New content as I said is important. After this big content update please start working on a big bug fixing update and fix all the issues stated by @Lumi.
You’re not too far off from having a very good game. The bugs will take time to fix and maybe a few tries but please after the big content update focus on SQUISHING BUGS!
[quote=“K1X455;92254”]@riptide
I reckon DB isn’t the only game SD is working on so rotating the team’s efforts on multiple streams could be the key issue. Besides, how many of the games you mentioned are using UE3? Are you going to exclude that as well? How many titles is Grinding Gear Games developing? There you have 19 people fcusing on one project. And is MMO = FPS? I’m not sure why you contrasted skills and characters of Marvel Heroes versus Dirty Bomb.
SD is listening to their player base. But that doesn’t mean they’ll give up the direction at which how the game should be played. You’re free to give your comments and suggestions and they’re free to take note of it or just shrug it off. If this F2P is generating sufficient support to warrant dedicated specialist teams, they would probably do so. I don’t want to sound like I’m defending SD’s rep but I just want to get across the playing community that some due credit for their effort in improving their work is due.
While you got the right to choose the fruit you want to eat, don’t blame the tree for not giving you the fruit you don’t want. [/quote]
They have said already said they have about 30 people working on DB, this was a couple weeks ago. PoE has 19 employees, a fully functional game, as well as stats and leaderboards. Gazillion is working on 3 games with a similar size studio. Marvel Heroes uses UE3.
Marvel Heroes has more V/O work in 6-7 heroes (out of the 51 heroes and 37 team ups) than all of Dirty Bomb. I say this to emphasize there’s more work put into each hero’s sound than a merc in db. Not only because of the voice over but because it has 25+ sound effects for skills alone. They don’t have universal skill sounds, like gun sounds. Yet they have completely new heroes every month. We have had these same mercs in DB for well over a year now.
The balancing is astronomically harder in an ARPG than it is in an FPS. In an FPS they just balance the run speed and health for each merc against other mercs and it’s a REALLY straightforward system. The guns are universal. So all that is left is their 1-3 merc specific abilities.
In an ARPG you have to balance it against not only the heroes but the content as well, while accounting for itemization. We are talking 20-30 skills, more if you count specializations which change skills. Not only do they have to balance the numbers but the skills have to remain as different and fun as possible.
The only thing that takes more effort when designing a new character in an FPS vs ARPG, providing you are not reusing skeletons and animations. Is actually creating the skeleton and animations. While a game like Marvel heroes has way more abilities and effects/animations the level of detail of the animation can be toned down and compensated with spell effects. In an FPS you can not skimp on animations or textures because they are under more scrutiny since there is less going on. (then again we had slenderman for 2 years)
In Marvel Heroes they recently redid the entire stash system (tons of gui and backend work) in 8 weeks. From start to finish and according to the devs, most of that work was 1 person. We just got server names when hitting tab along with KDR and XP/Min after 2 years. The latter is not even linked to a lifetime database it’s per game.
Anyway, I didn’t bring them up to show that one is harder to make than the other. They both have their challenges. I did it to show both of those similarly sized companies have a much more aggressive schedule than Splash Damage. As well as realize the potential of the player base and let the players know what is going on and WHY.
They already admit they had messed up with the Cobalt trade-in. Do you know how much time they wasted by not asking the community for feedback or having a ptr system in place? Even worse is that it shows how out of touch with the community that they are. All because they think they know best.
So long as Splash Damage thinks they are above asking for feedback or giving transparent responses(Exedore in particular). They will continue to lose players and their reputation will get worse. For me, the have exactly until Overwatch beta has a full Eastcoast/central server at all hours to renew my faith.
[quote=“riptide;922998”]
They have said already said they have about 30 people working on DB, this was a couple weeks ago. PoE has 19 employees, a fully functionally game, as well as stats and leaderboards. Gazillion is working on 3 games with a similar size studio. Marvel Heroes uses UE3.[/quote]
I’ll look this one up and ascertain exactly how much is in the line. In the mean time, I feel sorry for you if you feel that SD has let you down on DB. If you feel that other games are better managed, supported and developed, just do what I did.
[quote=“riptide;92299”]
They already admit they had messed up with the Cobalt trade-in. Do you know how much time they wasted by not asking the community for feedback or having a ptr system in place? Even worse is that it shows how out of touch with the community that they are. All because they think they know best.
So long as Splash Damage thinks they are above asking for feedback or giving transparent responses(Exedore in particular). They will continue to lose players and their reputation will get worse. For me, the have exactly until Overwatch beta has a full Eastcoast/central server at all hours to renew my faith. [/quote]
Agreed, a lot of time could have been spent towards something that wouldn’t make the community rage. Heck, we are here almost daily. Actually daily, since one of us is bound to be online at any time. Contacting us would be easy.
Why not change the forum to require a steam login as well and start showing each user’s in game hours. Then whenever you (the devs) feel like you came up with a good idea, toss it into the crowd and listen to feedback. Take into consideration if the person commented just start playing or has been playing for ages and find some way to see who has spend money in the game or not. From there you can take the feedback how you want and according on whom you want to focus development: newcomers, veterans, paying or non-paying players.
At least the devs would get a feedback prior to any disaster and we would feel more valued.
I’ve recently bought an early access game called Duskers where you have only 2 guys developing the game. I know it’s nothing as tough to code as a full 3D game and the funds allocated are completely different. But one thing that really touched me and made me believe in the project (after giving up on buying anything in early access due to how many fail to become a game I would enjoy) was the fact that the devs are on the forums regularly and express their opinion on almost everything that is being discussed.
They are on the bug section asking further information just as they are on the balancing threads, not only listening, but giving their arguments as why they would envision something in a certain way and not another. They clearly define what they are striving for. In the past month alone, they have listened to many community brought up issues, reworked some systems and started implementing tons of difficulty options, so that each player could have the best experience possible.
The difference I notice, is that from DB there is a complete void in interaction with the community from the devs. Sure the GM’s pop on in once a week to make an announcement and sometimes even reply to one post or another, but the level of interaction I would want to see from the developing team would be from the magnitude of @Ardez , @Amerika and @Faraleth.
These moderators are always in the big topics, bringing in their personal experience and opinions while listening to the community. I joined these forums now a few months back already and I know those names by heart now. I know the name of the main developer at Duskers by heart as well and I’ve been involved with that game for little over a month. Now do I know any DB dev’s name or forum alias? No, I don’t. If there was any dialogue at some point, it passed unnoticed. Maybe they’re hiding in the crowd? Who knows.
I don’t know if they are under a no discussion agreement or if they just don’t care about the game and it’s just a job as another for them, but if I would be developing a game, I would be on my game’s forums after working hours, at least to see what is being said about it if not to defend why I did something a certain way and not another. I’d try to justify my creation.
To me, it seems that SD is too afraid of any sort of backlash from revealing something before it comes out and then switching it, that it has completely broken down communications. They just stick to the all generic, we’ll look into it and I can’t tell replies.
And then it’s really ironic that they acknowledge the reddit thread where lack of communication is emphasized and say they will open up their discussion and yet everything stays the same. Acknowledging a problem alone doesn’t make it go away.
I believe SD must stop being afraid from backlash, because right now that’s what no communication has created with the trade-in system: backlash! They need to start sharing weeks ahead what most likely will make it into an update so that we can comment on it before any harm is done. Not only will that avoid further “trade-in-like fiascos”, but it will boost excitement and expectation.
Right now I feel little excitement for any upcoming update. Why? Because on one hand, I am worried that something detrimental to the game is going to be added and because I have nothing substantial to be looking for. We don’t even get patch notes during the actual maintenances. Seriously, how many things will change an hour before an actual update?
By now, me and others are just bored of the continuous “hints” that are no hints and the we can’t say what’s coming up replies. We want to be able to look forward for something, to get excited, even if it doesn’t make it to that particular update. Tell us something concrete and we’ll be talking about that, as a community turning it upside down and ripping it apart to check for flaws before it even comes out and we’ll make sure it’s something that we the community will enjoy.
Right now DB feels like canteen food to me. You go to eat there because it’s cheap, but they serve you what they think you’ll like and sometimes it’s good and sometimes it sucks.
Btw, sorry for the extremely long post.
Well, the dev are very active in forums. At least they were until recently.
Its just that the dirty bomb closed alpha forums from SD were great with veterans with over 10year history in this forum. And the trash nexon dared to called a forum were a complete desaster for a very very long time until they brought up this nice thing here.
The alphas and VIP founders are over at the SD forums, along with the devs. In a closed environment not open to most of us here.
And if theyd listend to all the input of the VIPs, the game would have instagibbing weapons with ultra long time to kill to promote tracking skills and have very wide small maps and slow high speed mercs… I think you get the point.
Whatever you do, you always have people bitch about the something and camp the forums. The happy people just play. Its a well known classic for gaming forums. But it always feels bad if your specific idea gets not answered cause you know, you are right! Why cant they see? You already got likeminded people backing you up…
Nexon fucked up pretty hard in the alpha stage with the nexon launcher instead of steam and the worst forums Ive seen in 17years on the web. Glad they got their shit together 2years later. Same with MissMurder that seems to do a pretty solid job now and experiencing not only hateful comments anymore.
Gib after revive is indeed a totally intended mechanic : Due to ping and anti-lag there was an issue before : the shooter could have a gibbing confirmed while a medic was about to revive on his screen… Then suddenly the gibbed corpse raise because the medic had a confirmed revive as well. Pretty much like kills trades. Those are possible only because the server counts the kill on the shooter clients with some tolerances. Kill trades were a request from the community to avoid seeing someone downed and no get anything of it at the end. Two final hits can not happen in the exact same time. The biggest problem with gib after revive is that it is too wide and tolerant with regular pings that it can almost be predicted and abused of…
Back on general topic, I quite agree that SD and Nexon should bring priorities back on table. Game performance are quite bad, there are a lot of running gag bugs there are not fixed since years, needed gameplay content additions or improvements (maps mainly) are still not released although it is a known request that would certainly help the game greatly without smashing every thing else around. Quality of life improvements on servers (both in tunings and server variety like having some ff on pub servers or community ones) seem to be an eluded subject despite the fact that it would bring a lot for the community or game feeling. What is sure is that I may get bored if those fields are not even slightly worked before the end of the year. And I won’t be alone in that case I guess.
And what is the biggest concern for the community, if you consider the threads with most answers ? Shitty cobalt trade-ins. Put the economic system development on hold for a while and acknowledge the community about that. It certainly won’t retain players on its own if the game have obvious and long time known problems.
[quote=“B. Montiel;92398”]Gib after revive is indeed a totally intended mechanic : Due to ping and anti-lag there was an issue before : the shooter could have a gibbing confirmed while a medic was about to revive on his screen… Then suddenly the gibbed corpse raise because the medic had a confirmed revive as well. Pretty much like kills trades. Those are possible only because the server counts the kill on the shooter clients with some tolerances. Kill trades were a request from the community to avoid seeing someone downed and no get anything of it at the end. Two final hits can not happen in the exact same time. The biggest problem with gib after revive is that it is too wide and tolerant with regular pings that it can almost be predicted and abused of…
[/quote]
Damn it, can everyone please understand that I KNOW there is a window after revives where you can gib a person. I’m talking about the actual defibrillator gibbing your ally. It has happened so many times to me and most likely whoever experienced it before just shrugged it off as the post revive “gibbability” currently implemented in the game, but it’s not. It’s a separate issue and it has been ignored too long because of it’s ease to misinterpret.
Oh ok, I misread your post in the middle of your thread, sorry. But the problem you mention is something I never ever experienced in 700 hours playing db. I will take a closer look now.
@B. Montiel
It has maybe happen 8 to 10 to me in the last two weeks. I feel it was implemented with either the Phoenix patch or with the balance patch right after that.
First time i quit when they introduced card system (rly it was cos of small community). Then i came back in open beta. Game felt nice. Now there’s a all random teams or somethinglikethat. Oh my. Cant even know if i’m attacker or not. WTF. Instead of fixing votes or other systems, they force all random. Without knowing team before loading. Pls add something to do to defenders team too other than camping. Now i have to wait for load before i know to quit cos of lame defenders team without anything to do.
The forced all random because of things like this.
They want you to stick with the team you have instead of stacking a team or only playing when you’re on a team with better players.
yes i understand that. my complain is that defenders side is boring. Im not top-score killer. Im objective guy. So very boring to play on defenders side. You cant do anything except unplant. You cant push attackers like building something. Boring.
E: Yes u can rebuild stuff. But you cant push. Like building mg nest or ammo depot or better respawn places. Its just fixing things and camping.
Make it your objective to kill people then. 
There are several secondary objectives that you can destroy/repair as a defender, such as the one in terminal stage 1 where you can blow up the generator that ventilates the tunnel that the attackers use.
Quite an interesting read this one is.
However, Lumi, I admire your efforts, but I think you wasted your time creating this thread.
Just supposing SD were to focus solely on bug fixes right now, it would certainly be a QoL improvement for the EXISTING playerbase. But how would it attract new players, and increase the playerbase?
And Amerika, if the future patches were solely content based (not having a go, I realise you were playing devil’s advocate), then how long would it be before new players got frustrated and left because of bugs, poor matchmaking and a general disappointment in the game?
It is a no-win situation, because both of you are right, but sadly SD doesn’t seem to have the resources to please both of you at the same time.
For myself, my list of demands would look more like this:
Dear Splash Damage
Your game is dying. You know it, I know it, we all know it (fanboys not withstanding). And we all know the reason why. You wanted to create a middle ground between the skill based shooters of old (Quake 3 CPMA, UT etc) and combine that with the popular objective based gameplay that has been emerging over the past 8 years or so of PC gaming (TF2 would be my best choice of example). That much is obvious from the initial design of DB.
But somewhere along the line, you lost your way. Another way of saying that would be, you sold your soul (and the rights to DB), to Nexon. Since they became Managing Directors of your game, you were forced to swallow the fact the game would be F2P (with all the bad players, hackers, and other bad crap that brings to the table). You also got to swallow the rubbish payment model, and we both know that the payment model is bad, because it is detrimental to the players, but beneficial to the money men who don’t even play games. I would like to think you guys fought against it valiantly, but were over-ruled in the end.
I can’t say I blame you entirely, or even Nexon, because if people are really stupid enough to pay lots of money for an RNG chance to obtain a cosmetic item, then to be fair, they deserve to be fleeced.
But my direct issue with DB, and the reason I no longer bother playing (or would be willing to part with hard earned) is because you made (or Nexon made) the decision to nerf the various weapons to limit skilled players from dominating the bad ones that this game is trying to attract. I don’t want to dominate noobs, I don’t even want to play against them or have them on my team, I want solid matchmaking instead. I also want my weapons to fire where I aim. If I play well, and I am focused, and I concentrate on tracking a fast moving targets head, I wont be very happy if my bullets go wide because of the forced spread that you guys seem to love so much. It stinks of design that aims to limit the effectiveness of skilled players, while making it easier for the spray and pray noobs.
So anyway, this is my one and only demand; this game is going to fail, it wont survive past the new year. Nexon will pull the plug once the generated income drops off. When that happens, all that will remain of DB will be a small handful of loyal, genuine players that enjoy the game, and will stick with it for years to come.
My one demand, is that you reverse all of the bullshit nerfs to the weapons, make them highly accurate again, so that the remaining players that stay can enjoy the game and have some real skill based fun.
Please don’t abandon the game and leave the weapons in the current state they are in.
Sincerely
ImmenseWalnut 
“Catering to the masses only ever works when the masses are in the right; if they are in the wrong, because they refuse to accept the responsibility or the blame for their actions, then you become just as weak as they are by pandering to them” ImmenseWalnut, Oct 2015.
@immenseWalnut Yes, I was playing Devil’s Advocate. I also didn’t mean that no bugfixes should be done. Just that new content also has to come out as well.
Also, are you aware that all gameplay decisions are entirely in SD’s camp? Exedore himself has commented on why he specifically wanted certain changes that you, for some reason, are attributing to Nexon. Also, the “nerfs” to a couple weapons are paper nerfs that affect the first bullet only or you lose 1 yard of range. They are incredibly minor. The main thing that affected the game was the viewkick and aimpunch…both of which has been severely lowered.
Please people…don’t make things up to be angry about. Actually find out the truth, ask questions and then figure out why you’re mad or if you should still be mad.
[quote=“Amerika;92685”]@immenseWalnut Yes, I was playing Devil’s Advocate. I also didn’t mean that no bugfixes should be done. Just that new content also has to come out as well.
Also, are you aware that all gameplay decisions are entirely in SD’s camp? Exedore himself has commented on why he specifically wanted certain changes that you, for some reason, are attributing to Nexon. Also, the “nerfs” to a couple weapons are paper nerfs that affect the first bullet only or you lose 1 yard of range. They are incredibly minor. The main thing that affected the game was the viewkick and aimpunch…both of which has been severely lowered.
Please people…don’t make things up to be angry about. Actually find out the truth, ask questions and then figure out why you’re mad or if you should still be mad.[/quote]
Hmmm, interesting response.
First off, I will say that I do not, and never will, believe that ANY design decision belongs to SD. They sold the rights to their game to Nexon, they are not an independent company that has free will (no matter what they say, money talks, people lie). They are a company that is only allowed to execute their own free will as long as Nexon allows it. If Nexon tell them to nerf a particular weapon (for example) in order to kill the current ‘top’ Loadout card and promote a new one, are you trying to tell me SD are allowed to say no?
Sorry mate, I don’t believe that.
From the weapon perspective, I know the changes made in any given patch have not been Earth shattering, but every adjustment made over the past few months has been to nerf the effectiveness of the most popular weapons because they were in the hands of good players. The first character I bought with the leveling credits I earned was Sawbonez. I wasn’t really that interested in him, but I chose him because my Obsidian Loadout (from the closed beta I think) was for him. I got the Blishlok, and it used to be a very deadly weapon. And then it got nerfed because it was too effective. The next weapons to take the top spot also got nerfed, and we have descended into this acceptance of ‘nerf the strong weapons instead of buffing the crap ones’.
I really enjoyed this game back in closed beta, because the weapons were more precise, and the players were much better at aiming and playing the objectives. Since open beta the weapons have been gutted and the players degenerated into the usual F2P button mashers.
Anyway, I know I talk too much, and I very certainly belabored my point. All I will ask of the devs, is that once Nexon pull the plug, please revert the weapon nerfs and bring them back to being precision weapons. The F2P button mashers will be the ones that kill this game (when they leave), and only the hardcore element of the community will be left.
Amerika, if this happens, I suspect you will still be here, so I will ask this; if the player population descends to the point where only a couple of hundred players are still playing and development has ceased, do you want weapon balance to;
a) remain as it is, or
b) would you like the cumulative nerfs undone, so that the weapons are more precise?
a) Please people…
This is an appeal to sheeple, the vast majority, the bulk, the huddled masses etc. He needs you all to listen to him right now!
b) Don’t make up things to be angry about.
An attempt to discredit ImmenseWalnut by insinuating he is a butthurt player that is making up and over-reacting to problems that don’t really exist.
c) Actually find out the truth, ask questions and then figure out
He is proposing we use logic here, which is always the best option. I approve. But he doesn’t really want you to think for yourselves, he wants you to listen to, and believe, what HE is saying.
d) why you’re mad or if you should sill be mad.
Starting where we began, a closing attempt to discredit ImmenseWalnut (by insinuating that I am angry and mad with this game, grrrrr!!!), the reward I get for being pessimistic and cynical. He is a Mod though, so we shouldn’t blame him for being pro-Nexon. I had no idea he was a half-psychopath though
Now hear this! I could not care less whether anyone agrees or disagrees with me. If you do, just because I said it, then I will consider you a sheeple and I will laugh at you for it!
My opinions are my own, and the only reason I made this a big deal, is because I have several games I still enjoy playing, even though they are dead (HL2-DM, NS2, Tribes: Ascend etc) and I would like to think DB will still have a solid core playerbase for years to come (even after development has ceased). If it does, I will happily add this to my list of old games I still want to play, and will often jump into.
But that will never happen as long as the weapons remain in their current state. I want them to be far more precise in the hands of skilled players, as they will be the only players still active once this game loses the vast majority of its playerbase, the bulk, the huddled masses, the sheeple etc.
This is all I want of Splash Damage, a solid weapon balancing patch (balanced for skill), ready to go, once the plug is pulled. Otherwise this game will end up in the Loadout/HAWKEN category of games I have no interest in ever playing again. None of us want that, so let’s be real with our expectations.
Exedore, the lead designer of the game, has said where the changes come from. They are in full control. You can make believe otherwise but it’s just make believe. You’re making things up to justify your anger and remove responsibility from the people who are responsible. And a lot of your anger is based on things that barely changed (gun accuracy nerfs) while ignoring things that actually matter (viewkick and aimpunch).
So yes, I believe that people should ask questions and learn the truth rather than make up a truth that fits your worldview. I didn’t tell people to believe what I said. I asked them to ask questions and use their own brain instead of make up conspiracy theories that don’t fit the known facts.
Trying to twist a situation to fit a view isn’t the same thing as learning information and formulating an opinion. It’s fiction, not fact until you prove it.