouts would result in more money for them. They’re entirely reliant on gambling and people that continue to ‘chase’ the cards they want at the moment. So, yes, some people are more likely to continue paying until they get the card they want whether through crafting or other events, but that type of model is only sustainable for so long in my opinion. There comes a point when people lose interest and are no longer willing to risk their own money for something that is extremely unlikely to land in their favor. Tweaking the weapon kits, narrowing our options to one merc, or completely narrowing it down to loadout of our choice would be ideal. I know for a fact that I and many others would spend an insane amount of money if this were possible. Lastly, I think it’d add personality to the game. We’d then be seeing people run with skins and loadouts they truly want and suit their playstyles rather than the ones they were lucky enough to get. Everyone would be playing as themselves, if that makes any sense.

[Melinder]

@Eox said:

@Melinder said:

@Eox said:
Devs are sure less active than they should in the official forums, but Pinflux did show up in the official forums recently when someone reported being kicked from servers recently. This shows that we’re not abandonned.

No, it shows that only in extreme circumstances will they take action.

As for this PTS Drama, I really have no knowledge on the situation. I have been told by many people, some of which whom have been in the PTS at some point in time, that the PTS is filled primarily with content creators/community figures, of which have very little knowledge on how to actually “test” or balance the game. I for one have a problem with that, and it is very clear that this has had lasting affects on how the game has turned out over the years.

As for the devs not listening… One step forwards, two steps back basically sums it up. On top of their inability to actually balance things properly, their lack of urgency on basically every problem is rather frustrating.

You can’t expect the dev team to make a move if the same feedback does not come enough times from the playerbase. Don’t expect a change to be made of nobody complaints about it, or just a few people among thousand do. It’s perfectly normal that a community request gets done only if enough players speak about it.

cough Thunder cough Snipers cough Shotguns cough

I could go on forever about things the vast majority complained about that took forever to be looked at. Those listed above took from 6 months up to a few years. These were by far the worst ones, but there are many other instances.

Just look at the javelin event. Within a few hours of release, reddit and forums are spammed with “Javelin is OP” threads. The recurring factor in all of them is that the rocket is too strong. Nothing is done for an entire month, and as expected, player numbers hit an all time low. Update day hits, and they did nothing to make the rocket less powerful, but instead they rendered her ammo aura near useless. Community expectation and developer delivery were as far apart as they could be, and it’s not the first time this has happened.

In terms of the present, I’m all for new content, but not when their old content is in desparate need of tweaking and reworking. Not the mention that their new content Is seemingly untested, as within a few months, their new content always gets reworked due to community complaints.

[Esaka]

I don’t have money to support lol.

[watsyurdeal]

You sound like the customer I deal with at my job, things cost money, especially new stuff, deal with it.

[Meerkats]

@watsyurdeal said:
You sound like the customer I deal with at my job, things cost money, especially new stuff, deal with it.
I sound exactly like the customer that says, “if you’re going to produce a new product every month, and then sell it for only a week, why not just open a store and just sell those products from the store throughout the year?”

Got it. Thanks for not reading.

@Melinder said:
cough Thunder cough Snipers cough Shotguns cough
As much as I think this is also an important topic, let’s please talk about Splash Damage’s shady ass, high pressure sales bullshit, constantly trying to hustle us with overpriced skins when they could just have a normal store / market with reasonably priced stuff year round.